Date: 1842-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: omnibus; Short Stories; Essays
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Public domain worldwide.

Wilkie Collins

Collected Short Works

Presenting more than 50 short stories and novellas, 10 “portmanteau” collaborative stories to which Collins contributed, and 50 essays.

MobileRead Edition
2021

William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer.

Collins remains most famous for his novels The Woman in White (1859) and The Moonstone (1868), in which he pioneered a new style of “sensation” writing, the influence of which can still be seen in today’s culture in the genres of crime, mystery and suspense. The Moonstone is considered to be the first modern English detective novel.

He is also noted for his close relationship with Charles Dickens, who regarded him as the most talented of his many protégés.

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COLLABORATORS:
(See the Collaborations section )
Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
William Howitt (1792–1879)
John Berwick Harwood (1828–1899)
George Augustus Sala (1828–1895)
Charles A. Collins (1828–1873)
Henry F. Chorley (1808–1872)
Rev. James White (1803–1862)
Holme Lee [Harret Parr] (1828–1900)
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864)
Amelia B. Edwards (1831–1892)
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865)
Eliza Lynn [Linton] (1822–1893)
Hesba Stretton (1832–1911)

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Contents were first published 1843–1887. This ebook is in the public domain worldwide, because the authors died more than 100 years ago, and contents were published prior to 1925.

THE  COLLECTIONS

AFTER DARK

CONTENTS

… Preface

Leaves From Leah’s Diary

First published
in this collection.

… Prologue to the First Story

A Terribly Strange Bed

First published
Household Words 24 Apr 1852

… Prologue to the Second Story

A Stolen Letter

First published as
“The Fourth Poor Traveller” in “The Seven Poor Travellers”
Household Words Christmas 1854

… Prologue to the Third Story

Sister Rose

First published
Household Words 7–28 Apr 1855

… Epilogue to the Third Story

… Prologue to the Fourth Story

The Lady of Glenwith Grange

First published
in this collection.

… Prologue to the Fifth Story

Gabriel’s Marriage

First published
Household Words 16–23 Apr 1853

… Prologue to the Sixth Story

The Yellow Mask

First published
Household Words 7–28 Jul 1855

Last Leaves From Leah’s Diary

First published
in this collection.

PREFACE

I have taken some pains to string together the various stories contained in this Volume on a single thread of interest, which, so far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used before.

The pages entitled “Leah’s Diary” are, however, intended to fulfill another purpose besides that of serving as the framework for my collection of tales. In this part of the book, and subsequently in the Prologues to the stories, it has been my object to give the reader one more glimpse at that artist-life which circumstances have afforded me peculiar opportunities of studying, and which I have already tried to represent, under another aspect, in my fiction, “Hide-and-Seek.” This time I wish to ask some sympathy for the joys and sorrows of a poor travelling portrait-painter – presented from his wife’s point of view in “Leah’s Diary,” and supposed to be briefly and simply narrated by himself in the Prologues to the stories. I have purposely kept these two portions of the book within certain limits; only giving, in the one case, as much as the wife might naturally write in her diary at intervals of household leisure; and, in the other, as much as a modest and sensible man would be likely to say about himself and about the characters he met with in his wanderings. If I have been so fortunate as to make my idea intelligible by this brief and simple mode of treatment, and if I have, at the same time, achieved the necessary object of gathering several separate stories together as neatly-fitting parts of one complete whole, I shall have succeeded in a design which I have for some time past been very anxious creditably to fulfill.

Of the tales themselves, taken individually, I have only to say, by way of necessary explanation, that “The Lady of Glenwith Grange” is now offered to the reader for the first time; and that the other stories have appeared in the columns of Household Words. My best thanks are due to Mr. Charles Dickens for his kindness in allowing me to set them in their present framework.

I must also gratefully acknowledge an obligation of another kind to the accomplished artist, Mr. W. S. Herrick, to whom I am indebted for the curious and interesting facts on which the tales of “The Terribly Strange Bed” and “The Yellow Mask” are founded.

Although the statement may appear somewhat superfluous to those who know me, it may not be out of place to add, in conclusion, that these stories are entirely of my own imagining, constructing, and writing. The fact that the events of some of my tales occur on foreign ground, and are acted out by foreign personages, appears to have suggested in some quarters the inference that the stories themselves might be of foreign origin. Let me, once for all, assure any readers who may honour me with their attention, that in this, and in all other cases, they may depend on the genuineness of my literary offspring. The little children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at walking on the stage of this great world; but, at any rate, they are not borrowed children. The members of my own literary family are indeed increasing so fast as to render the very idea of borrowing quite out of the question, and to suggest serious apprehension that I may not have done adding to the large book-population, on my own sole responsibility, even yet.

LEAVES
FROM LEAH’S DIARY

26th February, 1827. — The doctor has just called for the third time to examine my husband’s eyes. Thank God, there is no fear at present of my poor William losing his sight, provided he can be prevailed on to attend rigidly to the medical instructions for preserving it. These instructions, which forbid him to exercise his profession for the next six months at least, are, in our case, very hard to follow. They will but too probably sentence us to poverty, perhaps to actual want; but they must be borne resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband’s forced cessation from work will save him from the dreadful affliction of loss of sight. I think I can answer for my own cheerfulness and endurance, now that we know the worst. Can I answer for our children also? Surely I can, when there are only two of them. It is a sad confession to make, but now, for the first time since my marriage, I feel thankful that we have no more.

17th. — A dread came over me last night, after I had comforted William as well as I could about the future, and had heard him fall off to sleep, that the doctor had not told us the worst. Medical men do sometimes deceive their patients, from what has always seemed to me to be misdirected kindness of heart. The mere suspicion that I had been trifled with on the subject of my husband’s illness, caused me such uneasiness, that I made an excuse to get out, and went in secret to the doctor. Fortunately, I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the object of my visit.

He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the worst.

“And that worst,” I said, to make certain, “is, that for the next six months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most perfect repose?”

“Exactly,” the doctor answered. “Mind, I don’t say that he may not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at a time, as the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most positively repeat that he must not employ his eyes. He must not touch a brush or pencil; he must not think of taking another likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months. His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at the time when his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the bad symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if you remember, Mrs. Kerby?) when he first came to practice in our neighbourhood.”

“I know you did, sir,” I replied. “But what was a poor travelling portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses first in one place and then in another, to do? Our bread depended on his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to let them have a rest.”

“Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby can get by portrait-painting?” asked the doctor.

“None,” I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought of his bill for medical attendance.

“Will you pardon me?” he said, colouring and looking a little uneasy, “or, rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interest I feel in you, if I ask whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortable income by the practice of his profession? Don’t,” he went on anxiously, before I could reply – “pray don’t think I make this inquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!”

I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive for asking the question, and so answered it at once plainly and truly.

“My husband makes but a small income,” I said. “Famous London portrait-painters get great prices from their sitters; but poor unknown artists, who only travel about the country, are obliged to work hard and be contented with very small gains. After we have paid all that we owe here, I am afraid we shall have little enough left to retire on, when we take refuge in some cheaper place.”

“In that case,” said the good doctor (I am so glad and proud to remember that I always liked him from the first!), “in that case, don’t make yourself anxious about my bill when you are thinking of clearing off your debts here. I can afford to wait till Mr. Kerby’s eyes are well again, and I shall then ask him for a likeness of my little daughter. By that arrangement we are sure to be both quits, and both perfectly satisfied.”

He considerately shook hands and bade me farewell before I could say half the grateful words to him that were on my lips. Never, never shall I forget that he relieved me of my two heaviest anxieties at the most anxious time of my life. The merciful, warm-hearted man! I could almost have knelt down and kissed his doorstep, as I crossed it on my way home.

18th. — If I had not resolved, after what happened yesterday, to look only at the cheerful side of things for the future, the events of today would have robbed me of all my courage, at the very outset of our troubles. First, there was the casting up of our bills, and the discovery, when the amount of them was balanced against all the money we have saved up, that we shall only have between three and four pounds left in the cash-box, after we have got out of debt. Then there was the sad necessity of writing letters in my husband’s name to the rich people who were ready to employ him, telling them of the affliction that had overtaken him, and of the impossibility of his executing their orders for portraits for the next six months to come. And, lastly, there was the heartbreaking business for me to go through of giving our landlord warning, just as we had got comfortably settled in our new abode. If William could only have gone on with his work, we might have stopped in this town, and in these clean, comfortable lodgings for at least three or four months. We have never had the use of a nice empty garret before, for the children to play in; and I never met with any landlady so pleasant to deal with in the kitchen as the landlady here. And now we must leave all this comfort and happiness, and go – I hardly know where. William, in his bitterness, says to the workhouse; but that shall never be, if I have to go out to service to prevent it. The darkness is coming on, and we must save in candles, or I could write much more. Ah, me! what a day this has been. I have had but one pleasant moment since it began; and that was in the morning, when I set my little Emily to work on a bead purse for the kind doctor’s daughter. My child, young as she is, is wonderfully neat-handed at stringing beads; and even a poor little empty purse as a token of our gratitude, is better than nothing at all.

19th. — A visit from our best friend – our only friend here – the doctor. After he had examined William’s eyes, and had reported that they were getting on as well as can be hoped at present, he asked where we thought of going to live? I said in the cheapest place we could find, and added that I was about to make inquiries in the by-streets of the town that very day. “Put off those inquiries,” he said, “till you hear from me again. I am going now to see a patient at a farmhouse five miles off. (You needn’t look at the children, Mrs. Kerby, it’s nothing infectious – only a clumsy lad, who has broken his collarbone by a fall from a horse.) They receive lodgers occasionally at the farmhouse, and I know no reason why they should not be willing to receive you. If you want to be well housed and well fed at a cheap rate, and if you like the society of honest, hearty people, the farm of Appletreewick is the very place for you. Don’t thank me till you know whether I can get you these new lodgings or not. And in the meantime settle all your business affairs here, so as to be able to move at a moment’s notice.” With those words the kind-hearted gentleman nodded and went out. Pray heaven he may succeed at the farmhouse! We may be sure of the children’s health, at least, if we live in the country. Talking of the children, I must not omit to record that Emily has nearly done one end of the bead purse already.

20th. — A note from the doctor, who is too busy to call. Such good news! They will give us two bedrooms, and board us with the family at Appletreewick for seventeen shillings a week. By my calculations, we shall have three pounds sixteen shillings left, after paying what we owe here. That will be enough, at the outset, for four weeks’ living at the farmhouse, with eight shillings to spare besides. By embroidery-work I can easily make nine shillings more to put to that, and there is a fifth week provided for. Surely, in five weeks’ time – considering the number of things I can turn my hand to – we may hit on some plan for getting a little money. This is what I am always telling my husband, and what, by dint of constantly repeating it, I am getting to believe myself. William, as is but natural, poor fellow, does not take so light-hearted view of the future as I do. He says that the prospect of sitting idle and being kept by his wife for months to come, is something more wretched and hopeless than words can describe. I try to raise his spirits by reminding him of his years of honest hard work for me and the children, and of the doctor’s assurance that his eyes will get the better, in good time, of their present helpless state. But he still sighs and murmurs – being one of the most independent and high spirited of men – about living a burden on his wife. I can only answer, what in my heart of hearts I feel, that I took him for Better and for Worse; that I have had many years of the Better, and that, even in our present trouble, the Worse shows no signs of coming yet!

The bead purse is getting on fast. Red and blue, in a pretty striped pattern.

21st. — A busy day. We go to Appletreewick tomorrow. Paying bills and packing up. All poor William’s new canvases and painting-things huddled together into a packing-case. He looked so sad, sitting silent with his green shade on, while his old familiar working materials were disappearing around him, as if he and they were never to come together again, that the tears would start into my eyes, though I am sure I am not one of the crying sort. Luckily, the green shade kept him from seeing me: and I took good care, though the effort nearly choked me, that he should not hear I was crying, at any rate.

The bead purse is done. How are we to get the steel rings and tassels for it? I am not justified now in spending sixpence unnecessarily, even for the best of purposes.

22d. — — —

23d. The Farm of Appletreewick. — Too tired, after our move yesterday, to write a word in my diary about our journey to this delightful place. But now that we are beginning to get settled, I can manage to make up for past omissions.

My first occupation on the morning of the move had, oddly enough, nothing to do with our departure for the farmhouse. The moment breakfast was over I began the day by making Emily as smart and nice-looking as I could, to go to the doctor’s with the purse. She had her best silk frock on, showing the mending a little in some places, I am afraid, and her straw hat trimmed with my bonnet ribbon. Her father’s neck-scarf, turned and joined so that nobody could see it, made a nice mantilla for her; and away she went to the doctor’s, with her little, determined step, and the purse in her hand (such a pretty hand that it is hardly to be regretted I had no gloves for her). They were delighted with the purse – which I ought to mention was finished with some white beads; we found them in rummaging among our boxes, and they made beautiful rings and tassels, contrasting charmingly with the blue and red of the rest of the purse. The doctor and his little girl were, as I have said, delighted with the present; and they gave Emily, in return, a work-box for herself, and a box of sugar-plums for her baby sister. The child came back all flushed with the pleasure of the visit, and quite helped to keep up her father’s spirits with talking to him about it. So much for the highly interesting history of the bead purse.

Toward the afternoon the light cart from the farmhouse came to fetch us and our things to Appletreewick. It was quite a warm spring day, and I had another pang to bear as I saw poor William helped into the cart, looking so sickly and sad, with his miserable green shade, in the cheerful sunlight. “God only knows, Leah, how this will succeed with us,” he said, as we started; then sighed, and fell silent again.

Just outside the town the doctor met us. “Good luck go with you!” he cried, swinging his stick in his usual hasty way; “I shall come and see you as soon as you are all settled at the farmhouse.”  “Good-bye, sir,” says Emily, struggling up with all her might among the bundles in the bottom of the cart; “good-bye, and thank you again for the work-box and the sugar-plums.” That was my child all over! she never wants telling. The doctor kissed his hand, and gave another flourish with his stick. So we parted.

How I should have enjoyed the drive if William could only have looked, as I did, at the young firs on the heath bending beneath the steady breeze; at the shadows flying over the smooth fields; at the high white clouds moving on and on, in their grand airy procession over the gladsome blue sky! It was a hilly road, and I begged the lad who drove us not to press the horse; so we were nearly an hour, at our slow rate of going, before we drew up at the gate of Appletreewick.

24th February to 2d March. — We have now been here long enough to know something of the place and the people. First, as to the place: Where the farmhouse now is, there was once a famous priory. The tower is still standing, and the great room where the monks ate and drank – used at present as a granary. The house itself seems to have been tacked on to the ruins anyhow. No two rooms in it are on the same level. The children do nothing but tumble about the passages, because there always happens to be a step up or down, just at the darkest part of every one of them. As for staircases, there seems to me to be one for each bedroom. I do nothing but lose my way – and the farmer says, drolling, that he must have sign-posts put up for me in every corner of the house from top to bottom. On the ground-floor, besides the usual domestic offices, we have the best parlour – a dark, airless, expensively furnished solitude, never invaded by anybody; the kitchen, and a kind of hall, with a fireplace as big as the drawing-room at our town lodgings. Here we live and take our meals; here the children can racket about to their hearts’ content; here the dogs come lumbering in, whenever they can get loose; here wages are paid, visitors are received, bacon is cured, cheese is tasted, pipes are smoked, and naps are taken every evening by the male members of the family. Never was such a comfortable, friendly dwelling-place devised as this hall; I feel already as if half my life had been passed in it.

Out-of-doors, looking beyond the flower-garden, lawn, back yards, pigeon-houses, and kitchen-gardens, we are surrounded by a network of smooth grazing-fields, each shut off from the other by its neat hedgerow and its sturdy gate. Beyond the fields the hills seem to flow away gently from us into the far blue distance, till they are lost in the bright softness of the sky. At one point, which we can see from our bedroom windows, they dip suddenly into the plain, and show, over the rich marshy flat, a strip of distant sea – a strip sometimes blue, sometimes grey; sometimes, when the sun sets, a streak of fire; sometimes, on showery days, a flash of silver light.

The inhabitants of the farmhouse have one great and rare merit – they are people whom you can make friends with at once. Between not knowing them at all, and knowing them well enough to shake hands at first sight, there is no ceremonious interval or formal gradation whatever. They received us, on our arrival, exactly as if we were old friends returned from some long travelling expedition. Before we had been ten minutes in the hall, William had the easiest chair and the snuggest corner; the children were eating bread-and-jam on the window-seat; and I was talking to the farmer’s wife, with the cat on my lap, of the time when Emily had the measles.

The family numbers seven, exclusive of the indoor servants, of course. First came the farmer and his wife – he is a tall, sturdy, loud-voiced, active old man – she the easiest, plumpest and gayest woman of sixty I ever met with. They have three sons and two daughters. The two eldest of the young men are employed on the farm; the third is a sailor, and is making holiday-time of it just now at Appletreewick. The daughters are pictures of health and freshness. I have but one complaint to make against them – they are beginning to spoil the children already.

In this tranquil place, and among these genial, natural people, how happily my time might be passed, were it not for the saddening sight of William’s affliction, and the wearing uncertainty of how we are to provide for future necessities! It is a hard thing for my husband and me, after having had the day made pleasant by kind words and friendly offices, to feel this one anxious thought always forcing itself on us at night: Shall we have the means of stopping in our new home in a month’s time?

3d. — A rainy day; the children difficult to manage; William miserably despondent. Perhaps he influenced me, or perhaps I felt my little troubles with the children more than usual: but, however it was, I have not been so heavy-hearted since the day when my husband first put on the green shade. A listless, hopeless sensation would steal over me; but why write about it? Better to try and forget it. There is always tomorrow to look to when today is at the worst.

4th. — Tomorrow has proved worthy of the faith I put in it. Sunshine again out-of-doors; and as clear and true a reflection of it in my own heart as I can hope to have just at this time. Oh! that month, that one poor month of respite! What are we to do at the end of the month?

5th. — I made my short entry for yesterday in the afternoon just before tea-time, little thinking of events destined to happen with the evening that would be really worth chronicling, for the sake of the excellent results to which they are sure to lead. My tendency is to be too sanguine about everything, I know; but I am, nevertheless, firmly persuaded that I can see a new way out of our present difficulties – a way of getting money enough to keep us all in comfort at the farmhouse until William’s eyes are well again.

The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties for the next six months actually originated with me! It has raised me many inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor only agrees with my view of the case when he comes tomorrow, William will allow himself to be persuaded, I know; and then let them say what they please, I will answer for the rest.

This is how the new idea first found its way into my head:

We had just done tea. William, in much better spirits than usual, was talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by the very ugly name of “Foul-weather Dick.” The farmer and his two eldest sons were composing themselves on the oaken settles for their usual nap. The dame was knitting, the two girls were beginning to clear the tea-table, and I was darning the children’s socks. To all appearance, this was not a very propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas, and yet my idea grew out of it, for all that. Talking with my husband on various subjects connected with life in ships, the young sailor began giving us a description of his hammock; telling us how it was slung; how it was impossible to get into it any other way than “stern foremost” (whatever that may mean); how the rolling of the ship made it rock like a cradle; and how, on rough nights, it sometimes swayed to and fro at such a rate as to bump bodily against the ship’s side and wake him up with the sensation of having just received a punch on the head from a remarkably hard fist. Hearing all this, I ventured to suggest that it must be an immense relief to him to sleep on shore in a good, motionless, solid four-post bed. But, to my surprise, he scoffed at the idea; said he never slept comfortably out of his hammock; declared that he quite missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship’s side; and ended by giving a most comical account of all the uncomfortable sensations he felt when he slept in a four-post bed. The odd nature of one of the young sailor’s objections to sleeping on shore reminded my husband (as indeed it did me too) of the terrible story of a bed in a French gambling-house, which he once heard from a gentleman whose likeness he took.

“You’re laughing at me,” says honest Foul-weather Dick, seeing William turn toward me and smile. – “No, indeed,” says my husband; “that last objection of yours to the four-post beds on shore seems by no means ridiculous to me, at any rate. I once knew a gentleman, Dick, who practically realized your objection.”

“Excuse me, sir,” says Dick, after a pause, and with an appearance of great bewilderment and curiosity; “but could you put ‘practically realized’ into plain English, so that a poor man like me might have a chance of understanding you?” – “Certainly!” says my husband, laughing. “I mean that I once knew a gentleman who actually saw and felt what you say in jest you are afraid of seeing and feeling whenever you sleep in a four-post bed. Do you understand that?” Foul-weather Dick understood it perfectly, and begged with great eagerness to hear what the gentleman’s adventure really was. The dame, who had been listening to our talk, backed her son’s petition; the two girls sat down expectant at the half-cleared tea-table; even the farmer and his drowsy sons roused themselves lazily on the settle – my husband saw that he stood fairly committed to the relation of the story, so he told it without more ado.

I have often heard him relate that strange adventure (William is the best teller of a story I ever met with) to friends of all ranks in many different parts of England, and I never yet knew it fail of producing an effect. The farmhouse audience were, I may almost say, petrified by it. I never before saw people look so long in the same direction, and sit so long in the same attitude, as they did. Even the servants stole away from their work in the kitchen, and, unrebuked by master or mistress, stood quite spellbound in the doorway to listen. Observing all this in silence, while my husband was going on with his narrative, the thought suddenly flashed across me, “Why should William not get a wider audience for that story, as well as for others which he has heard from time to time from his sitters, and which he has hitherto only repeated in private among a few friends? People tell stories in books and get money for them. What if we told our stories in a book? and what if the book sold? Why freedom, surely, from the one great anxiety that is now preying on us! Money enough to stop at the farmhouse till William’s eyes are fit for work again!” I almost jumped up from my chair as my thought went on shaping itself in this manner. When great men make wonderful discoveries, do they feel sensations like mine, I wonder? Was Sir Isaac Newton within an ace of skipping into the air when he first found out the law of gravitation? Did Friar Bacon long to dance when he lit the match and heard the first charge of gunpowder in the world go off with a bang?

I had to put a strong constraint on myself, or I should have communicated all that was passing in my mind to William before our friends at the farmhouse. But I knew it was best to wait until we were alone, and I did wait. What a relief it was when we all got up at last to say good-night!

The moment we were in our own room, I could not stop to take so much as a pin out of my dress before I began. “My dear,” said I, “I never heard you tell that gambling-house adventure so well before. What an effect it had upon our friends! what an effect, indeed, it always has wherever you tell it!”

So far he did not seem to take much notice. He just nodded, and began to pour out some of the lotion in which he always bathes his poor eyes the last thing at night.

“And as for that, William,” I went on, “all your stories seem to interest people. What a number you have picked up, first and last, from different sitters, in the fifteen years of your practice as a portrait-painter! Have you any idea how many stories you really do know?”

No: he could not undertake to say how many just then. He gave this answer in a very indifferent tone, dabbing away all the time at his eyes with the sponge and lotion. He did it so awkwardly and roughly, as it seemed to me, that I took the sponge from him and applied the lotion tenderly myself.

“Do you think,” said I, “if you turned over one of your stories carefully in your mind beforehand – say the one you told tonight, for example – that you could repeat it all to me so perfectly and deliberately that I should be able to take it down in writing from your lips?”

Yes: of course he could. But why ask that question?

“Because I should like to have all the stories that you have been in the habit of relating to our friends set down fairly in writing, by way of preserving them from ever being forgotten.”

Would I bathe his left eye now, because that felt the hottest tonight? I began to forbode that his growing indifference to what I was saying would soon end in his fairly going to sleep before I had developed my new idea, unless I took some means forthwith of stimulating his curiosity, or, in other words, of waking him into a proper state of astonishment and attention. “William,” said I, without another syllable of preface, “I have got a new plan for finding all the money we want for our expenses here.”

He jerked his head up directly, and looked at me. What plan?

“This: The state of your eyes prevents you for the present from following your profession as an artist, does it not? Very well. What are you to do with your idle time, my dear? Turn author! And how are you to get the money we want? By publishing a book!”

“Good gracious, Leah! are you out of your senses?” he exclaimed.

I put my arm round his neck and sat down on his knee (the course I always take when I want to persuade him to anything with as few words as possible).

“Now, William, listen patiently to me,” I said. “An artist lies under this great disadvantage in case of accidents – his talents are of no service to him unless he can use his eyes and fingers. An author, on the other hand, can turn his talents to account just as well by means of other people’s eyes and fingers as by means of his own. In your present situation, therefore, you have nothing for it, as I said before, but to turn author. Wait! and hear me out. The book I want you to make is a book of all your stories. You shall repeat them, and I will write them down from your dictation. Our manuscript shall be printed; we will sell the book to the public, and so support ourselves honourably in adversity, by doing the best we can to interest and amuse others.”

While I was saying all this – I suppose in a very excitable manner – my husband looked, as our young sailor-friend would phrase it, quite taken aback. “You were always quick at contriving, Leah,” he said; “but how in the world came you to think of this plan?”

“I thought of it while you were telling them the gambling-house adventure downstairs,” I answered.

“It is an ingenious idea, and a bold idea,” he went on, thoughtfully. “But it is one thing to tell a story to a circle of friends, and another thing to put it into a printed form for an audience of strangers. Consider, my dear, that we are neither of us used to what is called writing for the press.”

“Very true,” said I, “but nobody is used to it when they first begin, and yet plenty of people have tried the hazardous literary experiment successfully. Besides, in our case, we have the materials ready to our hands; surely we can succeed in shaping them presentably if we aim at nothing but the simple truth.”

“Who is to do the eloquent descriptions and the striking reflections, and all that part of it?” said William, perplexedly shaking his head.

“Nobody!” I replied. “The eloquent descriptions and the striking reflections are just the parts of a story-book that people never read. Whatever we do, let us not, if we can possibly help it, write so much as a single sentence that can be conveniently skipped. Come! come!” I continued, seeing him begin to shake his head again; “no more objections, William, I am too certain of the success of my plan to endure them. If you still doubt, let us refer the new project to a competent arbitrator. The doctor is coming to see you tomorrow. I will tell him all that I have told you; and if you will promise on your side, I will engage on mine to be guided entirely by his opinion.”

William smiled, and readily gave the promise. This was all I wanted to send me to bed in the best spirits. For, of course, I should never have thought of mentioning the doctor as an arbitrator, if I had not known beforehand that he was sure to be on my side.

6th. — The arbitrator has shown that he deserved my confidence in him. He ranked himself entirely on my side before I had half done explaining to him what my new project really was. As to my husband’s doubts and difficulties, the dear good man would not so much as hear them mentioned. “No objections,” he cried, gaily; “set to work, Mr. Kerby, and make your fortune. I always said your wife was worth her weight in gold – and here she is now, all ready to get into the bookseller’s scales and prove it. Set to work! set to work!”

“With all my heart,” said William, beginning at last to catch the infection of our enthusiasm. “But when my part of the work and my wife’s has been completed, what are we to do with the produce of our labour?”

“Leave that to me,” answered the doctor. “Finish your book and send it to my house; I will show it at once to the editor of our country newspaper. He has plenty of literary friends in London, and he will be just the man to help you. By-the-by,” added the doctor, addressing me, “you think of everything, Mrs. Kerby; pray have you thought of a name yet for the new book?”

At that question it was my turn to be “taken aback.” The idea of naming the book had never once entered my head.

“A good title is of vast importance,” said the doctor, knitting his brows thoughtfully. “We must all think about that. What shall it be? eh, Mrs. Kerby, what shall it be?”

“Perhaps something may strike us after we have fairly set to work,” my husband suggested. “Talking of work,” he continued, turning to me, “how are you to find time, Leah, with your nursery occupations, for writing down all the stories as I tell them?”

“I have been thinking of that this morning,” said I, “and have come to the conclusion that I shall have but little leisure to write from your dictation in the daytime. What with dressing and washing the children, teaching them, giving them their meals, taking them out to walk, and keeping them amused at home – to say nothing of sitting sociably at work with the dame and her two girls in the afternoon – I am afraid I shall have few opportunities of doing my part of the book between breakfast and tea-time. But when the children are in bed, and the farmer and his family are reading or dozing, I should have at least three unoccupied hours to spare. So, if you don’t mind putting off our working-time till after dark—”

“There’s the title!” shouted the doctor, jumping out of his chair as if he had been shot.

“Where?” cried I, looking all round me in the surprise of the moment, as if I had expected to see the title magically inscribed for us on the walls of the room.

“In your last words, to be sure!” rejoined the doctor. “You said just now that you would not have leisure to write from Mr. Kerby’s dictation till after dark. What can we do better than name the book after the time when the book is written? Call it boldly, After dark. Stop! before anybody says a word for or against it, let us see how the name looks on paper.”

I opened my writing-desk in a great flutter. The doctor selected the largest sheet of paper and the broadest-nibbed pen he could find, and wrote in majestic round-text letters, with alternate thin and thick strokes beautiful to see, the two cabalistic words

After Dark

We all three laid our heads together over the paper, and in breathless silence studied the effect of the round-text: William raising his green shade in the excitement of the moment, and actually disobeying the doctor’s orders about not using his eyes, in the doctor’s own presence! After a good long stare, we looked round solemnly in each other’s faces and nodded. There was no doubt whatever on the subject after seeing the round-text. In one happy moment the doctor had hit on the right name.

“I have written the title-page,” said our good friend, taking up his hat to go. “And now I leave it to you two to write the book.”

Since then I have mended four pens and bought a quire of letter-paper at the village shop. William is to ponder well over his stories in the daytime, so as to be quite ready for me “after dark.” We are to commence our new occupation this evening. My heart beats fast and my eyes moisten when I think of it. How many of our dearest interests depend upon the one little beginning that we are to make tonight!

PROLOGUE TO
THE FIRST STORY

Before I begin, by the aid of my wife’s patient attention and ready pen, to relate any of the stories which I have heard at various times from persons whose likenesses I have been employed to take, it will not be amiss if I try to secure the reader’s interest in the following pages, by briefly explaining how I became possessed of the narrative matter which they contain.

Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have followed the profession of a travelling portrait-painter for the last fifteen years. The pursuit of my calling has not only led me all through England, but has taken me twice to Scotland, and once to Ireland. In moving from district to district, I am never guided beforehand by any settled plan. Sometimes the letters of recommendation which I get from persons who are satisfied with the work I have done for them determine the direction in which I travel. Sometimes I hear of a new neighbourhood in which there is no resident artist of ability, and remove thither on speculation. Sometimes my friends among the picture-dealers say a good word on my behalf to their rich customers, and so pave the way for me in the large towns. Sometimes my prosperous and famous brother-artists, hearing of small commissions which it is not worth their while to accept, mention my name, and procure me introductions to pleasant country houses. Thus I get on, now in one way and now in another, not winning a reputation or making a fortune, but happier, perhaps, on the whole, than many men who have got both the one and the other. So, at least, I try to think now, though I started in my youth with as high an ambition as the best of them. Thank God, it is not my business here to speak of past times and their disappointments. A twinge of the old hopeless heartache comes over me sometimes still, when I think of my student days.

One peculiarity of my present way of life is, that it brings me into contact with all sorts of characters. I almost feel, by this time, as if I had painted every civilized variety of the human race. Upon the whole, my experience of the world, rough as it has been, has not taught me to think unkindly of my fellow-creatures. I have certainly received such treatment at the hands of some of my sitters as I could not describe without saddening and shocking any kind-hearted reader; but, taking one year and one place with another, I have cause to remember with gratitude and respect – sometimes even with friendship and affection – a very large proportion of the numerous persons who have employed me.

Some of the results of my experience are curious in a moral point of view. For example, I have found women almost uniformly less delicate in asking me about my terms, and less generous in remunerating me for my services, than men. On the other hand, men, within my knowledge, are decidedly vainer of their personal attractions, and more vexatiously anxious to have them done full justice to on canvas, than women. Taking both sexes together, I have found young people, for the most part, more gentle, more reasonable, and more considerate than old. And, summing up, in a general way, my experience of different ranks (which extends, let me premise, all the way down from peers to publicans), I have met with most of my formal and ungracious receptions among rich people of uncertain social standing: the highest classes and the lowest among my employers almost always contrive – in widely different ways, of course, to make me feel at home as soon as I enter their houses.

The one great obstacle that I have to contend against in the practice of my profession is not, as some persons may imagine, the difficulty of making my sitters keep their heads still while I paint them, but the difficulty of getting them to preserve the natural look and the everyday peculiarities of dress and manner. People will assume an expression, will brush up their hair, will correct any little characteristic carelessness in their apparel – will, in short, when they want to have their likenesses taken, look as if they were sitting for their pictures. If I paint them, under these artificial circumstances, I fail of course to present them in their habitual aspect; and my portrait, as a necessary consequence, disappoints everybody, the sitter always included. When we wish to judge of a man’s character by his handwriting, we want his customary scrawl dashed off with his common workaday pen, not his best small-text, traced laboriously with the finest procurable crow-quill point. So it is with portrait-painting, which is, after all, nothing but a right reading of the externals of character recognisably presented to the view of others.

Experience, after repeated trials, has proved to me that the only way of getting sitters who persist in assuming a set look to resume their habitual expression, is to lead them into talking about some subject in which they are greatly interested. If I can only beguile them into speaking earnestly, no matter on what topic, I am sure of recovering their natural expression; sure of seeing all the little precious everyday peculiarities of the man or woman peep out, one after another, quite unawares. The long, maundering stories about nothing, the wearisome recitals of petty grievances, the local anecdotes unrelieved by the faintest suspicion of anything like general interest, which I have been condemned to hear, as a consequence of thawing the ice off the features of formal sitters by the method just described, would fill hundreds of volumes, and promote the repose of thousands of readers. On the other hand, if I have suffered under the tediousness of the many, I have not been without my compensating gains from the wisdom and experience of the few. To some of my sitters I have been indebted for information which has enlarged my mind – to some for advice which has lightened my heart – to some for narratives of strange adventure which riveted my attention at the time, which have served to interest and amuse my fireside circle for many years past, and which are now, I would fain hope, destined to make kind friends for me among a wider audience than any that I have yet addressed.

Singularly enough, almost all the best stories that I have heard from my sitters have been told by accident. I only remember two cases in which a story was volunteered to me, and, although I have often tried the experiment, I cannot call to mind even a single instance in which leading questions (as the lawyers call them) on my part, addressed to a sitter, ever produced any result worth recording. Over and over again, I have been disastrously successful in encouraging dull people to weary me. But the clever people who have something interesting to say, seem, so far as I have observed them, to acknowledge no other stimulant than chance. For every story which I propose including in the present collection, excepting one, I have been indebted, in the first instance, to the capricious influence of the same chance. Something my sitter has seen about me, something I have remarked in my sitter, or in the room in which I take the likeness, or in the neighbourhood through which I pass on my way to work, has suggested the necessary association, or has started the right train of recollections, and then the story appeared to begin of its own accord. Occasionally the most casual notice, on my part, of some very unpromising object has smoothed the way for the relation of a long and interesting narrative. I first heard one of the most dramatic of the stories that will be presented in this book, merely through being carelessly inquisitive to know the history of a stuffed poodle-dog.

It is thus not without reason that I lay some stress on the desirableness of prefacing each one of the following narratives by a brief account of the curious manner in which I became possessed of it. As to my capacity for repeating these stories correctly, I can answer for it that my memory may be trusted. I may claim it as a merit, because it is after all a mechanical one, that I forget nothing, and that I can call long-past conversations and events as readily to my recollection as if they had happened but a few weeks ago. Of two things at least I feel tolerably certain beforehand, in meditating over the contents of this book: First, that I can repeat correctly all that I have heard; and, secondly, that I have never missed anything worth hearing when my sitters were addressing me on an interesting subject. Although I cannot take the lead in talking while I am engaged in painting, I can listen while others speak, and work all the better for it.

So much in the way of general preface to the pages for which I am about to ask the reader’s attention. Let me now advance to particulars, and describe how I came to hear the first story in the present collection. I begin with it because it is the story that I have oftenest “rehearsed,” to borrow a phrase from the stage. Wherever I go, I am sooner or later sure to tell it. Only last night, I was persuaded into repeating it once more by the inhabitants of the farmhouse in which I am now staying.

•   •   •

Not many years ago, on returning from a short holiday visit to a friend settled in Paris, I found professional letters awaiting me at my agent’s in London, which required my immediate presence in Liverpool. Without stopping to unpack, I proceeded by the first conveyance to my new destination; and, calling at the picture-dealer’s shop, where portrait-painting engagements were received for me, found to my great satisfaction that I had remunerative employment in prospect, in and about Liverpool, for at least two months to come. I was putting up my letters in high spirits, and was just leaving the picture-dealer’s shop to look out for comfortable lodgings, when I was met at the door by the landlord of one of the largest hotels in Liverpool – an old acquaintance whom I had known as manager of a tavern in London in my student days.

“Mr. Kerby!” he exclaimed, in great astonishment. “What an unexpected meeting! the last man in the world whom I expected to see, and yet the very man whose services I want to make use of!”

“What, more work for me?” said I; “are all the people in Liverpool going to have their portraits painted?”

“I only know of one,” replied the landlord, “a gentleman staying at my hotel, who wants a chalk drawing done for him. I was on my way here to inquire of any artist whom our picture-dealing friend could recommend. How glad I am that I met you before I had committed myself to employing a stranger!”

“Is this likeness wanted at once?” I asked, thinking of the number of engagements that I had already got in my pocket.

“Immediately – today – this very hour, if possible,” said the landlord. “Mr. Faulkner, the gentleman I am speaking of, was to have sailed yesterday for the Brazils from this place; but the wind shifted last night to the wrong quarter, and he came ashore again this morning. He may of course be detained here for some time; but he may also be called on board ship at half an hour’s notice, if the wind shifts back again in the right direction. This uncertainty makes it a matter of importance that the likeness should be begun immediately. Undertake it if you possibly can, for Mr. Faulkner’s a liberal gentleman, who is sure to give you your own terms.”

I reflected for a minute or two. The portrait was only wanted in chalk, and would not take long; besides, I might finish it in the evening, if my other engagements pressed hard upon me in the daytime. Why not leave my luggage at the picture-dealer’s, put off looking for lodgings till night, and secure the new commission boldly by going back at once with the landlord to the hotel? I decided on following this course almost as soon as the idea occurred to me – put my chalks in my pocket, and a sheet of drawing paper in the first of my portfolios that came to hand – and so presented myself before Mr. Faulkner, ready to take his likeness, literally at five minutes’ notice.

I found him a very pleasant, intelligent man, young and handsome. He had been a great traveller; had visited all the wonders of the East; and was now about to explore the wilds of the vast South American Continent. Thus much he told me good-humouredly and unconstrainedly while I was preparing my drawing materials.

As soon as I had put him in the right light and position, and had seated myself opposite to him, he changed the subject of conversation, and asked me, a little confusedly as I thought, if it was not a customary practice among portrait-painters to gloss over the faults in their sitters’ faces, and to make as much as possible of any good points which their features might possess.

“Certainly,” I answered. “You have described the whole art and mystery of successful portrait-painting in a few words.”

“May I beg, then,” said he, “that you will depart from the usual practice in my case, and draw me with all my defects, exactly as I am? The fact is,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “the likeness you are now preparing to take is intended for my mother. My roving disposition makes me a great anxiety to her, and she parted from me this last time very sadly and unwillingly. I don’t know how the idea came into my head, but it struck me this morning that I could not better employ the time, while I was delayed here on shore, than by getting my likeness done to send to her as a keepsake. She has no portrait of me since I was a child, and she is sure to value a drawing of me more than anything else I could send to her. I only trouble you with this explanation to prove that I am really sincere in my wish to be drawn unflatteringly, exactly as I am.”

Secretly respecting and admiring him for what he had just said, I promised that his directions should be implicitly followed, and began to work immediately. Before I had pursued my occupation for ten minutes, the conversation began to flag, and the usual obstacle to my success with a sitter gradually set itself up between us. Quite unconsciously, of course, Mr. Faulkner stiffened his neck, shut his month, and contracted his eyebrows – evidently under the impression that he was facilitating the process of taking his portrait by making his face as like a lifeless mask as possible. All traces of his natural animated expression were fast disappearing, and he was beginning to change into a heavy and rather melancholy-looking man.

This complete alteration was of no great consequence so long as I was only engaged in drawing the outline of his face and the general form of his features. I accordingly worked on doggedly for more than an hour – then left off to point my chalks again, and to give my sitter a few minutes’ rest. Thus far the likeness had not suffered through Mr. Faulkner’s unfortunate notion of the right way of sitting for his portrait; but the time of difficulty, as I well knew, was to come. It was impossible for me to think of putting any expression into the drawing unless I could contrive some means, when he resumed his chair, of making him look like himself again. “I will talk to him about foreign parts,” thought I, “and try if I can’t make him forget that he is sitting for his picture in that way.”

While I was pointing my chalks Mr. Faulkner was walking up and down the room. He chanced to see the portfolio I had brought with me leaning against the wall, and asked if there were any sketches in it. I told him there were a few which I had made during my recent stay in Paris; “In Paris?” he repeated, with a look of interest; “may I see them?”

I gave him the permission he asked as a matter of course. Sitting down, he took the portfolio on his knee, and began to look through it. He turned over the first five sketches rapidly enough; but when he came to the sixth, I saw his face flush directly, and observed that he took the drawing out of the portfolio, carried it to the window, and remained silently absorbed in the contemplation of it for full five minutes. After that, he turned round to me, and asked very anxiously if I had any objection to part with that sketch.

It was the least interesting drawing of the collection – merely a view in one of the streets running by the backs of the houses in the Palais Royal. Some four or five of these houses were comprised in the view, which was of no particular use to me in any way; and which was too valueless, as a work of art, for me to think of selling it. I begged his acceptance of it at once. He thanked me quite warmly; and then, seeing that I looked a little surprised at the odd selection he had made from my sketches, laughingly asked me if I could guess why he had been so anxious to become possessed of the view which I had given him?

“Probably,” I answered, “there is some remarkable historical association connected with that street at the back of the Palais Royal, of which I am ignorant.”

“No,” said Mr. Faulkner; “at least none that I know of. The only association connected with the place in my mind is a purely personal association. Look at this house in your drawing – the house with the water-pipe running down it from top to bottom. I once passed a night there – a night I shall never forget to the day of my death. I have had some awkward travelling adventures in my time; but that adventure—! Well, never mind, suppose we begin the sitting. I make but a bad return for your kindness in giving me the sketch by thus wasting your time in mere talk.”

“Come! come!” thought I, as he went back to the sitter’s chair, “I shall see your natural expression on your face if I can only get you to talk about that adventure.” It was easy enough to lead him in the right direction. At the first hint from me, he returned to the subject of the house in the back street. Without, I hope, showing any undue curiosity, I contrived to let him see that I felt a deep interest in everything he now said. After two or three preliminary hesitations, he at last, to my great joy, fairly started on the narrative of his adventure. In the interest of his subject he soon completely forgot that he was sitting for his portrait – the very expression that I wanted came over his face – and my drawing proceeded toward completion, in the right direction, and to the best purpose. At every fresh touch I felt more and more certain that I was now getting the better of my grand difficulty; and I enjoyed the additional gratification of having my work lightened by the recital of a true story, which possessed, in my estimation, all the excitement of the most exciting romance.

This, as I recollect it, is how Mr. Faulkner told me his adventure:

THE TRAVELLER’S STORY:
A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED

Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city of our sojourn. One night we were idling about the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betake ourselves. My friend proposed a visit to Frascati’s; but his suggestion was not to my taste. I knew Frascati’s, as the French saying is, by heart; had lost and won plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely for amusement’s sake, until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughly tired, in fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a social anomaly as a respectable gambling-house. “For Heaven’s sake,” said I to my friend, “let us go somewhere where we can see a little genuine, blackguard, poverty-stricken gaming with no false gingerbread glitter thrown over it all. Let us get away from fashionable Frascati’s, to a house where they don’t mind letting in a man with a ragged coat, or a man with no coat, ragged or otherwise.”  “Very well,” said my friend, “we needn’t go out of the Palais Royal to find the sort of company you want. Here’s the place just before us; as blackguard a place, by all report, as you could possibly wish to see.” In another minute we arrived at the door, and entered the house, the back of which you have drawn in your sketch.

When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the doorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did not find many people assembled there. But, few as the men were who looked up at us on our entrance, they were all types – lamentably true types – of their respective classes.

We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism – here there was nothing but tragedy – mute, weird tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible. The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whose sunken eyes fiercely watched the turning up of the cards, never spoke; the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, who pricked his piece of pasteboard perseveringly, to register how often black won, and how often red – never spoke; the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vulture eyes and the darned greatcoat, who had lost his last sou, and still looked on desperately, after he could play no longer – never spoke. Even the voice of the croupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled and thickened in the atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place to laugh, but the spectacle before me was something to weep over. I soon found it necessary to take refuge in excitement from the depression of spirits which was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately I sought the nearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play. Still more unfortunately, as the event will show, I won – won prodigiously; won incredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table crowded round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going to break the bank.

The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances – that philosopher’s stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was to want money. I never practised it so incessantly as to lose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I could coolly pocket without being thrown off my balance by my good luck. In short, I had hitherto frequented gambling-tables – just as I frequented ballrooms and opera-houses – because they amused me, and because I had nothing better to do with my leisure hours.

But on this occasion it was very different – now, for the first time in my life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My success first bewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that I only lost when I attempted to estimate chances, and played according to previous calculation. If I left everything to luck, and staked without any care or consideration, I was sure to win – to win in the face of every recognised probability in favour of the bank. At first some of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my colour; but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk. One after another they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on at my game.

Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. The excitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interrupted by a deep-muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in different languages, every time the gold was shovelled across to my side of the table – even the imperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a (French) fury of astonishment at my success. But one man present preserved his self-possession, and that man was my friend. He came to my side, and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place, satisfied with what I had already gained. I must do him the justice to say that he repeated his warnings and entreaties several times, and only left me and went away after I had rejected his advice (I was to all intents and purposes gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for him to address me again that night.

Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried: “Permit me, my dear sir – permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleons which you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir! I pledge you my word of honour, as an old soldier, in the course of my long experience in this sort of thing, I never saw such luck as yours – never! Go on, sir – Sacre mille bombes! Go on boldly, and break the bank!”

I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveterate civility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout.

If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, personally, as being rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling, bloodshot eyes, mangy moustaches, and a broken nose. His voice betrayed a barrack-room intonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiest pair of hands I ever saw – even in France. These little personal peculiarities exercised, however, no repelling influence on me. In the mad excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to “fraternize” with anybody who encouraged me in my game. I accepted the old soldier’s offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world – the most glorious relic of the Grand Army that I had ever met with. “Go on!” cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in ecstasy – “Go on, and win! Break the bank – Mille tonnerres! my gallant English comrade, break the bank!”

And I did go on – went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of an hour the croupier called out, “Gentlemen, the bank has discontinued for tonight.” All the notes, and all the gold in that “bank,” now lay in a heap under my hands; the whole floating capital of the gambling-house was waiting to pour into my pockets!

“Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir,” said the old soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. “Tie it up, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; your winnings are too heavy for any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed. There! that’s it – shovel them in, notes and all! Credie! what luck! Stop! another napoleon on the floor! Ah! sacre petit polisson de Napoleon! have I found thee at last? Now then, sir – two tight double knots each way with your honourable permission, and the money’s safe. Feel it! feel it, fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannonball – Ah, bah! if they had only fired such cannonballs at us at Austerlitz – nom d’une pipe! if they only had! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as an ex-brave of the French army, what remains for me to do? I ask what? Simply this: to entreat my valued English friend to drink a bottle of Champagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune in foaming goblets before we part!”

Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by all means! An English cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah! Another English cheer for the goddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!

“Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France! Another glass? Ah, bah! – the bottle is empty! Never mind! Vive le vin! I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a pound of bonbons with it!”

“No, no, ex-brave; never – ancient grenadier! Your bottle last time; my bottle this. Behold it! Toast away! The French Army! the great Napoleon! the present company! the croupier! the honest croupier’s wife and daughters – if he has any! the Ladies generally! everybody in the world!”

By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as if I had been drinking liquid fire – my brain seemed all aflame. No excess in wine had ever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the result of a stimulant acting upon my system when I was in a highly excited state? Was my stomach in a particularly disordered condition? Or was the Champagne amazingly strong?

“Ex-brave of the French Army!” cried I, in a mad state of exhilaration, “I am on fire! how are you? You have set me on fire! Do you hear, my hero of Austerlitz? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne to put the flame out!”

The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until I expected to see them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirty forefinger by the side of his broken nose; solemnly ejaculated “Coffee!” and immediately ran off into an inner room.

The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a magical effect on the rest of the company present. With one accord they all rose to depart. Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication; but finding that my new friend was benevolently bent on preventing me from getting dead drunk, had now abandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings. Whatever their motive might be, at any rate they went away in a body. When the old soldier returned, and sat down again opposite to me at the table, we had the room to ourselves. I could see the croupier, in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eating his supper in solitude. The silence was now deeper than ever.

A sudden change, too, had come over the “ex-brave.” He assumed a portentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his speech was ornamented by no oaths, enforced by no finger-snapping, enlivened by no apostrophes or exclamations.

“Listen, my dear sir,” said he, in mysteriously confidential tones – “listen to an old soldier’s advice. I have been to the mistress of the house (a very charming woman, with a genius for cookery!) to impress on her the necessity of making us some particularly strong and good coffee. You must drink this coffee in order to get rid of your little amiable exaltation of spirits before you think of going home – you must, my good and gracious friend! With all that money to take home tonight, it is a sacred duty to yourself to have your wits about you. You are known to be a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemen present tonight, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy and excellent fellows; but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they have their amiable weaknesses. Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you understand me! Now, this is what you must do – send for a cabriolet when you feel quite well again – draw up all the windows when you get into it – and tell the driver to take you home only through the large and well-lighted thoroughfares. Do this; and you and your money will be safe. Do this; and tomorrow you will thank an old soldier for giving you a word of honest advice.”

Just as the ex-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones, the coffee came in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive friend handed me one of the cups with a bow. I was parched with thirst, and drank it off at a draught. Almost instantly afterwards, I was seized with a fit of giddiness, and felt more completely intoxicated than ever. The room whirled round and round furiously; the old soldier seemed to be regularly bobbing up and down before me like the piston of a steam-engine. I was half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; a feeling of utter bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rose from my chair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammered out that I felt dreadfully unwell – so unwell that I did not know how I was to get home.

“My dear friend,” answered the old soldier – and even his voice seemed to be bobbing up and down as he spoke – “my dear friend, it would be madness to go home in your state; you would be sure to lose your money; you might be robbed and murdered with the greatest ease. I am going to sleep here; do you sleep here, too – they make up capital beds in this house – take one; sleep off the effects of the wine, and go home safely with your winnings tomorrow – tomorrow, in broad daylight.”

I had but two ideas left: one, that I must never let go hold of my handkerchief full of money; the other, that I must lie down somewhere immediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So I agreed to the proposal about the bed, and took the offered arm of the old soldier, carrying my money with my disengaged hand. Preceded by the croupier, we passed along some passages and up a flight of stairs into the bedroom which I was to occupy. The ex-brave shook me warmly by the hand, proposed that we should breakfast together, and then, followed by the croupier, left me for the night.

I ran to the wash-hand stand; drank some of the water in my jug; poured the rest out, and plunged my face into it; then sat down in a chair and tried to compose myself. I soon felt better. The change for my lungs, from the foetid atmosphere of the gambling-room to the cool air of the apartment I now occupied, the almost equally refreshing change for my eyes, from the glaring gaslights of the “salon” to the dim, quiet flicker of one bedroom-candle, aided wonderfully the restorative effects of cold water. The giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little like a reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk of sleeping all night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still greater risk of trying to get out after the house was closed, and of going home alone at night through the streets of Paris with a large sum of money about me. I had slept in worse places than this on my travels; so I determined to lock, bolt, and barricade my door, and take my chance till the next morning.

Accordingly, I secured myself against all intrusion; looked under the bed, and into the cupboard; tried the fastening of the window; and then, satisfied that I had taken every proper precaution, pulled off my upper clothing, put my light, which was a dim one, on the hearth among a feathery litter of wood-ashes, and got into bed, with the handkerchief full of money under my pillow.

I soon felt not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could not even close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nerve in my body trembled – every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. I tossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now I thrust my arms over the clothes; now I poked them under the clothes; now I violently shot my legs straight out down to the bottom of the bed; now I convulsively coiled them up as near my chin as they would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changed it to the cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now I fiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against the board of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort was in vain; I groaned with vexation as I felt that I was in for a sleepless night.

What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found out some method of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was in the condition to imagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my brain with forebodings of every possible and impossible danger; in short, to pass the night in suffering all conceivable varieties of nervous terror.

I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room – which was brightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the window – to see if it contained any pictures or ornaments that I could at all clearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre’s delightful little book, “Voyage autour de ma Chambre,” occurred to me. I resolved to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement enough to relieve the tedium of my wakefulness, by making a mental inventory of every article of furniture I could see, and by following up to their sources the multitude of associations which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand may be made to call forth.

In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found it much easier to make my inventory than to make my reflections, and thereupon soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre’s fanciful track – or, indeed, of thinking at all. I looked about the room at the different articles of furniture, and did nothing more.

There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all things in the world to meet with in Paris – yes, a thorough clumsy British four-poster, with the regular top lined with chintz – the regular fringed valance all round – the regular stifling, unwholesome curtains, which I remembered having mechanically drawn back against the posts without particularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Then there was the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I had spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair covered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over the back. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then the dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window – an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward – it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of thoroughly deserving it.

This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward too – at the top of the bed. It was a gloomy and not an interesting object, and I looked back at the picture. I counted the feathers in the man’s hat – they stood out in relief – three white, two green. I observed the crown of his hat, which was of conical shape, according to the fashion supposed to have been favoured by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It couldn’t be at the stars; such a desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer. It must be at the high gallows, and he was going to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I counted the feathers again – three white, two green.

While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectual employment, my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlight shining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlight night in England – the night after a picnic party in a Welsh valley. Every incident of the drive homeward, through lovely scenery, which the moonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to my remembrance, though I had never given the picnic a thought for years; though, if I had tried to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothing of that scene long past. Of all the wonderful faculties that help to tell us we are immortal, which speaks the sublime truth more eloquently than memory? Here was I, in a strange house of the most suspicious character, in a situation of uncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem to make the cool exercise of my recollection almost out of the question; nevertheless, remembering, quite involuntarily, places, people, conversations, minute circumstances of every kind, which I had thought forgotten forever; which I could not possibly have recalled at will, even under the most favourable auspices. And what cause had produced in a moment the whole of this strange, complicated, mysterious effect? Nothing but some rays of moonlight shining in at my bedroom window.

I was still thinking of the picnic – of our merriment on the drive home – of the sentimental young lady who would quote “Childe Harold” because it was moonlight. I was absorbed by these past scenes and past amusements, when, in an instant, the thread on which my memories hung snapped asunder; my attention immediately came back to present things more vividly than ever, and I found myself, I neither knew why nor wherefore, looking hard at the picture again.

Looking for what?

Good God! the man had pulled his hat down on his brows! No! the hat itself was gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the feathers – three white, two green? Not there! In place of the hat and feathers, what dusky object was it that now hid his forehead, his eyes, his shading hand?

Was the bed moving?

I turned on my back and looked up. Was I mad? drunk? dreaming? giddy again? or was the top of the bed really moving down – sinking slowly, regularly, silently, horribly, right down throughout the whole of its length and breadth – right down upon me, as I lay underneath?

My blood seemed to stand still. A deadly paralysing coldness stole all over me as I turned my head round on the pillow and determined to test whether the bed-top was really moving or not, by keeping my eye on the man in the picture.

The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black, frowzy outline of the valance above me was within an inch of being parallel with his waist. I still looked breathlessly. And steadily and slowly – very slowly – I saw the figure, and the line of frame below the figure, vanish, as the valance moved down before it.

I am, constitutionally, anything but timid. I have been on more than one occasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my self-possession for an instant; but when the conviction first settled on my mind that the bed-top was really moving, was steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked up shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer to suffocate me where I lay.

I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless. The candle, fully spent, went out; but the moonlight still brightened the room. Down and down, without pausing and without sounding, came the bed-top, and still my panic-terror seemed to bind me faster and faster to the mattress on which I lay – down and down it sank, till the dusty odour from the lining of the canopy came stealing into my nostrils.

At that final moment the instinct of self-preservation startled me out of my trance, and I moved at last. There was just room for me to roll myself sidewise off the bed. As I dropped noiselessly to the floor, the edge of the murderous canopy touched me on the shoulder.

Without stopping to draw my breath, without wiping the cold sweat from my face, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bed-top. I was literally spellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind me, I could not have turned round; if a means of escape had been miraculously provided for me, I could not have moved to take advantage of it. The whole life in me was, at that moment, concentrated in my eyes.

It descended – the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, came down – down – close down; so close that there was not room now to squeeze my finger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at the sides, and discovered that what had appeared to me from beneath to be the ordinary light canopy of a four-post bed was in reality a thick, broad mattress, the substance of which was concealed by the valance and its fringe. I looked up and saw the four posts rising hideously bare. In the middle of the bed-top was a huge wooden screw that had evidently worked it down through a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinary presses are worked down on the substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus moved without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as it came down; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid a dead and awful silence I beheld before me – in the nineteenth century, and in the civilized capital of France – such a machine for secret murder by suffocation as might have existed in the worst days of the Inquisition, in the lonely inns among the Hartz Mountains, in the mysterious tribunals of Westphalia! Still, as I looked on it, I could not move, I could hardly breathe, but I began to recover the power of thinking, and in a moment I discovered the murderous conspiracy framed against me in all its horror.

My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I had been saved from being smothered by having taken an overdose of some narcotic. How I had chafed and fretted at the fever fit which had preserved my life by keeping me awake! How recklessly I had confided myself to the two wretches who had led me into this room, determined, for the sake of my winnings, to kill me in my sleep by the surest and most horrible contrivance for secretly accomplishing my destruction! How many men, winners like me, had slept, as I had proposed to sleep, in that bed, and had never been seen or heard of more! I shuddered at the bare idea of it.

But, ere long, all thought was again suspended by the sight of the murderous canopy moving once more. After it had remained on the bed – as nearly as I could guess – about ten minutes, it began to move up again. The villains who worked it from above evidently believed that their purpose was now accomplished. Slowly and silently, as it had descended, that horrible bed-top rose towards its former place. When it reached the upper extremities of the four posts, it reached the ceiling, too. Neither hole nor screw could be seen; the bed became in appearance an ordinary bed again – the canopy an ordinary canopy – even to the most suspicious eyes.

Now, for the first time, I was able to move – to rise from my knees – to dress myself in my upper clothing – and to consider of how I should escape. If I betrayed by the smallest noise that the attempt to suffocate me had failed, I was certain to be murdered. Had I made any noise already? I listened intently, looking towards the door.

No! no footsteps in the passage outside – no sound of a tread, light or heavy, in the room above – absolute silence everywhere. Besides locking and bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden chest against it, which I had found under the bed. To remove this chest (my blood ran cold as I thought of what its contents might be!) without making some disturbance was impossible; and, moreover, to think of escaping through the house, now barred up for the night, was sheer insanity. Only one chance was left me – the window. I stole to it on tiptoe.

My bedroom was on the first floor, above an entresol, and looked into a back street, which you have sketched in your view. I raised my hand to open the window, knowing that on that action hung, by the merest hairbreadth, my chance of safety. They keep vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part of the frame cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have occupied me at least five minutes, reckoning by time – five hours, reckoning by suspense – to open that window. I succeeded in doing it silently – in doing it with all the dexterity of a house-breaker – and then looked down into the street. To leap the distance beneath me would be almost certain destruction! Next, I looked round at the sides of the house. Down the left side ran a thick water-pipe which you have drawn – it passed close by the outer edge of the window. The moment I saw the pipe I knew I was saved. My breath came and went freely for the first time since I had seen the canopy of the bed moving down upon me!

To some men the means of escape which I had discovered might have seemed difficult and dangerous enough – to me the prospect of slipping down the pipe into the street did not suggest even a thought of peril. I had always been accustomed, by the practice of gymnastics, to keep up my schoolboy powers as a daring and expert climber; and knew that my head, hands, and feet would serve me faithfully in any hazards of ascent or descent. I had already got one leg over the windowsill, when I remembered the handkerchief filled with money under my pillow. I could well have afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefully determined that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss their plunder as well as their victim. So I went back to the bed and tied the heavy handkerchief at my back by my cravat.

Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place, I thought I heard a sound of breathing outside the door. The chill feeling of horror ran through me again as I listened. No! dead silence still in the passage – I had only heard the night air blowing softly into the room. The next moment I was on the windowsill – and the next I had a firm grip on the water-pipe with my hands and knees.

I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should, and immediately set off at the top of my speed to a branch “Prefecture” of Police, which I knew was situated in the immediate neighbourhood. A “Sub-prefect,” and several picked men among his subordinates, happened to be up, maturing, I believe, some scheme for discovering the perpetrator of a mysterious murder which all Paris was talking of just then. When I began my story, in a breathless hurry and in very bad French, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me of being a drunken Englishman who had robbed somebody; but he soon altered his opinion as I went on, and before I had anything like concluded, he shoved all the papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me with another (for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers, desired his expert followers to get ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doors and ripping up brick flooring, and took my arm, in the most friendly and familiar manner possible, to lead me with him out of the house. I will venture to say that when the Sub-prefect was a little boy, and was taken for the first time to the play, he was not half as much pleased as he was now at the job in prospect for him at the gambling-house!

Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining and congratulating me in the same breath as we marched at the head of our formidable posse comitatus. Sentinels were placed at the back and front of the house the moment we got to it; a tremendous battery of knocks was directed against the door; a light appeared at a window; I was told to conceal myself behind the police – then came more knocks and a cry of “Open in the name of the law!” At that terrible summons bolts and locks gave way before an invisible hand, and the moment after the Sub-prefect was in the passage, confronting a waiter half-dressed and ghastly pale. This was the short dialogue which immediately took place:

“We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house?”

“He went away hours ago.”

“He did no such thing. His friend went away; he remained. Show us to his bedroom!”

“I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! he—”

“I swear to you, Monsieur le Garcon, he is. He slept here – he didn’t find your bed comfortable – he came to us to complain of it – here he is among my men – and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin! (calling to one of the subordinates, and pointing to the waiter) collar that man and tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!”

Every man and woman in the house was secured – the “Old Soldier” the first. Then I identified the bed in which I had slept, and then we went into the room above.

No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of it. The Sub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody to be silent, stamped twice on the floor, called for a candle, looked attentively at the spot he had stamped on, and ordered the flooring there to be carefully taken up. This was done in no time. Lights were produced, and we saw a deep raftered cavity between the floor of this room and the ceiling of the room beneath. Through this cavity there ran perpendicularly a sort of case of iron thickly greased; and inside the case appeared the screw, which communicated with the bed-top below. Extra lengths of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; all the complete upper works of a heavy press – constructed with infernal ingenuity so as to join the fixtures below, and when taken to pieces again, to go into the smallest possible compass – were next discovered and pulled out on the floor. After some little difficulty the Sub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery together, and, leaving his men to work it, descended with me to the bedroom. The smothering canopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen it lowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, had a terrible significance. “My men,” said he, “are working down the bed-top for the first time – the men whose money you won were in better practice.”

We left the house in the sole possession of two police agents – every one of the inmates being removed to prison on the spot. The Sub-prefect, after taking down my “proces verbal” in his office, returned with me to my hotel to get my passport. “Do you think,” I asked, as I gave it to him, “that any men have really been smothered in that bed, as they tried to smother me?”

“I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue,” answered the Sub-prefect, “in whose pocketbooks were found letters stating that they had committed suicide in the Seine, because they had lost everything at the gaming table. Do I know how many of those men entered the same gambling-house that you entered? won as you won? took that bed as you took it? slept in it? were smothered in it? and were privately thrown into the river, with a letter of explanation written by the murderers and placed in their pocketbooks? No man can say how many or how few have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The people of the gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret from us – even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret for them. Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner! Be at my office again at nine o’clock – in the meantime, au revoir!”

The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and re-examined; the gambling-house was strictly searched all through from top to bottom; the prisoners were separately interrogated; and two of the less guilty among them made a confession. I discovered that the Old Soldier was the master of the gambling-house – justice discovered that he had been drummed out of the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of all sorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of stolen property, which the owners identified; and that he, the croupier, another accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup of coffee, were all in the secret of the bedstead. There appeared some reason to doubt whether the inferior persons attached to the house knew anything of the suffocating machinery; and they received the benefit of that doubt, by being treated simply as thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two head myrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my coffee was imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular attendants at the gambling-house were considered “suspicious” and placed under “surveillance”; and I became, for one whole week (which is a long time) the head “lion” in Parisian society. My adventure was dramatized by three illustrious play-makers, but never saw theatrical daylight; for the censorship forbade the introduction on the stage of a correct copy of the gambling-house bedstead.

One good result was produced by my adventure, which any censorship must have approved: it cured me of ever again trying “Rouge et Noir” as an amusement. The sight of a green cloth, with packs of cards and heaps of money on it, will henceforth be forever associated in my mind with the sight of a bed canopy descending to suffocate me in the silence and darkness of the night.

Just as Mr. Faulkner pronounced these words he started in his chair, and resumed his stiff, dignified position in a great hurry. “Bless my soul!” cried he, with a comic look of astonishment and vexation, “while I have been telling you what is the real secret of my interest in the sketch you have so kindly given to me, I have altogether forgotten that I came here to sit for my portrait. For the last hour or more I must have been the worst model you ever had to draw from!”

“On the contrary, you have been the best,” said I. “I have been trying to catch your likeness; and, while telling your story, you have unconsciously shown me the natural expression I wanted to insure my success.”

NOTE BY MRS. KERBY.

I cannot let this story end without mentioning what the chance saying was which caused it to be told at the farmhouse the other night. Our friend the young sailor, among his other quaint objections to sleeping on shore, declared that he particularly hated four-post beds, because he never slept in one without doubting whether the top might not come down in the night and suffocate him. I thought this chance reference to the distinguishing feature of William’s narrative curious enough, and my husband agreed with me. But he says it is scarcely worth while to mention such a trifle in anything so important as a book. I cannot venture, after this, to do more than slip these lines in modestly at the end of the story. If the printer should notice my few last words, perhaps he may not mind the trouble of putting them into some out-of-the-way corner.

L. K.

•   •   •   •   •   •

PROLOGUE TO
THE SECOND STORY

The beginning of an excellent connection which I succeeded in establishing in and around that respectable watering-place, Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, was an order for a life-size oil portrait of a great local celebrity – one Mr. Boxsious, a solicitor, who was understood to do the most thriving business of any lawyer in the town.

The portrait was intended as a testimonial “expressive (to use the language of the circular forwarded to me at the time) of the eminent services of Mr. Boxsious in promoting and securing the prosperity of the town.” It had been subscribed for by the “Municipal Authorities and Resident Inhabitants” of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh; and it was to be presented, when done, to Mrs. Boxsious, “as a slight but sincere token” – and so forth. A timely recommendation from one of my kindest friends and patrons placed the commission for painting the likeness in my lucky hands; and I was instructed to attend on a certain day at Mr. Boxsious’s private residence, with all my materials ready for taking a first sitting.

On arriving at the house, I was shown into a very prettily furnished morning-room. The bow-window looked out on a large enclosed meadow, which represented the principal square in Tidbury. On the opposite side of the meadow I could see the new hotel (with a wing lately added), and close by, the old hotel obstinately unchanged since it had first been built. Then, further down the street, the doctor’s house, with a coloured lamp and a small doorplate, and the banker’s office, with a plain lamp and a big doorplate – then some dreary private lodging-houses – then, at right angles to these, a street of shops; the cheese-monger’s very small, the chemist’s very smart, the pastry-cook’s very dowdy, and the green-grocer’s very dark, I was still looking out at the view thus presented, when I was suddenly apostrophized by a glib, disputatious voice behind me.

“Now, then, Mr. Artist,” cried the voice, “do you call that getting ready for work? Where are your paints and brushes, and all the rest of it? My name’s Boxsious, and I’m here to sit for my picture.”

I turned round, and confronted a little man with his legs astraddle, and his hands in his pockets. He had light-grey eyes, red all round the lids, bristling pepper-coloured hair, an unnaturally rosy complexion, and an eager, impudent, clever look. I made two discoveries in one glance at him: First, that he was a wretched subject for a portrait; secondly, that, whatever he might do or say, it would not be of the least use for me to stand on my dignity with him.

“I shall be ready directly, sir,” said I.

“Ready directly?” repeated my new sitter. “What do you mean, Mr. Artist, by ready directly? I’m ready now. What was your contract with the Town Council, who have subscribed for this picture? To paint the portrait. And what was my contract? To sit for it. Here am I ready to sit, and there are you not ready to paint me. According to all the rules of law and logic, you are committing a breach of contract already. Stop! let’s have a look at your paints. Are they the best quality? If not, I warn you, sir, there’s a second breach of contract! Brushes, too? Why, they’re old brushes, by the Lord Harry! The Town Council pays you well, Mr. Artist; why don’t you work for them with new brushes? What? you work best with old? I contend, sir, that you can’t. Does my housemaid clean best with an old broom? Do my clerks write best with old pens? Don’t colour up, and don’t look as if you were going to quarrel with me! You can’t quarrel with me. If you were fifty times as irritable a man as you look, you couldn’t quarrel with me. I’m not young, and I’m not touchy – I’m Boxsious, the lawyer; the only man in the world who can’t be insulted, try it how you like!”

He chuckled as he said this, and walked away to the window. It was quite useless to take anything he said seriously, so I finished preparing my palette for the morning’s work with the utmost serenity of look and manner that I could possibly assume.

“There!” he went on, looking out of the window; “do you see that fat man slouching along the Parade, with a snuffy nose? That’s my favourite enemy, Dunball. He tried to quarrel with me ten years ago, and he has done nothing but bring out the hidden benevolence of my character ever since. Look at him! look how he frowns as he turns this way. And now look at me! I can smile and nod to him. I make a point of always smiling and nodding to him – it keeps my hand in for other enemies. Good-morning! (I’ve cast him twice in heavy damages) good-morning, Mr. Dunball. He bears malice, you see; he won’t speak; he’s short in the neck, passionate, and four times as fat as he ought to be; he has fought against my amiability for ten mortal years; when he can’t fight any longer, he’ll die suddenly, and I shall be the innocent cause of it.”

Mr. Boxsious uttered this fatal prophecy with extraordinary complacency, nodding and smiling out of the window all the time at the unfortunate man who had rashly tried to provoke him. When his favourite enemy was out of sight, he turned away, and indulged himself in a brisk turn or two up and down the room. Meanwhile I lifted my canvas on the easel, and was on the point of asking him to sit down, when he assailed me again.

“Now, Mr. Artist,” he cried, quickening his walk impatiently, “in the interests of the Town Council, your employers, allow me to ask you for the last time when you are going to begin?”

“And allow me, Mr. Boxsious, in the interest of the Town Council also,” said I, “to ask you if your notion of the proper way of sitting for your portrait is to walk about the room!”

“Aha! well put – devilish well put!” returned Mr. Boxsious; “that’s the only sensible thing you have said since you entered my house; I begin to like you already.” With these words he nodded at me approvingly, and jumped into the high chair that I had placed for him with the alacrity of a young man.

“I say, Mr. Artist,” he went on, when I had put him into the right position (he insisted on the front view of his face being taken, because the Town Council would get the most for their money in that way), “you don’t have many such good jobs as this, do you?”

“Not many,” I said. “I should not be a poor man if commissions for life-size portraits often fell in my way.”

“You poor!” exclaimed Mr. Boxsious, contemptuously. “I dispute that point with you at the outset. Why, you’ve got a good cloth coat, a clean shirt, and a smooth-shaved chin. You’ve got the sleek look of a man who has slept between sheets and had his breakfast. You can’t humbug me about poverty, for I know what it is. Poverty means looking like a scarecrow, feeling like a scarecrow, and getting treated like a scarecrow. That was my luck, let me tell you, when I first thought of trying the law. Poverty, indeed! Do you shake in your shoes, Mr. Artist, when you think what you were at twenty? I do, I can promise you.”

He began to shift about so irritably in his chair, that, in the interests of my work, I was obliged to make an effort to calm him.

“It must be a pleasant occupation for you in your present prosperity,” said I, “to look back sometimes at the gradual processes by which you passed from poverty to competence, and from that to the wealth you now enjoy.”

“Gradual, did you say?” cried Mr. Boxsious; “it wasn’t gradual at all. I was sharp – damned sharp, and I jumped at my first start in business slap into five hundred pounds in one day.”

“That was an extraordinary step in advance,” I rejoined. “I suppose you contrived to make some profitable investment—”

“Not a bit of it! I hadn’t a spare sixpence to invest with. I won the money by my brains, my hands, and my pluck; and, what’s more, I’m proud of having done it. That was rather a curious case, Mr. Artist. Some men might be shy of mentioning it; I never was shy in my life and I mention it right and left everywhere – the whole case, just as it happened, except the names. Catch me ever committing myself to mentioning names! Mum’s the word, sir, with yours to command, Thomas Boxsious.”

“As you mention ‘the case’ everywhere,” said I, “perhaps you would not be offended with me if I told you I should like to hear it?”

“Man alive! haven’t I told you already that I can’t be offended? And didn’t I say a moment ago that I was proud of the case? I’ll tell you, Mr. Artist – but stop! I’ve got the interests of the Town Council to look after in this business. Can you paint as well when I’m talking as when I’m not? Don’t sneer, sir; you’re not wanted to sneer – you’re wanted to give an answer – yes or no?”

“Yes, then,” I replied, in his own sharp way. “I can always paint the better when I am hearing an interesting story.”

“What do you mean by talking about a story? I’m not going to tell you a story; I’m going to make a statement. A statement is a matter of fact, therefore the exact opposite of a story, which is a matter of fiction. What I am now going to tell you really happened to me.”

I was glad to see that he settled himself quietly in his chair before he began. His odd manners and language made such an impression on me at the time, that I think I can repeat his “statement” now, almost word for word as he addressed it to me.

THE LAWYER’S STORY:
A STOLEN LETTER

I served my time – never mind in whose office – and I started in business for myself in one of our English country towns, I decline stating which. I hadn’t a farthing of capital, and my friends in the neighbourhood were poor and useless enough, with one exception. That exception was Mr. Frank Gatliffe, son of Mr. Gatliffe, member for the county, the richest man and the proudest for many a mile round about our parts. Stop a bit, Mr. Artist, you needn’t perk up and look knowing. You won’t trace any particulars by the name of Gatliffe. I’m not bound to commit myself or anybody else by mentioning names. I have given you the first that came into my head.

Well, Mr. Frank was a staunch friend of mine, and ready to recommend me whenever he got the chance. I had contrived to get him a little timely help – for a consideration, of course – in borrowing money at a fair rate of interest; in fact, I had saved him from the Jews. The money was borrowed while Mr. Frank was at college. He came back from college, and stopped at home a little while, and then there got spread about all our neighbourhood a report that he had fallen in love, as the saying is, with his young sister’s governess, and that his mind was made up to marry her. What! you’re at it again, Mr. Artist! You want to know her name, don’t you? What do you think of Smith?

Speaking as a lawyer, I consider report, in a general way, to be a fool and a liar. But in this case report turned out to be something very different. Mr. Frank told me he was really in love, and said upon his honour (an absurd expression which young chaps of his age are always using) he was determined to marry Smith, the governess – the sweet, darling girl, as he called her; but I’m not sentimental, and I call her Smith, the governess. Well, Mr. Frank’s father, being as proud as Lucifer, said “No,” as to marrying the governess, when Mr. Frank wanted him to say “Yes.” He was a man of business, was old Gatliffe, and he took the proper business course. He sent the governess away with a first-rate character and a spanking present, and then he, looked about him to get something for Mr. Frank to do. While he was looking about, Mr. Frank bolted to London after the governess, who had nobody alive belonging to her to go to but an aunt – her father’s sister. The aunt refuses to let Mr. Frank in without the squire’s permission. Mr. Frank writes to his father, and says he will marry the girl as soon as he is of age, or shoot himself. Up to town comes the squire and his wife and his daughter, and a lot of sentimentality, not in the slightest degree material to the present statement, takes places among them; and the upshot of it is that old Gatliffe is forced into withdrawing the word No, and substituting the word Yes.

I don’t believe he would ever have done it, though, but for one lucky peculiarity in the case. The governess’s father was a man of good family – pretty nigh as good as Gatliffe’s own. He had been in the army; had sold out; set up as a wine-merchant – failed – died; ditto his wife, as to the dying part of it. No relation, in fact, left for the squire to make inquiries about but the father’s sister – who had behaved, as old Gatliffe said, like a thorough-bred gentlewoman in shutting the door against Mr. Frank in the first instance. So, to cut the matter short, things were at last made up pleasant enough. The time was fixed for the wedding, and an announcement about it – Marriage in High Life and all that – put into the county paper. There was a regular biography, besides, of the governess’s father, so as to stop people from talking – a great flourish about his pedigree, and a long account of his services in the army; but not a word, mind ye, of his having turned wine-merchant afterward. Oh, no – not a word about that!

I knew it, though, for Mr. Frank told me. He hadn’t a bit of pride about him. He introduced me to his future wife one day when I met him out walking, and asked me if I did not think he was a lucky fellow. I don’t mind admitting that I did, and that I told him so. Ah! but she was one of my sort, was that governess. Stood, to the best of my recollection, five foot four. Good lissom figure, that looked as if it had never been boxed up in a pair of stays. Eyes that made me feel as if I was under a pretty stiff cross-examination the moment she looked at me. Fine red, kiss-and-come-again sort of lips. Cheeks and complexion – No, Mr. Artist, you wouldn’t identify her by her cheeks and complexion, if I drew you a picture of them this very moment. She has had a family of children since the time I’m talking of; and her cheeks are a trifle fatter, and her complexion is a shade or two redder now, than when I first met her out walking with Mr. Frank.

The marriage was to take place on a Wednesday. I decline mentioning the year or the month. I had started as an attorney on my own account – say six weeks, more or less, and was sitting alone in my office on the Monday morning before the wedding-day, trying to see my way clear before me and not succeeding particularly well, when Mr. Frank suddenly bursts in, as white as any ghost that ever was painted, and says he’s got the most dreadful case for me to advise on, and not an hour to lose in acting on my advice.

“Is this in the way of business, Mr. Frank?” says I, stopping him just as he was beginning to get sentimental. “Yes or no, Mr. Frank?” rapping my new office paper-knife on the table, to pull him up short all the sooner.

“My dear fellow” – he was always familiar with me – “it’s in the way of business, certainly; but friendship—”

I was obliged to pull him up short again, and regularly examine him as if he had been in the witness-box, or he would have kept me talking to no purpose half the day.

“Now, Mr. Frank,” says I, “I can’t have any sentimentality mixed up with business matters. You please to stop talking, and let me ask questions. Answer in the fewest words you can use. Nod when nodding will do instead of words.”

I fixed him with my eye for about three seconds, as he sat groaning and wriggling in his chair. When I’d done fixing him, I gave another rap with my paper-knife on the table to startle him up a bit. Then I went on.

“From what you have been stating up to the present time,” says I, “I gather that you are in a scrape which is likely to interfere seriously with your marriage on Wednesday?”

(He nodded, and I cut in again before he could say a word):

“The scrape affects your young lady, and goes back to the period of a transaction in which her late father was engaged, doesn’t it?”

(He nods, and I cut in once more):

“There is a party, who turned up after seeing the announcement of your marriage in the paper, who is cognizant of what he oughtn’t to know, and who is prepared to use his knowledge of the same to the prejudice of the young lady and of your marriage, unless he receives a sum of money to quiet him? Very well. Now, first of all, Mr. Frank, state what you have been told by the young lady herself about the transaction of her late father. How did you first come to have any knowledge of it?”

“She was talking to me about her father one day so tenderly and prettily, that she quite excited my interest about him,” begins Mr. Frank; “and I asked her, among other things, what had occasioned his death. She said she believed it was distress of mind in the first instance; and added that this distress was connected with a shocking secret, which she and her mother had kept from everybody, but which she could not keep from me, because she was determined to begin her married life by having no secrets from her husband.” Here Mr. Frank began to get sentimental again, and I pulled him up short once more with the paper-knife.

“She told me,” Mr. Frank went on, “that the great mistake of her father’s life was his selling out of the army and taking to the wine trade. He had no talent for business; things went wrong with him from the first. His clerk, it was strongly suspected, cheated him—”

“Stop a bit,” says I. “What was that suspected clerk’s name?”

“Davager,” says he.

“Davager,” says I, making a note of it. “Go on, Mr. Frank.”

“His affairs got more and more entangled,” says Mr. Frank; “he was pressed for money in all directions; bankruptcy, and consequent dishonour (as he considered it) stared him in the face. His mind was so affected by his troubles that both his wife and daughter, toward the last, considered him to be hardly responsible for his own acts. In this state of desperation and misery, he—” Here Mr. Frank began to hesitate.

We have two ways in the law of drawing evidence off nice and clear from an unwilling client or witness. We give him a fright, or we treat him to a joke. I treated Mr. Frank to a joke.

“Ah!” says I, “I know what he did. He had a signature to write; and, by the most natural mistake in the world, he wrote another gentleman’s name instead of his own – eh?”

“It was to a bill,” says Mr. Frank, looking very crestfallen, instead of taking the joke. “His principal creditor wouldn’t wait till he could raise the money, or the greater part of it. But he was resolved, if he sold off everything, to get the amount and repay—”

“Of course,” says I, “drop that. The forgery was discovered. When?”

“Before even the first attempt was made to negotiate the bill. He had done the whole thing in the most absurdly and innocently wrong way. The person whose name he had used was a staunch friend of his, and a relation of his wife’s – a good man as well as a rich one. He had influence with the chief creditor, and he used it nobly. He had a real affection for the unfortunate man’s wife, and he proved it generously.”

“Come to the point,” says I. “What did he do? In a business way, what did he do?”

“He put the false bill into the fire, drew a bill of his own to replace it, and then – only then – told my dear girl and her mother all that had happened. Can you imagine anything nobler?” asks Mr. Frank.

“Speaking in my professional capacity, I can’t imagine anything greener,” says I. “Where was the father? Off, I suppose?”

“Ill in bed,” says Mr. Frank, colouring. “But he mustered strength enough to write a contrite and grateful letter the same day, promising to prove himself worthy of the noble moderation and forgiveness extended to him, by selling off everything he possessed to repay his money debt. He did sell off everything, down to some old family pictures that were heirlooms; down to the little plate he had; down to the very tables and chairs that furnished his drawing-room. Every farthing of the debt was paid; and he was left to begin the world again, with the kindest promises of help from the generous man who had forgiven him. It was too late. His crime of one rash moment – atoned for though it had been – preyed upon his mind. He became possessed with the idea that he had lowered himself forever in the estimation of his wife and daughter, and—”

“He died,” I cut in. “Yes, yes, we know that. Let’s go back for a minute to the contrite and grateful letter that he wrote. My experience in the law, Mr. Frank, has convinced me that if everybody burned everybody else’s letters, half the courts of justice in this country might shut up shop. Do you happen to know whether the letter we are now speaking of contained anything like an avowal or confession of the forgery?”

“Of course it did,” says he. “Could the writer express his contrition properly without making some such confession?”

“Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer,” says I. “But never mind that; I’m going to make a guess – a desperate guess, mind. Should I be altogether in error if I thought that this letter had been stolen; and that the fingers of Mr. Davager, of suspicious commercial celebrity, might possibly be the fingers which took it?”

“That is exactly what I wanted to make you understand,” cried Mr. Frank.

“How did he communicate the interesting fact of the theft to you?”

“He has not ventured into my presence. The scoundrel actually had the audacity—”

“Aha!” says I. “The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr. Davager.”

“Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the shrubbery,” Mr. Frank goes on, “he had the assurance to approach her, and to say that he had been watching his opportunity of getting a private interview for days past. He then showed her – actually showed her – her unfortunate father’s letter; put into her hands another letter directed to me; bowed, and walked off; leaving her half dead with astonishment and terror. If I had only happened to be there at the time!” says Mr. Frank, shaking his fist murderously in the air, by way of a finish.

“It’s the greatest luck in the world that you were not,” says I. “Have you got that other letter?”

He handed it to me. It was so remarkably humorous and short, that I remember every word of it at this distance of time. It began in this way:

“To Francis Gatliffe, Esq., Jun.

“Sir – I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell. The price is a five-hundred-pound note. The young lady to whom you are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of the nature of the letter, and the genuineness of the autograph. If you refuse to deal, I shall send a copy to the local paper, and shall wait on your highly-respected father with the original curiosity, on the afternoon of Tuesday next. Having come down here on family business, I have put up at the family hotel – being to be heard of at the Gatliffe Arms.

Your very obedient servant,

Alfred Davager.”

“A clever fellow that,” says I, putting the letter into my private drawer.

“Clever!” cries Mr. Frank, “he ought to be horsewhipped within an inch of his life. I would have done it myself; but she made me promise, before she told me a word of the matter, to come straight to you.”

“That was one of the wisest promises you ever made,” says I. “We can’t afford to bully this fellow, whatever else we may do with him. Do you think I am saying anything libellous against your excellent father’s character when I assert that if he saw the letter he would certainly insist on your marriage being put off, at the very least?”

“Feeling as my father does about my marriage, he would insist on its being dropped altogether, if he saw this letter,” says Mr. Frank, with a groan. “But even that is not the worst of it. The generous, noble girl herself says that if the letter appears in the paper, with all the unanswerable comments this scoundrel would be sure to add to it, she would rather die than hold me to my engagement, even if my father would let me keep it.”

As he said this his eyes began to water. He was a weak young fellow, and ridiculously fond of her. I brought him back to business with another rap of the paper-knife.

“Hold up, Mr. Frank,” says I. “I have a question or two more. Did you think of asking the young lady whether, to the best of her knowledge, this infernal letter was the only written evidence of the forgery now in existence?”

“Yes, I did think directly of asking her that,” says he; “and she told me she was quite certain that there was no written evidence of the forgery except that one letter.”

“Will you give Mr. Davager his price for it?” says I.

“Yes,” says Mr. Frank, quite peevish with me for asking him such a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and talked of hundreds as most men talk of sixpences.

“Mr. Frank,” says I, “you came here to get my help and advice in this extremely ticklish business, and you are ready, as I know without asking, to remunerate me for all and any of my services at the usual professional rate. Now, I’ve made up my mind to act boldly – desperately, if you like – on the hit or miss, win all or lose all principle – in dealing with this matter. Here is my proposal. I’m going to try if I can’t do Mr. Davager out of his letter. If I don’t succeed before tomorrow afternoon, you hand him the money, and I charge you nothing for professional services. If I do succeed, I hand you the letter instead of Mr. Davager, and you give me the money instead of giving it to him. It’s a precious risk for me, but I’m ready to run it. You must pay your five hundred any way. What do you say to my plan? Is it Yes, Mr. Frank, or No?”

“Hang your questions!” cries Mr. Frank, jumping up; “you know it’s Yes ten thousand times over. Only you earn the money and—”

“And you will be too glad to give it to me. Very good. Now go home. Comfort the young lady – don’t let Mr. Davager so much as set eyes on you – keep quiet – leave everything to me – and feel as certain as you please that all the letters in the world can’t stop your being married on Wednesday.” With these words I hustled him off out of the office, for I wanted to be left alone to make my mind up about what I should do.

The first thing, of course, was to have a look at the enemy. I wrote to Mr. Davager, telling him that I was privately appointed to arrange the little business matter between himself and “another party” (no names!) on friendly terms; and begging him to call on me at his earliest convenience. At the very beginning of the case, Mr. Davager bothered me. His answer was, that it would not be convenient to him to call till between six and seven in the evening. In this way, you see, he contrived to make me lose several precious hours, at a time when minutes almost were of importance. I had nothing for it but to be patient, and to give certain instructions, before Mr. Davager came, to my boy Tom.

There never was such a sharp boy of fourteen before, and there never will be again, as my boy Tom. A spy to look after Mr. Davager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this kind; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest, stealthiest little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman’s steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman’s eyes. I settled it with the boy that he was not to show at all when Mr. Davager came; and that he was to wait to hear me ring the bell when Mr. Davager left. If I rang twice, he was to show the gentleman out. If I rang once, he was to keep out of the way, and follow the gentleman whereever he went till he got back to the inn. Those were the only preparations I could make to begin with; being obliged to wait, and let myself be guided by what turned up.

About a quarter to seven my gentleman came.

In the profession of the law we get somehow quite remarkably mixed up with ugly people, blackguard people, and dirty people. But far away the ugliest and dirtiest blackguard I ever saw in my life was Mr. Alfred Davager. He had greasy white hair and a mottled face. He was low in the forehead, fat in the stomach, hoarse in the voice, and weak in the legs. Both his eyes were bloodshot, and one was fixed in his head. He smelled of spirits, and carried a toothpick in his mouth. “How are you? I’ve just done dinner,” says he; and he lights a cigar, sits down with his legs crossed, and winks at me.

I tried at first to take the measure of him in a wheedling, confidential way; but it was no good. I asked him, in a facetious, smiling manner, how he had got hold of the letter. He only told me in answer that he had been in the confidential employment of the writer of it, and that he had always been famous since infancy for a sharp eye to his own interests. I paid him some compliments; but he was not to be flattered. I tried to make him lose his temper; but he kept it in spite of me. It ended in his driving me to my last resource – I made an attempt to frighten him.

“Before we say a word about the money,” I began, “let me put a case, Mr. Davager. The pull you have on Mr. Francis Gatliffe is, that you can hinder his marriage on Wednesday. Now, suppose I have got a magistrate’s warrant to apprehend you in my pocket? Suppose I have a constable to execute it in the next room? Suppose I bring you up tomorrow – the day before the marriage – charge you only generally with an attempt to extort money, and apply for a day’s remand to complete the case? Suppose, as a suspicious stranger, you can’t get bail in this town? Suppose—”

“Stop a bit,” says Mr. Davager. “Suppose I should not be the greenest fool that ever stood in shoes? Suppose I should not carry the letter about me? Suppose I should have given a certain envelope to a certain friend of mine in a certain place in this town? Suppose the letter should be inside that envelope, directed to old Gatliffe, side by side with a copy of the letter directed to the editor of the local paper? Suppose my friend should be instructed to open the envelope, and take the letters to their right address, if I don’t appear to claim them from him this evening? In short, my dear sir, suppose you were born yesterday, and suppose I wasn’t?” says Mr. Davager, and winks at me again.

He didn’t take me by surprise, for I never expected that he had the letter about him. I made a pretence of being very much taken aback, and of being quite ready to give in. We settled our business about delivering the letter, and handing over the money, in no time. I was to draw out a document, which he was to sign. He knew the document was stuff and nonsense, just as well as I did, and told me I was only proposing it to swell my client’s bill. Sharp as he was, he was wrong there. The document was not to be drawn out to gain money from Mr. Frank, but to gain time from Mr. Davager. It served me as an excuse to put off the payment of the five hundred pounds till three o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon. The Tuesday morning Mr. Davager said he should devote to his amusement, and asked me what sights were to be seen in the neighbourhood of the town. When I had told him, he pitched his toothpick into my grate, yawned, and went out.

I rang the bell once – waited till he had passed the window – and then looked after Tom. There was my jewel of a boy on the opposite side of the street, just setting his top going in the most playful manner possible. Mr. Davager walked away up the street toward the marketplace. Tom whipped his top up the street toward the marketplace, too.

In a quarter of an hour he came back, with all his evidence collected in a beautifully clear and compact state. Mr. Davager had walked to a public-house just outside the town, in a lane leading to the highroad. On a bench outside the public-house there sat a man smoking. He said “All right?” and gave a letter to Mr. Davager, who answered “All right!” and walked back to the inn. In the hall he ordered hot rum-and-water, cigars, slippers, and a fire to be lit in his room. After that he went upstairs, and Tom came away.

I now saw my road clear before me – not very far on, but still clear. I had housed the letter, in all probability for that night, at the Gatliffe Arms. After tipping Tom, I gave him directions to play about the door of the inn, and refresh himself when he was tired at the tart-shop opposite, eating as much as he pleased, on the understanding that he crammed all the time with his eye on the window. If Mr. Davager went out, or Mr. Davager’s friend called on him, Tom was to let me know. He was also to take a little note from me to the head chambermaid – an old friend of mine – asking her to step over to my office, on a private matter of business, as soon as her work was done for that night. After settling these little matters, having half an hour to spare, I turned to and did myself a bloater at the office fire, and had a drop of gin-and-water hot, and felt comparatively happy.

When the head chambermaid came, it turned out, as good luck would have it, that Mr. Davager had drawn her attention rather too closely to his ugliness, by offering her a testimony of his regard in the shape of a kiss. I no sooner mentioned him than she flew into a passion; and when I added, by way of clinching the matter, that I was retained to defend the interests of a very beautiful and deserving young lady (name not referred to, of course) against the most cruel underhand treachery on the part of Mr. Davager, the head chambermaid was ready to go any lengths that she could safely to serve my cause. In a few words I discovered that Boots was to call Mr. Davager at eight the next morning, and was to take his clothes downstairs to brush as usual. If Mr. D——— had not emptied his own pockets overnight, we arranged that Boots was to forget to empty them for him, and was to bring the clothes downstairs just as he found them. If Mr. D———’s pockets were emptied, then, of course, it would be necessary to transfer the searching process to Mr. D———’s room. Under any circumstances, I was certain of the head chambermaid; and under any circumstances, also, the head chambermaid was certain of Boots.

I waited till Tom came home, looking very puffy and bilious about the face; but as to his intellects, if anything, rather sharper than ever. His report was uncommonly short and pleasant. The inn was shutting up; Mr. Davager was going to bed in rather a drunken condition; Mr. Davager’s friend had never appeared. I sent Tom (properly instructed about keeping our man in view all the next morning) to his shake-down behind the office-desk, where I heard him hiccoughing half the night, as even the best boys will, when over-excited and too full of tarts.

At half-past seven next morning, I slipped quietly into Boots’s pantry.

Down came the clothes. No pockets in trousers. Waistcoat-pockets empty. Coat-pockets with something in them. First, handkerchief; secondly, bunch of keys; thirdly, cigar-case; fourthly, pocketbook. Of course I wasn’t such a fool as to expect to find the letter there, but I opened the pocketbook with a certain curiosity, notwithstanding.

Nothing in the two pockets of the book but some old advertisements cut out of newspapers, a lock of hair tied round with a dirty bit of ribbon, a circular letter about a loan society, and some copies of verses not likely to suit any company that was not of an extremely free-and-easy description. On the leaves of the pocketbook, people’s addresses scrawled in pencil, and bets jotted down in red ink. On one leaf, by itself, this queer inscription:

“MEM. 5 ALONG. 4 ACROSS.”

I understood everything but those words and figures, so of course I copied them out into my own book.

Then I waited in the pantry till Boots had brushed the clothes, and had taken them upstairs. His report when he came down was, that Mr. D——— had asked if it was a fine morning. Being told that it was, he had ordered breakfast at nine, and a saddle-horse to be at the door at ten, to take him to Grimwith Abbey – one of the sights in our neighbourhood which I had told him of the evening before.

“I’ll be here, coming in by the back way, at half-past ten,” says I to the head chambermaid.

“What for?” says she.

“To take the responsibility of making Mr. Davager’s bed off your hands for this morning only,” says I.

“Any more orders?” says she.

“One more,” says I. “I want to hire Sam for the morning. Put it down in the order-book that he’s to be brought round to my office at ten.”

In case you should think Sam was a man, I’d better perhaps tell you he was a pony. I’d made up my mind that it would be beneficial to Tom’s health, after the tarts, if he took a constitutional airing on a nice hard saddle in the direction of Grimwith Abbey.

“Anything else?” says the head chambermaid.

“Only one more favour,” says I. “Would my boy Tom be very much in the way if he came, from now till ten, to help with the boots and shoes, and stood at his work close by this window which looks out on the staircase?”

“Not a bit,” says the head chambermaid.

“Thank you,” says I; and stepped back to my office directly.

When I had sent Tom off to help with the boots and shoes, I reviewed the whole case exactly as it stood at that time.

There were three things Mr. Davager might do with the letter. He might give it to his friend again before ten – in which case Tom would most likely see the said friend on the stairs. He might take it to his friend, or to some other friend, after ten – in which case Tom was ready to follow him on Sam the pony. And, lastly, he might leave it hidden somewhere in his room at the inn – in which case I was all ready for him with a search-warrant of my own granting, under favour always of my friend the head chambermaid. So far I had my business arrangements all gathered up nice and compact in my own hands. Only two things bothered me; the terrible shortness of the time at my disposal, in case I failed in my first experiments, for getting hold of the letter, and that queer inscription which I had copied out of the pocketbook:

“MEM. 5 ALONG. 4 ACROSS.”

It was the measurement most likely of something, and he was afraid of forgetting it; therefore it was something important. Query – something about himself? Say “5” (inches) “along” – he doesn’t wear a wig. Say “5” (feet) “along” – it can’t be coat, waistcoat, trousers, or underclothing. Say “5” (yards) “along” – it can’t be anything about himself, unless he wears round his body the rope that he’s sure to be hanged with one of these days. Then it is not something about himself. What do I know of that is important to him besides? I know of nothing but the Letter. Can the memorandum be connected with that? Say, yes. What do “5 along” and “4 across” mean, then? The measurement of something he carries about with him? or the measurement of something in his room? I could get pretty satisfactorily to myself as far as that; but I could get no further.

Tom came back to the office, and reported him mounted for his ride. His friend had never appeared. I sent the boy off, with his proper instructions, on Sam’s back – wrote an encouraging letter to Mr. Frank to keep him quiet – then slipped into the inn by the back way a little before half-past ten. The head chambermaid gave me a signal when the landing was clear. I got into his room without a soul but her seeing me, and locked the door immediately.

The case was, to a certain extent, simplified now. Either Mr. Davager had ridden out with the letter about him, or he had left it in some safe hiding-place in his room. I suspected it to be in his room, for a reason that will a little astonish you – his trunk, his dressing-case, and all the drawers and cupboards, were left open. I knew my customer, and I thought this extraordinary carelessness on his part rather suspicious.

Mr. Davager had taken one of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe Arms. Floor carpeted all over, walls beautifully papered, four-poster, and general furniture first-rate. I searched, to begin with, on the usual plan, examining everything in every possible way, and taking more than an hour about it. No discovery. Then I pulled out a carpenter’s rule which I had brought with me. Was there anything in the room which – either in inches, feet, or yards – answered to “5 along” and “4 across”? Nothing. I put the rule back in my pocket – measurement was no good, evidently. Was there anything in the room that would count up to 5 one way and 4 another, seeing that nothing would measure up to it? I had got obstinately persuaded by this time that the letter must be in the room – principally because of the trouble I had had in looking after it. And persuading myself of that, I took it into my head next, just as obstinately, that “5 along” and “4 across” must be the right clew to find the letter by – principally because I hadn’t left myself, after all my searching and thinking, even so much as the ghost of another guide to go by. “Five along” – where could I count five along the room, in any part of it?

Not on the paper. The pattern there was pillars of trellis-work and flowers, enclosing a plain green ground – only four pillars along the wall and only two across. The furniture? There were not five chairs or five separate pieces of any furniture in the room altogether. The fringes that hung from the cornice of the bed? Plenty of them, at any rate! Up I jumped on the counterpane, with my pen-knife in my hand. Every way that “5 along” and “4 across” could be reckoned on those unlucky fringes I reckoned on them – probed with my penknife – scratched with my nails – crunched with my fingers. No use; not a sign of a letter; and the time was getting on – oh, Lord! how the time did get on in Mr. Davager’s room that morning.

I jumped down from the bed, so desperate at my ill luck that I hardly cared whether anybody heard me or not. Quite a little cloud of dust rose at my feet as they thumped on the carpet.

“Hullo!” thought I, “my friend the head chambermaid takes it easy here. Nice state for a carpet to be in, in one of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe Arms.” Carpet! I had been jumping up on the bed, and staring up at the walls, but I had never so much as given a glance down at the carpet. Think of me pretending to be a lawyer, and not knowing how to look low enough!

The carpet! It had been a stout article in its time, had evidently began in a drawing-room; then descended to a coffee-room; then gone upstairs altogether to a bedroom. The ground was brown, and the pattern was bunches of leaves and roses speckled over the ground at regular distances. I reckoned up the bunches. Ten along the room – eight across it. When I had stepped out five one way and four the other, and was down on my knees on the centre bunch, as true as I sit on this chair I could hear my own heart beating so loud that it quite frightened me.

I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and I felt all over it with the ends of my fingers, and nothing came of that. Then I scraped it over slowly and gently with my nails. My second fingernail stuck a little at one place. I parted the pile of the carpet over that place, and saw a thin slit which had been hidden by the pile being smoothed over it – a slit about half an inch long, with a little end of brown thread, exactly the colour of the carpet ground, sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the middle of it. Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I heard a footstep outside the door.

It was only the head chambermaid. “Haven’t you done yet?” she whispers.

“Give me two minutes,” says I, “and don’t let anybody come near the door – whatever you do, don’t let anybody startle me again by coming near the door.”

I took a little pull at the thread, and heard something rustle. I took a longer pull, and out came a piece of paper, rolled up tight like those candle-lighters that the ladies make. I unrolled it – and, by George! there was the letter!

The original letter! I knew it by the colour of the ink. The letter that was worth five hundred pounds to me! It was all that I could do to keep myself at first from throwing my hat into the air, and hurrahing like mad. I had to take a chair and sit quiet in it for a minute or two, before I could cool myself down to my proper business level. I knew that I was safely down again when I found myself pondering how to let Mr. Davager know that he had been done by the innocent country attorney, after all.

It was not long before a nice little irritating plan occurred to me. I tore a blank leaf out of my pocketbook, wrote on it with my pencil, “Change for a five-hundred-pound note,” folded up the paper, tied the thread to it, poked it back into the hiding-place, smoothed over the pile of the carpet, and then bolted off to Mr. Frank. He in his turn bolted off to show the letter to the young lady, who first certified to its genuineness, then dropped it into the fire, and then took the initiative for the first time since her marriage engagement, by flinging her arms round his neck, kissing him with all her might, and going into hysterics in his arms. So at least Mr. Frank told me, but that’s not evidence. It is evidence, however, that I saw them married with my own eyes on the Wednesday; and that while they went off in a carriage-and-four to spend the honeymoon, I went off on my own legs to open a credit at the Town and County Bank with a five-hundred-pound note in my pocket.

As to Mr. Davager, I can tell you nothing more about him, except what is derived from hearsay evidence, which is always unsatisfactory evidence, even in a lawyer’s mouth.

My inestimable boy, Tom, although twice kicked off by Sam the pony, never lost hold of the bridle, and kept his man in sight from first to last. He had nothing particular to report except that on the way out to the Abbey Mr. Davager had stopped at the public-house, had spoken a word or two to his friend of the night before, and had handed him what looked like a bit of paper. This was no doubt a clew to the thread that held the letter, to be used in case of accidents. In every other respect Mr. D. had ridden out and ridden in like an ordinary sightseer. Tom reported him to me as having dismounted at the hotel about two. At half-past I locked my office door, nailed a card under the knocker with “not at home till tomorrow” written on it, and retired to a friend’s house a mile or so out of the town for the rest of the day.

Mr. Davager, I have been since given to understand, left the Gatliffe Arms that same night with his best clothes on his back, and with all the valuable contents of his dressing-case in his pockets. I am not in a condition to state whether he ever went through the form of asking for his bill or not; but I can positively testify that he never paid it, and that the effects left in his bedroom did not pay it either. When I add to these fragments of evidence that he and I have never met (luckily for me, you will say) since I jockeyed him out of his banknote, I have about fulfilled my implied contract as maker of a statement with you, sir, as hearer of a statement. Observe the expression, will you? I said it was a Statement before I began; and I say it’s a Statement now I’ve done. I defy you to prove it’s a Story! How are you getting on with my portrait? I like you very well, Mr. Artist; but if you have been taking advantage of my talking to shirk your work, as sure as you’re alive I’ll split upon you to the Town Council!

•   •   •

I attended a great many times at my queer sitter’s house before his likeness was completed. To the last he was dissatisfied with the progress I made. Fortunately for me, the Town Council approved of the portrait when it was done. Mr. Boxsious, however, objected to them as being much too easy to please. He did not dispute the fidelity of the likeness, but he asserted that I had not covered the canvas with half paint enough for my money. To this day (for he is still alive), he describes me to all inquiring friends as “The Painter-Man who jockeyed the Town Council.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

PROLOGUE TO
THE THIRD STORY

It was a sad day for me when Mr. Lanfray, of Rockleigh Place, discovering that his youngest daughter’s health required a warm climate, removed from his English establishment to the South of France. Roving from place to place, as I am obliged to do, though I make many acquaintances, I keep but few friends. The nature of my calling is, I am quite aware, mainly answerable for this. People cannot be blamed for forgetting a man who, on leaving their houses, never can tell them for certain when he is likely to be in their neighbourhood again.

Mr. Lanfray was one of the few exceptional persons who always remembered me. I have proofs of his friendly interest in my welfare in the shape of letters which I treasure with grateful care. The last of these is an invitation to his house in the South of France. There is little chance at present of my being able to profit by his kindness; but I like to read his invitation from time to time, for it makes me fancy, in my happier moments, that I may one day really be able to accept it.

My introduction to this gentleman, in my capacity of portrait-painter, did not promise much for me in a professional point of view. I was invited to Rockleigh – or to “The Place,” as it was more frequently called among the people of the county – to take a likeness in water-colours, on a small scale, of the French governess who lived with Mr. Lanfray’s daughters. My first idea on hearing of this was, that the governess was about to leave her situation, and that her pupils wished to have a memorial of her in the shape of a portrait. Subsequent inquiry, however, informed me that I was in error. It was the eldest of Mr. Lanfray’s daughters, who was on the point of leaving the house to accompany her husband to India; and it was for her that the portrait had been ordered as a home remembrance of her best and dearest friend. Besides these particulars, I discovered that the governess, though still called “mademoiselle,” was an old lady; that Mr. Lanfray had been introduced to her many years since in France, after the death of his wife; that she was absolute mistress in the house; and that her three pupils had always looked up to her as a second mother, from the time when their father first placed them under her charge.

These scraps of information made me rather anxious to see Mademoiselle Clairfait, the governess.

On the day appointed for my attendance at the comfortable country house of Rockleigh, I was detained on the road, and did not arrive at my destination until late in the evening. The welcome accorded to me by Mr. Lanfray gave an earnest of the unvarying kindness that I was to experience at his hands in later life. I was received at once on equal terms, as if I had been a friend of the family, and was presented the same evening to my host’s daughters. They were not merely three elegant and attractive young women, but – what means much more than that – three admirable subjects for pictures, the bride particularly. Her young husband did not strike me much at first sight; he seemed rather shy and silent. After I had been introduced to him, I looked round for Mademoiselle Clairfait, but she was not present; and I was soon afterward informed by Mr. Lanfray that she always spent the latter part of the evening in her own room.

At the breakfast-table the next morning, I again looked for my sitter, and once more in vain. “Mamma, as we call her,” said one of the ladies, “is dressing expressly for her picture, Mr. Kerby. I hope you are not above painting silk, lace, and jewellery. The dear old lady, who is perfection in everything else, is perfection also in dress, and is bent on being painted in all her splendour.”

This explanation prepared me for something extraordinary; but I found that my anticipations had fallen far below the reality when Mademoiselle Clairfait at last made her appearance, and announced that she was ready to sit for her portrait.

Never before or since have I seen such perfect dressing and such active old age in combination. “Mademoiselle” was short and thin; her face was perfectly white all over, the skin being puckered up in an infinite variety of the smallest possible wrinkles. Her bright black eyes were perfect marvels of youthfulness and vivacity. They sparkled, and beamed, and ogled, and moved about over everybody and everything at such a rate, that the plain grey hair above them looked unnaturally venerable, and the wrinkles below an artful piece of masquerade to represent old age. As for her dress, I remember few harder pieces of work than the painting of it. She wore a silver-grey silk gown that seemed always flashing out into some new light whenever she moved. It was as stiff as a board, and rustled like the wind. Her head, neck, and bosom were enveloped in clouds of the airiest-looking lace I ever saw, disposed about each part of her with the most exquisite grace and propriety, and glistening at all sorts of unexpected places with little fairy-like toys in gold and precious stones. On her right wrist she wore three small bracelets, with the hair of her three pupils worked into them; and on her left, one large bracelet with a miniature let in over the clasp. She had a dark crimson and gold scarf thrown coquettishly over her shoulders, and held a lovely little feather-fan in her hand. When she first presented herself before me in this costume, with a brisk courtesy and a bright smile, filling the room with perfume, and gracefully flirting the feather-fan, I lost all confidence in my powers as a portrait-painter immediately. The brightest colours in my box looked dowdy and dim, and I myself felt like an unwashed, unbrushed, unpresentable sloven.

“Tell me, my angels,” said mademoiselle, apostrophizing her pupils in the prettiest foreign English, “am I the cream of all creams this morning? Do I carry my sixty years resplendently? Will the savages in India, when my own love exhibits my picture among them, say, ‘Ah! smart! smart! this was a great dandy?’ And the gentleman, the skillful artist, whom it is even more an honour than a happiness to meet, does he approve of me for a model? Does he find me pretty and paintable from top to toe?” Here she dropped me another brisk courtesy, placed herself in a languishing position in the sitter’s chair, and asked us all if she looked like a shepherdess in Dresden china.

The young ladies burst out laughing, and mademoiselle, as gay as any of them and a great deal shriller, joined in the merriment. Never before had I contended with any sitter half as restless as that wonderful old lady. No sooner had I begun than she jumped out of the chair, and exclaiming, “Grand Dieu! I have forgotten to embrace my angels this morning,” ran up to her pupils, raised herself on tiptoe before them in quick succession, put the two first fingers of each hand under their ears, kissed them lightly on both cheeks, and was back again in the chair before an English governess could have said, “Good-morning, my dears, I hope you all slept well last night.”

I began again. Up jumped mademoiselle for the second time, and tripped across the room to a cheval-glass. “No!” I heard her say to herself, “I have not discomposed my head in kissing my angels. I may come back and pose for my picture.”

Back she came. I worked from her for five minutes at the most. “Stop!” cries mademoiselle, jumping up for the third time; “I must see how this skillful artist is getting on. Grand Dieu! why he has done nothing!”

For the fourth time I began, and for the fourth time the old lady started out of her chair. “Now I must repose myself,” said mademoiselle, walking lightly from end to end of the room, and humming a French air, by way of taking a rest.

I was at my wit’s end, and the young ladies saw it. They all surrounded my unmanageable sitter, and appealed to her compassion for me. “Certainly!” said mademoiselle, expressing astonishment by flinging up both her hands with all the fingers spread out in the air. “But why apostrophize me thus? I am here, I am ready, I am at the service of this skillful artist. Why apostrophize me?”

A fortunate chance question of mine steadied her for some time. I inquired if I was expected to draw the whole of my sitter’s figure as well as her face. Mademoiselle replied by a comic scream of indignation. If I was the brave and gifted man for whom she took me, I ought to be ready to perish rather than leave out an inch of her anywhere. Dress was her passion, and it would be an outrage on her sentiments if I did not do full justice to everything she had on – to her robe, to her lace, to her scarf, to her fan, to her rings, her jewels, and, above all, to her bracelets. I groaned in spirit at the task before me, but made my best bow of acquiescence. Mademoiselle was not to be satisfied by a mere bow; she desired the pleasure of specially directing my attention, if I would be so amiable as to get up and approach her, to one of her bracelets in particular – the bracelet with the miniature, on her left wrist. It had been the gift of the dearest friend she ever had, and the miniature represented that friend’s beloved and beautiful face. Could I make a tiny, tiny copy of that likeness in my drawing! Would I only be so obliging as to approach for one little moment, and see if such a thing were possible?

I obeyed unwillingly enough, expecting, from mademoiselle’s expression, to see a commonplace portrait of some unfortunate admirer whom she had treated with unmerited severity in the days of her youth. To my astonishment, I found that the miniature, which was very beautifully painted, represented a woman’s face – a young woman with kind, sad eyes, pale, delicate cheeks, light hair, and such a pure, tender, lovely expressions that I thought of Raphael’s Madonnas the moment I looked at her portrait.

The old lady observed the impression which the miniature produced on me, and nodded her head in silence. “What a beautiful, innocent, pure face!” I said.

Mademoiselle Clairfait gently brushed a particle of dust from the miniature with her handkerchief, and kissed it. “I have three angels still left,” she said, looking at her pupils. “They console me for the fourth, who has gone to heaven.”

She patted the face on the miniature gently with her little, withered, white fingers, as if it had been a living thing. “Sister Rose!” she sighed to herself; then, looking up again at me, said, “I should like it put into my portrait, sir, because I have always worn it since I was a young woman, for ‘Sister Rose’s’ sake.”

The sudden change in her manner, from the extreme of flighty gaiety to the extreme of quiet sadness, would have looked theatrical in a woman of any other nation. It seemed, however, perfectly natural and appropriate in her. I went back to my drawing, rather perplexed. Who was “Sister Rose”? Not one of the Lanfray family, apparently. The composure of the young ladies when the name was mentioned showed plainly enough that the original of the miniature had been no relation of theirs.

I tried to stifle my curiosity on the subject of Sister Rose, by giving myself entirely to my work. For a full half-hour, Mademoiselle Clairfait sat quietly before me, with her hands crossed on her lap, and her eyes fixed on the bracelet. This happy alteration enabled me to do something toward completing the outline of her face and figure. I might even, under fortunate circumstances, have vanquished the preliminary difficulties of my task at one effort; but the fates were against me that day. While I was still working rapidly and to my satisfaction, a servant knocked at the door to announce luncheon, and mademoiselle lightly roused herself from her serious reflection and her quiet position in a moment.

“Ah me!” she said, turning the miniature round on her wrist till it was out of sight. “What animals we are, after all! The spiritual part of us is at the mercy of the stomach. My heart is absorbed by tender thoughts, yet I am not the less ready for luncheon! Come, my children and fellow-mortals. Allons cultiver notre jardin!”

With this quotation from “Candide,” plaintively delivered, the old lady led the way out of the room, and was followed by her younger pupils. The eldest sister remained behind for a moment, and reminded me that the lunch was ready.

“I am afraid you have found the dear old soul rather an unruly sitter,” she said, noticing the look of dissatisfaction with which I was regarding my drawing. “But she will improve as you go on. She has done better already for the last half-hour, has she not?”

“Much better,” I answered. “My admiration of the miniature on the bracelet seemed – I suppose, by calling up some old associations – to have a strangely soothing effect on Mademoiselle Clairfait.”

“Ah yes! only remind her of the original of that portrait, and you change her directly, whatever she may have been saying or doing the moment before. Sometimes she talks of Sister Rose, and of all that she went through in the time of the French Revolution, by the hour together. It is wonderfully interesting – at least we all think so.”

“I presume that the lady described as ‘Sister Rose’ was a relation of Mademoiselle Clairfait’s?”

“No, only a very dear friend. Mademoiselle Clairfait is the daughter of a silk-mercer, once established at Chalons-sur-Marne. Her father happened to give an asylum in his office to a lonely old man, to whom ‘Sister Rose’ and her brother had been greatly indebted in the revolutionary time; and out of a train of circumstances connected with that, the first acquaintance between mademoiselle and the friend whose portrait she wears, arose. After the time of her father’s bankruptcy, and for many years before we were placed under her charge, our good old governess lived entirely with ‘Sister Rose’ and her brother. She must then have heard all the interesting things that she has since often repeated to my sisters and myself.”

“Might I suggest,” said I, after an instant’s consideration, “that the best way to give me a fair chance of studying Mademoiselle Clairfait’s face at the next sitting, would be to lead her thoughts again to that quieting subject of the miniature, and to the events which the portrait recalls? It is really the only plan, after what I have observed this morning, that I can think of for enabling me to do myself and my sitter justice.”

“I am delighted to hear you say so,” replied the lady; “for the execution of your plan, by me or by my sisters, will be the easiest thing in the world. A word from us at any time will set mademoiselle thinking, and talking too, of the friend of her youthful days. Depend on our assistance so far. And now let me show you the way to the luncheon-table.”

•   •   •

Two good results followed the ready rendering of the help I had asked from my host’s daughters. I succeeded with my portrait of Mademoiselle Clairfait, and I heard the story which occupies the following pages.

In the case of the preceding narratives, I have repeated what was related to me, as nearly as possible in the very words of my sitters. In the case of this third story, it is impossible for me to proceed upon the same plan. The circumstances of “Sister Rose’s” eventful history were narrated to me at different times, and in the most fragmentary and discursive manner. Mademoiselle Clairfait characteristically mixed up with the direct interest of her story, not only references to places and people which had no recognisable connection with it, but outbursts of passionate political declamation, on the extreme liberal side – to say nothing of little tender apostrophes to her beloved friend, which sounded very prettily as she spoke them, but which would lose their effect altogether by being transferred to paper. Under these circumstances, I have thought it best to tell the story in my own way – rigidly adhering to the events of it exactly as they were related; and never interfering on my own responsibility except to keep order in the march of the incidents, and to present them, to the best of my ability, variously as well as interestingly to the reader.

THE FRENCH GOVERNESS’ STORY:
SISTER ROSE

PART FIRST

•  I  •

“Well, Monsieur Guillaume, what is the news this evening?”

“None that I know of, Monsieur Justin, except that Mademoiselle Rose is to be married tomorrow.”

“Much obliged, my respectable old friend, for so interesting and unexpected a reply to my question. Considering that I am the valet of Monsieur Danville, who plays the distinguished part of bridegroom in the little wedding comedy to which you refer, I think I may assure you, without offence, that your news is, so far as I am concerned, of the stalest possible kind. Take a pinch of snuff, Monsieur Guillaume, and excuse me if I inform you that my question referred to public news, and not to the private affairs of the two families whose household interests we have the pleasure of promoting.”

“I don’t understand what you mean by such a phrase as promoting household interests, Monsieur Justin. I am the servant of Monsieur Louis Trudaine, who lives here with his sister, Mademoiselle Rose. You are the servant of Monsieur Danville, whose excellent mother has made up the match for him with my young lady. As servants, both of us, the pleasantest news we can have any concern with is news that is connected with the happiness of our masters. I have nothing to do with public affairs; and, being one of the old school, I make it my main object in life to mind my own business. If our homely domestic politics have no interests for you, allow me to express my regret, and to wish you a very good-evening.”

“Pardon me, my dear sir, I have not the slightest respect for the old school, or the least sympathy with people who only mind their own business. However, I accept your expressions of regret; I reciprocate your ‘Good-evening’; and I trust to find you improved in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have the honour of meeting you. Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and! Vive la bagatelle!”

These scraps of dialogue were interchanged on a lovely summer evening in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, before the back door of a small house which stood on the banks of the Seine, about three miles westward of the city of Rouen. The one speaker was lean, old, crabbed and slovenly; the other was plump, young, oily-mannered and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of the period. The last days of genuine dandyism were then rapidly approaching all over the civilized world; and Monsieur Justin was, in his own way, dressed to perfection, as a living illustration of the expiring glories of his epoch.

After the old servant had left him, he occupied himself for a few minutes in contemplating, superciliously enough, the back view of the little house before which he stood. Judging by the windows, it did not contain more than six or eight rooms in all. Instead of stables and outhouses, there was a conservatory attached to the building on one side, and a low, long room, built of wood, gaily painted, on the other. One of the windows of this room was left uncurtained and through it could be seen, on a sort of dresser inside, bottles filled with strangely-coloured liquids oddly-shaped utensils of brass and copper, one end of a large furnace, and other objects, which plainly proclaimed that the apartment was used as a chemical laboratory.

“Think of our bride’s brother amusing himself in such a place as that with cooking drugs in saucepans,” muttered Monsieur Justin, peeping into the room. “I am the least particular man in the universe, but I must say I wish we were not going to be connected by marriage with an amateur apothecary. Pah! I can smell the place through the window.”

With these words Monsieur Justin turned his back on the laboratory in disgust, and sauntered toward the cliffs overhanging the river.

Leaving the garden attached to the house, he ascended some gently rising ground by a winding path. Arrived at the summit, the whole view of the Seine, with its lovely green islands, its banks fringed with trees, its gliding boats, and little scattered water-side cottages, opened before him. Westward, where the level country appeared beyond the further bank of the river, the landscape was all aglow with the crimson of the setting sun. Eastward, the long shadows and mellow intervening lights, the red glory that quivered on the rippling water, the steady ruby fire glowing on cottage windows that reflected the level sunlight, led the eye onward and onward, along the windings of the Seine, until it rested upon the spires, towers, and broadly-massed houses of Rouen, with the wooded hills rising beyond them for background. Lovely to look on at any time, the view was almost supernaturally beautiful now under the gorgeous evening light that glowed up in it. All its attractions, however, were lost on the valet; he stood yawning with his hands in his pockets, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but staring straight before him at a little hollow, beyond which the ground sloped away smoothly to the brink of the cliff. A bench was placed here, and three persons – an old lady, a gentleman, and a young girl – were seated on it, watching the sunset, and by consequence turning their backs on Monsieur Justin. Near them stood two gentlemen, also looking toward the river and the distant view. These five figures attracted the valet’s attention, to the exclusion of every other object around him.

“There they are still,” he said to himself, discontentedly. “Madame Danville in the same place on the seat; my master, the bridegroom, dutifully next to her; Mademoiselle Rose, the bride, bashfully next to him; Monsieur Trudaine, the amateur apothecary brother, affectionately next to her; and Monsieur Lomaque, our queer land-steward, officially in waiting on the whole party. There they all are indeed, incomprehensibly wasting their time still in looking at nothing! Yes,” continued Monsieur Justin, lifting his eyes wearily, and staring hard, first up the river at Rouen, then down the river at the setting sun; “yes, plague take them! looking at nothing, absolutely and positively at nothing, all this while.”

Here Monsieur Justin yawned again, and, returning to the garden, sat himself down in an arbour and resignedly went to sleep.

If the valet had ventured near the five persons whom he had been apostrophizing from a distance, and if he had been possessed of some little refinement of observation, he could hardly have failed to remark that the bride and bridegroom of the morrow, and their companions on either side, were all, in a greater or less degree, under the influence of some secret restraint, which affected their conversation, their gestures, and even the expression of their faces. Madame Danville – a handsome, richly-dressed old lady, with very bright eyes, and a quick, suspicious manner – looked composedly and happily enough, as long as her attention was fixed on her son. But when she turned from him toward the bride, a hardly perceptible uneasiness passed over her face – an uneasiness which only deepened to positive distrust and dissatisfaction whenever she looked toward Mademoiselle Trudaine’s brother. In the same way, her son, who was all smiles and happiness while he was speaking with his future wife, altered visibly in manner and look exactly as his mother altered, whenever the presence of Monsieur Trudaine specially impressed itself on his attention. Then, again, Lomaque, the land-steward – quiet, sharp, skinny Lomaque, with the submissive manner, and the red-rimmed eyes – never looked up at his master’s future brother-in-law without looking away again rather uneasily, and thoughtfully drilling holes in the grass with his long sharp-pointed cane. Even the bride herself – the pretty, innocent girl, with her childish shyness of manner – seemed to be affected like the others. Doubt, if not distress, overshadowed her face from time to time, and the hand which her lover held trembled a little, and grew restless, when she accidentally caught her brother’s eye.

Strangely enough there was nothing to repel, but, on the contrary, everything to attract in the look and manner of the person whose mere presence seemed to exercise such a curiously constraining influence over the wedding-party. Louis Trudaine was a remarkably handsome man. His expression was singularly kind and gentle; his manner irresistibly winning in its frank, manly firmness and composure. His words, when he occasionally spoke, seemed as unlikely to give offence as his looks; for he only opened his lips in courteous reply to questions directly addressed to him. Judging by a latent mournfulness in the tones of his voice, and by the sorrowful tenderness which clouded his kind, earnest eyes whenever they rested on his sister, his thoughts were certainly not of the happy or the hopeful kind. But he gave them no direct expression; he intruded his secret sadness, whatever it might be, on no one of his companions. Nevertheless, modest and self-restrained as he was, there was evidently some reproving or saddening influence in his presence which affected the spirits of everyone near him, and darkened the eve of the wedding to bride and bridegroom alike.

As the sun slowly sank in the heavens, the conversation flagged more and more. After a long silence, the bridegroom was the first to start a new subject.

“Rose, love,” he said, “that magnificent sunset is a good omen for our marriage; it promises another lovely day tomorrow.”

The bride laughed and blushed.

“Do you really believe in omens, Charles?” she said.

“My dear,” interposed the old lady, before her son could answer, “if Charles does believe in omens, it is nothing to laugh at. You will soon know better, when you are his wife, than to confound him, even in the slightest things, with the common herd of people. All his convictions are well founded – so well, that if I thought he really did believe in omens, I should most assuredly make up my mind to believe in them too.”

“I beg your pardon, madame,” Rose began, tremulously, “I only meant—”

“My dear child, have you so little knowledge of the world as to suppose that I could be offended—”

“Let Rose speak,” said the young man.

He turned round petulantly, almost with the air of a spoiled child, to his mother, as he said those words. She had been looking fondly and proudly on him the moment before. Now her eyes wandered disconcertedly from his face; she hesitated an instant with a sudden confusion which seemed quite foreign to her character, then whispered in his ear,

“Am I to blame, Charles, for trying to make her worthy of you?”

Her son took no notice of the question. He only reiterated sharply, “Let Rose speak.”

“I really had nothing to say,” faltered the young girl, growing more and more confused.

“Oh, but you had!”

There was such an ungracious sharpness in his voice, such an outburst of petulance in his manner as he spoke, that his mother gave him a warning touch on the arm, and whispered “Hush!”

Monsieur Lomaque, the land-steward, and Monsieur Trudaine, the brother, both glanced searchingly at the bride, as the words passed the bridegroom’s lips. She seemed to be frightened and astonished, rather than irritated or hurt. A curious smile puckered up Lomaque’s lean face, as he looked demurely down on the ground, and began drilling a fresh hole in the turf with the sharp point of his cane. Trudaine turned aside quickly, and, sighing, walked away a few paces; then came back, and seemed about to speak, but Danville interrupted him.

“Pardon me, Rose,” he said; “I am so jealous of even the appearance of any want of attention toward you, that I was nearly allowing myself to be irritated about nothing.”

He kissed her hand very gracefully and tenderly as he made his excuse; but there was a latent expression in his eye which was at variance with the apparent spirit of his action. It was noticed by nobody but observant and submissive Monsieur Lomaque, who smiled to himself again, and drilled harder than ever at his hole in the grass.

“I think Monsieur Trudaine was about to speak,” said Madame Danville. “Perhaps he will have no objection to let us hear what he was going to say.”

“None, madame,” replied Trudaine, politely. “I was about to take upon myself the blame of Rose’s want of respect for believers in omens, by confessing that I have always encouraged her to laugh at superstitions of every kind.”

“You a ridiculer of superstitions?” said Danville, turning quickly on him. “You, who have built a laboratory; you, who are an amateur professor of the occult arts of chemistry – a seeker after the Elixir of Life. On my word of honour, you astonish me!”

There was an ironical politeness in his voice, look, and manner as he said this, which his mother and his land-steward, Monsieur Lomaque, evidently knew how to interpret. The first touched his arm again and whispered, “Be careful!” the second suddenly grew serious, and left off drilling his hole in the grass. Rose neither heard the warning of Madame Danville, nor noticed the alteration in Lomaque. She was looking round at her brother, and was waiting with a bright, affectionate smile to hear his answer. He nodded, as if to reassure her, before he spoke again to Danville.

“You have rather romantic ideas about experiments in chemistry,” he said, quietly. “Mine have so little connection with what you call the occult arts that all the world might see them, if all the world thought it worth while. The only Elixirs of Life that I know of are a quiet heart and a contented mind. Both those I found, years and years ago, when Rose and I first came to live together in the house yonder.”

He spoke with a quiet sadness in his voice, which meant far more to his sister than the simple words he uttered. Her eyes filled with tears; she turned for a moment from her lover, and took her brother’s hand. “Don’t talk, Louis, as if you thought you were going to lose your sister, because—” Her lips began to tremble, and she stopped suddenly.

“More jealous than ever of your taking her away from him!” whispered Madame Danville in her son’s ear. “Hush! don’t, for God’s sake, take any notice of it,” she added, hurriedly, as he rose from the seat and faced Trudaine with undisguised irritation and impatience in his manner. Before he could speak, the old servant Guillaume made his appearance, and announced that coffee was ready. Madame Danville again said “Hush!” and quickly took one of his arms, while he offered the other to Rose. “Charles,” said the young girl, amazedly, “how flushed your face is, and how your arm trembles!”

He controlled himself in a moment, smiled, and said to her: “Can’t you guess why, Rose? I am thinking of tomorrow.” While he was speaking, he passed close by the land-steward, on his way back to the house with the ladies. The smile returned to Monsieur Lomaque’s lean face, and a curious light twinkled in his red-rimmed eyes as he began a fresh hole in the grass.

“Won’t you go indoors, and take some coffee?” asked Trudaine, touching the land-steward on the arm.

Monsieur Lomaque started a little and left his cane sticking in the ground. “A thousand thanks, monsieur,” he said; “may I be allowed to follow you?”

“I confess the beauty of the evening makes me a little unwilling to leave this place just yet.”

“Ah! the beauties of Nature – I feel them with you, Monsieur Trudaine; I feel them here.” Saying this, Lomaque laid one hand on his heart, and with the other pulled his stick out of the grass. He had looked as little at the landscape or the setting sun as Monsieur Justin himself.

They sat down, side by side, on the empty bench; and then there followed an awkward pause. Submissive Lomaque was too discreet to forget his place, and venture on starting a new topic. Trudaine was preoccupied, and disinclined to talk. It was necessary, however, in common politeness, to say something. Hardly attending himself to his own words, he began with a commonplace phrase: “I regret, Monsieur Lomaque, that we have not had more opportunities of bettering our acquaintance.”

“I feel deeply indebted,” rejoined the land-steward, “to the admirable Madame Danville for having chosen me as her escort hither from her son’s estate near Lyons, and having thereby procured for me the honour of this introduction.” Both Monsieur Lomaque’s red-rimmed eyes were seized with a sudden fit of winking, as he made this polite speech. His enemies were accustomed to say that, whenever he was particularly insincere, or particularly deceitful, he always took refuge in the weakness of his eyes, and so evaded the trying ordeal of being obliged to look steadily at the person whom he was speaking with.

“I was pleased to hear you mention my late father’s name, at dinner, in terms of high respect,” continued Trudaine, resolutely keeping up the conversation. “Did you know him?”

“I am indirectly indebted to your excellent father,” answered the land-steward, “for the very situation which I now hold. At a time when the good word of a man of substance and reputation was needed to save me from poverty and ruin, your father spoke that word. Since then I have, in my own very small way, succeeded in life, until I have risen to the honour of superintending the estate of Monsieur Danville.”

“Excuse me, but your way of speaking of your present situation rather surprises me. Your father, I believe, was a merchant, just as Danville’s father was a merchant; the only difference between them was that one failed and the other realized a large fortune. Why should you speak of yourself as honoured by holding your present place?”

“Have you never heard?” exclaimed Lomaque, with an appearance of great astonishment, “or can you have heard, and forgotten, that Madame Danville is descended from one of the noble houses of France? Has she never told you, as she has often told me, that she condescended when she married her late husband; and that her great object in life is to get the title of her family (years since extinct in the male line) settled on her son?”

“Yes,” replied Trudaine; “I remember to have heard something of this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time, having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe. You have lived many years in Danville’s service, Monsieur Lomaque; have you” – he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the land-steward full in the face – “have you found him a good and kind master?”

Lomaque’s thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the question, as if he were never going to speak again. He bowed – Trudaine waited – he only bowed again. Trudaine waited a third time. Lomaque looked at his host with perfect steadiness for an instant, then his eyes began to get weak again. “You seem to have some special interest,” he quietly remarked, “if I may say so without offence, in asking me that question.”

“I deal frankly, at all hazards, with everyone,” returned Trudaine; “and stranger as you are, I will deal frankly with you. I acknowledge that I have an interest in asking that question – the dearest, the tenderest of all interests.” At those last words, his voice trembled for a moment, but he went on firmly; “from the beginning of my sister’s engagement with Danville, I made it my duty not to conceal my own feelings; my conscience and my affection for Rose counselled me to be candid to the last, even though my candour should distress or offend others. When we first made the acquaintance of Madame Danville, and when I first discovered that her son’s attentions to Rose were not unfavourably received, I felt astonished, and, though it cost me a hard effort, I did not conceal that astonishment from my sister—”

Lomaque, who had hitherto been all attention, started here, and threw up his hands in amazement. “Astonished, did I hear you say? Astonished, Monsieur Trudaine, that the attentions of a young gentleman, possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of a highly-bred Frenchman, should be favourably received by a young lady! Astonished that such a dancer, such a singer, such a talker, such a notoriously fascinating ladies’ man as Monsieur Danville, should, by dint of respectful assiduity, succeed in making some impression on the heart of Mademoiselle Rose! Oh, Monsieur Trudaine, venerated Monsieur Trudaine, this is almost too much to credit!”

Lomaque’s eyes grew weaker than ever, and winked incessantly as he uttered this apostrophe. At the end, he threw up his hands again, and blinked inquiringly all round him, in mute appeal to universal nature.

“When, in the course of time, matters were further advanced,” continued Trudaine, without paying any attention to the interruption; “when the offer of marriage was made, and when I knew that Rose had in her own heart accepted it, I objected, and I did not conceal my objections—”

“Heavens!” interposed Lomaque again, clasping his hands this time with a look of bewilderment; “what objections, what possible objections to a man young and well-bred, with an immense fortune and an uncompromised character? I have heard of these objections; I know they have made bad blood; and I ask myself again and again, what can they be?”

“God knows I have often tried to dismiss them from my mind as fanciful and absurd,” said Trudaine, “and I have always failed. It is impossible, in your presence, that I can describe in detail what my own impressions have been, from the first, of the master whom you serve. Let it be enough if I confide to you that I cannot, even now, persuade myself of the sincerity of his attachment to my sister, and that I feel – in spite of myself, in spite of my earnest desire to put the most implicit confidence in Rose’s choice – a distrust of his character and temper, which now, on the eve of the marriage, amounts to positive terror. Long secret suffering, doubt, and suspense, wring this confession from me, Monsieur Lomaque, almost unawares, in defiance of caution, in defiance of all the conventionalities of society. You have lived for years under the same roof with this man; you have seen him in his most unguarded and private moments. I tempt you to betray no confidence – I only ask you if you can make me happy by telling me that I have been doing your master grievous injustice by my opinion of him? I ask you to take my hand, and tell me if you can, in all honour, that my sister is not risking the happiness of her whole life by giving herself in marriage to Danville tomorrow!”

He held out his hand while he spoke. By some strange chance, Lomaque happened just at that moment to be looking away toward those beauties of Nature which he admired so greatly. “Really, Monsieur Trudaine, really such an appeal from you, at such a time, amazes me.” Having got so far, he stopped and said no more.

“When we first sat down together here, I had no thought of making this appeal, no idea of talking to you as I have talked,” pursued the other. “My words have escaped me, as I told you, almost unawares; you must make allowances for them and for me. I cannot expect others, Monsieur Lomaque, to appreciate and understand my feelings for Rose. We two have lived alone in the world together; father, mother, kindred, they all died years since, and left us. I am so much older than my sister that I have learned to feel toward her more as a father than as a brother. All my life, all my dearest hopes, all my highest expectations, have centred in her. I was past the period of my boyhood when my mother put my little child sister’s hand in mine, and said to me on her deathbed: ‘Louis, be all to her that I have been, for she has no one left to look to but you.’ Since then the loves and ambitions of other men have not been my loves or my ambitions. Sister Rose – as we all used to call her in those past days, as I love to call her still – Sister Rose has been the one aim, the one happiness, the one precious trust, the one treasured reward, of all my life. I have lived in this poor house, in this dull retirement, as in a paradise, because Sister Rose – my innocent, happy, bright-faced Eve – has lived here with me. Even if the husband of her choice had been the husband of mine, the necessity of parting with her would have been the hardest, the bitterest of trials. As it is, thinking what I think, dreading what I dread, judge what my feelings must be on the eve of her marriage; and know why, and with what object, I made the appeal which surprised you a moment since, but which cannot surprise you now. Speak if you will – I can say no more.” He sighed bitterly; his head dropped on his breast, and the hand which he had extended to Lomaque trembled as he withdrew it and let it fall at his side.

The land-steward was not a man accustomed to hesitate, but he hesitated now. He was not usually at a loss for phrases in which to express himself, but he stammered at the very outset of his reply. “Suppose I answered,” he began, slowly; “suppose I told you that you wronged him, would my testimony really be strong enough to shake opinions, or rather presumptions, which have been taking firmer and firmer hold of you for months and months past? Suppose, on the other hand, that my master had his little” (Lomaque hesitated before he pronounced the next word) – “his little – infirmities, let me say; but only hypothetically, mind that – infirmities; and suppose I had observed them, and was willing to confide them to you, what purpose would such a confidence answer now, at the eleventh hour, with Mademoiselle Rose’s heart engaged, with the marriage fixed for tomorrow? No! no! trust me—”

Trudaine looked up suddenly. “I thank you for reminding me, Monsieur Lomaque, that it is too late now to make inquiries, and by consequence too late also to trust in others. My sister has chosen; and on the subject of that choice my lips shall be henceforth sealed. The events of the future are with God; whatever they may be, I hope I am strong enough to bear my part in them with the patience and the courage of a man! I apologize, Monsieur Lomaque, for having thoughtlessly embarrassed you by questions which I had no right to ask. Let us return to the house – I will show you the way.”

Lomaque’s lips opened, then closed again; he bowed uneasily, and his sallow complexion whitened for a moment.

Trudaine led the way in silence back to the house; the land-steward following slowly at a distance of several paces, and talking in whispers to himself. “His father was the saving of me,” muttered Lomaque; “that is truth, and there is no getting over it; his father was the saving of me; and yet here am I – no! it’s too late! – too late to speak – too late to act – too late to do anything!”

Close to the house they were met by the old servant.

“My young lady has just sent me to call you in to coffee, monsieur,” said Guillaume. “She has kept a cup hot for you, and another cup for Monsieur Lomaque.”

The land-steward started – this time with genuine astonishment. “For me!” he exclaimed. “Mademoiselle Rose has troubled herself to keep a cup of coffee hot for me?” The old servant stared; Trudaine stopped and looked back.

“What is there so very surprising,” he asked, “in such an ordinary act of politeness on my sister’s part?”

“Excuse me, Monsieur Trudaine,” answered Lomaque; “you have not passed such an existence as mine – you are not a friendless old man – you have a settled position in the world, and are used to be treated with consideration. I am not. This is the first occasion in my life on which I find myself an object for the attention of a young lady, and it takes me by surprise. I repeat my excuses; pray let us go in.”

Trudaine made no reply to this curious explanation. He wondered at it a little, however, and he wondered still more when, on entering the drawing-room, he saw Lomaque walk straight up to his sister, and – apparently not noticing that Danville was sitting at the harpsichord and singing at the time – address her confusedly and earnestly with a set speech of thanks for his hot cup of coffee. Rose looked perplexed, and half inclined to laugh, as she listened to him. Madame Danville, who sat by her side, frowned, and tapped the land-steward contemptuously on the arm with her fan.

“Be so good as to keep silent until my son has done singing,” she said. Lomaque made a low bow, and retiring to a table in a corner, took up a newspaper lying on it. If Madame Danville had seen the expression that came over his face when he turned away from her, proud as she was, her aristocratic composure might possibly have been a little ruffled.

Danville had finished his song, had quitted the harpsichord, and was talking in whispers to his bride; Madame Danville was adding a word to the conversation every now and then; Trudaine was seated apart at the far end of the room, thoughtfully reading a letter which he had taken from his pocket, when an exclamation from Lomaque, who was still engaged with the newspaper, caused all the other occupants of the apartment to suspend their employments and look up.

“What is it?” asked Danville, impatiently.

“Shall I be interrupting if I explain?” inquired Lomaque, getting very weak in the eyes again, as he deferentially addressed himself to Madame Danville.

“You have already interrupted us,” said the old lady, sharply; “so you may now just as well explain.”

“It is a passage from the Scientific Intelligence which has given me great delight, and which will be joyful news for everyone here.” Saying this, Lomaque looked significantly at Trudaine, and then read from the newspaper these lines:

“ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PARIS. – The vacant sub-professorship of chemistry has been offered, we are rejoiced to hear, to a gentleman whose modesty has hitherto prevented his scientific merits from becoming sufficiently prominent in the world. To the members of the academy he has been long since known as the originator of some of the most remarkable improvements in chemistry which have been made of late years – improvements, the credit of which he has, with rare, and we were almost about to add, culpable moderation, allowed others to profit by with impunity. No man in any profession is more thoroughly entitled to have a position of trust and distinction conferred on him by the State than the gentleman to whom we refer – M. Louis Trudaine.”

Before Lomaque could look up from the paper to observe the impression which his news produced, Rose had gained her brother’s side and was kissing him in a flutter of delight.

“Dear Louis,” she cried, clapping her hands, “let me be the first to congratulate you! How proud and glad I am! You accept the professorship, of course?”

Trudaine, who had hastily and confusedly put his letter back in his pocket the moment Lomaque began to read, seemed at a loss for an answer. He patted his sister’s hand rather absently, and said:

“I have not made up my mind; don’t ask me why, Rose – at least not now, not just now.” An expression of perplexity and distress came over his face, as he gently motioned her to resume her chair.

“Pray, is a sub-professor of chemistry supposed to hold the rank of a gentleman?” asked Madame Danville, without the slightest appearance of any special interest in Lomaque’s news.

“Of course not,” replied her son, with a sarcastic laugh; “he is expected to work and make himself useful. What gentleman does that?”

“Charles!” exclaimed the old lady, reddening with anger.

“Bah!” cried Danville, turning his back on her, “enough of chemistry. Lomaque, now you have begun reading the newspaper, try if you can’t find something interesting to read about. What are the last accounts from Paris? Any more symptoms of a general revolt?”

Lomaque turned to another part of the paper. “Bad, very bad prospects for the restoration of tranquillity,” he said. “Necker, the people’s Minister, is dismissed. Placards against popular gatherings are posted all over Paris. The Swiss Guards have been ordered to the Champs Elysees, with four pieces of artillery. No more is yet known, but the worst is dreaded. The breach between the aristocracy and the people is widening fatally almost hour by hour.”

Here he stopped and laid down the newspaper. Trudaine took it from him, and shook his head forebodingly as he looked over the paragraph which had just been read.

“Bah!” cried Madame Danville. “The People, indeed! Let those four pieces of artillery be properly loaded, let the Swiss Guards do their duty, and we shall hear no more of the People!”

“I advise you not to be sure of that,” said her son, carelessly; “there are rather too many people in Paris for the Swiss Guards to shoot conveniently. Don’t hold your head too aristocratically high, mother, till we are quite certain which way the wind really does blow. Who knows if I may not have to bow just as low one of these days to King Mob as ever you courtesied in your youth to King Louis the Fifteenth?”

He laughed complacently as he ended, and opened his snuffbox. His mother rose from her chair, her face crimson with indignation.

“I won’t hear you talk so – it shocks, it horrifies me!” she exclaimed, with vehement gesticulation. “No, no! I decline to hear another word. I decline to sit by patiently while my son, whom I love, jests at the most sacred principles, and sneers at the memory of an anointed king. This is my reward, is it, for having yielded and having come here, against all the laws of etiquette, the night before the marriage? I comply no longer; I resume my own will and my own way. I order you, my son, to accompany me back to Rouen. We are the bridegroom’s party, and we have no business overnight at the house of the bride. You meet no more till you meet at the church. Justin, my coach! Lomaque, pick up my hood. Monsieur Trudaine, thanks for your hospitality; I shall hope to return it with interest the first time you are in our neighbourhood. Mademoiselle, put on your best looks tomorrow, along with your wedding finery; remember that my son’s bride must do honour to my son’s taste. Justin! my coach – drone, vagabond, idiot, where is my coach?”

“My mother looks handsome when she is in a passion, does she not, Rose?” said Danville, quietly putting up his snuffbox as the old lady sailed out of the room. “Why, you seem quite frightened, love,” he added, taking her hand with his easy, graceful air; “frightened, let me assure you, without the least cause. My mother has but that one prejudice, and that one weak point, Rose. You will find her a very dove for gentleness, as long as you do not wound her pride of caste. Come, come, on this night, of all others, you must not send me away with such a face as that.”

He bent down and whispered to her a bridegroom’s compliment, which brought the blood back to her cheek in an instant.

“Ah, how she loves him – how dearly she loves him!” thought her brother, watching her from his solitary corner of the room, and seeing the smile that brightened her blushing face when Danville kissed her hand at parting.

Lomaque, who had remained imperturbably cool during the outbreak of the old lady’s anger – Lomaque, whose observant eyes had watched sarcastically the effect of the scene between mother and son on Trudaine and his sister, was the last to take leave. After he had bowed to Rose with a certain gentleness in his manner, which contrasted strangely with his wrinkled, haggard face, he held out his hand to her brother “I did not take your hand when we sat together on the bench,” he said; “may I take it now?”

Trudaine met his advance courteously, but in silence. “You may alter your opinion of me one of these days.” Adding those words in a whisper, Monsieur Lomaque bowed once more to the bride and went out.

For a few minutes after the door had closed the brother and sister kept silence. “Our last night together at home!” That was the thought which now filled the heart of each. Rose was the first to speak. Hesitating a little as she approached her brother, she said to him, anxiously:

“I am sorry for what happened with Madame Danville, Louis. Does it make you think the worse of Charles?”

“I can make allowance for Madame Danville’s anger,” returned Trudaine, evasively, “because she spoke from honest conviction.”

“Honest?” echoed Rose, sadly, “honest? – ah, Louis! I know you are thinking disparagingly of Charles’s convictions, when you speak so of his mother’s.”

Trudaine smiled and shook his head; but she took no notice of the gesture of denial – only stood looking earnestly and wistfully into his face. Her eyes began to fill; she suddenly threw her arms round his neck, and whispered to him: “Oh, Louis, Louis! how I wish I could teach you to see Charles with my eyes!”

He felt her tears on his cheek as she spoke, and tried to reassure her.

“You shall teach me, Rose – you shall, indeed. Come, come, we must keep up our spirits, or how are you to look your best tomorrow?”

He unclasped her arms, and led her gently to a chair. At the same moment there was a knock at the door, and Rose’s maid appeared, anxious to consult her mistress on some of the preparations for the wedding ceremony. No interruption could have been more welcome just at that time. It obliged Rose to think of present trifles, and it gave her brother an excuse for retiring to his study.

He sat down by his desk, doubting and heavy-hearted, and placed the letter from the Academy of Sciences open before him.

Passing over all the complimentary expressions which it contained, his eye rested only on these lines at the end: “During the first three years of your professorship, you will be required to reside in or near Paris nine months out of the year, for the purpose of delivering lectures and superintending experiments from time to time in the laboratories.” The letter in which these lines occurred offered him such a position as in his modest self-distrust he had never dreamed of before; the lines themselves contained the promise of such vast facilities for carrying on his favourite experiments as he could never hope to command in his own little study, with his own limited means; and yet, there he now sat doubting whether he should accept or reject the tempting honours and advantages that were offered to him – doubting for his sister’s sake!

“Nine months of the year in Paris,” he said to himself, sadly; “and Rose is to pass her married life at Lyons. Oh, if I could clear my heart of its dread on her account – if I could free my mind of its forebodings for her future – how gladly I would answer this letter by accepting the trust it offers me!”

He paused for a few minutes, and reflected. The thoughts that were in him marked their ominous course in the growing paleness of his cheek, in the dimness that stole over his eyes. “If this cleaving distrust from which I cannot free myself should be in very truth the mute prophecy of evil to come – to come, I know not when – if it be so (which God forbid!), how soon she may want a friend, a protector near at hand, a ready refuge in the time of her trouble! Where shall she then find protection or refuge? With that passionate woman? With her husband’s kindred and friends?”

He shuddered as the thought crossed his mind, and opening a blank sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the ink. “Be all to her, Louis, that I have been,” he murmured to himself, repeating his mother’s last words, and beginning the letter while he uttered them. It was soon completed. It expressed in the most respectful terms his gratitude for the offer made to him, and his inability to accept it, in consequence of domestic circumstances which it was needless to explain. The letter was directed, sealed; it only remained for him to place it in the postbag, lying near at hand. At this last decisive act he hesitated. He had told Lomaque, and he had firmly believed himself, that he had conquered all ambitions for his sister’s sake. He knew now, for the first time, that he had only lulled them to rest – he knew that the letter from Paris had aroused them. His answer was written, his hand was on the postbag, and at that moment the whole struggle had to be risked over again – risked when he was most unfit for it! He was not a man under any ordinary circumstances to procrastinate, but he procrastinated now.

“Night brings counsel; I will wait till tomorrow,” he said to himself, and put the letter of refusal in his pocket, and hastily quitted the laboratory.

•  II  •

Inexorably the important morrow came: irretrievably, for good or for evil, the momentous marriage-vow was pronounced. Charles Danville and Rose Trudaine were now man and wife. The prophecy of the magnificent sunset overnight had not proved false. It was a cloudless day on the marriage morning. The nuptial ceremonies had proceeded smoothly throughout, and had even satisfied Madame Danville. She returned with the wedding-party to Trudaine’s house, all smiles and serenity. To the bride she was graciousness itself. “Good girl,” said the old lady, following Rose into a corner, and patting her approvingly on the cheek with her fan; “good girl, you have looked well this morning – you have done credit to my son’s taste. Indeed, you have pleased me, child! Now go upstairs, and get on your travelling-dress, and count on my maternal affection as long as you make Charles happy.”

It had been arranged that the bride and bridegroom should pass their honeymoon in Brittany, and then return to Danville’s estate near Lyons. The parting was hurried over, as all such partings should be. The carriage had driven off; Trudaine, after lingering long to look after it, had returned hastily to the house; the very dust of the whirling wheels had all dispersed; there was absolutely nothing to see; and yet there stood Monsieur Lomaque at the outer gate; idly, as if he was an independent man – calmly, as if no such responsibilities as the calling of Madame Danville’s coach, and the escorting of Madame Danville back to Lyons, could possibly rest on his shoulders.

Idly and calmly, slowly rubbing his hands one over the other, slowly nodding his head in the direction by which the bride and bridegroom had departed, stood the eccentric land-steward at the outer gate. On a sudden the sound of footsteps approaching from the house seemed to arouse him. Once more he looked out into the road, as if he expected still to see the carriage of the newly-married couple. “Poor girl! ah, poor girl!” said Monsieur Lomaque softly to himself, turning round to ascertain who was coming from the house.

It was only the postman with a letter in his hand, and the postbag crumpled up under his arm.

“Any fresh news from Paris, friend?” asked Lomaque.

“Very bad, monsieur,” answered the postman. “Camille Desmoulins has appealed to the people in the Palais Royal; there are fears of a riot.”

“Only a riot!” repeated Lomaque, sarcastically. “Oh, what a brave Government not to be afraid of anything worse! Any letters?” he added, hastily dropping the subject.

“None to the house,” said the postman, “only one from it, given me by Monsieur Trudaine. Hardly worth while,” he added, twirling the letter in his hand, “to put it into the bag, is it?”

Lomaque looked over his shoulder as he spoke, and saw that the letter was directed to the President of the Academy of Sciences, Paris.

“I wonder whether he accepts the place or refuses it?” thought the land-steward, nodding to the postman, and continuing on his way back to the house.

At the door he met Trudaine, who said to him, rather hastily, “You are going back to Lyons with Madame Danville, I suppose?”

“This very day,” answered Lomaque.

“If you should hear of a convenient bachelor lodging, at Lyons, or near it,” continued the other, dropping his voice and speaking more rapidly than before, “you would be doing me a favour if you would let me know about it.”

Lomaque assented; but before he could add a question which was on the tip of his tongue, Trudaine had vanished in the interior of the house.

“A bachelor lodging!” repeated the land-steward, standing alone on the doorstep. “At or near Lyons! Aha! Monsieur Trudaine, I put your bachelor lodging and your talk to me last night together, and I make out a sum total which is, I think, pretty near the mark. You have refused that Paris appointment, my friend; and I fancy I can guess why.”

He paused thoughtfully, and shook his head with ominous frowns and bitings of his lips.

“All clear enough in that sky,” he continued, after a while, looking up at the lustrous midday heaven. “All clear enough there; but I think I see a little cloud rising in a certain household firmament already – a little cloud which hides much, and which I for one shall watch carefully.”

PART SECOND

•  I  •

Five years have elapsed since Monsieur Lomaque stood thoughtfully at the gate of Trudaine’s house, looking after the carriage of the bride and bridegroom, and seriously reflecting on the events of the future. Great changes have passed over that domestic firmament in which he prophetically discerned the little warning cloud. Greater changes have passed over the firmament of France.

What was revolt five years ago is Revolution now – revolution which has engulfed thrones, and principalities, and powers; which has set up crownless, in-hereditary kings and counsellors of its own, and has bloodily torn them down again by dozens; which has raged and raged on unrestrainedly in fierce earnest, until but one king can still govern and control it for a little while. That king is named Terror, and seventeen hundred and ninety-four is the year of his reign.

Monsieur Lomaque, land-steward no longer, sits alone in an official-looking room in one of the official buildings of Paris. It is another July evening, as fine as that evening when he and Trudaine sat talking together on the bench overlooking the Seine. The window of the room is wide open, and a faint, pleasant breeze is beginning to flow through it. But Lomaque breathes uneasily, as if still oppressed by the sultry midday heat; and there are signs of perplexity and trouble in his face as he looks down absently now and then into the street.

The times he lives in are enough of themselves to sadden any man’s face. In the Reign of Terror no living being in all the city of Paris can rise in the morning and be certain of escaping the spy, the denunciation, the arrest, or the guillotine, before night. Such times are trying enough to oppress any man’s spirits; but Lomaque is not thinking of them or caring for them now. Out of a mass of papers which lie before him on his old writing-table, he has just taken up and read one, which has carried his thoughts back to the past, and to the changes which have taken place since he stood alone on the doorstep of Trudaine’s house, pondering on what might happen.

More rapidly even than he had foreboded those changes had occurred. In less time even than he had anticipated, the sad emergency for which Rose’s brother had prepared, as for a barely possible calamity, overtook Trudaine, and called for all the patience, the courage, the self-sacrifice which he had to give for his sister’s sake. By slow gradations downward, from bad to worse, her husband’s character manifested itself less and less disguisedly almost day by day. Occasional slights, ending in habitual neglect; careless estrangement, turning to cool enmity; small insults, which ripened evilly to great injuries – these were the pitiless signs which showed her that she had risked all and lost all while still a young woman – these were the unmerited afflictions which found her helpless, and would have left her helpless, but for the ever-present comfort and support of her brother’s self-denying love. From the first, Trudaine had devoted himself to meet such trials as now assailed him; and like a man he met them, in defiance alike of persecution from the mother and of insult from the son.

The hard task was only lightened when, as time advanced, public trouble began to mingle itself with private grief. Then absorbing political necessities came as a relief to domestic misery. Then it grew to be the one purpose and pursuit of Danville’s life cunningly to shape his course so that he might move safely onward with the advancing revolutionary tide – he cared not whither, as long as he kept his possessions safe and his life out of danger. His mother, inflexibly true to her Old-World convictions through all peril, might entreat and upbraid, might talk of honour, and courage, and sincerity – he heeded her not, or heeded only to laugh. As he had taken the false way with his wife, so he was now bent on taking it with the world.

The years passed on; destroying changes swept hurricane-like over the old governing system of France; and still Danville shifted successfully with the shifting times. The first days of the Terror approached; in public and in private – in high places and in low – each man now suspected his brother. Crafty as Danville was, even he fell under suspicion at last, at headquarters in Paris, principally on his mother’s account. This was his first political failure; and, in a moment of thoughtless rage and disappointment, he wreaked the irritation caused by it on Lomaque. Suspected himself, he in turn suspected the land-steward. His mother fomented the suspicion – Lomaque was dismissed.

In the old times the victim would have been ruined, in the new times he was simply rendered eligible for a political vocation in life. Lomaque was poor, quick-witted, secret, not scrupulous. He was a good patriot; he had good patriot friends, plenty of ambition, a subtle, catlike courage, nothing to dread – and he went to Paris. There were plenty of small chances there for men of his caliber. He waited for one of them. It came; he made the most of it; attracted favourably the notice of the terrible Fouquier-Tinville; and won his way to a place in the office of the Secret Police.

Meanwhile, Danville’s anger cooled down; he recovered the use of that cunning sense which had hitherto served him well, and sent to recall the discarded servant. It was too late. Lomaque was already in a position to set him at defiance – nay, to put his neck, perhaps, under the blade of the guillotine. Worse than this, anonymous letters reached him, warning him to lose no time in proving his patriotism by some indisputable sacrifice, and in silencing his mother, whose imprudent sincerity was likely ere long to cost her her life. Danville knew her well enough to know that there was but one way of saving her, and thereby saving himself. She had always refused to emigrate; but he now insisted that she should seize the first opportunity he could procure for her of quitting France until calmer times arrived.

Probably she would have risked her own life ten times over rather than have obeyed him; but she had not the courage to risk her son’s too; and she yielded for his sake. Partly by secret influence, partly by unblushing fraud, Danville procured for her such papers and permits as would enable her to leave France by way of Marseilles. Even then she refused to depart, until she knew what her son’s plans were for the future. He showed her a letter which he was about to dispatch to Robespierre himself, vindicating his suspected patriotism, and indignantly demanding to be allowed to prove it by filling some office, no matter how small, under the redoubtable triumvirate which then governed, or more properly terrified, France. The sight of this document reassured Madame Danville. She bade her son farewell, and departed at last, with one trusty servant, for Marseilles.

Danville’s intention, in sending his letter to Paris, had been simply to save himself by patriotic bluster. He was thunderstruck at receiving a reply, taking him at his word, and summoning him to the capital to accept employment there under the then existing Government. There was no choice but to obey. So to Paris he journeyed, taking his wife with him into the very jaws of danger. He was then at open enmity with Trudaine; and the more anxious and alarmed he could make the brother feel on the sister’s account, the better he was pleased. True to his trust and his love, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine followed them; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the perilous days of the Terror, was the street of his sojourn too.

Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his proffered services; he was still more amazed when he found that the post selected for him was one of the superintendent’s places in that very office of Secret Police in which Lomaque was employed as agent. Robespierre and his colleagues had taken the measure of their man – he had money enough, and local importance enough to be worth studying. They knew where he was to be distrusted, and how he might be made useful. The affairs of the Secret Police were the sort of affairs which an unscrupulously cunning man was fitted to help on; and the faithful exercise of that cunning in the service of the State was insured by the presence of Lomaque in the office. The discarded servant was just the right sort of spy to watch the suspected master. Thus it happened that, in the office of the Secret Police at Paris, and under the Reign of Terror, Lomaque’s old master was, nominally, his master still – the superintendent to whom he was ceremonially accountable, in public – the suspected man, whose slightest words and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private.

Ever sadder and darker grew the face of Lomaque as he now pondered alone over the changes and misfortunes of the past five years. A neighbouring church-clock striking the hour of seven aroused him from his meditations. He arranged the confused mass of papers before him – looked toward the door, as if expecting someone to enter – then, finding himself still alone, recurred to the one special paper which had first suggested his long train of gloomy thoughts. The few lines it contained were signed in cipher, and ran thus:

“You are aware that your superintendent, Danville, obtained leave of absence last week to attend to some affairs of his at Lyons, and that he is not expected back just yet for a day or two. While he is away, push on the affair of Trudaine. Collect all the evidence, and hold yourself in readiness to act on it at a moment’s notice. Don’t leave the office till you have heard from me again. If you have a copy of the Private Instructions respecting Danville, which you wrote for me, send it to my house. I wish to refresh my memory. Your original letter is burned.”

Here the note abruptly terminated. As he folded it up and put it in his pocket, Lomaque sighed. This was a very rare expression of feeling with him. He leaned back in his chair, and beat his nails impatiently on the table. Suddenly there was a faint little tap at the room door, and eight or ten men – evidently familiars of the new French Inquisition – quietly entered, and ranged themselves against the wall.

Lomaque nodded to two of them. “Picard and Magloire, go and sit down at that desk. I shall want you after the rest are gone.” Saying this, Lomaque handed certain sealed and docketed papers to the other men waiting in the room, who received them in silence, bowed, and went out. Innocent spectators might have thought them clerks taking bills of lading from a merchant. Who could have imagined that the giving and receiving of Denunciations, Arrest-orders, and Death-warrants – the providing of its doomed human meal for the all-devouring guillotine – could have been managed so coolly and quietly, with such unruffled calmness of official routine?

“Now,” said Lomaque, turning to the two men at the desk, as the door closed, “have you got those notes about you?” (They answered in the affirmative.) “Picard, you have the first particulars of this affair of Trudaine; so you must begin reading. I have sent in the reports; but we may as well go over the evidence again from the commencement, to make sure that nothing has been left out. If any corrections are to be made, now is the time to make them. Read, Picard, and lose as little time as you possibly can.”

Thus admonished, Picard drew some long slips of paper from his pocket, and began reading from them as follows:

“Minutes of evidence collected concerning Louis Trudaine, suspected, on the denunciation of Citizen Superintendent Danville, of hostility to the sacred cause of liberty, and of disaffection to the sovereignty of the people.  (1.) The suspected person is placed under secret observation, and these facts are elicited: He is twice seen passing at night from his own house to a house in the Rue de Clery. On the first night he carries with him money – on the second, papers. He returns without either. These particulars have been obtained through a citizen engaged to help Trudaine in housekeeping (one of the sort called Servants in the days of the Tyrants). This man is a good patriot, who can be trusted to watch Trudaine’s actions.  (2.) The inmates of the house in the Rue de Clery are numerous, and in some cases not so well known to the Government as could be wished. It is found difficult to gain certain information about the person or persons visited by Trudaine without having recourse to an arrest.  (3.) An arrest is thought premature at this preliminary stage of the proceedings, being likely to stop the development of conspiracy, and give warning to the guilty to fly. Order thereupon given to watch and wait for the present.  (4.) Citizen Superintendent Danville quits Paris for a short time. The office of watching Trudaine is then taken out of the hands of the undersigned, and is confided to his comrade, Magloire.

—Signed, Picard.

—Countersigned, Lomaque.”

Having read so far, the police agent placed his papers on the writing-table, waited a moment for orders, and, receiving none, went out. No change came over the sadness and perplexity of Lomaque’s face. He still beat his nails anxiously on the writing-table, and did not even look at the second agent as he ordered the man to read his report. Magloire produced some slips of paper precisely similar to Picard’s and read from them in the same rapid, businesslike, unmodulated tones:

“Affair of Trudaine. Minutes continued. Citizen Agent Magloire having been appointed to continue the surveillance of Trudaine, reports the discovery of additional facts of importance.  (1.) Appearances make it probable that Trudaine meditates a third secret visit to the house in the Rue de Clery. The proper measures are taken for observing him closely, and the result is the implication of another person discovered to be connected with the supposed conspiracy. This person is the sister of Trudaine, and the wife of Citizen Superintendent Danville.”

“Poor, lost creature! ah, poor, lost creature!” muttered Lomaque to himself, sighing again, and shifting uneasily from side to side, in his mangy old leathern armchair. Apparently, Magloire was not accustomed to sighs, interruptions, and expressions of regret from the usually imperturbable chief agent. He looked up from his papers with a stare of wonder. “Go on, Magloire!” cried Lomaque, with a sudden outburst of irritability. “Why the devil don’t you go on?” – “All ready, citizen,” returned Magloire, submissively, and proceeded:

“(2.) It is at Trudaine’s house that the woman Danville’s connection with her brother’s secret designs is ascertained, through the vigilance of the before-mentioned patriot citizen. The interview of the two suspected persons is private; their conversation is carried on in whispers. Little can be overheard; but that little suffices to prove that Trudaine’s sister is perfectly aware of his intention to proceed for the third time to the house in the Rue de Clery. It is further discovered that she awaits his return, and that she then goes back privately to her own house.  (3.) Meanwhile, the strictest measures are taken for watching the house in the Rue de Clery. It is discovered that Trudaine’s visits are paid to a man and woman known to the landlord and lodgers by the name of Dubois. They live on the fourth floor. It is impossible, at the time of the discovery, to enter this room, or to see the citizen and citoyenne Dubois, without producing an undesirable disturbance in the house and neighbourhood. A police agent is left to watch the place, while search and arrest orders are applied for. The granting of these is accidentally delayed. When they are ultimately obtained, it is discovered that the man and the woman are both missing. They have not hitherto been traced.  (4.) The landlord of the house is immediately arrested, as well as the police agent appointed to watch the premises. The landlord protests that he knows nothing of his tenants. It is suspected, however, that he has been tampered with, as also that Trudaine’s papers, delivered to the citizen and citoyenne Dubois, are forged passports. With these and with money, it may not be impossible that they have already succeeded in escaping from France. The proper measures have been taken for stopping them, if they have not yet passed the frontiers. No further report in relation to them has yet been received  (5.) Trudaine and his sister are under perpetual surveillance, and the undersigned holds himself ready for further orders.

– Signed, Magloire.

– Countersigned, Lomaque.”

Having finished reading his notes, Magloire placed them on the writing-table. He was evidently a favoured man in the office, and he presumed upon his position; for he ventured to make a remark, instead of leaving the room in silence, like his predecessor Picard.

“When Citizen Danville returns to Paris,” he began, “he will be rather astonished to find that in denouncing his wife’s brother he had also unconsciously denounced his wife.”

Lomaque looked up quickly, with that old weakness in his eyes which affected them in such a strangely irregular manner on certain occasions. Magloire knew what this symptom meant, and would have become confused if he had not been a police agent. As it was, he quietly backed a step or two from the table, and held his tongue.

“Friend Magloire,” said Lomaque, winking mildly, “your last remark looks to me like a question in disguise. I put questions constantly to others; I never answer questions myself. You want to know, citizen, what our superintendent’s secret motive is for denouncing his wife’s brother? Suppose you try and find that out for yourself. It will be famous practice for you, friend Magloire – famous practice after office hours.”

“Any further orders?” inquired Magloire, sulkily.

“None in relation to the reports,” returned Lomaque. “I find nothing to alter or add on a revised hearing. But I shall have a little note ready for you immediately. Sit down at the other desk, friend Magloire; I am very fond of you when you are not inquisitive; pray sit down.”

While addressing this polite invitation to the agent in his softest voice, Lomaque produced his pocketbook, and drew from it a little note, which he opened and read through attentively. It was headed: “Private Instructions relative to Superintendent Danville,” and proceeded thus:

The undersigned can confidently assert, from long domestic experience in Danville’s household that his motive for denouncing his wife’s brother is purely a personal one, and is not in the most remote degree connected with politics. Briefly, the facts are these: Louis Trudaine, from the first, opposed his sister’s marriage with Danville, distrusting the latter’s temper and disposition. The marriage, however, took place, and the brother resigned himself to await results – taking the precaution of living in the same neighbourhood as his sister, to interpose, if need be, between the crimes which the husband might commit and the sufferings which the wife might endure. The results soon exceeded his worst anticipations, and called for the interposition for which he had prepared himself. He is a man of inflexible firmness, patience, and integrity, and he makes the protection and consolation of his sister the business of his life. He gives his brother-in-law no pretext for openly quarrelling with him. He is neither to be deceived, irritated, nor tired out, and he is Danville’s superior every way – in conduct, temper, and capacity. Under these circumstances, it is unnecessary to say that his brother-in-law’s enmity toward him is of the most implacable kind, and equally unnecessary to hint at the perfectly plain motive of the denunciation.

As to the suspicious circumstances affecting not Trudaine only, but his sister as well, the undersigned regrets his inability, thus far, to offer either explanation or suggestion. At this preliminary stage, the affair seems involved in impenetrable mystery.

Lomaque read these lines through, down to his own signature at the end. They were the duplicate Secret Instructions demanded from him in the paper which he had been looking over before the entrance of the two police agents. Slowly, and, as it seemed, unwillingly, he folded the note up in a fresh sheet of paper, and was preparing to seal it when a tap at the door stopped him. “Come in,” he cried, irritably; and a man in travelling costume, covered with dust, entered, quietly whispered a word or two in his ear, and then went out. Lomaque started at the whisper, and, opening his note again, hastily wrote under his signature: “I have just heard that Danville has hastened his return to Paris, and may be expected back tonight.” Having traced these lines, he closed, sealed, and directed the letter, and gave it to Magloire. The police agent looked at the address as he left the room; it was “To Citizen Robespierre, Rue Saint-Honoure.”

Left alone again, Lomaque rose, and walked restlessly backward and forward, biting his nails.

“Danville comes back tonight,” he said to himself, “and the crisis comes with him. Trudaine a conspirator! Bah! conspiracy can hardly be the answer to the riddle this time. What is?”

He took a turn or two in silence – then stopped at the open window, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded him of the sunset sky. “This time five years,” he said, “Trudaine was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque’s cup of coffee hot for him! Now I am officially bound to suspect them both; perhaps to arrest them; perhaps – I wish this job had fallen into other hands. I don’t want it – I don’t want it at any price!”

He returned to the writing-table and sat down to his papers, with the dogged air of a man determined to drive away vexing thoughts by dint of sheer hard work. For more than an hour he laboured on resolutely, munching a bit of dry bread from time to time. Then he paused a little, and began to think again. Gradually the summer twilight faded, and the room grew dark.

“Perhaps we shall tide over tonight, after all – who knows?” said Lomaque, ringing his handbell for lights. They were brought in, and with them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a small sealed packet. It contained an arrest-order and a tiny three-cornered note, looking more like a love-letter, or a lady’s invitation to a party, than anything else. Lomaque opened the note eagerly and read these lines neatly written, and signed with Robespierre’s initials – M. R. – formed elegantly in cipher:

“Arrest Trudaine and his sister tonight. On second thoughts, I am not sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that it may not be all the better. He is unprepared for his wife’s arrest. Watch him closely when it takes place, and report privately to me. I am afraid he is a vicious man; and of all things I abhor Vice.”

“Any more work for me tonight?” asked Magloire, with a yawn.

“Only an arrest,” replied Lomaque. “Collect our men; and when you’re ready get a coach at the door.”

“We were just going to supper,” grumbled Magloire to himself, as he went out. “The devil seize the Aristocrats! They’re all in such a hurry to get to the guillotine that they won’t even give a man time to eat his victuals in peace!”

“There’s no choice now,” muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. “His father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went in those days; and now—”

He stopped and wiped his forehead – then unlocked his desk, produced a bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of the liquor, which he drank by sips, slowly.

“I wonder whether other men get softer-hearted as they grow older!” he said. “I seem to do so, at any rate. Courage! courage! what must be, must. If I risked my head to do it, I couldn’t stop this arrest. Not a man in the office but would be ready to execute it, if I wasn’t.”

Here the rumble of carriage-wheels sounded outside.

“There’s the coach!” exclaimed Lomaque, locking up the brandy-bottle, and taking his hat. “After all, as this arrest is to be made, it’s as well for them that I should make it.”

Consoling himself as he best could with this reflection, Chief Police Agent Lomaque blew out the candles, and quitted the room.

•  II  •

Ignorant of the change in her husband’s plans, which was to bring him back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed for his return, Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the evening with her brother. They had sat talking together long after sunset, and had let the darkness steal on them insensibly, as people will who are only occupied with quiet, familiar conversation. Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose was lighting the reading-lamp at her brother’s lodgings.

Five years of disappointment and sorrow had sadly changed her to outward view. Her face looked thinner and longer; the once delicate red and white of her complexion was gone; her figure had wasted under the influence of some weakness, which had already made her stoop a little when she walked. Her manner had lost its maiden shyness, only to become unnaturally quiet and subdued. Of all the charms which had so fatally, yet so innocently, allured her heartless husband, but one remained – the winning gentleness of her voice. It might be touched now and then with a note of sadness, but the soft attraction of its even, natural tone still remained. In the marring of all other harmonies, this one harmony had been preserved unchanged. Her brother, though his face was careworn, and his manner sadder than of old, looked less altered from his former self. It is the most fragile material which soonest shows the flaw. The world’s idol, Beauty, holds its frailest tenure of existence in the one Temple where we most love to worship it.

“And so you think, Louis, that our perilous undertaking has really ended well by this time?” said Rose, anxiously, as she lighted the lamp and placed the glass shade over it. “What a relief it is only to hear you say you think we have succeeded at last!”

“I said I hope, Rose,” replied her brother.

“Well, even hoped is a great word from you, Louis – a great word from anyone in this fearful city, and in these days of Terror.”

She stopped suddenly, seeing her brother raise his hand in warning. They looked at each other in silence and listened. The sound of footsteps going slowly past the house – ceasing for a moment just beyond it – then going on again – came through the open window. There was nothing else, out-of-doors or in, to disturb the silence of the night – the deadly silence of Terror which, for months past, had hung over Paris. It was a significant sign of the times, that even a passing footstep, sounding a little strangely at night, was subject for suspicion, both to brother and sister – so common a subject, that they suspended their conversation as a matter of course, without exchanging a word of explanation, until the tramp of the strange footsteps had died away.

“Louis,” continued Rose, dropping her voice to a whisper, after nothing more was audible, “when may I trust our secret to my husband?”

“Not yet!” rejoined Trudaine, earnestly. “Not a word, not a hint of it, till I give you leave. Remember, Rose, you promised silence from the first. Everything depends on your holding that promise sacred till I release you from it.”

“I will hold it sacred; I will indeed, at all hazards, under all provocations,” she answered.

“That is quite enough to reassure me – and now, love, let us change the subject. Even these walls may have ears, and the closed door yonder may be no protection.” He looked toward it uneasily while he spoke. “By-the-by, I have come round to your way of thinking, Rose, about that new servant of mine – there is something false in his face. I wish I had been as quick to detect it as you were.”

Rose glanced at him affrightedly. “Has he done anything suspicious? Have you caught him watching you? Tell me the worst, Louis.”

“Hush! hush! my dear, not so loud. Don’t alarm yourself; he has done nothing suspicious.”

“Turn him off – pray, pray turn him off, before it is too late!”

“And be denounced by him, in revenge, the first night he goes to his Section. You forget that servants and masters are equal now. I am not supposed to keep a servant at all. I have a citizen living with me who lays me under domestic obligations, for which I make a pecuniary acknowledgement. No! no! if I do anything, I must try if I can’t entrap him into giving me warning. But we have got to another unpleasant subject already – suppose I change the topic again? You will find a little book on that table there, in the corner – tell me what you think of it.”

The book was a copy of Corneille’s “Cid,” prettily bound in blue morocco. Rose was enthusiastic in her praises. “I found it in a bookseller’s shop, yesterday,” said her brother, “and bought it as a present for you. Corneille is not an author to compromise anyone, even in these times. Don’t you remember saying the other day that you felt ashamed of knowing but little of our greatest dramatist?” Rose remembered well, and smiled almost as happily as in the old times over her present. “There are some good engravings at the beginning of each act,” continued Trudaine, directing her attention rather earnestly to the illustrations, and then suddenly leaving her side when he saw that she became interested in looking at them.

He went to the window – listened – then drew aside the curtain, and looked up and down the street. No living soul was in sight. “I must have been mistaken,” he thought, returning hastily to his sister; “but I certainly fancied I was followed in my walk today by a spy.”

“I wonder,” asked Rose, still busy over her book, “I wonder, Louis, whether my husband would let me go with you to see ‘Le Cid’ the next time it is acted.”

“No!” cried a voice at the door; “not if you went on your knees to ask him.”

Rose turned round with a scream. There stood her husband on the threshold, scowling at her, with his hat on, and his hands thrust doggedly into his pockets. Trudaine’s servant announced him, with an insolent smile, during the pause that followed the discovery. “Citizen Superintendent Danville, to visit the citoyenne, his wife,” said the fellow, making a mock bow to his master.

Rose looked at her brother, then advanced a few paces toward the door. “This is a surprise,” she said, faintly; “has anything happened? We – we didn’t expect you.” Her voice failed her as she saw her husband advancing, pale to his very lips with suppressed anger.

“How dare you come here, after what I told you?” he asked, in quick, low tones.

She shrank at his voice almost as if he had struck her. The blood flew into her brother’s face as he noticed the action; but he controlled himself, and, taking her hand, led her in silence to a chair.

“I forbid you to sit down in his house,” said Danville, advancing still; “I order you to come back with me! Do you hear? I order you.”

He was approaching nearer to her, when he caught Trudaine’s eye fixed on him, and stopped. Rose started up, and placed herself between them.

“Oh, Charles, Charles!” she said to her husband, “be friends with Louis tonight, and be kind again to me. I have a claim to ask that much of you, though you may not think it!”

He turned away from her, and laughed contemptuously. She tried to speak again, but Trudaine touched her on the arm, and gave her a warning look.

“Signals!” exclaimed Danville; “secret signals between you!”

His eye, as he glanced suspiciously at his wife, fell on Trudaine’s gift-book, which she still held unconsciously.

“What book is that?” he asked.

“Only a play of Corneille’s,” answered Rose; “Louis has just made me a present of it.”

At this avowal Danville’s suppressed anger burst beyond all control.

“Give it him back!” he cried, in a voice of fury. “You shall take no presents from him; the venom of the household spy soils everything he touches. Give it him back!” She hesitated. “You won’t?” He tore the book from her with an oath, threw it on the floor, and set his foot on it.

“Oh, Louis! Louis! for God’s sake, remember.”

Trudaine was stepping forward as the book fell to the floor. At the same moment his sister threw her arms round him. He stopped, turning from fiery red to ghastly pale.

“No, no, Louis!” she said, clasping him closer; “not after five years’ patience. No – no!”

He gently detached her arms.

“You are right, love. Don’t be afraid; it is all over now.”

Saying that, he put her from him, and in silence took up the book from the floor.

“Won’t that offend you even?” said Danville, with an insolent smile. “You have a wonderful temper – any other man would have called me out!”

Trudaine looked back at him steadily; and taking out his handkerchief, passed it over the soiled cover of the book.

“If I could wipe the stain of your blood off my conscience as easily as I can wipe the stain of your boot off this book,” he said quietly, “you should not live another hour. Don’t cry, Rose,” he continued, turning again to his sister: “I will take care of your book for you until you can keep it yourself.”

“You will do this! you will do that!” cried Danville, growing more and more exasperated, and letting his anger got the better even of his cunning now. “Talk less confidently of the future – you don’t know what it has in store for you. Govern your tongue when you are in my presence; a day may come when you will want my help – my help; do you hear that?”

Trudaine turned his face from his sister, as if he feared to let her see it when those words were spoken.

“The man who followed me today was a spy – Danville’s spy!” That thought flashed across his mind, but he gave it no utterance. There was an instant’s pause of silence; and through it there came heavily on the still night air the rumbling of distant wheels. The sound advanced nearer and nearer – advanced and ceased under the window.

Danville hurried to it, and looked out eagerly. “I have not hastened my return without reason. I wouldn’t have missed this arrest for anything!” thought he, peering into the night.

The stars were out, but there was no moon. He could not recognise either the coach or the persons who got out of it, and he turned again into the interior of the room. His wife had sunk into a chair, her brother was locking up in a cabinet the book which he had promised to take care of for her. The dead silence made the noise of slowly ascending footsteps on the stairs painfully audible. At last the door opened softly.

“Citizen Danville, health and fraternity!” said Lomaque, appearing in the doorway, followed by his agents. “Citizen Louis Trudaine?” he continued, beginning with the usual form.

Rose started out of her chair; but her brother’s hand was on her lips before she could speak.

“My name is Louis Trudaine,” he answered.

“Charles!” cried his sister, breaking from him and appealing to her husband, “who are these men? What are they here for?”

He gave her no answer.

“Louis Trudaine,” said Lomaque, slowly, drawing the order from his pocket, “in the name of the Republic, I arrest you.”

“Rose, come back,” cried Trudaine.

It was too late; she had broken from him, and in the recklessness of terror, had seized her husband by the arm.

“Save him!” she cried. “Save him, by all you hold dearest in the world! You are that man’s superior, Charles – order him from the room!”

Danville roughly shook her hand off his arm.

“Lomaque is doing his duty. Yes,” he added, with a glance of malicious triumph at Trudaine, “yes, doing his duty. Look at me as you please – your looks won’t move me. I denounced you! I admit it – I glory in it! I have rid myself of an enemy, and the State of a bad citizen. Remember your secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery!”

His wife uttered a cry of horror. She seized his arm again with both hands – frail, trembling hands – that seemed suddenly nerved with all the strength of a man’s.

“Come here – come here! I must and will speak to you!”

She dragged him by main force a few paces back, toward an unoccupied corner of the room. With deathly cheeks and wild eyes she raised herself on tiptoe, and put her lips to her husband’s ear. At that instant Trudaine called to her:

“Rose, if you speak I am lost!”

She stopped at the sound of his voice, dropped her hold on her husband’s arm, and faced her brother, shuddering.

“Rose,” he continued, “you have promised, and your promise is sacred. If you prize your honour, if you love me, come here – come here, and be silent.”

He held out his hand. She ran to him; and, laying her head on his bosom, burst into a passion of tears.

Danville turned uneasily toward the police agents. “Remove your prisoner,” he said. “You have done your duty here.”

“Only half of it,” retorted Lomaque, eyeing him attentively. “Rose Danville—”

“My wife!” exclaimed the other. “What about my wife?”

“Rose Danville,” continued Lomaque, impassibly, “you are included in the arrest of Louis Trudaine.”

Rose raised her head quickly from her brother’s breast. His firmness had deserted him – he was trembling. She heard him whispering to himself, “Rose, too! Oh, my God! I was not prepared for that.” She heard these words, and dashed the tears from her eyes, and kissed him, saying:

“I am glad of it, Louis. We risked all together – we shall now suffer together. I am glad of it!”

Danville looked incredulously at Lomaque, after the first shock of astonishment was over.

“Impossible!” he exclaimed. “I never denounced my wife. There is some mistake; you have exceeded your orders.”

“Silence!” retorted Lomaque, imperiously. “Silence, citizen, and respect to a decree of the Republic!”

“You blackguard! show me the arrest-order!” said Danville. “Who has dared to denounce my wife?”

“You have!” said Lomaque, turning on him with a grin of contempt. “You – and ‘blackguard’ back in your teeth! You, in denouncing her brother! Aha! we work hard in our office; we don’t waste time in calling names – we make discoveries. If Trudaine is guilty, your wife is implicated in his guilt. We know it; and we arrest her.”

“I resist the arrest,” cried Danville. “I am the authority here. Who opposes me?”

The impassible chief agent made no answer. Some new noise in the street struck his quick ear. He ran to the window and looked out eagerly.

“Who opposes me?” reiterated Danville.

“Hark!” exclaimed Lomaque, raising his hand. “Silence, and listen!”

The heavy, dull tramp of men marching together became audible as he spoke. Voices humming low and in unison the Marseillaise hymn, joined solemnly with the heavy, regular footfalls. Soon the flare of torch-light began to glimmer redder and redder under the dim, starlight sky.

“Do you hear that? Do you see the advancing torch-light?” cried Lomaque, pointing exultingly into the street. “Respect to the national hymn, and to the man who holds in the hollow of his hand the destinies of all France! Hat off, Citizen Danville! Robespierre is in the street. His bodyguard, the Hard-hitters, are lighting him on his way to the Jacobin Club! Who shall oppose you, did you say? Your master and mine; the man whose signature is at the bottom of this order – the man who with a scratch of his pen can send both our heads rolling together into the sack of the guillotine! Shall I call to him as he passes the house? Shall I tell him that Superintendent Danville resists me in making an arrest? Shall I? Shall I?” And in the immensity of his contempt, Lomaque seemed absolutely to rise in stature, as he thrust the arrest order under Danville’s eyes and pointed to the signature with the head of his stick.

Rose looked round in terror, as Lomaque spoke his last words – looked round, and saw her husband recoil before the signature on the arrest order, as if the guillotine itself had suddenly arisen before him. Her brother felt her shrinking back in his arms, and trembled for the preservation of her self-control if the terror and suspense of the arrest lasted any longer.

“Courage, Rose, courage!” he said. “You have behaved nobly; you must not fail now. No, no! Not a word more. Not a word till I am able to think clearly again, and to decide what is best. Courage, love; our lives depend on it. Citizen,” he continued, addressing himself to Lomaque, “proceed with your duty – we are ready.”

The heavy marching footsteps outside were striking louder and louder on the ground; the chanting voices were every moment swelling in volume; the dark street was flaming again with the brightening torch-light, as Lomaque, under pretext of giving Trudaine his hat, came close to him, and, turning his back toward Danville, whispered: “I have not forgotten the eve of the wedding and the bench on the river bank.”

Before Trudaine could answer, he had taken Rose’s cloak and hood from one of his assistants, and was helping her on with it. Danville, still pale and trembling, advanced a step when he saw these preparations for departure, and addressed a word or two to his wife; but he spoke in low tones, and the fast-advancing march of feet and sullen low roar of singing outside drowned his voice. An oath burst from his lips, and he struck his fist, in impotent fury, on a table near him.

“The seals are set on everything in this room and in the bedroom,” said Magloire, approaching Lomaque, who nodded and signed to him to bring up the other police agents at the door.

“Ready,” cried Magloire, coming forward immediately with his men, and raising his voice to make himself heard. “Where to?”

Robespierre and his Hard-hitters were passing the house. The smoke of the torch-light was rolling in at the window; the tramping footsteps struck heavier and heavier on the ground; the low sullen roar of the Marseillaise was swelling to its loudest, as Lomaque referred for a moment to his arrest-order, and then answered:

“To the prison of St. Lazare!”

•  III  •

The head jailer of St. Lazare stood in the outer hall of the prison, two days after the arrest at Trudaine’s lodgings, smoking his morning pipe. Looking toward the courtyard gate, he saw the wicket opened, and a privileged man let in, whom he soon recognised as the chief agent of the second section of Secret Police. “Why, friend Lomaque,” cried the jailer, advancing toward the courtyard, “what brings you here this morning, business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure, this time, citizen. I have an idle hour or two to spare for a walk. I find myself passing the prison, and I can’t resist calling in to see how my friend the head jailer is getting on.” Lomaque spoke in a surprisingly brisk and airy manner. His eyes were suffering under a violent fit of weakness and winking; but he smiled, notwithstanding, with an air of the most inveterate cheerfulness. Those old enemies of his, who always distrusted him most when his eyes were most affected, would have certainly disbelieved every word of the friendly speech he had just made, and would have assumed it as a matter of fact that his visit to the head jailer had some specially underhand business at the bottom of it.

“How am I getting on?” said the jailer, shaking his head. “Overworked, friend – overworked. No idle hours in our department. Even the guillotine is getting too slow for us!”

“Sent off your batch of prisoners for trial this morning?” asked Lomaque, with an appearance of perfect unconcern.

“No; they’re just going,” answered the other. “Come and have a look at them.” He spoke as if the prisoners were a collection of pictures on view, or a set of dresses just made up. Lomaque nodded his head, still with his air of happy, holiday carelessness. The jailer led the way to an inner hall; and, pointing lazily with his pipe-stem, said: “Our morning batch, citizen, just ready for the baking.”

In one corner of the hall were huddled together more than thirty men and women of all ranks and ages; some staring round them with looks of blank despair; some laughing and gossiping recklessly. Near them lounged a guard of “Patriots,” smoking, spitting, and swearing. Between the patriots and the prisoners sat, on a rickety stool, the second jailer – a humpbacked man, with an immense red moustache – finishing his breakfast of broad beans, which he scooped out of a basin with his knife, and washed down with copious draughts of wine from a bottle. Carelessly as Lomaque looked at the shocking scene before him, his quick eyes contrived to take note of every prisoner’s face, and to descry in a few minutes Trudaine and his sister standing together at the back of the group.

“Now then, Apollo!” cried the head jailer, addressing his subordinate by a facetious prison nickname, “don’t be all day starting that trumpery batch of yours. And hark-ye, friend, I have leave of absence, on business, at my Section this afternoon. So it will be your duty to read the list for the guillotine, and chalk the prisoners’ doors before the cart comes tomorrow morning. ’Ware the bottle, Apollo, today; ’ware the bottle, for fear of accidents with the death-list tomorrow.”

“Thirsty July weather, this – eh, citizen?” said Lomaque, leaving the head jailer, and patting the hunchback in the friendliest manner on the shoulder. “Why, how you have got your batch huddled up together this morning! Shall I help you to shove them into marching order? My time is quite at your disposal. This is a holiday morning with me!”

“Ha, ha, ha! what a jolly dog he is on his holiday morning!” exclaimed the head jailer, as Lomaque – apparently taking leave of his natural character altogether in the exhilaration of an hour’s unexpected leisure – began pushing and pulling the prisoners into rank, with humorous mock apologies, at which not the officials only, but many of the victims themselves – reckless victims of a reckless tyranny – laughed heartily. Persevering to the last in his practical jest, Lomaque contrived to get close to Trudaine for a minute, and to give him one significant look before he seized him by the shoulders, like the rest. “Now, then, rear-guard,” cried Lomaque, pushing Trudaine on, “close the line of march, and mind you keep step with your young woman there. Pluck up your spirits, citoyenne! one gets used to everything in this world, even to the guillotine!”

While he was speaking and pushing at the same time, Trudaine felt a piece of paper slip quickly between his neck and his cravat. “Courage!” he whispered, pressing his sister’s hand, as he saw her shuddering under the assumed brutality of Lomaque’s joke.

Surrounded by the guard of “Patriots,” the procession of prisoners moved slowly into the outer courtyard, on its way to the revolutionary tribunal, the humpbacked jailer bringing up the rear. Lomaque was about to follow at some little distance, but the head jailer hospitably expostulated. “What a hurry you’re in!” said he. “Now that incorrigible drinker, my second in command, has gone off with his batch, I don’t mind asking you to step in and have a drop of wine.”

“Thank you,” answered Lomaque; “but I have rather a fancy for hearing the trial this morning. Suppose I come back afterward? What time do you go to your Section? At two o’clock, eh? Good! I shall try if I can’t get here soon after one.” With these words he nodded and went out. The brilliant sunlight in the courtyard made him wink faster than ever. Had any of his old enemies been with him, they would have whispered within themselves, “If you mean to come back at all, Citizen Lomaque, it will not be soon after one!”

On his way through the streets, the chief agent met one or two police office friends, who delayed his progress; so that when he arrived at the revolutionary tribunal the trials of the day were just about to begin.

The principal article of furniture in the Hall of Justice was a long, clumsy, deal table, covered with green baize. At the head of this table sat the president and his court, with their hats on, backed by a heterogeneous collection of patriots officially connected in various ways with the proceedings that were to take place. Below the front of the table, a railed-off space, with a gallery beyond, was appropriated to the general public – mostly represented, as to the gallery, on this occasion, by women, all sitting together on forms, knitting, shirt-mending, and baby-linen-making, as coolly as if they were at home. Parallel with the side of the table furthest from the great door of entrance was a low platform railed off, on which the prisoners, surrounded by their guard, were now assembled to await their trial. The sun shone in brightly from a high window, and a hum of ceaseless talking pervaded the hall cheerfully as Lomaque entered it. He was a privileged man here, as at the prison; and he made his way in by a private door, so as to pass to the prisoners’ platform, and to walk round it, before he got to a place behind the president’s chair. Trudaine, standing with his sister on the outermost limits of the group, nodded significantly as Lomaque looked up at him for an instant. He had contrived, on his way to the tribunal, to get an opportunity of reading the paper which the chief agent had slipped into his cravat. It contained these lines:

“I have just discovered who the citizen and citoyenne Dubois are. There is no chance for you but to confess everything. By that means you may inculpate a certain citizen holding authority, and may make it his interest, if he loves his own life, to save yours and your sister’s.”

Arrived at the back of the president’s chair, Lomaque recognised his two trusty subordinates, Magloire and Picard, waiting among the assembled patriot officials, to give their evidence. Beyond them, leaning against the wall, addressed by no one, and speaking to no one, stood the superintendent, Danville. Doubt and suspense were written in every line of his face; the fretfulness of an uneasy mind expressed itself in his slightest gesture – even in his manner of passing a handkerchief from time to time over his face, on which the perspiration was gathering thick and fast already.

“Silence!” cried the usher of the court for the time being – a hoarse-voiced man in top-boots with a huge sabre buckled to his side, and a bludgeon in his hand. “Silence for the Citizen President!” he reiterated, striking his bludgeon on the table.

The president rose and proclaimed that the sitting for the day had begun; then sat down again.

The momentary silence which followed was interrupted by a sudden confusion among the prisoners on the platform. Two of the guards sprang in among them. There was the thump of a heavy fall – a scream of terror from some of the female prisoners – then another dead silence, broken by one of the guards, who walked across the hall with a bloody knife in his hand, and laid it on the table. “Citizen President,” he said, “I have to report that one of the prisoners has just stabbed himself.” There was a murmuring exclamation, “Is that all?” among the women spectators, as they resumed their work. Suicide at the bar of justice was no uncommon occurrence, under the Reign of Terror.

“Name?” asked the president, quietly taking up his pen and opening a book.

“Martigne,” answered the humpbacked jailer, coming forward to the table.

“Description?”

“Ex-royalist coach-maker to the tyrant Capet.”

“Accusation?”

“Conspiracy in prison.”

The president nodded, and entered in the book: “Martigne, coachmaker. Accused of conspiring in prison. Anticipated course of law by suicide. Action accepted as sufficient confession of guilt. Goods confiscated. 1st Thermidor, year two of the Republic.”

“Silence!” cried the man with the bludgeon, as the president dropped a little sand on the entry, and signing to the jailer that he might remove the dead body, closed the book.

“Any special cases this morning?” resumed the president, looking round at the group behind him.

“There is one,” said Lomaque, making his way to the back of the official chair. “Will it be convenient to you, citizen, to take the case of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville first? Two of my men are detained here as witnesses, and their time is valuable to the Republic.”

The president marked a list of names before him, and handed it to the crier or usher, placing the figures one and two against Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville.

While Lomaque was backing again to his former place behind the chair, Danville approached and whispered to him, “There is a rumour that secret information has reached you about the citizen and citoyenne Dubois. Is it true? Do you know who they are?”

“Yes,” answered Lomaque; “but I have superior orders to keep the information to myself just at present.”

The eagerness with which Danville put his question, and the disappointment he showed on getting no satisfactory answer to it, were of a nature to satisfy the observant chief agent that his superintendent was really as ignorant as he appeared to be on the subject of the man and woman Dubois. That one mystery, at any rate was still, for Danville, a mystery unrevealed.

“Louis Trudaine! Rose Danville!” shouted the crier, with another rap of his bludgeon.

The two came forward, at the appeal, to the front railing of the platform. The first sight of her judges, the first shock on confronting the pitiless curiosity of the audience, seemed to overwhelm Rose. She turned from deadly pale to crimson, then to pale again, and hid her face on her brother’s shoulder. How fast she heard his heart throbbing! How the tears filled her eyes as she felt that his fear was all for her!

“Now,” said the president, writing down their names. “Denounced by whom?”

Magloire and Picard stepped forward to the table. The first answered – “By Citizen Superintendent Danville.”

The reply made a great stir and sensation among both prisoners and audience.

“Accused of what?” pursued the president.

“The male prisoner, of conspiracy against the Republic; the female prisoner, of criminal knowledge of the same.”

“Produce your proofs in answer to this order.”

Picard and Magloire opened their minutes of evidence, and read to the president the same particulars which they had formerly read to Lomaque in the secret police office.

“Good,” said the president, when they had done, “we need trouble ourselves with nothing more than the identifying of the citizen and citoyenne Dubois, which, of course, you are prepared for. Have you heard the evidence?” he continued, turning to the prisoners; while Picard and Magloire consulted together in whispers, looking perplexedly toward the chief agent, who stood silent behind them. “Have you heard the evidence, prisoners? Do you wish to say anything? If you do, remember that the time of this tribunal is precious, and that you will not be suffered to waste it.”

“I demand permission to speak for myself and for my sister,” answered Trudaine. “My object is to save the time of the tribunal by making a confession.”

The faint whispering, audible among the women spectators a moment before, ceased instantaneously as he pronounced the word confession. In the breathless silence, his low, quiet tones penetrated to the remotest corners of the hall; while, suppressing externally all evidences of the death-agony of hope within him, he continued his address in these words:

“I confess my secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery. I confess that the persons whom I went to see are the persons pointed at in the evidence. And, lastly, I confess that my object in communicating with them as I did was to supply them with the means of leaving France. If I had acted from political motives to the political prejudice of the existing government, I admit that I should be guilty of that conspiracy against the Republic with which I am charged. But no political purpose animated, no political necessity urged me, in performing the action which has brought me to the bar of this tribunal. The persons whom I aided in leaving France were without political influence or political connections. I acted solely from private motives of humanity toward them and toward others – motives which a good republican may feel, and yet not turn traitor to the welfare of his country.”

“Are you ready to inform the court, next, who the man and woman Dubois really are?” inquired the president, impatiently.

“I am ready,” answered Trudaine. “But first I desire to say one word in reference to my sister, charged here at the bar with me.” His voice grew less steady, and, for the first time, his colour began to change, as Rose lifted her face from his shoulder and looked up at him eagerly. “I implore the tribunal to consider my sister as innocent of all active participation in what is charged against me as a crime—” He went on. “Having spoken with candour about myself, I have some claim to be believed when I speak of her; when I assert that she neither did help me nor could help me. If there be blame, it is mine only; if punishment, it is I alone who should suffer.”

He stopped suddenly, and grew confused. It was easy to guard himself from the peril of looking at Rose, but he could not escape the hard trial to his self-possession of hearing her, if she spoke. Just as he pronounced the last sentence, she raised her face again from his shoulder, and eagerly whispered to him:

“No, no, Louis! Not that sacrifice, after all the others – not that, though you should force me into speaking to them myself!”

She abruptly quitted her hold of him, and fronted the whole court in an instant. The railing in front of her shook with the quivering of her arms and hands as she held by it to support herself! Her hair lay tangled on her shoulders; her face had assumed a strange fixedness; her gentle blue eyes, so soft and tender at all other times, were lit up wildly. A low hum of murmured curiosity and admiration broke from the women of the audience. Some rose eagerly from the benches; others cried:

“Listen, listen! she is going to speak!”

She did speak. Silvery and pure the sweet voice, sweeter than ever in sadness, stole its way through the gross sounds – through the coarse humming and the hissing whispers.

“My lord the president,” began the poor girl firmly. Her next words were drowned in a volley of hisses from the women.

“Ah! aristocrat, aristocrat! None of your accursed titles here!” was their shrill cry at her. She fronted that cry, she fronted the fierce gestures which accompanied it, with the steady light still in her eyes, with the strange rigidity still fastened on her face. She would have spoken again through the uproar and execration, but her brother’s voice overpowered her.

“Citizen president,” he cried, “I have not concluded. I demand leave to complete my confession. I implore the tribunal to attach no importance to what my sister says. The trouble and terror of this day have shaken her intellects. She is not responsible for her words – I assert it solemnly, in the face of the whole court!”

The blood flew up into his white face as he made the asseveration. Even at that supreme moment the great heart of the man reproached him for yielding himself to a deception, though the motive of it was to save his sister’s life.

“Let her speak! let her speak!” exclaimed the women, as Rose, without moving, without looking at her brother, without seeming even to have heard what he said, made a second attempt to address her judges, in spite of Trudaine’s interposition.

“Silence!” shouted the man with the bludgeon. “Silence, you women! the citizen president is going to speak.”

“The prisoner Trudaine has the ear of the court,” said the president, “and may continue his confession. If the female prisoner wishes to speak, she may be heard afterward. I enjoin both the accused persons to make short work of it with their addresses to me, or they will make their case worse instead of better. I command silence among the audience, and if I am not obeyed, I will clear the hall. Now, prisoner Trudaine, I invite you to proceed. No more about your sister; let her speak for herself. Your business and ours is with the man and woman Dubois. Are you, or are you not, ready to tell the court who they are?”

“I repeat that I am ready,” answered Trudaine. “The citizen Dubois is a servant. The woman Dubois is the mother of the man who denounces me – Superintendent Danville.”

A low, murmuring, rushing sound of hundreds of exclaiming voices, all speaking, half-suppressedly, at the same moment, followed the delivery of the answer. No officer of the court attempted to control the outburst of astonishment. The infection of it spread to the persons on the platform, to the crier himself, to the judges of the tribunal, lounging, but the moment before, so carelessly silent in their chairs. When the noise was at length quelled, it was subdued in the most instantaneous manner by one man, who shouted from the throng behind the president’s chair:

“Clear the way there! Superintendent Danville is taken ill!”

A vehement whispering and contending of many voices interrupting each other, followed; then a swaying among the assembly of official people; then a great stillness; then the sudden appearance of Danville, alone, at the table.

The look of him, as he turned his ghastly face toward the audience, silenced and steadied them in an instant, just as they were on the point of falling into fresh confusion. Everyone stretched forward eagerly to hear what he would say. His lips moved; but the few words that fell from them were inaudible, except to the persons who happened to be close by him. Having spoken, he left the table supported by a police agent, who was seen to lead him toward the private door of the court, and, consequently, also toward the prisoners’ platform. He stopped, however, halfway, quickly turned his face from the prisoners, and pointing toward the public door at the opposite side of the hall, caused himself to be led out into the air by that direction. When he had gone the president, addressing himself partly to Trudaine and partly to the audience, said:

“The Citizen Superintendent Danville has been overcome by the heat in the court. He has retired by my desire, under the care of a police agent, to recover in the open air; pledging himself to me to come back and throw a new light on the extraordinary and suspicious statement which the prisoner has just made. Until the return of Citizen Danville, I order the accused, Trudaine, to suspend any further acknowledgement of complicity which he may have to address to me. This matter must be cleared up before other matters are entered on. Meanwhile, in order that the time of the tribunal may not be wasted, I authorize the female prisoner to take this opportunity of making any statement concerning herself which she may wish to address to the judges.”

“Silence him!”  “Remove him out of court!”  “Gag him!”  “Guillotine him!” These cries rose from the audience the moment the president had done speaking. They were all directed at Trudaine, who had made a last desperate effort to persuade his sister to keep silence, and had been detected in the attempt by the spectators.

“If the prisoner speaks another word to his sister, remove him,” said the president, addressing the guard round the platform.

“Good! we shall hear her at last. Silence! silence!” exclaimed the women, settling themselves comfortably on their benches, and preparing to resume their work.

“Rose Danville, the court is waiting to hear you,” said the president, crossing his legs and leaning back luxuriously in his large armchair.

Amid all the noise and confusion of the last few minutes, Rose had stood ever in the same attitude, with that strangely fixed expression never altering on her face but once. When her husband made his way to the side of the table and stood there prominently alone, her lips trembled a little, and a faint shade of colour passed swiftly over her cheeks. Even that slight change had vanished now – she was paler, stiller, more widely altered from her former self than ever, as she faced the president and said these words:

“I wish to follow my brother’s example and make my confession, as he has made his. I would rather he had spoken for me; but he is too generous to say any words except such as he thinks may save me from sharing his punishment. I refuse to be saved, unless he is saved with me. Where he goes when he leaves this place, I will go; what he suffers, I will suffer; if he is to die, I believe God will grant me the strength to die resignedly with him!”

She paused for a moment, and half turned toward Trudaine – then checked herself instantly and went on: “This is what I now wish to say, as to my share in the offence charged against my brother. Some time ago, he told me one day that he had seen my husband’s mother in Paris, disguised as a poor woman; that he had spoken to her, and forced her to acknowledge herself. Up to this time we had all felt certain that she had left France, because she held old-fashioned opinions which it is dangerous for people to hold now – had left France before we came to Paris. She told my brother that she had indeed gone (with an old, tried servant of the family to help and protect her) as far as Marseilles; and that, finding unforeseen difficulty there in getting further, she had taken it as a warning from Providence not to desert her son, of whom she was very passionately fond, and from whom she had been most unwilling to depart. Instead of waiting in exile for quieter times, she determined to go and hide herself in Paris, knowing her son was going there too. She assumed the name of her old and faithful servant, who declined to the last to leave her unprotected; and she proposed to live in the strictest secrecy and retirement, watching, unknown, the career of her son, and ready at a moment’s notice to disclose herself to him, when the settlement of public affairs might reunite her safely to her beloved child. My brother thought this plan full of danger, both for herself, for her son, and for the honest old man who was risking his head for his mistress’s sake. I thought so too; and in an evil hour I said to Louis: ‘Will you try in secret to get my husband’s mother away, and see that her faithful servant makes her really leave France this time?’ I wrongly asked my brother to do this for a selfish reason of my own – a reason connected with my married life, which has not been a happy one. I had not succeeded in gaining my husband’s affection, and was not treated kindly by him. My brother – who has always loved me far more dearly, I am afraid, than I have ever deserved – my brother increased his kindness to me, seeing me treated unkindly by my husband. This made ill-blood between them. My thought, when I asked my brother to do for me what I have said, was, that if we two in secret saved my husband’s mother, without danger to him, from imperiling herself and her son, we should, when the time came for speaking of what we had done, appear to my husband in a new and better light. I should have shown how well I deserved his love, and Louis would have shown how well he deserved his brother-in-law’s gratitude; and so we should have made home happy at last, and all three have lived together affectionately. This was my thought; and when I told it to my brother, and asked him if there would be much risk, out of his kindness and indulgence toward me, he said ‘No.’ He had so used me to accept sacrifices for my happiness that I let him endanger himself to help me in my little household plan. I repent this bitterly now; I ask his pardon with my whole heart. If he is acquitted, I will try to show myself worthier of his love. If he is found guilty, I, too, will go to the scaffold, and die with my brother, who risked his life for my sake.”

She ceased as quietly as she had begun, and turned once more to her brother.

As she looked away from the court and looked at him, a few tears came into her eyes, and something of the old softness of form and gentleness of expression seemed to return to her face. He let her take his hand, but he seemed purposely to avoid meeting the anxious gaze she fixed on him. His head sunk on his breast; he drew his breath heavily, his countenance darkened and grew distorted, as if he were suffering some sharp pang of physical pain. He bent down a little, and, leaning his elbow on the rail before him, covered his face with his hand; and so quelled the rising agony, so forced back the scalding tears to his heart. The audience had heard Rose in silence, and they preserved the same tranquillity when she had done. This was a rare tribute to a prisoner from the people of the Reign of Terror.

The president looked round at his colleagues, and shook his head suspiciously.

“This statement of the female prisoner’s complicates the matter very seriously,” said he. “Is there anybody in court,” he added, looking at the persons behind his chair, “who knows where the mother of Superintendent Danville and the servant are now?”

Lomaque came forward at the appeal, and placed himself by the table.

“Why, citizen agent!” continued the president, looking hard at him, “are you overcome by the heat, too?”

“The fit seemed to take him, citizen president, when the female prisoner had made an end of her statement,” exclaimed Magloire, pressing forward officiously.

Lomaque gave his subordinate a look which sent the man back directly to the shelter of the official group; then said, in lower tones than were customary with him:

“I have received information relative to the mother of Superintendent Danville and the servant, and am ready to answer any questions that may be put to me.”

“Where are they now?” asked the president.

“She and the servant are known to have crossed the frontier, and are supposed to be on their way to Cologne. But, since they have entered Germany, their whereabouts is necessarily a matter of uncertainty to the republican authorities.”

“Have you any information relative to the conduct of the old servant while he was in Paris?”

“I have information enough to prove that he was not an object for political suspicion. He seems to have been simply animated by servile zeal for the woman’s interests; to have performed for her all the menial offices of a servant in private; and to have misled the neighbours by affected equality with her in public.”

“Have you any reason to believe that Superintendent Danville was privy to his mother’s first attempt at escaping from France?”

“I infer it from what the female prisoner has said, and for other reasons which it would be irregular to detail before the tribunal. The proofs can no doubt be obtained if I am allowed time to communicate with the authorities at Lyons and Marseilles.”

At this moment Danville re-entered the court; and, advancing to the table, placed himself close by the chief agent’s side. They looked each other steadily in the face for an instant.

“He has recovered from the shock of Trudaine’s answer,” thought Lomaque, retiring. “His hand trembles, his face is pale, but I can see regained self-possession in his eye, and I dread the consequences already.”

“Citizen president,” began Danville, “I demand to know if anything has transpired affecting my honour and patriotism in my absence?”

He spoke apparently with the most perfect calmness, but he looked nobody in the face. His eyes were fixed steadily on the green baize of the table beneath him.

“The female prisoner has made a statement, referring principally to herself and her brother,” answered the president, “but incidentally mentioning a previous attempt on your mother’s part to break existing laws by emigrating from France. This portion of the confession contains in it some elements of suspicion which seriously affect you—”

“They shall be suspicions no longer – at my own peril I will change them to certainties!” exclaimed Danville, extending his arm theatrically, and looking up for the first time. “Citizen president, I avow it with the fearless frankness of a good patriot; I was privy to my mother’s first attempt at escaping from France.”

Hisses and cries of execration followed this confession. He winced under them at first; but recovered his self-possession before silence was restored.

“Citizens, you have heard the confession of my fault,” he resumed, turning with desperate assurance toward the audience; “now hear the atonement I have made for it at the altar of my country.”

He waited at the end of that sentence, until the secretary to the tribunal had done writing it down in the report book of the court.

“Transcribe faithfully to the letter!” cried Danville, pointing solemnly to the open page of the volume. “Life and death hang on my words.”

The secretary took a fresh dip of ink, and nodded to show that he was ready. Danville went on:

“In these times of glory and trial for France,” he proceeded, pitching his voice to a tone of deep emotion, “what are all good citizens most sacredly bound to do? To immolate their dearest private affections and interests before their public duties! On the first attempt of my mother to violate the laws against emigration, by escaping from France, I failed in making the heroic sacrifice which inexorable patriotism demanded of me. My situation was more terrible than the situation of Brutus sitting in judgement on his own sons. I had not the Roman fortitude to rise equal to it. I erred, citizens – erred as Coriolanus did, when his august mother pleaded with him for the safety of Rome! For that error I deserved to be purged out of the republican community; but I escaped my merited punishment – nay, I even rose to the honour of holding an office under the Government. Time passed; and again my mother attempted an escape from France. Again, inevitable fate brought my civic virtue to the test. How did I meet this second supremest trial? By an atonement for past weakness, terrible as the trial itself. Citizens, you will shudder; but you will applaud while you tremble. Citizens, look! and while you look, remember well the evidence given at the opening of this case. Yonder stands the enemy of his country, who intrigued to help my mother to escape; here stands the patriot son, whose voice was the first, the only voice, to denounce him for the crime!” As he spoke, he pointed to Trudaine, then struck himself on the breast, then folded his arms, and looked sternly at the benches occupied by the spectators.

“Do you assert,” exclaimed the president, “that at the time when you denounced Trudaine, you knew him to be intriguing to aid your mother’s escape?”

“I assert it,” answered Danville.

The pen which the president held dropped from his hand at that reply; his colleagues started, and looked at each other in blank silence.

A murmur of “Monster! monster!” began with the prisoners on the platform, and spread instantly to the audience, who echoed and echoed it again; the fiercest woman-republican on the benches joined cause at last with the haughtiest woman-aristocrat on the platform. Even in that sphere of direst discords, in that age of sharpest enmities, the one touch of Nature preserved its old eternal virtue, and roused the mother-instinct which makes the whole world kin.

Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of Danville’s answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was one. His sallow face whitened as he looked toward the prisoners’ platform.

“They are lost,” he murmured to himself, moving out of the group in which he had hitherto stood. “Lost! The lie which has saved that villain’s head leaves them without the shadow of a hope. No need to stop for the sentence – Danville’s infamous presence of mind has given them up to the guillotine!” Pronouncing these words, he went out hurriedly by a door near the platform, which led to the prisoners’ waiting-room.

Rose’s head sank again on her brother’s shoulder. She shuddered, and leaned back faintly on the arm which he extended to support her. One of the female prisoners tried to help Trudaine in speaking consolingly to her; but the consummation of her husband’s perfidy seemed to have paralysed her at heart. She murmured once in her brother’s ear, “Louis! I am resigned to die – nothing but death is left for me after the degradation of having loved that man.” She said those words and closed her eyes wearily, and spoke no more.

“One other question, and you may retire,” resumed the president, addressing Danville. “Were you cognizant of your wife’s connection with her brother’s conspiracy?”

Danville reflected for a moment, remembered that there were witnesses in court who could speak to his language and behaviour on the evening of his wife’s arrest, and resolved this time to tell the truth.

“I was not aware of it,” he answered. “Testimony in my favour can be called which will prove that when my wife’s complicity was discovered I was absent from Paris.”

Heartlessly self-possessed as he was, the public reception of his last reply had shaken his nerve. He now spoke in low tones, turning his back on the spectators, and fixing his eyes again on the green baize of the table at which he stood.

“Prisoners, have you any objection to make, any evidence to call, invalidating the statement by which Citizen Danville has cleared himself of suspicion?” inquired the president.

“He has cleared himself by the most execrable of all falsehoods,” answered Trudaine. “If his mother could be traced and brought here, her testimony would prove it.”

“Can you produce any other evidence in support of your allegation?” asked the president.

“I cannot.”

“Citizen Superintendent Danville, you are at liberty to retire. Your statement will be laid before the authority to whom you are officially responsible. Either you merit a civic crown for more than Roman virtue, or—” Having got thus far, the president stopped abruptly, as if unwilling to commit himself too soon to an opinion, and merely repeated, “You may retire.”

Danville left the court immediately, going out again by the public door. He was followed by murmurs from the women’s benches, which soon ceased, however, when the president was observed to close his notebook, and turn round toward his colleagues. “The sentence!” was the general whisper now. “Hush, hush – the sentence!”

After a consultation of a few minutes with the persons behind him, the president rose, and spoke the momentous words:

“Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, the revolutionary tribunal, having heard the charge against you, and having weighed the value of what you have said in answer to it, decides that you are both guilty, and condemns you to the penalty of death.”

Having delivered the sentence in those terms, he sat down again, and placed a mark against the two first condemned names on the list of prisoners. Immediately afterward the next case was called on, and the curiosity of the audience was stimulated by a new trial.

•  IV  •

The waiting-room of the revolutionary tribunal was a grim, bare place, with a dirty stone floor, and benches running round the walls. The windows were high and barred; and at the outer door, leading into the street, two sentinels kept watch. On entering this comfortless retreat from the court, Lomaque found it perfectly empty. Solitude was just then welcome to him. He remained in the waiting-room, walking slowly from end to end over the filthy pavement, talking eagerly and incessantly to himself.

After a while, the door communicating with the tribunal opened, and the humpbacked jailer made his appearance, leading in Trudaine and Rose.

“You will have to wait here,” said the little man, “till the rest of them have been tried and sentenced; and then you will all go back to prison in a lump. Ha, citizen,” he continued, observing Lomaque at the other end of the hall, and bustling up to him. “Here still, eh? If you were going to stop much longer, I should ask a favour of you.”

“I am in no hurry,” said Lomaque, with a glance at the two prisoners.

“Good!” cried the humpback, drawing his hand across his mouth; “I am parched with thirst, and dying to moisten my throat at the wine-shop over the way. Just mind that man and woman while I’m gone, will you? It’s the merest form – there’s a guard outside, the windows are barred, the tribunal is within hail. Do you mind obliging me?”

“On the contrary, I am glad of the opportunity.”

“That’s a good fellow – and, remember, if I am asked for, you must say I was obliged to quit the court for a few minutes, and left you in charge.”

With these words, the humpbacked jailer ran off to the wine-shop.

He had scarcely disappeared before Trudaine crossed the room, and caught Lomaque by the arm.

“Save her,” he whispered; “there is an opportunity – save her!” His face was flushed – his eyes wandered – his breath on the chief agent’s cheek, while he spoke, felt scorching hot. “Save her!” he repeated, shaking Lomaque by the arm, and dragging him toward the door. “Remember all you owe to my father – remember our talk on that bench by the river – remember what you said to me yourself on the night of the arrest – don’t wait to think – save her, and leave me without a word! If I die alone, I can die as a man should; if she goes to the scaffold by my side, my heart will fail me – I shall die the death of a coward! I have lived for her life – let me die for it, and I die happy!”

He tried to say more, but the violence of his agitation forbade it. He could only shake the arm he held again and again, and point to the bench on which Rose sat – her head sunk on her bosom, her hands crossed listlessly on her lap.

“There are two armed sentinels outside – the windows are barred – you are without weapons – and even if you had them, there is a guardhouse within hail on one side of you, and the tribunal on the other. Escape from this room is impossible,” answered Lomaque.

“Impossible!” repeated the other, furiously. “You traitor! you coward! can you look at her sitting there helpless, her very life ebbing away already with every minute that passes, and tell me coolly that escape is impossible?”

In the frenzy of his grief and despair, he lifted his disengaged hand threateningly while he spoke. Lomaque caught him by the wrist, and drew him toward a window open at the top.

“You are not in your right senses,” said the chief agent, firmly; “anxiety and apprehension on your sister’s account have shaken your mind. Try to compose yourself, and listen to me. I have something important to say—” (Trudaine looked at him incredulously.) “Important,” continued Lomaque, “as affecting your sister’s interests at this terrible crisis.”

That last appeal had an instantaneous effect. Trudaine’s outstretched hand dropped to his side, and a sudden change passed over his expression.

“Give me a moment,” he said, faintly; and turning away, leaned against the wall and pressed his burning forehead on the chill, damp stone. He did not raise his head again till he had mastered himself, and could say quietly, “Speak; I am fit to hear you, and sufficiently in my senses to ask your forgiveness for what I said just now.”

“When I left the tribunal and entered this room,” Lomaque began in a whisper, “there was no thought in my mind that could be turned to good account, either for your sister or for you. I was fit for nothing but to deplore the failure of the confession which I came to St. Lazare to suggest to you as your best plan of defence. Since then, an idea has struck me, which may be useful – an idea so desperate, so uncertain – involving a proposal so absolutely dependent, as to its successful execution, on the merest chance, that I refuse to confide it to you except on one condition.”

“Mention the condition! I submit to it before hand.”

“Give me your word of honour that you will not mention what I am about to say to your sister until I grant you permission to speak. Promise me that when you see her shrinking before the terrors of death tonight, you will have self-restraint enough to abstain from breathing a word of hope to her. I ask this, because there are ten – twenty – fifty chances to one that there is no hope.”

“I have no choice but to promise,” answered Trudaine.

Lomaque produced his pocketbook and pencil before he spoke again.

“I will enter into particulars as soon as I have asked a strange question of you,” he said. “You have been a great experimenter in chemistry in your time – is your mind calm enough, at such a trying moment as this, to answer a question which is connected with chemistry in a very humble way? You seem astonished. Let me put the question at once. Is there any liquid or powder, or combination of more than one ingredient known, which will remove writing from paper, and leave no stain behind?”

“Certainly! But is that all the question? Is there no greater difficulty?”

“None. Write the prescription, whatever it may be, on that leaf,” said the other, giving him the pocketbook. “Write it down, with plain directions for use.” Trudaine obeyed. “This is the first step,” continued Lomaque, putting the book in his pocket, “toward the accomplishment of my purpose – my uncertain purpose, remember! Now, listen; I am going to put my own head in danger for the chance of saving yours and your sister’s by tampering with the death-list. Don’t interrupt me! If I can save one, I can save the other. Not a word about gratitude! Wait till you know the extent of your obligation. I tell you plainly, at the outset, there is a motive of despair, as well as a motive of pity, at the bottom of the action in which I am now about to engage. Silence! I insist on it. Our time is short; it is for me to speak, and for you to listen. The president of the tribunal has put the deathmark against your names on the prison list of today. That list, when the trials are over and it is marked to the end, will be called in this room before you are taken to St. Lazare. It will then be sent to Robespierre, who will keep it, having a copy made of it the moment it is delivered, for circulation among his colleagues – St. Just, and the rest. It is my business to make a duplicate of this copy in the first instance. The duplicate will be compared with the original, and possibly with the copy, too, either by Robespierre himself, or by someone in whom he can place implicit trust, and will then be sent to St. Lazare without passing through my hands again. It will be read in public the moment it is received, at the grating of the prison, and will afterward be kept by the jailer, who will refer to it, as he goes round in the evening with a piece of chalk, to mark the cell doors of the prisoners destined for the guillotine tomorrow. That duty happens, today, to fall to the hunchback whom you saw speaking to me. He is a confirmed drinker, and I mean to tempt him with such wine as he rarely tastes. If – after the reading of the list in public, and before the marking of the cell doors – I can get him to sit down to the bottle, I will answer for making him drunk, for getting the list out of his pocket, and for wiping your names out of it with the prescription you have just written for me. I shall write all the names, one under another, just irregularly enough in my duplicate to prevent the interval left by the erasure from being easily observed. If I succeed in this, your door will not be marked, and your names will not be called tomorrow morning when the tumbrils come for the guillotine. In the present confusion of prisoners pouring in every day for trial, and prisoners pouring out every day for execution, you will have the best possible chance of security against awkward inquiries, if you play your cards properly, for a good fortnight or ten days at least. In that time—”

“Well! well!” cried Trudaine, eagerly.

Lomaque looked toward the tribunal door, and lowered his voice to a fainter whisper before he continued, “In that time Robespierre’s own head may fall into the sack! France is beginning to sicken under the Reign of Terror. Frenchmen of the Moderate faction, who have lain hidden for months in cellars and lofts, are beginning to steal out and deliberate by twos and threes together, under cover of the night. Robespierre has not ventured for weeks past to face the Convention Committee. He only speaks among his own friends at the Jacobins. There are rumours of a terrible discovery made by Carnot, of a desperate resolution taken by Tallien. Men watching behind the scenes see that the last days of the Terror are at hand. If Robespierre is beaten in the approaching struggle, you are saved – for the new reign must be a Reign of Mercy. If he conquers, I have only put off the date of your death and your sister’s, and have laid my own neck under the axe. Those are your chances – this is all I can do.”

He paused, and Trudaine again endeavoured to speak such words as might show that he was not unworthy of the deadly risk which Lomaque was prepared to encounter. But once more the chief agent peremptorily and irritably interposed:

“I tell you, for the third time,” he said, “I will listen to no expressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve them. It is true that I recollect your father’s timely kindness to me – true that I have not forgotten what passed, five years since at your house by the riverside. I remember everything, down to what you would consider the veriest trifle – that cup of coffee, for instance, which your sister kept hot for me. I told you then that you would think better of me someday. I know that you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to my face for risking my life for you. I won’t hear you, because my risk is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can’t look back to it with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to what is left of it with hope. There was something in that night at your house before the wedding – something in what you said, in what your sister did – which altered me. I have had my days of gloom and self-reproach, from time to time, since then. I have sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and duplicity, and cringing, first under one master then under another. I have longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer. I can’t do this, and I want to do it. The want takes me like a fit, at uncertain intervals – suddenly, under the most incomprehensible influences. A glance up at the blue sky – starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret window – a child’s voice coming suddenly, I don’t know where from – the piping of my neighbour’s linnet in his little cage – now one trifling thing, now another – wakes up that want in me in a moment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn’t it? I am amazed at it myself. My life? Bah! I’ve let it out for hire to be kicked about by rascals from one dirty place to another, like a football! It’s my whim to give it a last kick myself, and throw it away decently before it lodges on the dunghill forever. Your sister kept a good cup of coffee hot for me, and I give her a bad life in return for the compliment. You want to thank me for it? What folly! Thank me when I have done something useful. Don’t thank me for that!”

He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he spoke, and walked away to the outer door to receive the jailer, who returned at that moment.

“Well,” inquired the hunchback, “has anybody asked for me?”

“No,” answered Lomaque; “not a soul has entered the room. What sort of wine did you get?”

“So-so! Good at a pinch, friend – good at a pinch.”

“Ah! you should go to my shop and try a certain cask, filled with a particular vintage.”

“What shop? Which vintage?”

“I can’t stop to tell you now; but we shall most likely meet again today. I expect to be at the prison this afternoon. Shall I ask for you? Good! I won’t forget!” With those farewell words he went out, and never so much as looked back at the prisoners before he closed the door.

Trudaine returned to his sister, fearful lest his face should betray what had passed during the extraordinary interview between Lomaque and himself. But, whatever change there might be in his expression, Rose did not seem to notice it. She was still strangely inattentive to all outward things. That spirit of resignation, which is the courage of women in all great emergencies, seemed now to be the one animating spirit that fed the flame of life within her.

When her brother sat down by her, she only took his hand gently and said: “Let us stop together like this, Louis, till the time comes. I am not afraid of it, for I have nothing but you to make me love life, and you, too, are going to die. Do you remember the time when I used to grieve that I had never had a child to be some comfort to me? I was thinking, a moment ago, how terrible it would have been now, if my wish had been granted. It is a blessing for me, in this great misery, that I am childless. Let us talk of old days, Louis, as long as we can – not of my husband; or my marriage – only of the old times, before I was a burden and a trouble to you.”

•  V  •

The day wore on. By ones and twos and threes at a time, the condemned prisoners came from the tribunal, and collected in the waiting-room. At two o’clock all was ready for the calling over of the death-list. It was read and verified by an officer of the court; and then the jailer took his prisoners back to St. Lazare.

Evening came. The prisoners’ meal had been served; the duplicate of the death-list had been read in public at the grate; the cell doors were all locked. From the day of their arrest, Rose and her brother, partly through the influence of a bribe, partly through Lomaque’s intercession, had been confined together in one cell; and together they now awaited the dread event of the morrow.

To Rose that event was death – death, to the thought of which, at least, she was now resigned. To Trudaine the fast-nearing future was darkening hour by hour, with the uncertainty which is worse than death; with the faint, fearful, unpartaken suspense, which keeps the mind ever on the rack, and wears away the heart slowly. Through the long unsolaced agony of that dreadful night, but one relief came to him. The tension of every nerve, the crushing weight of the one fatal oppression that clung to every thought, relaxed a little when Rose’s bodily powers began to sink under her mental exhaustion – when her sad, dying talk of the happy times that were passed ceased softly, and she laid her head on his shoulder, and let the angel of slumber take her yet for a little while, even though she lay already under the shadow of the angel of death.

The morning came, and the hot summer sunrise. What life was left in the terror-struck city awoke for the day faintly; and still the suspense of the long night remained unlightened. It was drawing near the hour when the tumbrils were to come for the victims doomed on the day before. Trudaine’s ear could detect even the faintest sound in the echoing prison region outside his cell. Soon, listening near the door, he heard voices disputing on the other side of it. Suddenly, the bolts were drawn back, the key turned in the lock, and he found himself standing face to face with the hunchback and one of the subordinate attendants on the prisoners.

“Look!” muttered this last man sulkily, “there they are, safe in their cell, just as I said; but I tell you again they are not down in the list. What do you mean by bullying me about not chalking their door, last night, along with the rest? Catch me doing your work for you again, when you’re too drunk to do it yourself!”

“Hold your tongue, and let me have another look at the list!” returned the hunchback, turning away from the cell door, and snatching a slip of paper from the other’s hand. “The devil take me if I can make head or tail of it!” he exclaimed, scratching his head, after a careful examination of the list. “I could swear that I read over their names at the grate yesterday afternoon with my own lips; and yet, look as long as I may, I certainly can’t find them written down here. Give us a pinch, friend. Am I awake, or dreaming? drunk or sober this morning?”

“Sober, I hope,” said a quiet voice at his elbow. “I have just looked in to see how you are after yesterday.”

“How I am, Citizen Lomaque? Petrified with astonishment. You yourself took charge of that man and woman for me, in the waiting-room, yesterday morning; and as for myself, I could swear to having read their names at the grate yesterday afternoon. Yet this morning here are no such things as these said names to be found in the list! What do you think of that?”

“And what do you think,” interrupted the aggrieved subordinate, “of his having the impudence to bully me for being careless in chalking the doors, when he was too drunk to do it himself? too drunk to know his right hand from his left! If I wasn’t the best-natured man in the world, I should report him to the head jailer.”

“Quite right of you to excuse him, and quite wrong of him to bully you,” said Lomaque, persuasively. “Take my advice,” he continued, confidentially, to the hunchback, “and don’t trust too implicitly to that slippery memory of yours, after our little drinking bout yesterday. You could not really have read their names at the grate, you know, or of course they would be down on the list. As for the waiting-room at the tribunal, a word in your ear: chief agents of police know strange secrets. The president of the court condemns and pardons in public; but there is somebody else, with the power of ten thousand presidents, who now and then condemns and pardons in private. You can guess who. I say no more, except that I recommend you to keep your head on your shoulders, by troubling it about nothing but the list there in your hand. Stick to that literally, and nobody can blame you. Make a fuss about mysteries that don’t concern you, and—”

Lomaque stopped, and holding his hand edgewise, let it drop significantly over the hunchback’s head. That action and the hints which preceded it seemed to bewilder the little man more than ever. He stared perplexedly at Lomaque; uttered a word or two of rough apology to his subordinate, and rolling his misshapen head portentously, walked away with the death-list crumpled up nervously in his hand.

“I should like to have a sight of them, and see if they really are the same man and woman whom I looked after yesterday morning in the waiting-room,” said Lomaque, putting his hand on the cell door, just as the deputy-jailer was about to close it again.

“Look in, by all means,” said the man. “No doubt you will find that drunken booby as wrong in what he told you about them as he is about everything else.”

Lomaque made use of the privilege granted to him immediately. He saw Trudaine sitting with his sister in the corner of the cell furthest from the door, evidently for the purpose of preventing her from overhearing the conversation outside. There was an unsettled look, however, in her eyes, a slowly-heightening colour in her cheeks, which showed her to be at least vaguely aware that something unusual had been taking place in the corridor.

Lomaque beckoned to Trudaine to leave her, and whispered to him: “The prescription has worked well. You are safe for today. Break the news to your sister as gently as you can. Danville—” He stopped and listened till he satisfied himself, by the sound of the deputy-jailer’s footsteps, that the man was lounging toward the further end of the corridor. “Danville,” he resumed, “after having mixed with the people outside the grate yesterday, and having heard your names read, was arrested in the evening by secret order from Robespierre, and sent to the Temple. What charge will be laid to him, or when he will be brought to trial, it is impossible to say. I only know that he is arrested. Hush! don’t talk now; my friend outside is coming back. Keep quiet – hope everything from the chances and changes of public affairs; and comfort yourself with the thought that you are both safe for today.”

“And tomorrow?” whispered Trudaine.

“Don’t think of tomorrow,” returned Lomaque, turning away hurriedly to the door “Let tomorrow take care of itself.”

PART THIRD

•  I  •

On a spring morning, in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, the public conveyance then running between Chalons-sur-Marne and Paris sat down one of its outside passengers at the first post-station beyond Meaux. The traveller, an old man, after looking about him hesitatingly for a moment or two, betook himself to a little inn opposite the post-house, known by the sign of the Piebald Horse, and kept by the Widow Duval – a woman who enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being the fastest talker and the best maker of gibelotte in the whole locality.

Although the traveller was carelessly noticed by the village idlers, and received without ceremony by the Widow Duval, he was by no means so ordinary and uninteresting a stranger as the rustics of the place were pleased to consider him. The time had been when this quiet, elderly, unobtrusive applicant for refreshment at the Piebald House was trusted with the darkest secrets of the Reign of Terror, and was admitted at all times and seasons to speak face to face with Maximilian Robespierre himself. The Widow Duval and the hangers-on in front of the post-house would have been all astonished indeed if any well-informed personage from the metropolis had been present to tell them that the modest old traveller with the shabby little carpetbag was an ex-chief agent of the secret police of Paris!

Between three and four years had elapsed since Lomaque had exercised, for the last time, his official functions under the Reign of Terror. His shoulders had contracted an extra stoop, and his hair had all fallen off, except at the sides and back of his head. In some other respects, however, advancing age seemed to have improved rather than deteriorated him in personal appearance. His complexion looked healthier, his expression cheerfuller, his eyes brighter than they had ever been of late years. He walked, too, with a brisker step than the step of old times in the police office; and his dress, although it certainly did not look like the costume of a man in affluent circumstances, was cleaner and far more nearly worn than ever it had been in the past days of his political employment at Paris.

He sat down alone in the inn parlour, and occupied the time, while his hostess had gone to fetch the half-bottle of wine that he ordered, in examining a dirty old card which he extricated from a mass of papers in his pocketbook, and which bore, written on it, these lines:

“When the troubles are over, do not forget those who remember you with eternal gratitude. Stop at the first post-station beyond Meaux, on the high-road to Paris, and ask at the inn for Citizen Maurice, whenever you wish to see us or to hear of us again.”

“Pray,” inquired Lomaque, putting the card in his pocket when the Widow Duval brought in the wine, “can you inform me whether a person named Maurice lives anywhere in this neighbourhood?”

“Can I inform you?” repeated the voluble widow. “Of course I can! Citizen Maurice, and the citoyenne, his amiable sister – who is not to be passed over because you don’t mention her, my honest man – lives within ten minutes’ walk of my house. A charming cottage, in a charming situation, inhabited by two charming people – so quiet, so retiring, such excellent pay. I supply them with everything – fowls, eggs, bread, butter, vegetables (not that they eat much of anything), wine (which they don’t drink half enough of to do them good); in short, I victual the dear little hermitage, and love the two amiable recluses with all my heart. Ah! they have had their troubles, poor people, the sister especially, though they never talk about them. When they first came to live in our neighbourhood—”

“I beg pardon, citoyenne, but if you would only be so kind as to direct me—”

“Which is three – no, four – no, three years and a half ago – in short, just after the time when that Satan of a man, Robespierre, had his head cut off (and serve him right!), I said to my husband (who was on his last legs then, poor man!) ‘She’ll die’ – meaning the lady. She didn’t though. My fowls, eggs, bread, butter, vegetables, and wine carried her through – always in combination with the anxious care of Citizen Maurice. Yes, yes! let us be tenderly conscientious in giving credit where credit is due; let us never forget that the citizen Maurice contributed something to the cure of the interesting invalid, as well as the victuals and drink from the Piebald Horse. There she is now, the prettiest little woman in the prettiest little cottage—”

“Where? Will you be so obliging as to tell me where?”

“And in excellent health, except that she is subject now and then to nervous attacks; having evidently, as I believe, been struck with some dreadful fright – most likely during that accursed time of the Terror; for they came from Paris – you don’t drink, honest man! Why don’t you drink? Very, very pretty in a pale way; figure perhaps too thin – let me pour it out for you – but an angel of gentleness, and attached in such a touching way to the citizen Maurice—”

“Citizen hostess, will you, or will you not, tell me where they live?”

“You droll little man, why did you not ask me that before, if you wanted to know? Finish your wine, and come to the door. There’s your change, and thank you for your custom, though it isn’t much. Come to the door, I say, and don’t interrupt me! You’re an old man – can you see forty yards before you? Yes, you can! Don’t be peevish – that never did anybody any good yet. Now look back, along the road where I am pointing. You see a large heap of stones? Good. On the other side of the heap of stones there is a little path; you can’t see that, but you can remember what I tell you? Good. You go down the path till you get to a stream; down the stream till you get to a bridge; down the other bank of the stream (after crossing the bridge) till you get to an old water-mill – a jewel of a water-mill, famous for miles round; artists from the four quarters of the globe are always coming to sketch it. Ah! what, you are getting peevish again? You won’t wait? Impatient old man, what a life your wife must lead, if you have got one! Remember the bridge. Ah! your poor wife and children, I pity them; your daughters especially! Pst! pst! Remember the bridge – peevish old man, remember the bridge!”

Walking as fast as he could out of hearing of the Widow Duval’s tongue, Lomaque took the path by the heap of stones which led out of the high-road, crossed the stream, and arrived at the old water-mill. Close by it stood a cottage – a rough, simple building, with a strip of garden in front. Lomaque’s observant eyes marked the graceful arrangement of the flowerbeds, and the delicate whiteness of the curtains that hung behind the badly-glazed narrow windows. “This must be the place,” he said to himself, as he knocked at the door with his stick. “I can see the traces of her hand before I cross the threshold.”

The door was opened. “Pray, does the citizen Maurice—” Lomaque began, not seeing clearly, for the first moment, in the dark little passage.

Before he could say any more his hand was grasped, his carpetbag was taken from him, and a well-known voice cried, “Welcome! a thousand thousand times welcome, at last! Citizen Maurice is not at home; but Louis Trudaine takes his place, and is overjoyed to see once more the best and dearest of his friends!”

“I hardly know you again. How you are altered for the better!” exclaimed Lomaque, as they entered the parlour of the cottage.

“Remember that you see me after a long freedom from anxiety. Since I have lived here, I have gone to rest at night, and have not been afraid of the morning,” replied Trudaine. He went out into the passage while he spoke, and called at the foot of the one flight of stairs which the cottage possessed, “Rose! Rose! come down! The friend whom you most wished to see has arrived at last.”

She answered the summons immediately. The frank, friendly warmth of her greeting; her resolute determination, after the first inquiries were over, to help the guest to take off his upper coat with her own hands, so confused and delighted Lomaque, that he hardly knew which way to turn, or what to say.

“This is even more trying, in a pleasant way, to a lonely old fellow like me,” he was about to add, “than the unexpected civility of the hot cup of coffee years ago”; but remembering what recollections even that trifling circumstance might recall, he checked himself.

“More trying than what?” asked Rose, leading him to a chair.

“Ah! I forget. I am in my dotage already!” he answered, confusedly. “I have not got used just yet to the pleasure of seeing your kind face again.” It was indeed a pleasure to look at that face now, after Lomaque’s last experience of it. Three years of repose, though they had not restored to Rose those youthful attractions which she had lost forever in the days of the Terror, had not passed without leaving kindly outward traces of their healing progress. Though the girlish roundness had not returned to her cheeks, or the girlish delicacy of colour to her complexion, her eyes had recovered much of their old softness, and her expression all of its old winning charm. What was left of latent sadness in her face, and of significant quietness in her manner, remained gently and harmlessly – remained rather to show what had been once than what was now.

When they were all seated, there was, however, something like a momentary return to the suspense and anxiety of past days in their faces, as Trudaine, looking earnestly at Lomaque, asked, “Do you bring any news from Paris?”

“None,” he replied; “but excellent news, instead, from Rouen. I have heard, accidentally, through the employer whom I have been serving since we parted, that your old house by the riverside is to let again.”

Rose started from her chair. “Oh, Louis, if we could only live there once more! My flower-garden?” she continued to Lomaque.

“Cultivated throughout,” he answered, “by the late proprietor.”

“And the laboratory?” added her brother.

“Left standing,” said Lomaque. “Here is a letter with all the particulars. You may depend upon them, for the writer is the person charged with the letting of the house.”

Trudaine looked over the letter eagerly.

“The price is not beyond our means,” he said. “After our three years’ economy here, we can afford to give something for a great pleasure.”

“Oh, what a day of happiness it will be when we go home again!” cried Rose. “Pray write to your friend at once,” she added, addressing Lomaque, “and say we take the house, before anyone else is beforehand with us!”

He nodded, and folding up the letter mechanically in the old official form, made a note on it in the old official manner. Trudaine observed the action, and felt its association with past times of trouble and terror. His face grew grave again as he said to Lomaque, “And is this good news really all the news of importance you have to tell us?”

Lomaque hesitated, and fidgeted in his chair. “What other news I have will bear keeping,” he replied. “There are many questions I should like to ask first, about your sister and yourself. Do you mind allowing me to refer for a moment to the time when we last met?”

He addressed this inquiry to Rose, who answered in the negative; but her voice seemed to falter, even in saying the one word “No.” She turned her head away when she spoke; and Lomaque noticed that her hands trembled as she took up some work lying on a table near, and hurriedly occupied herself with it.

“We speak as little about that time as possible,” said Trudaine, looking significantly toward his sister; “but we have some questions to ask you in our turn; so the allusion, for this once, is inevitable. Your sudden disappearance at the very crisis of that time of danger has not yet been fully explained to us. The one short note which you left behind you helped us to guess at what had happened rather than to understand it.”

“I can easily explain it now,” answered Lomaque. “The sudden overthrow of the Reign of Terror, which was salvation to you, was destruction to me. The new republican reign was a reign of mercy, except for the tail of Robespierre, as the phrase ran then. Every man who had been so wicked or so unfortunate as to be involved, even in the meanest capacity, with the machinery of the government of Terror, was threatened, and justly, with the fate of Robespierre. I, among others, fell under this menace of death. I deserved to die, and should have resigned myself to the guillotine but for you. From the course taken by public events, I knew you would be saved; and although your safety was the work of circumstances, still I had a hand in rendering it possible at the outset; and a yearning came over me to behold you both free again with my own eyes – a selfish yearning to see in you a living, breathing, real result of the one good impulse of my heart, which I could look back on with satisfaction. This desire gave me a new interest in life. I resolved to escape death if it were possible. For ten days I lay hidden in Paris. After that – thanks to certain scraps of useful knowledge which my experience in the office of secret police had given me – I succeeded in getting clear of Paris and in making my way safely to Switzerland. The rest of my story is so short and so soon told that I may as well get it over at once. The only relation I knew of in the world to apply to was a cousin of mine (whom I had never seen before), established as a silk-mercer at Berne. I threw myself on this man’s mercy. He discovered that I was likely, with my business habits, to be of some use to him, and he took me into his house. I worked for what he pleased to give me, travelled about for him in Switzerland, deserved his confidence, and won it. Till within the last few months I remained with him; and only left my employment to enter, by my master’s own desire, the house of his brother, established also as a silk-mercer, at Chalons-sur-Marne. In the counting-house of this merchant I am corresponding clerk, and am only able to come and see you now by offering to undertake a special business mission for my employer at Paris. It is drudgery, at my time of life, after all I have gone through – but my hard work is innocent work. I am not obliged to cringe for every crown-piece I put in my pocket – not bound to denounce, deceive, and dog to death other men, before I can earn my bread, and scrape together money enough to bury me. I am ending a bad, base life harmlessly at last. It is a poor thing to do, but it is something done – and even that contents a man at my age. In short, I am happier than I used to be, or at least less ashamed when I look people like you in the face.”

“Hush! hush!” interrupted Rose, laying her hand on his arm. “I cannot allow you to talk of yourself in that way, even in jest.”

“I was speaking in earnest,” answered Lomaque, quietly; “but I won’t weary you with any more words about myself. My story is told.”

“All?” asked Trudaine. He looked searchingly, almost suspiciously, at Lomaque, as he put the question. “All?” he repeated. “Yours is a short story, indeed, my good friend! Perhaps you have forgotten some of it?”

Again Lomaque fidgeted and hesitated.

“Is it not a little hard on an old man to be always asking questions of him, and never answering one of his inquiries in return?” he said to Rose, very gaily as to manner, but rather uneasily as to look.

“He will not speak out till we two are alone,” thought Trudaine. “It is best to risk nothing, and to humour him.”

“Come, come,” he said aloud; “no grumbling. I admit that it is your turn to hear our story now; and I will do my best to gratify you. But before I begin,” he added, turning to his sister, “let me suggest, Rose, that if you have any household matters to settle upstairs—”

“I know what you mean,” she interrupted, hurriedly, taking up the work which, during the last few minutes, she had allowed to drop into her lap; “but I am stronger than you think; I can face the worst of our recollections composedly. Go on, Louis; pray go on – I am quite fit to stop and hear you.”

“You know what we suffered in the first days of our suspense, after the success of your stratagem,” said Trudaine, turning to Lomaque. “I think it was on the evening after we had seen you for the last time at St. Lazare that strange, confused rumours of an impending convulsion in Paris first penetrated within our prison walls. During the next few days the faces of our jailers were enough to show us that those rumours were true, and that the Reign of Terror was actually threatened with overthrow at the hands of the Moderate Party. We had hardly time to hope everything from this blessed change before the tremendous news of Robespierre’s attempted suicide, then of his condemnation and execution, reached us. The confusion produced in the prison was beyond all description. The accused who had been tried and the accused who had not been tried got mingled together. From the day of Robespierre’s arrest, no orders came to the authorities, no death-lists reached the prison. The jailers, terrified by rumours that the lowest accomplices of the tyrant would be held responsible, and be condemned with him, made no attempt to maintain order. Some of them – that hunchback man among the rest – deserted their duties altogether. The disorganisation was so complete, that when the commissioners from the new Government came to St. Lazare, some of us were actually half starving from want of the bare necessities of life. To inquire separately into our cases was found to be impossible. Sometimes the necessary papers were lost; sometimes what documents remained were incomprehensible to the new commissioners. They were obliged, at last, to make short work of it by calling us up before them in dozens. Tried or not tried, we had all been arrested by the tyrant, had all been accused of conspiracy against him, and were all ready to hail the new Government as the salvation of France. In nine cases out of ten, our best claim to be discharged was derived from these circumstances. We were trusted by Tallien and the men of the Ninth Thermidor, because we had been suspected by Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just. Arrested informally, we were now liberated informally. When it came to my sister’s turn and mine, we were not under examination five minutes. No such thing as a searching question was asked of us; I believe we might even have given our own names with perfect impunity. But I had previously instructed Rose that we were to assume our mother’s maiden name – Maurice. As the citizen and citoyenne Maurice, accordingly, we passed out of prison – under the same name we have lived ever since in hiding here. Our past repose has depended, our future happiness will depend, on our escape from death being kept the profoundest secret among us three. For one all sufficient reason, which you can easily guess at, the brother and sister Maurice must still know nothing of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, except that they were two among the hundreds of victims guillotined during the Reign of Terror.”

He spoke the last sentence with a faint smile, and with the air of a man trying, in spite of himself, to treat a grave subject lightly. His face clouded again, however, in a moment, when he looked toward his sister, as he ceased. Her work had once more dropped on her lap, her face was turned away so that he could not see it; but he knew by the trembling of her clasped hands, as they rested on her knee, and by the slight swelling of the veins on her neck which she could not hide from him, that her boasted strength of nerve had deserted her. Three years of repose had not yet enabled her to hear her marriage name uttered, or to be present when past times of deathly suffering and terror were referred to, without betraying the shock in her face and manner. Trudaine looked saddened, but in no way surprised by what he saw. Making a sign to Lomaque to say nothing, he rose and took up his sister’s hood, which lay on a window-seat near him.

“Come, Rose,” he said, “the sun is shining, the sweet spring air is inviting us out. Let us have a quiet stroll along the banks of the stream. Why should we keep our good friend here cooped up in this narrow little room, when we have miles and miles of beautiful landscape to show him on the other side of the threshold? Come, it is high treason to Queen Nature to remain indoors on such a morning as this.”

Without waiting for her to reply, he put on her hood, drew her arm through his, and led the way out. Lomaque’s face grew grave as he followed them.

“I am glad I only showed the bright side of my budget of news in her presence,” thought he. “She is not well at heart yet. I might have hurt her, poor thing! I might have hurt her again sadly, if I had not held my tongue!”

They walked for a little while down the banks of the stream, talking of indifferent matters; then returned to the cottage. By that time Rose had recovered her spirits, and could listen with interest and amusement to Lomaque’s dryly-humorous description of his life as a clerk at Chalons-sur-Marne. They parted for a little while at the cottage door. Rose retired to the upstairs room from which she had been summoned by her brother. Trudaine and Lomaque returned to wander again along the banks of the stream.

With one accord, and without a word passing between them, they left the neighbourhood of the cottage hurriedly; then stopped on a sudden, and attentively looked each other in the face – looked in silence for an instant. Trudaine spoke first.

“I thank you for having spared her,” he began, abruptly. “She is not strong enough yet to bear hearing of a new misfortune, unless I break the tidings to her first.”

“You suspect me, then, of bringing bad news?” said Lomaque.

“I know you do. When I saw your first look at her, after we were all seated in the cottage parlour, I knew it. Speak without fear, without caution, without one useless word of preface. After three years of repose, if it pleases God to afflict us again, I can bear the trial calmly; and, if need be, can strengthen her to bear it calmly, too. I say again, Lomaque, speak at once, and speak out! I know your news is bad, for I know beforehand that it is news of Danville.”

“You are right; my bad news is news of him.”

“He has discovered the secret of our escape from the guillotine?”

“No – he has not a suspicion of it. He believes – as his mother, as everyone does – that you were both executed the day after the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced you to death.”

“Lomaque, you speak positively of that belief of his – but you cannot be certain of it.”

“I can, on the most indisputable, the most startling evidence – on the authority of Danville’s own act. You have asked me to speak out—”

“I ask you again – I insist on it! Your news, Lomaque – your news, without another word of preface!”

“You shall have it without another word of preface. Danville is on the point of being married.”

As the answer was given they both stopped by the bank of the stream, and again looked each other in the face. There was a minute of dead silence between them. During that minute, the water bubbling by happily over its bed of pebbles seemed strangely loud, the singing of birds in a little wood by the stream-side strangely near and shrill, in both their ears. The light breeze, for all its midday warmth, touched their cheeks coldly; and the spring sunlight pouring on their faces felt as if it were glimmering on them through winter clouds.

“Let us walk on,” said Trudaine, in a low voice. “I was prepared for bad news, yet not for that. Are you certain of what you have just told me?”

“As certain as that the stream here is flowing by our side. Hear how I made the discovery, and you will doubt no longer. Before last week I knew nothing of Danville, except that his arrest on suspicion by Robespierre’s order was, as events turned out, the saving of his life. He was imprisoned, as I told you, on the evening after he had heard your names read from the death-list at the prison grate. He remained in confinement at the Temple, unnoticed in the political confusion out-of-doors, just as you remained unnoticed at St. Lazare, and he profited precisely in the same manner that you profited by the timely insurrection which overthrew the Reign of Terror. I knew this, and I knew that he walked out of prison in the character of a persecuted victim of Robespierre’s – and, for better than three years past, I knew no more. Now listen. Last week I happened to be waiting in the shop of my employer, Citizen Clairfait, for some papers to take into the counting-house, when an old man enters with a sealed parcel, which he hands to one of the shopmen, saying:

“‘Give that to Citizen Clairfait.’

“‘Any name?’ says the shopman.

“‘The name is of no consequence,’ answers the old man; ‘but if you please, you can give mine. Say the parcel came from Citizen Dubois;’ and then he goes out. His name, in connection with his elderly look, strikes me directly.

“‘Does that old fellow live at Chalons?’ I ask.

“‘No,’ says the shopman. ‘He is here in attendance on a customer of ours – an old ex-aristocrat named Danville. She is on a visit in our town.’

“I leave you to imagine how that reply startles and amazes me. The shopman can answer none of the other questions I put to him; but the next day I am asked to dinner by my employer (who, for his brother’s sake, shows me the utmost civility). On entering the room, I find his daughter just putting away a lavender-coloured silk scarf, on which she has been embroidering in silver what looks to me very like a crest and coat-of-arms.

“‘I don’t mind your seeing what I am about, Citizen Lomaque,’ says she; ‘for I know my father can trust you. That scarf is sent back to us by the purchaser, an ex-emigrant lady of the old aristocratic school, to have her family coat-of-arms embroidered on it.’

“‘Rather a dangerous commission even in these mercifully democratic times, is it not?’ says I.

“‘The old lady, you must know,’ says she, ‘is as proud as Lucifer; and having got back safely to France in these days of moderate republicanism, thinks she may now indulge with impunity in all her old-fashioned notions. She has been an excellent customer of ours, so my father thought it best to humour her, without, however, trusting her commission to any of the workroom women to execute. We are not living under the Reign of Terror now, certainly; still there is nothing like being on the safe side.’

“‘Nothing,’ I answer. ‘Pray what is this ex-emigrant’s name?’

“‘Danville,’ replies the citoyenne Clairfait. ‘She is going to appear in that fine scarf at her son’s marriage.’

“‘Marriage!’ I exclaim, perfectly thunderstruck.

“‘Yes,’ says she. ‘What is there so amazing in that? By all accounts, the son, poor man, deserves to make a lucky marriage this time. His first wife was taken away from him in the Reign of Terror by the guillotine.’

“‘Who is he going to marry?’ I inquire, still breathless.

“‘The daughter of General Berthelin – an ex-aristocrat by family, like the old lady; but by principle as good a republican as ever lived – a hard-drinking, loud-swearing, big-whiskered old soldier, who snaps his fingers at his ancestors and says we are all descended from Adam, the first genuine sans-culotte in the world.’

“In this way the citoyenne Ciairfait gossips on all dinnertime, but says nothing more of any importance. I, with my old police-office habits, set to the next day, and try to make some discoveries for myself. The sum of what I find out is this: Danville’s mother is staying with General Berthelin’s sister and daughter at Chalons, and Danville himself is expected to arrive every day to escort them all three to Paris, where the marriage-contract is to be signed at the general’s house. Discovering this, and seeing that prompt action is now of the most vital importance, I undertake, as I told you, my employer’s commission for Paris, depart with all speed, and stop here on my way. Wait! I have not done yet. All the haste I can make is not haste enough to give me a good start of the wedding party. On my road here, the diligence by which I travel is passed by a carriage, posting along at full speed. I cannot see inside that carriage; but I look at the box-seat, and recognise on it the old man Dubois. He whirls by in a cloud of dust, but I am certain of him; and I say to myself what I now say again to you, no time is to be lost!”

“No time shall be lost,” answers, Trudaine, firmly. “Three years have passed,” he continued, in a lower voice, speaking to himself rather than to Lomaque; “three years since the day when I led my sister out of the gates of the prison – three years since I said in my heart, ‘I will be patient, and will not seek to avenge myself. Our wrongs cry from earth to heaven; from man who inflicts to God who redresses. When the day of reckoning comes, let it be the day of his vengeance, not of mine.’ In my heart I said those words – I have been true to them – I have waited. The day has come, and the duty it demands of me shall be fulfilled.”

There was a moment’s silence before Lomaque spoke again. “Your sister?” he began, hesitatingly.

“It is there only that my purpose falters,” said the other, earnestly. “If it were but possible to spare her all knowledge of this last trial, and to leave the accomplishment of the terrible task to me alone?”

“I think it is possible,” interposed Lomaque. “Listen to what I advise. We must depart for Paris by the diligence tomorrow morning, and we must take your sister with us – tomorrow will be time enough; people don’t sign marriage-contracts on the evening after a long day’s journey. We must go then, and we must take your sister. Leave the care of her in Paris, and the responsibility of keeping her in ignorance of what you are doing, to me. Go to this General Berthelin’s house at a time when you know Danville is there (we can get that knowledge through the servants); confront him without a moment’s previous warning; confront him as a man risen from the dead; confront him before every soul in the room though the room should be full of people – and leave the rest to the self-betrayal of a panic-stricken man. Say but three words, and your duty will be done; you may return to your sister, and may depart with her in safety to your old retreat at Rouen, or where else you please, on the very day when you have put it out of her infamous husband’s power to add another to the list of his crimes.”

“You forget the suddenness of the journey to Paris,” said Trudaine. “How are we to account for it without the risk of awakening my sister’s suspicions?”

“Trust that to me,” answered Lomaque. “Let us return to the cottage at once. No, not you,” he added, suddenly, as they turned to retrace their steps. “There is that in your face which would betray us. Leave me to go back alone – I will say that you have gone to give some orders at the inn. Let us separate immediately. You will recover your self-possession – you will get to look yourself again sooner – if you are left alone. I know enough of you to know that. We will not waste another minute in explanations; even minutes are precious to us on such a day as this. By the time you are fit to meet your sister again, I shall have had time to say all I wish to her, and shall be waiting at the cottage to tell you the result.”

He looked at Trudaine, and his eyes seemed to brighten again with something of the old energy and sudden decision of the days when he was a man in office under the Reign of Terror. “Leave it to me,” he said; and, waving his hand, turned away quickly in the direction of the cottage.

Nearly an hour passed before Trudaine ventured to follow him. When he at length entered the path which led to the garden gate, he saw his sister waiting at the cottage door. Her face looked unusually animated; and she ran forward a step or two to meet him.

“Oh, Louis!” she said, “I have a confession to make, and I must beg you to hear it patiently to the end. You must know that our good Lomaque, though he came in tired from his walk, occupied himself the first thing, at my request, in writing the letter which is to secure to us our dear old home by the banks of the Seine. When he had done, he looked at me, and said, ‘I should like to be present at your happy return to the house where I first saw you.’  ‘Oh, come, come with us!’ I said directly. ‘I am not an independent man,’ he answered; ‘I have a margin of time allowed me at Paris, certainly, but it is not long – if I were only my own master—’ and then he stopped. Louis, I remembered all we owed to him; I remembered that there was no sacrifice we ought not to be too glad to make for his sake; I felt the kindness of the wish he had expressed; and perhaps I was a little influenced by my own impatience to see once more my flower-garden and the rooms where we used to be so happy. So I said to him, ‘I am sure Louis will agree with me that our time is yours, and that we shall be only too glad to advance our departure so as to make travelling leisure enough for you to come with us to Rouen. We should be worse than ungrateful—’ He stopped me. ‘You have always been good to me,’ he said. ‘I must not impose on your kindness now. No, no, you have formalities to settle before you can leave this place.’  ‘Not one,’ I said – for we have not, as you know, Louis? ‘Why, here is your furniture to begin with,’ he said. ‘A few chairs and tables hired from the inn,’ I answered; ‘we have only to give the landlady our key, to leave a letter for the owner of the cottage, and then—’ He laughed. ‘Why, to hear you talk, one would think you were as ready to travel as I am!’  ‘So we are,’ I said, ‘quite as ready, living in the way we do here.’ He shook his head; but you will not shake yours, Louis, I am sure, now you have heard all my long story? You can’t blame me can you?”

Before Trudaine could answer, Lomaque looked out of the cottage window.

“I have just been telling my brother everything,” said Rose, turning round toward him.

“And what does he say?” asked Lomaque.

“He says what I say,” replied Rose, answering for her brother; “that our time is your time – the time of our best and dearest friend.”

“Shall it be done, then?” asked Lomaque, with a meaning look at Trudaine.

Rose glanced anxiously at her brother; his face was much graver than she had expected to see it, but his answer relieved her from all suspense.

“You are quite right, love, to speak as you did,” he said, gently. Then, turning to Lomaque, he added, in a firmer voice, “It shall be done!”

•  II  •

Two days after the travelling-carriage described by Lomaque had passed the diligence on the road to Paris, Madame Danville sat in the drawing-room of an apartment in the Rue de Grenelle, handsomely dressed for driving out. After consulting a large gold watch that hung at her side, and finding that it wanted a quarter of an hour only to two o’clock, she rang her hand-bell, and said to the maid-servant who answered the summons, “I have five minutes to spare. Send Dubois here with my chocolate.”

The old man made his appearance with great alacrity. After handing the cup of chocolate to his mistress, he ventured to use the privilege of talking, to which his long and faithful services entitled him, and paid the old lady a compliment. “I am rejoiced to see madame looking so young and in such good spirits this morning,” he said, with a low bow and a mild, deferential smile.

“I think I have some reason for being in good spirits on the day when my son’s marriage-contract is to be signed,” said Madame Danville, with a gracious nod of the head. “Ha, Dubois, I shall live yet to see him with a patent of nobility in his hand. The mob has done its worst; the end of this infamous revolution is not far off; our order will have its turn again soon, and then who will have such a chance at court as my son? He is noble already through his mother, he will then be noble also through his wife. Yes, yes; let that coarse-mannered, passionate, old soldier-father of hers be as unnaturally republican as he pleases, he has inherited a name which will help my son to a peerage! The Vicomte D’Anville (D with an apostrophe, Dubois, you understand?), the Vicomte D’Anville – how prettily it sounds!”

“Charmingly, madame – charmingly. Ah! this second marriage of my young master’s begins under much better auspices than the first.”

The remark was an unfortunate one. Madame Danville frowned portentously, and rose in a great hurry from her chair.

“Are your wits failing you, you old fool?” she exclaimed, indignantly. “What do you mean by referring to such a subject as that, on this day, of all others? You are always harping on those two wretched people who were guillotined, as if you thought I could have saved their lives. Were you not present when my son and I met, after the time of the Terror? Did you not hear my first words to him, when he told me of the catastrophe? Were they not ‘Charles, I love you; but if I thought you had let those two unfortunates, who risked themselves to save me, die without risking your life in return to save them, I would break my heart rather than ever look at you or speak to you again!’ Did I not say that? And did he not answer, ‘Mother, my life was risked for them. I proved my devotion by exposing myself to arrest – I was imprisoned for my exertions – and then I could do no more!’ Did you not stand by and hear him give that answer, overwhelmed while he spoke by generous emotion? Do you not know that he really was imprisoned in the Temple? Do you dare to think that we are to blame after that? I owe you much, Dubois, but if you are to take liberties with me—”

“Oh, madame! I beg pardon a thousand times. I was thoughtless – only thoughtless—”

“Silence! Is my coach at the door? Very well. Get ready to accompany me. Your master will not have time to return here. He will meet me, for the signing of the contract, at General Berthelin’s house at two precisely. Stop! Are there many people in the street? I can’t be stared at by the mob as I go to my carriage.”

Dubois hobbled penitently to the window and looked out, while his mistress walked to the door.

“The street is almost empty, madame,” he said. “Only a man with a woman on his arm, stopping and admiring your carriage. They seem like decent people, as well as I can tell without my spectacles. Not mob, I should say, madame; certainly not mob!”

“Very well. Attend me downstairs; and bring some loose silver with you, in case those two decent people should be fit objects for charity. No orders for the coachman, except that he is to go straight to the general’s house.”

The party assembled at General Berthelin’s to witness the signature of the marriage-contract, comprised, besides the persons immediately interested in the ceremony of the day, some young ladies, friends of the bride, and a few officers, who had been comrades of her father’s in past years. The guests were distributed, rather unequally, in two handsome apartments opening into each other – one called in the house the drawing-room, and the other the library. In the drawing-room were assembled the notary, with the contract ready, the bride, the young ladies, and the majority of General Berthelin’s friends. In the library, the remainder of the military guests were amusing themselves at a billiard-table until the signing of the contract should take place, while Danville and his future father-in-law walked up and down the room together, the first listening absently, the last talking with all his accustomed energy, and with more than his accustomed allowance of barrack-room expletives. The general had taken it into his head to explain some of the clauses in the marriage-contract to the bridegroom, who, though far better acquainted with their full scope and meaning than his father-in-law, was obliged to listen for civility’s sake. While the old soldier was still in the midst of his long and confused harangue, a clock struck on the library mantelpiece.

“Two o’clock!” exclaimed Danville, glad of any pretext for interrupting the talk about the contract. “Two o’clock; and my mother not here yet! What can be delaying her?”

“Nothing,” cried the general. “When did you ever know a woman punctual, my lad? If we wait for your mother – and she’s such a rabid aristocrat that she would never forgive us for not waiting – we shan’t sign the contract yet this half-hour. Never mind! let’s go on with what we were talking about. Where the devil was I when that cursed clock struck and interrupted us? Now then, Black Eyes, what’s the matter?”

This last question was addressed to Mademoiselle Berthelin, who at that moment hastily entered the library from the drawing-room. She was a tall and rather masculine-looking girl, with superb black eyes, dark hair growing low on her forehead, and something of her father’s decision and bluntness in her manner of speaking.

“A stranger in the other room, papa, who wants to see you. I suppose the servants showed him upstairs, thinking he was one of the guests. Ought I to have had him shown down again?”

“A nice question! How should I know? Wait till I have seen him, miss, and then I’ll tell you!” With these words the general turned on his heel, and went into the drawing-room.

His daughter would have followed him, but Danville caught her by the hand.

“Can you be hard-hearted enough to leave me here alone?” he asked.

“What is to become of all my bosom friends in the next room, you selfish man, if I stop here with you?” retorted mademoiselle, struggling to free herself.

“Call them in here,” said Danville gaily, making himself master of her other hand.

She laughed, and drew him away toward the drawing-room.

“Come,” she cried, “and let all the ladies see what a tyrant I am going to marry. Come, and show them what an obstinate, unreasonable, wearisome—”

Her voice suddenly failed her; she shuddered, and turned faint. Danville’s hand had in one instant grown cold as death in hers; the momentary touch of his fingers, as she felt their grasp loosen, struck some mysterious chill through her from head to foot. She glanced round at him affrightedly, and saw his eyes looking straight into the drawing-room. They were fixed in a strange, unwavering, awful stare, while, from the rest of his face, all expression, all character, all recognisable play and movement of feature, had utterly gone. It was a breathless, lifeless mask – a white blank. With a cry of terror, she looked where he seemed to be looking; and could see nothing but the stranger standing in the middle of the drawing-room. Before she could ask a question – before she could speak even a single word – her father came to her, caught Danville by the arm, and pushed her roughly back into the library.

“Go there, and take the women with you,” he said, in a quick, fierce whisper. “Into the library!” he continued, turning to the ladies, and raising his voice. “Into the library, all of you, along with my daughter.”

The women, terrified by his manner, obeyed him in the greatest confusion. As they hurried past him into the library, he signed to the notary to follow; and then closed the door of communication between the two rooms.

“Stop where you are!” he cried, addressing the old officers, who had risen from their chairs. “Stay, I insist on it! Whatever happens, Jacques Berthelin has done nothing to be ashamed of in the presence of his old friends and companions. You have seen the beginning, now stay and see the end.”

While he spoke, he walked into the middle of the room. He had never quitted his hold of Danville’s arm; step by step they advanced together to the place where Trudaine was standing.

“You have come into my house, and asked me for my daughter in marriage – and I have given her to you,” said the general, addressing Danville, quietly. “You told me that your first wife and her brother were guillotined three years ago in the time of the Terror – and I believed you. Now look at that man – look him straight in the face. He has announced himself to me as the brother of your wife, and he asserts that his sister is alive at this moment. One of you two has deceived me. Which is it?”

Danville tried to speak, but no sound passed his lips; tried to wrench his arm from the grasp that was on it, but could not stir the old soldier’s steady hand.

“Are you afraid? are you a coward? Can’t you look him in the face?” asked the general, tightening his hold sternly.

“Stop! stop!” interposed one of the old officers, coming forward. “Give him time. This may be a case of strange accidental resemblance, which would be enough, under the circumstances, to discompose any man. You will excuse me, citizen,” he continued, turning to Trudaine; “but you are a stranger. You have given us no proof of your identity.”

“There is the proof,” said Trudaine, pointing to Danville’s face.

“Yes, yes,” pursued the other; “he looks pale and startled enough, certainly. But I say again, let us not be too hasty; there are strange cases on record of accidental resemblances, and this may be one of them!”

As he repeated those words, Danville looked at him with a faint, cringing gratitude, stealing slowly over the blank terror of his face. He bowed his head, murmured something, and gesticulated confusedly with the hand that he was free to use.

“Look!” cried the old officer; “look, Berthelin; he denies the man’s identity.”

“Do you hear that?” said the general, appealing to Trudaine. “Have you proofs to confute him? If you have, produce them instantly.”

Before the answer could be given the door leading into the drawing-room from the staircase was violently flung open, and Madame Danville – her hair in disorder, her face in its colourless terror looking like the very counterpart of her son’s – appeared on the threshold, with the old man Dubois and a group of amazed and startled servants behind her.

“For God’s sake, don’t sign! for God’s sake, come away!” she cried. “I have seen your wife – in the spirit, or in the flesh, I know not which – but I have seen her. Charles! Charles! as true as Heaven is above us, I have seen your wife!”

“You have seen her in the flesh, living and breathing as you see her brother yonder,” said a firm, quiet voice, from among the servants on the landing outside.

“Let that man enter, whoever he is!” cried the general.

Lomaque passed Madame Danville on the threshold. She trembled as he brushed by her; then, supporting herself by the wall, followed him a few paces into the room. She looked first at her son – after that, at Trudaine – after that back again at her son. Something in her presence silenced everyone. There fell a sudden stillness over all the assembly – a stillness so deep that the eager, frightened whispering, and sharp rustling of dresses among the women in the library, became audible from the other side of the closed door.

“Charles,” she said, slowly advancing; “why do you look—” She stopped, and fixed her eyes again on her son more earnestly than before; then turned them suddenly on Trudaine. “You are looking at my son, sir,” she said, “and I see contempt in your face. By what right do you insult a man whose grateful sense of his mother’s obligations to you made him risk his life for the saving of yours and your sister’s? By what right have you kept the escape of my son’s wife from death by the guillotine – an escape which, for all I know to the contrary, his generous exertions were instrumental in effecting – a secret from my son? By what right, I demand to know, has your treacherous secrecy placed us in such a position as we now stand in before the master of this house?”

An expression of sorrow and pity passed over Trudaine’s face while she spoke. He retired a few steps, and gave her no answer. The general looked at him with eager curiosity, and, dropping his hold of Danville’s arm, seemed about to speak; but Lomaque stepped forward at the same time, and held up his hand to claim attention.

“I think I shall express the wishes of Citizen Trudaine,” he said, addressing Madame Danville, “if I recommend this lady not to press for too public an answer to her questions.”

“Pray who are you, sir, who take it on yourself to advise me?” she retorted, haughtily. “I have nothing to say to you, except that I repeat those questions, and that I insist on their being answered.”

“Who is this man?” asked the general, addressing Trudaine, and pointing to Lomaque.

“A man unworthy of credit,” cried Danville, speaking audibly for the first time, and darting a look of deadly hatred at Lomaque. “An agent of police under Robespierre.”

“And in that capacity capable of answering questions which refer to the transactions of Robespierre’s tribunals,” remarked the ex-chief agent, with his old official self-possession.

“True!” exclaimed the general; “the man is right – let him be heard.”

“There is no help for it,” said Lomaque, looking at Trudaine; “leave it to me – it is fittest that I should speak. I was present,” he continued, in a louder voice, “at the trial of Citizen Trudaine and his sister. They were brought to the bar through the denunciation of Citizen Danville. Till the confession of the male prisoner exposed the fact, I can answer for Danville’s not being aware of the real nature of the offences charged against Trudaine and his sister. When it became known that they had been secretly helping this lady to escape from France, and when Danville’s own head was consequently in danger, I myself heard him save it by a false assertion that he had been aware of Trudaine’s conspiracy from the first—”

“Do you mean to say,” interrupted the general, “that he proclaimed himself in open court as having knowingly denounced the man who was on trial for saving his mother?”

“I do,” answered Lomaque. (A murmur of horror and indignation rose from all the strangers present at that reply.) “The reports of the Tribunal are existing to prove the truth of what I say,” he went on. “As to the escape of Citizen Trudaine and the wife of Danville from the guillotine, it was the work of political circumstances, which there are persons living to speak to if necessary; and of a little stratagem of mine, which need not be referred to now. And, last, with reference to the concealment which followed the escape, I beg to inform you that it was abandoned the moment we knew of what was going on here; and that it was only persevered in up to this time, as a natural measure of precaution on the part of Citizen Trudaine. From a similar motive we now abstain from exposing his sister to the shock and the peril of being present here. What man with an atom of feeling would risk letting her even look again on such a husband as that?”

He glanced round him, and pointed to Danville, as he put the question. Before a word could be spoken by anyone else in the room, a low wailing cry of “My mistress! my dear, dear mistress!” directed all eyes first on the old man Dubois, then on Madame Danville.

She had been leaning against the wall, before Lomaque began to speak; but she stood perfectly upright now. She neither spoke nor moved. Not one of the light gaudy ribbons flaunting on her disordered head-dress so much as trembled. The old servant Dubois was crouched on his knees at her side, kissing her cold right hand, chafing it in his, reiterating his faint, mournful cry, “Oh! my mistress! my dear, dear mistress!” but she did not appear to know that he was near her. It was only when her son advanced a step or two toward her that she seemed to awaken suddenly from that death-trance of mental pain. Then she slowly raised the hand that was free, and waved him back from her. He stopped in obedience to the gesture, and endeavoured to speak. She waved her hand again, and the deathly stillness of her face began to grow troubled. Her lips moved a little – she spoke.

“Oblige me, sir, for the last time, by keeping silence. You and I have henceforth nothing to say to each other. I am the daughter of a race of nobles, and the widow of a man of honour. You are a traitor and a false witness – a thing from which all true men and true women turn with contempt. I renounce you! Publicly, in the presence of these gentlemen, I say it – I have no son.”

She turned her back on him; and, bowing to the other persons in the room with the old formal courtesy of bygone times, walked slowly and steadily to the door. Stopping there, she looked back; and then the artificial courage of the moment failed her. With a faint, suppressed cry she clutched at the hand of the old servant, who still kept faithfully at her side; he caught her in his arms, and her head sank on his shoulder.

“Help him!” cried the general to the servants near the door. “Help him to take her into the next room!”

The old man looked up suspiciously from his mistress to the persons who were assisting him to support her. With a strange, sudden jealousy he shook his hand at them. “Home,” he cried; “she shall go home, and I will take care of her. Away! you there – nobody holds her head but Dubois. Downstairs! downstairs to her carriage! She has nobody but me now, and I say that she shall be taken home.”

As the door closed, General Berthelin approached Trudaine, who had stood silent and apart, from the time when Lomaque first appeared in the drawing-room.

“I wish to ask your pardon,” said the old soldier, “because I have wronged you by a moment of unjust suspicion. For my daughter’s sake, I bitterly regret that we did not see each other long ago; but I thank you, nevertheless, for coming here, even at the eleventh hour.”

While he was speaking, one of his friends came up, and touching him on the shoulder, said: “Berthelin, is that scoundrel to be allowed to go?”

The general turned on his heel directly, and beckoned contemptuously to Danville to follow him to the door. When they were well out of earshot, he spoke these words:

“You have been exposed as a villain by your brother-in-law, and renounced as a liar by your mother. They have done their duty by you, and now it only remains for me to do mine. When a man enters the house of another under false pretences, and compromises the reputation of his daughter, we old army men have a very expeditious way of making him answer for it. It is just three o’clock now; at five you will find me and one of my friends—”

He stopped, and looked round cautiously – then whispered the rest in Danville’s ear – threw open the door, and pointed downstairs.

“Our work here is done,” said Lomaque, laying his hand on Trudaine’s arm. “Let us give Danville time to get clear of the house, and then leave it too.”

“My sister! where is she?” asked Trudaine, eagerly.

“Make your mind easy about her. I will tell you more when we get out.”

“You will excuse me, I know,” said General Berthelin, speaking to all the persons present, with his hand on the library door, “if I leave you. I have bad news to break to my daughter, and private business after that to settle with a friend.”

He saluted the company, with his usual bluff nod of the head, and entered the library. A few minutes afterward, Trudaine and Lomaque left the house.

“You will find your sister waiting for you in our apartment at the hotel,” said the latter. “She knows nothing, absolutely nothing, of what has passed.”

“But the recognition?” asked Trudaine, amazedly. “His mother saw her. Surely she—”

“I managed it so that she should be seen, and should not see. Our former experience of Danville suggested to me the propriety of making the experiment, and my old police-office practice came in useful in carrying it out. I saw the carriage standing at the door, and waited till the old lady came down. I walked your sister away as she got in, and walked her back again past the window as the carriage drove off. A moment did it, and it turned out as useful as I thought it would. Enough of that! Go back now to your sister. Keep indoors till the night mail starts for Rouen. I have had two places taken for you on speculation. Go! resume possession of your house, and leave me here to transact the business which my employer has entrusted to me, and to see how matters end with Danville and his mother. I will make time somehow to come and bid you good-bye at Rouen, though it should be only for a single day. Bah! no thanks. Give us your hand. I was ashamed to take it eight years ago – I can give it a hearty shake now! There is your way; here is mine. Leave me to my business in silks and satins, and go you back to your sister, and help her to pack up for the night mail.”

•  III  •

Three more days have passed. It is evening. Rose, Trudaine and Lomaque are seated together on the bench that overlooks the windings of the Seine. The old familiar scene spreads before them, beautiful as ever – unchanged, as if it was but yesterday since they had all looked on it for the last time.

They talk together seriously and in low voices. The same recollections fill their hearts – recollections which they refrain from acknowledging, but the influence of which each knows by instinct that the other partakes. Sometimes one leads the conversation, sometimes another; but whoever speaks, the topic chosen is always, as if by common consent, a topic connected with the future.

The evening darkens in, and Rose is the first to rise from the bench. A secret look of intelligence passes between her and her brother, and then she speaks to Lomaque.

“Will you follow me into the house,” she asks, “with as little delay as possible? I have something that I very much wish to show you.”

Her brother waits till she is out of hearing, then inquires anxiously what has happened at Paris since the night when he and Rose left it.

“Your sister is free,” Lomaque answers.

“The duel took place, then?”

“The same day. They were both to fire together. The second of his adversary asserts that he was paralysed with terror; his own second declares that he was resolved, however he might have lived, to confront death courageously by offering his life at the first fire to the man whom he had injured. Which account is true, I know not. It is only certain that he did not discharge his pistol, that he fell by his antagonist’s first bullet, and that he never spoke afterward.”

“And his mother?”

“It is hard to gain information. Her doors are closed; the old servant guards her with jealous care. A medical man is in constant attendance, and there are reports in the house that the illness from which she is suffering affects her mind more than her body. I could ascertain no more.”

After that answer they both remain silent for a little while, then rise from the bench and walk toward the house.

“Have you thought yet about preparing your sister to hear of all that has happened?” Lomaque asks, as he sees the lamplight glimmering in the parlour window.

“I shall wait to prepare her till we are settled again here – till the first holiday pleasure of our return has worn off, and the quiet realities of our everyday life of old have resumed their way,” answers Trudaine.

They enter the house. Rose beckons to Lomaque to sit down near her, and places pen and ink and an open letter before him.

“I have a last favour to ask of you,” she says, smiling.

“I hope it will not take long to grant,” he rejoins; “for I have only tonight to be with you. Tomorrow morning, before you are up, I must be on my way back to Chalons.”

“Will you sign that letter?” she continues, still smiling, “and then give it to me to send to the post? It was dictated by Louis, and written by me, and it will be quite complete, if you will put your name at the end of it.”

“I suppose I may read it?”

She nods, and Lomaque reads these lines:

“Citizen – I beg respectfully to apprise you that the commission you entrusted to me at Paris has been performed.

“I have also to beg that you will accept my resignation of the place I hold in your counting-house. The kindness shown me by you and your brother before you, emboldens me to hope that you will learn with pleasure the motive of my withdrawal. Two friends of mine, who consider that they are under some obligations to me, are anxious that I should pass the rest of my days in the quiet and protection of their home. Troubles of former years have knit us together as closely as if we were all three members of one family. I need the repose of a happy fireside as much as any man, after the life I have led; and my friends assure me so earnestly that their whole hearts are set on establishing the old man’s easy-chair by their hearth, that I cannot summon resolution enough to turn my back on them and their offer.

“Accept, then, I beg of you, the resignation which this letter contains, and with it the assurance of my sincere gratitude and respect.

“To Citizen Clairfait, Silk-mercer,
“Chalons-sur-Marne.”

After reading these lines, Lomaque turned round to Trudaine and attempted to speak; but the words would not come at command. He looked up at Rose, and tried to smile; but his lip only trembled. She dipped the pen in the ink, and placed it in his hand. He bent his head down quickly over the paper, so that she could not see his face; but still he did not write his name. She put her hand caressingly on his shoulder, and whispered to him:

“Come, come, humour ‘Sister Rose.’ She must have her own way now she is back again at home.”

He did not answer – his head sank lower – he hesitated for an instant – then signed his name in faint, trembling characters, at the end of the letter.

She drew it away from him gently. A few tear-drops lay on the paper. As she dried them with her handkerchief she looked at her brother.

“They are the last he shall ever shed, Louis; you and I will take care of that!”

•   •   •   •   •   •

EPILOGUE TO
THE THIRD STORY

I have now related all that is eventful in the history of Sister Rose. To the last the three friends dwelt together happily in the cottage on the river bank. Mademoiselle Clairfait was fortunate enough to know them, before Death entered the little household and took away, in the fullness of time, the eldest of its members. She describes Lomaque, in her quaint foreign English, as “a brave, big heart”; generous, affectionate, and admirably free from the small obstinacies and prejudices of old age, except on one point: he could never be induced to take his coffee, of an evening, from any other hand than the hand of Sister Rose.

I linger over these final particulars with a strange unwillingness to separate myself from them, and give my mind to other thoughts. Perhaps the persons and events that have occupied my attention for so many nights past have some peculiar interest for me that I cannot analyse. Perhaps the labour and time which this story has cost me have especially endeared it to my sympathies, now that I have succeeded in completing it. However that may be, I have need of some resolution to part at last with Sister Rose, and return, in the interests of my next and Fourth Story, to English ground.

I have experienced so much difficulty, let me add, in deciding on the choice of a new narrative out of my collection, that my wife has lost all patience, and has undertaken, on her own responsibility, to relieve me of my unreasonable perplexities. By her advice – given, as usual, without a moment’s hesitation – I cannot do better than tell the story of

The Lady of Glenwith Grange.

PROLOGUE TO
THE FOURTH STORY

My practice in the art of portrait-painting, if it has done nothing else, has at least fitted me to turn my talents (such as they are) to a great variety of uses. I have not only taken the likenesses of men, women, and children, but have also extended the range of my brush, under stress of circumstances, to horses, dogs, houses, and in one case even to a bull – the terror and glory of his parish, and the most truculent sitter I ever had. The beast was appropriately named “Thunder and Lightning,” and was the property of a gentleman-farmer named Garthwaite, a distant connection of my wife’s family.

How it was that I escaped being gored to death before I had finished my picture is more than I can explain to this day. “Thunder and Lightning” resented the very sight of me and my colour-box, as if he viewed the taking of his likeness in the light of a personal insult. It required two men to coax him, while a third held him by a ring in his nostrils, before I could venture on beginning to work. Even then he always lashed his tail, and jerked his huge head, and rolled his fiery eyes with a devouring anxiety to have me on his horns for daring to sit down quietly and look at him. Never, I can honestly say, did I feel more heartily grateful for the blessings of soundness of limb and wholeness of skin, than when I had completed the picture of the bull!

One morning, when I had but little more than half done my unwelcome task, my friend and I were met on our way to the bull’s stable by the farm bailiff, who informed us gravely that “Thunder and Lightning” was just then in such an especially surly state of temper as to render it quite unsafe for me to think of painting him. I looked inquiringly at Mr. Garthwaite, who smiled with an air of comic resignation, and said, “Very well, then, we have nothing for it but to wait till tomorrow. What do you say to a morning’s fishing, Mr. Kerby, now that my bull’s bad temper has given us a holiday?”

I replied, with perfect truth, that I knew nothing about fishing. But Mr. Garthwaite, who was as ardent an angler in his way as Izaak Walton himself, was not to be appeased even by the best of excuses. “It is never too late to learn,” cried he. “I will make a fisherman of you in no time, if you will only attend to my directions.” It was impossible for me to make any more apologies, without the risk of appealing discourteous. So I thanked my host for his friendly intentions, and, with some secret misgivings, accepted the first fishing-rod that he put into my hands.

“We shall soon get there,” said Mr. Garthwaite. “I am taking you to the best mill-stream in the neighbourhood.” It was all one to me whether we got there soon or late and whether the stream was good or bad. However, I did my best to conceal my unsportsman-like apathy; and tried to look quite happy and very impatient to begin, as we drew near to the mill, and heard louder and louder the gushing of many waters all round it.

Leading the way immediately to a place beneath the falling stream, where there was a deep, eddying pool, Mr. Garthwaite baited and threw in his line before I had fixed the joints of my fishing-rod. This first difficulty overcome, I involuntarily plunged into some excellent, but rather embarrassing, sport with my line and hook. I caught every one of my garments, from head to foot; I angled for my own clothes with the dexterity and success of Izaak Walton himself. I caught my hat, my jacket, my waistcoat, my trousers, my fingers, and my thumbs – some devil possessed my hook; some more than eel-like vitality twirled and twisted in every inch of my line. By the time my host arrived to assist me, I had attached myself to my fishing-rod, apparently for life. All difficulties yielded, however, to his patience and skill; my hook was baited for me, and thrown in; my rod was put into my hand; my friend went back to his place; and we began at last to angle in earnest.

We certainly caught a few fish (in my case, I mean, of course, that the fish caught themselves); but they were scanty in number and light in weight. Whether it was the presence of the miller’s foreman – a gloomy personage, who stood staring disastrously upon us from a little flower-garden on the opposite bank – that cast adverse influence over our sport; or whether my want of faith and earnestness as an angler acted retributively on my companion as well as myself, I know not; but it is certain that he got almost as little reward for his skill as I got for my patience. After nearly two hours of intense expectation on my part, and intense angling on his, Mr. Garthwaite jerked his line out of the water in a rage, and bade me follow him to another place, declaring that the stream must have been netted by poachers in the night, who had taken all the large fish away with them, and had thrown in the small ones to grow until their next visit. We moved away, further down the bank, leaving the imperturbable foreman still in the flower-garden, staring at us speechlessly on our departure, exactly as he had already stared at us on our approach.

“Stop a minute,” said Mr. Garthwaite suddenly, after we had walked some distance in silence by the side of the stream, “I have an idea. Now we are out for a day’s angling, we won’t be baulked. Instead of trying the water here again, we will go where I know, by experience, that the fishing is excellent. And what is more, you shall be introduced to a lady whose appearance is sure to interest you, and whose history, I can tell you beforehand, is a very remarkable one.”

“Indeed,” I said. “May I ask in what way?”

“She is connected,” answered Mr. Garthwaite, “with an extraordinary story, which relates to a family once settled in an old house in this neighbourhood. Her name is Miss Welwyn; but she is less formally known an among the poor people about here, who love her dearly, and honour her almost superstitiously, as the Lady of Glenwith Grange. Wait till you have seen her before you ask me to say anything more. She lives in the strictest retirement; I am almost the only visitor who is admitted. Don’t say you had rather not go in. Any friend of mine will be welcome at the Grange (the scene of the story, remember), for my sake – the more especially because I have never abused my privilege of introduction. The place is not above two miles from here, and the stream (which we call, in our county dialect, Glenwith Beck) runs through the ground.”

As we walked on, Mr. Garthwaite’s manner altered. He became unusually silent and thoughtful. The mention of Miss Welwyn’s name had evidently called up some recollections which were not in harmony with his everyday mood. Feeling that to talk to him on any indifferent subject would be only to interrupt his thoughts to no purpose, I walked by his side in perfect silence, looking out already with some curiosity and impatience for a first view of Glenwith Grange. We stopped at last close by an old church, standing on the outskirts of a pretty village. The low wall of the churchyard was bounded on one side by a plantation, and was joined by a park paling, in which I noticed a small wicket-gate. Mr. Garthwaite opened it, and led me along a shrubbery path, which conducted us circuitously to the dwelling-house.

We had evidently entered by a private way, for we approached the building by the back. I looked up at it curiously, and saw standing at one of the windows on the lower floor a little girl watching us as we advanced. She seemed to be about nine or ten years old. I could not help stopping a moment to look up at her, her clear complexion and her long dark hair were so beautiful. And yet there was something in her expression – a dimness and vacancy in her large eyes – a changeless, unmeaning smile on her parted lips – which seemed to jar with all that was naturally attractive in her face; which perplexed, disappointed, and even shocked me, though I hardy knew why. Mr. Garthwaite, who had been walking along thoughtfully, with his eyes on the ground, turned back when he found me lingering behind him; looked up where I was looking; started a little, I thought; then took my arm, whispered rather impatiently, “Don’t say anything about having seen that poor child when you are introduced to Miss Welwyn; I’ll tell you why afterward,” and led me round hastily to the front of the building.

It was a very dreary old house, with a lawn in front thickly sprinkled with flowerbeds, and creepers of all sorts climbing in profusion about the heavy stone porch and the mullions of the lower windows. In spite of these prettiest of all ornaments clustering brightly round the building – in spite of the perfect repair in which it was kept from top to bottom – there was something repellent to me in the aspect of the whole place: a deathly stillness hung over it, which fell oppressively on my spirits. When my companion rang the loud, deep-toned bell, the sound startled me as if we had been committing a crime in disturbing the silence. And when the door was opened by an old female servant (while the hollow echo of the bell was still vibrating in the air), I could hardly imagine it possible that we should be let in. We were admitted, however, without the slightest demur. I remarked that there was the same atmosphere of dreary repose inside the house which I had already observed, or rather felt, outside it. No dogs barked at our approach – no doors banged in the servants’ offices – no heads peeped over the banisters – not one of the ordinary domestic consequences of an unexpected visit in the country met either eye or ear. The large shadowy apartment, half library, half breakfast-room, into which we were ushered, was as solitary as the hall of entrance; unless I except such drowsy evidences of life as were here presented to us in the shape of an Angola cat and a grey parrot – the first lying asleep in a chair, the second sitting ancient, solemn, and voiceless, in a large cage.

Mr. Garthwaite walked to the window when we entered, without saying a word. Determining to let his taciturn humour have its way, I asked him no questions, but looked around the room to see what information it would give me (and rooms often do give such information) about the character and habits of the owner of the house.

Two tables covered with books were the first objects that attracted me. On approaching them, I was surprised to find that the all-influencing periodical literature of the present day – whose sphere is already almost without limit; whose readers, even in our time, may be numbered by millions – was entirely unrepresented on Miss Welwyn’s table. Nothing modern, nothing contemporary, in the world of books, presented itself. Of all the volumes beneath my hand, not one bore the badge of the circulating library, or wore the flaring modern livery of gilt cloth. Every work that I took up had been written at least fifteen or twenty years since. The prints hanging round the walls (toward which I next looked) were all engraved from devotional subjects by the old masters; the music-stand contained no music of later date than the compositions of Haydn and Mozart. Whatever I examined besides, told me, with the same consistency, the same strange tale. The owner of these possessions lived in the bygone time; lived among old recollections and old associations – a voluntary recluse from all that was connected with the passing day. In Miss Welwyn’s house, the stir, the tumult, the “idle business” of the world evidently appealed in vain to sympathies which grew no longer with the growing hour.

As these thoughts were passing through my mind, the door opened and the lady herself appeared.

She looked certainly past the prime of life; longer past it, as I afterward discovered, than she really was. But I never remember, in any other face, to have seen so much of the better part of the beauty of early womanhood still remaining, as I saw in hers. Sorrow had evidently passed over the fair, calm countenance before me, but had left resignation there as its only trace. Her expression was still youthful – youthful in its kindness and its candour especially. It was only when I looked at her hair, that was now growing grey – at her wan, thin hands – at the faint lines marked round her mouth – at the sad serenity of her eyes, that I fairly detected the mark of age; and, more than that, the token of some great grief, which had been conquered, but not banished. Even from her voice alone – from the peculiar uncertainty of its low, calm tones when she spoke – it was easy to conjecture that she must have passed through sufferings, at some time of her life, which had tried to the quick the noble nature that they could not subdue.

Mr. Garthwaite and she met each other almost like brother and sister; it was plain that the friendly intimacy between them had been of very long duration. Our visit was a short one. The conversation never advanced beyond the commonplace topics suited to the occasion. It was, therefore, from what I saw, and not from what I heard, that I was enabled to form my judgement of Miss Welwyn. Deeply as she had interested me – far more deeply than I at all know how to explain in fitting words – I cannot say that I was unwilling to depart when we rose to take leave. Though nothing could be more courteous and more kind than her manner toward me during the whole interview, I could still perceive that it cost her some effort to repress in my presence the shades of sadness and reserve which seemed often ready to steal over her. And I must confess that when I once or twice heard the half-sigh stifled, and saw the momentary relapse into thoughtfulness suddenly restrained, I felt an indefinable awkwardness in my position which made me ill at ease; which set me doubting whether, as a perfect stranger, I had done right in suffering myself to be introduced where no new faces could awaken either interest or curiosity; where no new sympathies could ever be felt, no new friendships ever be formed.

As soon as we had taken leave of Miss Welwyn, and were on our way to the stream in her grounds, I more than satisfied Mr. Garthwaite that the impression the lady had produced on me was of no transitory kind, by overwhelming him with questions about her – not omitting one or two incidental inquiries on the subject of the little girl whom I had seen at the back window. He only rejoined that his story would answer all my questions; and that he would begin to tell it as soon as we had arrived at Glenwith Beck, and were comfortably settled to fishing.

Five minutes more of walking brought us to the bank of the stream, and showed us the water running smoothly and slowly, tinged with the softest green lustre from the reflections of trees which almost entirely arched it over. Leaving me to admire the view at my ease, Mr. Garthwaite occupied himself with the necessary preparations for angling, baiting my hook as well as his own. Then, desiring me to sit near him on the bank, he at last satisfied my curiosity by beginning his story. I shall relate it in his own manner, and, as nearly as possible, in his own words.

THE ANGLER’S STORY:
THE LADY OF GLENWITH GRANGE

I have known Miss Welwyn long enough to be able to bear personal testimony to the truth of many of the particulars which I am now about to relate. I knew her father, and her younger sister Rosamond; and I was acquainted with the Frenchman who became Rosamond’s husband. These are the persons of whom it will be principally necessary for me to speak. They are the only prominent characters in my story.

Miss Welwyn’s father died some years since. I remember him very well – though he never excited in me, or in anyone else that I ever heard of, the slightest feeling of interest. When I have said that he inherited a very large fortune, amassed during his father’s time, by speculations of a very daring, very fortunate, but not always very honourable kind, and that he bought this old house with the notion of raising his social position, by making himself a member of our landed aristocracy in these parts, I have told you as much about him, I suspect, as you would care to hear. He was a thoroughly commonplace man, with no great virtues and no great vices in him. He had a little heart, a feeble mind, an amiable temper, a tall figure, and a handsome face. More than this need not, and cannot, be said on the subject of Mr. Welwyn’s character.

I must have seen the late Mrs. Welwyn very often as a child; but I cannot say that I remember anything more of her than that she was tall and handsome, and very generous and sweet-tempered toward me when I was in her company. She was her husband’s superior in birth, as in everything else; was a great reader of books in all languages; and possessed such admirable talents as a musician, that her wonderful playing on the organ is remembered and talked of to this day among the old people in our country houses about here. All her friends, as I have heard, were disappointed when she married Mr. Welwyn, rich as he was; and were afterward astonished to find her preserving the appearance, at least, of being perfectly happy with a husband who, neither in mind nor heart, was worthy of her.

It was generally supposed (and I have no doubt correctly) that she found her great happiness and her great consolation in her little girl Ida – now the lady from whom we have just parted. The child took after her mother from the first – inheriting her mother’s fondness for books, her mother’s love of music, her mother’s quick sensibilities, and, more than all, her mother’s quiet firmness, patience, and loving kindness of disposition. From Ida’s earliest years, Mrs. Welwyn undertook the whole superintendence of her education. The two were hardly ever apart, within doors or without. Neighbours and friends said that the little girl was being brought up too fancifully, and was not enough among other children, was sadly neglected as to all reasonable and practical teaching, and was perilously encouraged in those dreamy and imaginative tendencies of which she had naturally more than her due share. There was, perhaps, some truth in this; and there might have been still more, if Ida had possessed an ordinary character, or had been reserved for an ordinary destiny. But she was a strange child from the first, and a strange future was in store for her.

Little Ida reached her eleventh year without either brother or sister to be her playfellow and companion at home. Immediately after that period, however, her sister Rosamond was born. Though Mr. Welwyn’s own desire was to have had a son, there were, nevertheless, great rejoicings yonder in the old house on the birth of this second daughter. But they were all turned, only a few months afterward, to the bitterest grief and despair: the Grange lost its mistress. While Rosamond was still an infant in arms, her mother died.

Mrs. Welwyn had been afflicted with some disorder after the birth of her second child, the name of which I am not learned enough in medical science to be able to remember. I only know that she recovered from it, to all appearance, in an unexpectedly short time; that she suffered a fatal relapse, and that she died a lingering and a painful death. Mr. Welwyn (who, in after years, had a habit of vaingloriously describing his marriage as “a love-match on both sides”) was really fond of his wife in his own frivolous, feeble way, and suffered as acutely as such a man could suffer, during the latter days of her illness, and at the terrible time when the doctors, one and all, confessed that her life was a thing to be despaired of. He burst into irrepressible passions of tears, and was always obliged to leave the sickroom whenever Mrs. Welwyn spoke of her approaching end. The last solemn words of the dying woman, the tenderest messages that she could give, the dearest parting wishes that she could express, the most earnest commands that she could leave behind her, the gentlest reasons for consolation that she could suggest to the survivors among those who loved her, were not poured into her husband’s ear, but into her child’s. From the first period of her illness, Ida had persisted in remaining in the sickroom, rarely speaking, never showing outwardly any signs of terror or grief, except when she was removed from it; and then bursting into hysterical passions of weeping, which no expostulations, no arguments, no commands – nothing, in short, but bringing her back to the bedside – ever availed to calm. Her mother had been her playfellow, her companion her dearest and most familiar friend; and there seemed something in the remembrance of this which, instead of overwhelming the child with despair, strengthened her to watch faithfully and bravely by her dying parent to the very last.

When the parting moment was over, and when Mr. Welwyn, unable to bear the shock of being present in the house of death at the time of his wife’s funeral, left home and went to stay with one of his relations in a distant part of England, Ida, whom it had been his wish to take away with him, petitioned earnestly to be left behind. “I promised mamma before she died that I would be as good to my little sister Rosamond as she had been to me,” said the child, simply; “and she told me in return that I might wait here and see her laid in her grave.” There happened to be an aunt of Mrs. Welwyn, and an old servant of the family, in the house at this time, who understood Ida much better than her father did, and they persuaded him not to take her away. I have heard my mother say that the effect of the child’s appearance at the funeral on her, and on all who went to see it, was something that she could never think of without the tears coming into her eyes, and could never forget to the last day of her life.

It must have been very shortly after this period that I saw Ida for the first time.

I remember accompanying my mother on a visit to the old house we have just left, in the summer, when I was at home for the holidays. It was a lovely, sunshiny morning. There was nobody indoors, and we walked out into the garden. As we approached that lawn yonder, on the other side of the shrubbery, I saw, first, a young woman in mourning (apparently a servant) sitting reading; then a little girl, dressed all in black, moving toward us slowly over the bright turf, and holding up before her a baby, whom she was trying to teach to walk. She looked, to my ideas, so very young to be engaged in such an occupation as this, and her gloomy black frock appeared to be such an unnaturally grave garment for a mere child of her age, and looked so doubly dismal by contrast with the brilliant sunny lawn on which she stood, that I quite started when I first saw her, and eagerly asked my mother who she was. The answer informed me of the sad family story, which I have been just relating to you. Mrs. Welwyn had then been buried about three months; and Ida, in her childish way, was trying, as she had promised, to supply her mother’s place to her infant sister Rosamond.

I only mention this simple incident, because it is necessary, before I proceed to the eventful part of my narrative, that you should know exactly in what relation the sisters stood toward one another from the first. Of all the last parting words that Mrs. Welwyn had spoken to her child, none had been oftener repeated, none more solemnly urged, than those which had commended the little Rosamond to Ida’s love and care. To other persons, the full, the all-trusting dependence which the dying mother was known to have placed in a child hardly eleven years old, seemed merely a proof of that helpless desire to cling even to the feeblest consolations, which the approach of death so often brings with it. But the event showed that the trust so strangely placed had not been ventured vainly when it was committed to young and tender hands. The whole future existence of the child was one noble proof that she had been worthy of her mother’s dying confidence, when it was first reposed in her. In that simple incident which I have just mentioned the new life of the two motherless sisters was all foreshadowed.

Time passed. I left school – went to college – travelled in Germany, and stayed there some time to learn the language. At every interval when I came home, and asked about the Welwyns, the answer was, in substance, almost always the same. Mr. Welwyn was giving his regular dinners, performing his regular duties as a county magistrate, enjoying his regular recreations as an a amateur farmer and an eager sportsman. His two daughters were never separate. Ida was the same strange, quiet, retiring girl, that she had always been; and was still (as the phrase went) “spoiling” Rosamond in every way in which it was possible for an elder sister to spoil a younger by too much kindness.

I myself went to the Grange occasionally, when I was in this neighbourhood, in holiday and vacation time; and was able to test the correctness of the picture of life there which had been drawn for me. I remember the two sisters, when Rosamond was four or five years old; and when Ida seemed to me, even then, to be more like the child’s mother than her sister. She bore with her little caprices as sisters do not bear with one another. She was so patient at lesson-time, so anxious to conceal any weariness that might overcome her in play hours, so proud when Rosamond’s beauty was noticed, so grateful for Rosamond’s kisses when the child thought of bestowing them, so quick to notice all that Rosamond did, and to attend to all that Rosamond said, even when visitors were in the room, that she seemed, to my boyish observation, altogether different from other elder sisters in other family circles into which I was then received.

I remember then, again, when Rosamond was just growing to womanhood, and was in high spirits at the prospect of spending a season in London, and being presented at court. She was very beautiful at that time – much handsomer than Ida. Her “accomplishments” were talked of far and near in our country circles. Few, if any, of the people, however, who applauded her playing and singing, who admired her water-colour drawings, who were delighted at her fluency when she spoke French, and amazed at her ready comprehension when she read German, knew how little of all this elegant mental cultivation and nimble manual dexterity she owed to her governess and masters, and how much to her elder sister. It was Ida who really found out the means of stimulating her when she was idle; Ida who helped her through all her worst difficulties; Ida who gently conquered her defects of memory over her books, her inaccuracies of ear at the piano, her errors of taste when she took the brush and pencil in hand. It was Ida alone who worked these marvels, and whose all-sufficient reward for her hardest exertions was a chance word of kindness from her sister’s lips. Rosamond was not unaffectionate, and not ungrateful; but she inherited much of her father’s commonness and frivolity of character. She became so accustomed to owe everything to her sister – to resign all her most trifling difficulties to Ida’s ever-ready care – to have all her tastes consulted by Ida’s ever-watchful kindness – that she never appreciated, as it deserved, the deep, devoted love of which she was the object. When Ida refused two good offers of marriage, Rosamond was as much astonished as the veriest strangers, who wondered why the elder Miss Welwyn seemed bent on remaining single all her life.

When the journey to London, to which I have already alluded, took place, Ida accompanied her father and sister. If she had consulted her own tastes, she would have remained in the country; but Rosamond declared that she should feel quite lost and helpless twenty times a day, in town, without her sister. It was in the nature of Ida to sacrifice herself to anyone whom she loved, on the smallest occasions as well as the greatest. Her affection was as intuitively ready to sanctify Rosamond’s slightest caprices as to excuse Rosamond’s most thoughtless faults. So she went to London cheerfully, to witness with pride all the little triumphs won by her sister’s beauty; to hear, and never tire of hearing, all that admiring friends could say in her sister’s praise.

At the end of the season Mr. Welwyn and his daughters returned for a short time to the country; then left home again to spend the latter part of the autumn and the beginning of the winter in Paris.

They took with them excellent letters of introduction, and saw a great deal of the best society in Paris, foreign as well as English. At one of the first of the evening parties which they attended, the general topic of conversation was the conduct of a certain French nobleman, the Baron Franval, who had returned to his native country after a long absence, and who was spoken of in terms of high eulogy by the majority of the guests present. The history of who Franval was, and of what he had done, was readily communicated to Mr. Welwyn and his daughters, and was briefly this:

The baron inherited little from his ancestors besides his high rank and his ancient pedigree. On the death of his parents, he and his two unmarried sisters (their only surviving children) found the small territorial property of the Franvals, in Normandy, barely productive enough to afford a comfortable subsistence for the three. The baron, then a young man of three-and-twenty endeavoured to obtain such military or civil employment as might become his rank; but, although the Bourbons were at that time restored to the throne of France, his efforts were ineffectual. Either his interest at court was bad, or secret enemies were at work to oppose his advancement. He failed to obtain even the slightest favour; and, irritated by undeserved neglect, resolved to leave France, and seek occupation for his energies in foreign countries, where his rank would be no bar to his bettering his fortunes, if he pleased, by engaging in commercial pursuits.

An opportunity of the kind that he wanted unexpectedly offered itself. He left his sisters in care of an old male relative of the family at the château in Normandy, and sailed, in the first instance, to the West Indies; afterward extending his wanderings to the continent of South America, and there engaging in mining transactions on a very large scale. After fifteen years of absence (during the latter part of which time false reports of his death had reached Normandy), he had just returned to France, having realized a handsome independence, with which he proposed to widen the limits of his ancestral property, and to give his sisters (who were still, like himself, unmarried) all the luxuries and advantages that affluence could bestow. The baron’s independent spirit and generous devotion to the honour of his family and the happiness of his surviving relatives were themes of general admiration in most of the social circles of Paris. He was expected to arrive in the capital every day; and it was naturally enough predicted that his reception in society there could not fail to be of the most flattering and most brilliant kind.

The Welwyns listened to this story with some little interest; Rosamond, who was very romantic, being especially attracted by it, and openly avowing to her father and sister, when they got back to their hotel, that she felt as ardent a curiosity as anybody to see the adventurous and generous baron. The desire was soon gratified. Franval came to Paris, as had been anticipated – was introduced to the Welwyns – met them constantly in society – made no favourable impression on Ida, but won the good opinion of Rosamond from the first; and was regarded with such high approval by their father, that when he mentioned his intentions of visiting England in the spring of the new year, he was cordially invited to spend the hunting season at Glenwith Grange.

I came back from Germany about the same time that the Welwyns returned from Paris, and at once set myself to improve my neighbourly intimacy with the family. I was very fond of Ida; more fond, perhaps, than my vanity will now allow me to – but that is of no consequence. It is much more to the purpose to tell you that I heard the whole of the baron’s story enthusiastically related by Mr. Welwyn and Rosamond; that he came to the Grange at the appointed time; that I was introduced to him; and that he produced as unfavourable an impression upon me as he had already produced upon Ida.

It was whimsical enough; but I really could not tell why I disliked him, though I could account very easily, according to my own notions, for his winning the favour and approval of Rosamond and her father. He was certainly a handsome man as far as features went; he had a winning gentleness and graceful respect in his manner when he spoke to women; and he sang remarkably well, with one of the sweetest tenor voices I ever heard. These qualities alone were quite sufficient to attract any girl of Rosamond’s disposition; and I certainly never wondered why he was a favourite of hers.

Then, as to her father, the baron was not only fitted to win his sympathy and regard in the field, by proving himself an ardent sportsman and an excellent rider; but was also, in virtue of some of his minor personal peculiarities, just the man to gain the friendship of his host. Mr. Welwyn was as ridiculously prejudiced as most weak-headed Englishmen are, on the subject of foreigners in general. In spite of his visit to Paris, the vulgar notion of a Frenchman continued to be his notion, both while he was in France and when he returned from it. Now, the baron was as unlike the traditional “Mounseer” of English songs, plays, and satires, as a man could well be; and it was on account of this very dissimilarity that Mr. Welwyn first took a violent fancy to him, and then invited him to his house. Franval spoke English remarkably well; wore neither beard, moustache, nor whiskers; kept his hair cut almost unbecomingly short; dressed in the extreme of plainness and modest good taste; talked little in general society; uttered his words, when he did speak, with singular calmness and deliberation; and, to crown all, had the greater part of his acquired property invested in English securities. In Mr. Welwyn’s estimation, such a man as this was a perfect miracle of a Frenchman, and he admired and encouraged him accordingly.

I have said that I disliked him, yet could not assign a reason for my dislike; and I can only repeat it now. He was remarkably polite to me; we often rode together in hunting, and sat near each other at the Grange table; but I could never become familiar with him. He always gave me the idea of a man who had some mental reservation in saying the most trifling thing. There was a constant restraint, hardly perceptible to most people, but plainly visible, nevertheless, to me, which seemed to accompany his lightest words, and to hang about his most familiar manner. This, however, was no just reason for my secretly disliking and distrusting him as I did. Ida said as much to me, I remember, when I confessed to her what my feelings toward him were, and tried (but vainly) to induce her to be equally candid with me in return. She seemed to shrink from the tacit condemnation of Rosamond’s opinion which such a confidence on her part would have implied. And yet she watched the growth of that opinion – or, in other words, the growth of her sister’s liking for the baron – with an apprehension and sorrow which she tried fruitlessly to conceal. Even her father began to notice that her spirits were not so good as usual, and to suspect the cause of her melancholy. I remember he jested, with all the dense insensibility of a stupid man, about Ida having invariably been jealous, from a child, if Rosamond looked kindly upon anybody except her elder sister.

The spring began to get far advanced toward summer. Franval paid a visit to London; came back in the middle of the season to Glenwith Grange; wrote to put off his departure for France; and at last (not at all to the surprise of anybody who was intimate with the Welwyns) proposed to Rosamond, and was accepted. He was candour and generosity itself when the preliminaries of the marriage-settlement were under discussion. He quite overpowered Mr. Welwyn and the lawyers with references, papers, and statements of the distribution and extent of his property, which were found to be perfectly correct. His sisters were written to, and returned the most cordial answers; saying that the state of their health would not allow them to come to England for the marriage; but adding a warm invitation to Normandy for the bride and her family. Nothing, in short, could be more straightforward and satisfactory than the baron’s behaviour, and the testimonies to his worth and integrity which the news of the approaching marriage produced from his relatives and his friends.

The only joyless face at the Grange now was Ida’s. At any time it would have been a hard trial to her to resign that first and foremost place which she had held since childhood in her sister’s heart, as she knew she must resign it when Rosamond married. But, secretly disliking and distrusting Franval as she did, the thought that he was soon to become the husband of her beloved sister filled her with a vague sense of terror which she could not explain to herself; which it was imperatively necessary that she should conceal; and which, on those very accounts, became a daily and hourly torment to her that was almost more than she could bear.

One consolation alone supported her: Rosamond and she were not to be separated. She knew that the baron secretly disliked her as much as she disliked him; she knew that she must bid farewell to the brighter and happier part of her life on the day when she went to live under the same roof with her sister’s husband; but, true to the promise made years and years ago by her dying mother’s bed – true to the affection which was the ruling and beautiful feeling of her whole existence – she never hesitated about indulging Rosamond’s wish, when the girl, in her bright, light-hearted way, said that she could never get on comfortably in the marriage state unless she had Ida to live with her and help her just the same as ever. The baron was too polite a man even to look dissatisfied when he heard of the proposed arrangement; and it was therefore settled from the beginning that Ida was always to live with her sister.

The marriage took place in the summer, and the bride and bridegroom went to spend their honeymoon in Cumberland. On their return to Glenwith Grange, a visit to the baron’s sisters, in Normandy, was talked of; but the execution of this project was suddenly and disastrously suspended by the death of Mr. Welwyn, from an attack of pleurisy.

In consequence of this calamity, the projected journey was of course deferred; and when autumn and the shooting season came, the baron was unwilling to leave the well-stocked preserves of the Grange. He seemed, indeed, to grow less and less inclined, as time advanced, for the trip to Normandy; and wrote excuse after excuse to his sisters, when letters arrived from them urging him to pay the promised visit. In the wintertime, he said he would not allow his wife to risk a long journey. In the spring, his health was pronounced to be delicate. In the genial summertime, the accomplishment of the proposed visit would be impossible, for at that period the baroness expected to become a mother. Such were the apologies which Franval seemed almost glad to be able to send to his sisters in France.

The marriage was, in the strictest sense of the term, a happy one. The baron, though he never altogether lost the strange restraint and reserve of his manner, was, in his quiet, peculiar way, the fondest and kindest of husbands. He went to town occasionally on business, but always seemed glad to return to the baroness; he never varied in the politeness of his bearing toward his wife’s sister; he behaved with the most courteous hospitality toward all the friends of the Welwyns; in short, he thoroughly justified the good opinion which Rosamond and her father had formed of him when they first met at Paris. And yet no experience of his character thoroughly re-assured Ida. Months passed on quietly and pleasantly; and still that secret sadness, that indefinable, unreasonable apprehension on Rosamond’s account, hung heavily on her sister’s heart.

At the beginning of the first summer months, a little domestic inconvenience happened, which showed the baroness, for the first time, that her husband’s temper could be seriously ruffled – and that by the veriest trifle. He was in the habit of taking in two French provincial newspapers – one published at Bordeaux and the other at Havre. He always opened these journals the moment they came, looked at one particular column of each with the deepest attention, for a few minutes, then carelessly threw them aside into his waste-paper basket. His wife and her sister were at first rather surprised at the manner in which he read his two papers; but they thought no more of it when he explained that he only took them in to consult them about French commercial intelligence, which might be, occasionally, of importance to him.

These papers were published weekly. On the occasion to which I have just referred, the Bordeaux paper came on the proper day, as usual; but the Havre paper never made its appearance. This trifling circumstance seemed to make the baron seriously uneasy. He wrote off directly to the country post-office and to the newspaper agent in London. His wife, astonished to see his tranquillity so completely overthrown by so slight a cause, tried to restore his good humour by jesting with him about the missing newspaper. He replied by the first angry and unfeeling words that she had heard issue from his lips. She was then within about six weeks of her confinement, and very unfit to bear harsh answers from anybody – least of all from her husband.

On the second day no answer came. On the afternoon of the third, the baron rode off to the post town to make inquiries. About an hour after he had gone, a strange gentleman came to the Grange and asked to see the baroness. On being informed that she was not well enough to receive visitors, he sent up a message that his business was of great importance and that he would wait downstairs for a second answer.

On receiving this message, Rosamond turned, as usual, to her elder sister for advice. Ida went downstairs immediately to see the stranger. What I am now about to tell you of the extraordinary interview which took place between them, and of the shocking events that followed it, I have heard from Miss Welwyn’s own lips.

She felt unaccountably nervous when she entered the room. The stranger bowed very politely, and asked, in a foreign accent, if she were the Baroness Franval. She set him right on this point, and told him she attended to all matters of business for the baroness; adding that, if his errand at all concerned her sister’s husband, the baron was not then at home.

The stranger answered that he was aware of it when he called, and that the unpleasant business on which he came could not be confided to the baron – at least, in the first instance.

She asked why. He said he was there to explain; and expressed himself as feeling greatly relieved at having to open his business to her, because she would, doubtless, be best able to prepare her sister for the bad news that he was, unfortunately, obliged to bring. The sudden faintness which overcame her, as he spoke those words, prevented her from addressing him in return. He poured out some water for her from a bottle which happened to be standing on the table, and asked if he might depend on her fortitude. She tried to say “Yes”; but the violent throbbing of her heart seemed to choke her. He took a foreign newspaper from his pocket, saying that he was a secret agent of the French police – that the paper was the Havre Journal, for the past week, and that it had been expressly kept from reaching the baron, as usual, through his (the agent’s) interference. He then opened the newspaper, and begged that she would nerve herself sufficiently (for her sister’s sake) to read certain lines, which would give her some hint of the business that brought him there. He pointed to the passage as he spoke. It was among the “Shipping Entries,” and was thus expressed:

“Arrived, the Berenice, from San Francisco, with a valuable cargo of hides. She brings one passenger, the Baron Franval, of Château Franval, in Normandy.”

As Miss Welwyn read the entry, her heart, which had been throbbing violently but the moment before, seemed suddenly to cease from all action, and she began to shiver, though it was a warm June evening. The agent held the tumbler to her lips, and made her drink a little of the water, entreating her very earnestly to take courage and listen to him. He then sat down, and referred again to the entry, every word he uttered seeming to burn itself in forever (as she expressed it) on her memory and her heart.

He said: “It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt that there is no mistake about the name in the lines you have just read. And it is as certain as that we are here, that there is only one Baron Franval now alive. The question, therefore, is, whether the passenger by the Berenice is the true baron, or – I beg you most earnestly to bear with me and to compose yourself – or the husband of your sister. The person who arrived last week at Havre was scouted as an impostor by the ladies at the château, the moment he presented himself there as the brother, returning to them after sixteen years of absence. The authorities were communicated with, and I and my assistants were instantly sent for from Paris.

“We wasted no time in questioning the supposed impostor. He either was, or affected to be, in a perfect frenzy of grief and indignation. We just ascertained, from competent witnesses, that he bore an extraordinary resemblance to the real baron, and that he was perfectly familiar with places and persons in and about the château; we just ascertained that, and then proceeded to confer with the local authorities, and to examine their private entries of suspected persons in their jurisdiction, ranging back over a past period of twenty years or more. One of the entries thus consulted contained these particulars: ‘Hector Auguste Monbrun, son of a respectable proprietor in Normandy. Well educated; gentleman-like manners. On bad terms with his family. Character: bold, cunning, unscrupulous, self-possessed. Is a clever mimic. May be easily recognised by his striking likeness to the Baron Franval. Imprisoned at twenty for theft and assault.’”

Miss Welwyn saw the agent look up at her after he had read this extract from the police-book, to ascertain if she was still able to listen to him. He asked, with some appearance of alarm, as their eyes met, if she would like some more water. She was just able to make a sign in the negative. He took a second extract from his pocketbook, and went on.

He said: “The next entry under the same name was dated four years later, and ran thus, ‘H. A. Monbrun, condemned to the galleys for life, for assassination, and other crimes not officially necessary to be here specified. Escaped from custody at Toulon. Is known, since the expiration of his first term of imprisonment, to have allowed his beard to grow, and to have worn his hair long, with the intention of rendering it impossible for those acquainted with him in his native province to recognise him, as heretofore, by his likeness to the Baron Franval.’ There were more particulars added, not important enough for extract. We immediately examined the supposed impostor; for, if he was Monbrun, we knew that we should find on his shoulder the two letters of the convict brand, ‘T. F.,’ standing for Travaux Forces. After the minutest examination with the mechanical and chemical tests used on such occasions, not the slightest trace of the brand was to be found. The moment this astounding discovery was made, I started to lay an embargo on the forthcoming numbers of the Havre Journal for that week, which were about to be sent to the English agent in London. I arrived at Havre on Saturday (the morning of publication), in time to execute my design. I waited there long enough to communicate by telegraph with my superiors in Paris, then hastened to this place. What my errand here is, you may—”

He might have gone on speaking for some moments longer; but Miss Welwyn heard no more.

Her first sensation of returning consciousness was the feeling that water was being sprinkled on her face. Then she saw that all the windows in the room had been set wide open, to give her air; and that she and the agent were still alone. At first she felt bewildered, and hardly knew who he was; but he soon recalled to her mind the horrible realities that had brought him there, by apologising for not having summoned assistance when she fainted. He said it was of the last importance, in Franval’s absence, that no one in the house should imagine that anything unusual was taking place in it. Then, after giving her an interval of a minute or two to collect what little strength she had left, he added that he would not increase her sufferings by saying anything more, just then, on the shocking subject of the investigation which it was his duty to make – that he would leave her to recover herself, and to consider what was the best course to be taken with the baroness in the present terrible emergency – and that he would privately return to the house between eight and nine o’clock that evening, ready to act as Miss Welwyn wished, and to afford her and her sister any aid and protection of which they might stand in need. With these words he bowed, and noiselessly quitted the room.

For the first few awful minutes after she was left alone, Miss Welwyn sat helpless and speechless; utterly numbed in heart, and mind, and body – then a sort of instinct (she was incapable of thinking) seemed to urge her to conceal the fearful news from her sister as long as possible. She ran upstairs to Rosamond’s sitting-room, and called through the door (for she dared not trust herself in her sister’s presence) that the visitor had come on some troublesome business from their late father’s lawyers, and that she was going to shut herself up, and write some long letters in connection with that business. After she had got into her own room, she was never sensible of how time was passing – never conscious of any feeling within her, except a baseless, helpless hope that the French police might yet be proved to have made some terrible mistake – until she heard a violent shower of rain come on a little after sunset. The noise of the rain, and the freshness it brought with it in the air, seemed to awaken her as if from a painful and a fearful sleep. The power of reflection returned to her; her heart heaved and bounded with an overwhelming terror, as the thought of Rosamond came back vividly to it; her memory recurred despairingly to the long-past day of her mother’s death, and to the farewell promise she had made by her mother’s bedside. She burst into an hysterical passion of weeping that seemed to be tearing her to pieces. In the midst of it she heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs in the courtyard, and knew that Rosamond’s husband had come back.

Dipping her handkerchief in cold water, and passing it over her eyes as she left the room, she instantly hastened to her sister.

Fortunately the daylight was fading in the old-fashioned chamber that Rosamond occupied. Before they could say two words to each other, Franval was in the room. He seemed violently irritated; said that he had waited for the arrival of the mail – that the missing newspaper had not come by it – that he had got wet through – that he felt a shivering fit coming on – and that he believed he had caught a violent cold. His wife anxiously suggested some simple remedies. He roughly interrupted her, saying there was but one remedy, the remedy of going to bed; and so left them without another word. She just put her handkerchief to her eyes, and said softly to her sister, “How he is changed!” then spoke no more. They sat silent for half an hour or longer. After that, Rosamond went affectionately and forgivingly to see how her husband was. She returned, saying that he was in bed, and in a deep, heavy sleep; and predicting hopefully that he would wake up quite well the next morning. In a few minutes more the clock stuck nine; and Ida heard the servant’s step ascending the stairs. She suspected what his errand was, and went out to meet him. Her presentiment had not deceived her; the police agent had arrived, and was waiting for her downstairs.

He asked her if she had said anything to her sister, or had thought of any plan of action, the moment she entered the room; and, on receiving a reply in the negative, inquired, further, if “the baron” had come home yet. She answered that he had; that he was ill and tired, and vexed, and that he had gone to bed. The agent asked in an eager whisper if she knew that he was asleep, and alone in bed? and, when he received her reply, said that he must go up into the bedroom directly.

She began to feel the faintness coming over her again, and with it sensations of loathing and terror that she could neither express to others nor define to herself. He said that if she hesitated to let him avail himself of this unexpected opportunity, her scruples might lead to fatal results He reminded her that if “the baron” were really the convict Monbrun, the claims of society and of justice demanded that he should be discovered by the first available means; and that if he were not – if some inconceivable mistake had really been committed – then such a plan for getting immediately at the truth as was now proposed would insure the delivery of an innocent man from suspicion; and at the same time spare him the knowledge that he had ever been suspected. This last argument had its effect on Miss Welwyn. The baseless, helpless hope that the French authorities might yet be proved to be in error, which she had already felt in her own room, returned to her now. She suffered the agent to lead her upstairs.

He took the candle from her hand when she pointed to the door; opened it softly; and, leaving it ajar, went into the room.

She looked through the gap with a feverish, horror-struck curiosity. Franval was lying on his side in a profound sleep, with his back turned toward the door. The agent softly placed the candle upon a small reading-table between the door and the bedside, softly drew down the bedclothes a little away from the sleeper’s back, then took a pair of scissors from the toilet-table, and very gently and slowly began to cut away, first the loose folds, then the intervening strips of linen, from the part of Franval’s nightgown that was over his shoulders. When the upper part of his back had been bared in this way, the agent took the candle and held it near the flesh. Miss Welwyn heard him ejaculate some word under his breath, then saw him looking round to where she was standing, and beckoning to her to come in.

Mechanically she obeyed; mechanically she looked down where his finger was pointing. It was the convict Monbrun – there, just visible under the bright light of the candle, were the fatal letters “T. F.” branded on the villain’s shoulder!

Though she could neither move nor speak, the horror of this discovery did not deprive her of her consciousness. She saw the agent softly draw up the bedclothes again into their proper position, replace the scissors on the toilet-table, and take from it a bottle of smelling-salts. She felt him removing her from the bedroom, and helping her quickly downstairs, giving her the salts to smell to by the way. When they were alone again, he said, with the first appearance of agitation that he had yet exhibited, “Now, madam, for God’s sake, collect all your courage, and be guided by me. You and your sister had better leave the house immediately. Have you any relatives in the neighbourhood with whom you could take refuge?” They had none. “What is the name of the nearest town where you could get good accommodation for the night?” Harleybrook (he wrote the name down on his tablets). “How far off is it?” Twelve miles. “You had better have the carriage out at once, to go there with as little delay as possible, leaving me to pass the night here. I will communicate with you tomorrow at the principal hotel. Can you compose yourself sufficiently to be able to tell the head servant, if I ring for him, that he is to obey my orders till further notice?” The servant was summoned, and received his instructions, the agent going out with him to see that the carriage was got ready quietly and quickly. Miss Welwyn went upstairs to her sister.

How the fearful news was first broken to Rosamond, I cannot relate to you. Miss Welwyn has never confided to me, has never confided to anybody, what happened at the interview between her sister and herself that night. I can tell you nothing of the shock they both suffered, except that the younger and the weaker died under it; that the elder and the stronger has never recovered from it, and never will.

They went away the same night, with one attendant, to Harleybrook, as the agent had advised. Before daybreak Rosamond was seized with the pains of premature labour. She died three days after, unconscious of the horror of her situation, wandering in her mind about past times, and singing old tunes that Ida had taught her as she lay in her sister’s arms.

The child was born alive, and lives still. You saw her at the window as we came in at the back way to the Grange. I surprised you, I dare say, by asking you not to speak of her to Miss Welwyn. Perhaps you noticed something vacant in the little girl’s expression. I am sorry to say that her mind is more vacant still. If “idiot” did not sound like a mocking word, however tenderly and pityingly one may wish to utter it, I should tell you that the poor thing had been an idiot from her birth.

You will, doubtless, want to hear now what happened at Glenwith Grange after Miss Welwyn and her sister had left it. I have seen the letter which the police agent sent the next morning to Harleybrook; and, speaking from my recollection of that, I shall be able to relate all you can desire to know.

First, as to the past history of the scoundrel Monbrun, I need only tell you that he was identical with an escaped convict, who, for a long term of years, had successfully eluded the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe, and in America as well. In conjunction with two accomplices, he had succeeded in possessing himself of large sums of money by the most criminal means. He also acted secretly as the “banker” of his convict brethren, whose dishonest gains were all confided to his hands for safe-keeping. He would have been certainly captured, on venturing back to France, along with his two associates, but for the daring imposture in which he took refuge; and which, if the true Baron Franval had really died abroad, as was reported, would, in all probability, never have been found out.

Besides his extraordinary likeness to the baron, he had every other requisite for carrying on his deception successfully. Though his parents were not wealthy, he had received a good education. He was so notorious for his gentleman-like manners among the villainous associates of his crimes and excesses, that they nicknamed him “the Prince.” All his early life had been passed in the neighbourhood of the Château Franval. He knew what were the circumstances which had induced the baron to leave it. He had been in the country to which the baron had emigrated. He was able to refer familiarly to persons and localities, at home and abroad, with which the baron was sure to be acquainted. And, lastly, he had an expatriation of fifteen years to plead for him as his all-sufficient excuse, if he made any slight mistakes before the baron’s sisters, in his assumed character of their long-absent brother. It will be, of course, hardly necessary for me to tell you, in relation to this part of the subject, that the true Franval was immediately and honourably reinstated in the family rights of which the impostor had succeeded for a time in depriving him.

According to Monbrun’s own account, he had married poor Rosamond purely for love; and the probabilities certainly are, that the pretty, innocent English girl had really struck the villain’s fancy for the time; and that the easy, quiet life he was leading at the Grange pleased him, by contrast with his perilous and vagabond existence of former days. What might have happened if he had had time enough to grow wearied of his ill-fated wife and his English home, it is now useless to inquire. What really did happen on the morning when he awoke after the flight of Ida and her sister can be briefly told.

As soon as his eyes opened they rested on the police agent, sitting quietly by the bedside, with a loaded pistol in his hand. Monbrun knew immediately that he was discovered; but he never for an instant lost the self-possession for which he was famous. He said he wished to have five minutes allowed him to deliberate quietly in bed, whether he should resist the French authorities on English ground, and so gain time by obliging the one Government to apply specially to have him delivered up by the other – or whether he should accept the terms officially offered to him by the agent, if he quietly allowed himself to be captured. He chose the latter course – it was suspected, because he wished to communicate personally with some of his convict associates in France, whose fraudulent gains were in his keeping, and because he felt boastfully confident of being able to escape again, whenever he pleased. Be his secret motives, however, what they might, he allowed the agent to conduct him peaceably from the Grange; first writing a farewell letter to poor Rosamond, full of heartless French sentiment and glib sophistries about Fate and Society. His own fate was not long in overtaking him. He attempted to escape again, as it had been expected he would, and was shot by the sentinel on duty at the time. I remember hearing that the bullet entered his head and killed him on the spot.

My story is done. It is ten years now since Rosamond was buried in the churchyard yonder; and it is ten years also since Miss Welwyn returned to be the lonely inhabitant of Glenwith Grange. She now lives but in the remembrances that it calls up before her of her happier existence of former days. There is hardly an object in the old house which does not tenderly and solemnly remind her of the mother, whose last wishes she lived to obey; of the sister, whose happiness was once her dearest earthly care. Those prints that you noticed on the library walls Rosamond used to copy in the past time, when her pencil was often guided by Ida’s hand. Those music-books that you were looking over, she and her mother have played from together through many a long and quiet summer’s evening. She has no ties now to bind her to the present but the poor child whose affliction it is her constant effort to lighten, and the little peasant population around her, whose humble cares and wants and sorrows she is always ready to relieve. Far and near her modest charities have penetrated among us; and far and near she is heartily beloved and blessed in many a labourer’s household. There is no poor man’s hearth, not in this village only, but for miles away from it as well, at which you would not be received with the welcome given to an old friend, if you only told the cottagers that you knew the Lady of Glenwith Grange!

•   •   •   •   •   •

PROLOGUE TO
THE FIFTH STORY

The next piece of work which occupied my attention after taking leave of Mr. Garthwaite, offered the strongest possible contrast to the task which had last engaged me. Fresh from painting a bull at a farmhouse, I set forth to copy a Holy Family, by Correggio, at a convent of nuns. People who go to the Royal Academy Exhibition, and see pictures by famous artists, painted year after year in the same marked style which first made them celebrated, would be amazed indeed if they knew what a Jack-of-all-trades a poor painter must become before he can gain his daily bread.

The picture by Correggio which I was now commissioned to copy had been lent to the nuns by a Catholic gentleman of fortune, who prized it as the gem of his collection, and who had never before trusted it out of his own hands. My copy, when completed, was to be placed over the high altar of the convent chapel; and my work throughout its progress was to be pursued entirely in the parlour of the nunnery, and always in the watchful presence of one or other of the inmates of the house. It was only on such conditions that the owner of the Correggio was willing to trust his treasure out of his own hands, and to suffer it to be copied by a stranger. The restrictions he imposed, which I thought sufficiently absurd, and perhaps offensively suspicious as well, were communicated to me politely enough before I was allowed to undertake the commission. Unless I was inclined to submit to precautionary regulations which would affect any other artist exactly as they affected me, I was told not to think of offering to make the copy; and the nuns would then address themselves to some other person in my profession. After a day’s consideration, I submitted to the restrictions, by my wife’s advice, and saved the nuns the trouble of making application for a copier of Correggio in any other quarter.

I found the convent was charmingly situated in a quiet little valley in the West of England. The parlour in which I was to paint was a large, well-lighted apartment; and the village inn, about half a mile off, afforded me cheap and excellent quarters for the night. Thus far, therefore, there was nothing to complain of. As for the picture, which was the next object of interest to me, I was surprised to find that the copying of it would be by no means so difficult a task as I had anticipated. I am rather of a revolutionary spirit in matters of art, and am bold enough to think that the old masters have their faults as well as their beauties. I can give my opinion, therefore, on the Correggio at the convent independently at least. Looked at technically, the picture was a fine specimen of colouring and execution; but looked at for the higher merits of delicacy, elevation, and feeling for the subject, it deserved copying as little as the most commonplace work that any unlucky modern artist ever produced. The faces of the Holy Family not only failed to display the right purity and tenderness of expression, but absolutely failed to present any expression at all. It is flat heresy to say so, but the valuable Correggio was nevertheless emphatically, and, in so many words, a very uninteresting picture.

So much for the convent and the work that I was to do in it. My next anxiety was to see how the restrictions imposed on me were to be carried out. The first day, the Mother Superior herself mounted guard in the parlour – a stern, silent, fanatical-looking woman, who seemed determined to awe me and make me uncomfortable, and who succeeded thoroughly in the execution of her purpose. The second day she was relieved by the officiating priest of the convent – a mild, melancholy, gentleman-like man, with whom I got on tolerably well. The third day, I had for overlooker the portress of the house – a dirty, dismal, deaf, old woman, who did nothing but knit stockings and chew orris-root. The fourth day, a middle-aged nun, whom I heard addressed as Mother Martha, occupied the post of guardian to the precious Correggio; and with her the number of my overlookers terminated. She, and the portress, and the priest, and the Mother Superior, relieved each other with military regularity, until I had put the last touch to my copy. I found them ready for me every morning on entering the parlour, and I left them in the chair of observation every evening on quitting it. As for any young and beautiful nuns who might have been in the building, I never so much as set eyes on the ends of their veils. From the door to the parlour, and from the parlour to the door, comprised the whole of my experience of the inside of the convent.

The only one of my superintending companions with whom I established anything like a familiar acquaintance was Mother Martha. She had no outward attractions to recommend her; but she was simple, good-humoured, ready to gossip, and inquisitive to a perfectly incredible degree. Her whole life had been passed in the nunnery; she was thoroughly accustomed to her seclusion, thoroughly content with the monotonous round of her occupations; not at all anxious to see the world for herself; but, on the other hand, insatiably curious to know all about it from others. There was no question connected with myself, my wife, my children, my friends, my profession, my income, my travels, my favourite amusements, and even my favourite sins, which a woman could ask a man, that Mother Martha did not, in the smallest and softest of voices, ask of me. Though an intelligent, well-informed person in all that related to her own special vocation, she was a perfect child in everything else. I constantly caught myself talking to her, just as I should have talked at home to one of my own little girls.

I hope no one will think that, in expressing myself thus, I am writing disparagingly of the poor nun. On two accounts, I shall always feel compassionately and gratefully toward Mother Martha. She was the only person in the convent who seemed sincerely anxious to make her presence in the parlour as agreeable to me as possible; and she good-humouredly told me the story which it is my object in these pages to introduce to the reader. In both ways I am deeply indebted to her; and I hope always to remember the obligation.

The circumstances under which the story came to be related to me may be told in very few words.

The interior of a convent parlour being a complete novelty to me, I looked around with some interest on first entering my painting-room at the nunnery. There was but little in it to excite the curiosity of anyone. The floor was covered with common matting, and the ceiling with plain whitewash. The furniture was of the simplest kind; a low chair with a praying-desk fixed to the back, and a finely carved oak bookcase, studded all over with brass crosses, being the only useful objects that I could discern which had any conventional character about them. As for the ornaments of the room, they were entirely beyond my appreciation. I could feel no interest in the coloured prints of saints, with gold platters at the backs of their heads, that hung on the wall; and I could see nothing particularly impressive in the two plain little alabaster pots for holy water, fastened, one near the door, the other over the chimney-piece. The only object, indeed, in the whole room which in the slightest degree attracted my curiosity was an old worm-eaten wooden cross, made in the rudest manner, hanging by itself on a slip of wall between two windows. It was so strangely rough and misshapen a thing to exhibit prominently in a neat roam, that I suspected some history must be attached to it, and resolved to speak to my friend the nun about it at the earliest opportunity.

“Mother Martha,” said I, taking advantage of the first pause in the succession of quaintly innocent questions which she was as usual addressing to me, “I have been looking at that rough old cross hanging between the windows, and fancying that it must surely be some curiosity—”

“Hush! hush!” exclaimed the nun, “you must not speak of that as a ‘curiosity’; the Mother Superior calls it a Relic.”

“I beg your pardon,” said I; “I ought to have chosen my expressions more carefully—”

“Not,” interposed Mother Martha, nodding to show me that my apology need not be finished – “not that it is exactly a relic in the strict Catholic sense of the word; but there were circumstances in the life of the person who made it—” Here she stopped, and looked at me doubtfully.

“Circumstances, perhaps, which it is not considered advisable to communicate to strangers,” I suggested.

“Oh, no!” answered the nun, “I never heard that they were to be kept a secret. They were not told as a secret to me.”

“Then you know all about them?” I asked.

“Certainly. I could tell you the whole history of the wooden cross; but it is all about Catholics, and you are a Protestant.”

“That, Mother Martha, does not make it at all less interesting to me.”

“Does it not, indeed?” exclaimed the nun, innocently. “What a strange man you are! and what a remarkable religion yours must be! What do your priests say about ours? Are they learned men, your priests?”

I felt that my chance of hearing Mother Martha’s story would be a poor one indeed, if I allowed her to begin a fresh string of questions. Accordingly, I dismissed the inquiries about the clergy of the Established Church with the most irreverent briefness, and recalled her attention forthwith to the subject of the wooden cross.

“Yes, yes,” said the good-natured nun; “surely you shall hear all I can tell you about it; but—” she hesitated timidly, “but I must ask the Mother Superior’s leave first.”

Saying these words, she summoned the portress, to my great amusement, to keep guard over the inestimable Correggio in her absence, and left the room. In less than five minutes she came back, looking quite happy and important in her innocent way.

“The Mother Superior,” she said, “has given me leave to tell all I know about the wooden cross. She says it may do you good, and improve your Protestant opinion of us Catholics.”

I expressed myself as being both willing and anxious to profit by what I heard; and the nun began her narrative immediately.

She related it in her own simple, earnest, minute way; dwelling as long on small particulars as on important incidents; and making moral reflections for my benefit at every place where it was possible to introduce them. In spite, however, of these drawbacks in the telling of it, the story interested and impressed me in no ordinary degree; and I now purpose putting the events of it together as skillfully and strikingly as I can, in the hope that this written version of the narrative may appeal as strongly to the reader’s sympathies as the spoken version did to mine.

THE NUN’S STORY:
GABRIEL’S MARRIAGE

•  I  •

One night, during the period of the first French Revolution, the family of Francois Sarzeau, a fisherman of Brittany, were all waking and watching at a late hour in their cottage on the peninsula of Quiberon. Francois had gone out in his boat that evening, as usual, to fish. Shortly after his departure, the wind had risen, the clouds had gathered; and the storm, which had been threatening at intervals throughout the whole day, burst forth furiously about nine o’clock. It was now eleven; and the raging of the wind over the barren, heathy peninsula still seemed to increase with each fresh blast that tore its way out upon the open sea; the crashing of the waves on the beach was awful to hear; the dreary blackness of the sky terrible to behold. The longer they listened to the storm, the oftener they looked out at it, the fainter grew the hopes which the fisherman’s family still strove to cherish for the safety of Francois Sarzeau and of his younger son who had gone with him in the boat.

There was something impressive in the simplicity of the scene that was now passing within the cottage.

On one side of the great, rugged, black fireplace crouched two little girls; the younger half asleep, with her head in her sister’s lap. These were the daughters of the fisherman; and opposite to them sat their eldest brother, Gabriel. His right arm had been badly wounded in a recent encounter at the national game of the Soule, a sport resembling our English football; but played on both sides in such savage earnest by the people of Brittany as to end always in bloodshed, often in mutilation, sometimes even in loss of life. On the same bench with Gabriel sat his betrothed wife – a girl of eighteen – clothed in the plain, almost monastic black-and-white costume of her native district. She was the daughter of a small farmer living at some little distance from the coast. Between the groups formed on either side of the fireplace, the vacant space was occupied by the foot of a truckle-bed. In this bed lay a very old man, the father of Francois Sarzeau. His haggard face was covered with deep wrinkles; his long white hair flowed over the coarse lump of sacking which served him for a pillow, and his light grey eyes wandered incessantly, with a strange expression of terror and suspicion, from person to person, and from object to object, in all parts of the room. Whenever the wind and sea whistled and roared at their loudest, he muttered to himself and tossed his hands fretfully on his wretched coverlet. On these occasions his eyes always fixed themselves intently on a little delft image of the Virgin placed in a niche over the fireplace. Every time they saw him look in this direction Gabriel and the young girls shuddered and crossed themselves; and even the child, who still kept awake, imitated their example. There was one bond of feeling at least between the old man and his grandchildren, which connected his age and their youth unnaturally and closely together. This feeling was reverence for the superstitions which had been handed down to them by their ancestors from centuries and centuries back, as far even as the age of the Druids. The spirit warnings of disaster and death which the old man heard in the wailing of the wind, in the crashing of the waves, in the dreary, monotonous rattling of the casement, the young man and his affianced wife and the little child who cowered by the fireside heard too. All differences in sex, in temperament, in years, superstition was strong enough to strike down to its own dread level, in the fisherman’s cottage, on that stormy night.

Besides the benches by the fireside and the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room was a coarse wooden table, with a loaf of black bread, a knife, and a pitcher of cider placed on it. Old nets, coils of rope, tattered sails, hung, about the walls and over the wooden partition which separated the room into two compartments. Wisps of straw and ears of barley drooped down through the rotten rafters and gaping boards that made the floor of the granary above.

These different objects, and the persons in the cottage, who composed the only surviving members of the fisherman’s family, were strangely and wildly lit up by the blaze of the fire and by the still brighter glare of a resin torch stuck into a block of wood in the chimney-corner. The red and yellow light played full on the weird face of the old man as he lay opposite to it, and glanced fitfully on the figures of the young girl, Gabriel, and the two children; the great, gloomy shadows rose and fell, and grew and lessened in bulk about the walls like visions of darkness, animated by a supernatural spectre-life, while the dense obscurity outside spreading before the curtainless window seemed as a wall of solid darkness that had closed in forever around the fisherman’s house. The night scene within the cottage was almost as wild and as dreary to look upon as the night scene without.

For a long time the different persons in the room sat together without speaking, even without looking at each other. At last the girl turned and whispered something into Gabriel’s ear:

“Perrine, what were you saying to Gabriel?” asked the child opposite, seizing the first opportunity of breaking the desolate silence – doubly desolate at her age – which was preserved by all around her.

“I was telling him,” answered Perrine, simply, “that it was time to change the bandages on his arm; and I also said to him, what I have often said before, that he must never play at that terrible game of the Soule again.”

The old man had been looking intently at Perrine and his grandchild as they spoke. His harsh, hollow voice mingled with the last soft tones of the young girl, repeating over and over again the same terrible words, “Drowned! drowned! Son and grandson, both drowned! both drowned!”

“Hush, grandfather,” said Gabriel, “we must not lose all hope for them yet. God and the Blessed Virgin protect them!” He looked at the little delft image, and crossed himself; the others imitated him, except the old man. He still tossed his hands over the coverlet, and still repeated, “Drowned! drowned!”

“Oh, that accursed Soule!” groaned the young man. “But for this wound I should have been with my father. The poor boy’s life might at least have been saved; for we should then have left him here.”

“Silence!” exclaimed the harsh voice from the bed. “The wail of dying men rises louder than the loud sea; the devil’s psalm-singing roars higher than the roaring wind! Be silent, and listen! Francois drowned! Pierre drowned! Hark! Hark!”

A terrific blast of wind burst over the house as he spoke, shaking it to its centre, overpowering all other sounds, even to the deafening crash of the waves. The slumbering child awoke, and uttered a scream of fear. Perrine, who had been kneeling before her lover binding the fresh bandages on his wounded arm, paused in her occupation, trembling from head to foot. Gabriel looked toward the window; his experience told him what must be the hurricane fury of that blast of wind out at sea, and he sighed bitterly as he murmured to himself, “God help them both – man’s help will be as nothing to them now!”

“Gabriel!” cried the voice from the bed in altered tones – very faint and trembling.

He did not hear or did not attend to the old man. He was trying to soothe and encourage the young girl at his feet.

“Don’t be frightened, love,” he said, kissing her very gently and tenderly on the forehead. “You are as safe here as anywhere. Was I not right in saying that it would be madness to attempt taking you back to the farmhouse this evening? You can sleep in that room, Perrine, when you are tired – you can sleep with the two girls.”

“Gabriel! brother Gabriel!” cried one of the children. “Oh, look at grandfather!”

Gabriel ran to the bedside. The old man had raised himself into a sitting position; his eyes were dilated, his whole face was rigid with terror, his hands were stretched out convulsively toward his grandson. “The White Women!” he screamed. “The White Women; the grave-diggers of the drowned are out on the sea!”

The children, with cries of terror, flung themselves into Perrine’s arms; even Gabriel uttered an exclamation of horror, and started back from the bedside.

Still the old man reiterated, “The White Women! The White Women! Open the door, Gabriel! look-out westward, where the ebb-tide has left the sand dry. You’ll see them bright as lightning in the darkness, mighty as the angels in stature, sweeping like the wind over the sea, in their long white garments, with their white hair trailing far behind them! Open the door, Gabriel! You’ll see them stop and hover over the place where your father and your brother have been drowned; you’ll see them come on till they reach the sand, you’ll see them dig in it with their naked feet and beckon awfully to the raging sea to give up its dead. Open the door, Gabriel – or, though it should be the death of me, I will get up and open it myself!”

Gabriel’s face whitened even to his lips, but he made a sign that he would obey. It required the exertion of his whole strength to keep the door open against the wind while he looked out.

“Do you see them, grandson Gabriel? Speak the truth, and tell me if you see them,” cried the old man.

“I see nothing but darkness – pitch darkness,” answered Gabriel, letting the door close again.

“Ah! woe! woe!” groaned his grandfather, sinking back exhausted on the pillow. “Darkness to you; but bright as lightning to the eyes that are allowed to see them. Drowned! drowned! Pray for their souls, Gabriel – I see the White Women even where I lie, and dare not pray for them. Son and grandson drowned! both drowned!”

The young man went back to Perrine and the children.

“Grandfather is very ill tonight,” he whispered. “You had better all go into the bedroom, and leave me alone to watch by him.”

They rose as he spoke, crossed themselves before the image of the Virgin, kissed him one by one, and, without uttering a word, softly entered the little room on the other side of the partition. Gabriel looked at his grandfather, and saw that he lay quiet now, with his eyes closed as if he were already dropping asleep. The young man then heaped some fresh logs on the fire, and sat down by it to watch till morning.

Very dreary was the moaning of the night storm; but it was not more dreary than the thoughts which now occupied him in his solitude – thoughts darkened and distorted by the terrible superstitions of his country and his race. Ever since the period of his mother’s death he had been oppressed by the conviction that some curse hung over the family. At first they had been prosperous, they had got money, a little legacy had been left them. But this good fortune had availed only for a time; disaster on disaster strangely and suddenly succeeded. Losses, misfortunes, poverty, want itself had overwhelmed them; his father’s temper had become so soured, that the oldest friends of Francois Sarzeau declared he was changed beyond recognition. And now, all this past misfortune – the steady, withering, household blight of many years – had ended in the last, worst misery of all – in death. The fate of his father and his brother admitted no longer of a doubt; he knew it, as he listened to the storm, as he reflected on his grandfather’s words, as he called to mind his own experience of the perils of the sea. And this double bereavement had fallen on him just as the time was approaching for his marriage with Perrine; just when misfortune was most ominous of evil, just when it was hardest to bear! Forebodings, which he dared not realize, began now to mingle with the bitterness of his grief, whenever his thoughts wandered from the present to the future; and as he sat by the lonely fireside, murmuring from time to time the Church prayer for the repose of the dead, he almost involuntarily mingled with it another prayer, expressed only in his own simple words, for the safety of the living – for the young girl whose love was his sole earthly treasure; for the motherless children who must now look for protection to him alone.

He had sat by the hearth a long, long time, absorbed in his thoughts, not once looking round toward the bed, when he was startled by hearing the sound of his grandfather’s voice once more.

“Gabriel,” whispered the old man, trembling and shrinking as he spoke, “Gabriel, do you hear a dripping of water – now slow, now quick again – on the floor at the foot of my bed?”

“I hear nothing, grandfather, but the crackling of the fire, and the roaring of the storm outside.”

“Drip, drip, drip! Faster and faster; plainer and plainer. Take the torch, Gabriel; look down on the floor – look with all your eyes. Is the place wet there? Is it the rain from heaven that is dropping through the roof?”

Gabriel took the torch with trembling fingers and knelt down on the floor to examine it closely. He started back from the place, as he saw that it was quite dry – the torch dropped upon the hearth – he fell on his knees before the statue of the Virgin and hid his face.

“Is the floor wet? Answer me, I command you – is the floor wet?” asked the old man, quickly and breathlessly.

Gabriel rose, went back to the bedside, and whispered to him that no drop of rain had fallen inside the cottage. As he spoke the words, he saw a change pass over his grandfather’s face – the sharp features seemed to wither up on a sudden; the eager expression to grow vacant and deathlike in an instant. The voice, too, altered; it was harsh and querulous no more; its tones became strangely soft, slow, and solemn, when the old man spoke again.

“I hear it still,” he said, “drip! drip! faster and plainer than ever. That ghostly dropping of water is the last and the surest of the fatal signs which have told of your father’s and your brother’s deaths tonight, and I know from the place where I hear it – the foot of the bed I lie on – that it is a warning to me of my own approaching end. I am called where my son and my grandson have gone before me; my weary time in this world is over at last. Don’t let Perrine and the children come in here, if they should awake – they are too young to look at death.”

Gabriel’s blood curdled when he heard these words – when he touched his grandfather’s hand, and felt the chill that it struck to his own – when he listened to the raging wind, and knew that all help was miles and miles away from the cottage. Still, in spite of the storm, the darkness, and the distance, he thought not for a moment of neglecting the duty that had been taught him from his childhood – the duty of summoning the priest to the bedside of the dying. “I must call Perrine,” he said, “to watch by you while I am away.”

“Stop!” cried the old man. “Stop, Gabriel; I implore, I command you not to leave me!”

“The priest, grandfather – your confession—”

“It must be made to you. In this darkness and this hurricane no man can keep the path across the heath. Gabriel, I am dying – I should be dead before you got back. Gabriel, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, stop here with me till I die – my time is short – I have a terrible secret that I must tell to somebody before I draw my last breath! Your ear to my mouth – quick! quick!”

As he spoke the last words, a slight noise was audible on the other side of the partition, the door half opened, and Perrine appeared at it, looking affrightedly into the room. The vigilant eyes of the old man – suspicious even in death – caught sight of her directly.

“Go back!” he exclaimed faintly, before she could utter a word; “go back – push her back, Gabriel, and nail down the latch in the door, if she won’t shut it of herself!”

“Dear Perrine! go in again,” implored Gabriel. “Go in, and keep the children from disturbing us. You will only make him worse – you can be of no use here!”

She obeyed without speaking, and shut the door again.

While the old man clutched him by the arm, and repeated, “Quick! quick! your ear close to my mouth,” Gabriel heard her say to the children (who were both awake), “Let us pray for grandfather.” And as he knelt down by the bedside, there stole on his ear the sweet, childish tones of his little sisters, and the soft, subdued voice of the young girl who was teaching them the prayer, mingling divinely with the solemn wailing of wind and sea, rising in a still and awful purity over the hoarse, gasping whispers of the dying man.

“I took an oath not to tell it, Gabriel – lean down closer! I’m weak, and they mustn’t hear a word in that room – I took an oath not to tell it; but death is a warrant to all men for breaking such an oath as that. Listen; don’t lose a word I’m saying! Don’t look away into the room: the stain of blood-guilt has defiled it forever! Hush! hush! hush! Let me speak. Now your father’s dead, I can’t carry the horrid secret with me into the grave. Just remember, Gabriel – try if you can’t remember the time before I was bedridden, ten years ago and more – it was about six weeks, you know, before your mother’s death; you can remember it by that. You and all the children were in that room with your mother; you were asleep, I think; it was night, not very late – only nine o’clock. Your father and I were standing at the door, looking out at the heath in the moonlight. He was so poor at that time, he had been obliged to sell his own boat, and none of the neighbours would take him out fishing with them – your father wasn’t liked by any of the neighbours. Well; we saw a stranger coming toward us; a very young man, with a knapsack on his back. He looked like a gentleman, though he was but poorly dressed. He came up, and told us he was dead tired, and didn’t think he could reach the town that night and asked if we would give him shelter till morning. And your father said yes, if he would make no noise, because the wife was ill, and the children were asleep. So he said all he wanted was to go to sleep himself before the fire. We had nothing to give him but black bread. He had better food with him than that, and undid his knapsack to get at it, and – and – Gabriel! I’m sinking – drink! something to drink – I’m parched with thirst.”

Silent and deadly pale, Gabriel poured some of the cider from the pitcher on the table into a drinking-cup, and gave it to the old man. Slight as the stimulant was, its effect on him was almost instantaneous. His dull eyes brightened a little, and he went on in the same whispering tones as before:

“He pulled the food out of his knapsack rather in a hurry, so that some of the other small things in it fell on the floor. Among these was a pocketbook, which your father picked up and gave him back; and he put it in his coat-pocket – there was a tear in one of the sides of the book, and through the hole some banknotes bulged out. I saw them, and so did your father (don’t move away, Gabriel; keep close, there’s nothing in me to shrink from). Well, he shared his food, like an honest fellow, with us; and then put his hand in his pocket, and gave me four or five livres, and then lay down before the fire to go to sleep. As he shut his eyes, your father looked at me in a way I didn’t like. He’d been behaving very bitterly and desperately toward us for some time past, being soured about poverty, and your mother’s illness, and the constant crying out of you children for more to eat. So when he told me to go and buy some wood, some bread, and some wine with money I had got, I didn’t like, somehow, to leave him alone with the stranger; and so made excuses, saying (which was true) that it was too late to buy things in the village that night. But he told me in a rage to go and do as he bid me, and knock the people up if the shop was shut. So I went out, being dreadfully afraid of your father – as indeed we all were at that time – but I couldn’t make up my mind to go far from the house; I was afraid of something happening, though I didn’t dare to think what. I don’t know how it was, but I stole back in about ten minutes on tiptoe to the cottage; I looked in at the window, and saw – O God! forgive him! O God! forgive me! – I saw – I – more to drink, Gabriel! I can’t speak again – more to drink!”

The voices in the next room had ceased; but in the minute of silence which now ensued, Gabriel heard his sisters kissing Perrine, and wishing her good-night. They were all three trying to go asleep again.

“Gabriel, pray yourself, and teach your children after you to pray, that your father may find forgiveness where he is now gone. I saw him as plainly as I now see you, kneeling with his knife in one hand over the sleeping man. He was taking the little book with the notes in it out of the stranger’s pocket. He got the book into his possession, and held it quite still in his hand for an instant, thinking. I believe – oh no! no! I’m sure – he was repenting; I’m sure he was going to put the book back; but just at that moment the stranger moved, and raised one of his arms, as if he was waking up. Then the temptation of the devil grew too strong for your father – I saw him lift the hand with the knife in it – but saw nothing more. I couldn’t look in at the window – I couldn’t move away – I couldn’t cry out; I stood with my back turned toward the house, shivering all over, though it was a warm summertime, and hearing no cries, no noises at all, from the room behind me. I was too frightened to know how long it was before the opening of the cottage door made me turn round; but when I did, I saw your father standing before me in the yellow moonlight, carrying in his arms the bleeding body of the poor lad who had shared his food with us and slept on our hearth. Hush! hush! Don’t groan and sob in that way! Stifle it with the bedclothes. Hush! you’ll wake them in the next room!”

“Gabriel – Gabriel!” exclaimed a voice from behind the partition. “What has happened? Gabriel! let me come out and be with you!”

“No! no!” cried the old man, collecting the last remains of his strength in the attempt to speak above the wind, which was just then howling at the loudest; “stay where you are – don’t speak, don’t come out – I command you! Gabriel” (his voice dropped to a faint whisper), “raise me up in bed – you must hear the whole of it now; raise me; I’m choking so that I can hardly speak. Keep close and listen – I can’t say much more. Where was I? – Ah, your father! He threatened to kill me if I didn’t swear to keep it secret; and in terror of my life I swore. He made me help him to carry the body – we took it all across the heath – oh! horrible, horrible, under the bright moon – (lift me higher, Gabriel). You know the great stones yonder, set up by the heathens; you know the hollow place under the stones they call ‘The Merchant’s Table’; we had plenty of room to lay him in that, and hide him so; and then we ran back to the cottage. I never dared to go near the place afterward; no, nor your father either! (Higher, Gabriel! I’m choking again.) We burned the pocketbook and the knapsack – never knew his name – we kept the money to spend. (You’re not lifting me; you’re not listening close enough!) Your father said it was a legacy, when you and your mother asked about the money. (You hurt me, you shake me to pieces, Gabriel, when you sob like that.) It brought a curse on us, the money; the curse has drowned your father and your brother; the curse is killing me; but I’ve confessed – tell the priest I confessed before I died. Stop her; stop Perrine! I hear her getting up. Take his bones away from the Merchant’s Table, and bury them for the love of God! and tell the priest (lift me higher, lift me till I am on my knees) – if your father was alive, he’d murder me; but tell the priest – because of my guilty soul – to pray, and – remember the Merchant’s Table – to bury, and to pray – to pray always for—”

As long as Perrine heard faintly the whispering of the old man, though no word that he said reached her ear, she shrank from opening the door in the partition. But, when the whispering sounds, which terrified her she knew not how or why, first faltered, then ceased altogether; when she heard the sobs that followed them; and when her heart told her who was weeping in the next room – then, she began to be influenced by a new feeling which was stronger than the strongest fear, and she opened the door without hesitation, almost without trembling.

The coverlet was drawn up over the old man; Gabriel was kneeling by the bedside, with his face hidden. When she spoke to him, he neither answered nor looked at her. After a while the sobs that shook him ceased; but still he never moved, except once when she touched him, and then he shuddered – shuddered under her hand! She called in his little sisters, and they spoke to him, and still he uttered no word in reply. They wept. One by one, often and often, they entreated him with loving words; but the stupor of grief which held him speechless and motionless was beyond the power of human tears, stronger even than the strength of human love.

It was near daybreak, and the storm was lulling, but still no change occurred at the bedside. Once or twice, as Perrine knelt near Gabriel, still vainly endeavouring to arouse him to a sense of her presence, she thought she heard the old man breathing feebly, and stretched out her hand toward the coverlet; but she could not summon courage to touch him or to look at him. This was the first time she had ever been present at a deathbed; the stillness in the room, the stupor of despair that had seized on Gabriel, so horrified her, that she was almost as helpless as the two children by her side. It was not till the dawn looked in at the cottage window – so coldly, so drearily, and yet so re-assuringly – that she began to recover her self-possession at all. Then she knew that her best resource would be to summon assistance immediately from the nearest house. While she was trying to persuade the two children to remain alone in the cottage with Gabriel during her temporary absence, she was startled by the sound of footsteps outside the door. It opened, and a man appeared on the threshold, standing still there for a moment in the dim, uncertain light.

She looked closer – looked intently at him. It was Francois Sarzeau himself.

•  II  •

The fisherman was dripping with wet; but his face, always pale and inflexible, seemed to be but little altered in expression by the perils through which he must have passed during the night. Young Pierre lay almost insensible in his arms. In the astonishment and fright of the first moment, Perrine screamed as she recognised him.

“There, there, there!” he said, peevishly, advancing straight to the hearth with his burden; “don’t make a noise. You never expected to see us alive again, I dare say. We gave ourselves up as lost, and only escaped after all by a miracle.”

He laid the boy down where he could get the full warmth of the fire; and then, turning round, took a wicker-covered bottle from his pocket, and said, “If it hadn’t been for the brandy—” He stopped suddenly – started – put down the bottle on the bench near him – and advanced quickly to the bedside.

Perrine looked after him as he went; and saw Gabriel, who had risen when the door was opened, moving back from the bed as Francois approached. The young man’s face seemed to have been suddenly struck to stone – its blank, ghastly whiteness was awful to look at. He moved slowly backward and backward till he came to the cottage wall – then stood quite still, staring on his father with wild, vacant eyes, moving his hands to and fro before him, muttering, but never pronouncing one audible word.

Francois did not appear to notice his son; he had the coverlet of the bed in his hand.

“Anything the matter here?” he asked, as he drew it down.

Still Gabriel could not speak. Perrine saw it, and answered for him.

“Gabriel is afraid that his poor grandfather is dead,” she whispered, nervously.

“Dead!” There was no sorrow in the tone as he echoed the word. “Was he very bad in the night before his death happened? Did he wander in his mind? He has been rather light-headed lately.”

“He was very restless, and spoke of the ghostly warnings that we all know of; he said he saw and heard many things which told him from the other world that you and Pierre – Gabriel!” she screamed, suddenly interrupting herself, “look at him! Look at his face! Your grandfather is not dead!”

At this moment, Francois was raising his father’s head to look closely at him. A faint spasm had indeed passed over the deathly face; the lips quivered, the jaw dropped. Francois shuddered as he looked, and moved away hastily from the bed. At the same instant Gabriel started from the wall; his expression altered, his pale cheeks flushed suddenly, as he snatched up the wicker-cased bottle, and poured all the little brandy that was left in it down his grandfather’s throat.

The effect was nearly instantaneous; the sinking vital forces rallied desperately. The old man’s eyes opened again, wandered round the room, then fixed themselves intently on Francois as he stood near the fire. Trying and terrible as his position was at that moment, Gabriel still retained self-possession enough to whisper a few words in Perrine’s ear. “Go back again into the bedroom, and take the children with you,” he said. “We may have something to speak about which you had better not hear.”

“Son Gabriel, your grandfather is trembling all over,” said Francois. “If he is dying at all, he is dying of cold; help me to lift him, bed and all, to the hearth.”

“No, no! don’t let him touch me!” gasped the old man. “Don’t let him look at me in that way! Don’t let him come near me, Gabriel! Is it his ghost? or is it himself?”

As Gabriel answered he heard a knocking at the door. His father opened it, and disclosed to view some people from the neighbouring fishing village, who had come – more out of curiosity than sympathy – to inquire whether Francois and the boy Pierre had survived the night. Without asking anyone to enter, the fisherman surlily and shortly answered the various questions addressed to him, standing in his own doorway. While he was thus engaged, Gabriel heard his grandfather muttering vacantly to himself, “Last night – how about last night, grandson? What was I talking about last night? Did I say your father was drowned? Very foolish to say he was drowned, and then see him come back alive again! But it wasn’t that – I’m so weak in my head, I can’t remember. What was it, Gabriel? Something too horrible to speak of? Is that what you’re whispering and trembling about? I said nothing horrible. A crime! Bloodshed! I know nothing of any crime or bloodshed here – I must have been frightened out of my wits to talk in that way! The Merchant’s Table? Only a big heap of old stones! What with the storm, and thinking I was going to die, and being afraid about your father, I must have been light-headed. Don’t give another thought to that nonsense, Gabriel! I’m better now. We shall all live to laugh at poor grandfather for talking nonsense about crime and bloodshed in his sleep. Ah, poor old man – last night – light-headed – fancies and nonsense of an old man – why don’t you laugh at it? I’m laughing – so light-headed, so light—”

He stopped suddenly. A low cry, partly of terror and partly of pain, escaped him; the look of pining anxiety and imbecile cunning which had distorted his face while he had been speaking, faded from it forever. He shivered a little, breathed heavily once or twice, then became quite still.

Had he died with a falsehood on his lips?

Gabriel looked round and saw that the cottage door was closed, and that his father was standing against it. How long he had occupied that position, how many of the old man’s last words he had heard, it was impossible to conjecture, but there was a lowering suspicion in his harsh face as he now looked away from the corpse to his son, which made Gabriel shudder; and the first question that he asked, on once more approaching the bedside, was expressed in tones which, quiet as they were, had a fearful meaning in them.

“What did your grandfather talk about last night?” he asked.

Gabriel did not answer. All that he had heard, all that he had seen, all the misery and horror that might yet be to come, had stunned his mind. The unspeakable dangers of his present position were too tremendous to be realized. He could only feel them vaguely in the weary torpor that oppressed his heart; while in every other direction the use of his faculties, physical and mental, seemed to have suddenly and totally abandoned him.

“Is your tongue wounded, son Gabriel, as well as your arm?” his father went on, with a bitter laugh. “I come back to you, saved by a miracle; and you never speak to me. Would you rather I had died than the old man there? He can’t hear you now – why shouldn’t you tell me what nonsense he was talking last night? You won’t? I say you shall!” (He crossed the room and put his back to the door.) “Before either of us leave this place, you shall confess it! You know that my duty to the Church bids me to go at once and tell the priest of your grandfather’s death. If I leave that duty unfulfilled, remember it is through your fault! You keep me here – for here I stop till I’m obeyed. Do you hear that, idiot? Speak! Speak instantly, or you shall repeat it to the day of your death! I ask again – what did your grandfather say to you when he was wandering in his mind last night?”

“He spoke of a crime committed by another, and guiltily kept secret by him,” answered Gabriel, slowly and sternly. “And this morning he denied his own words with his last living breath. But last night, if he spoke the truth—”

“The truth!” echoed Francois. “What truth?”

He stopped, his eyes fell, then turned toward the corpse. For a few minutes he stood steadily contemplating it; breathing quickly, and drawing his hand several times across his forehead. Then he faced his son once more. In that short interval he had become in outward appearance a changed man; expression, voice, and manner, all were altered.

“Heaven forgive me!” he went on, “but I could almost laugh at myself, at this solemn moment, for having spoken and acted just now so much like a fool! Denied his words, did he? Poor old man! they say sense often comes back to light-headed people just before death; and he is a proof of it. The fact is, Gabriel, my own wits must have been a little shaken – and no wonder – by what I went through last night, and what I have come home to this morning. As if you, or anybody, could ever really give serious credit to the wandering speeches of a dying old man! (Where is Perrine? Why did you send her away?) I don’t wonder at your still looking a little startled, and feeling low in your mind, and all that – for you’ve had a trying night of it, trying in every way. He must have been a good deal shaken in his wits last night, between fears about himself and fears about me. (To think of my being angry with you, Gabriel, for being a little alarmed – very naturally – by an old man’s queer fancies!) Come out, Perrine – come out of the bedroom whenever you are tired of it: you must learn sooner or later to look at death calmly. Shake hands, Gabriel; and let us make it up, and say no more about what has passed. You won’t? Still angry with me for what I said to you just now? Ah! you’ll think better about it by the time I return. Come out, Perrine; we’ve no secrets here.”

“Where are you going to?” asked Gabriel, as he saw his father hastily open the door.

“To tell the priest that one of his congregation is dead, and to have the death registered,” answered Francois. “These are my duties, and must be performed before I take any rest.”

He went out hurriedly as he said these words. Gabriel almost trembled at himself when he found that he breathed more freely, that he felt less horribly oppressed both in mind and body, the moment his father’s back was turned. Fearful as thought was now, it was still a change for the better to be capable of thinking at all. Was the behaviour of his father compatible with innocence? Could the old man’s confused denial of his own words in the morning, and in the presence of his son, be set for one instant against the circumstantial confession that he had made during the night alone with his grandson? These were the terrible questions which Gabriel now asked himself, and which he shrank involuntarily from answering. And yet that doubt, the solution of which would, one way or the other, irrevocably affect the whole future of his life, must sooner or later be solved at any hazard!

Was there any way of setting it at rest? Yes, one way – to go instantly, while his father was absent, and examine the hollow place under the Merchant’s Table. If his grandfather’s confession had really been made while he was in possession of his senses, this place (which Gabriel knew to be covered in from wind and weather) had never been visited since the commission of the crime by the perpetrator, or by his unwilling accomplice; though time had destroyed all besides, the hair and the bones of the victim would still be left to bear witness to the truth – if truth had indeed been spoken. As this conviction grew on him, the young man’s cheek paled; and he stopped irresolute half-way between the hearth and the door. Then he looked down doubtfully at the corpse on the bed; and then there came upon him suddenly a revulsion of feeling. A wild, feverish impatience to know the worst without another instant of delay possessed him. Only telling Perrine that he should be back soon, and that she must watch by the dead in his absence, he left the cottage at once, without waiting to hear her reply, even without looking back as he closed the door behind him.

There were two tracks to the Merchant’s Table. One, the longer of the two, by the coast cliffs; the other across the heath. But this latter path was also, for some little distance, the path which led to the village and the church. He was afraid of attracting his father’s attention here, so he took the direction of the coast. At one spot the track trended inland, winding round some of the many Druid monuments scattered over the country. This place was on high ground, and commanded a view, at no great distance, of the path leading to the village, just where it branched off from the heathy ridge which ran in the direction of the Merchant’s Table. Here Gabriel descried the figure of a man standing with his back toward the coast.

This figure was too far off to be identified with absolute certainty, but it looked like, and might well be, Francois Sarzeau. Whoever he was, the man was evidently uncertain which way he should proceed. When he moved forward, it was first to advance several paces toward the Merchant’s Table; then he went back again toward the distant cottages and the church. Twice he hesitated thus; the second time pausing long before he appeared finally to take the way that led to the village.

Leaving the post of observation among the stones, at which he had instinctively halted for some minutes past, Gabriel now proceeded on his own path. Could this man really be his father? And if it were so, why did Francois Sarzeau only determine to go to the village where his business lay, after having twice vainly attempted to persevere in taking the exactly opposite direction of the Merchant’s Table? Did he really desire to go there? Had he heard the name mentioned, when the old man referred to it in his dying words? And had he failed to summon courage enough to make all safe by removing – This last question was too horrible to be pursued; Gabriel stifled it affrightedly in his own heart as he went on.

He reached the great Druid monument without meeting a living soul on his way. The sun was rising, and the mighty storm-clouds of the night were parting asunder wildly over the whole eastward horizon. The waves still leaped and foamed gloriously: but the gale had sunk to a keen, fresh breeze. As Gabriel looked up, and saw how brightly the promise of a lovely day was written in the heavens, he trembled as he thought of the search which he was now about to make. The sight of the fair, fresh sunrise jarred horribly with the suspicions of committed murder that were rankling foully in his heart. But he knew that his errand must be performed, and he nerved himself to go through with it; for he dared not return to the cottage until the mystery had been cleared up at once and forever.

The Merchant’s Table was formed by two huge stones resting horizontally on three others. In the troubled times of more than half a century ago, regular tourists were unknown among the Druid monuments of Brittany; and the entrance to the hollow place under the stones – since often visited by strangers – was at this time nearly choked up by brambles and weeds. Gabriel’s first look at this tangled nook of briers convinced him that the place had not been entered perhaps for years, by any living being. Without allowing himself to hesitate (for he felt that the slightest delay might be fatal to his resolution), he passed as gently as possible through the brambles, and knelt down at the low, dusky, irregular entrance of the hollow place under the stones.

His heart throbbed violently, his breath almost failed him; but he forced himself to crawl a few feet into the cavity, and then groped with his hand on the ground about him.

He touched something! Something which it made his flesh creep to handle; something which he would fain have dropped, but which he grasped tight in spite of himself. He drew back into the outer air and sunshine. Was it a human bone? No! he had been the dupe of his own morbid terror – he had only taken up a fragment of dried wood!

Feeling shame at such self-deception as this, he was about to throw the wood from him before he re-entered the place, when another idea occurred to him.

Though it was dimly lighted through one or two chinks in the stones, the far part of the interior of the cavity was still too dusky to admit of perfect examination by the eye, even on a bright sunshiny morning. Observing this, he took out the tinder-box and matches, which, like the other inhabitants of the district, he always carried about with him for the purpose of lighting his pipe, determining to use the piece of wood as a torch which might illuminate the darkest corner of the place when he next entered it. Fortunately the wood had remained so long and had been preserved so dry in its sheltered position, that it caught fire almost as easily as a piece of paper. The moment it was fairly aflame Gabriel went into the cavity, penetrating at once – this time – to its furthest extremity.

He remained among the stones long enough for the wood to burn down nearly to his hand. When he came out, and flung the burning fragment from him, his face was flushed deeply, his eyes sparkled. He leaped carelessly on to the heath, over the bushes through which he had threaded his way so warily but a few minutes before, exclaiming, “I may marry Perrine with a clear conscience now; I am the son of as honest a man as there is in Brittany!”

He had closely examined the cavity in every corner, and not the slightest sign that any dead body had ever been laid there was visible in the hollow place under the Merchant’s Table.

•  III  •

“I may marry Perrine with a clear conscience now!”

There are some parts of the world where it would be drawing no natural picture of human nature to represent a son as believing conscientiously that an offence against life and the laws of hospitality, secretly committed by his father, rendered him, though innocent of all participation in it, unworthy to fulfill his engagement with his affianced wife. Among the simple inhabitants of Gabriel’s province, however, such acuteness of conscientious sensibility as this was no extraordinary exception to all general rules. Ignorant and superstitious as they might be, the people of Brittany practised the duties of hospitality as devoutly as they practised the duties of the national religion. The presence of the stranger-guest, rich or poor, was a sacred presence at their hearths. His safety was their especial charge, his property their especial responsibility. They might be half starved, but they were ready to share the last crust with him, nevertheless, as they would share it with their own children.

Any outrage on the virtue of hospitality, thus born and bred in the people, was viewed by them with universal disgust, and punished with universal execration. This ignominy was uppermost in Gabriel’s thoughts by the side of his grandfather’s bed; the dread of this worst dishonour, which there was no wiping out, held him speechless before Perrine, shamed and horrified him so that he felt unworthy to look her in the face; and when the result of his search at the Merchant’s Table proved the absence there of all evidence of the crime spoken of by the old man, the blessed relief, the absorbing triumph of that discovery, was expressed entirely in the one thought which had prompted his first joyful words: He could marry Perrine with a clear conscience, for he was the son of an honest man!

When he returned to the cottage, Francois had not come back. Perrine was astonished at the change in Gabriel’s manner; even Pierre and the children remarked it. Rest and warmth had by this time so far recovered the younger brother, that he was able to give some account of the perilous adventures of the night at sea. They were still listening to the boy’s narrative when Francois at last returned. It was now Gabriel who held out his hand, and made the first advances toward reconciliation.

To his utter amazement, his father recoiled from him. The variable temper of Francois had evidently changed completely during his absence at the village. A settled scowl of distrust darkened his face as he looked at his son.

“I never shake hands with people who have once doubted me,” he exclaimed, loudly and irritably; “for I always doubt them forever after. You are a bad son! You have suspected your father of some infamy that you dare not openly charge him with, on no other testimony than the rambling nonsense of a half-witted, dying old man. Don’t speak to me! I won’t hear you! An innocent man and a spy are bad company. Go and denounce me, you Judas in disguise! I don’t care for your secret or for you. What’s that girl Perrine doing here still? Why hasn’t she gone home long ago? The priest’s coming; we don’t want strangers in the house of death. Take her back to the farmhouse, and stop there with her, if you like; nobody wants you here!”

There was something in the manner and look of the speaker as he uttered these words, so strange, so sinister, so indescribably suggestive of his meaning much more than he said, that Gabriel felt his heart sink within him instantly; and almost at the same moment this fearful question forced itself irresistibly on his mind: might not his father have followed him to the Merchant’s Table?

Even if he had been desired to speak, he could not have spoken now, while that question and the suspicion that it brought with it were utterly destroying all the re-assuring hopes and convictions of the morning. The mental suffering produced by the sudden change from pleasure to pain in all his thoughts, reacted on him physically. He felt as if he were stifling in the air of the cottage, in the presence of his father; and when Perrine hurried on her walking attire, and with a face which alternately flushed and turned pale with every moment, approached the door, he went out with her as hastily as if he had been flying from his home. Never had the fresh air and the free daylight felt like heavenly and guardian influences to him until now!

He could comfort Perrine under his father’s harshness, he could assure her of his own affection, which no earthly influence could change, while they walked together toward the farmhouse; but he could do no more. He durst not confide to her the subject that was uppermost in his mind; of all human beings she was the last to whom he could reveal the terrible secret that was festering at his heart. As soon as they got within sight of the farmhouse, Gabriel stopped; and, promising to see her again soon, took leave of Perrine with assumed ease in his manner and with real despair in his heart. Whatever the poor girl might think of it, he felt, at that moment, that he had not courage to face her father, and hear him talk happily and pleasantly, as his custom was, of Perrine’s approaching marriage.

Left to himself, Gabriel wandered hither and thither over the open heath, neither knowing nor caring in what direction he turned his steps. The doubts about his father’s innocence which had been dissipated by his visit to the Merchant’s Table, that father’s own language and manner had now revived – had even confirmed, though he dared not yet acknowledge so much to himself. It was terrible enough to be obliged to admit that the result of his morning’s search was, after all, not conclusive – that the mystery was, in very truth, not yet cleared up. The violence of his father’s last words of distrust; the extraordinary and indescribable changes in his father’s manner while uttering them – what did these things mean? Guilt or innocence? Again, was it any longer reasonable to doubt the deathbed confession made by his grandfather? Was it not, on the contrary, far more probable that the old man’s denial in the morning of his own words at night had been made under the influence of a panic terror, when his moral consciousness was bewildered, and his intellectual faculties were sinking? The longer Gabriel thought of these questions, the less competent – possibly also the less willing – he felt to answer them. Should he seek advice from others wiser than he? No; not while the thousandth part of a chance remained that his father was innocent.

This thought was still in his mind, when he found himself once more in sight of his home. He was still hesitating near the door, when he saw it opened cautiously. His brother Pierre looked out, and then came running toward him. “Come in, Gabriel; oh, do come in!” said the boy, earnestly. “We are afraid to be alone with father. He’s been beating us for talking of you.”

Gabriel went in. His father looked up from the hearth where he was sitting, muttered the word “Spy!” and made a gesture of contempt but did not address a word directly to his son. The hours passed on in silence; afternoon waned into evening, and evening into night; and still he never spoke to any of his children. Soon after it was dark, he went out, and took his net with him, saying that it was better to be alone on the sea than in the house with a spy.

When he returned the next morning there was no change in him. Days passed – weeks, months, even elapsed, and still, though his manner insensibly became what it used to be toward his other children, it never altered toward his eldest son At the rare periods when they now met, except when absolutely obliged to speak, he preserved total silence in his intercourse with Gabriel. He would never take Gabriel out with him in the boat; he would never sit alone with Gabriel in the house; he would never eat a meal with Gabriel; he would never let the other children talk to him about Gabriel; and he would never hear a word in expostulation, a word in reference to anything his dead father had said or done on the night of the storm, from Gabriel himself.

The young man pined and changed, so that even Perrine hardly knew him again, under this cruel system of domestic excommunication; under the wearing influence of the one unchanging doubt which never left him; and, more than all, under the incessant reproaches of his own conscience, aroused by the sense that he was evading a responsibility which it was his solemn, his immediate duty to undertake. But no sting of conscience, no ill treatment at home, and no self-reproaches for failing in his duty of confession as a good Catholic, were powerful enough in their influence over Gabriel to make him disclose the secret, under the oppression of which his very life was wasting away. He knew that if he once revealed it, whether his father was ultimately proved to be guilty or innocent, there would remain a slur and a suspicion on the family, and on Perrine besides, from her approaching connection with it, which in their time and in their generation could never be removed. The reproach of the world is terrible even in the crowded city, where many of the dwellers in our abiding-place are strangers to us – but it is far more terrible in the country, where none near us are strangers, where all talk of us and know of us, where nothing intervenes between us and the tyranny of the evil tongue. Gabriel had not courage to face this, and dare the fearful chance of lifelong ignominy – no, not even to serve the sacred interests of justice, of atonement, and of truth.

•  IV  •

While Gabriel still remained prostrated under the affliction that was wasting his energies of body and mind, Brittany was visited by a great public calamity, in which all private misfortunes were overwhelmed for a while.

It was now the time when the ever-gathering storm of the French Revolution had risen to its hurricane climax. Those chiefs of the new republic were in power whose last, worst madness it was to decree the extinction of religion and the overthrow of everything that outwardly symbolized it throughout the whole of the country that they governed. Already this decree had been executed to the letter in and around Paris; and now the soldiers of the Republic were on their way to Brittany, headed by commanders whose commission was to root out the Christian religion in the last and the surest of the strongholds still left to it in France.

These men began their work in a spirit worthy of the worst of their superiors who had sent them to do it. They gutted churches, they demolished chapels, they overthrew roadside crosses wherever they found them. The terrible guillotine devoured human lives in the villages of Brittany as it had devoured them in the streets of Paris; the musket and the sword, in highway and byway, wreaked havoc on the people – even on women and children kneeling in the act of prayer; the priests were tracked night and day from one hiding-place, where they still offered up worship, to another, and were killed as soon as overtaken – every atrocity was committed in every district; but the Christian religion still spread wider than the widest bloodshed; still sprang up with ever-renewed vitality from under the very feet of the men whose vain fury was powerless to trample it down. Everywhere the people remained true to their Faith; everywhere the priests stood firm by them in their sorest need. The executioners of the Republic had been sent to make Brittany a country of apostates; they did their worst, and left it a country of martyrs.

One evening, while this frightful persecution was still raging, Gabriel happened to be detained unusually late at the cottage of Perrine’s father. He had lately spent much of his time at the farm house; it was his only refuge now from that place of suffering, of silence, and of secret shame, which he had once called home! Just as he had taken leave of Perrine for the night, and was about to open the farmhouse door, her father stopped him, and pointed to a chair in the chimney-corner.

“Leave us alone, my dear,” said the old man to his daughter; “I want to speak to Gabriel. You can go to your mother in the next room.”

The words which Pere Bonan – as he was called by the neighbours – had now to say in private were destined to lead to very unexpected events. After referring to the alteration which had appeared of late in Gabriel’s manner, the old man began by asking him, sorrowfully but not suspiciously, whether he still preserved his old affection for Perrine. On receiving an eager answer in the affirmative, Pere Bonan then referred to the persecution still raging through the country, and to the consequent possibility that he, like others of his countrymen, might yet be called to suffer, and perhaps to die, for the cause of his religion. If this last act of self-sacrifice were required of him, Perrine would be left unprotected, unless her affianced husband performed his promise to her, and assumed, without delay, the position of her lawful guardian. “Let me know that you will do this,” concluded the old man; “I shall be resigned to all that may be required of me, if I can only know that I shall not die leaving Perrine unprotected.” Gabriel gave the promise – gave it with his whole heart. As he took leave of Pere Bonan, the old man said to him:

“Come here tomorrow; I shall know more then than I know now – I shall be able to fix with certainty the day for the fulfillment of your engagement with Perrine.”

Why did Gabriel hesitate at the farmhouse door, looking back on Pere Bonan as though he would fain say something, and yet not speaking a word? Why, after he had gone out and had walked onward several paces, did he suddenly stop, return quickly to the farmhouse, stand irresolute before the gate, and then retrace his steps, sighing heavily as he went, but never pausing again on his homeward way? Because the torment of his horrible secret had grown harder to bear than ever, since he had given the promise that had been required of him. Because, while a strong impulse moved him frankly to lay bare his hidden dread and doubt to the father whose beloved daughter was soon to be his wife, there was a yet stronger passive influence which paralysed on his lips the terrible confession that he knew not whether he was the son of an honest man, or the son of an assassin, and a robber. Made desperate by his situation, he determined, while he hastened homeward, to risk the worst, and ask that fatal question of his father in plain words. But this supreme trial for parent and child was not to be. When he entered the cottage, Francois was absent. He had told the younger children that he should not be home again before noon on the next day.

Early in the morning Gabriel repaired to the farmhouse, as he had been bidden. Influenced, by his love for Perrine, blindly confiding in the faint hope (which, in despite of heart and conscience, he still forced himself to cherish) that his father might be innocent, he now preserved the appearance at least of perfect calmness. “If I tell my secret to Perrine’s father, I risk disturbing in him that confidence in the future safety of his child for which I am his present and only warrant.” Something like this thought was in Gabriel’s mind, as he took the hand of Pere Bonan, and waited anxiously to hear what was required of him on that day.

“We have a short respite from danger, Gabriel,” said the old man. “News has come to me that the spoilers of our churches and the murderers of our congregations have been stopped on their way hitherward by tidings which have reached them from another district. This interval of peace and safety will be a short one – we must take advantage of it while it is yet ours. My name is among the names on the list of the denounced. If the soldiers of the Republic find me here – but we will say nothing more of this; it is of Perrine and of you that I must now speak. On this very evening your marriage may be solemnized with all the wonted rites of our holy religion, and the blessing may be pronounced over you by the lips of a priest. This evening, therefore, Gabriel, you must become the husband and the protector of Perrine. Listen to me attentively, and I will tell you how.”

This was the substance of what Gabriel now heard from Pere Bonan:

Not very long before the persecutions broke out in Brittany, a priest, known generally by the name of Father Paul, was appointed to a curacy in one of the northern districts of the province. He fulfilled all the duties of his station in such a manner as to win the confidence and affection of every member of his congregation, and was often spoken of with respect, even in parts of the country distant from the scene of his labours. It was not, however, until the troubles broke out, and the destruction and bloodshed began, that he became renowned far and wide, from one end of Brittany to another. From the date of the very first persecutions the name of Father Paul was a rallying-cry of the hunted peasantry; he was their great encouragement under oppression, their example in danger, their last and only consoler in the hour of death. Wherever havoc and ruin raged most fiercely, wherever the pursuit was hottest and the slaughter most cruel, there the intrepid priest was sure to be seen pursuing his sacred duties in defiance of every peril. His hairbreadth escapes from death; his extraordinary re-appearances in parts of the country where no one ever expected to see him again, were regarded by the poorer classes with superstitious awe. Wherever Father Paul appeared, with his black dress, his calm face, and the ivory crucifix which he always carried in his hand, the people reverenced him as more than mortal; and grew at last to believe, that, single-handed, he would successfully defend his religion against the armies of the Republic. But their simple confidence in his powers of resistance was soon destined to be shaken. Fresh re-enforcements arrived in Brittany, and overran the whole province from one end to the other. One morning, after celebrating service in a dismantled church, and after narrowly escaping with his life from those who pursued him, the priest disappeared. Secret inquiries were made after him in all directions; but he was heard of no more.

Many weary days had passed, and the dispirited peasantry had already mourned him as dead, when some fishermen on the northern coast observed a ship of light burden in the offing, making signals to the shore. They put off to her in their boats; and on reaching the deck saw standing before them the well-remembered figure of Father Paul.

The priest had returned to his congregations, and had founded the new altar that they were to worship at on the deck of the ship! Razed from the face of the earth, their church had not been destroyed – for Father Paul and the priests who acted with him had given that church a refuge on the sea. Henceforth, their children could still be baptised, their sons and daughters could still be married, the burial of their dead could still be solemnized, under the sanction of the old religion for which, not vainly, they had suffered so patiently and so long.

Throughout the remaining time of trouble the services were uninterrupted on board the ship. A code of signals was established by which those on shore were always enabled to direct their brethren at sea toward such parts of the coast as happened to be uninfested by the enemies of their worship. On the morning of Gabriel’s visit to the farmhouse these signals had shaped the course of the ship toward the extremity of the peninsula of Quiberon. The people of the district were all prepared to expect the appearance of the vessel some time in the evening, and had their boats ready at a moment’s notice to put off, and attend the service. At the conclusion of this service Pere Bonan had arranged that the marriage of his daughter and Gabriel was to take place.

They waited for evening at the farmhouse. A little before sunset the ship was signalled as in sight; and then Pere Bonan and his wife, followed by Gabriel and Perrine, set forth over the heath to the beach. With the solitary exception of Francois Sarzeau, the whole population of the neighbourhood was already assembled there, Gabriel’s brother and sisters being among the number.

It was the calmest evening that had been known for months. There was not a cloud in the lustrous sky – not a ripple on the still surface of the sea. The smallest children were suffered by their mothers to stray down on the beach as they pleased; for the waves of the great ocean slept as tenderly and noiselessly on their sandy bed as if they had been changed into the waters of an inland lake. Slow, almost imperceptible, was the approach of the ship – there was hardly a breath of wind to carry her on – she was just drifting gently with the landward set of the tide at that hour, while her sails hung idly against the masts. Long after the sun had gone down, the congregation still waited and watched on the beach. The moon and stars were arrayed in their glory of the night before the ship dropped anchor. Then the muffled tolling of a bell came solemnly across the quiet waters; and then, from every creek along the shore, as far as the eye could reach, the black forms of the fishermen’s boats shot out swift and stealthy into the shining sea.

By the time the boats had arrived alongside of the ship, the lamp had been kindled before the altar, and its flame was gleaming red and dull in the radiant moonlight. Two of the priests on board were clothed in their robes of office, and were waiting in their appointed places to begin the service. But there was a third, dressed only in the ordinary attire of his calling, who mingled with the congregation, and spoke a few words to each of the persons composing it, as, one by one, they mounted the sides of the ship. Those who had never seen him before knew by the famous ivory crucifix in his hand that the priest who received them was Father Paul. Gabriel looked at this man, whom he now beheld for the first time, with a mixture of astonishment and awe; for he saw that the renowned chief of the Christians of Brittany was, to all appearance, but little older than himself.

The expression on the pale, calm face of the priest was so gentle and kind, that children just able to walk tottered up to him, and held familiarly by the skirts of his black gown, whenever his clear blue eyes rested on theirs, while he beckoned them to his side. No one would ever have guessed from the countenance of Father Paul what deadly perils he had confronted, but for the scar of a sabre-wound, as yet hardly healed, which ran across his forehead. That wound had been dealt while he was kneeling before the altar in the last church in Brittany which had escaped spoliation. He would have died where he knelt, but for the peasants who were praying with him, and who, unarmed as they were, threw themselves like tigers on the soldiery, and at awful sacrifice of their own lives saved the life of their priest. There was not a man now on board the ship who would have hesitated, had the occasion called for it again, to have rescued him in the same way.

The service began. Since the days when the primitive Christians worshipped amid the caverns of the earth, can any service be imagined nobler in itself, or sublimer in the circumstances surrounding it, than that which was now offered up? Here was no artificial pomp, no gaudy profusion of ornament, no attendant grandeur of man’s creation. All around this church spread the hushed and awful majesty of the tranquil sea. The roof of this cathedral was the immeasurable heaven, the pure moon its one great light, the countless glories of the stars its only adornment. Here were no hired singers or rich priest-princes; no curious sight-seers, or careless lovers of sweet sounds. This congregation and they who had gathered it together, were all poor alike, all persecuted alike, all worshipping alike, to the overthrow of their worldly interests, and at the imminent peril of their lives. How brightly and tenderly the moonlight shone upon the altar and the people before it! how solemnly and divinely the deep harmonies, as they chanted the penitential Psalms, mingled with the hoarse singing of the freshening night breeze in the rigging of the ship! how sweetly the still rushing murmur of many voices, as they uttered the responses together, now died away, and now rose again softly into the mysterious night!

Of all the members of the congregation – young or old – there was but one over whom that impressive service exercised no influence of consolation or of peace; that one was Gabriel. Often, throughout the day, his reproaching conscience had spoken within him again and again. Often when he joined the little assembly on the beach, he turned away his face in secret shame and apprehension from Perrine and her father. Vainly, after gaining the deck of the ship, did he try to meet the eye of Father Paul as frankly, as readily, and as affectionately as others met it. The burden of concealment seemed too heavy to be borne in the presence of the priest – and yet, torment as it was, he still bore it! But when he knelt with the rest of the congregation and saw Perrine kneeling by his side – when he felt the calmness of the solemn night and the still sea filling his heart – when the sounds of the first prayers spoke with a dread spiritual language of their own to his soul – then the remembrance of the confession which he had neglected, and the terror of receiving unprepared the sacrament which he knew would be offered to him – grew too vivid to be endured; the sense that he merited no longer, though once worthy of it, the confidence in his perfect truth and candour placed in him by the woman with whom he was soon to stand before the altar, overwhelmed him with shame: the mere act of kneeling among that congregation, the passive accomplice by his silence and secrecy, for aught he knew to the contrary, of a crime which it was his bounden duty to denounce, appalled him as if he had already committed sacrilege that could never be forgiven. Tears flowed down his cheeks, though he strove to repress them: sobs burst from him, though he tried to stifle them. He knew that others besides Perrine were looking at him in astonishment and alarm; but he could neither control himself, nor move to leave his place, nor raise his eyes even – until suddenly he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. That touch, slight as it was, ran through him instantly He looked up, and saw Father Paul standing by his side.

Beckoning him to follow, and signing to the congregation not to suspend their devotions, he led Gabriel out of the assembly – then paused for a moment, reflecting – then beckoning him again, took him into the cabin of the ship, and closed the door carefully.

“You have something on your mind,” he said, simply and quietly, taking the young man by the hand. “I may be able to relieve you, if you tell me what it is.”

As Gabriel heard these gentle words, and saw, by the light of a lamp which burned before a cross fixed against the wall, the sad kindness of expression with which the priest was regarding him, the oppression that had lain so long on his heart seemed to leave it in an instant. The haunting fear of ever divulging his fatal suspicions and his fatal secret had vanished, as it were, at the touch of Father Paul’s hand. For the first time he now repeated to another ear – the sounds of prayer and praise rising grandly the while from the congregation above – his grandfather’s deathbed confession, word for word almost, as he had heard it in the cottage on the night of the storm.

Once, and once only, did Father Paul interrupt the narrative, which in whispers was addressed to him. Gabriel had hardly repeated the first two or three sentences of his grandfather’s confession, when the priest, in quick, altered tones, abruptly asked him his name and place of abode.

As the question was answered, Father Paul’s calm face became suddenly agitated; but the next moment, resolutely resuming his self-possession, he bowed his head as a sign that Gabriel was to continue; clasped his trembling hands, and raising them as if in silent prayer, fixed his eyes intently on the cross. He never looked away from it while the terrible narrative proceeded. But when Gabriel described his search at the Merchant’s Table; and, referring to his father’s behaviour since that time, appealed to the priest to know whether he might even yet, in defiance of appearances, be still filially justified in doubting whether the crime had been really perpetrated – then Father Paul moved near to him once more, and spoke again.

“Compose yourself, and look at me,” he said, with his former sad kindness of voice and manner. “I can end your doubts forever. Gabriel, your father was guilty in intention and in act; but the victim of his crime still lives. I can prove it.”

Gabriel’s heart beat wildly; a deadly coldness crept over him as he saw Father Paul loosen the fastening of his cassock round the throat.

At that instant the chanting of the congregation above ceased; and then the sudden and awful stillness was deepened rather than interrupted by the faint sound of one voice praying. Slowly and with trembling fingers the priest removed the band round his neck – paused a little – sighed heavily – and pointed to a scar which was now plainly visible on one side of his throat. He said something at the same time; but the bell above tolled while he spoke. It was the signal of the elevation of the Host. Gabriel felt an arm passed round him, guiding him to his knees, and sustaining him from sinking to the floor. For one moment longer he was conscious that the bell had stopped, that there was dead silence, that Father Paul was kneeling by him beneath the cross, with bowed head – then all objects around vanished; and he saw and knew nothing more.

When he recovered his senses, he was still in the cabin; the man whose life his father had attempted was bending over him, and sprinkling water on his face; and the clear voices of the women and children of the congregation were joining the voices of the men in singing the Agnus Dei.

“Look up at me without fear, Gabriel,” said the priest. “I desire not to avenge injuries: I visit not the sins of the father on the child. Look up, and listen! I have strange things to speak of; and I have a sacred mission to fulfill before the morning, in which you must be my guide.”

Gabriel attempted to kneel and kiss his hand but Father Paul stopped him, and said, pointing to the cross: “Kneel to that – not to me; not to your fellow-mortal, and your friend – for I will be your friend, Gabriel; believing that God’s mercy has ordered it so. And now listen to me,” he proceeded, with a brotherly tenderness in his manner which went to Gabriel’s heart. “The service is nearly ended. What I have to tell you must be told at once; the errand on which you will guide me must be performed before tomorrow dawns. Sit here near me, and attend to what I now say!”

Gabriel obeyed; Father Paul then proceeded thus:

“I believe the confession made to you by your grandfather to have been true in every particular. On the evening to which he referred you, I approached your cottage, as he said, for the purpose of asking shelter for the night. At that period I had been studying hard to qualify myself for the holy calling which I now pursue; and, on the completion of my studies, had indulged in the recreation of a tour on foot through Brittany, by way of innocently and agreeably occupying the leisure time then at my disposal, before I entered the priesthood. When I accosted your father I had lost my way, had been walking for many hours, and was glad of any rest that I could get for the night. It is unnecessary to pain you now, by reference to the events which followed my entrance under your father’s roof. I remember nothing that happened from the time when I lay down to sleep before the fire, until the time when I recovered my senses at the place which you call the Merchant’s Table. My first sensation was that of being moved into the cold air; when I opened my eyes I saw the great Druid stones rising close above me, and two men on either side of me rifling my pockets. They found nothing valuable there, and were about to leave me where I lay, when I gathered strength enough to appeal to their mercy through their cupidity. Money was not scarce with me then, and I was able to offer them a rich reward (which they ultimately received as I had promised) if they would take me to any place where I could get shelter and medical help. I supposed they inferred by my language and accent – perhaps also by the linen I wore, which they examined closely – that I belonged to the higher ranks of the community, in spite of the plainness of my outer garments; and might, therefore, be in a position to make good my promise to them. I heard one say to the other, ‘Let us risk it’; and then they took me in their arms, carried me down to a boat on the beach, and rowed to a vessel in the offing. The next day they disembarked me at Paimboeuf, where I got the assistance which I so much needed. I learned, through the confidence they were obliged to place in me in order to give me the means of sending them their promised reward, that these men were smugglers, and that they were in the habit of using the cavity in which I had been laid as a place of concealment for goods, and for letters of advice to their accomplices. This accounted for their finding me. As to my wound, I was informed by the surgeon who attended me that it had missed being inflicted in a mortal part by less than a quarter of an inch, and that, as it was, nothing but the action of the night air in coagulating the blood over the place, had, in the first instance, saved my life. To be brief, I recovered after a long illness, returned to Paris, and was called to the priesthood. The will of my superiors obliged me to perform the first duties of my vocation in the great city; but my own wish was to be appointed to a cure of souls in your province, Gabriel. Can you imagine why?”

The answer to this question was in Gabriel’s heart; but he was still too deeply awed and affected by what he had heard to give it utterance.

“I must tell you, then, what my motive was,” said Father Paul. “You must know first that I uniformly abstained from disclosing to anyone where and by whom my life had been attempted. I kept this a secret from the men who rescued me – from the surgeon – from my own friends even. My reason for such a proceeding was, I would fain believe, a Christian reason. I hope I had always felt a sincere and humble desire to prove myself, by the help of God, worthy of the sacred vocation to which I was destined. But my miraculous escape from death made an impression on my mind, which gave me another and an infinitely higher view of this vocation – the view which I have since striven, and shall always strive for the future, to maintain. As I lay, during the first days of my recovery, examining my own heart, and considering in what manner it would be my duty to act toward your father when I was restored to health, a thought came into my mind which calmed, comforted, and resolved all my doubts. I said within myself, ‘In a few months more I shall be called to be one of the chosen ministers of God. If I am worthy of my vocation, my first desire toward this man who has attempted to take my life should be, not to know that human justice has overtaken him, but to know that he has truly and religiously repented and made atonement for his guilt. To such repentance and atonement let it be my duty to call him; if he reject that appeal, and be hardened only the more against me because I have forgiven him my injuries, then it will be time enough to denounce him for his crimes to his fellow-men. Surely it must be well for me, here and hereafter, if I begin my career in the holy priesthood by helping to save from hell the soul of the man who, of all others, has most cruelly wronged me.’ It was for this reason, Gabriel – it was because I desired to go straightway to your father’s cottage, and reclaim him after he had believed me to be dead – that I kept the secret and entreated of my superiors that I might be sent to Brittany. But this, as I have said, was not to be at first, and when my desire was granted, my place was assigned me in a far district. The persecution under which we still suffer broke out; the designs of my life were changed; my own will became no longer mine to guide me. But, through sorrow and suffering, and danger and bloodshed, I am now led, after many days, to the execution of that first purpose which I formed on entering the priesthood. Gabriel, when the service is over, and the congregation are dispersed, you must guide me to the door of your father’s cottage.”

He held up his hand, in sign of silence, as Gabriel was about to answer. Just then the officiating priests above were pronouncing the final benediction. When it was over, Father Paul opened the cabin door. As he ascended the steps, followed by Gabriel, Pere Bonan met them. The old man looked doubtfully and searchingly on his future son-in-law, as he respectfully whispered a few words in the ear of the priest. Father Paul listened attentively, answered in a whisper, and then turned to Gabriel, first begging the few people near them to withdraw a little.

“I have been asked whether there is any impediment to your marriage,” he said, “and have answered that there is none. What you have said to me has been said in confession, and is a secret between us two. Remember that; and forget not, at the same time, the service which I shall require of you tonight, after the marriage-ceremony is over. Where is Perrine Bonan?” he added, aloud, looking round him. Perrine came forward. Father Paul took her hand and placed it in Gabriel’s. “Lead her to the altar steps,” he said, “and wait there for me.”

It was more than an hour later; the boats had left the ship’s side; the congregation had dispersed over the face of the country – but still the vessel remained at anchor. Those who were left in her watched the land more anxiously than usual; for they knew that Father Paul had risked meeting the soldiers of the Republic by trusting himself on shore. A boat was awaiting his return on the beach; half of the crew, armed, being posted as scouts in various directions on the high land of the heath. They would have followed and guarded the priest to the place of his destination; but he forbade it; and, leaving them abruptly, walked swiftly onward with one young man only for his companion.

Gabriel had committed his brother and his sisters to the charge of Perrine. They were to go to the farmhouse that night with his newly-married wife and her father and mother. Father Paul had desired that this might be done. When Gabriel and he were left alone to follow the path which led to the fisherman’s cottage, the priest never spoke while they walked on – never looked aside either to the right or the left – always held his ivory crucifix clasped to his breast. They arrived at the door.

“Knock,” whispered Father Paul to Gabriel, “and then wait here with me.”

The door was opened. On a lovely moonlight night Francois Sarzeau had stood on that threshold, years since, with a bleeding body in his arms. On a lovely moonlight night he now stood there again, confronting the very man whose life he had attempted, and knowing him not.

Father Paul advanced a few paces, so that the moonlight fell fuller on his features, and removed his hat.

Francois Sarzeau looked, started, moved one step back, then stood motionless and perfectly silent, while all traces of expression of any kind suddenly vanished from his face. Then the calm, clear tones of the priest stole gently on the dead silence. “I bring a message of peace and forgiveness from a guest of former years,” he said; and pointed, as he spoke, to the place where he had been wounded in the neck.

For one moment, Gabriel saw his father trembling violently from head to foot – then his limbs steadied again – stiffened suddenly, as if struck by catalepsy. His lips parted, but without quivering; his eyes glared, but without moving in the orbits. The lovely moonlight itself looked ghastly and horrible, shining on the supernatural panic deformity of that face! Gabriel turned away his head in terror. He heard the voice of Father Paul saying to him: “Wait here till I come back.”

Then there was an instant of silence again – then a low groaning sound that seemed to articulate the name of God; a sound unlike his father’s voice, unlike any human voice he had ever heard – and then the noise of a closing door. He looked up, and saw that he was standing alone before the cottage.

Once, after an interval, he approached the window.

He just saw through it the hand of the priest holding on high the ivory crucifix; but stopped not to see more, for he heard such words, such sounds, as drove him back to his former place. There he stayed, until the noise of something falling heavily within the cottage struck on his ear. Again he advanced toward the door; heard Father Paul praying; listened for several minutes; then heard a moaning voice, now joining itself to the voice of the priest, now choked in sobs and bitter wailing. Once more he went back out of hearing, and stirred not again from his place. He waited a long and a weary time there – so long that one of the scouts on the lookout came toward him, evidently suspicious of the delay in the priest’s return. He waved the man back, and then looked again toward the door. At last he saw it open – saw Father Paul approach him, leading Francois Sarzeau by the hand.

The fisherman never raised his downcast eyes to his son’s face; tears trickled silently over his cheeks; he followed the hand that led him, as a little child might have followed it, listened anxiously and humbly at the priest’s side to every word that he spoke.

“Gabriel,” said Father Paul, in a voice which trembled a little for the first time that night – “Gabriel, it has pleased God to grant the perfect fulfillment of the purpose which brought me to this place; I tell you this, as all that you need – as all, I believe, that you would wish – to know of what has passed while you have been left waiting for me here. Such words as I have now to speak to you are spoken by your father’s earnest desire. It is his own wish that I should communicate to you his confession of having secretly followed you to the Merchant’s Table, and of having discovered (as you discovered) that no evidence of his guilt remained there. This admission, he thinks, will be enough to account for his conduct toward yourself from that time to this. I have next to tell you (also at your father’s desire) that he has promised in my presence, and now promises again in yours, sincerity of repentance in this manner: When the persecution of our religion has ceased – as cease it will, and that speedily, be assured of it – he solemnly pledges himself henceforth to devote his life, his strength and what worldly possessions he may have, or may acquire, to the task of re-erecting and restoring the roadside crosses which have been sacrilegiously overthrown and destroyed in his native province, and to doing good, go where he may. I have now said all that is required of me, and may bid you farewell – bearing with me the happy remembrance that I have left a father and son reconciled and restored to each other. May God bless and prosper you, and those dear to you, Gabriel! May God accept your father’s repentance, and bless him also throughout his future life!”

He took their hands, pressed them long and warmly, then turned and walked quickly down the path which led to the beach. Gabriel dared not trust himself yet to speak; but he raised his arm, and put it gently round his father’s neck. The two stood together so, looking out dimly through the tears that filled their eyes to the sea. They saw the boat put off in the bright track of the moonlight, and reach the vessel’s side; they watched the spreading of the sails, and followed the slow course of the ship till she disappeared past a distant headland from sight.

After that, they went into the cottage together. They knew it not then, but they had seen the last, in this world, of Father Paul.

•  V  •

The events foretold by the good priest happened sooner even than he had anticipated. A new government ruled the destinies of France, and the persecution ceased in Brittany.

Among other propositions which were then submitted to the Parliament, was one advocating the restoration of the roadside crosses throughout the province. It was found, however, on inquiry, that these crosses were to be counted by thousands, and that the mere cost of wood required to re-erect them necessitated an expenditure of money which the bankrupt nation could ill afford to spare. While this project was under discussion, and before it was finally rejected, one man had undertaken the task which the Government shrank from attempting. When Gabriel left the cottage, taking his brother and sisters to live with his wife and himself at the farmhouse, Francois Sarzeau left it also, to perform in highway and byway his promise to Father Paul. For months and months he laboured without intermission at his task; still, always doing good, and rendering help and kindness and true charity to any whom he could serve. He walked many a weary mile, toiled through many a hard day’s work, humbled himself even to beg of others, to get wood enough to restore a single cross. No one ever heard him complain, ever saw him impatient, ever detected him in faltering at his task. The shelter in an outhouse, the crust of bread and drink of water, which he could always get from the peasantry, seemed to suffice him. Among the people who watched his perseverance, a belief began to gain ground that his life would be miraculously prolonged until he had completed his undertaking from one end of Brittany to the other. But this was not to be.

He was seen one cold autumn evening, silently and steadily at work as usual, setting up a new cross on the site of one which had been shattered to splinters in the troubled times. In the morning he was found lying dead beneath the sacred symbol which his own hands had completed and erected in its place during the night. They buried him where he lay; and the priest who consecrated the ground allowed Gabriel to engrave his father’s epitaph in the wood of the cross. It was simply the initial letters of the dead man’s name, followed by this inscription: “Pray for the repose of his soul: he died penitent, and the doer of good works.”

Once, and once only, did Gabriel hear anything of Father Paul. The good priest showed, by writing to the farmhouse, that he had not forgotten the family so largely indebted to him for their happiness. The letter was dated “Rome.” Father Paul said that such services as he had been permitted to render to the Church in Brittany had obtained for him a new and a far more glorious trust than any he had yet held. He had been recalled from his curacy, and appointed to be at the head of a mission which was shortly to be dispatched to convert the inhabitants of a savage and far distant land to the Christian faith. He now wrote, as his brethren with him were writing, to take leave of all friends forever in this world, before setting out – for it was well known to the chosen persons entrusted with the new mission that they could only hope to advance its object by cheerfully risking their own lives for the sake of their religion. He gave his blessing to Francois Sarzeau, to Gabriel, and to his family; and bade them affectionately farewell for the last time.

There was a postscript to the letter, which was addressed to Perrine, and which she often read afterward with tearful eyes. The writer begged that, if she should have any children, she would show her friendly and Christian remembrance of him by teaching them to pray (as he hoped she herself would pray) that a blessing might attend Father Paul’s labours in the distant land.

The priest’s loving petition was never forgotten. When Perrine taught its first prayer to her first child, the little creature was instructed to end the few simple words pronounced at its mother’s knees, with, “God bless Father Paul.”

In those words the nun concluded her narrative. After it was ended, she pointed to the old wooden cross, and said to me:

“That was one of the many that he made. It was found, a few years since, to have suffered so much from exposure to the weather that it was unfit to remain any longer in its old place. A priest in Brittany gave it to one of the nuns in this convent. Do you wonder now that the Mother Superior always calls it a Relic?”

“No,” I answered. “And I should have small respect indeed for the religious convictions of anyone who could hear the story of that wooden cross, and not feel that the Mother Superior’s name for it is the very best that could have been chosen.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

PROLOGUE TO THE SIXTH STORY

On the last occasion when I made a lengthened stay in London, my wife and I were surprised and amused one morning by the receipt of the following note, addressed to me in a small, crabbed, foreign-looking handwriting.

Professor Tizzi presents amiable compliments to Mr. Kerby, the artist, and is desirous of having his portrait done, to be engraved from, and placed at the beginning of the voluminous work on ‘The Vital Principle; or, Invisible Essence of Life,’ which the Professor is now preparing for the press – and posterity.

The Professor will give five pounds; and will look upon his face with satisfaction, as an object perpetuated for public contemplation at a reasonable rate, if Mr. Kerby will accept the sum just mentioned.

In regard to the Professor’s ability to pay five pounds, as well as to offer them, if Mr. Kerby should, from ignorance, entertain injurious doubts, he is requested to apply to the Professor’s honourable friend, Mr. Lanfray, of Rockleigh Place.

But for the reference at the end of this strange note, I should certainly have considered it as a mere trap set to make a fool of me by some mischievous friend. As it was, I rather doubted the propriety of taking any serious notice of Professor Tizzi’s offer; and I might probably have ended by putting the letter in the fire without further thought about it, but for the arrival by the next post of a note from Mr. Lanfray, which solved all my doubts, and sent me away at once to make the acquaintance of the learned discoverer of the Essence of Life.

“Do not be surprised” (Mr. Lanfray wrote) “if you get a strange note from a very eccentric Italian, one Professor Tizzi, formerly of the University of Padua. I have known him for some years. Scientific inquiry is his monomania, and vanity his ruling passion. He has written a book on the principle of life, which nobody but himself will ever read; but which he is determined to publish, with his own portrait for frontispiece. If it is worth your while to accept the little he can offer you, take it by all means, for he is a character worth knowing. He was exiled, I should tell you, years ago, for some absurd political reason, and has lived in England ever since. All the money he inherits from his father, who was a mail contractor in the north of Italy, goes in books and experiments; but I think I can answer for his solvency, at any rate, for the large sum of five pounds. If you are not very much occupied just now, go and see him. He is sure to amuse you.”

Professor Tizzi lived in the northern suburb of London. On approaching his house, I found it, so far as outward appearance went, excessively dirty and neglected, but in no other respect different from the “villas” in its neighbourhood. The front garden door, after I had rang twice, was opened by a yellow-faced, suspicious old foreigner, dressed in worn-out clothes, and completely and consistently dirty all over, from top to toe. On mentioning my name and business, this old man led me across a weedy, neglected garden, and admitted me into the house. At the first step into the passage, I was surrounded by books. Closely packed in plain wooden shelves, they ran all along the wall on either side to the back of the house; and when I looked up at the carpetless staircase, I saw nothing but books again, running all the way up the wall, as far as my eye could reach. “Here is the Artist Painter!” cried the old servant, throwing open one of the parlour doors, before I had half done looking at the books, and signing impatiently to me to walk into the room.

Books again! all round the walls, and all over the floor – among them a plain deal table, with leaves of manuscript piled high on every part of it – among the leaves a head of long, elfish white hair covered with a black skull-cap, and bent down over a book – above the head a sallow, withered hand shaking itself at me as a sign that I must not venture to speak just at that moment – on the tops of the bookcases glass vases full of spirits of some kind, with horrible objects floating in the liquid – dirt on the window panes, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, dust springing up in clouds under my intruding feet. These were the things I observed on first entering the study of Professor Tizzi.

After I had waited for a minute or so, the shaking hand stopped, descended with a smack on the nearest pile of manuscript, seized the book that the head had been bending over, and flung it contemptuously to the other end of the room. “I’ve refuted you, at any rate!” said Professor Tizzi, looking with extreme complacency at the cloud of dust raised by the fall of the rejected volume.

He turned next to me. What a grand face it was! What a broad, white forehead – what fiercely brilliant black eyes – what perfect regularity and refinement in the other features; with the long, venerable hair, framing them in, as it were, on either side! Poor as I was, I felt that I could have painted his portrait for nothing. Titian, Vandyke, Valasquez – any of the three would have paid him to sit to them!

“Accept my humblest excuses, sir,” said the old man, speaking English with a singularly pure accent for a foreigner. “That absurd book plunged me so deep down in the quagmires of sophistry and error, Mr. Kerby, that I really could not get to the surface at once when you came into the room. So you are willing to draw my likeness for such a small sum as five pounds?” he continued, rising, and showing me that he wore a long black velvet gown, instead of the paltry and senseless costume of modern times.

I informed him that five pounds was as much as I generally got for a drawing.

“It seems little,” said the professor; “but if you want fame, I can make it up to you in that way. There is my great work” (he pointed to the piles of manuscript), “the portrait of my mind and the mirror of my learning; put a likeness of my face on the first page, and posterity will then be thoroughly acquainted with me, outside and in. Your portrait will be engraved, Mr. Kerby, and your name shall be inscribed under the print. You shall be associated, sir, in that way, with a work which will form an epoch in the history of human science. The Vital Principle – or, in other words, the essence of that mysterious Something which we call Life, and which extends down from Man to the feeblest insect and the smallest plant – has been an unguessed riddle from the beginning of the world to the present time. I alone have found the answer; and here it is!” He fixed his dazzling eyes on me in triumph, and smacked the piles of manuscript fiercely with both his sallow hands.

I saw that he was waiting for me to say something; so I asked if his great work had not cost a vast expenditure of time and pains.

“I am seventy, sir,” said the Professor; “and I began preparing myself for that book at twenty. After mature consideration, I have written it in English (having three other foreign languages at my fingers’ ends), as a substantial proof of my gratitude to the nation that has given me an asylum. Perhaps you think the work looks rather long in its manuscript state? It will occupy twelve volumes, sir, and it is not half long enough, even then, for the subject. I take two volumes (and no man could do it in less) to examine the theories of all the philosophers in the world, ancient and modern, on the Vital Principle. I take two more (and little enough) to scatter every one of the theories, seriatim, to the winds. I take two more (at the risk, for brevity’s sake, of doing things by halves) to explain the exact stuff, or vital compound, of which the first man and woman in the world were made – calling them Adam and Eve, out of deference to popular prejudices. I take two more – but you are standing all this time, Mr. Kerby; and I am talking instead of sitting for my portrait. Pray take any books you want, anywhere off the floor, and make a seat of any height you please. Furniture would only be in my way here, so I don’t trouble myself with anything of the kind.”

I obediently followed the Professor’s directions, and had just heaped up a pile of grimy quartos, when the old servant entered the room with a shabby little tray in his hand. In the middle of the tray I saw a crust of bread and a bit of garlic, encircled by a glass of water, a knife, salt, pepper, a bottle of vinegar, and a flask of oil.

“With your permission, I am going to breakfast,” said Professor Tizzi, as the tray was set down before him on the part of his great work relating to the vital compound of Adam and Eve. As he spoke, he took up the piece of bread, and rubbed the crusty part of it with the bit of garlic, till it looked as polished as a new dining-table. That done, he turned the bread, crumb uppermost, and saturated it with oil, added a few drops of vinegar, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and, with a gleam of something very like greediness in his bright eyes, took up the knife to cut himself a first mouthful of the horrible mess that he had just concocted. “The best of breakfasts,” said the Professor, seeing me look amazed. “Not a cannibal meal of chicken-life in embryo (vulgarly called an egg); not a dog’s gorge of a dead animal’s flesh, blood and bones, warmed with fire (popularly known as a chop); not a breakfast, sir, that lions, tigers, Caribbees, and costermongers could all partake of alike; but an innocent, nutritive, simple, vegetable meal; a philosopher’s refection, a breakfast that a prize-fighter would turn from in disgust, and that a Plato would share with relish.”

I have no doubt that he was right, and that I was prejudiced; but as I saw the first oily, vinegary, garlicky morsel slide noiselessly into his mouth, I began to feel rather sick. My hands were dirty with moving the books, and I asked if I could wash them before beginning to work at the likeness, as a good excuse for getting out of the room, while Professor Tizzi was unctuously disposing of his simple vegetable meal.

The philosopher looked a little astonished at my request, as if the washing of hands at irregular times and seasons offered a comparatively new subject of contemplation to him; but he rang a hand-bell on his table immediately, and told the old servant to take me up into his bedroom.

The interior of the parlour had astonished me; but a sight of the bedroom was a new sensation – not of the most agreeable kind. The couch on which the philosopher sought repose after his labours was a truckle-bed that would not have fetched half a crown at a sale. On one side of it dangled from the ceiling a complete male skeleton, looking like all that was left of a man who might have hung himself about a century ago, and who had never been disturbed since the moment of his suicide. On the other side of the bed stood a long press, in which I observed hideous coloured preparations of the muscular system, and bottles with curious, twining, threadlike substances inside them, which might have been remarkable worms or dissections of nerves, scattered amicably side by side with the Professor’s hairbrush (three parts worn out), with remnants of his beard on bits of shaving-paper, with a broken shoehorn, and with a travelling looking-glass of the sort usually sold at sixpence apiece. Repetitions of the litter of books in the parlour lay all about over the floor; coloured anatomical prints were nailed anyhow against the walls; rolled-up towels were scattered here, there, and everywhere in the wildest confusion, as if the room had been bombarded with them; and last, but by no means least remarkable among the other extraordinary objects in the bedchamber, the stuffed figure of a large unshaven poodle-dog, stood on an old card-table, keeping perpetual watch over a pair of the philosopher’s black breeches twisted round his forepaws.

I had started, on entering the room, at the skeleton, and I started once more at the dog. The old servant noticed me each time with a sardonic grin. “Don’t be afraid,” he said; “one is as dead as the other.” With these words, he left me to wash my hands.

Finding little more than a pint of water at my disposal, and failing altogether to discover where the soap was kept, I was not long in performing my ablutions. Before leaving the room, I looked again at the stuffed poodle. On the board to which he was fixed, I saw painted in faded letters the word “Scarammuccia,” evidently the comic Italian name to which he had answered in his lifetime. There was no other inscription; but I made up my mind that the dog must have been the Professor’s pet, and that he kept the animal stuffed in his bedroom as a remembrance of past times. “Who would have suspected so great a philosopher of having so much heart!” thought I, leaving the bedroom to go downstairs again.

The Professor had done his breakfast, and was anxious to begin the sitting; so I took out my chalks and paper, and set to work at once – I seated on one pile of books and he on another.

“Fine anatomical preparations in my room, are there not, Mr. Kerby?” said the old gentleman. “Did you notice a very interesting and perfect arrangement of the intestinal ganglia? They form the subject of an important chapter in my great work.”

“I am afraid you will think me very ignorant,” I replied. “But I really do not know the intestinal ganglia when I see them. The object I noticed with most curiosity in your room was something more on a level with my own small capacity.”

“And what was that?” asked the Professor.

“The figure of the stuffed poodle. I suppose he was a favourite of yours?”

“Of mine? No, no; a young woman’s favourite, sir, before I was born; and a very remarkable dog, too. The vital principle in that poodle, Mr. Kerby, must have been singularly intensified. He lived to a fabulous old age, and he was clever enough to play an important part of his own in what you English call a Romance of Real Life! If I could only have dissected that poodle, I would have put him into my book; he should have headed my chapter on the Vital Principle of Beasts.”

“Here is a story in prospect,” thought I, “if I can only keep his attention up to the subject.”

“He should have figured in my great work, sir,” the Professor went on. “Scarammuccia should have taken his place among the examples that prove my new theory; but unfortunately he died before I was born. His mistress gave him, stuffed, as you see upstairs, to my father to take care of for her, and he has descended as an heirloom to me. Talking of dogs, Mr. Kerby, I have ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the brachial plexus in people who die of hydrophobia – but stop! I had better show you how it is – the preparation is upstairs under my wash-hand stand.”

He left his seat as he spoke. In another minute he would have sent the servant to fetch the “preparation,” and I should have lost the story. At the risk of his taking offence, I begged him not to move just then, unless he wished me to spoil his likeness. This alarmed, but fortunately did not irritate him. He returned to his seat, and I resumed the subject of the stuffed poodle, asking him boldly to tell me the story with which the dog was connected. The demand seemed to impress him with no very favourable opinion of my intellectual tastes; but he complied with it, and related, not without many a wearisome digression to the subject of his great work, the narrative which I propose calling by the name of “The Yellow Mask.” After the slight specimens that I have given of his character and style of conversation, it will be almost unnecessary for me to premise that I tell this story as I have told the last, and “Sister Rose,” in my own language, and according to my own plan in the disposition of the incidents – adding nothing, of course, to the facts, but keeping them within the limits which my disposable space prescribes to me.

I may perhaps be allowed to add in this place, that I have not yet seen or heard of my portrait in an engraved state. Professor Tizzi is still alive; but I look in vain through the publishers’ lists for an announcement of his learned work on the Vital Principle. Possibly he may be adding a volume or two to the twelve already completed, by way of increasing the debt which a deeply obliged posterity is, sooner or later, sure of owing to him.

THE PROFESSOR’S STORY:
THE YELLOW MASK

PART FIRST

•  I  •

About a century ago, there lived in the ancient city of Pisa a famous Italian milliner, who, by way of vindicating to all customers her familiarity with Paris fashions, adopted a French title, and called herself the Demoiselle Grifoni. She was a wizen little woman with a mischievous face, a quick tongue, a nimble foot, a talent for business, and an uncertain disposition. Rumour hinted that she was immensely rich, and scandal suggested that she would do anything for money.

The one undeniable good quality which raised Demoiselle Grifoni above all her rivals in the trade was her inexhaustible fortitude. She was never known to yield an inch under any pressure of adverse circumstances Thus the memorable occasion of her life on which she was threatened with ruin was also the occasion on which she most triumphantly asserted the energy and decision of her character. At the height of the demoiselle’s prosperity her skilled forewoman and cutter-out basely married and started in business as her rival. Such a calamity as this would have ruined an ordinary milliner; but the invincible Grifoni rose superior to it almost without an effort, and proved incontestably that it was impossible for hostile Fortune to catch her at the end of her resources. While the minor milliners were prophesying that she would shut up shop, she was quietly carrying on a private correspondence with an agent in Paris. Nobody knew what these letters were about until a few weeks had elapsed, and then circulars were received by all the ladies in Pisa, announcing that the best French forewoman who could be got for money was engaged to superintend the great Grifoni establishment. This master-stroke decided the victory. All the demoiselle’s customers declined giving orders elsewhere until the forewoman from Paris had exhibited to the natives of Pisa the latest fashions from the metropolis of the world of dress.

The Frenchwoman arrived punctual to the appointed day – glib and curt, smiling and flippant, tight of face and supple of figure. Her name was Mademoiselle Virginie, and her family had inhumanly deserted her. She was set to work the moment she was inside the doors of the Grifoni establishment. A room was devoted to her own private use; magnificent materials in velvet, silk, and satin, with due accompaniment of muslins, laces, and ribbons were placed at her disposal; she was told to spare no expense, and to produce, in the shortest possible time, the finest and nearest specimen dresses for exhibition in the showroom. Mademoiselle Virginie undertook to do everything required of her, produced her portfolios of patterns and her book of coloured designs, and asked for one assistant who could speak French enough to interpret her orders to the Italian girls in the work-room.

“I have the very person you want,” cried Demoiselle Grifoni. “A work-woman we call Brigida here – the idlest slut in Pisa, but as sharp as a needle – has been in France, and speaks the language like a native. I’ll send her to you directly.”

Mademoiselle Virginie was not left long alone with her patterns and silks. A tall woman, with bold black eyes, a reckless manner, and a step as firm as a man’s, stalked into the room with the gait of a tragedy-queen crossing the stage. The instant her eyes fell on the French forewoman, she stopped, threw up her hands in astonishment, and exclaimed, “Finette!”

“Teresa!” cried the Frenchwoman, casting her scissors on the table, and advancing a few steps.

“Hush! call me Brigida.”

“Hush! call me Virginie.”

These two exclamations were uttered at the same moment, and then the two women scrutinized each other in silence. The swarthy cheeks of the Italian turned to a dull yellow, and the voice of the Frenchwoman trembled a little when she spoke again.

“How, in the name of Heaven, have you dropped down in the world as low as this?” she asked. “I thought you were provided for when—”

“Silence!” interrupted Brigida. “You see I was not provided for. I have had my misfortunes; and you are the last woman alive who ought to refer to them.”

“Do you think I have not had my misfortunes, too, since we met?” (Brigida’s face brightened maliciously at those words.) “You have had your revenge,” continued Mademoiselle Virginie, coldly, turning away to the table and taking up the scissors again.

Brigida followed her, threw one arm roughly round her neck, and kissed her on the cheek. “Let us be friends again,” she said. The Frenchwoman laughed. “Tell me how I have had my revenge,” pursued the other, tightening her grasp. Mademoiselle Virginie signed to Brigida to stoop, and whispered rapidly in her ear. The Italian listened eagerly, with fierce, suspicious eyes fixed on the door. When the whispering ceased, she loosened her hold, and, with a sigh of relief, pushed back her heavy black hair from her temples. “Now we are friends,” she said, and sat down indolently in a chair placed by the worktable.

“Friends,” repeated Mademoiselle Virginie, with another laugh. “And now for business,” she continued, getting a row of pins ready for use by putting them between her teeth. “I am here, I believe, for the purpose of ruining the late forewoman, who has set up in opposition to us? Good! I will ruin her. Spread out the yellow brocaded silk, my dear, and pin that pattern on at your end, while I pin at mine. And what are your plans, Brigida? (Mind you don’t forget that Finette is dead, and that Virginie has risen from her ashes.) You can’t possibly intend to stop here all your life? (Leave an inch outside the paper, all round.) You must have projects? What are they?”

“Look at my figure,” said Brigida, placing herself in an attitude in the middle of the room.

“Ah,” rejoined the other, “it’s not what it was. There’s too much of it. You want diet, walking, and a French stay-maker,” muttered Mademoiselle Virginie through her chevaus-de-frise of pins.

“Did the goddess Minerva walk, and employ a French stay-maker? I thought she rode upon clouds, and lived at a period before waists were invented.”

“What do you mean?”

“This – that my present project is to try if I can’t make my fortune by sitting as a model for Minerva in the studio of the best sculptor in Pisa.”

“And who is he! (Unwind me a yard or two of that black lace.)”

“The master-sculptor, Luca Lomi – an old family, once noble, but down in the world now. The master is obliged to make statues to get a living for his daughter and himself.”

“More of the lace – double it over the bosom of the dress. And how is sitting to this needy sculptor to make your fortune?”

“Wait a minute. There are other sculptors besides him in the studio. There is, first, his brother, the priest – Father Rocco, who passes all his spare time with the master. He is a good sculptor in his way – has cast statues and made a font for his church – a holy man, who devotes all his work in the studio to the cause of piety.”

“Ah, bah! we should think him a droll priest in France. (More pins.) You don’t expect him to put money in your pocket, surely?”

“Wait, I say again. There is a third sculptor in the studio – actually a nobleman! His name is Fabio d’Ascoli. He is rich, young, handsome, an only child, and little better than a fool. Fancy his working at sculpture, as if he had his bread to get by it – and thinking that an amusement! Imagine a man belonging to one of the best families in Pisa mad enough to want to make a reputation as an artist! Wait! wait! the best is to come. His father and mother are dead – he has no near relations in the world to exercise authority over him – he is a bachelor, and his fortune is all at his own disposal; going a-begging, my friend; absolutely going a-begging for want of a clever woman to hold out her hand and take it from him.”

“Yes, yes – now I understand. The goddess Minerva is a clever woman, and she will hold out her hand and take his fortune from him with the utmost docility.”

“The first thing is to get him to offer it. I must tell you that I am not going to sit to him, but to his master, Luca Lomi, who is doing the statue of Minerva. The face is modelled from his daughter; and now he wants somebody to sit for the bust and arms. Maddalena Lomi and I are as nearly as possible the same height, I hear – the difference between us being that I have a good figure and she has a bad one. I have offered to sit, through a friend who is employed in the studio. If the master accepts, I am sure of an introduction to our rich young gentleman; and then leave it to my good looks, my various accomplishments, and my ready tongue, to do the rest.”

“Stop! I won’t have the lace doubled, on second thoughts. I’ll have it single, and running all round the dress in curves – so. Well, and who is this friend of yours employed in the studio? A fourth sculptor?”

“No, no; the strangest, simplest little creature—”

Just then a faint tap was audible at the door of the room.

Brigida laid her finger on her lips, and called impatiently to the person outside to come in.

The door opened gently, and a young girl, poorly but very neatly dressed, entered the room. She was rather thin and under the average height; but her head and figure were in perfect proportion. Her hair was of that gorgeous auburn colour, her eyes of that deep violet-blue, which the portraits of Giorgione and Titian have made famous as the type of Venetian beauty. Her features possessed the definiteness and regularity, the “good modelling” (to use an artist’s term), which is the rarest of all womanly charms, in Italy as elsewhere. The one serious defect of her face was its paleness. Her cheeks, wanting nothing in form, wanted everything in colour. That look of health, which is the essential crowning-point of beauty, was the one attraction which her face did not possess.

She came into the room with a sad and weary expression in her eyes, which changed, however, the moment she observed the magnificently-dressed French forewoman, into a look of astonishment, and almost of awe. Her manner became shy and embarrassed; and after an instant of hesitation, she turned back silently to the door.

“Stop, stop, Nanina,” said Brigida, in Italian. “Don’t be afraid of that lady. She is our new forewoman; and she has it in her power to do all sorts of kind things for you. Look up, and tell us what you want You were sixteen last birthday, Nanina, and you behave like a baby of two years old!”

“I only came to know if there was any work for me today,” said the girl, in a very sweet voice, that trembled a little as she tried to face the fashionable French forewoman again.

“No work, child, that is easy enough for you to do,” said Brigida. “Are you going to the studio today?”

Some of the colour that Nanina’s cheeks wanted began to steal over them as she answered “Yes.”

“Don’t forget my message, darling. And if Master Luca Lomi asks where I live, answer that you are ready to deliver a letter to me; but that you are forbidden to enter into any particulars at first about who I am, or where I live.”

“Why am I forbidden?” inquired Nanina, innocently.

“Don’t ask questions, baby! Do as you are told. Bring me back a nice note or message tomorrow from the studio, and I will intercede with this lady to get you some work. You are a foolish child to want it, when you might make more money here and at Florence, by sitting to painters and sculptors; though what they can see to paint or model in you I never could understand.”

“I like working at home better than going abroad to sit,” said Nanina, looking very much abashed as she faltered out the answer, and escaping from the room with a terrified farewell obeisance, which was an eccentric compound of a start, a bow, and a courtesy.

“That awkward child would be pretty,” said Mademoiselle Virginie, making rapid progress with the cutting-out of her dress, “if she knew how to give herself a complexion, and had a presentable gown on her back. Who is she?”

“The friend who is to get me into Master Luca Lomi’s studio,” replied Brigida, laughing. “Rather a curious ally for me to take up with, isn’t she?”

“Where did you meet with her?”

“Here, to be sure; she hangs about this place for any plain work she can get to do, and takes it home to the oddest little room in a street near the Campo Santo. I had the curiosity to follow her one day, and knocked at her door soon after she had gone in, as if I was a visitor. She answered my knock in a great flurry and fright, as you may imagine. I made myself agreeable, affected immense interest in her affairs, and so got into her room. Such a place! A mere corner of it curtained off to make a bedroom. One chair, one stool, one saucepan on the fire. Before the hearth the most grotesquely hideous unshaven poodle-dog you ever saw; and on the stool a fair little girl plaiting dinner-mats. Such was the household – furniture and all included. ‘Where is your father?’ I asked. ‘He ran away and left us years ago,’ answers my awkward little friend who has just left the room, speaking in that simple way of hers, with all the composure in the world. ‘And your mother?’ – ‘Dead.’ She went up to the little mat-plaiting girl as she gave that answer, and began playing with her long flaxen hair. ‘Your sister, I suppose,’ said I. ‘What is her name?’ – ‘They call me La Biondella,’ says the child, looking up from her mat (La Biondella, Virginie, means The Fair). ‘And why do you let that great, shaggy, ill-looking brute lie before your fireplace?’ I asked. ‘Oh!’ cried the little mat-plaiter, ‘that is our dear old dog, Scarammuccia. He takes care of the house when Nanina is not at home. He dances on his hind legs, and jumps through a hoop, and tumbles down dead when I cry Bang! Scarammuccia followed us home one night, years ago, and he has lived with us ever since. He goes out every day by himself, we can’t tell where, and generally returns licking his chops, which makes us afraid that he is a thief; but nobody finds him out, because he is the cleverest dog that ever lived!’ The child ran on in this way about the great beast by the fireplace, till I was obliged to stop her; while that simpleton Nanina stood by, laughing and encouraging her. I asked them a few more questions, which produced some strange answers. They did not seem to know of any relations of theirs in the world. The neighbours in the house had helped them, after their father ran away, until they were old enough to help themselves; and they did not seem to think there was anything in the least wretched or pitiable in their way of living. The last thing I heard, when I left them that day, was La Biondella crying ‘Bang!’ – then a bark, a thump on the floor, and a scream of laughter. If it was not for their dog, I should go and see them oftener. But the ill-conditioned beast has taken a dislike to me, and growls and shows his teeth whenever I come near him.”

“The girl looked sickly when she came in here. Is she always like that?”

“No. She has altered within the last month. I suspect our interesting young nobleman has produced an impression. The oftener the girl has sat to him lately, the paler and more out of spirits she has become.”

“Oh! she has sat to him, has she?”

“She is sitting to him now. He is doing a bust of some Pagan nymph or other, and prevailed on Nanina to let him copy from her head and face. According to her own account the little fool was frightened at first, and gave him all the trouble in the world before she would consent.”

“And now she has consented, don’t you think it likely she may turn out rather a dangerous rival? Men are such fools, and take such fancies into their heads—”

“Ridiculous! A thread-paper of a girl like that, who has no manner, no talk, no intelligence; who has nothing to recommend her but an awkward, babyish prettiness! Dangerous to me? No, no! If there is danger at all, I have to dread it from the sculptor’s daughter. I don’t mind confessing that I am anxious to see Maddalena Lomi. But as for Nanina, she will simply be of use to me. All I know already about the studio and the artists in it, I know through her. She will deliver my message, and procure me my introduction; and when we have got so far, I shall give her an old gown and a shake of the hand; and then, good-bye to our little innocent!”

“Well, well, for your sake I hope you are the wiser of the two in this matter. For my part, I always distrust innocence. Wait one moment, and I shall have the body and sleeves of this dress ready for the needlewomen. There, ring the bell, and order them up; for I have directions to give, and you must interpret for me.”

While Brigida went to the bell, the energetic Frenchwoman began planning out the skirt of the new dress. She laughed as she measured off yard after yard of the silk.

“What are you laughing about?” asked Brigida, opening the door and ringing a hand-bell in the passage.

“I can’t help fancying, dear, in spite of her innocent face and her artless ways, that your young friend is a hypocrite.”

“And I am quite certain, love, that she is only a simpleton.”

•  II  •

The studio of the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi, was composed of two large rooms unequally divided by a wooden partition, with an arched doorway cut in the middle of it.

While the milliners of the Grifoni establishment were industriously shaping dresses, the sculptors in Luca Lomi’s workshop were, in their way, quite as hard at work shaping marble and clay. In the smaller of the two rooms the young nobleman (only addressed in the studio by his Christian name of Fabio) was busily engaged on his bust, with Nanina sitting before him as a model. His was not one of those traditional Italian faces from which subtlety and suspicion are always supposed to look out darkly on the world at large. Both countenance and expression proclaimed his character frankly and freely to all who saw him. Quick intelligence looked brightly from his eyes; and easy good humour laughed out pleasantly in the rather quaint curve of his lips. For the rest, his face expressed the defects as well as the merits of his character, showing that he wanted resolution and perseverance just as plainly as it showed also that he possessed amiability and intelligence.

At the end of the large room, nearest to the street door, Luca Lomi was standing by his life-size statue of Minerva; and was issuing directions, from time to time, to some of his workmen, who were roughly chiselling the drapery of another figure. At the opposite side of the room, nearest to the partition, his brother, Father Rocco, was taking a cast from a statuette of the Madonna; while Maddalena Lomi, the sculptor’s daughter, released from sitting for Minerva’s face, walked about the two rooms, and watched what was going on in them.

There was a strong family likeness of a certain kind between father, brother and daughter. All three were tall, handsome, dark-haired, and dark-eyed; nevertheless, they differed in expression, strikingly as they resembled one another in feature. Maddalena Lomi’s face betrayed strong passions, but not an ungenerous nature. Her father, with the same indications of a violent temper, had some sinister lines about his mouth and forehead which suggested anything rather than an open disposition. Father Rocco’s countenance, on the other hand, looked like the personification of absolute calmness and invincible moderation; and his manner, which, in a very firm way, was singularly quiet and deliberate, assisted in carrying out the impression produced by his face. The daughter seemed as if she could fly into a passion at a moment’s notice, and forgive also at a moment’s notice. The father, appearing to be just as irritable, had something in his face which said, as plainly as if in words, “Anger me, and I never pardon.” The priest looked as if he need never be called on either to ask forgiveness or to grant it, for the double reason that he could irritate nobody else, and that nobody else could irritate him.

“Rocco,” said Luca, looking at the face of his Minerva, which was now finished, “this statue of mine will make a sensation.”

“I am glad to hear it,” rejoined the priest, dryly

“It is a new thing in art,” continued Luca, enthusiastically. “Other sculptors, with a classical subject like mine, limit themselves to the ideal classical face, and never think of aiming at individual character. Now I do precisely the reverse of that. I get my handsome daughter, Maddalena, to sit for Minerva, and I make an exact likeness of her. I may lose in ideal beauty, but I gain in individual character. People may accuse me of disregarding established rules; but my answer is, that I make my own rules. My daughter looks like a Minerva, and there she is exactly as she looks.”

“It is certainly a wonderful likeness,” said Father Rocco, approaching the statue.

“It the girl herself,” cried the other. “Exactly her expression, and exactly her features. Measure Maddalena, and measure Minerva, and from forehead to chin, you won’t find a hairbreadth of difference between them.”

“But how about the bust and arms of the figure, now the face is done?” asked the priest, returning, as he spoke, to his own work.

“I may have the very model I want for them tomorrow. Little Nanina has just given me the strangest message. What do you think of a mysterious lady admirer who offers to sit for the bust and arms of my Minerva?”

“Are you going to accept the offer?” inquired the priest.

“I am going to receive her tomorrow; and if I really find that she is the same height as Maddalena, and has a bust and arms worth modelling, of course I shall accept her offer; for she will be the very sitter I have been looking after for weeks past. Who can she be? That’s the mystery I want to find out. Which do you say, Rocco – an enthusiast or an adventuress?”

“I do not presume to say, for I have no means of knowing.”

“Ah, there you are with your moderation again. Now, I do presume to assert that she must be either one or the other – or she would not have forbidden Nanina to say anything about her in answer to all my first natural inquiries. Where is Maddalena? I thought she was here a minute ago.”

“She is in Fabio’s room,” answered Father Rocco, softly. “Shall I call her?”

“No, no!” returned Luca. He stopped, looked round at the workmen, who were chipping away mechanically at their bit of drapery; then advanced close to the priest, with a cunning smile, and continued in a whisper, “If Maddalena can only get from Fabio’s room here to Fabio’s palace over the way, on the Arno – come, come, Rocco! don’t shake your head. If I brought her up to your church door one of these days, as Fabio d’Ascoli’s betrothed, you would be glad enough to take the rest of the business off my hands, and make her Fabio d’Ascoli’s wife. You are a very holy man, Rocco, but you know the difference between the clink of the money-bag and the clink of the chisel for all that!”

“I am sorry to find, Luca,” returned the priest, coldly, “that you allow yourself to talk of the most delicate subjects in the coarsest way. This is one of the minor sins of the tongue which is growing on you. When we are alone in the studio, I will endeavour to lead you into speaking of the young man in the room there, and of your daughter, in terms more becoming to you, to me, and to them. Until that time, allow me to go on with my work.”

Luca shrugged his shoulders, and went back to his statue. Father Rocco, who had been engaged during the last ten minutes in mixing wet plaster to the right consistency for taking a cast, suspended his occupation; and crossing the room to a corner next the partition, removed from it a cheval-glass which stood there. He lifted it away gently, while his brother’s back was turned, carried it close to the table at which he had been at work, and then resumed his employment of mixing the plaster. Having at last prepared the composition for use, he laid it over the exposed half of the statuette with a neatness and dexterity which showed him to be a practised hand at cast-taking. Just as he had covered the necessary extent of surface, Luca turned round from his statue.

“How are you getting on with the cast?” he asked. “Do you want any help?”

“None, brother, I thank you,” answered the priest. “Pray do not disturb either yourself or your workmen on my account.”

Luca turned again to the statue; and, at the same moment, Father Rocco softly moved the cheval-glass toward the open doorway between the two rooms, placing it at such an angle as to make it reflect the figures of the persons in the smaller studio. He did this with significant quickness and precision. It was evidently not the first time he had used the glass for purposes of secret observation.

Mechanically stirring the wet plaster round and round for the second casting, the priest looked into the glass, and saw, as in a picture, all that was going forward in the inner room. Maddalena Lomi was standing behind the young nobleman, watching the progress he made with his bust. Occasionally she took the modelling tool out of his hand, and showed him, with her sweetest smile, that she, too, as a sculptor’s daughter, understood something of the sculptor’s art; and now and then, in the pauses of the conversation, when her interest was especially intense in Fabio’s work, she suffered her hand to drop absently on his shoulder, or stooped forward so close to him that her hair mingled for a moment with his. Moving the glass an inch or two, so as to bring Nanina well under his eye, Father Rocco found that he could trace each repetition of these little acts of familiarity by the immediate effect which they produced on the girl’s face and manner. Whenever Maddalena so much as touched the young nobleman – no matter whether she did so by premeditation, or really by accident – Nanina’s features contracted, her pale cheeks grew paler, she fidgeted on her chair, and her fingers nervously twisted and untwisted the loose ends of the ribbon fastened round her waist.

“Jealous,” thought Father Rocco; “I suspected it weeks ago.”

He turned away, and gave his whole attention for a few minutes to the mixing of the plaster. When he looked back again at the glass, he was just in time to witness a little accident which suddenly changed the relative positions of the three persons in the inner room.

He saw Maddalena take up a modelling tool which lay on a table near her, and begin to help Fabio in altering the arrangement of the hair in his bust. The young man watched what she was doing earnestly enough for a few moments; then his attention wandered away to Nanina. She looked at him reproachfully, and he answered by a sign which brought a smile to her face directly. Maddalena surprised her at the instant of the change; and, following the direction of her eyes, easily discovered at whom the smile was directed. She darted a glance of contempt at Nanina, threw down the modelling tool, and turned indignantly to the young sculptor, who was affecting to be hard at work again.

“Signor Fabio,” she said, “the next time you forget what is due to your rank and yourself, warn me of it, if you please, beforehand, and I will take care to leave the room.” While speaking the last words, she passed through the doorway. Father Rocco, bending abstractedly over his plaster mixture, heard her continue to herself in a whisper, as she went by him, “If I have any influence at all with my father, that impudent beggar-girl shall be forbidden the studio.”

“Jealousy on the other side,” thought the priest. “Something must be done at once, or this will end badly.”

He looked again at the glass, and saw Fabio, after an instant of hesitation, beckon to Nanina to approach him. She left her seat, advanced half-way to his, then stopped. He stepped forward to meet her, and, taking her by the hand, whispered earnestly in her ear. When he had done, before dropping her hand, he touched her cheek with his lips, and then helped her on with the little white mantilla which covered her head and shoulders out-of-doors. The girl trembled violently, and drew the linen close to her face as Fabio walked into the larger studio, and, addressing Father Rocco, said:

“I am afraid I am more idle, or more stupid, than ever today. I can’t get on with the bust at all to my satisfaction, so I have cut short the sitting, and given Nanina a half-holiday.”

At the first sound of his voice, Maddalena, who was speaking to her father, stopped, and, with another look of scorn at Nanina standing trembling in the doorway, left the room. Luca Lomi called Fabio to him as she went away, and Father Rocco, turning to the statuette, looked to see how the plaster was hardening on it. Seeing them thus engaged, Nanina attempted to escape from the studio without being noticed; but the priest stopped her just as she was hurrying by him.

“My child,” said he, in his gentle, quiet way, “are you going home?”

Nanina’s heart beat too fast for her to reply in words; she could only answer by bowing her head.

“Take this for your little sister,” pursued Father Rocco, putting a few silver coins in her hand; “I have got some customers for those mats she plaits so nicely. You need not bring them to my rooms; I will come and see you this evening, when I am going my rounds among my parishioners, and will take the mats away with me. You are a good girl, Nanina – you have always been a good girl – and as long as I am alive, my child, you shall never want a friend and an adviser.”

Nanina’s eyes filled with tears. She drew the mantilla closer than ever round her face, as she tried to thank the priest. Father Rocco nodded to her kindly, and laid his hand lightly on her head for a moment, then turned round again to his cast.

“Don’t forget my message to the lady who is to sit to me tomorrow,” said Luca to Nanina, as she passed him on her way out of the studio.

After she had gone, Fabio returned to the priest, who was still busy over his cast.

“I hope you will get on better with the bust tomorrow,” said Father Rocco, politely; “I am sure you cannot complain of your model.”

“Complain of her!” cried the young man, warmly; “she has the most beautiful head I ever saw. If I were twenty times the sculptor that I am, I should despair of being able to do her justice.”

He walked into the inner room to look at his bust again – lingered before it for a little while – and then turned to retrace his steps to the larger studio. Between him and the doorway stood three chairs. As he went by them, he absently touched the backs of the first two, and passed the third; but just as he was entering the larger room, stopped, as if struck by a sudden recollection, returned hastily, and touched the third chair. Raising his eyes, as he approached the large studio again after doing this, he met the eyes of the priest fixed on him in unconcealed astonishment.

“Signor Fabio!” exclaimed Father Rocco, with a sarcastic smile, “who would ever have imagined that you were superstitious?”

“My nurse was,” returned the young man, reddening, and laughing rather uneasily. “She taught me some bad habits that I have not got over yet.” With those words he nodded and hastily went out.

“Superstitious,” said Father Rocco softly to himself. He smiled again, reflected for a moment, and then, going to the window, looked into the street. The way to the left led to Fabio’s palace, and the way to the right to the Campo Santo, in the neighbourhood of which Nanina lived. The priest was just in time to see the young sculptor take the way to the right.

After another half-hour had elapsed, the two workmen quitted the studio to go to dinner, and Luca and his brother were left alone.

“We may return now,” said Father Rocco, “to that conversation which was suspended between us earlier in the day.”

“I have nothing more to say,” rejoined Luca, sulkily.

“Then you can listen to me, brother, with the greater attention,” pursued the priest. “I objected to the coarseness of your tone in talking of our young pupil and your daughter; I object still more strongly to your insinuation that my desire to see them married (provided always that they are sincerely attached to each other) springs from a mercenary motive.”

“You are trying to snare me, Rocco, in a mesh of fine phrases; but I am not to be caught. I know what my own motive is for hoping that Maddalena may get an offer of marriage from this wealthy young gentleman – she will have his money, and we shall all profit by it. That is coarse and mercenary, if you please; but it is the true reason why I want to see Maddalena married to Fabio. You want to see it, too – and for what reason, I should like to know, if not for mine?”

“Of what use would wealthy relations be to me? What are people with money – what is money itself – to a man who follows my calling?”

“Money is something to everybody.”

“Is it? When have you found that I have taken any account of it? Give me money enough to buy my daily bread, and to pay for my lodging and my coarse cassock, and though I may want much for the poor, for myself I want no more. Then have you found me mercenary? Do I not help you in this studio, for love of you and of the art, without exacting so much as journeyman’s wages? Have I ever asked you for more than a few crowns to give away on feast-days among my parishioners? Money! money for a man who may be summoned to Rome tomorrow, who may be told to go at half an hour’s notice on a foreign mission that may take him to the ends of the earth, and who would be ready to go the moment when he was called on! Money to a man who has no wife, no children, no interests outside the sacred circle of the Church! Brother, do you see the dust and dirt and shapeless marble chips lying around your statue there? Cover that floor instead with gold, and, though the litter may have changed in colour and form, in my eyes it would be litter still.”

“A very noble sentiment, I dare say, Rocco, but I can’t echo it. Granting that you care nothing for money, will you explain to me why you are so anxious that Maddalena should marry Fabio? She has had offers from poorer men – you knew of them – but you have never taken the least interest in her accepting or rejecting a proposal before.”

“I hinted the reason to you, months ago, when Fabio first entered the studio.”

“It was rather a vague hint, brother; can’t you be plainer today?”

“I think I can. In the first place, let me begin by assuring you that I have no objection to the young man himself. He may be a little capricious and undecided, but he has no incorrigible faults that I have discovered.”

“That is rather a cool way of praising him, Rocco.”

“I should speak of him warmly enough, if he were not the representative of an intolerable corruption, and a monstrous wrong. Whenever I think of him I think of an injury which his present existence perpetuates; and if I do speak of him coldly, it is only for that reason.”

Luca looked away quickly from his brother, and began kicking absently at the marble chips which were scattered over the floor around him.

“I now remember,” he said, “what that hint of yours pointed at. I know what you mean.”

“Then you know,” answered the priest, “that while part of the wealth which Fabio d’Ascoli possesses is honestly and incontestably his own; part, also, has been inherited by him from the spoilers and robbers of the Church—”

“Blame his ancestors for that; don’t blame him.”

“I blame him as long as the spoil is not restored.”

“How do you know that it was spoil, after all?”

“I have examined more carefully than most men the records of the civil wars in Italy; and I know that the ancestors of Fabio d’Ascoli wrung from the Church, in her hour of weakness, property which they dared to claim as their right. I know of titles to lands signed away, in those stormy times, under the influence of fear, or through false representations of which the law takes no account. I call the money thus obtained spoil, and I say that it ought to be restored, and shall be restored, to the Church from which it was taken.”

“And what does Fabio answer to that, brother?”

“I have not spoken to him on the subject.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have, as yet, no influence over him. When he is married, his wife will have influence over him, and she shall speak.”

“Maddalena, I suppose? How do you know that she will speak?”

“Have I not educated her? Does she not understand what her duties are toward the Church, in whose bosom she has been reared?”

Luca hesitated uneasily, and walked away a step or two before he spoke again.

“Does this spoil, as you call it, amount to a large sum of money?” he asked, in an anxious whisper.

“I may answer that question, Luca, at some future time,” said the priest. “For the present, let it be enough that you are acquainted with all I undertook to inform you of when we began our conversation. You now know that if I am anxious for this marriage to take place, it is from motives entirely unconnected with self-interest. If all the property which Fabio’s ancestors wrongfully obtained from the Church were restored to the Church tomorrow, not one paulo of it would go into my pocket. I am a poor priest now, and to the end of my days shall remain so. You soldiers of the world, brother, fight for your pay; I am a soldier of the Church, and I fight for my cause.”

Saying these words, he returned abruptly to the statuette; and refused to speak, or leave his employment again, until he had taken the mould off, and had carefully put away the various fragments of which it consisted. This done, he drew a writing-desk from the drawer of his working-table, and taking out a slip of paper wrote these lines:

“Come down to the studio tomorrow. Fabio will be with us, but Nanina will return no more.”

Without signing what he had written, he sealed it up, and directed it to “Donna Maddalena”; then took his hat, and handed the note to his brother.

“Oblige me by giving that to my niece,” he said.

“Tell me, Rocco,” said Luca, turning the note round and round perplexedly between his finger and thumb; “do you think Maddalena will be lucky enough to get married to Fabio?”

“Still coarse in your expressions, brother!”

“Never mind my expressions. Is it likely?”

“Yes, Luca, I think it is likely.”

With those words he waved his hand pleasantly to his brother, and went out.

•  III  •

From the studio Father Rocco went straight to his own rooms, hard by the church to which he was attached. Opening a cabinet in his study, he took from one of its drawers a handful of small silver money, consulted for a minute or so a slate on which several names and addresses were written, provided himself with a portable inkhorn and some strips of paper, and again went out.

He directed his steps to the poorest part of the neighbourhood; and entering some very wretched houses, was greeted by the inhabitants with great respect and affection. The women, especially, kissed his hands with more reverence than they would have shown to the highest crowned head in Europe. In return, he talked to them as easily and unconstrainedly as if they were his equals; sat down cheerfully on dirty bedsides and rickety benches; and distributed his little gifts of money with the air of a man who was paying debts rather than bestowing charity. Where he encountered cases of illness, he pulled out his inkhorn and slips of paper, and wrote simple prescriptions to be made up from the medicine-chest of a neighbouring convent, which served the same merciful purpose then that is answered by dispensaries in our days. When he had exhausted his money, and had got through his visits, he was escorted out of the poor quarter by a perfect train of enthusiastic followers. The women kissed his hand again, and the men uncovered as he turned, and, with a friendly sign, bade them all farewell.

As soon as he was alone again, he walked toward the Campo Santo, and, passing the house in which Nanina lived, sauntered up and down the street thoughtfully for some minutes. When he at length ascended the steep staircase that led to the room occupied by the sisters, he found the door ajar. Pushing it open gently, he saw La Biondella sitting with her pretty, fair profile turned toward him, eating her evening meal of bread and grapes. At the opposite end of the room, Scarammuccia was perched up on his hindquarters in a corner, with his mouth wide open to catch the morsel of bread which he evidently expected the child to throw to him. What the elder sister was doing, the priest had not time to see; for the dog barked the moment he presented himself, and Nanina hastened to the door to ascertain who the intruder might be. All that he could observe was that she was too confused, on catching sight of him, to be able to utter a word. La Biondella was the first to speak.

“Thank you, Father Rocco,” said the child, jumping up, with her bread in one hand and her grapes in the other – “thank you for giving me so much money for my dinner-mats. There they are, tied up together in one little parcel, in the corner. Nanina said she was ashamed to think of your carrying them; and I said I knew where you lived, and I should like to ask you to let me take them home!”

“Do you think you can carry them all the way, my dear?” asked the priest.

“Look, Father Rocco, see if I can’t carry them!” cried La Biondella, cramming her bread into one of the pockets of her little apron, holding her bunch of grapes by the stalk in her mouth, and hoisting the packet of dinner-mats on her head in a moment. “See, I am strong enough to carry double,” said the child, looking up proudly into the priest’s face.

“Can you trust her to take them home for me?” asked Father Rocco, turning to Nanina. “I want to speak to you alone, and her absence will give me the opportunity. Can you trust her out by herself?”

“Yes, Father Rocco, she often goes out alone.” Nanina gave this answer in low, trembling tones, and looked down confusedly on the ground.

“Go then, my dear,” said Father Rocco, patting the child on the shoulder; “and come back here to your sister, as soon as you have left the mats.”

La Biondella went out directly in great triumph, with Scarammuccia walking by her side, and keeping his muzzle suspiciously close to the pocket in which she had put her bread. Father Rocco closed the door after them, and then, taking the one chair which the room possessed, motioned to Nanina to sit by him on the stool.

“Do you believe that I am your friend, my child, and that I have always meant well toward you?” he began.

“The best and kindest of friends,” answered Nanina.

“Then you will hear what I have to say patiently, and you will believe that I am speaking for your good, even if my words should distress you?” (Nanina turned away her head.) “Now, tell me; should I be wrong, to begin with, if I said that my brother’s pupil, the young nobleman whom we call ‘Signor Fabio,’ had been here to see you today?” (Nanina started up affrightedly from her stool.) “Sit down again, my child; I am not going to blame you. I am only going to tell you what you must do for the future.”

He took her hand; it was cold, and it trembled violently in his.

“I will not ask what he has been saying to you,” continued the priest; “for it might distress you to answer, and I have, moreover, had means of knowing that your youth and beauty have made a strong impression on him. I will pass over, then, all reference to the words he may have been speaking to you; and I will come at once to what I have now to say, in my turn. Nanina, my child, arm yourself with all your courage, and promise me, before we part tonight, that you will see Signor Fabio no more.”

Nanina turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes on him, with an expression of terrified incredulity. “No more?”

“You are very young and very innocent,” said Father Rocco; “but surely you must have thought before now of the difference between Signor Fabio and you. Surely you must have often remembered that you are low down among the ranks of the poor, and that he is high up among the rich and the nobly born?”

Nanina’s hands dropped on the priest’s knees. She bent her head down on them, and began to weep bitterly.

“Surely you must have thought of that?” reiterated Father Rocco.

“Oh, I have often, often thought of it!” murmured the girl “I have mourned over it, and cried about it in secret for many nights past. He said I looked pale, and ill, and out of spirits today, and I told him it was with thinking of that!”

“And what did he say in return?”

There was no answer. Father Rocco looked down. Nanina raised her head directly from his knees, and tried to turn it away again. He took her hand and stopped her.

“Come!” he said; “speak frankly to me. Say what you ought to say to your father and your friend. What was his answer, my child, when you reminded him of the difference between you?”

“He said I was born to be a lady,” faltered the girl, still struggling to turn her face away, “and that I might make myself one if I would learn and be patient. He said that if he had all the noble ladies in Pisa to choose from on one side, and only little Nanina on the other, he would hold out his hand to me, and tell them, ‘This shall be my wife.’ He said love knew no difference of rank; and that if he was a nobleman and rich, it was all the more reason why he should please himself. He was so kind, that I thought my heart would burst while he was speaking; and my little sister liked him so, that she got upon his knee and kissed him. Even our dog, who growls at other strangers, stole to his side and licked his hand. Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!” The tears burst out afresh, and the lovely head dropped once more, wearily, on the priest’s knee.

Father Rocco smiled to himself, and waited to speak again till she was calmer.

“Supposing,” he resumed, after some minutes of silence, “supposing Signor Fabio really meant all he said to you—”

Nanina started up, and confronted the priest boldly for the first time since he had entered the room.

“Supposing!” she exclaimed, her cheeks beginning to redden, and her dark blue eyes flashing suddenly through her tears “Supposing! Father Rocco, Fabio would never deceive me. I would die here at your feet, rather than doubt the least word he said to me!”

The priest signed to her quietly to return to the stool. “I never suspected the child had so much spirit in her,” he thought to himself.

“I would die,” repeated Nanina, in a voice that began to falter now. “I would die rather than doubt him.”

“I will not ask you to doubt him,” said Father Rocco, gently; “and I will believe in him myself as firmly as you do. Let us suppose, my child, that you have learned patiently all the many things of which you are now ignorant, and which it is necessary for a lady to know. Let us suppose that Signor Fabio has really violated all the laws that govern people in his high station and has taken you to him publicly as his wife. You would be happy then, Nanina; but would he? He has no father or mother to control him, it is true; but he has friends – many friends and intimates in his own rank – proud, heartless people, who know nothing of your worth and goodness; who, hearing of your low birth, would look on you, and on your husband too, my child, with contempt. He has not your patience and fortitude. Think how bitter it would be for him to bear that contempt – to see you shunned by proud women, and carelessly pitied or patronized by insolent men. Yet all this, and more, he would have to endure, or else to quit the world he has lived in from his boyhood – the world he was born to live in. You love him, I know—”

Nanina’s tears burst out afresh. “Oh, how dearly – how dearly!” she murmured.

“Yes, you love him dearly,” continued the priest; “but would all your love compensate him for everything else that he must lose? It might, at first; but there would come a time when the world would assert its influence over him again; when he would feel a want which you could not supply – a weariness which you could not solace. Think of his life then, and of yours. Think of the first day when the first secret doubt whether he had done rightly in marrying you would steal into his mind. We are not masters of all our impulses. The lightest spirits have their moments of irresistible depression; the bravest hearts are not always superior to doubt. My child, my child, the world is strong, the pride of rank is rooted deep, and the human will is frail at best! Be warned! For your own sake and for Fabio’s, be warned in time.”

Nanina stretched out her hands toward the priest in despair.

“Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!” she cried, “why did you not tell me this before?”

“Because, my child, I only knew of the necessity for telling you today. But it is not too late; it is never too late to do a good action. You love Fabio, Nanina? Will you prove that love by making a great sacrifice for his good?”

“I would die for his good!”

“Will you nobly cure him of a passion which will be his ruin, if not yours, by leaving Pisa tomorrow?”

“Leave Pisa!” exclaimed Nanina. Her face grew deadly pale; she rose and moved back a step or two from the priest.

“Listen to me,” pursued Father Rocco; “I have heard you complain that you could not get regular employment at needle-work. You shall have that employment, if you will go with me – you and your little sister too, of course – to Florence tomorrow.”

“I promised Fabio to go to the studio,” began Nanina, affrightedly. “I promised to go at ten o’clock. How can I—”

She stopped suddenly, as if her breath were failing her.

“I myself will take you and your sister to Florence,” said Father Rocco, without noticing the interruption. “I will place you under the care of a lady who will be as kind as a mother to you both. I will answer for your getting such work to do as will enable you to keep yourself honestly and independently; and I will undertake, if you do not like your life at Florence, to bring you back to Pisa after a lapse of three months only. Three months, Nanina. It is not a long exile.”

“Fabio! Fabio!” cried the girl, sinking again on the seat, and hiding her face.

“It is for his good,” said Father Rocco, calmly: “for Fabio’s good, remember.”

“What would he think of me if I went away? Oh, if I had but learned to write! If I could only write Fabio a letter!”

“Am I not to be depended on to explain to him all that he ought to know?”

“How can I go away from him! Oh! Father Rocco, how can you ask me to go away from him?”

“I will ask you to do nothing hastily. I will leave you till tomorrow morning to decide. At nine o’clock I shall be in the street; and I will not even so much as enter this house, unless I know beforehand that you have resolved to follow my advice. Give me a sign from your window. If I see you wave your white mantilla out of it, I shall know that you have taken the noble resolution to save Fabio and to save yourself. I will say no more, my child; for, unless I am grievously mistaken in you, I have already said enough.”

He went out, leaving her still weeping bitterly. Not far from the house, he met La Biondella and the dog on their way back. The little girl stopped to report to him the safe delivery of her dinner-mats; but he passed on quickly with a nod and a smile. His interview with Nanina had left some influence behind it, which unfitted him just then for the occupation of talking to a child.

Nearly half an hour before nine o’clock on the following morning, Father Rocco set forth for the street in which Nanina lived. On his way thither he overtook a dog walking lazily a few paces ahead in the roadway; and saw, at the same time, an elegantly-dressed lady advancing toward him. The dog stopped suspiciously as she approached, and growled and showed his teeth when she passed him. The lady, on her side, uttered an exclamation of disgust, but did not seem to be either astonished or frightened by the animal’s threatening attitude. Father Rocco looked after her with some curiosity as she walked by him. She was a handsome woman, and he admired her courage. “I know that growling brute well enough,” he said to himself, “but who can the lady be?”

The dog was Scarammuccia, returning from one of his marauding expeditions The lady was Brigida, on her way to Luca Lomi’s studio.

Some minutes before nine o’clock the priest took his post in the street, opposite Nanina’s window. It was open; but neither she nor her little sister appeared at it. He looked up anxiously as the church-clocks struck the hour; but there was no sign for a minute or so after they were all silent. “Is she hesitating still?” said Father Rocco to himself.

Just as the words passed his lips, the white mantilla was waved out of the window.

PART SECOND

•  I  •

Even the master-stroke of replacing the treacherous Italian forewoman by a French dressmaker, engaged direct from Paris, did not at first avail to elevate the great Grifoni establishment above the reach of minor calamities. Mademoiselle Virginie had not occupied her new situation at Pisa quite a week before she fell ill. All sorts of reports were circulated as to the cause of this illness; and the Demoiselle Grifoni even went so far as to suggest that the health of the new forewoman had fallen a sacrifice to some nefarious practices of the chemical sort, on the part of her rival in the trade. But, however the misfortune had been produced, it was a fact that Mademoiselle Virginie was certainly very ill, and another fact that the doctor insisted on her being sent to the baths of Lucca as soon as she could be moved from her bed.

Fortunately for the Demoiselle Grifoni, the Frenchwoman had succeeded in producing three specimens of her art before her health broke down. They comprised the evening-dress of yellow brocaded silk, to which she had devoted herself on the morning when she first assumed her duties at Pisa; a black cloak and hood of an entirely new shape; and an irresistibly fascinating dressing-gown, said to have been first brought into fashion by the princesses of the blood-royal of France. These articles of costume, on being exhibited in the showroom, electrified the ladies of Pisa; and orders from all sides flowed in immediately on the Grifoni establishment. They were, of course, easily executed by the inferior work-women, from the specimen designs of the French dressmaker. So that the illness of Mademoiselle Virginie, though it might cause her mistress some temporary inconvenience, was, after all, productive of no absolute loss.

Two months at the baths of Lucca restored the new forewoman to health. She returned to Pisa, and resumed her place in the private work-room. Once re-established there, she discovered that an important change had taken place during her absence. Her friend and assistant, Brigida, had resigned her situation. All inquiries made of the Demoiselle Grifoni only elicited one answer: the missing work-woman had abruptly left her place at five minutes’ warning, and had departed without confiding to anyone what she thought of doing, or whither she intended to turn her steps.

Months elapsed The new year came; but no explanatory letter arrived from Brigida. The spring season passed off, with all its accompaniments of dressmaking and dress-buying, but still there was no news of her. The first anniversary of Mademoiselle Virginie’s engagement with the Demoiselle Grifoni came round; and then at last a note arrived, stating that Brigida had returned to Pisa, and that if the French forewoman would send an answer, mentioning where her private lodgings were, she would visit her old friend that evening after business hours. The information was gladly enough given; and, punctually to the appointed time, Brigida arrived in Mademoiselle Virginie’s little sitting-room.

Advancing with her usual indolent stateliness of gait, the Italian asked after her friend’s health as coolly, and sat down in the nearest chair as carelessly, as if they had not been separated for more than a few days. Mademoiselle Virginie laughed in her liveliest manner, and raised her mobile French eyebrows in sprightly astonishment.

“Well, Brigida!” she exclaimed, “they certainly did you no injustice when they nicknamed you ‘Care-for-Nothing,’ in old Grifoni’s workroom. Where have you been? Why have you never written to me?”

“I had nothing particular to write about; and besides, I always intended to come back to Pisa and see you,” answered Brigida, leaning back luxuriously in her chair.

“But where have you been for nearly a whole year past? In Italy?”

“No; at Paris. You know I can sing – not very well; but I have a voice, and most Frenchwomen (excuse the impertinence) have none. I met with a friend, and got introduced to a manager; and I have been singing at the theatre – not the great parts, only the second. Your amiable countrywomen could not screech me down on the stage, but they intrigued against me successfully behind the scenes. In short, I quarrelled with our principal lady, quarrelled with the manager, quarrelled with my friend; and here I am back at Pisa, with a little money saved in my pocket, and no great notion what I am to do next.”

“Back at Pisa? Why did you leave it?”

Brigida’s eyes began to lose their indolent expression. She sat up suddenly in her chair, and set one of her hands heavily on a little table by her side.

“Why?” she repeated. “Because when I find the game going against me, I prefer giving it up at once to waiting to be beaten.”

“Ah! you refer to that last year’s project of yours for making your fortune among the sculptors. I should like to hear how it was you failed with the wealthy young amateur. Remember that I fell ill before you had any news to give me. Your absence when I returned from Lucca, and, almost immediately afterward, the marriage of your intended conquest to the sculptor’s daughter, proved to me, of course, that you must have failed. But I never heard how. I know nothing at this moment but the bare fact that Maddalena Lomi won the prize.”

“Tell me first, do she and her husband live together happily?”

“There are no stories of their disagreeing. She has dresses, horses, carriages; a negro page, the smallest lapdog in Italy – in short, all the luxuries that a woman can want; and a child, by-the-by, into the bargain.”

“A child?”

“Yes; a child, born little more than a week ago.”

“Not a boy, I hope?”

“No; a girl.”

“I am glad of that. Those rich people always want the first-born to be an heir. They will both be disappointed. I am glad of that.”

“Mercy on us, Brigida, how fierce you look!”

“Do I? It’s likely enough. I hate Fabio d’Ascoli and Maddalena Lomi – singly as man and woman, doubly as man and wife. Stop! I’ll tell you what you want to know directly. Only answer me another question or two first. Have you heard anything about her health?”

“How should I hear? Dressmakers can’t inquire at the doors of the nobility.”

“True. Now one last question. That little simpleton, Nanina?”

“I have never seen or heard anything of her. She can’t be at Pisa, or she would have called at our place for work.”

“Ah! I need not have asked about her if I had thought a moment beforehand. Father Rocco would be sure to keep her out of Fabio’s sight, for his niece’s sake.”

“What, he really loved that ‘thread-paper of a girl’ as you called her?”

“Better than fifty such wives as he has got now! I was in the studio the morning he was told of her departure from Pisa. A letter was privately given to him, telling him that the girl had left the place out of a feeling of honour, and had hidden herself beyond the possibility of discovery, to prevent him from compromising himself with all his friends by marrying her. Naturally enough, he would not believe that this was her own doing; and, naturally enough also, when Father Rocco was sent for, and was not to be found, he suspected the priest of being at the bottom of the business. I never saw a man in such a fury of despair and rage before. He swore that he would have all Italy searched for the girl, that he would be the death of the priest, and that he would never enter Luca Lomi’s studio again—”

“And, as to this last particular, of course, being a man, he failed to keep his word?”

“Of course. At that first visit of mine to the studio I discovered two things. The first, as I said, that Fabio was really in love with the girl – the second, that Maddalena Lomi was really in love with him. You may suppose I looked at her attentively while the disturbance was going on, and while nobody’s notice was directed on me. All women are vain, I know, but vanity never blinded my eyes. I saw directly that I had but one superiority over her – my figure. She was my height, but not well made. She had hair as dark and as glossy as mine; eyes as bright and as black as mine; and the rest of her face better than mine. My nose is coarse, my lips are too thick, and my upper lip overhangs my under too far. She had none of those personal faults; and, as for capacity, she managed the young fool in his passion as well as I could have managed him in her place.”

“How?”

“She stood silent, with downcast eyes and a distressed look, all the time he was raving up and down the studio. She must have hated the girl, and been rejoiced at her disappearance; but she never showed it. ‘You would be an awkward rival’ (I thought to myself), ‘even to a handsomer woman than I am.’ However, I determined not to despair too soon, and made up my mind to follow my plan just as if the accident of the girl’s disappearance had never occurred. I smoothed down the master-sculptor easily enough – flattering him about his reputation, assuring him that the works of Luca Lomi had been the objects of my adoration since childhood, telling him that I had heard of his difficulty in finding a model to complete his Minerva from, and offering myself (if he thought me worthy) for the honour – laying great stress on that word – for the honour of sitting to him. I don’t know whether he was altogether deceived by what I told him; but he was sharp enough to see that I really could be of use, and he accepted my offer with a profusion of compliments. We parted, having arranged that I was to give him a first sitting in a week’s time.”

“Why put it off so long?”

“To allow our young gentleman time to cool down and return to the studio, to be sure. What was the use of my being there while he was away?”

“Yes, yes – I forgot. And how long was it before he came back?”

“I had allowed him more time than enough. When I had given my first sitting I saw him in the studio, and heard it was his second visit there since the day of the girl’s disappearance. Those very violent men are always changeable and irresolute.”

“Had he made no attempt, then, to discover Nanina?”

“Oh, yes! He had searched for her himself, and had set others searching for her, but to no purpose. Four days of perpetual disappointment had been enough to bring him to his senses. Luca Lomi had written him a peace-making letter, asking what harm he or his daughter had done, even supposing Father Rocco was to blame. Maddalena Lomi had met him in the street, and had looked resignedly away from him, as if she expected him to pass her. In short, they had awakened his sense of justice and his good nature (you see, I can impartially give him his due), and they had got him back. He was silent and sentimental enough at first, and shockingly sulky and savage with the priest—”

“I wonder Father Rocco ventured within his reach.”

“Father Rocco is not a man to be daunted or defeated by anybody, I can tell you. The same day on which Fabio came back to the studio, he returned to it. Beyond boldly declaring that he thought Nanina had done quite right, and had acted like a good and virtuous girl, he would say nothing about her or her disappearance. It was quite useless to ask him questions – he denied that anyone had a right to put them. Threatening, entreating, flattering – all modes of appeal were thrown away on him. Ah, my dear! depend upon it, the cleverest and politest man in Pisa, the most dangerous to an enemy and the most delightful to a friend, is Father Rocco. The rest of them, when I began to play my cards a little too openly, behaved with brutal rudeness to me. Father Rocco, from first to last, treated me like a lady. Sincere or not, I don’t care – he treated me like a lady when the others treated me like—”

“There! there! don’t get hot about it now. Tell me instead how you made your first approaches to the young gentleman whom you talk of so contemptuously as Fabio.”

“As it turned out, in the worst possible way. First, of course, I made sure of interesting him in me by telling him that I had known Nanina. So far it was all well enough. My next object was to persuade him that she could never have gone away if she had truly loved him alone; and that he must have had some fortunate rival in her own rank of life, to whom she had sacrificed him, after gratifying her vanity for a time by bringing a young nobleman to her feet. I had, as you will easily imagine, difficulty enough in making him take this view of Nanina’s flight. His pride and his love for the girl were both concerned in refusing to admit the truth of my suggestion. At last I succeeded. I brought him to that state of ruffled vanity and fretful self-assertion in which it is easiest to work on a man’s feelings – in which a man’s own wounded pride makes the best pitfall to catch him in. I brought him, I say, to that state, and then she stepped in and profited by what I had done. Is it wonderful now that I rejoice in her disappointments – that I should be glad to hear any ill thing of her that anyone could tell me?”

“But how did she first get the advantage of you?”

“If I had found out, she would never have succeeded where I failed. All I know is, that she had more opportunities of seeing him than I, and that she used them cunningly enough even to deceive me. While I thought I was gaining ground with Fabio, I was actually losing it. My first suspicions were excited by a change in Luca Lomi’s conduct toward me. He grew cold, neglectful – at last absolutely rude. I was resolved not to see this; but accident soon obliged me to open my eyes. One morning I heard Fabio and Maddalena talking of me when they imagined I had left the studio. I can’t repeat their words, especially here. The blood flies into my head, and the cold catches me at the heart, when I only think of them. It will be enough if I tell you that he laughed at me, and that she—”

“Hush! not so loud. There are other people lodging in the house. Never mind about telling me what you heard; it only irritates you to no purpose. I can guess that they had discovered—”

“Through her – remember, all through her!”

“Yes, yes, I understand. They had discovered a great deal more than you ever intended them to know, and all through her.”

“But for the priest, Virginie, I should have been openly insulted and driven from their doors. He had insisted on their behaving with decent civility toward me. They said that he was afraid of me, and laughed at the notion of his trying to make them afraid too. That was the last thing I heard. The fury I was in, and the necessity of keeping it down, almost suffocated me. I turned round to leave the place forever, when, who should I see, standing close behind me, but Father Rocco. He must have discovered in my face that I knew all, but he took no notice of it. He only asked, in his usual quiet, polite way, if I was looking for anything I had lost, and if he could help me. I managed to thank him, and to get to the door. He opened it for me respectfully, and bowed – he treated me like a lady to the last! It was evening when I left the studio in that way. The next morning I threw up my situation, and turned my back on Pisa. Now you know everything.”

“Did you hear of the marriage? or did you only assume from what you knew that it would take place?”

“I heard of it about six months ago. A man came to sing in the chorus at our theatre who had been employed some time before at the grand concert given on the occasion of the marriage. But let us drop the subject now. I am in a fever already with talking of it. You are in a bad situation here, my dear; I declare your room is almost stifling.”

“Shall I open the other window?”

“No; let us go out and get a breath of air by the riverside. Come! take your hood and fan – it is getting dark – nobody will see us, and we can come back here, if you like, in half an hour.”

Mademoiselle Virginie acceded to her friend’s wish rather reluctantly. They walked toward the river. The sun was down, and the sudden night of Italy was gathering fast. Although Brigida did not say another word on the subject of Fabio or his wife, she led the way to the bank of the Arno, on which the young nobleman’s palace stood.

Just as they got near the great door of entrance, a sedan-chair, approaching in the opposite direction, was set down before it; and a footman, after a moment’s conference with a lady inside the chair, advanced to the porter’s lodge in the courtyard. Leaving her friend to go on, Brigida slipped in after the servant by the open wicket, and concealed herself in the shadow cast by the great closed gates.

“The Marchesa Melani, to inquire how the Countess d’Ascoli and the infant are this evening,” said the footman.

“My mistress has not changed at all for the better since the morning,” answered the porter. “The child is doing quite well.”

The footman went back to the sedan-chair; then returned to the porter’s lodge.

“The marchesa desires me to ask if fresh medical advice has been sent for,” he said.

“Another doctor has arrived from Florence today,” replied the porter.

Mademoiselle Virginie, missing her friend suddenly, turned back toward the palace to look after her, and was rather surprised to see Brigida slip out of the wicket-gate. There were two oil lamps burning on pillars outside the doorway, and their light glancing on the Italian’s face, as she passed under them, showed that she was smiling.

•  II  •

While the Marchesa Melani was making inquiries at the gate of the palace, Fabio was sitting alone in the apartment which his wife usually occupied when she was in health. It was her favourite room, and had been prettily decorated, by her own desire, with hangings in yellow satin and furniture of the same colour. Fabio was now waiting in it, to hear the report of the doctors after their evening visit.

Although Maddalena Lomi had not been his first love, and although he had married her under circumstances which are generally and rightly considered to afford few chances of lasting happiness in wedded life, still they had lived together through the one year of their union tranquilly, if not fondly. She had moulded herself wisely to his peculiar humours, had made the most of his easy disposition; and, when her quick temper had got the better of her, had seldom hesitated in her cooler moments to acknowledge that she had been wrong. She had been extravagant, it is true, and had irritated him by fits of unreasonable jealousy; but these were faults not to be thought of now. He could only remember that she was the mother of his child, and that she lay ill but two rooms away from him – dangerously ill, as the doctors had unwillingly confessed on that very day.

The darkness was closing in upon him, and he took up the handbell to ring for lights. When the servant entered there was genuine sorrow in his face, genuine anxiety in his voice, as he inquired for news from the sickroom. The man only answered that his mistress was still asleep, and then withdrew, after first leaving a sealed letter on the table by his master’s side. Fabio summoned him back into the room, and asked when the letter had arrived. He replied that it had been delivered at the palace two days since, and that he had observed it lying unopened on a desk in his master’s study.

Left alone again, Fabio remembered that the letter had arrived at a time when the first dangerous symptoms of his wife’s illness had declared themselves, and that he had thrown it aside, after observing the address to be in a handwriting unknown to him. In his present state of suspense, any occupation was better than sitting idle. So he took up the letter with a sigh, broke the seal, and turned inquiringly to the name signed at the end.

It was “Nanina.”

He started, and changed colour. “A letter from her,” he whispered to himself. “Why does it come at such a time as this?”

His face grew paler, and the letter trembled in his fingers. Those superstitious feelings which he had ascribed to the nursery influences of his childhood, when Father Rocco charged him with them in the studio, seemed to be overcoming him now. He hesitated, and listened anxiously in the direction of his wife’s room, before reading the letter. Was its arrival ominous of good or evil? That was the thought in his heart as he drew the lamp near to him, and looked at the first lines.

Am I wrong in writing to you? (the letter began abruptly). If I am, you have but to throw this little leaf of paper into the fire, and to think no more of it after it is burned up and gone. I can never reproach you for treating my letter in that way; for we are never likely to meet again.

Why did I go away? Only to save you from the consequences of marrying a poor girl who was not fit to become your wife. It almost broke my heart to leave you; for I had nothing to keep up my courage but the remembrance that I was going away for your sake. I had to think of that, morning and night – to think of it always, or I am afraid I should have faltered in my resolution, and have gone back to Pisa. I longed so much at first to see you once more, only to tell you that Nanina was not heartless and ungrateful, and that you might pity her and think kindly of her, though you might love her no longer.

Only to tell you that! If I had been a lady I might have told it to you in a letter; but I had never learned to write, and I could not prevail on myself to get others to take the pen for me. All I could do was to learn secretly how to write with my own hand. It was long, long work; but the uppermost thought in my heart was always the thought of justifying myself to you, and that made me patient and persevering. I learned, at last, to write so as not to be ashamed of myself, or to make you ashamed of me. I began a letter – my first letter to you – but I heard of your marriage before it was done, and then I had to tear the paper up, and put the pen down again.

I had no right to come between you and your wife, even with so little a thing as a letter; I had no right to do anything but hope and pray for your happiness. Are you happy? I am sure you ought to be; for how can your wife help loving you?

It is very hard for me to explain why I have ventured on writing now, and yet I can’t think that I am doing wrong. I heard a few days ago (for I have a friend at Pisa who keeps me informed, by my own desire, of all the pleasant changes in your life) – I heard of your child being born; and I thought myself, after that, justified at last in writing to you. No letter from me, at such a time as this, can rob your child’s mother of so much as a thought of yours that is due to her. Thus, at least, it seems to me. I wish so well to your child, that I cannot surely be doing wrong in writing these lines.

I have said already what I wanted to say – what I have been longing to say for a whole year past. I have told you why I left Pisa; and have, perhaps, persuaded you that I have gone through some suffering, and borne some heartaches for your sake. Have I more to write? Only a word or two, to tell you that I am earning my bread, as I always wished to earn it, quietly at home – at least, at what I must call home now. I am living with reputable people, and I want for nothing. La Biondella has grown very much; she would hardly be obliged to get on your knee to kiss you now; and she can plait her dinner-mats faster and more neatly than ever. Our old dog is with us, and has learned two new tricks; but you can’t be expected to remember him, although you were the only stranger I ever saw him take kindly to at first.

It is time I finished. If you have read this letter through to the end, I am sure you will excuse me if I have written it badly. There is no date to it, because I feel that it is safest and best for both of us that you should know nothing of where I am living. I bless you and pray for you, and bid you affectionately farewell. If you can think of me as a sister, think of me sometimes still.

Fabio sighed bitterly while he read the letter. “Why,” he whispered to himself, “why does it come at such a time as this, when I cannot dare not think of her?” As he slowly folded the letter up the tears came into his eyes, and he half raised the paper to his lips. At the same moment, someone knocked at the door of the room. He started, and felt himself changing colour guiltily as one of his servants entered.

“My mistress is awake,” the man said, with a very grave face, and a very constrained manner; “and the gentlemen in attendance desire me to say—”

He was interrupted, before he could give his message, by one of the medical men, who had followed him into the room.

“I wish I had better news to communicate,” began the doctor, gently.

“She is worse, then?” said Fabio, sinking back into the chair from which he had risen the moment before.

“She has awakened weaker instead of stronger after her sleep,” returned the doctor, evasively. “I never like to give up all hope till the very last, but—”

“It is cruel not to be candid with him,” interposed another voice – the voice of the doctor from Florence, who had just entered the room. “Strengthen yourself to bear the worst,” he continued, addressing himself to Fabio. “She is dying. Can you compose yourself enough to go to her bedside?”

Pale and speechless, Fabio rose from his chair, and made a sign in the affirmative. He trembled so that the doctor who had first spoken was obliged to lead him out of the room.

“Your mistress has some near relations in Pisa, has she not?” said the doctor from Florence, appealing to the servant who waited near him.

“Her father, sir, Signor Luca Lomi; and her uncle, Father Rocco,” answered the man. “They were here all through the day, until my mistress fell asleep.”

“Do you know where to find them now?”

“Signor Luca told me he should be at his studio, and Father Rocco said I might find him at his lodgings.”

“Send for them both directly. Stay, who is your mistress’s confessor? He ought to be summoned without loss of time.”

“My mistress’s confessor is Father Rocco, sir.”

“Very well – send, or go yourself, at once. Even minutes may be of importance now.” Saying this, the doctor turned away, and sat down to wait for any last demands on his services, in the chair which Fabio had just left.

•  III  •

Before the servant could get to the priest’s lodgings a visitor had applied there for admission, and had been immediately received by Father Rocco himself. This favoured guest was a little man, very sprucely and neatly dressed, and oppressively polite in his manner. He bowed when he first sat down, he bowed when he answered the usual inquiries about his health, and he bowed, for the third time, when Father Rocco asked what had brought him from Florence.

“Rather an awkward business,” replied the little man, recovering himself uneasily after his third bow. “The dressmaker, named Nanina, whom you placed under my wife’s protection about a year ago—”

“What of her?” inquired the priest eagerly.

“I regret to say she has left us, with her child-sister, and their very disagreeable dog, that growls at everybody.”

“When did they go?”

“Only yesterday. I came here at once to tell you, as you were so very particular in recommending us to take care of her. It is not our fault that she has gone. My wife was kindness itself to her, and I always treated her like a duchess. I bought dinner-mats of her sister; I even put up with the thieving and growling of the disagreeable dog—”

“Where have they gone to? Have you found out that?”

“I have found out, by application at the passport-office, that they have not left Florence – but what particular part of the city they have removed to, I have not yet had time to discover.”

“And pray why did they leave you, in the first place? Nanina is not a girl to do anything without a reason. She must have had some cause for going away. What was it?”

The little man hesitated, and made a fourth bow.

“You remember your private instructions to my wife and myself, when you first brought Nanina to our house?” he said, looking away rather uneasily while he spoke.

“Yes; you were to watch her, but to take care that she did not suspect you. It was just possible, at that time, that she might try to get back to Pisa without my knowing it; and everything depended on her remaining at Florence. I think, now, that I did wrong to distrust her; but it was of the last importance to provide against all possibilities, and to abstain from putting too much faith in my own good opinion of the girl. For these reasons, I certainly did instruct you to watch her privately. So far you are quite right; and I have nothing to complain of. Go on.”

“You remember,” resumed the little man, “that the first consequence of our following your instructions was a discovery (which we immediately communicated to you) that she was secretly learning to write?”

“Yes; and I also remember sending you word not to show that you knew what she was doing; but to wait and see if she turned her knowledge of writing to account, and took or sent any letters to the post. You informed me, in your regular monthly report, that she nearer did anything of the kind.”

“Never, until three days ago; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter, which she dropped into the box.”

“And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house?”

“Unfortunately I did not,” answered the little man, reddening and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive a severe reprimand.

But Father Rocco said nothing. He was thinking. Who could she have written to? If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, before sending him a letter? If not to Fabio, to what other person could she have written?

“I regret not discovering the address – regret it most deeply,” said the little man, with a low bow of apology.

“It is too late for regret,” said Father Rocco, coldly. “Tell me how she came to leave your house; I have not heard that yet. Be as brief as you can. I expect to be called every moment to the bedside of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness. You shall have all my attention; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible.”

“I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have – or rather had – an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business.”

The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously.

“In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.”

Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly.

“But I must do the girl the justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that, whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him.”

“A good girl!” said Father Rocco. “I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.”

“Among the other offences,” continued the little man, “of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers.”

“You ought not to have had any. Private papers should always be burned papers.”

“They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that.”

“Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?”

“Unfortunately they were. Pray, pray excuse my want of caution this time. It shall never happen again.”

“Go on. Such imprudence as yours can never be excused; it can only be provided against for the future. I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl?”

“I infer as much; though why he should do so—”

“Simpleton! Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?”

“Yes; I said that – and I know it to be true.”

“Well! Was it not his interest, being unable to make any impression on the girl’s fancy, to establish some claim to her gratitude; and try if he could not win her that way? By showing her my letters, he would make her indebted to him for knowing that she was watched in your house. But this is not the matter in question now. You say you infer that she had seen my letters. On what grounds?”

“On the strength of this bit of paper,” answered the little man, ruefully producing a note from his pocket. “She must have had your letters shown to her soon after putting her own letter into the post. For, on the evening of the same day, when I went up into her room, I found that she and her sister and the disagreeable dog had all gone, and observed this note laid on the table.”

Father Rocco took the note, and read these lines:

“I have just discovered that I have been watched and suspected ever since my stay under your roof. It is impossible that I can remain another night in the house of a spy. I go with my sister. We owe you nothing, and we are free to live honestly where we please. If you see Father Rocco, tell him that I can forgive his distrust of me, but that I can never forget it. I, who had full faith in him, had a right to expect that he should have full faith in me. It was always an encouragement to me to think of him as a father and a friend. I have lost that encouragement forever – and it was the last I had left to me!

“Nanina.”

The priest rose from his seat as he handed the note back, and the visitor immediately followed his example.

“We must remedy this misfortune as we best may,” he said, with a sigh. “Are you ready to go back to Florence tomorrow?”

The little man bowed again.

“Find out where she is, and ascertain if she wants for anything, and if she is living in a safe place. Say nothing about me, and make no attempt to induce her to return to your house. Simply let me know what you discover. The poor child has a spirit that no ordinary people would suspect in her. She must be soothed and treated tenderly, and we shall manage her yet. No mistakes, mind, this time! Do just what I tell you, and do no more. Have you anything else to say to me?”

The little man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

“Good-night, then,” said the priest.

“Good-night,” said the little man, slipping through the door that was held open for him with the politest alacrity.

“This is vexatious,” said Father Rocco, taking a turn or two in the study after his visitor had gone. “It was bad to have done the child an injustice – it is worse to have been found out. There is nothing for it now but to wait till I know where she is. I like her, and I like that note she left behind her. It is bravely, delicately, and honestly written – a good girl – a very good girl, indeed!”

He walked to the window, breathed the fresh air for a few moments, and quietly dismissed the subject from his mind. When he returned to his table he had no thoughts for anyone but his sick niece.

“It seems strange,” he said, “that I have had no message about her yet. Perhaps Luca has heard something. It may be well if I go to the studio at once to find out.”

He took up his hat and went to the door. Just as he opened it, Fabio’s servant confronted him on the thresh old.

“I am sent to summon you to the palace,” said the man. “The doctors have given up all hope.”

Father Rocco turned deadly pale, and drew back a step. “Have you told my brother of this?” he asked.

“I was just on my way to the studio,” answered the servant.

“I will go there instead of you, and break the bad news to him,” said the priest.

They descended the stairs in silence. Just as they were about to separate at the street door, Father Rocco stopped the servant.

“How is the child?” he asked, with such sudden eagerness and impatience, that the man looked quite startled as he answered that the child was perfectly well.

“There is some consolation in that,” said Father Rocco, walking away, and speaking partly to the servant, partly to himself. “My caution has misled me,” he continued, pausing thoughtfully when he was left alone in the roadway. “I should have risked using the mother’s influence sooner to procure the righteous restitution. All hope of compassing it now rests on the life of the child. Infant as she is, her father’s ill-gotten wealth may yet be gathered back to the Church by her hands.”

He proceeded rapidly on his way to the studio, until he reached the riverside and drew close to the bridge which it was necessary to cross in order to get to his brother’s house. Here he stopped abruptly, as if struck by a sudden idea. The moon had just risen, and her light, streaming across the river, fell full upon his face as he stood by the parapet wall that led up to the bridge. He was so lost in thought that he did not hear the conversation of two ladies who were advancing along the pathway close behind him. As they brushed by him, the taller of the two turned round and looked back at his face.

“Father Rocco!” exclaimed the lady, stopping.

“Donna Brigida!” cried the priest, looking surprised at first, but recovering himself directly and bowing with his usual quiet politeness. “Pardon me if I thank you for honouring me by renewing our acquaintance, and then pass on to my brother’s studio. A heavy affliction is likely to befall us, and I go to prepare him for it.”

“You refer to the dangerous illness of your niece?” said Brigida. “I heard of it this evening. Let us hope that your fears are exaggerated, and that we may yet meet under less distressing circumstances. I have no present intention of leaving Pisa for some time, and I shall always be glad to thank Father Rocco for the politeness and consideration which he showed to me, under delicate circumstances, a year ago.”

With these words she courtesied deferentially, and moved away to rejoin her friend. The priest observed that Mademoiselle Virginie lingered rather near, as if anxious to catch a few words of the conversation between Brigida and himself. Seeing this, he, in his turn, listened as the two women slowly walked away together, and heard the Italian say to her companion: “Virginie, I will lay you the price of a new dress that Fabio d’Ascoli marries again.”

Father Rocco started when she said those words, as if he had trodden on fire.

“My thought!” he whispered nervously to himself. “My thought at the moment when she spoke to me! Marry again? Another wife, over whom I should have no influence! Other children, whose education would not be confided to me! What would become, then, of the restitution that I have hoped for, wrought for, prayed for?”

He stopped, and looked fixedly at the sky above him. The bridge was deserted. His black figure rose up erect, motionless, and spectral, with the white still light falling solemnly all around it. Standing so for some minutes, his first movement was to drop his hand angrily on the parapet of the bridge. He then turned round slowly in the direction by which the two women had walked away.

“Donna Brigida,” he said, “I will lay you the price of fifty new dresses that Fabio d’Ascoli never marries again!”

He set his face once more toward the studio, and walked on without stopping until he arrived at the master-sculptor’s door.

“Marry again?” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell. “Donna Brigida, was your first failure not enough for you? Are you going to try a second time?”

Luca Lomi himself opened the door. He drew Father Rocco hurriedly into the studio toward a single lamp burning on a stand near the partition between the two rooms.

“Have you heard anything of our poor child?” he asked. “Tell me the truth! tell me the truth at once!”

“Hush! compose yourself. I have heard,” said Father Rocco, in low, mournful tones.

Luca tightened his hold on the priest’s arm, and looked into his face with breathless, speechless eagerness.

“Compose yourself,” repeated Father Rocco. “Compose yourself to hear the worst. My poor Luca, the doctors have given up all hope.”

Luca dropped his brother’s arm with a groan of despair. “Oh, Maddalena! my child – my only child!”

Reiterating these words again and again, he leaned his head against the partition and burst into tears. Sordid and coarse as his nature was, he really loved his daughter. All the heart he had was in his statues and in her.

After the first burst of his grief was exhausted, he was recalled to himself by a sensation as if some change had taken place in the lighting of the studio. He looked up directly, and dimly discerned the priest standing far down at the end of the room nearest the door, with the lamp in his hand, eagerly looking at something.

“Rocco!” he exclaimed, “Rocco, why have you taken the lamp away? What are you doing there?”

There was no movement and no answer. Luca advanced a step or two, and called again. “Rocco, what are you doing there?”

The priest heard this time, and came suddenly toward his brother, with the lamp in his hand – so suddenly that Luca started.

“What is it?” he asked, in astonishment. “Gracious God, Rocco, how pale you are!”

Still the priest never said a word. He put the lamp down on the nearest table. Luca observed that his hand shook. He had never seen his brother violently agitated before. When Rocco had announced, but a few minutes ago, that Maddalena’s life was despaired of, it was in a voice which, though sorrowful, was perfectly calm. What was the meaning of this sudden panic – this strange, silent terror?

The priest observed that his brother was looking at him earnestly. “Come!” he said in a faint whisper, “come to her bedside: we have no time to lose. Get your hat, and leave it to me to put out the lamp.”

He hurriedly extinguished the light while he spoke. They went down the studio side by side toward the door. The moonlight streamed through the window full on the place where the priest had been standing alone with the lamp in his hand. As they passed it, Luca felt his brother tremble, and saw him turn away his head.

•   •   •

Two hours later, Fabio d’Ascoli and his wife were separated in this world forever; and the servants of the palace were anticipating in whispers the order of their mistress’s funeral procession to the burial-ground of the Campo Santo.

PART THIRD

•  I  •

About eight months after the Countess d’Ascoli had been laid in her grave in the Campo Santo, two reports were circulated through the gay world of Pisa, which excited curiosity and awakened expectation everywhere.

The first report announced that a grand masked ball was to be given at the Melani Palace, to celebrate the day on which the heir of the house attained his majority. All the friends of the family were delighted at the prospect of this festival; for the old Marquis Melani had the reputation of being one of the most hospitable, and, at the same time, one of the most eccentric men in Pisa. Everyone expected, therefore, that he would secure for the entertainment of his guests, if he really gave the ball, the most whimsical novelties in the way of masks, dances, and amusements generally, that had ever been seen.

The second report was, that the rich widower, Fabio d’Ascoli, was on the point of returning to Pisa, after having improved his health and spirits by travelling in foreign countries; and that he might be expected to appear again in society, for the first time since the death of his wife, at the masked ball which was to be given in the Melani Palace. This announcement excited special interest among the young ladies of Pisa. Fabio had only reached his thirtieth year; and it was universally agreed that his return to society in his native city could indicate nothing more certainly than his desire to find a second mother for his infant child. All the single ladies would now have been ready to bet, as confidently as Brigida had offered to bet eight months before, that Fabio d’Ascoli would marry again.

For once in a way, report turned out to be true, in both the cases just mentioned. Invitations were actually issued from the Melani Palace, and Fabio returned from abroad to his home on the Arno.

In settling all the arrangements connected with his masked ball, the Marquis Melani showed that he was determined not only to deserve, but to increase, his reputation for oddity. He invented the most extravagant disguises, to be worn by some of his more intimate friends; he arranged grotesque dances, to be performed at stated periods of the evening by professional buffoons, hired from Florence. He composed a toy symphony, which included solos on every noisy plaything at that time manufactured for children’s use. And not content with thus avoiding the beaten track in preparing the entertainments at the ball, he determined also to show decided originality, even in selecting the attendants who were to wait on the company. Other people in his rank of life were accustomed to employ their own and hired footmen for this purpose; the marquis resolved that his attendants should be composed of young women only; that two of his rooms should be fitted up as Arcadian bowers; and that all the prettiest girls in Pisa should be placed in them to preside over the refreshments, dressed, in accordance with the mock classical taste of the period, as shepherdesses of the time of Virgil.

The only defect of this brilliantly new idea was the difficulty of executing it. The marquis had expressly ordered that not fewer than thirty shepherdesses were to be engaged – fifteen for each bower. It would have been easy to find double this number in Pisa, if beauty had been the only quality required in the attendant damsels. But it was also absolutely necessary, for the security of the marquis’s gold and silver plate, that the shepherdesses should possess, besides good looks, the very homely recommendation of a fair character. This last qualification proved, it is sad to say, to be the one small merit which the majority of the ladies willing to accept engagements at the palace did not possess. Day after day passed on; and the marquis’s steward only found more and more difficulty in obtaining the appointed number of trustworthy beauties. At last his resources failed him altogether; and he appeared in his master’s presence about a week before the night of the ball, to make the humiliating acknowledgement that he was entirely at his wits’ end. The total number of fair shepherdesses with fair characters whom he had been able to engage amounted only to twenty-three.

“Nonsense!” cried the marquis, irritably, as soon as the steward had made his confession. “I told you to get thirty girls, and thirty I mean to have. What’s the use of shaking your head when all their dresses are ordered? Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths, thirty pairs of sandals and silk stockings, thirty crooks, you scoundrel – and you have the impudence to offer me only twenty-three hands to hold them. Not a word! I won’t hear a word! Get me my thirty girls, or lose your place.” The marquis roared out this last terrible sentence at the top of his voice, and pointed peremptorily to the door.

The steward knew his master too well to remonstrate. He took his hat and cane, and went out. It was useless to look through the ranks of rejected volunteers again; there was not the slightest hope in that quarter. The only chance left was to call on all his friends in Pisa who had daughters out at service, and to try what he could accomplish, by bribery and persuasion, that way.

After a whole day occupied in solicitations, promises, and patient smoothing down of innumerable difficulties, the result of his efforts in the new direction was an accession of six more shepherdesses. This brought him on bravely from twenty-three to twenty-nine, and left him, at last, with only one anxiety – where was he now to find shepherdess number thirty?

He mentally asked himself that important question, as he entered a shady by-street in the neighbourhood of the Campo Santo, on his way back to the Melani Palace. Sauntering slowly along in the middle of the road, and fanning himself with his handkerchief after the oppressive exertions of the day, he passed a young girl who was standing at the street door of one of the houses, apparently waiting for somebody to join her before she entered the building.

“Body of Bacchus!” exclaimed the steward (using one of those old Pagan ejaculations which survive in Italy even to the present day), “there stands the prettiest girl I have seen yet. If she would only be shepherdess number thirty, I should go home to supper with my mind at ease. I’ll ask her, at any rate. Nothing can be lost by asking, and everything may be gained. Stop, my dear,” he continued, seeing the girl turn to go into the house as he approached her. “Don’t be afraid of me. I am steward to the Marquis Melani, and well known in Pisa as an eminently respectable man. I have something to say to you which may be greatly for your benefit. Don’t look surprised; I am coming to the point at once. Do you want to earn a little money? honestly, of course. You don’t look as if you were very rich, child.”

“I am very poor, and very much in want of some honest work to do,” answered the girl, sadly.

“Then we shall suit each other to a nicety; for I have work of the pleasantest kind to give you, and plenty of money to pay for it. But before we say anything more about that, suppose you tell me first something about yourself – who you are, and so forth. You know who I am already.”

“I am only a poor work-girl, and my name is Nanina. I have nothing more, sir, to say about myself than that.”

“Do you belong to Pisa?”

“Yes, sir – at least, I did. But I have been away for some time. I was a year at Florence, employed in needlework.”

“All by yourself?”

“No, sir, with my little sister. I was waiting for her when you came up.”

“Have you never done anything else but needlework? never been out at service?”

“Yes, sir. For the last eight months I have had a situation to wait on a lady at Florence, and my sister (who is turned eleven, sir, and can make herself very useful) was allowed to help in the nursery.”

“How came you to leave this situation?”

“The lady and her family were going to Rome, sir. They would have taken me with them, but they could not take my sister. We are alone in the world, and we never have been parted from each other, and never shall be – so I was obliged to leave the situation.”

“And here you are, back at Pisa – with nothing to do, I suppose?”

“Nothing yet, sir. We only came back yesterday.”

“Only yesterday! You are a lucky girl, let me tell you, to have met with me. I suppose you have somebody in the town who can speak to your character?”

“The landlady of this house can, sir.”

“And who is she, pray?”

“Marta Angrisani, sir.”

“What! the well-known sick-nurse? You could not possibly have a better recommendation, child. I remember her being employed at the Melani Palace at the time of the marquis’s last attack of gout; but I never knew that she kept a lodging-house.”

“She and her daughter, sir, have owned this house longer than I can recollect. My sister and I have lived in it since I was quite a little child, and I had hoped we might be able to live here again. But the top room we used to have is taken, and the room to let lower down is far more, I am afraid, than we can afford.”

“How much is it?”

Nanina mentioned the weekly rent of the room in fear and trembling. The steward burst out laughing.

“Suppose I offered you money enough to be able to take that room for a whole year at once?” he said.

Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement.

“Suppose I offered you that?” continued the steward. “And suppose I only ask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve refreshments in a beautiful room to the company at the Marquis Melani’s grand ball? What should you say to that?”

Nanina said nothing. She drew back a step or two, and looked more bewildered than before.

“You must have heard of the ball,” said the steward, pompously; “the poorest people in Pisa have heard of it. It is the talk of the whole city.”

Still Nanina made no answer. To have replied truthfully, she must have confessed that “the talk of the whole city” had now no interest for her. The last news from Pisa that had appealed to her sympathies was the news of the Countess d’Ascoli’s death, and of Fabio’s departure to travel in foreign countries. Since then she had heard nothing more of him. She was as ignorant of his return to his native city as of all the reports connected with the marquis’s ball. Something in her own heart – some feeling which she had neither the desire nor the capacity to analyse – had brought her back to Pisa and to the old home which now connected itself with her tenderest recollections. Believing that Fabio was still absent, she felt that no ill motive could now be attributed to her return; and she had not been able to resist the temptation of revisiting the scene that had been associated with the first great happiness as well as with the first great sorrow of her life. Among all the poor people of Pisa, she was perhaps the very last whose curiosity could be awakened, or whose attention could be attracted by the rumour of gaieties at the Melani Palace.

But she could not confess all this; she could only listen with great humility and no small surprise, while the steward, in compassion for her ignorance, and with the hope of tempting her into accepting his offered engagement, described the arrangements of the approaching festival, and dwelt fondly on the magnificence of the Arcadian bowers, and the beauty of the shepherdesses’ tunics. As soon as he had done, Nanina ventured on the confession that she should feel rather nervous in a grand dress that did not belong to her, and that she doubted very much her own capability of waiting properly on the great people at the ball. The steward, however, would hear of no objections, and called peremptorily for Marta Angrisani to make the necessary statement as to Nanina’s character. While this formality was being complied with to the steward’s perfect satisfaction, La Biondella came in, unaccompanied on this occasion by the usual companion of all her walks, the learned poodle Scarammuccia.

“This is Nanina’s sister,” said the good-natured sick-nurse, taking the first opportunity of introducing La Biondella to the great marquis’s great man. “A very good, industrious little girl; and very clever at plaiting dinner-mats, in case his excellency should ever want any. What have you done with the dog, my dear?”

“I couldn’t get him past the pork butcher’s, three streets off,” replied La Biondella. “He would sit down and look at the sausages. I am more than half afraid he means to steal some of them.”

“A very pretty child,” said the steward, patting La Biondella on the cheek. “We ought to have her at the hall. If his excellency should want a Cupid, or a youthful nymph, or anything small and light in that way, I shall come back and let you know. In the meantime, Nanina, consider yourself Shepherdess Number Thirty, and come to the housekeeper’s room at the palace to try on your dress tomorrow. Nonsense! don’t talk to me about being afraid and awkward. All you’re wanted to do is to look pretty; and your glass must have told you you could do that long ago. Remember the rent of the room, my dear, and don’t stand in your light and your sister’s. Does the little girl like sweetmeats? Of course she does! Well, I promise you a whole box of sugar-plums to take home for her, if you will come and wait at the ball.”

“Oh, go to the ball, Nanina; go to the ball!” cried La Biondella, clapping her hands.

“Of course she will go to the ball,” said the nurse. “She would be mad to throw away such an excellent chance.”

Nanina looked perplexed. She hesitated a little, then drew Marta Angrisani away into a corner, and whispered this question to her:

“Do you think there will be any priests at the palace where the marquis lives?”

“Heavens, child, what a thing to ask!” returned the nurse. “Priests at a masked ball! You might as well expect to find Turks performing high mass in the cathedral. But supposing you did meet with priests at the palace, what then?”

“Nothing,” said Nanina, constrainedly. She turned pale, and walked away as she spoke. Her great dread, in returning to Pisa, was the dread of meeting with Father Rocco again. She had never forgotten her first discovery at Florence of his distrust of her. The bare thought of seeing him any more, after her faith in him had been shaken forever, made her feel faint and sick at heart.

“Tomorrow, in the housekeeper’s room,” said the steward, putting on his hat, “you will find your new dress all ready for you.”

Nanina courtesied, and ventured on no more objections. The prospect of securing a home for a whole year to come among people whom she knew, reconciled her – influenced as she was also by Marta Angrisani’s advice, and by her sister’s anxiety for the promised present – to brave the trial of appearing at the ball.

“What a comfort to have it all settled at last,” said the steward, as soon as he was out again in the street. “We shall see what the marquis says now. If he doesn’t apologize for calling me a scoundrel the moment he sets eyes on Number Thirty, he is the most ungrateful nobleman that ever existed.”

Arriving in front of the palace, the steward found workmen engaged in planning the external decorations and illuminations for the night of the ball. A little crowd had already assembled to see the ladders raised and the scaffoldings put up. He observed among them, standing near the outskirts of the throng, a lady who attracted his attention (he was an ardent admirer of the fair sex) by the beauty and symmetry of her figure. While he lingered for a moment to look at her, a shaggy poodle-dog (licking his chops, as if he had just had something to eat) trotted by, stopped suddenly close to the lady, sniffed suspiciously for an instant, and then began to growl at her without the slightest apparent provocation. The steward advancing politely with his stick to drive the dog away, saw the lady start, and heard her exclaim to herself amazedly:

“You here, you beast! Can Nanina have come back to Pisa?”

This last exclamation gave the steward, as a gallant man, an excuse for speaking to the elegant stranger.

“Excuse me, madam,” he said, “but I heard you mention the name of Nanina. May I ask whether you mean a pretty little work-girl who lives near the Campo Santo?”

“The same,” said the lady, looking very much surprised and interested immediately.

“It may be a gratification to you, madam, to know that she has just returned to Pisa,” continued the steward, politely; “and, moreover, that she is in a fair way to rise in the world. I have just engaged her to wait at the marquis’s grand ball, and I need hardly say, under those circumstances, that if she plays her cards properly her fortune is made.”

The lady bowed, looked at her informant very intently and thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly walked away without uttering a word.

“A curious woman,” thought the steward, entering the palace. “I must ask Number Thirty about her tomorrow.”

•  II  •

The death of Maddalena d’Ascoli produced a complete change in the lives of her father and her uncle. After the first shock of the bereavement was over, Luca Lomi declared that it would be impossible for him to work in his studio again – for some time to come at least – after the death of the beloved daughter, with whom every corner of it was now so sadly and closely associated. He accordingly accepted an engagement to assist in restoring several newly discovered works of ancient sculpture at Naples, and set forth for that city, leaving the care of his workrooms at Pisa entirely to his brother.

On the master-sculptor’s departure, Father Rocco caused the statues and busts to be carefully enveloped in linen cloths, locked the studio doors, and, to the astonishment of all who knew of his former industry and dexterity as a sculptor, never approached the place again. His clerical duties he performed with the same assiduity as ever; but he went out less than had been his custom hitherto to the houses of his friends. His most regular visits were to the Ascoli Palace, to inquire at the porter’s lodge after the health of Maddalena’s child, who was always reported to be thriving admirably under the care of the best nurses that could be found in Pisa. As for any communications with his polite little friend from Florence, they had ceased months ago. The information – speedily conveyed to him – that Nanina was in the service of one of the most respectable ladies in the city seemed to relieve any anxieties which he might otherwise have felt on her account. He made no attempt to justify himself to her; and only required that his over-courteous little visitor of former days should let him know whenever the girl might happen to leave her new situation.

The admirers of Father Rocco, seeing the alteration in his life, and the increased quietness of his manner, said that, as he was growing older, he was getting more and more above the things of this world. His enemies (for even Father Rocco had them) did not scruple to assert that the change in him was decidedly for the worse, and that he belonged to the order of men who are most to be distrusted when they become most subdued. The priest himself paid no attention either to his eulogists or his depreciators. Nothing disturbed the regularity and discipline of his daily habits; and vigilant Scandal, though she sought often to surprise him, sought always in vain.

Such was Father Rocco’s life from the period of his niece’s death to Fabio’s return to Pisa.

As a matter of course, the priest was one of the first to call at the palace and welcome the young nobleman back. What passed between them at this interview never was precisely known; but it was surmised readily enough that some misunderstanding had taken place, for Father Rocco did not repeat his visit. He made no complaints of Fabio, but simply stated that he had said something, intended for the young man’s good, which had not been received in a right spirit; and that he thought it desirable to avoid the painful chance of any further collision by not presenting himself at the palace again for some little time. People were rather amazed at this. They would have been still more surprised if the subject of the masked ball had not just then occupied all their attention, and prevented their noticing it, by another strange event in connection with the priest. Father Rocco, some weeks after the cessation of his intercourse with Fabio, returned one morning to his old way of life as a sculptor, and opened the long-closed doors of his brother’s studio.

Luca Lomi’s former workmen, discovering this, applied to him immediately for employment; but were informed that their services would not be needed. Visitors called at the studio, but were always sent away again by the disappointing announcement that there was nothing new to show them. So the days passed on until Nanina left her situation and returned to Pisa. This circumstance was duly reported to Father Rocco by his correspondent at Florence; but, whether he was too much occupied among the statues, or whether it was one result of his cautious resolution never to expose himself unnecessarily to so much as the breath of detraction, he made no attempt to see Nanina, or even to justify himself toward her by writing her a letter. All his mornings continued to be spent alone in the studio, and all his afternoons to be occupied by his clerical duties, until the day before the masked ball at the Melani Palace.

Early on that day he covered over the statues, and locked the doors of the workrooms once more; then returned to his own lodgings, and did not go out again. One or two of his friends who wanted to see him were informed that he was not well enough to be able to receive them. If they had penetrated into his little study, and had seen him, they would have been easily satisfied that this was no mere excuse. They would have noticed that his face was startlingly pale, and that the ordinary composure of his manner was singularly disturbed.

Toward evening this restlessness increased, and his old housekeeper, on pressing him to take some nourishment, was astonished to hear him answer her sharply and irritably, for the first time since she had been in his service. A little later her surprise was increased by his sending her with a note to the Ascoli Palace, and by the quick return of an answer, brought ceremoniously by one of Fabio’s servants. “It is long since he has had any communication with that quarter. Are they going to be friends again?” thought the housekeeper as she took the answer upstairs to her master.

“I feel better tonight,” he said as he read it; “well enough indeed to venture out. If anyone inquires for me, tell them that I am gone to the Ascoli Palace.” Saying this, he walked to the door; then returned, and trying the lock of his cabinet, satisfied himself that it was properly secured; then went out.

He found Fabio in one of the large drawing-rooms of the palace, walking irritably backward and forward, with several little notes crumpled together in his hands, and a plain black domino dress for the masquerade of the ensuing night spread out on one of the tables.

“I was just going to write to you,” said the young man, abruptly, “when I received your letter. You offer me a renewal of our friendship, and I accept the offer. I have no doubt those references of yours, when we last met, to the subject of second marriages were well meant, but they irritated me; and, speaking under that irritation, I said words that I had better not have spoken. If I pained you, I am sorry for it. Wait! pardon me for one moment. I have not quite done yet. It seems that you are by no means the only person in Pisa to whom the question of my possibly marrying again appears to have presented itself. Ever since it was known that I intended to renew my intercourse with society at the ball tomorrow night, I have been persecuted by anonymous letters – infamous letters, written from some motive which it is impossible for me to understand. I want your advice on the best means of discovering the writers; and I have also a very important question to ask you. But read one of the letters first yourself; anyone will do as a sample of the rest.”

Fixing his eyes searchingly on the priest, he handed him one of the notes. Still a little paler than usual, Father Rocco sat down by the nearest lamp, and shading his eyes, read these lines:

“Count Fabio – It is the common talk of Pisa that you are likely, as a young man left with a motherless child, to marry again. Your having accepted an invitation to the Melani Palace gives a colour of truth to this report. Widowers who are true to the departed do not go among all the handsomest single women in a city at a masked ball. Reconsider your determination, and remain at home. I know you, and I knew your wife, and I say to you solemnly, avoid temptation, for you must never marry again. Neglect my advice and you will repent it to the end of your life. I have reasons for what I say – serious, fatal reasons, which I cannot divulge. If you would let your wife lie easy in her grave, if you would avoid a terrible warning, go not to the masked ball!”

“I ask you, and I ask any man, if that is not infamous?” exclaimed Fabio, passionately, as the priest handed him back the letter. “An attempt to work on my fears through the memory of my poor dead wife! An insolent assumption that I want to marry again, when I myself have not even so much as thought of the subject at all! What is the secret object of this letter, and of the rest here that resemble it? Whose interest is it to keep me away from the ball? What is the meaning of such a phrase as, ‘If you would let your wife lie easy in her grave’? Have you no advice to give me – no plan to propose for discovering the vile hand that traced these lines? Speak to me! Why, in Heaven’s name, don’t you speak?”

The priest leaned his head on his hand, and, turning his face from the light as if it dazzled his eyes, replied in his lowest and quietest tones:

“I cannot speak till I have had time to think. The mystery of that letter is not to be solved in a moment. There are things in it that are enough to perplex and amaze any man!”

“What things?”

“It is impossible for me to go into details – at least at the present moment.”

“You speak with a strange air of secrecy. Have you nothing definite to say – no advice to give me?”

“I should advise you not to go to the ball.”

“You would! Why?”

“If I gave you my reasons, I am afraid I should only be irritating you to no purpose.”

“Father Rocco, neither your words nor your manner satisfy me. You speak in riddles; and you sit there in the dark with your face hidden from me—”

The priest instantly started up and turned his face to the light.

“I recommend you to control your temper, and to treat me with common courtesy,” he said, in his quietest, firmest tones, looking at Fabio steadily while he spoke.

“We will not prolong this interview,” said the young man, calming himself by an evident effort. “I have one question to ask you, and then no more to say.”

The priest bowed his head, in token that he was ready to listen. He still stood up, calm, pale, and firm, in the full light of the lamp.

“It is just possible,” continued Fabio, “that these letters may refer to some incautious words which my late wife might have spoken. I ask you as her spiritual director, and as a near relation who enjoyed her confidence, if you ever heard her express a wish, in the event of my surviving her, that I should abstain from marrying again?”

“Did she never express such a wish to you?”

“Never. But why do you evade my question by asking me another?”

“It is impossible for me to reply to your question.”

“For what reason?”

“Because it is impossible for me to give answers which must refer, whether they are affirmative or negative, to what I have heard in confession.”

“We have spoken enough,” said Fabio, turning angrily from the priest. “I expected you to help me in clearing up these mysteries, and you do your best to thicken them. What your motives are, what your conduct means, it is impossible for me to know, but I say to you, what I would say in far other terms, if they were here, to the villains who have written these letters – no menaces, no mysteries, no conspiracies, will prevent me from being at the ball tomorrow. I can listen to persuasion, but I scorn threats. There lies my dress for the masquerade; no power on earth shall prevent me from wearing it tomorrow night!” He pointed, as he spoke, to the black domino and half-mask lying on the table.

“No power on earth!” repeated Father Rocco, with a smile, and an emphasis on the last word. “Superstitious still, Count Fabio! Do you suspect the powers of the other world of interfering with mortals at masquerades?”

Fabio started, and, turning from the table, fixed his eyes intently on the priest’s face.

“You suggested just now that we had better not prolong this interview,” said Father Rocco, still smiling. “I think you were right; if we part at once, we may still part friends. You have had my advice not to go to the ball, and you decline following it. I have nothing more to say. Good-night.”

Before Fabio could utter the angry rejoinder that rose to his lips, the door of the room had opened and closed again, and the priest was gone.

•  III  •

The next night, at the time of assembling specified in the invitations to the masked ball, Fabio was still lingering in his palace, and still allowing the black domino to lie untouched and unheeded on his dressing-table. This delay was not produced by any change in his resolution to go to the Melani Palace. His determination to be present at the ball remained unshaken; and yet, at the last moment, he lingered and lingered on, without knowing why. Some strange influence seemed to be keeping him within the walls of his lonely home. It was as if the great, empty, silent palace had almost recovered on that night the charm which it had lost when its mistress died.

He left his own apartment and went to the bedroom where his infant child lay asleep in her little crib. He sat watching her, and thinking quietly and tenderly of many past events in his life for a long time, then returned to his room. A sudden sense of loneliness came upon him after his visit to the child’s bedside; but he did not attempt to raise his spirits even then by going to the ball. He descended instead to his study, lighted his reading-lamp, and then, opening a bureau, took from one of the drawers in it the letter which Nanina had written to him. This was not the first time that a sudden sense of his solitude had connected itself inexplicably with the remembrance of the work-girl’s letter.

He read it through slowly, and when he had done, kept it open in his hand. “I have youth, titles, wealth,” he thought to himself, sadly; “everything that is sought after in this world. And yet if I try to think of any human being who really and truly loves me, I can remember but one – the poor, faithful girl who wrote these lines!”

Old recollections of the first day when he met with Nanina, of the first sitting she had given him in Luca Lomi’s studio, of the first visit to the neat little room in the by-street, began to rise more and more vividly in his mind. Entirely absorbed by them, he sat absently drawing with pen and ink, on some sheets of letter-paper lying under his hand, lines and circles, and fragments of decorations, and vague remembrances of old ideas for statues, until the sudden sinking of the flame of his lamp awoke his attention abruptly to present things.

He looked at his watch. It was close on midnight.

This discovery at last aroused him to the necessity of immediate departure. In a few minutes he had put on his domino and mask, and was on his way to the ball.

Before he reached the Melani Palace the first part of the entertainment had come to an end. The “Toy Symphony” had been played, the grotesque dance performed, amid universal laughter; and now the guests were, for the most part, fortifying themselves in the Arcadian bowers for new dances, in which all persons present were expected to take part. The Marquis Melani had, with characteristic oddity, divided his two classical refreshment-rooms into what he termed the Light and Heavy Departments. Fruit, pastry, sweetmeats, salads, and harmless drinks were included under the first head, and all the stimulating liquors and solid eatables under the last. The thirty shepherdesses had been, according to the marquis’s order, equally divided at the outset of the evening between the two rooms. But as the company began to crowd more and more resolutely in the direction of the Heavy Department, ten of the shepherdesses attached to the Light Department were told off to assist in attending on the hungry and thirsty majority of guests who were not to be appeased by pastry and lemonade. Among the five girls who were left behind in the room for the light refreshments was Nanina. The steward soon discovered that the novelty of her situation made her really nervous, and he wisely concluded that if he trusted her where the crowd was greatest and the noise loudest, she would not only be utterly useless, but also very much in the way of her more confident and experienced companions.

When Fabio arrived at the palace, the jovial uproar in the Heavy Department was at its height, and several gentlemen, fired by the classical costumes of the shepherdesses, were beginning to speak Latin to them with a thick utterance, and a valorous contempt for all restrictions of gender, number, and case. As soon as he could escape from the congratulations on his return to his friends, which poured on him from all sides, Fabio withdrew to seek some quieter room. The heat, noise, and confusion had so bewildered him, after the tranquil life he had been leading for many months past, that it was quite a relief to stroll through the half deserted dancing-rooms, to the opposite extremity of the great suite of apartments, and there to find himself in a second Arcadian bower, which seemed peaceful enough to deserve its name.

A few guests were in this room when he first entered it, but the distant sound of some first notes of dance music drew them all away. After a careless look at the quaint decorations about him, he sat down alone on a divan near the door, and beginning already to feel the heat and discomfort of his mask, took it off. He had not removed it more than a moment before he heard a faint cry in the direction of a long refreshment-table, behind which the five waiting-girls were standing. He started up directly, and could hardly believe his senses, when he found himself standing face to face with Nanina.

Her cheeks had turned perfectly colourless. Her astonishment at seeing the young nobleman appeared to have some sensation of terror mingled with it. The waiting-woman who happened to stand by her side instinctively stretched out an arm to support her, observing that she caught at the edge of the table as Fabio hurried round to get behind it and speak to her. When he drew near, her head drooped on her breast, and she said, faintly: “I never knew you were at Pisa; I never thought you would be here. Oh, I am true to what I said in my letter, though I seem so false to it!”

“I want to speak to you about the letter – to tell you how carefully I have kept it, how often I have read it,” said Fabio.

She turned away her head, and tried hard to repress the tears that would force their way into her eyes “We should never have met,” she said; “never, never have met again!”

Before Fabio could reply, the waiting-woman by Nanina’s side interposed.

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t stop speaking to her here!” she exclaimed, impatiently. “If the steward or one of the upper servants was to come in, you would get her into dreadful trouble. Wait till tomorrow, and find some fitter place than this.”

Fabio felt the justice of the reproof immediately. He tore a leaf out of his pocketbook, and wrote on it, “I must tell you how I honour and thank you for that letter. Tomorrow – ten o’clock – the wicket-gate at the back of the Ascoli gardens. Believe in my truth and honour, Nanina, for I believe implicitly in yours.” Having written these lines, he took from among his bunch of watch-seals a little key, wrapped it up in the note, and pressed it into her hand. In spite of himself his fingers lingered round hers, and he was on the point of speaking to her again, when he saw the waiting-woman’s hand, which was just raised to motion him away, suddenly drop. Her colour changed at the same moment, and she looked fixedly across the table.

He turned round immediately, and saw a masked woman standing alone in the room, dressed entirely in yellow from head to foot. She had a yellow hood, a yellow half-mask with deep fringe hanging down over her mouth, and a yellow domino, cut at the sleeves and edges into long flame-shaped points, which waved backward and forward tremulously in the light air wafted through the doorway. The woman’s black eyes seemed to gleam with an evil brightness through the sight-holes of the mask, and the tawny fringe hanging before her mouth fluttered slowly with every breath she drew. Without a word or a gesture she stood before the table, and her gleaming black eyes fixed steadily on Fabio the instant he confronted her. A sudden chill struck through him, as he observed that the yellow of the stranger’s domino and mask was of precisely the same shade as the yellow of the hangings and furniture which his wife had chosen after their marriage for the decoration of her favourite sitting-room.

“The Yellow Mask!” whispered the waiting-girls nervously, crowding together behind the table. “The Yellow Mask again!”

“Make her speak!”

“Ask her to have something!”

“This gentleman will ask her. Speak to her, sir. Do speak to her! She glides about in that fearful yellow dress like a ghost.”

Fabio looked around mechanically at the girl who was whispering to him. He saw at the same time that Nanina still kept her head turned away, and that she had her handkerchief at her eyes. She was evidently struggling yet with the agitation produced by their unexpected meeting, and was, most probably for that reason, the only person in the room not conscious of the presence of the Yellow Mask.

“Speak to her, sir. Do speak to her!” whispered two of the waiting-girls together.

Fabio turned again toward the table. The black eyes were still gleaming at him from behind the tawny yellow of the mask. He nodded to the girls who had just spoken, cast one farewell look at Nanina, and moved down the room to get round to the side of the table at which the Yellow Mask was standing. Step by step as he moved the bright eyes followed him. Steadily and more steadily their evil light seemed to shine through and through him, as he turned the corner of the table and approached the still, spectral figure.

He came close up to the woman, but she never moved; her eyes never wavered for an instant. He stopped and tried to speak; but the chill struck through him again. An overpowering dread, an unutterable loathing seized on him; all sense of outer things – the whispering of the waiting-girls behind the table, the gentle cadence of the dance music, the distant hum of joyous talk – suddenly left him. He turned away shuddering, and quitted the room.

Following the sound of the music, and desiring before all things now to join the crowd wherever it was largest, he was stopped in one of the smaller apartments by a gentleman who had just risen from the card table, and who held out his hand with the cordiality of an old friend.

“Welcome back to the world, Count Fabio!” he began, gaily, then suddenly checked himself. “Why, you look pale, and your hand feels cold. Not ill, I hope?”

“No, no. I have been rather startled – I can’t say why – by a very strangely dressed woman, who fairly stared me out of countenance.”

“You don’t mean the Yellow Mask?”

“Yes I do. Have you seen her?”

“Everybody has seen her; but nobody can make her unmask, or get her to speak. Our host has not the slightest notion who she is; and our hostess is horribly frightened at her. For my part, I think she has given us quite enough of her mystery and her grim dress; and if my name, instead of being nothing but plain Andrea D’Arbino, was Marquis Melani, I would say to her: ‘Madam, we are here to laugh and amuse ourselves; suppose you open your lips, and charm us by appearing in a prettier dress!’”

During this conversation they had sat down together, with their backs toward the door, by the side of one of the card-tables. While D’Arbino was speaking, Fabio suddenly felt himself shuddering again, and became conscious of a sound of low breathing behind him.

He turned round instantly, and there, standing between them, and peering down at them, was the Yellow Mask!

Fabio started up, and his friend followed his example. Again the gleaming black eyes rested steadily on the young nobleman’s face, and again their look chilled him to the heart.

“Yellow Lady, do you know my friend?” exclaimed D’Arbino, with mock solemnity.

There was no answer. The fatal eyes never moved from Fabio’s face.

“Yellow Lady,” continued the other, “listen to the music. Will you dance with me?”

The eyes looked away, and the figure glided slowly from the room.

“My dear count,” said D’Arbino, “that woman seems to have quite an effect on you. I declare she has left you paler than ever. Come into the supper-room with me, and have some wine; you really look as if you wanted it.”

They went at once to the large refreshment-room. Nearly all the guests had by this time begun to dance again. They had the whole apartment, therefore, almost entirely to themselves.

Among the decorations of the room, which were not strictly in accordance with genuine Arcadian simplicity, was a large looking-glass, placed over a well-furnished sideboard. D’Arbino led Fabio in this direction, exchanging greetings as he advanced with a gentleman who stood near the glass looking into it, and carelessly fanning himself with his mask.

“My dear friend!” cried D’Arbino, “you are the very man to lead us straight to the best bottle of wine in the palace. Count Fabio, let me present to you my intimate and good friend, the Cavaliere Finello, with whose family I know you are well acquainted. Finello, the count is a little out of spirits, and I have prescribed a good dose of wine. I see a whole row of bottles at your side, and I leave it to you to apply the remedy. Glasses there! three glasses, my lovely shepherdess with the black eyes – the three largest you have got.”

The glasses were brought; the Cavaliere Finello chose a particular bottle, and filled them. All three gentlemen turned round to the sideboard to use it as a table, and thus necessarily faced the looking-glass.

“Now let us drink the toast of toasts,” said D’Arbino. “Finello, Count Fabio – the ladies of Pisa!”

Fabio raised the wine to his lips, and was on the point of drinking it, when he saw reflected in the glass the figure of the Yellow Mask. The glittering eyes were again fixed on him, and the yellow-hooded head bowed slowly, as if in acknowledgement of the toast he was about to drink. For the third time the strange chill seized him, and he set down his glass of wine untasted.

“What is the matter?” asked D’Arbino.

“Have you any dislike, count, to that particular wine?” inquired the cavaliere.

“The Yellow Mask!” whispered Fabio. “The Yellow Mask again!”

They all three turned round directly toward the door. But it was too late – the figure had disappeared.

“Does anyone know who this Yellow Mask is?” asked Finello. “One may guess by the walk that the figure is a woman’s. Perhaps it may be the strange colour she has chosen for her dress, or perhaps her stealthy way of moving from room to room; but there is certainly something mysterious and startling about her.”

“Startling enough, as the count would tell you,” said D’Arbino. “The Yellow Mask has been responsible for his loss of spirits and change of complexion, and now she has prevented him even from drinking his wine.”

“I can’t account for it,” said Fabio, looking round him uneasily; “but this is the third room into which she has followed me – the third time she has seemed to fix her eyes on me alone. I suppose my nerves are hardly in a fit state yet for masked balls and adventures; the sight of her seems to chill me. Who can she be?”

“If she followed me a fourth time,” said Finello, “I should insist on her unmasking.”

“And suppose she refused?” asked his friend

“Then I should take her mask off for her.”

“It is impossible to do that with a woman,” said Fabio. “I prefer trying to lose her in the crowd. Excuse me, gentlemen, if I leave you to finish the wine, and then to meet me, if you like, in the great ballroom.”

He retired as he spoke, put on his mask, and joined the dancers immediately, taking care to keep always in the most crowded corner of the apartment. For some time this plan of action proved successful, and he saw no more of the mysterious yellow domino. Ere long, however, some new dances were arranged, in which the great majority of the persons in the ballroom took part; the figures resembling the old English country dances in this respect, that the ladies and gentlemen were placed in long rows opposite to each other. The sets consisted of about twenty couples each, placed sometimes across, and sometimes along the apartment; and the spectators were all required to move away on either side, and range themselves close to the walls. As Fabio among others complied with this necessity, he looked down a row of dancers waiting during the performance of the orchestral prelude; and there, watching him again, from the opposite end of the lane formed by the gentlemen on one side and the ladies on the other, he saw the Yellow Mask.

He moved abruptly back, toward another row of dancers, placed at right angles to the first row; and there again; at the opposite end of the gay lane of brightly-dressed figures, was the Yellow Mask. He slipped into the middle of the room, but it was only to find her occupying his former position near the wall, and still, in spite of his disguise, watching him through row after row of dancers. The persecution began to grow intolerable; he felt a kind of angry curiosity mingling now with the vague dread that had hitherto oppressed him. Finello’s advice recurred to his memory; and he determined to make the woman unmask at all hazards. With this intention he returned to the supper-room in which he had left his friends.

They were gone, probably to the ballroom, to look for him. Plenty of wine was still left on the sideboard, and he poured himself out a glass. Finding that his hand trembled as he did so, he drank several more glasses in quick succession, to nerve himself for the approaching encounter with the Yellow Mask. While he was drinking he expected every moment to see her in the looking-glass again; but she never appeared – and yet he felt almost certain that he had detected her gliding out after him when he left the ballroom.

He thought it possible that she might be waiting for him in one of the smaller apartments, and, taking off his mask, walked through several of them without meeting her, until he came to the door of the refreshment-room in which Nanina and he had recognised each other. The waiting-woman behind the table, who had first spoken to him, caught sight of him now, and ran round to the door.

“Don’t come in and speak to Nanina again,” she said, mistaking the purpose which had brought him to the door. “What with frightening her first, and making her cry afterward, you have rendered her quite unfit for her work. The steward is in there at this moment, very good-natured, but not very sober. He says she is pale and red-eyed, and not fit to be a shepherdess any longer, and that, as she will not be missed now, she may go home if she likes. We have got her an old cloak, and she is going to try and slip through the rooms unobserved, to get downstairs and change her dress. Don’t speak to her, pray, or you will only make her cry again; and what is worse, make the steward fancy—”

She stopped at that last word, and pointed suddenly over Fabio’s shoulder.

“The Yellow Mask!” she exclaimed. “Oh, sir, draw her away into the ballroom, and give Nanina a chance of getting out!”

Fabio turned directly, and approached the Mask, who, as they looked at each other, slowly retreated before him. The waiting-woman, seeing the yellow figure retire, hastened back to Nanina in the refreshment-room.

Slowly the masked woman retreated from one apartment to another till she entered a corridor brilliantly lighted up and beautifully ornamented with flowers. On the right hand this corridor led to the ballroom; on the left to an ante-chamber at the head of the palace staircase. The Yellow Mask went on a few paces toward the left, then stopped. The bright eyes fixed themselves as before on Fabio’s face, but only for a moment. He heard a light step behind him, and then he saw the eyes move. Following the direction they took, he turned round, and discovered Nanina, wrapped up in the old cloak which was to enable her to get downstairs unobserved.

“Oh, how can I get out? how can I get out?” cried the girl, shrinking back affrightedly as she saw the Yellow Mask.

“That way,” said Fabio, pointing in the direction of the ballroom. “Nobody will notice you in the cloak; it will only be thought some new disguise.” He took her arm as he spoke, to reassure her, and continued in a whisper, “Don’t forget tomorrow.”

At the same moment he felt a hand laid on him. It was the hand of the masked woman, and it put him back from Nanina.

In spite of himself, he trembled at her touch, but still retained presence of mind enough to sign to the girl to make her escape. With a look of eager inquiry in the direction of the mask, and a half suppressed exclamation of terror, she obeyed him, and hastened away toward the ballroom.

“We are alone,” said Fabio, confronting the gleaming black eyes, and reaching out his hand resolutely toward the Yellow Mask. “Tell me who you are, and why you follow me, or I will uncover your face, and solve the mystery for myself.”

The woman pushed his hand aside, and drew back a few paces, but never spoke a word. He followed her. There was not an instant to be lost, for just then the sound of footsteps hastily approaching the corridor became audible.

“Now or never,” he whispered to himself, and snatched at the mask.

His arm was again thrust aside; but this time the woman raised her disengaged hand at the same moment, and removed the yellow mask.

The lamps shed their soft light full on her face.

It was the face of his dead wife.

•  IV  •

Signor Andrea D’Arbino, searching vainly through the various rooms in the palace for Count Fabio d’Ascoli, and trying as a last resource, the corridor leading to the ballroom and grand staircase, discovered his friend lying on the floor in a swoon, without any living creature near him. Determining to avoid alarming the guests, if possible, D’Arbino first sought help in the antechamber. He found there the marquis’s valet, assisting the Cavaliere Finello (who was just taking his departure) to put on his cloak.

While Finello and his friend carried Fabio to an open window in the antechamber, the valet procured some iced water. This simple remedy, and the change of atmosphere, proved enough to restore the fainting man to his senses, but hardly – as it seemed to his friends – to his former self. They noticed a change to blankness and stillness in his face, and when he spoke, an indescribable alteration in the tone of his voice.

“I found you in a room in the corridor,” said D’Arbino. “What made you faint? Don’t you remember? Was it the heat?”

Fabio waited for a moment, painfully collecting his ideas. He looked at the valet, and Finello signed to the man to withdraw.

“Was it the heat?” repeated D’Arbino.

“No,” answered Fabio, in strangely hushed, steady tones. “I have seen the face that was behind the yellow mask.”

“Well?”

“It was the face of my dead wife.”

“Your dead wife!”

“When the mask was removed I saw her face. Not as I remember it in the pride of her youth and beauty – not even as I remember her on her sickbed – but as I remember her in her coffin.”

“Count! for God’s sake, rouse yourself! Collect your thoughts – remember where you are – and free your mind of its horrible delusion.”

“Spare me all remonstrances; I am not fit to bear them. My life has only one object now – the pursuing of this mystery to the end. Will you help me? I am scarcely fit to act for myself.”

He still spoke in the same unnaturally hushed, deliberate tones. D’Arbino and Finello exchanged glances behind him as he rose from the sofa on which he had hitherto been lying.

“We will help you in everything,” said D’Arbino, soothingly. “Trust in us to the end. What do you wish to do first?”

“The figure must have gone through this room. Let us descend the staircase and ask the servants if they have seen it pass.”

(Both D’Arbino and Finello remarked that he did not say her.)

They inquired down to the very courtyard. Not one of the servants had seen the Yellow Mask.

The last resource was the porter at the outer gate. They applied to him; and in answer to their questions he asserted that he had most certainly seen a lady in a yellow domino and mask drive away, about half an hour before, in a hired coach.

“Should you remember the coachman again?” asked D’Arbino.

“Perfectly; he is an old friend of mine.”

“And you know where he lives?”

“Yes; as well as I know where I do.”

“Any reward you like, if you can get somebody to mind your lodge, and can take us to that house.”

In a few minutes they were following the porter through the dark, silent streets. “We had better try the stables first,” said the man. “My friend, the coachman, will hardly have had time to do more than set the lady down. We shall most likely catch him just putting up his horses.”

The porter turned out to be right. On entering the stable-yard, they found that the empty coach had just driven into it.

“You have been taking home a lady in a yellow domino from the masquerade?” said D’Arbino, putting some money into the coachman’s hand.

“Yes, sir; I was engaged by that lady for the evening – engaged to drive her to the ball as well as to drive her home.”

“Where did you take her from?”

“From a very extraordinary place – from the gate of the Campo Santo burial-ground.”

During this colloquy, Finello and D’Arbino had been standing with Fabio between them, each giving him an arm. The instant the last answer was given, he reeled back with a cry of horror.

“Where have you taken her to now?” asked D’Arbino. He looked about him nervously as he put the question, and spoke for the first time in a whisper.

“To the Campo Santo again,” said the coachman.

Fabio suddenly drew his arms out of the arms of his friends, and sank to his knees on the ground, hiding his face. From some broken ejaculations which escaped him, it seemed as if he dreaded that his senses were leaving him, and that he was praying to be preserved in his right mind.

“Why is he so violently agitated?” said Finello, eagerly, to his friend.

“Hush!” returned the other. “You heard him say that when he saw the face behind the yellow mask, it was the face of his dead wife?”

“Yes. But what then?”

“His wife was buried in the Campo Santo.”

•  V  •

Of all the persons who had been present, in any capacity, at the Marquis Melani’s ball, the earliest riser on the morning after it was Nanina. The agitation produced by the strange events in which she had been concerned destroyed the very idea of sleep. Through the hours of darkness she could not even close her eyes; and, as soon as the new day broke, she rose to breathe the early morning air at her window, and to think in perfect tranquillity over all that had passed since she entered the Melani Palace to wait on the guests at the masquerade.

On reaching home the previous night, all her other sensations had been absorbed in a vague feeling of mingled dread and curiosity, produced by the sight of the weird figure in the yellow mask, which she had left standing alone with Fabio in the palace corridor. The morning light, however, suggested new thoughts. She now opened the note which the young nobleman had pressed into her hand, and read over and over again the hurried pencil lines scrawled on the paper. Could there be any harm, any forgetfulness of her own duty, in using the key enclosed in the note, and keeping her appointment in the Ascoli gardens at ten o’clock? Surely not – surely the last sentence he had written, “Believe in my truth and honour, Nanina, for I believe implicitly in yours,” was enough to satisfy her this time that she could not be doing wrong in listening for once to the pleading of her own heart. And besides, there in her lap lay the key of the wicket-gate. It was absolutely necessary to use that, if only for the purpose of giving it back safely into the hand of its owner.

As this last thought was passing through her mind, and plausibly overcoming any faint doubts and difficulties which she might still have left, she was startled by a sudden knocking at the street door; and, looking out of the window immediately, saw a man in livery standing in the street, anxiously peering up at the house to see if his knocking had aroused anybody.

“Does Marta Angrisani, the sick-nurse, live here?” inquired the man, as soon as Nanina showed herself at the window.

“Yes,” she answered. “Must I call her up? Is there some person ill?”

“Call her up directly,” said the servant; “she is wanted at the Ascoli Palace. My master, Count Fabio—”

Nanina waited to hear no more. She flew to the room in which the sick-nurse slept, and awoke her, almost roughly, in an instant.

“He is ill!” she cried, breathlessly. “Oh, make haste, make haste! He is ill, and he has sent for you!”

Marta inquired who had sent for her, and on being informed, promised to lose no time. Nanina ran downstairs to tell the servant that the sick-nurse was getting on her clothes. The man’s serious expression, when she came close to him, terrified her. All her usual self-distrust vanished; and she entreated him, without attempting to conceal her anxiety, to tell her particularly what his master’s illness was, and how it had affected him so suddenly after the ball.

“I know nothing about it,” answered the man, noticing Nanina’s manner as she put her question, with some surprise, “except that my master was brought home by two gentlemen, friends of his, about a couple of hours ago, in a very sad state; half out of his mind, as it seemed to me. I gathered from what was said that he had got a dreadful shock from seeing some woman take off her mask, and show her face to him at the ball. How that could be I don’t in the least understand; but I know that when the doctor was sent for, he looked very serious, and talked about fearing brain-fever.”

Here the servant stopped; for, to his astonishment, he saw Nanina suddenly turn away from him, and then heard her crying bitterly as she went back into the house.

Marta Angrisani had huddled on her clothes and was looking at herself in the glass to see that she was sufficiently presentable to appear at the palace, when she felt two arms flung round her neck; and, before she could say a word, found Nanina sobbing on her bosom.

“He is ill – he is in danger!” cried the girl. “I must go with you to help him. You have always been kind to me, Marta – be kinder than ever now. Take me with you – take me with you to the palace!”

“You, child!” exclaimed the nurse, gently unclasping her arms.

“Yes – yes! if it is only for an hour,” pleaded Nanina; “if it is only for one little hour every day. You have only to say that I am your helper, and they would let me in. Marta! I shall break my heart if I can’t see him, and help him to get well again.”

The nurse still hesitated. Nanina clasped her round the neck once more, and laid her cheek – burning hot now, though the tears had been streaming down it but an instant before – close to the good woman’s face.

“I love him, Marta; great as he is, I love him with all my heart and soul and strength,” she went on, in quick, eager, whispering tones; “and he loves me. He would have married me if I had not gone away to save him from it. I could keep my love for him a secret while he was well; I could stifle it, and crush it down, and wither it up by absence. But now he is ill, it gets beyond me; I can’t master it. Oh, Marta! don’t break my heart by denying me! I have suffered so much for his sake, that I have earned the right to nurse him!”

Marta was not proof against this last appeal. She had one great and rare merit for a middle-aged woman – she had not forgotten her own youth.

“Come, child,” said she, soothingly; “I won’t attempt to deny you. Dry your eyes, put on your mantilla; and, when we get face to face with the doctor, try to look as old and ugly as you can, if you want to be let into the sickroom along with me.”

The ordeal of medical scrutiny was passed more easily than Marta Angrisani had anticipated. It was of great importance, in the doctor’s opinion, that the sick man should see familiar faces at his bedside. Nanina had only, therefore, to state that he knew her well, and that she had sat to him as a model in the days when he was learning the art of sculpture, to be immediately accepted as Marta’s privileged assistant in the sickroom.

The worst apprehensions felt by the doctor for the patient were soon realized. The fever flew to his brain. For nearly six weeks he lay prostrate, at the mercy of death; now raging with the wild strength of delirium, and now sunk in the speechless, motionless, sleepless exhaustion which was his only repose. At last; the blessed day came when he enjoyed his first sleep, and when the doctor began, for the first time, to talk of the future with hope. Even then, however, the same terrible peculiarity marked his light dreams which had previously shown itself in his fierce delirium. From the faintly uttered, broken phrases which dropped from him when he slept, as from the wild words which burst from him when his senses were deranged, the one sad discovery inevitably resulted – that his mind was still haunted, day and night, hour after hour, by the figure in the yellow mask.

As his bodily health improved, the doctor in attendance on him grew more and more anxious as to the state of his mind. There was no appearance of any positive derangement of intellect, but there was a mental depression – an unaltering, invincible prostration, produced by his absolute belief in the reality of the dreadful vision that he had seen at the masked ball – which suggested to the physician the gravest doubts about the case. He saw with dismay that the patient showed no anxiety, as he got stronger, except on one subject. He was eagerly desirous of seeing Nanina every day by his bedside; but, as soon as he was assured that his wish should be faithfully complied with, he seemed to care for nothing more. Even when they proposed, in the hope of rousing him to an exhibition of something like pleasure, that the girl should read to him for an hour every day out of one of his favourite books, he only showed a languid satisfaction. Weeks passed away, and still, do what they would, they could not make him so much as smile.

One day Nanina had begun to read to him as usual, but had not proceeded far before Marta Angrisani informed her that he had fallen into a doze. She ceased with a sigh, and sat looking at him sadly, as he lay near her, faint and pale and mournful in his sleep – miserably altered from what he was when she first knew him. It had been a hard trial to watch by his bedside in the terrible time of his delirium; but it was a harder trial still to look at him now, and to feel less and less hopeful with each succeeding day.

While her eyes and thoughts were still compassionately fixed on him, the door of the bedroom opened, and the doctor came in, followed by Andrea D’Arbino, whose share in the strange adventure with the Yellow Mask caused him to feel a special interest in Fabio’s progress toward recovery.

“Asleep, I see; and sighing in his sleep,” said the doctor, going to the bedside. “The grand difficulty with him,” he continued, turning to D’Arbino, “remains precisely what it was. I have hardly left a single means untried of rousing him from that fatal depression; yet, for the last fortnight, he has not advanced a single step. It is impossible to shake his conviction of the reality of that face which he saw (or rather which he thinks he saw) when the yellow mask was removed; and, as long as he persists in his own shocking view of the case, so long he will lie there, getting better, no doubt, as to his body, but worse as to his mind.”

“I suppose, poor fellow, he is not in a fit state to be reasoned with?”

“On the contrary, like all men with a fixed delusion, he has plenty of intelligence to appeal to on every point, except the one point on which he is wrong. I have argued with him vainly by the hour together. He possesses, unfortunately, an acute nervous sensibility and a vivid imagination; and besides, he has, as I suspect, been superstitiously brought up as a child. It would be probably useless to argue rationally with him on certain spiritual subjects, even if his mind was in perfect health. He has a good deal of the mystic and the dreamer in his composition; and science and logic are but broken reeds to depend upon with men of that kind.”

“Does he merely listen to you when you reason with him, or does he attempt to answer?”

“He has only one form of answer, and that is, unfortunately, the most difficult of all to dispose of. Whenever I try to convince him of his delusion, he invariably retorts by asking me for a rational explanation of what happened to him at the masked ball. Now, neither you nor I, though we believe firmly that he has been the dupe of some infamous conspiracy, have been able as yet to penetrate thoroughly into this mystery of the Yellow Mask. Our common sense tells us that he must be wrong in taking his view of it, and that we must be right in taking ours; but if we cannot give him actual, tangible proof of that – if we can only theorize, when he asks us for an explanation – it is but too plain, in his present condition, that every time we remonstrate with him on the subject we only fix him in his delusion more and more firmly.”

“It is not for want of perseverance on my part,” said D’Arbino, after a moment of silence, “that we are still left in the dark. Ever since the extraordinary statement of the coachman who drove the woman home, I have been inquiring and investigating. I have offered the reward of two hundred scudi for the discovery of her; I have myself examined the servants at the palace, the night-watchman at the Campo Santo, the police-books, the lists of keepers of hotels and lodging-houses, to hit on some trace of this woman; and I have failed in all directions. If my poor friend’s perfect recovery does indeed depend on his delusion being combated by actual proof, I fear we have but little chance of restoring him. So far as I am concerned, I confess myself at the end of my resources.”

“I hope we are not quite conquered yet,” returned the doctor. “The proofs we want may turn up when we least expect them. It is certainly a miserable case,” he continued, mechanically laying his fingers on the sleeping man’s pulse. “There he lies, wanting nothing now but to recover the natural elasticity of his mind; and here we stand at his bedside, unable to relieve him of the weight that is pressing his faculties down. I repeat it, Signor Andrea, nothing will rouse him from his delusion that he is the victim of a supernatural interposition but the production of some startling, practical proof of his error. At present he is in the position of a man who has been imprisoned from his birth in a dark room, and who denies the existence of daylight. If we cannot open the shutters and show him the sky outside, we shall never convert him to a knowledge of the truth.”

Saying these words, the doctor turned to lead the way out of the room, and observed Nanina, who had moved from the bedside on his entrance, standing near the door. He stopped to look at her, shook his head good-humouredly, and called to Marta, who happened to be occupied in an adjoining room.

“Signora Marta,” said the doctor, “I think you told me some time ago that your pretty and careful little assistant lives in your house. Pray, does she take much walking exercise?”

“Very little, Signor Dottore. She goes home to her sister when she leaves the palace. Very little walking exercise, indeed.”

“I thought so! Her pale cheeks and heavy eyes told me as much. Now, my dear,” said the doctor, addressing Nanina, “you are a very good girl, and I am sure you will attend to what I tell you. Go out every morning before you come here, and take a walk in the fresh air. You are too young not to suffer by being shut up in close rooms every day, unless you get some regular exercise. Take a good long walk in the morning, or you will fall into my hands as a patient, and be quite unfit to continue your attendance here. Now, Signor Andrea, I am ready for you. Mind, my child, a walk every day in the open air outside the town, or you will fall ill, take my word for it!”

Nanina promised compliance; but she spoke rather absently, and seemed scarcely conscious of the kind familiarity which marked the doctor’s manner. The truth was, that all her thoughts were occupied with what he had been saying by Fabio’s bedside. She had not lost one word of the conversation while the doctor was talking of his patient, and of the conditions on which his recovery depended. “Oh, if that proof which would cure him could only be found!” she thought to herself, as she stole back anxiously to the bedside when the room was empty.

On getting home that day she found a letter waiting for her, and was greatly surprised to see that it was written by no less a person than the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi. It was very short; simply informing her that he had just returned to Pisa, and that he was anxious to know when she could sit to him for a new bust – a commission from a rich foreigner at Naples.

Nanina debated with herself for a moment whether she should answer the letter in the hardest way, to her, by writing, or, in the easiest way, in person; and decided on going to the studio and telling the master-sculptor that it would be impossible for her to serve him as a model, at least for some time to come. It would have taken her a long hour to say this with due propriety on paper; it would only take her a few minutes to say it with her own lips. So she put on her mantilla again and departed for the studio.

On, arriving at the gate and ringing the bell, a thought suddenly occurred to her, which she wondered had not struck her before. Was it not possible that she might meet Father Rocco in his brother’s work-room? It was too late to retreat now, but not too late to ask, before she entered, if the priest was in the studio. Accordingly, when one of the workmen opened the door to her, she inquired first, very confusedly and anxiously, for Father Rocco. Hearing that he was not with his brother then, she went tranquilly enough to make her apologies to the master-sculptor.

She did not think it necessary to tell him more than that she was now occupied every day by nursing duties in a sickroom, and that it was consequently out of her power to attend at the studio. Luca Lomi expressed, and evidently felt, great disappointment at her failing him as a model, and tried hard to persuade her that she might find time enough, if she chose, to sit to him, as well as to nurse the sick person. The more she resisted his arguments and entreaties, the more obstinately he reiterated them. He was dusting his favourite busts and statues, after his long absence, with a feather-brush when she came in; and he continued this occupation all the while he was talking – urging a fresh plea to induce Nanina to reconsider her refusal to sit at every fresh piece of sculpture he came to, and always receiving the same resolute apology from her as she slowly followed him down the studio toward the door.

Arriving thus at the lower end of the room, Luca stopped with a fresh argument on his lips before his statue of Minerva. He had dusted it already, but he lovingly returned to dust it again. It was his favourite work – the only good likeness (although it did assume to represent a classical subject) of his dead daughter that he possessed. He had refused to part with it for Maddalena’s sake; and, as he now approached it with his brush for the second time, he absently ceased speaking, and mounted on a stool to look at the face near and blow some specks of dust off the forehead. Nanina thought this a good opportunity of escaping from further importunities. She was on the point of slipping away to the door with a word of farewell, when a sudden exclamation from Luca Lomi arrested her.

“Plaster!” cried the master-sculptor, looking intently at that part of the hair of the statue which lay lowest on the forehead. “Plaster here!” He took out his penknife as he spoke, and removed a tiny morsel of some white substance from an interstice between two folds of the hair where it touched the face. “It is plaster!” he exclaimed, excitedly. “Somebody has been taking a cast from the face of my statue!”

He jumped off the stool, and looked all round the studio with an expression of suspicious inquiry. “I must have this cleared up,” he said. “My statues were left under Rocco’s care, and he is answerable if there has been any stealing of casts from any one of them. I must question him directly.”

Nanina, seeing that he took no notice of her, felt that she might now easily effect her retreat. She opened the studio door, and repeated, for the twentieth time at least, that she was sorry she could not sit to him.

“I am sorry too, child,” he said, irritably looking about for his hat. He found it apparently just as Nanina was going out; for she heard him call to one of the workmen in the inner studio, and order the man to say, if anybody wanted him, that he had gone to Father Rocco’s lodgings.

•  VI  •

The next morning, when Nanina rose, a bad attack of headache, and a sense of languor and depression, reminded her of the necessity of following the doctor’s advice, and preserving her health by getting a little fresh air and exercise. She had more than two hours to spare before the usual time when her daily attendance began at the Ascoli Palace; and she determined to employ the interval of leisure in taking a morning walk outside the town. La Biondella would have been glad enough to go too, but she had a large order for dinner-mats on hand, and was obliged, for that day, to stop in the house and work. Thus it happened that when Nanina set forth from home, the learned poodle, Scarammuccia, was her only companion.

She took the nearest way out of the town; the dog trotting along in his usual steady, observant way close at her side, pushing his great rough muzzle, from time to time, affectionately into her hand, and trying hard to attract her attention at intervals by barking and capering in front of her. He got but little notice, however, for his pains. Nanina was thinking again of all that the physician had said the day before by Fabio’s bedside, and these thoughts brought with them others, equally absorbing, that were connected with the mysterious story of the young nobleman’s adventure with the Yellow Mask. Thus preoccupied, she had little attention left for the gambols of the dog. Even the beauty of the morning appealed to her in vain. She felt the refreshment of the cool, fragrant air, but she hardly noticed the lovely blue of the sky, or the bright sunshine that gave a gaiety and an interest to the commonest objects around her.

After walking nearly an hour, she began to feel tired, and looked about for a shady place to rest in.

Beyond and behind her there was only the high-road and the flat country; but by her side stood a little wooden building, half inn, half coffee-house, backed by a large, shady pleasure-garden, the gates of which stood invitingly open. Some workmen in the garden were putting up a stage for fireworks, but the place was otherwise quiet and lonely enough. It was only used at night as a sort of rustic Ranelagh, to which the citizens of Pisa resorted for pure air and amusement after the fatigues of the day. Observing that there were no visitors in the grounds, Nanina ventured in, intending to take a quarter of an hour’s rest in the coolest place she could find before returning to Pisa.

She had passed the back of a wooden summer-house in a secluded part of the gardens, when she suddenly missed the dog from her side; and, looking round after him, saw that he was standing behind the summer-house with his ears erect and his nose to the ground, having evidently that instant scented something that excited his suspicion.

Thinking it possible that he might be meditating an attack on some unfortunate cat, she turned to see what he was watching. The carpenters engaged on the firework stage were just then hammering at it violently. The noise prevented her from hearing that Scarammuccia was growling, but she could feel that he was the moment she laid her hand on his back. Her curiosity was excited, and she stooped down close to him to look through a crack in the boards before which he stood into the summer-house.

She was startled at seeing a lady and gentleman sitting inside. The place she was looking through was not high enough up to enable her to see their faces, but she recognised, or thought she recognised, the pattern of the lady’s dress as one which she had noticed in former days in the Demoiselle Grifoni’s showroom. Rising quickly, her eye detected a hole in the boards about the level of her own height, caused by a knot having been forced out of the wood. She looked through it to ascertain, without being discovered, if the wearer of the familiar dress was the person she had taken her to be; and saw, not Brigida only, as she had expected, but Father Rocco as well. At the same moment the carpenters left off hammering and began to saw. The new sound from the firework stage was regular and not loud. The voices of the occupants of the summer-house reached her through it, and she heard Brigida pronounce the name of Count Fabio.

Instantly stooping down once more by the dog’s side, she caught his muzzle firmly in both her hands. It was the only way to keep Scarammuccia from growling again, at a time when there was no din of hammering to prevent him from being heard. Those two words, “Count Fabio,” in the mouth of another woman, excited a jealous anxiety in her. What could Brigida have to say in connection with that name? She never came near the Ascoli Palace – what right or reason could she have to talk of Fabio?

“Did you hear what I said?” she heard Brigida ask, in her coolest, hardest tone.

“No,” the priest answered. “At least, not all of it.”

“I will repeat it, then. I asked what had so suddenly determined you to give up all idea of making any future experiments on the superstitious fears of Count Fabio?”

“In the first place, the result of the experiment already tried has been so much more serious than I had anticipated, that I believe the end I had in view in making it has been answered already.”

“Well; that is not your only reason?”

“Another shock to his mind might be fatal to him. I can use what I believe to be a justifiable fraud to prevent his marrying again; but I cannot burden myself with a crime.”

“That is your second reason; but I believe you have another yet. The suddenness with which you sent to me last night to appoint a meeting in this lonely place; the emphatic manner in which you requested – I may almost say ordered – me to bring the wax mask here, suggest to my mind that something must have happened. What is it? I am a woman, and my curiosity must be satisfied. After the secrets you have trusted to me already, you need not hesitate, I think, to trust me with one more.”

“Perhaps not. The secret this time is, moreover, of no great importance. You know that the wax mask you wore at the ball was made in a plaster mould taken off the face of my brother’s statue?”

“Yes, I know that.”

“My brother has just returned to his studio; has found a morsel of the plaster I used for the mould sticking in the hair of the statue; and has asked me, as the person left in charge of his workrooms, for an explanation. Such an explanation as I could offer has not satisfied him, and he talks of making further inquiries. Considering that it will be used no more, I think it safest to destroy the wax mask, and I asked you to bring it here, that I might see it burned or broken up with my own eyes. Now you know all you wanted to know; and now, therefore, it is my turn to remind you that I have not yet had a direct answer to the first question I addressed to you when we met here. Have you brought the wax mask with you, or have you not?”

“I have not.”

“And why?”

Just as that question was put, Nanina felt the dog dragging himself free of her grasp on his mouth. She had been listening hitherto with such painful intensity, with such all-absorbing emotions of suspense, terror, and astonishment, that she had not noticed his efforts to get away, and had continued mechanically to hold his mouth shut. But now she was aroused by the violence of his struggles to the knowledge that, unless she hit upon some new means of quieting him, he would have his mouth free, and would betray her by a growl.

In an agony of apprehension lest she should lose a word of the momentous conversation, she made a desperate attempt to appeal to the dog’s fondness for her, by suddenly flinging both her arms round his neck, and kissing his rough, hairy cheek. The stratagem succeeded. Scarammuccia had, for many years past, never received any greater marks of his mistress’s kindness for him than such as a pat on the head or a present of a lump of sugar might convey. His dog’s nature was utterly confounded by the unexpected warmth of Nanina’s caress, and he struggled up vigorously in her arms to try and return it by licking her face. She could easily prevent him from doing this, and could so gain a few minutes more to listen behind the summer-house without danger of discovery.

She had lost Brigida’s answer to Father Rocco’s question; but she was in time to hear her next words.

“We are alone here,” said Brigida. “I am a woman, and I don’t know that you may not have come armed. It is only the commonest precaution on my part not to give you a chance of getting at the wax mask till I have made my conditions.”

“You never said a word about conditions before.”

“True. I remember telling you that I wanted nothing but the novelty of going to the masquerade in the character of my dead enemy, and the luxury of being able to terrify the man who had brutally ridiculed me in old days in the studio. That was the truth. But it is not the less the truth that our experiment on Count Fabio has detained me in this city much longer than I ever intended, that I am all but penniless, and that I deserve to be paid. In plain words, will you buy the mask of me for two hundred scudi?”

“I have not twenty scudi in the world, at my own free disposal.”

“You must find two hundred if you want the wax mask. I don’t wish to threaten – but money I must have. I mention the sum of two hundred scudi, because that is the exact amount offered in the public handbills by Count Fabio’s friends for the discovery of the woman who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani’s ball. What have I to do but to earn that money if I please, by going to the palace, taking the wax mask with me, and telling them that I am the woman. Suppose I confess in that way; they can do nothing to hurt me, and I should be two hundred scudi the richer. You might be injured, to be sure, if they insisted on knowing who made the wax model, and who suggested the ghastly disguise—”

“Wretch! do you believe that my character could be injured on the unsupported evidence of any words from your lips?”

“Father Rocco, for the first time since I have enjoyed the pleasure of your acquaintance, I find you committing a breach of good manners. I shall leave you until you become more like yourself. If you wish to apologize for calling me a wretch, and if you want to secure the wax mask, honour me with a visit before four o’clock this afternoon, and bring two hundred scudi with you. Delay till after four, and it will be too late.”

An instant of silence followed; and then Nanina judged that Brigida must be departing, for she heard the rustling of a dress on the lawn in front of the summer-house. Unfortunately, Scarammuccia heard it too. He twisted himself round in her arms and growled.

The noise disturbed Father Rocco. She heard him rise and leave the summer-house. There would have been time enough, perhaps, for her to conceal herself among some trees if she could have recovered her self-possession at once; but she was incapable of making an effort to regain it. She could neither think nor move – her breath seemed to die away on her lips – as she saw the shadow of the priest stealing over the grass slowly from the front to the back of the summer-house. In another moment they were face to face.

He stopped a few paces from her, and eyed her steadily in dead silence. She still crouched against the summer-house, and still with one hand mechanically kept her hold of the dog. It was well for the priest that she did so. Scarammuccia’s formidable teeth were in full view, his shaggy coat was bristling, his eyes were starting, his growl had changed from the surly to the savage note; he was ready to tear down, not Father Rocco only, but all the clergy in Pisa, at a moment’s notice.

“You have been listening,” said the priest, calmly. “I see it in your face. You have heard all.”

She could not answer a word; she could not take her eyes from him. There was an unnatural stillness in his face, a steady, unrepentant, unfathomable despair in his eyes that struck her with horror. She would have given worlds to be able to rise to her feet and fly from his presence.

“I once distrusted you and watched you in secret,” he said, speaking after a short silence, thoughtfully, and with a strange, tranquil sadness in his voice. “And now, what I did by you, you do by me. You put the hope of your life once in my hands. Is it because they were not worthy of the trust that discovery and ruin overtake me, and that you are the instrument of the retribution? Can this be the decree of Heaven – or is it nothing but the blind justice of chance?”

He looked upward, doubtingly, to the lustrous sky above him, and sighed. Nanina’s eyes still followed his mechanically. He seemed to feel their influence, for he suddenly looked down at her again.

“What keeps you silent? Why are you afraid?” he said. “I can do you no harm, with your dog at your side, and the workmen yonder within call. I can do you no harm, and I wish to do you none. Go back to Pisa; tell what you have heard, restore the man you love to himself, and ruin me. That is your work; do it! I was never your enemy, even when I distrusted you. I am not your enemy now. It is no fault of yours that a fatality has been accomplished through you – no fault of yours that I am rejected as the instrument of securing a righteous restitution to the Church. Rise, child, and go your way, while I go mine, and prepare for what is to come. If we never meet again, remember that I parted from you without one hard saying or one harsh look – parted from you so, knowing that the first words you speak in Pisa will be death to my character, and destruction to the great purpose of my life.”

Speaking these words, always with the same calmness which had marked his manner from the first, he looked fixedly at her for a little while, sighed again, and turned away. Just before he disappeared among the trees, he said “Farewell,” but so softly that she could barely hear it. Some strange confusion clouded her mind as she lost sight of him. Had she injured him, or had he injured her? His words bewildered and oppressed her simple heart. Vague doubts and fears, and a sudden antipathy to remaining any longer near the summer-house, overcame her. She started to her feet, and, keeping the dog still at her side, hurried from the garden to the highroad. There, the wide glow of sunshine, the sight of the city lying before her, changed the current of her thoughts, and directed them all to Fabio and to the future.

A burning impatience to be back in Pisa now possessed her. She hastened toward the city at her utmost speed. The doctor was reported to be in the palace when she passed the servants lounging in the courtyard. He saw the moment, she came into his presence, that something had happened, and led her away from the sickroom into Fabio’s empty study. There she told him all.

“You have saved him,” said the doctor, joyfully. “I will answer for his recovery. Only let that woman come here for the reward; and leave me to deal with her as she deserves. In the meantime, my dear, don’t go away from the palace on any account until I give you permission. I am going to send a message immediately to Signor Andrea D’Arbino to come and hear the extraordinary disclosure that you have made to me. Go back to read to the count, as usual, until I want you again; but, remember, you must not drop a word to him yet of what you have said to me. He must be carefully prepared for all that we have to tell him; and must be kept quite in the dark until those preparations are made.”

D’Arbino answered the doctor’s summons in person; and Nanina repeated her story to him. He and the doctor remained closeted together for some time after she had concluded her narrative and had retired. A little before four o’clock they sent for her again into the study. The doctor was sitting by the table with a bag of money before him, and D’Arbino was telling one of the servants that if a lady called at the palace on the subject of the handbill which he had circulated, she was to be admitted into the study immediately.

As the clock struck four Nanina was requested to take possession of a window-seat, and to wait there until she was summoned. When she had obeyed, the doctor loosened one of the window-curtains, to hide her from the view of anyone entering the room.

About a quarter of an hour elapsed, and then the door was thrown open, and Brigida herself was shown into the study. The doctor bowed, and D’Arbino placed a chair for her. She was perfectly collected, and thanked them for their politeness with her best grace.

“I believe I am addressing confidential friends of Count Fabio d’Ascoli?” Brigida began. “May I ask if you are authorized to act for the count, in relation to the reward which this handbill offers?”

The doctor, having examined the handbill, said that the lady was quite right, and pointed significantly to the bag of money.

“You are prepared, then,” pursued Brigida, smiling, “to give a reward of two hundred scudi to anyone able to tell you who the woman is who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani’s ball, and how she contrived to personate the face and figure of the late Countess d’Ascoli?”

“Of course we are prepared,” answered D’Arbino, a little irritably. “As men of honour, we are not in the habit of promising anything that we are not perfectly willing, under proper conditions, to perform.”

“Pardon me, my dear friend,” said the doctor; “I think you speak a little too warmly to the lady. She is quite right to take every precaution. We have the two hundred scudi here, madam,” he continued, patting the money-bag; “and we are prepared to pay that sum for the information we want. But” (here the doctor suspiciously moved the bag of scudi from the table to his lap) “we must have proofs that the person claiming the reward is really entitled to it.”

Brigida’s eyes followed the money-bag greedily.

“Proofs!” she exclaimed, taking a small flat box from under her cloak, and pushing it across to the doctor. “Proofs! there you will find one proof that establishes my claim beyond the possibility of doubt.”

The doctor opened the box, and looked at the wax mask inside it; then handed it to D’Arbino, and replaced the bag of scudi on the table.

“The contents of that box seem certainly to explain a great deal,” he said, pushing the bag gently toward Brigida, but always keeping his, hand over it. “The woman who wore the yellow domino was, I presume, of the same height as the late countess?”

“Exactly,” said Brigida. “Her eyes were also of the same colour as the late countess’s; she wore yellow of the same shade as the hangings in the late countess’s room, and she had on, under her yellow mask, the colourless wax model of the late countess’s face, now in your friend’s hand. So much for that part of the secret. Nothing remains now to be cleared up but the mystery of who the lady was. Have the goodness, sir, to push that bag an inch or two nearer my way, and I shall be delighted to tell you.”

“Thank you, madam,” said the doctor, with a very perceptible change in his manner. “We know who the lady was already.”

He moved the bag of scudi while he spoke back to his own side of the table. Brigida’s cheeks reddened, and she rose from her seat.

“Am I to understand, sir,” she said, haughtily, “that you take advantage of my position here, as a defenceless woman, to cheat me out of the reward?”

“By no means, madam,” rejoined the doctor. “We have covenanted to pay the reward to the person who could give us the information we required.”

“Well, sir! have I not given you part of it? And am I not prepared to give you the whole?”

“Certainly; but the misfortune is, that another person has been beforehand with you. We ascertained who the lady in the yellow domino was, and how she contrived to personate the face of the late Countess d’Ascoli, several hours ago from another informant. That person has consequently the prior claim; and, on every principle of justice, that person must also have the reward. Nanina, this bag belongs to you – come and take it.”

Nanina appeared from the window-seat. Brigida, thunderstruck, looked at her in silence for a moment; gasped out, “That girl!” – then stopped again, breathless.

“That girl was at the back of the summer-house this morning, while you and your accomplice were talking together,” said the doctor.

D’Arbino had been watching Brigida’s face intently from the moment of Nanina’s appearance, and had quietly stolen close to her side. This was a fortunate movement; for the doctor’s last words were hardly out of his mouth before Brigida seized a heavy ruler lying, with some writing materials, on the table. In another instant, if D’Arbino had not caught her arm, she would have hurled it at Nanina’s head.

“You may let go your hold, sir,” she said, dropping the ruler, and turning toward D’Arbino with a smile on her white lips and a wicked calmness in her steady eyes. “I can wait for a better opportunity.”

With those words she walked to the door; and, turning round there, regarded Nanina fixedly.

“I wish I had been a moment quicker with the ruler,” she said, and went out.

“There!” exclaimed the doctor; “I told you I knew how to deal with her as she deserved. One thing I am certainly obliged to her for – she has saved us the trouble of going to her house and forcing her to give up the mask. And now, my child,” he continued, addressing Nanina, “you can go home, and one of the menservants shall see you safe to your own door, in case that woman should still be lurking about the palace. Stop! you are leaving the bag of scudi behind you.”

“I can’t take it, sir.”

“And why not?”

“She would have taken money!” Saying those words, Nanina reddened, and looked toward the door.

The doctor glanced approvingly at D’Arbino. “Well, well, we won’t argue about that now,” he said. “I will lock up the money with the mask for today. Come here tomorrow morning as usual, my dear. By that time I shall have made up my mind on the right means for breaking your discovery to Count Fabio. Only let us proceed slowly and cautiously, and I answer for success.”

•  VII  •

The next morning, among the first visitors at the Ascoli Palace was the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi. He seemed, as the servants thought, agitated, and said he was especially desirous of seeing Count Fabio. On being informed that this was impossible, he reflected a little, and then inquired if the medical attendant of the count was at the palace, and could be spoken with. Both questions were answered in the affirmative, and he was ushered into the doctor’s presence.

“I know not how to preface what I want to say,” Luca began, looking about him confusedly. “May I ask you, in the first place, if the work-girl named Nanina was here yesterday?”

“She was,” said the doctor.

“Did she speak in private with anyone?”

“Yes; with me.”

“Then you know everything?”

“Absolutely everything.”

“I am glad at least to find that my object in wishing to see the count can be equally well answered by seeing you. My brother, I regret to say—” He stopped perplexedly, and drew from his pocket a roll of papers.

“You may speak of your brother in the plainest terms,” said the doctor. “I know what share he has had in promoting the infamous conspiracy of the Yellow Mask.”

“My petition to you, and through you to the count, is, that your knowledge of what my brother has done may go no further. If this scandal becomes public it will ruin me in my profession. And I make little enough by it already,” said Luca, with his old sordid smile breaking out again faintly on his face.

“Pray do you come from your brother with this petition?” inquired the doctor.

“No; I come solely on my own account. My brother seems careless what happens. He has made a full statement of his share in the matter from the first; has forwarded it to his ecclesiastical superior (who will send it to the archbishop), and is now awaiting whatever sentence they choose to pass on him. I have a copy of the document, to prove that he has at least been candid, and that he does not shrink from consequences which he might have avoided by flight. The law cannot touch him, but the Church can – and to the Church he has confessed. All I ask is, that he may be spared a public exposure. Such an exposure would do no good to the count, and it would do dreadful injury to me. Look over the papers yourself, and show them, whenever you think proper, to the master of this house. I have every confidence in his honour and kindness, and in yours.”

He laid the roll of papers open on the table, and then retired with great humility to the window. The doctor looked over them with some curiosity.

The statement or confession began by boldly avowing the writer’s conviction that part of the property which the Count Fabio d’Ascoli had inherited from his ancestors had been obtained by fraud and misrepresentation from the Church. The various authorities on which this assertion was based were then produced in due order; along with some curious particles of evidence culled from old manuscripts, which it must have cost much trouble to collect and decipher.

The second section was devoted, at great length, to the reasons which induced the writer to think it his absolute duty, as an affectionate son and faithful servant of the Church, not to rest until he had restored to the successors of the apostles in his day the property which had been fraudulently taken from them in days gone by. The writer held himself justified, in the last resort, and in that only, in using any means for effecting this restoration, except such as might involve him in mortal sin.

The third section described the priest’s share in promoting the marriage of Maddalena Lomi with Fabio; and the hopes he entertained of securing the restitution of the Church property through his influence over his niece, in the first place, and, when she had died, through his influence over her child, in the second. The necessary failure of all his projects, if Fabio married again, was next glanced at; and the time at which the first suspicion of the possible occurrence of this catastrophe occurred to his mind was noted with scrupulous accuracy.

The fourth section narrated the manner in which the conspiracy of the Yellow Mask had originated. The writer described himself as being in his brother’s studio on the night of his niece’s death, harassed by forebodings of the likelihood of Fabio’s marrying again, and filled with the resolution to prevent any such disastrous second union at all hazards. He asserted that the idea of taking the wax mask from his brother’s statue flashed upon him on a sudden, and that he knew of nothing to lead to it, except, perhaps, that he had been thinking just before of the superstitious nature of the young man’s character, as he had himself observed it in the studio. He further declared that the idea of the wax mask terrified him at first; that he strove against it as against a temptation of the devil; that, from fear of yielding to this temptation, he abstained even from entering the studio during his brother’s absence at Naples, and that he first faltered in his good resolution when Fabio returned to Pisa, and when it was rumoured, not only that the young nobleman was going to the ball, but that he would certainly marry for the second time.

The fifth section related that the writer, upon this, yielded to temptation rather than forego the cherished purpose of his life by allowing Fabio a chance of marrying again – that he made the wax mask in a plaster mould taken from the face of his brother’s statue – and that he then had two separate interviews with a woman named Brigida (of whom he had some previous knowledge ), who was ready and anxious, from motives of private malice, to personate the deceased countess at the masquerade. This woman had suggested that some anonymous letters to Fabio would pave the way in his mind for the approaching impersonation, and had written the letters herself. However, even when all the preparations were made, the writer declared that he shrank from proceeding to extremities; and that he would have abandoned the whole project but for the woman Brigida informing him one day that a work-girl named Nanina was to be one of the attendants at the ball. He knew the count to have been in love with this girl, even to the point of wishing to marry her; he suspected that her engagement to wait at the ball was preconcerted; and, in consequence, he authorized his female accomplice to perform her part in the conspiracy.

The sixth section detailed the proceedings at the masquerade, and contained the writer’s confession that, on the night before it, he had written to the count proposing the reconciliation of a difference that had taken place between them, solely for the purpose of guarding himself against suspicion. He next acknowledged that he had borrowed the key of the Campo Santo gate, keeping the authority to whom it was entrusted in perfect ignorance of the purpose for which he wanted it. That purpose was to carry out the ghastly delusion of the wax mask (in the very probable event of the wearer being followed and inquired after) by having the woman Brigida taken up and set down at the gate of the cemetery in which Fabio’s wife had been buried.

The seventh section solemnly averred that the sole object of the conspiracy was to prevent the young nobleman from marrying again, by working on his superstitious fears; the writer repeating, after this avowal, that any such second marriage would necessarily destroy his project for promoting the ultimate restoration of the Church possessions, by diverting Count Fabio’s property, in great part, from his first wife’s child, over whom the priest would always have influence, to another wife and probably other children, over whom he could hope to have none.

The eighth and last section expressed the writer’s contrition for having allowed his zeal for the Church to mislead him into actions liable to bring scandal on his cloth; reiterated in the strongest language his conviction that, whatever might be thought of the means employed, the end he had proposed to himself was a most righteous one; and concluded by asserting his resolution to suffer with humility any penalties, however severe, which his ecclesiastical superiors might think fit to inflict on him.

Having looked over this extraordinary statement, the doctor addressed himself again to Luca Lomi.

“I agree with you,” he said, “that no useful end is to be gained now by mentioning your brother’s conduct in public – always provided, however, that his ecclesiastical superiors do their duty. I shall show these papers to the count as soon as he is fit to peruse them, and I have no doubt that he will be ready to take my view of the matter.”

This assurance relieved Luca Lomi of a great weight of anxiety. He bowed and withdrew.

The doctor placed the papers in the same cabinet in which he had secured the wax mask. Before he locked the doors again he took out the flat box, opened it, and looked thoughtfully for a few minutes at the mask inside, then sent for Nanina.

“Now, my child,” he said, when she appeared, “I am going to try our first experiment with Count Fabio; and I think it of great importance that you should be present while I speak to him.”

He took up the box with the mask in it, and beckoning to Nanina to follow him, led the way to Fabio’s chamber.

•  VIII  •

About six months after the events already related, Signor Andrea D’Arbino and the Cavaliere Finello happened to be staying with a friend, in a seaside villa on the Castellamare shore of the bay of Naples. Most of their time was pleasantly occupied on the sea, in fishing and sailing. A boat was placed entirely at their disposal. Sometimes they loitered whole days along the shore; sometimes made trips to the lovely islands in the bay.

One evening they were sailing near Sorrento, with a light wind. The beauty of the coast tempted them to keep the boat close inshore. A short time before sunset, they rounded the most picturesque headland they had yet passed; and a little bay, with a white-sand beach, opened on their view. They noticed first a villa surrounded by orange and olive trees on the rocky heights inland; then a path in the cliff-side leading down to the sands; then a little family party on the beach, enjoying the fragrant evening air.

The elders of the group were a lady and gentleman, sitting together on the sand. The lady had a guitar in her lap and was playing a simple dance melody. Close at her side a young child was rolling on the beach in high glee; in front of her a little girl was dancing to the music, with a very extraordinary partner in the shape of a dog, who was capering on his hind legs in the most grotesque manner. The merry laughter of the girl, and the lively notes of the guitar were heard distinctly across the still water.

“Edge a little nearer in shore,” said D’Arbino to his friend, who was steering; “and keep as I do in the shadow of the sail. I want to see the faces of those persons on the beach without being seen by them.”

Finello obeyed. After approaching just near enough to see the countenances of the party on shore, and to be barked at lustily by the dog, they turned the boat’s head again toward the offing.

“A pleasant voyage, gentlemen,” cried the clear voice of the little girl. They waved their hats in return; and then saw her run to the dog and take him by the forelegs. “Play, Nanina,” they heard her say. “I have not half done with my partner yet.” The guitar sounded once more, and the grotesque dog was on his hind legs in a moment.

“I had heard that he was well again, that he had married her lately, and that he was away with her and her sister, and his child by the first wife,” said D’Arbino; “but I had no suspicion that their place of retirement was so near us. It is too soon to break in upon their happiness, or I should have felt inclined to run the boat on shore.”

“I never heard the end of that strange adventure of the Yellow Mask,” said Finello. “There was a priest mixed up in it, was there not?”

“Yes; but nobody seems to know exactly what has become of him. He was sent for to Rome, and has never been heard of since. One report is, that he has been condemned to some mysterious penal seclusion by his ecclesiastical superiors – another, that he has volunteered, as a sort of Forlorn Hope, to accept a colonial curacy among rough people, and in a pestilential climate. I asked his brother, the sculptor, about him a little while ago, but he only shook his head, and said nothing.”

“And the woman who wore the yellow mask?”

“She, too, has ended mysteriously. At Pisa she was obliged to sell off everything she possessed to pay her debts. Some friends of hers at a milliner’s shop, to whom she applied for help, would have nothing to do with her. She left the city, alone and penniless.”

The boat had approached the next headland on the coast while they were talking They looked back for a last glance at the beach. Still the notes of the guitar came gently across the quiet water; but there mingled with them now the sound of the lady’s voice. She was singing. The little girl and the dog were at her feet, and the gentleman was still in his old place close at her side.

In a few minutes more the boat rounded the next headland, the beach vanished from view, and the music died away softly in the distance.

•   •   •   •   •   •

LAST LEAVES
FROM LEAH’S DIARY

3d of June. — Our stories are ended; our pleasant work is done. It is a lovely summer afternoon. The great hall at the farmhouse, after having been filled with people, is now quite deserted. I sit alone at my little worktable, with rather a crying sensation at my heart, and with the pen trembling in my fingers, as if I was an old woman already. Our manuscript has been sealed up and taken away; the one precious object of all our most anxious thoughts for months past – our third child, as we have got to call it – has gone out from us on this summer’s day, to seek its fortune in the world.

A little before twelve o’clock last night, my husband dictated to me the last words of “The Yellow Mask.” I laid down the pen, and closed the paper thoughtfully. With that simple action the work that we had wrought at together so carefully and so long came to a close. We were both so silent and still, that the murmuring of the trees in the night air sounded audibly and solemnly in our room.

William’s collection of stories has not, thus far, been half exhausted yet; but those who understand the public taste and the interests of bookselling better than we, think it advisable not to risk offering too much to the reader at first. If individual opinions can be accepted as a fair test, our prospects of success seem hopeful. The doctor (but we must not forget that he is a friend) was so pleased with the two specimen stories we sent to him, that he took them at once to his friend, the editor of the newspaper, who showed his appreciation of what he read in a very gratifying manner. He proposed that William should publish in the newspaper, on very fair terms, any short anecdotes and curious experiences of his life as a portrait-painter, which might not be important enough to put into a book. The money which my husband has gained from time to time in this way has just sufficed to pay our expenses at the farmhouse up to within the last month; and now our excellent friends here say they will not hear anything more from us on the subject of the rent until the book is sold and we have plenty of money. This is one great relief and happiness. Another, for which I feel even more grateful, is that William’s eyes have gained so much by their long rest, that even the doctor is surprised at the progress he has made. He only puts on his green shade now when he goes out into the sun, or when the candles are lit. His spirits are infinitely raised, and he is beginning to talk already of the time when he will unpack his palette and brushes, and take to his old portrait-painting occupations again.

With all these reasons for being happy, it seems unreasonable and ungracious in me to be feeling sad, as I do just at this moment. I can only say, in my own justification, that it is a mournful ceremony to take leave of an old friend; and I have taken leave twice over of the book that has been like an old friend to me – once when I had written the last word in it, and once again when I saw it carried away to London.

I packed the manuscript up with my own hands this morning, in thick brown paper, wasting a great deal of sealing-wax, I am afraid, in my anxiety to keep the parcel from bursting open in case it should be knocked about on its journey to town. Oh me, how cheap and common it looked, in its new form, as I carried it downstairs! A dozen pairs of worsted stockings would have made a larger parcel; and half a crown’s worth of groceries would have weighed a great deal heavier.

Just as we had done dinner the doctor and the editor came in. The first had called to fetch the parcel – I mean the manuscript; the second had come out with him to Appletreewick for a walk. As soon as the farmer heard that the book was to be sent to London, he insisted that we should drink success to it all round. The children, in high glee, were mounted up on the table, with a glass of currant-wine apiece; the rest of us had ale; the farmer proposed the toast, and his sailor son led the cheers. We all joined in (the children included), except the editor – who, being the only important person of the party, could not, I suppose, afford to compromise his dignity by making a noise. He was extremely polite, however, in a lofty way, to me, waving his hand and bowing magnificently every time he spoke. This discomposed me a little; and I was still more flurried when he said that he had written to the London publishers that very day, to prepare them for the arrival of our book.

“Do you think they will print it, sir?” I ventured to ask.

“My dear madam, you may consider it settled,” said the editor, confidently. “The letter is written – the thing is done. Look upon the book as published already; pray oblige me by looking upon the book as published already.”

“Then the only uncertainty now is about how the public will receive it!” said my husband, fidgeting in his chair, and looking nervously at me.

“Just so, my dear sir, just so,” answered the editor. “Everything depends upon the public – everything, I pledge you my word of honour.”

“Don’t look doubtful, Mrs. Kerby; there isn’t a doubt about it,” whispered the kind doctor, giving the manuscript a confident smack as he passed by me with it on his way to the door.

In another minute he and the editor, and the poor cheap-looking brown paper parcel, were gone. The others followed them out, and I was left in the hall alone.

Oh, Public! Public! it all depends now upon you! The children are to have new clothes from top to toe; I am to have a black silk gown; William is to buy a beautiful travelling colour-box; the rent is to be paid; all our kind friends at the farmhouse are to have little presents, and our future way in this hard world is to be smoothed for us at the outset, if you will only accept a poor painter’s stories which his wife has written down for him After Dark!

•  THE END  •

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

CONTENTS

… Dedication

Prelude

The Ten Days

… The First Day

The Siege of the Black Cottage

First published as
“The Black Cottage”
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Feb 1857

… The Second Day

The Family Secret

First published as
“Uncle George or The Family Mystery” National Magazine Nov 1856

… The Third Day

The Dream-Woman

First published as
“The Ostler” in “Holly-Tree Inn”
Household Words Christmas 1855

This revised version first published
in this collection.

… The Fourth Day

Mad Monkton

First published as
“The Monktons of Wincott Abbey”
Fraser’s Magazine Nov–Dec 1855

… The Fifth Day

The Dead Hand

First published as
“The Doctor’s Story” in
“The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices”
Household Words 10 Oct 1857

[aka “The Double-Bedded Room”]

… The Sixth Day

The Biter Bit

First published as
“Who is the Thief?”
The Atlantic Monthly Apr 1858

… The Seventh Day

The Parson’s Scruple

First published as
“A New Mind”
Household Words 01 Jan 1859

… The Eighth Day

A Plot In Private Life

First published as
“A Marriage Tragedy”
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Feb 1858

… The Ninth Day

Fauntleroy

First published as
“A Paradoxical Experience”
Household Words 13 Nov 1858

… The Tenth Day

Anne Rodway

First published as
“The Diary of Anne Rodway”
Household Words 26 Jul 1856

Postlude

LETTER OF DEDICATION

TO
EMILE FORGUES.

At a time when French readers were altogether unaware of the existence of any books of my writing, a critical examination of my novels appeared under your signature in the Revue des Deux Mondes. I read that article, at the time of its appearance, with sincere pleasure and sincere gratitude to the writer, and I have honestly done my best to profit by it ever since.

At a later period, when arrangements were made for the publication of my novels in Paris, you kindly undertook, at some sacrifice of your own convenience, to give the first of the series – The Dead Secret – the great advantage of being rendered into French by your pen. Your excellent translation of The Lighthouse had already taught me how to appreciate the value of your assistance; and when The Dead Secret appeared in its French form, although I was sensibly gratified, I was by no means surprised to find my fortunate work of fiction, not translated, in the mechanical sense of the word, but transformed from a novel that I had written in my language to a novel that you might have written in yours.

I am now about to ask you to confer one more literary obligation on me by accepting the dedication of this book, as the earliest acknowledgement which it has been in my power to make of the debt I owe to my critic, to my translator, and to my friend.

The stories which form the principal contents of the following pages are all, more or less, exercises in that art which I have now studied anxiously for some years, and which I still hope to cultivate, to better and better purpose, for many more. Allow me, by inscribing the collection to you, to secure one reader for it at the outset of its progress through the world of letters whose capacity for seeing all a writer’s defects may be matched by many other critics, but whose rarer faculty of seeing all a writer’s merits is equalled by very few.

WILKIE COLLINS.

London, October, 1859

THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

PRELUDE

•  I  •

OURSELVES

We were three quiet, lonely old men, and she was a lively, handsome young woman, and we were at our wits’ end what to do with her.

A word about ourselves, first of all – a necessary word, to explain the singular situation of our fair young guest.

We are three brothers; and we live in a barbarous, dismal old house called The Glen Tower. Our place of abode stands in a hilly, lonesome district of South Wales. No such thing as a line of railway runs anywhere near us. No gentleman’s seat is within an easy drive of us. We are at an unspeakably inconvenient distance from a town, and the village to which we send for our letters is three miles off.

My eldest brother, Owen, was brought up to the Church. All the prime of his life was passed in a populous London parish. For more years than I now like to reckon up, he worked unremittingly, in defiance of failing health and adverse fortune, amid the multitudinous misery of the London poor; and he would, in all probability, have sacrificed his life to his duty long before the present time if The Glen Tower had not come into his possession through two unexpected deaths in the elder and richer branch of our family. This opening to him of a place of rest and refuge saved his life. No man ever drew breath who better deserved the gifts of fortune; for no man, I sincerely believe, more tender of others, more diffident of himself, more gentle, more generous, and more simple-hearted than Owen, ever walked this earth.

My second brother, Morgan, started in life as a doctor, and learned all that his profession could teach him at home and abroad. He realized a moderate independence by his practice, beginning in one of our large northern towns and ending as a physician in London; but, although he was well known and appreciated among his brethren, he failed to gain that sort of reputation with the public which elevates a man into the position of a great doctor. The ladies never liked him. In the first place, he was ugly (Morgan will excuse me for mentioning this); in the second place, he was an inveterate smoker, and he smelled of tobacco when he felt languid pulses in elegant bedrooms; in the third place, he was the most formidably outspoken teller of the truth as regarded himself, his profession, and his patients, that ever imperiled the social standing of the science of medicine. For these reasons, and for others which it is not necessary to mention, he never pushed his way, as a doctor, into the front ranks, and he never cared to do so. About a year after Owen came into possession of The Glen Tower, Morgan discovered that he had saved as much money for his old age as a sensible man could want; that he was tired of the active pursuit – or, as he termed it, of the dignified quackery of his profession; and that it was only common charity to give his invalid brother a companion who could physic him for nothing, and so prevent him from getting rid of his money in the worst of all possible ways, by wasting it on doctors’ bills. In a week after Morgan had arrived at these conclusions, he was settled at The Glen Tower; and from that time, opposite as their characters were, my two elder brothers lived together in their lonely retreat, thoroughly understanding, and, in their very different ways, heartily loving one another.

Many years passed before I, the youngest of the three – christened by the unmelodious name of Griffith – found my way, in my turn, to the dreary old house, and the sheltering quiet of the Welsh hills. My career in life had led me away from my brothers; and even now, when we are all united, I have still ties and interests to connect me with the outer world which neither Owen nor Morgan possess.

I was brought up to the Bar. After my first year’s study of the law, I wearied of it, and strayed aside idly into the brighter and more attractive paths of literature. My occasional occupation with my pen was varied by long travelling excursions in all parts of the Continent; year by year my circle of gay friends and acquaintances increased, and I bade fair to sink into the condition of a wandering desultory man, without a fixed purpose in life of any sort, when I was saved by what has saved many another in my situation – an attachment to a good and a sensible woman. By the time I had reached the age of thirty-five, I had done what neither of my brothers had done before me – I had married.

As a single man, my own small independence, aided by what little additions to it I could pick up with my pen, had been sufficient for my wants; but with marriage and its responsibilities came the necessity for serious exertion. I returned to my neglected studies, and grappled resolutely, this time, with the intricate difficulties of the law. I was called to the Bar. My wife’s father aided me with his interest, and I started into practice without difficulty and without delay.

For the next twenty years my married life was a scene of happiness and prosperity, on which I now look back with a grateful tenderness that no words of mine can express. The memory of my wife is busy at my heart while I think of those past times. The forgotten tears rise in my eyes again, and trouble the course of my pen while it traces these simple lines.

Let me pass rapidly over the one unspeakable misery of my life; let me try to remember now, as I tried to remember then, that she lived to see our only child – our son, who was so good to her, who is still so good to me – grow up to manhood; that her head lay on my bosom when she died; and that the last frail movement of her hand in this world was the movement that brought it closer to her boy’s lips.

I bore the blow – with God’s help I bore it, and bear it still. But it struck me away forever from my hold on social life; from the purposes and pursuits, the companions and the pleasures of twenty years, which her presence had sanctioned and made dear to me. If my son George had desired to follow my profession, I should still have struggled against myself, and have kept my place in the world until I had seen him prosperous and settled. But his choice led him to the army; and before his mother’s death he had obtained his commission, and had entered on his path in life. No other responsibility remained to claim from me the sacrifice of myself; my brothers had made my place ready for me by their fireside; my heart yearned, in its desolation, for the friends and companions of the old boyish days; my good, brave son promised that no year should pass, as long as he was in England, without his coming to cheer me; and so it happened that I, in my turn, withdrew from the world, which had once been a bright and a happy world to me, and retired to end my days, peacefully, contentedly, and gratefully, as my brothers are ending theirs, in the solitude of The Glen Tower.

How many years have passed since we have all three been united it is not necessary to relate. It will be more to the purpose if I briefly record that we have never been separated since the day which first saw us assembled together in our hillside retreat; that we have never yet wearied of the time, of the place, or of ourselves; and that the influence of solitude on our hearts and minds has not altered them for the worse, for it has not embittered us toward our fellow-creatures, and it has not dried up in us the sources from which harmless occupations and innocent pleasures may flow refreshingly to the last over the waste places of human life. Thus much for our own story, and for the circumstances which have withdrawn us from the world for the rest of our days.

And now imagine us three lonely old men, tall and lean, and white-headed; dressed, more from past habit than from present association, in customary suits of solemn black: Brother Owen, yielding, gentle, and affectionate in look, voice, and manner; brother Morgan, with a quaint, surface-sourness of address, and a tone of dry sarcasm in his talk, which single him out, on all occasions, as a character in our little circle; brother Griffith forming the link between his two elder companions, capable, at one time, of sympathising with the quiet, thoughtful tone of Owen’s conversation, and ready, at another, to exchange brisk severities on life and manners with Morgan – in short, a pliable, double-sided old lawyer, who stands between the clergyman-brother and the physician-brother with an ear ready for each, and with a heart open to both, share and share together.

Imagine the strange old building in which we live to be really what its name implies – a tower standing in a glen; in past times the fortress of a fighting Welsh chieftain; in present times a dreary land-lighthouse, built up in many stories of two rooms each, with a little modern lean-to of cottage form tacked on quaintly to one of its sides; the great hill, on whose lowest slope it stands, rising precipitously behind it; a dark, swift-flowing stream in the valley below; hills on hills all round, and no way of approach but by one of the loneliest and wildest crossroads in all South Wales.

Imagine such a place of abode as this, and such inhabitants of it as ourselves, and them picture the descent among us – as of a goddess dropping from the clouds – of a lively, handsome, fashionable young lady – a bright, gay, butterfly creature, used to flutter away its existence in the broad sunshine of perpetual gaiety – a child of the new generation, with all the modern ideas whirling together in her pretty head, and all the modern accomplishments at the tips of her delicate fingers. Imagine such a light-hearted daughter of Eve as this, the spoiled darling of society, the charming spendthrift of Nature’s choicest treasures of beauty and youth, suddenly flashing into the dim life of three weary old men – suddenly dropped into the place, of all others, which is least fit for her – suddenly shut out from the world in the lonely quiet of the loneliest home in England. Realize, if it be possible, all that is most whimsical and most anomalous in such a situation as this, and the startling confession contained in the opening sentence of these pages will no longer excite the faintest emotion of surprise. Who can wonder now, when our bright young goddess really descended on us, that I and my brothers were all three at our wits’ end what to do with her!

•  II  •

OUR DILEMMA

Who is the young lady? And how did she find her way into The Glen Tower?

Her name (in relation to which I shall have something more to say a little further on) is Jessie Yelverton. She is an orphan and an only child. Her mother died while she was an infant; her father was my dear and valued friend, Major Yelverton. He lived long enough to celebrate his darling’s seventh birthday. When he died he entrusted his authority over her and his responsibility toward her to his brother and to me.

When I was summoned to the reading of the major’s will, I knew perfectly well that I should hear myself appointed guardian and executor with his brother; and I had been also made acquainted with my lost friend’s wishes as to his daughter’s education, and with his intentions as to the disposal of all his property in her favour. My own idea, therefore, was, that the reading of the will would inform me of nothing which I had not known in the testator’s lifetime. When the day came for hearing it, however, I found that I had been over hasty in arriving at this conclusion. Toward the end of the document there was a clause inserted which took me entirely by surprise.

After providing for the education of Miss Yelverton under the direction of her guardians, and for her residence, under ordinary circumstances, with the major’s sister, Lady Westwick, the clause concluded by saddling the child’s future inheritance with this curious condition:

From the period of her leaving school to the period of her reaching the age of twenty-one years, Miss Yelverton was to pass not less than six consecutive weeks out of every year under the roof of one of her two guardians. During the lives of both of them, it was left to her own choice to say which of the two she would prefer to live with. In all other respects the condition was imperative. If she forfeited it, excepting, of course, the case of the deaths of both her guardians, she was only to have a life-interest in the property; if she obeyed it, the money itself was to become her own possession on the day when she completed her twenty-first year.

This clause in the will, as I have said, took me at first by surprise. I remembered how devotedly Lady Westwick had soothed her sister-in-law’s deathbed sufferings, and how tenderly she had afterward watched over the welfare of the little motherless child – I remembered the innumerable claims she had established in this way on her brother’s confidence in her affection for his orphan daughter, and I was, therefore, naturally amazed at the appearance of a condition in his will which seemed to show a positive distrust of Lady Westwick’s undivided influence over the character and conduct of her niece.

A few words from my fellow-guardian, Mr. Richard Yelverton, and a little after-consideration of some of my deceased friend’s peculiarities of disposition and feeling, to which I had not hitherto attached sufficient importance, were enough to make me understand the motives by which he had been influenced in providing for the future of his child.

Major Yelverton had raised himself to a position of affluence and eminence from a very humble origin. He was the son of a small farmer, and it was his pride never to forget this circumstance, never to be ashamed of it, and never to allow the prejudices of society to influence his own settled opinions on social questions in general.

Acting, in all that related to his intercourse with the world, on such principles as these, the major, it is hardly necessary to say, held some strangely heterodox opinions on the modern education of girls, and on the evil influence of society over the characters of women in general. Out of the strength of those opinions, and out of the certainty of his conviction that his sister did not share them, had grown that condition in his will which removed his daughter from the influence of her aunt for six consecutive weeks in every year. Lady Westwick was the most light-hearted, the most generous, the most impulsive of women; capable, when any serious occasion called it forth, of all that was devoted and self-sacrificing, but, at other and ordinary times, constitutionally restless, frivolous, and eager for perpetual gaiety. Distrusting the sort of life which he knew his daughter would lead under her aunt’s roof, and at the same time gratefully remembering his sister’s affectionate devotion toward his dying wife and her helpless infant, Major Yelverton had attempted to make a compromise, which, while it allowed Lady Westwick the close domestic intercourse with her niece that she had earned by innumerable kind offices, should, at the same time, place the young girl for a fixed period of every year of her minority under the corrective care of two such quiet old-fashioned guardians as his brother and myself. Such is the history of the clause in the will. My friend little thought, when he dictated it, of the extraordinary result to which it was one day to lead.

For some years, however, events ran on smoothly enough. Little Jessie was sent to an excellent school, with strict instructions to the mistress to make a good girl of her, and not a fashionable young lady. Although she was reported to be anything but a pattern pupil in respect of attention to her lessons, she became from the first the chosen favourite of everyone about her. The very offences which she committed against the discipline of the school were of the sort which provoke a smile even on the stern countenance of authority itself. One of these quaint freaks of mischief may not inappropriately be mentioned here, inasmuch as it gained her the pretty nickname under which she will be found to appear occasionally in these pages.

On a certain autumn night shortly after the Midsummer vacation, the mistress of the school fancied she saw a light under the door of the bedroom occupied by Jessie and three other girls. It was then close on midnight; and, fearing that some case of sudden illness might have happened, she hastened into the room. On opening the door, she discovered, to her horror and amazement, that all four girls were out of bed – were dressed in brilliantly-fantastic costumes, representing the four grotesque “Queens” of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs, familiar to us all on the pack of cards – and were dancing a quadrille, in which Jessie sustained the character of The Queen of Hearts. The next morning’s investigation disclosed that Miss Yelverton had smuggled the dresses into the school, and had amused herself by giving an impromptu fancy ball to her companions, in imitation of an entertainment of the same kind at which she had figured in a “court-card” quadrille at her aunt’s country house.

The dresses were instantly confiscated and the necessary punishment promptly administered; but the remembrance of Jessie’s extraordinary outrage on bedroom discipline lasted long enough to become one of the traditions of the school, and she and her sister-culprits were thenceforth hailed as the “queens” of the four “suites” by their class-companions whenever the mistress’s back was turned, Whatever might have become of the nicknames thus employed in relation to the other three girls, such a mock title as The Queen of Hearts was too appropriately descriptive of the natural charm of Jessie’s character, as well as of the adventure in which she had taken the lead, not to rise naturally to the lips of everyone who knew her. It followed her to her aunt’s house – it came to be as habitually and familiarly connected with her, among her friends of all ages, as if it had been formally inscribed on her baptismal register; and it has stolen its way into these pages because it falls from my pen naturally and inevitably, exactly as it often falls from my lips in real life.

When Jessie left school the first difficulty presented itself – in other words, the necessity arose of fulfilling the conditions of the will. At that time I was already settled at The Glen Tower, and her living six weeks in our dismal solitude and our humdrum society was, as she herself frankly wrote me word, quite out of the question. Fortunately, she had always got on well with her uncle and his family; so she exerted her liberty of choice, and, much to her own relief and to mine also, passed her regular six weeks of probation, year after year, under Mr. Richard Yelverton’s roof.

During this period I heard of her regularly, sometimes from my fellow-guardian, sometimes from my son George, who, whenever his military duties allowed him the opportunity, contrived to see her, now at her aunt’s house, and now at Mr. Yelverton’s. The particulars of her character and conduct, which I gleaned in this way, more than sufficed to convince me that the poor major’s plan for the careful training of his daughter’s disposition, though plausible enough in theory, was little better than a total failure in practice. Miss Jessie, to use the expressive common phrase, took after her aunt. She was as generous, as impulsive, as light-hearted, as fond of change, and gaiety, and fine clothes – in short, as complete and genuine a woman as Lady Westwick herself. It was impossible to reform the “Queen of Hearts,” and equally impossible not to love her. Such, in few words, was my fellow-guardian’s report of his experience of our handsome young ward.

•   •   •

So the time passed till the year came of which I am now writing – the ever-memorable year, to England, of the Russian war. It happened that I had heard less than usual at this period, and indeed for many months before it, of Jessie and her proceedings. My son had been ordered out with his regiment to the Crimea in 1854, and had other work in hand now than recording the sayings and doings of a young lady. Mr. Richard Yelverton, who had been hitherto used to write to me with tolerable regularity, seemed now, for some reason that I could not conjecture, to have forgotten my existence. Ultimately I was reminded of my ward by one of George’s own letters, in which he asked for news of her; and I wrote at once to Mr. Yelverton. The answer that reached me was written by his wife: he was dangerously ill. The next letter that came informed me of his death. This happened early in the spring of the year 1855.

I am ashamed to confess it, but the change in my own position was the first idea that crossed my mind when I read the news of Mr. Yelverton’s death. I was now left sole guardian, and Jessie Yelverton wanted a year still of coming of age.

By the next day’s post I wrote to her about the altered state of the relations between us. She was then on the Continent with her aunt, having gone abroad at the very beginning of the year. Consequently, so far as eighteen hundred and fifty-five was concerned, the condition exacted by the will yet remained to be performed. She had still six weeks to pass – her last six weeks, seeing that she was now twenty years old – under the roof of one of her guardians, and I was now the only guardian left.

In due course of time I received my answer, written on rose-coloured paper, and expressed throughout in a tone of light, easy, feminine banter, which amused me in spite of myself. Miss Jessie, according to her own account, was hesitating, on receipt of my letter, between two alternatives – the one, of allowing herself to be buried six weeks in The Glen Tower; the other, of breaking the condition, giving up the money, and remaining magnanimously contented with nothing but a life-interest in her father’s property. At present she inclined decidedly toward giving up the money and escaping the clutches of “the three horrid old men;” but she would let me know again if she happened to change her mind. And so, with best love, she would beg to remain always affectionately mine, as long as she was well out of my reach.

The summer passed, the autumn came, and I never heard from her again. Under ordinary circumstances, this long silence might have made me feel a little uneasy. But news reached me about this time from the Crimea that my son was wounded – not dangerously, thank God, but still severely enough to be la id up – and all my anxieties were now centred in that direction. By the beginning of September, however, I got better accounts of him, and my mind was made easy enough to let me think of Jessie again. Just as I was considering the necessity of writing once more to my refractory ward, a second letter arrived from her. She had returned at last from abroad, had suddenly changed her mind, suddenly grown sick of society, suddenly become enamoured of the pleasures of retirement, and suddenly found out that the three horrid old men were three dear old men, and that six weeks’ solitude at The Glen Tower was the luxury, of all others, that she languished for most. As a necessary result of this altered state of things, she would therefore now propose to spend her allotted six weeks with her guardian. We might certainly expect her on the twentieth of September, and she would take the greatest care to fit herself for our society by arriving in the lowest possible spirits, and bringing her own sackcloth and ashes along with her.

The first ordeal to which this alarming letter forced me to submit was the breaking of the news it contained to my two brothers. The disclosure affected them very differently. Poor dear Owen merely turned pale, lifted his weak, thin hands in a panic-stricken manner, and then sat staring at me in speechless and motionless bewilderment. Morgan stood up straight before me, plunged both his hands into his pockets, burst suddenly into the harshest laugh I ever heard from his lips, and told me, with an air of triumph, that it was exactly what he expected.

“What you expected?” I repeated, in astonishment.

“Yes,” returned Morgan, with his bitterest emphasis. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least. It’s the way things go in this world – it’s the regular moral see-saw of good and evil – the old story with the old end to it. They were too happy in the garden of Eden – down comes the serpent and turns them out. Solomon was too wise – down comes the Queen of Sheba, and makes a fool of him. We’ve been too comfortable at The Glen Tower – down comes a woman, and sets us all three by the ears together. All I wonder at is that it hasn’t happened before.” With those words Morgan resignedly took out his pipe, put on his old felt hat and turned to the door.

“You’re not going away before she comes?” exclaimed Owen, piteously. “Don’t leave us – please don’t leave us!”

“Going!” cried Morgan, with great contempt. “What should I gain by that? When destiny has found a man out, and heated his gridiron for him, he has nothing left to do, that I know of, but to get up and sit on it.”

I opened my lips to protest against the implied comparison between a young lady and a hot gridiron, but, before I could speak, Morgan was gone.

“Well,” I said to Owen, “we must make the best of it. We must brush up our manners, and set the house tidy, and amuse her as well as we can. The difficulty is where to put her; and, when that is settled, the next puzzle will be, what to order in to make her comfortable. It’s a hard thing, brother, to say what will or what will not please a young lady’s taste.”

Owen looked absently at me, in greater bewilderment than ever – opened his eyes in perplexed consideration – repeated to himself slowly the word “tastes” – and then helped me with this suggestion:

“Hadn’t we better begin, Griffith, by getting her a plum-cake?”

“My dear Owen,” I remonstrated, “it is a grown young woman who is coming to see us, not a little girl from school.”

“Oh!” said Owen, more confused than before. “Yes – I see; we couldn’t do wrong, I suppose – could we? – if we got her a little dog, and a lot of new gowns.”

There was, evidently, no more help in the way of advice to be expected from Owen than from Morgan himself. As I came to that conclusion, I saw through the window our old housekeeper on her way, with her basket, to the kitchen-garden, and left the room to ascertain if she could assist us.

To my great dismay, the housekeeper took even a more gloomy view than Morgan of the approaching event. When I had explained all the circumstances to her, she carefully put down her basket, crossed her arms, and said to me in slow, deliberate, mysterious tones:

“You want my advice about what’s to be done with this young woman? Well, sir, here’s my advice: Don’t you trouble your head about her. It won’t be no use. Mind, I tell you, it won’t be no use.”

“What do you mean?”

“You look at this place, sir – it’s more like a prison than a house, isn’t it? You, look at us as lives in it. We’ve got (saving your presence) a foot apiece in our graves, haven’t we? When you was young yourself, sir, what would you have done if they had shut you up for six weeks in such a place as this, among your grandfathers and grandmothers, with their feet in the grave?”

“I really can’t say.”

“I can, sir. You’d have run away. She’ll run away. Don’t you worry your head about her – she’ll save you the trouble. I tell you again, she’ll run away.”

With those ominous words the housekeeper took up her basket, sighed heavily, and left me.

I sat down under a tree quite helpless. Here was the whole responsibility shifted upon my miserable shoulders. Not a lady in the neighbourhood to whom I could apply for assistance, and the nearest shop eight miles distant from us. The toughest case I ever had to conduct, when I was at the Bar, was plain sailing compared with the difficulty of receiving our fair guest.

It was absolutely necessary, however, to decide at once where she was to sleep. All the rooms in the tower were of stone – dark, gloomy, and cold even in the summertime. Impossible to put her in any one of them. The only other alternative was to lodge her in the little modern lean-to, which I have already described as being tacked on to the side of the old building. It contained three cottage-rooms, and they might be made barely habitable for a young lady. But then those rooms were occupied by Morgan. His books were in one, his bed was in another, his pipes and general lumber were in the third. Could I expect him, after the sour similitudes he had used in reference to our expected visitor, to turn out of his habitation and disarrange all his habits for her convenience? The bare idea of proposing the thing to him seemed ridiculous; and yet inexorable necessity left me no choice but to make the hopeless experiment. I walked back to the tower hastily and desperately, to face the worst that might happen before my courage cooled altogether.

On crossing the threshold of the hall door I was stopped, to my great amazement, by a procession of three of the farm-servants, followed by Morgan, all walking after each other, in Indian file, toward the spiral staircase that led to the top of the tower. The first of the servants carried the materials for making a fire; the second bore an inverted armchair on his head; the third tottered under a heavy load of books; while Morgan came last, with his canister of tobacco in his hand, his dressing-gown over his shoulders, and his whole collection of pipes hugged up together in a bundle under his arm.

“What on earth does this mean?” I inquired.

“It means taking Time by the forelock,” answered Morgan, looking at me with a smile of sour satisfaction. “I’ve got the start of your young woman, Griffith, and I’m making the most of it.”

“But where, in Heaven’s name, are you going?” I asked, as the head man of the procession disappeared with his firing up the staircase.

“How high is this tower?” retorted Morgan.

“Seven stories, to be sure,” I replied.

“Very good,” said my eccentric brother, setting his foot on the first stair, “I’m going up to the seventh.”

“You can’t,” I shouted.

“She can’t, you mean,” said Morgan, “and that’s exactly why I’m going there.”

“But the room is not furnished.”

“It’s out of her reach.”

“One of the windows has fallen to pieces.”

“It’s out of her reach.”

“There’s a crow’s nest in the corner.”

“It’s out of her reach.”

By the time this unanswerable argument had attained its third repetition, Morgan, in his turn, had disappeared up the winding stairs. I knew him too well to attempt any further protest.

Here was my first difficulty smoothed away most unexpectedly; for here were the rooms in the lean-to placed by their owner’s free act and deed at my disposal. I wrote on the spot to the one upholsterer of our distant county town to come immediately and survey the premises, and sent off a mounted messenger with the letter. This done, and the necessary order also dispatched to the carpenter and glazier to set them at work on Morgan’s sky-parlour in the seventh story, I began to feel, for the first time, as if my scattered wits were coming back to me. By the time the evening had closed in I had hit on no less than three excellent ideas, all providing for the future comfort and amusement of our fair guest. The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony; the second was to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a boxful of novels from London. I must confess I thought these projects for pleasing her very happily conceived, and Owen agreed with me. Morgan, as usual, took the opposite view. He said she would yawn over the novels, turn up her nose at the piano, and fracture her skull with the pony. As for the housekeeper, she stuck to her text as stoutly in the evening as she had stuck to it in the morning. “Pianner or no pianner, story-book or no story-book, pony or no pony, you mark my words, sir – that young woman will run away.”

Such were the housekeeper’s parting words when she wished me good-night.

When the next morning came, and brought with it that terrible waking time which sets a man’s hopes and projects before him, the great as well as the small, stripped bare of every illusion, it is not to be concealed that I felt less sanguine of our success in entertaining the coming guest. So far as external preparations were concerned, there seemed, indeed, but little to improve; but apart from these, what had we to offer, in ourselves and our society, to attract her? There lay the knotty point of the question, and there the grand difficulty of finding an answer.

•   •   •

I fall into serious reflection while I am dressing on the pursuits and occupations with which we three brothers have been accustomed, for years past, to beguile the time. Are they at all likely, in the case of any one of us, to interest or amuse her?

My chief occupation, to begin with the youngest, consists, in acting as steward on Owen’s property. The routine of my duties has never lost its sober attraction to my tastes, for it has always employed me in watching the best interests of my brother, and of my son also, who is one day to be his heir. But can I expect our fair guest to sympathize with such family concerns as these? Clearly not.

Morgan’s pursuit comes next in order of review – a pursuit of a far more ambitious nature than mine. It was always part of my second brother’s whimsical, self-contradictory character to view with the profoundest contempt the learned profession by which he gained his livelihood, and he is now occupying the long leisure hours of his old age in composing a voluminous treatise, intended, one of these days, to eject the whole body corporate of doctors from the position which they have usurped in the estimation of their fellow-creatures. This daring work is entitled “An Examination of the Claims of Medicine on the Gratitude of Mankind. Decided in the Negative by a Retired Physician.” So far as I can tell, the book is likely to extend to the dimensions of an Encyclopedia; for it is Morgan’s plan to treat his comprehensive subject principally from the historical point of view, and to run down all the doctors of antiquity, one after another, in regular succession, from the first of the tribe. When I last heard of his progress he was hard on the heels of Hippocrates, but had no immediate prospect of tripping up his successor, Is this the sort of occupation (I ask myself) in which a modern young lady is likely to feel the slightest interest? Once again, clearly not.

Owen’s favourite employment is, in its way, quite as characteristic as Morgan’s, and it has the great additional advantage of appealing to a much larger variety of tastes. My eldest brother – great at drawing and painting when he was a lad, always interested in artists and their works in after life – has resumed, in his declining years, the holiday occupation of his schoolboy days. As an amateur landscape-painter, he works with more satisfaction to himself, uses more colour, wears out more brushes, and makes a greater smell of paint in his studio than any artist by profession, native or foreign, whom I ever met with. In look, in manner, and in disposition, the gentlest of mankind, Owen, by some singular anomaly in his character, which he seems to have caught from Morgan, glories placidly in the wildest and most frightful range of subjects which his art is capable of representing. Immeasurable ruins, in howling wildernesses, with blood-red sunsets gleaming over them; thunderclouds rent with lightning, hovering over splitting trees on the verges of awful precipices; hurricanes, shipwrecks, waves, and whirlpools follow each other on his canvas, without an intervening glimpse of quiet everyday nature to relieve the succession of pictorial horrors. When I see him at his easel, so neat and quiet, so unpretending and modest in himself, with such a composed expression on his attentive face, with such a weak white hand to guide such bold, big brushes, and when I look at the frightful canvasful of terrors which he is serenely aggravating in fierceness and intensity with every successive touch, I find it difficult to realize the connection between my brother and his work, though I see them before me not six inches apart. Will this quaint spectacle possess any humorous attractions for Miss Jessie? Perhaps it may. There is some slight chance that Owen’s employment will be lucky enough to interest her.

Thus far my morning cogitations advance doubtfully enough, but they altogether fail in carrying me beyond the narrow circle of The Glen Tower. I try hard, in our visitor’s interest, to look into the resources of the little world around us, and I find my efforts rewarded by the prospect of a total blank.

Is there any presentable living soul in the neighbourhood whom we can invite to meet her? Not one. There are, as I have already said, no country seats near us; and society in the county town has long since learned to regard us as three misanthropes, strongly suspected, from our monastic way of life and our dismal black costume, of being popish priests in disguise. In other parts of England the clergyman of the parish might help us out of our difficulty; but here in South Wales, and in this latter half of the nineteenth century, we have the old type parson of the days of Fielding still in a state of perfect preservation. Our local clergyman receives a stipend which is too paltry to bear comparison with the wages of an ordinary mechanic. In dress, manners, and tastes he is about on a level with the upper class of agricultural labourer. When attempts have been made by well-meaning gentle-folks to recognise the claims of his profession by asking him to their houses, he has been known, on more than one occasion, to leave his ploughman’s pair of shoes in the hall, and enter the drawing-room respectfully in his stockings. Where he preaches, miles and miles away from us and from the poor cottage in which he lives, if he sees any of the company in the squire’s pew yawn or fidget in their places, he takes it as a hint that they are tired of listening, and closes his sermon instantly at the end of the sentence. Can we ask this most irreverend and unclerical of men to meet a young lady? I doubt, even if we made the attempt, whether we should succeed, by fair means, in getting him beyond the servants’ hall.

Dismissing, therefore, all idea of inviting visitors to entertain our guest, and feeling, at the same time, more than doubtful of her chance of discovering any attraction in the sober society of the inmates of the house, I finish my dressing and go down to breakfast, secretly veering round to the housekeeper’s opinion that Miss Jessie will really bring matters to an abrupt conclusion by running away. I find Morgan as bitterly resigned to his destiny as ever, and Owen so affectionately anxious to make himself of some use, and so lamentably ignorant of how to begin, that I am driven to dis-embarrass myself of him at the outset by a stratagem.

I suggest to him that our visitor is sure to be interested in pictures, and that it would be a pretty attention, on his part, to paint her a landscape to hang up in her room. Owen brightens directly, informs me in his softest tones that he is then at work on the Earthquake at Lisbon, and inquires whether I think she would like that subject. I preserve my gravity sufficiently to answer in the affirmative, and my brother retires meekly to his studio, to depict the engulfing of a city and the destruction of a population. Morgan withdraws in his turn to the top of the tower, threatening, when our guest comes, to draw all his meals up to his new residence by means of a basket and string. I am left alone for an hour, and then the upholsterer arrives from the county town.

This worthy man, on being informed of our emergency, sees his way, apparently, to a good stroke of business, and thereupon wins my lasting gratitude by taking, in opposition to everyone else, a bright and hopeful view of existing circumstances.

“You’ll excuse me, sir,” he says, confidentially, when I show him the rooms in the lean-to, “but this is a matter of experience. I’m a family man myself, with grown-up daughters of my own, and the natures of young women are well known to me. Make their rooms comfortable, and you make ’em happy. Surround their lives, sir, with a suitable atmosphere of furniture, and you never hear a word of complaint drop from their lips. Now, with regard to these rooms, for example, sir – you put a neat French bedstead in that corner, with curtains conformable – say a tasty chintz; you put on that bedstead what I will term a sufficiency of bedding; and you top up with a sweet little eiderdown quilt, as light as roses, and similar the same in colour. You do that, and what follows? You please her eye when she lies down at night, and you please her eye when she gets up in the morning – and you’re all right so far, and so is she. I will not dwell, sir, on the toilet-table, nor will I seek to detain you about the glass to show her figure, and the other glass to show her face, because I have the articles in stock, and will be myself answerable for their effect on a lady’s mind and person.”

He led the way into the next room as he spoke, and arranged its future fittings, and decorations, as he had already planned out the bedroom, with the strictest reference to the connection which experience had shown him to exist between comfortable furniture and female happiness.

Thus far, in my helpless state of mind, the man’s confidence had impressed me in spite of myself, and I had listened to him in superstitious silence. But as he continued to rise, by regular gradations, from one climax of upholstery to another, warning visions of his bill disclosed themselves in the remote background of the scene of luxury and magnificence which my friend was conjuring up. Certain sharp professional instincts of bygone times resumed their influence over me; I began to start doubts and ask questions; and as a necessary consequence the interview between us soon assumed something like a practical form.

Having ascertained what the probable expense of furnishing would amount to and having discovered that the process of transforming the lean-to (allowing for the time required to procure certain articles of rarity from Bristol) would occupy nearly a fortnight, I dismissed the upholsterer with the understanding that I should take a day or two for consideration, and let him know the result. It was then the fifth of September, and our Queen of Hearts was to arrive on the twentieth. The work, therefore, if it was begun on the seventh or eighth, would be begun in time.

In making all my calculations with a reference to the twentieth of September, I relied implicitly, it will be observed, on a young lady’s punctuality in keeping an appointment which she had herself made. I can only account for such extraordinary simplicity on my part on the supposition that my wits had become sadly rusted by long seclusion from society. Whether it was referable to this cause or not, my innocent trustfulness was at any rate destined to be practically rebuked before long in the most surprising manner. Little did I suspect, when I parted from the upholsterer on the fifth of the month, what the tenth of the month had in store for me.

On the seventh I made up my mind to have the bedroom furnished at once, and to postpone the question of the sitting-room for a few days longer. Having dispatched the necessary order to that effect, I next wrote to hire the piano and to order the box of novels. This done, I congratulated myself on the forward state of the preparations, and sat down to repose in the atmosphere of my own happy delusions.

On the ninth the wagon arrived with the furniture, and the men set to work on the bedroom. From this moment Morgan retired definitely to the top of the tower, and Owen became too nervous to lay the necessary amount of paint on the Earthquake at Lisbon.

On the tenth the work was proceeding bravely. Toward noon Owen and I strolled to the door to enjoy the fine autumn sunshine. We were sitting lazily on our favourite bench in front of the tower when we were startled by a shout from above us. Looking up directly, we saw Morgan half in and half out of his narrow window In the seventh story, gesticulating violently with the stem of his long meerschaum pipe in the direction of the road below us.

We gazed eagerly in the quarter thus indicated, but our low position prevented us for some time from seeing anything. At last we both discerned an old yellow post-chaise distinctly and indisputably approaching us.

Owen and I looked at one another in panic-stricken silence. It was coming to us – and what did it contain? Do pianos travel in chaises? Are boxes of novels conveyed to their destination by a postilion? We expected the piano and expected the novels, but nothing else – unquestionably nothing else.

The chaise took the turn in the road, passed through the gateless gap in our rough enclosure-wall of loose stone, and rapidly approached us. A bonnet appeared at the window and a hand gaily waved a white handkerchief.

Powers of caprice, confusion, and dismay! It was Jessie Yelverton herself – arriving, without a word of warning, exactly ten days before her time.

•  III  •

OUR QUEEN OF HEARTS

The chaise stopped in front of us, and before we had recovered from our bewilderment the gardener had opened the door and let down the steps.

A bright, laughing face, prettily framed round by a black veil passed over the head and tied under the chin – a travelling-dress of a nankeen colour, studded with blue buttons and trimmed with white braid – a light brown cloak over it – little neatly-gloved hands, which seized in an instant on one of mine and on one of Owen’s – two dark blue eyes, which seemed to look us both through and through in a moment – a clear, full, merrily confident voice – a look and manner gaily and gracefully self-possessed – such were the characteristics of our fair guest which first struck me at the moment when she left the post-chaise and possessed herself of my hand.

“Don’t begin by scolding me,” she said, before I could utter a word of welcome. “There will be time enough for that in the course of the next six weeks. I beg pardon, with all possible humility, for the offence of coming ten days before my time. Don’t ask me to account for it, please; if you do, I shall be obliged to confess the truth. My dear sir, the fact is, this is an act of impulse.”

She paused, and looked us both in the face with a bright confidence in her own flow of nonsense that was perfectly irresistible.

“I must tell you all about it,” she ran on, leading the way to the bench, and inviting us, by a little mock gesture of supplication, to seat ourselves on either side of her. “I feel so guilty till I’ve told you. Dear me! how nice this is! Here I am quite at home already. Isn’t it odd? Well, and how do you think it happened? The morning before yesterday Matilda – there is Matilda, picking up my bonnet from the bottom of that remarkably musty carriage – Matilda came and woke me as usual, and I hadn’t an idea in my head, I assure you, till she began to brush my hair. Can you account for it? – I can’t – but she seemed, somehow, to brush a sudden fancy for coming here into my head. When I went down to breakfast, I said to my aunt, ‘Darling, I have an irresistible impulse to go to Wales at once, instead of waiting till the twentieth.’ She made all the necessary objections, poor dear, and my impulse got stronger and stronger with every one of them. ‘I’m quite certain,’ I said, ‘I shall never go at all if I don’t go now.’  ‘In that case,’ says my aunt, ‘ring the bell, and have your trunks packed. Your whole future depends on your going; and you terrify me so inexpressibly that I shall be glad to get rid of you.’ You may not think it, to look at her – but Matilda is a treasure; and in three hours more I was on the Great Western Railway. I have not the least idea how I got here – except that the men helped me everywhere. They are always such delightful creatures! I have been casting myself, and my maid, and my trunks on their tender mercies at every point in the journey, and their polite attentions exceed all belief. I slept at your horrid little county town last night; and the night before I missed a steamer or a train, I forget which, and slept at Bristol; and that’s how I got here. And, now I am here, I ought to give my guardian a kiss – oughtn’t I? Shall I call you papa? I think I will. And shall I call you uncle, sir, and give you a kiss too? We shall come to it sooner or later – shan’t we? – and we may as well begin at once, I suppose.”

Her fresh young lips touched my old withered cheek first, and then Owen’s; a soft, momentary shadow of tenderness, that was very pretty and becoming, passing quickly over the sunshine and gaiety of her face as she saluted us. The next moment she was on her feet again, inquiring “who the wonderful man was who built The Glen Tower,” and wanting to go all over it immediately from top to bottom.

As we took her into the house, I made the necessary apologies for the miserable condition of the lean-to, and assured her that, ten days later, she would have found it perfectly ready to receive her. She whisked into the rooms – looked all round them – whisked out again – declared she had come to live in the old Tower, and not in any modern addition to it, and flatly declined to inhabit the lean-to on any terms whatever. I opened my lips to state certain objections, but she slipped away in an instant and made straight for the Tower staircase.

“Who lives here?” she asked, calling down to us, eagerly, from the first-floor landing.

“I do,” said Owen; “but, if you would like me to move out—”

She was away up the second flight before he could say any more. The next sound we heard, as we slowly followed her, was a peremptory drumming against the room door of the second story.

“Anybody here?” we heard her ask through the door.

I called up to her that, under ordinary circumstances, I was there; but that, like Owen, I should be happy to move out—

My polite offer was cut short as my brother’s had been. We heard more drumming at the door of the third story. There were two rooms here also – one perfectly empty, the other stocked with odds and ends of dismal, old-fashioned furniture for which we had no use, and grimly ornamented by a life-size basket figure supporting a complete suit of armour in a sadly rusty condition. When Owen and I got to the third-floor landing, the door was open; Miss Jessie had taken possession of the rooms; and we found her on a chair, dusting the man in armour with her cambric pocket-handkerchief.

“I shall live here,” she said, looking round at us briskly over her shoulder.

We both remonstrated, but it was quite in vain. She told us that she had an impulse to live with the man in armour, and that she would have her way, or go back immediately in the post-chaise, which we pleased. Finding it impossible to move her, we bargained that she should, at least, allow the new bed and the rest of the comfortable furniture in the lean-to to be moved up into the empty room for her sleeping accommodation. She consented to this condition, protesting, however, to the last against being compelled to sleep in a bed, because it was a modern conventionality, out of all harmony with her place of residence and her friend in armour.

Fortunately for the repose of Morgan, who, under other circumstances, would have discovered on the very first day that his airy retreat was by no means high enough to place him out of Jessie’s reach, the idea of settling herself instantly in her new habitation excluded every other idea from the mind of our fair guest. She pinned up the nankeen-coloured travelling dress in festoons all round her on the spot; informed us that we were now about to make acquaintance with her in the new character of a woman of business; and darted downstairs in mad high spirits, screaming for Matilda and the trunks like a child for a set of new toys. The wholesome protest of Nature against the artificial restraints of modern life expressed itself in all that she said and in all that she did. She had never known what it was to be happy before, because she had never been allowed, until now, to do anything for herself. She was down on her knees at one moment, blowing the fire, and telling us that she felt like Cinderella; she was up on a table the next, attacking the cobwebs with a long broom, and wishing she had been born a housemaid. As for my unfortunate friend, the upholsterer, he was levelled to the ranks at the first effort he made to assume the command of the domestic forces in the furniture department. She laughed at him, pushed him about, disputed all his conclusions, altered all his arrangements, and ended by ordering half his bedroom furniture to be taken back again, for the one unanswerable reason that she meant to do without it.

As evening approached, the scene presented by the two rooms became eccentric to a pitch of absurdity which is quite indescribable. The grim, ancient walls of the bedroom had the liveliest modern dressing-gowns and morning-wrappers hanging all about them. The man in armour had a collection of smart little boots and shoes dangling by laces and ribbons round his iron legs. A worm-eaten, steel-clasped casket, dragged out of a corner, frowned on the upholsterer’s brand-new toilet-table, and held a miscellaneous assortment of combs, hairpins, and brushes. Here stood a gloomy antique chair, the patriarch of its tribe, whose arms of blackened oak embraced a pair of pert, new deal bonnet-boxes not a fortnight old. There, thrown down lightly on a rugged tapestry table-cover, the long labour of centuries past, lay the brief, delicate work of a week ago in the shape of silk and muslin dresses turned inside out. In the midst of all these confusions and contradictions, Miss Jessie ranged to and fro, the active centre of the whole scene of disorder, now singing at the top of her voice, and now declaring in her light-hearted way that one of us must make up his mind to marry her immediately, as she was determined to settle for the rest of her life at The Glen Tower.

She followed up that announcement, when we met at dinner, by inquiring if we quite understood by this time that she had left her “company manners” in London, and that she meant to govern us all at her absolute will and pleasure, throughout the whole period of her stay. Having thus provided at the outset for the due recognition of her authority by the household generally and individually having briskly planned out all her own forthcoming occupations and amusements over the wine and fruit at dessert, and having positively settled, between her first and second cups of tea, where our connection with them was to begin and where it was to end, she had actually succeeded, when the time came to separate for the night, in setting us as much at our ease, and in making herself as completely a necessary part of our household as if she had lived among us for years and years past.

Such was our first day’s experience of the formidable guest whose anticipated visit had so sorely and so absurdly discomposed us all. I could hardly believe that I had actually wasted hours of precious time in worrying myself and everybody else in the house about the best means of laboriously entertaining a lively, high-spirited girl, who was perfectly capable, without an effort on her own part or on ours, of entertaining herself.

Having upset every one of our calculations on the first day of her arrival, she next falsified all our predictions before she had been with us a week. Instead of fracturing her skull with the pony, as Morgan had prophesied, she sat the sturdy, sure-footed, mischievous little brute as if she were part and parcel of himself. With an old water-proof cloak of mine on her shoulders, with a broad-flapped Spanish hat of Owen’s on her head, with a wild imp of a Welsh boy following her as guide and groom on a bare-backed pony, and with one of the largest and ugliest cur-dogs in England (which she had picked up, lost and starved by the wayside) barking at her heels, she scoured the country in all directions, and came back to dinner, as she herself expressed it, “with the manners of an Amazon, the complexion of a dairy-maid, and the appetite of a wolf.”

On days when incessant rain kept her indoors, she amused herself with a new freak. Making friends everywhere, as became The Queen of Hearts, she even ingratiated herself with the sour old housekeeper, who had predicted so obstinately that she was certain to run away. To the amazement of everybody in the house, she spent hours in the kitchen, learning to make puddings and pies, and trying all sorts of recipes with very varying success, from an antiquated cookery book which she had discovered at the back of my bookshelves. At other times, when I expected her to be upstairs, languidly examining her finery, and idly polishing her trinkets, I heard of her in the stables, feeding the rabbits, and talking to the raven, or found her in the conservatory, fumigating the plants, and half suffocating the gardener, who was trying to moderate her enthusiasm in the production of smoke.

Instead of finding amusement, as we had expected, in Owen’s studio, she puckered up her pretty face in grimaces of disgust at the smell of paint in the room, and declared that the horrors of the Earthquake at Lisbon made her feel hysterical. Instead of showing a total want of interest in my business occupations on the estate, she destroyed my dignity as steward by joining me in my rounds on her pony, with her vagabond retinue at her heels. Instead of devouring the novels I had ordered for her, she left them in the box, and put her feet on it when she felt sleepy after a hard day’s riding. Instead of practising for hours every evening at the piano, which I had hired with such a firm conviction of her using it, she showed us tricks on the cards, taught us new games, initiated us into the mystics of dominoes, challenged us with riddles, an even attempted to stimulate us into acting charades – in short, tried every evening amusement in the whole category except the amusement of music. Every new aspect of her character was a new surprise to us, and every fresh occupation that she chose was a fresh contradiction to our previous expectations. The value of experience as a guide is unquestionable in many of the most important affairs of life; but, speaking for myself personally, I never understood the utter futility of it, where a woman is concerned, until I was brought into habits of daily communication with our fair guest.

In her domestic relations with ourselves she showed that exquisite nicety of discrimination in studying our characters, habits and tastes which comes by instinct with women, and which even the longest practice rarely teaches in similar perfection to men. She saw at a glance all the underlying tenderness and generosity concealed beneath Owen’s external shyness, irresolution, and occasional reserve; and, from first to last, even in her gayest moments, there was always a certain quietly-implied consideration – an easy, graceful, delicate deference – in her manner toward my eldest brother, which won upon me and upon him every hour in the day.

With me she was freer in her talk, quicker in her actions, readier and bolder in all the thousand little familiarities of our daily intercourse. When we met in the morning she always took Owen’s hand, and waited till he kissed her on the forehead. In my case she put both her hands on my shoulders, raised herself on tiptoe, and saluted me briskly on both checks in the foreign way. She never differed in opinion with Owen without propitiating him first by some little artful compliment in the way of excuse. She argued boldly with me on every subject under the sun, law and politics included; and, when I got the better of her, never hesitated to stop me by putting her hand on my lips, or by dragging me out into the garden in the middle of a sentence.

As for Morgan, she abandoned all restraint in his case on the second day of her sojourn among us. She had asked after him as soon as she was settled in her two rooms on the third story; had insisted on knowing why he lived at the top of the tower, and why he had not appeared to welcome her at the door; had entrapped us into all sorts of damaging admissions, and had thereupon discovered the true state of the case in less than five minutes.

From that time my unfortunate second brother became the victim of all that was mischievous and reckless in her disposition. She forced him downstairs by a series of manoeuvres which rendered his refuge uninhabitable, and then pretended to fall violently in love with him. She slipped little pink three-cornered notes under his door, entreating him to make appointments with her, or tenderly inquiring how he would like to see her hair dressed at dinner on that day. She followed him into the garden, sometimes to ask for the privilege of smelling his tobacco-smoke, sometimes to beg for a lock of his hair, or a fragment of his ragged old dressing-gown, to put among her keepsakes. She sighed at him when he was in a passion, and put her handkerchief to her eyes when he was sulky. In short, she tormented Morgan, whenever she could catch him, with such ingenious and such relentless malice, that he actually threatened to go back to London, and prey once more, in the unscrupulous character of a doctor, on the credulity of mankind.

Thus situated in her relations toward ourselves, and thus occupied by country diversions of her own choosing, Miss Jessie passed her time at The Glen Tower, excepting now and then a dull hour in the long evenings, to her guardian’s satisfaction – and, all things considered, not without pleasure to herself. Day followed day in calm and smooth succession, and five quiet weeks had elapsed out of the six during which her stay was to last without any remarkable occurrence to distinguish them, when an event happened which personally affected me in a very serious manner, and which suddenly caused our handsome Queen of Hearts to become the object of my deepest anxiety in the present, and of my dearest hopes for the future.

•  IV  •

OUR GRAND PROJECT

At the end of the fifth week of our guest’s stay, among the letters which the morning’s post brought to The Glen Tower there was one for me, from my son George, in the Crimea.

The effect which this letter produced in our little circle renders it necessary that I should present it here, to speak for itself.

This is what I read alone in my own room:

My dearest Father – After the great public news of the fall of Sebastopol, have you any ears left for small items of private intelligence from insignificant subaltern officers? Prepare, if you have, for a sudden and a startling announcement. How shall I write the words? How shall I tell you that I am really coming home?

I have a private opportunity of sending this letter, and only a short time to write it in; so I must put many things, if I can, into few words. The doctor has reported me fit to travel at last, and I leave, thanks to the privilege of a wounded man, by the next ship. The name of the vessel and the time of starting are on the list which I enclose. I have made all my calculations, and, allowing for every possible delay, I find that I shall be with you, at the latest, on the first of November – perhaps some days earlier.

I am far too full of my return, and of something else connected with it which is equally dear to me, to say anything about public affairs, more especially as I know that the newspapers must, by this time, have given you plenty of information. Let me fill the rest of this paper with a subject which is very near to my heart – nearer, I am almost ashamed to say, than the great triumph of my countrymen, in which my disabled condition has prevented me from taking any share.

I gathered from your last letter that Miss Yelverton was to pay you a visit this autumn, in your capacity of her guardian. If she is already with you, pray move heaven and earth to keep her at The Glen Tower till I come back. Do you anticipate my confession from this entreaty? My dear, dear father, all my hopes rest on that one darling treasure which you are guarding perhaps, at this moment, under your own roof – all my happiness depends on making Jessie Yelverton my wife.

If I did not sincerely believe that you will heartily approve of my choice, I should hardly have ventured on this abrupt confession. Now that I have made it, let me go on and tell you why I have kept my attachment up to this time a secret from everyone – even from Jessie herself. (You see I call her by her Christian name already!)

I should have risked everything, father, and have laid my whole heart open before her more than a year ago, but for the order which sent our regiment out to take its share in this great struggle of the Russian war. No ordinary change in my life would have silenced me on the subject of all others of which I was most anxious to speak; but this change made me think seriously of the future; and out of those thoughts came the resolution which I have kept until this time. For her sake, and for her sake only, I constrained myself to leave the words unspoken which might have made her my promised wife. I resolved to spare her the dreadful suspense of waiting for her betrothed husband till the perils of war might, or might not, give him back to her. I resolved to save her from the bitter grief of my death if a bullet laid me low. I resolved to preserve her from the wretched sacrifice of herself if I came back, as many a brave man will come back from this war, invalided for life. Leaving her untrammelled by any engagement, unsuspicious perhaps of my real feelings toward her, I might die, and know that, by keeping silence, I had spared a pang to the heart that was dearest to me. This was the thought that stayed the words on my lips when I left England, uncertain whether I should ever come back. If I had loved her less dearly, if her happiness had been less precious to me, I might have given way under the hard restraint I imposed on myself, and might have spoken selfishly at the last moment.

And now the time of trial is past; the war is over; and, although I still walk a little lame, I am, thank God, in as good health and in much better spirits than when I left home. Oh, father, if I should lose her now – if I should get no reward for sparing her but the bitterest of all disappointments! Sometimes I am vain enough to think that I made some little impression on her; sometimes I doubt if she has a suspicion of my love. She lives in a gay world – she is the centre of perpetual admiration – men with all the qualities to win a woman’s heart are perpetually about her – can I, dare I hope? Yes, I must! Only keep her, I entreat you, at The Glen Tower. In that quiet world, in that freedom from frivolities and temptations, she will listen to me as she might listen nowhere else. Keep her, my dearest, kindest father – and, above all things, breathe not a word to her of this letter. I have surely earned the privilege of being the first to open her eyes to the truth. She must know nothing, now that I am coming home, till she knows all from my own lips.

Here the writing hurriedly broke off. I am only giving myself credit for common feeling, I trust, when I confess that what I read deeply affected me. I think I never felt so fond of my boy, and so proud of him, as at the moment when I laid down his letter.

As soon as I could control my spirits, I began to calculate the question of time with a trembling eagerness, which brought back to my mind my own young days of love and hope. My son was to come back, at the latest, on the first of November, and Jessie’s allotted six weeks would expire on the twenty-second of October. Ten days too soon! But for the caprice which had brought her to us exactly that number of days before her time she would have been in the house, as a matter of necessity, on George’s return.

I searched back in my memory for a conversation that I had held with her a week since on her future plans. Toward the middle of November, her aunt, Lady Westwick, had arranged to go to her house in Paris, and Jessie was, of course, to accompany her – to accompany her into that very circle of the best English and the best French society which contained in it the elements most adverse to George’s hopes. Between this time and that she had no special engagement, and she had only settled to write and warn her aunt of her return to London a day or two before she left The Glen Tower.

Under these circumstances, the first, the all-important necessity was to prevail on her to prolong her stay beyond the allotted six weeks by ten days. After the caution to be silent impressed on me (and most naturally, poor boy) in George’s letter, I felt that I could only appeal to her on the ordinary ground of hospitality. Would this be sufficient to effect the object?

I was sure that the hours of the morning and the afternoon had, thus far, been fully and happily occupied by her various amusements indoors and out. She was no more weary of her days now than she had been when she first came among us. But I was by no means so certain that she was not tired of her evenings. I had latterly noticed symptoms of weariness after the lamps were lit, and a suspicious regularity in retiring to bed the moment the clock struck ten. If I could provide her with a new amusement for the long evenings, I might leave the days to take care of themselves, and might then make sure (seeing that she had no special engagement in London until the middle of November) of her being sincerely thankful and ready to prolong her stay.

How was this to be done? The piano and the novels had both failed to attract her. What other amusement was there to offer?

It was useless, at present, to ask myself such questions as these. I was too much agitated to think collectedly on the most trifling subjects. I was even too restless to stay in my own room. My son’s letter had given me so fresh an interest in Jessie that I was now as impatient to see her as if we were about to meet for the first time. I wanted to look at her with my new eyes, to listen to her with my new ears, to study her secretly with my new purposes, and my new hopes and fears. To my dismay (for I wanted the very weather itself to favour George’s interests), it was raining heavily that morning. I knew, therefore, that I should probably find her in her own sitting-room. When I knocked at her door, with George’s letter crumpled up in my hand, with George’s hopes in full possession of my heart, it is no exaggeration to say that my nerves were almost as much fluttered, and my ideas almost as much confused, as they were on a certain memorable day in the far past, when I rose, in brand-new wig and gown, to set my future prospects at the bar on the hazard of my first speech.

When I entered the room I found Jessie leaning back languidly in her largest armchair, watching the raindrops dripping down the windowpane. The unfortunate box of novels was open by her side, and the books were lying, for the most part, strewed about on the ground at her feet. One volume lay open, back upward, on her lap, and her hands were crossed over it listlessly. To my great dismay, she was yawning – palpably and widely yawning – when I came in.

No sooner did I find myself in her presence than an irresistible anxiety to make some secret discovery of the real state of her feelings toward George took possession of me. After the customary condolences on the imprisonment to which she was subjected by the weather, I said, in as careless a manner as it was possible to assume:

“I have heard from my son this morning. He talks of being ordered home, and tells me I may expect to see him before the end of the year.”

I was too cautious to mention the exact date of his return, for in that case she might have detected my motive for asking her to prolong her visit.

“Oh, indeed?” she said. “How very nice. How glad you must be.”

I watched her narrowly. The clear, dark blue eyes met mine as openly as ever. The smooth, round cheeks kept their fresh colour quite unchanged. The full, good-humoured, smiling lips never trembled or altered their expression in the slightest degree. Her light checked silk dress, with its pretty trimming of cherry-coloured ribbon, lay quite still over the bosom beneath it. For all the information I could get from her look and manner, we might as well have been a hundred miles apart from each other. Is the best woman in the world little better than a fathomless abyss of duplicity on certain occasions, and where certain feelings of her own are concerned? I would rather not think that; and yet I don’t know how to account otherwise for the masterly manner in which Miss Jessie contrived to baffle me.

I was afraid – literally afraid – to broach the subject of prolonging her sojourn with us on a rainy day, so I changed the topic, in despair, to the novels that were scattered about her.

“Can you find nothing there,” I asked, “to amuse you this wet morning?”

“There are two or three good novels,” she said, carelessly, “but I read them before I left London.”

“And the others won’t even do for a dull day in the country?” I went on.

“They might do for some people,” she answered, “but not for me. I’m rather peculiar, perhaps, in my tastes. I’m sick to death of novels with an earnest purpose. I’m sick to death of outbursts of eloquence, and large-minded philanthropy, and graphic descriptions, and unsparing anatomy of the human heart, and all that sort of thing. Good gracious me! isn’t it the original intention or purpose, or whatever you call it, of a work of fiction, to set out distinctly by telling a story? And how many of these books, I should like to know, do that? Why, so far as telling a story is concerned, the greater part of them might as well be sermons as novels. Oh, dear me! what I want is something that seizes hold of my interest, and makes me forget when it is time to dress for dinner – something that keeps me reading, reading, reading, in a breathless state to find out the end. You know what I mean – at least you ought. Why, there was that little chance story you told me yesterday in the garden – don’t you remember? – about your strange client, whom you never saw again: I declare it was much more interesting than half these novels, because it was a story. Tell me another about your young days, when you were seeing the world, and meeting with all sorts of remarkable people. Or, no – don’t tell it now – keep it till the evening, when we all want something to stir us up. You old people might amuse us young ones out of your own resources oftener than you do. It was very kind of you to get me these books; but, with all respect to them, I would rather have the rummaging of your memory than the rummaging of this box. What’s the matter? Are you afraid I have found out the window in your bosom already?”

I had half risen from my chair at her last words, and I felt that my face must have flushed at the same moment. She had started an idea in my mind – the very idea of which I had been in search when I was pondering over the best means of amusing her in the long autumn evenings.

I parried her questions by the best excuses I could offer; changed the conversation for the next five minutes, and then, making a sudden remembrance of business my apology for leaving her, hastily withdrew to devote myself to the new idea in the solitude of my own room.

A little quiet thinking convinced me that I had discovered a means not only of occupying her idle time, but of decoying her into staying on with us, evening by evening, until my son’s return. The new project which she had herself unconsciously suggested involved nothing less than acting forthwith on her own chance hint, and appealing to her interest and curiosity by the recital of incidents and adventures drawn from my own personal experience and (if I could get them to help me) from the experience of my brothers as well. Strange people and startling events had connected themselves with Owen’s past life as a clergyman, with Morgan’s past life as a doctor, and with my past life as a lawyer, which offered elements of interest of a strong and striking kind ready to our hands. If these narratives were written plainly and unpretendingly; if one of them was read every evening, under circumstances that should pique the curiosity and impress the imagination of our young guest, the very occupation was found for her weary hours which would gratify her tastes, appeal to her natural interest in the early lives of my brothers and myself, and lure her insensibly into prolonging her visit by ten days without exciting a suspicion of our real motive for detaining her.

I sat down at my desk; I hid my face in my hands to keep out all impressions of external and present things; and I searched back through the mysterious labyrinth of the Past, through the dun, ever-deepening twilight of the years that were gone.

Slowly, out of the awful shadows, the Ghosts of Memory rose about me. The dead population of a vanished world came back to life round me, a living man. Men and women whose earthly pilgrimage had ended long since, returned upon me from the unknown spheres, and fond, familiar voices burst their way back to my ears through the heavy silence of the grave. Moving by me in the nameless inner light, which no eye saw but mine, the dead procession of immaterial scenes and beings unrolled its silent length. I saw once more the pleading face of a friend of early days, with the haunting vision that had tortured him through life by his side again – with the long-forgotten despair in his eyes which had once touched my heart, and bound me to him, till I had tracked his destiny through its darkest windings to the end. I saw the figure of an innocent woman passing to and fro in an ancient country house, with the shadow of a strange suspicion stealing after her wherever she went. I saw a man worn by hardship and old age, stretched dreaming on the straw of a stable, and muttering in his dream the terrible secret of his life.

Other scenes and persons followed these, less vivid in their revival, but still always recognisable and distinct; a young girl alone by night, and in peril of her life, in a cottage on a dreary moor – an upper chamber of an inn, with two beds in it; the curtains of one bed closed, and a man standing by them, waiting, yet dreading to draw them back – a husband secretly following the first traces of a mystery which his wife’s anxious love had fatally hidden from him since the day when they first met; these, and other visions like them, shadowy reflections of the living beings and the real events that had been once, peopled the solitude and the emptiness around me. They haunted me still when I tried to break the chain of thought which my own efforts had wound about my mind; they followed me to and fro in the room; and they came out with me when I left it. I had lifted the veil from the Past for myself, and I was now to rest no more till I had lifted it for others.

I went at once to my eldest brother and showed him my son’s letter, and told him all that I have written here. His kind heart was touched as mine had been. He felt for my suspense; he shared my anxiety; he laid aside his own occupation on the spot.

“Only tell me,” he said, “how I can help, and I will give every h our in the day to you and to George.”

I had come to him with my mind almost as full of his past life as of my own; I recalled to his memory events in his experience as a working clergyman in London; I set him looking among papers which he had preserved for half his lifetime, and the very existence of which he had forgotten long since; I recalled to him the names of persons to whose necessities he had ministered in his sacred office, and whose stories he had heard from their own lips or received under their own handwriting. When we parted he was certain of what he was wanted to do, and was resolute on that very day to begin the work.

I went to Morgan next, and appealed to him as I had already appealed to Owen. It was only part of his odd character to start all sorts of eccentric objections in reply; to affect a cynical indifference, which he was far from really and truly feeling; and to indulge in plenty of quaint sarcasm on the subject of Jessie and his nephew George. I waited till these little surface-ebullitions had all expended themselves, and then pressed my point again with the earnestness and anxiety that I really felt.

Evidently touched by the manner of my appeal to him even more than by the language in which it was expressed, Morgan took refuge in his customary abruptness, spread out his paper violently on the table, seized his pen and ink, and told me quite fiercely to give him his work and let him tackle it at once.

I set myself to recall to his memory some very remarkable experiences of his own in his professional days, but he stopped me before I had half done.

“I understand,” he said, taking a savage dip at the ink, “I’m to make her flesh creep, and to frighten her out of her wits. I’ll do it with a vengeance!”

Reserving to myself privately an editorial right of supervision over Morgan’s contributions, I returned to my own room to begin my share – by far the largest one – of the task before us. The stimulus applied to my mind by my son’s letter must have been a strong one indeed, for I had hardly been more than an hour at my desk before I found the old literary facility of my youthful days, when I was a writer for the magazines, returning to me as if by magic. I worked on unremittingly till dinnertime, and then resumed the pen after we had all separated for the night. At two o’clock the next morning I found myself – God help me! – masquerading, as it were, in my own long-lost character of a hard-writing young man, with the old familiar cup of strong tea by my side, and the old familiar wet towel tied round my head.

My review of the progress I had made, when I looked back at my pages of manuscript, yielded all the encouragement I wanted to drive me on. It is only just, however, to add to the record of this first day’s attempt, that the literary labour which it involved was by no means of the most trying kind. The great strain on the intellect – the strain of invention – was spared me by my having real characters and events ready to my hand. If I had been called on to create, I should, in all probability, have suffered severely by contrast with the very worst of those unfortunate novelists whom Jessie had so rashly and so thoughtlessly condemned. It is not wonderful that the public should rarely know how to estimate the vast service which is done to them by the production of a good book, seeing that they are, for the most part, utterly ignorant of the immense difficulty of writing even a bad one.

The next day was fine, to my great relief; and our visitor, while we were at work, enjoyed her customary scamper on the pony, and her customary rambles afterward in the neighbourhood of the house. Although I had interruptions to contend with on the part of Owen and Morgan, neither of whom possessed my experience in the production of what heavy people call “light literature,” and both of whom consequently wanted assistance, still I made great progress, and earned my hours of repose on the evening of the second day.

On that evening I risked the worst, and opened my negotiations for the future with “The Queen of Hearts.”

About an hour after the tea had been removed, and when I happened to be left alone in the room with her, I noticed that she rose suddenly and went to the writing-table. My suspicions were aroused directly, and I entered on the dangerous subject by inquiring if she intended to write to her aunt.

“Yes,” she said. “I promised to write when the last week came. If you had paid me the compliment of asking me to stay a little longer, I should have returned it by telling you I was sorry to go. As it is, I mean to be sulky and say nothing.”

With those words she took up her pen to begin the letter.

“Wait a minute,” I remonstrated. “I was just on the point of begging you to stay when I spoke.”

“Were you, indeed?” she returned. “I never believed in coincidences of that sort before, but now, of course, I put the most unlimited faith in them!”

“Will you believe in plain proofs?” I asked, adopting her humour. “How do you think I and my brothers have been employing ourselves all day today and all day yesterday? Guess what we have been about.”

“Congratulating yourselves in secret on my approaching departure,” she answered, tapping her chin saucily with the feather-end of her pen.

I seized the opportunity of astonishing her, and forthwith told her the truth. She started up from the table, and approached me with the eagerness of a child, her eyes sparkling, and her cheeks flushed.

“Do you really mean it?” she said.

I assured her that I was in earnest. She thereupon not only expressed an interest in our undertaking, which was evidently sincere, but, with characteristic impatience, wanted to begin the first evening’s reading on that very night. I disappointed her sadly by explaining that we required time to prepare ourselves, and by assuring her that we should not be ready for the next five days. On the sixth day, I added, we should be able to begin, and to go on, without missing an evening, for probably ten days more.

“The next five days?” she replied. “Why, that will just bring us to the end of my six weeks’ visit. I suppose you are not setting a trap to catch me? This is not a trick of you three cunning old gentlemen to make me stay on, is it?”

I quailed inwardly as that dangerously close guess at the truth passed her lips.

“You forget,” I said, “that the idea only occurred to me after what you said yesterday. If it had struck me earlier, we should have been ready earlier, and then where would your suspicions have been?”

“I am ashamed of having felt them,” she said, in her frank, hearty way. “I retract the word ‘trap,’ and I beg pardon for calling you ‘three cunning old gentlemen.’ But what am I to say to my aunt?”

She moved back to the writing-table as she spoke.

“Say nothing,” I replied, “till you have heard the first story. Shut up the paper-case till that time, and then decide when you will open it again to write to your aunt.”

She hesitated and smiled. That terribly close guess of hers was not out of her mind yet.

“I rather fancy,” she said, slyly, “that the story will turn out to be the best of the whole series.”

“Wrong again,” I retorted. “I have a plan for letting chance decide which of the stories the first one shall be. They shall be all numbered as they are done; corresponding numbers shall be written inside folded pieces of card and well mixed together; you shall pick out any one card you like; you shall declare the number written within; and, good or bad, the story that answers to that number shall be the story that is read. Is that fair?”

“Fair!” she exclaimed; “it’s better than fair; it makes me of some importance; and I must be more or less than woman not to appreciate that.”

“Then you consent to wait patiently for the next five days?”

“As patiently as I can.”

“And you engage to decide nothing about writing to your aunt until you have heard the first story?”

“I do,” she said, returning to the writing-table. “Behold the proof of it.” She raised her hand with theatrical solemnity, and closed the paper-case with an impressive bang.

I leaned back in my chair with my mind at ease for the first time since the receipt of my son’s letter.

“Only let George return by the first of November,” I thought to myself, “and all the aunts in Christendom shall not prevent Jessie Yelverton from being here to meet him.”

THE TEN DAYS

THE FIRST DAY

Showery and unsettled. In spite of the weather, Jessie put on my Mackintosh cloak and rode off over the hills to one of Owen’s outlying farms. She was already too impatient to wait quietly for the evening’s reading in the house, or to enjoy any amusement less exhilarating than a gallop in the open air.

I was, on my side, as anxious and as uneasy as our guest. Now that the six weeks of her stay had expired – now that the day had really arrived, on the evening of which the first story was to be read, I began to calculate the chances of failure as well as the chances of success. What if my own estimate of the interest of the stories turned out to be a false one? What if some unforeseen accident occurred to delay my son’s return beyond ten days?

The arrival of the newspaper had already become an event of the deepest importance to me. Unreasonable as it was to expect any tidings of George at so early a date, I began, nevertheless, on this first of our days of suspense, to look for the name of his ship in the columns of telegraphic news. The mere mechanical act of looking was some relief to my overstrained feelings, although I might have known, and did know, that the search, for the present, could lead to no satisfactory result.

Toward noon I shut myself up with my collection of manuscripts to revise them for the last time. Our exertions had thus far produced but six of the necessary ten stories. As they were only, however, to be read, one by one, on six successive evenings, and as we could therefore count on plenty of leisure in the daytime, I was in no fear of our failing to finish the little series.

Of the six completed stories I had written two, and had found a third in the form of a collection of letters among my papers. Morgan had only written one, and this solitary contribution of his had given me more trouble than both my own put together, in consequence of the perpetual intrusion of my brother’s eccentricities in every part of his narrative. The process of removing these quaint turns and frisks of Morgan’s humour – which, however amusing they might have been in an essay, were utterly out of place in a story appealing to suspended interest for its effect – certainly tried my patience and my critical faculty (such as it is) more severely than any other part of our literary enterprise which had fallen my share.

Owen’s investigations among his papers had supplied us with the two remaining narratives. One was contained in a letter, and the other in the form of a diary, and both had been received by him directly from the writers. Besides these contributions, he had undertaken to help us by some work of his own, and had been engaged for the last four days in moulding certain events which had happened within his personal knowledge into the form of a story. His extreme fastidiousness as a writer interfered, however, so seriously with his progress that he was still sadly behindhand, and was likely, though less heavily burdened than Morgan or myself, to be the last to complete his allotted task.

Such was our position, and such the resources at our command, when the first of the Ten Days dawned upon us. Shortly after four in the afternoon I completed my work of revision, numbered the manuscripts from one to six exactly as they happened to lie under my hand, and enclosed them all in a portfolio, covered with purple morocco, which became known from that time by the imposing title of The Purple Volume.

Miss Jessie returned from her expedition just as I was tying the strings of the portfolio, and, womanlike, instantly asked leave to peep inside, which favour I, manlike, positively declined to grant.

As soon as dinner was over our guest retired to array herself in magnificent evening costume. It had been arranged that the readings were to take place in her own sitting-room; and she was so enthusiastically desirous to do honour to the occasion, that she regretted not having brought with her from London the dress in which she had been presented at court the year before, and not having borrowed certain materials for additional splendour which she briefly described as “aunt’s diamonds.”

Toward eight o’clock we assembled in the sitting-room, and a strangely assorted company we were. At the head of the table, radiant in silk and jewellery, flowers and furbelows, sat The Queen of Hearts, looking so handsome and so happy that I secretly congratulated my absent son on the excellent taste he had shown in falling in love with her. Round this bright young creature (Owen, at the foot of the table, and Morgan and I on either side) sat her three wrinkled, grey-headed, dingily-attired hosts, and just behind her, in still more inappropriate companionship, towered the spectral figure of the man in armour, which had so unaccountably attracted her on her arrival. This strange scene was lighted up by candles in high and heavy brass sconces. Before Jessie stood a mighty china punch-bowl of the olden time, containing the folded pieces of card, inside which were written the numbers to be drawn, and before Owen reposed the Purple Volume from which one of us was to read. The walls of the room were hung all round with faded tapestry; the clumsy furniture was black with age; and, in spite of the light from the sconces, the lofty ceiling was almost lost in gloom. If Rembrandt could have painted our background, Reynolds our guest, and Hogarth ourselves, the picture of the scene would have been complete.

When the old clock over the tower gateway had chimed eight, I rose to inaugurate the proceedings by requesting Jessie to take one of the pieces of card out of the punch-bowl, and to declare the number.

She laughed; then suddenly became frightened and serious; then looked at me, and said, “It was dreadfully like business;” and then entreated Morgan not to stare at her, or, in the present state of her nerves, she should upset the punch-bowl. At last she summoned resolution enough to take out one of the pieces of card and to unfold it.

“Declare the number, my dear,” said Owen.

“Number Four,” answered Jessie, making a magnificent courtesy, and beginning to look like herself again.

Owen opened the Purple Volume, searched through the manuscripts, and suddenly changed colour. The cause of his discomposure was soon explained. Malicious fate had assigned to the most diffident individual in the company the trying responsibility of leading the way. Number Four was one of the two narratives which Owen had found among his own papers.

“I am almost sorry,” began my eldest brother, confusedly, “that it has fallen to my turn to read first. I hardly know which I distrust most, myself or my story.”

“Try and fancy you are in the pulpit again,” said Morgan, sarcastically. “Gentlemen of your cloth, Owen, seldom seem to distrust themselves or their manuscripts when they get into that position.”

“The fact is,” continued Owen, mildly impenetrable to his brother’s cynical remark, “that the little thing I am going to try and read is hardly a story at all. I am afraid it is only an anecdote. I became possessed of the letter which contains my narrative under these circumstances. At the time when I was a clergyman in London, my church was attended for some months by a lady who was the wife of a large farmer in the country. She had been obliged to come to town, and to remain there for the sake of one of her children, a little boy, who required the best medical advice.”

At the words “medical advice” Morgan shook his head and growled to himself contemptuously. Owen went on:

“While she was attending in this way to one child, his share in her love was unexpectedly disputed by another, who came into the world rather before his time. I baptised the baby, and was asked to the little christening party afterward. This was my first introduction to the lady, and I was very favourably impressed by her; not so much on account of her personal appearance, for she was but a little woman and had no pretensions to beauty, as on account of a certain simplicity, and hearty, downright kindness in her manner, as well as of an excellent frankness and good sense in her conversation. One of the guests present, who saw how she had interested me, and who spoke of her in the highest terms, surprised me by inquiring if I should ever have supposed that quiet, good-humoured little woman to be capable of performing an act of courage which would have tried the nerves of the boldest man in England? I naturally enough begged for an explanation; but my neighbour at the table only smiled and said, ‘If you can find an opportunity, ask her what happened at The Black Cottage, and you will hear something that will astonish you.’ I acted on the hint as soon as I had an opportunity of speaking to her privately. The lady answered that it was too long a story to tell then, and explained, on my suggesting that she should relate it on some future day, that she was about to start for her country home the next morning. ‘But,’ she was good enough to add, ‘as I have been under great obligations to you for many Sundays past, and as you seem interested in this matter, I will employ my first leisure time after my return in telling you by writing, instead of by word of mouth, what really happened to me on one memorable night of my life in The Black Cottage.’

“She faithfully performed her promise. In a fortnight afterward I received from her the narrative which I am now about to read.”

BROTHER OWEN’S STORY:
THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK COTTAGE

To begin at the beginning, I must take you back to the time after my mother’s death, when my only brother had gone to sea, when my sister was out at service, and when I lived alone with my father in the midst of a moor in the west of England.

The moor was covered with great limestone rocks, and intersected here and there by streamlets. The nearest habitation to ours was situated about a mile and a half off, where a strip of the fertile land stretched out into the waste like a tongue. Here the outbuildings of the great Moor Farm, then in the possession of my husband’s father, began. The farmlands stretched down gently into a beautiful rich valley, lying nicely sheltered by the high platform of the moor. When the ground began to rise again, miles and miles away, it led up to a country house called Holme Manor, belonging to a gentleman named Knifton. Mr. Knifton had lately married a young lady whom my mother had nursed, and whose kindness and friendship for me, her foster-sister, I shall remember gratefully to the last day of my life. These and other slight particulars it is necessary to my story that I should tell you, and it is also necessary that you should be especially careful to bear them well in mind.

My father was by trade a stone-mason. His cottage stood a mile and a half from the nearest habitation. In all other directions we were four or five times that distance from neighbours. Being very poor people, this lonely situation had one great attraction for us – we lived rent free on it. In addition to that advantage, the stones, by shaping which my father gained his livelihood, lay all about him at his very door, so that he thought his position, solitary as it was, quite an enviable one. I can hardly say that I agreed with him, though I never complained. I was very fond of my father, and managed to make the best of my loneliness with the thought of being useful to him. Mrs. Knifton wished to take me into her service when she married, but I declined, unwillingly enough, for my father’s sake. If I had gone away, he would have had nobody to live with him; and my mother made me promise on her deathbed that he should never be left to pine away alone in the midst of the bleak moor.

Our cottage, small as it was, was stoutly and snugly built, with stone from the moor as a matter of course. The walls were lined inside and fenced outside with wood, the gift of Mr. Knifton’s father to my father. This double covering of cracks and crevices, which would have been superfluous in a sheltered position, was absolutely necessary, in our exposed situation, to keep out the cold winds which, excepting just the summer months, swept over us continually all the year round. The outside boards, covering our roughly-built stone walls, my father protected against the wet with pitch and tar. This gave to our little abode a curiously dark, dingy look, especially when it was seen from a distance; and so it had come to be called in the neighbourhood, even before I was born, The Black Cottage.

I have now related the preliminary particulars which it is desirable that you should know, and may proceed at once to the pleasanter task of telling you my story.

One cloudy autumn day, when I was rather more than eighteen years old, a herdsman walked over from Moor Farm with a letter which had been left there for my father. It came from a builder living at our county town, half a day’s journey off, and it invited my father to come to him and give his judgement about an estimate for some stonework on a very large scale. My father’s expenses for loss of time were to be paid, and he was to have his share of employment afterwards in preparing the stone. He was only too glad, therefore, to obey the directions which the letter contained, and to prepare at once for his long walk to the county town.

Considering the time at which he received the letter, and the necessity of resting before he attempted to return, it was impossible for him to avoid being away from home for one night, at least. He proposed to me, in case I disliked being left alone in the Black Cottage, to lock the door and to take me to Moor Farm to sleep with any one of the milkmaids who would give me a share of her bed. I by no means liked the notion of sleeping with a girl whom I did not know, and I saw no reason to feel afraid of being left alone for only one night; so I declined. No thieves had ever come near us; our poverty was sufficient protection against them; and of other dangers there were none that even the most timid person could apprehend. Accordingly, I got my father’s dinner, laughing at the notion of my taking refuge under the protection of a milkmaid at Moor Farm. He started for his walk as soon as he had done, saying he should try and be back by dinnertime the next day, and leaving me and my cat Polly to take care of the house.

I had cleared the table and brightened up the fire, and had sat down to my work with the cat dozing at my feet, when I heard the trampling of horses, and, running to the door, saw Mr. and Mrs. Knifton, with their groom behind them, riding up to the Black Cottage. It was part of the young lady’s kindness never to neglect an opportunity of coming to pay me a friendly visit, and her husband was generally willing to accompany her for his wife’s sake. I made my best courtesy, therefore, with a great deal of pleasure, but with no particular surprise at seeing them. They dismounted and entered the cottage, laughing and talking in great spirits. I soon heard that they were riding to the same county town for which my father was bound and that they intended to stay with some friends there for a few days, and to return home on horseback, as they went out.

I heard this, and I also discovered that they had been having an argument, in jest, about money-matters, as they rode along to our cottage. Mrs. Knifton had accused her husband of inveterate extravagance, and of never being able to go out with money in his pocket without spending it all, if he possibly could, before he got home again. Mr. Knifton had laughingly defended himself by declaring that all his pocket-money went in presents for his wife, and that, if he spent it lavishly, it was under her sole influence and superintendence.

“We are going to Cliverton now,” he said to Mrs. Knifton, naming the county town, and warming himself at our poor fire just as pleasantly as if he had been standing on his own grand hearth. “You will stop to admire every pretty thing in every one of the Cliverton shop-windows; I shall hand you the purse, and you will go in and buy. When we have reached home again, and you have h ad time to get tired of your purchases, you will clasp your hands in amazement, and declare that you are quite shocked at my habits of inveterate extravagance. I am only the banker who keeps the money; you, my love, are the spendthrift who throws it all away!”

“Am I, sir?” said Mrs. Knifton, with a look of mock indignation. “We will see if I am to be misrepresented in this way with impunity. Bessie, my dear” (turning to me), “you shall judge how far I deserve the character which that unscrupulous man has just given to me. I am the spendthrift, am I? And you are only the banker? Very well. Banker, give me my money at once, if you please!”

Mr. Knifton laughed, and took some gold and silver from his waistcoat pocket.

“No, no,” said Mrs. Knifton, “you may want what you have got there for necessary expenses. Is that all the money you have about you? What do I feel here?” and she tapped her husband on the chest, just over the breast-pocket of his coat.

Mr. Knifton laughed again, and produced his pocketbook. His wife snatched it out of his hand, opened it, and drew out some banknotes, put them back again immediately, and, closing the pocketbook, stepped across the room to my poor mother’s little walnut-wood bookcase, the only bit of valuable furniture we had in the house.

“What are you going to do there?” asked Mr. Knifton, following his wife.

Mrs. Knifton opened the glass door of the bookcase, put the pocketbook in a vacant place on one of the lower shelves, closed and locked the door again, and gave me the key.

“You called me a spendthrift just now,” she said. “There is my answer. Not one farthing of that money shall you spend at Cliverton on me. Keep the key in your pocket, Bessie, and, whatever Mr. Knifton may say, on no account let him have it until we call again on our way back. No, sir, I won’t trust you with that money in your pocket in the town of Cliverton. I will make sure of your taking it all home again, by leaving it here in more trustworthy hands than yours until we ride back. Bessie, my dear, what do you say to that as a lesson in economy inflicted on a prudent husband by a spendthrift wife?”

She took Mr. Knifton’s arm while she spoke, and drew him away to the door. He protested and made some resistance, but she easily carried her point, for he was far too fond of her to have a will of his own in any trifling matter between them. Whatever the men might say, Mr. Knifton was a model husband in the estimation of all the women who knew him.

“You will see us as we come back, Bessie. Till then, you are our banker, and the pocketbook is yours,” cried Mrs. Knifton, gaily, at the door. Her husband lifted her into the saddle, mounted himself, and away they both galloped over the moor as wild and happy as a couple of children.

Although my being trusted with money by Mrs. Knifton was no novelty (in her maiden days she always employed me to pay her dressmaker’s bills), I did not feel quite easy at having a pocketbook full of banknotes left by her in my charge. I had no positive apprehensions about the safety of the deposit placed in my hands, but it was one of the odd points in my character then (and I think it is still) to feel an unreasonably strong objection to charging myself with money responsibilities of any kind, even to suit the convenience of my dearest friends. As soon as I was left alone, the very sight of the pocketbook behind the glass door of the bookcase began to worry me, and instead of returning to my work, I puzzled my brains about finding a place to lock it up in, where it would not be exposed to the view of any chance passers-by who might stray into the Black Cottage.

This was not an easy matter to compass in a poor house like ours, where we had nothing valuable to put under lock and key. After running over various hiding-places in my mind, I thought of my tea-caddy, a present from Mrs. Knifton, which I always kept out of harm’s way in my own bedroom. Most unluckily – as it afterward turned out – instead of taking the pocketbook to the tea-caddy, I went into my room first to take the tea-caddy to the pocketbook. I only acted in this roundabout way from sheer thoughtlessness, and severely enough I was punished for it, as you will acknowledge yourself when you have read a page or two more of my story.

I was just getting the unlucky tea-caddy out of my cupboard, when I heard footsteps in the passage, and, running out immediately, saw two men walk into the kitchen – the room in which I had received Mr. and Mrs. Knifton. I inquired what they wanted sharply enough, and one of them answered immediately that they wanted my father. He turned toward me, of course, as he spoke, and I recognised him as a stone-mason, going among his comrades by the name of Shifty Dick. He bore a very bad character for everything but wrestling, a sport for which the working men of our parts were famous all through the county. Shifty Dick was champion, and he had got his name from some tricks of wrestling, for which he was celebrated. He was a tall, heavy man, with a lowering, scarred face, and huge hairy hands – the last visitor in the whole world that I should have been glad to see under any circumstances. His companion was a stranger, whom he addressed by the name of Jerry – a quick, dapper, wicked-looking man, who took off his cap to me with mock politeness, and showed, in so doing, a very bald head, with some very ugly-looking knobs on it. I distrusted him worse than I did Shifty Dick, and managed to get between his leering eyes and the bookcase, as I told the two that my father was gone out, and that I did not expect him back till the next day.

The words were hardly out of my mouth before I repented that my anxiety to get rid of my unwelcome visitors had made me incautious enough to acknowledge that my father would be away from home for the whole night.

Shifty Dick and his companion looked at each other when I unwisely let out the truth, but made no remark except to ask me if I would give them a drop of cider. I answered sharply that I had no cider in the house, having no fear of the consequences of refusing them drink, because I knew that plenty of men were at work within hail, in a neighbouring quarry. The two looked at each other again when I denied having any cider to give them; and Jerry (as I am obliged to call him, knowing no other name by which to distinguish the fellow) took off his cap to me once more, and, with a kind of blackguard gentility upon him, said they would have the pleasure of calling the next day, when my father was at home. I said good-afternoon as ungraciously as possible, and, to my great relief, they both left the cottage immediately afterward.

As soon as they were well away, I watched them from the door. They trudged off in the direction of Moor Farm; and, as it was beginning to get dusk, I soon lost sight of them.

Half an hour afterward I looked out again.

The wind had lulled with the sunset, but the mist was rising, and a heavy rain was beginning to fall. Never did the lonely prospect of the moor look so dreary as it looked to my eyes that evening. Never did I regret any slight thing more sincerely than I then regretted the leaving of Mr. Knifton’s pocketbook in my charge. I cannot say that I suffered under any actual alarm, for I felt next to certain that neither Shifty Dick nor Jerry had got a chance of setting eyes on so small a thing as the pocketbook while they were in the kitchen; but there was a kind of vague distrust troubling me – a suspicion of the night – a dislike of being left by myself, which I never remember having experienced before. This feeling so increased after I had closed the door and gone back to the kitchen, that, when I heard the voices of the quarrymen as they passed our cottage on their way home to the village in the valley below Moor Farm, I stepped out into the passage with a momentary notion of telling them how I was situated, and asking them for advice and protection.

I had hardly formed this idea, however, before I dismissed it. None of the quarrymen were intimate friends of mine. I had a nodding acquaintance with them, and believed them to be honest men, as times went. But my own common sense told me that what little knowledge of their characters I had was by no means sufficient to warrant me in admitting them into my confidence in the matter of the pocketbook. I had seen enough of poverty and poor men to know what a terrible temptation a large sum of money is to those whose whole lives are passed in scraping up sixpences by weary hard work. It is one thing to write fine sentiments in books about incorruptible honesty, and another thing to put those sentiments in practice when one day’s work is all that a man has to set up in the way of an obstacle between starvation and his own fireside.

The only resource that remained was to carry the pocketbook with me to Moor Farm, and ask permission to pass the night there. But I could not persuade myself that there was any real necessity for taking such a course as this; and, if the truth must be told, my pride revolted at the idea of presenting myself in the character of a coward before the people at the farm. Timidity is thought rather a graceful attraction among ladies, but among poor women it is something to be laughed at. A woman with less spirit of her own than I had, and always shall have, would have considered twice in my situation before she made up her mind to encounter the jokes of ploughmen and the jeers of milkmaids. As for me, I had hardly considered about going to the farm before I despised myself for entertaining any such notion. “No, no,” thought I, “I am not the woman to walk a mile and a half through rain, and mist, and darkness to tell a whole kitchenful of people that I am afraid. Come what may, here I stop till father gets back.”

Having arrived at that valiant resolution, the first thing I did was to lock and bolt the back and front doors, and see to the security of every shutter in the house.

That duty performed, I made a blazing fire, lighted my candle, and sat down to tea, as snug and comfortable as possible. I could hardly believe now, with the light in the room, and the sense of security inspired by the closed doors and shutters, that I had ever felt even the slightest apprehension earlier in the day. I sang as I washed up the tea-things; and even the cat seemed to catch the infection of my good spirits. I never knew the pretty creature so playful as she was that evening.

The tea-things put by, I took up my knitting, and worked away at it so long that I began at last to get drowsy. The fire was so bright and comforting that I could not muster resolution enough to leave it and go to bed. I sat staring lazily into the blaze, with my knitting on my lap – sat till the splashing of the rain outside and the fitful, sullen sobbing of the wind grew fainter and fainter on my ear. The last sounds I heard before I fairly dozed off to sleep were the cheerful crackling of the fire and the steady purring of the cat, as she basked luxuriously in the warm light on the hearth. Those were the last sounds before I fell asleep. The sound that woke me was one loud bang at the front door.

I started up, with my heart (as the saying is) in my mouth, with a frightful momentary shuddering at the roots of my hair – I started up breathless, cold and motionless, waiting in the silence I hardly knew for what, doubtful at first whether I had dreamed about the bang at the door, or whether the blow had really been struck on it.

In a minute or less there came a second bang, louder than the first. I ran out into the passage.

“Who’s there?”

“Let us in,” answered a voice, which I recognised immediately as the voice of Shifty Dick.

“Wait a bit, my dear, and let me explain,” said a second voice, in the low, oily, jeering tones of Dick’s companion – the wickedly clever little man whom he called Jerry. “You are alone in the house, my pretty little dear. You may crack your sweet voice with screeching, and there’s nobody near to hear you. Listen to reason, my love, and let us in. We don’t want cider this time – we only want a very neat-looking pocketbook which you happen to have, and your late excellent mother’s four silver teaspoons, which you keep so nice and clean on the chimney-piece. If you let us in we won’t hurt a hair of your head, my cherub, and we promise to go away the moment we have got what we want, unless you particularly wish us to stop to tea. If you keep us out, we shall be obliged to break into the house and then—”

“And then,” burst in Shifty Dick, “we’ll mash you!”

“Yes,” said Jerry, “we’ll mash you, my beauty. But you won’t drive us to doing that, will you? You will let us in?”

This long parley gave me time to recover from the effect which the first bang at the door had produced on my nerves. The threats of the two villains would have terrified some women out of their senses, but the only result they produced on me was violent indignation. I had, thank God, a strong spirit of my own, and the cool, contemptuous insolence of the man Jerry effectually roused it.

“You cowardly villains!” I screamed at them through the door. “You think you can frighten me because I am only a poor girl left alone in the house. You ragamuffin thieves, I defy you both! Our bolts are strong, our shutters are thick. I am here to keep my father’s house safe, and keep it I will against an army of you!”

You may imagine what a passion I was in when I vapoured and blustered in that way. I heard Jerry laugh and Shifty Dick swear a whole mouthful of oaths. Then there was a dead silence for a minute or two, and then the two ruffians attacked the door.

I rushed into the kitchen and seized the poker, and then heaped wood on the fire, and lighted all the candles I could find; for I felt as though I could keep up my courage better if I had plenty of light. Strange and improbable as it may appear, the next thing that attracted my attention was my poor pussy, crouched up, panic-stricken, in a corner. I was so fond of the little creature that I took her up in my arms and carried her into my bedroom and put her inside my bed. A comical thing to do in a situation of deadly peril, was it not? But it seemed quite natural and proper at the time.

All this while the blows were falling faster and faster on the door. They were dealt, as I conjectured, with heavy stones picked up from the ground outside. Jerry sang at his wicked work, and Shifty Dick swore. As I left the bedroom after putting the cat under cover, I heard the lower panel of the door begin to crack.

I ran into the kitchen and huddled our four silver spoons into my pocket; then took the unlucky book with the banknotes and put it in the bosom of my dress. I was determined to defend the property confided to my care with my life. Just as I had secured the pocketbook I heard the door splintering, and rushed into the passage again with my heavy kitchen poker lifted in both hands.

I was in time to see the bald head of Jerry, with the ugly-looking knobs on it, pushed into the passage through a great rent in one of the lower panels of the door.

“Get out, you villain, or I’ll brain you on the spot!” I screeched, threatening him with the poker.

Mr. Jerry took his head out again much faster than he put it in.

The next thing that came through the rent was a long pitchfork, which they darted at me from the outside, to move me from the door. I struck at it with all my might, and the blow must have jarred the hand of Shifty Dick up to his very shoulder, for I heard him give a roar of rage and pain. Before he could catch at the fork with his other hand I had drawn it inside. By this time even Jerry lost his temper and swore more awfully than Dick himself.

Then there came another minute of respite. I suspected they had gone to get bigger stones, and I dreaded the giving way of the whole door.

Running into the bedroom as this fear beset me, I laid hold of my chest of drawers, dragged it into the passage, and threw it down against the door. On the top of that I heaped my father’s big tool chest, three chairs, and a scuttleful of coals; and last, I dragged out the kitchen table and rammed it as hard as I could against the whole barricade. They heard me as they were coming up to the door with fresh stones. Jerry said: “Stop a bit!” and t hen the two consulted together in whispers. I listened eagerly, and just caught these words:

“Let’s try it the other way.”

Nothing more was said, but I heard their footsteps retreating from the door.

Were they going to besiege the back door now?

I had hardly asked myself that question when I heard their voices at the other side of the house. The back door was smaller than the front, but it had this advantage in the way of strength – it was made of two solid oak boards joined lengthwise, and strengthened inside by heavy cross pieces. It had no bolts like the front door, but was fastened by a bar of iron running across it in a slanting direction, and fitting at either end into the wall.

“They must have the whole cottage down before they can break in at that door!” I thought to myself. And they soon found out as much for themselves. After five minutes of banging at the back door they gave up any further attack in that direction and cast their heavy stones down with curses of fury awful to hear.

I went into the kitchen and dropped on the window-seat to rest for a moment. Suspense and excitement together were beginning to tell upon me. The perspiration broke out thick on my forehead, and I began to feel the bruises I had inflicted on my hands in making the barricade against the front door. I had not lost a particle of my resolution, but I was beginning to lose strength. There was a bottle of rum in the cupboard, which my brother the sailor had left with us the last time he was ashore. I drank a drop of it. Never before or since have I put anything down my throat that did me half so much good as that precious mouthful of rum!

I was still sitting in the window-seat drying my face, when I suddenly heard their voices close behind me.

They were feeling the outside of the window against which I was sitting. It was protected, like all the other windows in the cottage, by iron bars. I listened in dreadful suspense for the sound of filing, but nothing of the sort was audible. They had evidently reckoned on frightening me easily into letting them in, and had come unprovided with house-breaking tools of any kind. A fresh burst of oaths informed me that they had recognised the obstacle of the iron bars. I listened breathlessly for some warning of what they were going to do next, but their voices seemed to die away in the distance. They were retreating from the window. Were they also retreating from the house altogether? Had they given up the idea of effecting an entrance in despair?

A long silence followed – a silence which tried my courage even more severely than the tumult of their first attack on the cottage.

Dreadful suspicions now beset me of their being able to accomplish by treachery what they had failed to effect by force. Well as I knew the cottage, I began to doubt whether there might not be ways of cunningly and silently entering it against which I was not provided. The ticking of the clock annoyed me; the crackling of the fire startled me. I looked out twenty times in a minute into the dark corners of the passage, straining my eyes, holding my breath, anticipating the most unlikely events, the most impossible dangers. Had they really gone, or were they still prowling about the house? Oh, what a sum of money I would have given only to have known what they were about in that interval of silence!

I was startled at last out of my suspense in the most awful manner. A shout from one of them reached my ears on a sudden down the kitchen chimney. It was so unexpected and so horrible in the stillness that I screamed for the first time since the attack on the house. My worst forebodings had never suggested to me that the two villains might mount upon the roof.

“Let us in, you she-devil!” roared a voice down the chimney.

There was another pause. The smoke from the wood fire, thin and light as it was in the red state of the embers at that moment, had evidently obliged the man to take his face from the mouth of the chimney. I counted the seconds while he was, as I conjectured, getting his breath again. In less than half a minute there came another shout:

“Let us in, or we’ll burn the place down over your head!”

Burn it? Burn what? There was nothing easily combustible but the thatch on the roof; and that had been well soaked by the heavy rain which had now fallen incessantly for more than six hours. Burn the place over my head? How?

While I was still casting about wildly in my mind to discover what possible danger there could be of fire, one of the heavy stones placed on the thatch to keep it from being torn up by high winds came thundering down the chimney. It scattered the live embers on the hearth all over the room. A richly-furnished place, with knick-knacks and fine muslin about it, would have been set on fire immediately. Even our bare floor and rough furniture gave out a smell of burning at the first shower of embers which the first stone scattered.

For an instant I stood quite horror-struck before this new proof of the devilish ingenuity of the villains outside. But the dreadful danger I was now in recalled me to my senses immediately. There was a large canful of water in my bedroom, and I ran in at once to fetch it. Before I could get back to the kitchen a second stone had been thrown down the chimney, and the floor was smoldering in several places.

I had wit enough to let the smoldering go on for a moment or two more, and to pour the whole of my canful of water over the fire before the third stone came down the chimney. The live embers on the floor I easily disposed of after that. The man on the roof must have heard the hissing of the fire as I put it out, and have felt the change produced in the air at the mouth of the chimney, for after the third stone had descended no more followed it. As for either of the ruffians themselves dropping down by the same road along which the stones had come, that was not to be dreaded. The chimney, as I well knew by our experience in cleaning it, was too narrow to give passage to anyone above the size of a small boy.

I looked upward as that comforting reflection crossed my mind – I looked up, and saw, as plainly as I see the paper I am now writing on, the point of a knife coming through the inside of the roof just over my head. Our cottage had no upper story, and our rooms had no ceilings. Slowly and wickedly the knife wriggled its way through the dry inside thatch between the rafters. It stopped for a while, and there came a sound of tearing. That, in its turn, stopped too; there was a great fall of dry thatch on the floor; and I saw the heavy, hairy hand of Shifty Dick, armed with the knife, come through after the fallen fragments. He tapped at the rafters with the back of the knife, as if to test their strength. Thank God, they were substantial and close together! Nothing lighter than a hatchet would have sufficed to remove any part of them.

The murderous hand was still tapping with the knife when I heard a shout from the man Jerry, coming from the neighbourhood of my father’s stone-shed in the back yard. The hand and knife disappeared instantly. I went to the back door and put my ear to it, and listened.

Both men were now in the shed. I made the most desperate efforts to call to mind what tools and other things were left in it which might be used against me. But my agitation confused me. I could remember nothing except my father’s big stone-saw, which was far too heavy and unwieldy to be used on the roof of the cottage. I was still puzzling my brains, and making my head swim to no purpose, when I heard the men dragging something out of the shed. At the same instant that the noise caught my ear, the remembrance flashed across me like lightning of some beams of wood which had lain in the shed for years past. I had hardly time to feel certain that they were removing one of these beams before I heard Shifty Dick say to Jerry.

“Which door?”

“The front,” was the answer. “We’ve cracked it already; we’ll have it down now in no time.”

Senses less sharpened by danger than mine would have understood but too easily, from these words, that they were about to use the beam as a battering-ram against the door. When that conviction overcame me, I lost courage at last. I felt that the door must come down. No such barricade as I had constructed could support it for more than a few minutes against such shocks as it was now to receive.

“I can do no more to keep the house against them,” I said to myself, with my knees knocking together, and the tears at last beginning to wet my cheeks. “I must trust to the night and the thick darkness, and save my life by running for it while there is yet time.”

I huddled on my cloak and hood, and had my hand on the bar of the back door, when a piteous mew from the bedroom reminded me of the existence of poor Pussy. I ran in, and huddled the creature up in my apron. Before I was out in the passage again, the first shock from the beam fell on the door.

The upper hinge gave way. The chairs and coal-scuttle, forming the top of my barricade, were hurled, rattling, on to the floor, but the lower hinge of the door, and the chest of drawers and the tool-chest still kept their places.

“One more!” I heard the villains cry – “one more run with the beam, and down it comes!”

Just as they must have been starting for that “one more run,” I opened the back door and fled into the night, with the bookful of banknotes in my bosom, the silver spoons in my pocket, and the cat in my arms. I threaded my way easily enough through the familiar obstacles in the backyard, and was out in the pitch darkness of the moor before I heard the second shock, and the crash which told me that the whole door had given way.

In a few minutes they must have discovered the fact of my flight with the pocketbook, for I heard shouts in the distance as if they were running out to pursue me. I kept on at the top of my speed, and the noise soon died away. It was so dark that twenty thieves instead of two would have found it useless to follow me.

How long it was before I reached the farmhouse – the nearest place to which I could fly for refuge – I cannot tell you. I remember that I had just sense enough to keep the wind at my back (having observed in the beginning of the evening that it blew toward Moor Farm), and to go on resolutely through the darkness. In all other respects I was by this time half crazed by what I had gone through. If it had so happened that the wind had changed after I had observed its direction early in the evening, I should have gone astray, and have probably perished of fatigue and exposure on the moor. Providentially, it still blew steadily as it had blown for hours past, and I reached the farmhouse with my clothes wet through, and my brain in a high fever. When I made my alarm at the door, they had all gone to bed but the farmer’s eldest son, who was sitting up late over his pipe and newspaper. I just mustered strength enough to gasp out a few words, telling him what was the matter, and then fell down at his feet, for the first time in my life in a dead swoon.

That swoon was followed by a severe illness. When I got strong enough to look about me again, I found myself in one of the farmhouse beds – my father, Mrs. Knifton, and the doctor were all in the room – my cat was asleep at my feet, and the pocketbook that I had saved lay on the table by my side.

There was plenty of news for me to hear as soon as I was fit to listen to it. Shifty Dick and the other rascal had been caught, and were in prison, waiting their trial at the next assizes. Mr. and Mrs. Knifton had been so shocked at the danger I had run – for which they blamed their own want of thoughtfulness in leaving the pocketbook in my care – that they had insisted on my father’s removing from our lonely home to a cottage on their land, which we were to inhabit rent free. The banknotes that I had saved were given to me to buy furniture with, in place of the things that the thieves had broken. These pleasant tidings assisted so greatly in promoting my recovery, that I was soon able to relate to my friends at the farmhouse the particulars that I have written here. They were all surprised and interested, but no one, as I thought, listened to me with such breathless attention as the farmer’s eldest son. Mrs. Knifton noticed this too, and began to make jokes about it, in her light-hearted way, as soon as we were alone. I thought little of her jesting at the time; but when I got well, and we went to live at our new home, “the young farmer,” as he was called in our parts, constantly came to see us, and constantly managed to meet me out of doors. I had my share of vanity, like other young women, and I began to think of Mrs. Knifton’s jokes with some attention. To be brief, the young farmer managed one Sunday – I never could tell how – to lose his way with me in returning from church, and before we found out the right road home again he had asked me to be his wife.

His relations did all they could to keep us asunder and break off the match, thinking a poor stonemason’s daughter no fit wife for a prosperous yeoman. But the farmer was too obstinate for them. He had one form of answer to all their objections. “A man, if he is worth the name, marries according to his own notions, and to please himself,” he used to say. “My notion is, that when I take a wife I am placing my character and my happiness – the most precious things I have to trust – in one woman’s care. The woman I mean to marry had a small charge confided to her care, and showed herself worthy of it at the risk of her life. That is proof enough for me that she is worthy of the greatest charge I can put into her hands. Rank and riches are fine things, but the certainty of getting a good wife is something better still. I’m of age, I know my own mind, and I mean to marry the stone-mason’s daughter.”

And he did marry me. Whether I proved myself worthy or not of his good opinion is a question which I must leave you to ask my husband. All that I had to relate about myself and my doings is now told. Whatever interest my perilous adventure may excite, ends, I am well aware, with my escape to the farmhouse. I have only ventured on writing these few additional sentences because my marriage is the moral of my story. It has brought me the choicest blessings of happiness and prosperity, and I owe them all to my night-adventure in The Black Cottage.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE SECOND DAY

A clear, cloudless, bracing autumn morning. I rose gaily, with the pleasant conviction on my mind that our experiment had thus far been successful beyond our hopes.

Short and slight as the first story had been, the result of it on Jessie’s mind had proved conclusive. Before I could put the question to her, she declared of her own accord, and with her customary exaggeration, that she had definitely abandoned all idea of writing to her aunt until our collection of narratives was exhausted.

“I am in a fever of curiosity about what is to come,” she said, when we all parted for the night; “and, even if I wanted to leave you, I could not possibly go away now, without hearing the stories to the end.”

So far, so good. All my anxieties from this time were for George’s return. Again today I searched the newspapers, and again there were no tidings of the ship.

Miss Jessie occupied the second day by a drive to our county town to make some little purchases. Owen, and Morgan, and I were all hard at work, during her absence, on the stories that still remained to be completed. Owen desponded about ever getting done; Morgan grumbled at what he called the absurd difficulty of writing nonsense. I worked on smoothly and contentedly, stimulated by the success of the first night.

We assembled as before in our guest’s sitting-room. As the clock struck eight she drew out the second card. It was Number Two. The lot had fallen on me to read next.

“Although my story is told in the first person,” I said, addressing Jessie, “you must not suppose that the events related in this particular case happened to me. They happened to a friend of mine, who naturally described them to me from his own personal point of view. In producing my narrative from the recollection of what he told me some years since, I have supposed myself to be listening to him again, and have therefore written in his character, and, whenever my memory would help me, as nearly as possible in his language also. By this means I hope I have succeeded in giving an air of reality to a story which has truth, at any rate, to recommend it. I must ask you to excuse me if I enter into no details in offering this short explanation. Although the persons concerned in my narrative have ceased to exist, it is necessary to observe all due delicacy toward their memories. Who they were, and how I became acquainted with them, are matters of no moment. The interest of the story, such as it is, stands in no need, in this instance, of any assistance from personal explanations.”

With those words I addressed myself to my task, and read as follows:

BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY:
THE FAMILY SECRET

•  I  •

Was it an Englishman or a Frenchman who first remarked that every family had a skeleton in its cupboard? I am not learned enough to know, but I reverence the observation, whoever made it. It speaks a startling truth through an appropriately grim metaphor – a truth which I have discovered by practical experience. Our family had a skeleton in the cupboard, and the name of it was Uncle George.

I arrived at the knowledge that this skeleton existed, and I traced it to the particular cupboard in which it was hidden, by slow degrees. I was a child when I first began to suspect that there was such a thing, and a grown man when I at last discovered that my suspicions were true.

My father was a doctor, having an excellent practice in a large country town. I have heard that he married against the wishes of his family. They could not object to my mother on the score of birth, breeding, or character – they only disliked her heartily. My grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and aunts all declared that she was a heartless, deceitful woman; all disliked her manners, her opinions, and even the expression of her face – all, with the exception of my father’s youngest brother, George.

George was the unlucky member of our family. The rest were all clever; he was slow in capacity. The rest were all remarkably handsome; he was the sort of man that no woman ever looks at twice. The rest succeeded in life; he failed. His profession was the same as my father’s, but he never got on when he started in practice for himself. The sick poor, who could not choose, employed him, and liked him. The sick rich, who could – especially the ladies – declined to call him in when they could get anybody else. In experience he gained greatly by his profession; in money and reputation he gained nothing.

There are very few of us, however dull and unattractive we may be to outward appearance, who have not some strong passion, some germ of what is called romance, hidden more or less deeply in our natures. All the passion and romance in the nature of my Uncle George lay in his love and admiration for my father.

He sincerely worshipped his eldest brother as one of the noblest of human beings. When my father was engaged to be married, and when the rest of the family, as I have already mentioned, did not hesitate to express their unfavourable opinion of the disposition of his chosen wife, Uncle George, who had never ventured on differing with anyone before, to the amazement of everybody, undertook the defence of his future sister-in-law in the most vehement and positive manner. In his estimation, his brother’s choice was something sacred and indisputable. The lady might, and did, treat him with unconcealed contempt, laugh at his awkwardness, grow impatient at his stammering – it made no difference to Uncle George. She was to be his brother’s wife, and, in virtue of that one great fact, she became, in the estimation of the poor surgeon, a very queen, who, by the laws of the domestic constitution, could do no wrong.

When my father had been married a little while, he took his youngest brother to live with him as his assistant.

If Uncle George had been made president of the College of Surgeons, he could not have been prouder and happier than he was in his new position. I am afraid my father never understood the depth of his brother’s affection for him. All the hard work fell to George’s share: the long journeys at night, the physicking of wearisome poor people, the drunken cases, the revolting cases – all the drudging, dirty business of the surgery, in short, was turned over to him; and day after day, month after month, he struggled through it without a murmur. When his brother and his sister-in-law went out to dine with the county gentry, it never entered his head to feel disappointed at being left unnoticed at home. When the return dinners were given, and he was asked to come in at tea-time, and left to sit unregarded in a corner, it never occurred to him to imagine that he was treated with any want of consideration or respect. He was part of the furniture of the house, and it was the business as well as the pleasure of his life to turn himself to any use to which his brother might please to put him.

So much for what I have heard from others on the subject of my Uncle George. My own personal experience of him is limited to what I remember as a mere child. Let me say something, however, first about my parents, my sister and myself.

My sister was the eldest born and the best loved. I did not come into the world till four years after her birth, and no other child followed me. Caroline, from her earliest days, was the perfection of beauty and health. I was small, weakly, and, if the truth must be told, almost as plain-featured as Uncle George himself. It would be ungracious and undutiful in me to presume to decide whether there was any foundation or not for the dislike that my father’s family always felt for my mother. All I can venture to say is, that her children never had any cause to complain of her.

Her passionate affection for my sister, her pride in the child’s beauty, I remember well, as also her uniform kindness and indulgence toward me. My personal defects must have been a sore trial to her in secret, but neither she nor my father ever showed me that they perceived any difference between Caroline and myself. When presents were made to my sister, presents were made to me. When my father and mother caught my sister up in their arms and kissed her they scrupulously gave me my turn afterward. My childish instinct told me that there was a difference in their smiles when they looked at me and looked at her; that the kisses given to Caroline were warmer than the kisses given to me; that the hands which dried her tears in our childish griefs, touched her more gently than the hands which dried mine. But these, and other small signs of preference like them, were such as no parents could be expected to control. I noticed them at the time rather with wonder than with repining. I recall them now without a harsh thought either toward my father or my mother. Both loved me, and both did their duty by me. If I seem to speak constrainedly of them here, it is not on my own account. I can honestly say that, with all my heart and soul.

Even Uncle George, fond as he was of me, was fonder of my beautiful child-sister.

When I used mischievously to pull at his lank, scanty hair, he would gently and laughingly take it out of my hands, but he would let Caroline tug at it till his dim, wandering grey eyes winked and watered again with pain. He used to plunge perilously about the garden, in awkward imitation of the cantering of a horse, while I sat on his shoulders; but he would never proceed at any pace beyond a slow and safe walk when Caroline had a ride in her turn. When he took us out walking, Caroline was always on the side next the wall. When we interrupted him over his dirty work in the surgery, he used to tell me to go and play until he was ready for me; but he would put down his bottles, and clean his clumsy fingers on his coarse apron, and lead Caroline out again, as if she had been the greatest lady in the land. Ah! how he loved her! and, let me be honest and grateful, and add, how he loved me, too!

When I was eight years old and Caroline was twelve, I was separated from home for some time. I had been ailing for many months previously; had got benefit from being taken to the seaside, and had shown symptoms of relapsing on being brought home again to the midland county in which we resided. After much consultation, it was at last resolved that I should be sent to live, until my constitution got stronger, with a maiden sister of my mother’s, who had a house at a watering-place on the south coast.

I left home, I remember, loaded with presents, rejoicing over the prospect of looking at the sea again, as careless of the future and as happy in the present as any boy could be. Uncle George petitioned for a holiday to take me to the seaside, but he could not be spared from the surgery. He consoled himself and me by promising to make me a magnificent model of a ship.

I have that model before my eyes now while I write. It is dusty with age; the paint on it is cracked; the ropes are tangled; the sails are moth-eaten and yellow. The hull is all out of proportion, and the rig has been smiled at by every nautical friend of mine who has ever looked at it. Yet, worn-out and faulty as it is – inferior to the cheapest miniature vessel nowadays in any toy-shop window – I hardly know a possession of mine in this world that I would not sooner part with than Uncle George’s ship.

My life at the seaside was a very happy one. I remained with my aunt more than a year. My mother often came to see how I was going on, and at first always brought my sister with her; but during the last eight months of my stay Caroline never once appeared. I noticed also, at the same period, a change in my mother’s manner. She looked paler and more anxious at each succeeding visit, and always had long conferences in private with my aunt. At last she ceased to come and see us altogether, and only wrote to know how my health was getting on. My father, too, who had at the earlier periods of my absence from home travelled to the seaside to watch the progress of my recovery as often as his professional engagements would permit, now kept away like my mother. Even Uncle George, who had never been allowed a holiday to come and see me, but who had hitherto often written and begged me to write to him, broke off our correspondence.

I was naturally perplexed and amazed by these changes, and persecuted my aunt to tell me the reason of them. At first she tried to put me off with excuses; then she admitted that there was trouble in our house; and finally she confessed that the trouble was caused by the illness of my sister. When I inquired what that illness was, my aunt said it was useless to attempt to explain it to me. I next applied to the servants. One of them was less cautious than my aunt, and answered my question, but in terms that I could not comprehend. After much explanation, I was made to understand that “something was growing on my sister’s neck that would spoil her beauty forever, and perhaps kill her, if it could not be got rid of.” How well I remember the shudder of horror that ran through me at the vague idea of this deadly “something”! A fearful, awestruck curiosity to see what Caroline’s illness was with my own eyes troubled my inmost heart, and I begged to be allowed to go home and help to nurse her. The request was, it is almost needless to say, refused.

Weeks passed away, and still I heard nothing, except that my sister continued to be ill. One day I privately wrote a letter to Uncle George, asking him, in my childish way, to come and tell me about Caroline’s illness.

I knew where the post-office was, and slipped out in the morning unobserved and dropped my letter in the box. I stole home again by the garden, and climbed in at the window of a back parlour on the ground floor. The room above was my aunt’s bedchamber, and the moment I was inside the house I heard moans and loud convulsive sobs proceeding from it. My aunt was a singularly quiet, composed woman. I could not imagine that the loud sobbing and moaning came from her, and I ran down terrified into the kitchen to ask the servants who was crying so violently in my aunt’s room.

I found the housemaid and the cook talking together in whispers with serious faces. They started when they saw me as if I had been a grown-up master who had caught them neglecting their work.

“He’s too young to feel it much,” I heard one say to the other. “So far as he is concerned, it seems like a mercy that it happened no later.”

In a few minutes they had told me the worst. It was indeed my aunt who had been crying in the bedroom. Caroline was dead.

I felt the blow more severely than the servants or anyone else about me supposed. Still I was a child in years, and I had the blessed elasticity of a child’s nature. If I had been older I might have been too much absorbed in grief to observe my aunt so closely as I did, when she was composed enough to see me later in the day.

I was not surprised by the swollen state of her eyes, the paleness of her cheeks, or the fresh burst of tears that came from her when she took me in her arms at meeting. But I was both amazed and perplexed by the look of terror that I detected in her face. It was natural enough that she should grieve and weep over my sister’s death, but why should she have that frightened look as if some other catastrophe had happened?

I asked if there was any more dreadful news from home besides the news of Caroline’s death.

My aunt, said No in a strange, stifled voice, and suddenly turned her face from me. Was my father dead? No. My mother? No. Uncle George? My aunt trembled all over as she said No to that also, and bade me cease asking any more questions. She was not fit to bear them yet she said, and signed to the servant to lead me out of the room.

The next day I was told that I was to go home after the funeral, and was taken out toward evening by the housemaid, partly for a walk, partly to be measured for my mourning clothes. After we had left the tailor’s, I persuaded the girl to extend our walk for some distance along the sea-beach, telling her, as we went, every little anecdote connected with my lost sister that came tenderly back to my memory in those first days of sorrow. She was so interested in hearing and I in speaking that we let the sun go down before we thought of turning back.

The evening was cloudy, and it got on from dusk to dark by the time we approached the town again. The housemaid was rather nervous at finding herself alone with me on the beach, and once or twice looked behind her distrustfully as we went on. Suddenly she squeezed my hand hard, and said:

“Let’s get up on the cliff as fast as we can.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before I heard footsteps behind me – a man came round quickly to my side, snatched me away from the girl, and, catching me up in his arms without a word, covered my face with kisses. I knew he was crying, because my cheeks were instantly wet with his tears; but it was too dark for me to see who he was, or even how he was dressed. He did not, I should think, hold me half a minute in his arms. The housemaid screamed for help. I was put down gently on the sand, and the strange man instantly disappeared in the darkness.

When this extraordinary adventure was related to my aunt, she seemed at first merely bewildered at hearing of it; but in a moment more there came a change over her face, as if she had suddenly recollected or thought of something. She turned deadly pale, and said, in a hurried way, very unusual with her:

“Never mind; don’t talk about it any more. It was only a mischievous trick to frighten you, I dare say. Forget all about it, my dear – forget all about it.”

It was easier to give this advice than to make me follow it. For many nights after, I thought of nothing but the strange man who had kissed me and cried over me.

Who could he be? Somebody who loved me very much, and who was very sorry. My childish logic carried me to that length. But when I tried to think over all the grown-up gentlemen who loved me very much, I could never get on, to my own satisfaction, beyond my father and my Uncle George.

•  II  •

I was taken home on the appointed day to suffer the trial – a hard one even at my tender years – of witnessing my mother’s passionate grief and my father’s mute despair. I remember that the scene of our first meeting after Caroline’s death was wisely and considerately shortened by my aunt, who took me out of the room. She seemed to have a confused desire to keep me from leaving her after the door had closed behind us; but I broke away and ran downstairs to the surgery, to go and cry for my lost playmate with the sharer of all our games, Uncle George.

I opened the surgery door and could see nobody. I dried my tears and looked all round the room – it was empty. I ran upstairs again to Uncle George’s garret bedroom – he was not there; his cheap hairbrush and old cast-off razor-case that had belonged to my grandfather were not on the dressing-table. Had he got some other bedroom? I went out on the landing and called softly, with an unaccountable terror and sinking at my heart:

“Uncle George!”

Nobody answered; but my aunt came hastily up the garret stairs.

“Hush!” she said. “You must never call that name out here again!”

She stopped suddenly, and looked as if her own words had frightened her.

“Is Uncle George dead?” I asked. My aunt turned red and pale, and stammered.

I did not wait to hear what she said. I brushed past her, down the stairs. My heart was bursting – my flesh felt cold. I ran breathlessly and recklessly into the room where my father and mother had received me. They were both sitting there still. I ran up to them, wringing my hands, and crying out in a passion of tears:

“Is Uncle George dead?”

My mother gave a scream that terrified me into instant silence and stillness. My father looked at her for a moment, rang the bell that summoned the maid, then seized me roughly by the arm and dragged me out of the room.

He took me down into the study, seated himself in his accustomed chair, and put me before him between his knees. His lips were awfully white, and I felt his two hands, as they grasped my shoulders, shaking violently.

“You are never to mention the name of Uncle George again,” he said, in a quick, angry, trembling whisper. “Never to me, never to your mother, never to your aunt, never to anybody in this world! Never – never – never!”

The repetition of the word terrified me even more than the suppressed vehemence with which he spoke. He saw that I was frightened, and softened his manner a little before he went on.

“You will never see Uncle George again,” he said. “Your mother and I love you dearly; but if you forget what I have told you, you will be sent away from home. Never speak that name again – mind, never! Now kiss me, and go away.”

How his lips trembled – and oh, how cold they felt on mine!

I shrunk out of the room the moment he had kissed me, and went and hid myself in the garden.

“Uncle George is gone. I am never to see him any more; I am never to speak of him again” – those were the words I repeated to myself, with indescribable terror and confusion, the moment I was alone. There was something unspeakably horrible to my young mind in this mystery which I was commanded always to respect, and which, so far as I then knew, I could never hope to see revealed. My father, my mother, my aunt, all appeared to be separated from me now by some impassable barrier. Home seemed home no longer with Caroline dead, Uncle George gone, and a forbidden subject of talk perpetually and mysteriously interposing between my parents and me.

Though I never infringed the command my father had given me in his study (his words and looks, and that dreadful scream of my mother’s, which seemed to be still ringing in my ears, were more than enough to insure my obedience), I also never lost the secret desire to penetrate the darkness which clouded over the fate of Uncle George.

For two years I remained at home and discovered nothing. If I asked the servants about my uncle, they could only tell me that one morning he disappeared from the house. Of the members of my father’s family I could make no inquiries. They lived far away, and never came to see us; and the idea of writing to them, at my age and in my position, was out of the question. My aunt was as unapproachably silent as my father and mother; but I never forgot how her face had altered when she reflected for a moment after hearing of my extraordinary adventure while going home with the servant over the sands at night. The more I thought of that change of countenance in connection with what had occurred on my return to my father’s house, the more certain I felt that the stranger who had kissed me and wept over me must have been no other than Uncle George.

At the end of my two years at home I was sent to sea in the merchant navy by my own earnest desire. I had always determined to be a sailor from the time when I first went to stay with my aunt at the seaside, and I persisted long enough in my resolution to make my parents recognise the necessity of acceding to my wishes.

My new life delighted me, and I remained away on foreign stations more than four years. When I at length returned home, it was to find a new affliction darkening our fireside. My father had died on the very day when I sailed for my return voyage to England.

Absence and change of scene had in no respect weakened my desire to penetrate the mystery of Uncle George’s disappearance. My mother’s health was so delicate that I hesitated for some time to approach the forbidden subject in her presence. When I at last ventured to refer to it, suggesting to her that any prudent reserve which might have been necessary while I was a child, need no longer be persisted in now that I was growing to be a young man, she fell into a violent fit of trembling, and commanded me to say no more. It had been my father’s will, she said, that the reserve to which I referred should be always adopted toward me; he had not authorized her, before he died, to speak more openly; and, now that he was gone, she would not so much as think of acting on her own unaided judgement. My aunt said the same thing in effect when I appealed to her. Determined not to be discouraged even yet, I undertook a journey, ostensibly to pay my respects to my father’s family, but with the secret intention of trying what I could learn in that quarter on the subject of Uncle George.

My investigations led to some results, though they were by no means satisfactory. George had always been looked upon with something like contempt by his handsome sisters and his prosperous brothers, and he had not improved his position in the family by his warm advocacy of his brother’s cause at the time of my father’s marriage. I found that my uncle’s surviving relatives now spoke of him slightingly and carelessly. They assured me that they had never heard from him, and that they knew nothing about him, except that he had gone away to settle, as they supposed, in some foreign place, after having behaved very basely and badly to my father. He had been traced to London, where he had sold out of the funds the small share of money which he had inherited after his father’s death, and he had been seen on the deck of a packet bound for France later on the same day. Beyond this nothing was known about him. In what the alleged baseness of his behaviour had consisted none of his brothers and sisters could tell me. My father had refused to pain them by going into particulars, not only at the time of his brother’s disappearance, but afterward, whenever the subject was mentioned. George had always been the black sheep of the flock, and he must have been conscious of his own baseness, or he would certainly have written to explain and to justify himself.

Such were the particulars which I gleaned during my visit to my father’s family. To my mind, they tended rather to deepen than to reveal the mystery. That such a gentle, docile, affectionate creature as Uncle George should have injured the brother he loved by word or deed at any period of their intercourse, seemed incredible; but that he should have been guilty of an act of baseness at the very time when my sister was dying was simply and plainly impossible. And yet there was the incomprehensible fact staring me in the face that the death of Caroline and the disappearance of Uncle George had taken place in the same week! Never did I feel more daunted and bewildered by the family secret than after I had heard all the particulars in connection with it that my father’s relatives had to tell me.

I may pass over the events of the next few years of my life briefly enough.

My nautical pursuits filled up all my time, and took me far away from my country and my friends. But, whatever I did, and wherever I went, the memory of Uncle George, and the desire to penetrate the mystery of his disappearance, haunted me like familiar spirits. Often, in the lonely watches of the night at sea, did I recall the dark evening on the beach, the strange man’s hurried embrace, the startling sensation of feeling his tears on my cheeks, the disappearance of him before I had breath or self-possession enough to say a word. Often did I think over the inexplicable events that followed, when I had returned, after my sister’s funeral, to my father’s house; and oftener still did I puzzle my brains vainly, in the attempt to form some plan for inducing my mother or my aunt to disclose the secret which they had hitherto kept from me so perseveringly. My only chance of knowing what had really happened to Uncle George, my only hope of seeing him again, rested with those two near and dear relatives. I despaired of ever getting my mother to speak on the forbidden subject after what had passed between us, but I felt more sanguine about my prospects of ultimately inducing my aunt to relax in her discretion. My anticipations, however, in this direction were not destined to be fulfilled. On my next visit to England I found my aunt prostrated by a paralytic attack, which deprived her of the power of speech. She died soon afterward in my arms, leaving me her sole heir. I searched anxiously among her papers for some reference to the family mystery, but found no clew to guide me. All my mother’s letters to her sister at the time of Caroline’s illness and death had been destroyed.

•  III  •

More years passed; my mother followed my aunt to the grave, and still I was as far as ever from making any discoveries in relation to Uncle George. Shortly after the period of this last affliction my health gave way, and I departed, by my doctor’s advice, to try some baths in the south of France.

I travelled slowly to my destination, turning aside from the direct road, and stopping wherever I pleased. One evening, when I was not more than two or three days’ journey from the baths to which I was bound, I was struck by the picturesque situation of a little town placed on the brow of a hill at some distance from the main road, and resolved to have a nearer look at the place, with a view to stopping there for the night, if it pleased me. I found the principal inn clean and quiet – ordered my bed there – and, after dinner, strolled out to look at the church. No thought of Uncle George was in my mind when I entered the building; and yet, at that very moment, chance was leading me to the discovery which, for so many years past, I had vainly endeavoured to make – the discovery which I had given up as hopeless since the day of my mother’s death.

I found nothing worth notice in the church, and was about to leave it again, when I caught a glimpse of a pretty view through a side door, and stopped to admire it.

The churchyard formed the foreground, and below it the hillside sloped away gently into the plain, over which the sun was setting in full glory. The cure of the church was reading his breviary, walking up and down a gravel-path that parted the rows of graves. In the course of my wanderings I had learned to speak French as fluently as most Englishmen, and when the priest came near me I said a few words in praise of the view, and complimented him on the neatness and prettiness of the churchyard. He answered with great politeness, and we got into conversation together immediately.

As we strolled along the gravel-walk, my attention was attracted by one of the graves standing apart from the rest. The cross at the head of it differed remarkably, in some points of appearance, from the crosses on the other graves. While all the rest had garlands hung on them, this one cross was quite bare; and, more extraordinary still, no name was inscribed on it.

The priest, observing that I stopped to look at the grave, shook his head and sighed.

“A countryman of yours is buried there,” he said. “I was present at his death. He had borne the burden of a great sorrow among us, in this town, for many weary years, and his conduct had taught us to respect and pity him with all our hearts.”

“How is it that his name is not inscribed over his grave?” I inquired.

“It was suppressed by his own desire,” answered the priest, with some little hesitation. “He confessed to me in his last moments that he had lived here under an assumed name. I asked his real name, and he told it to me, with the particulars of his sad story. He had reasons for desiring to be forgotten after his death. Almost the last words he spoke were, ‘Let my name die with me.’ Almost the last request he made was that I would keep that name a secret from all the world excepting only one person.”

“Some relative, I suppose?” said I.

“Yes – a nephew,” said the priest.

The moment the last word was out of his mouth, my heart gave a strange answering bound. I suppose I must have changed colour also, for the cure looked at me with sudden attention and interest.

“A nephew,” the priest went on, “whom he had loved like his own child. He told me that if this nephew ever traced him to his burial-place, and asked about him, I was free in that case to disclose all I knew. ‘I should like my little Charley to know the truth,’ he said. ‘In spite of the difference in our ages, Charley and I were playmates years ago.’”

My heart beat faster, and I felt a choking sensation at the throat the moment I heard the priest unconsciously mention my Christian name in mentioning the dying man’s last words.

As soon as I could steady my voice and feel certain of my self-possession, I communicated my family name to the cure, and asked him if that was not part of the secret that he had been requested to preserve.

He started back several steps, and clasped his hands amazedly.

“Can it be?” he said, in low tones, gazing at me earnestly, with something like dread in his face.

I gave him my passport, and looked away toward the grave. The tears came into my eyes as the recollections of past days crowded back on me. Hardly knowing what I did, I knelt down by the grave, and smoothed the grass over it with my hand. Oh, Uncle George, why not have told your secret to your old playmate? Why leave him to find you here?

The priest raised me gently, and begged me to go with him into his own house. On our way there, I mentioned persons and places that I thought my uncle might have spoken of, in order to satisfy my companion that I was really the person I represented myself to be. By the time we had entered his little parlour, and had sat down alone in it, we were almost like old friends together.

I thought it best that I should begin by telling all that I have related here on the subject of Uncle George, and his disappearance from home. My host listened with a very sad face, and said, when I had done:

“I can understand your anxiety to know what I am authorized to tell you, but pardon me if I say first that there are circumstances in your uncle’s story which it may pain you to hear—” He stopped suddenly.

“Which it may pain me to hear as a nephew?” I asked.

“No,” said the priest, looking away from me, “as a son.”

I gratefully expressed my sense of the delicacy and kindness which had prompted my companion’s warning, but I begged him, at the same time, to keep me no longer in suspense and to tell me the stern truth, no matter how painfully it might affect me as a listener.

“In telling me all you knew about what you term the Family Secret,” said the priest, “you have mentioned as a strange coincidence that your sister’s death and your uncle’s disappearance took place at the same time. Did you ever suspect what cause it was that occasioned your sister’s death?”

“I only knew what my father told me, an d what all our friends believed – that she had a tumour in the neck, or, as I sometimes heard it stated, from the effect on her constitution of a tumour in the neck.”

“She died under an operation for the removal of that tumour,” said the priest, in low tones; “and the operator was your Uncle George.”

In those few words all the truth burst upon me.

“Console yourself with the thought that the long martyrdom of his life is over,” the priest went on. “He rests; he is at peace. He and his little darling understand each other, and are happy now. That thought bore him up to the last on his deathbed. He always spoke of your sister as his ‘little darling.’ He firmly believed that she was waiting to forgive and console him in the other world – and who shall say he was deceived in that belief?”

Not I! Not anyone who has ever loved and suffered, surely!

“It was out of the depths of his self-sacrificing love for the child that he drew the fatal courage to undertake the operation,” continued the priest. “Your father naturally shrank from attempting it. His medical brethren whom he consulted all doubted the propriety of taking any measures for the removal of the tumour, in the particular condition and situation of it when they were called in. Your uncle alone differed with them. He was too modest a man to say so, but your mother found it out. The deformity of her beautiful child horrified her. She was desperate enough to catch at the faintest hope of remedying it that anyone might hold out to her; and she persuaded your uncle to put his opinion to the proof. Her horror at the deformity of the child, and her despair at the prospect of its lasting for life, seem to have utterly blinded her to all natural sense of the danger of the operation. It is hard to know how to say it to you, her son, but it must be told, nevertheless, that one day, when your father was out, she untruly informed your uncle that his brother had consented to the performance of the operation, and that he had gone purposely out of the house because he had not nerve enough to stay and witness it. After that, your uncle no longer hesitated. He had no fear of results, provided he could be certain of his own courage. All he dreaded was the effect on him of his love for the child when he first found himself face to face with the dreadful necessity of touching her skin with the knife.”

I tried hard to control myself, but I could not repress a shudder at those words.

“It is useless to shock you by going into particulars,” said the priest, considerately. “Let it be enough if I say that your uncle’s fortitude failed to support him when he wanted it most. His love for the child shook the firm hand which had never trembled before. In a word, the operation failed. Your father returned, and found his child dying. The frenzy of his despair when the truth was told him carried him to excesses which it shocks me to mention – excesses which began in his degrading his brother by a blow, which ended in his binding himself by an oath to make that brother suffer public punishment for his fatal rashness in a court of law. Your uncle was too heartbroken by what had happened to feel those outrages as some men might have felt them. He looked for one moment at his sister-in-law (I do not like to say your mother, considering what I have now to tell you), to see if she would acknowledge that she had encouraged him to attempt the operation, and that she had deceived him in saying that he had his brother’s permission to try it. She was silent, and when she spoke, it was to join her husband in denouncing him as the murderer of their child. Whether fear of your father’s anger, or revengeful indignation against your uncle most actuated her, I cannot presume to inquire in your presence. I can only state facts.”

The priest paused and looked at me anxiously. I could not speak to him at that moment – I could only encourage him to proceed by pressing his hand.

He resumed in these terms:

“Meanwhile, your uncle turned to your father, and spoke the last words he was ever to address to his eldest brother in this world. He said, ‘I have deserved the worst your anger can inflict on me, but I will spare you the scandal of bringing me to justice in open court. The law, if it found me guilty, could at the worst but banish me from my country and my friends. I will go of my own accord. God is my witness that I honestly believed I could save the child from deformity and suffering. I have risked all and lost all. My heart and spirit are broken. I am fit for nothing but to go and hide myself, and my shame and misery, from all eyes that have ever looked on me. I shall never come back, never expect your pity or forgiveness. If you think less harshly of me when I am gone, keep secret what has happened; let no other lips say of me what yours and your wife’s have said. I shall think that forbearance atonement enough – atonement greater than I have deserved. Forget me in this world. May we meet in another, where the secrets of all hearts are opened, and where the child who is gone before may make peace between us!’ He said those words and went out. Your father never saw him or heard from him again.”

I knew the reason now why my father had never confided the truth to anyone, his own family included. My mother had evidently confessed all to her sister under the seal of secrecy, and there the dreadful disclosure had been arrested.

“Your uncle told me,” the priest continued, “that before he left England he took leave of you by stealth, in a place you were staying at by the seaside. Tie had not the heart to quit his country and his friends forever without kissing you for the last time. He followed you in the dark, and caught you up in his arms, and left you again before you had a chance of discovering him. The next day he quitted England.”

“For this place?” I asked.

“Yes. He had spent a week here once with a student friend at the time when he was a pupil in the Hotel Dieu, and to this place he returned to hide, to suffer, and to die. We all saw that he was a man crushed and broken by some great sorrow, and we respected him and his affliction. He lived alone, and only came out of doors toward evening, when he used to sit on the brow of the hill yonder, with his head on his hand, looking toward England. That place seemed a favourite with him, and he is buried close by it. He revealed the story of his past life to no living soul here but me, and to me he only spoke when his last hour was approaching. What he had suffered during his long exile no man can presume to say. I, who saw more of him than anyone, never heard a word of complaint fall from his lips. He had the courage of the martyrs while he lived, and the resignation of the saints when he died. Just at the last his mind wandered. He said he saw his little darling waiting by the bedside to lead him away, and he died with a smile on his face – the first I had ever seen there.”

The priest ceased, and we went out together in the mournful twilight, and stood for a little while on the brow of the hill where Uncle George used to sit, with his face turned toward England. How my heart ached for him as I thought of what he must have suffered in the silence and solitude of his long exile! Was it well for me that I had discovered the Family Secret at last? I have sometimes thought not. I have sometimes wished that the darkness had never been cleared away which once hid from me the fate of Uncle George.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE THIRD DAY

Fine again. Our guest rode out, with her ragged little groom, as usual. There was no news yet in the paper – that is to say, no news of George or his ship.

On this day Morgan completed his second story, and in two or three days more I expected to finish the last of my own contributions. Owen was still behindhand and still despondent.

The lot drawing tonight was Five. This proved to be the number of the first of Morgan’s stories, which he had completed before we began the readings. His second story, finished this day, being still uncorrected by me, could not yet be added to the common stock.

On being informed that it had come to his turn to occupy the attention of the company, Morgan startled us by immediately objecting to the trouble of reading his own composition, and by coolly handing it over to me, on the ground that my numerous corrections had made it, to all intents and purposes, my story.

Owen and I both remonstrated; and Jessie, mischievously persisting in her favourite jest at Morgan’s expense, entreated that he would read, if it was only for her sake. Finding that we were all determined, and all against him, he declared that, rather than hear our voices any longer, he would submit to the minor inconvenience of listening to his own. Accordingly, he took his manuscript back again, and, with an air of surly resignation, spread it open before him.

“I don’t think you will like this story, miss,” he began, addressing Jessie, “but I shall read it, nevertheless, with the greatest pleasure. It begins in a stable – it gropes its way through a dream – it keeps company with a hostler – and it stops without an end. What do you think of that?”

After favouring his audience with this promising preface, Morgan indulged himself in a chuckle of supreme satisfaction, and then began to read, without wasting another preliminary word on any one of us.

BROTHER MORGAN’S STORY:
THE DREAM-WOMAN

•  I  •

I had not been settled much more than six weeks in my country practice when I was sent for to a neighbouring town, to consult with the resident medical man there on a case of very dangerous illness.

My horse had come down with me at the end of a long ride the night before, and had hurt himself, luckily, much more than he had hurt his master. Being deprived of the animal’s services, I started for my destination by the coach (there were no railways at that time), and I hoped to get back again, toward the afternoon, in the same way.

After the consultation was over, I went to the principal inn of the town to wait for the coach. When it came up it was full inside and out. There was no resource left me but to get home as cheaply as I could by hiring a gig. The price asked for this accommodation struck me as being so extortionate, that I determined to look out for an inn of inferior pretensions, and to try if I could not make a better bargain with a less prosperous establishment.

I soon found a likely-looking house, dingy and quiet, with an old-fashioned sign, that had evidently not been repainted for many years past. The landlord, in this case, was not above making a small profit, and as soon as we came to terms he rang the yard-bell to order the gig.

“Has Robert not come back from that errand?” asked the landlord, appealing to the waiter who answered the bell.

“No, sir, he hasn’t.”

“Well, then, you must wake up Isaac.”

“Wake up Isaac!” I repeated; “that sounds rather odd. Do your hostlers go to bed in the daytime?”

“This one does,” said the landlord, smiling to himself in rather a strange way.

“And dreams too,” added the waiter; “I shan’t forget the turn it gave me the first time I heard him.”

“Never you mind about that,” retorted the proprietor; “you go and rouse Isaac up. The gentleman’s waiting for his gig.”

The landlord’s manner and the waiter’s manner expressed a great deal more than they either of them said. I began to suspect that I might be on the trace of something professionally interesting to me as a medical man, and I thought I should like to look at the hostler before the waiter awakened him.

“Stop a minute,” I interposed; “I have rather a fancy for seeing this man before you wake him up. I’m a doctor; and if this queer sleeping and dreaming of his comes from anything wrong in his brain, I may be able to tell you what to do with him.”

“I rather think you will find his complaint past all doctoring, sir,” said the landlord; “but, if you would like to see him, you’re welcome, I’m sure.”

He led the way across a yard and down a passage to the stables, opened one of the doors, and, waiting outside himself, told me to look in.

I found myself in a two-stall stable. In one of the stalls a horse was munching his corn; in the other an old man was lying asleep on the litter.

I stooped and looked at him attentively. It was a withered, woebegone face. The eyebrows were painfully contracted; the mouth was fast set, and drawn down at the corners.

The hollow wrinkled cheeks, and the scanty grizzled hair, told their own tale of some past sorrow or suffering. He was drawing his breath convulsively when I first looked at him, and in a moment more he began to talk in his sleep.

“Wake up!” I heard him say, in a quick whisper, through his clinched teeth. “Wake up there! Murder!”

He moved one lean arm slowly till it rested over his throat, shuddered a little, and turned on his straw. Then the arm left his throat, the hand stretched itself out, and clutched at the side toward which he had turned, as if he fancied himself to be grasping at the edge of something. I saw his lips move, and bent lower over him. He was still talking in his sleep.

“Light grey eyes,” he murmured, “and a droop in the left eyelid; flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it – all right, mother – fair white arms, with a down on them – little lady’s hand, with a reddish look under the finger nails. The knife – always the cursed knife – first on one side, then on the other. Aha! you she-devil, where’s the knife?”

At the last word his voice rose, and he grew restless on a sudden. I saw him shudder on the straw; his withered face became distorted, and he threw up both his hands with a quick hysterical gasp. They struck against the bottom of the manger under which he lay, and the blow awakened him. I had just time to slip through the door and close it before his eyes were fairly open, and his senses his own again.

“Do you know anything about that man’s past life?” I said to the landlord.

“Yes, sir, I know pretty well all about it,” was the answer, “and an uncommon queer story it is. Most people don’t believe it. It’s true, though, for all that. Why, just look at him,” continued the landlord, opening the stable door again. “Poor devil! he’s so worn out with his restless nights that he’s dropped back into his sleep already.”

“Don’t wake him,” I said; “I’m in no hurry for the gig. Wait till the other man comes back from his errand; and, in the meantime, suppose I have some lunch and a bottle of sherry, and suppose you come and help me to get through it?”

The heart of mine host, as I had anticipated, warmed to me over his own wine. He soon became communicative on the subject of the man asleep in the stable, and by little and little I drew the whole story out of him. Extravagant and incredible as the events must appear to everybody, they are related here just as I heard them and just as they happened.

•  II  •

Some years ago there lived in the suburbs of a large seaport town on the west coast of England a man in humble circumstances, by name Isaac Scatchard. His means of subsistence were derived from any employment that he could get as an hostler, and occasionally, when times went well with him, from temporary engagements in service as stable-helper in private houses. Though a faithful, steady, and honest man, he got on badly in his calling. His ill luck was proverbial among his neighbours. He was always missing good opportunities by no fault of his own, and always living longest in service with amiable people who were not punctual payers of wages. “Unlucky Isaac” was his nickname in his own neighbourhood, and no one could say that he did not richly deserve it.

With far more than one man’s fair share of adversity to endure, Isaac had but one consolation to support him, and that was of the dreariest and most negative kind. He had no wife and children to increase his anxieties and add to the bitterness of his various failures in life. It might have been from mere insensibility, or it might have been from generous unwillingness to involve another in his own unlucky destiny, but the fact undoubtedly was, that he had arrived at the middle term of life without marrying, and, what is much more remarkable, without once exposing himself, from eighteen to eight-and-thirty, to the genial imputation of ever having had a sweetheart.

When he was out of service he lived alone with his widowed mother. Mrs. Scatchard was a woman above the average in her lowly station as to capacity and manners. She had seen better days, as the phrase is, but she never referred to them in the presence of curious visitors; and, though perfectly polite to everyone who approached her, never cultivated any intimacies among her neighbours. She contrived to provide, hardly enough, for her simple wants by doing rough work for the tailors, and always managed to keep a decent home for her son to return to whenever his ill luck drove him out helpless into the world.

One bleak autumn when Isaac was getting on fast toward forty and when he was as usual out of place through no fault of his own, he set forth, from his mother’s cottage on a long walk inland to a gentleman’s seat where he had heard that a stable-helper was required.

It wanted then but two days of his birthday; and Mrs. Scatchard, with her usual fondness, made him promise, before he started, that he would be back in time to keep that anniversary with her, in as festive a way as their poor means would allow. It was easy for him to comply with this request, even supposing he slept a night each way on the road.

He was to start from home on Monday morning, and, whether he got the new place or not, he was to be back for his birthday dinner on Wednesday at two o’clock.

Arriving at his destination too late on the Monday night to make application for the stablehelper’s place, he slept at the village inn, and in good time on the Tuesday morning presented himself at the gentleman’s house to fill the vacant situation. Here again his ill luck pursued him as inexorably as ever. The excellent written testimonials to his character which he was able to produce availed him nothing; his long walk had been taken in vain: only the day before the stable-helper’s place had been given to another man.

Isaac accepted this new disappointment resignedly and as a matter of course. Naturally slow in capacity, he had the bluntness of sensibility and phlegmatic patience of disposition which frequently distinguish men with sluggishly-working mental powers. He thanked the gentleman’s steward with his usual quiet civility for granting him an interview, and took his departure with no appearance of unusual depression in his face or manner.

Before starting on his homeward walk he made some inquiries at the inn, and ascertained that he might save a few miles on his return by following the new road. Furnished with full instructions, several times repeated, as to the various turnings he was to take, he set forth on his homeward journey and walked on all day with only one stoppage for bread and cheese. Just as it was getting toward dark, the rain came on and the wind began to rise, and he found himself, to make matters worse, in a part of the country with which he was entirely unacquainted, though he knew himself to be some fifteen miles from home. The first house he found to inquire at was a lonely roadside inn, standing on the outskirts of a thick wood. Solitary as the place looked, it was welcome to a lost man who was also hungry, thirsty, footsore and wet. The landlord was civil and respectable-looking, and the price he asked for a bed was reasonable enough. Isaac therefore decided on stopping comfortably at the inn for that night.

He was constitutionally a temperate man.

His supper consisted of two rashers of bacon, a slice of home-made bread and a pint of ale. He did not go to bed immediately after this moderate meal, but sat up with the landlord, talking about his bad prospects and his long run of ill-luck, and diverging from these topics to the subjects of horseflesh and racing. Nothing was said either by himself, his host, or the few labourers who strayed into the taproom, which could, in the slightest degree, excite the very small and very dull imaginative faculty which Isaac Scatchard possessed.

At a little after eleven the house was closed. Isaac went round with the landlord and held the candle while the doors and lower windows were being secured. He noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts and bars, and iron-sheathed shutters.

“You see, we are rather lonely here,” said the landlord. “We never have had any attempts made to break in yet, but it’s always as well to be on the safe side. When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house. My wife and daughter are timid, and the servant-girl takes after her missuses. Another glass of ale before you turn in? No! Well, how such a sober man as you comes to be out of place is more than I can make out, for one. Here’s where you’re to sleep. You’re our only lodger tonight, and I think you’ll say my missus has done her best to make you comfortable. You’re quite sure you won’t have another glass of ale? Very well. Good-night.”

It was half-past eleven by the clock in the passage as they went upstairs to the bedroom, the window of which looked on to the wood at the back of the house.

Isaac locked the door, set his candle on the chest of drawers, and wearily got ready for bed.

The bleak autumn wind was still blowing, and the solemn, monotonous, surging moan of it in the wood was dreary and awful to hear through the night-silence. Isaac felt strangely wakeful.

He resolved, as he lay down in bed, to keep the candle alight until he began to grow sleepy, for there was something unendurably depressing in the bare idea of lying awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal, ceaseless moaning of the wind in the wood.

Sleep stole on him before he was aware of it. His eyes closed, and he fell off insensibly to rest without having so much as thought of extinguishing the candle.

The first sensation of which he was conscious after sinking into slumber was a strange shivering that ran through him suddenly from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at the heart, such as he had never felt before. The shivering only disturbed his slumbers; the pain woke him instantly. In one moment he passed from a state of sleep to a state of wakefulness – his eyes wide open – his mental perceptions cleared on a sudden, as if by a miracle.

The candle had burned down nearly to the last morsel of tallow, but the top of the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the light in the little room was, for the moment, fair and full.

Between the foot of his bed and the closed door there stood a woman with a knife in her hand, looking at him.

He was stricken speechless with terror, but he did not lose the preternatural clearness of his faculties, and he never took his eyes off the woman. She said not a word as they stared each other in the face, but she began to move slowly toward the left-hand side of the bed.

His eyes followed her. She was a fair, fine woman, with yellowish flaxen hair and light grey eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. He noticed those things and fixed them on his mind before she was round at the side of the bed. Speechless, with no expression in her face, with no noise following her footfall, she came closer and closer – stopped – and slowly raised the knife. He laid his right arm over his throat to save it; but, as he saw the knife coming down, threw his hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked his body over that way just as the knife descended on the mattress within an inch of his shoulder.

His eyes fixed on her arm and hand as she slowly drew her knife out of the bed: a white, well-shaped arm, with a pretty down lying lightly over the fair skin – a delicate lady’s hand, with the crowning beauty of a pink flush under and round the fingernails.

She drew the knife out, and passed back again slowly to the foot of the bed; stopped there for a moment looking at him; then came on – still speechless, still with no expression on the blank, beautiful face, still with no sound following the stealthy footfalls – came on to the right side of the bed, where he now lay.

As she approached, she raised the knife again, and he drew himself away to the left side. She struck, as before, right into the mattress, with a deliberate, perpendicularly downward action of the arm. This time his eyes wandered from her to the knife. It was like the large clasp-knives which he had often seen labouring men use to cut their bread and bacon with. Her delicate little fingers did not conceal more than two-thirds of the handle: he noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the blade was, and looking like new.

For the second time she drew the knife out, concealed it in the wide sleeve of her gown, then stopped by the bedside, watching him. For an instant he saw her standing in that position, then the wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket; the flame diminished to a little blue point, and the room grew dark.

A moment, or less, if possible, passed so, and then the wick flamed up, smokingly, for the last time. His eyes were still looking eagerly over the right-hand side of the bed when the final flash of light came, but they discovered nothing. The fair woman with the knife was gone.

The conviction that he was alone again weakened the hold of the terror that had struck him dumb up to this time. The preternatural sharpness which the very intensity of his panic had mysteriously imparted to his faculties left them suddenly. His brain grew confused – his heart beat wildly – his ears opened for the first time since the appearance of the woman to a sense of the woeful ceaseless moaning of the wind among the trees. With the dreadful conviction of the reality of what he had seen still strong within him, he leaped out of bed, and screaming “Murder! Wake up, there! wake up!” dashed headlong through the darkness to the door.

It was fast locked, exactly as he had left it on going to bed.

His cries on starting up had alarmed the house. He heard the terrified, confused exclamations of women; he saw the master of the house approaching along the passage with his burning rush-candle in one hand and his gun in the other.

“What is it?” asked the landlord, breathlessly. Isaac could only answer in a whisper. “A woman, with a knife in her hand,” he gasped out. “In my room – a fair, yellow-haired woman; she jobbed at me with the knife twice over.”

The landlord’s pale cheeks grew paler. He looked at Isaac eagerly by the flickering light of his candle, and his face began to get red again; his voice altered, too, as well as his complexion.

“She seems to have missed you twice,” he said.

“I dodged the knife as it came down,” Isaac went on, in the same scared whisper. “It struck the bed each time.”

The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.

“The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! There isn’t a mark in the bedclothes anywhere. What do you mean by coming into a man’s place and frightening his family out of their wits about a dream?”

“I’ll leave your house,” said Isaac, faintly. “Better out on the road, in rain and dark, on my road home, than back again in that room, after what I’ve seen in it. Lend me a light to get my clothes by, and tell me what I’m to pay.”

“Pay!” cried the landlord, leading the way with his light sulkily into the bedroom. “You’ll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs. I wouldn’t have taken you in for all the money you’ve got about you if I’d known your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand. Look at the bed. Where’s the cut of a knife in it? Look at the window – is the lock bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten yourself) – is it broke in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

Isaac answered not a word. He huddled on his clothes, and then they went downstairs together.

“Nigh on twenty minutes past two!” said the landlord, as they passed the clock. “A nice time in the morning to frighten honest people out of their wits!”

Isaac paid his bill, and the landlord let him out at the front door, asking, with a grin of contempt, as he undid the strong fastenings, whether “the murdering woman got in that way.”

They parted without a word on either side. The rain had ceased, but the night was dark, and the wind bleaker than ever. Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the uncertainty about the way home matter to Isaac. If he had been turned out into a wilderness in a thunderstorm it would have been a relief after what he had suffered in the bedroom of the inn.

What was the fair woman with the knife? The creature of a dream, or that other creature from the unknown world called among men by the name of ghost? He could make nothing of the mystery – had made nothing of it, even when it was midday on Wednesday, and when he stood, at last, after many times missing his road, once more on the doorstep of home.

•  III  •

His mother came out eagerly to receive him.

His face told her in a moment that something was wrong.

“I’ve lost the place; but that’s my luck. I dreamed an ill dream last night, mother – or maybe I saw a ghost. Take it either way, it scared me out of my senses, and I’m not my own man again yet.”

“Isaac, your face frightens me. Come in to the fire – come in, and tell mother all about it.”

He was as anxious to tell as she was to hear; for it had been his hope, all the way home, that his mother, with her quicker capacity and superior knowledge, might be able to throw some light on the mystery which he could not clear up for himself. His memory of the dream was still mechanically vivid, though his thoughts were entirely confused by it.

His mother’s face grew paler and paler as he went on. She never interrupted him by so much as a single word; but when he had done, she moved her chair close to his, put her arm round his neck, and said to him:

“Isaac, you dreamed your ill dream on this Wednesday morning. What time was it when you saw the fair woman with the knife in her hand?” Isaac reflected on what the landlord had said when they had passed by the clock on his leaving the inn; allowed as nearly as he could for the time that must have elapsed between the unlocking of his bedroom door and the paying of his bill just before going away, and answered:

“Somewhere about two o’clock in the morning.”

His mother suddenly quitted her hold of his neck, and struck her hands together with a gesture of despair.

“This Wednesday is your birthday, Isaac, and two o’clock in the morning was the time when you were born.”

Isaac’s capacities were not quick enough to catch the infection of his mother’s superstitious dread. He was amazed, and a little startled, also, when she suddenly rose from her chair, opened her old writing-desk, took pen, ink and paper, and then said to him:

“Your memory is but a poor one, Isaac, and, now I’m an old woman, mine’s not much better. I want all about this dream of yours to be as well known to both of us, years hence, as it is now. Tell me over again all you told me a minute ago, when you spoke of what the woman with the knife looked like.”

Isaac obeyed, and marvelled much as he saw his mother carefully set down on paper the very words that he was saying.

“Light grey eyes,” she wrote, as they came to the descriptive part, “with a droop in the left eyelid; flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it; white arms, with a down upon them; little lady’s hand, with a reddish look about the finger nails; clasp-knife with a buckhorn handle, that seemed as good as new.” To these particulars Mrs. Scatchard added the year, month, day of the week, and time in the morning when the woman of the dream appeared to her son. She then locked up the paper carefully in her writing-desk.

Neither on that day nor on any day after could her son induce her to return to the matter of the dream. She obstinately kept her thoughts about it to herself, and even refused to refer again to the paper in her writing-desk. Ere long Isaac grew weary of attempting to make her break her resolute silence; and time, which sooner or later wears out all things, gradually wore out the impression produced on him by the dream. He began by thinking of it carelessly, and he ended by not thinking of it at all.

The result was the more easily brought about by the advent of some important changes for the better in his prospects which commenced not long after his terrible night’s experience at the inn. He reaped at last the reward of his long and patient suffering under adversity by getting an excellent place, keeping it for seven years, and leaving it, on the death of his master, not only with an excellent character, but also with a comfortable annuity bequeathed to him as a reward for saving his mistress’s life in a carriage accident. Thus it happened that Isaac Scatchard returned to his old mother, seven years after the time of the dream at the inn, with an annual sum of money at his disposal sufficient to keep them both in ease and independence for the rest of their lives.

The mother, whose health had been bad of late years, profited so much by the care bestowed on her and by freedom from money anxieties, that when Isaac’s birthday came round she was able to sit up comfortably at table and dine with him.

On that day, as the evening drew on, Mrs. Scatchard discovered that a bottle of tonic medicine which she was accustomed to take, and in which she had fancied that a dose or more was still left, happened to be empty. Isaac immediately volunteered to go to the chemist’s and get it filled again. It was as rainy and bleak an autumn night as on the memorable past occasion when he lost his way and slept at the roadside inn.

On going into the chemist’s shop he was passed hurriedly by a poorly-dressed woman coming out of it. The glimpse he had of her face struck him, and he looked back after her as she descended the doorsteps.

“You’re noticing that woman?” said the chemist’s apprentice behind the counter. “It’s my opinion there’s something wrong with her. She’s been asking for laudanum to put to a bad tooth. Master’s out for half an hour, and I told her I wasn’t allowed to sell poison to strangers in his absence. She laughed in a queer way, and said she would come back in half an hour. If she expects master to serve her, I think she’ll be disappointed. It’s a case of suicide, sir, if ever there was one yet.”

These words added immeasurably to the sudden interest in the woman which Isaac had felt at the first sight of her face. After he had got the medicine-bottle filled, he looked about anxiously for her as soon as he was out in the street. She was walking slowly up and down on the opposite side of the road. With his heart, very much to his own surprise, beating fast, Isaac crossed over and spoke to her.

He asked if she was in any distress. She pointed to her torn shawl, her scanty dress, her crushed, dirty bonnet; then moved under a lamp so as to let the light fall on her stern, pale, but still most beautiful face.

“I look like a comfortable, happy woman, don’t I?” she said, with a bitter laugh.

She spoke with a purity of intonation which Isaac had never heard before from other than ladies’ lips. Her slightest actions seemed to have the easy, negligent grace of a thoroughbred woman. Her skin, for all its poverty-stricken paleness, was as delicate as if her life had been passed in the enjoyment of every social comfort that wealth can purchase. Even her small, finely-shaped hands, gloveless as they were, had not lost their whiteness.

Little by little, in answer to his questions, the sad story of the woman came out. There is no need to relate it here; it is told over and over again in police reports and paragraphs about attempted suicides.

“My name is Rebecca Murdoch,” said the woman, as she ended. “I have nine-pence left, and I thought of spending it at the chemist’s over the way in securing a passage to the other world. Whatever it is, it can’t be worse to me than this, so why should I stop here?”

Besides the natural compassion and sadness moved in his heart by what he heard, Isaac felt within him some mysterious influence at work all the time the woman was speaking which utterly confused his ideas and almost deprived him of his powers of speech. All that he could say in answer to her last reckless words was that he would prevent her from attempting her own life, if he followed her about all night to do it. His rough, trembling earnestness seemed to impress her.

“I won’t occasion you that trouble,” she answered, when he repeated his threat. “You have given me a fancy for living by speaking kindly to me. No need for the mockery of protestations and promises. You may believe me without them. Come to Fuller’s Meadow tomorrow at twelve, and you will find me alive, to answer for myself – No! – no money. My ninepence will do to get me as good a night’s lodging as I want.”

She nodded and left him. He made no attempt to follow – he felt no suspicion that she was deceiving him.

“It’s strange, but I can’t help believing her,” he said to himself, and walked away, bewildered, toward home.

On entering the house, his mind was still so completely absorbed by its new subject of interest that he took no notice of what his mother was doing when he came in with the bottle of medicine. She had opened her old writing-desk in his absence, and was now reading a paper attentively that lay inside it. On every birthday of Isaac’s since she had written down the particulars of his dream from his own lips, she had been accustomed to read that same paper, and ponder over it in private.

The next day he went to Fuller’s Meadow.

He had done only right in believing her so implicitly. She was there, punctual to a minute, to answer for herself. The last-left faint defences in Isaac’s heart against the fascination which a word or look from her began inscrutably to exercise over him sank down and vanished before her forever on that memorable morning.

When a man, previously insensible to the influence of women, forms an attachment in middle life, the instances are rare indeed, let the warning circumstances be what they may, in which he is found capable of freeing himself from the tyranny of the new ruling passion. The charm of being spoken to familiarly, fondly, and gratefully by a woman whose language and manners still retained enough of their early refinement to hint at the high social station that she had lost, would have been a dangerous luxury to a man of Isaac’s rank at the age of twenty. But it was far more than that – it was certain ruin to him – now that his heart was opening unworthily to a new influence at that middle time of life when strong feelings of all kinds, once implanted, strike root most stubbornly in a man’s moral nature. A few more stolen interviews after that first morning in Fuller’s Meadow completed his infatuation. In less than a month from the time when he first met her, Isaac Scatchard had consented to give Rebecca Murdoch a new interest in existence, and a chance of recovering the character she had lost by promising to make her his wife.

She had taken possession, not of his passions only, but of his faculties as well. All the mind he had he put into her keeping. She directed him on every point – even instructing him how to break the news of his approaching marriage in the safest manner to his mother.

“If you tell her how you met me and who I am at first,” said the cunning woman, “she will move heaven and earth to prevent our marriage. Say I am the sister of one of your fellow-servants – ask her to see me before you go into any more particulars – and leave it to me to do the rest. I mean to make her love me next best to you, Isaac, before she knows anything of who I really am.” The motive of the deceit was sufficient to sanctify it to Isaac. The stratagem proposed relieved him of his one great anxiety, and quieted his uneasy conscience on the subject of his mother. Still, there was something wanting to perfect his happiness, something that he could not realize, something mysteriously untraceable, and yet something that perpetually made itself felt; not when he was absent from Rebecca Murdoch, but, strange to say, when he was actually in her presence! She was kindness itself with him. She never made him feel his inferior capacities and inferior manners. She showed the sweetest anxiety to please him in the smallest trifles; but, in spite of all these attractions, he never could feel quite at his ease with her. At their first meeting, there had mingled with his admiration, when he looked in her face, a faint, involuntary feeling of doubt whether that face was entirely strange to him. No after familiarity had the slightest effect on this inexplicable, wearisome uncertainty.

Concealing the truth as he had been directed, he announced his marriage engagement precipitately and confusedly to his mother on the day when he contracted it. Poor Mrs. Scatchard showed her perfect confidence in her son by flinging her arms round his neck, and giving him joy of having found at last, in the sister of one of his fellow-servants, a woman to comfort and care for him after his mother was gone. She was all eagerness to see the woman of her son’s choice, and the next day was fixed for the introduction.

It was a bright sunny morning, and the little cottage parlour was full of light as Mrs. Scatchard, happy and expectant, dressed for the occasion in her Sunday gown, sat waiting for her son and her future daughter-in-law.

Punctual to the appointed time, Isaac hurriedly and nervously led his promised wife into the room. His mother rose to receive her – advanced a few steps, smiling – looked Rebecca full in the eyes, and suddenly stopped. Her face, which had been flushed the moment before, turned white in an instant; her eyes lost their expression of softness and kindness, and assumed a blank look of terror; her outstretched hands fell to her sides, and she staggered back a few steps with a low cry to her son.

“Isaac,” she whispered, clutching him fast by the arm when he asked alarmedly if she was taken ill, “Isaac, does that woman’s face remind you of nothing?”

Before he could answer – before he could look round to where Rebecca stood, astonished and angered by her reception, at the lower end of the room, his mother pointed impatiently to her writing-desk, and gave him the key.

“Open it,” she said, in a quick breathless whisper.

“What does this mean? Why am I treated as if I had no business here? Does your mother want to insult me?” asked Rebecca, angrily.

“Open it, and give me the paper in the left-hand drawer. Quick! quick, for Heaven’s sake!” said Mrs. Scatchard, shrinking further back in terror.

Isaac gave her the paper. She looked it over eagerly for a moment, then followed Rebecca, who was now turning away haughtily to leave the room, and caught her by the shoulder – abruptly raised the long, loose sleeve of her gown, and glanced at her hand and arm. Something like fear began to steal over the angry expression of Rebecca’s face as she shook herself free from the old woman’s grasp. “Mad!” she said to herself; “and Isaac never told me.” With these few words she left the room.

Isaac was hastening after her when his mother turned and stopped his further progress. It wrung his heart to see the misery and terror in her face as she looked at him.

“Light grey eyes,” she said, in low, mournful, awe-struck tones, pointing toward the open door; “a droop in the left eyelid; flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it; white arms, with a down upon them; little lady’s hand, with a reddish look under the finger nails – The Dream-Woman, Isaac, the Dream-Woman!”

That faint cleaving doubt which he had never been able to shake off in Rebecca Murdoch’s presence was fatally set at rest forever. He had seen her face, then, before – seven years before, on his birthday, in the bedroom of the lonely inn.

“Be warned! oh, my son, be warned! Isaac, Isaac, let her go, and do you stop with me!”

Something darkened the parlour window as those words were said. A sudden chill ran through him, and he glanced sidelong at the shadow. Rebecca Murdoch had come back. She was peering in curiously at them over the low window-blind.

“I have promised to marry, mother,” he said, “and marry I must.”

The tears came into his eyes as he spoke and dimmed his sight, but he could just discern the fatal face outside moving away again from the window.

His mother’s head sank lower.

“Are you faint?” he whispered.

“Broken-hearted, Isaac.”

He stooped down and kissed her. The shadow, as he did so, returned to the window, and the fatal face peered in curiously once more.

•  IV  •

Three weeks after that day Isaac and Rebecca were man and wife. All that was hopelessly dogged and stubborn in the man’s moral nature seemed to have closed round his fatal passion, and to have fixed it unassailably in his heart.

After that first interview in the cottage parlour no consideration would induce Mrs. Scatchard to see her son’s wife again or even to talk of her when Isaac tried hard to plead her cause after their marriage.

This course of conduct was not in any degree occasioned by a discovery of the degradation in which Rebecca had lived. There was no question of that between mother and son. There was no question of anything but the fearfully-exact resemblance between the living, breathing woman and the spectre-woman of Isaac’s dream.

Rebecca on her side neither felt nor expressed the slightest sorrow at the estrangement between herself and her mother-in-law. Isaac, for the sake of peace, had never contradicted her first idea that age and long illness had affected Mrs. Scatchard’s mind. He even allowed his wife to upbraid him for not having confessed this to her at the time of their marriage engagement, rather than risk anything by hinting at the truth. The sacrifice of his integrity before his one all-mastering delusion seemed but a small thing, and cost his conscience but little after the sacrifices he had already made.

The time of waking from this delusion – the cruel and the rueful time – was not far off. After some quiet months of married life, as the summer was ending, and the year was getting on toward the month of his birthday, Isaac found his wife altering toward him. She grew sullen and contemptuous; she formed acquaintances of the most dangerous kind in defiance of his objections, his entreaties, and his commands; and, worst of all, she learned, ere long, after every fresh difference with her husband, to seek the deadly self-oblivion of drink. Little by little, after the first miserable discovery that his wife was keeping company with drunkards, the shocking certainty forced itself on Isaac that she had grown to be a drunkard herself.

He had been in a sadly desponding state for some time before the occurrence of these domestic calamities. His mother’s health, as he could but too plainly discern every time he went to see her at the cottage, was failing fast, and he upbraided himself in secret as the cause of the bodily and mental suffering she endured. When to his remorse on his mother’s account was added the shame and misery occasioned by the discovery of his wife’s degradation, he sank under the double trial – his face began to alter fast, and he looked what he was, a spirit-broken man.

His mother, still struggling bravely against the illness that was hurrying her to the grave, was the first to notice the sad alteration in him, and the first to hear of his last worst trouble with his wife. She could only weep bitterly on the day when he made his humiliating confession, but on the next occasion when he went to see her she had taken a resolution in reference to his domestic afflictions which astonished and even alarmed him. He found her dressed to go out, and on asking the reason received this answer:

“I am not long for this world, Isaac,” she said, “and I shall not feel easy on my deathbed unless I have done my best to the last to make my son happy. I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and to go with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Give me your arm, Isaac, and let me do the last thing I can in this world to help my son before it is too late.”

He could not disobey her, and they walked together slowly toward his miserable home.

It was only one o’clock in the afternoon when they reached the cottage where he lived. It was their dinner-hour, and Rebecca was in the kitchen. He was thus able to take his mother quietly into the parlour, and then prepare his wife for the interview. She had fortunately drunk but little at that early hour, and she was less sullen and capricious than usual.

He returned to his mother with his mind tolerably at ease. His wife soon followed him into the parlour, and the meeting between her and Mrs. Scatchard passed off better than he had ventured to anticipate, though he observed with secret apprehension that his mother, resolutely as she controlled herself in other respects, could not look his wife in the face when she spoke to her. It was a relief to him, therefore, when Rebecca began to lay the cloth.

She laid the cloth, brought in the bread-tray, and cut a slice from the loaf for her husband, then returned to the kitchen. At that moment, Isaac, still anxiously watching his mother, was startled by seeing the same ghastly change pass over her face which had altered it so awfully on the morning when Rebecca and she first met. Before he could say a word, she whispered, with a look of horror:

“Take me back – home, home again, Isaac. Come with me, and never go back again.”

He was afraid to ask for an explanation; he could only sign to her to be silent, and help her quickly to the door. As they passed the bread-tray on the table she stopped and pointed to it.

“Did you see what your wife cut your bread with?” she asked, in a low whisper.

“No, mother – I was not noticing – what was it?”

“Look!”

He did look. A new clasp-knife with a buckhorn handle lay with the loaf in the bread-tray. He stretched out his hand shudderingly to possess himself of it; but, at the same time, there was a noise in the kitchen, and his mother caught at his arm.

“The knife of the dream! Isaac, I’m faint with fear. Take me away before she comes back.”

He was hardly able to support her. The visible, tangible reality of the knife struck him with a panic, and utterly destroyed any faint doubts that he might have entertained up to this time in relation to the mysterious dream-warning of nearly eight years before. By a last desperate effort, he summoned self-possession enough to help his mother out of the house – so quietly that the “Dream-woman” (he thought of her by that name now) did not hear them departing from the kitchen.

“Don’t go back, Isaac – don’t go back!” implored Mrs. Scatchard, as he turned to go away, after seeing her safely seated again in her own room.

“I must get the knife,” he answered, under his breath. His mother tried to stop him again, but he hurried out without another word.

On his return he found that his wife had discovered their secret departure from the house. She had been drinking, and was in a fury of passion. The dinner in the kitchen was flung under the grate; the cloth was off the parlour table. Where was the knife?

Unwisely, he asked for it. She was only too glad of the opportunity of irritating him which the request afforded her. “He wanted the knife, did he? Could he give her a reason why? No! Then he should not have it – not if he went down on his knees to ask for it.” Further recriminations elicited the fact that she had bought it a bargain, and that she considered it her own especial property. Isaac saw the uselessness of attempting to get the knife by fair means, and determined to search for it, later in the day, in secret. The search was unsuccessful. Night came on, and he left the house to walk about the streets. He was afraid now to sleep in the same room with her.

Three weeks passed. Still sullenly enraged with him, she would not give up the knife; and still that fear of sleeping in the same room with her possessed him. He walked about at night, or dozed in the parlour, or sat watching by his mother’s bedside. Before the expiration of the first week in the new month his mother died. It wanted then but ten days of her son’s birthday. She had longed to live till that anniversary. Isaac was present at her death, and her last words in this world were addressed to him:

“Don’t go back, my son, don’t go back!” He was obliged to go back, if it were only to watch his wife. Exasperated to the last degree by his distrust of her, she had revengefully sought to add a sting to his grief, during the last days of his mother’s illness, by declaring that she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of anything he could do or say, she held with wicked pertinacity to her word, and on the day appointed for the burial forced herself – inflamed and shameless with drink – into her husband’s presence, and declared that she would walk in the funeral procession to his mother’s grave.

This last worst outrage, accompanied by all that was most insulting in word and look, maddened him for the moment. He struck her.

The instant the blow was dealt he repented it. She crouched down, silent, in a corner of the room, and eyed him steadily; it was a look that cooled his hot blood and made him tremble. But there was no time now to think of a means of making atonement. Nothing remained but to risk the worst till the funeral was over. There was but one way of making sure of her. He locked her into her bedroom.

When he came back some hours after, he found her sitting, very much altered in look and bearing, by the bedside, with a bundle on her lap. She rose, and faced him quietly, and spoke with a strange stillness in her voice, a strange repose in her eyes, a strange composure in her manner.

“No man has ever struck me twice,” she said, “and my husband shall have no second opportunity. Set the door open and let me go. From this day forth we see each other no more.”

Before he could answer she passed him and left the room. He saw her walk away up the street.

Would she return?

All that night he watched and waited, but no footstep came near the house. The next night, overpowered by fatigue, he lay down in bed in his clothes, with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. His slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth passed, and nothing happened.

He lay down on the seventh, still in his clothes, still with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning, but easier in his mind.

Easier in his mind, and in perfect health of body when he fell off to sleep. But his rest was disturbed. He woke twice without any sensation of uneasiness. But the third time it was that never-to-be-forgotten shivering of the night at the lonely inn, that dreadful sinking pain at the heart, which once more aroused him in an instant.

His eyes opened toward the left-hand side of the bed, and there stood – The Dream-Woman again? No! His wife; the living reality, with the dream-spectre’s face, in the dream-spectre’s attitude; the fair arm up, the knife clasped in the delicate white hand.

He sprang upon her almost at the instant of seeing her, and yet not quickly enough to prevent her from hiding the knife. Without a word from him – without a cry from her – he pinioned her in a chair. With one hand he felt up her sleeve, and there, where the Dream-Woman had hidden the knife, his wife had hidden it – the knife with the buckhorn handle, that looked like new.

In the despair of that fearful moment his brain was steady, his heart was calm. He looked at her fixedly with the knife in his hand, and said these last words:

“You told me we should see each other no more, and you have come back. It is my turn now to go, and to go forever. I say that we shall see each other no more, and my word shall not be broken.”

He left her, and set forth into the night. There was a bleak wind abroad, and the smell of recent rain was in the air. The distant church-clocks chimed the quarter as he walked rapidly beyond the last houses in the suburb. He asked the first policeman he met what hour that was of which the quarter past had just struck.

The man referred sleepily to his watch, and answered, “Two o’clock.” Two in the morning. What day of the month was this day that had just begun? He reckoned it up from the date of his mother’s funeral. The fatal parallel was complete: it was his birthday!

Had he escaped the mortal peril which his dream foretold? or had he only received a second warning?

As that ominous doubt forced itself on his mind, he stopped, reflected, and turned back again toward the city. He was still resolute to hold to his word, and never to let her see him more; but there was a thought now in his mind of having her watched and followed. The knife was in his possession; the world was before him; but a new distrust of her – a vague, unspeakable, superstitious dread had overcome him.

“I must know where she goes, now she thinks I have left her,” he said to himself, as he stole back wearily to the precincts of his house.

It was still dark. He had left the candle burning in the bedchamber; but when he looked up to the window of the room now there was no light in it. He crept cautiously to the house door. On going away, he remembered to have closed it; on trying it now, he found it open.

He waited outside, never losing sight of the house, till daylight. Then he ventured indoors – listened, and heard nothing – looked into kitchen, scullery, parlour and found nothing; went up at last into the bedroom – it was empty. A picklock lay on the floor betraying how she had gained entrance in the night, and that was the only trace of her.

Whither had she gone? That no mortal tongue could tell him. The darkness had covered her flight; and when the day broke, no man could say where the light found her.

Before leaving the house and the town forever, he gave instructions to a friend and neighbour to sell his furniture for anything that it would fetch, and apply the proceeds to employing the police to trace her. The directions were honestly followed, and the money was all spent, but the inquiries led to nothing. The picklock on the bedroom floor remained the one last useless trace of the Dream-Woman.

•   •   •

At this point of the narrative the landlord paused, and, turning toward the window of the room in which we were sitting, looked in the direction of the stable-yard.

“So far,” he said, “I tell you what was told to me. The little that remains to be added lies within my own experience. Between two and three months after the events I have just been relating, Isaac Scatchard came to me, withered and old-looking before his time, just as you saw him today. He had his testimonials to character with him, and he asked for employment here. Knowing that my wife and he were distantly related, I gave him a trial in consideration of that relationship, and liked him in spite of his queer habits. He is as sober, honest, and willing a man as there is in England. As for his restlessness at night, and his sleeping away his leisure time in the day, who can wonder at it after hearing his story? Besides, he never objects to being roused up when he’s wanted, so there’s not much inconvenience to complain of, after all.”

“I suppose he is afraid of a return of that dreadful dream, and of waking out of it in the dark?” said I.

“No,” returned the landlord. “The dream comes back to him so often that he has got to bear with it by this time resignedly enough. It’s his wife keeps him waking at night as he has often told me.”

“What! Has she never been heard of yet?”

“Never. Isaac himself has the one perpetual thought about her, that she is alive and looking for him. I believe he wouldn’t let himself drop off to sleep toward two in the morning for a king’s ransom. Two in the morning, he says, is the time she will find him, one of these days. Two in the morning is the time all the year round when he likes to be most certain that he has got that clasp-knife safe about him. He does not mind being alone as long as he is awake, except on the night before his birthday, when he firmly believes himself to be in peril of his life. The birthday has only come round once since he has been here, and then he sat up along with the night-porter. ‘She’s looking for me,’ is all he says when anybody speaks to him about the one anxiety of his life; ‘she’s looking for me.’ He may be right. She may be looking for him. Who can tell?”

“Who can tell?” said I.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE FOURTH DAY

The sky once more cloudy and threatening. No news of George. I corrected Morgan’s second story today; numbered it Seven, and added it to our stock.

Undeterred by the weather, Miss Jessie set off this morning on the longest ride she had yet undertaken. She had heard – through one of my brother’s labourers, I believe – of the actual existence, in this nineteenth century, of no less a personage than a Welsh Bard, who was to be found at a distant farmhouse far beyond the limits of Owen’s property. The prospect of discovering this remarkable relic of past times hurried her off, under the guidance of her ragged groom, in a high state of excitement, to see and hear the venerable man. She was away the whole day, and for the first time since her visit she kept us waiting more than half an hour for dinner. The moment we all sat down to table, she informed us, to Morgan’s great delight, that the bard was a rank impostor.

“Why, what did you expect to see?” I asked.

“A Welsh patriarch, to be sure, with a long white beard, flowing robes, and a harp to match,” answered Miss Jessie.

“And what did you find?”

“A highly-respectable middle-aged rustic; a smiling, smoothly-shaven, obliging man, dressed in a blue swallow-tailed coat, with brass buttons, and exhibiting his bardic legs in a pair of extremely stout and comfortable corduroy trousers.”

“But he sang old Welsh songs, surely?”

“Sang! I’ll tell you what he did. He sat down on a Windsor chair, without a harp; he put his hands in his pockets, cleared his throat, looked up at the ceiling, and suddenly burst into a series of the shrillest falsetto screeches I ever heard in my life. My own private opinion is that he was suffering from hydrophobia. I have lost all belief, henceforth and forever, in bards – all belief in everything, in short, except your very delightful stories and this remarkably good dinner.”

Ending with that smart double fire of compliments to her hosts, the Queen of Hearts honoured us all three with a smile of approval, and transferred her attention to her knife and fork.

The number drawn tonight was One. On examination of the Purple Volume, it proved to be my turn to read again.

“Our story tonight,” I said, “contains the narrative of a very remarkable adventure which really befell me when I was a young man. At the time of my life when these events happened I was dabbling in literature when I ought to have been studying law, and travelling on the Continent when I ought to have been keeping my terms at Lincoln’s Inn. At the outset of the story, you will find that I refer to the county in which I lived in my youth, and to a neighbouring family possessing a large estate in it. That county is situated in a part of England far away from The Glen Tower, and that family is therefore not to be associated with any present or former neighbours of ours in this part of the world.”

After saying these necessary words of explanation, I opened the first page, and began the story of my Own Adventure. I observed that my audience started a little as I read the title, which I must add, in my own defence, had been almost forced on my choice by the peculiar character of the narrative.

BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY:
MAD MONKTON

•  I  •

The Monktons of Wincot Abbey bore a sad character for want of sociability in our county. They never went to other people’s houses, and, excepting my father, and a lady and her daughter living near them, never received anybody under their own roof.

Proud as they all certainly were, it was not pride, but dread, which kept them thus apart from their neighbours. The family had suffered for generations past from the horrible affliction of hereditary insanity, and the members of it shrank from exposing their calamity to others, as they must have exposed it if they had mingled with the busy little world around them. There is a frightful story of a crime committed in past times by two of the Monktons, near relatives, from which the first appearance of the insanity was always supposed to date, but it is needless for me to shock anyone by repeating it. It is enough to say that at intervals almost every form of madness appeared in the family, monomania being the most frequent manifestation of the affliction among them. I have these particulars, and one or two yet to be related, from my father.

At the period of my youth but three of the Monktons were left at the Abbey – Mr. and Mrs. Monkton and their only child Alfred, heir to the property. The one other member of this, the elder branch of the family, who was then alive, was Mr. Monkton’s younger brother, Stephen. He was an unmarried man, possessing a fine estate in Scotland; but he lived almost entirely on the Continent, and bore the reputation of being a shameless profligate. The family at Wincot held almost as little communication with him as with their neighbours.

I have already mentioned my father, and a lady and her daughter, as the only privileged people who were admitted into Wincot Abbey.

My father had been an old school and college friend of Mr. Monkton, and accident had brought them so much together in later life that their continued intimacy at Wincot was quite intelligible. I am not so well able to account for the friendly terms on which Mrs. Elmslie (the lady to whom I have alluded) lived with the Monktons. Her late husband had been distantly related to Mrs. Monkton, and my father was her daughter’s guardian. But even these claims to friendship and regard never seemed to me strong enough to explain the intimacy between Mrs. Elmslie and the inhabitants of the Abbey. Intimate, however, they certainly were, and one result of the constant interchange of visits between the two families in due time declared itself: Mr. Monkton’s son and Mrs. Elmslie’s daughter became attached to each other.

I had no opportunities of seeing much of the young lady; I only remember her at that time as a delicate, gentle, lovable girl, the very opposite in appearance, and apparently in character also, to Alfred Monkton. But perhaps that was one reason why they fell in love with each other. The attachment was soon discovered, and was far from being disapproved by the parents on either side. In all essential points except that of wealth, the Elmslies were nearly the equals of the Monktons, and want of money in a bride was of no consequence to the heir of Wincot. Alfred, it was well known, would succeed to thirty thousand a year on his father’s death.

Thus, though the parents on both sides thought the young people not old enough to be married at once, they saw no reason why Ada and Alfred should not be engaged to each other, with the understanding that they should be united when young Monkton came of age, in two years’ time. The person to be consulted in the matter, after the parents, was my father, in his capacity of Ada’s guardian. He knew that the family misery had shown itself many years ago in Mrs. Monkton, who was her husband’s cousin. The illness, as it was significantly called, had been palliated by careful treatment, and was reported to have passed away. But my father was not to be deceived. He knew where the hereditary taint still lurked; he viewed with horror the bare possibility of its reappearing one day in the children of his friend’s only daughter; and he positively refused his consent to the marriage engagement.

The result was that the doors of the Abbey and the doors of Mrs. Elmslie’s house were closed to him. This suspension of friendly intercourse had lasted but a very short time when Mrs. Monkton died. Her husband, who was fondly attached to her, caught a violent cold while attending her funeral. The cold was neglected, and settled on his lungs. In a few months’ time he followed his wife to the grave, and Alfred was left master of the grand old Abbey and the fair lands that spread all around it.

At this period Mrs. Elmslie had the indelicacy to endeavour a second time to procure my father’s consent to the marriage engagement. He refused it again more positively than before. More than a year passed away. The time was approaching fast when Alfred would be of age. I returned from college to spend the long vacation at home, and made some advances toward bettering my acquaintance with young Monkton. They were evaded – certainly with perfect politeness, but still in such a way as to prevent me from offering my friendship to him again. Any mortification I might have felt at this petty repulse under ordinary circumstances was dismissed from my mind by the occurrence of a real misfortune in our household. For some months past my father’s health had been failing, and, just at the time of which I am now writing, his sons had to mourn the irreparable calamity of his death.

This event, through some informality or error in the late Mr. Elmslie’s will, left the future of Ada’s life entirely at her mother’s disposal. The consequence was the immediate ratification of the marriage engagement to which my father had so steadily refused his consent. As soon as the fact was publicly announced, some of Mrs. Elmslie’s more intimate friends, who were acquainted with the reports affecting the Monkton family, ventured to mingle with their formal congratulations one or two significant references to the late Mrs. Monkton and some searching inquiries as to the disposition of her son.

Mrs. Elmslie always met these polite hints with one bold form of answer. She first admitted the existence of these reports about the Monktons which her friends were unwilling to specify distinctly, and then declared that they were infamous calumnies. The hereditary taint had died out of the family generations back. Alfred was the best, the kindest, the sanest of human beings. He loved study and retirement; Ada sympathized with his tastes, and had made her choice unbiased; if any more hints were dropped about sacrificing her by her marriage, those hints would be viewed as so many insults to her mother, whose affection for her it was monstrous to call in question. This way of talking silenced people, but did not convince them. They began to suspect, what was indeed the actual truth, that Mrs. Elmslie was a selfish, worldly, grasping woman, who wanted to get her daughter well married, and cared nothing for consequences as long as she saw Ada mistress of the greatest establishment in the whole county.

It seemed, however, as if there was some fatality at work to prevent the attainment of Mrs. Elmslie’s great object in life. Hardly was one obstacle to the ill-omened marriage removed by my father’s death before another succeeded it in the shape of anxieties and difficulties caused by the delicate state of Ada’s health. Doctors were consulted in all directions, and the result of their advice was that the marriage must be deferred, and that Miss Elmslie must leave England for a certain time, to reside in a warmer climate – the south of France, if I remember rightly. Thus it happened that just before Alfred came of age Ada and her mother departed for the Continent, and the union of the two young people was understood to be indefinitely postponed. Some curiosity was felt in the neighbourhood as to what Alfred Monkton would do under these circumstances. Would he follow his lady-love? would he go yachting? would he throw open the doors of the old Abbey at last, and endeavour to forget the absence of Ada and the postponement of his marriage in a round of gaieties? He did none of these things. He simply remained at Wincot, living as suspiciously strange and solitary a life as his father had lived before him. Literally, there was now no companion for him at the Abbey but the old priest – the Monktons, I should have mentioned before, were Roman Catholics – who had held the office of tutor to Alfred from his earliest years. He came of age, and there was not even so much as a private dinner-party at Wincot to celebrate the event. Families in the neighbourhood determined to forget the offence which his father’s reserve had given them, and invited him to their houses. The invitations were politely declined. Civil visitors called resolutely at the Abbey, and were as resolutely bowed away from the doors as soon as they had left their cards. Under this combination of sinister and aggravating circumstances people in all directions took to shaking their heads mysteriously when the name of Mr. Alfred Monkton was mentioned, hinting at the family calamity, and wondering peevishly or sadly, as their tempers inclined them, what he could possibly do to occupy himself month after month in the lonely old house.

The right answer to this question was not easy to find. It was quite useless, for ex ample, to apply to the priest for it. He was a very quiet, polite old gentleman; his replies were always excessively ready and civil, and appeared at the time to convey an immense quantity of information; but when they came to be reflected on, it was universally observed that nothing tangible could ever be got out of them. The housekeeper, a weird old woman, with a very abrupt and repelling manner, was too fierce and taciturn to be safely approached. The few indoor servants had all been long enough in the family to have learned to hold their tongues in public as a regular habit. It was only from the farm-servants who supplied the table at the Abbey that any information could be obtained, and vague enough it was when they came to communicate it.

Some of them had observed the “young master” walking about the library with heaps of dusty papers in his hands. Others had heard odd noises in the uninhabited parts of the Abbey, had looked up, and had seen him forcing open the old windows, as if to let light and air into the rooms supposed to have been shut close for years and years, or had discovered him standing on the perilous summit of one of the crumbling turrets, never ascended before within their memories, and popularly considered to be inhabited by the ghosts of the monks who had once possessed the building. The result of these observations and discoveries, when they were communicated to others, was of course to impress everyone with a firm belief that “poor young Monkton was going the way that the rest of the family had gone before him,” which opinion always appeared to be immensely strengthened in the popular mind by a conviction – founded on no particle of evidence – that the priest was at the bottom of all the mischief.

Thus far I have spoken from hearsay evidence mostly. What I have next to tell will be the result of my own personal experience.

•  II  •

About five months after Alfred Monkton came of age I left college, and resolved to amuse and instruct myself a little by travelling abroad.

At the time when I quitted England young Monkton was still leading his secluded life at the Abbey, and was, in the opinion of everybody, sinking rapidly, if he had not already succumbed, under the hereditary curse of his family. As to the Elmslies, report said that Ada had benefited by her sojourn abroad, and that mother and daughter were on their way back to England to resume their old relations with the heir of Wincot. Before they returned I was away on my travels, and wandered half over Europe, hardly ever planning whither I should shape my course beforehand. Chance, which thus led me everywhere, led me at last to Naples. There I met with an old school friend, who was one of the attaches at the English embassy, and there began the extraordinary events in connection with Alfred Monkton which form the main interest of the story I am now relating.

I was idling away the time one morning with my friend the attaché in the garden of the Villa Reale, when we were passed by a young man, walking alone, who exchanged bows with my friend.

I thought I recognised the dark, eager eyes, the colourless cheeks, the strangely-vigilant, anxious expression which I remembered in past times as characteristic of Alfred Monkton’s face, and was about to question my friend on the subject, when he gave me unasked the information of which I was in search.

“That is Alfred Monkton,” said he; “he comes from your part of England. You ought to know him.”

“I do know a little of him,” I answered; “he was engaged to Miss Elmslie when I was last in the neighbourhood of Wincot. Is he married to her yet?”

“No, and he never ought to be. He has gone the way of the rest of the family – or, in plainer words, he has gone mad.”

“Mad! But I ought not to be surprised at hearing that, after the reports about him in England.”

“I speak from no reports; I speak from what he has said and done before me, and before hundreds of other people. Surely you must have heard of it?”

“Never. I have been out of the way of news from Naples or England for months past.”

“Then I have a very extraordinary story to tell you. You know, of course, that Alfred had an uncle, Stephen Monkton. Well, some time ago this uncle fought a duel in the Roman States with a Frenchman, who shot him dead. The seconds and the Frenchman (who was unhurt) took to flight in different directions, as it is supposed. We heard nothing here of the details of the duel till a month after it happened, when one of the French journals published an account of it, taken from the papers left by Monkton’s second, who died at Paris of consumption. These papers stated the manner in which the duel was fought, and how it terminated, but nothing more. The surviving second and the Frenchman have never been traced from that time to this. All that anybody knows, therefore, of the duel is that Stephen Monkton was shot; an event which nobody can regret, for a greater scoundrel never existed. The exact place where he died, and what was done with the body are still mysteries not to be penetrated.”

“But what has all this to do with Alfred?”

“Wait a moment, and you will hear. Soon after the news of his uncle’s death reached England, what do you think Alfred did? He actually put off his marriage with Miss Elmslie, which was then about to be celebrated, to come out here in search of the burial-place of his wretched scamp of an uncle; and no power on earth will now induce him to return to England and to Miss Elmslie until he has found the body, and can take it back with him, to be buried with all the other dead Monktons in the vault under Wincot Abbey Chapel. He has squandered his money, pestered the police, and exposed himself to the ridicule of the men and the indignation of the women for the last three months in trying to achieve his insane purpose, and is now as far from it as ever. He will not assign to anybody the smallest motive for his conduct. You can’t laugh him out of it or reason him out of it. When we met him just now, I happen to know that he was on his way to the office of the police minister, to send out fresh agents to search and inquire through the Roman States for the place where his uncle was shot. And, mind, all this time he professes to be passionately in love with Miss Elmslie, and to be miserable at his separation from her. Just think of that! And then think of his self-imposed absence from her here, to hunt after the remains of a wretch who was a disgrace to the family, and whom he never saw but once or twice in his life. Of all the ‘Mad Monktons,’ as they used to call them in England, Alfred is the maddest. He is actually our principal excitement in this dull opera season; though, for my own part, when I think of the poor girl in England, I am a great deal more ready to despise him than to laugh at him.”

“You know the Elmslies then?”

“Intimately. The other day my mother wrote to me from England, after having seen Ada. This escapade of Monkton’s has outraged all her friends. They have been entreating her to break off the match, which it seems she could do if she liked. Even her mother, sordid and selfish as she is, has been obliged at last, in common decency, to side with the rest of the family; but the good, faithful girl won’t give Monkton up. She humours his insanity; declares he gave her a good reason in secret for going away; says she could always make him happy when they were together in the old Abbey, and can make him still happier when they are married; in short, she loves him dearly, and will therefore believe in him to the last. Nothing shakes her. She has made up her mind to throw away her life on him, and she will do it.”

“I hope not. Mad as his conduct looks to us, he may have some sensible reason for it that we cannot imagine. Does his mind seem at all disordered when he talks on ordinary topics?”

“Not in the least. When you can get him to say anything, which is not often, he talks like a sensible, well-educated man. Keep silence about his precious errand here, and you would fancy him the gentlest and most temperate of human beings; but touch the subject of his vagabond of an uncle, and the Monkton madness comes out directly. The other night a lady asked him, jestingly of course, whether he had ever seen his uncle’s ghost. He scowled at her like a perfect fiend, and said that he and his uncle would answer her question together someday, if they came from hell to do it. We laughed at his words, but the lady fainted at his looks, and we had a scene of hysterics and hartshorn in consequence. Any other man would have been kicked out of the room for nearly frightening a pretty woman to death in that way; but ‘Mad Monkton,’ as we have christened him, is a privileged lunatic in Neapolitan society, because he is English, good-looking, and worth thirty thousand a year. He goes out everywhere under the impression that he may meet with somebody who has been let into the secret of the place where the mysterious duel was fought. If you are introduced to him he is sure to ask you whether you know anything about it; but beware of following up the subject after you have answered him, unless you want to make sure that he is out of his senses. In that case, only talk of his uncle, and the result will rather more than satisfy you.”

A day or two after this conversation with my friend the attaché, I met Monkton at an evening party.

The moment he heard my name mentioned, his face flushed up; he drew me away into a corner, and referring to his cool reception of my advance years ago toward making his acquaintance, asked my pardon for what he termed his inexcusable ingratitude with an earnestness and an agitation which utterly astonished me. His next proceeding was to question me, as my friend had said he would, about the place of the mysterious duel.

An extraordinary change came over him while he interrogated me on this point. Instead of looking into my face as they had looked hitherto, his eyes wandered away, and fixed themselves intensely, almost fiercely, either on the perfectly empty wall at our side, or on the vacant space between the wall and ourselves, it was impossible to say which. I had come to Naples from Spain by sea, and briefly told him so, as the best way of satisfying him that I could not assist his inquiries. He pursued them no further; and, mindful of my friend’s warning, I took care to lead the conversation to general topics. He looked back at me directly, and, as long as we stood in our corner, his eyes never wandered away again to the empty wall or the vacant space at our side.

Though more ready to listen than to speak, his conversation, when he did talk, had no trace of anything the least like insanity about it. He had evidently read, not generally only, but deeply as well, and could apply his reading with singular felicity to the illustration of almost any subject under discussion, neither obtruding his knowledge absurdly, nor concealing it affectedly. His manner was in itself a standing protest against such a nickname as “Mad Monkton.” He was so shy, so quiet, so composed and gentle in all his actions, that at times I should have been almost inclined to call him effeminate. We had a long talk together on the first evening of our meeting; we often saw each other afterward, and never lost a single opportunity of bettering our acquaintance. I felt that he had taken a liking to me, and, in spite of what I had heard about his behaviour to Miss Elmslie, in spite of the suspicions which the history of his family and his own conduct had arrayed against him, I began to like “Mad Monkton” as much as he liked me. We took many a quiet ride together in the country, and sailed often along the shores of the Bay on either side. But for two eccentricities in his conduct, which I could not at all understand, I should soon have felt as much at my ease in his society as if he had been my own brother.

The first of these eccentricities consisted in the reappearance on several occasions of the odd expression in his eyes which I had first seen when he asked me whether I knew anything about the duel. No matter what we were talking about, or where we happened to be, there were times when he would suddenly look away from my face, now on one side of me, now on the other, but always where there was nothing to see, and always with the same intensity and fierceness in his eyes. This looked so like madness – or hypochondria at the least – that I felt afraid to ask him about it, and always pretended not to observe him.

The second peculiarity in his conduct was that he never referred, while in my company, to the reports about his errand at Naples, and never once spoke of Miss Elmslie, or of his life at Wincot Abbey. This not only astonished me, but amazed those who had noticed our intimacy, and who had made sure that I must be the depositary of all his secrets. But the time was near at hand when this mystery, and some other mysteries of which I had no suspicion at that period, were all to be revealed.

I met him one night at a large ball, given by a Russian nobleman, whose name I could not pronounce then, and cannot remember now. I had wandered away from reception-room, ballroom, and card-room, to a small apartment at one extremity of the palace, which was half conservatory, half boudoir, and which had been prettily illuminated for the occasion with Chinese lanterns. Nobody was in the room when I got there. The view over the Mediterranean, bathed in the bright softness of Italian moonlight, was so lovely that I remained for a long time at the window, looking out, and listening to the dance-music which faintly reached me from the ballroom. My thoughts were far away with the relations I had left in England, when I was startled out of them by hearing my name softly pronounced.

I looked round directly, and saw Monkton standing in the room. A livid paleness overspread his face, and his eyes were turned away from me with the same extraordinary expression in them to which I have already alluded.

“Do you mind leaving the ball early tonight?” he asked, still not looking at me.

“Not at all,” said I. “Can I do anything for you? Are you ill?”

“No – at least nothing to speak of. Will you come to my rooms?”

“At once, if you like.”

“No, not at once. I must go home directly; but don’t you come to me for half an hour yet. You have not been at my rooms before, I know, but you will easily find them out; they are close by. There is a card with my address. I must speak to you tonight; my life depends on it. Pray come! for God’s sake, come when the half hour is up!”

I promised to be punctual, and he left me directly.

Most people will be easily able to imagine the state of nervous impatience and vague expectation in which I passed the allotted period of delay, after hearing such words as those Monkton had spoken to me. Before the half hour had quite expired I began to make my way out through the ballroom.

At the head of the staircase my friend, the attaché, met me.

“What! going away already?” Said he.

“Yes; and on a very curious expedition. I am going to Monkton’s rooms, by his own invitation.”

“You don’t mean it! Upon my honour, you’re a bold fellow to trust yourself alone with ‘Mad Monkton’ when the moon is at the full.”

“He is ill, poor fellow. Besides, I don’t think him half as mad as you do.”

“We won’t dispute about that; but mark my words, he has not asked you to go where no visitor has ever been admitted before without a special purpose. I predict that you will see or hear something tonight which you will remember for the rest of your life.”

We parted. When I knocked at the courtyard gate of the house where Monkton lived, my friend’s last words on the palace staircase recurred to me, and, though I had laughed at him when he spoke them, I began to suspect even then that his prediction would be fulfilled.

•  III  •

The porter who let me into the house where Monkton lived directed me to the floor on which his rooms were situated. On getting upstairs, I found his door on the landing ajar. He heard my footsteps, I suppose, for he called to me to come in before I could knock.

I entered, and found him sitting by the table, with some loose letters in his hand, which he was just tying together into a packet. I noticed, as he asked me to sit down, that his express ion looked more composed, though the paleness had not yet left his face. He thanked me for coming; repeated that he had something very important to say to me; and then stopped short, apparently too much embarrassed to proceed. I tried to set him at his ease by assuring him that, if my assistance or advice could be of any use, I was ready to place myself and my time heartily and unreservedly at his service.

As I said this I saw his eyes beginning to wander away from my face – to wander slowly, inch by inch, as it were, until they stopped at a certain point, with the same fixed stare into vacancy which had so often startled me on former occasions. The whole expression of his face altered as I had never yet seen it alter; he sat before me looking like a man in a death-trance.

“You are very kind,” he said, slowly and faintly, speaking, not to me, but in the direction in which his eyes were still fixed. “I know you can help me; but—”

He stopped; his face whitened horribly, and the perspiration broke out all over it. He tried to continue – said a word or two – then stopped again. Seriously alarmed about him, I rose from my chair with the intention of getting him some water from a jug which I saw standing on a side-table.

He sprang up at the same moment. All the suspicions I had ever heard whispered against his sanity flashed over my mind in an instant, and I involuntarily stepped back a pace or two.

“Stop,” he said, seating himself again; “don’t mind me; and don’t leave your chair. I want – I wish, if you please, to make a little alteration, before we say anything more. Do you mind sitting in a strong light?”

“Not in the least.”

I had hitherto been seated in the shade of his reading-lamp, the only light in the room.

As I answered him he rose again, and, going into another apartment, returned with a large lamp in his hand; then took two candles from the side-table, and two others from the chimney piece; placed them all, to my amazement, together, so as to stand exactly between us, and then tried to light them. His hand trembled so that he was obliged to give up the attempt, and allow me to come to his assistance. By his direction, I took the shade off the reading-lamp after I had lit the other lamp and the four candles. When we sat down again, with this concentration of light between us, his better and gentler manner began to return, and while he now addressed me he spoke without the slightest hesitation.

“It is useless to ask whether you have heard the reports about me,” he said; “I know that you have. My purpose tonight is to give you some reasonable explanation of the conduct which has produced those reports. My secret has been hitherto confided to one person only; I am now about to trust it to your keeping, with a special object which will appear as I go on. First, however, I must begin by telling you exactly what the great difficulty is which obliges me to be still absent from England. I want your advice and your help; and, to conceal nothing from you, I want also to test your forbearance and your friendly sympathy, before I can venture on thrusting my miserable secret into your keeping. Will you pardon this apparent distrust of your frank and open character – this apparent ingratitude for your kindness toward me ever since we first met?”

I begged him not to speak of these things, but to go on.

“You know,” he proceeded, “that I am here to recover the body of my Uncle Stephen, and to carry it back with me to our family burial-place in England, and you must also be aware that I have not yet succeeded in discovering his remains. Try to pass over, for the present, whatever may seem extraordinary and incomprehensible in such a purpose as mine is, and read this newspaper article where the ink-line is traced. It is the only evidence hitherto obtained on the subject of the fatal duel in which my uncle fell, and I want to hear what course of proceeding the perusal of it may suggest to you as likely to be best on my part.”

He handed me an old French newspaper. The substance of what I read there is still so firmly impressed on my memory that I am certain of being able to repeat correctly at this distance of time all the facts which it is necessary for me to communicate to the reader.

The article began, I remember, with editorial remarks on the great curiosity then felt in regard to the fatal duel between the Count St. Lo and Mr. Stephen Monkton, an English gentleman. The writer proceeded to dwell at great length on the extraordinary secrecy in which the whole affair had been involved from first to last, and to express a hope that the publication of a certain manuscript, to which his introductory observations referred, might lead to the production of fresh evidence from other and better-informed quarters. The manuscript had been found among the papers of Monsieur Foulon, Mr. Monkton’s second, who had died at Paris of a rapid decline shortly after returning to his home in that city from the scene of the duel. The document was unfinished, having been left incomplete at the very place where the reader would most wish to find it continued. No reason could be discovered for this, and no second manuscript bearing on the all-important subject had been found, after the strictest search among the papers left by the deceased.

The document itself then followed.

It purported to be an agreement privately drawn up between Mr. Monkton’s second, Monsieur Foulon, and the Count St. Lo’s second, Monsieur Dalville, and contained a statement of all the arrangements for conducting the duel. The paper was dated “Naples, February 22d,” and was divided into some seven or eight clauses. The first clause described the origin and nature of the quarrel – a very disgraceful affair on both sides, worth neither remembering nor repeating. The second clause stated that, the challenged man having chosen the pistol as his weapon, and the challenger (an excellent swordsman), having, on his side, thereupon insisted that the duel should be fought in such a manner as to make the first fire decisive in its results, the seconds, seeing that fatal consequences must inevitably follow the hostile meeting, determined, first of all, that the duel should be kept a profound secret from everybody, and that the place where it was to be fought should not be made known beforehand, even to the principals themselves. It was added that this excess of precaution had been rendered absolutely necessary in consequence of a recent address from the Pope to the ruling powers in Italy commenting on the scandalous frequency of the practice of duelling, and urgently desiring that the laws against duellists should be enforced for the future with the utmost rigour.

The third clause detailed the manner in which it had been arranged that the duel should be fought.

The pistols having been loaded by the seconds on the ground, the combatants were to be placed thirty paces apart, and were to toss up for the first fire. The man who won was to advance ten paces marked out for him beforehand – and was then to discharge his pistol. If he missed, or failed to disable his opponent, the latter was free to advance, if he chose, the whole remaining twenty paces before he fired in his turn. This arrangement insured the decisive termination of the duel at the first discharge of the pistols, and both principals and seconds pledged themselves on either side to abide by it.

The fourth clause stated that the seconds had agreed that the duel should be fought out of the Neapolitan States, but left themselves to be guided by circumstances as to the exact locality in which it should take place. The remaining clauses, so far as I remember them, were devoted to detailing the different precautions to be adopted for avoiding discovery. The duellists and their seconds were to leave Naples in separate parties; were to change carriages several times; were to meet at a certain town, or, failing that, at a certain post-house on the high road from Naples to Rome; were to carry drawing-books, colour boxes, and camp-stools, as if they had been artists out on a sketching-tour; and were to proceed to the place of the duel on foot, employing no guides, for fear of treachery. Such general arrangements as these, and others for facilitating the flight of the survivors after the affair was over, formed the conclusion of this extraordinary document, which was signed, in initials only, by both the seconds.

Just below the initials appeared the beginning of a narrative, dated “Paris,” and evidently intended to describe the duel itself with extreme minuteness. The hand-writing was that of the deceased second.

Monsieur Foulon, tire gentleman in question, stated his belief that circumstances might transpire which would render an account by an eyewitness of the hostile meeting between St. Lo and Mr. Monkton an important document. He proposed, therefore, as one of the seconds, to testify that the duel had been fought in exact accordance with the terms of the agreement, both the principals conducting themselves like men of gallantry and honour (!). And he further announced that, in order not to compromise anyone, he should place the paper containing his testimony in safe hands, with strict directions that it was on no account to be opened except in a case of the last emergency.

After thus preamble, Monsieur Foulon related that the duel had been fought two days after the drawing up of the agreement, in a locality to which accident had conducted the duelling party. (The name of the place was not mentioned, nor even the neighbourhood in which it was situated.) The men having been placed according to previous arrangement, the Count St. Lo had won the toss for the first fire, had advanced his ten paces, and had shot his opponent in the body. Mr. Monkton did not immediately fall, but staggered forward some six or seven paces, discharged his pistol ineffectually at the count, and dropped to the ground a dead man. Monsieur Foulon then stated that he tore a leaf from his pocketbook, wrote on it a brief description of the manner in which Mr. Monkton had died, and pinned the paper to his clothes; this proceeding having been rendered necessary by the peculiar nature of the plan organized on the spot for safely disposing of the dead body. What this plan was, or what was done with the corpse, did not appear, for at this important point the narrative abruptly broke off.

A footnote in the newspaper merely stated the manner in which the document had been obtained for publication, and repeated the announcement contained in the editor’s introductory remarks, that no continuation had been found by the persons entrusted with the care of Monsieur Foulon’s papers. I have now given the whole substance of what I read, and have mentioned all that was then known of Mr. Stephen Monkton’s death.

When I gave the newspaper back to Alfred he was too much agitated to speak, but he reminded me by a sign that he was anxiously waiting to hear what I had to say. My position was a very trying and a very painful one. I could hardly tell what consequences might not follow any want of caution on my part, and could think at first of no safer plan than questioning him carefully before I committed myself either one way or the other.

“Will you excuse me if I ask you a question or two before I give you my advice?” said I.

He nodded impatiently.

“Yes, yes – any questions you like.”

“Were you at any time in the habit of seeing your uncle frequently?”

“I never saw him more than twice in my life – on each occasion when I was a mere child.”

“Then you could have had no very strong personal regard for him?”

“Regard for him! I should have been ashamed to feel any regard for him. He disgraced us wherever he went.”

“May I ask if any family motive is involved in your anxiety to recover his remains?”

“Family motives may enter into it among others – but why do you ask?”

“Because, having heard that you employ the police to assist your search, I was anxious to know whether you had stimulated their superiors to make them do their best in your service by giving some strong personal reasons at headquarters for the very unusual project which has brought you here.”

“I give no reasons. I pay for the work I want done, and, in return for my liberality, I am treated with the most infamous indifference on all sides. A stranger in the country, and badly acquainted with the language, I can do nothing to help myself. The authorities, both at Rome and in this place, pretend to assist me, pretend to search and inquire as I would have them search and inquire, and do nothing more. I am insulted, laughed at, almost to my face.”

“Do you not think it possible – mind, I have no wish to excuse the misconduct of the authorities, and do not share in any such opinion myself – but do you not think it likely that the police may doubt whether you are in earnest?”

“Not in earnest!” he cried, starting up and confronting me fiercely, with wild eyes and quickened breath. “Not in earnest! You think I’m not in earnest too. I know you think it, though you tell me you don’t. Stop; before we say another word, your own eyes shall convince you. Come here – only for a minute – only for one minute!”

I followed him into his bedroom, which opened out of the sitting-room. At one side of his bed stood a large packing-case of plain wood, upward of seven feet in length.

“Open the lid and look in,” he said, “while I hold the candle so that you can see.”

I obeyed his directions, and discovered to my astonishment that the packing-case contained a leaden coffin, magnificently emblazoned with the arms of the Monkton family, and inscribed in old-fashioned letters with the name of “Stephen Monkton,” his age and the manner of his death being added underneath.

“I keep his coffin ready for him,” whispered Alfred, close at my ear. “Does that look like earnest?”

It looked more like insanity – so like that I shrank from answering him.

“Yes! yes! I see you are convinced,” he continued quickly; “we may go back into the next room, and may talk without restraint on either side now.”

On returning to our places, I mechanically moved my chair away from the table. My mind was by this time in such a state of confusion and uncertainty about what it would be best for me to say or do next, that I forgot for the moment the position he had assigned to me when we lit the candles. He reminded me of this directly.

“Don’t move away,” he said, very earnestly; “keep on sitting in the light; pray do! I’ll soon tell you why I am so particular about that. But first give me your advice; help me in my great distress and suspense. Remember, you promised me you would.”

I made an effort to collect my thoughts, and succeeded. It was useless to treat the affair otherwise than seriously in his presence; it would have been cruel not to have advised him as I best could.

“You know,” I said, “that two days after the drawing up of the agreement at Naples, the duel was fought out of the Neapolitan States. This fact has of course led you to the conclusion that all inquiries about localities had better be confined to the Roman territory?”

“Certainly; the search, such as it is, has been made there, and there only. If I can believe the police, they and their agents have inquired for the place where the duel was fought (offering a large reward in my name to the person who can discover it) all along the high road from Naples to Rome. They have also circulated – at least so they tell me – descriptions of the duellists and their seconds; have left an agent to superintend investigations at the post-house, and another at the town mentioned as meeting-points in the agreement; and have endeavoured, by correspondence with foreign authorities, to trace the Count St. Lo and Monsieur Dalville to their place or places of refuge. All these efforts, supposing them to have been really made, have hitherto proved utterly fruitless.”

“My impression is,” said I, after a moment’s consideration, “that all inquiries made along the high road, or anywhere near Rome, are likely to be made in vain. As to the discovery of your uncle’s remains, that is, I think, identical with the discovery of the place where he was shot; for those engaged in the duel would certainly not risk detection by carrying a corpse any distance with them in their flight. The place, then, is all that we want to find out. Now let us consider for a moment. The duelling-party changed carriages; travelled separately, two and two; doubtless took roundabout roads; stopped at the post-house and the town as a blind; walked, perhaps, a considerable distance unguided. Depend upon it, such precautions as these (which we know they must have employed) left them very little time out of the two days – though they might start at sunrise and not stop at nightfall – for straightforward travelling. My belief therefore is, that the duel was fought somewhere near the Neapolitan frontier; and, if I had been the police agent who conducted the search, I should only have pursued it parallel with the frontier, starting from west to east till I got up among the lonely places in the mountains. That is my idea; do you think it worth anything?”

His face flushed all over in an instant. “I think it an inspiration!” he cried. “Not a day is to be lost in carrying out our plan. The police are not to be trusted with it. I must start myself tomorrow morning; and you—”

He stopped; his face grew suddenly pale; he sighed heavily; his eyes wandered once more into the fixed look at vacancy; and the rigid, deathly expression fastened again upon all his features.

“I must tell you my secret before I talk of tomorrow,” he proceeded, faintly. “If I hesitated any longer at confessing everything, I should be unworthy of your past kindness, unworthy of the help which it is my last hope that you will gladly give me when you have heard all.”

I begged him to wait until he was more composed, until he was better able to speak; but he did not appear to notice what I said. Slowly, and struggling as it seemed against himself, he turned a little away from me, and, bending his head over the table, supported it on his hand. The packet of letters with which I had seen him occupied when I came in lay just beneath his eyes. He looked down on it steadfastly when he next spoke to me.

•  IV  •

“You were born, I believe, in our county,” he said; “perhaps, therefore, you may have heard at some time of a curious old prophecy about our family, which is still preserved among the traditions of Wincot Abbey?”

“I have heard of such a prophecy,” I answered, “but I never knew in what terms it was expressed. It professed to predict the extinction of your family, or something of that sort, did it not?”

“No inquiries,” he went on, “have traced back that prophecy to the time when it was first made; none of our family records tell us anything of its origin. Old servants and old tenants of ours remember to have heard it from their fathers and grandfathers. The monks, whom we succeeded in the Abbey in Henry the Eighth’s time, got knowledge of it in some way, for I myself discovered the rhymes, in which we know the prophecy to have been preserved from a very remote period, written on a blank leaf of one of the Abbey manuscripts. These are the verses, if verses they deserve to be called:

When in Wincot vault a place

Waits for one of Monkton’s race—

When that one forlorn shall lie

Graveless under open sky,

Beggared of six feet of earth,

Though lord of acres from his birth—

That shall be a certain sign

Of the end of Monkton’s line.

Dwindling ever faster, faster,

Dwindling to the last-left master;

From mortal ken, from light of day,

Monkton’s race shall pass away.”

“The prediction seems almost vague enough to have been uttered by an ancient oracle,” said I, observing that he waited, after repeating the verses, as if expecting me to say something.

“Vague or not, it is being accomplished,” he returned. “I am now the ‘last-left master’ – the last of that elder line of our family at which the prediction points; and the corpse of Stephen Monkton is not in the vaults of Wincot Abbey. Wait before you exclaim against me. I have more to say about this. Long before the Abbey was ours, when we lived in the ancient manor-house near it (the very ruins of which have long since disappeared), the family burying-place was in the vault under the Abbey chapel. Whether in those remote times the prediction against us was known and dreaded or not, this much is certain: every one of the Monktons (whether living at the Abbey or on the smaller estate in Scotland) was buried in Wincot vault, no matter at what risk or what sacrifice. In the fierce fighting days of the olden time, the bodies of my ancestors who fell in foreign places were recovered and brought back to Wincot, though it often cost not heavy ransom only, but desperate bloodshed as well, to obtain them. This superstition, if you please to call it so, has never died out of the family from that time to the present day; for centuries the succession of the dead in the vault at the Abbey has been unbroken – absolutely unbroken – until now. The place mentioned in the prediction as waiting to be filled is Stephen Monkton’s place; the voice that cries vainly to the earth for shelter is the spirit-voice of the dead. As surely as if I saw it, I know that they have left him unburied on the ground where he fell!”

He stopped me before I could utter a word in remonstrance by slowly rising to his feet, and pointing in the same direction toward which his eyes had wandered a short time since.

“I can guess what you want to ask me,” he exclaimed, sternly and loudly; “you want to ask me how I can be mad enough to believe in a doggerel prophecy uttered in an age of superstition to awe the most ignorant hearers. I answer” (at those words his voice sank suddenly to a whisper), “I answer, because Stephen Monkton himself stands there at this moment confirming me in my belief.”

Whether it was the awe and horror that looked out ghastly from his face as he confronted me, whether it was that I had never hitherto fairly believed in the reports about his madness, and that the conviction of their truth now forced itself upon me on a sudden, I know not, but I felt my blood curdling as he spoke, and I knew in my own heart, as I sat there speechless, that I dare not turn round and look where he was still pointing close at my side.

“I see there,” he went on, in the same whispering voice, “the figure of a dark-complexioned man standing up with his head uncovered. One of his hands, still clutching a pistol, has fallen to his side; the other presses a bloody handkerchief over his mouth. The spasm of mortal agony convulses his features; but I know them for the features of a swarthy man who twice frightened me by taking me up in his arms when I was a child at Wincot Abbey. I asked the nurses at the time who that man was, and they told me it was my uncle, Stephen Monkton. Plainly, as if he stood there living, I see him now at your side, with the death-glare in his great black eyes; and so have I ever seen him, since the moment when he was shot; at home and abroad, waking or sleeping, day and night, we are always together, wherever I go!”

His whispering tones sank into almost inaudible murmuring as he pronounced these last words. From the direction and expression of his eyes, I suspected that he was speaking to the apparition. If I had beheld it myself at that moment, it would have been, I think, a less horrible sight to witness than to see him, as I saw him now, muttering inarticulately at vacancy. My own nerves were more shaken than I could have thought possible by what had passed. A vague dread of being near him in his present mood came over me, and I moved back a step or two.

He noticed the action instantly.

“Don’t go! pray – pray don’t go! Have I alarmed you? Don’t you believe me? Do the lights make your eyes ache? I only asked you to sit in the glare of the candles because I could not bear to see the light that always shines from the phantom there at dusk shining over you as you sat in the shadow. Don’t go – don’t leave me yet!”

There was an utter forlornness, an unspeakable misery in his face as he spoke these words, which gave me back my self-possession by the simple process of first moving me to pity. I resumed my chair, and said that I would stay with him as long as he wished.

“Thank you a thousand times. You are patience and kindness itself,” he said, going back to his former place and resuming his former gentleness of manner. “Now that I have got over my first confession of the misery that follows me in secret wherever I go, I think I can tell you calmly all that remains to be told. You see, as I said, my Uncle Stephen” he turned away his head quickly, and looked down at the table as the name passed his lips – “my Uncle Stephen came twice to Wincot while I was a child, and on both occasions frightened me dreadfully. He only took me up in his arms and spoke to me – very kindly, as I afterward heard, for him – but he terrified me, nevertheless. Perhaps I was frightened at his great stature, his swarthy complexion, and his thick black hair and moustache, as other children might have been; perhaps the mere sight of him had some strange influence on me which I could not then understand and cannot now explain. However it was, I used to dream of him long after he had gone away, and to fancy that he was stealing on me to catch me up in his arms whenever I was left in the dark. The servants who took care of me found this out, and used to threaten me with my Uncle Stephen whenever I was perverse and difficult to manage. As I grew up, I still retained my vague dread and abhorrence of our absent relative. I always listened intently, yet without knowing why, whenever his name was mentioned by my father or my mother – listened with an unaccountable presentiment that something terrible had happened to him, or was about to happen to me. This feeling only changed when I was left alone in the Abbey; and then it seemed to merge into the eager curiosity which had begun to grow on me, rather before that time, about the origin of the ancient prophecy predicting the extinction of our race. Are you following me?”

“I follow every word with the closest attention.”

“You must know, then, that I had first found out some fragments of the old rhyme in which the prophecy occurs quoted as a curiosity in an antiquarian book in the library. On the page opposite this quotation had been pasted a rude old wood-cut, representing a dark-haired man, whose face was so strangely like what I remembered of my Uncle Stephen that the portrait absolutely startled me. When I asked my father about this – it was then just before his death – he either knew, or pretended to know, nothing of it; and when I afterward mentioned the prediction he fretfully changed the subject. It was just the same with our chaplain when I spoke to him. He said the portrait had been done centuries before my uncle was born, and called the prophecy doggerel and nonsense. I used to argue with him on the latter point, asking why we Catholics, who believed that the gift of working miracles had never departed from certain favoured persons, might not just as well believe that the gift of prophecy had never departed, either? He would not dispute with me; he would only say that I must not waste time in thinking of such trifles; that I had more imagination than was good for me, and must suppress instead of exciting it. Such advice as this only irritated my curiosity. I determined secretly to search throughout the oldest uninhabited part of the Abbey, and to try if I could not find out from forgotten family records what the portrait was, and when the prophecy had been first written or uttered. Did you ever pass a day alone in the long-deserted chambers of an ancient house?”

“Never! such solitude as that is not at all to my taste.”

“Ah! what a life it was when I began my search. I should like to live it over again. Such tempting suspense, such strange discoveries, such wild fancies, such enthralling terrors, all belonged to that life. Only think of breaking open the door of a room which no living soul had entered before you for nearly a hundred years; think of the first step forward into a region of airless, awful stillness, where the light falls faint and sickly through closed windows and rotting curtains; think of the ghostly creaking of the old floor that cries out on you for treading on it, step as softly as you will; think of arms, helmets, weird tapestries of bygone days, that seem to be moving out on you from the walls as you first walk up to them in the dim light; think of prying into great cabinets and iron-clasped chests, not knowing what horrors may appear when you tear them open; of poring over their contents till twilight stole on you and darkness grew terrible in the lonely place; of trying to leave it, and not being able to go, as if something held you; of wind wailing at you outside; of shadows darkening round you, and closing you up in obscurity within – only think of these things, and you may imagine the fascination of suspense and terror in such a life as mine was in those past days.”

(I shrank from imagining that life: it was bad enough to see its results, as I saw them before me now.)

“Well, my search lasted months and months; then it was suspended a little; then resumed. In whatever direction I pursued it I always found something to lure me on. Terrible confessions of past crimes, shocking proofs of secret wickedness that had been hidden securely from all eyes but mine, came to light. Sometimes these discoveries were associated with particular parts of the Abbey, which have had a horrible interest of their own for me ever since; sometimes with certain old portraits in the picture-gallery, which I actually dreaded to look at after what I had found out. There were periods when the results of this search of mine so horrified me that I determined to give it up entirely; but I never could persevere in my resolution; the temptation to go on seemed at certain intervals to get too strong for me, and then I yielded to it again and again. At last I found the book that had belonged to the monks with the whole of the prophecy written in the blank leaf. This first success encouraged me to get back further yet in the family records. I had discovered nothing hitherto of the identity of the mysterious portrait; but the same intuitive conviction which had assured me of its extraordinary resemblance to my Uncle Stephen seemed also to assure me that he must be more closely connected with the prophecy, and must know more of it than anyone else. I had no means of holding any communication with him, no means of satisfying myself whether this strange idea of mine were right or wrong, until the day when my doubts were settled forever by the same terrible proof which is now present to me in this very room.”

He paused for a moment, and looked at me intently and suspiciously; then asked if I believed all he had said to me so far. My instant reply in the affirmative seemed to satisfy his doubts, and he went on.

“On a fine evening in February I was standing alone in one of the deserted rooms of the western turret at the Abbey, looking at the sunset. Just before the sun went down I felt a sensation stealing over me which it is impossible to explain. I saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing. This utter self-oblivion came suddenly; it was not fainting, for I did not fall to the ground, did not move an inch from my place. If such a thing could be, I should say it was the temporary separation of soul and body without death; but all description of my situation at that time is impossible. Call my state what you will, trance or catalepsy, I know that I remained standing by the window utterly unconscious – dead, mind and body – until the sun had set. Then I came to my senses again; and then, when I opened my eyes, there was the apparition of Stephen Monkton standing opposite to me, faintly luminous, just as it stands opposite me at this very moment by your side.”

“Was this before the news of the duel reached England?” I asked.

“Two weeks before the news of it reached us at Wincot. And even when we heard of the duel, we did not hear of the day on which it was fought. I only found that out when the document which you have read was published in the French newspaper. The date of that document, you will remember, is February 22d, and it is stated that the duel was fought two days afterward. I wrote down in my pocketbook, on the evening when I saw the phantom, the day of the month on which it first appeared to me. That day was the 24th of February.”

He paused again, as if expecting me to say something. After the words he had just spoken, what could I say? what could I think?

“Even in the first horror of first seeing the apparition,” he went on, “the prophecy against our house came to my mind, and with it the conviction that I beheld before me, in that spectral presence, the warning of my own doom. As soon as I recovered a little, I determined, nevertheless, to test the reality of what I saw; to find out whether I was the dupe of my own diseased fancy or not. I left the turret; the phantom left it with me. I made an excuse to have the drawing-room at the Abbey brilliantly lighted up; the figure was still opposite me. I walked out into the park; it was there in the clear starlight. I went away from home, and travelled many miles to the seaside; still the tall dark man in his death agony was with me. After this I strove against the fatality no more. I returned to the Abbey, and tried to resign myself to my misery. But this was not to be. I had a hope that was dearer to me than my own life; I had one treasure belonging to me that I shuddered at the prospect of losing; and when the phantom presence stood a warning obstacle between me and this one treasure, this dearest hope, then my misery grew heavier than I could bear. You must know what I am alluding to; you must have heard often that I was engaged to be married?”

“Yes, often. I have some acquaintance myself with Miss Elmslie.”

“You never can know all that she has sacrificed for me – never can imagine what I have felt for years and years past” – his voice trembled, and the tears came into his eyes – “but I dare not trust myself to speak of that; the thought of the old happy days in the Abbey almost breaks my heart now. Let me get back to the other subject. I must tell you that I kept the frightful vision which pursued me, at all times and in all places, a secret from everybody, knowing the vile reports about my having inherited madness from my family, and fearing that an unfair advantage would be taken of any confession that I might make. Though the phantom always stood opposite to me, and therefore always appeared either before or by the side of any person to whom I spoke, I soon schooled myself to hide from others that I was looking at it except on rare occasions, when I have perhaps betrayed myself to you. But my self-possession availed me nothing with Ada. The day of our marriage was approaching.”

He stopped and shuddered. I waited in silence till he had controlled himself.

“Think,” he went on, “think of what I must have suffered at looking always on that hideous vision whenever I looked on my betrothed wife! Think of my taking her hand, and seeming to take it through the figure of the apparition! Think of the calm angel-face and the tortured spectre-face being always together whenever my eyes met hers! Think of this, and you will not wonder that I betrayed my secret to her. She eagerly entreated to know the worst – nay, more, she insisted on knowing it. At her bidding I told all, and then left her free to break our engagement. The thought of death was in my heart as I spoke the parting words – death by my own act, if life still held out after our separation. She suspected that thought; she knew it, and never left me till her good influence had destroyed it forever. But for her I should not have been alive now; but for her I should never have attempted the project which has brought me here.”

“Do you mean that it was at Miss Elmslie’s suggestion that you came to Naples?” I asked, in amazement.

“I mean that what she said suggested the design which has brought me to Naples,” he answered. “While I believed that the phantom had appeared to me as the fatal messenger of death, there was no comfort – there was misery, rather, in hearing her say that no power on earth should make her desert me, and that she would live for me, and for me only, through every trial. But it was far different when we afterward reasoned together about the purpose which the apparition had come to fulfill – far different when she showed me that its mission might be for good instead of for evil, and that the warning it was sent to give might be to my profit instead of to my loss. At those words, the new idea which gave the new hope of life came to me in an instant. I believed then, what I believe now, that I have a supernatural warrant for my errand here. In that faith I live; without it I should die. She never ridiculed it, never scorned it as insanity. Mark what I say! The spirit that appeared to me in the Abbey – that has never left me since – that stands there now by your side, warns me to escape from the fatality which hangs over our race, and commands me, if I would avoid it, to bury the unburied dead. Mortal loves and mortal interests must bow to that awful bidding. The spectre-presence will never leave me till I have sheltered the corpse that cries to the earth to cover it! I dare not return – I dare not marry till I have filled the place that is empty in Wincot vault.”

His eyes flashed and dilated – his voice deepened – a fanatic ecstasy shone in his expression as he uttered these words. Shocked and grieved as I was, I made no attempt to remonstrate or to reason with him. It would have been useless to have referred to any of the usual commonplaces about optical delusions or diseased imaginations – worse than useless to have attempted to account by natural causes for any of the extraordinary coincidences and events of which he had spoken. Briefly as he had referred to Miss Elmslie, he had said enough to show me that the only hope of the poor girl who loved him best and had known him longest of anyone was in humouring his delusions to the last. How faithfully she still clung to the belief that she could restore him! How resolutely was she sacrificing herself to his morbid fancies, in the hope of a happy future that might never come! Little as I knew of Miss Elmslie, the mere thought of her situation, as I now reflected on it, made me feel sick at heart.

“They call me Mad Monkton!” he exclaimed, suddenly breaking the silence between us during the last few minutes, “Here and in England everybody believes I am out of my senses except Ada and you. She has been my salvation, and you will be my salvation too. Something told me that when I first met you walking in the Villa Peale. I struggled against the strong desire that was in me to trust my secret to you, but I could resist it no longer when I saw you tonight at the ball; the phantom seemed to draw me on to you as you stood alone in the quiet room. Tell me more of that idea of yours about finding the place where the duel was fought. If I set out tomorrow to seek for it myself, where must I go to first? where?” He stopped; his strength was evidently becoming exhausted, and his mind was growing confused. “What am I to do? I can’t remember. You know everything – will you not help me? My misery has made me unable to help myself.”

He stopped, murmured something about failing if he went to the frontier alone, and spoke confusedly of delays that might be fatal, then tried to utter the name of “Ada”; but, in pronouncing the first letter, his voice faltered, and, turning abruptly from me, he burst into tears.

My pity for him got the better of my prudence at that moment, and without thinking of responsibilities, I promised at once to do for him whatever he asked. The wild triumph in his expression as he started up and seized my hand showed me that I had better have been more cautious; but it was too late now to retract what I had said. The next best thing to do was to try if I could not induce him to compose himself a little, and then to go away and think coolly over the whole affair by myself.

“Yes, yes,” he rejoined, in answer to the few words I now spoke to try and calm him, “don’t be afraid about me. After what you have said, I’ll answer for my own coolness and composure under all emergencies. I have been so long used to the apparition that I hardly feel its presence at all except on rare occasions. Besides, I have here in this little packet of letters the medicine for every malady of the sick heart. They are Ada’s letters; I read them to calm me whenever my misfortune seems to get the better of my endurance. I wanted that half hour to read them in tonight before you came, to make myself fit to see you, and I shall go through them again after you are gone; so, once more, don’t be afraid about me. I know I shall succeed with your help, and Ada shall thank you as you deserve to be thanked when we get back to England. If you hear the fools at Naples talk about my being mad, don’t trouble yourself to contradict them; the scandal is so contemptible that it must end by contradicting itself.”

I left him, promising to return early the next day.

When I got back to my hotel, I felt that any idea of sleeping after all that I had seen and heard was out of the question; so I lit my pipe, and, sitting by the window – how it refreshed my mind just then to look at the calm moonlight! – tried to think what it would be best to do. In the first place, any appeal to doctors or to Alfred’s friends in England was out of the question. I could not persuade myself that his intellect was sufficiently disordered to justify me, under existing circumstances, in disclosing the secret which he had entrusted to my keeping. In the second place, all attempts on my part to induce him to abandon the idea of searching out his uncle’s remains would be utterly useless after what I had incautiously said to him. Having settled these two conclusions, the only really great difficulty which remained to perplex me was whether I was justified in aiding him to execute his extraordinary purpose.

Supposing that, with my help, he found Mr. Monkton’s body, and took it back with him to England, was it right in me thus to lend myself to promoting the marriage which would most likely follow these events – a marriage which it might be the duty of everyone to prevent at all hazards? This set me thinking about the extent of his madness, or to speak more mildly and more correctly, of his delusion. Sane he certainly was on all ordinary subjects; nay, in all the narrative parts of what he had said to me on this very evening he had spoken clearly and connectedly. As for the story of the apparition, other men, with intellects as clear as the intellects of their neighbours had fancied themselves pursued by a phantom, and had even written about it in a high strain of philosophical speculation. It was plain that the real hallucination in the case now before me lay in Monkton’s conviction of the truth of the old prophecy, and in his idea that the fancied apparition was a supernatural warning to him to evade its denunciations; and it was equally clear that both delusions had been produced, in the first instance, by the lonely life he had led acting on a naturally excitable temperament, which was rendered further liable to moral disease by an hereditary taint of insanity.

Was this curable? Miss Elmslie, who knew him far better than I did, seemed by her conduct to think so. Had I any reason or right to determine offhand that she was mistaken? Supposing I refused to go to the frontier with him, he would then most certainly depart by himself, to commit all sorts of errors, and perhaps to meet with all sorts of accidents; while I, an idle man, with my time entirely at my own disposal, was stopping at Naples, and leaving him to his fate after I had suggested the plan of his expedition, and had encouraged him to confide in me. In this way I kept turning the subject over and over again in my mind, being quite free, let me add, from looking at it in any other than a practical point of view. I firmly believed, as a derider of all ghost stories, that Alfred was deceiving himself in fancying that he had seen the apparition of his uncle before the news of Mr. Monkton’s death reached England, and I was on this account, therefore, uninfluenced by the slightest infection of my unhappy friend’s delusions when I at last fairly decided to accompany him in his extraordinary search. Possibly my harum-scarum fondness for excitement at that time biased me a little in forming my resolution; but I must add, in common justice to myself, that I also acted from motives of real sympathy for Monkton, and from a sincere wish to allay, if I could, the anxiety of the poor girl who was still so faithfully waiting and hoping for him far away in England.

Certain arrangements preliminary to our departure, which I found myself obliged to make after a second interview with Alfred, betrayed the object of our journey to most of our Neapolitan friends. The astonishment of everybody was of course unbounded, and the nearly universal suspicion that I must be as mad in my way as Monkton himself showed itself pretty plainly in my presence. Some people actually tried to combat my resolution by telling me what a shameless profligate Stephen Monkton had been – as if I had a strong personal interest in hunting out his remains! Ridicule moved me as little as any arguments of this sort; my mind was made up, and I was as obstinate then as I am now.

In two days’ time I had got everything ready, and had ordered the travelling carriage to the door some hours earlier than we had originally settled. We were jovially threatened with “a parting cheer” by all our English acquaintances, and I thought it desirable to avoid this on my friend’s account; for he had been more excited, as it was, by the preparations for the journey than I at all liked. Accordingly, soon after sunrise, without a soul in the street to stare at us, we privately left Naples.

Nobody will wonder, I think, that I experienced some difficulty in realising my own position, and shrank instinctively from looking forward a single day into the future, when I now found myself starting, in company with “Mad Monkton,” to hunt for the body of a dead duellist all along the frontier line of the Roman States!

•  V  •

I had settled it in my own mind that we had better make the town of Fondi, close on the frontier, our headquarters, to begin with, and I had arranged, with the assistance of the embassy, that the leaden coffin should follow us so far, securely nailed up in its packing-case. Besides our passports, we were well furnished with letters of introduction to the local authorities at most of the important frontier towns, and, to crown all, we had money enough at our command (thanks to Monkton’s vast fortune) to make sure of the services of anyone whom we wanted to assist us all along our line of search. These various resources insured us every facility for action, provided always that we succeeded in discovering the body of the dead duellist. But, in the very probable event of our failing to do this, our future prospects – more especially after the responsibility I had undertaken – were of anything but an agreeable nature to contemplate. I confess I felt uneasy, almost hopeless, as we posted, in the dazzling Italian sunshine, along the road to Fondi.

We made an easy two days’ journey of it; for I had insisted, on Monkton’s account, that we should travel slowly.

On the first day the excessive agitation of my companion a little alarmed me; he showed, in many ways, more symptoms of a disordered mind than I had yet observed in him. On the second day, however, he seemed to get accustomed to contemplate calmly the new idea of the search on which we were bent, and, except on one point, he was cheerful and composed enough. Whenever his dead uncle formed the subject of conversation, he still persisted – on the strength of the old prophecy, and under the influence of the apparition which he saw, or thought he saw always – in asserting that the corpse of Stephen Monkton, wherever it was, lay yet unburied. On every other topic he deferred to me with the utmost readiness and docility; on this he maintained his strange opinion with an obstinacy which set reason and persuasion alike at defiance.

On the third day we rested at Fondi. The packing-case, with the coffin in it, reached us, and was deposited in a safe place under lock and key. We engaged some mules, and found a man to act as guide who knew the country thoroughly. It occurred to me that we had better begin by confiding th e real object of our journey only to the most trustworthy people we could find among the better-educated classes. For this reason we followed, in one respect, the example of the fatal duelling-party, by starting, early on the morning of the fourth day, with sketch-books and colour-boxes, as if we were only artists in search of the picturesque.

After travelling some hours in a northerly direction within the Roman frontier, we halted to rest ourselves and our mules at a wild little village far out of the track of tourists in general.

The only person of the smallest importance in the place was the priest, and to him I addressed my first inquiries, leaving Monkton to await my return with the guide. I spoke Italian quite fluently, and correctly enough for my purpose, and was extremely polite and cautious in introducing my business, but in spite of all the pains I took, I only succeeded in frightening and bewildering the poor priest more and more with every fresh word I said to him. The idea of a duelling-party and a dead man seemed to scare him out of his senses. He bowed, fidgeted, cast his eyes up to heaven, and piteously shrugging his shoulders, told me, with rapid Italian circumlocution, that he had not the faintest idea of what I was talking about. This was my first failure. I confess I was weak enough to feel a little dispirited when I rejoined Monkton and the guide.

After the heat of the day was over we resumed our journey.

About three miles from the village, the road, or rather cart-track, branched off in two directions. The path to the right, our guide informed us, led up among the mountains to a convent about six miles off. If we penetrated beyond the convent we should soon reach the Neapolitan frontier. The path to the left led far inward on the Roman territory, and would conduct us to a small town where we could sleep for the night. Now the Roman territory presented the first and fittest field for our search, and the convent was always within reach, supposing we returned to Fondi unsuccessful. Besides, the path to the left led over the widest part of the country we were starting to explore, and I was always for vanquishing the greatest difficulty first; so we decided manfully on turning to the left. The expedition in which this resolution involved us lasted a whole week, and produced no results. We discovered absolutely nothing, and returned to our headquarters at Fondi so completely baffled that we did not know whither to turn our steps next.

I was made much more uneasy by the effect of our failure on Monkton than by the failure itself. His resolution appeared to break down altogether as soon as we began to retrace our steps.

He became first fretful and capricious, then silent and desponding. Finally, he sank into a lethargy of body and mind that seriously alarmed me. On the morning after our return to Fondi he showed a strange tendency to sleep incessantly, which made me suspect the existence of some physical malady in his brain. The whole day he hardly exchanged a word with me, and seemed to be never fairly awake. Early the next morning I went into his room, and found him as silent and lethargic as ever. His servant, who was with us, informed me that Alfred had once or twice before exhibited such physical symptoms of mental exhaustion as we were now observing during his father’s lifetime at Wincot Abbey. This piece of information made me feel easier, and left my mind free to return to the consideration of the errand which had brought us to Fondi.

I resolved to occupy the time until my companion got better in prosecuting our search by myself. That path to the right hand which led to the convent had not yet been explored. If I set off to trace it, I need not be away from Monkton more than one night, and I should at least be able, on my return, to give him the satisfaction of knowing that one more uncertainty regarding the place of the duel had been cleared up. These considerations decided me. I left a message for my friend in case he asked where I had gone, and set out once more for the village at which we had halted when starting on our first expedition.

Intending to walk to the convent, I parted company with the guide and the mules where the track branched off, leaving them to go back to the village and await my return.

For the first four miles the path gently ascended through an open country, then became abruptly much steeper, and led me deeper and deeper among thickets and endless woods. By the time my watch informed me that I must have nearly walked my appointed distance, the view was bounded on all sides and the sky was shut out overhead by an impervious screen of leaves and branches. I still followed my only guide, the steep path; and in ten minutes, emerging suddenly on a plot of tolerably clear and level ground, I saw the convent before me.

It was a dark, low, sinister-looking place. Not a sign of life or movement was visible anywhere about it. Green stains streaked the once white façade of the chapel in all directions. Moss clustered thick in every crevice of the heavy scowling wall that surrounded the convent. Long lank weeds grew out of the fissures of roof and parapet, and, drooping far downward, waved wearily in and out of the barred dormitory windows. The very cross opposite the entrance-gate, with a shocking life-sized figure in wood nailed to it, was so beset at the base with crawling creatures, and looked so slimy, green, and rotten all the way up, that I absolutely shrank from it.

A bell-rope with a broken handle hung by the gate. I approached it – hesitated, I hardly knew why – looked up at the convent again, and then walked round to the back of the building, partly to gain time to consider what I had better do next, partly from an unaccountable curiosity that urged me, strangely to myself, to see all I could of the outside of the place before I attempted to gain admission at the gate.

At the back of the convent I found an outhouse, built on to the wall – a clumsy, decayed building, with the greater part of the roof fallen in, and with a jagged hole in one of its sides, where in all probability a window had once been. Behind the outhouse the trees grew thicker than ever. As I looked toward them I could not determine whether the ground beyond me rose or fell – whether it was grassy, or earthy, or rocky. I could see nothing but the all-pervading leaves, brambles, ferns, and long grass.

Not a sound broke the oppressive stillness. No bird’s note rose from the leafy wilderness around me; no voices spoke in the convent garden behind the scowling wall; no clock struck in the chapel-tower; no dog barked in the ruined outhouse. The dead silence deepened the solitude of the place inexpressibly. I began to feel it weighing on my spirits – the more, because woods were never favourite places with me to walk in. The sort of pastoral happiness which poets often represent when they sing of life in the woods never, to my mind, has half the charm of life on the mountain or in the plain. When I am in a wood, I miss the boundless loveliness of the sky, and the delicious softness that distance gives to the earthly view beneath. I feel oppressively the change which the free air suffers when it gets imprisoned among leaves, and I am always awed, rather than pleased, by that mysterious still light which shines with such a strange dim lustre in deep places among trees. It may convict me of want of taste and absence of due feeling for the marvellous beauties of vegetation, but I must frankly own that I never penetrate far into a wood without finding that the getting out of it again is the pleasantest part of my walk – the getting out on to the barest down, the wildest hillside, the bleakest mountain top – the getting out anywhere, so that I can see the sky over me and the view before me as far as my eye can reach.

After such a confession as I have now made, it will appear surprising to no one that I should have felt the strongest possible inclination, while I stood by the ruined outhouse, to retrace my steps at once, and make the best of my way out of the wood. I had, indeed, actually turned to depart, when the remembrance of the er rand which had brought me to the convent suddenly stayed my feet. It seemed doubtful whether I should be admitted into the building if I rang the bell; and more than doubtful, if I were let in, whether the inhabitants would be able to afford me any clew to the information of which I was in search. However, it was my duty to Monkton to leave no means of helping him in his desperate object untried; so I resolved to go round to the front of the convent again, and ring at the gate-bell at all hazards.

By the merest chance I looked up as I passed the side of the outhouse where the jagged hole was, and noticed that it was pierced rather high in the wall.

As I stopped to observe this, the closeness of the atmosphere in the wood seemed to be affecting me more unpleasantly than ever.

I waited a minute and untied my cravat.

Closeness? surely it was something more than that. The air was even more distasteful to my nostrils than to my lungs. There was some faint, indescribable smell loading it – some smell of which I had never had any previous experience – some smell which I thought (now that my attention was directed to it) grew more and more certainly traceable to its source the nearer I advanced to the outhouse.

By the time I had tried the experiment two or three times, and had made myself sure of this fact, my curiosity became excited. There were plenty of fragments of stone and brick lying about me. I gathered some of them together, and piled them up below the hole, then mounted to the top, and, feeling rather ashamed of what I was doing, peeped into the outhouse.

The sight of horror that met my eyes the instant I looked through the hole is as present to my memory now as if I had beheld it yesterday. I can hardly write of it at this distance of time without a thrill of the old terror running through me again to the heart.

The first impression conveyed to me, as I looked in, was of a long, recumbent object, tinged with a lightish blue colour all over, extended on trestles, and bearing a certain hideous, half-formed resemblance to the human face and figure. I looked again, and felt certain of it. There were the prominences of the forehead, nose, and chin, dimly shown as under a veil – there, the round outline of the chest and the hollow below it – there, the points of the knees, and the stiff, ghastly, upturned feet. I looked again, yet more attentively. My eyes got accustomed to the dim light streaming in through the broken roof, and I satisfied myself, judging by the great length of the body from head to foot, that I was looking at the corpse of a man – a corpse that had apparently once had a sheet spread over it, and that had lain rotting on the trestles under the open sky long enough for the linen to take the livid, light-blue tinge of mildew and decay which now covered it.

How long I remained with my eyes fixed on that dread sight of death, on that tombless, terrible wreck of humanity, poisoning the still air, and seeming even to stain the faint descending light that disclosed it, I know not. I remember a dull, distant sound among the trees, as if the breeze were rising – the slow creeping on of the sound to near the place where I stood – the noiseless whirling fall of a dead leaf on the corpse below me, through the gap in the outhouse roof – and the effect of awakening my energies, of relaxing the heavy strain on my mind, which even the slight change wrought in the scene I beheld by the falling leaf produced in me immediately. I descended to the ground, and, sitting down on the heap of stones, wiped away the thick perspiration which covered my face, and which I now became aware of for the first time. It was something more than the hideous spectacle unexpectedly offered to my eyes which had shaken my nerves as I felt that they were shaken now. Monkton’s prediction that, if we succeeded in discovering his uncle’s body, we should find it unburied, recurred to me the instant I saw the trestles and their ghastly burden. I felt assured on the instant that I had found the dead man – the old prophecy recurred to my memory – a strange yearning sorrow, a vague foreboding of ill, an inexplicable terror, as I thought of the poor lad who was awaiting my return in the distant town, struck through me with a chill of superstitious dread, robbed me of my judgement and resolution, and left me when I had at last recovered myself, weak and dizzy, as if I had just suffered under some pang of overpowering physical pain.

I hastened round to the convent gate and rang impatiently at the bell – waited a little while and rang again – then heard footsteps.

In the middle of the gate, just opposite my face, there was a small sliding panel, not more than a few inches long; this was presently pushed aside from within. I saw, through a bit of iron grating, two dull, light grey eyes staring vacantly at me, and heard a feeble husky voice saying:

“What may you please to want?”

“I am a traveller—” I began.

“We live in a miserable place. We have nothing to show travellers here.”

“I don’t come to see anything. I have an important question to ask, which I believe someone in this convent will be able to answer. If you are not willing to let me in, at least come out and speak to me here.”

“Are you alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“Are there no women with you?”

“None.”

The gate was slowly unbarred, and an old Capuchin, very infirm, very suspicious, and very dirty, stood before me. I was far too excited and impatient to waste any time in prefatory phrases; so, telling the monk at once how I had looked through the hole in the outhouse, and what I had seen inside, I asked him, in plain terms, who the man had been whose corpse I had beheld, and why the body was left unburied?

The old Capuchin listened to me with watery eyes that twinkled suspiciously. He had a battered tin snuffbox in his hand, and his finger and thumb slowly chased a few scattered grains of snuff round and round the inside of the box all the time I was speaking. When I had done, he shook his head and said: “That was certainly an ugly sight in their outhouse; one of the ugliest sights, he felt sure, that ever I had seen in all my life!”

“I don’t want to talk of the sight,” I rejoined, impatiently; “I want to know who the man was, how he died, and why he is not decently buried. Can you tell me?”

The monk’s finger and thumb having captured three or four grains of snuff at last, he slowly drew them into his nostrils, holding the box open under his nose the while, to prevent the possibility of wasting even one grain, sniffed once or twice luxuriously – closed the box – then looked at me again with his eyes watering and twinkling more suspiciously than before.

“Yes,” said the monk, “that’s an ugly sight in our outhouse – a very ugly sight, certainly!”

I never had more difficulty in keeping my temper in my life than at that moment. I succeeded, however, in repressing a very disrespectful expression on the subject of monks in general, which was on the tip of my tongue, and made another attempt to conquer the old man’s exasperating reserve. Fortunately for my chances of succeeding with him, I was a snuff-taker myself, and I had a box full of excellent English snuff in my pocket, which I now produced as a bribe. It was my last resource.

“I thought your box seemed empty just now,” said I; “will you try a pinch out of mine?”

The offer was accepted with an almost youthful alacrity of gesture. The Capuchin took the largest pinch I ever saw held between any man’s finger and thumb – inhaled it slowly without spilling a single grain – half closed his eyes – and, wagging his head gently, patted me paternally on the back.

“Oh, my son,” said the monk, “what delectable snuff! Oh, my son and amiable traveller, give the spiritual father who loves you yet another tiny, tiny pinch!”

“Let me fill your box for you. I shall have plenty left for myself.”

The battered tin snuffbox was given to me before I had done speaking; the paternal hand patted my back more approvingly than ever; the feeble, husky voice grew glib and eloquent in my praise. I had evidently found out the weak side of the old Capuchin, and, on returning him his box, I took instant advantage of the discovery.

“Excuse my troubling you on the subject again,” I said, “but I have particular reasons for wanting to hear all that you can tell me in explanation of that horrible sight in the outhouse.”

“Come in,” answered the monk.

He drew me inside the gate, closed it, and then leading the way across a grass-grown courtyard, looking out on a weedy kitchen-garden, showed me into a long room with a low ceiling, a dirty dresser, a few rudely-carved stall seats, and one or two grim, mildewed pictures for ornaments. This was the sacristy.

“There’s nobody here, and it’s nice and cool,” said the old Capuchin. It was so damp that I actually shivered. “Would you like to see the church?” said the monk; “a jewel of a church, if we could keep it in repair; but we can’t. Ah! malediction and misery, we are too poor to keep our church in repair!”

Here he shook his head and began fumbling with a large bunch of keys.

“Never mind the church now,” said I. “Can you, or can you not, tell me what I want to know?”

“Everything, from beginning to end – absolutely everything. Why, I answered the gate-bell – I always answer the gate-bell here,” said the Capuchin.

“What, in Heaven’s name, has the gate-bell to do with the unburied corpse in your house?”

“Listen, son of mine, and you shall know. Some time ago – some months – ah! me, I’m old; I’ve lost my memory; I don’t know how many months – ah! miserable me, what a very old, old monk I am!” Here he comforted himself with another pinch of snuff.

“Never mind the exact time,” said I. “I don’t care about that.”

“Good,” said the Capuchin. “Now I can go on. Well, let us say it is some months ago – we in this convent are all at breakfast – wretched, wretched breakfasts, son of mine, in this convent! – we are at breakfast, and we hear bang! bang! twice over. ‘Guns,’ says I. ‘What are they shooting for?’ says Brother Jeremy. ‘Game,’ says Brother Vincent. ‘Aha! game,’ says Brother Jeremy. ‘If I hear more, I shall send out and discover what it means,’ says the father superior. We hear no more, and we go on with our wretched breakfasts.”

“Where did the report of firearms come from?” I inquired.

“From down below – beyond the big trees at the back of the convent, where there’s some clear ground – nice ground, if it wasn’t for the pools and puddles. But, ah! misery, how damp we are in these parts! how very, very damp!”

“Well, what happened after the report of firearms?”

“You shall hear. We are still at breakfast, all silent – for what have we to talk about here? What have we but our devotions, our kitchen-garden, and our wretched, wretched bits of breakfasts and dinners? I say we are all silent, when there comes suddenly such a ring at the bell as never was heard before – a very devil of a ring – a ring that caught us all with our bits – our wretched, wretched bits! – in our mouths, and stopped us before we could swallow them. ‘Go, brother of mine,’ says the father superior to me, ‘go; it is your duty – go to the gate.’ I am brave – a very lion of a Capuchin. I slip out on tiptoe – I wait – I listen – I pull back our little shutter in the gate – I wait, I listen again – I peep through the hole – nothing, absolutely nothing that I can see. I am brave – I am not to be daunted. What do I do next? I open the gate. Ah! sacred Mother of Heaven, what do I behold lying all along our threshold? A man – dead! – a big man; bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than anybody in this convent – buttoned up tight in a fine coat, with black eyes, staring, staring up at the sky, and blood soaking through and through the front of his shirt. What do I do? I scream once – I scream twice – and run back to the father superior!”

All the particulars of the fatal duel which I had gleaned from the French newspaper in Monkton’s room at Naples recurred vividly to my memory. The suspicion that I had felt when I looked into the outhouse became a certainty as I listened to the old monk’s last words.

“So far I understand,” said I. “The corpse I have just seen in the outhouse is the corpse of the man whom you found dead outside your gate. Now tell me why you have not given the remains decent burial.”

“Wait – wait – wait,” answered the Capuchin. “The father superior hears me scream and comes out; we all run together to the gate; we lift up the big man and look at him close. Dead! dead as this (smacking the dresser with his hand). We look again, and see a bit of paper pinned to the collar of his coat. Aha! son of mine, you start at that. I thought I should make you start at last.”

I had started, indeed. That paper was doubtless the leaf mentioned in the second’s unfinished narrative as having been torn out of his pocketbook, and inscribed with the statement of how the dead man had lost his life. If proof positive were wanted to identify the dead body, here was such proof found.

“What do you think was written on the bit of paper?” continued the Capuchin “We read and shudder. This dead man has been killed in a duel – he, the desperate, the miserable, has died in the commission of mortal sin; and the men who saw the killing of him ask us Capuchins, holy men, servants of Heaven, children of our lord the Pope – they ask us to give him burial! Oh! but we are outraged when we read that; we groan, we wring our hands, we turn away, we tear our beards, we—”

“Wait one moment,” said I, seeing that the old man was heating himself with his narrative, and was likely, unless I stopped him, to talk more and more fluently to less and less purpose – “wait a moment. Have you preserved the paper that was pinned to the dead man’s coat; and can I look at it?”

The Capuchin seemed on the point of giving me an answer, when he suddenly checked himself. I saw his eyes wander away from my face, and at the same moment heard a door softly opened and closed again behind me.

Looking round immediately, I observed another monk in the sacristy – a tall, lean, black-bearded man, in whose presence my old friend with the snuffbox suddenly became quite decorous and devotional to look at. I suspected I was in the presence of the father superior, and I found that I was right the moment he addressed me.

“I am the father superior of this convent,” he said, in quiet, clear tones, and looking me straight in the face while he spoke, with coldly attentive eyes. “I have heard the latter part of your conversation, and I wish to know why you are so particularly anxious to see the piece of paper that was pinned to the dead man’s coat?”

The coolness with which he avowed that he had been listening, and the quietly imperative manner in which he put his concluding question, perplexed and startled me. I hardly knew at first what tone I ought to take in answering him. He observed my hesitation, and attributing it to the wrong cause, signed to the old Capuchin to retire. Humbly stroking his long grey beard, and furtively consoling himself with a private pinch of the “delectable snuff,” my venerable friend shuffled out of the room, making a profound obeisance at the door just before he disappeared.

“Now,” said the father superior, as coldly as ever, “I am waiting, sir, for your reply.”

“You shall have it in the fewest possible words,” said I, answering him in his own tone. “I find, to my disgust and horror, that there is an unburied corpse in an outhouse attached to your convent. I believe that corpse to be the body of an English gentleman of rank and fortune, who was killed in a duel. I have come into this neighbourhood with the nephew and only relation of the slain man, for the express purpose of recovering his remains; and I wish to see the paper found on the body, because I believe that paper will identify it to the satisfaction of the relative to whom I have referred. Do you find my reply sufficiently straightforward? And do you mean to give me permission to look at the paper?”

“I am satisfied with your reply, and see no reason for refusing you a sight of the paper,” said the father superior; “but I have something to say first. In speaking of the impression produced on you by beholding the corpse, you used the words ‘disgust’ and ‘horror.’ This license of expression in relation to what you have seen in the precincts of a convent proves to me that you are out of the pale of the Holy Catholic Church. You have no right, therefore, to expect any explanation; but I will give you one, nevertheless, as a favour. The slain man died, unabsolved, in the commission of mortal sin. We infer so much from the paper which we found on his body; and we know, by the evidence of our own eyes and ears, that he was killed on the territories of the Church, and in the act of committing direct violation of those special laws against the crime of duelling, the strict enforcement of which the holy father himself has urged on the faithful throughout his dominions by letters signed with his own hand. Inside this convent the ground is consecrated, and we Catholics are not accustomed to bury the outlaws of our religion, the enemies of our holy father, and the violators of our most sacred laws in consecrated ground. Outside this convent we have no rights and no power; and, if we had both, we should remember that we are monks, not grave-diggers, and that the only burial with which we can have any concern is burial with the prayers of the Church. That is all the explanation I think it necessary to give. Wait for me here, and you shall see the paper.” With those words the father superior left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

I had hardly time to think over this bitter and ungracious explanation, and to feel a little piqued by the language and manner of the person who had given it to me, before the father superior returned with the paper in his hand. He placed it before me on the dresser, and I read, hurriedly traced in pencil, the following lines:

This paper is attached to the body of the late Mr. Stephen Monkton, an Englishman of distinction. He has been shot in a duel, conducted with perfect gallantry and honour on both sides. His body is placed at the door of this convent, to receive burial at the hands of its inmates, the survivors of the encounter being obliged to separate and secure their safety by immediate flight. I, the second of the slain man, and the writer of this explanation, certify, on my word of honour as a gentleman that the shot which killed my principal on the instant was fired fairly, in the strictest accordance with the rules laid down beforehand for the conduct of the duel.

(Signed), F.

“F.” I recognised easily enough as the initial letter of Monsieur Foulon’s name, the second of Mr. Monkton, who had died of consumption at Paris.

The discovery and the identification were now complete. Nothing remained but to break the news to Alfred, and to get permission to remove the remains in the outhouse. I began almost to doubt the evidence of my own senses when I reflected that the apparently impracticable object with which we had left Naples was already, by the merest chance, virtually accomplished.

“The evidence of the paper is decisive,” said I, handing it back. “There can be no doubt that the remains in the outhouse are the remains of which we have been in search. May I inquire if any obstacles will be thrown in our way should the late Mr. Monkton’s nephew wish to remove his uncle’s body to the family burial-place in England?”

“Where is this nephew?” asked the father superior.

“He is now awaiting my return at the town of Fondi.”

“Is he in a position to prove his relationship?”

“Certainly; he has papers with him which will place it beyond a doubt.”

“Let him satisfy the civil authorities of his claim, and he need expect no obstacle to his wishes from anyone here.”

I was in no humour for talking a moment longer with my sour-tempered companion than I could help. The day was wearing on me fast; and, whether night overtook me or not, I was resolved never to stop on my return till I got back to Fondi. Accordingly, after telling the father superior that he might expect to hear from me again immediately, I made my bow and hastened out of the sacristy.

At the convent gate stood my old friend with the tin snuffbox, waiting to let me out.

“Bless you, may son,” said the venerable recluse, giving me a farewell pat on the shoulder, “come back soon to your spiritual father who loves you, and amiably favour him with another tiny, tiny pinch of the delectable snuff.”

•  VI  •

I returned at the top of my speed to the village where I had left the mules, had the animals saddled immediately, and succeeded in getting back to Fondi a little before sunset.

While ascending the stairs of our hotel, I suffered under the most painful uncertainty as to how I should best communicate the news of my discovery to Alfred. If I could not succeed in preparing him properly for my tidings, the results, with such an organisation as his, might be fatal. On opening the door of his room, I felt by no means sure of myself; and when I confronted him, his manner of receiving me took me so much by surprise that, for a moment or two, I lost my self-possession altogether.

Every trace of the lethargy in which he was sunk when I had last seen him had disappeared. His eyes were bright, his cheeks deeply flushed. As I entered, he started up, and refused my offered hand.

“You have not treated me like a friend,” he said, passionately; “you had no right to continue the search unless I searched with you – you had no right to leave me here alone. I was wrong to trust you; you are no better than all the rest of them.”

I had by this time recovered a little from my first astonishment, and was able to reply before he could say anything more. It was quite useless, in his present state, to reason with him or to defend myself. I determined to risk everything, and break my news to him at once.

“You will treat me more justly, Monkton, when you know that I have been doing you good service during my absence,” I said. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, the object for which we have left Naples may be nearer attainment by both of us than—”

The flush left his cheeks almost in an instant. Some expression in my face, or some tone in my voice, of which I was not conscious, had revealed to his nervously-quickened perception more than I had intended that he should know at first. His eyes fixed themselves intently on mine; his hand grasped my arm; and he said to me in an eager whisper:

“Tell me the truth at once. Have you found him?”

It was too late to hesitate. I answered in the affirmative.

“Buried or unburied?”

His voice rose abruptly as he put the question, and his unoccupied hand fastened on my other arm.

“Unburied.”

I had hardly uttered the word before the blood flew back into his cheeks; his eyes flashed again as they looked into mine, and he burst into a fit of triumphant laughter, which shocked and startled me inexpressibly.

“What did I tell you? What do you say to the old prophecy now?” he cried, dropping his hold on my arms, and pacing backward and forward in the room. “Own you were wrong. Own it, as all Naples shall own it, when once I have got him safe in his coffin!”

His laughter grew more and mere violent. I tried to quiet him in vain. His servant and the landlord of the inn entered the room, but they only added fuel to the fire, and I made them go out again. As I shut the door on them, I observed lying on a table near at hand the packet of letters from Miss Elmslie, which my unhappy friend preserved with such care, and read and re-read with such unfailing devotion. Looking toward me just when I passed by the table, the letters caught his eye. The new hope for the future, in connection with the writer of them, which my news was already awakening in his heart, seemed to overwhelm him in an instant at sight of the treasured memorials that reminded him of his betrothed wife. His laughter ceased, his face changed, he ran to the table, caught the letters up in his hand, looked from them to me for one moment with an altered expression which went to my heart, then sank down on his knees at the table, laid his face on the letters, and burst into tears. I let the new emotion have its way uninterruptedly, and quitted the room without saying a word. When I returned after a lapse of some little time, I found him sitting quietly in his chair, reading one of the letters from the pack et which rested on his knee.

His look was kindness itself; his gesture almost womanly in its gentleness as he rose to meet me, and anxiously held out his hand.

He was quite calm enough now to hear in detail all that I had to tell him. I suppressed nothing but the particulars of the state in which I had found the corpse. I assumed no right of direction as to the share he was to take in our future proceedings, with the exception of insisting beforehand that he should leave the absolute superintendence of the removal of the body to me, and that he should be satisfied with a sight of M. Foulon’s paper, after receiving my assurance that the remains placed in the coffin were really and truly the remains of which we had been in search.

“Your nerves are not so strong as mine,” I said, by way of apology for my apparent dictation, “and for that reason I must beg leave to assume the leadership in all that we have now to do, until I see the leaden coffin soldered down and safe in your possession. After that I shall resign all my functions to you.”

“I want words to thank you for your kindness,” he answered. “No brother could have borne with me more affectionately, or helped me more patiently than you.”

He stopped and grew thoughtful, then occupied himself in tying up slowly and carefully the packet of Miss Elmslie’s letters, and then looked suddenly toward the vacant wall behind me with that strange expression the meaning of which I knew so well. Since we had left Naples I had purposely avoided exciting him by talking on the useless and shocking subject of the apparition by which he believed himself to be perpetually followed. Just now, however, he seemed so calm and collected – so little likely to be violently agitated by any allusion to the dangerous topic, that I ventured to speak out boldly.

“Does the phantom still appear to you,” I asked, “as it appeared at Naples?”

He looked at me and smiled.

“Did I not tell you that it followed me everywhere?” His eyes wandered back again to the vacant space, and he went on speaking in that direction as if he had been continuing the conversation with some third person in the room. “We shall part,” he said, slowly and softly, “when the empty place is filled in Wincot vault. Then I shall stand with Ada before the altar in the Abbey chapel, and when my eyes meet hers they will see the tortured face no more.”

Saying this, he leaned his head on his hand, sighed, and began repeating softly to himself the lines of the old prophecy:

When in Wincot vault a place

Waits for one of Monkton’s race—

When that one forlorn shall lie

Graveless under open sky,

Beggared of six feet of earth,

Though lord of acres from his birth—

That shall be a certain sign

Of the end of Monktons line.

Dwindling ever faster, faster,

Dwindling to the last-left master;

From mortal ken, from light of day,

Monkton’s race shall pass away.”

Fancying that he pronounced the last lines a little incoherently, I tried to make him change the subject. He took no notice of what I said, and went on talking to himself.

“Monkton’s race shall pass away,” he repeated, “but not with me. The fatality hangs over my head no longer. I shall bury the unburied dead; I shall fill the vacant place in Wincot vault; and then – then the new life, the life with Ada!” That name seemed to recall him to himself. He drew his travelling desk toward him, placed the packet of letters in it, and then took out a sheet of paper. “I am going to write to Ada,” he said, turning to me, “and tell her the good news. Her happiness, when she knows it, will be even greater than mine.”

Worn out by the events of the day, I left him writing and went to bed. I was, however, either too anxious or too tired to sleep. In this waking condition, my mind naturally occupied itself with the discovery at the convent and with the events to which that discovery would in all probability lead. As I thought on the future, a depression for which I could not account weighed on my spirits. There was not the slightest reason for the vaguely melancholy forebodings that oppressed me. The remains, to the finding of which my unhappy friend attached so much importance, had been traced; they would certainly be placed at his disposal in a few days; he might take them to England by the first merchant vessel that sailed from Naples; and, the gratification of his strange caprice thus accomplished, there was at least some reason to hope that his mind might recover its tone, and that the new life he would lead at Wincot might result in making him a happy man. Such considerations as these were, in themselves, certainly not calculated to exert any melancholy influence over me; and yet, all through the night, the same inconceivable, unaccountable depression weighed heavily on my spirits – heavily through the hours of darkness – heavily, even when I walked out to breathe the first freshness of the early morning air.

With the day came the all-engrossing business of opening negotiations with the authorities.

Only those who have had to deal with Italian officials can imagine how our patience was tried by everyone with whom we came in contact. We were bandied about from one authority to the other, were stared at, cross-questioned, mystified – not in the least because the case presented any special difficulties or intricacies, but because it was absolutely necessary that every civil dignitary to whom we applied should assert his own importance by leading us to our object in the most roundabout manner possible. After our first day’s experience of official life in Italy, I left the absurd formalities, which we had no choice but to perform, to be accomplished by Alfred alone, and applied myself to the really serious question of how the remains in the convent outhouse were to be safely removed.

The best plan that suggested itself to me was to write to a friend in Rome, where I knew that it was a custom to embalm the bodies of high dignitaries of the Church, and where, I consequently inferred, such chemical assistance as was needed in our emergency might be obtained. I simply stated in my letter that the removal of the body was imperative, then described the condition in which I had found it, and engaged that no expense on our part should be spared if the right person or persons could be found to help us. Here, again, more difficulties interposed themselves, and more useless formalities were to be gone through, but in the end patience, perseverance, and money triumphed, and two men came expressly from Rome to undertake the duties we required of them.

It is unnecessary that I should shock the reader by entering into any detail in this part of my narrative. When I have said that the progress of decay was so far suspended by chemical means as to allow of the remains being placed in the coffin, and to insure their being transported to England with perfect safety and convenience, I have said enough. After ten days had been wasted in useless delays and difficulties, I had the satisfaction of seeing the convent outhouse empty at last; passed through a final ceremony of snuff-taking, or rather, of snuff-giving, with the old Capuchin, and ordered the travelling carriages to be ready at the inn door. Hardly a month had elapsed since our departure ere we entered Naples successful in the achievement of a design which had been ridiculed as wildly impracticable by every friend of ours who had heard of it.

The first object to be accomplished on our return was to obtain the means of carrying the coffin to England – by sea, as a matter of course. All inquiries after a merchant vessel on the point of sailing for any British port led to the most unsatisfactory results. There was only one way of insuring the immediate transportation of the remains to England, and that was to hire a vessel. Impatient to return, and resolved not to lose sight of the coffin till he had seen it placed in Wincot vault, Monkton decided immediately on hiring the first ship that could be obtained. The vessel in port which we were informed could soonest be got ready for sea was a Sicilian brig, and this vessel my friend accordingly engaged. The best dockyard artisans that could be got were set to work, and the smartest captain and crew to be picked up on an emergency in Naples were chosen to navigate the brig.

Monkton, after again expressing in the warmest terms his gratitude for the services I had rendered him, disclaimed any intention of asking me to accompany him on the voyage to England. Greatly to his surprise and delight, however, I offered of my own accord to take passage in the brig. The strange coincidences I had witnessed, the extraordinary discovery I had hit on since our first meeting in Naples, had made his one great interest in life my one great interest for the time being as well. I shared none of his delusions, poor fellow; but it is hardly an exaggeration to say that my eagerness to follow our remarkable adventure to its end was as great as his anxiety to see the coffin laid in Wincot vault. Curiosity influenced me, I am afraid, almost as strongly as friendship, when I offered myself as the companion of his voyage home.

We set sail for England on a calm and lovely afternoon.

For the first time since I had known him, Monkton seemed to be in high spirits. He talked and jested on all sorts of subjects, and laughed at me for allowing my cheerfulness to be affected by the dread of seasickness. I had really no such fear; it was my excuse to my friend for a return of that unaccountable depression under which I had suffered at Fondi. Everything was in our favour; everybody on board the brig was in good spirits. The captain was delighted with the vessel; the crew, Italians and Maltese, were in high glee at the prospect of making a short voyage on high wages in a well-provisioned ship. I alone felt heavy at heart. There was no valid reason that I could assign to myself for the melancholy that oppressed me, and yet I struggled against it in vain.

Late on our first night at sea, I made a discovery which was by no means calculated to restore my spirits to their usual equilibrium. Monkton was in the cabin, on the floor of which had been placed the packing-case containing the coffin, and I was on deck. The wind had fallen almost to a calm, and I was lazily watching the sails of the brig as they flapped from time to time against the masts, when the captain approached, and, drawing me out of hearing of the man at the helm, whispered in my ear:

“There’s something wrong among the men forward. Did you observe how suddenly they all became silent just before sunset?”

I had observed it, and told him so.

“There’s a Maltese boy on board,” pursued the captain, “who is a smart enough lad, but a bad one to deal with. I have found out that he has been telling the men there is a dead body inside that packing-case of your friend’s in the cabin.”

My heart sank as he spoke. Knowing the superstitious irrationality of sailors – of foreign sailors especially – I had taken care to spread a report on board the brig, before the coffin was shipped, that the packing-case contained a valuable marble statue which Mr. Monkton prized highly, and was unwilling to trust out of his own sight. How could this Maltese boy have discovered that the pretended statue was a human corpse? As I pondered over the question, my suspicions fixed themselves on Monkton’s servant, who spoke Italian fluently, and whom I knew to be an incorrigible gossip. The man denied it when I charged him with betraying us, but I have never believed his denial to this day.

“The little imp won’t say where he picked up this notion of his about the dead body,” continued the captain. “It’s not my place to pry into secrets; but I advise you to call the crew aft, and contradict the boy, whether he speaks the truth or not. The men are a parcel of fools who believe in ghosts, and all the rest of it. Some of them say they would never have signed our articles if they had known they were going to sail with a dead man; others only grumble; but I’m afraid we shall have some trouble with them all, in case of rough weather, unless the boy is contradicted by you or the other gentleman. The men say that if either you or your friend tell them on your words of honour that the Maltese is a liar, they will hand him up to be rope’s-ended accordingly; but that if you won’t, they have made up their minds to believe the boy.”

Here the captain paused and awaited my answer. I could give him none. I felt hopeless under our desperate emergency. To get the boy punished by giving my word of honour to support a direct falsehood was not to be thought of even for a moment. What other means of extrication from this miserable dilemma remained? None that I could think of. I thanked the captain for his attention to our interests, told him I would take time to consider what course I should pursue, and begged that he would say nothing to my friend about the discovery he had made. He promised to be silent, sulkily enough, and walked away from me.

We had expected the breeze to spring up with the morning, but no breeze came. As it wore on toward noon the atmosphere became insufferably sultry, and the sea looked as smooth as glass. I saw the captain’s eye turn often and anxiously to windward. Far away in that direction, and alone in the blue heaven, I observed a little black cloud, and asked if it would bring us any wind.

“More than we want,” the captain replied, shortly; and then, to my astonishment, ordered the crew aloft to take in sail. The execution of this maneuver showed but too plainly the temper of the men; they did their work sulkily and slowly, grumbling and murmuring among themselves. The captain’s manner, as he urged them on with oaths and threats, convinced me we were in danger. I looked again to windward. The one little cloud had enlarged to a great bank of murky vapour, and the sea at the horizon had changed in colour.

“The squall will be on us before we know where we are,” said the captain. “Go below; you will be only in the way here.”

I descended to the cabin, and prepared Monkton for what was coming. He was still questioning me about what I had observed on deck when the storm burst on us. We felt the little brig strain for an instant as if she would part in two, then she seemed to be swinging round with us, then to be quite still for a moment, trembling in every timber. Last came a shock which hurled us from our seats, a deafening crash, and a flood of water pouring into the cabin. We clambered, half drowned, to the deck. The brig had, in the nautical phrase, “broached to,” and she now lay on her beam-ends.

Before I could make out anything distinctly in the horrible confusion except the one tremendous certainty that we were entirely at the mercy of the sea, I heard a voice from the fore part of the ship which stilled the clamouring and shouting of the rest of the crew in an instant. The words were in Italian, but I understood their fatal meaning only too easily. We had sprung a leak, and the sea was pouring into the ship’s hold like the race of a mill-stream. The captain did not lose his presence of mind in this fresh emergency. He called for his ax to cut away the foremast, and, ordering some of the crew to help him, directed the others to rig out the pumps.

The words had hardly passed his lips before the men broke into open mutiny. With a savage look at me, their ringleader declared that the passengers might do as they pleased, but that he and his messmates were determined to take to the boat, and leave the accursed ship, and the dead man in her, to go to the bottom together. As he spoke there was a shout among the sailors, and I observed some of them pointing derisively behind me. Looking round, I saw Monkton, who had hitherto kept close at my side, making his way back to the cabin. I followed him directly, but the water and confusion on deck, and the impossibility, from the position of the brig, of moving the feet without the slow assistance of the hands, so impeded my progress that it was impossible for me to overtake him. When I had got below he was crouched upon the coffin, with the water on the cabin floor whirling and splashing about him as the ship heaved and plunged. I saw a warning brightness in his eyes, a warning flush on his cheek, as I approached and said to him:

“There is nothing left for it, Alfred, but to bow to our misfortune, and do the best we can to save our lives.”

“Save yours,” he cried, waving his hand to me, “for you have a future before you. Mine is gone when this coffin goes to the bottom. If the ship sinks, I shall know that the fatality is accomplished, and shall sink with her.”

I saw that he was in no state to be reasoned with or persuaded, and raised myself again to the deck. The men were cutting away all obstacles so as to launch the longboat placed amidships over the depressed bulwark of the brig as she lay on her side, and the captain, after having made a last vain exertion to restore his authority, was looking on at them in silence. The violence of the squall seemed already to be spending itself, and I asked whether there was really no chance for us if we remained by the ship. The captain answered that there might have been the best chance if the men had obeyed his orders, but that now there was none. Knowing that I could place no dependence on the presence of mind of Monkton’s servant, I confided to the captain, in the fewest and plainest words, the condition of my unhappy friend, and asked if I might depend on his help. He nodded his head, and we descended together to the cabin. Even at this day it costs me pain to write of the terrible necessity to which the strength and obstinacy of Monkton’s delusion reduced us in the last resort. We were compelled to secure his hands, and drag him by main force to the deck. The men were on the point of launching the boat, and refused at first to receive us into it.

“You cowards!” cried the captain, “have we got the dead man with us this time? Isn’t he going to the bottom along with the brig? Who are you afraid of when we get into the boat?”

This sort of appeal produced the desired effect; the men became ashamed of themselves, and retracted their refusal.

Just as we pushed off from the sinking ship Alfred made an effort to break from me, but I held him firm, and he never repeated the attempt. He sat by me with drooping head, still and silent, while the sailors rowed away from the vessel; still and silent when, with one accord, they paused at a little distance off, and we all waited and watched to see the brig sink; still and silent, even when that sinking happened, when the labouring hull plunged slowly into a hollow of the sea – hesitated, as it seemed, for one moment, rose a little again, then sank to rise no more.

Sank with her dead freight – sank, and snatched forever from our power the corpse which we had discovered almost by a miracle – those jealously-preserved remains, on the safe-keeping of which rested so strangely the hopes and the love-destinies of two living beings! As the last signs of the ship in the depths of the waters.

I felt Monkton trembling all over as he sat close at my side, and heard him repeating to himself, sadly, and many times over, the name of “Ada.”

I tried to turn his thoughts to another subject, but it was useless. He pointed over the sea to where the brig had once been, and where nothing was left to look at but the rolling waves.

“The empty place will now remain empty forever in Wincot vault.”

As he said these words, he fixed his eyes for a moment sadly and earnestly on my face, then looked away, leaned his cheek on his hand, and spoke no more.

We were sighted long before nightfall by a trading vessel, were taken on board, and landed at Cartagena in Spain. Alfred never held up his head, and never once spoke to me of his own accord the whole time we were at sea in the merchantman. I observed, however, with alarm, that he talked often and incoherently to himself – constantly muttering the lines of the old prophecy – constantly referring to the fatal place that was empty in Wincot vault – constantly repeating in broken accents, which it affected me inexpressibly to hear, the name of the poor girl who was awaiting his return to England. Nor were these the only causes for the apprehension that I now felt on his account. Toward the end of our voyage he began to suffer from alternations of fever-fits and shivering-fits, which I ignorantly imagined to be attacks of ague. I was soon undeceived. We had hardly been a day on shore before he became so much worse that I secured the best medical assistance Cartagena could afford. For a day or two the doctors differed, as usual, about the nature of his complaint, but ere long alarming symptoms displayed themselves. The medical men declared that his life was in danger, and told me that his disease was brain fever.

Shocked and grieved as I was, I hardly knew how to act at first under the fresh responsibility now laid upon me. Ultimately I decided on writing to the old priest who had been Alfred’s tutor, and who, as I knew, still resided at Wincot Abbey. I told this gentleman all that had happened, begged him to break my melancholy news as gently as possible to Miss Elmslie, and assured him of my resolution to remain with Monkton to the last.

After I had dispatched my letter, and had sent to Gibraltar to secure the best English medical advice that could be obtained, I felt that I had done my best, and that nothing remained but to wait and hope.

Many a sad and anxious hour did I pass by my poor friend’s bedside. Many a time did I doubt whether I had done right in giving any encouragement to his delusion. The reasons for doing so which had suggested themselves to me after my first interview with him seemed, however, on reflection, to be valid reasons still. The only way of hastening his return to England and to Miss Elmslie, who was pining for that return, was the way I had taken. It was not my fault that a disaster which no man could foresee had overthrown all his projects and all mine. But, now that the calamity had happened and was irretrievable, how, in the event of his physical recovery, was his moral malady to be combated?

When I reflected on the hereditary taint in his mental organisation, on that first childish fright of Stephen Monkton from which he had never recovered, on the perilously-secluded life that he had led at the Abbey, and on his firm persuasion of the reality of the apparition by which he believed himself to be constantly followed, I confess I despaired of shaking his superstitious faith in every word and line of the old family prophecy. If the series of striking coincidences which appeared to attest its truth had made a strong and lasting impression on me (and this was assuredly the case), how could I wonder that they had produced the effect of absolute conviction on his mind, constituted as it was? If I argued with him, and he answered me, how could I rejoin? If he said, “The prophecy points at the last of the family: I am the last of the family. The prophecy mentions an empty place in Wincot vault; there is such an empty place there at this moment. On the faith of the prophecy I told you that Stephen Monkton’s body was unburied, and you found that it was unburied” – if he said this, what use would it be for me to reply, “These are only strange coincidences after all?”

The more I thought of the task that lay before me, if he recovered, the more I felt inclined to despond. The oftener the English physician who attended on him said to me, “He may get the better of the fever, but he has a fixed idea, which never leaves him night or day, which has unsettled his reason, and which will end in killing him, unless you or some of his friends can remove it” – the oftener I heard this, the more acutely I felt my own powerlessness, the more I shrank from every idea that was connected with the hopeless future.

I had only expected to receive my answer from Wincot in the shape of a letter. It was consequently a great surprise, as well as a great relief, to be informed one day that two gentlemen wished to speak with me, and to find that of these two gentlemen the first was the old priest, and the second a male relative of Mrs. Elmslie.

Just before their arrival the fever symptoms had disappeared, and Alfred had been pronounced out of danger. Both the priest and his companion were eager to know when the sufferer would be strong enough to travel. The y had come to Cartagena expressly to take him home with them, and felt far more hopeful than I did of the restorative effects of his native air. After all the questions connected with the first important point of the journey to England had been asked and answered, I ventured to make some inquiries after Miss Elmslie. Her relative informed me that she was suffering both in body and in mind from excess of anxiety on Alfred’s account. They had been obliged to deceive her as to the dangerous nature of his illness in order to deter her from accompanying the priest and her relation on their mission to Spain.

Slowly and imperfectly, as the weeks wore on, Alfred regained something of his former physical strength, but no alteration appeared in his illness as it affected his mind.

From the very first day of his advance toward recovery, it had been discovered that the brain fever had exercised the strangest influence over his faculties of memory. All recollection of recent events was gone from him. Everything connected with Naples, with me, with his journey to Italy, had dropped in some mysterious manner entirely out of his remembrance. So completely had all late circumstances passed from his memory that, though he recognised the old priest and his own servant easily on the first days of his convalescence, he never recognised me, but regarded me with such a wistful, doubting expression, that I felt inexpressibly pained when I approached his bedside. All his questions were about Miss Elmslie and Wincot Abbey, and all his talk referred to the period when his father was yet alive.

The doctors augured good rather than ill from this loss of memory of recent incidents, saying that it would turn out to be temporary, and that it answered the first great healing purpose of keeping his mind at ease. I tried to believe them – tried to feel as sanguine, when the day came for his departure, as the old friends felt who were taking him home. But the effort was too much for me. A foreboding that I should never see him again oppressed my heart, and the tears came into my eyes as I saw the worn figure of my poor friend half helped, half lifted into the travelling-carriage, and borne away gently on the road toward home.

He had never recognised me, and the doctors had begged that I would give him, for some time to come, as few opportunities as possible of doing so. But for this request I should have accompanied him to England. As it was, nothing better remained for me to do than to change the scene, and recruit as I best could my energies of body and mind, depressed of late by much watching and anxiety. The famous cities of Spain were not new to me, but I visited them again and revived old impressions of the Alhambra and Madrid. Once or twice I thought of making a pilgrimage to the East, but late events had sobered and altered me. That yearning, unsatisfied feeling which we call “homesickness” began to prey upon my heart, and I resolved to return to England.

I went back by way of Paris, having settled with the priest that he should write to me at my banker’s there as soon as he could after Alfred had returned to Wincot. If I had gone to the East, the letter would have been forwarded to me. I wrote to prevent this; and, on my arrival at Paris, stopped at the banker’s before I went to my hotel.

The moment the letter was put into my hands, the black border on the envelope told me the worst. He was dead.

There was but one consolation – he had died calmly, almost happily, without once referring to those fatal chances which had wrought the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy. “My beloved pupil,” the old priest wrote, “seemed to rally a little the first few days after his return, but he gained no real strength, and soon suffered a slight relapse of fever. After this he sank gradually and gently day by day, and so departed from us on the last dread journey. Miss Elmslie (who knows that I am writing this) desires me to express her deep and lasting gratitude for all your kindness to Alfred. She told me when we brought him back that she had waited for him as his promised wife, and that she would nurse him now as a wife should; and she never left him. His face was turned toward her, his hand was clasped in hers when he died. It will console you to know that he never mentioned events at Naples, or the shipwreck that followed them, from the day of his return to the day of his death.”

Three days after reading the letter I was at Wincot, and heard all the details of Alfred’s last moments from the priest. I felt a shock which it would not be very easy for me to analyse or explain when I heard that he had been buried, at his own desire, in the fatal Abbey vault.

The priest took me down to see the place – a grim, cold, subterranean building, with a low roof, supported on heavy Saxon arches. Narrow niches, with the ends only of coffins visible within them, ran down each side of the vault. The nails and silver ornaments flashed here and there as my companion moved past them with a lamp in his hand. At the lower end of the place he stopped, pointed to a niche, and said, “He lies there, between his father and mother.” I looked a little further on, and saw what appeared at first like a long dark tunnel. “That is only an empty niche,” said the priest, following me. “If the body of Mr. Stephen Monkton had been brought to Wincot, his coffin would have been placed there.”

A chill came over me, and a sense of dread which I am ashamed of having felt now, but which I could not combat then. The blessed light of day was pouring down gaily at the other end of the vault through the open door. I turned my back on the empty niche, and hurried into the sunlight and the fresh air.

As I walked across the grass glade leading down to the vault, I heard the rustle of a woman’s dress behind me, and turning round, saw a young lady advancing, clad in deep mourning. Her sweet, sad face, her manner as she held out her hand, told me who it was in an instant.

“I heard that you were here,” she said, “and I wished—” Her voice faltered a little. My heart ached as I saw how her lip trembled, but before I could say anything she recovered herself and went on: “I wished to take your hand, and thank you for your brotherly kindness to Alfred; and I wanted to tell you that I am sure in all you did you acted tenderly and considerately for the best. Perhaps you may be soon going away from home again, and we may not meet any more. I shall never, never forget that you were kind to him when he wanted a friend, and that you have the greatest claim of anyone on earth to be gratefully remembered in my thoughts as long as I live.”

The inexpressible tenderness of her voice, trembling a little all the while she spoke, the pale beauty of her face, the artless candour in her sad, quiet eyes, so affected me that I could not trust myself to answer her at first except by gesture. Before I recovered my voice she had given me her hand once more and had left me.

I never saw her again. The chances and changes of life kept us apart. When I last heard of her, years and years ago, she was faithful to the memory of the dead, and was Ada Elmslie still for Alfred Monkton’s sake.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE FIFTH DAY

Still cloudy, but no rain to keep our young lady indoors. The paper, as usual, without interest to me.

Today Owen actually vanquished his difficulties and finished his story. I numbered it Eight, and threw the corresponding number (as I had done the day before in Morgan’s case) into the china bowl.

Although I could discover no direct evidence against her, I strongly suspected The Queen of Hearts of tampering with the lots on the fifth evening, to irritate Morgan by making it his turn to read again, after the shortest possible interval of repose. However that might be, the number drawn was certainly Seven, and the story to be read was consequently the story which my brother had finished only two days before.

If I had not known that it was part of Morgan’s character always to do exactly the reverse of what might be expected from him, I should have been surprised at the extraordinary docility he exhibited the moment his manuscript was placed in his hands.

“My turn again?” he said. “How very satisfactory! I was anxious to escape from this absurd position of mine as soon as possible, and here is the opportunity most considerately put into my hands. Look out, all of you! I won’t waste another moment. I mean to begin instantly.”

“Do tell me,” interposed Jessie, mischievously, “shall I be very much interested tonight?”

“Not you!” retorted Morgan. “You will be very much frightened instead. You hair is uncommonly smooth at the present moment, but it will be all standing on end before I’ve done. Don’t blame me, miss, if you are an object when you go to bed tonight!”

With this curious introductory speech he began to read. I was obliged to interrupt him to say the few words of explanation which the story needed.

“Before my brother begins,” I said, “it may be as well to mention that he is himself the doctor who is supposed to relate this narrative. The events happened at a time of his life when he had left London, and had established himself in medical practice in one of our large northern towns.”

With that brief explanation, I apologized for interrupting the reader, and Morgan began once more.

BROTHER MORGAN’S STORY:
THE DEAD HAND

When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster exactly in the middle of the race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of the month of September.

He was one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and open-mouthed young gentlemen who possess the gift of familiarity in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the journey of life, making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed property enough in one of the midland counties to make all the born squires in his neighbourhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son, possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great business after his father’s death; well supplied with money, and not too rigidly looked after during his father’s lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be violently indignant when he found that his son took after him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr. Holliday when he was getting on in years, and then he was as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with.

Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his hare-brained way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the town till toward the close of evening, and he went at once to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. Dinner they were ready enough to give him, but as for a bed, they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race-week at Doncaster it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not bespoken apartments to pass the night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich as he was, Arthur’s chance of getting a night’s lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that, and was met everywhere with the same form of answer. No accommodation for the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in the race-week.

To a young fellow of Arthur’s temperament, the novelty of being turned away into the street like a penniless vagabond, at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. He went on with his carpetbag in his hand, applying for a bed at every place of entertainment for travellers that he could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts of the town.

By this time the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was soon going to rain!

The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young Holliday’s spirits. He began to contemplate the houseless situation in which he was placed from the serious rather than the humorous point of view, and he looked about him for another public house to inquire at with something very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the night. The suburban part of the town toward which he had now strayed was hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing of the houses as he passed them, except that they got progressively smaller and dirtier the further he went. Down the winding road before him shone the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint lonely light that struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round him. He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him nothing in the shape of an inn, to return to the central part of the town, and to try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on through the night at one of the principal hotels.

As he got near the lamp he heard voices, and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing, with a lean forefinger, to this inscription:

THE TWO ROBINS.

Arthur turned into the court without hesitation to see what The Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men were standing together round the door of the house, which was at the bottom of the court, facing the entrance from the street. The men were all listening to one other man, better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience something, in a low voice, in which they were apparently very much interested.

On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house.

“No,” said the traveller with the knapsack, turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the passage, “no, Mr. Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but I don’t mind confessing that I can’t quite stand that.”

It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at The Two Robins, and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it. The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other benighted traveller should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head.

“If you have got a bed to let,” he said, “and if that gentleman who has just gone out won’t pay your price for it, I will.”

The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur. “Will you, sir?” he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way.

“Name your price,” said young Holliday, thinking that the landlord’s hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him. “Name your price, and I’ll give you the money at once, if you like.”

“Are you game for five shillings?” inquired the landlord, rubbing his stubby double chin and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling above him.

Arthur nearly laughed in the man’s face; but, thinking it prudent to control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously as he could. The sly landlord held out his hand, then suddenly drew it back again.

“You’re acting all fair and aboveboard by me,” he said, “and, before I take your money, I’ll do the same by you. Look here; this is how it stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for five shillings, but you can’t have more than a half share of the room it stands in. Do you see what I mean, young gentleman?”

“Of course I do,” returned Arthur, a little irritably. “You mean that it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is occupied?”

The landlord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin harder than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved back a step or two toward the door. The idea of sleeping in the same room with a total stranger did not present an attractive prospect to him. He felt more than half inclined to drop his five shillings into his pocket and to go out into the street once more.

“Is it yes or no?” asked the landlord. “Settle it as quick as you can, because there’s lots of people wanting a bed at Doncaster tonight besides you.”

Arthur looked toward the court and heard the rain falling heavily in the street outside. He thought he would ask a question or two before he rashly decided on leaving the shelter of The Two Robins.

“What sort of man is it who has got the other bed?” he inquired. “Is he a gentleman? I mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?”

“The quietest man I ever came across,” said the landlord, rubbing his fat hands stealthily one over the other. “As sober as a judge, and as regular as clock-work in his habits. It hasn’t struck nine, not ten minutes ago, and he’s in his bed already. I don’t know whether that comes up to your notion of a quiet man: it goes a long way ahead of mine, I can tell you.”

“Is he asleep, do you think?” asked Arthur.

“I know he’s asleep,” returned the landlord; “and, what’s more, he’s gone off so fast that I’ll warrant you don’t wake him. This way, sir,” said the landlord, speaking over young Holliday’s shoulder, as if he was addressing some new guest who was approaching the house.

“Here you are,” said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the stranger, whoever he might be. “I’ll take the bed.” And he handed the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money carelessly into his waistcoat pocket, and lighted a candle.

“Come up and see the room,” said the host of The Two Robins, leading the way to the staircase quite briskly, considering how fat he was.

They mounted to the second floor of the house. The landlord half opened a door fronting the landing, then stopped, and turned round to Arthur.

“It’s a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours,” he said. “You give me five shillings, and I give you in return a clean, comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that you won’t be interfered with, or annoyed in anyway, by the man who sleeps in the same room with you.” Saying those words, he looked hard, for a moment, in young Holliday’s face, and then led the way into the room.

It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would be. The two beds stood parallel with each other, a space of about six feet intervening between them. They were both of the same medium size, and both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round them.

The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains were all drawn round it except the half curtain at the bottom, on the side of the bed furthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced softly to draw the curtain – stopped half way, and listened for a moment – then turned to the landlord.

“He is a very quiet sleeper,” said Arthur. “Yes,” said the landlord, “very quiet.” Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at the man cautiously.

“How pale he is,” said Arthur.

“Yes,” returned the landlord, “pale enough, isn’t he?”

Arthur looked closer at the man. The bedclothes were drawn up to his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the region of his chest. Surprised and vaguely startled as he noticed this, Arthur stooped down closer over the stranger, looked at his ashy, parted lips, listened breathlessly for an instant, looked again at the strangely still face, and the motionless lips and chest, and turned round suddenly on the landlord with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the hollow cheeks of the man on the bed.

“Come here,” he whispered, under his breath. “Come here, for God’s sake! The man’s not asleep – he is dead.”

“You have found that out sooner than I thought you would,” said the landlord, composedly. “Yes, he’s dead, sure enough. He died at five o’clock today.”

“How did he die? Who is he?” asked Arthur, staggered for the moment by the audacious coolness of the answer.

“As to who is he,” rejoined the landlord, “I know no more about him than you do. There are his books, and letters, and things all sealed up in that brown paper parcel for the coroner’s inquest to open tomorrow or next day. He’s been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and stopping indoors, for the most part, as if he was ailing. My girl brought him up his tea at five today, and as he was pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a compound of both, for anything I know. We couldn’t bring him to, and I said he was dead. And, the doctor couldn’t bring him to, and the doctor said he was dead. And there he is. And the coroner’s inquest’s coming as soon as it can. And that’s as much as I know about it.”

Arthur held the candle close to the man’s lips. The flame still burned straight up as steadily as ever. There was a moment of silence, and the rain pattered drearily through it against the panes of the window.

“If you haven’t got nothing more to say to me,” continued the landlord, “I suppose I may go. You don’t expect your five shillings back, do you? There’s the bed I promised you, clean and comfortable. There’s the man I warranted not to disturb you, quiet in this world forever. If you’re frightened to stop alone with him, that’s not my lookout. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I’m not Yorkshire myself, young gentleman, but I’ve lived long enough in these parts to have my wits sharpened, and I shouldn’t wonder if you found out the way to brighten up yours next time you come among us.”

With these words the landlord turned toward the door, and laughed to himself softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness.

Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in which the landlord exulted in it.

“Don’t laugh,” he said sharply, “till you are quite sure you have got the laugh against me. You shan’t have the five shillings for nothing, my man. I’ll keep the bed.”

“Will you?” said the landlord. “Then I wish you a good night’s rest.” With that brief farewell he went out and shut the door after him.

A good night’s rest! The words had hardly been spoken, the door had hardly been closed, before Arthur half repented the hasty words that had just escaped him. Though not naturally over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage of the moral as well as the physical sort, the presence of the dead man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when he found himself alone in the room – alone, and bound by his own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An older man would have thought nothing of those words, and would have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the ridicule even of his inferiors with contempt – too young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own foolish boast more than he feared the trial of watching out the long night in the same chamber with the dead.

“It is but a few hours,” he thought to himself, “and I can get away the first thing in the morning.”

He was looking toward the occupied bed as that idea passed through his mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the clothes by the dead man’s upturned feet again caught his eye. He advanced and drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it.

“Poor fellow,” he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the man. “Ah! poor fellow!”

He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily against the glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the house, remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings over it.

While he was still standing at the window – for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it – while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house was astir the next morning?

Under any other circumstances he would have gone down to the public-house parlour, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was now distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer and no trials to face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that is divided among us all had lain dormant within him. Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought.

He took a few turns up and down the room, then stopped. The noise made by his boots on the poorly-carpeted floor jarred on his ear. He hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and walking backward and forward noiselessly.

All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man. Who was he? What was the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he would not have stopped at such a place as the Two Robins Inn; and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could hardly have died in the manner which the landlord had described. Poor, ill, lonely – dead in a strange place – dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad story; truly, on the mere face of it, a very sad story.

While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he looked at it absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on it; and then a perverse desire took possession of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not to do up to this time – to look at the dead man.

He stretched out his hand toward the curtains, but checked himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back sharply on the bed, and walked toward the chimney-piece, to see what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the dead man out of his mind in that way.

There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and flyblown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zigzag directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took the card and went away to read it at the table on which the candle was placed, sitting down with his back resolutely turned to the curtained bed.

He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one corner of the card, then turned it round impatiently to look at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here the sound of the church clock stopped him.

Eleven.

He had got through an hour of the time in the room with the dead man.

Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make out the letters printed on it in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him – a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burned into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off from time to time in little flakes. He took up the snuffers now and trimmed the wick. The light brightened directly, and the room became less dismal.

Again he turned to the riddles, reading them doggedly and resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another. All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on them. He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no sort of impression from what he was reading. It was as if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind and the gaily printed letters – a shadow that nothing could dispel. At last he gave up the struggle, threw the card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly up and down the room again.

The dead man, the dead man, the hidden dead man on the bed!

There was the one persistent idea still haunting him. Hidden! Was it only the body being there, or was it the body being there concealed, that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the window with that doubt in him, once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out into the black darkness.

Still the dead man!

The darkness forced his mind back upon itself, and set his memory at work, reviving with a painfully vivid distinctness the momentary impression it had received from his first sight of the corpse. Before long the face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness, confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter – with the dreadful dull line of light between the imperfectly-closed eyelids broader than he had seen it – with the parted lips slowly dropping further and further away from each other – with the features growing larger and moving closer, till they seemed to fill the window, and to silence the rain, and to shut out the night.

The sound of a voice shouting below stairs woke him suddenly from the dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognised it as the voice of the landlord.

“Shut up at twelve, Ben,” he heard it say. “I’m off to bed.”

He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead, reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a moment, the solemn reality. Without allowing himself an instant to hesitate, he parted the curtains at the foot of the bed, and looked through.

There was the sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change there! He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the curtains again, but that moment steadied him, calmed him, restored him – mind and body – to himself. He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the room, persevering in it this time till the clock struck again.

Twelve.

As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by the confused noise downstairs of the drinkers in the taproom leaving the house. The next sound, after an interval of silence, was caused by the barring of the door and the closing of the shutters at the back of the inn. Then the silence followed again, and was disturbed no more.

He was alone now – absolutely, hopelessly alone with the dead man till the next morning.

The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the snuffers, but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and looked attentively at the candle – then back, over his shoulder, at the curtained bed – then again at the candle. It had been lighted for the first time to show him the way upstairs, and three parts of it, at least, were already consumed. In another hour it would be burned out. In another hour, unless he called at once to the man who had shut up the inn for a fresh candle, he would be left in the dark.

Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered the room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule and of exposing his courage to suspicion had not altogether lost its influence over him even yet.

He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the door, and call from the landing, to the man who had shut up the inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a hairbreadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and the room was plunged in pitch darkness.

The one impression which the absence of light immediately produced on his mind was distrust of the curtained bed – distrust which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was powerful enough, in its very vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to make his heart beat fast, and to set him listening intently. No sound stirred in the room, but the familiar sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper now than he had heard it yet.

Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed him, and kept him in his chair. He had put his carpetbag on the table when he first entered the room, and he now took the key from his pocket, reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, and groped in it for his travelling writing-case, in which he knew that there was a small store of matches. When he had got one of the matches he waited before he struck it on the coarse wooden table, and listened intently again without knowing why. Still there was no sound in the room but the steady, ceaseless rattling sound of the rain.

He lighted the candle again without another moment of delay, and, on the instant of its burning up, the first object in the room that his eyes sought for was the curtained bed.

Just before the light had been put out he had looked in that direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains.

When he looked at the bed now, he saw hanging over the side of it a long white hand.

It lay perfectly motionless midway on the side of the bed, where the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot met. Nothing more was visible. The clinging curtains hid everything but the long white hand.

He stood looking at it, unable to stir, unable to call out – feeling nothing, knowing nothing – every faculty he possessed gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long that first panic held him he never could tell afterward. It might have been only for a moment – it might have been for many minutes together. How he got to the bed – whether he ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly; how he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look in, he never has remembered, and never will remember to his dying day. It is enough that he did go to the bed, and that he did look inside the curtains.

The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the clothes; his face was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids were wide open. Changed as to position and as to one of the features, the face was otherwise fearfully and wonderfully unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead quiet were on it still.

One glance showed Arthur this – one glance before he flew breathlessly to the door and alarmed the house.

The man whom the landlord called “Ben” was the first to appear on the stairs. In three words Arthur told him what had happened, and sent him for the nearest doctor.

I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his patients for him during his absence in London; and I, for the time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for me from the inn when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon, but I was not at home, and medical assistance was sought for elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed. Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about “a dead man who had come to life again.” However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative medicine, and ran to the inn, expecting to find nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit.

My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment at finding myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the bedroom. It was no time then for giving or seeking explanations. We just shook hands amazedly, and then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room, and hurried to the man on the bed.

The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these, with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render under my direction, I dragged the man literally out of the jaws of death. In less than an hour from the time when I had been called in, he was alive and talking in the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the coroner’s inquest.

You will naturally ask me what had been the matter with him, and I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully sprinkled with what the children call hard words. I prefer telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could not be satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever. There are mysteries in life and the conditions of it which human science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to you that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally speaking, groping haphazard in the dark. I know (from the testimony of the doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that the vital machinery, so far as its action is appreciable by our senses, had, in this case, unquestionably stopped, and I am equally certain (seeing that I recovered him) that the vital principle was not extinct. When I add that he had suffered from a long and complicated illness, and that his whole nervous system was utterly deranged, I have told you all I really know of the physical condition of my dead-alive patient at the Two Robins Inn.

When he “came to,” as the phrase goes, he was a startling object to look at, with his colourless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked me about himself when he could speak made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise, and he told me that I was right.

He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been attached to a hospital; that he had lately returned to England, on his way to Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that he had been taken ill on the journey; and that he had stopped to rest and recover himself at Doncaster. He did not add a word about his name, or who he was, and of course I did not question him on the subject. All I inquired when he ceased speaking was what branch of the profession he intended to follow.

“Any branch,” he said, bitterly, “which will put bread into the mouth of a poor man.”

At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humoured way:

“My dear fellow” (everybody was “my dear fellow” with Arthur), “now you have come to life again, don’t begin by being down-hearted about your prospects. I’ll answer for it I can help you to some capital thing in the medical line, or, if I can’t, I know my father can.”

The medical student looked at him steadily.

“Thank you,” he said, coldly; then added, “May I ask who your father is?”

“He’s well enough known all about this part of the country,” replied Arthur. “He is a great manufacturer, and his name is Holliday.”

My hand was on the man’s wrist during this brief conversation. The instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I felt the pulse under my fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly with a bound, and beat afterward for a minute or two at the fever rate.

“How did you come here?” asked the stranger, quickly, excitably, passionately almost.

Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his first taking the bed at the inn.

“I am indebted to Mr. Holliday’s son, then, for the help that has saved my life,” said the medical student, speaking to himself, with a singular sarcasm in his voice. “Come here!”

He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony right hand.

“With all my heart,” said Arthur, taking his hand cordially. “I may confess it now,” he continued, laughing, “upon my honour, you almost frightened me out of my wits.”

The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes were fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur’s face, and his long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur’s hand. Young Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, amazed and puzzled by the medical student’s odd language and manners. The two faces were close together; I looked at them, and, to my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense of a likeness between them – not in features or complexion, but solely in expression. It must have been a strong likeness, or I should certainly not have found it out, for I am naturally slow at detecting resemblances between faces.

“You have saved my life,” said the strange man, still looking hard in Arthur’s face, still holding tightly by his hand. “If you had been my own brother, you could not have done more for me than that.”

He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words “my own brother,” and a change passed over his face as he pronounced them – a change that no language of mine is competent to describe.

“I hope I have not done being of service to you yet,” said Arthur. “I’ll speak to my father as soon as I get home.”

“You seem to be fond and proud of your father,” said the medical student. “I suppose, in return, he is fond and proud of you?”

“Of course he is,” answered Arthur, laughing. “Is there anything wonderful in that? Isn’t your father fond—”

The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday’s hand and turned his face away.

“I beg your pardon,” said Arthur. “I hope I have not unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your father?”

“I can’t well lose what I have never had,” retorted the medical student, with a harsh mocking laugh.

“What you have never had!”

The strange man suddenly caught Arthur’s hand again, suddenly looked once more hard in his face.

“Yes,” he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh. “You have brought a poor devil back into the world who has no business there. Do I astonish you? Well, I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men in my situation generally keep a secret. I have no name and no father. The merciful law of society tells me I am nobody’s son! Ask your father if he will be my father too, and help me on in life with the family name.”

Arthur looked at me more puzzled than ever.

I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the man’s wrist. No. In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this time, had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation about him.

Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking my advice about the future course of medical treatment to which he ought to subject himself. I said the matter required careful thinking over, and suggested that I should send him a prescription a little later. He told me to write it at once, as he would most likely be leaving Doncaster in the morning before I was up. It was quite useless to represent to him the folly and danger of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely and patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any reasons or explanations, and repeated to me that, if I wished to give him a chance of seeing my prescription, I must write it at once.

Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the loan of a travelling writing-case, which he said he had with him, and, bringing it to the bed, shook the notepaper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual careless way. With the paper there fell out on the counterpane of the bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-colour drawing of a landscape.

The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it. His eye fell on some initials neatly written in cipher in one corner. He started and trembled; his pale face grew whiter than over; his wild black eyes turned on Arthur, and looked through and through him.

“A pretty drawing,” he said, in a remarkably quiet tone of voice.

“Ah! and done by such a pretty girl,” said Arthur. “Oh, such a pretty girl! I wish it was not a landscape – I wish it was a portrait of her!”

“You admire her very much?”

Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for answer.

“Love at first sight,” said young Holliday, putting the drawing away again. “But the course of it doesn’t run smooth. It’s the old story. She’s monopolized, as usual; trammeled by a rash engagement to some poor man who is never likely to get money enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it in time, or I should certainly have risked a declaration when she gave me that drawing. Here, doctor, here is pen, ink, and paper all ready for you.”

“When she gave you that drawing? Gave it? gave it?”

He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed his eyes. A momentary distortion passed across his face, and I saw one of his hands clutch up the bedclothes and squeeze them hard. I thought he was going to be ill again, and begged that there might be no more talking. He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once more searchingly on Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly:

“You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may die out of your way. Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well as her drawing, after all?”

Before young Holliday could answer he turned to me, and said in a whisper: “Now for the prescription.” From that time, though he spoke to Arthur again, he never looked at him more.

When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved of it, and then astonished us both by abruptly wishing us good-night. I offered to sit up with him, and he shook his head. Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he said, shortly, with his face turned away, “No.” I insisted on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way when he found I was determined, and said he would accept the services of the waiter at the inn.

“Thank you both,” he said, as we rose to go. “I have one last favour to ask – not of you, doctor, for I leave you to exercise your professional discretion, but of Mr. Holliday.” His eyes, while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and never once turned toward Arthur. “I beg that Mr. Holliday will not mention to anyone, least of all to his father, the events that have occurred and the words that have passed in this room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory as, but for him, I might have been buried in my grave. I cannot give my reason for making this strange request. I can only implore him to grant it.”

His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on the pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the required pledge. I took young Holliday away with me immediately afterward to the house of my friend, determining to go back to the inn and to see the medical student again before he had left in the morning.

I returned to the inn at eight o’clock, purposely abstaining from waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night’s excitement on one of my friend’s sofas. A suspicion had occurred to me, as soon as I was alone in my bedroom, which made me resolve that Holliday and the stranger whose life he had saved should not meet again, if I could prevent it.

I have already alluded to certain reports or scandals which I knew of relating to the early life of Arthur’s father. While I was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed at the inn; of the change in the student’s pulse when he heard the name of Holliday; of the resemblance of expression that I had discovered between his face and Arthur’s; of the emphasis he had laid on those three words, “my own brother,” and of his incomprehensible acknowledgement of his own illegitimacy – while I was thinking of these things, the reports I have mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and linked themselves fast to the chain of my previous reflections. Something within me whispered, “It is best that those two young men should not meet again.” I felt it before I slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went as I told you, alone to the inn the next morning.

I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him.

I have now told you everything that I know for certain in relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the double-bedded room of the inn at Doncaster. What I have next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, strictly speaking, matter of fact.

I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out to be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more than probable that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who had given him the water-colour drawing of the landscape. That marriage took place a little more than a year after the events occurred which I have just been relating.

The young couple came to live in the neighbourhood in which I was then established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and was rather surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved with me, both before and after his marriage, on the subject of the young lady’s prior engagement. He only referred to it once when we were alone, merely telling me, on that occasion, that his wife had done all that honour and duty required of her in the matter, and that the engagement had been broken off with the full approval of her parents. I never heard more from him than this. For three years he and his wife lived together happily. At the expiration of that time the symptoms of a serious illness first declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her throughout. We had been great friends when she was well, and we became more attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many long and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when she suffered least. The result of one of those conversations I may briefly relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it that you please.

The interview to which I refer occurred shortly before her death.

I called one evening as usual, and found her alone, with a look in her eyes which told me she had been crying. She only informed me at first that she had been depressed in spirits, but by little and little she became more communicative, and confessed to me that she had been looking over some old letters which had been addressed to her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had been engaged to be married. I asked her how the engagement came to be broken off. She replied that it had not been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious way. The person to whom she was engaged – her first love, she called him – was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of their being married. He followed my profession, and went abroad to study. They had corresponded regularly until the time when, as she believed, he had returned to England. From that period she heard no more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament, and she feared that she might have inadvertently done or said something to offend him. However that might be, he had never written to her again, and after waiting a year she had married Arthur. I asked when the first estrangement had begun, and found that the time at which she ceased to hear anything of her first lover exactly corresponded with the time at which I had been called in to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins Inn.

A fortnight after that conversation she died. In course of time Arthur married again. Of late years he has lived principally in London, and I have seen little or nothing of him.

I have some years to pass over before I can approach to anything like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And even when that later period is reached, the little that I have to say will not occupy your attention for more than a few minutes.

One rainy autumn evening, while I was still practising as a country doctor, I was sitting alone, thinking over a case then under my charge, which sorely perplexed me, when I heard a low knock at the door of my room.

“Come in,” I cried, looking up curiously to see who wanted me.

After a momentary delay, the lock moved, and a long, white, bony hand stole round the door as it opened, gently pushing it over a fold in the carpet which hindered it from working freely on the hinges. The hand was followed by a man whose face instantly struck me with a very strange sensation. There was something familiar to me in the look of him, and yet it was also something that suggested the idea of change.

He quietly introduced himself as “Mr. Lorn,” presented to me some excellent professional recommendations, and proposed to fill the place, then vacant, of my assistant. While he was speaking I noticed it as singular that we did not appear to be meeting each other like strangers, and that, while I was certainly startled at seeing him, he did not appear to be at all startled at seeing me.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I thought I had met with him before. But there was something in his face, and something in my own recollections – I can hardly say what – which unaccountably restrained me from speaking and which as unaccountably attracted me to him at once, and made me feel ready and glad to accept his proposal.

He took his assistant’s place on that very day. We got on together as if we had been old friends from the first; but, throughout the whole time of his residence in my house, he never volunteered any confidences on the subject of his past life, and I never approached the forbidden topic except by hints, which he resolutely refused to understand.

I had long had a notion that my patient at the inn might have been a natural son of the elder Mr. Holliday’s, and that he might also have been the man who was engaged to Arthur’s first wife. And now another idea occurred to me, that Mr. Lorn was the only person in existence who could, if he chose, enlighten me on both those doubtful points. But he never did choose, and I was never enlightened. He remained with me till I removed to London to try my fortune there as a physician for the second time, and then he went his way and I went mine, and we have never seen one another since.

I can add no more. I may have been right in my suspicion, or I may have been wrong. All I know is that, in those days of my country practice, when I came home late, and found my assistant asleep, and woke him, he used to look, in coming to, wonderfully like the stranger at Doncaster as he raised himself in the bed on that memorable night.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE SIXTH DAY

An oppressively mild temperature, and steady, soft, settled rain – dismal weather for idle people in the country. Miss Jessie, after looking longingly out of the window, resigned herself to circumstances, and gave up all hope of a ride. The gardener, the conservatory, the rabbits, the raven, the housekeeper, and, as a last resource, even the neglected piano, were all laid under contribution to help her through the time. It was a long day, but thanks to her own talent for trifling, she contrived to occupy it pleasantly enough.

Still no news of my son. The time was getting on now, and it was surely not unreasonable to look for some tidings of him.

Today Morgan and I both finished our third and last stories. I corrected my brother’s contribution with no very great difficulty on this occasion, and numbered it Nine. My own story came next, and was thus accidentally distinguished as the last of the series – Number Ten. When I dropped the two corresponding cards into the bowl, the thought that there would be now no more to add seemed to quicken my prevailing sense of anxiety on the subject of George’s return. A heavy depression hung upon my spirits, and I went out desperately in the rain to shake my mind free of oppressing influences by dint of hard bodily exercise.

The number drawn this evening was Three. On the production of the corresponding manuscript it proved to be my turn to read again.

“I can promise you a little variety tonight,” I said, addressing our fair guest, “if I can promise nothing else. This time it is not a story of my own writing that I am about to read, but a copy of a very curious correspondence which I found among my professional papers.”

Jessie’s countenance fell. “Is there no story in it?” she asked, rather discontentedly.

“Certainly there is a story in it,” I replied – “a story of a much lighter kind than any we have yet read, and which may, on that account, prove acceptable, by way of contrast and relief, even if it fails to attract you by other means. I obtained the original correspondence, I must tell you, from the office of the Detective Police of London.”

Jessie’s face brightened. “That promises something to begin with,” she said.

“Some years since,” I continued, “there was a desire at headquarters to increase the numbers and efficiency of the Detective Police, and I had the honour of being one of the persons privately consulted on that occasion. The chief obstacle to the plan proposed lay in the difficulty of finding new recruits. The ordinary rank and file of the police of London are sober, trustworthy, and courageous men, but as a body they are sadly wanting in intelligence. Knowing this, the authorities took into consideration a scheme, which looked plausible enough on paper, for availing themselves of the services of that proverbially sharp class of men, the experienced clerks in attorney’s offices. Among the persons whose advice was sought on this point, I was the only one who dissented from the arrangement proposed. I felt certain that the really experienced clerks entrusted with conducting private investigations and hunting up lost evidence, were too well paid and too independently situated in their various offices to care about entering the ranks of the Detective Police, and submitting themselves to the rigid discipline of Scotland Yard, and I ventured to predict that the inferior clerks only, whose discretion was not to be trusted, would prove to be the men who volunteered for detective employment. My advice was not taken and the experiment of enlisting the clerks was tried in two or three cases. I was naturally interested in the result, and in due course of time I applied for information in the right quarter. In reply, the originals of the letters of which I am now about to read the copies were sent to me, with an intimation that the correspondence in this particular instance offered a fair specimen of the results of the experiment in the other cases. The letters amused me, and I obtained permission to copy them before I sent them back. You will now hear, therefore, by his own statement, how a certain attorney’s clerk succeeded in conducting a very delicate investigation, and how the regular members of the Detective Police contrived to help him through his first experiment.”

BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY:
THE BITER BIT

Extracted from the Correspondence
of the London Police.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE.

London, 4th July, 18 – .

Sergeant Bulmer – This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in looking up a case of importance, which will require all the attention of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young man who brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress you have made (if any) toward detecting the person or persons by whom the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he can of the matter now in your hands. He is to have the whole responsibility of the case, and the whole credit of his success if he brings it to a proper issue.

So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you.

A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place. His name is Matthew Sharpin, and he is to have the chance given him of dashing into our office at one jump – supposing he turns out strong enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly strong interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s clerk, and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the affairs of one of his master’s clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the giving him this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty much like giving him hush money to keep him quiet. However that may be, Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he succeeds with it he pokes his ugly nose into our office as sure as fate. I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at headquarters, and remain yours,

Francis Theakstone.

FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, 5th July, 18 – .

Dear Sir – Having now been favoured with the necessary instructions from Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have received relating to the report of my future proceedings which I am to prepare for examination at headquarters.

The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written before you send it to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice in case I want it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I am now engaged make it impossible for me to absent myself from the place where the robbery was committed until I have made some progress toward discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from consulting you personally. Hence the necessity of my writing down the various details, which might perhaps be better communicated by word of mouth. This, if I am not mistaken, is the position in which we are now placed. I state my own impressions on the subject in writing, in order that we may clearly understand each other at the outset; and have the honour to remain your obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN.

London, 5th July, 18 – .

Sir – You have begun by wasting time, ink, and paper. We both of us perfectly well knew the position we stood in toward each other when I sent you with my letter to Sergeant Bulmer. There was not the least need to repeat it in writing. Be so good as to employ your pen in future on the business actually in hand.

You have now three separate matters on which to write me. First, you have to draw up a statement of your instructions received from Sergeant Bulmer, in order to show us that nothing has escaped your memory, and that you are thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstances of the case which has been entrusted to you. Secondly, you are to inform me what it is you propose to do. Thirdly, you are to report every inch of your progress (if you make any) from day to day, and, if need be, from hour to hour as well. This is your duty. As to what my duty may be, when I want you to remind me of it, I will write and tell you so. In the meantime, I remain yours,

Francis Theakstone.

FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, 6th July, 18 – .

Sir – You are rather an elderly person, and as such, naturally inclined to be a little jealous of men like me, who are in the prime of their lives and their faculties. Under these circumstances, it is my duty to be considerate toward you, and not to bear too hardly on your small failings. I decline, therefore, altogether to take offence at the tone of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity of my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication out of my memory – in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you, and proceed to business.

My first duty is to draw up a full statement of the instructions I have received from Sergeant Bulmer. Here they are at your service, according to my version of them.

At Number Thirteen Rutherford Street, Soho, there is a stationer’s shop. It is kept by one Mr. Yatman. He is a married man, but has no family. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, the other inmates in the house are a lodger, a young single man named Jay, who occupies the front room on the second floor – a shopman, who sleeps in one of the attics, and a servant-of-all-work, whose bed is in the back kitchen. Once a week a charwoman comes to help this servant. These are all the persons who, on ordinary occasions, have means of access to the interior of the house, placed, as a matter of course, at their disposal. Mr. Yatman has been in business for many years, carrying on his affairs prosperously enough to realize a handsome independence for a person in his position. Unfortunately for himself, he endeavoured to increase the amount of his property by speculating. He ventured boldly in his investments; luck went against him; and rather less than two years ago he found himself a poor man again. All that was saved out of the wreck of his property was the sum of two hundred pounds.

Although Mr. Yatman did his best to meet his altered circumstances, by giving up many of the luxuries and comforts to which he and his wife had been accustomed, he found it impossible to retrench so far as to allow of putting by any money from the income produced by his shop. The business has been declining of late years, the cheap advertising stationers having done it injury with the public. Consequently, up to the last week, the only surplus property possessed by Mr. Yatman consisted of the two hundred pounds which had been recovered from the wreck of his fortune. This sum was placed as a deposit in a joint-stock bank of the highest possible character.

Eight days ago Mr. Yatman and his lodger, Mr. Jay, held a conversation on the subject of the commercial difficulties which are hampering trade in all directions at the present time. Mr. Jay (who lives by supplying the newspapers with short paragraphs relating to accidents, offences, and brief records of remarkable occurrences in general – who is, in short, what they call a penny-a-liner) told his landlord that he had been in the city that day and heard unfavourable rumours on the subject of the joint-stock banks. The rumours to which he alluded had already reached the ears of Mr. Yatman from other quarters, and the confirmation of them by his lodger had such an effect on his mind – predisposed as it was to alarm by the experience of his former losses – that he resolved to go at once to the bank and withdraw his deposit. It was then getting on toward the end of the afternoon, and he arrived just in time to receive his money before the bank closed.

He received the deposit in banknotes of the following amounts: one fifty-pound note, three twenty-pound notes, six ten-pound notes, and six five-pound notes. His object in drawing the money in this form was to have it ready to lay out immediately in trifling loans, on good security, among the small tradespeople of his district, some of whom are sorely pressed for the very means of existence at the present time. Investments of this kind seemed to Mr. Yatman to be the most safe and the most profitable on which he could now venture.

He brought the money back in an envelope placed in his breast pocket, and asked his shopman, on getting home, to look for a small, flat, tin cash-box, which had not been used for years, and which, as Mr. Yatman remembered it, was exactly of the right size to hold the banknotes. For some time the cash-box was searched for in vain. Mr. Yatman called to his wife to know if she had any idea where it was. The question was overheard by the servant-of-all-work, who was taking up the tea-tray at the time, and by Mr. Jay, who was coming downstairs on his way out to the theatre. Ultimately the cash-box was found by the shopman. Mr. Yatman placed the banknotes in it, secured them by a padlock, and put the box in his coat pocket. It stuck out of the coat pocket a very little, but enough to be seen. Mr. Yatman remained at home, upstairs, all that evening. No visitors called. At eleven o’clock he went to bed, and put the cash-box under his pillow.

When he and his wife woke the next morning the box was gone. Payment of the notes was immediately stopped at the Bank of England, but no news of the money has been heard of since that time.

So far the circumstances of the case are perfectly clear. They point unmistakably to the conclusion that the robbery must have been committed by some person living in the house. Suspicion falls, therefore, upon the servant-of-all-work, upon the shopman, and upon Mr. Jay. The two first knew that the cash-box was being inquired for by their master, but did not know what it was he wanted to put into it. They would assume, of course, that it was money. They both had opportunities (the servant when she took away the tea, and the shopman when he came, after shutting up, to give the keys of the till to his master) of seeing the cash-box in Mr. Yatman’s pocket, and of inferring naturally, from its position there, that he intended to take it into his bedroom with him at night.

Mr. Jay, on the other hand, had been told, during the afternoon’s conversation on the subject of joint-stock banks, that his landlord had a deposit of two hundred pounds in one of them. He also knew that Mr. Yatman left him with the intention of drawing that money out; and he heard the inquiry for the cash-box afterward, when he was coming downstairs. He must, therefore, have inferred that the money was in the house, and that the cash-box was the receptacle intended to contain it. That he could have had any idea, however, of the place in which Mr. Yatman intended to keep it for the night is impossible, seeing that he went out before the box was found, and did not return till his landlord was in bed. Consequently, if he committed the robbery, he must have gone into the bedroom purely on speculation.

Speaking of the bedroom reminds me of the necessity of noticing the situation of it in the house, and the means that exist of gaining easy access to it at any hour of the night.

The room in question is the back room on the first floor. In consequence of Mrs. Yatman’s constitutional nervousness on the subject of fire, which makes her apprehend being burned alive in her room, in case of accident, by the hampering of the lock if the key is turned in it, her husband has never been accustomed to lock the bedroom door. Both he and his wife are, by their own admission, heavy sleepers; consequently, the risk to be run by any evil-disposed persons wishing to plunder the bedroom was of the most trifling kind. They could enter the room by merely turning the handle of the door; and, if they moved with ordinary caution, there was no fear of their waking the sleepers inside. This fact is of importance. It strengthens our conviction that the money must have been taken by one of the inmates of the house, because it tends to show that the robbery, in this case, might have been committed by persons not possessed of the superior vigilance and cunning of the experienced thief.

Such are the circumstances, as they were related to Sergeant Bulmer, when he was first called in to discover the guilty parties, and, if possible, to recover the lost banknotes. The strictest inquiry which he could institute failed of producing the smallest fragment of evidence against any of the persons on whom suspicion naturally fell. Their language and behaviour on being informed of the robbery was perfectly consistent with the language and behaviour of innocent people. Sergeant Bulmer felt from the firs t that this was a case for private inquiry and secret observation. He began by recommending Mr. and Mrs. Yatman to affect a feeling of perfect confidence in the innocence of the persons living under their roof, and he then opened the campaign by employing himself in following the goings and comings, and in discovering the friends, the habits, and the secrets of the maid-of-all-work.

Three days and nights of exertion on his own part, and on that of others who were competent to assist his investigations, were enough to satisfy him that there was no sound cause for suspicion against the girl.

He next practised the same precaution in relation to the shopman. There was more difficulty and uncertainty in privately clearing up this person’s character without his knowledge, but the obstacles were at last smoothed away with tolerable success; and, though there is not the same amount of certainty in this case which there was in the case of the girl, there is still fair reason for supposing that the shopman has had nothing to do with the robbery of the cash-box.

As a necessary consequence of these proceedings, the range of suspicion now becomes limited to the lodger, Mr. Jay.

When I presented your letter of introduction to Sergeant Bulmer, he had already made some inquiries on the subject of this young man. The result, so far, has not been at all favourable. Mr. Jay’s habits are irregular; he frequents public houses, and seems to be familiarly acquainted with a great many dissolute characters; he is in debt to most of the tradespeople whom he employs; he has not paid his rent to Mr. Yatman for the last month; yesterday evening he came home excited by liquor, and last week he was seen talking to a prize-fighter; in short, though Mr. Jay does call himself a journalist, in virtue of his penny-a-line contributions to the newspapers, he is a young man of low tastes, vulgar manners, and bad habits. Nothing has yet been discovered in relation to him which redounds to his credit in the smallest degree.

I have now reported, down to the very last details, all the particulars communicated to me by Sergeant Bulmer. I believe you will not find an omission anywhere; and I think you will admit, though you are prejudiced against me, that a clearer statement of facts was never laid before you than the statement I have now made. My next duty is to tell you what I propose to do now that the case is confided to my hands.

In the first place, it is clearly my business to take up the case at the point where Sergeant Bulmer has left it. On his authority, I am justified in assuming that I have no need to trouble myself about the maid-of-all-work and the shopman. Their characters are now to be considered as cleared up. What remains to be privately investigated is the question of the guilt or innocence of Mr. Jay. Before we give up the notes for lost, we must make sure, if we can, that he knows nothing about them.

This is the plan that I have adopted, with the full approval of Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, for discovering whether Mr. Jay is or is not the person who has stolen the cash-box:

I propose today to present myself at the house in the character of a young man who is looking for lodgings. The back room on the second floor will be shown to me as the room to let, and I shall establish myself there tonight as a person from the country who has come to London to look for a situation in a respectable shop or office.

By this means I shall be living next to the room occupied by Mr. Jay. The partition between us is mere lath and plaster. I shall make a small hole in it, near the cornice, through which I can see what Mr. Jay does in his room, and hear every word that is said when any friend happens to call on him. Whenever he is at home, I shall be at my post of observation; whenever he goes out, I shall be after him. By employing these means of watching him, I believe I may look forward to the discovery of his secret – if he knows anything about the lost banknotes – as to a dead certainty.

What you may think of my plan of observation I cannot undertake to say. It appears to me to unite the invaluable merits of boldness and simplicity. Fortified by this conviction, I close the present communication with feelings of the most sanguine description in regard to the future, and remain your obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

7th July.

Sir – As you have not honoured me with any answer to my last communication, I assume that, in spite of your prejudices against me, it has produced the favourable impression on your mind which I ventured to anticipate. Gratified and encouraged beyond measure by the token of approval which your eloquent silence conveys to me, I proceed to report the progress that has been made in the course of the last twenty-four hours.

I am now comfortably established next door to Mr. Jay, and I am delighted to say that I have two holes in the partition instead of one. My natural sense of humour has led me into the pardonable extravagance of giving them both appropriate names. One I call my peep-hole, and the other my pipe-hole. The name of the first explains itself; the name of the second refers to a small tin pipe or tube inserted in the hole, and twisted so that the mouth of it comes close to my ear while I am standing at my post of observation. Thus, while I am looking at Mr. Jay through my peep-hole, I can hear every word that may be spoken in his room through my pipe-hole.

Perfect candour – a virtue which I have possessed from my childhood – compels me to acknowledge, before I go any further, that the ingenious notion of adding a pipe-hole to my proposed peep-hole originated with Mrs. Yatman. This lady – a most intelligent and accomplished person, simple, and yet distinguished in her manners, has entered into all my little plans with an enthusiasm and intelligence which I cannot too highly praise. Mr. Yatman is so cast down by his loss that he is quite incapable of affording me any assistance. Mrs. Yatman, who is evidently most tenderly attached to him, feels her husband’s sad condition of mind even more acutely than she feels the loss of the money, and is mainly stimulated to exertion by her desire to assist in raising him from the miserable state of prostration into which he has now fallen.

“The money, Mr. Sharpin,” she said to me yesterday evening, with tears in her eyes, “the money may be regained by rigid economy and strict attention to business. It is my husband’s wretched state of mind that makes me so anxious for the discovery of the thief. I may be wrong, but I felt hopeful of success as soon as you entered the house; and I believe that, if the wretch who robbed us is to be found, you are the man to discover him.” I accepted this gratifying compliment in the spirit in which it was offered, firmly believing that I shall be found, sooner or later, to have thoroughly deserved it.

Let me now return to business – that is to say, to my peep-hole and my pipe-hole.

I have enjoyed some hours of calm observation of Mr. Jay. Though rarely at home, as I understand from Mrs. Yatman, on ordinary occasions, he has been indoors the whole of this day. That is suspicious, to begin with. I have to report, further, that he rose at a late hour this morning (always a bad sign in a young man), and that he lost a great deal of time, after he was up, in yawning and complaining to himself of headache. Like other debauched characters, he ate little or nothing for breakfast. His next proceeding was to smoke a pipe – a dirty clay pipe, which a gentleman would have been ashamed to put between his lips. When he had done smoking he took out pen, ink and paper, and sat down to write with a groan – whether of remorse for having taken the banknotes, or of disgust at the task before him, I am unable to say. After writing a few lines (too far away from my peep-hole to give me a chance of reading over his shoulder), he leaned back in his chair, and amused himself by humming the tunes of popular songs. I recognised “My Mary Anne,”  “Bobbin’ Around,” and “Old Dog Tray,” among other melodies. Whether these do or do not represent secret signals by which he communicates with his accomplices remains to be seen. After he had amused himself for some time by humming, he got up and began to walk about the room, occasionally stopping to add a sentence to the paper on his desk. Before long he went to a locked cupboard and opened it. I strained my eyes eagerly, in expectation of making a discovery. I saw him take something carefully out of the cupboard – he turned round – and it was only a pint bottle of brandy! Having drunk some of the liquor, this extremely indolent reprobate lay down on his bed again, and in five minutes was fast asleep.

After hearing him snoring for at least two hours, I was recalled to my peep-hole by a knock at his door. He jumped up and opened it with suspicious activity.

A very small boy, with a very dirty face, walked in, said: “Please, sir, they’re waiting for you,” sat down on a chair with his legs a long way from the ground, and instantly fell asleep! Mr. Jay swore an oath, tied a wet towel round his head, and, going back to his paper, began to cover it with writing as fast as his fingers could move the pen. Occasionally getting up to dip the towel in water and tie it on again, he continued at this employment for nearly three hours; then folded up the leaves of writing, woke the boy, and gave them to him, with this remarkable expression: “Now, then, young sleepy-head, quick march! If you see the governor, tell him to have the money ready for me when I call for it.” The boy grinned and disappeared. I was sorely tempted to follow “sleepy-head,” but, on reflection, considered it safest still to keep my eye on the proceedings of Mr. Jay.

In half an hour’s time he put on his hat and walked out. Of course I put on my hat and walked out also. As I went downstairs I passed Mrs. Yatman going up. The lady has been kind enough to undertake, by previous arrangement between us, to search Mr. Jay’s room while he is out of the way, and while I am necessarily engaged in the pleasing duty of following him wherever he goes. On the occasion to which I now refer, he walked straight to the nearest tavern and ordered a couple of mutton-chops for his dinner. I placed myself in the next box to him, and ordered a couple of mutton-chops for my dinner. Before I had been in the room a minute, a young man of highly suspicious manners and appearance, sitting at a table opposite, took his glass of porter in his hand and joined Mr. Jay. I pretended to be reading the newspaper, and listened, as in duty bound, with all my might.

“Jack has been here inquiring after you,” says the young man.

“Did he leave any message?” asks Mr. Jay.

“Yes,” says the other. “He told me, if I met with you, to say that he wished very particularly to see you tonight, and that he would give you a look in at Rutherford Street at seven o’clock.”

“All right,” says Mr. Jay. “I’ll get back in time to see him.”

Upon this, the suspicious-looking young man finished his porter, and saying that he was rather in a hurry, took leave of his friend (perhaps I should not be wrong if I said his accomplice?), and left the room.

At twenty-five minutes and a half past six – in these serious cases it is important to be particular about time – Mr. Jay finished his chops and paid his bill. At twenty-six minutes and three-quarters I finished my chops and paid mine. In ten minutes more I was inside the house in Rutherford Street, and was received by Mrs. Yatman in the passage. That charming woman’s face exhibited an expression of melancholy and disappointment which it quite grieved me to see.

“I am afraid, ma’am,” says I, “that you have not hit on any little criminating discovery in the lodger’s room?”

She shook her head and sighed. It was a soft, languid, fluttering sigh – and, upon my life, it quite upset me. For the moment I forgot business, and burned with envy of Mr. Yatman.

“Don’t despair, ma’am,” I said, with an insinuating mildness which seemed to touch her. “I have heard a mysterious conversation – I know of a guilty appointment – and I expect great things from my peep-hole and my pipe-hole tonight. Pray don’t be alarmed, but I think we are on the brink of a discovery.”

Here my enthusiastic devotion to business got the better part of my tender feelings. I looked – winked – nodded – left her.

When I got back to my observatory, I found Mr. Jay digesting his mutton-chops in an armchair, with his pipe in his mouth. On his table were two tumblers, a jug of water, and the pint bottle of brandy. It was then close upon seven o’clock. As the hour struck the person described as “Jack” walked in.

He looked agitated – I am happy to say he looked violently agitated. The cheerful glow of anticipated success diffused itself (to use a strong expression) all over me, from head to foot. With breathless interest I looked through my peep-hole, and saw the visitor – the “Jack” of this delightful case – sit down, facing me, at the opposite side of the table to Mr. Jay. Making allowance for the difference in expression which their countenances just now happened to exhibit, these two abandoned villains were so much alike in other respects as to lead at once to the conclusion that they were brothers. Jack was the cleaner man and the better dressed of the two. I admit that, at the outset. It is, perhaps, one of my failings to push justice and impartiality to their utmost limits. I am no Pharisee; and where Vice has its redeeming point, I say, let Vice have its due – yes, yes, by all manner of means, let Vice have its due.

“What’s the matter now, Jack?” says Mr. Jay.

“Can’t you see it in my face?” says Jack. “My dear fellow, delays are dangerous. Let us have done with suspense, and risk it, the day after tomorrow.”

“So soon as that?” cries Mr. Jay, looking very much astonished. “Well, I’m ready, if you are. But, I say, Jack, is somebody else ready, too? Are you quite sure of that?”

He smiled as he spoke – a frightful smile – and laid a very strong emphasis on those two words, “Somebody else.” There is evidently a third ruffian, a nameless desperado, concerned in the business.

“Meet us tomorrow,” says Jack, “and judge for yourself. Be in the Regent’s Park at eleven in the morning, and look out for us at the turning that leads to the Avenue Road.”

“I’ll be there,” says Mr. Jay. “Have a drop of brandy-and-water? What are you getting up for? You’re not going already?”

“Yes, I am,” says Jack. “The fact is, I’m so excited and agitated that I can’t sit still anywhere for five minutes together. Ridiculous as it may appear to you, I’m in a perpetual state of nervous flutter. I can’t, for the life of me, help fearing that we shall be found out. I fancy that every man who looks twice at me in the street is a spy—”

At these words I thought my legs would have given way under me. Nothing but strength of mind kept me at my peep-hole – nothing else, I give you my word of honour.

“Stuff and nonsense!” cries Mr. Jay, with all the effrontery of a veteran in crime. “We have kept the secret up to this time, and we will manage cleverly to the end. Have a drop of brandy-and-water, and you will feel as certain about it as I do.”

Jack steadily refused the brandy-and-water, and steadily persisted in taking his leave.

“I must try if I can’t walk it off,” he said. “Remember tomorrow morning – eleven o’clock, Avenue Road, side of the Regent’s Park.”

With those words he went out. His hardened relative laughed desperately and resumed the dirty clay pipe.

I sat down on the side of my bed, actually quivering with excitement.

It is clear to me that no attempt has yet been made to change the stolen banknotes, and I may add that Sergeant Bulmer was of that opinion also when he left the case in my hands. What is the natural conclusion to draw from the conversation which I have just set down? Evidently that the confederates meet tomorrow to take their respective shares in the stolen money, and to decide on the safest means of getting the notes changed the day after. Mr. Jay is, beyond a doubt, the leading criminal in this business, and he will probably run the chief risk – that of changing the fifty-pound note. I shall, therefore, still make it my business to follow him – attending at the Regent’s Par k tomorrow, and doing my best to hear what is said there. If another appointment is made for the day after, I shall, of course, go to it. In the meantime, I shall want the immediate assistance of two competent persons (supposing the rascals separate after their meeting) to follow the two minor criminals. It is only fair to add that, if the rogues all retire together, I shall probably keep my subordinates in reserve. Being naturally ambitious, I desire, if possible, to have the whole credit of discovering this robbery to myself.

8th July.

I have to acknowledge, with thanks, the speedy arrival of my two subordinates – men of very average abilities, I am afraid; but, fortunately, I shall always be on the spot to direct them.

My first business this morning was necessarily to prevent possible mistakes by accounting to Mr. and Mrs. Yatman for the presence of two strangers on the scene. Mr. Yatman (between ourselves, a poor, feeble man) only shook his head and groaned. Mrs. Yatman (that superior woman) favoured me with a charming look of intelligence.

“Oh, Mr. Sharpin!” she said, “I am so sorry to see those two men! Your sending for their assistance looks as if you were beginning to be doubtful of success.”

I privately winked at her (she is very good in allowing me to do so without taking offence), and told her, in my facetious way, that she laboured under a slight mistake.

“It is because I am sure of success, ma’am, that I send for them. I am determined to recover the money, not for my own sake only, but for Mr. Yatman’s sake – and for yours.”

I laid a considerable amount of stress on those last three words. She said: “Oh, Mr. Sharpin!” again, and blushed of a heavenly red, and looked down at her work. I could go to the world’s end with that woman if Mr. Yatman would only die.

I sent off the two subordinates to wait until I wanted them at the Avenue Road gate of the Regent’s Park. Half-an-hour afterward I was following the same direction myself at the heels of Mr. Jay.

The two confederates were punctual to the appointed time. I blush to record it, but it is nevertheless necessary to state that the third rogue – the nameless desperado of my report, or, if you prefer it, the mysterious “somebody else” of the conversation between the two brothers – is – a woman! and, what is worse, a young woman! and, what is more lamentable still, a nice-looking woman! I have long resisted a growing conviction that, wherever there is mischief in this world, an individual of the fair sex is inevitably certain to be mixed up in it. After the experience of this morning, I can struggle against that sad conclusion no longer. I give up the sex – excepting Mrs. Yatman, I give up the sex.

The man named “Jack” offered the woman his arm. Mr. Jay placed himself on the other side of her. The three then walked away slowly among the trees. I followed them at a respectful distance. My two subordinates, at a respectful distance, also, followed me.

It was, I deeply regret to say, impossible to get near enough to them to overhear their conversation without running too great a risk of being discovered. I could only infer from their gestures and actions that they were all three talking with extraordinary earnestness on some subject which deeply interested them. After having been engaged in this way a full quarter of an hour, they suddenly turned round to retrace their steps. My presence of mind did not forsake me in this emergency. I signed to the two subordinates to walk on carelessly and pass them, while I myself slipped dexterously behind a tree. As they came by me, I heard “Jack” address these words to Mr. Jay:

“Let us say half-past ten tomorrow morning. And mind you come in a cab. We had better not risk taking one in this neighbourhood.”

Mr. Jay made some brief reply which I could not overhear. They walked back to the place at which they had met, shaking hands there with an audacious cordiality which it quite sickened me to see. They then separated. I followed Mr. Jay. My subordinates paid the same delicate attention to the other two.

Instead of taking me back to Rutherford Street, Mr. Jay led me to the Strand. He stopped at a dingy, disreputable-looking house, which, according to the inscription over the door, was a newspaper office, but which, in my judgement, had all the external appearance of a place devoted to the reception of stolen goods.

After remaining inside for a few minutes, he came out whistling, with his finger and thumb in his waistcoat pocket. Some men would now have arrested him on the spot. I remembered the necessity of catching the two confederates, and the importance of not interfering with the appointment that had been made for the next morning. Such coolness as this, under trying circumstances, is rarely to be found, I should imagine, in a young beginner, whose reputation as a detective policeman is still to make.

From the house of suspicious appearance Mr. Jay betook himself to a cigar-divan, and read the magazines over a cheroot. From the divan he strolled to the tavern and had his chops. I strolled to the tavern and had my chops. When he had done he went back to his lodging. When I had done I went back to mine. He was overcome with drowsiness early in the evening, and went to bed. As soon as I heard him snoring, I was overcome with drowsiness and went to bed also.

Early in the morning my two subordinates came to make their report.

They had seen the man named “Jack” leave the woman at the gate of an apparently respectable villa residence not far from the Regent’s Park. Left to himself, he took a turning to the right, which led to a sort of suburban street, principally inhabited by shopkeepers. He stopped at the private door of one of the houses, and let himself in with his own key – looking about him as he opened the door, and staring suspiciously at my men as they lounged along on the opposite side of the way. These were all the particulars which the subordinates had to communicate. I kept them in my room to attend on me, if needful, and mounted to my peep-hole to have a look at Mr. Jay.

He was occupied in dressing himself, and was taking extraordinary pains to destroy all traces of the natural slovenliness of his appearance. This was precisely what I expected. A vagabond like Mr. Jay knows the importance of giving himself a respectable look when he is going to run the risk of changing a stolen banknote. At five minutes past ten o’clock he had given the last brush to his shabby hat and the last scouring with bread-crumb to his dirty gloves. At ten minutes past ten he was in the street, on his way to the nearest cabstand, and I and my subordinates were close on his heels.

He took a cab and we took a cab. I had not overheard them appoint a place of meeting when following them in the Park on the previous day, but I soon found that we were proceeding in the old direction of the Avenue Road gate. The cab in which Mr. Jay was riding turned into the Park slowly. We stopped outside, to avoid exciting suspicion. I got out to follow the cab on foot. Just as I did so, I saw it stop, and detected the two confederates approaching it from among the trees. They got in, and the cab was turned about directly. I ran back to my own cab and told the driver to let them pass him, and then to follow as before.

The man obeyed my directions, but so clumsily as to excite their suspicions. We had been driving after them about three minutes (returning along the road by which we had advanced) when I looked out of the window to see how far they might be ahead of us. As I did this, I saw two hats popped out of the windows of their cab, and two faces looking back at me. I sank into my place in a cold sweat; the expression is coarse, but no other form of words can describe my condition at that trying moment.

“We are found out!” I said, faintly, to my two subordinates. They stared at me in astonishment. My feelings changed instantly from the depth of despair to the height of indignation.

“It is the cabman’s fault. Get out, one of you,” I said, with dignity – “get out, and punch his head.”

Instead of following my directions (I should wish this act of disobedience to be reported at headquarters) they both looked out of the window. Before I could pull them back they both sat down again. Before I could express my just indignation, they both grinned, and said to me: “Please to look out, sir!”

I did look out. Their cab had stopped.

Where?

At a church door!

What effect this discovery might have had upon the ordinary run of men I don’t know. Being of a strong religious turn myself, it filled me with horror. I have often read of the unprincipled cunning of criminal persons, but I never before heard of three thieves attempting to double on their pursuers by entering a church! The sacrilegious audacity of that proceeding is, I should think, unparalleled in the annals of crime.

I checked my grinning subordinates by a frown. It was easy to see what was passing in their superficial minds. If I had not been able to look below the surface, I might, on observing two nicely dressed men and one nicely dressed woman enter a church before eleven in the morning on a week day, have come to the same hasty conclusion at which my inferiors had evidently arrived. As it was, appearances had no power to impose on me. I got out, and, followed by one of my men, entered the church. The other man I sent round to watch the vestry door. You may catch a weasel asleep, but not your humble servant, Matthew Sharpin!

We stole up the gallery stairs, diverged to the organ-loft, and peered through the curtains in front. There they were, all three, sitting in a pew below – yes, incredible as it may appear, sitting in a pew below!

Before I could determine what to do, a clergyman made his appearance in full canonicals from the vestry door, followed by a clerk. My brain whirled and my eyesight grew dim. Dark remembrances of robberies committed in vestries floated through my mind. I trembled for the excellent man in full canonicals – I even trembled for the clerk.

The clergyman placed himself inside the altar rails. The three desperadoes approached him. He opened his book and began to read. What? you will ask.

I answer, without the slightest hesitation, the first lines of the Marriage Service.

My subordinate had the audacity to look at me, and then to stuff his pocket-handkerchief into his mouth. I scorned to pay any attention to him. After I had discovered that the man “Jack” was the bridegroom, and that the man Jay acted the part of father, and gave away the bride, I left the church, followed by my men, and joined the other subordinate outside the vestry door. Some people in my position would now have felt rather crestfallen, and would have begun to think that they had made a very foolish mistake. Not the faintest misgiving of any kind troubled me. I did not feel in the slightest degree depreciated in my own estimation. And even now, after a lapse of three hours, my mind remains, I am happy to say, in the same calm and hopeful condition.

As soon as I and my subordinates were assembled together outside the church, I intimated my intention of still following the other cab in spite of what had occurred. My reason for deciding on this course will appear presently. The two subordinates appeared to be astonished at my resolution. One of them had the impertinence to say to me:

“If you please, sir, who is it that we are after? A man who has stolen money, or a man who has stolen a wife?”

The other low person encouraged him by laughing. Both have deserved an official reprimand, and both, I sincerely trust, will be sure to get it.

When the marriage ceremony was over, the three got into their cab and once more our vehicle (neatly hidden round the corner of the church, so that they could not suspect it to be near them) started to follow theirs.

We traced them to the terminus of the Southwestern Railway. The newly-married couple took tickets for Richmond, paying their fare with a half sovereign, and so depriving me of the pleasure of arresting them, which I should certainly have done if they had offered a banknote. They parted from Mr. Jay, saying: “Remember the address – 14 Babylon Terrace. You dine with us tomorrow week.” Mr. Jay accepted the invitation, and added, jocosely, that he was going home at once to get off his clean clothes, and to be comfortable and dirty again for the rest of the day. I have to report that I saw him home safely, and that he is comfortable and dirty again (to use his own disgraceful language) at the present moment.

Here the affair rests, having by this time reached what I may call its first stage.

I know very well what persons of hasty judgement will be inclined to say of my proceedings thus far. They will assert that I have been deceiving myself all through in the most absurd way; they will declare that the suspicious conversations which I have reported referred solely to the difficulties and dangers of successfully carrying out a runaway match; and they will appeal to the scene in the church as offering undeniable proof of the correctness of their assertions. So let it be. I dispute nothing up to this point. But I ask a question, out of the depths of my own sagacity as a man of the world, which the bitterest of my enemies will not, I think, find it particularly easy to answer.

Granted the fact of the marriage, what proof does it afford me of the innocence of the three persons concerned in that clandestine transaction? It gives me none. On the contrary, it strengthens my suspicions against Mr. Jay and his confederates, because it suggests a distinct motive for their stealing the money. A gentleman who is going to spend his honeymoon at Richmond wants money; and a gentleman who is in debt to all his tradespeople wants money. Is this an unjustifiable imputation of bad motives? In the name of outraged Morality, I deny it. These men have combined together, and have stolen a woman. Why should they not combine together and steal a cash-box? I take my stand on the logic of rigid Virtue, and I defy all the sophistry of Vice to move me an inch out of my position.

Speaking of virtue, I may add that I have put this view of the case to Mr. and Mrs. Yatman. That accomplished and charming woman found it difficult at first to follow the close chain of my reasoning. I am free to confess that she shook her head, and shed tears, and joined her husband in premature lamentation over the loss of the two hundred pounds. But a little careful explanation on my part, and a little attentive listening on hers, ultimately changed her opinion. She now agrees with me that there is nothing in this unexpected circumstance of the clandestine marriage which absolutely tends to divert suspicion from Mr. Jay, or Mr. “Jack,” or the runaway lady. “Audacious hussy” was the term my fair friend used in speaking of her; but let that pass. It is more to the purpose to record that Mrs. Yatman has not lost confidence in me, and that Mr. Yatman promises to follow her example, and do his best to look hopefully for future results.

I have now, in the new turn that circumstances have taken, to await advice from your office. I pause for fresh orders with all the composure of a man who has got two strings to his bow. When I traced the three confederates from the church door to the railway terminus, I had two motives for doing so. First, I followed them as a matter of official business, believing them still to have been guilty of the robbery. Secondly, I followed them as a matter of private speculation, with a view of discovering the place of refuge to which the runaway couple intended to retreat, and of making my information a marketable commodity to offer to the young lady’s family and friends. Thus, whatever happens, I may congratulate myself beforehand on not having wasted my time. If the office approves of my conduct, I have my plan ready for further proceedings. If the office blames me, I shall take myself off, with my marketable information, to the genteel villa residence in the neighbourhood of the Regent’s Park. Anyway, the affair puts money into my pocket, and does credit to my penetration as an uncommonly sharp man.

I have only one word more to add, and it is this: If any individual ventures to assert that Mr. Jay and his confederates are innocent o f all share in the stealing of the cash-box, I, in return, defy that individual – though he may even be Chief Inspector Theakstone himself – to tell me who has committed the robbery at Rutherford Street, Soho.

Strong in that conviction, I have the honour to be your very obedient servant,

Matthew Sharpin.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO SERGEANT BULMER.

Birmingham, July 9th.

Sergeant Bulmer – That empty-headed puppy, Mr. Matthew Sharpin, has made a mess of the case at Rutherford Street, exactly as I expected he would. Business keeps me in this town, so I write to you to set the matter straight. I enclose with this the pages of feeble scribble-scrabble which the creature Sharpin calls a report. Look them over; and when you have made your way through all the gabble, I think you will agree with me that the conceited booby has looked for the thief in every direction but the right one. You can lay your hand on the guilty person in five minutes, now. Settle the case at once; forward your report to me at this place, and tell Mr. Sharpin that he is suspended till further notice.

Yours, Francis Theakstone.

FROM SERGEANT BULMER TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.

London, July 10th.

Inspector Theakstone – Your letter and enclosure came safe to hand. Wise men, they say, may always learn something even from a fool. By the time I had got through Sharpin’s maundering report of his own folly, I saw my way clear enough to the end of the Rutherford Street case, just as you thought I should. In half an hour’s time I was at the house. The first person I saw there was Mr. Sharpin himself.

“Have you come to help me?” says he.

“Not exactly,” says I. “I’ve come to tell you that you are suspended till further notice.”

“Very good,” says he, not taken down by so much as a single peg in his own estimation. “I thought you would be jealous of me. It’s very natural and I don’t blame you. Walk in, pray, and make yourself at home. I’m off to do a little detective business on my own account, in the neighbourhood of the Regent’s Park. Ta – ta, sergeant, ta – ta!”

With those words he took himself out of the way, which was exactly what I wanted him to do.

As soon as the maid-servant had shut the door, I told her to inform her master that I wanted to say a word to him in private. She showed me into the parlour behind the shop, and there was Mr. Yatman all alone, reading the newspaper.

“About this matter of the robbery, sir,” says I.

He cut me short, peevishly enough, being naturally a poor, weak, womanish sort of man.

“Yes, yes, I know,” says he. “You have come to tell me that your wonderfully clever man, who has bored holes in my second floor partition, has made a mistake, and is off the scent of the scoundrel who has stolen my money.”

“Yes, sir,” says I. “That is one of the things I came to tell you. But I have got something else to say besides that.”

“Can you tell me who the thief is?” says he, more pettish than ever.

“Yes, sir,” says I, “I think I can.”

He put down the newspaper, and began to look rather anxious and frightened.

“Not my shopman?” says he. “I hope, for the man’s own sake, it’s not my shopman.”

“Guess again, sir,” says I.

“That idle slut, the maid?” says he.

“She is idle, sir,” says I, “and she is also a slut; my first inquiries about her proved as much as that. But she’s not the thief.”

“Then, in the name of Heaven, who is?” says he.

“Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise, sir?” says I. “And, in case you lose your temper, will you excuse my remarking that I am the stronger man of the two, and that if you allow yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure self-defence.”

He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away from me.

“You have asked me to tell you, sir, who has taken your money,” I went on. “If you insist on my giving you an answer—”

“I do insist,” he said, faintly. “Who has taken it?”

“Your wife has taken it,” I said, very quietly, and very positively at the same time.

He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck his fist on the table so heavily that the wood cracked again.

“Steady, sir,” says I. “Flying into a passion won’t help you to the truth.”

“It’s a lie!” says he, with another smack of his fist on the table – “a base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you—”

He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.

“When your better sense comes back to you, sir,” says I, “I am sure you will be gentleman enough to make an apology for the language you have just used. In the meantime, please to listen, if you can, to a word of explanation. Mr. Sharpin has sent in a report to our inspector of the most irregular and ridiculous kind, setting down not only all his own foolish doings and sayings, but the doings and sayings of Mrs. Yatman as well. In most cases, such a document would have been fit only for the waste paper basket; but in this particular case it so happens that Mr. Sharpin’s budget of nonsense leads to a certain conclusion, which the simpleton of a writer has been quite innocent of suspecting from the beginning to the end. Of that conclusion I am so sure that I will forfeit my place if it does not turn out that Mrs. Yatman has been practising upon the folly and conceit of this young man, and that she has tried to shield herself from discovery by purposely encouraging him to suspect the wrong persons. I tell you that confidently; and I will even go further. I will undertake to give a decided opinion as to why Mrs. Yatman took the money, and what she has done with it, or with a part of it. Nobody can look at that lady, sir, without being struck by the great taste and beauty of her dress—”

As I said those last words, the poor man seemed to find his powers of speech again. He cut me short directly as haughtily as if he had been a duke instead of a stationer.

“Try some other means of justifying your vile calumny against my wife,” says he. “Her milliner’s bill for the past year is on my file of receipted accounts at this moment.”

“Excuse me, sir,” says I, “but that proves nothing. Milliners, I must tell you, have a certain rascally custom which comes within the daily experience of our office. A married lady who wishes it can keep two accounts at her dressmaker’s; one is the account which her husband sees and pays; the other is the private account, which contains all the extravagant items, and which the wife pays secretly, by installments, whenever she can. According to our usual experience, these installments are mostly squeezed out of the housekeeping money. In your case, I suspect, no installments have been paid; proceedings have been threatened; Mrs. Yatman, knowing your altered circumstances, has felt herself driven into a corner, and she has paid her private account out of your cash-box.”

“I won’t believe it,” says he. “Every word you speak is an abominable insult to me and to my wife.”

“Are you man enough, sir,” says I, taking him up short, in order to save time and words, “to get that receipted bill you spoke of just now off the file, and come with me at once to the milliner’s shop where Mrs. Yatman deals?”

He turned red in the face at that, got the bill directly, and put on his hat. I took out of my pocketbook the list containing the numbers of the lost notes, and we left the house together immediately.

Arrived at the milliner’s (one of the expensive West-End houses, as I expected), I asked for a private interview, on important business, with the mistress of the concern. It was not the first time that she and I had met over the same delicate investigation. The moment she set eyes on me she sent for her husband. I mentioned who Mr. Yatman was, and what we wanted.

“This is strictly private?” inquires the husband. I nodded my head.

“And confidential?” says the wife. I nodded again.

“Do you see any objection, dear, to obliging the sergeant with a sight of the books?” says the husband.

“None in the world, love, if you approve of it,” says the wife.

All this while poor Mr. Yatman sat looking the picture of astonishment and distress, quite out of place at our polite conference. The books were brought, and one minute’s look at the pages in which Mrs. Yatman’s name figured was enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of every word that I had spoken.

There, in one book, was the husband’s account which Mr. Yatman had settled; and there, in the other, was the private account, crossed off also, the date of settlement being the very day after the loss of the cash-box. This said private account amounted to the sum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds, odd shillings, and it extended over a period of three years. Not a single installment had been paid on it. Under the last line was an entry to this effect: “Written to for the third time, June 23d.” I pointed to it, and asked the milliner if that meant “last June.” Yes, it did mean last June; and she now deeply regretted to say that it had been accompanied by a threat of legal proceedings.

“I thought you gave good customers more than three years’ credit?” says I.

The milliner looks at Mr. Yatman, and whispers to me, “Not when a lady’s husband gets into difficulties.”

She pointed to the account as she spoke. The entries after the time when Mr. Yatman’s circumstances became involved were just as extravagant, for a person in his wife’s situation, as the entries for the year before that period. If the lady had economized in other things, she had certainly not economized in the matter of dress.

There was nothing left now but to examine the cash-book, for form’s sake. The money had been paid in notes, the amounts and numbers of which exactly tallied with the figures set down in my list.

After that, I thought it best to get Mr. Yatman out of the house immediately. He was in such a pitiable condition that I called a cab and accompanied him home in it. At first he cried and raved like a child; but I soon quieted him; and I must add, to his credit, that he made me a most handsome apology for his language as the cab drew up at his house door. In return, I tried to give him some advice about how to set matters right for the future with his wife. He paid very little attention to me, and went upstairs muttering to himself about a separation. Whether Mrs. Yatman will come cleverly out of the scrape or not seems doubtful. I should say myself that she would go into screeching hysterics, and so frighten the poor man into forgiving her. But this is no business of ours. So far as we are concerned, the case is now at an end, and the present report may come to a conclusion along with it.

I remain, accordingly, yours to command,

Thomas Bulmer.

P.S. – I have to add that, on leaving Rutherford Street, I met Mr. Matthew Sharpin coming to pack up his things.

“Only think!” says he, rubbing his hands in great spirits, “I’ve been to the genteel villa residence, and the moment I mentioned my business they kicked me out directly. There were two witnesses of the assault, and it’s worth a hundred pounds to me if it’s worth a farthing.”

“I wish you joy of your luck,” says I.

“Thank you,” says he. “When may I pay you the same compliment on finding the thief?”

“Whenever you like,” says I, “for the thief is found.”

“Just what I expected,” says he. “I’ve done all the work, and now you cut in and claim all the credit – Mr. Jay, of course.”

“No,” says I.

“Who is it then?” says he.

“Ask Mrs. Yatman,” says I. “She’s waiting to tell you.”

“All right! I’d much rather hear it from that charming woman than from you,” says he, and goes into the house in a mighty hurry.

What do you think of that, Inspector Theakstone? Would you like to stand in Mr. Sharpin’s shoes? I shouldn’t, I can promise you.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN.

July 12th.

Sir – Sergeant Bulmer has already told you to consider yourself suspended until further notice. I have now authority to add that your services as a member of the Detective police are positively declined. You will please to take this letter as notifying officially your dismissal from the force.

I may inform you, privately, that your rejection is not intended to cast any reflections on your character. It merely implies that you are not quite sharp enough for our purposes. If we are to have a new recruit among us, we should infinitely prefer Mrs. Yatman.

Your obedient servant,

Francis Theakstone.

NOTE ON THE PRECEDING CORRESPONDENCE, ADDED BY MR. THEAKSTONE.

The inspector is not in a position to append any explanations of importance to the last of the letters. It has been discovered that Mr. Matthew Sharpin left the house in Rutherford Street five minutes after his interview outside of it with Sergeant Bulmer, his manner expressing the liveliest emotions of terror and astonishment, and his left cheek displaying a bright patch of red, which looked as if it might have been the result of what is popularly termed a smart box on the ear. He was also heard by the shopman at Rutherford Street to use a very shocking expression in reference to Mrs. Yatman, and was seen to clinch his fist vindictively as he ran round the corner of the street. Nothing more has been heard of him; and it is conjectured that he has left London with the intention of offering his valuable services to the provincial police.

On the interesting domestic subject of Mr. and Mrs. Yatman still less is known. It has, however, been positively ascertained that the medical attendant of the family was sent for in a great hurry on the day when Mr. Yatman returned from the milliner’s shop. The neighbouring chemist received, soon afterward, a prescription of a soothing nature to make up for Mrs. Yatman. The day after, Mr. Yatman purchased some smelling-salts at the shop, and afterward appeared at the circulating library to ask for a novel descriptive of high life that would amuse an invalid lady. It has been inferred from these circumstances that he has not thought it desirable to carry out his threat of separating from his wife, at least in the present (presumed) condition of that lady’s sensitive nervous system.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE SEVENTH DAY

Fine enough for our guest to go out again. Long, feathery lines of white cloud are waving upward in the sky, a sign of coming wind.

There was a steamer telegraphed yesterday from the West Indies. When the next vessel is announced from abroad, will it be George’s ship?

I don’t know how my brothers feel today, but the sudden cessation of my own literary labours has left me still in bad spirits. I tried to occupy my mind by reading, but my attention wandered. I went out into the garden, but it looked dreary; the autumn flowers were few and far between – the lawn was soaked and sodden with yesterday’s rain. I wandered into Owen’s room. He had returned to his painting, but was not working, as it struck me, with his customary assiduity and his customary sense of enjoyment.

We had a long talk together about George and Jessie and the future. Owen urged me to risk speaking of my son in her presence once more, on the chance of making her betray herself on a second occasion, and I determined to take his advice. But she was in such high spirits when she came home to dinner on this Seventh Day, and seemed so incapable, for the time being, of either feeling or speaking seriously, that I thought it wiser to wait till her variable mood altered again with the next wet day.

The number drawn this evening was Eight, being the number of the story which it had cost Owen so much labour to write. He looked a little fluttered and anxious as he opened the manuscript. This was the first occasion on which his ability as a narrator was to be brought to the test, and I saw him glance nervously at Jessie’s attentive face.

“I need not trouble you with much in the way of preface,” he said. “This is the story of a very remarkable event in the life of one of my brother clergymen. He and I became acquainted through being associated with each other in the management of a Missionary Society. I saw him for the last time in London when he was about to leave his country and his friends forever, and was then informed of the circumstances which have afforded the material for this narrative.”

BROTHER OWEN’S STORY:
THE PARSON’S SCRUPLE

•  I  •

If you had been in the far West of England about thirteen years since, and if you had happened to take up one of the Cornish newspapers on a certain day of the month, which need not be specially mentioned, you would have seen this notice of a marriage at the top of a column:

On the third instant, at the parish church, the Reverend Alfred Carling, Rector of Penliddy, to Emily Harriet, relict of the late Fergus Duncan, Esq., of Glendarn, N. B.

The rector’s marriage did not produce a very favourable impression in the town, solely in consequence of the unaccountable private and unpretending manner in which the ceremony had been performed. The middle-aged bride and bridegroom had walked quietly to church one morning, had been married by the curate before anyone was aware of it, and had embarked immediately afterward in the steamer for Tenby, where they proposed to pass their honeymoon. The bride being a stranger at Penliddy, all inquiries about her previous history were fruitless, and the townspeople had no alternative but to trust to their own investigations for enlightenment when the rector and his wife came home to settle among their friends.

After six weeks’ absence Mr. and Mrs. Carling returned, and the simple story of the rector’s courtship and marriage was gathered together in fragments, by inquisitive friends, from his own lips and from the lips of his wife.

Mr. Carling and Mrs. Duncan had met at Torquay. The rector, who had exchanged houses and duties for the season with a brother clergyman settled at Torquay, had called on Mrs. Duncan in his clerical capacity, and had come away from the interview deeply impressed and interested by the widow’s manners and conversation. The visits were repeated; the acquaintance grew into friendship, and the friendship into love – ardent, devoted love on both sides.

Middle-aged man though he was, this was Mr. Carling’s first attachment, and it was met by the same freshness of feeling on the lady’s part. Her life with her first husband had not been a happy one. She had made the fatal mistake of marrying to please her parents rather than herself, and had repented it ever afterward. On her husband’s death his family had not behaved well to her, and she had passed her widowhood, with her only child, a daughter, in the retirement of a small Scotch town many miles away from the home of her married life. After a time the little girl’s health had begun to fail, and, by the doctor’s advice, she had migrated southward to the mild climate of Torquay. The change had proved to be of no avail; and, rather more than a year since, the child had died. The place where her darling was buried was a sacred place to her and she remained a resident at Torquay. Her position in the world was now a lonely one. She was herself an only child; her father and mother were both dead; and, excepting cousins, her one near relation left alive was a maternal uncle living in London.

These particulars were all related simply and unaffectedly before Mr. Carling ventured on the confession of his attachment. When he made his proposal of marriage, Mrs. Duncan received it with an excess of agitation which astonished and almost alarmed the inexperienced clergyman. As soon as she could speak, she begged with extraordinary earnestness and anxiety for a week to consider her answer, and requested Mr. Carling not to visit her on any account until the week had expired.

The next morning she and her maid departed for London. They did not return until the week for consideration had expired. On the eighth day Mr. Carling called again and was accepted.

The proposal to make the marriage as private as possible came from the lady. She had been to London to consult her uncle (whose health, she regretted to say, would not allow him to travel to Cornwall to give his niece away at the altar), and he agreed with Mrs. Duncan that the wedding could not be too private and unpretending. If it was made public, the family of her first husband would expect cards to be sent to them, and a renewal of intercourse, which would be painful on both sides, might be the consequence. Other friends in Scotland, again, would resent her marrying a second time at her age, and would distress her and annoy her future husband in many ways. She was anxious to break altogether with her past existence, and to begin a new and happier life untrammelled by any connection with former times and troubles. She urged these points, as she had received the offer of marriage, with an agitation which was almost painful to see. This peculiarity in her conduct, however, which might have irritated some men, and rendered others distrustful, had no unfavourable effect on Mr. Carling. He set it down to an excess of sensitiveness and delicacy which charmed him. He was himself – though he never would confess it – a shy, nervous man by nature. Ostentation of any sort was something which he shrank from instinctively, even in the simplest affairs of daily life; and his future wife’s proposal to avoid all the usual ceremony and publicity of a wedding was therefore more than agreeable to him – it was a positive relief.

The courtship was kept secret at Torquay, and the marriage was celebrated privately at Penliddy. It found its way into the local newspapers as a matter of course, but it was not, as usual in such cases, also advertised in the Times. Both husband and wife were equally happy in the enjoyment of their new life, and equally unsocial in taking no measures whatever to publish it to others.

Such was the story of the rector’s marriage. Socially, Mr. Carling’s position was but little affected either way by the change in his life. As a bachelor, his circle of friends had been a small one, and when he married he made no attempt to enlarge it. He had never been popular with the inhabitants of his parish generally. Essentially a weak man, he was, like other weak men, only capable of asserting himself positively in serious matters by running into extremes. As a consequence of this moral defect, he presented some singular anomalies in character. In the ordinary affairs of life he was the gentlest and most yielding of men, but in all that related to strictness of religious principle he was the sternest and the most aggressive of fanatics. In the pulpit he was a preacher of merciless sermons – an interpreter of the Bible by the letter rather than by the spirit, as pitiless and gloomy as one of the Puritans of old; while, on the other hand, by his own fireside he was considerate, forbearing, and humble almost to a fault. As a necessary result of this singular inconsistency of character, he was feared, and sometimes even disliked, by the members of his congregation who only knew him as their pastor, and he was prized and loved by the small circle of friends who also knew him as a man.

Those friends gathered round him more closely and more affectionately than ever after his marriage, not on his own account only, but influenced also by the attractions that they found in the society of his wife. Her refinement and gentleness of manner; her extraordinary accomplishments as a musician; her unvarying sweetness of temper, and her quick, winning, womanly intelligence in conversation, charmed everyone who approached her. She was quoted as a model wife and woman by all her husband’s friends, and she amply deserved the character that they gave her. Although no children came to cheer it, a happier and a more admirable married life has seldom been witnessed in this world than the life which was once to be seen in the rectory house at Penliddy.

With these necessary explanations, that preliminary part of my narrative of which the events may be massed together generally, for brevity’s sake, comes to a close. What I have next to tell is of a deeper and a more serious interest, and must be carefully related in detail.

•   •   •

The rector and his wife had lived together without, as I honestly believe, a harsh word or an unkind look once passing between them for upward of two years, when Mr. Carling took his first step toward the fatal future that was awaiting him by devoting his leisure hours to the apparently simple and harmless occupation of writing a pamphlet.

He had been connected for many years with one of our great Missionary Societies, and had taken as active a part as a country clergyman could in the management of its affairs. At the period of which I speak, certain influential members of the society had proposed a plan for greatly extending the sphere of its operations, trusting to a proportionate increase in the annual subscriptions to defray the additional expenses of the new movement. The question was not now brought forward for the first time. It had been agitated eight years previously, and the settlement of it had been at that time deferred to a future opportunity. The revival of the project, as usual in such cases, split the working members of the society into two parties; one party cautiously objecting to run any risks, the other hopefully declaring that the venture was a safe one, and that success was sure to attend it. Mr. Carling sided enthusiastically with the members who espoused this latter side of the question, and the object of his pamphlet was to address the subscribers to the society on the subject, and so to interest them in it as to win their charitable support, on a larger scale than usual, to the new project.

He had worked hard at his pamphlet, and had got more than half way through it, when he found himself brought to a stand-still for want of certain facts which had been produced on the discussion of the question eight years since, and which were necessary to the full and fair statement of his case.

At first he thought of writing to the secretary of the society for information; but, remembering that he had not held his office more than two years, he had thought it little likely that this gentleman would be able to help him, and looked back to his own Diary of the period to see if he had made any notes in it relating to the original discussion of the affair. He found a note referring in general terms only to the matter in hand, but alluding at the end to a report in the Times of the proceedings of a deputation from the society which had waited on a member of the government of that day, and to certain letters to the editor which had followed the publication of the report. The note described these letters as “very important,” and Mr. Carling felt, as he put his Diary away again, that the successful conclusion of his pamphlet now depended on his being able to get access to the back numbers of the Times of eight years since.

It was winter time when he was thus stopped in his work, and the prospect of a journey to London (the only place he knew of at which files of the paper were to be found) did not present many attractions; and yet he could see no other and easier means of effecting his object. After considering for a little while and arriving at no positive conclusion, he left the study, and went into the drawing-room to consult his wife.

He found her working industriously by the blazing fire. She looked so happy and comfortable – so gentle and charming in her pretty little lace cap, and her warm brown morning-dress, with its bright cherry-coloured ribbons, and its delicate swan’s down trimming circling round her neck and nestling over her bosom, that he stooped and kissed her with the tenderness of his bridegroom days before he spoke. When he told her of the cause that had suspended his literary occupation, she listened, with the sensation of the kiss still lingering in her downcast eyes and her smiling lips, until he came to the subject of his Diary and its reference to the newspaper.

As he mentioned the name of the Times she altered and looked him straight in the face gravely.

“Can you suggest any plan, love,” he went on, “which may save me the necessity of a journey to London at this bleak time of the year? I must positively have this information, and, so far as I can see, London is the only place at which I can hope to meet with a file of the Times.”

“A file of the Times?” she repeated.

“Yes – of eight years since,” he said.

The instant the words passed his lips he saw her face overspread by a ghastly paleness; her eyes fixed on him with a strange mixture of rigidity and vacancy in their look; her hands, with her work held tight in them, dropped slowly on her lap, and a shiver ran through her from head to foot.

He sprang to his feet, and snatched the smelling-salts from her worktable, thinking she was going to faint. She put the bottle from her, when he offered it, with a hand that thrilled him with the deadly coldness of its touch, and said, in a whisper:

“A sudden chill, dear – let me go upstairs and lie down.”

He took her to her room. As he laid her down on the bed, she caught his hand, and said, entreatingly:

“You won’t go to London, darling, and leave me here ill?”

He promised that nothing should separate him from her until she was well again, and then ran downstairs to send for the doctor. The doctor came, and pronounced that Mrs. Carling was only suffering from a nervous attack; that there was not the least reason to be alarmed; and that, with proper care, she would be well again in a few days.

Both husband and wife had a dinner engagement in the town for that evening. Mr. Carling proposed to write an apology and to remain with his wife. But she would not hear of his abandoning the party on her account. The doctor also recommended that his patient should be left to her maid’s care, to fall asleep under the influence of the quieting medicine which he meant to give her. Yielding to this advice, Mr. Carling did his best to suppress his own anxieties, and went to the dinner-party.

•  II  •

Among the guests whom the rector met was a gentleman named Rambert, a single man of large fortune, well known in the neighbourhood of Penliddy as the owner of a noble country-seat and the possessor of a magnificent library.

Mr. Rambert (with whom Mr. Carling was well acquainted) greeted him at the dinner-party with friendly expressions of regret at the time that had elapsed since they had last seen each other, and mentioned that he had recently been adding to his collection of books some rare old volumes of theology, which he thought the rector might find it useful to look over. Mr. Carling, with the necessity of finishing his pamphlet uppermost in his mind, replied, jestingly, that the species of literature which he was just then most interested in examining happened to be precisely of the sort which (excepting novels, perhaps) had least affinity to theological writing. The necessary explanation followed this avowal as a matter of course, and, to Mr. Carling’s great delight, his friend turned on him gaily with the most surprising and satisfactory of answers:

“You don’t know half the resources of my miles of bookshelves,” he said, “or you would never have thought of going to London for what you can get from me. A whole side of one of my rooms upstairs is devoted to periodical literature. I have reviews, magazines, and three weekly newspapers, bound, in each case, from the first number; and, what is just now more to your purpose, I have the Times for the last fifteen years in huge half-yearly volumes. Give me the date tonight, and you shall have the volume you want by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”

The necessary information was given at once, and, with a great sense of relief, so far as his literary anxieties were concerned, Mr. Carling went home early to see what the quieting medicine had done for his wife.

She had dozed a little, but had not slept. However, she was evidently better, for she was able to take an interest in the sayings and doings at the dinner-party, and questioned her husband about the guests and the conversation with all a woman’s curiosity about the minutest matters. She lay with her face turned toward him and her eyes meeting his, until the course of her inquiries drew an answer from him, which informed her of his fortunate discovery in relation to Mr. Rambert’s library, and of the prospect it afforded of his resuming his labours the next day.

When he mentioned this circumstance, she suddenly turned her head on the pillow so that her face was hidden from him, and he could see through the counterpane that the shivering, which he had observed when her illness had seized her in the morning, had returned again.

“I am only cold,” she said, in a hurried way, with her face under the clothes.

He rang for the maid, and had a fresh covering placed on the bed. Observing that she seemed unwilling to be disturbed, he did not remove the clothes from her face when he wished her goodnight, but pressed his lips on her head, and patted it gently with his hand. She shrank at the touch as if it hurt her, light as it was, and he went downstairs, resolved to send for the doctor again if she did not get to rest on being left quiet. In less than half an hour afterward the maid came down and relieved his anxiety by reporting that her mistress was asleep.

The next morning he found her in better spirits. Her eyes, she said, felt too weak to bear the light, so she kept the bedroom darkened. But in other respects she had little to complain of.

After answering her husband’s first inquiries, she questioned him about his plans for the day. He had letters to write which would occupy him until twelve o’clock. At two o’clock he expected the volume of the Times to arrive, and he should then devote the rest of the afternoon to his work. After hearing what his plans were, Mrs. Carling suggested that he should ride out after he had done his letters, so as to get some exercise at the fine part of the day; and she then reminded him that a longer time than usual had elapsed since he had been to see a certain old pensioner of his, who had nursed him as a child, and who was now bedridden, in a village at some distance, called Tringweighton. Although the rector saw no immediate necessity for making this charitable visit, the more especially as the ride to the village and back, and the intermediate time devoted to gossip, would occupy at least two hours and a half, he assented to his wife’s proposal, perceiving that she urged it with unusual earnestness, and being unwilling to thwart her, even in a trifle, at a time when she was ill.

Accordingly, his horse was at the door at twelve precisely. Impatient to get back to the precious volume of the Times, he rode so much faster than usual, and so shortened his visit to the old woman, that he was home again by a quarter past two. Ascertaining from the servant who opened the door that the volume had been left by Mr. Rambert’s messenger punctually at two, he ran up to his wife’s room to tell her about his visit before he secluded himself for the rest of the afternoon over his work. On entering the bedroom he found it still darkened, and he was struck by a smell of burned paper in it.

His wife (who was now dressed in her wrapper and lying on the sofa) accounted for the smell by telling him that she had fancied the room felt close, and that she had burned some paper – being afraid of the cold air if she opened the window – to fumigate it. Her eyes were evidently still weak, for she kept her hand over them while she spoke. After remaining with her long enough to relate the few trivial events of his ride, Mr. Carling descended to his study to occupy himself at last with the volume of the Times.

It lay on his table in the shape of a large flat brown paper package. On proceeding to undo the covering, he observed that it had been very carelessly tied up. The strings were crooked and loosely knotted, and the direction bearing his name and address, instead of being in the middle of the paper, was awkwardly folded over at the edge of the volume. However, his business was with the inside of the parcel; so he tossed away the covering and the string, and began at once to hunt through the volume for the particular number of the paper which he wished first to consult.

He soon found it, with the report of the speeches delivered by the members of the deputation, and the answer returned by the minister. After reading through the report, and putting a mark in the place where it occurred, he turned to the next day’s number of the paper, to see what further hints on the subject the letters addressed to the editor might happen to contain.

To his inexpressible vexation and amazement, he found that one number of the paper was missing.

He bent the two sides of the volume back, looked closely between the leaves, and saw immediately that the missing number had been cut out.

A vague sense of something like alarm began to mingle with his first feeling of disappointment. He wrote at once to Mr. Rambert, mentioning the discovery he had just made, and sent the note off by his groom, with orders to the man to wait for an answer.

The reply with which the servant returned was almost insolent in the shortness and coolness of its tone. Mr. Rambert had no books in his library which were not in perfect condition. The volume of the Times had left his house perfect, and whatever blame might attach to the mutilation of it rested therefore on other shoulders than those of the owner.

Like many other weak men, Mr. Carling was secretly touchy on the subject of his dignity. After reading the note and questioning his servants, who were certain that the volume had not been touched till he had opened it, he resolved that the missing number of the Times should be procured at any expense and inserted in its place; that the volume should be sent back instantly without a word of comment; and that no more books from Mr. Rambert’s library should enter his house.

He walked up and down the study considering what first step he should take to effect the purpose in view. Under the quickening influence of his irritation, an idea occurred to him, which, if it had only entered his mind the day before, might probably have proved the means of saving him from placing himself under an obligation to Mr. Rambert. He resolved to write immediately to his bookseller and publisher in London (who knew him well as an old and excellent customer), mentioning the date of the back number of the Times that was required, and authorizing the publisher to offer any reward he judged necessary to any person who might have the means of procuring it at the office of the paper or elsewhere. This letter he wrote and dispatched in good time for the London post, and then went upstairs to see his wife and to tell her what had happened. Her room was still darkened and she was still on the sofa. On the subject of the missing number she said nothing, but of Mr. Rambert and his note she spoke with the most sovereign contempt. Of course the pompous old fool was mistaken, and the proper thing to do was to send back the volume instantly and take no more notice of him.

“It shall be sent back,” said Mr. Carling, “but not till the missing number is replaced.” And he then told her what he had done.

The effect of that simple piece of information on Mrs. Carling was so extraordinary and so unaccountable that her husband fairly stood aghast. For the first time since their marriage he saw her temper suddenly in a flame. She started up from the sofa and walked about the room as if she had lost her senses, upbraiding him for making the weakest of concessions to Mr. Rambert’s insolent assumption that the rector was to blame. If she could only have laid hands on that letter, she would have consulted her husband’s dignity and independence by putting it in the fire! She hoped and prayed the number of the paper might not be found! In fact, it was certain that the number, after all these years, could not possibly be hunted up. The idea of his acknowledging himself to be in the wrong in that way, when he knew himself to be in the right! It was almost ridiculous – no, it was quite ridiculous! And she threw herself back on the sofa, and suddenly burst out laughing.

At the first word of remonstrance which fell from her husband’s lips her mood changed again in an instant. She sprang up once more, kissed him passionately, with the tears streaming from her eyes, and implored him to leave her alone to recover herself. He quitted the room so seriously alarmed about her that he resolved to go to the doctor privately and question him on the spot. There was an unspeakable dread in his mind that the nervous attack from which she had been pronounced to be suffering might be a mere phrase intended to prepare him for the future disclosure of something infinitely and indescribably worse.

The doctor, on hearing Mr. Carling’s report, exhibited no surprise and held to his opinion. Her nervous system was out of order, and her husband had been needlessly frightened by a hysterical paroxysm. If she did not get better in a week, change of scene might then be tried. In the meantime, there was not the least cause for alarm.

On the next day she was quieter, but she hardly spoke at all. At night she slept well, and Mr. Carling’s faith in the medical man revived again.

The morning after was the morning which would bring the answer from the publisher in London. The rector’s study was on the ground floor, and when he heard the postman’s knock, being especially anxious that morning about his correspondence, he went out into the hall to receive his letters the moment they were put on the table.

It was not the footman who had answered the door, as usual, but Mrs. Carling’s maid. She had taken the letters from the postman, and she was going away with them upstairs.

He stopped her, and asked her why she did not put the letters on the hall table as usual. The maid, looking very much confused, said that her mistress had desired that whatever the postman had brought that morning should be carried up to her room. He took the letters abruptly from the girl, without asking any more questions, and went back into his study.

Up to this time no shadow of a suspicion had fallen on his mind. Hitherto there had been a simple obvious explanation for every unusual event that had occurred during the last three or four days; but this last circumstance in connection with the letters was not to be accounted for. Nevertheless, even now, it was not distrust of his wife that was busy at his mind – he was too fond of her and too proud of her to feel it – the sensation was more like uneasy surprise. He longed to go and question her, and get a satisfactory answer, and have done with it. But there was a voice speaking within him that had never made itself heard before – a voice with a persistent warning in it, that said, Wait; and look at your letters first.

He spread them out on the table with hands that trembled he knew not why. Among them was the back number of the Times for which he had written to London, with a letter from the publisher explaining the means by which the copy had been procured.

He opened the newspaper with a vague feeling of alarm at finding that those letters to the editor which he had been so eager to read, and that perfecting of the mutilated volume which he had been so anxious to accomplish, had become objects of secondary importance in his mind. An inexplicable curiosity about the general contents of the paper was now the one moving influence which asserted itself within him, he spread open the broad sheet on the table.

The first page on which his eye fell was the page on the right-hand side. It contained those very letters – three in number – which he had once been so anxious to see. He tried to read them, but no effort could fix his wandering attention. He looked aside to the opposite page, on the left hand. It was the page that contained the leading articles.

They were three in number. The first was on foreign politics; the second was a sarcastic commentary on a recent division in the House of Lords; the third was one of those articles on social subjects which have greatly and honourably helped to raise the reputation of the Times above all contest and all rivalry.

The lines of this third article which first caught his eye comprised the opening sentence of the second paragraph, and contained these words:

It appears, from the narrative which will be found in another part of our columns, that this unfortunate woman married, in the spring of the year 18—, one Mr. Fergus Duncan, of Glendarn, in the Highlands of Scotland.…

The letters swam and mingled together under his eyes before he could go on to the next sentence. His wife exhibited as an object for public compassion in the Times newspaper! On the brink of the dreadful discovery that was advancing on him, his mind reeled back, and a deadly faintness came over him. There was water on a side-table – he drank a deep draught of it – roused himself – seized on the newspaper with both hands, as if it had been a living thing that could feel the desperate resolution of his grasp, and read the article through, sentence by sentence, word by word.

The subject was the Law of Divorce, and the example quoted was the example of his wife.

At that time England stood disgracefully alone as the one civilized country in the world having a divorce law for the husband which was not also a divorce law for the wife. The writer in the Times boldly and eloquently exposed this discreditable anomaly in the administration of justice; hinted delicately at the unutterable wrongs suffered by Mrs. Duncan; and plainly showed that she was indebted to the accident of having been married in Scotland, and to her consequent right of appeal to the Scotch tribunals, for a full and final release from the tie that bound her to the vilest of husbands, which the English law of that day would have mercilessly refused.

He read that. Other men might have gone on to the narrative extracted from the Scotch newspaper. But at the last word of the article he stopped.

The newspaper, and the unread details which it contained, lost all hold on his attention in an instant, and in their stead, living and burning on his mind, like the Letters of Doom on the walls of Belshazzar, there rose up in judgement against him the last words of a verse in the Gospel of Saint Luke—

“Whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband, commiteth adultery.”

He had preached from these words, he had warned his hearers, with the whole strength of the fanatical sincerity that was in him, to beware of prevaricating with the prohibition which that verse contained, and to accept it as literally, unreservedly, finally forbidding the marriage of a divorced woman. He had insisted on that plain interpretation of plain words in terms which had made his congregation tremble. And now he stood alone in the secrecy of his own chamber self-convicted of the deadly sin which he had denounced – he stood, as he had told the wicked among his hearers that they would stand at the Last Day, before the Judgement Seat.

He was unconscious of the lapse of time; he never knew whether it was many minutes or few before the door of his room was suddenly and softly opened. It did open, and his wife came in.

In her white dress, with a white shawl thrown over her shoulders; her dark hair, so neat and glossy at other times, hanging tangled about her colourless cheeks, and heightening the glassy brightness of terror in her eyes – so he saw her; the woman put away from her husband – the woman whose love had made his life happy and had stained his soul with a deadly sin.

She came on to within a few paces of him without a word or a tear, or a shadow of change passing over the dreadful rigidity of her face. She looked at him with a strange look; she pointed to the newspaper crumpled in his hand with a strange gesture; she spoke to him in a strange voice.

“You know it!” she said.

His eyes met hers – she shrank from them – turned – and laid her arms and her head heavily against the wall.

“Oh, Alfred,” she said, “I was so lonely in the world, and I was so fond of you!”

The woman’s delicacy, the woman’s trembling tenderness welled up from her heart, and touched her voice with a tone of its old sweetness as she murmured those simple words.

She said no more. Her confession of her fault, her appeal to their past love for pardon, were both poured forth in that one sentence. She left it to his own heart to tell him the rest. How anxiously her vigilant love had followed his every word and treasured up his every opinion in the days when they first met; how weakly and falsely, and yet with how true an affection for him, she had shrunk from the disclosure which she knew but too well would have separated them even at the church door; how desperately she had fought against the coming discovery which threatened to tear her from the bosom she clung to, and to cast her out into the world with the shadow of her own shame to darken her life to the end – all this she left him to feel; for the moment which might part them forever was the moment when she knew best how truly, how passionately he had loved her.

His lips trembled as he stood looking at her in silence, and the slow, burning tears dropped heavily, one by one, down his cheeks. The natural human remembrance of the golden days of their companionship, of the nights and nights when that dear head – turned away from him now in unutterable misery and shame – had nestled itself so fondly and so happily on his breast, fought hard to silence his conscience, to root out his dreadful sense of guilt, to tear the words of Judgement from their ruthless hold on his mind, to claim him in the sweet names of Pity and of Love. If she had turned and looked at him at that moment, their next words would have been spoken in each other’s arms. But the oppression of her despair under his silence was too heavy for her, and she never moved.

He forced himself to look away from her; he struggled hard to break the silence between them.

“God forgive you, Emily!” he said.

As her name passed his lips, his voice failed him, and the torture at his heart burst its way out in sobs. He hurried to the door to spare her the terrible reproof of the grief that had now mastered him. When he passed her she turned toward him with a faint cry.

He caught her as she sank forward, and saved her from dropping on the floor. For the last time his arms closed round her. For the last time his lips touched hers – cold and insensible to him now. He laid her on the sofa and went out.

One of the female servants was crossing the hall. The girl started as she met him, and turned pale at the sight of his face. He could not speak to her, but he pointed to the study door. He saw her go into the room, and then left the house.

He never entered it more, and he and his wife never met again.

•   •   •

Later on that last day, a sister of Mr. Carling’s – a married woman living in the town – came to the rectory. She brought an open note with her, addressed to the unhappy mistress of the house. It contained these few lines, blotted and stained with tears:

May God grant us both the time for repentance! If I had loved you less, I might have trusted myself to see you again. Forgive me, and pity me, and remember me in your prayers, as I shall forgive, and pity, and remember you.

He had tried to write more, but the pen had dropped from his hand. His sister’s entreaties had not moved him. After giving her the note to deliver, he had solemnly charged her to be gentle in communicating the tidings that she bore, and had departed alone for London. He heard all remonstrances with patience. He did not deny that the deception of which his wife had been guilty was the most pardonable of all concealments of the truth, because it sprang from her love for him; but he had the same hopeless answer for everyone who tried to plead with him – the verse from the Gospel of Saint Luke.

His purpose in travelling to London was to make the necessary arrangements for his wife’s future existence, and then to get employment which would separate him from his home and from all its associations. A missionary expedition to one of the Pacific Islands accepted him as a volunteer. Broken in body and spirit, his last look of England from the deck of the ship was his last look at land. A fortnight afterward, his brethren read the burial-service over him on a calm, cloudless evening at sea. Before he was committed to the deep, his little pocket Bible, which had been a present from his wife, was, in accordance with his dying wishes, placed open on his breast, so that the inscription, “To my dear Husband,” might rest over his heart.

His unhappy wife still lives. When the farewell lines of her husband’s writing reached her she was incapable of comprehending them. The mental prostration which had followed the parting scene was soon complicated by physical suffering – by fever on the brain. To the surprise of all who attended her, she lived through the shock, recovering with the complete loss of one faculty, which, in her situation, poor thing, was a mercy and a gain to her – the faculty of memory. From that time to this she has never had the slightest gleam of recollection of anything that happened before her illness. In her happy oblivion, the veriest trifles are as new and as interesting to her as if she was beginning her existence again. Under the tender care of the friends who now protect her, she lives contentedly the life of a child. When her last hour comes, may she die with nothing on her memory but the recollection of their kindness!

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE EIGHTH DAY

The wind that I saw in the sky yesterday has come. It sweeps down our little valley in angry howling gusts, and drives the heavy showers before it in great sheets of spray.

There are some people who find a strangely exciting effect produced on their spirits by the noise, and rush, and tumult of the elements on a stormy day. It has never been so with me, and it is less so than ever now. I can hardly bear to think of my son at sea in such a tempest as this. While I can still get no news of his ship, morbid fancies beset me which I vainly try to shake off. I see the trees through my window bending before the wind. Are the masts of the good ship bending like them at this moment? I hear the wash of the driving rain. Is he hearing the thunder of the raging waves? If he had only come back last night! – it is vain to dwell on it, but the thought will haunt me – if he had only come back last night!

I tried to speak cautiously about him again to Jessie, as Owen had advised me; but I am so old and feeble now that this ill-omened storm has upset me, and I could not feel sure enough of my own self-control to venture on matching myself today against a light-hearted, lively girl, with all her wits about her. It is so important that I should not betray George – it would be so inexcusable on my part if his interests suffered, even accidentally, in my hands.

This was a trying day for our guest. Her few trifling indoor resources had, as I could see, begun to lose their attractions for her at last. If we were not now getting to the end of the stories, and to the end, therefore, of the Ten Days also, our chance of keeping her much longer at the Glen Tower would be a very poor one.

It was, I think, a great relief for us all to be summoned together this evening for a definite purpose. The wind had fallen a little as it got on toward dusk. To hear it growing gradually fainter and fainter in the valley below added immeasurably to the comforting influence of the blazing fire and the cheerful lights when the shutters were closed for the night.

The number drawn happened to be the last of the series – Ten – and the last also of the stories which I had written. There were now but two numbers left in the bowl. Owen and Morgan had each one reading more to accomplish before our guest’s stay came to an end, and the manuscripts in the Purple Volume were all exhausted.

“This new story of mine,” I said, “is not, like the story I last read, a narrative of adventure happening to myself, but of adventures that happened to a lady of my acquaintance. I was brought into contact, in the first instance, with one of her male relatives, and, in the second instance, with the lady herself, by certain professional circumstances which I need not particularly describe. They involved a dry question of wills and title-deeds in no way connected with this story, but sufficiently important to interest me as a lawyer. The case came to trial at the Assizes on my circuit, and I won it in the face of some very strong points, very well put, on the other side. I was in poor health at the time, and my exertions so completely knocked me up that I was confined to bed in my lodgings for a week or more—”

“And the grateful lady came and nursed you, I suppose,” said the Queen of Hearts, in her smart, offhand way.

“The grateful lady did something much more natural in her position, and much more useful in mine,” I answered – “she sent her servant to attend on me. He was an elderly man, who had been in her service since the time of her first marriage, and he was also one of the most sensible and well-informed persons whom I have ever met with in his station of life. From hints which he dropped while he was at my bedside, I discovered for the first time that his mistress had been unfortunate in her second marriage, and that the troubles of that period of her life had ended in one of the most singular events which had happened in that part of England for many a long day past. It is hardly necessary to say that, before I allowed the man to enter into any particulars, I stipulated that he should obtain his mistress’s leave to communicate what he knew. Having gained this, and having further surprised me by mentioning that he had been himself connected with all the circumstances, he told me the whole story in the fullest detail. I have now tried to reproduce it as nearly as I could in his own language. Imagine, therefore, that I am just languidly recovering in bed, and that a respectable elderly man, in quiet black costume, is sitting at my pillow and speaking to me in these terms—”

Thus ending my little preface, I opened the manuscript and began my last story.

BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY:
A PLOT IN PRIVATE LIFE

•  I  •

The first place I got when I began going out to service was not a very profitable one. I certainly gained the advantage of learning my business thoroughly, but I never had my due in the matter of wages. My master was made a bankrupt, and his servants suffered with the rest of his creditors.

My second situation, however, amply compensated me for my want of luck in the first. I had the good fortune to enter the service of Mr. and Mrs. Norcross. My master was a very rich gentleman. He had the Darrock house and lands in Cumberland, an estate also in Yorkshire, and a very large property in Jamaica, which produced, at that time and for some years afterward, a great income. Out in the West Indies he met with a pretty young lady, a governess in an English family, and, taking a violent fancy to her, married her, though she was a good five-and-twenty years younger than himself. After the wedding they came to England, and it was at this time that I was lucky enough to be engaged by them as a servant.

I lived with my new master and mistress three years. They had no children. At the end of that period Mr. Norcross died. He was sharp enough to foresee that his young widow would marry again, and he bequeathed his property so that it all went to Mrs. Norcross first, and then to any children she might have by a second marriage, and, failing that, to relations and friends of his own. I did not suffer by my master’s death, for his widow kept me in her service. I had attended on Mr. Norcross all through his last illness, and had made myself useful enough to win my mistress’s favour and gratitude. Besides me she also retained her maid in her service – a quadroon woman named Josephine, whom she brought with her from the West Indies. Even at that time I disliked the half-breed’s wheedling manners, and her cruel, tawny face, and wondered how my mistress could be so fond of her as she was. Time showed that I was right in distrusting this woman. I shall have much more to say about her when I get further advanced with my story.

Meanwhile I have next to relate that my mistress broke up the rest of her establishment, and, taking me and the lady’s maid with her, went to travel on the Continent.

Among other wonderful places we visited Paris, Genoa, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples, staying in some of those cities for months together. The fame of my mistress’s riches followed her wherever she went; and there were plenty of gentlemen, foreigners as well as Englishmen, who were anxious enough to get into her good graces and to prevail on her to marry them. Nobody succeeded, however, in producing any very strong or lasting impression on her; and when we came back to England, after more than two years of absence, Mrs. Norcross was still a widow, and showed no signs of wanting to change her condition.

We went to the house on the Yorkshire estate first; but my mistress did not fancy some of the company round about, so we moved again to Darrock Hall, and made excursions from time to time in the lake district, some miles off. On one of these trips Mrs. Norcross met with some old friends, who introduced her to a gentleman of their party bearing the very common and very uninteresting name of Mr. James Smith.

He was a tall, fine young man enough, with black hair, which grew very long, and the biggest, bushiest pair of black whiskers I ever saw. Altogether he had a rakish, unsettled look, and a bounceable way of talking which made him the prominent person in company. He was poor enough himself, as I heard from his servant, but well connected – a gentleman by birth and education, though his manners were so free. What my mistress saw to like in him I don’t know; but when she asked her friends to stay with her at Darrock, she included Mr. James Smith in the invitation. We had a fine, gay, noisy time of it at the Hall, the strange gentleman, in particular, making himself as much at home as if the place belonged to him. I was surprised at Mrs. Norcross putting up with him as she did, but I was fairly thunderstruck some months afterward when I heard that she and her free-and-easy visitor were actually going to be married! She had refused offers by dozens abroad, from higher, and richer, and better-behaved men. It seemed next to impossible that she could seriously think of throwing herself away upon such a hare-brained, headlong, penniless young gentleman as Mr. James Smith.

Married, nevertheless, they were, in due course of time; and, after spending the honeymoon abroad, they came back to Darrock Hall.

I soon found that my new master had a very variable temper. There were some days when he was as easy, and familiar, and pleasant with his servants as any gentleman need be. At other times some devil within him seemed to get possession of his whole nature. He flew into violent passions, and took wrong ideas into his head, which no reasoning or remonstrance could remove. It rather amazed me, considering how gay he was in his tastes, and how restless his habits were, that he should consent to live at such a quiet, dull place as Darrock. The reason for this, however, soon came out. Mr. James Smith was not much of a sportsman; he cared nothing for indoor amusements, such as reading, music, and so forth; and he had no ambition for representing the county in parliament. The one pursuit that he was really fond of was yachting. Darrock was within sixteen miles of a seaport town, with an excellent harbour, and to this accident of position the Hall was entirely indebted for recommending itself as a place of residence to Mr. James Smith.

He had such an untiring enjoyment and delight in cruising about at sea, and all his ideas of pleasure seemed to be so closely connected with his remembrance of the sailing trips he had taken on board different yachts belonging to his friends, that I verily believe his chief object in marrying my mistress was to get the command of money enough to keep a vessel for himself. Be that as it may, it is certain that he prevailed on her, sometime after their marriage, to make him a present of a fine schooner yacht, which was brought round from Cowes to our coast-town, and kept always waiting ready for him in the harbour.

His wife required some little persuasion before she could make up her mind to let him have the vessel. She suffered so much from seasickness that pleasure-sailing was out of the question for her; and, being very fond of her husband, she was naturally unwilling that he should engage in an amusement which took him away from her. However, Mr. James Smith used his influence over her cleverly, promising that he would never go away without first asking her leave, and engaging that his terms of absence at sea should never last for more than a week or ten days at a time. Accordingly, my mistress, who was the kindest and most unselfish woman in the world, put her own feelings aside, and made her husband happy in the possession of a vessel of his own.

While my master was away cruising, my mistress had a dull time of it at the Hall. The few gentlefolks there were in our part of the county lived at a distance, and could only come to Darrock when they were asked to stay there for some days together. As for the village near us, there was but one person living in it whom my mistress could think of asking to the Hall, and that person was the clergyman who did duty at the church.

This gentleman’s name was Mr. Meeke. He was a single man, very young, and very lonely in his position. He had a mild, melancholy, pasty-looking face, and was as shy and soft-spoken as a little girl – altogether, what one may call, without being unjust or severe, a poor, weak creature, and, out of all sight, the very worst preacher I ever sat under in my life. The one thing he did, which, as I heard, he could really do well, was playing on the fiddle. He was uncommonly fond of music – so much so that he often took his instrument out with him when he went for a walk. This taste of his was his great recommendation to my mistress, who was a wonderfully fine player on the piano, and who was delighted to get such a performer as Mr. Meeke to play duets with her. Besides liking his society for this reason, she felt for him in his lonely position; naturally enough, I think, considering how often she was left in solitude herself. Mr. Meeke, on his side, when he got over his first shyness, was only too glad to leave his lonesome little parsonage for the fine music-room at the Hall, and for the company of a handsome, kind-hearted lady, who made much of him, and admired his fiddle-playing with all her heart. Thus it happened that, whenever my master was away at sea, my mistress and Mr. Meeke were always together, playing duets as if they had their living to get by it. A more harmless connection than the connection between those two never existed in this world; and yet, innocent as it was, it turned out to be the first cause of all the misfortunes that afterward happened.

My master’s treatment of Mr. Meeke was, from the first, the very opposite of my mistress’s. The restless, rackety, bounceable Mr. James Smith felt a contempt for the weak, womanish, fiddling little parson, and, what was more, did not care to conceal it. For this reason, Mr. Meeke (who was dreadfully frightened by my master’s violent language and rough ways) very seldom visited at the Hall except when my mistress was alone there. Meaning no wrong, and therefore stooping to no concealment, she never thought of taking any measures to keep Mr. Meeke out of the way when he happened to be with her at the time of her husband’s coming home, whether it was only from a riding excursion in the neighbourhood or from a cruise in the schooner. In this way it so turned out that whenever my master came home, after a long or short absence, in nine cases out of ten he found the parson at the Hall.

At first he used to laugh at this circumstance, and to amuse himself with some coarse jokes at the expense of his wife and her companion. But, after a while, his variable temper changed, as usual. He grew sulky, rude, angry, and, at last, downright jealous of Mr. Meeke. Though too proud to confess it in so many words, he still showed the state of his mind clearly enough to my mistress to excite her indignation. She was a woman who could be led anywhere by anyone for whom she had a regard, but there was a firm spirit within her that rose at the slightest show of injustice or oppression, and that resented tyrannical usage of any sort perhaps a little too warmly. The bare suspicion that her husband could feel any distrust of her set her all in a flame, and she took the most unfortunate, and yet, at the same time, the most natural way for a woman, of resenting it. The ruder her husband was to Mr. Meeke the more kindly she behaved to him. This led to serious disputes and dissensions, and thence, in time, to a violent quarrel. I could not avoid hearing the last part of the altercation between them, for it took place in the garden-walk, outside the dining-room window, while I was occupied in laying the table for lunch.

Without repeating their words – which I have no right to do, having heard by accident what I had no business to hear – I may say generally, to show how serious the quarrel was, that my mistress charged my master with having married from mercenary motives, with keeping out of her company as much as he could, and with insulting her by a suspicion which it would be hard ever to forgive, and impossible ever to forget. He replied by violent language directed against herself, and by commanding her never to open the doors again to Mr. Meeke; she, on her side, declaring that she would never consent to insult a clergyman and a gentleman in order to satisfy the whim of a tyrannical husband. Upon that, he called out, with a great oath, to have his horse saddled directly, declaring that he would not stop another instant under the same roof with a woman who had set him at defiance, and warning his wife that he would come back, if Mr. Meeke entered the house again, and horsewhip him, in spite of his black coat, all through the village.

With those words he left her, and rode away to the seaport where his yacht was lying. My mistress kept up her spirit till he was out of sight, and then burst into a dreadful screaming passion of tears, which ended by leaving her so weak that she had to be carried to her bed like a woman who was at the point of death.

The same evening my master’s horse was ridden back by a messenger, who brought a scrap of notepaper with him addressed to me. It only contained these lines:

“Pack up my clothes and deliver them immediately to the bearer. You may tell your mistress that I sail tonight at eleven o’clock for a cruise to Sweden. Forward my letters to the post-office, Stockholm.”

I obeyed the orders given to me except that relating to my mistress. The doctor had been sent for, and was still in the house. I consulted him upon the propriety of my delivering the message. He positively forbade me to do so that night, and told me to give him the slip of paper, and leave it to his discretion to show it to her or not the next morning.

The messenger had hardly been gone an hour when Mr. Meeke’s housekeeper came to the Hall with a roll of music for my mistress. I told the woman of my master’s sudden departure, and of the doctor being in the house. This news brought Mr. Meeke himself to the Hall in a great flutter.

I felt so angry with him for being the cause – innocent as he might be – of the shocking scene which had taken place, that I exceeded the bounds of my duty, and told him the whole truth. The poor, weak, wavering, childish creature flushed up red in the face, then turned as pale as ashes, and dropped into one of the hall chairs crying – literally crying fit to break his heart. “Oh, William,” says he, wringing his little frail, trembling white hands as helpless as a baby, “oh, William, what am I to do?”

“As you ask me that question, sir,” says I, “you will excuse me, I hope, if, being a servant, I plainly speak my mind notwithstanding. I know my station well enough to be aware that, strictly speaking, I have done wrong, and far exceeded my duty, in telling you as much as I have told you already; but I would go through fire and water, sir,” says I, feeling my own eyes getting moist, “for my mistress’s sake. She has no relation here who can speak to you; and it is even better that a servant like me should risk being guilty of an impertinence, than that dreadful and lasting mischief should arise from the right remedy not being applied at the right time. This is what I should do, sir, in your place. Saving your presence, I should leave off crying; and go back home and write to Mr. James Smith, saying that I would not, as a clergyman, give him railing for railing, but would prove how unworthily he had suspected me by ceasing to visit at the Hall from this time forth, rather than be a cause of dissension between man and wife. If you will put that into proper language, sir, and will have the letter ready for me in half an hour’s time, I will call for it on the fastest horse in our stables, and, at my own risk, will give it to my master before he sails tonight. I have nothing more to say, sir, except to ask your pardon for forgetting my proper place, and for making bold to speak on a very serious matter as equal to equal, and as man to man.”

To do Mr. Meeke justice, he had a heart, though it was a very small one. He shook hands with me, and said he accepted my advice as the advice of a friend, and so went back to his parsonage to write the letter. In half an hour I called for it on horseback, but it was not ready for me. Mr. Meeke was ridiculously nice about how he should express himself when he got a pen into his hand. I found him with his desk littered with rough copies, in a perfect agony about how to turn his phrases delicately enough in referring to my mistress. Every minute being precious, I hurried him as much as I could, without standing on any ceremony. It took half an hour more, with all my efforts, before he could make up his mind that the letter would do. I started off with it at a gallop, and never drew rein till I got to the seaport town.

The harbour-clock chimed the quarter past eleven as I rode by it, and when I got down to the jetty there was no yacht to be seen. She had been cast off from her moorings ten minutes before eleven, and as the clock struck she had sailed out of the harbour. I would have followed in a boat, but it was a fine starlight night, with a fresh wind blowing, and the sailors on the pier laughed at me when I spoke of rowing after a schooner yacht which had got a quarter of an hour’s start of us, with the wind abeam and the tide in her favour.

I rode back with a heavy heart. All I could do now was to send the letter to the post-office, Stockholm.

The next day the doctor showed my mistress the scrap of paper with the message on it from my master, and an hour or two after that, a letter was sent to her in Mr. Meeke’s handwriting, explaining the reason why she must not expect to see him at the Hall, and referring to me in terms of high praise as a sensible and faithful man who had spoken the right word at the right time. I am able to repeat the substance of the letter, because I heard all about it from my mistress, under very unpleasant circumstances so far as I was concerned.

The news of my master’s departure did not affect her as the doctor had supposed it would. Instead of distressing her, it roused her spirit and made her angry; her pride, as I imagine, being wounded by the contemptuous manner in which her husband had notified his intention of sailing to Sweden at the end of a message to a servant about packing his clothes. Finding her in that temper of mind, the letter from Mr. Meeke only irritated her the more. She insisted on getting up, and as soon as she was dressed and downstairs, she vented her violent humour on me, reproaching me for impertinent interference in the affairs of my betters, and declaring that she had almost made up her mind to turn me out of my place for it. I did not defend myself, because I respected her sorrows and the irritation that came from them; also, because I knew the natural kindness of her nature well enough to be assured that she would make amends to me for her harshness the moment her mind was composed again. The result showed that I was right. That same evening she sent for me and begged me to forgive and forget the hasty words she had spoken in the morning with a grace and sweetness that would have won the heart of any man who listened to her.

Weeks passed after this, till it was more than a month since the day of my master’s departure, and no letter in his handwriting came to Darrock Hall.

My mistress, taking this treatment more angrily than sorrowfully, went to London to consult her nearest relations, who lived there. On leaving home she stopped the carriage at the parsonage, and went in (as I thought, rather defiantly) to say good-bye to Mr. Meeke. She had answered his letter, and received others from him, and had answered them likewise. She had also, of course, seen him every Sunday at church, and had always stopped to speak to him after the service; but this was the first occasion on which she had visited him at his house. As the carriage stopped, the little parson came out, in great hurry and agitation, to meet her at the garden gate.

“Don’t look alarmed, Mr. Meeke,” says my mistress, getting out. “Though you have engaged not to come near the Hall, I have made no promise to keep away from the parsonage.” With those words she went into the house.

The quadroon maid, Josephine, was sitting with me in the rumble of the carriage, and I saw a smile on her tawny face as the parson and his visitor went into the house together. Harmless as Mr. Meeke was, and innocent of all wrong as I knew my mistress to be, I regretted that she should be so rash as to despise appearances, considering the situation she was placed in. She had already exposed herself to be thought of disrespectfully by her own maid, and it was hard to say what worse consequences might not happen after that.

Half an hour later we were away on our journey. My mistress stayed in London two months. Throughout all that long time no letter from my master was forwarded to her from the country house.

•  II  •

When the two months had passed we returned to Darrock Hall. Nobody there had received any news in our absence of the whereabouts of my master and his yacht.

Six more weary weeks elapsed, and in that time but one event happened at the Hall to vary the dismal monotony of the lives we now led in the solitary place. One morning Josephine came down after dressing my mistress with her face downright livid to look at, except on one check, where there was a mark as red as burning fire. I was in the kitchen at the time, and I asked what was the matter.

“The matter!” says she, in her shrill voice and her half-foreign English. “Use your own eyes, if you please, and look at this cheek of mine. What! have you lived so long a time with your mistress, and don’t you know the mark of her hand yet?”

I was at a loss to understand what she meant, but she soon explained herself. My mistress, whose temper had been sadly altered for the worse by the trials and humiliations she had gone through, had got up that morning more out of humour than usual, and, in answer to her maid’s inquiry as to how she had passed the night, had begun talking about her weary, miserable life in an unusually fretful and desperate way. Josephine, in trying to cheer her spirits, had ventured, most improperly, on making a light, jesting reference to Mr. Meeke, which had so enraged my mistress that she turned round sharp on the half-breed and gave her – to use the common phrase – a smart box on the ear. Josephine confessed that, the moment after she had done this, her better sense appeared to tell her that she had taken a most improper way of resenting undue familiarity. She had immediately expressed her regret for having forgotten herself, and had proved the sincerity of it by a gift of half a dozen cambric handkerchiefs, presented as a peace-offering on the spot. After that I thought it impossible that Josephine could bear any malice against a mistress whom she had served ever since she had been a girl, and I said as much to her when she had done telling me what had happened upstairs.

“I! Malice!” cries Miss Josephine, in her hard, sharp, snappish way. “And why, and wherefore, if you please? If my mistress smacks my cheek with one hand, she gives me handkerchiefs to wipe it with the other. My good mistress, my kind mistress, my pretty mistress! I, the servant, bear malice against her, the mistress! Ah! you bad man, even to think of such a thing! Ah! fie, fie! I am quite ashamed of you!”

She gave me one look – the wickedest look I ever saw, and burst out laughing – the harshest laugh I ever heard from a woman’s lips. Turning away from me directly after, she said no more, and never referred to the subject again on any subsequent occasion.

From that time, however, I noticed an alteration in Miss Josephine; not in her way of doing her work, for she was just as sharp and careful about it as ever, but in her manners and habits. She grew amazingly quiet, and passed almost all her leisure time alone. I could bring no charge against her which authorized me to speak a word of warning; but, for all that, I could not help feeling that if I had been in my mistress’s place, I would have followed up the present of the cambric handkerchiefs by paying her a month’s wages in advance, and sending her away from the house the same evening.

With the exception of this little domestic matter, which appeared trifling enough at the time, but which led to very serious consequences afterward, nothing happened at all out of the ordinary way during the six weary weeks to which I have referred. At the beginning of the seventh week, however, an event occurred at last.

One morning the postman brought a letter to the Hall addressed to my mistress. I took it upstairs, and looked at the direction as I put it on the salver. The handwriting was not my master’s; was not, as it appeared to me, the handwriting of any well-educated person. The outside of the letter was also very dirty, and the seal a common office-seal of the usual lattice-work pattern. “This must be a begging-letter,” I thought to myself as I entered the breakfast-room and advanced with it to my mistress.

She held up her hand before she opened it as a sign to me that she had some order to give, and that I was not to leave the room till I had received it. Then she broke the seal and began to read the letter.

Her eyes had hardly been on it a moment before her face turned as pale as death, and the paper began to tremble in her fingers. She read on to the end, and suddenly turned from pale to scarlet, started out of her chair, crumpled the letter up violently in her hand, and took several turns backward and forward in the room, without seeming to notice me as I stood by the door. “You villain! you villain! you villain!” I heard her whisper to herself many times over, in a quick, hissing, fierce way. Then she stopped, and said on a sudden, “Can it be true?” Then she looked up, and, seeing me standing at the door, started as if I had been a stranger, changed colour again, and told me, in a stifled voice, to leave her and come back again in half an hour. I obeyed, feeling certain that she must have received some very bad news of her husband, and wondering, anxiously enough, what it might be.

When I returned to the breakfast-room her face was as much discomposed as ever. Without speaking a word she handed me two sealed letters: one, a note to be left for Mr. Meeke at the parsonage; the other, a letter marked “Immediate,” and addressed to her solicitor in London, who was also, I should add, her nearest living relative.

I left one of these letters and posted the other. When I came back I heard that my mistress had taken to her room. She remained there for four days, keeping her new sorrow, whatever it was, strictly to herself. On the fifth day the lawyer from London arrived at the Hall. My mistress went down to him in the library, and was shut up there with him for nearly two hours. At the end of that time the bell rang for me.

“Sit down, William,” said my mistress, when I came into the room. “I feel such entire confidence in your fidelity and attachment that I am about, with the full concurrence of this gentleman, who is my nearest relative and my legal adviser, to place a very serious secret in your keeping, and to employ your services on a matter which is as important to me as a matter of life and death.”

Her poor eyes were very red, and her lips quivered as she spoke to me. I was so startled by what she had said that I hardly knew which chair to sit in. She pointed to one placed near herself at the table, and seemed about to speak to me again, when the lawyer interfered.

“Let me entreat you,” he said, “not to agitate yourself unnecessarily. I will put this person in possession of the facts, and, if I omit anything, you shall stop me and set me right.”

My mistress leaned back in her chair and covered her face with her handkerchief. The lawyer waited a moment, and then addressed himself to me.

“You are already aware,” he said, “of the circumstances under which your master left this house, and you also know, I have no doubt, that no direct news of him has reached your mistress up to this time?”

I bowed to him and said I knew of the circumstances so far.

“Do you remember,” he went on, “taking a letter to your mistress five days ago?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied; “a letter which seemed to distress and alarm her very seriously.”

“I will read you that letter before we say any more,” continued the lawyer. “I warn you beforehand that it contains a terrible charge against your master, which, however, is not attested by the writer’s signature. I have already told your mistress that she must not attach too much importance to an anonymous letter; and I now tell you the same thing.”

Saying that, he took up a letter from the table and read it aloud. I had a copy of it given to me afterward, which I looked at often enough to fix the contents of the letter in my memory. I can now repeat them, I think, word for word.

Madam – I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to leave you in total ignorance of your husband’s atrocious conduct toward you. If you have ever been disposed to regret his absence do so no longer. Hope and pray, rather, that you and he may never meet face to face again in this world. I write in great haste and in great fear of being observed. Time fails me to prepare you as you ought to be prepared for what I have now to disclose. I must tell you plainly, with much respect for you and sorrow for your misfortune, that your husband has married another wife. I saw the ceremony performed, unknown to him. If I could not have spoken of this infamous act as an eyewitness, I would not have spoken of it at all.

I dare not acknowledge who I am, for I believe Mr. James Smith would stick at no crime to revenge himself on me if he ever came to a knowledge of the step I am now taking, and of the means by which I got my information; neither have I time to enter into particulars. I simply warn you of what has happened, and leave you to act on that warning as you please. You may disbelieve this letter, because it is not signed by any name. In that case, if Mr. James Smith should ever venture into your presence, I recommend you to ask him suddenly what he has done with his new wife, and to see if his countenance does not immediately testify that the truth has been spoken by

Your Unknown Friend.

Poor as my opinion was of my master, I had never believed him to be capable of such villainy as this, and I could not believe it when the lawyer had done reading the letter.

“Oh, sir,” I said, “surely that is some base imposition? Surely it cannot be true?”

“That is what I have told your mistress,” he answered. “But she says in return—”

“That I feel it to be true,” my mistress broke in, speaking behind the handkerchief in a faint, smothered voice.

“We need not debate the question,” the lawyer went on. “Our business now is to prove the truth or falsehood of this letter. That must be done at once. I have written to one of my clerks, who is accustomed to conducting delicate investigations, to come to this house without loss of time. He is to be trusted with anything, and he will pursue the needful inquiries immediately.

“It is absolutely necessary, to make sure of committing no mistakes, that he should be accompanied by someone who is well acquainted with Mr. James Smith’s habits and personal appearance, and your mistress has fixed upon you to be that person. However well the inquiry is managed, it may be attended by much trouble and delay, may necessitate a long journey, and may involve some personal danger. Are you,” said the lawyer, looking hard at me, “ready to suffer any inconvenience and to run any risk for your mistress’s sake?”

“There is nothing I can do, sir,” said I, “that I will not do. I am afraid I am not clever enough to be of much use; but, so far as troubles and risks are concerned, I am ready for anything from this moment.”

My mistress took the handkerchief from her face, looked at me with her eyes full of tears, and held out her hand. How I came to do it I don’t know, but I stooped down and kissed the hand she offered me, feeling half startled, half ashamed at my own boldness the moment after.

“You will do, my man,” said the lawyer, nodding his head. “Don’t trouble yourself about the cleverness or the cunning that may be wanted. My clerk has got head enough for two. I have only one word more to say before you go downstairs again. Remember that this investigation and the cause that leads to it must be kept a profound secret. Except us three, and the clergyman here (to whom your mistress has written word of what has happened), nobody knows anything about it. I will let my clerk into the secret when he joins us. As soon as you and he are away from the house, you may talk about it. Until then, you will close your lips on the subject.”

The clerk did not keep us long waiting. He came as fast as the mail from London could bring him.

I had expected, from his master’s description, to see a serious, sedate man, rather sly in his looks, and rather reserved in his manner. To my amazement, this practised hand at delicate investigations was a brisk, plump, jolly little man, with a comfortable double chin, a pair of very bright black eyes, and a big bottle-nose of the true groggy red colour. He wore a suit of black, and a limp, dingy white cravat; took snuff perpetually out of a very large box; walked with his hands crossed behind his back; and looked, upon the whole, much more like a parson of free-and-easy habits than a lawyer’s clerk.

“How d’ye do?” says he, when I opened the door to him. “I’m the man you expect from the office in London. Just say Mr. Dark, will you? I’ll sit down here till you come back; and, young man, if there is such a thing as a glass of ale in the house, I don’t mind committing myself so far as to say that I’ll drink it.”

I got him the ale before I announced him. He winked at me as he put it to his lips.

“Your good health,” says he. “I like you. Don’t forget that the name’s Dark; and just leave the jug and glass, will you, in case my master keeps me waiting.”

I announced him at once, and was told to show him into the library.

When I got back to the hall the jug was empty, and Mr. Dark was comforting himself with a pinch of snuff, snorting over it like a perfect grampus. He had swallowed more than a pint of the strongest old ale in the house; and, for all the effect it seemed to have had on him, he might just as well have been drinking so much water.

As I led him along the passage to the library Josephine passed us. Mr. Dark winked at me again, and made her a low bow.

“Lady’s maid,” I heard him whisper to himself. “A fine woman to look at, but a damned bad one to deal with.” I turned round on him, rather angry at his cool ways, and looked hard at him just before I opened the library door. Mr. Dark looked hard at me. “All right,” says he. “I can show myself in.” And he knocks at the door, and opens it, and goes in with another wicked wink, all in a moment.

Half an hour later the bell rang for me. Mr. Dark was sitting between my mistress (who was looking at him in amazement) and the lawyer (who was looking at him with approval). He had a map open on his knee, and a pen in his hand. Judging by his face, the communication of the secret about my master did not seem to have made the smallest impression on him.

“I’ve got leave to ask you a question,” says he, the moment I appeared. “When you found your master’s yacht gone, did you hear which way she had sailed? Was it northward toward Scotland? Speak up, young man, speak up!”

“Yes,” I answered. “The boatmen told me that when I made inquiries at the harbour.”

“Well, sir,” says Mr. Dark, turning to the lawyer, “if he said he was going to Sweden, he seems to have started on the road to it, at all events. I think I have got my instructions now?”

The lawyer nodded, and looked at my mistress, who bowed her head to him. He then said, turning to me:

“Pack up your bag for travelling at once, and have a conveyance got ready to go to the nearest post-town. Look sharp, young man – look sharp!”

“And, whatever happens in the future,” added my mistress, her kind voice trembling a little, “believe, William, that I shall never forget the proof you now show of your devotion to me. It is still some comfort to know that I have your fidelity to depend on in this dreadful trial – your fidelity and the extraordinary intelligence and experience of Mr. Dark.”

Mr. Dark did not seem to hear the compliment. He was busy writing, with his paper upon the map on his knee.

A quarter of an hour later, when I had ordered the dog-cart, and had got down into the hall with my bag packed, I found him there waiting for me. He was sitting in the same chair which he had occupied when he first arrived, and he had another jug of the old ale on the table by his side.

“Got any fishing-rods in the house?” says he, when I put my bag down in the hall.

“Yes,” I replied, astonished at the question. “What do you want with them?”

“Pack a couple in cases for travelling,” says Mr. Dark, “with lines, and hooks, and fly-books all complete. Have a drop of the ale before you go – and don’t stare, William, don’t stare. I’ll let the light in on you as soon as we are out of the house. Off with you for the rods! I want to be on the road in five minutes.”

When I came back with the rods and tackle I found Mr. Dark in the dog-cart.

“Money, luggage, fishing-rods, papers of directions, copy of anonymous letter, guide-book, map,” says he, running over in his mind the things wanted for the journey – “all right so far. Drive off.”

I took the reins and started the horse. As we left the house I saw my mistress and Josephine looking after us from two of the windows on the second floor. The memory of those two attentive faces – one so fair and so good, the other so yellow and so wicked – haunted my mind perpetually for many days afterward.

“Now, William,” says Mr. Dark, when we were clear of the lodge gates, “I’m going to begin by telling you that you must step out of your own character till further notice. You are a clerk in a bank, and I’m another. We have got our regular holiday, that comes, like Christmas, once a year, and we are taking a little tour in Scotland to see the curiosities, and to breathe the sea air, and to get some fishing whenever we can. I’m the fat cashier who digs holes in a drawerful of gold with a copper shovel, and you’re the arithmetical young man who sits on a perch behind me and keeps the books. Scotland’s a beautiful country, William. Can you make whisky-toddy? I can; and, what’s more, unlikely as the thing may seem to you, I can actually drink it into the bargain.”

“Scotland!” says I. “What are we going to Scotland for?”

“Question for question,” says Mr. Dark. “What are we starting on a journey for?”

“To find my master,” I answered, “and to make sure if the letter about him is true.”

“Very good,” says he. “How would you set about doing that, eh?”

“I should go and ask about him at Stockholm in Sweden, where he said his letters were to be sent.”

“Should you, indeed?” says Mr. Dark. “If you were a shepherd, William, and had lost a sheep in Cumberland, would you begin looking for it at the Land’s End, or would you try a little nearer home?”

“You’re attempting to make a fool of me now,” says I.

“No,” says Mr. Dark, “I’m only letting the light in on you, as I said I would. Now listen to reason, William, and profit by it as much as you can. Mr. James Smith says he is going on a cruise to Sweden, and makes his word good, at the beginning, by starting northward toward the coast of Scotland. What does he go in? A yacht. Do yachts carry live beasts and a butcher on board? No. Will joints of meat keep fresh all the way from Cumberland to Sweden? No. Do gentlemen like living on salt provisions? No. What follows from these three Noes? That Mr. James Smith must have stopped somewhere on the way to Sweden to supply his sea-larder with fresh provisions. Where, in that case, must he stop? Somewhere in Scotland, supposing he didn’t alter his course when he was out of sight of your seaport. Where in Scotland? Northward on the main land, or westward at one of the islands? Most likely on the main land, where the seaside places are largest, and where he is sure of getting all the stores he wants. Next, what is our business? Not to risk losing a link in the chain of evidence by missing any place where he has put his foot on shore. Not to overshoot the mark when we want to hit it in the bull’s-eye. Not to waste money and time by taking a long trip to Sweden till we know that we must absolutely go there. Where is our journey of discovery to take us to first, then? Clearly to the north of Scotland. What do you say to that, Mr. William? Is my catechism all correct, or has your strong ale muddled my head?”

It was evident by this time that no ale could do that, and I told him so. He chuckled, winked at me, and, taking another pinch of snuff, said he would now turn the whole case over in his mind again, and make sure that he had got all the bearings of it quite clear.

By the time we reached the post-town he had accomplished this mental effort to his own perfect satisfaction, and was quite ready to compare the ale at the inn with the ale at Darrock Hall. The dog-cart was left to be taken back the next morning by the hostler. A post-chaise and horses were ordered out. A loaf of bread, a Bologna sausage, and two bottles of sherry were put into the pockets of the carriage; we took our seats, and started briskly on our doubtful journey.

“One word more of friendly advice,” says Mr. Dark, settling himself comfortably in his corner of the carriage. “Take your sleep, William, whenever you feel that you can get it. You won’t find yourself in bed again till we get to Glasgow.”

•  III  •

Although the events that I am now relating happened many years ago, I shall still, for caution’s sake, avoid mentioning by name the various places visited by Mr. Dark and myself for the purpose of making inquiries. It will be enough if I describe generally what we did, and if I mention in substance only the result at which we ultimately arrived.

On reaching Glasgow, Mr. Dark turned the whole case over in his mind once more. The result was that he altered his original intention of going straight to the north of Scotland, considering it safer to make sure, if possible, of the course the yacht had taken in her cruise along the western coast.

The carrying out of this new resolution involved the necessity of delaying our onward journey by perpetually diverging from the direct road. Three times we were sent uselessly to wild places in the Hebrides by false reports. Twice we wandered away inland, following gentlemen who answered generally to the description of Mr. James Smith, but who turned out to be the wrong men as soon as we set eyes on them. These vain excursions – especially the three to the western islands – consumed time terribly. It was more than two months from the day when we had left Darrock Hall before we found ourselves up at the very top of Scotland at last, driving into a considerable seaside town, with a harbour attached to it. Thus far our journey had led to no results, and I began to despair of success. As for Mr. Dark, he never got to the end of his sweet temper and his wonderful patience.

“You don’t know how to wait, William,” was his constant remark whenever he heard me complaining. “I do.”

We drove into the town toward evening in a modest little gig, and put up, according to our usual custom, at one of the inferior inns.

“We must begin at the bottom,” Mr. Dark used to say. “High company in a coffee-room won’t be familiar with us; low company in a taproom will.” And he certainly proved the truth of his own words. The like of him for making intimate friends of total strangers at the shortest notice I have never met with before or since. Cautious as the Scotch are, Mr. Dark seemed to have the knack of twisting them round his finger as he pleased. He varied his way artfully with different men, but there were three standing opinions of his which he made a point of expressing in all varieties of company while we were in Scotland. In the first place, he thought the view of Edinburgh from Arthur’s Seat the finest in the world. In the second place, he considered whisky to be the most wholesome spirit in the world. In the third place, he believed his late beloved mother to be the best woman in the world. It may be worthy of note that, whenever he expressed this last opinion in Scotland, he invariably added that her maiden name was Macleod.

Well, we put up at a modest little inn near the harbour. I was dead tired with the journey, and lay down on my bed to get some rest. Mr. Dark, whom nothing ever fatigued, left me to take his toddy and pipe among the company in the taproom.

I don’t know how long I had been asleep when I was roused by a shake on my shoulder. The room was pitch dark, and I felt a hand suddenly clapped over my mouth. Then a strong smell of whisky and tobacco saluted my nostrils, and a whisper stole into my ear—

“William, we have got to the end of our journey.”

“Mr. Dark,” I stammered out, “is that you? What, in Heaven’s name, do you mean?”

“The yacht put in here,” was the answer, still in a whisper, “and your blackguard of a master came ashore—”

“Oh, Mr. Dark,” I broke in, “don’t tell me that the letter is true!”

“Every word of it,” says he. “He was married here, and was off again to the Mediterranean with Number Two a good three weeks before we left your mistress’s house. Hush! don’t say a word, Go to sleep again, or strike a light, if you like it better. Do anything but come downstairs with me. I’m going to find out all the particulars without seeming to want to know one of them. Yours is a very good-looking face, William, but it’s so infernally honest that I can’t trust it in the taproom. I’m making friends with the Scotchmen already. They know my opinion of Arthur’s Seat; they see what I think of whisky; and I rather think it won’t be long before they hear that my mother’s maiden name was Macleod.”

With those words he slipped out of the room, and left me, as he had found me, in the dark.

I was far too much agitated by what I had heard to think of going to sleep again, so I struck a light, and tried to amuse myself as well as I could with an old newspaper that had been stuffed into my carpet bag. It was then nearly ten o’clock. Two hours later, when the house shut up, Mr. Dark came back to me again in high spirits.

“I have got the whole case here,” says he, tapping his forehead – “the whole case, as neat and clean as if it was drawn in a brief. That master of yours doesn’t stick at a trifle, William. It’s my opinion that your mistress and you have not seen the last of him yet.”

We were sleeping that night in a double-bedded room. As soon as Mr. Dark had secured the door and disposed himself comfortably in his bed, he entered on a detailed narrative of the particulars communicated to him in the taproom. The substance of what he told me may be related as follows:

The yacht had had a wonderful run all the way to Cape Wrath. On rounding that headland she had met the wind nearly dead against her, and had beaten every inch of the way to the seaport town, where she had put in to get a supply of provisions, and to wait for a change in the wind.

Mr. James Smith had gone ashore to look about him, and to see whether the principal hotel was the sort of house at which he would like to stop for a few days. In the course of his wandering about the town, his attention had been attracted to a decent house, where lodgings were to be let, by the sight of a very pretty girl sitting at work at the parlour window. He was so struck by her face that he came back twice to look at it, determining, the second time, to try if he could not make acquaintance with her by asking to see the lodgings. He was shown the rooms by the girl’s mother, a very respectable woman, whom he discovered to be the wife of the master and part owner of a small coasting vessel, then away at sea. With a little maneuvering he managed to get into the parlour where the daughter was at work, and to exchange a few words with her. Her voice and manner completed the attraction of her face. Mr. James Smith decided, in his headlong way, that he was violently in love with her, and, without hesitating another instant, he took the lodgings on the spot for a month certain.

It is unnecessary to say that his designs on the girl were of the most disgraceful kind, and that he represented himself to the mother and daughter as a single man. Helped by his advantages of money, position, and personal appearance, he had made sure that the ruin of the girl might be effected with very little difficulty; but he soon found that he had undertaken no easy conquest.

The mother’s watchfulness never slept, and the daughter’s presence of mind never failed her. She admired Mr. James Smith’s tall figure and splendid whiskers; she showed the most encouraging partiality for his society; she smiled at his compliments, and blushed whenever he looked at her; but, whether it was cunning or whether it was innocence, she seemed incapable of understanding that his advances toward her were of any other than an honourable kind. At the slightest approach to undue familiarity, she drew back with a kind of contemptuous surprise in her face, which utterly perplexed Mr. James Smith. He had not calculated on that sort of resistance, and he could not see his way to overcoming it. The weeks passed; the month for which he had taken the lodgings expired. Time had strengthened the girl’s hold on him till his admiration for her amounted to downright infatuation, and he had not advanced one step yet toward the fulfillment of the vicious purpose with which he had entered the house.

At this time he must have made some fresh attempt on the girl’s virtue, which produced: a coolness between them; for, instead of taking the lodgings for another term, he removed to his yacht, in the harbour, and slept on board for two nights.

The wind was now fair, and the stores were on board, but he gave no orders to the sailing-master to weigh anchor. On the third day, the cause of the coolness, whatever it was, appears to have been removed, and he returned to his lodgings on shore. Some of the more inquisitive among the townspeople observed soon afterward, when they met him in the street, that he looked rather anxious and uneasy. The conclusion had probably forced itself upon his mind, by this time, that he must decide on pursuing one of two courses: either he must resolve to make the sacrifice of leaving the girl altogether, or he must commit the villainy of marrying her.

Scoundrel as he was, he hesitated at encountering the risk – perhaps, also, at being guilty of the crime – involved in this last alternative. While he was still in doubt, the father’s coasting vessel sailed into the harbour, and the father’s presence on the scene decided him at last. How this new influence acted it was impossible to find out from the imperfect evidence of persons who were not admitted to the family councils. The fact, however, was certain that the date of the father’s return and the date of Mr. James Smith’s first wicked resolution to marry the girl might both be fixed, as nearly as possible, at one and the same time.

Having once made up his mind to the commission of the crime, he proceeded with all possible coolness and cunning to provide against the chances of detection.

Returning on board his yacht he announced that he had given up his intention of cruising to Sweden and that he intended to amuse himself by a long fishing tour in Scotland. After this explanation, he ordered the vessel to be laid up in the harbour, gave the sailing-master leave of absence to return to his family at Cowes, and paid off the whole of the crew from the mate to the cabin-boy. By these means he cleared the scene, at one blow, of the only people in the town who knew of the existence of his unhappy wife. After that the news of his approaching marriage might be made public without risk of discovery, his own common name being of itself a sufficient protection in case the event was mentioned in the Scotch newspapers. All his friends, even his wife herself, might read a report of the marriage of Mr. James Smith without having the slightest suspicion of who the bridegroom really was.

A fortnight after the paying off of the crew he was married to the merchant-captain’s daughter. The father of the girl was well known among his fellow-townsmen as a selfish, grasping man, who was too anxious to secure a rich son-in-law to object to any proposals for hastening the marriage. He and his wife, and a few intimate relations had been present at the ceremony; and after it had been performed the newly-married couple left the town at once for a honeymoon trip to the Highland lakes.

Two days later, however, they unexpectedly returned, announcing a complete change in their plans. The bridegroom (thinking, probably, that he would be safer out of England than in it) had been pleasing the bride’s fancy by his descriptions of the climate and the scenery of southern parts. The new Mrs. James Smith was all curiosity to see Spain and Italy; and, having often proved herself an excellent sailor on board her father’s vessel, was anxious to go to the Mediterranean in the easiest way by sea. Her affectionate husband, having now no other object in life than to gratify her wishes, had given up the Highland excursion, and had returned to have his yacht got ready for sea immediately. In this explanation there was nothing to awaken the suspicions of the lady’s parents. The mother thought Mr. James Smith a model among bridegrooms. The father lent his assistance to man the yacht at the shortest notice with as smart a crew as could be picked up about the town. Principally through his exertions, the vessel was got ready for sea with extraordinary dispatch. The sails were bent, the provisions were put on board, and Mr. James Smith sailed for the Mediterranean with the unfortunate woman who believed herself to be his wife, before Mr. Dark and myself set forth to look after him from Darrock Hall.

Such was the true account of my master’s infamous conduct in Scotland as it was related to me. On concluding, Mr. Dark hinted that he had something still left to tell me, but declared that he was too sleepy to talk any more that night. As soon as we were awake the next morning he returned to the subject.

“I didn’t finish all I had to say last night, did I?” he began.

“You unfortunately told me enough, and more than enough, to prove the truth of the statement in the anonymous letter,” I answered.

“Yes,” says Mr. Dark, “but did I tell you who wrote the anonymous letter?”

“You don’t mean to say that you have found that out!” says I.

“I think I have,” was the cool answer. “When I heard about your precious master paying off the regular crew of the yacht I put the circumstance by in my mind, to be brought out again and sifted a little as soon as the opportunity offered. It offered in about half an hour. Says I to the gauger, who was the principal talker in the room: ‘How about those men that Mr. Smith paid off? Did they all go as soon as they got their money, or did they stop here till they had spent every farthing of it in the public-houses?’ The gauger laughs. ‘No such luck,’ says he, in the broadest possible Scotch (which I translate into English, William, for your benefit); ‘no such luck; they all went south, to spend their money among finer people than us – all, that is to say, with one exception. It was thought the steward of the yacht had gone along with the rest, when, the very day Mr. Smith sailed for the Mediterranean, who should turn up unexpectedly but the steward himself! Where he had been hiding, and why he had been hiding, nobody could tell.’  ‘Perhaps he had been imitating his master, and looking out for a wife,’ says I. ‘Likely enough,’ says the gauger; ‘he gave a very confused account of himself, and he cut all questions short by going away south in a violent hurry.’ That was enough for me: I let the subject drop. Clear as daylight, isn’t it, William? The steward suspected something wrong – the steward waited and watched – the steward wrote that anonymous letter to your mistress. We can find him, if we want him, by inquiring at Cowes; and we can send to the church for legal evidence of the marriage as soon as we are instructed to do so. All that we have got to do now is to go back to your mistress, and see what course she means to take under the circumstances. It’s a pretty case, William, so far – an uncommonly pretty case, as it stands at present.”

We returned to Darrock Hall as fast as coaches and post-horses could carry us.

Having from the first believed that the statement in the anonymous letter was true, my mistress received the bad news we brought calmly and resignedly – so far, at least, as outward appearances went. She astonished and disappointed Mr. Dark by declining to act in any way on the information that he had collected for her, and by insisting that the whole affair should still be buried in the profoundest secrecy. For the first time since I had known my travelling companion, he became depressed in spirits on hearing that nothing more was to be done, and, although he left the Hall with a handsome present, he left it discontentedly.

“Such a pretty case, William,” says he, quite sorrowfully, as we shook hands – “such an uncommonly pretty case – it’s a thousand pities to stop it, in this way, before it’s half over!”

“You don’t know what a proud lady and what a delicate lady my mistress is,” I answered. “She would die rather than expose her forlorn situation in a public court for the sake of punishing her husband.”

“Bless your simple heart!” says Mr. Dark, “do you really think, now, that such a case as this can be hushed up?”

“Why not,” I asked, “if we all keep the secret?”

“That for the secret!” cries Mr. Dark, snapping his fingers. “Your master will let the cat out of the bag, if nobody else does.”

“My master!” I repeated, in amazement.

“Yes, your master!” says Mr. Dark. “I have had some experience in my time, and I say you have not seen the last of him yet. Mark my words, William, Mr. James Smith will come back.”

With that prophecy, Mr. Dark fretfully treated himself to a last pinch of snuff, and departed in dudgeon on his journey back to his master in London. His last words hung heavily on my mind for days after he had gone. It was some weeks before I got over a habit of starting whenever the bell was rung at the front door.

•  IV  •

Our life at the Hall soon returned to its old, dreary course. The lawyer in London wrote to my mistress to ask her to come and stay for a little while with his wife; but she declined the invitation, being averse to facing company after what had happened to her. Though she tried hard to keep the real state of her mind concealed from all about her, I, for one, could see plainly enough that she was pining under the bitter injury that had been inflicted on her. What effect continued solitude might have had on her spirits I tremble to think.

Fortunately for herself, it occurred to her, before long, to send and invite Mr. Meeke to resume his musical practising with her at the Hall. She told him – and, as it seemed to me, with perfect truth – that any implied engagement which he had made with Mr. James Smith was now cancelled, since the person so named had morally forfeited all his claims as a husband, first, by his desertion of her, and, secondly, by his criminal marriage with another woman. After stating this view of the matter, she left it to Mr. Meeke to decide whether the perfectly innocent connection between them should be resumed or not. The little parson, after hesitating and pondering in his helpless way, ended by agreeing with my mistress, and by coming back once more to the Hall with his fiddle under his arm. This renewal of their old habits might have been imprudent enough, as tending to weaken my mistress’s case in the eyes of the world, but, for all that, it was the most sensible course she could take for her own sake. The harmless company of Mr. Meeke, and the relief of playing the old tunes again in the old way, saved her, I verily believe, from sinking altogether under the oppression of the shocking situation in which she was now placed.

So, with the assistance of Mr. Meeke and his fiddle, my mistress got though the weary time. The winter passed, the spring came, and no fresh tidings reached us of Mr. James Smith. It had been a long, hard winter that year, and the spring was backward and rainy. The first really fine day we had was the day that fell on the fourteenth of March.

I am particular in mentioning this date merely because it is fixed forever in my memory. As long as there is life in me I shall remember that fourteenth of March, and the smallest circumstances connected with it.

The day began ill, with what superstitious people would think a bad omen. My mistress remained late in her room in the morning, amusing herself by looking over her clothes, and by setting to rights some drawers in her cabinet which she had not opened for some time past. Just before luncheon we were startled by hearing the drawing-room bell rung violently. I ran up to see what was the matter, and the quadroon, Josephine, who had heard the bell in another part of the house, hastened to answer it also. She got into the drawing-room first, and I followed close on her heels. My mistress was standing alone on the hearth-rug, with an appearance of great discomposure in her face and manner.

“I have been robbed!” she said, vehemently, “I don’t know when or how; but I miss a pair of bracelets, three rings, and a quantity of old-fashioned lace pocket-handkerchiefs.”

“If you have any suspicions, ma’am,” said Josephine, in a sharp, sudden way, “say who they point at. My boxes, for one, are quite at your disposal.”

“Who asked about your boxes?” said my mistress, angrily. “Be a little less ready with your answer, if you please, the next time I speak.”

She then turned to me, and began explaining the circumstances under which she had discovered her loss. I suggested that the missing things should be well searched for first, and then, if nothing came of that, that I should go for the constable, and place the matter under his direction.

My mistress agreed to this plan, and the search was undertaken immediately. It lasted till dinnertime, and led to no results. I then proposed going for the constable. But my mistress said it was too late to do anything that day, and told me to wait at table as usual, and to go on my errand the first thing the next morning. Mr. Meeke was coming with some new music in the evening, and I suspect she was not willing to be disturbed at her favourite occupation by the arrival of the constable.

When dinner was over the parson came, and the concert went on as usual through the evening. At ten o’clock I took up the tray, with the wine, and soda-water, and biscuits. Just as I was opening one of the bottles of soda-water, there was a sound of wheels on the drive outside, and a ring at the bell.

I had unfastened the wires of the cork, and could not put the bottle down to run at once to the door. One of the female servants answered it. I heard a sort of half scream – then the sound of a footstep that was familiar to me.

My mistress turned round from the piano, and looked me hard in the face.

“William,” she said, “do you know that step?” Before I could answer the door was pushed open, and Mr. James Smith walked into the room.

He had his hat on. His long hair flowed down under it over the collar of his coat; his bright black eyes, after resting an instant on my mistress, turned to Mr. Meeke. His heavy eyebrows met together, and one of his hands went up to one of his bushy black whiskers, and pulled at it angrily.

“You here again!” he said, advancing a few steps toward the little parson, who sat trembling all over, with his fiddle hugged up in his arms as if it had been a child.

Seeing her villainous husband advance, my mistress moved, too, so as to face him. He turned round on her at the first step she took, as quick as lightning.

“You shameless woman!” he said. “Can you look me in the face in the presence of that man?” He pointed, as he spoke, to Mr. Meeke.

My mistress never shrank when he turned upon her. Not a sign of fear was in her face when they confronted each other. Not the faintest flush of anger came into her cheeks when he spoke. The sense of the insult and injury that he had inflicted on her, and the consciousness of knowing his guilty secret, gave her all her self-possession at that trying moment.

“I ask you again,” he repeated, finding that she did not answer him, “how dare you look me in the face in the presence of that man?”

She raised her steady eyes to his hat, which he still kept on his head.

“Who has taught you to come into a room and speak to a lady with your hat on?” she asked, in quiet, contemptuous tones. “Is that a habit which is sanctioned by your new wife?”

My eyes were on him as she said those last words. His complexion, naturally dark and swarthy, changed instantly to a livid yellow white; his hand caught at the chair nearest to him, and he dropped into it heavily.

“I don’t understand you,” he said, after a moment of silence, looking about the room unsteadily while he spoke.

“You do,” said my mistress. “Your tongue lies, but your face speaks the truth.”

He called back his courage and audacity by a desperate effort, and started up from the chair again with an oath.

The instant before this happened I thought I heard the sound of a rustling dress in the passage outside, as if one of the women servants was stealing up to listen outside the door. I should have gone at once to see whether this was the case or not, but my master stopped me just after he had risen from the chair.

“Get the bed made in the Red Room, and light a fire there directly,” he said, with his fiercest look and in his roughest tones. “When I ring the bell, bring me a kettle of boiling water and a bottle of brandy. As for you,” he continued, turning toward Mr. Meeke, who still sat pale and speechless with his fiddle hugged up in his arms, “leave the house, or you won’t find your cloth any protection to you.”

At this insult the blood flew into my mistress’s face. Before she could say anything, Mr. James Smith raised his voice loud enough to drown hers.

“I won’t hear another word from you,” he cried out, brutally. “You have been talking like a mad woman, and you look like a mad woman. You are out of your senses. As sure as you live, I’ll have you examined by the doctors tomorrow. Why the devil do you stand there, you scoundrel?” he roared, wheeling round on his heel to me. “Why don’t you obey my orders?”

I looked at my mistress. If she had directed me to knock Mr. James Smith down, big as he was, I think at that moment I could have done it.

“Do as he tells you, William,” she said, squeezing one of her hands firmly over her bosom, as if she was trying to keep down the rising indignation in that way. “This is the last order of his giving that I shall ask you to obey.”

“Do you threaten me, you mad—”

He finished the question by a word I shall not repeat.

“I tell you,” she answered, in clear, ringing, resolute tones, “that you have outraged me past all forgiveness and all endurance, and that you shall never insult me again as you have insulted me tonight.”

After saying those words she fixed one steady look on him, then turned away and walked slowly to the door.

A minute previously Mr. Meeke had summoned courage enough to get up and leave the room quietly. I noticed him walking demurely away, close to the wall, with his fiddle held under one tail of his long frock-coat, as if he was afraid that the savage passions of Mr. James Smith might be wreaked on that unoffending instrument. He got to the door before my mistress. As he softly pulled it open, I saw him start, and the rustling of the gown caught my ear again from the outside.

My mistress followed him into the passage, turning, however, in the opposite direction to that taken by the little parson, in order to reach the staircase that led to her own room. I went out next, leaving Mr. James Smith alone.

I overtook Mr. Meeke in the hall, and opened the door for him.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, “but did you come upon anybody listening outside the music-room when you left it just now?”

“Yes, William,” said Mr. Meeke, in a faint voice, “I think it was Josephine; but I was so dreadfully agitated that I can’t be quite certain about it.”

Had she surprised our secret? That was the question I asked myself as I went away to light the fire in the Red Room. Calling to mind the exact time at which I had first detected the rustling outside the door, I came to the conclusion that she had only heard the last part of the quarrel between my mistress and her rascal of a husband. Those bold words about the “new wife” had been assuredly spoken before I heard Josephine stealing up to the door.

As soon as the fire was alight and the bed made, I went back to the music-room to announce that my orders had been obeyed. Mr. James Smith was walking up and down in a perturbed way, still keeping his hat on. He followed me to the Red Room without saying a word.

Ten minutes later he rang for the kettle and the bottle of brandy. When I took them in I found him unpacking a small carpetbag, which was the only luggage he had brought with him. He still kept silence, and did not appear to take any notice of me. I left him immediately without our having so much as exchanged a single word.

So far as I could tell, the night passed quietly. The next morning I heard that my mistress was suffering so severely from a nervous attack that she was unable to rise from her bed. It was no surprise to me to be told that, knowing as I did what she had gone through the night before.

About nine o’clock I went with the hot water to the Red Room. After knocking twice I tried the door, and, finding it not locked, went in with the jug in my hand.

I looked at the bed – I looked all round the room. Not a sign of Mr. James Smith was to be seen anywhere.

Judging by appearances, the bed had certainly been occupied. Thrown across the counterpane lay the nightgown he had worn. I took it up and saw some spots on it. I looked at them a little closer. They were spots of blood.

•  V  •

The first amazement and alarm produced by this discovery deprived me of my presence of mind. Without stopping to think what I ought to do first, I ran back to the servants’ hall, calling out that something had happened to my master.

All the household hurried directly into the Red Room, Josephine among the rest. I was first brought to my senses, as it were, by observing the strange expression of her countenance when she saw the bed-gown and the empty room. All the other servants were bewildered and frightened. She alone, after giving a little start, recovered herself directly. A look of devilish satisfaction broke out on her face, and she left the room quickly and quietly, without exchanging a word with any of us. I saw this, and it aroused my suspicions. There is no need to mention what they were, for, as events soon showed, they were entirely wide of the mark.

Having come to myself a little, I sent them all out of the room except the coachman. We two then examined the place.

The Red Room was usually occupied by visitors. It was on the ground floor, and looked out into the garden. We found the window-shutters, which I had barred overnight, open, but the window itself was down. The fire had been out long enough for the grate to be quite cold. Half the bottle of brandy had been drunk. The carpetbag was gone. There were no marks of violence or struggling anywhere about the bed or the room. We examined every corner carefully, but made no other discoveries than these.

When I returned to the servants’ hall, bad news of my mistress was awaiting me there. The unusual noise and confusion in the house had reached her ears, and she had been told what had happened without sufficient caution being exercised in preparing her to hear it. In her weak, nervous state, the shock of the intelligence had quite prostrated her. She had fallen into a swoon, and had been brought back to her senses with the greatest difficulty. As to giving me or anybody else directions what to do under the embarrassing circumstances which had now occurred, she was totally incapable of the effort.

I waited till the middle of the day, in the hope that she might get strong enough to give her orders; but no message came from her. At last I resolved to send and ask her what she thought it best to do. Josephine was the proper person to go on this errand; but when I asked for Josephine, she was nowhere to be found. The housemaid, who had searched for her ineffectually, brought word that her bonnet and shawl were not hanging in their usual places. The parlour-maid, who had been in attendance in my mistress’s room, came down while we were all aghast at this new disappearance. She could only tell us that Josephine had begged her to do lady’s-maid’s duty that morning, as she was not well. Not well! And the first result of her illness appeared to be that she had left the house!

I cautioned the servants on no account to mention this circumstance to my mistress, and then went upstairs myself to knock at her door. My object was to ask if I might count on her approval if I wrote in her name to the lawyer in London, and if I afterward went and gave information of what had occurred to the nearest justice of the peace. I might have sent to make this inquiry through one of the female servants; but by this time, though not naturally suspicious, I had got to distrust everybody in the house, whether they deserved it or not.

So I asked the question myself, standing outside the door. My mistress thanked me in a faint voice, and begged me to do what I had proposed immediately.

I went into my own bedroom and wrote to the lawyer, merely telling him that Mr. James Smith had appeared unexpectedly at the Hall, and that events had occurred in consequence which required his immediate presence. I made the letter up like a parcel, and sent the coachman with it to catch the mail on its way through to London.

The next thing was to go to the justice of the peace. The nearest lived about five miles off, and was well acquainted with my mistress. He was an old bachelor, and he kept house with his brother, who was a widower. The two were much respected and beloved in the county, being kind, unaffected gentlemen, who did a great deal of good among the poor. The justice was Mr. Robert Nicholson, and his brother, the widower, was Mr. Philip.

I had got my hat on, and was asking the groom which horse I had better take, when an open carriage drove up to the house. It contained Mr. Philip Nicholson and two persons in plain clothes, not exactly servants and not exactly gentlemen, as far as I could judge. Mr. Philip looked at me, when I touched my hat to him, in a very grave, downcast way, and asked for my mistress. I told him she was ill in bed. He shook his head at hearing that, and said he wished to speak to me in private. I showed him into the library. One of the men in plain clothes followed us, and sat in the hall. The other waited with the carriage.

“I was just going out, sir,” I said, as I set a chair for him, “to speak to Mr. Robert Nicholson about a very extraordinary circumstance—”

“I know what you refer to,” said Mr. Philip, cutting me short rather abruptly; “and I must beg, for reasons which will presently appear, that you will make no statement of any sort to me until you have first heard what I have to say. I am here on a very serious and a very shocking errand, which deeply concerns your mistress and you.”

His face suggested something worse than his words expressed. My heart began to beat fast, and I felt that I was turning pale.

“Your master, Mr. James Smith,” he went on, “came here unexpectedly yesterday evening, and slept in this house last night. Before he retired to rest he and your mistress had high words together, which ended, I am sorry to hear, in a threat of a serious nature addressed by Mrs. James Smith to her husband. They slept in separate rooms. This morning you went into your master’s room and saw no sign of him there. You only found his nightgown on the bed, spotted with blood.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, in as steady a voice as I could command. “Quite true.”

“I am not examining you,” said Mr. Philip. “I am only making a certain statement, the truth of which you can admit or deny before my brother.”

“Before your brother, sir!” I repeated. “Am I suspected of anything wrong?”

“There is a suspicion that Mr. James Smith has been murdered,” was the answer I received to that question.

My flesh began to creep all over from head to foot.

“I am shocked – I am horrified to say,” Mr. Philip went on, “that the suspicion affects your mistress in the first place, and you in the second.”

I shall not attempt to describe what I felt when he said that. No words of mine, no words of anybody’s, could give an idea of it. What other men would have done in my situation I don’t know. I stood before Mr. Philip, staring straight at him, without speaking, without moving, almost without breathing. If he or any other man had struck me at that moment, I do not believe I should have felt the blow.

“Both my brother and myself,” said Mr. Philip, “have such unfeigned respect for your mistress, such sympathy for her under these frightful circumstances, and such an implicit belief in her capability of proving her innocence, that we are desirous of sparing her in this dreadful emergency as much as possible. For those reasons, I have undertaken to come here with the persons appointed to execute my brother’s warrant—”

“Warrant, sir!” I said, getting command of my voice as he pronounced that word – “a warrant against my mistress!”

“Against her and against you,” said Mr. Philip. “The suspicious circumstances have been sworn to by a competent witness, who has declared on oath that your mistress is guilty, and that you are an accomplice.”

“What witness, sir?”

“Your mistress’s quadroon maid, who came to my brother this morning, and who has made her deposition in due form.”

“And who is as false as hell,” I cried out passionately, “in every word she says against my mistress and against me.”

“I hope – no, I will go further, and say I believe she is false,” said Mr. Philip. “But her perjury must be proved, and the necessary examination must take place. My carriage is going back to my brother’s, and you will go in it, in charge of one of my men, who has the warrant to take you in custody. I shall remain here with the man who is waiting in the hall; and before any steps are taken to execute the other warrant, I shall send for the doctor to ascertain when your mistress can be removed.”

“Oh, my poor mistress!” I said, “this will be the death of her, sir.”

“I will take care that the shock shall strike her as tenderly as possible,” said Mr. Philip. “I am here for that express purpose. She has my deepest sympathy and respect, and shall have every help and alleviation that I can afford her.”

The hearing him say that, and the seeing how sincerely he meant what he said, was the first gleam of comfort in the dreadful affliction that had befallen us. I felt this; I felt a burning anger against the wretch who had done her best to ruin my mistress’s fair name and mine, but in every other respect I was like a man who had been stunned, and whose faculties had not perfectly recovered from the shock. Mr. Philip was obliged to remind me that time was of importance, and that I had better give myself up immediately, on the merciful terms which his kindness offered to me. I acknowledged that, and wished him good morning. But a mist seemed to come over my eyes as I turned round to go away – a mist that prevented me from finding my way to the door. Mr. Philip opened it for me, and said a friendly word or two which I could hardly hear. The man waiting outside took me to his companion in the carriage at the door, and I was driven away, a prisoner for the first time in my life.

On our way to the justice’s, what little thinking faculty I had left in me was all occupied in the attempt to trace a motive for the inconceivable treachery and falsehood of which Josephine had been guilty.

Her words, her looks, and her manner, on that unfortunate day when my mistress so far forget herself as to strike, her, came back dimly to my memory, and led to the inference that part of the motive, at least, of which I was in search, might be referred to what had happened on that occasion. But was this the only reason for her devilish vengeance against my mistress? And, even if it were so, what fancied injuries had I done her? Why should I be included in the false accusation? In the dazed state of my faculties at that time, I was quite incapable of seeking the answer to these questions. My mind was clouded all over, and I gave up the attempt to clear it in despair.

I was brought before Mr. Robert Nicholson that day, and the fiend of a quadroon was examined in my presence. The first sight of her face, with its wicked self-possession, with its smooth leering triumph, so sickened me that I turned my head away and never looked at her a second time throughout the proceedings. The answers she gave amounted to a mere repetition of the deposition to which she had already sworn. I listened to her with the most breathless attention, and was thunderstruck at the inconceivable artfulness with which she had mixed up truth and falsehood in her charge against my mistress and me.

This was, in substance, what she now stated in my presence:

After describing the manner of Mr. James Smith’s arrival at the Hall, the witness, Josephine Durand, confessed that she had been led to listen at the music-room door by hearing angry voices inside, and she then described, truly enough, the latter part of the altercation between husband and wife. Fearing, after this, that something serious might happen, she had kept watch in her room, which was on the same floor as her mistress’s. She had heard her mistress’s door open softly between one and two in the morning – had followed her mistress, who carried a small lamp, along the passage and down the stairs into the hall – had hidden herself in the porter’s chair – had seen her mistress take a dagger in a green sheath from a collection of Eastern curiosities kept in the hall – had followed her again, and seen her softly enter the Red Room – had heard the heavy breathing of Mr. James Smith, which gave token that he was asleep – had slipped into an empty room, next door to the Red Roam, and had waited there about a quarter of an hour, when her mistress came out again with the dagger in her hand – had followed her mistress again into the hall, where she had put the dagger back into its place – had seen her mistress turn into a side passage that led to my room – had heard her knock at my door, and heard me answer and open it – had hidden again in the porter’s chair – had, after a while, seen me and my mistress pass together into the passage that led to the Red Room – had watched us both into the Red Room – and had then, through fear of being discovered and murdered herself, if she risked detection any longer, stolen back to her own room for the rest of the night.

After deposing on oath to the truth of these atrocious falsehoods, and declaring, in conclusion, that Mr. James Smith had been murdered by my mistress, and that I was an accomplice, the quadroon had further asserted, in order to show a motive for the crime, that Mr. Meeke was my mistress’s lover; that he had been forbidden the house by her husband, and that he was found in the house, and alone with her, on the evening of Mr. James Smith’s return. Here again there were some grains of truth cunningly mixed up with a revolting lie, and they had their effect in giving to the falsehood a look of probability.

I was cautioned in the usual manner and asked if I had anything to say.

I replied that I was innocent, but that I would wait for legal assistance before I defended myself. The justice remanded me and the examination was over. Three days later my unhappy mistress was subjected to the same trial. I was not allowed to communicate with her. All I knew was that the lawyer had arrived from London to help her. Toward the evening he was admitted to see me. He shook his head sorrowfully when I asked after my mistress.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that she has sunk under the horror of the situation in which that vile woman has placed her. Weakened by her previous agitation, she seems to have given way under this last shock, tenderly and carefully as Mr. Philip Nicholson broke the bad news to her. All her feelings appeared to be strangely blunted at the examination today. She answered the questions put to her quite correctly, but at the same time quite mechanically, with no change in her complexion, or in her tone of voice, or in her manner, from beginning to end. It is a sad thing, William, when women cannot get their natural vent of weeping, and your mistress has not shed a tear since she left Darrock Hall.”

“But surely, sir,” I said, “if my examination has not proved Josephine’s perjury, my mistress’s examination must have exposed it?”

“Nothing will expose it,” answered the lawyer, “but producing Mr. James Smith, or, at least, legally proving that he is alive. Morally speaking, I have no doubt that the justice before whom you have been examined is as firmly convinced as we can be that the quadroon has perjured herself. Morally speaking, he believes that those threats which your mistress unfortunately used referred (as she said they did today) to her intention of leaving the Hall early in the morning, with you for her attendant, and coming to me, if she had been well enough to travel, to seek effectual legal protection from her husband for the future. Mr. Nicholson believes that; and I, who know more of the circumstances than he does, believe also that Mr. James Smith stole away from Darrock Hall in the night under fear of being indicted for bigamy. But if I can’t find him – if I can’t prove him to be alive – if I can’t account for those spots of blood on the nightgown, the accidental circumstances of the case remain unexplained – your mistress’s rash language, the bad terms on which she has lived with her husband, and her unlucky disregard of appearances in keeping up her intercourse with Mr. Meeke, all tell dead against us – and the justice has no alternative, in a legal point of view, but to remand you both, as he has now done, for the production of further evidence.”

“But how, then, in Heaven’s name, is our innocence to be proved, sir?” I asked.

“In the first place,” said the lawyer, “by finding Mr. James Smith; and, in the second place, by persuading him, when he is found, to come forward and declare himself.”

“Do you really believe, sir,” said I, “that he would hesitate to do that, when he knows the horrible charge to which his disappearance has exposed his wife? He is a heartless villain, I know; but surely—”

“I don’t suppose,” said the lawyer, cutting me short, “that he is quite scoundrel enough to decline coming forward, supposing he ran no risk by doing so. But remember that he has placed himself in a position to be tried for bigamy, and that he believes your mistress will put the law in force against him.”

I had forgotten that circumstance. My heart sank within me when it was recalled to my memory, and I could say nothing more.

“It is a very serious thing,” the lawyer went on – “it is a downright offence against the law of the land to make any private offer of a compromise to this man. Knowing what we know, our duty as good citizens is to give such information as may bring him to trial. I tell you plainly that, if I did not stand toward your mistress in the position of a relation as well as a legal adviser, I should think twice about running the risk – the very serious risk – on which I am now about to venture for her sake. As it is, I have taken the right measures to assure Mr. James Smith that he will not be treated according to his deserts. When he knows what the circumstances are, he will trust us – supposing always that we can find him. The search about this neighbourhood has been quite useless. I have sent private instructions by today’s post to Mr. Dark in London, and with them a carefully-worded form of advertisement for the public newspapers. You may rest assured that every human means of tracing him will be tried forthwith. In the meantime, I have an important question to put to you about Josephine. She may know more than we think she does; she may have surprised the secret of the second marriage, and may be keeping it in reserve to use against us. If this should turn out to be the case, I shall want some other chance against her besides the chance of indicting her for perjury. As to her motive now for making this horrible accusation, what can you tell me about that, William?”

“Her motive against me, sir?”

“No, no, not against you. I can see plainly enough that she accuses you because it is necessary to do so to add to the probability of her story, which, of course, assumes that you helped your mistress to dispose of the dead body. You are coolly sacrificed to some devilish vengeance against her mistress. Let us get at that first. Has there ever been a quarrel between them?”

I told him of the quarrel, and of how Josephine had looked and talked when she showed me her cheek.

“Yes,” he said, “that is a strong motive for revenge with a naturally pitiless, vindictive woman. But is that all? Had your mistress any hold over her? Is there any self-interest mixed up along with this motive of vengeance? Think a little, William. Has anything ever happened in the house to compromise this woman, or to make her fancy herself compromised?”

The remembrance of my mistress’s lost trinkets and handkerchiefs, which later and greater troubles had put out of my mind, flashed back into my memory while he spoke. I told him immediately of the alarm in the house when the loss was discovered.

“Did your mistress suspect Josephine and question her?” he asked, eagerly.

“No, sir,” I replied. “Before she could say a word, Josephine impudently asked who she suspected, and boldly offered her own boxes to be searched.”

The lawyer’s face turned red as scarlet. He jumped out of his chair, and hit me such a smack on the shoulder that I thought he had gone mad.

“By Jupiter!” he cried out, “we have got the whip-hand of that she-devil at last.”

I looked at him in astonishment.

“Why, man alive,” he said, “don’t you see how it is? Josephine’s the thief! I am as sure of it as that you and I are talking together. This vile accusation against your mistress answers another purpose besides the vindictive one – it is the very best screen that the wretch could possibly set up to hide herself from detection. It has stopped your mistress and you from moving in the matter; it exhibits her in the false character of an honest witness against a couple of criminals; it gives her time to dispose of the goods, or to hide them, or to do anything she likes with them. Stop! let me be quite sure that I know what the lost things are. A pair of bracelets, three rings, and a lot of lace pocket-handkerchiefs – is that what you said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your mistress will describe them particularly, and I will take the right steps the first thing tomorrow morning. Good-evening, William, and keep up your spirits. It shan’t be my fault if you don’t soon see the quadroon in the right place for her – at the prisoner’s bar.”

With that farewell he went out.

The days passed, and I did not see him again until the period of my remand had expired. On this occasion, when I once more appeared before the justice, my mistress appeared with me. The first sight of her absolutely startled me, she was so sadly altered. Her face looked so pinched and thin that it was like the face of an old woman. The dull, vacant resignation of her expression was something shocking to see. It changed a little when her eyes first turned heavily toward me, and she whispered, with a faint smile, “I am sorry for you, William – I am very, very sorry for you.” But as soon as she had said those words the blank look returned, and she sat with her head drooping forward, quiet, and inattentive, and hopeless – so changed a being that her oldest friends would hardly have known her.

Our examination was a mere formality. There was no additional evidence either for or against us, and we were remanded again for another week.

I asked the lawyer, privately, if any chance had offered itself of tracing Mr. James Smith. He looked mysterious, and only said in answer, “Hope for the best.” I inquired next if any progress had been made toward fixing the guilt of the robbery on Josephine.

“I never boast,” he replied. “But, cunning as she is, I should not be surprised if Mr. Dark and I, together, turned out to be more than a match for her.”

Mr. Dark! There was something in the mere mention of his name that gave me confidence in the future. If I could only have got my poor mistress’s sad, dazed face out of my mind, I should not have had much depression of spirits to complain of during the interval of time that elapsed between the second examination and the third.

•  VI  •

On the third appearance of my mistress and myself before the justice, I noticed some faces in the room which I had not seen there before. Greatly to my astonishment – for the previous examinations had been conducted as privately as possible – I remarked the presence of two of the servants from the Hall, and of three or four of the tenants on the Darrock estate, who lived nearest to the house. They all sat together on one side of the justice-room. Opposite to them and close at the side of a door, stood my old acquaintance, Mr. Dark, with his big snuffbox, his jolly face, and his winking eye. He nodded to me, when I looked at him, as jauntily as if we were meeting at a party of pleasure. The quadroon woman, who had been summoned to the examination, had a chair placed opposite to the witness-box, and in a line with the seat occupied by my poor mistress, whose looks, as I was grieved to see, were not altered for the better. The lawyer from London was with her, and I stood behind her chair.

We were all quietly disposed in the room in this way, when the justice, Mr. Robert Nicholson, came in with his brother. It might have been only fancy, but I thought I could see in both their faces that something remarkable had happened since we had met at the last examination.

The deposition of Josephine Durand was read over by the clerk, and she was asked if she had anything to add to it. She replied in the negative. The justice then appealed to my mistress’s relation, the lawyer, to know if he could produce any evidence relating to the charge against his clients.

“I have evidence,” answered the lawyer, getting briskly on his legs, “which I believe, sir, will justify me in asking for their discharge.”

“Where are your witnesses?” inquired the justice, looking hard at Josephine while he spoke.

“One of them is in waiting, your worship,” said Mr. Dark, opening the door near which he was standing.

He went out of the room, remained away about a minute, and returned with his witness at his heels.

My heart gave a bound as if it would jump out of my body. There, with his long hair cut short, and his bushy whiskers shaved off – there, in his own proper person, safe and sound as ever, was Mr. James Smith!

The quadroon’s iron nature resisted the shock of his unexpected presence on the scene with a steadiness that was nothing short of marvellous. Her thin lips closed together convulsively, and there was a slight movement in the muscles of her throat. But not a word, not a sign betrayed her. Even the yellow tinge of her complexion remained unchanged.

“It is not necessary, sir, that I should waste time and words in referring to the wicked and preposterous charge against my clients,” said the lawyer, addressing Mr. Robert Nicholson. “The one sufficient justification for discharging them immediately is before you at this moment in the person of that gentleman. There, sir, stands the murdered Mr. James Smith, of Darrock Hall, alive and well, to answer for himself.”

“That is not the man!” cried Josephine, her shrill voice just as high, clear, and steady as ever, “I denounce that man as an impostor. Of my own knowledge, I deny that he is Mr. James Smith.”

“No doubt you do,” said the lawyer; “but we will prove his identity for all that.”

The first witness called was Mr. Philip Nicholson. He could swear that he had seen Mr. James Smith, and spoken to him at least a dozen times. The person now before him was Mr. James Smith, altered as to personal appearance by having his hair cut short and his whiskers shaved off, but still unmistakably the man he assumed to be.

“Conspiracy!” interrupted the prisoner, hissing the word out viciously between her teeth.

“If you are not silent,” said Mr. Robert Nicholson, “you will be removed from the room. It will sooner meet the ends of justice,” he went on, addressing the lawyer, “if you prove the question of identity by witnesses who have been in habits of daily communication with Mr. James Smith.”

Upon this, one of the servants from the Hall was placed in the box.

The alteration in his master’s appearance evidently puzzled the man. Besides the perplexing change already adverted to, there was also a change in Mr. James Smith’s expression and manner. Rascal as he was, I must do him the justice to say that he looked startled and ashamed when he first caught sight of his unfortunate wife. The servant, who was used to be eyed tyrannically by him, and ordered about roughly, seeing him now for the first time abashed and silent, stammered and hesitated on being asked to swear to his identity.

“I can hardly say for certain, sir,” said the man, addressing the justice in a bewildered manner. “He is like my master, and yet he isn’t. If he wore whiskers and had his hair long, and if he was, saying your presence, sir, a little more rough and ready in his way, I could swear to him anywhere with a safe conscience.”

Fortunately for us, at this moment Mr. James Smith’s feeling of uneasiness at the situation in which he was placed changed to a feeling of irritation at being coolly surveyed and then stupidly doubted in the matter of his identity by one of his own servants.

“Can’t you say in plain words, you idiot, whether you know me or whether you don’t?” he called out, angrily.

“That’s his voice!” cried the servant, starting in the box. “Whiskers or no whiskers, that’s him!”

“If there’s any difficulty, your worship, about the gentleman’s hair,” said Mr. Dark, coming forward with a grin, “here’s a small parcel which, I may make so bold as to say, will remove it.” Saying that, he opened the parcel, took some locks of hair out of it, and held them up close to Mr. James Smith’s head. “A pretty good match, your worship,” continued Mr. Dark. “I have no doubt the gentleman’s head feels cooler now it’s off. We can’t put the whiskers on, I’m afraid, but they match the hair; and they are in the paper (if one may say such a thing of whiskers) to speak for themselves.”

“Lies! lies! lies!” screamed Josephine, losing her wicked self-control at this stage of the proceedings.

The justice made a sign to two of the constables present as she burst out with those exclamations, and the men removed her to an adjoining room.

The second servant from the Hall was then put in the box, and was followed by one of the tenants. After what they had heard and seen, neither of these men had any hesitation in swearing positively to their master’s identity.

“It is quite unnecessary,” said the justice, as soon as the box was empty again, “to examine any more witnesses as to the question of identity. All the legal formalities are accomplished, and the charge against the prisoners falls to the ground. I have great pleasure in ordering the immediate discharge of both the accused persons, and in declaring from this place that they leave the court without the slightest stain on their characters.”

He bowed low to my mistress as he said that, paused a moment, and then looked inquiringly at Mr. James Smith.

“I have hitherto abstained from making any remark unconnected with the immediate matter in hand,” he went on. “But, now that my duty is done, I cannot leave this chair without expressing my strong sense of disapprobation of the conduct of Mr. James Smith – conduct which, whatever may be the motives that occasioned it, has given a false colour of probability to a most horrible charge against a lady of unspotted reputation, and against a person in a lower rank of life whose good character ought not to have been imperiled even for a moment. Mr. Smith may or may not choose to explain his mysterious disappearance from Darrock Hall, and the equally unaccountable change which he has chosen to make in his personal appearance. There is no legal charge against him; but, speaking morally, I should be unworthy of the place I hold if I hesitated to declare my present conviction that his conduct has been deceitful, inconsiderate, and unfeeling in the highest degree.”

To this sharp reprimand Mr. James Smith (evidently tutored beforehand as to what he was to say) replied that, in attending before the justice, he wished to perform a plain duty and to keep himself strictly within the letter of the law. He apprehended that the only legal obligation laid on him was to attend in that court to declare himself, and to enable competent witnesses to prove his identity. This duty accomplished, he had merely to add that he preferred submitting to a reprimand from the bench to entering into explanations which would involve the disclosure of domestic circumstances of a very unhappy nature. After that brief reply he had nothing further to say, and he would respectfully request the justice’s permission to withdraw.

The permission was accorded. As he crossed the room he stopped near his wife, and said, confusedly, in a very low tone:

“I have done you many injuries, but I never intended this. I am sorry for it. Have you anything to say to me before I go?”

My mistress shuddered and hid her face. He waited a moment, and, finding that she did not answer him, bowed his head politely and went out. I did not know it then, but I had seen him for the last time.

After he had gone, the lawyer, addressing Mr. Robert Nicholson, said that he had an application to make in reference to the woman Josephine Durand.

At the mention of that name my mistress hurriedly whispered a few words into her relation’s ear. He looked toward Mr. Philip Nicholson, who immediately advanced, offered his arm to my mistress, and led her out. I was about to follow, when Mr. Dark stopped me, and begged that I would wait a few minutes longer, in order to give myself the pleasure of seeing “the end of the case.”

In the meantime, the justice had pronounced the necessary order to have the quadroon brought back. She came in, as bold and confident as ever. Mr. Robert Nicholson looked away from her in disgust and said to the lawyer:

“Your application is to have her committed for perjury, of course?”

“For perjury?” said Josephine, with her wicked smile. “Very good. I shall explain some little matters that I have not explained before. You think I am quite at your mercy now? Bah! I shall make myself a thorn in your sides yet.”

“She has got scent of the second marriage,” whispered Mr. Dark to me.

There could be no doubt of it. She had evidently been listening at the door on the night when my master came back longer than I had supposed. She must have heard those words about “the new wife” – she might even have seen the effect of them on Mr. James Smith.

“We do not at present propose to charge Josephine Durand with perjury,” said the lawyer, “but with another offence, for which it is important to try her immediately, in order to effect the restoration of property that has been stolen. I charge her with stealing from her mistress, while in her service at Darrock Hall, a pair of bracelets, three rings, and a dozen and a half of lace pocket-handkerchiefs. The articles in question were taken this morning from between the mattresses of her bed; and a letter was found in the same place which clearly proves that she had represented the property as belonging to herself, and that she had tried to dispose of it to a purchaser in London.” While he was speaking, Mr. Dark produced the jewellery, the handkerchiefs and the letter, and laid them before the justice.

Even Josephine’s extraordinary powers of self-control now gave way at last. At the first words of the unexpected charge against her she struck her hands together violently, gnashed her sharp white teeth, and burst out with a torrent of fierce-sounding words in some foreign language, the meaning of which I did not understand then and cannot explain now.

“I think that’s checkmate for marmzelle,” whispered Mr. Dark, with his invariable wink. “Suppose you go back to the Hall, now, William, and draw a jug of that very remarkable old ale of yours? I’ll be after you in five minutes, as soon as the charge is made out.”

I could hardly realize it when I found myself walking back to Darrock a free man again.

In a quarter of an hour’s time Mr. Dark joined me, and drank to my health, happiness and prosperity in three separate tumblers. After performing this ceremony, he wagged his head and chuckled with an appearance of such excessive enjoyment that I could not avoid remarking on his high spirits.

“It’s the case, William – it’s the beautiful neatness of the case that quite intoxicates me. Oh, Lord, what a happiness it is to be concerned in such a job as this!” cries Mr. Dark, slapping his stumpy hands on his fat knees in a sort of ecstasy.

I had a very different opinion of the case for my own part, but I did not venture on expressing it. I was too anxious to know how Mr. James Smith had been discovered and produced at the examination to enter into any arguments. Mr. Dark guessed what was passing in my mind, and, telling me to sit down and make myself comfortable, volunteered of his own accord to inform me of all that I wanted to know.

“When I got my instructions and my statement of particulars,” he began, “I was not at all surprised to hear that Mr. James Smith had come back. (I prophesied that, if you remember, William, the last time we met?) But I was a good deal astonished, nevertheless, at the turn things had taken, and I can’t say I felt very hopeful about finding our man. However, I followed my master’s directions, and put the advertisement in the papers. It addressed Mr. James Smith by name, but it was very carefully worded as to what was wanted of him. Two days after it appeared, a letter came to our office in a woman’s handwriting. It was my business to open the letters, and I opened that. The writer was short and mysterious. She requested that somebody would call from our office at a certain address, between the hours of two and four that afternoon, in reference to the advertisement which we had inserted in the newspapers. Of course, I was the somebody who went. I kept myself from building up hopes by the way, knowing what a lot of Mr. James Smiths there were in London. On getting to the house, I was shown into the drawing-room, and there, dressed in a wrapper and lying on a sofa, was an uncommonly pretty woman, who looked as if she was just recovering from an illness. She had a newspaper by her side, and came to the point at once: ‘My husband’s name is James Smith,’ she says, ‘and I have my reasons for wanting to know if he is the person you are in search of.’ I described our man as Mr. James Smith, of Darrock Hall, Cumberland. ‘I know no such person,’ says she—”

“What! was it not the second wife, after all?” I broke out.

“Wait a bit,” says Mr. Dark. “I mentioned the name of the yacht next, and she started up on the sofa as if she had been shot. ‘I think you were married in Scotland, ma’am,’ says I. She turns as pale as ashes, and drops back on the sofa, and says, faintly: ‘It is my husband. Oh, sir, what has happened? What do you want with him? Is he in debt?’ I took a minute to think, and then made up my mind to tell her everything, feeling that she would keep her husband (as she called him) out of the way if I frightened her by any mysteries. A nice job I had, William, as you may suppose, when she knew about the bigamy business. What with screaming, fainting, crying, and blowing me up (as if I was to blame!), she kept me by that sofa of hers the best part of an hour – kept me there, in short, till Mr. James Smith himself came back. I leave you to judge if that mended matters. He found me mopping the poor woman’s temples with scent and water; and he would have pitched me out of the window, as sure as I sit here, if I had not met him and staggered him at once with the charge of murder against his wife. That stopped him when he was in full cry, I can promise you. ‘Go and wait in the next room,’ says he, ‘and I’ll come in and speak to you directly.’”

“And did you go?” I asked.

“Of course I did,” said Mr. Dark. “I knew he couldn’t get out by the drawing-room windows, and I knew I could watch the door; so away I went, leaving him alone with the lady, who didn’t spare him by any manner of means, as I could easily hear in the next room. However, all rows in this world come to an end sooner or later, and a man with any brains in his head may do what he pleases with a woman who is fond of him. Before long I heard her crying and kissing him. ‘I can’t go home,’ she says, after this. ‘You have behaved like a villain and a monster to me – but oh, Jemmy, I can’t give you up to anybody! Don’t go back to your wife! Oh, don’t, don’t go back to your wife!’  ‘No fear of that,’ says he. ‘My wife wouldn’t have me if I did go back to her.’ After that I heard the door open, and went out to meet him on the landing. He began swearing the moment he saw me, as if that was any good. ‘Business first, if you please, sir,’ says I, ‘and any pleasure you like, in the way of swearing, afterward.’ With that beginning, I mentioned our terms to him, and asked the pleasure of his company to Cumberland in return, he was uncommonly suspicious at first, but I promised to draw out a legal document (mere waste paper, of no earthly use except to pacify him), engaging to hold him harmless throughout the proceedings; and what with that, and telling him of the frightful danger his wife was in, I managed, at last, to carry my point.”

“But did the second wife make no objection to his going away with you?” I inquired.

“Not she,” said Mr. Dark. “I stated the case to her just as it stood, and soon satisfied her that there was no danger of Mr. James Smith’s first wife laying any claim to him. After hearing that, she joined me in persuading him to do his duty, and said she pitied your mistress from the bottom of her heart. With her influence to back me, I had no great fear of our man changing his mind. I had the door watched that night, however, so as to make quite sure of him. The next morning he was ready to time when I called, and a quarter of an hour after that we were off together for the north road. We made the journey with post-horses, being afraid of chance passengers, you know, in public conveyances. On the way down, Mr. James Smith and I got on as comfortably together as if we had been a pair of old friends. I told the story of our tracing him to the north of Scotland, and he gave me the particulars, in return, of his bolting from Darrock Hall. They are rather amusing, William; would you like to hear them?”

I told Mr. Dark that he had anticipated the very question I was about to ask him.

“Well,” he said, “this is how it was: To begin at the beginning, our man really took Mrs. Smith, Number Two, to the Mediterranean, as we heard. He sailed up the Spanish coast, and, after short trips ashore, stopped at a seaside place in France called Cannes. There he saw a house and grounds to be sold which took his fancy as a nice retired place to keep Number Two in. Nothing particular was wanted but the money to buy it; and, not having the little amount in his own possession, Mr. James Smith makes a virtue of necessity, and goes back overland to his wife with private designs on her purse-strings. Number Two, who objects to be left behind, goes with him as far as London. There he trumps up the first story that comes into his head about rents in the country, and a house in Lincolnshire that is too damp for her to trust herself in; and so, leaving her for a few days in London, starts boldly for Darrock Hall. His notion was to wheedle your mistress out of the money by good behaviour; but it seems he started badly by quarrelling with her about a fiddle-playing parson—”

“Yes, yes, I know all about that part of the story,” I broke in, seeing by Mr. Dark’s manner that he was likely to speak both ignorantly and impertinently of my mistress’s unlucky friend ship for Mr. Meeke. “Go on to the time when I left my master alone in the Red Room, and tell me what he did between midnight and nine the next morning.”

“Did?” said Mr. Dark. “Why, he went to bed with the unpleasant conviction on his mind that your mistress had found him out, and with no comfort to speak of except what he could get out of the brandy bottle. He couldn’t sleep; and the more he tossed and tumbled, the more certain he felt that his wife intended to have him tried for bigamy. At last, toward the grey of the morning, he could stand it no longer, and he made up his mind to give the law the slip while he had the chance. As soon as he was dressed, it struck him that there might be a reward offered for catching him, and he determined to make that slight change in his personal appearance which puzzled the witnesses so much before the magistrate today. So he opens his dressing-case and crops his hair in no time, and takes off his whiskers next. The fire was out, and he had to shave in cold water. What with that, and what with the flurry of his mind, naturally enough he cut himself—”

“And dried the blood with his nightgown?” says I.

“With his nightgown,” repeated Mr. Dark. “It was the first thing that lay handy, and he snatched it up. Wait a bit, though; the cream of the thing is to come. When he had done being his own barber, he couldn’t for the life of him hit on a way of getting rid of the loose hair. The fire was out, and he had no matches; so he couldn’t burn it. As for throwing it away, he didn’t dare do that in the house or about the house, for fear of its being found, and betraying what he had done. So he wraps it all up in paper, crams it into his pocket to be disposed of when he is at a safe distance from the Hall, takes his bag, gets out at the window, shuts it softly after him, and makes for the road as fast as his long legs will carry him. There he walks on till a coach overtakes him, and so travels back to London to find himself in a fresh scrape as soon as he gets there. An interesting situation, William, and hard travelling from one end of France to the other, had not agreed together in the case of Number Two. Mr. James Smith found her in bed, with doctor’s orders that she was not to be moved. There was nothing for it after that but to lie by in London till the lady got better. Luckily for us, she didn’t hurry herself; so that, after all, your mistress has to thank the very woman who supplanted her for clearing her character by helping us to find Mr. James Smith.”

“And, pray, how did you come by that loose hair of his which you showed before the justice today?” I asked.

“Thank Number Two again,” says Mr. Dark. “I was put up to asking after it by what she told me. While we were talking about the advertisement, I made so bold as to inquire what first set her thinking that her husband and the Mr. James Smith whom we wanted might be one and the same man. ‘Nothing,’ says she, ‘but seeing him come home with his hair cut short and his whiskers shaved off, and finding that he could not give me any good reason for disfiguring himself in that way. I had my suspicions that something was wrong, and the sight of your advertisement strengthened them directly.’ The hearing her say that suggested to my mind that there might be a difficulty in identifying him after the change in his looks, and I asked him what he had done with the loose hair before we left London. It was found in the pocket of his travelling coat just as he had huddled it up there on leaving the Hall, worry, and fright, and vexation, having caused him to forget all about it. Of course I took charge of the parcel, and you know what good it did as well as I do. So to speak, William, it just completed this beautifully neat case. Looking at the matter in a professional point of view, I don’t hesitate to say that we have managed our business with Mr. James Smith to perfection. We have produced him at the right time, and we are going to get rid of him at the right time. By tonight he will be on his way to foreign parts with Number Two, and he won’t show his nose in England again if he lives to the age of Methuselah.”

It was a relief to hear that and it was almost as great a comfort to find, from what Mr. Dark said next, that my mistress need fear nothing that Josephine could do for the future.

The charge of theft, on which she was about to be tried, did not afford the shadow of an excuse in law any more than in logic for alluding to the crime which her master had committed. If she meant to talk about it she might do so in her place of transportation, but she would not have the slightest chance of being listened to previously in a court of law.

“In short,” said Mr. Dark, rising to take his leave, “as I have told you already, William, it’s checkmate for marmzelle. She didn’t manage the business of the robbery half as sharply as I should have expected. She certainly began well enough by staying modestly at a lodging in the village to give her attendance at the examinations, as it might be required; nothing could look more innocent and respectable so far; but her hiding the property between the mattresses of her bed – the very first place that any experienced man would think of looking in – was such an amazingly stupid thing to do, that I really can’t account for it, unless her mind had more weighing on it than it was able to bear, which, considering the heavy stakes she played for, is likely enough. Anyhow, her hands are tied now, and her tongue too, for the matter of that. Give my respects to your mistress, and tell her that her runaway husband and her lying maid will never either of them harm her again as long as they live. She has nothing to do now but to pluck up her spirits and live happy. Here’s long life to her and to you, William, in the last glass of ale; and here’s the same toast to myself in the bottom of the jug.”

With those words Mr. Dark pocketed his large snuffbox, gave a last wink with his bright eye, and walked rapidly away, whistling, to catch the London coach. From that time to this he and I have never met again.

A few last words relating to my mistress and to the other persons chiefly concerned in this narrative will conclude all that it is now necessary for me to say.

For some months the relatives and friends, and I myself, felt sad misgivings on my poor mistress’s account. We doubted if it was possible, with such a quick, sensitive nature as hers, that she could support the shock which had been inflicted on her. But our powers of endurance are, as I have learned to believe, more often equal to the burdens laid upon us than we are apt to imagine. I have seen many surprising recoveries from illness after all hope had been lost, and I have lived to see my mistress recover from the grief and terror which we once thought would prove fatal to her. It was long before she began to hold up her head again; but care and kindness, and time and change wrought their effect on her at last. She is not now, and never will be again, the woman she was once; her manner is altered, and she looks older by many a year than she really is. But her health causes us no anxiety now; her spirits are calm and equal, and I have good hope that many quiet years of service in her house are left for me still. I myself have married during the long interval of time which I am now passing over in a few words. This change in my life is, perhaps, not worth mentioning, but I am reminded of my two little children when I speak of my mistress in her present position. I really think they make the great happiness, and interest, and amusement of her life, and prevent her from feeling lonely and dried up at heart. It is a pleasant reflection to me to remember this, and perhaps it may be the same to you, for which reason only I speak of it.

As for the other persons connected with the troubles at Darrock Hall, I may mention the vile woman Josephine first, so as to have the sooner done with her. Mr. Dark’s guess, when he tried to account for her want of cunning in hiding the stolen property, by saying that her mind might have had more weighing on it than she was able to bear, turned out to b e nothing less than the plain and awful truth. After she had been found guilty of the robbery, and had been condemned to seven years’ transportation, a worse sentence fell upon her from a higher tribunal than any in this world. While she was still in the county jail, previous to her removal, her mind gave way, the madness breaking out in an attempt to set fire to the prison. Her case was pronounced to be hopeless from the first. The lawful asylum received her, and the lawful asylum will keep her to the end of her days.

Mr. James Smith, who, in my humble opinion, deserved hanging by law, or drowning by accident at least, lived quietly abroad with his Scotch wife (or no wife) for two years, and then died in the most quiet and customary manner, in his bed, after a short illness. His end was described to me as a “highly edifying one.” But as he was also reported to have sent his forgiveness to his wife – which was as much as to say that he was the injured person of the two – I take leave to consider that he was the same impudent vagabond in his last moments that he had been all his life. His Scotch widow has married again, and is now settled in London. I hope her husband is all her own property this time.

Mr. Meeke must not be forgotten, although he has dropped out of the latter part of my story because he had nothing to do with the serious events which followed Josephine’s perjury. In the confusion and wretchedness of that time, he was treated with very little ceremony, and was quite passed over when we left the neighbourhood. After pining and fretting some time, as we afterward heard, in his lonely parsonage, he resigned his living at the first chance he got, and took a sort of under-chaplain’s place in an English chapel abroad. He writes to my mistress once or twice a year to ask after her health and well-being, and she writes back to him. That is all the communication they are ever likely to have with each other. The music they once played together will never sound again. Its last notes have long since faded away and the last words of this story, trembling on the lips of the teller, may now fade with them.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE NINTH DAY

A little change in the weather. The rain still continues, but the wind is not quite so high. Have I any reason to believe, because it is calmer on land, that it is also calmer at sea? Perhaps not. But my mind is scarcely so uneasy today, nevertheless.

I had looked over the newspaper with the usual result, and had laid it down with the customary sense of disappointment, when Jessie handed me a letter which she had received that morning. It was written by her aunt, and it upbraided her in the highly exaggerated terms which ladies love to employ, where any tender interests of their own are concerned, for her long silence and her long absence from home. Home! I thought of my poor boy and of the one hope on which all his happiness rested, and I felt jealous of the word when I saw it used persuasively in a letter to our guest. What right had anyone to mention “home” to her until George had spoken first?

“I must answer it by return of post,” said Jessie, with a tone of sorrow in her voice for which my heart warmed to her. “You have been very kind to me; you have taken more pains to interest and amuse me than I am worth. I can laugh about most things, but I can’t laugh about going away. I am honestly and sincerely too grateful for that.”

She paused, came round to where I was sitting, perched herself on the end of the table, and, resting her hands on my shoulders, added gently:

“It must be the day after tomorrow, must it not?”

I could not trust myself to answer. If I had spoken, I should have betrayed George’s secret in spite of myself.

“Tomorrow is the tenth day,” she went on, softly. “It looks so selfish and so ungrateful to go the moment I have heard the last of the stories, that I am quite distressed at being obliged to enter on the subject at all. And yet, what choice is left me? what can I do when my aunt writes to me in that way?”

She took up the letter again, and looked at it so ruefully that I drew her head a little nearer to me, and gratefully kissed the smooth white forehead.

“If your aunt is only half as anxious to see you again, my love, as I am to see my son, I must forgive her for taking you away from us.” The words came from me without premeditation. It was not calculation this time, but sheer instinct that impelled me to test her in this way, once more, by a direct reference to George. She was so close to me that I felt her breath quiver on my cheek. Her eyes had been fixed on my face a moment before, but they now wandered away from it constrainedly. One of her hands trembled a little on my shoulder, and she took it off.

“Thank you for trying to make our parting easier to me,” she said, quickly, and in a lower tone than she had spoken in yet. I made no answer, but still looked her anxiously in the face. For a few seconds her nimble delicate fingers nervously folded and refolded the letter from her aunt, then she abruptly changed her position.

“The sooner I write, the sooner it will be over,” she said, and hurriedly turned away to the paper-case on the side-table.

How was the change in her manner to be rightly interpreted? Was she hurt by what I had said, or was she secretly so much affected by it, in the impressionable state of her mind at that moment, as to be incapable of exerting a young girl’s customary self-control? Her looks, actions, and language might bear either interpretation. One striking omission had marked her conduct when I had referred to George’s return. She had not inquired when I expected him back. Was this indifference? Surely not. Surely indifference would have led her to ask the conventionally civil question which ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have addressed to me as a matter of course. Was she, on her side, afraid to trust herself to speak of George at a time when an unusual tenderness was aroused in her by the near prospect of saying farewell? It might be – it might not be – it might be. My feeble reason took the side of my inclination; and, after vibrating between Yes and No, I stopped where I had begun – at Yes.

She finished the letter in a few minutes, and dropped it into the postbag the moment it was done.

“Not a word more,” she said, returning to me with a sigh of relief – “not a word about my aunt or my going away till the time comes. We have two more days; let us make the most of them.”

Two more days! Eight-and-forty hours still to pass; sixty minutes in each of those hours; and every minute long enough to bring with it an event fatal to George’s future! The bare thought kept my mind in a fever. For the remainder of the day I was as desultory and as restless as our Queen of Hearts herself. Owen affectionately did his best to quiet me, but in vain. Even Morgan, who whiled away the time by smoking incessantly, was struck by the wretched spectacle of nervous anxiety that I presented to him, and pitied me openly for being unable to compose myself with a pipe. Wearily and uselessly the hours wore on till the sun set. The clouds in the western heaven wore wild and tortured shapes when I looked out at them; and, as the gathering darkness fell on us, the fatal fearful wind rose once more.

When we assembled at eight, the drawing of the lots had no longer any interest or suspense, so far as I was concerned. I had read my last story, and it now only remained for chance to decide the question of precedency between Owen and Morgan. Of the two numbers left in the bowl, the one drawn was Nine. This made it Morgan’s turn to read, and left it appropriately to Owen, as our eldest brother, to close the proceedings on the next night.

Morgan looked round the table when he had spread out his manuscript, and seemed half inclined to open fire, as usual, with a little preliminary sarcasm; but his eyes met mine; he saw the anxiety I was suffering; and his natural kindness, perversely as he might strive to hide it, got the better of him. He looked down on his paper; growled out briefly, “No need for a preface; my little bit of writing explains itself; let’s go on and have don e with it,” and so began to read without another word from himself or from any of us.

BROTHER MORGAN’S STORY:
FAUNTLEROY

•  I  •

It was certainly a dull little dinner-party. Of the four guests, two of us were men between fifty and sixty, and two of us were youths between eighteen and twenty, and we had no subjects in common. We were all intimate with our host, but were only slightly acquainted with each other. Perhaps we should have got on better if there had been some ladies among us; but the master of the house was a bachelor, and, except the parlour-maids who assisted in waiting on us at dinner, no daughter of Eve was present to brighten the dreary scene.

We tried all sorts of subjects, but they dropped one after the other. The elder gentlemen seemed to be afraid of committing themselves by talking too freely within hearing of us juniors, and we, on our side, restrained our youthful flow of spirits and youthful freedom of conversation out of deference to our host, who seemed once or twice to be feeling a little nervous about the continued propriety of our behaviour in the presence of his respectable guests. To make matters worse, we had dined at a sensible hour. When the bottles made their first round at dessert, the clock on the mantelpiece only struck eight. I counted the strokes, and felt certain, from the expression of his face, that the other junior guest, who sat on one side of me at the round table, was counting them also. When we came to the final eight, we exchanged looks of despair. “Two hours more of this! What on earth is to become of us?” In the language of the eyes, that was exactly what we said to each other.

The wine was excellent, and I think we all came separately and secretly to the same conclusion – that our chance of getting through the evening was intimately connected with our resolution in getting through the bottles.

As a matter of course, we talked wine. No company of Englishmen can assemble together for an evening without doing that. Every man in this country who is rich enough to pay income-tax has at one time or other in his life effected a very remarkable transaction in wine. Sometimes he has made such a bargain as he never expects to make again. Sometimes he is the only man in England, not a peer of the realm, who has got a single drop of a certain famous vintage which has perished from the face of the earth. Sometimes he has purchased, with a friend, a few last left dozens from the cellar of a deceased potentate, at a price so exorbitant that he can only wag his head and decline mentioning it; and, if you ask his friend, that friend will wag his head, and decline mentioning it also. Sometimes he has been at an out-of-the-way country inn; has found the sherry not drinkable; has asked if there is no other wine in the house; has been informed that there is some “sourish foreign stuff that nobody ever drinks”; has called for a bottle of it; has found it Burgundy, such as all France cannot now produce, has cunningly kept his own counsel with the widowed landlady, and has bought the whole stock for “an old song.” Sometimes he knows the proprietor of a famous tavern in London, and he recommends his one or two particular friends, the next time they are passing that way, to go in and dine, and give his compliments to the landlord, and ask for a bottle of the brown sherry, with the light blue – as distinguished from the dark blue – seal. Thousands of people dine there every year, and think they have got the famous sherry when they get the dark blue seal; but the real wine, the famous wine, is the light blue seal, and nobody in England knows it but the landlord and his friends. In all these wine-conversations, whatever variety there may be in the various experiences related, one of two great first principles is invariably assumed by each speaker in succession. Either he knows more about it than anyone else, or he has got better wine of his own even than the excellent wine he is now drinking. Men can get together sometimes without talking of women, without talking of horses, without talking of politics, but they cannot assemble to eat a meal together without talking of wine, and they cannot talk of wine without assuming to each one of themselves an absolute infallibility in connection with that single subject which they would shrink from asserting in relation to any other topic under the sun.

How long the inevitable wine-talk lasted on the particular social occasion of which I am now writing is more than I can undertake to say. I had heard so many other conversations of the same sort at so many other tables that my attention wandered away wearily, and I began to forget all about the dull little dinner-party and the badly-assorted company of guests of whom I formed one. How long I remained in this not over-courteous condition of mental oblivion is more than I can tell; but when my attention was recalled, in due course of time, to the little world around me, I found that the good wine had begun to do its good office.

The stream of talk on either side of the host’s chair was now beginning to flow cheerfully and continuously; the wine-conversation had worn itself out; and one of the elder guests – Mr. Wendell – was occupied in telling the other guest – Mr. Trowbridge – of a small fraud which had lately been committed on him by a clerk in his employment. The first part of the story I missed altogether. The last part, which alone caught my attention, followed the career of the clerk to the dock of the Old Bailey.

“So, as I was telling you,” continued Mr. Wendell, “I made up my mind to prosecute, and I did prosecute. Thoughtless people blamed me for sending the young man to prison, and said I might just as well have forgiven him, seeing that the trifling sum of money I had lost by his breach of trust was barely as much as ten pounds. Of course, personally speaking, I would much rather not have gone into court; but I considered that my duty to society in general, and to my brother merchants in particular, absolutely compelled me to prosecute for the sake of example. I acted on that principle, and I don’t regret that I did so. The circumstances under which the man robbed me were particularly disgraceful. He was a hardened reprobate, sir, if ever there was one yet; and I believe, in my conscience, that he wanted nothing but the opportunity to be as great a villain as Fauntleroy himself.”

At the moment when Mr. Wendell personified his idea of consummate villainy by quoting the example of Fauntleroy, I saw the other middle-aged gentleman – Mr. Trowbridge – colour up on a sudden, and begin to fidget in his chair.

“The next time you want to produce an instance of a villain, sir,” said Mr. Trowbridge, “I wish you could contrive to quote some other example than Fauntleroy.”

Mr. Wendell naturally enough looked excessively astonished when he heard these words, which were very firmly and, at the same time, very politely addressed to him.

“May I inquire why you object to my example?” he asked.

“I object to it, sir,” said Mr. Trowbridge, “because it makes me very uncomfortable to hear Fauntleroy called a villain.”

“Good heavens above!” exclaimed Mr. Wendell, utterly bewildered. “Uncomfortable! – you, a mercantile man like myself – you, whose character stands so high everywhere – you uncomfortable when you hear a man who was hanged for forgery called a villain! In the name of wonder, why?”

“Because,” answered Mr. Trowbridge, with perfect composure, “Fauntleroy was a friend of mine.”

“Excuse me, my dear sir,” retorted Mr. Wendell, in as polished a tone of sarcasm as he could command; “but of all the friends whom you have made in the course of your useful and honourable career, I should have thought the friend you have just mentioned would have been the very last to whom you were likely to refer in respectable society, at least by name.”

“Fauntleroy committed an unpardonable crime, and died a disgraceful death,” said Mr. Trowbridge. “But, for all that, Fauntleroy was a friend of mine, and in that character I shall always acknowledge him boldly to my dying day. I have a tenderness for his memory, though he violated a sacred trust, and die d for it on the gallows. Don’t look shocked, Mr. Wendell. I will tell you, and our other friends here, if they will let me, why I feel that tenderness, which looks so strange and so discreditable in your eyes. It is rather a curious anecdote, sir, and has an interest, I think, for all observers of human nature quite apart from its connection with the unhappy man of whom we have been talking. You young gentlemen,” continued Mr. Trowbridge, addressing himself to us juniors, “have heard of Fauntleroy, though he sinned and suffered, and shocked all England long before your time?”

We answered that we had certainly heard of him as one of the famous criminals of his day. We knew that he had been a partner in a great London banking-house; that he had not led a very virtuous life; that he had possessed himself, by forgery, of trust-moneys which he was doubly bound to respect; and that he had been hanged for his offence, in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-four, when the gallows was still set up for other crimes than murder, and when Jack Ketch was in fashion as one of the hard-working reformers of the age.

“Very good,” said Mr. Trowbridge. “You both of you know quite enough of Fauntleroy to be interested in what I am going to tell you. When the bottles have been round the table, I will start with my story.”

The bottles went round – claret for the degenerate youngsters; port for the sterling, steady-headed, middle-aged gentlemen. Mr. Trowbridge sipped his wine – meditated a little – sipped again – and started with the promised anecdote in these terms:

•  II  •

WHAT I am going to tell you, gentlemen, happened when I was a very young man, and when I was just setting up in business on my own account.

My father had been well acquainted for many years with Mr. Fauntleroy, of the famous London banking firm of Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham. Thinking it might be of some future service to me to make my position known to a great man in the commercial world, my father mentioned to his highly-respected friend that I was about to start in business for myself in a very small way, and with very little money. Mr. Fauntleroy received the intimation with a kind appearance of interest, and said that he would have his eye on me. I expected from this that he would wait to see if I could keep on my legs at starting, and that, if he found I succeeded pretty well, he would then help me forward if it lay in his power. As events turned out, he proved to be a far better friend than that, and he soon showed me that I had very much underrated the hearty and generous interest which he had felt in my welfare from the first.

While I was still fighting with the difficulties of setting up my office, and recommending myself to my connection, and so forth, I got a message from Mr. Fauntleroy telling me to call on him, at the banking-house, the first time I was passing that way. As you may easily imagine, I contrived to be passing that way on a particularly early occasion, and, on presenting myself at the bank, I was shown at once into Mr. Fauntleroy’s private room.

He was as pleasant a man to speak to as ever I met with – bright, and gay, and companionable in his manner – with a sort of easy, hearty, jovial bluntness about him that attracted everybody. The clerks all liked him – and that is something to say of a partner in a banking-house, I can tell you!

“Well, young Trowbridge,” says he, giving his papers on the table a brisk push away from him, “so you are going to set up in business for yourself, are you? I have a great regard for your father, and a great wish to see you succeed. Have you started yet? No? Just on the point of beginning, eh? Very good. You will have your difficulties, my friend, and I mean to smooth one of them away for you at the outset. A word of advice for your private ear – Bank with us.”

“You are very kind, sir,” I answered, “and I should ask nothing better than to profit by your suggestion, if I could. But my expenses are heavy at starting, and when they are all paid I am afraid I shall have very little left to put by for the first year. I doubt if I shall be able to muster much more than three hundred pounds of surplus cash in the world after paying what I must pay before I set up my office, and I should be ashamed to trouble your house, sir, to open an account for such a trifle as that.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” says Mr. Fauntleroy. “Are you a banker? What business have you to offer an opinion on the matter? Do as I tell you – leave it to me – bank with us – and draw for what you like. Stop! I haven’t done yet. When you open the account, speak to the head cashier. Perhaps you may find he has got something to tell you. There! there! go away – don’t interrupt me – good-bye – God bless you!”

That was his way – ah! poor fellow, that was his way.

I went to the head cashier the next morning when I opened my little modicum of an account. He had received orders to pay my drafts without reference to my balance. My checks, when I had overdrawn, were to be privately shown to Mr. Fauntleroy. Do many young men who start in business find their prosperous superiors ready to help them in that way?

Well, I got on – got on very fairly and steadily, being careful not to venture out of my depth, and not to forget that small beginnings may lead in time to great ends. A prospect of one of those great ends – great, I mean, to such a small trader as I was at that period – showed itself to me when I had been some little time in business. In plain terms, I had a chance of joining in a first-rate transaction, which would give me profit, and position, and everything I wanted, provided I could qualify myself for engaging in it by getting good security beforehand for a very large amount.

In this emergency, I thought of my kind friend, Mr. Fauntleroy, and went to the bank, and saw him once more in his private room.

There he was at the same table, with the same heaps of papers about him, and the same hearty, easy way of speaking his mind to you at once, in the fewest possible words. I explained the business I came upon with some little hesitation and nervousness, for I was afraid he might think I was taking an unfair advantage of his former kindness to me. When I had done, he just nodded his head, snatched up a blank sheet of paper, scribbled a few lines on it in his rapid way, handed the writing to me, and pushed me out of the room by the two shoulders before I could say a single word. I looked at the paper in the outer office. It was my security from the great banking-house for the whole amount, and for more, if more was wanted.

I could not express my gratitude then, and I don’t know that I can describe it now. I can only say that it has outlived the crime, the disgrace, and the awful death on the scaffold. I am grieved to speak of that death at all; but I have no other alternative. The course of my story must now lead me straight on to the later time, and to the terrible discovery which exposed my benefactor and my friend to all England as the forger Fauntleroy.

I must ask you to suppose a lapse of some time after the occurrence of the events that I have just been relating. During this interval, thanks to the kind assistance I had received at the outset, my position as a man of business had greatly improved. Imagine me now, if you please, on the high road to prosperity, with good large offices and a respectable staff of clerks, and picture me to yourselves sitting alone in my private room between four and five o’clock on a certain Saturday afternoon.

All my letters had been written, all the people who had appointments with me had been received. I was looking carelessly over the newspaper, and thinking about going home, when one of my clerks came in, and said that a stranger wished to see me immediately on very important business.

“Did he mention his name?” I inquired.

“No, sir.”

“Did you not ask him for it?”

“Yes, sir. And he said you would be none the wiser if he told me what it was.”

“Does he look like a begging-letter writer?”

“He looks a little shabby, sir, but he doesn’t talk at all like a begging-letter writer. He spoke sharp and decided, sir, and said it was in your interests that he came, and that you would deeply regret it afterward if you refused to see him.”

“He said that, did he? Show him in at once, then.”

He was shown in immediately: a middling-sized man, with a sharp, unwholesome-looking face, and with a flippant, reckless manner, dressed in a style of shabby smartness, eyeing me with a bold look, and not so overburdened with politeness as to trouble himself about taking off his hat when he came in. I had never seen him before in my life, and I could not form the slightest conjecture from his appearance to guide me toward guessing his position in the world. He was not a gentleman, evidently; but as to fixing his whereabouts in the infinite downward gradations of vagabond existence in London, that was a mystery which I was totally incompetent to solve.

“Is your name Trowbridge?” he began.

“Yes,” I answered, dryly enough.

“Do you bank with Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Answer my question, and you will know.”

“Very well, I do bank with Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham – and what then?”

“Draw out every farthing of balance you have got before the bank closes at five today.”

I stared at him in speechless amazement. The words, for an instant, absolutely petrified me.

“Stare as much as you like,” he proceeded, coolly, “I mean what I say. Look at your clock there. In twenty minutes it will strike five, and the bank will be shut. Draw out every farthing, I tell you again, and look sharp about it.”

“Draw out my money!” I exclaimed, partially recovering myself. “Are you in your right senses? Do you know that the firm I bank with represents one of the first houses in the world? What do you mean – you, who are a total stranger to me – by taking this extraordinary interest in my affairs? If you want me to act on your advice, why don’t you explain yourself?”

“I have explained myself. Act on my advice or not, just as you like. It doesn’t matter to me. I have done what I promised, and there’s an end of it.”

He turned to the door. The minute-hand of the clock was getting on from the twenty minutes to the quarter.

“Done what you promised?” I repeated, getting up to stop him.

“Yes,” he said, with his hand on the lock. “I have given my message. Whatever happens, remember that. Good-afternoon.”

He was gone before I could speak again.

I tried to call after him, but my speech suddenly failed me. It was very foolish, it was very unaccountable, but there was something in the man’s last words which had more than half frightened me.

I looked at the clock. The minute-hand was on the quarter.

My office was just far enough from the bank to make it necessary for me to decide on the instant. If I had had time to think, I am perfectly certain that I should not have profited by the extraordinary warning that had just been addressed to me. The suspicious appearance and manners of the stranger; the outrageous improbability of the inference against the credit of the bank toward which his words pointed; the chance that some underhand attempt was being made, by some enemy of mine, to frighten me into embroiling myself with one of my best friends, through showing an ignorant distrust of the firm with which he was associated as partner – all these considerations would unquestionably have occurred to me if I could have found time for reflection; and, as a necessary consequence, not one farthing of my balance would have been taken from the keeping of the bank on that memorable day.

As it was, I had just time enough to act, and not a spare moment for thinking. Some heavy payments made at the beginning of the week had so far decreased my balance that the sum to my credit in the banking-book barely reached fifteen hundred pounds. I snatched up my chequebook, wrote a draft for the whole amount, and ordered one of my clerks to run to the bank and get it cashed before the doors closed. What impulse urged me on, except the blind impulse of hurry and bewilderment, I can’t say. I acted mechanically, under the influence of the vague inexplicable fear which the man’s extraordinary parting words had aroused in me, without stopping to analyse my own sensations – almost without knowing what I was about. In three minutes from the time when the stranger had closed my door the clerk had started for the bank, and I was alone again in my room, with my hands as cold as ice and my head all in a whirl.

I did not recover my control over myself until the clerk came back with the notes in his hand. He had just got to the bank in the nick of time. As the cash for my draft was handed to him over the counter, the clock struck five, and he heard the order given to close the doors.

When I had counted the banknotes and had locked them up in the safe, my better sense seemed to come back to me on a sudden. Never have I reproached myself before or since as I reproached myself at that moment. What sort of return had I made for Mr. Fauntleroy’s fatherly kindness to me? I had insulted him by the meanest, the grossest distrust of the honour and the credit of his house, and that on the word of an absolute stranger, of a vagabond, if ever there was one yet. It was madness – downright madness in any man to have acted as I had done. I could not account for my own inconceivably thoughtless proceeding. I could hardly believe in it myself. I opened the safe and looked at the banknotes again. I locked it once more, and flung the key down on the table in a fury of vexation against myself. There the money was, upbraiding me with my own inconceivable folly, telling me in the plainest terms that I had risked depriving myself of my best and kindest friend henceforth and forever.

It was necessary to do something at once toward making all the atonement that lay in my power. I felt that, as soon as I began to cool down a little. There was but one plain, straight-forward way left now out of the scrape in which I had been mad enough to involve myself. I took my hat, and, without stopping an instant to hesitate, hurried off to the bank to make a clean breast of it to Mr. Fauntleroy.

When I knocked at the private door and asked for him, I was told that he had not been at the bank for the last two days. One of the other partners was there, however, and was working at that moment in his own room.

I sent in my name at once, and asked to see him. He and I were little better than strangers to each other, and the interview was likely to be, on that account, unspeakably embarrassing and humiliating on my side. Still, I could not go home. I could not endure the inaction of the next day, the Sunday, without having done my best on the spot to repair the error into which my own folly had led me. Uncomfortable as I felt at the prospect of the approaching interview, I should have been far more uneasy in my mind if the partner had declined to see me.

To my relief, the bank porter returned with a message requesting me to walk in.

What particular form my explanations and apologies took when I tried to offer them is more than I can tell now. I was so confused and distressed that I hardly knew what I was talking about at the time. The one circumstance which I remember clearly is that I was ashamed to refer to my interview with the strange man, and that I tried to account for my sudden withdrawal of my balance by referring it to some inexplicable panic, caused by mischievous reports which I was unable to trace to their source, and which, for anything I knew to the contrary, might, after all, have been only started in jest. Greatly to my surprise, the partner did not seem to notice the lamentable lameness of my excuses, and did not additionally confuse me by asking any questions. A weary, absent look, which I had observed on his face when I came in, remained on it while I was speaking. It seemed to be an effort to him even to keep up the appearance of listening to me; and when, at last, I fairly broke down in the middle of a sentence, and gave up the hope of getting any further, all the answer he gave me was comprised in these few civil commonplace words:

“Never mind, Mr. Trowbridge; pray don’t think of apologising. We are all liable to make mistakes. Say nothing more about it, and bring the money back on Monday if you still honour us with your confidence.”

He looked down at his papers as if he was anxious to be alone again, and I had no alternative, of course, but to take my leave immediately. I went home, feeling a little easier in my mind now that I had paved the way for making the best practical atonement in my power by bringing my balance back the first thing on Monday morning. Still, I passed a weary day on Sunday, reflecting, sadly enough, that I had not yet made my peace with Mr. Fauntleroy. My anxiety to set myself right with my generous friend was so intense that I risked intruding myself on his privacy by calling at his town residence on the Sunday. He was not there, and his servant could tell me nothing of his whereabouts. There was no help for it now but to wait till his weekday duties brought him back to the bank.

I went to business on Monday morning half an hour earlier than usual, so great was my impatience to restore the amount of that unlucky draft to my account as soon as possible after the bank opened.

On entering my office, I stopped with a startled feeling just inside the door. Something serious had happened. The clerks, instead of being at their desks as usual, were all huddled together in a group, talking to each other with blank faces. When they saw me, they fell back behind my managing man, who stepped forward with a circular in his hand.

“Have you heard the news, sir?” he said.

“No. What is it?”

He handed me the circular. My heart gave one violent throb the instant I looked at it. I felt myself turn pale; I felt my knees trembling under me.

Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy & Graham had stopped payment.

“The circular has not been issued more than half an hour,” continued my managing clerk. “I have just come from the bank, sir. The doors are shut; there is no doubt about it. Marsh & Company have stopped this morning.”

I hardly heard him; I hardly knew who was talking to me. My strange visitor of the Saturday had taken instant possession of all my thoughts, and his words of warning seemed to be sounding once more in my ears. This man had known the true condition of the bank when not another soul outside the doors was aware of it! The last draft paid across the counter of that ruined house, when the doors closed on Saturday, was the draft that I had so bitterly reproached myself for drawing; the one balance saved from the wreck was my balance. Where had the stranger got the information that had saved me? and why had he brought it to my ears?

I was still groping, like a man in the dark, for an answer to those two questions – I was still bewildered by the unfathomable mystery of doubt into which they had plunged me – when the discovery of the stopping of the bank was followed almost immediately by a second shock, far more dreadful, far heavier to bear, so far as I was concerned, than the first.

While I and my clerks were still discussing the failure of the firm, two mercantile men, who were friends of mine, ran into the office, and overwhelmed us with the news that one of the partners had been arrested for forgery. Never shall I forget the terrible Monday morning when those tidings reached me, and when I knew that the partner was Mr. Fauntleroy.

I was true to him – I can honestly say I was true to my belief in my generous friend – when that fearful news reached me. My fellow-merchants had got all the particulars of the arrest. They told me that two of Mr. Fauntleroy’s fellow-trustees had come up to London to make arrangements about selling out some stock. On inquiring for Mr. Fauntleroy at the banking-house, they had been informed that he was not there; and, after leaving a message for him, they had gone into the City to make an appointment with their stockbroker for a future day, when their fellow-trustee might be able to attend. The stock-broker volunteered to make certain business inquiries on the spot, with a view to saving as much time as possible, and left them at his office to await his return. He came back, looking very much amazed, with the information that the stock had been sold out down to the last five hundred pounds. The affair was instantly investigated; the document authorizing the selling out was produced; and the two trustees saw on it, side by side with Mr. Fauntleroy’s signature, the forged signatures of their own names. This happened on the Friday, and the trustees, without losing a moment, sent the officers of justice in pursuit of Mr. Fauntleroy. He was arrested, brought up before the magistrate, and remanded on the Saturday. On the Monday I heard from my friends the particulars which I have just narrated.

But the events of that one morning were not destined to end even yet. I had discovered the failure of the bank and the arrest of Mr. Fauntleroy. I was next to be enlightened, in the strangest and the saddest manner, on the difficult question of his innocence or his guilt.

Before my friends had left my office – before I had exhausted the arguments which my gratitude rather than my reason suggested to me in favour of the unhappy prisoner – a note, marked immediate, was placed in my hands, which silenced me the instant I looked at it. It was written from the prison by Mr. Fauntleroy, and it contained two lines only, entreating me to apply for the necessary order, and to go and see him immediately.

I shall not attempt to describe the flutter of expectation, the strange mixture of dread and hope that agitated me when I recognised his handwriting, and discovered what it was that he desired me to do. I obtained the order and went to the prison. The authorities, knowing the dreadful situation in which he stood, were afraid of his attempting to destroy himself, and had set two men to watch him. One came out as they opened his cell door. The other, who was bound not to leave him, very delicately and considerately affected to be looking out of window the moment I was shown in.

He was sitting on the side of his bed, with his head drooping and his hands hanging listlessly over his knees when I first caught sight of him. At the sound of my approach he started to his feet, and, without speaking a word, flung both his arms round my neck.

My heart swelled up.

“Tell me it’s not true, sir! For God’s sake, tell me it’s not true!” was all I could say to him.

He never answered – oh me! he never answered, and he turned away his face.

There was one dreadful moment of silence. He still held his arms round my neck, and on a sudden he put his lips close to my ear.

“Did you get your money out?” he whispered. “Were you in time on Saturday afternoon?”

I broke free from him in the astonishment of hearing those words.

“What!” I cried out loud, forgetting the third person at the window. “That man who brought the message—”

“Hush!” he said, putting his hand on my lips. “There was no better man to be found, after the officers had taken me – I know no more about him than you do – I paid him well as a chance messenger, and risked his cheating me of his errand.”

“You sent him, then!”

“I sent him.”

•   •   •

My story is over, gentlemen. There is no need for me to tell you that Mr. Fauntleroy was found guilty, and that he died by the hangman’s hand. It was in my power to soothe his last moments in this world by taking on myself the arrangement of some of his private affairs, which, while they remained unsettled, weighed heavily on his mind. They had no connection with the crimes he had committed, so I could do him the last little service he was ever to accept at my hands with a clear conscience.

I say nothing in defence of his character – nothing in palliation of the offence for which he suffered. But I cannot forget that in the time of his most fearful extremity, when the strong arm of the law had already seized him, he thought of the young man whose humble fortunes he had helped to build; whose heartfelt gratitude he had fairly won; whose simple faith he was resolved never to betray. I leave it to greater intellects than mine to reconcile the anomaly of his reckless falsehood toward others and his steadfast truth toward me. It is as certain as that we sit here that one of Fauntleroy’s last efforts in this world was the effort he made to preserve me from being a loser by the trust that I had placed in him. There is the secret of my strange tenderness for the memory of a felon; that is why the word villain does somehow still grate on my heart when I hear it associated with the name – the disgraced name, I grant you – of the forger Fauntleroy. Pass the bottles, young gentlemen, and pardon a man of the old school for having so long interrupted your conversation with a story of the old time.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE TENTH DAY

The storm has burst on us in its full fury. Last night the stout old tower rocked on its foundations.

I hardly ventured to hope that the messenger who brings us our letters from the village – the postman, as we call him – would make his appearance this morning; but he came bravely through rain, hail and wind. The old pony which he usually rides had refused to face the storm, and, sooner than disappoint us, our faithful postman had boldly started for The Glen Tower on foot. All his early life had been passed on board ship, and, at sixty years of age, he had battled his way that morning through the storm on shore as steadily and as resolutely as ever he had battled it in his youth through the storm at sea.

I opened the postbag eagerly. There were two letters for Jessie from young lady friends; a letter for Owen from a charitable society; a letter to me upon business; and – on this last day, of all others – no newspaper!

I sent directly to the kitchen (where the drenched and weary postman was receiving the hospitable attentions of the servants) to make inquiries. The disheartening answer returned was that the newspaper could not have arrived as usual by the morning’s post, or it must have been put into the bag along with the letters. No such accident as this had occurred, except on one former occasion, since the beginning of the year. And now, on the very day when I might have looked confidently for news of George’s ship, when the state of the weather made the finding of that news of the last importance to my peace of mind, the paper, by some inconceivable fatality, had failed to reach me! If there had been the slightest chance of borrowing a copy in the village, I should have gone there myself through the tempest to get it. If there had been the faintest possibility of communicating, in that frightful weather, with the distant county town, I should have sent there or gone there myself. I even went the length of speaking to the groom, an old servant whom I knew I could trust. The man stared at me in astonishment, and then pointed through the window to the blinding hail and the writhing trees.

“No horse that ever was foaled, sir,” he said, “would face that for long. It’s almost a miracle that the postman got here alive. He says himself that he dursn’t go back again. I’ll try it, sir, if you order me; but if an accident happens, please to remember, whatever becomes of me, that I warned you beforehand.”

It was only too plain that the servant was right, and I dismissed him. What I suffered from that one accident of the missing newspaper I am ashamed to tell. No educated man can conceive how little his acquired mental advantages will avail him against his natural human inheritance of superstition, under certain circumstances of fear and suspense, until he has passed the ordeal in his own proper person. We most of us soon arrive at a knowledge of the extent of our strength, but we may pass a lifetime and be still ignorant of the extent of our weakness.

Up to this time I had preserved self-control enough to hide the real state of my feelings from our guest; but the arrival of the tenth day, and the unexpected trial it had brought with it, found me at the end of my resources. Jessie’s acute observation soon showed her that something had gone wrong, and she questioned me on the subject directly. My mind was in such a state of confusion that no excuse occurred to me. I left her precipitately, and entreated Owen and Morgan to keep her in their company, and out of mine, for the rest of the day. My strength to preserve my son’s secret had failed me, and my only chance of resisting the betrayal of it lay in the childish resource of keeping out of the way. I shut myself into my room till I could bear it no longer. I watched my opportunity, and paid stolen visits over and over again to the barometer in the hall. I mounted to Morgan’s rooms at the top of the tower, and looked out hopelessly through rain-mist and scud for signs of a carriage on the flooded valley-road below us. I stole down again to the servants’ hall, and questioned the old postman (half-tipsy by this time with restorative mulled ale) about his past experience of storms at sea; drew him into telling long, rambling, wearisome stories, not one-tenth part of which I heard; and left him with my nervous irritability increased tenfold by his useless attempts to interest and inform me. Hour by hour, all through that miserable day, I opened doors and windows to feel for myself the capricious changes of the storm from worse to better, and from better to worse again. Now I sent once more for the groom, when it looked lighter; and now I followed him hurriedly to the stables, to countermand my own rash orders. My thoughts seemed to drive over my mind as the rain drove over the earth; the confusion within me was the image in little of the mightier turmoil that raged outside.

Before we assembled at the dinner-table, Owen whispered to me that he had made my excuses to our guest, and that I need dread nothing more than a few friendly inquiries about my health when I saw her again. The meal was dispatched hastily and quietly. Toward dusk the storm began to lessen, and for a moment the idea of sending to the town occurred to me once more. But, now that the obstacle of weather had been removed, the obstacle of darkness was set up in its place. I felt this; I felt that a few more hours would decide the doubt about George, so far as this last day was concerned, and I determined to wait a little longer, having already waited so long. My resolution was the more speedily taken in this matter, as I had now made up my mind, in sheer despair, to tell my son’s secret to Jessie if he failed to return before she left us. My reason warned me that I should put myself and my guest in a false position by taking this step, but something stronger than my reason forbade me to let her go back to the gay world and its temptations without first speaking to her of George in the lamentable event of George not being present to speak for himself.

We were a sad and silent little company when the clock struck eight that night, and when we met for the last time to hear the last story. The shadow of the approaching farewell – itself the shade of the long farewell – rested heavily on our guest’s spirits. The gay dresses which she had hitherto put on to honour our little ceremony were all packed up, and the plain gown she wore kept the journey of the morrow cruelly before her eyes and ours. A quiet melancholy shed its tenderness over her bright young face as she drew the last number, for form’s sake, out of the bowl, and handed it to Owen with a faint smile. Even our positions at the table were altered now. Under the pretence that the light hurt my eyes, I moved back into a dim corner, to keep my anxious face out of view. Morgan, looking at me hard, and muttering under his breath, “Thank Heaven, I never married!” stole his chair by degrees, with rough, silent kindness, nearer and nearer to mine. Jessie, after a moment’s hesitation, vacated her place next, and, saying that she wanted to sit close to one of us on the farewell night, took a chair at Owen’s side. Sad! sad! we had instinctively broken up already, so far as our places at the table were concerned, before the reading of the last story had so much as begun.

It was a relief when Owen’ s quiet voice stole over the weary silence, and pleaded for our attention to the occupation of the night.

“Number Six,” he said, “is the number that chance has left to remain till the last. The manuscript to which it refers is not, as you may see, in my handwriting. It consists entirely of passages from the Diary of a poor hard-working girl – passages which tell an artless story of love and friendship in humble life. When that story has come to an end, I may inform you how I became possessed of it. If I did so now, I should only forestall one important part of the interest of the narrative. I have made no attempt to find a striking title for it. It is called, simply and plainly, after the name of the writer of the Diary – the Story of Anne Rodway.”

In the short pause that Owen made before he began to read, I listened anxiously for the sound of a traveller’s approach outside. At short intervals, all through the story, I listened and listened again. Still, nothing caught my ear but the trickle of the rain and the rush of the sweeping wind through the valley, sinking gradually lower and lower as the night advanced.

BROTHER OWEN’S STORY:
ANNE RODWAY

[TAKEN FROM HER DIARY.]

…March 3d, 1840. A long letter today from Robert, which surprised and vexed me so that I have been sadly behindhand with my work ever since. He writes in worse spirits than last time, and absolutely declares that he is poorer even than when he went to America, and that he has made up his mind to come home to London.

How happy I should be at this news, if he only returned to me a prosperous man! As it is, though I love him dearly, I cannot look forward to the meeting him again, disappointed and broken down, and poorer than ever, without a feeling almost of dread for both of us. I was twenty-six last birthday and he was thirty-three, and there seems less chance now than ever of our being married. It is all I can do to keep myself by my needle; and his prospects, since he failed in the small stationery business three years ago, are worse, if possible, than mine.

Not that I mind so much for myself; women, in all ways of life, and especially in my dressmaking way, learn, I think, to be more patient than men. What I dread is Robert’s despondency, and the hard struggle he will have in this cruel city to get his bread, let alone making money enough to marry me. So little as poor people want to set up in housekeeping and be happy together, it seems hard that they can’t get it when they are honest and hearty, and willing to work. The clergyman said in his sermon last Sunday evening that all things were ordered for the best, and we are all put into the stations in life that are properest for us. I suppose he was right, being a very clever gentleman who fills the church to crowding; but I think I should have understood him better if I had not been very hungry at the time, in consequence of my own station in life being nothing but plain needlewoman.

March 4th. Mary Mallinson came down to my room to take a cup of tea with me. I read her bits of Robert’s letter, to show her that, if she has her troubles, I have mine too; but I could not succeed in cheering her. She says she is born to misfortune, and that, as long back as she can remember, she has never had the least morsel of luck to be thankful for. I told her to go and look in my glass, and to say if she had nothing to be thankful for then; for Mary is a very pretty girl, and would look still prettier if she could be more cheerful and dress neater. However, my compliment did no good. She rattled her spoon impatiently in her teacup, and said, “If I was only as good a hand at needle-work as you are, Anne, I would change faces with the ugliest girl in London.”  “Not you!” says I, laughing. She looked at me for a moment, and shook her head, and was out of the room before I could get up and stop her. She always runs off in that way when she is going to cry, having a kind of pride about letting other people see her in tears.

March 5th. A fright about Mary. I had not seen her all day, as she does not work at the same place where I do; and in the evening she never came down to have tea with me, or sent me word to go to her; so, just before I went to bed, I ran upstairs to say good-night.

She did not answer when I knocked; and when I stepped softly in the room I saw her in bed, asleep, with her work not half done, lying about the room in the untidiest way. There was nothing remarkable in that, and I was just going away on tiptoe, when a tiny bottle and wineglass on the chair by her bedside caught my eye. I thought she was ill and had been taking physic, and looked at the bottle. It was marked in large letters, “Laudanum – Poison.”

My heart gave a jump as if it was going to fly out of me. I laid hold of her with both hands, and shook her with all my might. She was sleeping heavily, and woke slowly, as it seemed to me – but still she did wake. I tried to pull her out of bed, having heard that people ought to be always walked up and down when they have taken laudanum but she resisted, and pushed me away violently.

“Anne!” says she, in a fright. “For gracious sake, what’s come to you! Are you out of your senses?”

“Oh, Mary! Mary!” says I, holding up the bottle before her, “if I hadn’t come in when I did—” And I laid hold of her to shake her again.

She looked puzzled at me for a moment – then smiled (the first time I had seen her do so for many a long day) – then put her arms round my neck.

“Don’t be frightened about me, Anne,” she says; “I am not worth it, and there is no need.”

“No need!” says I, out of breath – “no need, when the bottle has got Poison marked on it!”

“Poison, dear, if you take it all,” says Mary, looking at me very tenderly, “and a night’s rest if you only take a little.”

I watched her for a moment, doubtful whether I ought to believe what she said or to alarm the house. But there was no sleepiness now in her eyes, and nothing drowsy in her voice; and she sat up in bed quite easily, without anything to support her.

“You have given me a dreadful fright, Mary,” says I, sitting down by her in the chair, and beginning by this time to feel rather faint after being startled so.

She jumped out of bed to get me a drop of water, and kissed me, and said how sorry she was, and how undeserving of so much interest being taken in her. At the same time, she tried to possess herself of the laudanum bottle which I still kept cuddled up tight in my own hands.

“No,” says I. “You have got into a low-spirited, despairing way. I won’t trust you with it.”

“I am afraid I can’t do without it,” says Mary, in her usual quiet, hopeless voice. “What with work that I can’t get through as I ought, and troubles that I can’t help thinking of, sleep won’t come to me unless I take a few drops out of that bottle. Don’t keep it away from me, Anne; it’s the only thing in the world that makes me forget myself.”

“Forget yourself!” says I. “You have no right to talk in that way, at your age. There’s something horrible in the notion of a girl of eighteen sleeping with a bottle of laudanum by her bedside every night. We all of us have our troubles. Haven’t I got mine?”

“You can do twice the work I can, twice as well as me,” says Mary. “You are never scolded and rated at for awkwardness with your needle, and I always am. You can pay for your room every week, and I am three weeks in debt for mine.”

“A little more practice,” says I, “and a little more courage, and you will soon do better. You have got all your life before you—”

“I wish I was at the end of it,” says she, breaking in. “I am alone in the world, and my life’s no good to me.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying so,” says I. “Haven’t you got me for a friend? Didn’t I take a fancy to you when first you left your stepmother and came to lodge in this house? And haven’t I been sisters with you ever since? Suppose you are alone in the world, am I much better off? I’m an orphan like you. I’ve almost as many things in pawn as you; and, if your pockets are empty, mine have only got ninepence in them, to last me for all the rest of the week.”

“Your father and mother were honest people,” says Mary, obstinately. “My mother ran away from home, and died in a hospital. My father was always drunk, and always beating me. My stepmother is as good as dead, for all she cares about me. My only brother is thousands of miles away in foreign parts, and never writes to me, and never helps me with a farthing. My sweetheart—”

She stopped, and the red flew into her face. I knew, if she went on that way, she would only get to the saddest part of her sad story, and give both herself and me unnecessary pain.

“My sweetheart is too poor to marry me, Mary,” I said, “so I’m not so much to be envied even there. But let’s give over disputing which is worst off. Lie down in bed, and let me tuck you up. I’ll put a stitch or two into that work of yours while you go to sleep.”

Instead of doing what I told her, she burst out crying (being very like a child in some of her ways), and hugged me so tight round the neck that she quite hurt me. I let her go on till she had worn herself out, and was obliged to lie down. Even then, her last few words before she dropped off to sleep were such as I was half sorry, half frightened to hear.

“I won’t plague you long, Anne,” she said. “I haven’t courage to go out of the world as you seem to fear I shall; but I began my life wretchedly, and wretchedly I am sentenced to end it.”

It was of no use lecturing her again, for she closed her eyes.

I tucked her up as neatly as I could, and put her petticoat over her, for the bedclothes were scanty, and her hands felt cold. She looked so pretty and delicate as she fell asleep that it quite made my heart ache to see her, after such talk as we had held together. I just waited long enough to be quite sure that she was in the land of dreams, then emptied the horrible laudanum bottle into the grate, took up her half-done work, and, going out softly, left her for that night.

March 6th. Sent off a long letter to Robert, begging and entreating him not to be so down-hearted, and not to leave America without making another effort. I told him I could bear any trial except the wretchedness of seeing him come back a helpless, broken-down man, trying uselessly to begin life again when too old for a change.

It was not till after I had posted my own letter, and read over part of Robert’s again, that the suspicion suddenly floated across me, for the first time, that he might have sailed for England immediately after writing to me. There were expressions in the letter which seemed to indicate that he had some such headlong project in his mind. And yet, surely, if it were so, I ought to have noticed them at the first reading. I can only hope I am wrong in my present interpretation of much of what he has written to me – hope it earnestly for both our sakes.

This has been a doleful day for me. I have been uneasy about Robert and uneasy about Mary. My mind is haunted by those last words of hers: “I began my life wretchedly, and wretchedly I am sentenced to end it.” Her usual melancholy way of talking never produced the same impression on me that I feel now. Perhaps the discovery of the laudanum-bottle is the cause of this. I would give many a hard day’s work to know what to do for Mary’s good. My heart warmed to her when we first met in the same lodging-house two years ago, and, although I am not one of the over-affectionate sort myself, I feel as if I could go to the world’s end to serve that girl. Yet, strange to say, if I was asked why I was so fond of her, I don’t think I should know how to answer the question.

March 7th. I am almost ashamed to write it down, even in this journal, which no eyes but mine ever look on; yet I must honestly confess to myself that here I am, at nearly one in the morning, sitting up in a state of serious uneasiness because Mary has not yet come home.

I walked with her this morning to the place where she works, and tried to lead her into talking of the relations she has got who are still alive. My motive in doing this was to see if she dropped anything in the course of conversation which might suggest a way of helping her interests with those who are bound to give her all reasonable assistance. But the little I could get her to say to me led to nothing. Instead of answering my questions about her stepmother and her brother, she persisted at first, in the strangest way, in talking of her father, who was dead and gone, and of one Noah Truscott, who had been the worst of all the bad friends he had, and had taught him to drink and game. When I did get her to speak of her brother, she only knew that he had gone out to a place called Assam, where they grew tea. How he was doing, or whether he was there still, she did not seem to know, never having heard a word from him for years and years past.

As for her stepmother, Mary not unnaturally flew into a passion the moment I spoke of her. She keeps an eating-house at Hammersmith, and could have given Mary good employment in it; but she seems always to have hated her, and to have made her life so wretched with abuse and ill usage that she had no refuge left but to go away from home, and do her best to make a living for herself. Her husband (Mary’s father) appears to have behaved badly to her, and, after his death, she took the wicked course of revenging herself on her stepdaughter. I felt, after this, that it was impossible Mary could go back, and that it was the hard necessity of her position, as it is of mine, that she should struggle on to make a decent livelihood without assistance from any of her relations. I confessed as much as this to her; but I added that I would try to get her employment with the persons for whom I work, who pay higher wages, and show a little more indulgence to those under them than the people to whom she is now obliged to look for support.

I spoke much more confidently than I felt about being able to do this, and left her, as I thought, in better spirits than usual. She promised to be back tonight to tea at nine o’clock, and now it is nearly one in the morning, and she is not home yet. If it was any other girl I should not feel uneasy, for I should make up my mind that there was extra work to be done in a hurry, and that they were keeping her late, and I should go to bed. But Mary is so unfortunate in everything that happens to her, and her own melancholy talk about herself keeps hanging on my mind so, that I have fears on her account which would not distress me about anyone else. It seems inexcusably silly to think such a thing, much more to write it down; but I have a kind of nervous dread upon me that some accident—

What does that loud knocking at the street door mean? And those voices and heavy footsteps outside? Some lodger who has lost his key, I suppose. And yet, my heart – What a coward I have become all of a sudden!

More knocking and louder voices. I must run to the door and see what it is. Oh, Mary! Mary! I hope I am not going to have another fright about you, but I feel sadly like it.

March 8th.

March 9th.

March 10th.

March 11th. Oh me! all the troubles I have ever had in my life are as nothing to the trouble I am in now. For three days I have not been able to write a single line in this journal, which I have kept so regularly ever since I was a girl. For three days I have not once thought of Robert – I, who am always thinking of him at other times.

My poor, dear, unhappy Mary! the worst I feared for you on that night when I sat up alone was far below the dreadful calamity that has really happened. How can I write about it, with my eyes full of tears and my hand all of a tremble? I don’t even know why I am sitting down at my desk now, unless it is habit that keeps me to my old everyday task, in spite of all the grief and fear which seem to unfit me entirely for performing it.

The people of the house were asleep and lazy on that dreadful night, and I was the first to open the door. Never, never could I describe in writing, or even say in plain talk, though it is so much easier, what I felt when I saw two policemen come in, carrying between them what seemed to me to be a dead girl, and that girl Mary! I caught hold of her, and gave a scream that must have alarmed the whole house; for frightened people came crowding downstairs in their nightdresses. There was a dreadful confusion and noise of loud talking, but I heard nothing and saw nothing till I had got her into my room and laid on my bed. I stooped down, frantic-like, to kiss her, and saw an awful mark of a blow on the left temple, and felt, at the same time, a feeble flutter of her breath on my cheek. The discovery that she was not dead seemed to give me back my senses again. I told one of the policemen where the nearest doctor was to be found, and sat down by the bedside while he was gone, and bathed her poor head with cold water. She never opened her eyes, or moved, or spoke; but she breathed, and that was enough for me, because it was enough for life.

The policeman left in the room was a big, thick-voiced, pompous man, with a horrible unfeeling pleasure in hearing himself talk before an assembly of frightened, silent people. He told us how he had found her, as if he had been telling a story in a taproom, and began with saying: “I don’t think the young woman was drunk.”

Drunk! My Mary, who might have been a born lady for all the spirits she ever touched – drunk! I could have struck the man for uttering the word, with her lying – poor suffering angel – so white, and still, and helpless before him. As it was, I gave him a look, but he was too stupid to understand it, and went droning on, saying the same thing over and over again in the same words. And yet the story of how they found her was, like all the sad stories I have ever heard told in real life, so very, very short. They had just seen her lying along on the curbstone a few streets off, and had taken her to the station-house. There she had been searched, and one of my cards, that I gave to ladies who promise me employment, had been found in her pocket, and so they had brought her to our house. This was all the man really had to tell. There was nobody near her when she was found, and no evidence to show how the blow on her temple had been inflicted.

What a time it was before the doctor came, and how dreadful to hear him say, after he had looked at her, that he was afraid all the medical men in the world could be of no use here! He could not get her to swallow anything; and the more he tried to bring her back to her senses the less chance there seemed of his succeeding. He examined the blow on her temple, and said he thought she must have fallen down in a fit of some sort, and struck her head against the pavement, and so have given her brain what he was afraid was a fatal shake. I asked what was to be done if she showed any return to sense in the night. He said: “Send for me directly”; and stopped for a little while afterward stroking her head gently with his hand, and whispering to himself: “Poor girl, so young and so pretty!” I had felt, some minutes before, as if I could have struck the policeman, and I felt now as if I could have thrown my arms round the doctor’s neck and kissed him. I did put out my hand when he took up his hat, and he shook it in the friendliest way. “Don’t hope, my dear,” he said, and went out.

The rest of the lodgers followed him, all silent and shocked, except the inhuman wretch who owns the house and lives in idleness on the high rents he wrings from poor people like us.

“She’s three weeks in my debt,” says he, with a frown and an oath. “Where the devil is my money to come from now?” Brute! brute!

I had a long cry alone with her that seemed to ease my heart a little. She was not the least changed for the better when I had wiped away the tears and could see her clearly again. I took up her right hand, which lay nearest to me. It was tight clinched. I tried to unclasp the fingers, and succeeded after a little time. Something dark fell out of the palm of her hand as I straightened it.

I picked the thing up, and smoothed it out, and saw that it was an end of a man’s cravat.

A very old, rotten, dingy strip of black silk, with thin lilac lines, all blurred and deadened with dirt, running across and across the stuff in a sort of trellis-work pattern. The small end of the cravat was hemmed in the usual way, but the other end was all jagged, as if the morsel then in my hands had been torn off violently from the rest of the stuff. A chill ran all over me as I looked at it; for that poor, stained, crumpled end of a cravat seemed to be saying to me, as though it had been in plain words: “If she dies, she has come to her death by foul means, and I am the witness of it.”

I had been frightened enough before, lest she should die suddenly and quietly without my knowing it, while we were alone together; but I got into a perfect agony now, for fear this last worst affliction should take me by surprise. I don’t suppose five minutes passed all that woeful night through without my getting up and putting my cheek close to her mouth, to feel if the faint breaths still fluttered out of it. They came and went just the same as at first, though the fright I was in often made me fancy they were stilled forever.

Just as the church clocks were striking four I was startled by seeing the room door open. It was only Dusty Sal (as they call her in the house), the maid-of-all-work. She was wrapped up in the blanket off her bed; her hair was all tumbled over her face, and her eyes were heavy with sleep as she came up to the bedside where I was sitting.

“I’ve two hours good before I begin to work,” says she, in her hoarse, drowsy voice, “and I’ve come to sit up and take my turn at watching her. You lay down and get some sleep on the rug. Here’s my blanket for you. I don’t mind the cold – it will keep me awake.”

“You are very kind – very, very kind and thoughtful, Sally,” says I, “but I am too wretched in my mind to want sleep, or rest, or to do anything but wait where I am, and try and hope for the best.”

“Then I’ll wait, too,” says Sally. “I must do something; if there’s nothing to do but waiting, I’ll wait.”

And she sat down opposite me at the foot of the bed, and drew the blanket close round her with a shiver.

“After working so hard as you do, I’m sure you must want all the little rest you can get,” says I.

“Excepting only you,” says Sally, putting her heavy arm very clumsily, but very gently at the same time, round Mary’s feet, and looking hard at the pale, still face on the pillow. “Excepting you, she’s the only soul in this house as never swore at me, or give me a hard word that I can remember. When you made puddings on Sundays, and give her half, she always give me a bit. The rest of ’em calls me Dusty Sal. Excepting only you, again, she always called me Sally, as if she knowed me in a friendly way. I ain’t no good here, but I ain’t no harm, neither; and I shall take my turn at the sitting up – that’s what I shall do!”

She nestled her head down close at Mary’s feet as she spoke those words, and said no more. I once or twice thought she had fallen asleep, but whenever I looked at her her heavy eyes were always wide open. She never changed her position an inch till the church clocks struck six; then she gave one little squeeze to Mary’s feet with her arm, and shuffled out of the room without a word. A minute or two after, I heard her down below, lighting the kitchen fire just as usual.

A little later the doctor stepped over before his breakfast-time to see if there had been any change in the night. He only shook his head when he looked at her as if there was no hope. Having nobody else to consult that I could put trust in, I showed him the end of the cravat, and told him of the dreadful suspicion that had arisen in my mind when I found it in her hand.

“You must keep it carefully, and produce it at the inquest,” he said. “I don’t know, though, that it is likely to lead to anything. The bit of stuff may have been lying on the pavement near her, and her hand may have unconsciously clutched it when she fell. Was she subject to fainting-fits?”

“Not more so, sir, than other young girls who are hard-worked and anxious, and weakly from poor living,” I answered.

“I can’t say that she may not have got that blow from a fall,” the doctor went on, locking at her temple again. “I can’t say that it presents any positive appearance of having been inflicted by another person. It will be important, however, to ascertain what state of health she was in last night. Have you any idea where she was yesterday evening?”

I told him where she was employed at work, and said I imagined she must have been kept there later than usual.

“I shall pass the place this morning” said the doctor, “in going my rounds among my patients, and I’ll just step in and make some inquiries.”

I thanked him, and we parted. Just as he was closing the door he looked in again.

“Was she your sister?” he asked.

“No, sir, only my dear friend.”

He said nothing more, but I heard him sigh as he shut the door softly. Perhaps he once had a sister of his own, and lost her? Perhaps she was like Mary in the face?

The doctor was hours gone away. I began to feel unspeakably forlorn and helpless, so much so as even to wish selfishly that Robert might really have sailed from America, and might get to London in time to assist and console me.

No living creature came into the room but Sally. The first time she brought me some tea; the second and third times she only looked in to see if there was any change, and glanced her eye toward the bed. I had never known her so silent before; it seemed almost as if this dreadful accident had struck her dumb. I ought to have spoken to her, perhaps, but there was something in her face that daunted me; and, besides, the fever of anxiety I was in began to dry up my lips, as if they would never be able to shape any words again. I was still tormented by that frightful apprehension of the past night, that she would die without my knowing it – die without saying one word to clear up the awful mystery of this blow, and set the suspicions at rest forever which I still felt whenever my eyes fell on the end of the old cravat.

At last the doctor came back.

“I think you may safely clear your mind of any doubts to which that bit of stuff may have given rise,” he said. “She was, as you supposed, detained late by her employers, and she fainted in the work-room. They most unwisely and unkindly let her go home alone, without giving her any stimulant, as soon as she came to her senses again. Nothing is more probable, under these circumstances, than that she should faint a second time on her way here. A fall on the pavement, without any friendly arm to break it, might have produced even a worse injury than the injury we see. I believe that the only ill usage to which the poor girl was exposed was the neglect she met with in the work-room.”

“You speak very reasonably, I own, sir,” said I, not yet quite convinced. “Still, perhaps she may—”

“My poor girl, I told you not to hope,” said the doctor, interrupting me. He went to Mary, and lifted up her eyelids, and looked at her eyes while he spoke; then added, “If you still doubt how she came by that blow, do not encourage the idea that any words of hers will ever enlighten you. She will never speak again.”

“Not dead! Oh, sir, don’t say she’s dead!”

“She is dead to pain and sorrow – dead to speech and recognition. There is more animation in the life of the feeblest insect that flies than in the life that is left in her. When you look at her now, try to think that she is in heaven. That is the best comfort I can give you, after telling the hard truth.”

I did not believe him. I could not believe him. So long as she breathed at all, so long I was resolved to hope. Soon after the doctor was gone, Sally came in again, and found me listening (if I may call it so) at Mary’s lips. She went to where my little hand-glass hangs against the wall, took it down, and gave it to me.

“See if the breath marks it,” she said.

Yes; her breath did mark it, but very faintly. Sally cleaned the glass with her apron, and gave it back to me. As she did so, she half stretched out her hand to Mary’s face, but drew it in again suddenly, as if she was afraid of soiling Mary’s delicate skin with her hard, horny fingers. Going out, she stopped at the foot of the bed, and scraped away a little patch of mud that was on one of Mary’s shoes.

“I always used to clean ’em for her,” said Sally, “to save her hands from getting blacked. May I take ’em off now, and clean ’em again?”

I nodded my head, for my heart was too heavy to speak. Sally took the shoes off with a slow, awkward tenderness, and went out.

An hour or more must have passed, when, putting the glass over her lips again, I saw no mark on it. I held it closer and closer. I dulled it accidentally with my own breath, and cleaned it. I held it over her again. Oh, Mary, Mary, the doctor was right! I ought to have only thought of you in heaven!

Dead, without a word, without a sign – without even a look to tell the true story of the blow that killed her! I could not call to anybody, I could not cry, I could not so much as put the glass down and give her a kiss for the last time. I don’t know how long I had sat there with my eyes burning, and my hands deadly cold, when Sally came in with the shoes cleaned, and carried carefully in her apron for fear of a soil touching them. At the sight of that—

I can write no more. My tears drop so fast on the paper that I can see nothing.

March 12th. She died on the afternoon of the eighth. On the morning of the ninth, I wrote, as in duty bound, to her stepmother at Hammersmith. There was no answer. I wrote again; my letter was returned to me this morning unopened. For all that woman cares, Mary might be buried with a pauper’s funeral; but this shall never be, if I pawn everything about me, down to the very gown that is on my back. The bare thought of Mary being buried by the workhouse gave me the spirit to dry my eyes, and go to the undertaker’s, and tell him how I was placed. I said if he would get me an estimate of all that would have to be paid, from first to last, for the cheapest decent funeral that could be had, I would undertake to raise the money. He gave me the estimate, written in this way, like a common bill:

A walking funeral,
complete

£

1

13

8

Vestry | | 0 | 4 | 4
Rector | | 0 | 4 | 4
Clerk | | 0 | 1 | 0
Sexton | | 0 | 1 | 0
Beadle | | 0 | 1 | 0
Bell | | 0 | 1 | 0
Six feet of ground | | 0 | 2 | 0
Total, | £ | 2 | 8 | 4

If I had the heart to give any thought to it, I should be inclined to wish that the Church could afford to do without so many small charges for burying poor people, to whose friends even shillings are of consequence. But it is useless to complain; the money must be raised at once. The charitable doctor – a poor man himself, or he would not be living in our neighbourhood – has subscribed ten shillings toward the expenses; and the coroner, when the inquest was over, added five more. Perhaps others may assist me. If not, I have fortunately clothes and furniture of my own to pawn. And I must set about parting with them without delay, for the funeral is to be tomorrow, the thirteenth.

The funeral – Mary’s funeral! It is well that the straits and difficulties I am in keep my mind on the stretch. If I had leisure to grieve, where should I find the courage to face tomorrow?

Thank God they did not want me at the inquest. The verdict given, with the doctor, the policeman, and two persons from the place where she worked, for witnesses, was Accidental Death. The end of the cravat was produced, and the coroner said that it was certainly enough to suggest suspicion; but the jury, in the absence of any positive evidence, held to the doctor’s notion that she had fainted and fallen down, and so got the blow on her temple. They reproved the people where Mary worked for letting her go home alone, without so much as a drop of brandy to support her, after she had fallen into a swoon from exhaustion before their eyes. The coroner added, on his own account, that he thought the reproof was thoroughly deserved. After that, the cravat-end was given back to me by my own desire, the police saying that they could make no investigations with such a slight clew to guide them. They may think so, and the coroner, and doctor, and jury may think so; but, in spite of all that has passed, I am now more firmly persuaded than ever that there is some dreadful mystery in connection with that blow on my poor lost Mary’s temple which has yet to be revealed, and which may come to be discovered through this very fragment of a cravat that I found in her hand. I cannot give any good reason for why I think so, but I know that if I had been one of the jury at the inquest, nothing should have induced me to consent to such a verdict as Accidental Death.

After I had pawned my things, and had begged a small advance of wages at the place where I work to make up what was still wanting to pay for Mary’s funeral, I thought I might have had a little quiet time to prepare myself as I best could for tomorrow. But this was not to be. When I got home the landlord met me in the passage. He was in liquor, and more brutal and pitiless in his way of looking and speaking than ever I saw him before.

“So you’re going to be fool enough to pay for her funeral, are you?” were his first words to me.

I was too weary and heartsick to answer; I only tried to get by him to my own door.

“If you can pay for burying her,” he went on, putting himself in front of me, “you can pay her lawful debts. She owes me three weeks’ rent. Suppose you raise the money for that next, and hand it over to me? I’m not joking, I can promise you. I mean to have my rent; and, if somebody don’t pay it, I’ll have her body seized and sent to the workhouse!”

Between terror and disgust, I thought I should have dropped to the floor at his feet. But I determined not to let him see how he had horrified me, if I could possibly control myself. So I mustered resolution enough to answer that I did not believe the law gave him any such wicked power over the dead.

“I’ll teach you what the law is!” he broke in; “you’ll raise money to bury her like a born lady, when she’s died in my debt, will you? And you think I’ll let my rights be trampled upon like that, do you? See if I do! I’ll give you till tonight to think about it. If I don’t have the three weeks she owes before tomorrow, dead or alive, she shall go to the workhouse!”

This time I managed to push by him, and get to my own room, and lock the door in his face. As soon as I was alone I fell into a breathless, suffocating fit of crying that seemed to be shaking me to pieces. But there was no good and no help in tears; I did my best to calm myself after a little while, and tried to think who I should run to for help and protection.

The doctor was the first friend I thought of; but I knew he was always out seeing his patients of an afternoon. The beadle was the next person who came into my head. He had the look of being a very dignified, unapproachable kind of man when he came about the inquest; but he talked to me a little then, and said I was a good girl, and seemed, I really thought, to pity me. So to him I determined to apply in my great danger and distress.

Most fortunately, I found him at home. When I told him of the landlord’s infamous threats, and of the misery I was suffering in consequence of them, he rose up with a stamp of his foot, and sent for his gold-laced cocked hat that he wears on Sundays, and his long cane with the ivory top to it.

“I’ll give it to him,” said the beadle. “Come along with me, my dear. I think I told you you were a good girl at the inquest – if I didn’t, I tell you so now. I’ll give it to him! Come along with me.”

And he went out, striding on with his cocked hat and his great cane, and I followed him.

“Landlord!” he cries, the moment he gets into the passage, with a thump of his cane on the floor, “landlord!” with a look all round him as if he was King of England calling to a beast, “come out!”

The moment the landlord came out and saw who it was, his eye fixed on the cocked hat, and he turned as pale as ashes.

“How dare you frighten this poor girl?” says the beadle. “How dare you bully her at this sorrowful time with threatening to do what you know you can’t do? How dare you be a cowardly, bullying, braggadocio of an unmanly landlord? Don’t talk to me: I won’t hear you. I’ll pull you up, sir. If you say another word to the young woman, I’ll pull you up before the authorities of this metropolitan parish. I’ve had my eye on you, and the authorities have had their eye on you, and the rector has had his eye on you. We don’t like the look of your small shop round the corner; we don’t like the look of some of the customers who deal at it; we don’t like disorderly characters; and we don’t by any manner of means like you. Go away. Leave the young woman alone. Hold your tongue, or I’ll pull you up. If he says another word, or interferes with you again, my dear, come and tell me; and, as sure as he’s a bullying, unmanly, braggadocio of a landlord, I’ll pull him up.”

With those words the beadle gave a loud cough to clear his throat, and another thump of his cane on the floor, and so went striding out again before I could open my lips to thank him. The landlord slunk back into his room without a word. I was left alone and unmolested at last, to strengthen myself for the hard trial of my poor love’s funeral tomorrow.

March 13th. It is all over. A week ago her head rested on my bosom. It is laid in the churchyard now; the fresh earth lies heavy over her grave. I and my dearest friend, the sister of my love, are parted in this world forever.

I followed her funeral alone through the cruel, hustling streets. Sally, I thought, might have offered to go with me, but she never so much as came into my room. I did not like to think badly of her for this, and I am glad I restrained myself; for, when we got into the churchyard, among the two or three people who were standing by the open grave I saw Sally, in her ragged grey shawl and her patched black bonnet. She did not seem to notice me till the last words of the service had been read and the clergyman had gone away; then she came up and spoke to me.

“I couldn’t follow along with you,” she said, looking at her ragged shawl, “for I haven’t a decent suit of clothes to walk in. I wish I could get vent in crying for her like you, but I can’t; all the crying’s been drudged and starved out of me long ago. Don’t you think about lighting your fire when you get home. I’ll do that, and get you a drop of tea to comfort you.”

She seemed on the point of saying a kind word or two more, when, seeing the beadle coming toward me, she drew back, as if she was afraid of him, and left the churchyard.

“Here’s my subscription toward the funeral,” said the beadle, giving me back his shilling fee. “Don’t say anything about it, for it mightn’t be approved of in a business point of view, if it came to some people’s ears. Has the landlord said anything more to you? no, I thought not. He’s too polite a man to give me the trouble of pulling him up. Don’t stop crying here, my dear. Take the advice of a man familiar with funerals, and go home.”

I tried to take his advice, but it seemed like deserting Mary to go away when all the rest forsook her.

I waited about till the earth was thrown in and the man had left the place, then I returned to the grave. Oh, how bare and cruel it was, without so much as a bit of green turf to soften it! Oh, how much harder it seemed to live than to die, when I stood alone looking at the heavy piled-up lumps of clay, and thinking of what was hidden beneath them!

I was driven home by my own despairing thoughts. The sight of Sally lighting the fire in my room eased my heart a little. When she was gone, I took up Robert’s letter again to keep my mind employed on the only subject in the world that has any interest for it now.

This fresh reading increased the doubts I had already felt relative to his having remained in America after writing to me. My grief and forlornness have made a strange alteration in my former feelings about his coming back. I seem to have lost all my prudence and self-denial, and to care so little about his poverty, and so much about himself, that the prospect of his return is really the only comforting thought I have now to support me. I know this is weak in me, and that his coming back can lead to no good result for either of us; but he is the only living being left me to love; and – I can’t explain it – but I want to put my arms round his neck and tell him about Mary.

March 14th. I locked up the end of the cravat in my writing-desk. No change in the dreadful suspicions that the bare sight of it rouses in me. I tremble if I so much as touch it.

March 15th, 16th, 17th. Work, work, work. If I don’t knock up, I shall be able to pay back the advance in another week; and then, with a little more pinching in my daily expenses, I may succeed in saving a shilling or two to get some turf to put over Mary’s grave, and perhaps even a few flowers besides to grow round it.

March 18th. Thinking of Robert all day long. Does this mean that he is really coming back? If it does, reckoning the distance he is at from New York, and the time ships take to get to England, I might see him by the end of April or the beginning of May.

March 19th. I don’t remember my mind running once on the end of the cravat yesterday, and I am certain I never looked at it; yet I had the strangest dream concerning it at night. I thought it was lengthened into a long clew, like the silken thread that led to Rosamond’s Bower. I thought I took hold of it, and followed it a little way, and then got frightened and tried to go back, but found that I was obliged, in spite of myself, to go on. It led me through a place like the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in an old print I remember in my mother’s copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress. I seemed to be months and months following it without any respite, till at last it brought me, on a sudden, face to face with an angel whose eyes were like Mary’s. He said to me, “Go on, still; the truth is at the end, waiting for you to find it.” I burst out crying, for the angel had Mary’s voice as well as Mary’s eyes, and woke with my heart throbbing and my cheeks all wet. What is the meaning of this? Is it always superstitious, I wonder, to believe that dreams may come true?

•   •   •

April 30th. I have found it! God knows to what results it may lead; but it is as certain as that I am sitting here before my journal that I have found the cravat from which the end in Mary’s hand was torn. I discovered it last night; but the flutter I was in, and the nervousness and uncertainty I felt, prevented me from noting down this most extraordinary and unexpected event at the time when it happened. Let me try if I can preserve the memory of it in writing now.

I was going home rather late from where I work, when I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to buy myself any candles the evening before, and that I should be left in the dark if I did not manage to rectify this mistake in some way. The shop close to me, at which I usually deal, would be shut up, I knew, before I could get to it; so I determined to go into the first place I passed where candles were sold. This turned out to be a small shop with two counters, which did business on one side in the general grocery way, and on the other in the rag and bottle and old iron line.

There were several customers on the grocery side when I went in, so I waited on the empty rag side till I could be served. Glancing about me here at the worthless-looking things by which I was surrounded, my eye was caught by a bundle of rags lying on the counter, as if they had just been brought in and left there. From mere idle curiosity, I looked close at the rags, and saw among them something like an old cravat. I took it up directly and held it under a gaslight. The pattern was blurred lilac lines running across and across the dingy black ground in a trellis-work form. I looked at the ends: one of them was torn off.

How I managed to hide the breathless surprise into which this discovery threw me I cannot say, but I certainly contrived to steady my voice somehow, and to ask for my candles calmly when the man and woman serving in the shop, having disposed of their other customers, inquired of me what I wanted.

As the man took down the candles, my brain was all in a whirl with trying to think how I could get possession of the old cravat without exciting any suspicion. Chance, and a little quickness on my part in taking advantage of it, put the object within my reach in a moment. The man, having counted out the candles, asked the woman for some paper to wrap them in. She produced a piece much too small and flimsy for the purpose, and declared, when he called for something better, that the day’s supply of stout paper was all exhausted. He flew into a rage with her for managing so badly. Just as they were beginning to quarrel violently, I stepped back to the rag-counter, took the old cravat carelessly out of the bundle, and said, in as light a tone as I could possibly assume:

“Come, come, don’t let my candles be the cause of hard words between you. Tie this ragged old thing round them with a bit of string, and I shall carry them home quite comfortably.”

The man seemed disposed to insist on the stout paper being produced; but the woman, as if she was glad of an opportunity of spiting him, snatched the candles away, and tied them up in a moment in the torn old cravat. I was afraid he would have struck her before my face, he seemed in such a fury; but, fortunately, another customer came in, and obliged him to put his hands to peaceable and proper use.

“Quite a bundle of all-sorts on the opposite counter there,” I said to the woman, as I paid her for the candles.

“Yes, and all hoarded up for sale by a poor creature with a lazy brute of a husband, who lets his wife do all the work while he spends all the money,” answered the woman, with a malicious look at the man by her side.

“He can’t surely have much money to spend, if his wife has no better work to do than picking up rags,” said I.

“It isn’t her fault if she hasn’t got no better,” says the woman, rather angrily. “She’s ready to turn her hand to anything. Charing, washing, laying-out, keeping empty houses – nothing comes amiss to her. She’s my half-sister, and I think I ought to know.”

“Did you say she went out charing?” I asked, making believe as if I knew of somebody who might employ her.

“Yes, of course I did,” answered the woman; “and if you can put a job into her hands, you’ll be doing a good turn to a poor hard-working creature as wants it. She lives down the Mews here to the right – name of Horlick, and as honest a woman as ever stood in shoe-leather. Now, then, ma’am, what for you?”

Another customer came in just then, and occupied her attention. I left the shop, passed the turning that led down to the Mews, looked up at the name of the street, so as to know how to find it again, and then ran home as fast as I could. Perhaps it was the remembrance of my strange dream striking me on a sudden, or perhaps it was the shock of the discovery I had just made, but I began to feel frightened without knowing why, and anxious to be under shelter in my own room.

It Robert should come back! Oh, what a relief and help it would be now if Robert should come back!

May 1st. On getting indoors last night, the first thing I did, after striking a light, was to take the ragged cravat off the candles, and smooth it out on the table. I then took the end that had been in poor Mary’s hand out of my writing-desk, and smoothed that out too. It matched the torn side of the cravat exactly. I put them together, and satisfied myself that there was not a doubt of it.

Not once did I close my eyes that night. A kind of fever got possession of me – a vehement yearning to go on from this first discovery and find out more, no matter what the risk might be. The cravat now really became, to my mind, the clew that I thought I saw in my dream – the clew that I was resolved to follow. I determined to go to Mrs. Horlick this evening on my return from work.

I found the Mews easily. A crook-backed dwarf of a man was lounging at the corner of it smoking his pipe. Not liking his looks, I did not inquire of him where Mrs. Horlick lived, but went down the Mews till I met with a woman, and asked her. She directed me to the right number. I knocked at the door, and Mrs. Horlick herself – a lean, ill-tempered, miserable-looking woman – answered it. I told her at once that I had come to ask what her terms were for charing. She stared at me for a moment, then answered my question civilly enough.

“You look surprised at a stranger like me finding you out,” I said. “I first came to hear of you last night, from a relation of yours, in rather an odd way.”

And I told her all that had happened in the chandler’s shop, bringing in the bundle of rags, and the circumstance of my carrying home the candles in the old torn cravat, as often as possible.

“It’s the first time I’ve heard of anything belonging to him turning out any use,” said Mrs. Horlick, bitterly.

“What! the spoiled old neck-handkerchief belonged to your husband, did it?” said I, at a venture.

“Yes; I pitched his rotten rag of a neck-’andkercher into the bundle along with the rest, and I wish I could have pitched him in after it,” said Mrs. Horlick. “I’d sell him cheap at any ragshop. There he stands, smoking his pipe at the end of the Mews, out of work for weeks past, the idlest humpbacked pig in all London!”

She pointed to the man whom I had passed on entering the Mews. My cheeks began to burn and my knees to tremble, for I knew that in tracing the cravat to its owner I was advancing a step toward a fresh discovery. I wished Mrs. Horlick good evening, and said I would write and mention the day on which I wanted her.

What I had just been told put a thought into my mind that I was afraid to follow out. I have heard people talk of being light-headed, and I felt as I have heard them say they felt when I retraced my steps up the Mews. My head got giddy, and my eyes seemed able to see nothing but the figure of the little crook-backed man, still smoking his pipe in his former place. I could see nothing but that; I could think of nothing but the mark of the blow on my poor lost Mary’s temple. I know that I must have been light-headed, for as I came close to the crook-backed man I stopped without meaning it. The minute before, there had been no idea in me of speaking to him. I did not know how to speak, or in what way it would be safest to begin; and yet, the moment I came face to face with him, something out of myself seemed to stop me, and to make me speak without considering beforehand, without thinking of consequences, without knowing, I may almost say, what words I was uttering till the instant when they rose to my lips.

“When your old neck-tie was torn, did you know that one end of it went to the rag-shop, and the other fell into my hands?”

I said these bold words to him suddenly, and, as it seemed, without my own will taking any part in them.

He started, stared, changed colour. He was too much amazed by my sudden speaking to find an answer for me. When he did open his lips, it was to say rather to himself than me:

“You’re not the girl.”

“No,” I said, with a strange choking at my heart, “I’m her friend.”

By this time he had recovered his surprise, and he seemed to be aware that he had let out more than he ought.

“You may be anybody’s friend you like,” he said, brutally, “so long as you don’t come jabbering nonsense here. I don’t know you, and I don’t understand your jokes.”

He turned quickly away from me when he had said the last words. He had never once looked fairly at me since I first spoke to him.

Was it his hand that had struck the blow? I had only sixpence in my pocket, but I took it out and followed him. If it had been a five-pound note I should have done the same in the state I was in then.

“Would a pot of beer help you to understand me?” I said, and offered him the sixpence.

“A pot ain’t no great things,” he answered, taking the sixpence doubtfully.

“It may lead to something better,” I said. His eyes began to twinkle, and he came close to me. Oh, how my legs trembled – how my head swam!

“This is all in a friendly way, is it?” he asked, in a whisper.

I nodded my head. At that moment I could not have spoken for worlds.

“Friendly, of course,” he went on to himself, “or there would have been a policeman in it. She told you, I suppose, that I wasn’t the man?”

I nodded my head again. It was all I could do to keep myself standing upright.

“I suppose it’s a case of threatening to have him up, and make him settle it quietly for a pound or two? How much for me if you lay hold of him?”

“Half.”

I began to be afraid that he would suspect something if I was still silent. The wretch’s eyes twinkled again and he came yet closer.

“I drove him to the Red Lion, corner of Dodd Street and Rudgely Street. The house was shut up, but he was let in at the jug and bottle door, like a man who was known to the landlord. That’s as much as I can tell you, and I’m certain I’m right. He was the last fare I took up at night. The next morning master gave me the sack – said I cribbed his corn and his fares. I wish I had.”

I gathered from this that the crook-backed man had been a cabdriver.

“Why don’t you speak?” he asked, suspiciously. “Has she been telling you a pack of lies about me? What did she say when she came home?”

“What ought she to have said?”

“She ought to have said my fare was drunk, and she came in the way as he was going to get into the cab. That’s what she ought to have said to begin with.”

“But after?”

“Well, after, my fare, by way of larking with her, puts out his leg for to trip her up, and she stumbles and catches at me for to save herself, and tears off one of the limp ends of my rotten old tie. ‘What do you mean by that, you brute?’ says she, turning round as soon as she was steady on her legs, to my fare. Says my fare to her: ‘I means to teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head.’ And he ups with his fist, and – what’s come to you, now? What are you looking at me like that for? How do you think a man of my size was to take her part against a man big enough to have eaten me up? Look as much as you like, in my place you would have done what I done – drew off when he shook his fist at you, and swore he’d be the death of you if you didn’t start your horse in no time.”

I saw he was working himself up into a rage; but I could not, if my life had depended on it, have stood near him or looked at him any longer. I just managed to stammer out that I had been walking a long way, and that, not being used to much exercise, I felt faint and giddy with fatigue. He only changed from angry to sulky when I made that excuse. I got a little further away from him, and then added that if he would be at the Mews entrance the next evening I should have something more to say and something more to give him. He grumbled a few suspicious words in answer about doubting whether he should trust me to come back. Fortunately, at that moment, a policeman passed on the opposite side of the way. He slunk down the Mews immediately, and I was free to make my escape.

How I got home I can’t say, except that I think I ran the greater part of the way. Sally opened the door, and asked if anything was the matter the moment she saw my face. I answered: “Nothing – nothing.” She stopped me as I was going into my room, and said:

“Smooth your hair a bit, and put your collar straight. There’s a gentleman in there waiting for you.”

My heart gave one great bound: I knew who it was in an instant, and rushed into the room like a mad woman.

“Oh, Robert, Robert!”

All my heart went out to him in those two little words.

“Good God, Anne, has anything happened? Are you ill?”

“Mary! my poor, lost, murdered, dear, dear Mary!”

That was all I could say before I fell on his breast.

May 2d. Misfortunes and disappointments have saddened him a little, but toward me he is unaltered. He is as good, as kind, as gently and truly affectionate as ever. I believe no other man in the world could have listened to the story of Mary’s death with such tenderness and pity as he. Instead of cutting me short anywhere, he drew me on to tell more than I had intended; and his first generous words when I had done were to assure me that he would see himself to the grass being laid and the flowers planted on Mary’s grave. I could almost have gone on my knees and worshipped him when he made me that promise.

Surely this best, and kindest, and noblest of men cannot always be unfortunate! My cheeks burn when I think that he has come back with only a few pounds in his pocket, after all his hard and honest struggles to do well in America. They must be bad people there when such a man as Robert cannot get on among them. He now talks calmly and resignedly of trying for any one of the lowest employments by which a man can earn his bread honestly in this great city – he who knows French, who can write so beautifully! Oh, if the people who have places to give away only knew Robert as well as I do, what a salary he would have, what a post he would be chosen to occupy!

I am writing these lines alone while he has gone to the Mews to treat with the dastardly, heartless wretch with whom I spoke yesterday.

Robert says the creature – I won’t call him a man – must be humoured and kept deceived about poor Mary’s end, in order that we may discover and bring to justice the monster whose drunken blow was the death of her. I shall know no ease of mind till her murderer is secured, and till I am certain that he will be made to suffer for his crimes. I wanted to go with Robert to the Mews, but he said it was best that he should carry out the rest of the investigation alone, for my strength and resolution had been too hardly taxed already. He said more words in praise of me for what I have been able to do up to this time, which I am almost ashamed to write down with my own pen. Besides, there is no need; praise from his lips is one of the things that I can trust my memory to preserve to the latest day of my life.

May 3d. Robert was very long last night before he came back to tell me what he had done. He easily recognised the hunchback at the corner of the Mews by my description of him; but he found it a hard matter, even with the help of money, to overcome the cowardly wretch’s distrust of him as a stranger and a man. However, when this had been accomplished, the main difficulty was conquered. The hunchback, excited by the promise of more money, went at once to the Red Lion to inquire about the person whom he had driven there in his cab. Robert followed him, and waited at the corner of the street. The tidings brought by the cabman were of the most unexpected kind. The murderer – I can write of him by no other name – had fallen ill on the very night when he was driven to the Red Lion, had taken to his bed there and then, and was still confined to it at that very moment. His disease was of a kind that is brought on by excessive drinking, and that affects the mind as well as the body. The people at the public house call it the Horrors.

Hearing these things, Robert determined to see if he could not find out something more for himself by going and inquiring at the public house, in the character of one of the friends of the sick man in bed upstairs. He made two important discoveries. First, he found out the name and address of the doctor in attendance. Secondly, he entrapped the barman into mentioning the murderous wretch by his name. This last discovery adds an unspeakably fearful interest to the dreadful misfortune of Mary’s death. Noah Truscott, as she told me herself in the last conversation I ever had with her, was the name of the man whose drunken example ruined her father, and Noah Truscott is also the name of the man whose drunken fury killed her. There is something that makes one shudder, something supernatural in this awful fact. Robert agrees with me that the hand of Providence must have guided my steps to that shop from which all the discoveries since made took their rise. He says he believes we are the instruments of effecting a righteous retribution; and, if he spends his last farthing, he will have the investigation brought to its full end in a court of justice.

May 4th. Robert went today to consult a lawyer whom he knew in former times The lawyer was much interested, though not so seriously impressed as he ought to have been by the story of Mary’s death and of the events that have followed it. He gave Robert a confidential letter to take to the doctor in attendance on the double-dyed villain at the Red Lion. Robert left the letter, and called again and saw the doctor, who said his patient was getting better, and would most likely be up again in ten days or a fortnight. This statement Robert communicated to the lawyer, and the lawyer has undertaken to have the public house properly watched, and the hunchback (who is the most important witness) sharply looked after for the next fortnight, or longer if necessary. Here, then, the progress of this dreadful business stops for a while.

May 5th. Robert has got a little temporary employment in copying for his friend the lawyer. I am working harder than ever at my needle, to make up for the time that has been lost lately.

May 6th. Today was Sunday, and Robert proposed that we should go and look at Mary’s grave. He, who forgets nothing where a kindness is to be done, has found time to perform the promise he made to me on the night when we first met. The grave is already, by his orders, covered with turf, and planted round with shrubs. Some flowers, and a low headstone, are to be added, to make the place look worthier of my poor lost darling who is beneath it. Oh, I hope I shall live long after I am married to Robert! I want so much time to show him all my gratitude!

May 20th. A hard trial to my courage today. I have given evidence at the police-office, and have seen the monster who murdered her.

I could only look at him once. I could just see that he was a giant in size, and that he kept his dull, lowering, bestial face turned toward the witness-box, and his bloodshot, vacant eyes staring on me. For an instant I tried to confront that look; for an instant I kept my attention fixed on him – on his blotched face – on the short, grizzled hair above it – on his knotty, murderous right hand, hanging loose over the bar in front of him, like the paw of a wild beast over the edge of its den. Then the horror of him – the double horror of confronting him, in the first place, and afterward of seeing that he was an old man – overcame me, and I turned away, faint, sick, and shuddering. I never faced him again; and, at the end of my evidence, Robert considerately took me out.

When we met once more at the end of the examination, Robert told me that the prisoner never spoke and never changed his position. He was either fortified by the cruel composure of a savage, or his faculties had not yet thoroughly recovered from the disease that had so lately shaken them. The magistrate seemed to doubt if he was in his right mind; but the evidence of the medical man relieved this uncertainty, and the prisoner was committed for trial on a charge of manslaughter.

Why not on a charge of murder? Robert explained the law to me when I asked that question. I accepted the explanation, but it did not satisfy me. Mary Mallinson was killed by a blow from the hand of Noah Truscott. That is murder in the sight of God. Why not murder in the sight of the law also?

•   •   •

June 18th. Tomorrow is the day appointed for the trial at the Old Bailey.

Before sunset this evening I went to look at Mary’s grave. The turf has grown so green since I saw it last, and the flowers are springing up so prettily. A bird was perched dressing his feathers on the low white headstone that bears the inscription of her name and age. I did not go near enough to disturb the little creature. He looked innocent and pretty on the grave, as Mary herself was in her lifetime. When he flew away I went and sat for a little by the headstone, and read the mournful lines on it. Oh, my love! my love! what harm or wrong had you ever done in this world, that you should die at eighteen by a blow from a drunkard’s hand?

June 19th. The trial. My experience of what happened at it is limited, like my experience of the examination at the police-office, to the time occupied in giving my own evidence. They made me say much more than I said before the magistrate. Between examination and cross-examination, I had to go into almost all the particulars about poor Mary and her funeral that I have written in this journal; the jury listening to every word I spoke with the most anxious attention. At the end, the judge said a few words to me approving of my conduct, and then there was a clapping of hands among the people in court. I was so agitated and excited that I trembled all over when they let me go out into the air again.

I looked at the prisoner both when I entered the witness-box and when I left it. The lowering brutality of his face was unchanged, but his faculties seemed to be more alive and observant than they were at the police-office. A frightful blue change passed over his face, and he drew his breath so heavily that the gasps were distinctly audible while I mentioned Mary by name and described the mark or the blow on her temple. When they asked me if I knew anything of the prisoner, and I answered that I only knew what Mary herself had told me about his having been her father’s ruin, he gave a kind of groan, and struck both his hands heavily on the dock. And when I passed beneath him on my way out of court, he leaned over suddenly, whether to speak to me or to strike me I can’t say, for he was immediately made to stand upright again by the turnkeys on either side of him. While the evidence proceeded (as Robert described it to me), the signs that he was suffering under superstitious terror became more and more apparent; until, at last, just as the lawyer appointed to defend him was rising to speak, he suddenly cried out, in a voice that startled everyone, up to the very judge on the bench: “Stop!”

There was a pause, and all eyes looked at him. The perspiration was pouring over his face like water, and he made strange, uncouth signs with his hands to the judge opposite. “Stop all this!” he cried again; “I’ve been the ruin of the father and the death of the child. Hang me before I do more harm! Hang me, for God’s sake, out of the way!” As soon as the shock produced by this extraordinary interruption had subsided, he was removed, and there followed a long discussion about whether he was of sound mind or not. The matter was left to the jury to decide by their verdict. They found him guilty of the charge of manslaughter, without the excuse of insanity. He was brought up again, and condemned to transportation for life. All he did, on hearing the dreadful sentence, was to reiterate his desperate words: “Hang me before I do more harm! Hang me, for God’s sake, out of the way!”

June 20th. I made yesterday’s entry in sadness of heart, and I have not been better in my spirits today. It is something to have brought the murderer to the punishment that he deserves. But the knowledge that this most righteous act of retribution is accomplished brings no consolation with it. The law does indeed punish Noah Truscott for his crime, but can it raise up Mary Mallinson from her last resting-place in the churchyard?

While writing of the law, I ought to record that the heartless wretch who allowed Mary to be struck down in his presence without making an attempt to defend her is not likely to escape with perfect impunity. The policeman who looked after him to insure his attendance at the trial discovered that he had committed past offences, for which the law can make him answer. A summons was executed upon him, and he was taken before the magistrate the moment he left the court after giving his evidence.

I had just written these few lines, and was closing my journal, when there came a knock at the door. I answered it, thinking that Robert had called on his way home to say good-night, and found myself face to face with a strange gentleman, who immediately asked for Anne Rodway. On hearing that I was the person inquired for, he requested five minutes’ conversation with me. I showed him into the little empty room at the back of the house, and waited, rather surprised and fluttered, to hear what he had to say.

He was a dark man, with a serious manner, and a short, stern way of speaking I was certain that he was a stranger, and yet there seemed something in his face not unfamiliar to me. He began by taking a newspaper from his pocket, and asking me if I was the person who had given evidence at the trial of Noah Truscott on a charge of manslaughter. I answered immediately that I was.

“I have been for nearly two years in London seeking Mary Mallinson, and always seeking her in vain,” he said. “The first and only news I have had of her I found in the newspaper report of the trial yesterday.”

He still spoke calmly, but there was something in the look of his eyes which showed me that he was suffering in spirit. A sudden nervousness overcame me, and I was obliged to sit down.

“You knew Mary Mallinson, sir?” I asked, as quietly as I could.

“I am her brother.”

I clasped my hands and hid my face in despair. Oh, the bitterness of heart with which I heard him say those simple words!

“You were very kind to her,” said the calm, tearless man. “In her name and for her sake, I thank you.”

“Oh, sir,” I said, “why did you never write to her when you were in foreign parts?”

“I wrote often,” he answered; “but each of my letters contained a remittance of money. Did Mary tell you she had a stepmother? If she did, you may guess why none of my letters were allowed to reach her. I now know that this woman robbed my sister. Has she lied in telling me that she was never informed of Mary’s place of abode?”

I remembered that Mary had never communicated with her stepmother after the separation, and could therefore assure him that the woman had spoken the truth.

He paused for a moment after that, and sighed. Then he took out a pocketbook, and said:

“I have already arranged for the payment of any legal expenses that may have been incurred by the trial, but I have still to reimburse you for the funeral charges which you so generously defrayed. Excuse my speaking bluntly on this subject; I am accustomed to look on all matters where money is concerned purely as matters of business.”

I saw that he was taking several banknotes out of the pocketbook, and stopped him.

“I will gratefully receive back the little money I actually paid, sir, because I am not well off, and it would be an ungracious act of pride in me to refuse it from you,” I said; “but I see you handling banknotes, any one of which is far beyond the amount you have to repay me. Pray put them back, sir. What I did for your poor lost sister I did from my love and fondness for her. You have thanked me for that, and your thanks are all I can receive.”

He had hitherto concealed his feelings, but I saw them now begin to get the better of him. His eyes softened, and he took my hand and squeezed it hard.

“I beg your pardon,” he said; “I beg your pardon, with all my heart.”

There was silence between us, for I was crying, and I believe, at heart, he was crying too. At last he dropped my hand, and seemed to change back, by an effort, to his former calmness.

“Is there no one belonging to you to whom I can be of service?” he asked. “I see among the witnesses on the trial the name of a young man who appears to have assisted you in the inquiries which led to the prisoner’s conviction. Is he a relation?”

“No, sir – at least, not now – but I hope—”

“What?”

“I hope that he may, one day, be the nearest and dearest relation to me that a woman can have.” I said those words boldly, because I was afraid of his otherwise taking some wrong view of the connection between Robert and me

“One day?” he repeated. “One day may be a long time hence.”

“We are neither of us well off, sir,” I said. “One day means the day when we are a little richer than we are now.”

“Is the young man educated? Can he produce testimonials to his character? Oblige me by writing his name and address down on the back of that card.”

When I had obeyed, in a handwriting which I am afraid did me no credit, he took out another card and gave it to me.

“I shall leave England tomorrow,” he said. “There is nothing now to keep me in my own country. If you are ever in any difficulty or distress (which I pray God you may never be), apply to my London agent, whose address you have there.”

He stopped, and looked at me attentively, then took my hand again.

“Where is she buried?” he said, suddenly, in a quick whisper, turning his head away.

I told him, and added that we had made the grave as beautiful as we could with grass and flowers. I saw his lips whiten and tremble.

“God bless and reward you!” he said, and drew me toward him quickly and kissed my forehead. I was quite overcome, and sank down and hid my face on the table. When I looked up again he was gone.

•   •   •

June 20th. I write these lines on my wedding morning, when little more than a year has passed since Robert returned to England.

His salary was increased yesterday to one hundred and fifty pounds a year. If I only knew where Mr. Mallinson was, I would write and tell him of our present happiness. But for the situation which his kindness procured for Robert, we might still have been waiting vainly for the day that has now come.

I am to work at home for the future, and Sally is to help us in our new abode. If Mary could have lived to see this day! I am not ungrateful for my blessings; but oh, how I miss that sweet face on this morning of all others!

I got up today early enough to go alone to the grave, and to gather the nosegay that now lies before me from the flowers that grow round it. I shall put it in my bosom when Robert comes to fetch me to the church. Mary would have been my bridesmaid if she had lived; and I can’t forget Mary, even on my wedding-day.…

•   •   •   •   •   •

POSTLUDE

THE NIGHT

The last words of the last story fell low and trembling from Owen’s lips. He waited for a moment while Jessie dried the tears which Anne Rodway’s simple diary had drawn from her warm young heart, then closed the manuscript, and taking her hand patted it in his gentle, fatherly way.

“You will be glad to hear, my love,” he said, “that I can speak from personal experience of Anne Rodway’s happiness. She came to live in my parish soon after the trial at which she appeared as chief witness, and I was the clergyman who married her. Months before that I knew her story, and had read those portions of her diary which you have just heard. When I made her my little present on her wedding day, and when she gratefully entreated me to tell her what she could do for me in return, I asked for a copy of her diary to keep among the papers that I treasured most. ‘The reading of it now and then,’ I said, ‘will encourage that faith in the brighter and better part of human nature which I hope, by God’s help, to preserve pure to my dying day.’ In that way I became possessed of the manuscript: it was Anne’s husband who made the copy for me. You have noticed a few withered leaves scattered here and there between the pages. They were put there, years since, by the bride’s own hand: they are all that now remain of the flowers that Anne Rodway gathered on her marriage morning from Mary Mallinson’s grave.”

Jessie tried to answer, but the words failed on her lips. Between the effect of the story, and the anticipation of the parting now so near at hand, the good, impulsive, affectionate creature was fairly overcome. She laid her head on Owen’s shoulder, and kept tight hold of his hand, and let her heart speak simply for itself, without attempting to help it by a single word.

The silence that followed was broken harshly by the tower clock. The heavy hammer slowly rang out ten strokes through the gloomy night-time and the dying storm.

I waited till the last humming echo of the clock fainted into dead stillness. I listened once more attentively, and again listened in vain. Then I rose, and proposed to my brothers that we should leave our guest to compose herself for the night.

When Owen and Morgan were ready to quit the room, I took her by the hand, and drew her a little aside.

“You leave us early, my dear,” I said; “but, before you go tomorrow morning—”

I stopped to listen for the last time, before the words were spoken which committed me to the desperate experiment of pleading George’s cause in defiance of his own request. Nothing caught my ear but the sweep of the weary weakened wind and the melancholy surging of the shaken trees.

“But, before you go tomorrow morning,” I resumed, “I want to speak to you in private. We shall breakfast at eight o’clock. Is it asking too much to beg you to come and see me alone in my study at half past seven?”

Just as her lips opened to answer me I saw a change pass over her face. I had kept her hand in mine while I was speaking, and I must have pressed it unconsciously so hard as almost to hurt her. She may even have uttered a few words of remonstrance; but they never reached me: my whole hearing sense was seized, absorbed, petrified. At the very instant when I had ceased speaking, I, and I alone, heard a faint sound – a sound that was new to me – fly past the Glen Tower on the wings of the wind.

“Open the window, for God’s sake!” I cried.

My hand mechanically held hers tighter and tighter. She struggled to free it, looking hard at me with pale cheeks and frightened eyes. Owen hastened up and released her, and put his arms round me.

“Griffith, Griffith!” he whispered, “control yourself, for George’s sake.”

Morgan hurried to the window and threw it wide open.

The wind and rain rushed in fiercely. Welcome, welcome wind! They all heard it now. “Oh, Father in heaven, so merciful to fathers on earth – my son, my son!”

It came in, louder and louder with every gust of wind – the joyous, rapid gathering roll of wheels. My eyes fastened on her as if they could see to her heart, while she stood there with her sweet face turned on me all pale and startled. I tried to speak to her; I tried to break away from Owen’s arms, to throw my own arms round her, to keep her on my bosom, till he came to take her from me. But all my strength had gone in the long waiting and the long suspense. My head sank on Owen’s breast – but I still heard the wheels. Morgan loosened my cravat, and sprinkled water over my face – I still heard the wheels. The poor terrified girl ran into her room, and came back with her smelling-salts – I heard the carriage stop at the house. The room whirled round and round with me; but I heard the eager hurry of footsteps in the hall, and the opening of the door. In another moment my son’s voice rose clear and cheerful from below, greeting the old servants who loved him. The dear, familiar tones just poured into my ear, and then, the moment they filled it, hushed me suddenly to rest.

•   •   •

When I came to myself again my eyes opened upon George. I was lying on the sofa, still in the same room; the lights we had read by in the evening were burning on the table; my son was kneeling at my pillow, and we two were alone.

THE MORNING

The wind is fainter, but there is still no calm. The rain is ceasing, but there is still no sunshine. The view from my window shows me the mist heavy on the earth, and a dim grey veil drawn darkly over the sky. Less than twelve hours since, such a prospect would have saddened me for the day. I look out at it this morning, through the bright medium of my own happiness, and not the shadow of a shade falls across the steady inner sunshine that is poring over my heart.

The pen lingers fondly in my hand, and yet it is little, very little, that I have left to say. The Purple Volume lies open by my side, with the stories ranged together in it in the order in which they were read. My son has learned to prize them already as the faithful friends who served him at his utmost need. I have only to wind off the little thread of narrative on which they are all strung together before the volume is closed and our anxious literary experiment fairly ended.

My son and I had a quiet hour together on that happy night before we retired to rest. The little love-plot invented in George’s interests now required one last stroke of diplomacy to complete it before we all threw off our masks and assumed our true characters for the future. When my son and I parted for the night, we had planned the necessary stratagem for taking our lovely guest by surprise as soon as she was out of her bed in the morning.

Shortly after seven o’clock I sent a message to Jessie by her maid, informing her that a good night’s rest had done wonders for me, and that I expected to see her in my study at half past seven, as we had arranged the evening before. As soon as her answer, promising to be punctual to the appointment, had reached me, I took George into my study – left him in my place to plead his own cause – and stole away, five minutes before the half hour, to join my brothers in the breakfast-room.

Although the sense of my own happiness disposed me to take the brightest view of my son’s chances, I must nevertheless acknowledge that some nervous anxieties still fluttered about my heart while the slow minutes of suspense were counting themselves out in the breakfast-room. I had as little attention to spare for Owen’s quiet prognostications of success as for Morgan’s pitiless sarcasms on love, courtship, and matrimony. A quarter of an hour elapsed – then twenty minutes. The hand moved on, and the clock pointed to five minutes to eight, before I heard the study door open, and before the sound of rapidly-advancing footsteps warned me that George was coming into the room.

His beaming face told the good news before a word could be spoken on either side. The excess of his happiness literally and truly deprived him of speech. He stood eagerly looking at us all three, with outstretched hands and glistening eyes.

“Have I folded up my surplice forever,” asked Owen, “or am I to wear it once again, George, in your service?”

“Answer this question first,” interposed Morgan, with a look of grim anxiety. “Have you actually taken your young woman off my hands, or have you not?”

No direct answer followed either question. George’s feelings had been too deeply stirred to allow him to return jest for jest at a moment’s notice.

“Oh, father, how can I thank you!” he said. “And you! and you!” he added, looking at Owen and Morgan gratefully.

“You must thank Chance as well as thank us,” I replied, speaking as lightly as my heart would let me, to encourage him. “The advantage of numbers in our little love-plot was all on our side. Remember, George, we were three to one.”

While I was speaking the breakfast-room door opened noiselessly, and showed us Jessie standing on the threshold, uncertain whether to join us or to run back to her own room. Her bright complexion heightened to a deep glow; the tears just rising in her eyes, and not yet falling from them; her delicate lips trembling a little, as if they were still shyly conscious of other lips that had pressed them but a few minutes since; her attitude irresolutely graceful; her hair just disturbed enough over her forehead and her cheeks to add to the charm of them – she stood before us, the loveliest living picture of youth, and tenderness, and virgin love that eyes ever looked on. George and I both advanced together to meet her at the door. But the good, grateful girl had heard from my son the true story of all that I had done, and hoped, and suffered for the last ten days, and showed charmingly how she felt it by turning at once to me.

“May I stop at the Glen Tower a little longer?” she asked, simply.

“If you think you can get through your evenings, my love,” I answered. “‘But surely you forget that the Purple Volume is closed, and that the stories have all come to an end?”

She clasped her arms round my neck, and laid her cheek fondly against mine.

“How you must have suffered yesterday!” she whispered, softly.

“And how happy I am today!”

The tears gathered in her eyes and dropped over her cheeks as she raised her head to look at me affectionately when I said those words. I gently unclasped her arms and led her to George.

“So you really did love him, then, after all,” I whispered, “though you were too sly to let me discover it?”

A smile broke out among the tears as her eyes wandered away from mine and stole a look at my son. The clock struck the hour, and the servant came in with breakfast. A little domestic interruption of this kind was all that was wanted to put us at our ease. We drew round the table cheerfully, and set the Queen of Hearts at the head of it, in the character of mistress of the house already.

•  THE END  •

MISS OR MRS?

AND OTHER STORIES
IN OUTLINE

CONTENTS

… Dedication
… Preface
Miss Or Mrs.?
“Blow Up with the Brig!”
The Fatal Cradle
A Mad Marriage

Dedicated to
BARON VON TAUCHNITZ,

In cordial remembrance of
My relations with him as
Publisher and Friend.

PREFACE

In their original form of publication, the stories contained in this volume were restricted within limits which alike precluded elaborate development of character and subtle handling of events. They are emphatically what I have called them on the title-page – Stories in Outline. As such, they take their modest place in the Gallery of Fiction. They have their attraction for the writer, as special studies in his Art; and their attraction for the reader, as narratives which endeavour to interest him without making large demands on his attention and his time.

The first story in the present series originally appeared in the Christmas Number of the Graphic Illustrated Newspaper, for 1871. “Miss or Mrs.?” was fortunate enough to find its way at once to the favour of an unusually large circle of readers. In England and the English Colonies, in the United States, and on the Continent of Europe, I have to thank the public kindness, on this occasion, for the same hearty welcome.

Of the shorter stories which follow, “Blow up with the Brig” and “The Fatal Cradle” were contributed to the Christmas Numbers of All the Year Round, for 1859 and 1861. Trifles as they are, they were both favourites with the kindest reader my works have ever had my dear lost friend, Charles Dickens.

The last story in the collection belongs to a later date. It was published, in England and America simultaneously, during the year 1874 under the title of “Fatal Fortune.” Appearing as it does, in the present Volume, immediately after “The Fatal Cradle,” it has been thought desirable, for variety’s sake, to alter the title; and the little story is now renamed “A MAD MARRIAGE.”

W. C.

London, April, 1874.

MISS OR MRS.?

PERSONS OF THE STORY

Sir Joseph Graybrooke | …… | (Knight)
Richard Turlington | …… | (Of the Levant Trade)
Launcelot Linzie | …… | (Of the College of Surgeons)
James Dicas | …… | (Of the Roll of Attorneys
Thomas Wildfang | …… | (Superannuated Seaman)
Miss Graybrooke | …… | (Sir Joseph’s Sister)
Natalie | …… | (Sir Joseph’s Daughter)
Lady Winwood | …… | (Sir Joseph’s Niece)

Amelia,
Sophia,
Dorothea

……

(Lady Winwood’s Stepdaughters)

period – The Present Time.

place – England.

FIRST SCENE

AT SEA

The night had come to an end. The new-born day waited for its quickening light in the silence that is never known on land – the silence before sunrise, in a calm at sea.

Not a breath came from the dead air. Not a ripple stirred on the motionless water. Nothing changed but the softly-growing light; nothing moved but the lazy mist, curling up to meet the sun, its master, on the eastward sea. By fine gradations, the airy veil of morning thinned in substance as it rose – thinned, till there dawned through it in the first rays of sunlight the tall white sails of a Schooner Yacht.

From stem to stern silence possessed the vessel – as silence possessed the sea.

But one living creature was on deck – the man at the helm, dozing peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the light grew, and the heat grew with it; and still the helmsman slumbered, the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleeping against the vessel’s sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the water-line, when the first sound pierced its way through the morning silence. From far off over the shining white ocean, the cry of a sea-bird reached the yacht on a sudden out of the last airy circles of the waning mist.

The sleeper at the helm woke; looked up at the idle sails, and yawned in sympathy with them; looked out at the sea on either side of him, and shook his head obstinately at the superior obstinacy of the calm.

“Blow, my little breeze!” said the man, whistling the sailor’s invocation to the wind softly between his teeth. “Blow, my little breeze!”

“How’s her head?” cried a bold and brassy voice, hailing the deck from the cabin staircase.

“Anywhere you like, master; all round the compass.”

The voice was followed by the man. The owner of the yacht appeared on deck.

Behold Richard Turlington, Esq., of the great Levant firm of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca! Aged eight-and-thirty; standing stiffly and sturdily at a height of not more than five feet six – Mr. Turlington presented to the view of his fellow-creatures a face of the perpendicular order of human architecture. His forehead was a straight line, his upper lip was another, his chin was the straightest and the longest line of all. As he turned his swarthy countenance eastward, and shaded his light grey eyes from the sun, his knotty hand plainly revealed that it had got him his living by its own labour at one time or another in his life. Taken on the whole, this was a man whom it might be easy to respect, but whom it would be hard to love. Better company at the official desk than at the social table. Morally and physically – if the expression may be permitted – a man without a bend in him.

“A calm yesterday,” grumbled Richard Turlington, looking with stubborn deliberation all round him. “And a calm today. Ha! next season I’ll have the vessel fitted with engines. I hate this!”

“Think of the filthy coals, and the infernal vibration, and leave your beautiful schooner as she is. We are out for a holiday. Let the wind and the sea take a holiday too.”

Pronouncing those words of remonstrance, a slim, nimble, curly-headed young gentleman joined Richard Turlington on deck, with his clothes under his arm, his towels in his hand, and nothing on him but the nightgown in which he had stepped out of his bed.

“Launcelot Linzie, you have been received on board my vessel in the capacity of medical attendant on Miss Natalie Graybrooke, at her father’s request. Keep your place, if you please. When I want your advice, I’ll ask you for it.” Answering in those terms, the elder man fixed his colourless grey eyes on the younger with an expression which added plainly, “There won’t be room enough in this schooner much longer for me and for you.”

Launcelot Linzie had his reasons (apparently) for declining to let his host offend him on any terms whatever.

“Thank you!” he rejoined, in a tone of satirical good humour. “It isn’t easy to keep my place on board your vessel. I can’t help presuming to enjoy myself as if I was the owner. The life is such a new one – to me! It’s so delightfully easy, for instance, to wash yourself here. On shore it’s a complicated question of jugs and basins and tubs; one is always in danger of breaking something, or spoiling something. Here you have only to jump out of bed, to run up on deck, and to do this!”

He turned, and scampered to the bows of the vessel. In one instant he was out of his nightgown, in another he was on the bulwark, in a third he was gambolling luxuriously in sixty fathoms of salt-water.

Turlington’s eyes followed him with a reluctant, uneasy attention as he swam round the vessel, the only moving object in view. Turlington’s mind, steady and slow in all its operations, set him a problem to be solved, on given conditions, as follows:

“Launcelot Linzie is fifteen years younger than I am. Add to that, Launcelot Linzie is Natalie Graybrooke’s cousin. Given those two advantages – Query: Has he taken Natalie’s fancy?”

Turning that question slowly over and over in his mind, Richard Turlington seated himself in a corner at the stern of the vessel. He was still at work on the problem, when the young surgeon returned to his cabin to put the finishing touches to his toilet. He had not reached the solution when the steward appeared an hour later and said, “Breakfast is ready, sir!”

They were a party of five round the cabin table.

First, Sir Joseph Graybrooke. Inheritor of a handsome fortune made by his father and his grandfather in trade. Mayor, twice elected, of a thriving provincial town. Officially privileged, while holding that dignity, to hand a silver trowel to a royal personage condescending to lay a first stone of a charitable edifice. Knighted, accordingly, in honour of the occasion. Worthy of the honour and worthy of the occasion. A type of his eminently respectable class. Possessed of an amiable, rosy face, and soft, silky white hair. Sound in his principles; tidy in his dress; blessed with moderate politics and a good digestion – a harmless, healthy, spruce, speckless, weak-minded old man.

Secondly, Miss Lavinia Graybrooke, Sir Joseph’s maiden sister. Personally, Sir Joseph in petticoats. If you knew one you knew the other.

Thirdly, Miss Natalie Graybrooke – Sir Joseph’s only child.

She had inherited the personal appearance and the temperament of her mother – dead many years since. There had been a mixture of Negro blood and French blood in the late Lady Graybrooke’s family, settled originally in Martinique. Natalie had her mother’s warm dusky colour, her mother’s superb black hair, and her mother’s melting, lazy, lovely brown eyes. At fifteen years of age (dating from her last birthday) she possessed the development of the bosom and limbs which in England is rarely attained before twenty. Everything about the girl – except her little rosy ears – was on a grand Amazonian scale. Her shapely hand was long and large; her supple waist was the waist of a woman. The indolent grace of all her movements had its motive power in an almost masculine firmness of action and profusion of physical resource. This remarkable bodily development was far from being accompanied by any corresponding development of character. Natalie’s manner was the gentle, innocent manner of a young girl. She had her father’s sweet temper ingrafted on her mother’s variable Southern nature. She moved like a goddess, and she laughed like a child. Signs of maturing too rapidly – of outgrowing her strength, as the phrase went – had made their appearance in Sir Joseph’s daughter during the spring. The family doctor had suggested a sea-voyage, as a wise manner of employing the fine summer months. Richard Turlington’s yacht was placed at her disposal, with Richard Turlington himself included as one of the fixtures of the vessel. With her father and her aunt to keep up round her the atmosphere of home – with Cousin Launcelot (more commonly known as “Launce”) to carry out, if necessary, the medical treatment prescribed by superior authority on shore – the lovely invalid embarked on her summer cruise, and sprang up into a new existence in the life-giving breezes of the sea. After two happy months of lazy coasting round the shores of England, all that remained of Natalie’s illness was represented by a delicious languor in her eyes, and an utter inability to devote herself to anything which took the shape of a serious occupation. As she sat at the cabin breakfast-table that morning, in her quaintly-made sailing dress of old-fashioned nankeen – her inbred childishness of manner contrasting delightfully with the blooming maturity of her form – the man must have been trebly armed indeed in the modern philosophy who could have denied that the first of a woman’s rights is the right of being beautiful; and the foremost of a woman’s merits, the merit of being young!

The other two persons present at the table were the two gentlemen who have already appeared on the deck of the yacht.

“Not a breath of wind stirring!” said Richard Turlington. “The weather has got a grudge against us. We have drifted about four or five miles in the last eight-and-forty hours. You will never take another cruise with me – you must be longing to get on shore.”

He addressed himself to Natalie; plainly eager to make himself agreeable to the young lady – and plainly unsuccessful in producing any impression on her. She made a civil answer; and looked at her teacup, instead of looking at Richard Turlington.

“You might fancy yourself on shore at this moment,” said Launce. “The vessel is as steady as a house, and the swing-table we are eating our breakfast on is as even as your dining-room table at home.”

He too addressed himself to Natalie, but without betraying the anxiety to please her which had been shown by the other. For all that, he diverted the girl’s attention from her teacup; and his idea instantly awakened a responsive idea in Natalie’s mind.

“It will be so strange on shore,” she said, “to find myself in a room that never turns on one side, and to sit at a table that never tilts down to my knees at one time, or rises up to my chin at another. How I shall miss the wash of the water at my ear, and the ring of the bell on deck, when I am awake at night on land! No interest there in how the wind blows, or how the sails are set. No asking your way of the sun, when you are lost, with a little brass instrument and a morsel of pencil and paper. No delightful wandering wherever the wind takes you, without the worry of planning beforehand where you are to go. Oh how I shall miss the dear, changeable, inconstant sea! And how sorry I am I’m not a man and a sailor!”

This to the guest admitted on board on sufferance, and not one word of it addressed, even by chance, to the owner of the yacht!

Richard Turlington’s heavy eyebrows contracted with an unmistakable expression of pain.

“If this calm weather holds,” he went on, addressing himself to Sir Joseph, “I am afraid, Graybrooke, I shall not be able to bring you back to the port we sailed from by the end of the week.”

“Whenever you like, Richard,” answered the old gentleman, resignedly. “Any time will do for me.”

“Any time within reasonable limits, Joseph,” said Miss Lavinia, evidently feeling that her brother was conceding too much. She spoke with Sir Joseph’s amiable smile and Sir Joseph’s softly-pitched voice. Two twin babies could hardly have been more like one another.

While these few words were being exchanged among the elders, a private communication was in course of progress between the two young people under the cabin table. Natalie’s smartly-slippered foot felt its way cautiously inch by inch over the carpet till it touched Launce’s boot. Launce, devouring his breakfast, instantly looked up from his plate, and then, at a second touch from Natalie, looked down again in a violent hurry. After pausing to make sure that she was not noticed, Natalie took up her knife. Under a perfectly-acted pretence of toying with it absently, in the character of a young lady absorbed in thought, she began dividing a morsel of ham left on the edge of her plate, into six tiny pieces. Launce’s eye looked in sidelong expectation at the divided and subdivided ham. He was evidently waiting to see the collection of morsels put to some telegraphic use, previously determined on between his neighbour and himself.

In the meanwhile the talk proceeded among the other persons at the breakfast-table. Miss Lavinia addressed herself to Launce.

“Do you know, you careless boy, you gave me a fright this morning? I was sleeping with my cabin window open, and I was awoke by an awful splash in the water. I called for the stewardess. I declare I thought somebody had fallen overboard!”

Sir Joseph looked up briskly; his sister had accidentally touched on an old association.

“Talk of falling overboard,” he began, “reminds me of an extraordinary adventure—”

There Launce broke in, making his apologies.

“It shan’t occur again, Miss Lavinia,” he said. “Tomorrow morning I’ll oil myself all over, and slip into the water as silently as a seal.”

“Of an extraordinary adventure,” persisted Sir Joseph, “which happened to me many years ago, when I was a young man. Lavinia?”

He stopped, and looked interrogatively at his sister. Miss Graybrooke nodded her head responsively, and settled herself in her chair, as if summoning her attention in anticipation of a coming demand on it. To persons well acquainted with the brother and sister these proceedings were ominous of an impending narrative, protracted to a formidable length. The two always told a story in couples, and always differed with each other about the facts, the sister politely contradicting the brother when it was Sir Joseph’s story, and the brother politely contradicting the sister when it was Miss Lavinia’s story. Separated one from the other, and thus relieved of their own habitual interchange of contradiction, neither of them had ever been known to attempt the relation of the simplest series of events without breaking down.

“It was five years before I knew you, Richard,” proceeded Sir Joseph.

“Six years,” said Miss Graybrooke.

“Excuse me, Lavinia.”

“No, Joseph, I have it down in my diary.”

“Let us waive the point.” (Sir Joseph invariably used this formula as a means of at once conciliating his sister, and getting a fresh start for his story.) “I was cruising off the Mersey in a Liverpool pilot-boat. I had hired the boat in company with a friend of mine, formerly notorious in London society, under the nickname (derived from the peculiar brown colour of his whiskers) of ‘Mahogany Dobbs.’”

“The colour of his liveries, Joseph, not the colour of his whiskers.”

“My dear Lavinia, you are thinking of ‘Sea-green Shaw,’ so called from the extraordinary liveries he adopted for his servants in the year when he was sheriff.”

“I think not, Joseph.”

“I beg your pardon, Lavinia.”

Richard Turlington’s knotty fingers drummed impatiently on the table. He looked toward Natalie. She was idly arranging her little morsels of ham in a pattern on her plate. Launcelot Linzie, still more idly, was looking at the pattern. Seeing what he saw now, Richard solved the problem which had puzzled him on deck. It was simply impossible that Natalie’s fancy could be really taken by such an empty-headed fool as that!

Sir Joseph went on with his story:

“We were some ten or a dozen miles off the mouth of the Mersey—”

“Nautical miles, Joseph.”

“It doesn’t matter, Lavinia.”

“Excuse me, brother, the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things.”

“They were common miles, Lavinia.”

“They were nautical miles, Joseph.”

“Let us waive the point. Mahogany Dobbs and I happened to be below in the cabin, occupied—”

Here Sir Joseph paused (with his amiable smile) to consult his memory. Miss Lavinia waited (with her amiable smile) for the coming opportunity of setting her brother right. At the same moment Natalie laid down her knife and softly touched Launce under the table. When she thus claimed his attention the six pieces of ham were arranged as follows in her plate: Two pieces were placed opposite each other, and four pieces were ranged perpendicularly under them. Launce looked, and twice touched Natalie under the table. Interpreted by the Code agreed on between the two, the signal in the plate meant, “I must see you in private.” And Launce’s double touch answered, “After breakfast.”

Sir Joseph proceeded with his story. Natalie took up her knife again. Another signal coming!

“We were both down in the cabin, occupied in finishing our dinner—”

“Just sitting down to lunch, Joseph.”

“My dear! I ought to know.”

“I only repeat what I heard, brother. The last time you told the story, you and your friend were sitting down to lunch.”

“We won’t particularize, Lavinia. Suppose we say occupied over a meal?”

“If it is of no more importance than that, Joseph, it would be surely better to leave it out altogether.”

“Let us waive the point. Well, we were suddenly alarmed by a shout on deck, ‘Man overboard!’ We both rushed up the cabin stairs, naturally under the impression that one of our crew had fallen into the sea: an impression shared, I ought to add, by the man at the helm, who had given the alarm.”

Sir Joseph paused again. He was approaching one of the great dramatic points in his story, and was naturally anxious to present it as impressively as possible. He considered with himself, with his head a little on one side. Miss Lavinia considered with herself, with her head a little on one side. Natalie laid down her knife again, and again touched Launce under the table. This time there were five pieces of ham ranged longitudinally on the plate, with one piece immediately under them at the centre of the line. Interpreted by the Code, this signal indicated two ominous words, “Bad news.” Launce looked significantly at the owner of the yacht (meaning of the look, “Is he at the bottom of it?”). Natalie frowned in reply (meaning of the frown, “Yes, he is”). Launce looked down again into the plate. Natalie instantly pushed all the pieces of ham together in a little heap (meaning of the heap, “No more to say”).

“Well?” said Richard Turlington, turning sharply on Sir Joseph. “Get on with your story. What next?”

Thus far he had not troubled himself to show even a decent pretence of interest in his old friend’s perpetually-interrupted narrative. It was only when Sir Joseph had reached his last sentence – intimating that the man overboard might turn out in course of time not to be a man of the pilot-boat’s crew – it was only then that Turlington sat up in his chair, and showed signs of suddenly feeling a strong interest in the progress of the story.

Sir Joseph went on:

“As soon as we got on deck, we saw the man in the water, astern. Our vessel was hove up in the wind, and the boat was lowered. The master and one of the men took the oars. All told, our crew were seven in number. Two away in the boat, a third at the helm, and, to my amazement, when I looked round, the other four behind me making our number complete. At the same moment Mahogany Dobbs, who was looking through a telescope, called out, ‘Who the devil can he be? The man is floating on a hen-coop, and we have got nothing of the sort on board this pilot-boat.’”

The one person present who happened to notice Richard Turlington’s face when those words were pronounced was Launcelot Linzie. He – and he alone – saw the Levant trader’s swarthy complexion fade slowly to a livid ashen grey; his eyes the while fixing themselves on Sir Joseph Graybrooke with a furtive glare in them like the glare in the eyes of a wild beast. Apparently conscious that Launce was looking at him – though he never turned his head Launce’s way – he laid his elbow on the table, lifted his arm, and so rested his face on his hand, while the story went on, as to screen it effectually from the young surgeon’s view.

“The man was brought on board,” proceeded Sir Joseph, “sure enough, with a hen-coop – on which he had been found floating. The poor wretch was blue with terror and exposure in the water; he fainted when we lifted him on deck. When he came to himself he told us a horrible story. He was a sick and destitute foreign seaman, and he had hidden himself in the hold of an English vessel (bound to a port in his native country) which had sailed from Liverpool that morning. He had been discovered, and brought before the captain. The captain, a monster in human form, if ever there was one yet—”

Before the next word of the sentence could pass Sir Joseph’s lips, Turlington startled the little party in the cabin by springing suddenly to his feet.

“The breeze!” he cried; “the breeze at last!”

As he spoke, he wheeled round to the cabin door so as to turn his back on his guests, and hailed the deck.

“Which way is the wind?”

“There is not a breath of wind, sir.”

Not the slightest movement in the vessel had been perceptible in the cabin; not a sound had been audible indicating the rising of the breeze. The owner of the yacht – accustomed to the sea, capable, if necessary, of sailing his own vessel – had surely committed a strange mistake! He turned again to his friends, and made his apologies with an excess of polite regret far from characteristic of him at other times and under other circumstances.

“Go on,” he said to Sir Joseph, when he had got to the end of his excuses; “I never heard such an interesting story in my life. Pray go on!”

The request was not an easy one to comply with. Sir Joseph’s ideas had been thrown into confusion. Miss Lavinia’s contradictions (held in reserve) had been scattered beyond recall. Both brother and sister were, moreover, additionally hindered in recovering the control of their own resources by the look and manner of their host. He alarmed, instead of encouraging the two harmless old people, by fronting them almost fiercely, with his elbows squared on the table, and his face expressive of a dogged resolution to sit there and listen, if need be, for the rest of his life. Launce was the person who set Sir Joseph going again. After first looking attentively at Richard, he took his uncle straight back to the story by means of a question, thus:

“You don’t mean to say that the captain of the ship threw the man overboard?”

“That is just what he did, Launce. The poor wretch was too ill to work his passage. The captain declared he would have no idle foreign vagabond in his ship to eat up the provisions of Englishmen who worked. With his own hands he cast the hen-coop into the water, and (assisted by one of his sailors) he threw the man after it, and told him to float back to Liverpool with the evening tide.”

“A lie!” cried Turlington, addressing himself, not to Sir Joseph, but to Launce.

“Are you acquainted with the circumstances?” asked Launce, quietly.

“I know nothing about the circumstances. I say, from my own experience, that foreign sailors are even greater blackguards than English sailors. The man had met with an accident, no doubt. The rest of his story was a lie, and the object of it was to open Sir Joseph’s purse.”

Sir Joseph mildly shook his head.

“No lie, Richard. Witnesses proved that the man had spoken the truth.”

“Witnesses? Pooh! More liars, you mean.”

“I went to the owners of the vessel,” pursued Sir Joseph. “I got from them the names of the officers and the crew, and I waited, leaving the case in the hands of the Liverpool police. The ship was wrecked at the mouth of the Amazon, but the crew and the cargo were saved. The men belonging to Liverpool came back. They were a bad set, I grant you. But they were examined separately about the treatment of the foreign sailor, and they all told the same story. They could give no account of their captain, nor of the sailor who had been his accomplice in the crime, except that they had not embarked in the ship which brought the rest of the crew to England. Whatever may have become of the captain since, he certainly never returned to Liverpool.”

“Did you find out his name?”

The question was asked by Turlington. Even Sir Joseph, the least observant of men, noticed that it was put with a perfectly unaccountable irritability of manner.

“Don’t be angry, Richard.” said the old gentleman. “What is there to be angry about?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not angry – I’m only curious. Did you find out who he was?”

“I did. His name was Goward. He was well known at Liverpool as a very clever and a very dangerous man. Quite young at the time I am speaking of, and a first-rate sailor; famous for taking command of unseaworthy ships and vagabond crews. Report described him to me as having made considerable sums of money in that way, for a man in his position; serving firms, you know, with a bad name, and running all sorts of desperate risks. A sad ruffian, Richard! More than once in trouble, on both sides of the Atlantic, for acts of violence and cruelty. Dead, I dare say, long since.”

“Or possibly,” said Launce, “alive, under another name, and thriving in a new way of life, with more desperate risks in it, of some other sort.”

“Are you acquainted with the circumstances?” asked Turlington, retorting Launce’s question on him, with a harsh ring of defiance in his brassy voice.

“What became of the poor foreign sailor, papa?” said Natalie, purposely interrupting Launce before he could meet the question angrily asked of him, by an angry reply.

“We made a subscription, and spoke to his consul, my dear. He went back to his country, poor fellow, comfortably enough.”

“And there is an end of Sir Joseph’s story,” said Turlington, rising noisily from his chair. “It’s a pity we haven’t got a literary man on board – he would make a novel of it.” He looked up at the skylight as he got on his feet. “Here is the breeze, this time,” he exclaimed, “and no mistake!”

It was true. At last the breeze had come. The sails flapped, the main boom swung over with a thump, and the stagnant water, stirred at last, bubbled merrily past the vessel’s sides.

“Come on deck, Natalie, and get some fresh air,” said Miss Lavinia, leading the way to the cabin door.

Natalie held up the skirt of her nankeen dress, and exhibited the purple trimming torn away over an extent of some yards.

“Give me half an hour first, aunt, in my cabin,” she said, “to mend this.”

Miss Lavinia elevated her venerable eyebrows in amazement.

“You have done nothing but tear your dresses, my dear, since you have been in Mr. Turlington’s yacht. Most extraordinary! I have torn none of mine during the whole cruise.”

Natalie’s dark colour deepened a shade. She laughed, a little uneasily. “I am so awkward on board ship,” she replied, and turned away and shut herself up in her cabin.

Richard Turlington produced his case of cigars.

“Now is the time,” he said to Sir Joseph, “for the best cigar of the day – the cigar after breakfast. Come on deck.”

“You will join us, Launce?” said Sir Joseph.

“Give me half an hour first over my books,” Launce replied. “I mustn’t let my medical knowledge get musty at sea, and I might not feel inclined to study later in the day.”

“Quite right, my dear boy, quite right.”

Sir Joseph patted his nephew approvingly on the shoulder. Launce turned away on his side, and shut himself up in his cabin.

The other three ascended together to the deck.

SECOND SCENE

THE STORE-ROOM

Persons possessed of sluggish livers and tender hearts find two serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of a cruise at sea. It is exceedingly difficult to get enough walking exercise; and it is next to impossible (where secrecy is an object) to make love without being found out. Reverting for the moment to the latter difficulty only, life within the narrow and populous limits of a vessel may be defined as essentially life in public. From morning to night you are in your neighbour’s way, or your neighbour is in your way. As a necessary result of these conditions, the rarest of existing men may be defined as the man who is capable of stealing a kiss at sea without discovery. An inbred capacity for stratagem of the finest sort; inexhaustible inventive resources; patience which can flourish under superhuman trials; presence of mind which can keep its balance victoriously under every possible stress of emergency – these are some of the qualifications which must accompany Love on a cruise, when Love embarks in the character of a contraband commodity not duly entered on the papers of the ship.

Having established a Code of Signals which enabled them to communicate privately, while the eyes and ears of others were wide open on every side of them, Natalie and Launce were next confronted by the more serious difficulty of finding a means of meeting together at stolen interviews on board the yacht. Possessing none of those precious moral qualifications already enumerated as the qualifications of an accomplished lover at sea, Launce had proved unequal to grapple with the obstacles in his way. Left to her own inventive resources, Natalie had first suggested the young surgeon’s medical studies as Launce’s unanswerable excuse for shutting himself up at intervals in the lower regions, and had then hit on the happy idea of tearing her trimmings, and condemning herself to repair her own carelessness, as the all-sufficient reason for similar acts of self-seclusion on her side. In this way the lovers contrived, while the innocent ruling authorities were on deck, to meet privately below them, on the neutral ground of the main cabin; and there, by previous arrangement at the breakfast-table, they were about to meet privately now.

Natalie’s door was, as usual on these occasions, the first that opened; for this sound reason, that Natalie’s quickness was the quickness to be depended on in case of accident.

She looked up at the sky-light. There were the legs of the two gentlemen and the skirts of her aunt visible (and stationary) on the lee side of the deck. She advanced a few steps and listened. There was a pause in the murmur of the voices above. She looked up again. One pair of legs (not her father’s) had disappeared. Without an instant’s hesitation, Natalie darted back to her own door, just in time to escape Richard Turlington descending the cabin stairs. All he did was to go to one of the drawers under the main-cabin bookcase and to take out a map, ascending again immediately to the deck. Natalie’s guilty conscience rushed instantly, nevertheless, to the conclusion that Richard suspected her. When she showed herself for the second time, instead of venturing into the cabin, she called across it in a whisper,

“Launce!”

Launce appeared at his door. He was peremptorily checked before he could cross the threshold.

“Don’t stir a step! Richard has been down in the cabin! Richard suspects us!”

“Nonsense! Come out.”

“Nothing will induce me, unless you can find some other place than the cabin.”

Some other place? How easy to find it on land! How apparently impossible at sea! There was the forecastle (full of men) at one end of the vessel. There was the sail room (full of sails) at the other. There was the ladies’ cabin (used as the ladies’ dressing-room; inaccessible, in that capacity, to every male human being on board). Was there any disposable enclosed space to be found amidships? On one side there were the sleeping berths of the sailing-master and his mate (impossible to borrow them). On the other side was the steward’s storeroom. Launce considered for a moment. The steward’s storeroom was just the thing!

“Where are you going?” asked Natalie, as her lover made straight for a closed door at the lower extremity of the main cabin.

“To speak to the steward, darling. Wait one moment, and you will see me again.”

Launce opened the storeroom door, and discovered, not the steward, but his wife, who occupied the situation of stewardess on board the vessel. The accident was, in this case, a lucky one. Having stolen several kisses at sea, and having been discovered (in every case) either by the steward or his wife, Launce felt no difficulty in prefacing his request to be allowed the use of the room by the plainest allusion to his relations with Natalie. He could count on the silence of the sympathising authorities in this region of the vessel, having wisely secured them as accomplices by the usual persuasion of the pecuniary sort. Of the two, however, the stewardess, as a woman, was the more likely to lend a ready ear to Launce’s entreaties in his present emergency. After a faint show of resistance, she consented, not only to leave the room, but to keep her husband out of it, on the understanding that it was not to be occupied for more than ten minutes. Launce made the signal to Natalie at one door, while the stewardess went out by the other. In a moment more the lovers were united in a private room. Is it necessary to say in what language the proceedings were opened? Surely not! There is an inarticulate language of the lips in use on these occasions in which we are all proficient, though we sometimes forget it in later life. Natalie seated herself on a locker. The tea, sugar, and spices were at her back, a side of bacon swung over her head, and a net full of lemons dangled before her face. It might not be roomy, but it was snug and comfortable.

“Suppose they call for the steward?” she suggested. (“Don’t, Launce!”)

“Never mind. We shall be safe enough if they do. The steward has only to show himself on deck, and they will suspect nothing.”

“Do be quiet, Launce! I have got dreadful news to tell you. And, besides, my aunt will expect to see me with my braid sewn on again.”

She had brought her needle and thread with her. Whipping up the skirt of her dress on her knee, she bent forward over it, and set herself industriously to the repair of the torn trimming. In this position her lithe figure showed charmingly its firm yet easy line. The needle, in her dexterous brown fingers, flew through its work. The locker was a broad one; Launce was able to seat himself partially behind her. In this position who could have resisted the temptation to lift up her great knot of broadly-plaited black hair, and to let the warm, dusky nape of her neck disclose itself to view? Who, looking at it, could fail to revile the senseless modern fashion of dressing the hair, which hides the double beauty of form and colour that nestles at the back of a woman’s neck? From time to time, as the interview proceeded, Launce’s lips emphasized the more important words occurring in his share of the conversation on the soft, fragrant skin which the lifted hair let him see at intervals. In Launce’s place, sir, you would have done it too.

“Now, Natalie, what is the news?”

“He has spoken to papa, Launce.”

“Richard Turlington?”

“Yes.”

“D – n him!”

Natalie started. A curse addressed to the back of your neck, instantly followed by a blessing in the shape of a kiss, is a little trying when you are not prepared for it.

“Don’t do that again, Launce! It was while you were on deck smoking, and when I was supposed to be fast asleep. I opened the ventilator in my cabin door, dear, and I heard every word they said. He waited till my aunt was out of the way, and he had got papa all to himself, and then he began it in that horrible, downright voice of his – ‘Graybrooke! how much longer am I to wait?’”

“Did he say that?”

“No more swearing, Launce! Those were the words. Papa didn’t understand them. He only said (poor dear!) – ‘Bless my soul, Richard, what do you want?’ Richard soon explained himself. ‘Who could he be waiting for – but Me?’ Papa said something about my being so young. Richard stopped his mouth directly. ‘Girls were like fruit; some ripened soon, and some ripened late. Some were women at twenty, and some were women at sixteen. It was impossible to look at me, and not see that I was like a new being after my two months at sea,’ and so on and so on. Papa behaved like an angel. He still tried to put it off. ‘Plenty of time, Richard, plenty of time.’  ‘Plenty of time for her’ (was the wretch’s answer to that); ‘but not for me. Think of all I have to offer her’ (as if I cared for his money!); ‘think how long I have looked upon her as growing up to be my wife’ (growing up for him – monstrous!), ‘and don’t keep me in a state of uncertainty, which it gets harder and harder for a man in my position to endure!’ He was really quite eloquent. His voice trembled. There is no doubt, dear, that he is very, very fond of me.”

“And you feel flattered by it, of course?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. I feel a little frightened at it, I can tell you.”

“Frightened? Did you notice him this morning?”

“I? When?”

“When your father was telling that story about the man overboard.”

“No. What did he do? Tell me, Launce.”

“I’ll tell you directly. How did it all end last night? Did your father make any sort of promise?”

“You know Richard’s way; Richard left him no other choice. Papa had to promise before he was allowed to go to bed.”

“To let Turlington marry you?”

“Yes; the week after my next birthday.”

“The week after next Christmas-day?”

“Yes. Papa is to speak to me as soon as we are at home again, and my married life is to begin with the New Year.”

“Are you in earnest, Natalie? Do you really mean to say it has gone as far as that?”

“They have settled everything. The splendid establishment we are to set up, the great income we are to have. I heard papa tell Richard that half his fortune should go to me on my wedding-day. It was sickening to hear how much they made of Money, and how little they thought of Love. What am I to do, Launce?”

“That’s easily answered, my darling. In the first place, you are to make up your mind not to marry Richard Turlington—”

“Do talk reasonably. You know I have done all I could. I have told papa that I can think of Richard as a friend, but not as a husband. He only laughs at me, and says, ‘Wait a little, and you will alter your opinion, my dear.’ You see Richard is everything to him; Richard has always managed his affairs, and has saved him from losing by bad speculations; Richard has known me from the time when I was a child; Richard has a splendid business, and quantities of money. Papa can’t even imagine that I can resist Richard. I have tried my aunt; I have told her he is too old for me. All she says is, ‘Look at your father; he was much older than your mother, and what a happy marriage theirs was.’ Even if I said in so many words, ‘I won’t marry Richard,’ what good would it do to us? Papa is the best and dearest old man in the world; but oh, he is so fond of money! He believes in nothing else. He would be furious – yes, kind as he is, he would be furious – if I even hinted that I was fond of you. Any man who proposed to marry me – if he couldn’t match the fortune that I should bring him by a fortune of his own – would be a lunatic in papa’s eyes. He wouldn’t think it necessary to answer him; he would ring the bell, and have him shown out of the house. I am exaggerating nothing, Launce; you know I am speaking the truth. There is no hope in the future – that I can see – for either of us.”

“Have you done, Natalie? I have something to say on my side if you have.”

“What is it?”

“If things go on as they are going on now, shall I tell you how it will end? It will end in your being Turlington’s wife.”

“Never!”

“So you say now; but you don’t know what may happen between this and Christmas-day. Natalie, there is only one way of making sure that you will never marry Richard. Marry me.”

“Without papa’s consent?”

“Without saying a word to anybody till it’s done.”

“Oh, Launce! Launce!”

“My darling, every word you have said proves there is no other way. Think of it, Natalie, think of it.”

There was a pause. Natalie dropped her needle and thread, and hid her face in her hands. “If my poor mother was only alive,” she said; “if I only had an elder sister to advise me, and to take my part.”

She was evidently hesitating. Launce took a man’s advantage of her indecision. He pressed her without mercy.

“Do you love me?” he whispered, with his lips close to her ear.

“You know I do, dearly.”

“Put it out of Richard’s power to part us, Natalie.”

“Part us? We are cousins: we have known each other since we were both children. Even if he proposed parting us, papa wouldn’t allow it.”

“Mark my words, he will propose it. As for your father, Richard has only to lift his finger and your father obeys him. My love, the happiness of both our lives is at stake.” He wound his arm round her, and gently drew her head back on his bosom. “Other girls have done it, darling,” he pleaded, “why shouldn’t you?”

The effort to answer him was too much for her. She gave it up. A low sigh fluttered through her lips. She nestled closer to him, and faintly closed her eyes. The next instant she started up, trembling from head to foot, and looked at the sky-light. Richard Turlington’s voice was suddenly audible on deck exactly above them.

“Graybrooke, I want to say a word to you about Launcelot Linzie.”

Natalie’s first impulse was to fly to the door. Hearing Launce’s name on Richard’s lips, she checked herself. Something in Richard’s tone roused in her the curiosity which suspends fear. She waited, with her hand in Launce’s hand.

“If you remember,” the brassy voice went on, “I doubted the wisdom of taking him with us on this cruise. You didn’t agree with me, and, at your express request, I gave way. I did wrong. Launcelot Linzie is a very presuming young man.”

Sir Joseph’s answer was accompanied by Sir Joseph’s mellow laugh.

“My dear Richard! Surely you are a little hard on Launce?”

“You are not an observant man, Graybrooke. I am. I see signs of his presuming with all of us, and especially with Natalie. I don’t like the manner in which he speaks to her and looks at her. He is unduly familiar; he is insolently confidential. There must be a stop put to it. In my position, my feelings ought to be regarded. I request you to check the intimacy when we get on shore.”

Sir Joseph’s next words were spoken more seriously. He expressed his surprise.

“My dear Richard, they are cousins, they have been playmates from childhood. How can you think of attaching the slightest importance to anything that is said or done by poor Launce?”

There was a good-humoured contempt in Sir Joseph’s reference to “poor Launce” which jarred on his daughter. He might almost have been alluding to some harmless domestic animal. Natalie’s colour deepened. Her hand pressed Launce’s hand gently.

Turlington still persisted.

“I must once more request – seriously request – that you will check this growing intimacy. I don’t object to your asking him to the house when you ask other friends. I only wish you (and expect you) to stop his ‘dropping in,’ as it is called, any hour of the day or evening when he may have nothing to do. Is that understood between us?”

“If you make a point of it, Richard, of course it’s understood between us.”

Launce looked at Natalie, as weak Sir Joseph consented in those words.

“What did I tell you?” he whispered.

Natalie hung her head in silence. There was a pause in the conversation on deck. The two gentlemen walked away slowly toward the forward part of the vessel.

Launce pursued his advantage.

“Your father leaves us no alternative,” he said. “The door will be closed against me as soon as we get on shore. If I lose you, Natalie, I don’t care what becomes of me. My profession may go to the devil. I have nothing left worth living for.”

“Hush! hush! don’t talk in that way!”

Launce tried the soothing influence of persuasion once more.

“Hundreds and hundreds of people in our situation have married privately – and have been forgiven afterward,” he went on. “I won’t ask you to do anything in a hurry. I will be guided entirely by your wishes. All I want to quiet my mind is to know that you are mine. Do, do, do make me feel sure that Richard Turlington can’t take you away from me.”

“Don’t press me, Launce.” She dropped on the locker. “See!” she said. “It makes me tremble only to think of it!”

“Who are you afraid of, darling? Not your father, surely?”

“Poor papa! I wonder whether he would be hard on me for the first time in his life?” She stopped; her moistening eyes looked up imploringly in Launce’s face. “Don’t press me!” she repeated faintly. “You know it’s wrong. We should have to confess it – and then what would happen?” She paused again. Her eyes wandered nervously to the deck. Her voice dropped to its lowest tones. “Think of Richard!” she said, and shuddered at the terrors which that name conjured up. Before it was possible to say a quieting word to her, she was again on her feet. Richard’s name had suddenly recalled to her memory Launce’s mysterious allusion, at the outset of the interview, to the owner of the yacht. “What was that you said about Richard just now?” she asked. “You saw something (or heard something) strange while papa was telling his story. What was it?”

“I noticed Richard’s face, Natalie, when your father told us that the man overboard was not one of the pilot-boat’s crew. He turned ghastly pale. He looked guilty—”

“Guilty? Of what?”

“He was present – I am certain of it – when the sailor was thrown into the sea. For all I know, he may have been the man who did it.”

Natalie started back in horror.

“Oh, Launce! Launce! that is too bad. You may not like Richard – you may treat Richard as your enemy. But to say such a horrible thing of him as that – It’s not generous. It’s not like you.”

“If you had seen him, you would have said it too. I mean to make inquiries – in your father’s interests as well as in ours. My brother knows one of the Commissioners of Police, and my brother can get it done for me. Turlington has not always been in the Levant trade – I know that already.”

“For shame, Launce! for shame!”

The footsteps on deck were audible coming back. Natalie sprang to the door leading into the cabin. Launce stopped her, as she laid her hand on the lock. The footsteps went straight on toward the stern of the vessel. Launce clasped both arms round her. Natalie gave way.

“Don’t drive me to despair!” he said. “This is my last opportunity. I don’t ask you to say at once that you will marry me, I only ask you to think of it. My darling! my angel! will you think of it?”

As he put the question, they might have heard (if they had not been too completely engrossed in each other to listen) the footsteps returning – one pair of footsteps only this time. Natalie’s prolonged absence had begun to surprise her aunt, and had roused a certain vague distrust in Richard’s mind. He walked back again along the deck by himself. He looked absently in the main cabin as he passed it. The storeroom skylight came next. In his present frame of mind, would he look absently into the storeroom too?

“Let me go!” said Natalie.

Launce only answered, “Say yes,” and held her as if he would never let her go again.

At the same moment Miss Lavinia’s voice rose shrill from the deck calling for Natalie. There was but one way of getting free from him. She said, “I’ll think of it.” Upon that, he kissed her and let her go.

The door had barely closed on her when the lowering face of Richard Turlington appeared on a level with the side of the skylight, looking down into the storeroom at Launce.

“Halloo!” he called out roughly. “What are you doing in the steward’s room?”

Launce took up a box of matches on the dresser. “I’m getting a light,” he answered readily.

“I allow nobody below, forward of the main cabin, without my leave. The steward has permitted a breach of discipline on board my vessel. The steward will leave my service.”

“The steward is not to blame.”

“I am the judge of that. Not you.”

Launce opened his lips to reply. An outbreak between the two men appeared to be inevitable, when the sailing-master of the yacht joined his employer on deck, and directed Turlington’s attention to a question which is never to be trifled with at sea, the question of wind and tide.

The yacht was then in the Bristol Channel, at the entrance to Bideford Bay. The breeze, fast freshening, was also fast changing the direction from which it blew. The favourable tide had barely three hours more to run.

“The wind’s shifting, sir,” said the sailing-master. “I’m afraid we shan’t get round the point this tide, unless we lay her off on the other tack.”

Turlington shook his head.

“There are letters waiting for me at Bideford,” he said. “We have lost two days in the calm. I must send ashore to the post-office, whether we lose the tide or not.”

The vessel held on her course. Off the port of Bideford, the boat was sent ashore to the post-office, the yacht standing off and on, waiting the appearance of the letters. In the shortest time in which it was possible to bring them on board the letters were in Turlington’s hands.

The men were hauling the boat up to the davits, the yacht was already heading off from the land, when Turlington startled everybody by one peremptory word – “Stop!”

He had thrust all his letters but one into the pocket of his sailing jacket, without reading them. The one letter which he had opened he held in his closed hand. Rage was in his staring eyes, consternation was on his pale lips.

“Lower the boat!” he shouted; “I must get to London tonight.” He stopped Sir Joseph, approaching him with opened mouth. “There’s no time for questions and answers. I must get back.” He swung himself over the side of the yacht, and addressed the sailing-master from the boat. “Save the tide if you can; if you can’t, put them ashore tomorrow at Minehead or Watchet – wherever they like.” He beckoned to Sir Joseph to lean over the bulwark, and hear something he had to say in private. “Remember what I told you about Launcelot Linzie!” he whispered fiercely. His parting look was for Natalie. He spoke to her with a strong constraint on himself, as gently as he could. “Don’t be alarmed; I shall see you in London.” He seated himself in the boat and took the tiller. The last words they heard him say were words urging the men at the oars to lose no time. He was invariably brutal with the men. “Pull, you lazy beggars!” he exclaimed, with an oath. “Pull for your lives!”

THIRD SCENE

THE MONEY MARKET

Let us be serious. – Business!

The new scene plunges us head foremost into the affairs of the Levant trading-house of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca. What on earth do we know about the Levant Trade? Courage! If we have ever known what it is to want money we are perfectly familiar with the subject at starting. The Levant Trade does occasionally get into difficulties. – Turlington wanted money.

The letter which had been handed to him on board the yacht was from his third partner, Mr. Branca, and was thus expressed:

“A crisis in the trade. All right, so far – except our business with the small foreign firms. Bills to meet from those quarters, (say) forty thousand pounds – and, I fear, no remittances to cover them. Particulars stated in another letter addressed to you at Post-office, Ilfracombe. I am quite broken down with anxiety, and confined to my bed. Pizzituti is still detained at Smyrna. Come back at once.”

The same evening Turlington was at his office in Austin Friars, investigating the state of affairs, with his head clerk to help him.

Stated briefly, the business of the firm was of the widely miscellaneous sort. They plied a brisk trade in a vast variety of commodities. Nothing came amiss to them, from Manchester cotton manufactures to Smyrna figs. They had branch houses at Alexandria and Odessa, and correspondents here, there, and everywhere, along the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the ports of the East. These correspondents were the persons alluded to in Mr. Branca’s letter as “small foreign firms;” and they had produced the serious financial crisis in the affairs of the great house in Austin Friars, which had hurried Turlington up to London.

Every one of these minor firms claimed and received the privilege of drawing bills on Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca for amounts varying from four to six thousand pounds – on no better security than a verbal understanding that the money to pay the bills should be forwarded before they fell due. Competition, it is needless to say, was at the bottom of this insanely reckless system of trading. The native firms laid it down as a rule that they would decline to transact business with any house in the trade which refused to grant them their privilege. In the ease of Turlington’s house, the foreign merchants had drawn their bills on him for sums large in the aggregate, if not large in themselves; had long since turned those bills into cash in their own markets, for their own necessities; and had now left the money which their paper represented to be paid by their London correspondents as it fell due. In some instances, they had sent nothing but promises and excuses. In others, they had forwarded drafts on firms which had failed already, or which were about to fail, in the crisis. After first exhausting his resources in ready money, Mr. Branca had provided for the more pressing necessities by pledging the credit of the house, so far as he could pledge it without exciting suspicion of the truth. This done, there were actually left, between that time and Christmas, liabilities to be met to the extent of forty thousand pounds, without a farthing in hand to pay that formidable debt.

After working through the night, this was the conclusion at which Richard Turlington arrived, when the rising sun looked in at him through the windows of his private room.

The whole force of the blow had fallen on him. The share of his partners in the business was of the most trifling nature. The capital was his, the risk was his. Personally and privately, he had to find the money, or to confront the one other alternative – ruin.

How was the money to be found?

With his position in the City, he had only to go to the famous money-lending and discounting house of Bulpit Brothers – reported to “turn over” millions in their business every year – and to supply himself at once with the necessary funds. Forty thousand pounds was a trifling transaction to Bulpit Brothers.

Having got the money, how, in the present state of his trade, was the loan to be paid back?

His thoughts reverted to his marriage with Natalie.

“Curious!” he said to himself, recalling his conversation with Sir Joseph on board the yacht. “Graybrooke told me he would give his daughter half his fortune on her marriage. Half Graybrooke’s fortune happens to be just forty thousand pounds!” He took a turn in the room. No! It was impossible to apply to Sir Joseph. Once shake Sir Joseph’s conviction of his commercial solidity, and the marriage would be certainly deferred – if not absolutely broken off. Sir Joseph’s fortune could be made available, in the present emergency, in but one way – he might use it to repay his debt. He had only to make the date at which the loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and there was his father-in-law’s money at his disposal, or at his wife’s disposal – which meant the same thing. “It’s well I pressed Graybrooke about the marriage when I did!” he thought. “I can borrow the money at a short date. In three months from this Natalie will be my wife.”

He drove to his club to get breakfast, with his mind cleared, for the time being, of all its anxieties but one.

Knowing where he could procure the loan, he was by no means equally sure of being able to find the security on which he could borrow the money. Living up to his income; having no expectations from any living creature; possessing in landed property only some thirty or forty acres in Somersetshire, with a quaint little dwelling, half farm house, half-cottage, attached – he was incapable of providing the needful security from his own personal resources. To appeal to wealthy friends in the City would be to let those friends into the secret of his embarrassments, and to put his credit in peril. He finished his breakfast, and went back to Austin Friars – failing entirely, so far, to see how he was to remove the last obstacle now left in his way.

The doors were open to the public; business had begun. He had not been ten minutes in his room before the shipping-clerk knocked at the door and interrupted him, still absorbed in his own anxious thoughts.

“What is it?” he asked, irritably.

“Duplicate Bills of Lading, sir,” answered the clerk, placing the documents on his master’s table.

Found! There was the security on his writing-desk, staring him in the face! He dismissed the clerk and examined the papers.

They contained an account of goods shipped to the London house on board vessels sailing from Smyrna and Odessa, and they were signed by the masters of the ships, who thereby acknowledged the receipt of the goods, and undertook to deliver them safely to the persons owning them, as directed. First copies of these papers had already been placed in the possession of the London house. The duplicates had now followed, in case of accident. Richard Turlington instantly determined to make the duplicates serve as his security, keeping the first copies privately under lock and key, to be used in obtaining possession of the goods at the customary time. The fraud was a fraud in appearance only. The security was a pure formality. His marriage would supply him with the funds needed for repaying the money, and the profits of his business would provide, in course of time, for restoring the dowry of his wife. It was simply a question of preserving his credit by means which were legitimately at his disposal. Within the lax limits of mercantile morality, Richard Turlington had a conscience. He put on his hat and took his false security to the money-lenders, without feeling at all lowered in his own estimation as an honest man.

Bulpit Brothers, long desirous of having such a name as his on their books, received him with open arms. The security (covering the amount borrowed) was accepted as a matter of course. The money was lent, for three months, with a stroke of the pen. Turlington stepped out again into the street, and confronted the City of London in the character of the noblest work of mercantile creation – a solvent man.[*]

The Fallen Angel, walking invisibly behind, in Richard’s shadow, flapped his crippled wings in triumph. From that moment the Fallen Angel had got him.

[*] FOOTNOTE It may not be amiss to remind the incredulous reader that a famous firm in the City accepted precisely the same security as that here accepted by Bulpit Brothers, with the same sublime indifference to troubling themselves by making any inquiry about it.

FOURTH SCENE

MUSWELL HILL

The next day Turlington drove to the suburbs, on the chance of finding the Graybrookes at home again. Sir Joseph disliked London, and could not prevail on himself to live any nearer to the metropolis than Muswell Hill. When Natalie wanted a change, and languished for balls, theatres, flower-shows, and the like, she had a room especially reserved for her in the house of Sir Joseph’s married sister, Mrs. Sancroft, living in that central deep of the fashionable whirlpool known among mortals as Berkeley Square.

On his way through the streets, Turlington encountered a plain proof that the Graybrookes must have returned. He was passed by Launce, driving, in company with a gentleman, in a cab. The gentleman was Launce’s brother, and the two were on their way to the Commissioners of Police to make the necessary arrangements for instituting an inquiry into Turlington’s early life.

Arrived at the gate of the villa, the information received only partially fulfilled the visitor’s expectations. The family had returned on the previous evening. Sir Joseph and his sister were at home, but Natalie was away again already. She had driven into town to lunch with her aunt. Turlington went into the house.

“Have you lost any money?” Those were the first words uttered by Sir Joseph when he and Richard met again, after the parting on board the yacht.

“Not a farthing. I might have lost seriously, if I had not got back in time to set things straight. Stupidity on the part of my people left in charge – nothing more. It’s all right now.”

Sir Joseph lifted his eyes, with heartfelt devotion, to the ceiling. “Thank God, Richard!” he said, in tones of the deepest feeling. He rang the bell. “Tell Miss Graybrooke Mr. Turlington is here.” He turned again to Richard. “Lavinia is like me – Lavinia has been so anxious about you. We have both of us passed a sleepless night.” Miss Lavinia came in. Sir Joseph hurried to meet her, and took her affectionately by both hands. “My dear! the best of all good news, Richard has not lost a farthing.” Miss Lavinia lifted her eyes to the ceiling with heartfelt devotion, and said, “Thank God, Richard!” – like the echo of her brother’s voice; a little late, perhaps, for its reputation as an echo, but accurate to half a note in its perfect repetition of sound.

Turlington asked the question which it had been his one object to put in paying his visit to Muswell Hill.

“Have you spoken to Natalie?”

“This morning,” replied Sir Joseph. “An opportunity offered itself after breakfast. I took advantage of it, Richard – you shall hear how.”

He settled himself in his chair for one of his interminable stories; he began his opening sentence – and stopped, struck dumb at the first word. There was an unexpected obstacle in the way – his sister was not attending to him; his sister had silenced him at starting. The story touching, this time, on the question of marriage, Miss Lavinia had her woman’s interest in seeing full justice done to the subject. She seized on her brother’s narrative as on property in her own right.

“Joseph should have told you,” she began, addressing herself to Turlington, “that our dear girl was unusually depressed in spirits this morning. Quite in the right frame of mind for a little serious talk about her future life. She ate nothing at breakfast, poor child, but a morsel of dry toast.”

“And marmalade,” said Sir Joseph, striking in at the first opportunity. The story, on this occasion, being Miss Lavinia’s story, the polite contradictions necessary to its successful progress were naturally transferred from the sister to the brother, and became contradictions on Sir Joseph’s side.

“No,” said Miss Lavinia, gently, “if you will have it, Joseph – jam.”

“I beg your pardon,” persisted Sir Joseph; “marmalade.”

“What does it matter, brother?”

“Sister! the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things.”

“You will have your way, Joseph” – (this was the formula – answering to Sir Joseph’s “Let us waive the point” – which Miss Lavinia used, as a means of conciliating her brother, and getting a fresh start for her story). “Well, we took dear Natalie out between us, after breakfast, for a little walk in the grounds. My brother opened the subject with infinite delicacy and tact. ‘Circumstances,’ he said, ‘into which it was not then necessary to enter, made it very desirable, young as she was, to begin to think of her establishment in life.’ And then he referred, Richard (so nicely), to your faithful and devoted attachment—”

“Excuse me, Lavinia. I began with Richard’s attachment, and then I got on to her establishment in life.”

“Excuse me, Joseph. You managed it much more delicately than you suppose. You didn’t drag Richard in by the head and shoulders in that way.”

“Lavinia! I began with Richard.”

“Joseph! your memory deceives you.”

Turlington’s impatience broke through all restraint.

“How did it end?” he asked. “Did you propose to her that we should be married in the first week of the New Year?”

“Yes!” said Miss Lavinia.

“No!” said Sir Joseph.

The sister looked at the brother with an expression of affectionate surprise. The brother looked at the sister with a fund of amiable contradiction, expressed in a low bow.

“Do you really mean to deny, Joseph, that you told Natalie we had decided on the first week in the New Year?”

“I deny the New Year, Lavinia. I said early in January.”

“You will have your way, Joseph! We were walking in the shrubbery at the time. I had our dear girl’s arm in mine, and I felt it tremble. She suddenly stopped. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘not so soon!’ I said, ‘My dear, consider Richard!’ She turned to her father. She said, ‘Don’t, pray don’t press it so soon, papa! I respect Richard; I like Richard as your true and faithful friend; but I don’t love him as I ought to love him if I am to be his wife.’ Imagine her talking in that way! What could she possibly know about it? Of course we both laughed—”

“You laughed, Lavinia.”

“You laughed, Joseph.”

“Get on, for God’s sake!” cried Turlington, striking his hand passionately on the table by which he was sitting. “Don’t madden me by contradicting each other! Did she give way or not?”

Miss Lavinia turned to her brother. “Contradicting each other, Joseph!” she exclaimed, lifting her hands in blank amazement.

“Contradicting each other!” repeated Sir Joseph, equally astonished on his side. “My dear Richard, what can you be thinking of? I contradict my sister! We never disagreed in our lives.”

“I contradict my brother! We have never had a cross word between us from the time when we were children.”

Turlington internally cursed his own irritable temper.

“I beg your pardon – both of you,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was saying. Make some allowance for me. All my hopes in life are centred in Natalie; and you have just told me (in her own words, Miss Lavinia) that she doesn’t love. You don’t mean any harm, I dare say; but you cut me to the heart.”

This confession, and the look that accompanied it, touched the ready sympathies of the two old people in the right place. The remainder of the story dropped between them by common consent. They vied with each other in saying the comforting words which would allay their dear Richard’s anxiety. How little he knew of young girls. How could he be so foolish, poor fellow! as to attach any serious importance to what Natalie had said? As if a young creature in her teens knew the state of her own heart! Protestations and entreaties were matters of course, in such cases. Tears even might be confidently expected from a right-minded girl. It had all ended exactly as Richard would have wished it to end. Sir Joseph had said, “My child! this is a matter of experience; love will come when you are married.” And Miss Lavinia had added, “Dear Natalie, if you remembered your poor mother as I remember her, you would know that your father’s experience is to be relied on.” In that way they had put it to her; and she had hung her head and had given – all that maiden modesty could be expected to give – a silent consent. “The wedding-day was fixed for the first week in the New Year.” (“No, Joseph; not January – the New Year.”) “And God bless you, Richard! and may your married life be a long and happy one.”

So the average ignorance of human nature, and the average belief in conventional sentiment, complacently contemplated the sacrifice of one more victim on the all-devouring altar of Marriage! So Sir Joseph and his sister provided Launcelot Linzie with the one argument which he wanted to convince Natalie: “Choose between making the misery of your life by marrying him, and making the happiness of your life by marrying me.”

“When shall I see her?” asked Turlington, with Miss Lavinia (in tears which did her credit) in possession of one of his hands, and Sir Joseph (in tears which did him credit) in possession of the other.

“She will be back to dinner, dear Richard. Stay and dine.”

“Thank you. I must go into the City first. I will come back and dine.”

With that arrangement in prospect, he left them.

An hour later a telegram arrived from Natalie. She had consented to dine, as well as lunch, in Berkeley Square – sleeping there that night, and returning the next morning. Her father instantly telegraphed back by the messenger, insisting on Natalie’s return to Muswell Hill that evening, in time to meet Richard Turlington at dinner.

“Quite right. Joseph,” said Miss Lavinia, looking over her brother’s shoulder, while he wrote the telegram.

“She is showing a disposition to coquette with Richard,” rejoined Sir Joseph, with the air of a man who knew female human nature in its remotest corners. “My telegram, Lavinia, will have its effect.”

Sir Joseph was quite right. His telegram had its effect. It not only brought his daughter back to dinner – it produced another result which his prophetic faculty had altogether failed to foresee.

The message reached Berkeley Square at five o’clock in the afternoon. Let us follow the message.

FIFTH SCENE

THE SQUARE

Between four and five in the afternoon – when the women of the Western regions are in their carriages, and the men are at their clubs – London presents few places more conveniently adapted for purposes of private talk than the solitary garden enclosure of a square.

On the day when Richard Turlington paid his visit to Muswell Hill, two ladies (with a secret between them) unlocked the gate of the railed garden in Berkeley Square. They shut the gate after entering the enclosure, but carefully forbore to lock it as well, and carefully restricted their walk to the westward side of the garden. One of them was Natalie Graybrooke. The other was Mrs. Sancroft’s eldest daughter. A certain temporary interest attached, in the estimation of society, to this young lady. She had sold well in the marriage market. In other words, she had recently been raised to the position of Lord Winwood’s second wife; his lordship conferring on the bride not only the honours of the peerage, but the additional distinction of being stepmother to his three single daughters, all older than herself. In person, Lady Winwood was little and fair. In character, she was dashing and resolute – a complete contrast to Natalie, and (on that very account) Natalie’s bosom friend.

“My dear, one ambitious marriage in the family is quite enough! I have made up my mind that you shall marry the man you love. Don’t tell me your courage is failing you – the excuse is contemptible; I decline to receive it. Natalie! the men have a phrase which exactly describes your character. You want backbone!”

The bonnet of the lady who expressed herself in these peremptory terms barely reached the height of Natalie’s shoulder. Natalie might have blown the little airy, light-haired, unsubstantial creature over the railings of the garden if she had taken a good long breath and stooped low enough. But who ever met with a tall woman who had a will of her own? Natalie’s languid brown eyes looked softly down in submissive attention from an elevation of five feet seven. Lady Winwood’s brisk blue eyes looked brightly up in despotic command from an elevation of four feet eleven (in her shoes).

“You are trifling with Mr. Linzie, my dear. Mr. Linzie is a nice fellow. I like him. I won’t have that.”

“Louisa!”

“Mr. Turlington has nothing to recommend him. He is not a well-bred old gentleman of exalted rank. He is only an odious brute who happens to have made money. You shall not marry Mr. Turlington. And you shall marry Launcelot Linzie.”

“Will you let me speak, Louisa?”

“I will let you answer – nothing more. Didn’t you come crying to me this morning? Didn’t you say, ‘Louisa, they have pronounced sentence on me! I am to be married in the first week of the New Year. Help me out of it, for Heaven’s sake!’ You said all that, and more. And what did I do when I heard your story?”

“Oh, you were so kind—”

“Kind doesn’t half express it. I have committed crimes on your account. I have deceived my husband and my mother. For your sake I got mamma to ask Mr. Linzie to lunch (as my friend!). For your sake I have banished my unoffending husband, not an hour since, to his club. You wretched girl, who arranged a private conference in the library? Who sent Mr. Linzie off to consult his friend in the Temple on the law of clandestine marriage? Who suggested your telegraphing home, and stopping here for the night? Who made an appointment to meet your young man privately in this detestable place in ten minutes’ time? I did! I did! I did! All in your interests. All to prevent you from doing what I have done – marrying to please your family instead of to please yourself. (I don’t complain, mind, of Lord Winwood, or of his daughters. He is charming; his daughters I shall tame in course of time. You are different. And Mr. Turlington, as I observed before, is a brute.) Very well. Now what do you owe me on your side? You owe it to me at least to know your own mind. You don’t know it. You coolly inform me that you daren’t run the risk after all, and that you can’t face the consequences on second thoughts. I’ll tell you what! You don’t deserve that nice fellow, who worships the very ground you tread on. You are a bread-and-butter miss. I don’t believe you are fond of him!”

“Not fond of him!” Natalie stopped, and clasped her hands in despair of finding language strong enough for the occasion. At the same moment the sound of a closing gate caught her ear. She looked round. Launce had kept his appointment before his time. Launce was in the garden, rapidly approaching them.

“Now for the Law of Clandestine Marriage!” said Lady Winwood. “Mr. Linzie, we will take it sitting.” She led the way to one of the benches in the garden, and placed Launce between Natalie and herself. “Well, Chief Conspirator, have you got the License? No? Does it cost too much? Can I lend you the money?”

“It costs perjury, Lady Winwood, in my case,” said Launce. “Natalie is not of age. I can only get a License by taking my oath that I marry her with her father’s consent.” He turned piteously to Natalie. “I couldn’t very well do that,” he said, in the tone of a man who feels bound to make an apology, “could I?” Natalie shuddered; Lady Winwood shrugged her shoulders.

“In your place a woman wouldn’t have hesitated,” her ladyship remarked. “But men are so selfish. Well! I suppose there is some other way?”

“Yes, there is another way,” said Launce. “But there is a horrid condition attached to it—”

“Something worse than perjury, Mr. Linzie? Murder?”

“I’ll tell you directly, Lady Winwood. The marriage comes first. The condition follows. There is only one chance for us. We must be married by banns.”

“Banns!” cried Natalie. “Why, banns are publicly proclaimed in church!”

“They needn’t be proclaimed in your church, you goose,” said Lady Winwood. “And, even if they were, nobody would be the wiser. You may trust implicitly, my dear, in the elocution of an English clergyman!”

“That’s just what my friend said,” cried Launce. “‘Take a lodging near a large parish church, in a remote part of London’ – (this is my friend’s advice) – ‘go to the clerk, tell him you want to be married by banns, and say you belong to that parish. As for the lady, in your place I should simplify it. I should say she belonged to the parish too. Give an address, and have someone there to answer questions. How is the clerk to know? He isn’t likely to be over-anxious about it – his fee is eighteen-pence. The clerk makes his profit out of you, after you are married. The same rule applies to the parson. He will have your names supplied to him on a strip of paper, with dozens of other names; and he will read them out all together in one inarticulate jumble in church. You will stand at the altar when your time comes, with Brown and Jones, Nokes and Styles, Jack and Gill. All that you will have to do is, to take care that your young lady doesn’t fall to Jack, and you to Gill, by mistake – and there you are, married by banns.’ My friend’s opinion, stated in his own words.”

Natalie sighed, and wrung her hands in her lap. “We shall never get through it,” she said, despondingly.

Lady Winwood took a more cheerful view.

“I see nothing very formidable as yet, my dear. But we have still to hear the end of it. You mentioned a condition just now, Mr. Linzie.”

“I am coming to the condition, Lady Winwood. You naturally suppose, as I did, that I put Natalie into a cab, and run away with her from the church door?”

“Certainly. And I throw an old shoe after you for luck, and go home again.”

Launce shook his head ominously.

“Natalie must go home again as well as you!”

Lady Winwood started. “Is that the condition you mentioned just now?” she asked.

“That is the condition. I may marry her without anything serious coming of it. But, if I run away with her afterward, and if you are there, aiding and abetting me, we are guilty of Abduction, and we may stand, side by side, at the bar of the Old Bailey to answer for it!”

Natalie sprang to her feet in horror. Lady Winwood held up one finger warningly, signing to her to let Launce go on.

“Natalie is not yet sixteen years old,” Launce proceeded. “She must go straight back to her father’s house from the church, and I must wait to run away with her till her next birthday. When she’s turned sixteen, she’s ripe for elopement – not an hour before. There is the law of Abduction! Despotism in a free country – that’s what I call it!”

Natalie sat down again, with an air of relief.

“It’s a very comforting law, I think,” she said. “It doesn’t force one to take the dreadful step of running away from home all at once. It gives one time to consider, and plan, and make up one’s mind. I can tell you this, Launce, if I am to be persuaded into marrying you, the law of Abduction is the only thing that will induce me to do it. You ought to thank the law, instead of abusing it.”

Launce listened – without conviction.

“It’s a pleasant prospect,” he said, “to part at the church door, and to treat my own wife on the footing of a young lady who is engaged to marry another gentleman.”

“Is it any pleasanter for me,” retorted Natalie, “to have Richard Turlington courting me, when I am all the time your wife? I shall never be able to do it. I wish I was dead!”

“Come! come!” interposed Lady Winwood. “It’s time to be serious. Natalie’s birthday, Mr. Linzie, is next Christmas-day. She will be sixteen—”

“At seven in the morning,” said Launce; “I got that out of Sir Joseph. At one minute past seven, Greenwich mean time, we may be off together. I got that out of the lawyer.”

“And it isn’t an eternity to wait from now till Christmas-day. You get that, by way of completing the list of your acquisitions, out of me. In the mean time, can you, or can you not, manage to meet the difficulties in the way of the marriage?”

“I have settled everything,” Launce answered, confidently. “There is not a single difficulty left.”

He turned to Natalie, listening to him in amazement, and explained himself. It had struck him that he might appeal – with his purse in his hand, of course – to the interest felt in his affairs by the late stewardess of the yacht. That excellent woman had volunteered to do all that she could to help him. Her husband had obtained situations for his wife and himself on board another yacht – and they were both eager to assist in any conspiracy in which their late merciless master was destined to play the part of victim. When on shore, they lived in a populous London parish, far away from the fashionable district of Berkeley Square, and further yet from the respectable suburb of Muswell Hill. A room in the house could be nominally engaged for Natalie, in the assumed character of the stewardess’s niece – the stewardess undertaking to answer any purely formal questions which might be put by the church authorities, and to be present at the marriage ceremony. As for Launce, he would actually, as well as nominally, live in the district close by; and the steward, if needful, would answer for him. Natalie might call at her parochial residence occasionally, under the wing of Lady Winwood; gaining leave of absence from Muswell Hill, on the plea of paying one of her customary visits at her aunt’s house. The conspiracy, in brief, was arranged in all its details. Nothing was now wanting but the consent of the young lady; obtaining which, Launce would go to the parish church and give the necessary notice of a marriage by banns on the next day. There was the plot. What did the ladies think of it?

Lady Winwood thought it perfect.

Natalie was not so easily satisfied.

“My father has always been so kind to me!” she said. “The one thing I can’t get over, Launce, is distressing papa. If he had been hard on me – as some fathers are – I shouldn’t mind.” She suddenly brightened, as if she saw her position in a new light. “Why should you hurry me?” she asked. “I am going to dine at my aunt’s today, and you are coming in the evening. Give me time! Wait till tonight.”

Launce instantly entered his protest against wasting a moment longer. Lady Winwood opened her lips to support him. They were both silenced at the same moment by the appearance of one of Mrs. Sancroft’s servants, opening the gate of the square.

Lady Winwood went forward to meet the man. A suspicion crossed her mind that he might be bringing bad news.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon, my lady – the housekeeper said you were walking here with Miss Graybrooke. A telegram for Miss Graybrooke.”

Lady Winwood took the telegram from the man’s hand; dismissed him, and went back with it to Natalie. Natalie opened it nervously. She read the message – and instantly changed. Her cheeks flushed deep; her eyes flashed with indignation. “Even papa can be hard on me, it seems, when Richard asks him!” she exclaimed. She handed the telegram to Launce. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “You love me,” she said, gently – and stopped. “Marry me!” she added, with a sudden burst of resolution. “I’ll risk it!”

As she spoke those words, Lady Winwood read the telegram. It ran thus:

“Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Muswell Hill. To Miss Natalie Graybrooke; Berkeley Square. Come back immediately. You are engaged to dine here with Richard Turlington.”

Lady Winwood folded up the telegram with a malicious smile. “Well done, Sir Joseph!” thought her ladyship. “We might never have persuaded Natalie – but for You!”

SIXTH SCENE

THE CHURCH

The time is morning; the date is early in the month of November. The place is a church, in a poor and populous parish in the undiscovered regions of London, eastward of the Tower, and hard by the riverside.

A marriage procession of five approaches the altar. The bridegroom is pale, and the bride is frightened. The bride’s friend (a resolute-looking little lady) encourages her in whispers. The two respectable persons, apparently man and wife, who complete the procession, seem to be not quite clear as to the position which they occupy at the ceremony. The beadle, as he marshals them before the altar, sees something under the surface in this wedding-party. Marriages in the lower ranks of life are the only marriages celebrated here. Is this a runaway match? The beadle anticipates something out of the common in the shape of a fee.

The clergyman (the junior curate) appears from the vestry in his robes. The clerk takes his place. The clergyman’s eye rests with a sudden interest and curiosity on the bride and bridegroom, and on the bride’s friend; notices the absence of elderly relatives; remarks, in the two ladies especially, evidences of refinement and breeding entirely unparalleled in his professional experience of brides and brides’ friends standing before the altar of that church; questions, silently and quickly, the eye of the clerk, occupied also in observing the strangers with interest “Jenkinson” (the clergyman’s look asks), “is this all right?”  “Sir” (the clerk’s look answers), “a marriage by banns; all the formalities have been observed.” The clergyman opens his book. The formalities have been observed; his duty lies plainly before him. Attention, Launcelot! Courage, Natalie! The service begins.

Launce casts a last furtive look round the church. Will Sir Joseph Graybrooke start up and stop it from one of the empty pews? Is Richard Turlington lurking in the organ-loft, and only waiting till the words of the service appeal to him to prohibit the marriage, or “else hereafter forever to hold his peace?” No. The clergyman proceeds steadily, and nothing happens. Natalie’s charming face grows paler and paler, Natalie’s heart throbs faster and faster, as the time comes nearer for reading the words which unite them for life. Lady Winwood herself feels an unaccustomed fluttering in the region of the bosom. Her ladyship’s thoughts revert, not altogether pleasantly, to her own marriage: “Ah me! what was I thinking of when I was in this position? Of the bride’s beautiful dress, and of Lady Winwood’s coming presentation at court!”

The service advances to the words in which they plight their troth. Launce has put the ring on her finger. Launce has repeated the words after the clergyman. Launce has married her! Done! Come what may of it, done!

The service ends. Bridegroom, bride, and witnesses go into the vestry to sign the book. The signing, like the service, is serious. No trifling with the truth is possible here. When it comes to Lady Winwood’s turn, Lady Winwood must write her name. She does it, but without her usual grace and decision. She drops her handkerchief. The clerk picks it up for her, and notices that a coronet is embroidered in one corner.

The fees are paid. They leave the vestry. Other couples, when it is over, are talkative and happy. These two are more silent and more embarrassed than ever. Stranger still, while other couples go off with relatives and friends, all socially united in honour of the occasion, these two and their friends part at the church door. The respectable man and his wife go their way on foot. The little lady with the coronet on her handkerchief puts the bride into a cab, gets in herself, and directs the driver to close the door, while the bridegroom is standing on the church steps! The bridegroom’s face is clouded, as well it may be. He puts his head in at the window of the cab; he possesses himself of the bride’s hand; he speaks in a whisper; he is apparently not to be shaken off. The little lady exerts her authority, separates the clasped hands, pushes the bridegroom away, and cries peremptorily to the driver to go on. The cab starts; the deserted husband drifts desolately anyhow down the street. The clerk, who has seen it all, goes back to the vestry and reports what has happened.

The rector (with his wife on his arm) has just dropped into the vestry on business in passing. He and the curate are talking about the strange marriage. The rector, gravely bent on ascertaining that no blame rests with the church, interrogates, and is satisfied. The rector’s wife is not so easy to deal with. She has looked at the signatures in the book. One of the names is familiar to her. She cross-examines the clerk as soon as her husband is done with him. When she hears of the coronet on the handkerchief she points to the signature of “Louisa Winwood,” and says to the rector, “I know who it is! Lord Winwood’s second wife. I went to school with his lordship’s daughters by his first marriage. We occasionally meet at the Sacred Concerts (on the ‘Ladies’ Committee’); I shall find an opportunity of speaking to them. One moment, Mr. Jenkinson, I will write down the names before you put away the book. ‘Launcelot Linzie,’  ‘Natalie Graybrooke.’ Very pretty names; quite romantic. I do delight in a romance. Good-morning.”

She gives the curate a parting smile, and the clerk a parting nod, and sails out of the vestry. Natalie, silently returning in Lady Winwood’s company to Muswell Hill; and Launce, cursing the law of Abduction as he roams the streets – little think that the ground is already mined under their feet. Richard Turlington may hear of it now, or may hear of it later. The discovery of the marriage depends entirely on a chance meeting between the lord’s daughters and the rector’s wife.

SEVENTH SCENE

THE EVENING PARTY

MR. TURLINGTON,

LADY WINWOOD At Home.

Wednesday, December 15th.

– Ten o’clock.

Dearest Natalie – As the brute insists, the brute must have the invitation which I enclose. Never mind, my child. You and Launce are coming to dinner, and I will see that you have your little private opportunities of retirement afterward. All I expect of you in return is, not to look (when you come back) as if your husband had been kissing you. You will certainly let out the secret of those stolen kisses, if you don’t take care. At mamma’s dinner yesterday, your colour (when you came out of the conservatory) was a sight to see. Even your shoulders were red! They are charming shoulders, I know, and men take the strangest fancies sometimes. But, my dear, suppose you wear a chemisette next time, if you haven’t authority enough over him to prevent his doing it again!

Your affectionate

Louisa.

The private history of the days that had passed since the marriage was written in that letter. An additional chapter – of some importance in its bearing on the future – was contributed by the progress of events at Lady Winwood’s party.

By previous arrangement with Natalie, the Graybrookes (invited to dinner) arrived early. Leaving her husband and her stepdaughters to entertain Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia, Lady Winwood took Natalie into her own boudoir, which communicated by a curtained opening with the drawing-room.

“My dear, you are looking positively haggard this evening. Has anything happened?”

“I am nearly worn out, Louisa. The life I am leading is so unendurable that, if Launce pressed me, I believe I should consent to run away with him when we leave your house tonight.”

“You will do nothing of the sort, if you please. Wait till you are sixteen. I delight in novelty, but the novelty of appearing at the Old Bailey is beyond my ambition. Is the brute coming tonight?”

“Of course. He insists on following me wherever I go. He lunched at Muswell Hill today. More complaints of my incomprehensible coldness to him. Another scolding from papa. A furious letter from Launce. If I let Richard kiss my hand again in his presence, Launce warns me he will knock him down. Oh, the meanness and the guiltiness of the life I am leading now! I am in the falsest of all false positions, Louisa, and you encouraged me to do it. I believe Richard Turlington suspects us. The last two times Launce and I tried to get a minute together at my aunt’s, he contrived to put himself in our way. There he was, my dear, with his scowling face, looking as if he longed to kill Launce. Can you do anything for us tonight? Not on my account. But Launce is so impatient. If he can’t say two words to me alone this evening, he declares he will come to Muswell Hill, and catch me in the garden tomorrow.”

“Compose yourself, my dear; he shall say his two words tonight.”

“How?”

Lady Winwood pointed through the curtained entrance of the boudoir to the door of the drawing-room. Beyond the door was the staircase landing. And beyond the landing was a second drawing-room, the smaller of the two.

“There are only three or four people coming to dinner,” her ladyship proceeded; “and a few more in the evening. Being a small party, the small drawing-room will do for us. This drawing-room will not be lighted, and there will be only my reading-lamp here in the boudoir. I shall give the signal for leaving the dining-room earlier than usual. Launce will join us before the evening party begins. The moment he appears, send him in here – boldly before your aunt and all of us.”

“For what?”

“For your fan. Leave it there under the sofa-cushion before we go down to dinner. You will sit next to Launce, and you will give him private instructions not to find the fan. You will get impatient – you will go to find it yourself – and there you are. Take care of your shoulders, Mrs. Linzie! I have nothing more to say.”

The guests asked to dinner began to arrive. Lady Winwood was recalled to her duties as mistress of the house.

It was a pleasant little dinner – with one drawback. It began too late. The ladies only reached the small drawing-room at ten minutes to ten. Launce was only able to join them as the clock struck.

“Too late!” whispered Natalie. “He will be here directly.”

“Nobody comes punctually to an evening party,” said Launce. “Don’t let us lose a moment. Send me for your fan.”

Natalie opened her lips to say the necessary words. Before she could speak, the servant announced – “Mr. Turlington.”

He came in, with his stiffly-upright shirt collar and his loosely-fitting glossy black clothes. He made his sullen and clumsy bow to Lady Winwood. And then he did, what he had done dozens of times already – he caught Natalie, with her eyes still bright and her face still animated (after talking to Launce) – a striking contrast to the cold and unimpulsive young lady whom he was accustomed to see while Natalie was talking to him.

Lord Winwood’s daughters were persons of some celebrity in the world of amateur music. Noticing the look that Turlington cast at Launce, Lady Winwood whispered to Miss Lavinia – who instantly asked the young ladies to sing. Launce, in obedience to a sign from Natalie, volunteered to find the music-books. It is needless to add that he pitched on the wrong volume at starting. As he lifted it from the piano to take it back to the stand, there dropped out from between the leaves a printed letter, looking like a circular. One of the young ladies took it up, and ran her eye over it, with a start.

“The Sacred Concerts!” she exclaimed.

Her two sisters, standing by, looked at each other guiltily: “What will the Committee say to us? We entirely forgot the meeting last month.”

“Is there a meeting this month?”

They all looked anxiously at the printed letter.

“Yes! The twenty-third of December. Put it down in your book, Amelia.” Amelia, then and there, put it down among the engagements for the latter end of the month. And Natalie’s unacknowledged husband placidly looked on.

So did the merciless irony of circumstances make Launce the innocent means of exposing his own secret to discovery. Thanks to his success in laying his hand on the wrong music-book, there would now be a meeting – two good days before the elopement could take place – between the lord’s daughters and the rector’s wife!

The guests of the evening began to appear by twos and threes. The gentlemen below stairs left the dinner-table, and joined them.

The small drawing-room was pleasantly filled, and no more. Sir Joseph Graybrooke, taking Turlington’s hand, led him eagerly to their host. The talk in the dining-room had turned on finance. Lord Winwood was not quite satisfied with some of his foreign investments; and Sir Joseph’s “dear Richard” was the very man to give him a little sound advice. The three laid their heads together in a corner. Launce (watching them) slyly pressed Natalie’s hand. A renowned “virtuoso” had arrived, and was thundering on the piano. The attention of the guests generally was absorbed in the performance. A fairer chance of sending Launce for the fan could not possibly have offered itself. While the financial discussion was still proceeding, the married lovers were ensconced together alone in the boudoir.

Lady Winwood (privately observant of their absence) kept her eye on the corner, watching Richard Turlington.

He was talking earnestly – with his back toward the company. He neither moved nor looked round. It came to Lord Winwood’s turn to speak. He preserved the same position, listening. Sir Joseph took up the conversation next. Then his attention wandered – he knew beforehand what Sir Joseph would say. His eyes turned anxiously toward the place in which he had left Natalie. Lord Winwood said a word. His head turned back again toward the corner. Sir Joseph put an objection. He glanced once more over his shoulder – this time at the place in which Launce had been standing. The next moment his host recalled his attention, and made it impossible for him to continue his scrutiny of the room. At the same times two among the evening guests, bound for another party, approached to take leave of the lady of the house. Lady Winwood was obliged to rise, and attend to them. They had something to say to her before they left, and they said it at terrible length, standing so as to intercept her view of the proceedings of the enemy. When she had got rid of them at last, she looked – and behold Lord Winwood and Sir Joseph were the only occupants of the corner!

Delaying one moment, to set the “virtuoso” thundering once more, Lady Winwood slipped out of the room and crossed the landing. At the entrance to the empty drawing-room she heard Turlington’s voice, low and threatening, in the boudoir. Jealousy has a Second Sight of its own. He had looked in the right place at starting – and, oh heavens! he had caught them.

Her ladyship’s courage was beyond dispute; but she turned pale as she approached the entrance to the boudoir.

There stood Natalie – at once angry and afraid – between the man to whom she was ostensibly engaged, and the man to whom she was actually married. Turlington’s rugged face expressed a martyrdom of suppressed fury. Launce – in the act of offering Natalie her fan – smiled, with the cool superiority of a man who knew that he had won his advantage, and who triumphed in knowing it.

“I forbid you to take your fan from that man’s hands,” said Turlington, speaking to Natalie, and pointing to Launce.

“Isn’t it rather too soon to begin ‘forbidding’?” asked Lady Winwood, good-humouredly.

“Exactly what I say!” exclaimed Launce. “It seems necessary to remind Mr. Turlington that he is not married to Natalie yet!”

Those last words were spoken in a tone which made both the women tremble inwardly for results. Lady Winwood took the fan from Launce with one hand, and took Natalie’s arm with the other.

“There is your fan, my dear,” she said, in her easy offhand manner. “Why do you allow these two barbarous men to keep you here while the great Bootmann is playing the Nightmare Sonata in the next room? Launce! Mr. Turlington! follow me, and learn to be musical directly! You have only to shut your eyes, and you will fancy you hear four modern German composers playing, instead of one, and not the ghost of a melody among all the four.” She led the way out with Natalie, and whispered, “Did he catch you?” Natalie whispered back, “I heard him in time. He only caught us looking for the fan.” The two men waited behind to have two words together alone in the boudoir.

“This doesn’t end here, Mr. Linzie!”

Launce smiled satirically. “For once I agree with you,” he answered. “It doesn’t end here, as you say.”

Lady Winwood stopped, and looked back at them from the drawing-room door. They were keeping her waiting – they had no choice but to follow the mistress of the house.

Arrived in the next room, both Turlington and Launce resumed their places among the guests with the same object in view. As a necessary result of the scene in the boudoir, each had his own special remonstrance to address to Sir Joseph. Even here, Launce was beforehand with Turlington. He was the first to get possession of Sir Joseph’s private ear. His complaint took the form of a protest against Turlington’s jealousy, and an appeal for a reconsideration of the sentence which excluded him from Muswell Hill. Watching them from a distance, Turlington’s suspicious eye detected the appearance of something unduly confidential in the colloquy between the two. Under cover of the company, he stole behind them and listened.

The great Bootmann had arrived at that part of the Nightmare Sonata in which musical sound, produced principally with the left hand, is made to describe, beyond all possibility of mistake, the rising of the moon in a country churchyard and a dance of Vampires round a maiden’s grave. Sir Joseph, having no chance against the Vampires in a whisper, was obliged to raise his voice to make himself audible in answering and comforting Launce. “I sincerely sympathize with you,” Turlington heard him say; “and Natalie feels about it as I do. But Richard is an obstacle in our way. We must look to the consequences, my dear boy, supposing Richard found us out.” He nodded kindly to his nephew; and, declining to pursue the subject, moved away to another part of the room.

Turlington’s jealous distrust, wrought to the highest pitch of irritability for weeks past, instantly associated the words he had just heard with the words spoken by Launce in the boudoir, which had reminded him that he was not married to Natalie yet. Was there treachery at work under the surface? and was the object to persuade weak Sir Joseph to reconsider his daughter’s contemplated marriage in a sense favourable to Launce? Turlington’s blind suspicion over-leaped at a bound all the manifest improbabilities which forbade such a conclusion as this. After an instant’s consideration with himself, he decided on keeping his own counsel, and on putting Sir Joseph’s good faith then and there to a test which he could rely on as certain to take Natalie’s father by surprise.

“Graybrooke!”

Sir Joseph started at the sight of his future son-in-law’s face.

“My dear Richard, you are looking very strangely! Is the heat of the room too much for you?”

“Never mind the heat! I have seen enough tonight to justify me in insisting that your daughter and Launcelot Linzie shall meet no more between this and the day of my marriage.” Sir Joseph attempted to speak. Turlington declined to give him the opportunity. “Yes! yes! your opinion of Linzie isn’t mine, I know. I saw you as thick as thieves together just now.” Sir Joseph once more attempted to make himself heard. Wearied by Turlington’s perpetual complaints of his daughter and his nephew, he was sufficiently irritated by this time to have reported what Launce had actually said to him if he had been allowed the chance. But Turlington persisted in going on. “I cannot prevent Linzie from being received in this house, and at your sister’s,” he said; “but I can keep him out of my house in the country, and to the country let us go. I propose a change in the arrangements. Have you any engagement for the Christmas holidays?”

He paused, and fixed his eyes attentively on Sir Joseph. Sir Joseph, looking a little surprised, replied briefly that he had no engagement.

“In that case,” resumed Turlington, “I invite you all to Somersetshire, and I propose that the marriage shall take place from my house, and not from yours. Do you refuse?”

“It is contrary to the usual course of proceeding in such cases, Richard,” Sir Joseph began.

“Do you refuse?” reiterated Turlington. “I tell you plainly, I shall place a construction of my own upon your motive if you do.”

“No, Richard,” said Sir Joseph, quietly, “I accept.”

Turlington drew back a step in silence. Sir Joseph had turned the tables on him, and had taken him by surprise.

“It will upset several plans, and be strongly objected to by the ladies,” proceeded the old gentleman. “But if nothing less will satisfy you, I say, Yes! I shall have occasion, when we meet tomorrow at Muswell Hill, to appeal to your indulgence under circumstances which may greatly astonish you. The least I can do, in the meantime, is to set an example of friendly sympathy and forbearance on my side. No more now, Richard. Hush! the music!”

It was impossible to make him explain himself further that night. Turlington was left to interpret Sir Joseph’s mysterious communication with such doubtful aid to success as his own unassisted ingenuity might afford.

The meeting of the next day at Muswell Hill had for its object – as Turlington had already been informed – the drawing of Natalie’s marriage-settlement. Was the question of money at the bottom of Sir Joseph’s contemplated appeal to his indulgence? He thought of his commercial position. The depression in the Levant trade still continued. Never had his business at any previous time required such constant attention, and repaid that attention with so little profit. The Bills of Lading had been already used by the firm, in the ordinary course of trade, to obtain possession of the goods. The duplicates in the hands of Bulpit Brothers were literally waste paper. Repayment of the loan of forty thousand pounds (with interest) was due in less than a month’s time. There was his commercial position! Was it possible that money-loving Sir Joseph had any modification to propose in the matter of his daughter’s dowry? The bare dread that it might be so struck him cold. He quitted the house – and forgot to wish Natalie goodnight.

Meanwhile, Launce had left the evening party before him – and Launce also found matter for serious reflection presented to his mind before he slept that night. In other words, he found, on reaching his lodgings, a letter from his brother marked “private.” Had the inquiry into the secrets of Turlington’s early life – now prolonged over some weeks – led to positive results at last? Launce eagerly opened the letter. It contained a Report and a Summary. He passed at once to the Summary, and read these words:

“If you only want moral evidence to satisfy your own mind, your end is gained. There is, morally, no doubt that Turlington and the sea-captain who cast the foreign sailor overboard to drown are one and the same man. Legally, the matter is beset by difficulties, Turlington having destroyed all provable connection between his present self and his past life. There is only one chance for us. A sailor on board the ship (who was in his master’s secrets) is supposed to be still living (under his master’s protection). All the black deeds of Turlington’s early life are known to this man. He can prove the facts, if we can find him, and make it worth his while to speak. Under what alias he is hidden we do not know. His own name is Thomas Wildfang. If we are to make the attempt to find him, not a moment is to be lost. The expenses may be serious. Let me know whether we are to go on, or whether enough has been done to attain the end you have in view.”

Enough had been done – not only to satisfy Launce, but to produce the right effect on Sir Joseph’s mind if Sir Joseph proved obdurate when the secret of the marriage was revealed. Launce wrote a line directing the stoppage of the proceedings at the point which they had now reached. “Here is a reason for her not marrying Turlington,” he said to himself, as he placed the papers under lock and key. “And if she doesn’t marry Turlington,” he added, with a lover’s logic, “why shouldn’t she marry Me?”

EIGHTH SCENE

THE LIBRARY

The next day Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Sir Joseph’s lawyer, Mr. Dicas (highly respectable and immensely rich), and Richard Turlington were assembled in the library at Muswell Hill, to discuss the question of Natalie’s marriage settlement.

After the usual preliminary phrases had been exchanged, Sir Joseph showed some hesitation in openly approaching the question which the little party of three had met to debate. He avoided his lawyer’s eye; and he looked at Turlington rather uneasily.

“Richard,” he began at last, “when I spoke to you about your marriage, on board the yacht, I said I would give my daughter—” Either his courage or his breath failed him at that point. He was obliged to wait a moment before he could go on.

“I said I would give my daughter half my fortune on her marriage,” he resumed. “Forgive me, Richard. I can’t do it!”

Mr. Dicas, waiting for his instructions, laid down his pen and looked at Sir Joseph’s son-in-law elect. What would Mr. Turlington say?

He said nothing. Sitting opposite the window, he rose when Sir Joseph spoke, and placed himself at the other side of the table, with his back to the light.

“My eyes are weak this morning,” he said, in an unnaturally low tone of voice. “The light hurts them.”

He could find no more plausible excuse than that for concealing his face in shadow from the scrutiny of the two men on either side of him. The continuous moral irritation of his unhappy courtship – a courtship which had never advanced beyond the frigid familiarity of kissing Natalie’s hand in the presence of others – had physically deteriorated him. Even his hardy nerves began to feel the long strain of suspicion that had been laid unremittingly on them for weeks past. His power of self-control – he knew it himself – was not to be relied on. He could hide his face: he could no longer command it.

“Did you hear what I said, Richard?”

“I heard. Go on.”

Sir Joseph proceeded, gathering confidence as he advanced.

“Half my fortune!” he repeated. “It’s parting with half my life; it’s saying good-bye forever to my dearest friend! My money has been such a comfort to me, Richard; such a pleasant occupation for my mind. I know no reading so interesting and so instructive as the reading of one’s Banker’s Book. To watch the outgoings on one side,” said Sir Joseph, with a gentle and pathetic solemnity, “and the incomings on the other – the sad lessening of the balance at one time, and the cheering and delightful growth of it at another – what absorbing reading! The best novel that ever was written isn’t to be mentioned in a breath with it. I can not, Richard, I really can not, see my nice round balance shrink up to half the figure that I have been used to for a lifetime. It may be weak of me,” proceeded Sir Joseph, evidently feeling that it was not weak of him at all, “but we all have our tender place, and my Banker’s Book is mine. Besides, it isn’t as if you wanted it. If you wanted it, of course – but you don’t want it. You are a rich man; you are marrying my dear Natalie for love, not for money. You and she and my grandchildren will have it all at my death. It can make no difference to you to wait a few years till the old man’s chair at the fireside is empty. Will you say the fourth part, Richard, instead of the half? Twenty thousand,” pleaded Sir Joseph, piteously. “I can bear twenty thousand off. For God’s sake don’t ask me for more!”

The lips of the lawyer twisted themselves sourly into an ironical smile. He was quite as fond of his money as Sir Joseph. He ought to have felt for his client; but rich men have no sympathy with one another. Mr. Dicas openly despised Sir Joseph.

There was a pause. The robin-redbreasts in the shrubbery outside must have had prodigious balances at their bankers; they hopped up on the windowsill so fearlessly; they looked in with so little respect at the two rich men.

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Richard,” proceeded Sir Joseph. “Speak out. Is it yes or no?”

Turlington struck his hand excitedly on the table, and burst out on a sudden with the answer which had been so strangely delayed.

“Twenty thousand with all my heart!” he said. “On this condition, Graybrooke, that every farthing of it is settled on Natalie, and on her children after her. Not a half-penny to me!” he cried magnanimously, in his brassiest tones. “Not a half-penny to me!”

Let no man say the rich are heartless. Sir Joseph seized his son-in-law’s hand in silence, and burst into tears.

Mr. Dicas, habitually a silent man, uttered the first two words that had escaped him since the business began. “Highly creditable,” he said, and took a note of his instructions on the spot.

From that point the business of the settlement flowed smoothly on to its destined end. Sir Joseph explained his views at the fullest length, and the lawyer’s pen kept pace with him. Turlington, remaining in his place at the table, restricted himself to a purely passive part in the proceedings. He answered briefly when it was absolutely necessary to speak, and he agreed with the two elders in everything. A man has no attention to place at the disposal of other people when he stands at a crisis in his life. Turlington stood at that crisis, at the trying moment when Sir Joseph’s unexpected proposal pressed instantly for a reply. Two merciless alternatives confronted him. Either he must repay the borrowed forty thousand pounds on the day when repayment was due, or he must ask Bulpit Brothers to grant him an extension of time, and so inevitably provoke an examination into the fraudulent security deposited with the firm, which could end in but one way. His last, literally his last chance, after Sir Joseph had diminished the promised dowry by one half, was to adopt the high-minded tone which became his position, and to conceal the truth until he could reveal it to his father-in-law in the privileged character of Natalie’s husband. “I owe forty thousand pounds, sir, in a fortnight’s time, and I have not got a farthing of my own. Pay for me, or you will see your son-in-law’s name in the Bankrupt’s List.” For his daughter’s sake – who could doubt it? – Sir Joseph would produce the money. The one thing needful was to be married in time. If either by accident or treachery Sir Joseph was led into deferring the appointed day, by so much as a fortnight only, the fatal “call” would come, and the firm of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca would appear in the Gazette.

So he reasoned, standing on the brink of the terrible discovery which was soon to reveal to him that Natalie was the wife of another man.

“Richard!”

“Mr. Turlington!”

He started, and roused his attention to present things. Sir Joseph on one side, and the lawyer on the other, were both appealing to him, and both regarding him with looks of amazement.

“Have you done with the settlement?” he asked.

“My dear Richard, we have done with it long since,” replied Sir Joseph. “Have you really not heard what I have been saying for the last quarter of an hour to good Mr. Dicas here? What can you have been thinking of?”

Turlington did not attempt to answer the question. “Am I interested,” he asked, “in what you have been saying to Mr. Dicas?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” answered Sir Joseph, mysteriously; “I have been giving Mr. Dicas his instructions for making my Will. I wish the Will and the Marriage-Settlement to be executed at the same time. Read the instructions, Mr. Dicas.”

Sir Joseph’s contemplated Will proved to have two merits – it was simple and it was short. Excepting one or two trifling legacies to distant relatives, he had no one to think of (Miss Lavinia being already provided for) but his daughter and the children who might be born of her marriage. In its various provisions, made with these two main objects in view, the Will followed the precedents established in such cases. It differed in no important respect from the tens of thousands of other wills made under similar circumstances. Sir Joseph’s motive in claiming special attention for it still remained unexplained, when Mr. Dicas reached the clause devoted to the appointment of executors and trustees; and announced that this portion of the document was left in blank.

“Sir Joseph Graybrooke, are you prepared to name the persons whom you appoint?” asked the lawyer.

Sir Joseph rose, apparently for the purpose of giving special importance to the terms in which he answered his lawyer’s question.

“I appoint,” he said, “as sole executor and trustee – Richard Turlington.”

It was no easy matter to astonish Mr. Dicas. Sir Joseph’s reply absolutely confounded him. He looked across the table at his client and delivered himself on this special occasion of as many as three words.

“Are you mad?” he asked.

Sir Joseph’s healthy complexion slightly reddened. “I never was in more complete possession of myself, Mr. Dicas, than at this moment.”

Mr. Dicas was not to be silenced in that way.

“Are you aware of what you do,” persisted the lawyer, “if you appoint Mr. Turlington as sole executor and trustee? You put it in the power of your daughter’s husband, sir, to make away with every farthing of your money after your death.”

Turlington had hitherto listened with an appearance of interest in the proceedings, which he assumed as an act of politeness. To his view, the future was limited to the date at which Bulpit Brothers had a right to claim the repayment of their loan. The Will was a matter of no earthly importance to him, by comparison with the infinitely superior interest of the Marriage. It was only when the lawyer’s brutally plain language forced his attention to it that the question of his pecuniary interest in his father-in-law’s death assumed its fit position in his mind.

His colour rose; and he too showed that he was offended by what Mr. Dicas had just said.

“Not a word, Richard! Let me speak for you as well as for myself,” said Sir Joseph. “For seven years past,” he continued, turning to the lawyer, “I have been accustomed to place the most unlimited trust in Richard Turlington. His disinterested advice has enabled me largely to increase my income, without placing a farthing of the principal in jeopardy. On more than one occasion, I have entreated him to make use of my money in his business. He has invariably refused to do so. Even his bitterest enemies, sir, have been obliged to acknowledge that my interests were safe when committed to his care. Am I to begin distrusting him, now that I am about to give him my daughter in marriage? Am I to leave it on record that I doubt him for the first time – when my Will is opened after my death? No! I can confide the management of the fortune which my child will inherit after me to no more competent or more honourable hands than the hands of the man who is to marry her. I maintain my appointment, Mr. Dicas! I persist in placing the whole responsibility under my Will in my son-in-law’s care.”

Turlington attempted to speak. The lawyer attempted to speak. Sir Joseph – with a certain simple dignity which had its effect on both of them – declined to hear a word on either side. “No, Richard! as long as I am alive this is my business, not yours. No, Mr. Dicas! I understand that it is your business to protest professionally. You have protested. Fill in the blank space as I have told you. Or leave the instructions on the table, and I will send for the nearest solicitor to complete them in your place.”

Those words placed the lawyer’s position plainly before him. He had no choice but to do as he was bid, or to lose a good client. He did as he was bid, and grimly left the room.

Sir Joseph, with old-fashioned politeness, followed him as far as the hall. Returning to the library to say a few friendly words before finally dismissing the subject of the Will, he found himself seized by the arm, and dragged without ceremony, in Turlington’s powerful grasp, to the window.

“Richard!” he exclaimed, “what does this mean?”

“Look!” cried the other, pointing through the window to a grassy walk in the grounds, bounded on either side by shrubberies, and situated at a little distance from the house. “Who is that man? – quick! before we lose sight of him – the man crossing there from one shrubbery to the other?” Sir Joseph failed to recognise the figure before it disappeared. Turlington whispered fiercely, close to his ear – “Launcelot Linzie!”

In perfect good faith Sir Joseph declared that the man could not possibly have been Launce. Turlington’s frenzy of jealous suspicion was not to be so easily calmed. He asked significantly for Natalie. She was reported to be walking in the grounds. “I knew it!” he said, with an oath – and hurried out into the grounds to discover the truth for himself.

Some little time elapsed before he came back to the house. He had discovered Natalie – alone. Not a sign of Launce had rewarded his search. For the hundredth time he had offended Natalie. For the hundredth time he was compelled to appeal to the indulgence of her father and her aunt. “It won’t happen again,” he said, sullenly penitent. “You will find me quite another man when I have got you all at my house in the country. Mind!” he burst out, with a furtive look, which expressed his inveterate distrust of Natalie and of everyone about her. “Mind! it’s settled that you all come to me in Somersetshire, on Monday next.” Sir Joseph answered rather dryly that it was settled. Turlington turned to leave the room – and suddenly came back. “It’s understood,” he went on, addressing Miss Lavinia, “that the seventh of next month is the date fixed for the marriage. Not a day later!” Miss Lavinia replied, rather dryly on her side, “Of course, Richard; not a day later.” He muttered, “All right” and hurriedly left them.

Half an hour afterward Natalie came in, looking a little confused.

“Has he gone?” she asked, whispering to her aunt.

Relieved on this point, she made straight for the library – a room which she rarely entered at that or any other period of the day. Miss Lavinia followed her, curious to know what it meant. Natalie hurried to the window, and waved her handkerchief – evidently making a signal to someone outside. Miss Lavinia instantly joined her, and took her sharply by the hand.

“Is it possible, Natalie?” she asked. “Has Launcelot Linzie really been here, unknown to your father or to me?”

“Where is the harm if he has?” answered Natalie, with a sudden outbreak of temper. “Am I never to see my cousin again, because Mr. Turlington happens to be jealous of him?”

She suddenly turned away her head. The rich colour flowed over her face and neck. Miss Lavinia, proceeding sternly with the administration of the necessary reproof, was silenced midway by a new change in her niece’s variable temper. Natalie burst into tears. Satisfied with this appearance of sincere contrition, the old lady consented to overlook what had happened; and, for this occasion only, to keep her niece’s secret. They would all be in Somersetshire, she remarked, before any more breaches of discipline could be committed. Richard had fortunately made no discoveries; and the matter might safely be trusted, all things considered, to rest where it was.

Miss Lavinia might possibly have taken a less hopeful view of the circumstances, if she had known that one of the menservants at Muswell Hill was in Richard Turlington’s pay, and that this servant had seen Launce leave the grounds by the back-garden gate.

NINTH SCENE

THE DRAWING-ROOM

“Amelia!”

“Say something.”

“Ask him to sit down.”

Thus addressing one another in whispers, the three stepdaughters of Lady Winwood stood bewildered in their own drawing-room, helplessly confronting an object which appeared before them on the threshold of the door.

The date was the 23d of December. The time was between two and three in the afternoon. The occasion was the return of the three sisters from the Committee meeting of the Sacred Concerts’ Society. And the object was Richard Turlington.

He stood hat in hand at the door, amazed by his reception. “I have come up this morning from Somersetshire,” he said. “Haven’t you heard? A matter of business at the office has forced me to leave my guests at my house in the country. I return to them tomorrow. When I say my guests, I mean the Graybrookes. Don’t you know they are staying with me? Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia and Natalie?” On the utterance of Natalie’s name, the sisters roused themselves. They turned about and regarded each other with looks of dismay. Turlington’s patience began to fail him. “Will you be so good as to tell me what all this means?” he said, a little sharply. “Miss Lavinia asked me to call here when she heard I was coming to town. I was to take charge of a pattern for a dress, which she said you would give me. You ought to have received a telegram explaining it all, hours since. Has the message not reached you?”

The leading spirit of the three sisters was Miss Amelia. She was the first who summoned presence of mind enough to give a plain answer to Turlington’s plain question.

“We received the telegram this morning,” she said. “Something has happened since which has shocked and surprised us. We beg your pardon.” She turned to one of her sisters. “Sophia, the pattern is ready in the drawer of that table behind you. Give it to Mr. Turlington.”

Sophia produced the packet. Before she handed it to the visitor, she looked at her sister. “Ought we to let Mr. Turlington go,” she asked, “as if nothing had happened?”

Amelia considered silently with herself. Dorothea, the third sister (who had not spoken yet), came forward with a suggestion. She proposed, before proceeding further, to inquire whether Lady Winwood was in the house. The idea was instantly adopted. Sophia rang the bell. Amelia put the questions when the servant appeared.

Lady Winwood had left the house for a drive immediately after luncheon. Lord Winwood – inquired for next – had accompanied her ladyship. No message had been left indicating the hour of their return.

The sisters looked at Turlington, uncertain what to say or do next. Miss Amelia addressed him as soon as the servant had left the room.

“Is it possible for you to remain here until either my father or Lady Winwood return?” she asked.

“It is quite impossible. Minutes are of importance to me today.”

“Will you give us one of your minutes? We want to consider something which we may have to say to you before you go.”

Turlington, wondering, took a chair. Miss Amelia put the case before her sisters from the sternly conscientious point of view, at the opposite end of the room.

“We have not found out this abominable deception by any underhand means,” she said. “The discovery has been forced upon us, and we stand pledged to nobody to keep the secret. Knowing as we do how cruelly this gentleman has been used, it seems to me that we are bound in honour to open his eyes to the truth. If we remain silent we make ourselves Lady Winwood’s accomplices. I, for one – I don’t care what may come of it – refuse to do that.”

Her sisters agreed with her. The first chance their clever stepmother had given them of asserting their importance against hers was now in their hands. Their jealous hatred of Lady Winwood assumed the mask of Duty – duty toward an outraged and deceived fellow-creature. Could any earthly motive be purer than that? “Tell him, Amelia!” cried the two young ladies, with the headlong recklessness of the sex which only stops to think when the time for reflection has gone by.

A vague sense of something wrong began to stir uneasily in Turlington’s mind.

“Don’t let me hurry you,” he said, “but if you really have anything to tell me—”

Miss Amelia summoned her courage, and began.

“We have something very dreadful to tell you,” she said, interrupting him. “You have been presented in this house, Mr. Turlington, as a gentleman engaged to marry Lady Winwood’s cousin. Miss Natalie Graybrooke.” She paused there – at the outset of the disclosure. A sudden change of expression passed over Turlington’s face, which daunted her for the moment. “We have hitherto understood,” she went on, “that you were to be married to that young lady early in next month.”

“Well?”

He could say that one word. Looking at their pale faces, and their eager eyes, he could say no more.

“Take care!” whispered Dorothea, in her sister’s ear. “Look at him, Amelia! Not too soon.”

Amelia went on more carefully.

“We have just returned from a musical meeting,” she said. “One of the ladies there was an acquaintance, a former school-fellow of ours. She is the wife of the rector of St. Columb Major – a large church, far from this – at the East End of London.”

“I know nothing about the woman or the church,” interposed Turlington, sternly.

“I must beg you to wait a little. I can’t tell you what I want to tell you unless I refer to the rector’s wife. She knows Lady Winwood by name. And she heard of Lady Winwood recently under very strange circumstances – circumstances connected with a signature in one of the books of the church.”

Turlington lost his self-control. “You have got something against my Natalie,” he burst out; “I know it by your whispering, I see it in your looks! Say it at once in plain words.”

There was no trifling with him now. In plain words Amelia said it.

•   •   •

There was silence in the room. They could hear the sound of passing footsteps in the street. He stood perfectly still on the spot where they had struck him dumb by the disclosure, supporting himself with his right hand laid on the head of a sofa near him. The sisters drew back horror-struck into the furthest corner of the room. His face turned them cold. Through the mute misery which it had expressed at first, there appeared, slowly forcing its way to view, a look of deadly vengeance which froze them to the soul. They whispered feverishly one to the other, without knowing what they were talking of, without hearing their own voices. One of them said, “Ring the bell!” Another said, “Offer him something, he will faint.” The third shuddered, and repeated, over and over again, “Why did we do it? Why did we do it?”

He silenced them on the instant by speaking on his side. He came on slowly, by a step at a time, with the big drops of agony falling slowly over his rugged face. He said, in a hoarse whisper, “Write me down the name of the church – there.” He held out his open pocketbook to Amelia while he spoke. She steadied herself, and wrote the address. She tried to say a word to soften him. The word died on her lips. There was a light in his eyes as they looked at her which transfigured his face to something superhuman and devilish. She turned away from him, shuddering.

He put the book back in his pocket, and passed his handkerchief over his face. After a moment of indecision, he suddenly and swiftly stole out of the room, as if he was afraid of their calling somebody in, and stopping him. At the door he turned round for a moment, and said, “You will hear how this ends. I wish you good-morning.”

The door closed on him. Left by themselves, they began to realize it. They thought of the consequences when his back was turned and it was too late.

The Graybrookes! Now he knew it, what would become of the Graybrookes? What would he do when he got back? Even at ordinary times – when he was on his best behaviour – he was a rough man. What would happen? Oh, good God! what would happen when he and Natalie next stood face to face? It was a lonely house – Natalie had told them about it – no neighbours near; nobody by to interfere but the weak old father and the maiden aunt. Something ought to be done. Some steps ought to be taken to warn them. Advice – who could give advice? Who was the first person who ought to be told of what had happened? Lady Winwood? No! even at that crisis the sisters still shrank from their stepmother – still hated her with the old hatred! Not a word to her! They owed no duty to her! Who else could they appeal to? To their father? Yes! There was the person to advise them. In the meanwhile, silence toward their stepmother – silence toward everyone till their father came back!

They waited and waited. One after another the precious hours, pregnant with the issues of life and death, followed each other on the dial. Lady Winwood returned alone. She had left her husband at the House of Lords. Dinnertime came, and brought with it a note from his lordship. There was a debate at the House. Lady Winwood and his daughters were not to wait dinner for him.

TENTH SCENE

GREEN ANCHOR LANE

An hour later than the time at which he had been expected, Richard Turlington appeared at his office in the city.

He met beforehand all the inquiries which the marked change in him must otherwise have provoked, by announcing that he was ill. Before he proceeded to business, he asked if anybody was waiting to see him. One of the servants from Muswell Hill was waiting with another parcel for Miss Lavinia, ordered by telegram from the country that morning. Turlington (after ascertaining the servant’s name) received the man in his private room. He there heard, for the first time, that Launcelot Linzie had been lurking in the grounds (exactly as he had supposed) on the day when the lawyer took his instructions for the Settlement and the Will.

In two hours more Turlington’s work was completed. On leaving the office – as soon as he was out of sight of the door – he turned eastward, instead of taking the way that led to his own house in town. Pursuing his course, he entered the labyrinth of streets which led, in that quarter of East London, to the unsavoury neighbourhood of the riverside.

By this time his mind was made up. The forecast shadow of meditated crime travelled before him already, as he threaded his way among his fellow-men.

He had been to the vestry of St. Columb Major, and had satisfied himself that he was misled by no false report. There was the entry in the Marriage Register. The one unexplained mystery was the mystery of Launce’s conduct in permitting his wife to return to her father’s house. Utterly unable to account for this proceeding, Turlington could only accept facts as they were, and determine to make the most of his time, while the woman who had deceived him was still under his roof. A hideous expression crossed his face as he realized the idea that he had got her (unprotected by her husband) in his house. “When Launcelot Linzie does come to claim her,” he said to himself, “he shall find I have been even with him.” He looked at his watch. Was it possible to save the last train and get back that night? No – the last train had gone. Would she take advantage of his absence to escape? He had little fear of it. She would never have allowed her aunt to send him to Lord Winwood’s house, if she had felt the slightest suspicion of his discovering the truth in that quarter. Returning by the first train the next morning, he might feel sure of getting back in time. Meanwhile he had the hours of the night before him. He could give his mind to the serious question that must be settled before he left London – the question of repaying the forty thousand pounds. There was but one way of getting the money now. Sir Joseph had executed his Will; Sir Joseph’s death would leave his sole executor and trustee (the lawyer had said it!) master of his fortune. Turlington determined to be master of it in four-and-twenty hours – striking the blow, without risk to himself, by means of another hand. In the face of the probabilities, in the face of the facts, he had now firmly persuaded himself that Sir Joseph was privy to the fraud that had been practised on him. The Marriage-Settlement, the Will, the presence of the family at his country house – all these he believed to be so many stratagems invented to keep him deceived until the last moment. The truth was in those words which he had overheard between Sir Joseph and Launce – and in Launce’s presence (privately encouraged, no doubt) at Muswell Hill. “Her father shall pay me for it doubly: with his purse and with his life.” With that thought in his heart, Richard Turlington wound his way through the streets by the riverside, and stopped at a blind alley called Green Anchor Lane, infamous to this day as the chosen resort of the most abandoned wretches whom London can produce.

The policeman at the corner cautioned him as he turned into the alley. “They won’t hurt me!” he answered, and walked on to a public-house at the bottom of the lane.

The landlord at the door silently recognised him, and led the way in. They crossed a room filled with sailors of all nations drinking; ascended a staircase at the back of the house, and stopped at the door of the room on the second floor. There the landlord spoke for the first time. “He has outrun his allowance, sir, as usual. You will find him with hardly a rag on his back. I doubt if he will last much longer. He had another fit of the horrors last night, and the doctor thinks badly of him.” With that introduction he opened the door, and Turlington entered the room.

On the miserable bed lay a grey-headed old man of gigantic stature, with nothing on him but a ragged shirt and a pair of patched, filthy trousers. At the side of the bed, with a bottle of gin on the rickety table between them, sat two hideous leering, painted monsters, wearing the dress of women. The smell of opium was in the room, as well as the smell of spirits. At Turlington’s appearance, the old man rose on the bed and welcomed him with greedy eyes and outstretched hand.

“Money, master!” he called out hoarsely. “A crown piece in advance, for the sake of old times!”

Turlington turned to the women without answering, purse in hand.

“His clothes are at the pawnbroker’s, of course. How much?”

“Thirty shillings.”

“Bring them here, and be quick about it. You will find it worth your while when you come back.”

The women took the pawnbroker’s tickets from the pockets of the man’s trousers and hurried out.

Turlington closed the door, and seated himself by the bedside. He laid his hand familiarly on the giant’s mighty shoulder, looked him full in the face, and said, in a whisper,

“Thomas Wildfang!”

The man started, and drew his huge hairy hand across his eyes, as if in doubt whether he was waking or sleeping. “It’s better than ten years, master, since you called me by my name. If I am Thomas Wildfang, what are you?”

“Your captain, once more.”

Thomas Wildfang sat up on the side of the bed, and spoke his next words cautiously in Turlington’s ear.

“Another man in the way?”

“Yes.”

The giant shook his bald, bestial head dolefully. “Too late. I’m past the job. Look here.”

He held up his hand, and showed it trembling incessantly. “I’m an old man,” he said, and let his hand drop heavily again on the bed beside him.

Turlington looked at the door, and whispered back,

“The man is as old as you are. And the money is worth having.”

“How much?”

“A hundred pounds.”

The eyes of Thomas Wildfang fastened greedily on Turlington’s face. “Let’s hear,” he said. “Softly, captain. Let’s hear.”

•   •   •

When the women came back with the clothes, Turlington had left the room. Their promised reward lay waiting for them on the table, and Thomas Wildfang was eager to dress himself and be gone. They could get but one answer from him to every question they put. He had business in hand, which was not to be delayed. They would see him again in a day or two, with money in his purse. With that assurance he took his cudgel from the corner of the room, and stalked out swiftly by the back door of the house into the night.

ELEVENTH SCENE

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

The evening was chilly, but not cold for the time of year. There was no moon. The stars were out, and the wind was quiet. Upon the whole, the inhabitants of the little Somersetshire village of Baxdale agreed that it was as fine a Christmas-eve as they could remember for some years past.

Toward eight in the evening the one small street of the village was empty, except at that part of it which was occupied by the public-house. For the most part, people gathered round their firesides, with an eye to their suppers, and watched the process of cooking comfortably indoors. The old bare, grey church, situated at some little distance from the village, looked a lonelier object than usual in the dim starlight. The vicarage, nestling close under the shadow of the church-tower, threw no illumination of firelight or candlelight on the dreary scene. The clergyman’s shutters fitted well, and the clergyman’s curtains were closely drawn. The one ray of light that cheered the wintry darkness streamed from the unguarded window of a lonely house, separated from the vicarage by the whole length of the churchyard. A man stood at the window, holding back the shutter, and looking out attentively over the dim void of the burial-ground. The man was Richard Turlington. The room in which he was watching was a room in his own house.

A momentary spark of light flashed up, as from a kindled match, in the burial-ground. Turlington instantly left the empty room in which he had been watching. Passing down the back garden of the house, and crossing a narrow lane at the bottom of it, he opened a gate in a low stone wall beyond, and entered the churchyard. The shadowy figure of a man of great stature, lurking among the graves, advanced to meet him. Midway in the dark and lonely place the two stopped and consulted together in whispers. Turlington spoke first.

“Have you taken up your quarters at the public-house in the village?”

“Yes, master.”

“Did you find your way, while the daylight lasted, to the deserted malt-house behind my orchard wall?”

“Yes, master.”

“Now listen – we have no time to lose. Hide there, behind that monument. Before nine o’clock tonight you will see me cross the churchyard, as far as this place, with the man you are to wait for. He is going to spend an hour with the vicar, at the house yonder. I shall stop short here, and say to him, ‘You can’t miss your way in the dark now – I will go back.’ When I am far enough away from him, I shall blow a call on my whistle. The moment you hear the call, follow the man, and drop him before he gets out of the churchyard. Have you got your cudgel?”

Thomas Wildfang held up his cudgel. Turlington took him by the arm, and felt it suspiciously.

“You have had an attack of the horrors already,” he said. “What does this trembling mean?”

He took a spirit-flask from his pocket as he spoke. Thomas Wildfang snatched it out of his hand, and emptied it at a draught. “All right now, master,” he said. Turlington felt his arm once more. It was steadier already. Wildfang brandished his cudgel, and struck a heavy blow with it on one of the turf mounds near them. “Will that drop him, captain?” he asked.

Turlington went on with his instructions.

“Rob him when you have dropped him. Take his money and his jewellery. I want to have the killing of him attributed to robbery as the motive. Make sure before you leave him that he is dead. Then go to the malt-house. There is no fear of your being seen; all the people will be indoors, keeping Christmas-eve. You will find a change of clothes hidden in the malt-house, and an old cauldron full of quicklime. Destroy the clothes you have got on, and dress yourself in the other clothes that you find. Follow the cross-road, and when it brings you into the highroad, turn to the left; a four-mile walk will take you to the town of Harminster. Sleep there tonight, and travel to London by the train in the morning. The next day go to my office, see the head clerk, and say, ‘I have come to sign my receipt.’ Sign it in your own name, and you will receive your hundred pounds. There are your instructions. Do you understand them?”

Wildfang nodded his head in silent token that he understood, and disappeared again among the graves. Turlington went back to the house.

He had advanced midway across the garden, when he was startled by the sound of footsteps in the lane – at that part of it which skirted one of the corners of the house. Hastening forward, he placed himself behind a projection in the wall, so as to see the person pass across the stream of light from the uncovered window of the room that he had left. The stranger was walking rapidly. All Turlington could see as he crossed the field of light was, that his hat was pulled over his eyes, and that he had a thick beard and moustache. Describing the man to the servant on entering the house, he was informed that a stranger with a large beard had been seen about the neighbourhood for some days past. The account he had given of himself stated that he was a surveyor, engaged in taking measurements for a new map of that part of the country, shortly to be published.

The guilty mind of Turlington was far from feeling satisfied with the meagre description of the stranger thus rendered. He could not be engaged in surveying in the dark. What could he want in the desolate neighbourhood of the house and churchyard at that time of night?

The man wanted – what the man found a little lower down the lane, hidden in a dismantled part of the churchyard wall – a letter from a young lady. Read by the light of the pocket-lantern which he carried with him, the letter first congratulated this person on the complete success of his disguise – and then promised that the writer would be ready at her bedroom window for flight the next morning, before the house was astir. The signature was “Natalie,” and the person addressed was “Dearest Launce.”

In the meanwhile, Turlington barred the window shutters of the room, and looked at his watch. It wanted only a quarter to nine o’clock. He took his dog-whistle from the chimney-piece, and turned his steps at once in the direction of the drawing-room, in which his guests were passing the evening.

TWELFTH SCENE

INSIDE THE HOUSE

The scene in the drawing-room represented the ideal of domestic comfort. The fire of wood and coal mixed burned brightly; the lamps shed a soft glow of light; the solid shutters and the thick red curtains kept the cold night air on the outer side of two long windows, which opened on the back garden. Snug armchairs were placed in every part of the room. In one of them Sir Joseph reclined, fast asleep; in another, Miss Lavinia sat knitting; a third chair, apart from the rest, near a round table in one corner of the room, was occupied by Natalie. Her head was resting on her hand, an unread book lay open on her lap. She looked pale and harassed; anxiety and suspense had worn her down to the shadow of her former self. On entering the room, Turlington purposely closed the door with a bang. Natalie started. Miss Lavinia looked up reproachfully. The object was achieved – Sir Joseph was roused from his sleep.

“If you are going to the vicar’s tonight. Graybrooke,” said Turlington, “it’s time you were off, isn’t it?”

Sir Joseph rubbed his eyes, and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Yes, yes, Richard,” he answered, drowsily, “I suppose I must go. Where is my hat?”

His sister and his daughter both joined in trying to persuade him to send an excuse instead of groping his way to the vicarage in the dark. Sir Joseph hesitated, as usual. He and the vicar had run up a sudden friendship, on the strength of their common enthusiasm for the old-fashioned game of backgammon. Victorious over his opponent on the previous evening at Turlington’s house, Sir Joseph had promised to pass that evening at the vicarage, and give the vicar his revenge. Observing his indecision, Turlington cunningly irritated him by affecting to believe that he was really unwilling to venture out in the dark. “I’ll see you safe across the churchyard,” he said; “and the vicar’s servant will see you safe back.” The tone in which he spoke instantly roused Sir Joseph. “I am not in my second childhood yet, Richard,” he replied, testily. “I can find my way by myself.” He kissed his daughter on the forehead. “No fear, Natalie. I shall be back in time for the mulled claret. No, Richard, I won’t trouble you.” He kissed his hand to his sister and went out into the hall for his hat: Turlington following him with a rough apology, and asking as a favour to be permitted to accompany him part of the way only. The ladies, left behind in the drawing-room, heard the apology accepted by kind-hearted Sir Joseph. The two went out together.

“Have you noticed Richard since his return?” asked Miss Lavinia. “I fancy he must have heard bad news in London. He looks as if he had something on his mind.”

“I haven’t remarked it, aunt.”

For the time, no more was said. Miss Lavinia went monotonously on with her knitting. Natalie pursued her own anxious thoughts over the unread pages of the book in her lap. Suddenly the deep silence out of doors and in was broken by a shrill whistle, sounding from the direction of the churchyard. Natalie started with a faint cry of alarm. Miss Lavinia looked up from her knitting.

“My dear child, your nerves must be sadly out of order. What is there to be frightened at?”

“I am not very well, aunt. It is so still here at night, the slightest noises startle me.”

There was another interval of silence. It was past nine o’clock when they heard the back door opened and closed again. Turlington came hurriedly into the drawing-room, as if he had some reason for wishing to rejoin the ladies as soon as possible. To the surprise of both of them, he sat down abruptly in the corner, with his face to the wall, and took up the newspaper, without casting a look at them or uttering a word.

“Is Joseph safe at the vicarage?” asked Miss Lavinia.

“All right.” He gave the answer in a short, surly tone, still without looking round.

Miss Lavinia tried him again. “Did you hear a whistle while you were out? It quite startled Natalie in the stillness of this place.”

He turned half-way round. “My shepherd, I suppose,” he said after a pause – “whistling for his dog.” He turned back again and immersed himself in his newspaper.

Miss Lavinia beckoned to her niece and pointed significantly to Turlington. After one reluctant look at him, Natalie laid her head wearily on her aunt’s shoulder. “Sleepy, my dear?” whispered the old lady. “Uneasy, aunt – I don’t know why,” Natalie whispered back. “I would give the world to be in London, and to hear the carriages going by, and the people talking in the street.”

Turlington suddenly dropped his newspaper. “What’s the secret between you two?” he called out roughly. “What are you whispering about?”

“We wish not to disturb you over your reading, that is all,” said Miss Lavinia, coldly. “Has anything happened to vex you, Richard?”

“What the devil makes you think that?”

The old lady was offended, and showed it by saying nothing more. Natalie nestled closer to her aunt. One after another the clock ticked off the minutes with painful distinctness in the stillness of the room. Turlington suddenly threw aside the newspaper and left his corner. “Let’s be good friends!” he burst out, with a clumsy assumption of gaiety. “This isn’t keeping Christmas-eve. Let’s talk and be sociable. Dearest Natalie!” He threw his arm roughly round Natalie, and drew her by main force away from her aunt. She turned deadly pale, and struggled to release herself. “I am suffering – I am ill – let me go!” He was deaf to her entreaties. “What! your husband that is to be, treated in this way? Mustn’t I have a kiss? – I will!” He held her closer with one hand, and, seizing her head with the other, tried to turn her lips to him. She resisted with the inbred nervous strength which the weakest woman living has in reserve when she is outraged. Half indignant, half terrified, at Turlington’s roughness, Miss Lavinia rose to interfere. In a moment more he would have had two women to overpower instead of one, when a noise outside the window suddenly suspended the ignoble struggle.

There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel-walk which ran between the house wall and the garden lawn. It was followed by a tap – a single faint tap, no more – on one of the panes of glass.

They all three stood still. For a moment more nothing was audible. Then there was a heavy shock, as of something falling outside. Then a groan, then another interval of silence – a long silence, interrupted no more.

Turlington’s arm dropped from Natalie. She drew back to her aunt. Looking at him instinctively, in the natural expectation that he would take the lead in penetrating the mystery of what had happened outside the window, the two women were thunderstruck to see that he was, to all appearance, even more startled and more helpless than they were. “Richard,” said Miss Lavinia, pointing to the window, “there is something wrong out there. See what it is.” He stood motionless, as if he had not heard her, his eyes fixed on the window, his face livid with terror.

The silence outside was broken once more; this time by a call for help.

A cry of horror burst from Natalie. The voice outside – rising wildly, then suddenly dying away again – was not entirely strange to her ears. She tore aside the curtain. With voice and hand she roused her aunt to help her. The two lifted the heavy bar from its socket; they opened the shutters and the window. The cheerful light of the room flowed out over the body of a prostrate man, lying on his face. They turned the man over. Natalie lifted his head.

Her father!

His face was bedabbled with blood. A wound, a frightful wound, was visible on the side of his bare head, high above the ear. He looked at her, his eyes recognised her, before he fainted again in her arms. His hands and his clothes were covered with earth stains. He must have traversed some distance; in that dreadful condition he must have faltered and fallen more than once before he reached the house. His sister wiped the blood from his face. His daughter called on him frantically to forgive her before he died – the harmless, gentle, kind-hearted father, who had never said a hard word to her! The father whom she had deceived!

The terrified servants hurried into the room. Their appearance roused their master from the extraordinary stupor that had seized him. He was at the window before the footman could get there. The two lifted Sir Joseph into the room, and laid him on the sofa. Natalie knelt by him, supporting his head. Miss Lavinia staunched the flowing blood with her handkerchief. The women-servants brought linen and cold water. The man hurried away for the doctor, who lived on the other side of the village. Left alone again with Turlington, Natalie noticed that his eyes were fixed in immovable scrutiny on her father’s head. He never said a word. He looked, looked, looked at the wound.

The doctor arrived. Before either the daughter or the sister of the injured man could put the question, Turlington put it – “Will he live or die?”

The doctor’s careful finger probed the wound.

“Make your minds easy. A little lower down, or in front, the blow might have been serious. As it is, there is no harm done. Keep him quiet, and he will be all right again in two or three days.”

Hearing those welcome words, Natalie and her aunt sank on their knees in silent gratitude. After dressing the wound, the doctor looked round for the master of the house. Turlington, who had been so breathlessly eager but a few minutes since, seemed to have lost all interest in the case now. He stood apart, at the window, looking out toward the churchyard, thinking. The questions which it was the doctor’s duty to ask were answered by the ladies. The servants assisted in examining the injured man’s clothes: they discovered that his watch and purse were both missing. When it became necessary to carry him upstairs, it was the footman who assisted the doctor. The footman’s master, without a word of explanation, walked out bare headed into the back garden, on the search, as the doctor and the servants supposed, for some trace of the robber who had attempted Sir Joseph’s life.

His absence was hardly noticed at the time. The difficulty of conveying the wounded man to his room absorbed the attention of all the persons present.

Sir Joseph partially recovered his senses while they were taking him up the steep and narrow stairs. Carefully as they carried the patient, the motion wrung a groan from him before they reached the top. The bedroom corridor, in the rambling, irregularly built house rose and fell on different levels. At the door of the first bedchamber the doctor asked a little anxiously if that was the room. No; there were three more stairs to go down, and a corner to turn, before they could reach it. The first room was Natalie’s. She instantly offered it for her father’s use. The doctor (seeing that it was the airiest as well as the nearest room) accepted the proposal. Sir Joseph had been laid comfortably in his daughter’s bed; the doctor had just left them, with renewed assurances that they need feel no anxiety, when they heard a heavy step below stairs. Turlington had re-entered the house.

(He had been looking, as they had supposed, for the ruffian who had attacked Sir Joseph; with a motive, however, for the search at which it was impossible for other persons to guess. His own safety was now bound up in the safety of Thomas Wildfang. As soon as he was out of sight in the darkness, he made straight for the malt-house. The change of clothes was there untouched; not a trace of his accomplice was to be seen. Where else to look for him it was impossible to tell. Turlington had no alternative but to go back to the house, and ascertain if suspicion had been aroused in his absence.)

He had only to ascend the stairs, and to see, through the open door, that Sir Joseph had been placed in his daughter’s room.

“What does this mean?” he asked, roughly.

Before it was possible to answer him the footman appeared with a message. The doctor had come back to the door to say that he would take on himself the necessary duty of informing the constable of what had happened, on his return to the village. Turlington started and changed colour. If Wildfang was found by others, and questioned in his employer’s absence, serious consequences might follow. “The constable is my business,” said Turlington, hurriedly descending the stairs; “I’ll go with the doctor.” They heard him open the door below, then close it again (as if some sudden thought had struck him), and call to the footman. The house was badly provided with servants’ bedrooms. The women-servants only slept indoors. The footman occupied a room over the stables. Natalie and her aunt heard Turlington dismiss the man for the night, an hour earlier than usual at least. His next proceeding was stranger still. Looking cautiously over the stairs, Natalie saw him lock all the doors on the ground-floor and take out the keys. When he went away, she heard him lock the front door behind him. Incredible as it seemed, there could be no doubt of the fact – the inmates of the house were imprisoned till he came back. What did it mean?

(It meant that Turlington’s vengeance still remained to be wreaked on the woman who had deceived him. It meant that Sir Joseph’s life still stood between the man who had compassed his death and the money which the man was resolved to have. It meant that Richard Turlington was driven to bay, and that the horror and the peril of the night were not at an end yet.)

Natalie and her aunt looked at each other across the bed on which Sir Joseph lay. He had fallen into a kind of doze; no enlightenment could come to them from him. They could only ask each other, with beating hearts and baffled minds, what Richard’s conduct meant – they could only feel instinctively that some dreadful discovery was hanging over them. The aunt was the calmer of the two – there was no secret weighing heavily on her conscience. She could feel the consolations of religion. “Our dear one is spared to us, my love,” said the old lady, gently. “God has been good to us. We are in his hands. If we know that, we know enough.”

As she spoke there was a loud ring at the doorbell. The women-servants crowded into the bedroom in alarm. Strong in numbers, and encouraged by Natalie – who roused herself and led the way – they confronted the risk of opening the window and of venturing out on the balcony which extended along that side of the house. A man was dimly visible below. He called to them in thick, unsteady accents. The servants recognised him: he was the telegraphic messenger from the railway. They went down to speak to him – and returned with a telegram which had been pushed in under the door. The distance from the station was considerable; the messenger had been “keeping Christmas” in more than one beer-shop on his way to the house; and the delivery of the telegram had been delayed for some hours. It was addressed to Natalie. She opened it – looked at it – dropped it – and stood speechless; her lips parted in horror, her eyes staring vacantly straight before her.

Miss Lavinia took the telegram from the floor, and read these lines:

“Lady Winwood, Hertford Street, London. To Natalie Graybrooke, Church Meadows, Baxdale, Somersetshire. Dreadful news. R. T. has discovered your marriage to Launce. The truth has been kept from me till today (24th). Instant flight with your husband is your only chance. I would have communicated with Launce, but I do not know his address. You will receive this, I hope and believe, before R. T. can return to Somersetshire. Telegraph back, I entreat you, to say that you are safe. I shall follow my message if I do not hear from you in reasonable time.”

Miss Lavinia lifted her grey head, and looked at her niece. “Is this true?” she said – and pointed to the venerable face laid back, white, on the white pillow of the bed. Natalie sank forward as her eyes met the eyes of her aunt. Miss Lavinia saved her from falling insensible on the floor.

•   •   •

The confession had been made. The words of penitence and the words of pardon had been spoken. The peaceful face of the father still lay hushed in rest. One by one the minutes succeeded each other uneventfully in the deep tranquillity of the night. It was almost a relief when the silence was disturbed once more by another sound outside the house. A pebble was thrown up at the window, and a voice called out cautiously, “Miss Lavinia!”

They recognised the voice of the manservant, and at once opened the window.

He had something to say to the ladies in private. How could he say it? A domestic circumstance which had been marked by Launce, as favourable to the contemplated elopement, was now noticed by the servant as lending itself readily to effecting the necessary communication with the ladies. The lock of the gardener’s tool-house (in the shrubbery close by) was under repair; and the gardener’s ladder was accessible to anyone who wanted it. At the short height of the balcony from the ground, the ladder was more than long enough for the purpose required. In a few minutes the servant had mounted to the balcony, and could speak to Natalie and her aunt at the window.

“I can’t rest quiet,” said the man, “I’m off on the sly to see what’s going on down in the village. It’s hard on ladies like you to be locked in here. Is there anything I can do for either of you?”

Natalie took up Lady Winwood’s telegram. “Launce ought to see this,” she said to her aunt. “He will be here at daybreak,” she added, in a whisper, “if I don’t tell him what has happened.”

Miss Lavinia turned pale. “If he and Richard meet—” she began. “Tell him!” she added, hurriedly – “tell him before it is too late!”

Natalie wrote a few lines (addressed to Launce in his assumed name at his lodgings in the village) enclosing Lady Winwood’s telegram, and entreating him to do nothing rash. When the servant had disappeared with the letter, there was one hope in her mind and in her aunt’s mind, which each was ashamed to acknowledge to the other – the hope that Launce would face the very danger that they dreaded for him, and come to the house.

They had not been long alone again, when Sir Joseph drowsily opened his eyes and asked what they were doing in his room. They told him gently that he was ill. He put his hand up to his head, and said they were right, and so dropped off again into slumber. Worn out by the emotions through which they had passed, the two women silently waited for the march of events. The same stupor of resignation possessed them both. They had secured the door and the window. They had prayed together. They had kissed the quiet face on the pillow. They had said to each other, “We will live with him or die with him as God pleases.” Miss Lavinia sat by the bedside. Natalie was on a stool at her feet – with her eyes closed, and her head on her aunt’s knee.

Time went on. The clock in the hall had struck – ten or eleven, they were not sure which – when they heard the signal which warned them of the servant’s return from the village. He brought news, and more than news; he brought a letter from Launce.

Natalie read these lines:

“I shall be with you, dearest, almost as soon as you receive this. The bearer will tell you what has happened in the village – your note throws a new light on it all. I only remain behind to go to the vicar (who is also the magistrate here), and declare myself your husband. All disguise must be at an end now. My place is with you and yours. It is even worse than your worst fears. Turlington was at the bottom of the attack on your father. Judge if you have not need of your husband’s protection after that! – L.”

Natalie handed the letter to her aunt, and pointed to the sentence which asserted Turlington’s guilty knowledge of the attempt on Sir Joseph’s life. In silent horror the two women looked at each other, recalling what had happened earlier in the evening, and understanding it now. The servant roused them to a sense of present things, by entering on the narrative of his discoveries in the village.

The place was all astir when he reached it. An old man – a stranger in Baxdale – had been found lying in the road, close to the church, in a fit; and the person who had discovered him had been no other than Launce himself. He had, literally, stumbled over the body of Thomas Wildfang in the dark, on his way back to his lodgings in the village.

“The gentleman gave the alarm, miss,” said the servant, describing the event, as it had been related to him, “and the man – a huge, big old man – was carried to the inn. The landlord identified him; he had taken lodgings at the inn that day, and the constable found valuable property on him – a purse of money and a gold watch and chain. There was nothing to show who the money and the watch belonged to. It was only when my master and the doctor got to the inn that it was known whom he had robbed and tried to murder. All he let out in his wanderings before they came was that some person had set him on to do it. He called the person ‘Captain,’ and sometimes ‘Captain Goward.’ It was thought – if you could trust the ravings of a madman – that the fit took him while he was putting his hand on Sir Joseph’s heart to feel if it had stopped beating. A sort of vision (as I understand it) must have overpowered him at the moment. They tell me he raved about the sea bursting into the church yard, and a drowning sailor floating by on a hen-coop; a sailor who dragged him down to hell by the hair of his head, and such like horrible nonsense, miss. He was still screeching, at the worst of the fit, when my master and the doctor came into the room. At sight of one or other of them – it is thought of Mr. Turlington, seeing that he came first – he held his peace on a sudden, and then fell back in convulsions in the arms of the men who were holding him. The doctor gave it a learned name, signifying drink-madness, and said the case was hopeless. However, he ordered the room to be cleared of the crowd to see what be could do. My master was reported to be still with the doctor, waiting to see whether the man lived or died, when I left the village, miss, with the gentleman’s answer to your note. I didn’t dare stay to hear how it ended, for fear of Mr. Turlington’s finding me out.”

Having reached the end of his narrative, the man looked round restlessly toward the window. It was impossible to say when his master might not return, and it might be as much as his life was worth to be caught in the house after he had been locked out of it. He begged permission to open the window, and make his escape back to the stables while there was still time. As he unbarred the shutter they were startled by a voice hailing them from below. It was Launce’s voice calling to Natalie. The servant disappeared, and Natalie was in Launce’s arms before she could breathe again.

For one delicious moment she let her head lie on his breast; then she suddenly pushed him away from her. “Why do you come here? He will kill you if he finds you in the house. Where is he?”

Launce knew even less of Turlington’s movements than the servant. “Wherever he is, thank God, I am here before him!” That was all the answer he could give.

Natalie and her aunt heard him in silent dismay. Sir Joseph woke, and recognised Launce before a word more could be said. “Ah, my dear boy!” he murmured, faintly. “It’s pleasant to see you again. How do you come here?” He was quite satisfied with the first excuse that suggested itself. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he said, and composed himself to rest again.

Natalie made a second attempt to persuade Launce to leave the house.

“We don’t know what may have happened,” she said. “He may have followed you on your way here. He may have purposely let you enter his house. Leave us while you have the chance.”

Miss Lavinia added her persuasions. They were useless. Launce quietly closed the heavy window-shutters, lined with iron, and put up the bar. Natalie wrung her hands in despair.

“Have you been to the magistrate?” she asked. “Tell us, at least, are you here by his advice? Is he coming to help us?”

Launce hesitated. If he had told the truth, he must have acknowledged that he was there in direct opposition to the magistrate’s advice. He answered evasively, “If the vicar doesn’t come, the doctor will. I have told him Sir Joseph must he moved. Cheer up, Natalie! The doctor will be here as soon as Turlington.”

As the name passed his lips – without a sound outside to prepare them for what was coming – the voice of Turlington himself suddenly penetrated into the room, speaking close behind the window, on the outer side.

“You have broken into my house in the night,” said the voice. “And you don’t escape this way.”

Miss Lavinia sank on her knees. Natalie flew to her father. His eyes were wide open in terror; he moaned, feebly recognising the voice. The next sound that was heard was the sound made by the removal of the ladder from the balcony. Turlington, having descended by it, had taken it away. Natalie had but too accurately guessed what would happen. The death of the villain’s accomplice had freed him from all apprehension in that quarter. He had deliberately dogged Launce’s steps, and had deliberately allowed him to put himself in the wrong by effecting a secret entrance into the house.

There was an interval – a horrible interval – and then they heard the front door opened. Without stopping (judging by the absence of sound) to close it again, Turlington rapidly ascended the stairs and tried the locked door.

“Come out, and give yourself up!” he called through the door. “I have got my revolver with me, and I have a right to fire on a man who has broken into my house. If the door isn’t opened before I count three, your blood be on your own head. One!”

Launce was armed with nothing but his stick. He advanced, without an instant’s hesitation, to give himself up. Natalie threw her arms round him and clasped him fast before he could reach the door.

“Two!” cried the voice outside, as Launce struggled to force her from him. At the same moment his eye turned toward the bed. It was exactly opposite the door – it was straight in the line of fire! Sir Joseph’s life (as Turlington had deliberately calculated) was actually in greater danger than Launce’s life. He tore himself free, rushed to the bed, and took the old man in his arms to lift him out.

“Three!”

The crash of the report sounded. The bullet came through the door, grazed Launce’s left arm, and buried itself in the pillow, at the very place on which Sir Joseph’s head had rested the moment before. Launce had saved his father-in-law’s life. Turlington had fired his first shot for the money, and had not got it yet.

They were safe in the corner of the room, on the same side as the door – Sir Joseph, helpless as a child, in Launce’s arms; the women pale, but admirably calm. They were safe for the moment, when the second bullet (fired at an angle) tore its way through the wall on their right hand.

“I hear you,” cried the voice of the miscreant on the other side of the door. “I’ll have you yet – through the wall.”

There was a pause. They heard his hand sounding the wall, to find out where there was solid wood in the material of which it was built, and where there was plaster only. At that dreadful moment Launce’s composure never left him. He laid Sir Joseph softly on the floor, and signed to Natalie and her aunt to lie down by him in silence. Their lives depended now on neither their voices nor their movements telling the murderer where to fire. He chose his place. The barrel of the revolver grated as he laid it against the wall. He touched the hair trigger. A faint click was the only sound that followed. The third barrel had missed fire.

They heard him ask himself, with an oath, “What’s wrong with it now?”

There was a pause of silence.

Was he examining the weapon?

Before they could ask themselves the question, the report of the exploding charge burst on their ears. It was instantly followed by a heavy fall. They looked at the opposite wall of the room. No sign of a bullet there or anywhere.

Launce signed to them not to move yet. They waited, and listened. Nothing stirred on the landing outside.

Suddenly there was a disturbance of the silence in the lower regions – a clamour of many voices at the open house door. Had the firing of the revolver been heard at the vicarage? Yes! They recognised the vicar’s voice among the others. A moment more, and they heard a general exclamation of horror on the stairs. Launce opened the door of the room. He instantly closed it again before Natalie could follow him.

The dead body of Turlington lay on the landing outside. The charge in the fourth barrel of the revolver had exploded while he was looking at it. The bullet had entered his mouth and killed him on the spot.

DOCUMENTARY HINTS,
IN CONCLUSION

FIRST HINT

(Derived from
Lady Winwood’s Card-Rack.)

“Sir Joseph Graybrooke and Miss Graybrooke request the honour of Lord and Lady Winwood’s company to dinner, on Wednesday, February 10, at half-past seven o’clock. To meet Mr. and Mrs. Launcelot Linzie on their return.”

SECOND HINT.

(Derived from
a recent Money Article
in morning Newspaper.)

“We are requested to give the fullest contradiction to unfavourable rumours lately in circulation respecting the firm of Pizzituti, Turlington, and Branca. Some temporary derangement in the machinery of the business was undoubtedly produced in consequence of the sudden death of the lamented managing partner, Mr. Turlington, by the accidental discharge of a revolver which he was examining. Whatever temporary obstacles may have existed are now overcome. We are informed, on good authority, that the well-known house of Messrs. Bulpit Brothers has an interest in the business, and will carry it on until further notice.”

First published
The Graphic Christmas 1871

“BLOW UP WITH THE BRIG!”

A SAILOR’S STORY.

I have got an alarming confession to make. I am haunted by a Ghost.

If you were to guess for a hundred years, you would never guess what my ghost is. I shall make you laugh to begin with – and afterward I shall make your flesh creep. My Ghost is the ghost of a Bedroom Candlestick.

Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle – put it which way you like – that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it; and I shall thank you kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.

I am not a scholar myself, but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man with anything under the sun begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle – the frightening of me half out of my life; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage so far.

Here are the particulars, as well as I can put them:

I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit for a mate’s berth at the age of twenty-five years.

It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain which, that I reached the before-mentioned age of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my memory not being very good for dates, names, numbers, places, and such like. No fear, though, about the particulars I have undertaken to tell you of; I have got them all shipshape in my recollection; I can see them, at this moment, as clear as noonday in my own mind. But there is a mist over what went before, and, for the matter of that, a mist likewise over much that came after – and it’s not very likely to lift at my time of life, is it?

Well, in eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, when there was peace in our part of the world – and not before it was wanted, you will say – there was fighting, of a certain scampering, scrambling kind, going on in that old battlefield which we seafaring men know by the name of the Spanish Main.

The possessions that belonged to the Spaniards in South America had broken into open mutiny and declared for themselves years before. There was plenty of bloodshed between the new Government and the old; but the new had got the best of it, for the most part, under one General Bolivar – a famous man in his time, though he seems to have dropped out of people’s memories now. Englishmen and Irishmen with a turn for fighting, and nothing particular to do at home, joined the general as volunteers; and some of our merchants here found it a good venture to send supplies across the ocean to the popular side. There was risk enough, of course, in doing this; but where one speculation of the kind succeeded, it made up for two, at the least, that failed. And that’s the true principle of trade, wherever I have met with it, all the world over.

Among the Englishmen who were concerned in this Spanish-American business, I, your humble servant, happened in a small way to be one.

I was then mate of a brig belonging to a certain firm in the City, which drove a sort of general trade, mostly in queer out-of-the-way places, as far from home as possible; and which freighted the brig, in the year I am speaking of, with a cargo of gunpowder for General Bolivar and his volunteers. Nobody knew anything about our instructions, when we sailed, except the captain; and he didn’t half seem to like them. I can’t rightly say how many barrels of powder we had on board, or how much each barrel held – I only know we had no other cargo. The name of the brig was the Good Intent – a queer name enough, you will tell me, for a vessel laden with gunpowder, and sent to help a revolution. And as far as this particular voyage was concerned, so it was. I mean that for a joke, and I hope you will encourage me by laughing at it.

The Good Intent was the craziest old tub of a vessel I ever went to sea in, and the worst found in all respects. She was two hundred and thirty, or two hundred and eighty tons burden, I forget which; and she had a crew of eight, all told – nothing like as many as we ought by rights to have had to work the brig. However, we were well and honestly paid our wages; and we had to set that against the chance of foundering at sea, and, on this occasion, likewise the chance of being blown up into the bargain.

In consideration of the nature of our cargo, we were harassed with new regulations, which we didn’t at all like, relative to smoking our pipes and lighting our lanterns; and, as usual in such cases, the captain, who made the regulations, preached what he didn’t practice. Not a man of us was allowed to have a bit of lighted candle in his hand when he went below – except the skipper; and he used his light, when he turned in, or when he looked over his charts on the cabin table, just as usual.

This light was a common kitchen candle or “dip,” and it stood in an old battered flat candlestick, with all the japan worn and melted off, and all the tin showing through. It would have been more seaman-like and suitable in every respect if he had had a lamp or a lantern; but he stuck to his old candlestick; and that same old candlestick has ever afterward stuck to me. That’s another joke, if you please, and a better one than the first, in my opinion.

Well (I said “well” before, but it’s a word that helps a man on like), we sailed in the brig, and shaped our course, first, for the Virgin Islands, in the West Indies; and, after sighting them, we made for the Leeward Islands next, and then stood on due south, till the lookout at the masthead hailed the deck and said he saw land. That land was the coast of South America. We had had a wonderful voyage so far. We had lost none of our spars or sails, and not a man of us had been harassed to death at the pumps. It wasn’t often the Good Intent made such a voyage as that, I can tell you.

I was sent aloft to make sure about the land, and I did make sure of it.

When I reported the same to the skipper, he went below, and had a look at his letter of instructions and the chart. When he came on deck again, he altered our course a trifle to the eastward – I forget the point on the compass, but that don’t matter. What I do remember is, that it was dark before we closed in with the land. We kept the lead going, and hove the brig to in from four to five fathoms water, or it might be six – I can’t say for certain. I kept a sharp eye to the drift of the vessel, none of us knowing how the currents ran on that coast. We all wondered why the skipper didn’t anchor; but he said No, he must first show a light at the foretop masthead, and wait for an answering light on shore. We did wait, and nothing of the sort appeared. It was starlight and calm. What little wind there was came in puffs off the land. I suppose we waited, drifting a little to the westward, as I made it out, best part of an hour before anything happened – and then, instead of seeing the light on shore, we saw a boat coming toward us, rowed by two men only.

We hailed them, and they answered “Friends!” and hailed us by our name. They came on board. One of them was an Irishman, and the other was a coffee-coloured native pilot, who jabbered a little English.

The Irishman handed a note to our skipper, who showed it to me. It informed us that the part of the coast we were off was not over-safe for discharging our cargo, seeing that spies of the enemy (that is to say, of the old Government) had been taken and shot in the neighbourhood the day before. We might trust the brig to the native pilot; and he had his instructions to take us to another part of the coast. The note was signed by the proper parties; so we let the Irishman go back alone in the boat, and allowed the pilot to exercise his lawful authority over the brig. He kept us stretching off from the land till noon the next day – his instructions, seemingly, ordering him to keep us well out of sight of the shore. We only altered our course in the afternoon, so as to close in with the land again a little before midnight.

This same pilot was about as ill-looking a vagabond as ever I saw; a skinny, cowardly, quarrelsome mongrel, who swore at the men in the vilest broken English, till they were every one of them ready to pitch him overboard. The skipper kept them quiet, and I kept them quiet; for the pilot being given us by our instructions, we were bound to make the best of him. Near nightfall, however, with the best will in the world to avoid it, I was unlucky enough to quarrel with him.

He wanted to go below with his pipe, and I stopped him, of course, because it was contrary to orders. Upon that he tried to hustle by me, and I put him away with my hand. I never meant to push him down; but somehow I did. He picked himself up as quick as lightning, and pulled out his knife. I snatched it out of his hand, slapped his murderous face for him, and threw his weapon overboard. He gave me one ugly look, and walked aft. I didn’t think much of the look then, but I remembered it a little too well afterward.

We were close in with the land again, just as the wind failed us, between eleven and twelve that night, and dropped our anchor by the pilot’s directions.

It was pitch-dark, and a dead, airless calm. The skipper was on deck, with two of our best men for watch. The rest were below, except the pilot, who coiled himself up, more like a snake than a man, on the forecastle. It was not my watch till four in the morning. But I didn’t like the look of the night, or the pilot, or the state of things generally, and I shook myself down on deck to get my nap there, and be ready for anything at a moment’s notice. The last I remember was the skipper whispering to me that he didn’t like the look of things either, and that he would go below and consult his instructions again. That is the last I remember, before the slow, heavy, regular roll of the old brig on the groundswell rocked me off to sleep.

I was awoke by a scuffle on the forecastle and a gag in my mouth. There was a man on my breast and a man on my legs, and I was bound hand and foot in half a minute.

The brig was in the hands of the Spaniards. They were swarming all over her. I heard six heavy splashes in the water, one after another. I saw the captain stabbed to the heart as he came running up the companion, and I heard a seventh splash in the water. Except myself, every soul of us on board had been murdered and thrown into the sea. Why I was left, I couldn’t think, till I saw the pilot stoop over me with a lantern and look, to make sure of who I was. There was a devilish grin on his face, and he nodded his head at me, as much as to say, You were the man who hustled me down and slapped my face, and I mean to play the game of cat and mouse with you in return for it!

I could neither move nor speak, but I could see the Spaniards take off the main hatch and rig the purchases for getting up the cargo. A quarter of an hour afterward I heard the sweeps of a schooner, or other small vessel, in the water. The strange craft was laid alongside of us, and the Spaniards set to work to discharge our cargo into her. They all worked hard except the pilot; and he came from time to time, with his lantern, to have another look at me, and to grin and nod always in the same devilish way. I am old enough now not to be ashamed of confessing the truth, and I don’t mind acknowledging that the pilot frightened me.

The fright, and the bonds, and the gag, and the not being able to stir hand or foot, had pretty nigh worn me out by the time the Spaniards gave over work. This was just as the dawn broke. They had shifted a good part of our cargo on board their vessel, but nothing like all of it, and they were sharp enough to be off with what they had got before daylight.

I need hardly say that I had made up my mind by this time to the worst I could think of. The pilot, it was clear enough, was one of the spies of the enemy, who had wormed himself into the confidence of our consignees without being suspected. He, or more likely his employers, had got knowledge enough of us to suspect what our cargo was; we had been anchored for the night in the safest berth for them to surprise us in; and we had paid the penalty of having a small crew, and consequently an insufficient watch. All this was clear enough – but what did the pilot mean to do with me?

On the word of a man, it makes my flesh creep now, only to tell you what he did with me.

After all the rest of them were out of the brig, except the pilot and two Spanish seamen, these last took me up, bound and gagged as I was, lowered me into the hold of the vessel, and laid me along on the floor, lashing me to it with ropes’ ends, so that I could just turn from one side to the other, but could not roll myself fairly over, so as to change my place. They then left me. Both of them were the worse for liquor; but the devil of a pilot was sober – mind that! – as sober as I am at the present moment.

I lay in the dark for a little while, with my heart thumping as if it was going to jump out of me. I lay about five minutes or so when the pilot came down into the hold alone.

He had the captain’s cursed flat candlestick and a carpenter’s awl in one hand, and a long thin twist of cotton-yarn, well oiled, in the other. He put the candlestick, with a new “dip” candle lighted in it, down on the floor about two feet from my face, and close against the side of the vessel. The light was feeble enough; but it was sufficient to show a dozen barrels of gunpowder or more left all round me in the hold of the brig. I began to suspect what he was after the moment I noticed the barrels. The horrors laid hold of me from head to foot, and the sweat poured off my face like water.

I saw him go next to one of the barrels of powder standing against the side of the vessel in a line with the candle, and about three feet, or rather better, away from it. He bored a hole in the side of the barrel with his awl, and the horrid powder came trickling out, as black as hell, and dripped into the hollow of his hand, which he held to catch it. When he had got a good handful, he stopped up the hole by jamming one end of his oiled twist of cotton-yarn fast into it, and he then rubbed the powder into the whole length of the yarn till he had blackened every hairbreadth of it.

The next thing he did – as true as I sit here, as true as the heaven above us all – the next thing he did was to carry the free end of his long, lean, black, frightful slow-match to the lighted candle alongside my face. He tied it (the bloody-minded villain!) in several folds round the tallow dip, about a third of the distance down, measuring from the flame of the wick to the lip of the candlestick. He did that; he looked to see that my lashings were all safe; and then he put his face close to mine, and whispered in my ear, “Blow up with the brig!”

He was on deck again the moment after, and he and the two others shoved the hatch on over me. At the furthest end from where I lay they had not fitted it down quite true, and I saw a blink of daylight glimmering in when I looked in that direction. I heard the sweeps of the schooner fall into the water – splash! splash! fainter and fainter, as they swept the vessel out in the dead calm, to be ready for the wind in the offing. Fainter and fainter, splash, splash! for a quarter of an hour more.

While those sounds were in my ears, my eyes were fixed on the candle.

It had been freshly lighted. If left to itself it would burn for between six and seven hours. The slow-match was twisted round it about a third of the way down, and therefore the flame would he about two hours reaching it. There I lay, gagged, bound, lashed to the floor; seeing my own life burning down with the candle by my side – there I lay, alone on the sea, doomed to be blown to atoms, and to see that doom drawing on, nearer and nearer with every fresh second of time, through nigh on two hours to come: powerless to help myself, and speechless to call for help to others. The wonder to me is that I didn’t cheat the flame, the slow-match, and the powder, and die of the horror of my situation before my first half-hour was out in the hold of the brig.

I can’t exactly say how long I kept the command of my senses after I had ceased to hear the splash of the schooner’s sweeps in the water. I can trace back everything I did and everything I thought, up to a certain point; but, once past that, I get all abroad, and lose myself in my memory now, much as I lost myself in my own feelings at the time.

The moment the hatch was covered over me, I began, as every other man would have begun in my place, with a frantic effort to free my hands. In the mad panic I was in, I cut my flesh with the lashings as if they had been knife-blades, but I never stirred them. There was less chance still of freeing my legs, or of tearing myself from the fastenings that held me to the floor. I gave in when I was all but suffocated for want of breath. The gag, you will please to remember, was a terrible enemy to me; I could only breathe freely through my nose – and that is but a poor vent when a man is straining his strength as far as ever it will go.

I gave in and lay quiet, and got my breath again, my eyes glaring and straining at the candle all the time.

While I was staring at it, the notion struck me of trying to blow out the flame by pumping a long breath at it suddenly through my nostrils. It was too high above me, and too far away from me, to be reached in that fashion. I tried, and tried, and tried; and then I gave in again, and lay quiet again, always with my eyes glaring at the candle, and the candle glaring at me. The splash of the schooner’s sweeps was very faint by this time. I could only just hear them in the morning stillness. Splash! splash! – fainter and fainter – splash! splash!

Without exactly feeling my mind going, I began to feel it getting queer as early as this. The snuff of the candle was growing taller and taller, and the length of tallow between the flame and the slowmatch, which was the length of my life, was getting shorter and shorter. I calculated that I had rather less than an hour and a half to live.

An hour and a half! Was there a chance in that time of a boat pulling off to the brig from shore? Whether the land near which the vessel was anchored was in possession of our side, or in possession of the enemy’s side, I made out that they must, sooner or later, send to hail the brig merely because she was a stranger in those parts. The question for me was, how soon? The sun had not risen yet, as I could tell by looking through the chink in the hatch. There was no coast village near us, as we all knew, before the brig was seized, by seeing no lights on shore. There was no wind, as I could tell by listening, to bring any strange vessel near. If I had had six hours to live, there might have been a chance for me, reckoning from sunrise to noon. But with an hour and a half, which had dwindled to an hour and a quarter by this time – or, in other words, with the earliness of the morning, the uninhabited coast, and the dead calm all against me – there was not the ghost of a chance. As I felt that, I had another struggle – the last – with my bonds, and only cut myself the deeper for my pains. I gave in once more, and lay quiet, and listened for the splash of the sweeps.

Gone! Not a sound could I hear but the blowing of a fish now and then on the surface of the sea, and the creak of the brig’s crazy old spars, as she rolled gently from side to side with the little swell there was on the quiet water.

An hour and a quarter. The wick grew terribly as the quarter slipped away, and the charred top of it began to thicken and spread out mushroom-shape. It would fall off soon. Would it fall off red-hot, and would the swing of the brig cant it over the side of the candle and let it down on the slow-match? If it would, I had about ten minutes to live instead of an hour.

This discovery set my mind for a minute on a new tack altogether. I began to ponder with myself what sort of a death blowing up might be. Painful! Well, it would be, surely, too sudden for that. Perhaps just one crash inside me, or outside me, or both; and nothing more! Perhaps not even a crash; that and death and the scattering of this living body of mine into millions of fiery sparks, might all happen in the same instant! I couldn’t make it out; I couldn’t settle how it would be. The minute of calmness in my mind left it before I had half done thinking; and I got all abroad again.

When I came back to my thoughts, or when they came back to me (I can’t say which), the wick was awfully tall, the flame was burning with a smoke above it, the charred top was broad and red, and heavily spreading out to its fall.

My despair and horror at seeing it took me in a new way, which was good and right, at any rate, for my poor soul. I tried to pray – in my own heart, you will understand, for the gag put all lip-praying out of my power. I tried, but the candle seemed to burn it up in me. I struggled hard to force my eyes from the slow, murdering flame, and to look up through the chink in the hatch at the blessed daylight. I tried once, tried twice; and gave it up. I next tried only to shut my eyes, and keep them shut – once – twice – and the second time I did it. “God bless old mother, and sister Lizzie; God keep them both, and forgive me.” That was all I had time to say, in my own heart, before my eyes opened again, in spite of me, and the flame of the candle flew into them, flew all over me, and burned up the rest of my thoughts in an instant.

I couldn’t hear the fish blowing now; I couldn’t hear the creak of the spars; I couldn’t think; I couldn’t feel the sweat of my own death agony on my face – I could only look at the heavy, charred top of the wick. It swelled, tottered, bent over to one side, dropped – red-hot at the moment of its fall – black and harmless, even before the swing of the brig had canted it over into the bottom of the candlestick.

I caught myself laughing.

Yes! laughing at the safe fall of the bit of wick. But for the gag, I should have screamed with laughing. As it was, I shook with it inside me – shook till the blood was in my head, and I was all but suffocated for want of breath. I had just sense enough left to feel that my own horrid laughter at that awful moment was a sign of my brain going at last. I had just sense enough left to make another struggle before my mind broke loose like a frightened horse, and ran away with me.

One comforting look at the blink of daylight through the hatch was what I tried for once more. The fight to force my eyes from the candle and to get that one look at the daylight was the hardest I had had yet; and I lost the fight. The flame had hold of my eyes as fast as the lashings had hold of my hands. I couldn’t look away from it. I couldn’t even shut my eyes, when I tried that next, for the second time. There was the wick growing tall once more. There was the space of unburned candle between the light and the slow-match shortened to an inch or less.

How much life did that inch leave me? Three quarters of an hour? Half an hour? Fifty minutes? Twenty minutes? Steady! an inch of tallow-candle would burn longer than twenty minutes. An inch of tallow! the notion of a man’s body and soul being kept together by an inch of tallow! Wonderful! Why, the greatest king that sits on a throne can’t keep a man’s body and soul together; and here’s an inch of tallow that can do what the king can’t! There’s something to tell mother when I get home which will surprise her more than all the rest of my voyages put together. I laughed inwardly again at the thought of that, and shook and swelled and suffocated myself, till the light of the candle leaped in through my eyes, and licked up the laughter, and burned it out of me, and made me all empty and cold and quiet once more.

Mother and Lizzie. I don’t know when they came back; but they did come back – not, as it seemed to me, into my mind this time, but right down bodily before me, in the hold of the brig.

Yes: sure enough, there was Lizzie, just as light-hearted as usual, laughing at me. Laughing? Well, why not? Who is to blame Lizzie for thinking I’m lying on my back, drunk in the cellar, with the beer-barrels all round me? Steady! she’s crying now – spinning round and round in a fiery mist, wringing her hands, screeching out for help – fainter and fainter, like the splash of the schooner’s sweeps. Gone – burned up in the fiery mist! Mist? fire? no; neither one nor the other. It’s mother makes the light – mother knitting, with ten flaming points at the ends of her fingers and thumbs, and slow-matches hanging in bunches all round her face instead of her own grey hair. Mother in her old armchair, and the pilot’s long skinny hands hanging over the back of the chair, dripping with gunpowder. No! no gunpowder, no chair, no mother – nothing but the pilot’s face, shining red-hot, like a sun, in the fiery mist; turning upside down in the fiery mist; running backward and forward along the slowmatch, in the fiery mist; spinning millions of miles in a minute, in the fiery mist – spinning itself smaller and smaller into one tiny point, and that point darting on a sudden straight into my head – and then, all fire and all mist – no hearing, no seeing, no thinking, no feeling – the brig, the sea, my own self, the whole world, all gone together!

After what I’ve just told you, I know nothing and remember nothing, till I woke up (as it seemed to me) in a comfortable bed, with two rough-and-ready men like myself sitting on each side of my pillow, and a gentleman standing watching me at the foot of the bed. It was about seven in the morning. My sleep (or what seemed like my sleep to me) had lasted better than eight months – I was among my own countrymen in the island of Trinidad – the men at each side of my pillow were my keepers, turn and turn about – and the gentleman standing at the foot of the bed was the doctor. What I said and did in those eight months, I never have known, and never shall. I woke out of it as if it had been one long sleep – that’s all I know.

It was another two months or more before the doctor thought it safe to answer the questions I asked him.

The brig had been anchored, just as I had supposed, off a part of the coast which was lonely enough to make the Spaniards pretty sure of no interruption, so long as they managed their murderous work quietly under cover of night.

My life had not been saved from the shore, but from the sea. An American vessel, becalmed in the offing, had made out the brig as the sun rose; and the captain having his time on his hands in consequence of the calm, and seeing a vessel anchored where no vessel had any reason to be, had manned one of his boats and sent his mate with it, to look a little closer into the matter, and bring back a report of what he saw.

What he saw, when he and his men found the brig deserted and boarded her, was the gleam of candlelight through the chink in the hatchway. The flame was within about a thread’s breadth of the slow-match when he lowered himself into the hold; and if he had not had the sense and coolness to cut the match in two with his knife before he touched the candle, he and his men might have been blown up along with the brig as well as me. The match caught, and turned into sputtering red fire, in the very act of putting the candle out; and if the communication with the powder-barrel had not been cut off, the Lord only knows what might have happened.

What became of the Spanish schooner and the pilot, I have never heard from that day to this.

As for the brig, the Yankees took her, as they took me, to Trinidad, and claimed their salvage, and got it, I hope, for their own sakes. I was landed just in the same state as when they rescued me from the brig – that is to say, clean out of my senses. But please to remember, it was a long time ago; and, take my word for it, I was discharged cured, as I have told you. Bless your hearts, I’m all right now, as you may see. I’m a little shaken by telling the story, as is only natural – a little shaken, my good friends, that’s all.

First published as
“The Ghost in the Cupboard Room”
in “The Haunted House”
All The Year Round Christmas 1859

THE FATAL CRADLE

OTHERWISE,
THE HEART-RENDING STORY
OF MR. HEAVYSIDES.

There has never yet been discovered a man with a grievance who objected to mention it. I am no exception to this general human rule. I have got a grievance, and I don’t object to mention it. Compose your spirits to hear a pathetic story, and kindly picture me in your own mind as a baby five minutes old.

Do I understand you to say that I am too big and too heavy to be pictured in anybody’s mind as a baby? Perhaps I may be – but don’t mention my weight again, if you please. My weight has been the grand misfortune of my life. It spoiled all my prospects (as you will presently hear) before I was two days old.

My story begins thirty-one years ago, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and starts with the great mistake of my first appearance in this world, at sea, on board the merchant ship Adventure, Captain Gillop, five hundred tons burden, coppered, and carrying an experienced surgeon.

In presenting myself to you (which I am now about to do) at that eventful period of my life when I was from five to ten minutes old, and in withdrawing myself again from your notice (so as not to trouble you with more than a short story) before the time when I cut my first tooth, I need not hesitate to admit that I speak on hearsay knowledge only. It is knowledge, however, that may be relied on, for all that. My information comes from Captain Gillop, commander of the Adventure (who sent it to me in the form of a letter); from Mr. Jolly, experienced surgeon of the Adventure (who wrote it for me – most unfeelingly, as I think – in the shape of a humorous narrative); and from Mrs. Drabble, stewardess of the Adventure (who told it me by word of mouth). Those three persons were, in various degrees, spectators – I may say astonished spectators – of the events which I have now to relate.

The Adventure, at the time I speak of, was bound out from London to Australia. I suppose you know without my telling you that thirty years ago was long before the time of the gold-finding and the famous clipper ships. Building in the new colony and sheep-farming far up inland were the two main employments of those days, and the passengers on board our vessel were consequently builders or sheep-farmers, almost to a man.

A ship of five hundred tons, well loaded with cargo, doesn’t offer first-rate accommodation to a large number of passengers. Not that the gentlefolk in the cabin had any great reason to complain. There the passage-money, which was a good round sum, kept them what you call select. One or two berths in this part of the ship were even empty and going a-begging, in consequence of there being only four cabin passengers. These are their names and descriptions:

Mr. Sims, a middle-aged man, going out on a building speculation; Mr. Purling, a weakly young gentleman, sent on a long sea-voyage, for the benefit of his health; and Mr. and Mrs. Smallchild, a young married couple, with a little independence, which Mr. Smallchild proposed to make a large one by sheep-farming.

This gentleman was reported to the captain as being very good company when on shore. But the sea altered him to a certain extent. When Mr. Smallchild was not sick, he was eating and drinking; and when he was not eating and drinking, he was fast asleep. He was perfectly patient and good-humoured, and wonderfully nimble at running into his cabin when the qualms took him on a sudden; but, as for his being good company, nobody heard him say ten words together all through the voyage. And no wonder. A man can’t talk in the qualms; a man can’t talk while he is eating and drinking; and a man can’t talk when he is asleep. And that was Mr. Smallchild’s life. As for Mrs. Smallchild, she kept her cabin from first to last. But you will hear more of her presently.

These four cabin passengers, as I have already remarked, were well enough off for their accommodation. But the miserable people in the steerage – a poor place at the best of times on board the Adventure – were all huddled together, men and women and children, higgledy-piggledy, like sheep in a pen, except that they hadn’t got the same quantity of fine fresh air to blow over them. They were artisans and farm-labourers, who couldn’t make it out in the Old Country. I have no information either of their exact numbers or of their names. It doesn’t matter; there was only one family among them which need be mentioned particularly – namely, the family of the Heavysides. To wit, Simon Heavysides, intelligent, and well-educated, a carpenter by trade; Susan Heavysides, his wife; and seven little Heavysides, their unfortunate offspring. My father and mother and brothers and sisters, did I understand you to say? Don’t be in a hurry! I recommend you to wait a little before you make quite sure of that circumstance.

Though I myself had not, perhaps, strictly speaking, come on board when the vessel left London, my ill luck, as I firmly believe, had shipped in the Adventure to wait for me – and decided the nature of the voyage accordingly.

Never was such a miserable time known. Stormy weather came down on us from all points of the compass, with intervals of light, baffling winds or dead calms. By the time the Adventure had been three months out, Captain Gillop’s naturally sweet temper began to get soured. I leave you to say whether it was likely to be much improved by a piece of news which reached him from the region of the cabin on the morning of the ninety-first day. It had fallen to a dead calm again; and the ship was rolling about helpless, with her head all round the compass, when Mr. Jolly (from whose facetious narrative I repeat all conversations exactly as they passed) came on deck to the captain, and addressed him in these words:

“I have got some news that will rather surprise you,” said Mr. Jolly, smiling and rubbing his hands. (Although the experienced surgeon has not shown much sympathy for my troubles, I won’t deny that his disposition was as good as his name. To this day no amount of bad weather or hard work can upset Mr. Jolly’s temper.)

“If it’s news of a fair wind coming,” grumbled the captain, “that would surprise me on board this ship, I can promise you!”

“It’s not exactly a wind coming,” said Mr. Jolly. “It’s another cabin passenger.”

The captain looked round at the empty sea, with the land thousands of miles away, and with not a ship in sight – turned sharply on the experienced surgeon – eyed him hard – changed colour suddenly – and asked what he meant.

“I mean there’s a fifth cabin passenger coming on board,” persisted Mr. Jolly, grinning from ear to ear – “introduced by Mrs. Smallchild – likely to join us, I should say, toward evening – size, nothing to speak of – sex, not known at present – manners and customs, probably squally.”

“Do you really mean it?” asked the captain, backing away, and turning paler and paler.

“Yes, I do,” answered Mr. Jolly, nodding hard at him.

“Then I’ll tell you what,” cried Captain Gillop, suddenly flying into a violent passion, “I won’t have it! the infernal weather has worried me out of my life and soul already – and I won’t have it! Put it off, Jolly – tell her there isn’t room enough for that sort of thing on board my vessel. What does she mean by taking us all in in this way? Shameful! Shameful!”

“No! no!” remonstrated Mr. Jolly. “Don’t look at it in that light. It’s her first child, poor thing. How should she know? Give her a little more experience, and I dare say—”

“Where’s her husband?” broke in the captain, with a threatening look. “I’ll speak my mind to her husband, at any rate.”

Mr. Jolly consulted his watch before he answered.

“Half-past eleven,” he said. “Let me consider a little. It’s Mr. Smallchild’s regular time just now for squaring accounts with the sea. He’ll have done in a quarter of an hour. In five minutes more he’ll be fast asleep. At one o’clock he’ll eat a hearty lunch, and go to sleep again. At half-past two he’ll square accounts as before – and so on till night. You’ll make nothing out of Mr. Smallchild, captain. Extraordinary man – wastes tissue, and repairs it again perpetually, in the most astonishing manner. If we are another month at sea, I believe we shall bring him into port totally comatose. – Halloo! What do you want?”

The steward’s mate had approached the quarter-deck while the doctor was speaking. Was it a curious coincidence? This man also was grinning from ear to ear, exactly like Mr. Jolly.

“You’re wanted in the steerage, sir,” said the steward’s mate to the doctor. “A woman taken bad, name of Heavysides.”

“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Jolly “Ha, ha, ha! You don’t mean – eh?”

“That’s it, sir, sure enough,” said the steward’s mate, in the most positive manner.

Captain Gillop looked all around him in silent desperation; lost his sea-legs for the first time these twenty years; staggered back till he was brought up all standing by the side of his own vessel; dashed his fist on the bulwark, and found language to express himself in, at the same moment.

“This ship is bewitched,” said the captain, wildly. “Stop!” he called out, recovering himself a little as the doctor bustled away to the steerage. “Stop! If it’s true, Jolly, send her husband here aft to me. Damme, I’ll have it out with one of the husbands!” said the captain, shaking his fist viciously at the empty air.

Ten minutes passed; and then there came staggering toward the captain, tottering this way and that with the rolling of the becalmed vessel, a long, lean, melancholy, light-haired man, with a Roman nose, a watery blue eye, and a complexion profusely spotted with large brown freckles. This was Simon Heavysides, the intelligent carpenter, with the wife and the family of seven small children on board.

“Oh! you’re the man, are you?” said the captain.

The ship lurched heavily; and Simon Heavysides staggered away with a run to the opposite side of the deck, as if he preferred going straight overboard into the sea to answering the captain’s question.

“You’re the man – are you?” repeated the captain, following him, seizing him by the collar, and pinning him up fiercely against the bulwark. “It’s your wife – is it? You infernal rascal! what do you mean by turning my ship into a lying-in hospital? You have committed an act of mutiny; or, if it isn’t mutiny, it’s next door to it. I’ve put a man in irons for less! I’ve more than half a mind to put you in irons! Hold up, you slippery lubber! What do you mean by bringing passengers I don’t bargain for on board my vessel? What have you got to say for yourself, before I clap the irons on you?”

“Nothing, sir,” answered Simon Heavysides, accepting the captain’s strong language without a word of protest. “As for the punishment you mentioned just now, sir,” continued Simon, “I wish to say – having seven children more than I know how to provide for, and an eighth coming to make things worse – I respectfully wish to say, sir, that my mind is in irons already; and I don’t know as it will make much difference if you put my body in irons along with it.”

The captain mechanically let go of the carpenter’s collar; the mild despair of the man melted him in spite of himself.

“Why did you come to sea? Why didn’t you wait ashore till it was all over?” asked the captain, as sternly as he could.

“It’s no use waiting, sir,” remarked Simon. “In our line of life, as soon as it’s over it begins again. There’s no end to it that I can see,” said the miserable carpenter, after a moment’s meek consideration – “except the grave.”

“Who’s talking about the grave?” cried Mr. Jolly, coming up at that moment. “It’s births we’ve got to do with on board this vessel – not burials. Captain Gillop, this woman, Mrs. Heavysides, can’t be left in your crowded steerage in her present condition. She must be moved off into one of the empty berths – and the sooner the better, I can tell you!”

The captain began to look savage again. A steerage passenger in one of his “staterooms” was a nautical anomaly subversive of all discipline. He eyed the carpenter once more, as if he was mentally measuring him for a set of irons.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” Simon remarked, politely – “very sorry that any inadvertence of mine or Mrs. Heavysides—”

“Take your long carcass and your long tongue forward!” thundered the captain. “When talking will mend matters, I’ll send for you again. Give your own orders, Jolly,” he went on, resignedly, as Simon staggered off. “Turn the ship into a nursery as soon as you like!”

Five minutes later – so expeditious was Mr. Jolly – Mrs. Heavysides appeared horizontally on deck, shrouded in blankets and supported by three men. When this interesting procession passed the captain, he shrank aside from it with as vivid an appearance of horror as if a wild bull was being carried by him instead of a British matron.

The sleeping-berths below opened on either side out of the main cabin. On the left-hand side (looking toward the ship’s bowsprit) was Mrs. Smallchild. On the right-hand side, opposite to her, the doctor established Mrs. Heavysides. A partition of canvas was next run up, entirely across the main cabin. The smaller of the two temporary rooms thus made lay nearest the stairs leading on deck, and was left free to the public. The larger was kept sacred to the doctor and his mysteries. When an old clothes-basket, emptied, cleaned, and comfortably lined with blankets (to serve for a makeshift cradle), had been in due course of time carried into the inner cabin, and had been placed midway between the two sleeping-berths, so as to be easily producible when wanted, the outward and visible preparations of Mr. Jolly were complete; the male passengers had all taken refuge on deck; and the doctor and the stewardess were left in undisturbed possession of the lower regions.

While it was still early in the afternoon the weather changed for the better. For once in a way, the wind came from a fair quarter, and the Adventure bowled along pleasantly before it almost on an even keel. Captain Gillop mixed with the little group of male passengers on the quarter-deck, restored to his sweetest temper; and set them his customary example, after dinner, of smoking a cigar.

“If this fine weather lasts, gentlemen,” he said, “we shall make out very well with our meals up here, and we shall have our two small extra cabin passengers christened on dry land in a week’s time, if their mothers approve of it. How do you feel in your mind, sir, about your good lady?”

Mr. Smallchild (to whom the inquiry was addressed) had his points of external personal resemblance to Simon Heavysides. He was neither so tall nor so lean, certainly – but he, too, had a Roman nose, and light hair, and watery blue eyes. With careful reference to his peculiar habits at sea, he had been placed conveniently close to the bulwark, and had been raised on a heap of old sails and cushions, so that he could easily get his head over the ship’s side when occasion required. The food and drink which assisted in “restoring his tissue,” when he was not asleep and not “squaring accounts with the sea,” lay close to his hand. It was then a little after three o’clock; and the snore with which Mr. Smallchild answered the captain’s inquiry showed that he had got round again, with the regularity of clock-work, to the period of the day when he recruited himself with sleep.

“What an insensible blockhead that man is!” said Mr. Sims, the middle-aged passenger, looking across the deck contemptuously at Mr. Smallchild.

“If the sea had the same effect on you that it has on him,” retorted the invalid passenger, Mr. Purling, “you would just be as insensible yourself.”

Mr. Purling (who was a man of sentiment) disagreed with Mr. Sims (who was a man of business) on every conceivable subject, all through the voyage. Before, however, they could continue the dispute about Mr. Smallchild, the doctor surprised them by appearing from the cabin.

“Any news from below, Jolly?” asked the captain, anxiously.

“None whatever,” answered the doctor. “I’ve come to idle the afternoon away up here, along with the rest of you.”

As events turned out, Mr. Jolly idled away an hour and a half exactly. At the end of that time Mrs. Drabble, the stewardess, appeared with a face of mystery, and whispered, nervously, to the doctor,

“Please to step below directly, sir.”

“Which of them is it?” asked Mr. Jolly.

“Both of them,” answered Mrs. Drabble, emphatically.

The doctor looked grave; the stewardess looked frightened. The two immediately disappeared together.

“I suppose, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop, addressing Mr. Purling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, who had just joined the party – “I suppose it’s only fit and proper, in the turn things have taken, to shake up Mr. Smallchild? And I don’t doubt but what we ought to have the other husband handy, as a sort of polite attention under the circumstances. Pass the word forward there, for Simon Heavysides. Mr. Smallchild, sir! rouse up! Here’s your good lady – Hang me, gentlemen, if I know exactly how to put it to him.”

“Yes. Thank you,” said Mr. Smallchild, opening his eyes drowsily. “Biscuit and cold bacon, as usual – when I’m ready. I’m not ready yet. Thank you. Good-afternoon.” Mr. Smallchild closed his eyes again, and became, in the doctor’s phrase, “totally comatose.”

Before Captain Gillop could hit on any new plan for rousing this imperturbable passenger, Simon Heavysides once more approached the quarter-deck.

“I spoke a little sharp to you, just now, my man,” said the captain, “being worried in my mind by what’s going on on board this vessel. But I’ll make it up to you, never fear. Here’s your wife in what they call an interesting situation. It’s only right you should be within easy hail of her. I look upon you, Heavysides, as a steerage passenger in difficulties; and I freely give you leave to stop here along with us till it’s all over.”

“You are very good, sir,” said Simon, “and I am indeed thankful to you and to these gentlemen. But please to remember, I have seven children already in the steerage – and there’s nobody left to mind ’em but me. My wife has got over it uncommonly well, sir, on seven previous occasions – and I don’t doubt but what she’ll conduct herself in a similar manner on the eighth. It will be a satisfaction to her mind, Captain Gillop and gentlemen, if she knows I’m out of the way, and minding the children. For which reason, I respectfully take my leave.” With those words Simon made his bow, and returned to his family.

“Well, gentlemen, these two husbands take it easy enough, at any rate!” said the captain. “One of them is used to it, to be sure; and the other is—”

Here a banging of cabin doors below, and a hurrying of footsteps, startled the speaker and his audience into momentary silence and attention.

“Ease her with the helm, Williamson!” said Captain Gillop, addressing the man who was steering the vessel. “In my opinion, gentlemen, the less the ship pitches the better, in the turn things are taking now.”

The afternoon wore on into evening, and evening into night.

Mr. Smallchild performed the daily ceremonies of his nautical existence as punctually as usual. He was aroused to a sense of Mrs. Smallchild’s situation when he took his biscuit and bacon; lost the sense again when the time came round for “squaring his accounts;” recovered it in the interval which ensued before he went to sleep; lost it again, as a matter of course, when his eyes closed once more – and so on through the evening and early night. Simon Heavysides received messages occasionally (through the captain’s care), telling him to keep his mind easy; returned messages mentioning that his mind was easy, and that the children were pretty quiet, but never approached the deck in his own person. Mr. Jolly now and then showed himself; said “All right – no news;” took a little light refreshment, and disappeared again as cheerful as ever. The fair breeze still held; the captain’s temper remained unruffled; the man at the helm eased the vessel, from time to time, with the most anxious consideration. Ten o’clock came; the moon rose and shone superbly; the nightly grog made its appearance on the quarter-deck; the captain gave the passengers the benefit of his company; and still nothing happened. Twenty minutes more of suspense slowly succeeded each other – and then, at last, Mr. Jolly was seen suddenly to ascend the cabin stairs.

To the amazement of the little group on the quarter-deck, the doctor held Mrs. Drabble, the stewardess, fast by the arm, and, without taking the slightest notice of the captain or the passengers, placed her on the nearest seat he could find. As he did this his face became visible in the moonlight, and displayed to the startled spectators an expression of blank consternation.

“Compose yourself, Mrs. Drabble,” said the doctor, in tones of unmistakable alarm. “Keep quiet, and let the air blow over you. Collect yourself, ma’am – for Heaven’s sake, collect yourself!”

Mrs. Drabble made no answer. She beat her hands vacantly on her knees, and stared straight before her, like a woman panic-stricken.

“What’s wrong?” asked the captain, setting down his glass of grog in dismay. “Anything amiss with those two unfortunate women?”

“Nothing,” said the doctor. “Both doing admirably well.”

“Anything queer with their babies?” continued the captain. “Are there more than you bargained for, Jolly? Twins, for instance?”

“No! no!” replied Mr. Jolly, impatiently. “A baby apiece – both boys – both in first-rate condition. Judge for yourselves,” added the doctor, as the two new cabin passengers tried their lungs below for the first time, and found that they answered their purpose in the most satisfactory manner.

“What the devil’s amiss, then, with you and Mrs. Drabble?” persisted the captain, beginning to lose his temper again.

“Mrs. Drabble and I are two innocent people, and we have got into the most dreadful scrape that ever you heard of!” was Mr. Jolly’s startling answer.

The captain, followed by Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims, approached the doctor with looks of horror. Even the man at the wheel stretched himself over it as far as he could to hear what was coming next. The only uninterested person present was Mr. Smallchild. His time had come round for going to sleep again, and he was snoring peacefully, with his biscuit and bacon close beside him.

“Let’s hear the worst of it at once, Jolly,” said the captain, a little impatiently.

The doctor paid no heed to his request. His whole attention was absorbed by Mrs. Drabble. “Are you better now, ma’am?” he asked, anxiously.

“No better in my mind,” answered Mrs. Drabble, beginning to beat her knees again. “Worse, if anything.”

“Listen to me,” said Mr. Jolly, coaxingly. “I’ll put the whole case over again to you, in a few plain questions. You’ll find it all come back to your memory, if you only follow me attentively, and if you take time to think and collect yourself before you attempt to answer.”

Mrs. Drabble bowed her head in speechless submission – and listened. Everybody else on the quarter-deck listened, except the impenetrable Mr. Smallchild.

“Now, ma’am!” said the doctor. “Our troubles began in Mrs. Heavysides’s cabin, which is situated on the starboard side of the ship?”

“They did, sir,” replied Mrs. Drabble.

“Good! We went backward and forward, an infinite number of times, between Mrs. Heavysides (starboard) and Mrs. Smallchild (larboard) – but we found that Mrs. Heavysides, having got the start, kept it – and when I called out, ‘Mrs. Drabble! here’s a chopping boy for you; come and take him!’ – I called out starboard, didn’t I?”

“Starboard, sir – I’ll take my oath of it,” said Mrs. Drabble.

“Good again! ‘Here’s a chopping boy,’ I said. ‘Take him, ma’am, and make him comfortable in the cradle.’ And you took him, and made him comfortable in the cradle, accordingly? Now where was the cradle?”

“In the main cabin, sir,” replied Mrs. Drabble.

“Just so! In the main cabin, because we hadn’t got room for it in either of the sleeping cabins. You put the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) in the clothes-basket cradle in the main cabin. Good once more. How was the cradle placed?”

“Crosswise to the ship, sir,” said Mrs. Drabble.

“Crosswise to the ship? That is to say, with one side longwise toward the stern of the vessel, and one side longwise toward the bows. Bear that in mind – and now follow me a little further. No! no! don’t say you can’t, and your head’s in a whirl. My next question will steady it. Carry your mind on half an hour, Mrs. Drabble. At the end of half an hour you heard my voice again; and my voice called out, ‘Mrs. Drabble! here’s another chopping boy for you; come and take him!’ – and you came and took him larboard, didn’t you?”

“Larboard, sir, I don’t deny it,” answered Mrs. Drabble.

“Better and better! ‘Here is another chopping boy,’ I said. ‘Take him, ma’am, and make him comfortable in the cradle, along with number one.’ And you took the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild), and made him comfortable in the cradle along with the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides), accordingly! Now what happened after that?”

“Don’t ask me, sir!” exclaimed Mrs.. Drabble, losing her self-control, and wringing her hands desperately.

“Steady, ma’am! I’ll put it to you as plain as print. Steady! and listen to me. Just as you had made the larboard baby comfortable I had occasion to send you into the starboard (or Heavysides) cabin to fetch something which I wanted in the larboard (or Smallchild) cabin; I kept you there a little while along with me; I left you and went into the Heavysides cabin, and called to you to bring me something I wanted out of the Smallchild cabin, but before you got half-way across the main cabin I said, ‘No; stop where you are, and I’ll come to you;’ immediately after which Mrs. Smallchild alarmed you, and you came across to me of your own accord; and thereupon I stopped you in the main cabin, and said, Mrs. Drabble, your mind’s getting confused; sit down and collect your scattered intellects;’ and you sat down and tried to collect them—”

(“And couldn’t, sir,” interposed Mrs. Drabble, parenthetically. “Oh, my head! my head!”)

– “And tried to collect your scattered intellects, and couldn’t?” continued the doctor. “And the consequence was, when I came out from the Smallchild cabin to see how you were getting on, I found you with the clothes-basket cradle hoisted up on the cabin table, staring down at the babies inside, with your mouth dropped open, and both your hands twisted in your hair? And when I said, ‘Anything wrong with either of those two fine boys, Mrs. Drabble?’ you caught me by the coat collar, and whispered in my right ear these words, ‘Lord save us and help us, Mr. Jolly, I’ve confused the two babies in my mind, and I don’t know which is which!’”

“And I don’t know now!” cried Mrs. Drabble, hysterically. “Oh, my head! my head! I don’t know now!”

“Captain Gillop and gentlemen,” said Mr. Jolly, wheeling round and addressing his audience with the composure of sheer despair, “that is the Scrape – and, if you ever heard of a worse one, I’ll trouble you to compose this miserable woman by mentioning it immediately.”

Captain Gillop looked at Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims. Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims looked at Captain Gillop. They were all three thunderstruck – and no wonder.

“Can’t you throw any light on it, Jolly?” inquired the captain, who was the first to recover himself.

“If you knew what I have had to do below you wouldn’t ask me such a question as that,” replied the doctor. “Remember that I have had the lives of two women and two children to answer for – remember that I have been cramped up in two small sleeping-cabins, with hardly room to turn round in, and just light enough from two miserable little lamps to see my hand before me; remember the professional difficulties of the situation, the ship rolling about under me all the while, and the stewardess to compose into the bargain; bear all that in mind, will you, and then tell me how much spare time I had on my hands for comparing two boys together inch by inch – two boys born at night, within half an hour of each other, on board a ship at sea. Ha, ha! I only wonder the mothers and the boys and the doctor are all five of them alive to tell the story!”

“No marks on one or other of them that happened to catch your eye?” asked Mr. Sims.

“They must have been strongish marks to catch my eye in the light I had to work by, and in the professional difficulties I had to grapple with,” said the doctor. “I saw they were both straight, well formed children – and that’s all I saw.”

“Are their infant features sufficiently developed to indicate a family likeness?” inquired Mr. Purling. “Should you say they took after their fathers or their mothers?”

“Both of them have light eyes, and light hair – such as it is,” replied Mr. Jolly, doggedly. “Judge for yourself.”

“Mr. Smallchild has light eyes and light hair,” remarked Mr. Sims.

“And Simon Heavysides has light eyes and light hair,” rejoined Mr. Purling.

“I should recommend waking Mr. Smallchild, and sending for Heavysides, and letting the two fathers toss up for it,” suggested Mr. Sims.

“The parental feeling is not to be trifled with in that heartless manner,” retorted Mr. Purling. “I should recommend trying the Voice of Nature.”

“What may that be, sir?” inquired Captain Gillop, with great curiosity.

“The maternal instinct,” replied Mr. Purling. “The mother’s intuitive knowledge of her own child.”

“Ay, ay!” said the captain. “Well thought of. What do you say, Jolly, to the Voice of Nature?”

The doctor held up his hand impatiently. He was engaged in resuming the effort to rouse Mrs. Drabble’s memory by a system of amateur cross-examination, with the unsatisfactory result of confusing her more helplessly than ever.

Could she put the cradle back, in her own mind, into its original position? No. Could she remember whether she laid the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) on the side of the cradle nearest the stern of the ship, or nearest the bows? No. Could she remember any better about the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild)? No. Why did she move the cradle on to the cabin table, and so bewilder herself additionally, when she was puzzled already? Because it came over her, on a sudden, that she had forgotten, in the dreadful confusion of the time, which was which; and of course she wanted to look closer at them, and see; and she couldn’t see; and to her dying day she should never forgive herself; and let them throw her overboard, for a miserable wretch, if they liked – and so on, till the persevering doctor was wearied out at last, and gave up Mrs. Drabble, and gave up, with her, the whole case.

“I see nothing for it but the Voice of Nature,” said the captain, holding fast to Mr. Purling’s idea. “Try it, Jolly – you can but try it.”

“Something must be done,” said the doctor. “I can’t leave the women alone any longer, and the moment I get below they will both ask for their babies. Wait here till you’re fit to be seen, Mrs. Drabble, and then follow me. Voice of Nature!” added Mr. Jolly, contemptuously, as he descended the cabin stairs. “Oh yes, I’ll try it – much good the Voice of Nature will do us, gentlemen. You shall judge for yourselves.”

Favoured by the night, Mr. Jolly cunningly turned down the dim lamps in the sleeping-cabins to a mere glimmer, on the pretext that the light was bad for his patients’ eyes. He then took up the first of the two unlucky babies that came to hand, marked the clothes in which it was wrapped with a blot of ink, and carried it in to Mrs. Smallchild, choosing her cabin merely because he happened to be nearest to it. The second baby (distinguished by having no mark) was taken by Mrs. Drabble to Mrs. Heavysides. For a certain time the two mothers and the two babies were left together. They were then separated again by medical order; and were afterward re-united, with the difference that the marked baby went on this occasion to Mrs. Heavysides, and the unmarked baby to Mrs. Smallchild – the result, in the obscurity of the sleeping-cabins, proving to be that one baby did just as well as the other, and that the Voice of Nature was (as Mr. Jolly had predicted) totally incompetent to settle the existing difficulty.

“While night serves us, Captain Gillop, we shall do very well,” said the doctor, after he had duly reported the failure of Mr. Purling’s suggested experiment. “But when morning comes, and daylight shows the difference between the children, we must be prepared with a course of some kind. If the two mothers below get the slightest suspicion of the case as it stands, the nervous shock of the discovery may do dreadful mischief. They must be kept deceived, in the interests of their own health. We must choose a baby for each of them when tomorrow comes, and then hold to the choice, till the mothers are well and up again. The question is, who’s to take the responsibility? I don’t usually stick at trifles – but I candidly admit that I’m afraid of it.”

“I decline meddling in the matter, on the ground that I am a perfect stranger,” said Mr. Sims.

“And I object to interfere, from precisely similar motives,” added Mr. Purling, agreeing for the first time with a proposition that emanated from his natural enemy all through the voyage.

“Wait a minute, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop. “I’ve got this difficult matter, as I think, in its right bearings. We must make a clean breast of it to the husbands, and let them take the responsibility.”

“I believe they won’t accept it,” observed Mr. Sims.

“And I believe they will,” asserted Mr. Purling, relapsing into his old habits.

“If they won’t,” said the captain, firmly, “I’m master on board this ship – and, as sure as my name is Thomas Gillop, I’ll take the responsibility!”

This courageous declaration settled all difficulties for the time being and a council was held to decide on future proceedings. It was resolved to remain passive until the next morning, on the last faint chance that a few hours’ sleep might compose Mrs. Drabble’s bewildered memory. The babies were to be moved into the main cabin before the daylight grew bright – or, in other words, before Mrs. Smallchild or Mrs. Heavysides could identify the infant who had passed the night with her. The doctor and the captain were to be assisted by Mr. Purling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, in the capacity of witnesses; and the assembly so constituted was to meet, in consideration of the emergency of the case, at six o’clock in the morning, punctually. At six o’clock, accordingly, with the weather fine, and the wind still fair, the proceedings began. For the last time Mr. Jolly cross-examined Mrs. Drabble, assisted by the captain, and supervised by the witnesses. Nothing whatever was elicited from the unfortunate stewardess. The doctor pronounced her confusion to be chronic, and the captain and the witnesses unanimously agreed with him.

The next experiment tried was the revelation of the true state of the case to the husbands.

Mr. Smallchild happened, on this occasion, to be “squaring his accounts” for the morning; and the first articulate words which escaped him in reply to the disclosure were, “Devilled biscuit and anchovy paste.” Further perseverance merely elicited an impatient request that they would “pitch him overboard at once, and the two babies along with him.” Serious remonstrance was tried next, with no better effect. “Settle it how you like,” said Mr. Smallchild, faintly. “Do you leave it to me, sir, as commander of this vessel?” asked Captain Gillop. (No answer.) “Nod your head, sir, if you can’t speak.” Mr. Smallchild nodded his head roundwise on his pillow – and fell asleep. “Does that count for leave to me to act?” asked Captain Gillop of the witnesses. And the witnesses answered, decidedly, Yes.

The ceremony was then repeated with Simon Heavysides, who responded, as became so intelligent a man, with a proposal of his own for solving the difficulty.

“Captain Gillop and gentlemen,” said the carpenter, with fluent and melancholy politeness, “I should wish to consider Mr. Smallchild before myself in this matter. I am quite willing to part with my baby (whichever he is); and I respectfully propose that Mr. Smallchild should take both the children, and so make quite sure that he has really got possession of his own son.”

The only immediate objection to this ingenious proposition was started by the doctor, who sarcastically inquired of Simon, “what he thought Mrs. Heavysides would say to it?” The carpenter confessed that this consideration had escaped him, and that Mrs. Heavysides was only too likely to be an irremovable obstacle in the way of the proposed arrangement. The witnesses all thought so too; and Heavysides and his idea were dismissed together after Simon had first gratefully expressed his entire readiness to leave it all to the captain.

“Very well, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop. “As commander on board, I reckon next after the husbands in the matter of responsibility. I have considered this difficulty in all its bearings, and I’m prepared to deal with it. The Voice of Nature (which you proposed, Mr. Purling) has been found to fail. The tossing up for it (which you proposed, Mr. Sims) doesn’t square altogether with my notions of what’s right in a very serious business. No, sir! I’ve got my own plan; and I’m now about to try it. Follow me below, gentlemen, to the steward’s pantry.”

The witnesses looked round on one another in the profoundest astonishment – and followed.

“Pickerel,” said the captain, addressing the steward, “bring out the scales.”

The scales were of the ordinary kitchen sort, with a tin tray on one side to hold the commodity to be weighed, and a stout iron slab on the other to support the weights. Pickerel placed these scales upon a neat little pantry table, fitted on the ball-and-socket principle, so as to save the breaking of crockery by swinging with the motion of the ship.

“Put a clean duster in the tray,” said the captain. “Doctor,” he continued, when this had been done, “shut the doors of the sleeping-berths (for fear of the women hearing anything), and oblige me by bringing those two babies in here.”

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Drabble, who had been peeping guiltily into the pantry – “oh, don’t hurt the little dears! If anybody suffers, let it be me!”

“Hold your tongue, if you please, ma’am,” said the captain. “And keep the secret of these proceedings, if you wish to keep your place. If the ladies ask for their children, say they will have them in ten minutes’ time.”

The doctor came in, and set down the clothes-basket cradle on the pantry floor. Captain Gillop immediately put on his spectacles, and closely examined the two unconscious innocents who lay beneath him.

“Six of one and half a dozen of the other,” said the captain. “I don’t see any difference between them. Wait a bit, though! Yes, I do. One’s a bald baby. Very good. We’ll begin with that one. Doctor, strip the bald baby, and put him in the scales.”

The bald baby protested – in his own language – but in vain. In two minutes he was flat on his back in the tin tray, with the clean duster under him to take the chill off.

“Weigh him accurately, Pickerel,” continued the captain. “Weigh him, if necessary, to an eighth of an ounce. Gentlemen! watch this proceeding closely; it’s a very important one.”

While the steward was weighing and the witnesses were watching, Captain Gillop asked his first mate for the logbook of the ship, and for pen and ink.

“How much, Pickerel?” asked the captain, opening the book.

“Seven pounds one ounce and a quarter,” answered the steward.

“Right, gentlemen?” pursued the captain.

“Quite right,” said the witnesses.

“Bald child – distinguished as Number One – weight, seven pounds one ounce and a quarter (avoirdupois),” repeated the captain, writing down the entry in the logbook. “Very good. We’ll put the bald baby back now, doctor, and try the hairy one next.”

The hairy one protested – also in his own language – and also in vain.

“How much, Pickerel?” asked the captain.

“Six pounds fourteen ounces and three-quarters,” replied the steward.

“Right, gentlemen?” inquired the captain.

“Quite right,” answered the witnesses.

“Hairy child – distinguished as Number Two – weight, six pounds fourteen ounces and three-quarters (avoirdupois),” repeated and wrote the captain. “Much obliged to you, Jolly – that will do. When you have got the other baby back in the cradle, tell Mrs. Drabble neither of them must be taken out of it till further orders; and then be so good as to join me and these gentlemen on deck. If anything of a discussion rises up among us, we won’t run the risk of being heard in the sleeping-berths.” With these words Captain Gillop led the way on deck, and the first mate followed with the logbook and the pen and ink.

“Now, gentlemen,” began the captain, when the doctor had joined the assembly, “my first mate will open these proceedings by reading from the log a statement which I have written myself, respecting this business, from beginning to end. If you find it all equally correct with the statement of what the two children weigh, I’ll trouble you to sign it, in your quality of witnesses, on the spot.”

The first mate read the narrative, and the witnesses signed it, as perfectly correct. Captain Gillop then cleared his throat, and addressed his expectant audience in these words:

“You’ll all agree with me, gentlemen, that justice is justice, and that like must to like. Here’s my ship of five hundred tons, fitted with her spars accordingly. Say she’s a schooner of a hundred and fifty tons, the veriest landsman among you, in that case, wouldn’t put such masts as these into her. Say, on the other hand, she’s an Indiaman of a thousand tons, would our spars (excellent good sticks as they are, gentlemen) be suitable for a vessel of that capacity? Certainly not. A schooner’s spars to a schooner, and a ship’s spars to a ship, in fit and fair proportion.”

Here the captain paused, to let the opening of his speech sink well into the minds of the audience. The audience encouraged him with the parliamentary cry of “Hear! hear!” The captain went on:

“In the serious difficulty which now besets us, gentlemen, I take my stand on the principle which I have just stated to you. My decision is as follows Let us give the heaviest of the two babies to the heaviest of the two women; and let the lightest then fall, as a matter of course, to the other. In a week’s time, if this weather holds, we shall all (please God) be in port; and if there’s a better way out of this mess than my way, the parsons and lawyers ashore may find it, and welcome.”

With those words the captain closed his oration; and the assembled council immediately sanctioned the proposal submitted to them with all the unanimity of men who had no idea of their own to set up in opposition.

Mr. Jolly was next requested (as the only available authority) to settle the question of weight between Mrs. Smallchild and Mrs. Heavysides, and decided it, without a moment’s hesitation, in favour of the carpenter’s wife, on the indisputable ground that she was the tallest and stoutest woman of the two. Thereupon the bald baby, “distinguished as Number One,” was taken into Mrs. Heavysides’ cabin; and the hairy baby, “distinguished as Number Two,” was accorded to Mrs. Smallchild; the Voice of Nature, neither in the one case nor in the other, raising the slightest objection to the captain’s principle of distribution. Before seven o’clock Mr. Jolly reported that the mothers and sons, larboard and starboard, were as happy and comfortable as any four people on board ship could possibly wish to be; and the captain thereupon dismissed the council with these parting remarks:

“We’ll get the studding-sails on the ship now, gentlemen, and make the best of our way to port. Breakfast, Pickerel, in half an hour, and plenty of it! I doubt if that unfortunate Mrs. Drabble has heard the last of this business yet. We must all lend a hand, gentlemen, and pull her through if we can. In other respects the job’s over, so far as we are concerned; and the parsons and lawyers must settle it ashore.”

The parsons and the lawyers did nothing of the sort, for the plain reason that nothing was to be done. In ten days the ship was in port, and the news was broken to the two mothers. Each one of the two adored her baby, after ten day’s experience of it – and each one of the two was in Mrs. Drabble’s condition of not knowing which was which.

Every test was tried. First, the test by the doctor, who only repeated what he had told the captain. Secondly, the test by personal resemblance; which failed in consequence of the light hair, blue eyes, and Roman noses shared in common by the fathers, and the light hair, blue eyes, and no noses worth mentioning shared in common by the children. Thirdly, the test of Mrs. Drabble, which began and ended in fierce talking on one side and floods of tears on the other. Fourthly, the test by legal decision, which broke down through the total absence of any instructions for the law to act on. Fifthly, and lastly, the test by appeal to the husbands, which fell to the ground in consequence of the husbands knowing nothing about the matter in hand. The captain’s barbarous test by weight remained the test still – and here am I, a man of the lower order, without a penny to bless myself with, in consequence.

Yes! I was the bald baby of that memorable period. My excess in weight settled my destiny in life. The fathers and mothers on either side kept the babies according to the captain’s principle of distribution, in despair of knowing what else to do. Mr. Smallchild, who was sharp enough when not seasick, made his fortune. Simon Heavysides persisted in increasing his family, and died in the work-house.

Judge for yourself (as Mr. Jolly might say) how the two boys born at sea fared in afterlife. I, the bald baby, have seen nothing of the hairy baby for years past. He may be short, like Mr. Smallchild – but I happen to know that he is wonderfully like Heavysides, deceased, in the face. I may be tall, like the carpenter – but I have the Smallchild eyes, hair, and expression, notwithstanding. Make what you can of that! You will find it come, in the end, to the same thing. Smallchild, junior, prospers in the world, because he weighed six pounds, fourteen ounces and three-quarters. Heavysides, junior, fails in the world, because he weighed seven pounds one ounce and a quarter. Such is destiny, and such is life. I’ll never forgive my destiny as long as I live. There is my grievance. I wish you good-morning.

First published as
“Picking up Waifs at Sea”
in “Tom Tiddler’s Ground”
All The Year Round Christmas 1861

A MAD MARRIAGE

OR, FATAL FORTUNE

A STORY IN TWO PARTS.

PART THE FIRST

•  I  •  •

One fine morning more than three months since, you were riding with your brother, Miss Anstell, in Hyde Park. It was a hot day, and you had allowed your horses to fall into a walking pace. As you passed the railing on the right-hand side, near the eastern extremity of the lake in the park, neither you nor your brother noticed a solitary woman loitering on the footpath to look at the riders as they went by.

The solitary woman was my old nurse, Nancy Connell. And these were the words she heard exchanged between you and your brother, as you slowly passed her:

Your brother said, “Is it true that Mary Brading and her husband have gone to America?”

You laughed, as if the question amused you, and answered, “Quite true.”

“How long will they be away?” your brother asked next.

“As long as they live,” you answered, with another laugh.

By this time you had passed beyond Nancy Connell’s hearing. She owns to having followed your horses a few steps to hear what was said next. She looked particularly at your brother. He took your reply seriously; he seemed to be quite astonished by it.

“Leave England and settle in America!” he exclaimed. “Why should they do that?”

“Who can tell why?” you answered. “Mary Brading’s husband is mad, and Mary Brading herself is not much better.”

You touched your horse with the whip, and in a moment more you and your brother were out of my old nurse’s hearing. She wrote and told me what I here tell you, by a recent mail. I have been thinking of those last words of yours, in my leisure hours, more seriously than you would suppose. The end of it is that I take up my pen, on behalf of my husband and myself, to tell you the story of our marriage, and the reason for our emigration to the United States of America.

It matters little or nothing to him or to me whether our friends in England think us both mad or not. Their opinions, hostile or favourable, are of no sort of importance to us. But you are an exception to the rule. In bygone days at school we were fast and firm friends; and – what weighs with me even more than this – you were heartily loved and admired by my dear mother. She spoke of you tenderly on her deathbed. Events have separated us of late years. But I cannot forget the old times; and I cannot feel indifferent to your opinion of me and of my husband, though an ocean does separate us, and though we are never likely to look on one another again. It is very foolish of me, I dare say, to take seriously to heart what you said in one of your thoughtless moments. I can only plead in excuse that I have gone through a great deal of suffering, and that I was always (as you may remember) a person of sensitive temperament, easily excited and easily depressed.

Enough of this. Do me the last favour I shall ever ask of you. Read what follows, and judge for yourself whether my husband and I are quite so mad as you were disposed to think us when Nancy Connell heard you talking to your brother in Hyde Park.

•  II  •

It is now more than a year since I went to Eastbourne, on the coast of Sussex, with my father and my brother James.

My brother had then, as we hoped, recovered from the effects of a fall in the hunting-field. He complained, however, at times of pain in his head; and the doctors advised us to try the sea air. We removed to Eastbourne, without a suspicion of the serious nature of the injury that he had received. For a few days all went well. We liked the place; the air agreed with us; and we determined to prolong our residence for some weeks to come.

On our sixth day at the seaside – a memorable day to me, for reasons which you have still to hear – my brother complained again of the old pain in his head. He and I went out together to try what exercise would do toward relieving him. We walked through the town to the fort at one end of it, and then followed a footpath running by the side of the sea, over a dreary waste of shingle, bounded at its inland extremity by the road to Hastings and by the marshy country beyond.

We had left the fort at some little distance behind us. I was walking in front, and James was following me. He was talking as quietly as usual, when he suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence. I turned round in surprise, and discovered my brother prostrate on the path, in convulsions terrible to see.

It was the first epileptic fit I had ever witnessed. My presence of mind entirely deserted me. I could only wring my hands in horror, and scream for help. No one appeared either from the direction of the fort or of the highroad. I was too far off, I suppose, to make myself heard. Looking ahead of me along the path, I discovered, to my infinite relief, the figure of a man running toward me. As he came nearer, I saw that he was unmistakably a gentleman – young, and eager to be of service to me.

“Pray compose yourself,” he said, after a look at my brother. “It is very dreadful to see, but it is not dangerous. We must wait until the convulsions are over, and then I can help you.”

He seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might be a medical man. I put the question to him plainly.

He coloured, and looked a little confused.

“I am not a doctor,” he said. “I happen to have seen persons afflicted with epilepsy; and I have heard medical men say that it is useless to interfere until the fit is over. See!” he added. “Your brother is quieter already. He will soon feel a sense of relief which will more than compensate him for what he has suffered. I will help him to get to the fort, and, once there, we can send for a carriage to take him home.”

In five minutes more we were on our way to the fort; the stranger supporting my brother as attentively and tenderly as if he had been an old friend. When the carriage had been obtained, he insisted on accompanying us to our own door, on the chance that his services might still be of some use. He left us, asking permission to call and inquire after James’s health the next day. A more modest, gentle, and unassuming person I never met with. He not only excited my warmest gratitude; he interested me at my first meeting with him.

I lay some stress on the impression which this young man produced on me – why, you will soon find out.

The next day the stranger paid his promised visit of inquiry. His card, which he sent upstairs, informed us that his name was Roland Cameron. My father – who is not easily pleased – took a liking to him at once. His visit was prolonged, at our request. He said just enough about himself to satisfy us that we were receiving a person who was at least of equal rank with ourselves. Born in England, of a Scotch family, he had lost both his parents. Not long since, he had inherited a fortune from one of his uncles. It struck us as a little strange that he spoke of this fortune, with a marked change to melancholy in his voice and his manner. The subject was, for some inconceivable reason, evidently distasteful to him. Rich as he was, he acknowledged that he led a simple and solitary life. He had little taste for society, and no sympathies in common with the average young men of his age. But he had his own harmless pleasures and occupations; and past sorrow and suffering had taught him not to expect too much from life. All this was said modestly, with a winning charm of look and voice which indescribably attracted me. His personal appearance aided the favourable impression which his manner and his conversation produced. He was of the middle height, lightly and firmly built; his complexion pale; his hands and feet small, and finely shaped; his brown hair curling naturally; his eyes large and dark, with an occasional indecision in their expression which was far from being an objection to them, to my taste. It seemed to harmonize with an occasional indecision in his talk; proceeding, as I was inclined to think, from some passing confusion in his thoughts which it always cost him a little effort to discipline and overcome. Does it surprise you to find how closely I observed a man who was only a chance acquaintance, at my first interview with him? Or do your suspicions enlighten you, and do you say to yourself, She has fallen in love with Mr. Roland Cameron at first sight? I may plead in my own defence that I was not quite romantic enough to go that length. But I own I waited for his next visit with an impatience which was new to me in my experience of my sober self. And, worse still, when the day came, I changed my dress three times before my newly-developed vanity was satisfied with the picture which the looking-glass presented to me of myself.

In a fortnight more, my father and my brother began to look on the daily companionship of our new friend as one of the settled institutions of their lives. In a fortnight more, Mr. Roland Cameron and I – though we neither of us ventured to acknowledge it – were as devotedly in love with each other as two young people could well be. Ah, what a delightful time it was! and how cruelly soon our happiness came to an end!

During the brief interval which I have just described, I observed certain peculiarities in Roland Cameron’s conduct, which perplexed and troubled me when my mind was busy with him in my lonely moments.

For instance, he was subject to the strangest lapses into silence, when he and I were talking together At these times his eyes assumed a weary, absent look, and his mind seemed to wander away – far from the conversation, and far from me. He was perfectly unaware of his own infirmity; he fell into it unconsciously, and came out of it unconsciously. If I noticed that he had not been attending to me, or if I asked why he had been silent, he was completely at a loss to comprehend what I meant; I puzzled and distressed him. What he was thinking of in these pauses of silence, it was impossible to guess. His face, at other times singularly mobile and expressive, became almost a perfect blank. Had he suffered some terrible shock at some past period of his life and had his mind never quite recovered it? I longed to ask him the question, and yet I shrank from doing it, I was so sadly afraid of distressing him; or, to put it in plainer words, I was so truly and so tenderly fond of him.

Then, again, though he was ordinarily, I sincerely believe, the most gentle and most lovable of men, there were occasions when he would surprise me by violent outbreaks of temper, excited by the merest trifles. A dog barking suddenly at his heels, or a boy throwing stones in the road, or an importunate shop-keeper trying to make him purchase something that he did not want, would throw him into a frenzy of rage which was, without exaggeration, really frightful to see. He always apologized for these outbreaks, in terms which showed that he was sincerely ashamed of his own violence. But he could never succeed in controlling himself. The lapses into passion, like the lapses into silence took him into their own possession, and did with him, for the time being, just what they pleased.

One more example of Roland’s peculiarities, and I have done. The strangeness of his conduct in this case was noticed by my father and my brother, as well as by me.

When Roland was with us in the evening, whether he came to dinner or to tea, he invariably left us exactly at nine o’clock. Try as we might to persuade him to stay longer, he always politely but positively refused. Even I had no influence over him in this matter. When I pressed him to remain, though it cost him an effort, he still retired exactly as the clock struck nine. He gave no reason for this strange proceeding; he only said that it was a habit of his, and begged us to indulge him in it without asking for an explanation. My father and my brother (being men) succeeded in controlling their curiosity. For my part (being a woman) every day that passed only made me more and more eager to penetrate the mystery. I privately resolved to choose my time, when Roland was in a particularly accessible humour, and then to appeal to him for the explanation which he had hitherto refused – as a special favour to myself.

In two days more I found my opportunity.

Some friends of ours, who had joined us at Eastbourne, proposed a picnic party to the famous neighbouring cliff called Beachey Head. We accepted the invitation. The day was lovely, and the gypsy dinner was, as usual, infinitely preferable (for once in a way) to a formal dinner indoors. Toward evening, our little assembly separated into parties of twos and threes to explore the neighbourhood. Roland and I found ourselves together, as a matter of course. We were happy, and we were alone. Was it the right or the wrong time to ask the fatal question? I am not able to decide; I only know that I asked it.

•  III  •

“Mr. Cameron,” I said, “will you make allowances for a weak woman? And will you tell me something that I am dying to know?”

He walked straight into the trap, with that entire absence of ready wit, or small suspicion (I leave you to choose the right phrase), which is so much like men, and so little like women.

“Of course I will,” he answered.

“Then tell me,” I asked, “why you always insist on leaving us at nine o’clock?”

He started, and looked at me so sadly, so reproachfully, that I would have given everything I possessed to recall the rash words that had just passed my lips.

“If I consent to tell you,” he replied, after a momentary struggle with himself, “will you let me put a question to you first, and will you promise to answer it?”

I gave him my promise, and waited eagerly for what was coming next.

“Miss Brading,” he said, “tell me honestly, do you think I am mad?”

It was impossible to laugh at him: he spoke those strange words seriously – sternly, I might almost say.

“No such thought ever entered my head,” I answered.

He looked at me very earnestly.

“You say that on your word of honour?”

“On my word of honour.”

I answered with perfect sincerity, and I evidently satisfied him that I had spoken the truth. He took my hand, and lifted it gratefully to his lips.

“Thank you,” he said, simply. “You encourage me to tell you a very sad story.”

“Your own story?” I asked.

“My own story. Let me begin by telling you why I persist in leaving your house always at the same early hour. Whenever I go out, I am bound by a promise to the person with whom I am living at Eastbourne to return at a quarter-past nine o’clock.”

“The person with whom you are living?” I repeated. “You are living at a boarding-house, are you not?”

“I am living, Miss Brading, under the care of a doctor who keeps an asylum for the insane. He has taken a house for some of his wealthier patients at the seaside; and he allows me liberty in the daytime, on condition that I faithfully perform my promise at night. It is a quarter of an hour’s walk from your house to the doctor’s, and it is a rule that the patients retire at half-past nine o’clock.”

Here was the mystery which had so sorely perplexed me revealed at last! The disclosure literally struck me speechless. Unconsciously and instinctively I drew back from him a few steps. He fixed his sad eyes on me with a touching look of entreaty.

“Don’t shrink away from me,” he said. “You don’t think I am mad.”

I was too confused and distressed to know what to say, and, at the same time, I was too fond of him not to answer that appeal. I took his hand and pressed it in silence. He turned his head aside for a moment. I thought I saw a tear on his cheek. I felt his hand close tremblingly on mine. He mastered himself with surprising resolution; he spoke with perfect composure when he looked at me again.

“Do you care to know my story,” he asked, “after what I have just told you?”

“I am eager to hear it,” I answered. “You don’t know how I feel for you. I am too distressed to be able to express myself in words.”

“You are the kindest and dearest of women!” he said, with the utmost fervour, and at the same time with the utmost respect.

We sat down together in a grassy hollow of the cliff, with our faces toward the grand grey sea. The daylight was beginning to fade as I heard the story which made me Roland Cameron’s wife.

•  IV  •

My mother died when I was an infant in arms, (he began). My father, from my earliest to my latest recollections, was always hard toward me. I have been told that I was an odd child, with strange ways of my own. My father detested anything that was strongly marked, anything out of the ordinary way, in the characters and habits of the persons about him. He himself lived (as the phrase is) by line and rule; and he determined to make his son follow his example. I was subjected to severe discipline at school, and I was carefully watched afterward at college. Looking back on my early life, I can see no traces of happiness, I can find no tokens of sympathy. Sad submission to a hard destiny, weary wayfaring over unfriendly roads – such is the story of my life, from ten years old to twenty.

“I passed one autumn vacation at the Cumberland lakes; and there I met by accident with a young French lady. The result of that meeting decided my whole later life.

She filled the position of nursery governess in the house of a wealthy Englishman. I had frequent opportunities of seeing her. We took an innocent pleasure in each other’s society. Her little experience of life was strangely like mine. There was a perfect sympathy of thought and feeling between us. We loved, or thought we loved. I was not twenty-one, and she was not eighteen, when I asked her to be my wife.

I can understand my folly now, and can laugh at it, or lament over it, as the humour moves me. And yet I can’t help pitying myself when I look back at myself at that time – I was so young, so hungry for a little sympathy, so weary of my empty, friendless life. Well! everything is comparative in this world. I was soon to regret, bitterly to regret, that friendless life – wretched as it was.

The poor girl’s employer discovered our attachment, through his wife. He at once communicated with my father.

My father had but one word to say – he insisted on my going abroad, and leaving it to him to release me from my absurd engagement in my absence. I answered him that I should be of age in a few months, and that I was determined to marry the girl. He gave me three days to reconsider that resolution. I held to my resolution. In a week afterward I was declared insane by two medical men; and I was placed by my father in a lunatic asylum.

Was it an act of insanity for the son of a gentleman, with great expectations before him, to propose marriage to a nursery governess? I declare, as Heaven is my witness, I know of no other act of mine which could justify my father, and justify the doctors, in placing me under restraint.

I was three years in that asylum. It was officially reported that the air did not agree with me. I was removed, for two years more, to another asylum in a remote part of England. For the five best years of my life I have been herded with madmen – and my reason has survived it. The impression I produce on you, on your father, on your brother, on all our friends at this picnic, is that I am as reasonable as the rest of my fellow-creatures. Am I rushing to a hasty conclusion when I assert myself to be now, and always to have been, a sane man?

At the end of my five years of arbitrary imprisonment in a free country, happily for me – I am ashamed to say it, but I must speak the truth – happily for me, my merciless father died. His trustees, to whom I was now consigned, felt some pity for me. They could not take the responsibility of granting me my freedom. But they placed me under the care of a surgeon, who received me into his private residence, and who allowed me free exercise in the open air.

A year’s trial of this new mode of life satisfied the surgeon, and satisfied everyone else who took the smallest interest in me, that I was perfectly fit to enjoy my liberty. I was freed from all restraint, and was permitted to reside with a near relative of mine, in that very Lake country which had been the scene of my fatal meeting with the French girl, six years before.

PART THE SECOND

•  V  •

I lived happily in the house of my relative, satisfied with the ordinary pursuits of a country gentleman. Time had long since cured me of my boyish infatuation for the nursery governess. I could revisit with perfect composure the paths along which we had walked, the lake on which we had sailed together. Hearing by chance that she was married in her own country, I could wish her all possible happiness, with the sober kindness of a disinterested friend. What a strange thread of irony runs through the texture of the simplest human life! The early love for which I had sacrificed and suffered so much was now revealed to me in its true colours, as a boy’s passing fancy – nothing more!

Three years of peaceful freedom passed; freedom which, on the uncontradicted testimony of respectable witnesses, I never abused. Well, that long and happy interval, like all intervals, came to its end – and then the great misfortune of my life fell upon me. One of my uncles died and left me inheritor of his whole fortune. I alone, to the exclusion of the other heirs, now received, not only the large income derived from the estates, but seventy thousand pounds in ready money as well.

The vile calumny which had asserted me to be mad was now revived by the wretches who were interested in stepping between me and my inheritance. A year ago, I was sent back to the asylum in which I had been last imprisoned. The pretence for confining me was found in an ‘act of violence’ (as it was called), which I had committed in a momentary outbreak of anger, and which it was acknowledged had led to no serious results. Having got me into the asylum, the conspirators proceeded to complete their work. A Commission in Lunacy was issued against me. It was held by one Commissioner, without a jury, and without the presence of a lawyer to assert my interests. By one man’s decision I was declared to be of unsound mind. The custody of my person, as well as the management of my estates, was confided to men chosen from among the conspirators who had declared me to be mad. I am here through the favour of the proprietor of the asylum, who has given me my holiday at the seaside, and who humanely trusts me with my liberty, as you see. At barely thirty years old, I am refused the free use of my money and the free management of my affairs. At barely thirty years old, I am officially declared to be a lunatic for life!

•  VI  •

He paused; his head sank on his breast; his story was told.

I have repeated his words as nearly as I can remember them; but I can give no idea of the modest and touching resignation with which he spoke. To say that I pitied him with my whole heart, is to say nothing. I loved him with my whole heart – and I may acknowledge it now!

“Oh, Mr. Cameron,” I said, as soon as I could trust myself to speak, “can nothing be done to help you? Is there no hope?”

“There is always hope,” he answered, without raising his head. “I have to thank you, Miss Brading, for teaching me that.”

“To thank me?” I repeated. “How have I taught you to hope?”

“You have brightened my dreary life. When I am with you, all my bitter remembrances leave me. I am a happy man again; and a happy man can always hope. I dream now of finding what I have never yet had – a dear and devoted friend, who will rouse the energy that has sunk in me under the martyrdom that I have endured. Why do I submit to the loss of my rights and my liberty, without an effort to recover them? I was alone in the world until I met with you. I had no kind hand to raise me, no kind voice to encourage me. Shall I ever find the hand? Shall I ever hear the voice? When I am with you, the hope that you have taught me answers Yes. When I am by myself, the old despair comes back, and says No.”

He lifted his head for the first time. If I had not understood what his words meant, his look would have enlightened me. The tears came into my eyes; my heart heaved and fluttered wildly; my hands mechanically tore up and scattered the grass round me. The silence became unendurable. I spoke, hardly knowing what I was saying; tearing faster and faster at the poor harmless grass, as if my whole business in life was to pull up the greatest quantity in the shortest possible space of time!

“We have only known each other a little while,” I said; “and a woman is but a weak ally in such a terrible position as yours. But useless as I may be, count on me, now and always, as your friend—”

He moved close to me before I could say more, and took my hand. He murmured in my ear,

“May I count on you one day as the nearest and dearest friend of all? Will you forgive me, Mary, if I own that I love you? You have taught me to love, as you have taught me to hope. It is in your power to lighten my hard lot. You can recompense me for all that I have suffered; you can rouse me to struggle for my freedom and my rights. Be the good angel of my life! Forgive me, love me, rescue me – be my wife!”

I don’t know how it happened. I found myself in his arms – and I answered him in a kiss. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, I dare say I was guilty, in accepting him, of the rashest act that ever a woman committed. Very good. I didn’t care then – I don’t care now. I was then, and I am now, the happiest woman living.

•  VII  •

It was necessary that either he or I should tell my father of what had passed between us. On reflection, I thought it best that I should make the disclosure. The day after the picnic, I repeated to my father Roland’s melancholy narrative, as a necessary preface to the announcement that I had promised to be Roland’s wife.

My father saw the obvious objections to the marriage. He warned me of the imprudence which I had contemplated committing in the strongest terms. Our prospect of happiness, if we married, would depend entirely on our capacity to legally supersede the proceedings of the Lunacy Commission. Success in this arduous undertaking was, to say the least of it, uncertain. The commonest prudence pointed to the propriety of delaying our marriage until the doubtful experiment had been put to the proof.

This reasoning was unanswerable. It was, nevertheless, completely thrown away upon me.

When did a woman in love ever listen to reason? I believe there is no instance of it on record. My father’s wise words of caution had no chance against Roland’s fervent entreaties. The days of his residence at Eastbourne were drawing to a close. If I let him return to the asylum an unmarried man, months, years perhaps, might pass before our union could take place. Could I expect him, could I expect any man, to endure that cruel separation, that unrelieved suspense? I His mind had been sorely tried already; his mind might give way under it. These were the arguments that carried weight with them, in my judgement! I was of age, and free to act as I pleased. You are welcome, if you like, to consider me the most foolish and the most obstinate of women. In sixteen days from the date of the picnic Roland and I were privately married at Eastbourne.

My father – more grieved than angry, poor man – declined to be present at the ceremony; in justice to himself. My brother gave me away at the altar.

Roland and I spent the afternoon of the wedding-day and the earlier part of the evening together. At nine o’clock he returned to the doctor’s house, exactly as usual; having previously explained to me that he was in the power of the Court of Chancery, and that until we succeeded in setting aside the proceedings of the Lunacy Commission there was a serious necessity for keeping the marriage strictly secret. My husband and I kissed, and said good-bye till tomorrow, as the clock struck the hour. I little thought, while I looked after him from the street-door, that months on months were to pass before I saw Roland again.

A hurried note from my husband reached me the next morning. Our marriage had been discovered (we never could tell by whom), and we had been betrayed to the doctor. Roland was then on his way back to the asylum. He had been warned that force would be used if he resisted. Knowing that resistance would be interpreted, in his case, as a new outbreak of madness, he had wisely submitted. “I have made the sacrifice,” the letter concluded; “it is now for you to help me. Attack the Commission in Lunacy, and be quick about it!”

We lost no time in preparing for the attack. On the day when I received the news of our misfortune we left Eastbourne for London, and at once took measures to obtain the best legal advice.

My dear father – though I was far from deserving his kindness – entered into the matter heart and soul. In due course of time, we presented a petition to the Lord Chancellor, praying that the decision of the Lunacy Commission might be set aside.

We supported our petition by quoting the evidence of Roland’s friends and neighbours, during his three years’ residence in the Lake country, as a free man. These worthy people (being summoned before the Lunacy Commission) had one and all agreed that he was, as to their judgement and experience, perfectly quiet, harmless, and sane. Many of them had gone out shooting with him. Others had often accompanied him in sailing excursions on the lake. Do people trust a madman with a gun, and with the management of a boat? As to the “act of violence,” which the heirs at law and the next of kin had made the means of imprisoning Roland in the madhouse, it amounted to this: he had lost his temper, and had knocked a man down who had offended him. Very wrong, no doubt; but if that is a proof of madness, what thousands of lunatics are still at large! Another instance produced to prove his insanity was still more absurd. It was solemnly declared that he put an image of the Virgin Mary in his boat, when he went out on his sailing excursions! I have seen the image – it was a very beautiful work of art. Was Roland mad to admire it, and take it with him? His religious convictions leaned toward Catholicism. If he betrayed insanity in adorning his boat with an image of the Virgin Mary, what is the mental condition of most of the ladies in Christendom who wear the cross as an ornament round their necks? We advanced these arguments in our petition, after quoting the evidence of the witnesses. And more than this, we even went the length of admitting, as an act of respect toward the Court, that my poor husband might be eccentric in some of his opinions and habits. But we put it to the authorities, whether better results might not be expected from placing him under the care of a wife who loved him, and whom he loved, than from shutting him up in an asylum, among incurable madmen as his companions for life.

Such was our petition, so far as I am able to describe it.

The decision rested with the Lords Justices. They decided against us.

Turning a deaf ear to our witnesses and our arguments, these merciless lawyers declared that the doctor’s individual assertion of my husband’s insanity was enough for them. They considered Roland’s comfort to be sufficiently provided for in the asylum, with an allowance of seven hundred pounds a year – and to the asylum they consigned him for the rest of his days.

So far as I was concerned, the result of this infamous judgement was to deprive me of the position of Roland’s wife; no lunatic being capable of contracting marriage by law. So far as my husband was concerned, the result may be best stated in the language of a popular newspaper, which published an article on the case. “It is possible” (said the article – I wish I could personally thank the man who wrote it!) “for the Court of Chancery to take a man who has a large fortune, and is in the prime of life, but is a little touched in the head, and make a monk of him, and then report to itself that the comfort and happiness of the lunatic have been effectually provided for at the expenditure of seven hundred pounds a year.”

Roland was determined however, that they should not make a monk of him – and, you may rely upon it, so was I!

But one alternative was left to us. The authority of the Court of Chancery (within its jurisdiction) is the most despotic authority on the face of the earth. Our one hope was in taking to flight. The price of our liberty, as citizens of England, was exile from our native country, and the entire abandonment of Roland’s fortune. We accepted those hard conditions. Hospitable America offered us a refuge, beyond the reach of mad-doctors and Lords Justices. To hospitable America our hearts turned, as to our second country. The serious question was, How were we to get there?

We had attempted to correspond, and had failed. Our letters had been discovered and seized by the proprietor of the asylum. Fortunately we had taken the precaution of writing in a “cipher” of Roland’s invention, which he had taught me before our marriage. Though our letters were illegible, our purpose was suspected, as a matter of course; and a watch was kept on my husband night and day.

Foiled in our first effort at making arrangements secretly for our flight, we continued our correspondence (still in cipher) by means of advertisement in the newspapers. This second attempt was discovered in its turn. Roland was refused permission to subscribe to the newspapers, and was forbidden to enter the reading-room at the asylum. These tyrannical prohibitions came too late. Our plans had already been communicated; we understood each other, and we had now only to bide our time. We had arranged that my brother and a friend of his, on whose discretion we could thoroughly rely, should take it in turns to watch every evening, for a given time, at an appointed meeting-place, three miles distant from the asylum. The spot had been carefully chosen. It was on the bank of a lonely stream, and close to the outskirts of a thick wood. A water-proof knapsack, containing a change of clothes, a false beard and wig, and some biscuits and preserved meat, was hidden in a hollow tree. My brother and his friend always took their fishing-rods with them, and presented themselves, as engaged in the innocent occupation of angling, to any chance strangers who might pass within sight of them. On one occasion the proprietor of the asylum himself rode by my brother, on the opposite bank of the stream, and asked politely if he had had good sport!

For a fortnight these staunch allies of ours relieved each other regularly on their watch – and no signs of the fugitive appeared. On the fifteenth evening, just as the twilight was changing into night, and just as my brother (whose turn it was) had decided on leaving the place, Roland suddenly joined him on the bank of the stream.

Without wasting a moment in words, the two at once entered the wood, and took the knapsack from its place of shelter in the hollow tree. In ten minutes more my husband was dressed in a suit of workman’s clothes, and was further disguised in the wig and beard. The two then set forth down the course of the stream, keeping in the shadow of the wood until the night had fallen and the darkness hid them. The night was cloudy; there was no moon. After walking two miles or a little more, they altered their course, and made for the high-road to Manchester, entering on it at a point some thirty miles distant from the city.

On their way from the wood, Roland described the manner in which he had effected his escape.

The story was simple enough. He had assumed to be suffering from nervous illness, and had requested to have his meals in his own room. For the first fortnight, the two men appointed to wait upon him in succession, week by week, were both more than his match in strength. The third man employed, at the beginning of the third week, was physically a less formidable person than his predecessors. Seeing this, Roland decided, when evening came, on committing another “act of violence.” In plain words, he sprang upon the keeper waiting on him in his room, and gagged and bound the man.

This done, he laid the unlucky keeper, face to the wall, on his own bed, covered with his own cloak, so that anyone entering the room might suppose he was lying down to rest. He had previously taken the precaution to remove the sheets from the bed, and he had now only to tie them together to escape by the window of his room, situated on the upper floor of the house. The sun was setting, and the inmates of the asylum were then at tea. After narrowly missing discovery by one of the labourers employed in the grounds, he had climbed the garden enclosure, and had dropped on the other side – a free man!

Arrived on the high-road to Manchester, my husband and my brother parted.

Roland, who was an excellent walker, set forth on his way to Manchester on foot. He had food in his knapsack, and he proposed to walk some twelve or fifteen miles on the road to the city before he stopped at any town or village to rest. My brother, who was physically unable to accompany him, returned to the place in which I was then residing, to tell me the good news.

By the first train the next morning I travelled to Manchester, and took a lodging in a suburb of the city known to my husband as well as to me. A prim, smoky little square was situated in the immediate neighbourhood; and we had arranged that whichever of us first arrived in Manchester should walk round that square, between twelve and one in the afternoon, and between six and seven in the evening. In the evening I kept my appointment. A dusty, footsore man, in shabby clothes, with a hideous beard, and a knapsack on his back, met me at my first walk round. He smiled as I looked at him. Ah! I knew that smile through all disguises. In spite of the Court of Chancery and the Lords Justices, I was in my husband’s arms once more.

We lived quietly in our retreat for a month. During that time, (as I heard by letters from my brother) nothing that money and cunning could do toward discovering Roland was left untried by the proprietor of the asylum, and by the persons acting with him. But where is the cunning which can trace a man who, escaping at night in disguise, has not trusted himself to a railway or a carriage, and who takes refuge in a great city in which he has no friends? At the end of our month in Manchester we travelled northward, crossed the Channel to Ireland, and passed a pleasant fortnight in Dublin. Leaving this again, we made our way to Cork and Queenstown, and embarked from that latter place (among a crowd of steerage passengers) in a steamship for America.

My story is told. I am writing these lines from a farm in the west of the United States. Our neighbours may be homely enough; but the roughest of them is kinder to us than a mad doctor or a Lord Justice. Roland is happy in those agricultural pursuits which have always been favourite pursuits with him; and I am happy with Roland. Our sole resources consist of my humble little fortune, inherited from my dear mother. After deducting our travelling expenses, the sum total amounts to between seven and eight hundred pounds; and this, as we find, is amply sufficient to start us well in the new life that we have chosen. We expect my father and my brother to pay us a visit next summer; and I think it is just possible that they may find our family circle increased by the presence of a new member in long clothes. Are there no compensations here for exile from England and the loss of a fortune? We think there are! But then, my dear Miss Anstell, “Mary Brading’s husband is mad, and Mary Brading herself is not much better.”

If you feel inclined to alter this opinion, and if you remember our old days at school as tenderly as I remember them, write and tell me so. Your letter will be forwarded, if you send it to the enclosed address at New York.

In the meantime, the moral of our story seems to be worth serious consideration. A certain Englishman legally inherits a large fortune. At the time of his inheritance, he has been living as a free man for three years – without once abusing his freedom, and with the express sanction of the medical superintendent who has had experience and charge of him. His next of kin and his heirs at law (who are left out of the fortune) look with covetous eyes at the money, and determine to get the management and the ultimate possession of it. Assisted by a doctor, whose honesty and capacity must be taken on trust, these interested persons, in this nineteenth century of progress, can lawfully imprison their relative for life, in a country which calls itself free, and which declares that its justice is equally administered to all alike.

NOTE. – The reader is informed that this story is founded, in all essential particulars, on a case which actually occurred in England, eight years since.
—W. C.

First published as
“Fatal Fortune”
All The Year Round 17-24 Oct 1874.

Re-named for this collection.

THE FROZEN DEEP

AND OTHER STORIES

CONTENTS

… Dedication
The Frozen Deep
The Dream Woman
John Jago’s Ghost

TO

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

IN SINCERE ADMIRATION
OF HIS GENIUS AS POET, NOVELIST, ESSAYIST,

AND IN CORDIAL REMEMBRANCE
OF OUR INTERCOURSE
DURING MY VISIT TO AMERICA.

THE FROZEN DEEP

FIRST SCENE

THE BALLROOM

•  I  •

The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an English seaport. The time is night. And the business of the moment is – dancing.

The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port. The ships of the expedition are two in number – the Wanderer and the Sea-Mew. They are to sail (in search of the Northwest Passage) on the next day, with the morning tide.

Honour to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The band is complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory opening out of it is pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and beautifully decorated with shrubs and flowers. All officers of the army and navy who are present wear their uniforms in honour of the occasion. Among the ladies, the display of dresses (a subject which the men don’t understand) is bewildering – and the average of beauty (a subject which the men do understand) is the highest average attainable, in all parts of the room.

For the moment, the dance which is in progress is a quadrille. General admiration selects two of the ladies who are dancing as its favourite objects. One is a dark beauty in the prime of womanhood – the wife of First Lieutenant Crayford, of the Wanderer. The other is a young girl, pale and delicate; dressed simply in white; with no ornament on her head but her own lovely brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham – an orphan. She is Mrs. Crayford’s dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs. Crayford during the lieutenant’s absence in the Arctic regions. She is now dancing, with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs. Crayford and Captain Helding (commanding officer of the Wanderer) for vis-a-vis – in plain English, for opposite couple.

The conversation between Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford, in one of the intervals of the dance, turns on Miss Burnham. The captain is greatly interested in Clara. He admires her beauty; but he thinks her manner – for a young girl – strangely serious and subdued. Is she in delicate health?

Mrs. Crayford shakes her head; sighs mysteriously; and answers,

“In very delicate health, Captain Helding.”

“Consumptive?”

“Not in the least.”

“I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs. Crayford. She interests me indescribably. If I was only twenty years younger – perhaps (as I am not twenty years younger) I had better not finish the sentence? Is it indiscreet, my dear lady, to inquire what is the matter with her?”

“It might be indiscreet, on the part of a stranger,” said Mrs. Crayford. “An old friend like you may make any inquiries. I wish I could tell you what is the matter with Clara. It is a mystery to the doctors themselves. Some of the mischief is due, in my humble opinion, to the manner in which she has been brought up.”

“Ay! ay! A bad school, I suppose.”

“Very bad, Captain Helding. But not the sort of school which you have in your mind at this moment. Clara’s early years were spent in a lonely old house in the Highlands of Scotland. The ignorant people about her were the people who did the mischief which I have just been speaking of. They filled her mind with the superstitions which are still respected as truths in the wild North – especially the superstition called the Second Sight.”

“God bless me!” cried the captain, “you don’t mean to say she believes in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!”

Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.

“In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in dancing tables, and in messages sent from the other world by spirits who can’t spell! By comparison with such superstitions as these, even the Second Sight has something – in the shape of poetry – to recommend it, surely? Estimate for yourself,” she continued seriously, “the effect of such surroundings as I have described on a delicate, sensitive young creature – a girl with a naturally imaginative temperament leading a lonely, neglected life. Is it so very surprising that she should catch the infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?”

“Not at all, Mrs. Crayford – not at all, ma’am, as you put it. Still it is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to meet a young lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight. Does she really profess to see into the future? Am I to understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? That is the Second Sight, is it not?”

“That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and positively, what she does.”

“The young lady who is dancing opposite to us?”

“The young lady who is dancing opposite to us.”

The captain waited a little – letting the new flood of information which had poured in on him settle itself steadily in his mind. This process accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded resolutely on his way to further discoveries.

“May I ask, ma’am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance with your own eyes?” he inquired.

“My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a month since,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “She had been nervous and irritable all the morning; and we took her out into the garden to breathe the fresh air. Suddenly, without any reason for it, the colour left her face. She stood between us, insensible to touch, insensible to sound; motionless as stone, and cold as death in a moment. The first change we noticed came after a lapse of some minutes. Her hands began to move slowly, as if she was groping in the dark. Words dropped one by one from her lips, in a lost, vacant tone, as if she was talking in her sleep. Whether what she said referred to past or future I cannot tell you. She spoke of persons in a foreign country – perfect strangers to my sister and to me. After a little interval, she suddenly became silent. A momentary colour appeared in her face, and left it again. Her eyes closed – her feet failed her – and she sank insensible into our arms.”

“Sank insensible into your arms,” repeated the captain, absorbing his new information. “Most extraordinary! And – in this state of health – she goes out to parties, and dances. More extraordinary still!”

“You are entirely mistaken,” said Mrs. Crayford. “She is only here tonight to please me; and she is only dancing to please my husband. As a rule, she shuns all society. The doctor recommends change and amusement for her. She won’t listen to him. Except on rare occasions like this, she persists in remaining at home.”

Captain Helding brightened at the allusion to the doctor. Something practical might be got out of the doctor. Scientific man. Sure to see this very obscure subject under a new light. “How does it strike the doctor now?” said the captain. “Viewed simply as a Case, ma’am, how does it strike the doctor?”

“He will give no positive opinion,” Mrs. Crayford answered. “He told me that such cases as Clara’s were by no means unfamiliar to medical practice. ‘We know,’ he told me, ‘that certain disordered conditions of the brain and the nervous system produce results quite as extraordinary as any that you have described – and there our knowledge ends. Neither my science nor any man’s science can clear up the mystery in this case. It is an especially difficult case to deal with, because Miss Burnham’s early associations dispose her to attach a superstitious importance to the malady – the hysterical malady as some doctors would call it – from which she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her general health; and I can recommend you to try some change in her life – provided you first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties that may possibly be preying on it.’”

The captain smiled self-approvingly. The doctor had justified his anticipations. The doctor had suggested a practical solution of the difficulty.

“Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the head! Secret anxieties. Yes! yes! Plain enough now. A disappointment in love – eh, Mrs. Crayford?”

“I don’t know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara’s confidence in me – in other matters unbounded – is, in this matter of her (supposed) anxieties, a confidence still withheld. In all else we are like sisters. I sometimes fear there may indeed be some trouble preying secretly on her mind. I sometimes feel a little hurt at her incomprehensible silence.”

Captain Helding was ready with his own practical remedy for this difficulty.

“Encouragement is all she wants, ma’am. Take my word for it, this matter rests entirely with you. It’s all in a nutshell. Encourage her to confide in you – and she will confide.”

“I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone with me – after you have all sailed for the Arctic seas. In the meantime, will you consider what I have said to you as intended for your ear only? And will you forgive me, if I own that the turn the subject has taken does not tempt me to pursue it any further?”

The captain took the hint. He instantly changed the subject; choosing, on this occasion, safe professional topics. He spoke of ships that were ordered on foreign service; and, finding that these as subjects failed to interest Mrs. Crayford, he spoke next of ships that were ordered home again. This last experiment produced its effect – an effect which the captain had not bargained for.

“Do you know,” he began, “that the Atalanta is expected back from the West Coast of Africa every day? Have you any acquaintances among the officers of that ship?”

As it so happened, he put those questions to Mrs. Crayford while they were engaged in one of the figures of the dance which brought them within hearing of the opposite couple. At the same moment – to the astonishment of her friends and admirers – Miss Clara Burnham threw the quadrille into confusion by making a mistake! Everybody waited to see her set the mistake right. She made no attempt to set it right – she turned deadly pale and caught her partner by the arm.

“The heat!” she said, faintly. “Take me away – take me into the air!”

Lieutenant Crayford instantly led her out of the dance, and took her into the cool and empty conservatory, at the end of the room. As a matter of course, Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford left the quadrille at the same time. The captain saw his way to a joke.

“Is this the trance coming on?” he whispered. “If it is, as commander of the Arctic expedition, I have a particular request to make. Will the Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest way to the Northwest Passage, before we leave England?”

Mrs. Crayford declined to humour the joke. “If you will excuse my leaving you,” she said quietly, “I will try and find out what is the matter with Miss Burnham.”

At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered her husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A man with a winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and an irresistible kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a man whom everybody loved – including his wife.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said the lieutenant. “The heat has overcome her – that’s all.”

Mrs. Crayford shook her head, and looked at her husband, half satirically, half fondly.

“You dear old innocent!” she exclaimed, “that excuse may do for you. For my part, I don’t believe a word of it. Go and get another partner, and leave Clara to me.”

She entered the conservatory and seated herself by Clara’s side.

•  II  •

“Now, my dear!” Mrs. Crayford began, “what does this mean?”

“Nothing.”

“That won’t do, Clara. Try again.”

“The heat of the room—”

“That won’t do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own secrets, and I shall understand what you mean.”

Clara’s sad, clear grey eyes looked up for the first time in Mrs. Crayford’s face, and suddenly became dimmed with tears.

“If I only dared tell you!” she murmured. “I hold so to your good opinion of me, Lucy – and I am so afraid of losing it.”

Mrs. Crayford’s manner changed. Her eyes rested gravely and anxiously on Clara’s face.

“You know as well as I do that nothing can shake my affection for you,” she said. “Do justice, my child, to your old friend. There is nobody here to listen to what we say. Open your heart, Clara. I see you are in trouble, and I want to comfort you.”

Clara began to yield. In other words, she began to make conditions.

“Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every living creature?” she began.

Mrs. Crayford met that question, by putting a question on her side.

“Does ‘every living creature’ include my husband?”

“Your husband more than anybody! I love him, I revere him. He is so noble; he is so good! If I told him what I am going to tell you, he would despise me. Own it plainly, Lucy, if I am asking too much in asking you to keep a secret from your husband.”

“Nonsense, child! When you are married, you will know that the easiest of all secrets to keep is a secret from your husband. I give you my promise. Now begin!”

Clara hesitated painfully.

“I don’t know how to begin!” she exclaimed, with a burst of despair. “The words won’t come to me.”

“Then I must help you. Do you feel ill tonight? Do you feel as you felt that day when you were with my sister and me in the garden?”

“Oh no.”

“You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heat – and yet you turn as pale as ashes, and you are obliged to leave the quadrille! There must be some reason for this.”

“There is a reason. Captain Helding—”

“Captain Helding! What in the name of wonder has the captain to do with it?”

“He told you something about the Atalanta. He said the Atalanta was expected back from Africa immediately.”

“Well, and what of that? Is there anybody in whom you are interested coming home in the ship?”

“Somebody whom I am afraid of is coming home in the ship.”

Mrs. Crayford’s magnificent black eyes opened wide in amazement.

“My dear Clara! do you really mean what you say?”

“Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must go back – if I am to make you understand me – to the year before we knew each other – to the last year of my father’s life. Did I ever tell you that my father moved southward, for the sake of his health, to a house in Kent that was lent to him by a friend?”

“No, my dear; I don’t remember ever hearing of the house in Kent. Tell me about it.”

“There is nothing to tell, except this: the new house was near a fine country-seat standing in its own park. The owner of the place was a gentleman named Wardour. He, too, was one of my father’s Kentish friends. He had an only son.”

She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford looked at her attentively. Clara’s eyes remained fixed on her fan – Clara said no more. “What was the son’s name?” asked Mrs. Crayford, quietly.

“Richard.”

“Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour admired you?”

The question produced its intended effect. The question helped Clara to go on.

“I hardly knew at first,” she said, “whether he admired me or not. He was very strange in his ways – headstrong, terribly headstrong and passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of temper. Can you understand such a character?”

“Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of temper. I begin to like Richard already. Go on.”

“The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown very much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the truth.”

“And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?”

“No. He was not – unhappily for me – he was not that sort of man. He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it. I couldn’t help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never be anything else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I can’t say which.”

“‘Would not,’ is the most likely, my dear. Go on.”

“It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had been provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy?”

“Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for you.”

“Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused his death. He was quite unfit to interfere.”

“Was there no one else who could help you?”

“No one.”

“No lady in whom you could confide?”

“I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighbourhood. I had no friends.”

“What did you do, then?”

“Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with him, unfortunately, until it was too late.”

“What do you mean by too late?”

“You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard Wardour is in the navy—”

“Indeed! I am more interested in him than ever. Well?”

“One spring day Richard came to our house to take leave of us before he joined his ship. I thought he was gone, and I went into the next room. It was my own sitting-room, and it opened on to the garden.”

“Yes?”

“Richard must have been watching me. He suddenly appeared in the garden. Without waiting for me to invite him, he walked into the room. I was a little startled as well as surprised, but I managed to hide it. I said, ‘What is it, Mr. Wardour?’ He stepped close up to me; he said, in his quick, rough way: ‘Clara! I am going to the African coast. If I live, I shall come back promoted; and we both know what will happen then.’ He kissed me. I was half frightened, half angry. Before I could compose myself to say a word, he was out in the garden again – he was gone! I ought to have spoken, I know. It was not honourable, not kind toward him. You can’t reproach me for my want of courage and frankness more bitterly than I reproach myself!”

“My dear child, I don’t reproach you. I only think you might have written to him.”

“I did write.”

“Plainly?”

“Yes. I told him in so many words that he was deceiving himself, and that I could never marry him.”

“Plain enough, in all conscience! Having said that, surely you are not to blame. What are you fretting about now?”

“Suppose my letter has never reached him?”

“Why should you suppose anything of the sort?”

“What I wrote required an answer, Lucy – asked for an answer. The answer has never come. What is the plain conclusion? My letter has never reached him. And the Atalanta is expected back! Richard Wardour is returning to England – Richard Wardour will claim me as his wife! You wondered just now if I really meant what I said. Do you doubt it still?”

Mrs. Crayford leaned back absently in her chair. For the first time since the conversation had begun, she let a question pass without making a reply. The truth is, Mrs. Crayford was thinking.

She saw Clara’s position plainly; she understood the disturbing effect of it on the mind of a young girl. Still, making all allowances, she felt quite at a loss, so far, to account for Clara’s excessive agitation. Her quick observing faculty had just detected that Clara’s face showed no signs of relief, now that she had unburdened herself of her secret. There was something clearly under the surface here – something of importance that still remained to be discovered. A shrewd doubt crossed Mrs. Crayford’s mind, and inspired the next words which she addressed to her young friend.

“My dear,” she said abruptly, “have you told me all?”

Clara started as if the question terrified her. Feeling sure that she now had the clew in her hand, Mrs. Crayford deliberately repeated her question, in another form of words. Instead of answering, Clara suddenly looked up. At the same moment a faint flush of colour appeared in her face for the first time.

Looking up instinctively on her side, Mrs. Crayford became aware of the presence, in the conservatory, of a young gentleman who was claiming Clara as his partner in the coming waltz. Mrs. Crayford fell into thinking once more. Had this young gentleman (she asked herself) anything to do with the untold end of the story? Was this the true secret of Clara Burnham’s terror at the impending return of Richard Wardour? Mrs. Crayford decided on putting her doubts to the test.

“A friend of yours, my dear?” she asked, innocently. “Suppose you introduce us to each other.”

Clara confusedly introduced the young gentleman.

“Mr. Francis Aldersley, Lucy. Mr. Aldersley belongs to the Arctic expedition.”

“Attached to the expedition?” Mrs. Crayford repeated. “I am attached to the expedition too – in my way. I had better introduce myself, Mr. Aldersley, as Clara seems to have forgotten to do it for me. I am Mrs. Crayford. My husband is Lieutenant Crayford, of the Wanderer. Do you belong to that ship?”

“I have not the honour, Mrs. Crayford. I belong to the Sea-Mew.”

Mrs. Crayford’s superb eyes looked shrewdly backward and forward between Clara and Francis Aldersley, and saw the untold sequel to Clara’s story. The young officer was a bright, handsome, gentleman-like lad. Just the person to seriously complicate the difficulty with Richard Wardour! There was no time for making any further inquiries. The band had begun the prelude to the waltz, and Francis Aldersley was waiting for his partner. With a word of apology to the young man, Mrs. Crayford drew Clara aside for a moment, and spoke to her in a whisper.

“One word, my dear, before you return to the ballroom. It may sound conceited, after the little you have told me; but I think I understand your position now, better than you do yourself. Do you want to hear my opinion?”

“I am longing to hear it, Lucy! I want your opinion; I want your advice.”

“You shall have both in the plainest and fewest words. First, my opinion: You have no choice but to come to an explanation with Mr. Wardour as soon as he returns. Second, my advice: If you wish to make the explanation easy to both sides, take care that you make it in the character of a free woman.”

She laid a strong emphasis on the last three words, and looked pointedly at Francis Aldersley as she pronounced them. “I won’t keep you from your partner any longer, Clara,” she resumed, and led the way back to the ballroom.

•  III  •

The burden on Clara’s mind weighs on it more heavily than ever, after what Mrs. Crayford has said to her. She is too unhappy to feel the inspiriting influence of the dance. After a turn round the room, she complains of fatigue. Mr. Francis Aldersley looks at the conservatory (still as invitingly cool and empty as ever); leads her back to it; and places her on a seat among the shrubs. She tries – very feebly – to dismiss him.

“Don’t let me keep you from dancing, Mr. Aldersley.”

He seats himself by her side, and feasts his eyes on the lovely downcast face that dares not turn toward him. He whispers to her:

“Call me Frank.”

She longs to call him Frank – she loves him with all her heart. But Mrs. Crayford’s warning words are still in her mind. She never opens her lips. Her lover moves a little closer, and asks another favour. Men are all alike on these occasions. Silence invariably encourages them to try again.

“Clara! have you forgotten what I said at the concert yesterday? May I say it again?”

“No!”

“We sail tomorrow for the Arctic seas. I may not return for years. Don’t send me away without hope! Think of the long, lonely time in the dark North! Make it a happy time for me.”

Though he speaks with the fervour of a man, he is little more than a lad: he is only twenty years old, and he is going to risk his young life on the frozen deep! Clara pities him as she never pitied any human creature before. He gently takes her hand. She tries to release it.

“What! not even that little favour on the last night?”

Her faithful heart takes his part, in spite of her. Her hand remains in his, and feels its soft persuasive pressure. She is a lost woman. It is only a question of time now!

“Clara! do you love me?”

There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at him – she trembles with strange contradictory sensations of pleasure and pain. His arm steals round her; he repeats his question in a whisper; his lips almost touch her little rosy ear as he says it again:

“Do you love me?”

She closes her eyes faintly – she hears nothing but those words – feels nothing but his arm round her – forgets Mrs. Crayford’s warning – forgets Richard Wardour himself – turns suddenly, with a loving woman’s desperate disregard of everything but her love – nestles her head on his bosom, and answers him in that way, at last!

He lifts the beautiful drooping head – their lips meet in their first kiss – they are both in heaven: it is Clara who brings them back to earth again with a start – it is Clara who says, “Oh! what have I done?” – as usual, when it is too late.

Frank answers the question.

“You have made me happy, my angel. Now, when I come back, I come back to make you my wife.”

She shudders. She remembers Richard Wardour again at those words.

“Mind!” she says, “nobody is to know we are engaged till I permit you to mention it. Remember that!”

He promises to remember it. His arm tries to wind round her once more. No! She is mistress of herself; she can positively dismiss him now – after she has let him kiss her!

“Go!” she says. “I want to see Mrs. Crayford. Find her! Say I am here, waiting to speak to her. Go at once, Frank – for my sake!”

There is no alternative but to obey her. His eyes drink a last draught of her beauty. He hurries away on his errand – the happiest man in the room. Five minutes since she was only his partner in the dance. He has spoken – and she has pledged herself to be his partner for life!

•  IV  •

It was not easy to find Mrs. Crayford in the crowd. Searching here, and searching there, Frank became conscious of a stranger, who appeared to be looking for somebody, on his side. He was a dark, heavy-browed, strongly-built man, dressed in a shabby old naval officer’s uniform. His manner – strikingly resolute and self-contained – was unmistakably the manner of a gentleman. He wound his way slowly through the crowd; stopping to look at every lady whom he passed, and then looking away again with a frown. Little by little he approached the conservatory – entered it, after a moment’s reflection – detected the glimmer of a white dress in the distance, through the shrubs and flowers – advanced to get a nearer view of the lady – and burst into Clara’s presence with a cry of delight.

She sprang to her feet. She stood before him speechless, motionless, struck to stone. All her life was in her eyes – the eyes which told her she was looking at Richard Wardour.

He was the first to speak.

“I am sorry I startled you, my darling. I forgot everything but the happiness of seeing you again. We only reached our moorings two hours since. I was some time inquiring after you, and some time getting my ticket when they told me you were at the ball. Wish me joy, Clara! I am promoted. I have come back to make you my wife.”

A momentary change passed over the blank terror of her face. Her colour rose faintly, her lips moved. She abruptly put a question to him.

“Did you get my letter?”

He started. “A letter from you? I never received it.”

The momentary animation died out of her face again. She drew back from him and dropped into a chair. He advanced toward her, astonished and alarmed. She shrank in the chair – shrank, as if she was frightened of him.

“Clara, you have not even shaken hands with me! What does it mean?”

He paused; waiting and watching her. She made no reply. A flash of the quick temper in him leaped up in his eyes. He repeated his last words in louder and sterner tones:

“What does it mean?”

She replied this time. His tone had hurt her – his tone had roused her sinking courage.

“It means, Mr. Wardour, that you have been mistaken from the first.”

“How have I been mistaken?”

“You have been under a wrong impression, and you have given me no opportunity of setting you right.”

“In what way have I been wrong?”

“You have been too hasty and too confident about yourself and about me. You have entirely misunderstood me. I am grieved to distress you, but for your sake I must speak plainly. I am your friend always, Mr. Wardour. I can never be your wife.”

He mechanically repeated the last words. He seemed to doubt whether he had heard her aright.

“You can never be my wife?”

“Never!”

“Why?”

There was no answer. She was incapable of telling him a falsehood. She was ashamed to tell him the truth.

He stooped over her, and suddenly possessed himself of her hand. Holding her hand firmly, he stooped a little lower; searching for the signs which might answer him in her face. His own face darkened slowly while he looked. He was beginning to suspect her; and he acknowledged it in his next words.

“Something has changed you toward me, Clara. Somebody has influenced you against me. Is it – you force me to ask the question – is it some other man?”

“You have no right to ask me that.”

He went on without noticing what she had said to him.

“Has that other man come between you and me? I speak plainly on my side. Speak plainly on yours.”

“I have spoken. I have nothing more to say.”

There was a pause. She saw the warning light which told of the fire within him, growing brighter and brighter in his eyes. She felt his grasp strengthening on her hand. He appealed to her for the last time.

“Reflect,” he said, “reflect before it is too late. Your silence will not serve you. If you persist in not answering me, I shall take your silence as a confession. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“Clara Burnham! I am not to be trifled with. Clara Burnham! I insist on the truth. Are you false to me?”

She resented that searching question with a woman’s keen sense of the insult that is implied in doubting her to her face.

“Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you call me to account in that way. I never encouraged you. I never gave you promise or pledge—”

He passionately interrupted her before she could say more.

“You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it; your looks own it! You have engaged yourself to another man!”

“If I have engaged myself, what right have you to complain of it?” she answered firmly. “What right have you to control my actions—?”

The next words died away on her lips. He suddenly dropped her hand. A marked change appeared in the expression of his eyes – a change which told her of the terrible passions that she had let loose in him. She read, dimly read, something in his face which made her tremble – not for herself, but for Frank.

Little by little the dark colour faded out of his face. His deep voice dropped suddenly to a low and quiet tone as he spoke the parting words.

“Say no more, Miss Burnham – you have said enough. I am answered; I am dismissed.” He paused, and, stepping close up to her, laid his hand on her arm.

“The time may come,” he said, “when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.”

He turned and left her.

•   •   •

A few minutes later, Mrs. Crayford, entering the conservatory, was met by one of the attendants at the ball. The man stopped as if he wished to speak to her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. Do you happen to have a smelling-bottle about you? There is a young lady in the conservatory who is taken faint.”

BETWEEN THE SCENES

THE LANDING STAGE

•  V  •

The morning of the next day – the morning on which the ships were to sail – came bright and breezy. Mrs. Crayford, having arranged to follow her husband to the water-side, and see the last of him before he embarked, entered Clara’s room on her way out of the house, anxious to hear how her young friend passed the night. To her astonishment she found Clara had risen, and was dressed, like herself, to go out.

“What does this mean, my dear? After what you suffered last night – after the shock of seeing that man – why don’t you take my advice and rest in your bed?”

“I can’t rest. I have not slept all night. Have you been out yet?”

“No.”

“Have you seen or heard anything of Richard Wardour?”

“What an extraordinary question!”

“Answer my question! Don’t trifle with me!”

“Compose yourself, Clara. I have neither seen nor heard anything of Richard Wardour. Take my word for it, he is far enough away by this time.”

“No! He is here! He is near us! All night long the presentiment has pursued me – Frank and Richard Wardour will meet.”

“My dear child! what are you thinking of? They are total strangers to each other.”

“Something will happen to bring them together. I feel it! I know it! They will meet – there will be a mortal quarrel between them – and I shall be to blame. Oh, Lucy! why didn’t I take your advice? Why was I mad enough to let Frank know that I loved him? Are you going to the landing-stage? I am all ready – I must go with you.”

“You must not think of it, Clara. There will be crowding and confusion at the water-side. You are not strong enough to bear it. Wait – I won’t be long away – wait till I come back.”

“I must and will go with you! Crowd? He will be among the crowd! Confusion? In that confusion he will find his way to Frank! Don’t ask me to wait. I shall go mad if I wait. I shall not know a moment’s ease until I have seen Frank, with my own eyes, safe in the boat which takes him to his ship! You have got your bonnet on; what are we stopping here for? Come! or I shall go without you. Look at the clock; we have not a moment to lose!”

It was useless to contend with her. Mrs. Crayford yielded. The two women left the house together.

The landing-stage, as Mrs. Crayford had predicted, was thronged with spectators. Not only the relatives and friends of the Arctic voyagers, but strangers as well, had assembled in large numbers to see the ships sail. Clara’s eyes wandered affrightedly hither and thither among the strange faces in the crowd; searching for the one face that she dreaded to see, and not finding it. So completely were her nerves unstrung, that she started with a cry of alarm on suddenly hearing Frank’s voice behind her.

“The Sea-Mew’s boats are waiting,” he said. “I must go, darling. How pale you are looking, Clara! Are you ill?”

She never answered. She questioned him with wild eyes and trembling lips.

“Has anything happened to you, Frank? anything out of the common?”

Frank laughed at the strange question.

“Anything out of the common?” he repeated. “Nothing that I know of, except sailing for the Arctic seas. That’s out of the common, I suppose – isn’t it?”

“Has anybody spoken to you since last night? Has any stranger followed you in the street?”

Frank turned in blank amazement to Mrs. Crayford.

“What on earth does she mean?”

Mrs. Crayford’s lively invention supplied her with an answer on the spur of the moment.

“Do you believe in dreams, Frank? Of course you don’t! Clara has been dreaming about you; and Clara is foolish enough to believe in dreams. That’s all – it’s not worth talking about. Hark! they are calling you. Say good-bye, or you will be too late for the boat.”

Frank took Clara’s hand. Long afterward – in the dark Arctic days, in the dreary Arctic nights – he remembered how coldly and how passively that hand lay in his.

“Courage, Clara!” he said, gaily. “A sailor’s sweetheart must accustom herself to partings. The time will soon pass. Good-bye, my darling! Good-bye, my wife!”

He kissed the cold hand; he looked his last – for many a long year, perhaps! – at the pale and beautiful face. “How she loves me!” he thought. “How the parting distresses her!” He still held her hand; he would have lingered longer, if Mrs. Crayford had not wisely waived all ceremony and pushed him away.

The two ladies followed him at a safe distance through the crowd, and saw him step into the boat. The oars struck the water; Frank waved his cap to Clara. In a moment more a vessel at anchor hid the boat from view. They had seen the last of him on his way to the Frozen Deep!

“No Richard Wardour in the boat,” said Mrs. Crayford. “No Richard Wardour on the shore. Let this be a lesson to you, my dear. Never be foolish enough to believe in presentiments again.”

Clara’s eyes still wandered suspiciously to and fro among the crowd.

“Are you not satisfied yet?” asked Mrs. Crayford.

“No,” Clara answered, “I am not satisfied yet.”

“What! still looking for him? This is really too absurd. Here is my husband coming. I shall tell him to call a cab, and send you home.”

Clara drew back a few steps.

“I won’t be in the way, Lucy, while you are taking leave of your good husband,” she said. “I will wait here.”

“Wait here! What for?”

“For something which I may yet see; or for something which I may still hear.”

“Richard Wardour?”

“Richard Wardour.”

Mrs. Crayford turned to her husband without another word. Clara’s infatuation was beyond the reach of remonstrance.

The boats of the Wanderer took the place at the landing-stage vacated by the boats of the Sea-Mew. A burst of cheering among the outer ranks of the crowd announced the arrival of the commander of the expedition on the scene. Captain Helding appeared, looking right and left for his first lieutenant. Finding Crayford with his wife, the captain made his apologies for interfering, with his best grace.

“Give him up to his professional duties for one minute, Mrs. Crayford, and you shall have him back again for half an hour. The Arctic expedition is to blame, my dear lady – not the captain – for parting man and wife. In Crayford’s place, I should have left it to the bachelors to find the Northwest Passage, and have stopped at home with you!”

Excusing himself in those bluntly complimentary terms, Captain Helding drew the lieutenant aside a few steps, accidentally taking a direction that led the two officers close to the place at which Clara was standing. Both the captain and the lieutenant were too completely absorbed in their professional business to notice her. Neither the one nor the other had the faintest suspicion that she could and did hear every word of the talk that passed between them.

“You received my note this morning?” the captain began.

“Certainly, Captain Helding, or I should have been on board the ship before this.”

“I am going on board myself at once,” the captain proceeded, “but I must ask you to keep your boat waiting for half an hour more. You will be all the longer with your wife, you know. I thought of that, Crayford.”

“I am much obliged to you, Captain Helding. I suppose there is some other reason for inverting the customary order of things, and keeping the lieutenant on shore after the captain is on board?”

“Quite true! there is another reason. I want you to wait for a volunteer who has just joined us.”

“A volunteer!”

“Yes. He has his outfit to get in a hurry, and he may be half an hour late.”

“It’s rather a sudden appointment, isn’t it?”

“No doubt. Very sudden.”

“And – pardon me – it’s rather a long time (as we are situated) to keep the ships waiting for one man?”

“Quite true, again. But a man who is worth having is worth waiting for. This man is worth having; this man is worth his weight in gold to such an expedition as ours. Seasoned to all climates and all fatigues – a strong fellow, a brave fellow, a clever fellow – in short, an excellent officer. I know him well, or I should never have taken him. The country gets plenty of work out of my new volunteer, Crayford. He only returned yesterday from foreign service.”

“He only returned yesterday from foreign service! And he volunteers this morning to join the Arctic expedition? You astonish me.”

“I dare say I do! You can’t be more astonished than I was, when he presented himself at my hotel and told me what he wanted. ‘Why, my good fellow, you have just got home,’ I said. ‘Are you weary of your freedom, after only a few hours’ experience of it?’ His answer rather startled me. He said, ‘I am weary of my life, sir. I have come home and found a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don’t take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me a refuge?’ That’s what he said, Crayford, word for word.”

“Did you ask him to explain himself further?”

“Not I! I knew his value, and I took the poor devil on the spot, without pestering him with any more questions. No need to ask him to explain himself. The facts speak for themselves in these cases. The old story, my good friend! There’s a woman at the bottom of it, of course.”

•   •   •

Mrs. Crayford, waiting for the return of her husband as patiently as she could, was startled by feeling a hand suddenly laid on her shoulder. She looked round, and confronted Clara. Her first feeling of surprise changed instantly to alarm. Clara was trembling from head to foot.

“What is the matter? What has frightened you, my dear?”

“Lucy! I have heard of him!”

“Richard Wardour again?”

“Remember what I told you. I have heard every word of the conversation between Captain Helding and your husband. A man came to the captain this morning and volunteered to join the Wanderer. The captain has taken him. The man is Richard Wardour.”

“You don’t mean it! Are you sure? Did you hear Captain Helding mention his name?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it’s Richard Wardour?”

“Don’t ask me! I am as certain of it, as that I am standing here! They are going away together, Lucy – away to the eternal ice and snow. My foreboding has come true! The two will meet – the man who is to marry me and the man whose heart I have broken!”

“Your foreboding has not come true, Clara! The men have not met here – the men are not likely to meet elsewhere. They are appointed to separate ships. Frank belongs to the Sea-Mew, and Wardour to the Wanderer. See! Captain Helding has done. My husband is coming this way. Let me make sure. Let me speak to him.”

Lieutenant Crayford returned to his wife. She spoke to him instantly.

“William! you have got a new volunteer who joins the Wanderer?”

“What! you have been listening to the captain and me?”

“I want to know his name?”

“How in the world did you manage to hear what we said to each other?”

“His name? has the captain given you his name?”

“Don’t excite yourself, my dear. Look! you are positively alarming Miss Burnham. The new volunteer is a perfect stranger to us. There is his name – last on the ship’s list.”

Mrs. Crayford snatched the list out of her husband’s hand, and read the name:

“RICHARD WARDOUR.”

SECOND SCENE

THE HUT OF THE SEA-MEW

•  VI  •

Good-bye to England! Good-bye to inhabited and civilized regions of the earth!

Two years have passed since the voyagers sailed from their native shores. The enterprise has failed – the Arctic expedition is lost and ice-locked in the Polar wastes. The good ships Wanderer and Sea-Mew, entombed in ice, will never ride the buoyant waters more. Stripped of their lighter timbers, both vessels have been used for the construction of huts, erected on the nearest land.

The largest of the two buildings which now shelter the lost men is occupied by the surviving officers and crew of the Sea-Mew. On one side of the principal room are the sleeping berths and the fireplace. The other side discloses a broad doorway (closed by a canvas screen), which serves as a means of communication with an inner apartment, devoted to the superior officers. A hammock is slung to the rough raftered roof of the main room, as an extra bed. A man, completely hidden by his bedclothes, is sleeping in the hammock. By the fireside there is a second man – supposed to be on the watch – fast asleep, poor wretch! at the present moment. Behind the sleeper stands an old cask, which serves for a table. The objects at present on the table are, a pestle and mortar, and a saucepanful of the dry bones of animals – in plain words, the dinner for the day. By way of ornament to the dull brown walls, icicles appear in the crevices of the timber, gleaming at intervals in the red firelight. No wind whistles outside the lonely dwelling – no cry of bird or beast is heard. Indoors, and out-of-doors, the awful silence of the Polar desert reigns, for the moment, undisturbed.

•  VII  •

The first sound that broke the silence came from the inner apartment. An officer lifted the canvas screen in the hut of the Sea-Mew and entered the main room. Cold and privation had badly thinned the ranks. The commander of the ship – Captain Ebsworth – was dangerously ill. The first lieutenant was dead. An officer of the Wanderer filled their places for the time, with Captain Helding’s permission. The officer so employed was – Lieutenant Crayford.

He approached the man at the fireside, and awakened him.

“Jump up, Bateson! It’s your turn to be relieved.”

The relief appeared, rising from a heap of old sails at the back of the hut. Bateson vanished, yawning, to his bed. Lieutenant Crayford walked backward and forward briskly, trying what exercise would do toward warming his blood.

The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He stopped and looked up at the man in the hammock.

“I must rouse the cook,” he said to himself, with a smile. “That fellow little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world – and yet, according to his own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship’s company. John Want! John Want! Rouse up, there!”

A head rose slowly out of the bedclothes, covered with a red nightcap. A melancholy nose rested itself on the edge of the hammock. A voice, worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of the Arctic climate, in these words:

“Lord! Lord! here’s all my breath on my blanket. Icicles, if you please, sir, all round my mouth and all over my blanket. Every time I have snored, I’ve frozen something. When a man gets the cold into him to that extent that he ices his own bed, it can’t last much longer. Never mind! I don’t grumble.”

Crayford tapped the saucepan of bones impatiently. John Want lowered himself to the floor – grumbling all the way – by a rope attached to the rafters at his bed head. Instead of approaching his superior officer and his saucepan, he hobbled, shivering, to the fireplace, and held his chin as close as he possibly could over the fire. Crayford looked after him.

“Halloo! what are you doing there?”

“Thawing my beard, sir.”

“Come here directly, and set to work on these bones.”

John Want remained immovably attached to the fireplace, holding something else over the fire. Crayford began to lose his temper.

“What the devil are you about now?”

“Thawing my watch, sir. It’s been under my pillow all night, and the cold has stopped it. Cheerful, wholesome, bracing sort of climate to live in; isn’t it, sir? Never mind! I don’t grumble.”

“No, we all know that. Look here! Are these bones pounded small enough?”

John Want suddenly approached the lieutenant, and looked at him with an appearance of the deepest interest.

“You’ll excuse me, sir,” he said; “how very hollow your voice sounds this morning!”

“Never mind my voice. The bones! the bones!”

“Yes, sir – the bones. They’ll take a trifle more pounding. I’ll do my best with them, sir, for your sake.”

“What do you mean?”

John Want shook his head, and looked at Crayford with a dreary smile.

“I don’t think I shall have the honour of making much more bone soup for you, sir. Do you think yourself you’ll last long, sir? I don’t, saving your presence. I think about another week or ten days will do for us all. Never mind! I don’t grumble.”

He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound them – under protest. At the same moment a sailor appeared, entering from the inner hut.

“A message from Captain Ebsworth, sir.”

“Well?”

“The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He wants to see you immediately.”

“I will go at once. Rouse the doctor.”

Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and smiled more drearily than ever.

“Rouse the doctor?” he repeated. “Suppose the doctor should be frozen? He hadn’t a ha’porth of warmth in him last night, and his voice sounded like a whisper in a speaking-trumpet. Will the bones do now? Yes, the bones will do now. Into the saucepan with you,” cried John Want, suiting the action to the word, “and flavour the hot water if you can! When I remember that I was once an apprentice at a pastry-cook’s – when I think of the gallons of turtle-soup that this hand has stirred up in a jolly hot kitchen – and when I find myself mixing bones and hot water for soup, and turning into ice as fast as I can; if I wasn’t of a cheerful disposition I should feel inclined to grumble. John Want! John Want! whatever had you done with your natural senses when you made up your mind to go to sea?”

A new voice hailed the cook, speaking from one of the bed-places in the side of the hut. It was the voice of Francis Aldersley.

“Who’s that croaking over the fire?”

“Croaking?” repeated John Want, with the air of a man who considered himself the object of a gratuitous insult. “Croaking? You don’t find your own voice at all altered for the worse – do you, Mr. Frank? I don’t give him,” John proceeded, speaking confidentially to himself, “more than six hours to last. He’s one of your grumblers.”

“What are you doing there?” asked Frank.

“I’m making bone soup, sir, and wondering why I ever went to sea.”

“Well, and why did you go to sea?”

“I’m not certain, Mr. Frank. Sometimes I think it was natural perversity; sometimes I think it was false pride at getting over seasickness; sometimes I think it was reading ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ and books warning of me not to go to sea.”

Frank laughed. “You’re an odd fellow. What do you mean by false pride at getting over seasickness? Did you get over seasickness in some new way?”

John Want’s dismal face brightened in spite of himself. Frank had recalled to the cook’s memory one of the noteworthy passages in the cook’s life.

“That’s it, sir!” he said. “If ever a man cured seasickness in a new way yet, I am that man – I got over it, Mr. Frank, by dint of hard eating. I was a passenger on board a packet-boat, sir, when first I saw blue water. A nasty lopp of a sea came on at dinnertime, and I began to feel queer the moment the soup was put on the table. ‘Sick?’ says the captain. ‘Rather, sir,’ says I. ‘Will you try my cure?’ says the captain. ‘Certainly, sir,’ says I. ‘Is your heart in your mouth yet?’ says the captain. ‘Not quite, sir,’ says I. ‘Mock-turtle soup?’ says the captain, and helps me. I swallow a couple of spoonfuls, and turn as white as a sheet. The captain cocks his eye at me. ‘Go on deck, sir,’ says he; ‘get rid of the soup, and then come back to the cabin.’ I got rid of the soup, and came back to the cabin. ‘Cod’s head-and-shoulders,’ says the captain, and helps me. ‘I can’t stand it, sir,’ says I. ‘You must,’ says the captain, ‘because it’s the cure.’ I crammed down a mouthful, and turned paler than ever. ‘Go on deck,’ says the captain. ‘Get rid of the cod’s head, and come back to the cabin.’ Off I go, and back I come. ‘Boiled leg of mutton and trimmings,’ says the captain, and helps me. ‘No fat, sir,’ says I. ‘Fat’s the cure,’ says the captain, and makes me eat it. ‘Lean’s the cure,’ says the captain, and makes me eat it. ‘Steady?’ says the captain. ‘Sick,’ says I. ‘Go on deck,’ says the captain; ‘get rid of the boiled leg of mutton and trimmings and come back to the cabin.’ Off I go, staggering – back I come, more dead than alive. ‘Devilled kidneys,’ says the captain. I shut my eyes, and got ’em down. ‘Cure’s beginning,’ says the captain. ‘Mutton-chop and pickles.’ I shut my eyes, and got them down. ‘Broiled ham and cayenne pepper,’ says the captain. ‘Glass of stout and cranberry tart. Want to go on deck again?’  ‘No, sir,’ says I. ‘Cure’s done,’ says the captain. ‘Never you give in to your stomach, and your stomach will end in giving in to you.’”

Having stated the moral purpose of his story in those unanswerable words, John Want took himself and his saucepan into the kitchen. A moment later, Crayford returned to the hut and astonished Frank Aldersley by an unexpected question.

“Have you anything in your berth, Frank, that you set a value on?”

“Nothing that I set the smallest value on – when I am out of it,” he replied. “What does your question mean?”

“We are almost as short of fuel as we are of provisions,” Crayford proceeded. “Your berth will make good firing. I have directed Bateson to be here in ten minutes with his ax.”

“Very attentive and considerate on your part,” said Frank. “What is to become of me, if you please, when Bateson has chopped my bed into firewood?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“I suppose the cold has stupefied me. The riddle is beyond my reading. Suppose you give me a hint?”

“Certainly. There will be beds to spare soon – there is to be a change at last in our wretched lives here. Do you see it now?”

Frank’s eyes sparkled. He sprang out of his berth, and waved his fur cap in triumph.

“See it?” he exclaimed; “of course I do! The exploring party is to start at last. Do I go with the expedition?”

“It is not very long since you were in the doctor’s hands, Frank,” said Crayford, kindly. “I doubt if you are strong enough yet to make one of the exploring party.”

“Strong enough or not,” returned Frank, “any risk is better than pining and perishing here. Put me down, Crayford, among those who volunteer to go.”

“Volunteers will not be accepted, in this case,” said Crayford. “Captain Helding and Captain Ebsworth see serious objections, as we are situated, to that method of proceeding.”

“Do they mean to keep the appointments in their own hands?” asked Frank. “I for one object to that.”

“Wait a little,” said Crayford. “You were playing backgammon the other day with one of the officers. Does the board belong to him or to you?”

“It belongs to me. I have got it in my locker here. What do you want with it?”

“I want the dice and the box for casting lots. The captains have arranged – most wisely, as I think – that Chance shall decide among us who goes with the expedition and who stays behind in the huts. The officers and crew of the Wanderer will be here in a few minutes to cast the lots. Neither you nor anyone can object to that way of deciding among us. Officers and men alike take their chance together. Nobody can grumble.”

“I am quite satisfied,” said Frank. “But I know of one man among the officers who is sure to make objections.”

“Who is the man?”

“You know him well enough, too. The ‘Bear of the Expeditions’ Richard Wardour.”

“Frank! Frank! you have a bad habit of letting your tongue run away with you. Don’t repeat that stupid nickname when you talk of my good friend, Richard Wardour.”

“Your good friend? Crayford! your liking for that man amazes me.”

Crayford laid his hand kindly on Frank’s shoulder. Of all the officers of the Sea-Mew, Crayford’s favourite was Frank.

“Why should it amaze you?” he asked. “What opportunities have you had of judging? You and Wardour have always belonged to different ships. I have never seen you in Wardour’s society for five minutes together. How can you form a fair estimate of his character?”

“I take the general estimate of his character,” Frank answered. “He has got his nickname because he is the most unpopular man in his ship. Nobody likes him – there must be some reason for that.”

“There is only one reason for it,” Crayford rejoined. “Nobody understands Richard Wardour. I am not talking at random. Remember, I sailed from England with him in the Wanderer; and I was only transferred to the Sea-Mew long after we were locked up in the ice. I was Richard Wardour’s companion on board ship for months, and I learned there to do him justice. Under all his outward defects, I tell you, there beats a great and generous heart. Suspend your opinion, my lad, until you know my friend as well as I do. No more of this now. Give me the dice and the box.”

Frank opened his locker. At the same moment the silence of the snowy waste outside was broken by a shouting of voices hailing the hut – “Sea-Mew, ahoy!”

•  VIII  •

The sailor on watch opened the outer door. There, plodding over the ghastly white snow, were the officers of the Wanderer approaching the hut. There, scattered under the merciless black sky, were the crew, with the dogs and the sledges, waiting the word which was to start them on their perilous and doubtful journey.

Captain Helding of the Wanderer, accompanied by his officers, entered the hut, in high spirits at the prospect of a change. Behind them, lounging in slowly by himself, was a dark, sullen, heavy-browed man. He neither spoke, nor offered his hand to anybody: he was the one person present who seemed to be perfectly indifferent to the fate in store for him. This was the man whom his brother officers had nicknamed the Bear of the Expedition. In other words – Richard Wardour.

Crayford advanced to welcome Captain Helding. Frank, remembering the friendly reproof which he had just received, passed over the other officers of the Wanderer, and made a special effort to be civil to Crayford’s friend.

“Good-morning, Mr. Wardour,” he said. “We may congratulate each other on the chance of leaving this horrible place.”

“You may think it horrible,” Wardour retorted; “I like it.”

“Like it? Good Heavens! why?”

“Because there are no women here.”

Frank turned to his brother officers, without making any further advances in the direction of Richard Wardour. The Bear of the Expedition was more unapproachable than ever.

In the meantime, the hut had become thronged by the able-bodied officers and men of the two ships. Captain Helding, standing in the midst of them, with Crayford by his side, proceeded to explain the purpose of the contemplated expedition to the audience which surrounded him.

He began in these words:

“Brother officers and men of the Wanderer and Sea-Mew, it is my duty to tell you, very briefly, the reasons which have decided Captain Ebsworth and myself on dispatching an exploring party in search of help. Without recalling all the hardships we have suffered for the last two years – the destruction, first of one of our ships, then of the other; the death of some of our bravest and best companions; the vain battles we have been fighting with the ice and snow, and boundless desolation of these inhospitable regions – without dwelling on these things, it is my duty to remind you that this, the last place in which we have taken refuge, is far beyond the track of any previous expedition, and that consequently our chance of being discovered by any rescuing parties that may be sent to look after us is, to say the least of it, a chance of the most uncertain kind. You all agree with me, gentlemen, so far?”

The officers (with the exception of Wardour, who stood apart in sullen silence) all agreed, so far.

The captain went on.

“It is therefore urgently necessary that we should make another, and probably a last, effort to extricate ourselves. The winter is not far off, game is getting scarcer and scarcer, our stock of provisions is running low, and the sick – especially, I am sorry to say, the sick in the Wanderer’s hut – are increasing in number day by day. We must look to our own lives, and to the lives of those who are dependent on us; and we have no time to lose.”

The officers echoed the words cheerfully.

“Right! right! No time to lose.”

Captain Helding resumed:

“The plan proposed is, that a detachment of the able-bodied officers and men among us should set forth this very day, and make another effort to reach the nearest inhabited settlements, from which help and provisions may be dispatched to those who remain here. The new direction to be taken, and the various precautions to be adopted, are all drawn out ready. The only question now before us is, Who is to stop here, and who is to undertake the journey?”

The officers answered the question with one accord – “Volunteers!”

The men echoed their officers. “Ay, ay, volunteers.”

Wardour still preserved his sullen silence. Crayford noticed him. standing apart from the rest, and appealed to him personally.

“Do you say nothing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Wardour answered. “Go or stay, it’s all one to me.”

“I hope you don’t really mean that?” said Crayford.

“I do.”

“I am sorry to hear it, Wardour.”

Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favour of volunteering by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusiasm of the meeting.

“Well,” he said, “suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to stop in the huts?”

There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each other confusedly. The captain continued:

“You see we can’t settle it by volunteering. You all want to go. Every man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go. But what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs? Some of us must stay here, and take care of the sick.”

Everybody admitted that this was true.

“So we get back again,” said the captain, “to the old question – Who among the able-bodied is to go? and who is to stay? Captain Ebsworth says, and I say, let chance decide it. Here are dice. The numbers run as high as twelve – double sixes. All who throw under six, stay; all who throw over six, go. Officers of the Wanderer and the Sea-Mew, do you agree to that way of meeting the difficulty?”

All the officers agreed, with the one exception of Wardour, who still kept silence.

“Men of the Wanderer and Sea-Mew, your officers agree to cast lots. Do you agree too?”

The men agreed without a dissentient voice. Crayford handed the box and the dice to Captain Helding.

“You throw first, sir. Under six, ‘Stay.’ Over six, ‘Go.’”

Captain Helding cast the dice; the top of the cask serving for a table. He threw seven.

“Go,” said Crayford. “I congratulate you, sir. Now for my own chance.” He cast the dice in his turn. Three! “Stay! Ah, well! well! if I can do my duty, and be of use to others, what does it matter whether I go or stay? Wardour, you are next, in the absence of your first lieutenant.”

Wardour prepared to cast, without shaking the dice.

“Shake the box, man!” cried Crayford. “Give yourself a chance of luck!”

Wardour persisted in letting the dice fall out carelessly, just as they lay in the box.

“Not I!” he muttered to himself. “I’ve done with luck.” Saying those words, he threw down the empty box, and seated himself on the nearest chest, without looking to see how the dice had fallen.

Crayford examined them. “Six!” he exclaimed. “There! you have a second chance, in spite of yourself. You are neither under nor over – you throw again.”

“Bah!” growled the Bear. “It’s not worth the trouble of getting up for. Somebody else throw for me.” He suddenly looked at Frank. “You! you have got what the women call a lucky face.”

Frank appealed to Crayford. “Shall I?”

“Yes, if he wishes it,” said Crayford.

Frank cast the dice. “Two! He stays! Wardour, I am sorry I have thrown against you.”

“Go or stay,” reiterated Wardour, “it’s all one to me. You will be luckier, young one, when you cast for yourself.”

Frank cast for himself.

“Eight. Hurrah! I go!”

“What did I tell you?” said Wardour. “The chance was yours. You have thriven on my ill luck.”

He rose, as he spoke, to leave the hut. Crayford stopped him.

“Have you anything particular to do, Richard?”

“What has anybody to do here?”

“Wait a little, then. I want to speak to you when this business is over.”

“Are you going to give me any more good advice?”

“Don’t look at me in that sour way, Richard. I am going to ask you a question about something which concerns yourself.”

Wardour yielded without a word more. He returned to his chest, and cynically composed himself to slumber. The casting of the lots went on rapidly among the officers and men. In another half-hour chance had decided the question of “Go” or “Stay” for all alike. The men left the hut. The officers entered the inner apartment for a last conference with the bedridden captain of the Sea-Mew. Wardour and Crayford were left together, alone.

•  IX  •

Crayford touched his friend on the shoulder to rouse him. Wardour looked up, impatiently, with a frown.

“I was just asleep,” he said. “Why do you wake me?”

“Look round you, Richard. We are alone.”

“Well – and what of that?”

“I wish to speak to you privately; and this is my opportunity. You have disappointed and surprised me today. Why did you say it was all one to you whether you went or stayed? Why are you the only man among us who seems to be perfectly indifferent whether we are rescued or not?”

“Can a man always give a reason for what is strange in his manner or his words?” Wardour retorted.

“He can try,” said Crayford, quietly – “when his friend asks him.”

Wardour’s manner softened.

“That’s true,” he said. “I will try. Do you remember the first night at sea when we sailed from England in the Wanderer?”

“As well as if it was yesterday.”

“A calm, still night,” the other went on, thoughtfully. “No clouds, no stars. Nothing in the sky but the broad moon, and hardly a ripple to break the path of light she made in the quiet water. Mine was the middle watch that night. You came on deck, and found me alone—”

He stopped. Crayford took his hand, and finished the sentence for him.

“Alone – and in tears.”

“The last I shall ever shed,” Wardour added, bitterly.

“Don’t say that! There are times when a man is to be pitied indeed, if he can shed no tears. Go on, Richard.”

Wardour proceeded – still following the old recollections, still preserving his gentler tones.

“I should have quarrelled with any other man who had surprised me at that moment,” he said. “There was something, I suppose, in your voice when you asked my pardon for disturbing me, that softened my heart. I told you I had met with a disappointment which had broken me for life. There was no need to explain further. The only hopeless wretchedness in this world is the wretchedness that women cause.”

“And the only unalloyed happiness,” said Crayford, “the happiness that women bring.”

“That may be your experience of them,” Wardour answered; “mine is different. All the devotion, the patience, the humility, the worship that there is in man, I laid at the feet of a woman. She accepted the offering as women do – accepted it, easily, gracefully, unfeelingly – accepted it as a matter of course. I left England to win a high place in my profession, before I dared to win her. I braved danger, and faced death. I staked my life in the fever swamps of Africa, to gain the promotion that I only desired for her sake – and gained it. I came back to give her all, and to ask nothing in return, but to rest my weary heart in the sunshine of her smile. And her own lips – the lips I had kissed at parting – told me that another man had robbed me of her. I spoke but few words when I heard that confession, and left her forever. ‘The time may come,’ I told her, ‘when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.’ Don’t ask me who he was! I have yet to discover him. The treachery had been kept secret; nobody could tell me where to find him; nobody could tell me who he was. What did it matter? When I had lived out the first agony, I could rely on myself – I could be patient, and bide my time.”

“Your time? What time?”

“The time when I and that man shall meet face to face. I knew it then; I know it now – it was written on my heart then, it is written on my heart now – we two shall meet and know each other! With that conviction strong within me, I volunteered for this service, as I would have volunteered for anything that set work and hardship and danger, like ramparts, between my misery and me. With that conviction strong within me still, I tell you it is no matter whether I stay here with the sick, or go hence with the strong. I shall live till I have met that man! There is a day of reckoning appointed between us. Here in the freezing cold, or away in the deadly heat; in battle or in shipwreck; in the face of starvation; under the shadow of pestilence – I, though hundreds are falling round me, I shall live! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with one man!”

He stopped, trembling, body and soul, under the hold that his own terrible superstition had fastened on him. Crayford drew back in silent horror. Wardour noticed the action – he resented it – he appealed, in defence of his one cherished conviction, to Crayford’s own experience of him.

“Look at me!” he cried. “Look how I have lived and thriven, with the heartache gnawing at me at home, and the winds of the icy north whistling round me here! I am the strongest man among you. Why? I have fought through hardships that have laid the best-seasoned men of all our party on their backs. Why? What have I done, that my life should throb as bravely through every vein in my body at this minute, and in this deadly place, as ever it did in the wholesome breezes of home? What am I preserved for? I tell you again, for the coming of one day – for the meeting with one man.”

He paused once more. This time Crayford spoke.

“Richard!” he said, “since we first met, I have believed in your better nature, against all outward appearance. I have believed in you, firmly, truly, as your brother might. You are putting that belief to a hard test. If your enemy had told me that you had ever talked as you talk now, that you had ever looked as you look now, I would have turned my back on him as the utterer of a vile calumny against a just, a brave, an upright man. Oh! my friend, my friend, if ever I have deserved well of you, put away these thoughts from your heart! Face me again, with the stainless look of a man who has trampled under his feet the bloody superstitions of revenge, and knows them no more! Never, never, let the time come when I cannot offer you my hand as I offer it now, to the man I can still admire – to the brother I can still love!”

The heart that no other voice could touch felt that appeal. The fierce eyes, the hard voice, softened under Crayford’s influence. Richard Wardour’s head sank on his breast.

“You are kinder to me than I deserve,” he said. “Be kinder still, and forget what I have been talking about. No! no more about me; I am not worth it. We’ll change the subject, and never go back to it again. Let’s do something. Work, Crayford – that’s the true elixir of our life! Work, that stretches the muscles and sets the blood a-glowing. Work, that tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can do? Nothing to cut? nothing to carry?”

The door opened as he put the question. Bateson – appointed to chop Frank’s bed-place into firing – appeared punctually with his ax. Wardour, without a word of warning, snatched the ax out of the man’s hand.

“What was this wanted for?” he asked.

“To cut up Mr. Aldersley’s berth there into firing, sir.”

“I’ll do it for you! I’ll have it down in no time!” He turned to Crayford. “You needn’t be afraid about me, old friend. I am going to do the right thing. I am going to tire my body and rest my mind.”

The evil spirit in him was plainly subdued – for the time, at least. Crayford took his hand in silence; and then (followed by Bateson) left him to his work.

•  X  •

Ax in hand, Wardour approached Frank’s bed-place.

“If I could only cut the thoughts out of me,” he said to himself, “as I am going to cut the billets out of this wood!” He attacked the bed-place with the ax, like a man who well knew the use of his instrument. “Oh me!” he thought, sadly, “if I had only been born a carpenter instead of a gentleman! A good ax, Master Bateson – I wonder where you got it? Something like a grip, my man, on this handle. Poor Crayford! his words stick in my throat. A fine fellow! a noble fellow! No use thinking, no use regretting; what is said, is said. Work! work! work!”

Plank after plank fell out on the floor. He laughed over the easy task of destruction. “Aha! young Aldersley! It doesn’t take much to demolish your bed-place. I’ll have it down! I would have the whole hut down, if they would only give me the chance of chopping at it!”

A long strip of wood fell to his ax – long enough to require cutting in two. He turned it, and stooped over it. Something caught his eye – letters carved in the wood. He looked closer. The letters were very faintly and badly cut. He could only make out the first three of them; and even of those he was not quite certain. They looked like C L A – if they looked like anything. He threw down the strip of wood irritably.

“D – n the fellow (whoever he is) who cut this! Why should he carve that name, of all the names in the world?”

He paused, considering – then determined to go on again with his self-imposed labour. He was ashamed of his own outburst. He looked eagerly for the ax. “Work, work! Nothing for it but work.” He found the ax, and went on again.

He cut out another plank.

He stopped, and looked at it suspiciously.

There was carving again, on this plank. The letters F. and A. appeared on it.

He put down the ax. There were vague misgivings in him which he was not able to realize. The state of his own mind was fast becoming a puzzle to him.

“More carving,” he said to himself. “That’s the way these young idlers employ their long hours. F. A.? Those must be his initials – Frank Aldersley. Who carved the letters on the other plank? Frank Aldersley, too?”

He turned the piece of wood in his hand nearer to the light, and looked lower down it. More carving again, lower down! Under the initials F. A. were two more letters – C. B.

“C. B.?” he repeated to himself. “His sweet heart’s initials, I suppose? Of course – at his age – his sweetheart’s initials.”

He paused once more. A spasm of inner pain showed the shadow of its mysterious passage, outwardly on his face.

“Her cipher is C. B.,” he said, in low, broken tones. “C. B. – Clara Burnham.”

He waited, with the plank in his hand; repeating the name over and over again, as if it was a question he was putting to himself.

“Clara Burnham? Clara Burnham?”

He dropped the plank, and turned deadly pale in a moment. His eyes wandered furtively backward and forward between the strip of wood on the floor and the half-demolished berth. “Oh, God! what has come to me now?” he said to himself, in a whisper. He snatched up the ax, with a strange cry – something between rage and terror. He tried – fiercely, desperately tried – to go on with his work. No! strong as he was, he could not use the ax. His hands were helpless; they trembled incessantly. He went to the fire; he held his hands over it. They still trembled incessantly; they infected the rest of him. He shuddered all over. He knew fear. His own thoughts terrified him.

“Crayford!” he cried out. “Crayford! come here, and let’s go hunting.”

No friendly voice answered him. No friendly face showed itself at the door.

An interval passed; and there came over him another change. He recovered his self-possession almost as suddenly as he had lost it. A smile – a horrid, deforming, unnatural smile – spread slowly, stealthily, devilishly over his face. He left the fire; he put the ax away softly in a corner; he sat down in his old place, deliberately self-abandoned to a frenzy of vindictive joy. He had found the man! There, at the end of the world – there, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against starvation and death, he had found the man!

The minutes passed.

He became conscious, on a sudden, of a freezing stream of air pouring into the room.

He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut. A man was behind him. Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Crayford’s shoulder.

Was it – could it be – the man who had carved the letters on the plank? Yes! Frank Aldersley!

•  XI  •

“Still at work!” Crayford exclaimed, looking at the half-demolished bed-place. “Give yourself a little rest, Richard. The exploring party is ready to start. If you wish to take leave of your brother officers before they go, you have no time to lose.”

He checked himself there, looking Wardour full in the face.

“Good Heavens!” he cried, “how pale you are! Has anything happened?”

Frank – searching in his locker for articles of clothing which he might require on the journey – looked round. He was startled, as Crayford had been startled, by the sudden change in Wardour since they had last seen him.

“Are you ill?” he asked. “I hear you have been doing Bateson’s work for him. Have you hurt yourself?”

Wardour suddenly moved his head, so as to hide his face from both Crayford and Frank. He took out his handkerchief, and wound it clumsily round his left hand.

“Yes,” he said; “I hurt myself with the ax. It’s nothing. Never mind. Pain always has a curious effect on me. I tell you it’s nothing! Don’t notice it!”

He turned his face toward them again as suddenly as he had turned it away. He advanced a few steps, and addressed himself with an uneasy familiarity to Frank.

“I didn’t answer you civilly when you spoke to me some little time since. I mean when I first came in here along with the rest of them. I apologize. Shake hands! How are you? Ready for the march?”

Frank met the oddly abrupt advance which had been made to him with perfect good humour.

“I am glad to be friends with you, Mr. Wardour. I wish I was as well seasoned to fatigue as you are.”

Wardour burst into a hard, joyless, unnatural laugh.

“Not strong, eh? You don’t look it. The dice had better have sent me away, and kept you here. I never felt in better condition in my life.” He paused and added, with his eye on Frank and with a strong emphasis on the words: “We men of Kent are made of tough material.”

Frank advanced a step on his side, with a new interest in Richard Wardour.

“You come from Kent?” he said.

“Yes. From East Kent.” He waited a little once more, and looked hard at Frank. “Do you know that part of the country?” he asked.

“I ought to know something about East Kent,” Frank answered. “Some dear friends of mine once lived there.”

“Friends of yours?” Wardour repeated. “One of the county families, I suppose?”

As he put the question, he abruptly looked over his shoulder. He was standing between Crayford and Frank. Crayford, taking no part in the conversation, had been watching him, and listening to him more and more attentively as that conversation went on. Within the last moment or two Wardour had become instinctively conscious of this. He resented Crayford’s conduct with needless irritability.

“Why are you staring at me?” he asked.

“Why are you looking unlike yourself?” Crayford answered, quietly.

Wardour made no reply. He renewed the conversation with Frank.

“One of the county families?” he resumed. “The Winterbys of Yew Grange, I dare say?”

“No,” said Frank; “but friends of the Witherbys, very likely. The Burnhams.”

Desperately as he struggled to maintain it, Wardour’s self-control failed him. He started violently. The clumsily-wound handkerchief fell off his hand. Still looking at him attentively, Crayford picked it up.

“There is your handkerchief, Richard,” he said. “Strange!”

“What is strange?”

“You told us you had hurt yourself with the ax—”

“Well?”

“There is no blood on your handkerchief.”

Wardour snatched the handkerchief out of Crayford’s hand, and, turning away, approached the outer door of the hut. “No blood on the handkerchief,” he said to himself. “There may be a stain or two when Crayford sees it again.” He stopped within a few paces of the door, and spoke to Crayford. “You recommended me to take leave of my brother officers before it was too late,” he said. “I am going to follow your advice.”

The door was opened from the outer side as he laid his hand on the lock.

One of the quartermasters of the Wanderer entered the hut.

“Is Captain Helding here, sir?” he asked, addressing himself to Wardour.

Wardour pointed to Crayford.

“The lieutenant will tell you,” he said.

Crayford advanced and questioned the quartermaster. “What do you want with Captain Helding?” he asked.

“I have a report to make, sir. There has been an accident on the ice.”

“To one of your men?”

“No, sir. To one of our officers.”

Wardour, on the point of going out, paused when the quartermaster made that reply. For a moment he considered with himself. Then he walked slowly back to the part of the room in which Frank was standing. Crayford, directing the quartermaster, pointed to the arched door way in the side of the hut.

“I am sorry to hear of the accident,” he said. “You will find Captain Helding in that room.”

For the second time, with singular persistency, Wardour renewed the conversation with Frank.

“So you knew the Burnhams?” he said. “What became of Clara when her father died?”

Frank’s face flushed angrily on the instant.

“Clara!” he repeated. “What authorizes you to speak of Miss Burnham in that familiar manner?”

Wardour seized the opportunity of quarrelling with him.

“What right have you to ask?” he retorted, coarsely.

Frank’s blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep their engagement secret – he forgot everything but the unbridled insolence of Wardour’s language and manner.

“A right which I insist on your respecting,” he answered. “The right of being engaged to marry her.”

Crayford’s steady eyes were still on the watch, and Wardour felt them on him. A little more and Crayford might openly interfere. Even Wardour recognised for once the necessity of controlling his temper, cost him what it might. He made his apologies, with overstrained politeness, to Frank.

“Impossible to dispute such a right as yours,” he said. “Perhaps you will excuse me when you know that I am one of Miss Burnham’s old friends. My father and her father were neighbours. We have always met like brother and sister—”

Frank generously stopped the apology there.

“Say no more,” he interposed. “I was in the wrong – I lost my temper. Pray forgive me.”

Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he was speaking. Wardour asked an extraordinary question when he had done.

“Is she very fond of you?”

Frank burst out laughing.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “come to our wedding, and judge for yourself.”

“Come to your wedding?” As he repeated the words Wardour stole one glance at Frank which Frank (employed in buckling his knapsack) failed to see. Crayford noticed it, and Crayford’s blood ran cold. Comparing the words which Wardour had spoken to him while they were alone together with the words that had just passed in his presence, he could draw but one conclusion. The woman whom Wardour had loved and lost was – Clara Burnham. The man who had robbed him of her was Frank Aldersley. And Wardour had discovered it in the interval since they had last met. “Thank God!” thought Crayford, “the dice have parted them! Frank goes with the expedition, and Wardour stays behind with me.”

The reflection had barely occurred to him – Frank’s thoughtless invitation to Wardour had just passed his lips – when the canvas screen over the doorway was drawn aside. Captain Helding and the officers who were to leave with the exploring party returned to the main room on their way out. Seeing Crayford, Captain Helding stopped to speak to him.

“I have a casualty to report,” said the captain, “which diminishes our numbers by one. My second lieutenant, who was to have joined the exploring party, has had a fall on the ice. Judging by what the quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor fellow has broken his leg.”

“I will supply his place,” cried a voice at the other end of the hut.

Everybody looked round. The man who had spoken was Richard Wardour.

Crayford instantly interfered – so vehemently as to astonish all who knew him.

“No!” he said. “Not you, Richard! not you!”

“Why not?” Wardour asked, sternly.

“Why not, indeed?” added Captain Helding. “Wardour is the very man to be useful on a long march. He is in perfect health, and he is the best shot among us. I was on the point of proposing him myself.”

Crayford failed to show his customary respect for his superior officer. He openly disputed the captain’s conclusion.

“Wardour has no right to volunteer,” he rejoined. “It has been settled, Captain Helding, that chance shall decide who is to go and who is to stay.”

“And chance has decided it,” cried Wardour. “Do you think we are going to cast the dice again, and give an officer of the Sea-Mew a chance of replacing an officer of the Wanderer? There is a vacancy in our party, not in yours; and we claim the right of filling it as we please. I volunteer, and my captain backs me. Whose authority is to keep me here after that?”

“Gently, Wardour,” said Captain Helding. “A man who is in the right can afford to speak with moderation.” He turned to Crayford. “You must admit yourself,” he continued, “that Wardour is right this time. The missing man belongs to my command, and in common justice one of my officers ought to supply his place.”

It was impossible to dispute the matter further. The dullest man present could see that the captain’s reply was unanswerable. In sheer despair, Crayford took Frank’s arm and led him aside a few steps. The last chance left of parting the two men was the chance of appealing to Frank.

“My dear boy,” he began, “I want to say one friendly word to you on the subject of your health. I have already, if you remember, expressed my doubts whether you are strong enough to make one of an exploring party. I feel those doubts more strongly than ever at this moment. Will you take the advice of a friend who wishes you well?”

Wardour had followed Crayford. Wardour roughly interposed before Frank could reply.

“Let him alone!”

Crayford paid no heed to the interruption. He was too earnestly bent on withdrawing Frank from the expedition to notice anything that was said or done by the persons about him.

“Don’t, pray don’t, risk hardships which you are unfit to bear!” he went on, entreatingly. “Your place can be easily filled. Change your mind, Frank. Stay here with me.”

Again Wardour interfered. Again he called out, “Leave him alone!” more roughly than ever. Still deaf and blind to every consideration but one, Crayford pressed his entreaties on Frank.

“You owned yourself just now that you were not well seasoned to fatigue,” he persisted. “You feel (you must feel) how weak that last illness has left you? You know (I am sure you know) how unfit you are to brave exposure to cold, and long marches over the snow.”

Irritated beyond endurance by Crayford’s obstinacy; seeing, or thinking he saw, signs of yielding in Frank’s face, Wardour so far forgot himself as to seize Crayford by the arm and attempt to drag him away from Frank. Crayford turned and looked at him.

“Richard,” he said, very quietly, “you are not yourself. I pity you. Drop your hand.”

Wardour relaxed his hold, with something of the sullen submission of a wild animal to its keeper. The momentary silence which followed gave Frank an opportunity of speaking at last.

“I am gratefully sensible, Crayford,” he began, “of the interest which you take in me—”

“And you will follow my advice?” Crayford interposed, eagerly.

“My mind is made up, old friend,” Frank answered, firmly and sadly. “Forgive me for disappointing you. I am appointed to the expedition. With the expedition I go.” He moved nearer to Wardour. In his innocence of all suspicion he clapped Wardour heartily on the shoulder. “When I feel the fatigue,” said poor simple Frank, “you will help me, comrade – won’t you? Come along!”

Wardour snatched his gun out of the hands of the sailor who was carrying it for him. His dark face became suddenly irradiated with a terrible joy.

“Come!” he cried. “Over the snow and over the ice! Come! where no human footsteps have ever trodden, and where no human trace is ever left.”

Blindly, instinctively, Crayford made an effort to part them. His brother officers, standing near, pulled him back. They looked at each other anxiously. The merciless cold, striking its victims in various ways, had struck in some instances at their reason first. Everybody loved Crayford. Was he, too, going on the dark way that others had taken before him? They forced him to seat himself on one of the lockers. “Steady, old fellow!” they said kindly – “steady!” Crayford yielded, writhing inwardly under the sense of his own helplessness. What in God’s name could he do? Could he denounce Wardour to Captain Helding on bare suspicion – without so much as the shadow of a proof to justify what he said? The captain would decline to insult one of his officers by even mentioning the monstrous accusation to him. The captain would conclude, as others had already concluded, that Crayford’s mind was giving way under stress of cold and privation. No hope – literally, no hope now, but in the numbers of the expedition. Officers and men, they all liked Frank. As long as they could stir hand or foot, they would help him on the way – they would see that no harm came to him.

The word of command was given; the door was thrown open; the hut emptied rapidly. Over the merciless white snow – under the merciless black sky – the exploring party began to move. The sick and helpless men, whose last hope of rescue centred in their departing messmates, cheered faintly. Some few whose days were numbered sobbed and cried like women. Frank’s voice faltered as he turned back at the door to say his last words to the friend who had been a father to him.

“God bless you, Crayford!”

Crayford broke away from the officers near him; and, hurrying forward, seized Frank by both hands. Crayford held him as if he would never let him go.

“God preserve you, Frank! I would give all I have in the world to be with you. Good-bye! Good-bye!”

Frank waved his hand – dashed away the tears that were gathering in his eyes – and hurried out. Crayford called after him, the last, the only warning that he could give:

“While you can stand, keep with the main body, Frank!”

Wardour, waiting till the last – Wardour, following Frank through the snowdrift – stopped, stepped back, and answered Crayford at the door:

“While he can stand, he keeps with Me.”

THIRD SCENE

THE ICEBERG

•  XII  •

Alone! alone on the Frozen Deep!

The Arctic sun is rising dimly in the dreary sky. The beams of the cold northern moon, mingling strangely with the dawning light, clothe the snowy plains in hues of livid grey. An ice-field on the far horizon is moving slowly southward in the spectral light. Nearer, a stream of open water rolls its slow black waves past the edges of the ice. Nearer still, following the drift, an iceberg rears its crags and pinnacles to the sky; here, glittering in the moonbeams; there, looming dim and ghost-like in the ashy light.

Midway on the long sweep of the lower slope of the iceberg, what objects rise, and break the desolate monotony of the scene? In this awful solitude, can signs appear which tell of human Life? Yes! The black outline of a boat just shows itself, hauled up on the berg. In an ice-cavern behind the boat the last red embers of a dying fire flicker from time to time over the figures of two men. One is seated, resting his back against the side of the cavern. The other lies prostrate, with his head on his comrade’s knee. The first of these men is awake, and thinking. The second reclines, with his still white face turned up to the sky – sleeping or dead. Days and days since, these two have fallen behind on the march of the expedition of relief. Days and days since, these two have been given up by their weary and failing companions as doomed and lost. He who sits thinking is Richard Wardour. He who lies sleeping or dead is Frank Aldersley.

The iceberg drifts slowly, over the black water, through the ashy light. Minute by minute the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute the deathly cold creeps nearer and nearer to the lost men.

Richard Wardour rouses himself from his thoughts – looks at the still white face beneath him – and places his hand on Frank’s heart. It still beats feebly. Give him his share of the food and fuel still stored in the boat, and Frank may live through it. Leave him neglected where he lies, and his death is a question of hours – perhaps minutes; who knows?

Richard Wardour lifts the sleeper’s head and rests it against the cavern side. He goes to the boat, and returns with a billet of wood. He stoops to place the wood on the fire – and stops. Frank is dreaming, and murmuring in his dream. A woman’s name passes his lips. Frank is in England again – at the ball – whispering to Clara the confession of his love.

Over Richard Wardour’s face there passes the shadow of a deadly thought. He rises from the fire; he takes the wood back to the boat. His iron strength is shaken, but it still holds out. They are drifting nearer and nearer to the open sea. He can launch the boat without help; he can take the food and the fuel with him. The sleeper on the iceberg is the man who has robbed him of Clara – who has wrecked the hope and the happiness of his life. Leave the man in his sleep, and let him die!

So the tempter whispers. Richard Wardour tries his strength on the boat. It moves: he has got it under control. He stops, and looks round. Beyond him is the open sea. Beneath him is the man who has robbed him of Clara. The shadow of the deadly thought grows and darkens over his face. He waits with his hands on the boat – waits and thinks.

The iceberg drifts slowly – over the black water; through the ashy light. Minute by minute, the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute, the deathly cold creeps nearer to the sleeping man. And still Richard Wardour waits – waits and thinks.

FOURTH SCENE

THE GARDEN

•  XIII  •

The spring has come. The air of the April night just lifts the leaves of the sleeping flowers. The moon is queen in the cloudless and starless sky. The stillness of the midnight hour is abroad, over land and over sea.

In a villa on the westward shore of the Isle of Wight, the glass doors which lead from the drawing-room to the garden are yet open. The shaded lamp yet burns on the table. A lady sits by the lamp, reading. From time to time she looks out into the garden, and sees the white-robed figure of a young girl pacing slowly to and fro in the soft brightness of the moonlight on the lawn. Sorrow and suspense have set their mark on the lady. Not rivals only, but friends who formerly admired her, agree now that she looks worn and aged. The more merciful judgement of others remarks, with equal truth, that her eyes, her hair, her simple grace and grandeur of movement have lost but little of their olden charms. The truth lies, as usual, between the two extremes. In spite of sorrow and suffering, Mrs. Crayford is the beautiful Mrs. Crayford still.

The delicious silence of the hour is softly disturbed by the voice of the younger lady in the garden.

“Go to the piano, Lucy. It is a night for music. Play something that is worthy of the night.”

Mrs. Crayford looks round at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“My dear Clara, it is past twelve! Remember what the doctor told you. You ought to have been in bed an hour ago.”

“Half an hour, Lucy – give me half an hour more! Look at the moonlight on the sea. Is it possible to go to bed on such a night as this? Play something, Lucy – something spiritual and divine.”

Earnestly pleading with her friend, Clara advances toward the window. She too has suffered under the wasting influences of suspense. Her face has lost its youthful freshness; no delicate flush of colour rises on it when she speaks. The soft grey eyes which won Frank’s heart in the bygone time are sadly altered now. In repose, they have a dimmed and wearied look. In action, they are wild and restless, like eyes suddenly wakened from startling dreams. Robed in white – her soft brown hair hanging loosely over her shoulders – there is something weird and ghost-like in the girl, as she moves nearer and nearer to the window in the full light of the moon – pleading for music that shall be worthy of the mystery and the beauty of the night.

“Will you come in here if I play to you?” Mrs. Crayford asks. “It is a risk, my love, to be out so long in the night air.”

“No! no! I like it. Play – while I am out here looking at the sea. It quiets me; it comforts me; it does me good.”

She glides back, ghost-like, over the lawn. Mrs. Crayford rises, and puts down the volume that she has been reading. It is a record of explorations in the Arctic seas. The time has gone by when the two lonely women could take an interest in subjects not connected with their own anxieties. Now, when hope is fast failing them – now, when their last news of the Wanderer and the Sea-Mew is news that is more than two years old – they can read of nothing, they can think of nothing, but dangers and discoveries, losses and rescues in the terrible Polar seas.

Unwillingly, Mrs. Crayford puts her book aside, and opens the piano – Mozart’s “Air in A, with Variations,” lies open on the instrument. One after another she plays the lovely melodies, so simply, so purely beautiful, of that unpretending and unrivalled work. At the close of the ninth Variation (Clara’s favourite), she pauses, and turns toward the garden.

“Shall I stop there?” she asks.

There is no answer. Has Clara wandered away out of hearing of the music that she loves – the music that harmonizes so subtly with the tender beauty of the night? Mrs. Crayford rises and advances to the window.

No! there is the white figure standing alone on the slope of the lawn – the head turned away from the house; the face looking out over the calm sea, whose gently rippling waters end in the dim line on the horizon which is the line of the Hampshire coast.

Mrs. Crayford advances as far as the path before the window, and calls to her.

“Clara!”

Again there is no answer. The white figure still stands immovably in its place.

With signs of distress in her face, but with no appearance of alarm, Mrs. Crayford returns to the room. Her own sad experience tells her what has happened. She summons the servants and directs them to wait in the drawing-room until she calls to them. This done, she returns to the garden, and approaches the mysterious figure on the lawn.

Dead to the outer world, as if she lay already in her grave – insensible to touch, insensible to sound, motionless as stone, cold as stone – Clara stands on the moonlit lawn, facing the seaward view. Mrs. Crayford waits at her side, patiently watching for the change which she knows is to come. “Catalepsy,” as some call it – “hysteria,” as others say – this alone is certain, the same interval always passes; the same change always appears.

It comes now. Not a change in her eyes; they still remain wide open, fixed and glassy. The first movement is a movement of her hands. They rise slowly from her side and waver in the air like the hands of a person groping in the dark. Another interval, and the movement spreads to her lips: they part and tremble. A few minutes more, and words begin to drop, one by one, from those parted lips – words spoken in a lost, vacant tone, as if she is talking in her sleep.

Mrs. Crayford looks back at the house. Sad experience makes her suspicious of the servants’ curiosity. Sad experience has long since warned her that the servants are not to be trusted within hearing of the wild words which Clara speaks in the trance. Has any one of them ventured into the garden? No. They are out of hearing at the window, waiting for the signal which tells them that their help is needed.

Turning toward Clara once more, Mrs. Crayford hears the vacantly uttered words, falling faster and faster from her lips,

“Frank! Frank! Frank! Don’t drop behind – don’t trust Richard Wardour. While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!”

(The farewell warning of Crayford in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep, repeated by Clara in the garden of her English home!)

A moment of silence follows; and, in that moment, the vision has changed. She sees him on the iceberg now, at the mercy of the bitterest enemy he has on earth. She sees him drifting – over the black water, through the ashy light.

“Wake, Frank! wake and defend yourself! Richard Wardour knows that I love you – Richard Wardour’s vengeance will take your life! Wake, Frank – wake! You are drifting to your death!” A low groan of horror bursts from her, sinister and terrible to hear. “Drifting! drifting!” she whispers to herself – “drifting to his death!”

Her glassy eyes suddenly soften – then close. A long shudder runs through her. A faint flush shows itself on the deadly pallor of her face, and fades again. Her limbs fail her. She sinks into Mrs. Crayford’s arms.

The servants, answering the call for help, carry her into the house. They lay her insensible on her bed. After half an hour or more, her eyes open again – this time with the light of life in them – open, and rest languidly on the friend sitting by the bedside.

“I have had a dreadful dream,” she murmurs faintly. “Am I ill, Lucy? I feel so weak.”

Even as she says the words, sleep, gentle, natural sleep, takes her suddenly, as it takes young children weary with their play. Though it is all over now, though no further watching is required, Mrs. Crayford still keeps her place by the bedside, too anxious and too wakeful to retire to her own room.

On other occasions, she is accustomed to dismiss from her mind the words which drop from Clara in the trance. This time the effort to dismiss them is beyond her power. The words haunt her. Vainly she recalls to memory all that the doctors have said to her, in speaking of Clara in the state of trance. “What she vaguely dreads for the lost man whom she loves is mingled in her mind with what she is constantly reading, of trials, dangers, and escapes in the Arctic seas. The most startling things that she may say or do are all attributable to this cause, and may all be explained in this way.” So the doctors have spoken; and, thus far, Mrs. Crayford has shared their view. It is only tonight that the girl’s words ring in her ear, with a strange prophetic sound in them. It is only tonight that she asks herself: “Is Clara present, in the spirit, with our loved and lost ones in the lonely North? Can mortal vision see the dead and living in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep?”

•  XIV  •

The night had passed.

Far and near the garden view looked its gayest and brightest in the light of the noonday sun. The cheering sounds which tell of life and action were audible all round the villa. From the garden of the nearest house rose the voices of children at play. Along the road at the back sounded the roll of wheels, as carts and carriages passed at intervals. Out on the blue sea, the distant splash of the paddles, the distant thump of the engines, told from time to time of the passage of steamers, entering or leaving the strait between the island and the mainland. In the trees, the birds sang gaily among the rustling leaves. In the house, the women-servants were laughing over some jest or story that cheered them at their work. It was a lively and pleasant time – a bright, enjoyable day.

The two ladies were out together; resting on a garden seat, after a walk round the grounds.

They exchanged a few trivial words relating to the beauty of the day, and then said no more. Possessing the same consciousness of what she had seen in the trance which persons in general possess of what they have seen in a dream – believing in the vision as a supernatural revelation – Clara’s worst forebodings were now, to her mind, realized as truths. Her last faint hope of ever seeing Frank again was now at an end. Intimate experience of her told Mrs. Crayford what was passing in Clara’s mind, and warned her that the attempt to reason and remonstrate would be little better than a voluntary waste of words and time. The disposition which she had herself felt on the previous night, to attach a superstitious importance to the words that Clara had spoken in the trance, had vanished with the return of the morning. Rest and reflection had quieted her mind, and had restored the composing influence of her sober sense. Sympathising with Clara in all besides, she had no sympathy, as they sat together in the pleasant sunshine, with Clara’s gloomy despair of the future. She, who could still hope, had nothing to say to the sad companion who had done with hope. So the quiet minutes succeeded each other, and the two friends sat side by side in silence.

An hour passed, and the gate-bell of the villa rang.

They both started – they both knew the ring. It was the hour when the postman brought their newspapers from London. In past days, what hundreds on hundreds of times they had torn off the cover which enclosed the newspaper, and looked at the same column with the same weary mingling of hope and despair! There today – as it was yesterday; as it would be, if they lived, tomorrow – there was the servant with Lucy’s newspaper and Clara’s newspaper in his hand!

Would both of them do again today what both had done so often in the days that were gone?

No! Mrs. Crayford removed the cover from her newspaper as usual. Clara laid her newspaper aside, unopened, on the garden seat.

In silence, Mrs. Crayford looked, where she always looked, at the column devoted to the Latest Intelligence from foreign parts. The instant her eye fell on the page she started with a loud cry of joy. The newspaper fell from her trembling hand. She caught Clara in her arms. “Oh, my darling! my darling! news of them at last.”

Without answering, without the slightest change in look or manner, Clara took the newspaper from the ground, and read the top line in the column, printed in capital letters:

THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

She waited, and looked at Mrs. Crayford.

“Can you bear to hear it, Lucy,” she asked, “if I read it aloud?”

Mrs. Crayford was too agitated to answer in words. She signed impatiently to Clara to go on.

Clara read the news which followed the heading in capital letters. Thus it ran:

“The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has reached us for publication. The whaling-vessel Blythewood is reported to have met with the surviving officers and men of the Expedition in Davis Strait. Many are stated to be dead, and some are supposed to be missing. The list of the saved, as collected by the people of the whaler, is not vouched for as being absolutely correct, the circumstances having been adverse to investigation. The vessel was pressed for time; and the members of the Expedition, all more or less suffering from exhaustion, were not in a position to give the necessary assistance to inquiry. Further particulars may be looked for by the next mail.”

The list of the survivors followed, beginning with the officers in the order of their rank. They both read the list together. The first name was Captain Helding; the second was Lieutenant Crayford.

There the wife’s joy overpowered her. After a pause, she put her arm around Clara’s waist, and spoke to her.

“Oh, my love!” she murmured, “are you as happy as I am? Is Frank’s name there too? The tears are in my eyes. Read for me – I can’t read for myself.”

The answer came, in still, sad tones:

“I have read as far as your husband’s name. I have no need to read further.”

Mrs. Crayford dashed the tears from her eyes – steadied herself – and looked at the newspaper.

On the list of the survivors, the search was vain. Frank’s name was not among them. On a second list, headed “Dead or Missing,” the first two names that appeared were:

FRANCIS ALDERSLEY. RICHARD WARDOUR.

In speechless distress and dismay, Mrs. Crayford looked at Clara. Had she force enough in her feeble health to sustain the shock that had fallen on her? Yes! she bore it with a strange unnatural resignation – she looked, she spoke, with the sad self-possession of despair.

“I was prepared for it,” she said. “I saw them in the spirit last night. Richard Wardour has discovered the truth; and Frank has paid the penalty with his life – and I, I alone, am to blame.” She shuddered, and put her hand on her heart. “We shall not be long parted, Lucy. I shall go to him. He will not return to me.”

Those words were spoken with a calm certainty of conviction that was terrible to hear. “I have no more to say,” she added, after a moment, and rose to return to the house. Mrs. Crayford caught her by the hand, and forced her to take her seat again.

“Don’t look at me, don’t speak to me, in that horrible manner!” she exclaimed. “Clara! it is unworthy of a reasonable being, it is doubting the mercy of God, to say what you have just said. Look at the newspaper again. See! They tell you plainly that their information is not to be depended on – they warn you to wait for further particulars. The very words at the top of the list show how little they knew of the truth ‘Dead or Missing!’ On their own showing, it is quite as likely that Frank is missing as that Frank is dead. For all you know, the next mail may bring a letter from him. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“Can you deny what I say?”

“No.”

“‘Yes!’  ‘No!’ Is that the way to answer me when I am so distressed and so anxious about you?”

“I am sorry I spoke as I did, Lucy. We look at some subjects in very different ways. I don’t dispute, dear, that yours is the reasonable view.”

“You don’t dispute?” retorted Mrs. Crayford, warmly. “No! you do what is worse – you believe in your own opinion; you persist in your own conclusion – with the newspaper before you! Do you, or do you not, believe the newspaper?”

“I believe in what I saw last night.”

“In what you saw last night! You, an educated woman, a clever woman, believing in a vision of your own fancy – a mere dream! I wonder you are not ashamed to acknowledge it!”

“Call it a dream if you like, Lucy. I have had other dreams at other times – and I have known them to be fulfilled.”

“Yes!” said Mrs. Crayford. “For once in a way they may have been fulfilled, by chance – and you notice it, and remember it, and pin your faith on it. Come, Clara, be honest! – What about the occasions when the chance has been against you, and your dreams have not been fulfilled? You superstitious people are all alike. You conveniently forget when your dreams and your presentiments prove false. For my sake, dear, if not for your own,” she continued, in gentler and tenderer tones, “try to be more reasonable and more hopeful. Don’t lose your trust in the future, and your trust in God. God, who has saved my husband, can save Frank. While there is doubt, there is hope. Don’t embitter my happiness, Clara! Try to think as I think – if it is only to show that you love me.”

She put her arm round the girl’s neck, and kissed her. Clara returned the kiss; Clara answered, sadly and submissively,

“I do love you, Lucy. I will try.”

Having answered in those terms, she sighed to herself, and said no more. It would have been plain, only too plain, to far less observant eyes than Mrs. Crayford’s that no salutary impression had been produced on her. She had ceased to defend her own way of thinking, she spoke of it no more – but there was the terrible conviction of Frank’s death at Wardour’s hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind! Discouraged and distressed, Mrs. Crayford left her, and walked back toward the house.

•  XV  •

At the drawing-room window of the villa there appeared a polite little man, with bright intelligent eyes, and cheerful sociable manners. Neatly dressed in professional black, he stood, self-proclaimed, a prosperous country doctor – successful and popular in a wide circle of patients and friends. As Mrs. Crayford approached him, he stepped out briskly to meet her on the lawn, with both hands extended in courteous and cordial greeting.

“My dear madam, accept my heartfelt congratulations!” cried the doctor. “I have seen the good news in the paper; and I could hardly feel more rejoiced than I do now if I had the honour of knowing Lieutenant Crayford personally. We mean to celebrate the occasion at home. I said to my wife before I came out, ‘A bottle of the old Madeira at dinner today, mind! – to drink the lieutenant’s health; God bless him!’ And how is our interesting patient? The news is not altogether what we could wish, so far as she is concerned. I felt a little anxious, to tell you the truth, about the effect of it; and I have paid my visit today before my usual time. Not that I take a gloomy view of the news myself. No! There is clearly a doubt about the correctness of the information, so far as Mr. Aldersley is concerned – and that is a point, a great point in Mr. Aldersley’s favour. I give him the benefit of the doubt, as the lawyers say. Does Miss Burnham give him the benefit of the doubt too? I hardly dare hope it, I confess.”

“Miss Burnham has grieved and alarmed me,” Mrs. Crayford answered. “I was just thinking of sending for you when we met here.”

With those introductory words, she told the doctor exactly what had happened; repeating not only the conversation of that morning between Clara and herself, but also the words which had fallen from Clara, in the trance of the past night.

The doctor listened attentively. Little by little, its easy smiling composure vanished from his face, as Mrs. Crayford went on, and left him completely transformed into a grave and thoughtful man.

“Let us go and look at her,” he said.

He seated himself by Clara’s side, and carefully studied her face, with his hand on her pulse. There was no sympathy here between the dreamy mystical temperament of the patient and the downright practical character of the doctor. Clara secretly disliked her medical attendant. She submitted impatiently to the close investigation of which he made her the object. He questioned her – and she answered irritably. Advancing a step further (the doctor was not easily discouraged) he adverted to the news of the Expedition, and took up the tone of remonstrance which had been already adopted by Mrs. Crayford. Clara declined to discuss the question. She rose with formal politeness, and requested permission to return to the house. The doctor attempted no further resistance. “By all means, Miss Burnham,” he answered, resignedly – having first cast a look at Mrs. Crayford which said plainly, “Stay here with me.” Clara bowed her acknowledgements in cold silence, and left them together. The doctor’s bright eyes followed the girl’s wasted, yet still graceful figure as it slowly receded from view, with an expression of grave anxiety which Mrs. Crayford noticed with grave misgiving on her side. He said nothing, until Clara had disappeared under the veranda which ran round the garden-side of the house.

“I think you told me,” he began, “that Miss Burnham has neither father nor mother living?”

“Yes. Miss Burnham is an orphan.”

“Has she any near relatives?”

“No. You may speak to me as her guardian and her friend. Are you alarmed about her?”

“I am seriously alarmed. It is only two days since I called here last, and I see a marked change in her for the worse – physically and morally, a change for the worse. Don’t needlessly alarm yourself! The case is not, I trust, entirely beyond the reach of remedy. The great hope for us is the hope that Mr. Aldersley may still be living. In that event, I should feel no misgivings about the future. Her marriage would make a healthy and a happy woman of her. But as things are, I own I dread that settled conviction in her mind that Mr. Aldersley is dead, and that her own death is soon to follow. In her present state of health this idea (haunting her as it certainly will night and day) will have its influence on her body as well as on her mind. Unless we can check the mischief, her last reserves of strength will give way. If you wish for other advice, by all means send for it. You have my opinion.”

“I am quite satisfied with your opinion,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “For God’s sake, tell me, what can we do?”

“We can try a complete change,” said the doctor. “We can remove her at once from this place.”

“She will refuse to leave it,” Mrs. Crayford rejoined. “I have more than once proposed a change to her – and she always says No.”

The doctor paused for a moment, like a man collecting his thoughts.

“I heard something on my way here,” he proceeded, “which suggests to my mind a method of meeting the difficulty that you have just mentioned. Unless I am entirely mistaken, Miss Burnham will not say No to the change that I have in view for her.”

“What is it?” asked Mrs. Crayford, eagerly.

“Pardon me if I ask you a question, on my part, before I reply,” said the doctor. “Are you fortunate enough to possess any interest at the Admiralty?”

“Certainly. My father is in the Secretary’s office; and two of the Lords of the Admiralty are friends of his.”

“Excellent! Now I can speak out plainly with little fear of disappointing you. After what I have said, you will agree with me, that the only change in Miss Burnham’s life which will be of any use to her is a change that will alter the present tone of her mind on the subject of Mr. Aldersley. Place her in a position to discover – not by reference to her own distempered fancies and visions, but by reference to actual evidence and actual fact – whether Mr. Aldersley is, or is not, a living man; and there will be an end of the hysterical delusions which now threaten to fatally undermine her health. Even taking matters at their worst – even assuming that Mr. Aldersley has died in the Arctic seas – it will be less injurious to her to discover this positively, than to leave her mind to feed on its own morbid superstitions and speculations, for weeks and weeks together, while the next news from the Expedition is on its way to England. In one word, I want you to be in a position, before the week is out, to put Miss Burnham’s present conviction to a practical test. Suppose you could say to her, ‘We differ, my dear, about Mr. Francis Aldersley. You declare, without the shadow of a reason for it, that he is certainly dead, and, worse still, that he has died by the act of one of his brother officers. I assert, on the authority of the newspaper, that nothing of the sort has happened, and that the chances are all in favour of his being still a living man. What do you say to crossing the Atlantic, and deciding which of us is right – you or I?’ Do you think Miss Burnham will say No to that, Mrs. Crayford? If I know anything of human nature, she will seize the opportunity as a means of converting you to a belief in the Second Sight.”

“Good Heavens, doctor! do you mean to tell me that we are to go to sea and meet the Arctic Expedition on its way home?”

“Admirably guessed, Mrs. Crayford! That is exactly what I mean.”

“But how is it to be done?”

“I will tell you immediately. I mentioned – didn’t I? – that I had heard something on my road to this house.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I met an old friend at my own gate, who walked with me a part of the way here. Last night my friend dined with the admiral at Portsmouth. Among the guests there was a member of the Ministry who had brought the news about the Expedition with him from London. This gentleman told the company there was very little doubt that the Admiralty would immediately send out a steam-vessel, to meet the rescued men on the shores of America, and bring them home. Wait a little, Mrs. Crayford! Nobody knows, as yet, under what rules and regulations the vessel will sail. Under somewhat similar circumstances, privileged people have been received as passengers, or rather as guests, in her majesty’s ships – and what has been conceded on former occasions may, by bare possibility, be conceded now. I can say no more. If you are not afraid of the voyage for yourself, I am not afraid of it (nay, I am all in favour of it on medical grounds) for my patient. What do you say? Will you write to your father, and ask him to try what his interest will do with his friends at the Admiralty?”

Mrs. Crayford rose excitedly to her feet.

“Write!” she exclaimed. “I will do better than write. The journey to London is no great matter – and my housekeeper here is to be trusted to take care of Clara in my absence. I will see my father tonight! He shall make good use of his interest at the Admiralty – you may rely on that. Oh, my dear doctor, what a prospect it is! My husband! Clara! What a discovery you have made – what a treasure you are! How can I thank you?”

“Compose yourself, my dear madam. Don’t make too sure of success. We may consider Miss Burnham’s objections as disposed of beforehand. But suppose the Lords of the Admiralty say No?”

“In that case, I shall be in London, doctor; and I shall go to them myself. Lords are only men; and men are not in the habit of saying No to me.”

So they parted.

•   •   •

In a week from that day, her majesty’s ship Amazon sailed for North America. Certain privileged persons, specially interested in the Arctic voyagers, were permitted to occupy the empty staterooms on board. On the list of these favoured guests of the ship were the names of two ladies – Mrs. Crayford and Miss Burnham.

FIFTH SCENE

THE BOAT-HOUSE

•  XVI  •

Once more the open sea – the sea whose waters break on the shores of Newfoundland! An English steamship lies at anchor in the offing. The vessel is plainly visible through the open doorway of a large boat-house on the shore – one of the buildings attached to a fishing-station on the coast of the island.

The only person in the boat-house at this moment is a man in the dress of a sailor. He is seated on a chest, with a piece of cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea. On the rough carpenter’s table near him lies a strange object to be left in such a place – a woman’s veil.

What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing?

The vessel is the Amazon – dispatched from England to receive the surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The meeting has been successfully effected, on the shores of North America, three days since. But the homeward voyage has been delayed by a storm which has driven the ship out of her course. Taking advantage, on the third day, of the first returning calm, the commander of the Amazon has anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his supplies of water before he sails for England. The weary passengers have landed for a few hours, to refresh themselves after the discomforts of the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table in the boat-house is Clara’s veil.

And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea? The man is the only cheerful person in the ship’s company. In other words – John Want.

Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is surprised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door.

“Look sharp with your work there, John Want!” says the sailor. “Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you.”

With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord round it. The ship’s cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which animates his companions in trouble. On the contrary, he is ungratefully disposed to regret the North Pole.

“If I had only known” – thus runs the train of thought in the mind of John Want – “if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be brought to this place, I believe I should have preferred staying at the North Pole. I was very happy keeping up everybody’s spirits at the North Pole. Taking one thing with another, I think I must have been very comfortable at the North Pole – if I had only known it. Another man in my place might be inclined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was rather a sloppy, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland fogs, perpetual Newfoundland codfish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind! it’s all one to me – I don’t grumble.”

“Have you done cording that box?”

This time the voice is a voice of authority – the man at the doorway is Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his officer in his own cheerful way.

“I’ve done it as well as I can, sir – but the damp of this place is beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our lungs – I only say our ropes.”

Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former relish for the humour of John Want.

“Pooh! To look at your wry face, one would think that our rescue from the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You deserve to be sent back again.”

“I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I was sent back again; I hope I’m thankful; but I don’t like to hear the North Pole run down in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the North Pole – and it’s very damp and sandy here. Do you never miss your bone-soup, sir? I do. It mightn’t have been strong; but it was very hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavour as it went down. Was it you that was a-coughing so long last night, sir? I don’t presume to say anything against the air of these latitudes; but I should be glad to know it wasn’t you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of your fingers, sir? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket.”

“You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond! You would have grumbled in the Garden of Eden.”

The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to John Want.

“I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir,” said the ship’s cook. “But you mark my words – there must have been a deal of troublesome work with the flowerbeds in the Garden of Eden.”

Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box, and drifted drearily out of the boat-house.

Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor outside.

“Where are the ladies?” he asked.

“Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you came in.”

“Is Miss Burnham with her?”

“No, sir; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passengers. I heard the young lady asking after you, sir.”

“Asking after me?” Crayford considered with himself as he repeated the words. He added, in lower and graver tones, “You had better tell Miss Burnham you have seen me here.”

The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the boat-house.

Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beautiful wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara.

On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the Amazon, Clara had embarrassed and distressed, not Crayford only, but the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour. She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to herself, when Crayford (out of compassionate regard for her) declared that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been dismissed – that Clara had startled everyone present by announcing that she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind – exactly reflecting similar suspicions lurking in Crayford’s mind – which so distressed the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky. Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out.

On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged – and the passengers were not able to leave their staterooms. But now, when the weather had moderated and the ship had anchored – now, when officers and passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their disposal – Clara had opportunities of returning to the subject of the lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answering her. How was he to meet those questions? How could he still keep her in ignorance of the truth?

These were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible suspicion in Clara’s mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it – at once honourably and mercifully – was more than Crayford could tell. He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford’s face.

“Have you seen anything of Clara?” he asked. “Is she still on the beach?”

“She is following me to this place,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “I have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing. As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her.”

“Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to separate ships. What could have led her to suspect that they had come together?”

“She was firmly persuaded, William, that they would come together when the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel, of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on icebergs. With her mind full of these images and forebodings, she saw Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance. I was by her side; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, ‘While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank!’”

“Good God!” cried Crayford; “I warned him myself, almost in those very words, the last time I saw him!”

“Don’t acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you have just told me. She will not take it for what it is – a startling coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as positive confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious faith, that is in her. So long as you don’t actually know that Frank is dead, and that he has died by Wardour’s hand, deny what she says – mislead her for her own sake – dispute all her conclusions as I dispute them. Help me to raise her to the better and nobler belief in the mercy of God!” She stopped, and looked round nervously at the doorway. “Hush!” she whispered. “Do as I have told you. Clara is here.”

•  XVII  •

Clara stopped at the doorway, looking backward and forward distrustfully between the husband and wife. Entering the boat-house, and approaching Crayford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the place in which Mrs. Crayford was standing.

“There is no storm now, and there are no duties to be done on board the ship,” she said, with the faint, sad smile which it wrung Crayford’s heart to see. “You are Lucy’s husband, and you have an interest in me for Lucy’s sake. Don’t shrink on that account from giving me pain: I can bear pain. Friend and brother! will you believe that I have courage enough to hear the worst? Will you promise not to deceive me about Frank?”

The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her look, shook Crayford’s self-possession at the outset. He answered her in the worst possible manner; he answered evasively.

“My dear Clara,” he said, “what have I done that you should suspect me of deceiving you?”

She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with renewed distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before any of the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the appearance of one of Crayford’s brother officers, followed by two sailors carrying a hamper between them. Crayford instantly dropped Clara’s arm, and seized the welcome opportunity of speaking of other things.

“Any instructions from the ship, Steventon?” he asked, approaching the officer.

“Verbal instructions only,” Steventon replied. “The ship will sail with the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the people, and send another boat ashore. In the meantime here are some refreshments for the passengers. The ship is in a state of confusion; the ladies will eat their luncheon more comfortably here.”

Hearing this, Mrs. Crayford took her opportunity of silencing Clara next.

“Come, my dear,” she said. “Let us lay the cloth before the gentlemen come in.”

Clara was too seriously bent on attaining the object which she had in view to be silenced in that way. “I will help you directly,” she answered – then crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer, whose name was Steventon.

“Can you spare me a few minutes?” she asked. “I have something to say to you.”

“I am entirely at your service, Miss Burnham.”

Answering in those words, Steventon dismissed the two sailors. Mrs. Crayford looked anxiously at her husband. Crayford whispered to her, “Don’t be alarmed about Steventon. I have cautioned him; his discretion is to be depended on.”

Clara beckoned to Crayford to return to her.

“I will not keep you long,” she said. “I will promise not to distress Mr. Steventon. Young as I am, you shall both find that I am capable of self-control. I won’t ask you to go back to the story of your past sufferings; I only want to be sure that I am right about one thing – I mean about what happened at the time when the exploring party was dispatched in search of help. As I understand it, you cast lots among yourselves who was to go with the party, and who was to remain behind. Frank cast the lot to go.” She paused, shuddering. “And Richard Wardour,” she went on, “cast the lot to remain behind. On your honour, as officers and gentlemen, is this the truth?”

“On my honour,” Crayford answered, “it is the truth.”

“On my honour,” Steventon repeated, “it is the truth.”

She looked at them, carefully considering her next words, before she spoke again.

“You both drew the lot to stay in the huts,” she said, addressing Crayford and Steventon. “And you are both here. Richard Wardour drew the lot to stay, and Richard Wardour is not here. How does his name come to be with Frank’s on the list of the missing?”

The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to Crayford to reply. Once again he answered evasively.

“It doesn’t follow, my dear,” he said, “that the two men were missing together because their names happen to come together on the list.”

Clara instantly drew the inevitable conclusion from that ill-considered reply.

“Frank is missing from the party of relief,” she said. “Am I to understand that Wardour is missing from the huts?”

Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant look at them, and told the necessary lie, without a moment’s hesitation!

“Yes!” she said. “Wardour is missing from the huts.”

Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two officers. She turned to Steventon.

“I trust to your honour,” she said, quietly. “Am I right, or wrong, in believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken?”

She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steventon had no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steventon, put on his honour, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together.

Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford.

“You hear?” she said. “It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you call ‘Accident,’ what I call ‘Fate,’ brought Richard Wardour and Frank together as members of the same Expedition, after all.” Without waiting for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by changing the painful subject of the conversation of her own accord.

“Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland?” she asked.

“I have never been in the Highlands,” the lieutenant replied.

“Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as ‘The Second Sight’?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in the Second Sight?”

Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply.

“I don’t know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the Highlands,” he said. “As it is, I have had no opportunities of giving the subject any serious consideration.”

“I won’t put your credulity to the test,” Clara proceeded. “I won’t ask you to believe anything more extraordinary than that I had a strange dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have just acknowledged – and more than that. How did the two missing men come to be parted from their companions? Were they lost by pure accident, or were they deliberately left behind on the march?”

Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point which they had now reached.

“Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief,” he said. “How are we to answer you?”

“Your brother officers who were members of the party must have told you what happened,” Clara rejoined. “I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to tell me what they told you.”

Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time.

“The luncheon is not unpacked yet,” she said. “Come, Clara! this is our business, and the time is passing.”

“The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer,” Clara answered. “Bear with my obstinacy,” she went on, laying her hand caressingly on Crayford’s shoulder. “Tell me how those two came to be separated from the rest. You have always been the kindest of friends – don’t begin to be cruel to me now!”

The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to the sailor’s heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle: he let her see a glimpse of the truth.

“On the third day out,” he said, “Frank’s strength failed him. He fell behind the rest from fatigue.”

“Surely they waited for him?”

“It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a favourite. They waited half a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength.”

There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fondness for Clara had led him showed itself plainly, and closed his lips.

It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on hearing more.

She questioned Steventon next.

“Did Frank go on again after the half-day’s rest?” she asked.

“He tried to go on—”

“And failed?”

“Yes.”

“What did the men do when he failed? Did they turn cowards? Did they desert Frank?”

She had purposely used language which might irritate Steventon into answering her plainly. He was a young man – he fell into the snare that she had set for him.

“Not one among them was a coward, Miss Burnham!” he replied, warmly. “You are speaking cruelly and unjustly of as brave a set of fellows as ever lived! The strongest man among them set the example; he volunteered to stay by Frank, and to bring him on in the track of the exploring party.”

There Steventon stopped – conscious, on his side, that he had said too much. Would she ask him who this volunteer was? No. She went straight on to the most embarrassing question that she had put yet – referring to the volunteer, as if Steventon had already mentioned his name.

“What made Richard Wardour so ready to risk his life for Frank’s sake?” she said to Crayford. “Did he do it out of friendship for Frank? Surely you can tell me that? Carry your memory back to the days when you were all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time? Did you never hear any angry words pass between them?”

There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely hint.

“My dear child!” she said; “how can you expect him to remember that? There must have been plenty of quarrels among the men, all shut up together, and all weary of each other’s company, no doubt.”

“Plenty of quarrels!” Crayford repeated; “and every one of them made up again.”

“And every one of them made up again,” Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her turn. “There! a plainer answer than that you can’t wish to have. Now are you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper – Clara won’t help me. William, don’t stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of labour. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don’t handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a tablecloth as if you were unfurling a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this fine air, you ought to be. Come and do your duty; come and have some lunch!”

She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the boat-house doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford could hear that she was speaking softly to herself. She was repeating the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball.

“‘A time may come when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.’ Oh, Frank! Frank! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and my image in his heart?”

Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view.

“Anything there that frightens you, my dear?” she asked. “I can see nothing, except the boats drawn up on the beach.”

“I can see nothing either, Lucy.”

“And yet you are trembling as if there was something dreadful in the view from this door.”

“There is something dreadful! I feel it, though I see nothing. I feel it, nearer and nearer in the empty air, darker and darker in the sunny light. I don’t know what it is. Take me away! No. Not out on the beach. I can’t pass the door. Somewhere else! somewhere else!”

Mrs. Crayford looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner end of the boat-house. She spoke to her husband.

“See where that door leads to, William.”

Crayford opened the door. It led into a desolate enclosure, half garden, half yard. Some nets stretched on poles were hanging up to dry. No other objects were visible – not a living creature appeared in the place. “It doesn’t look very inviting, my dear,” said Mrs. Crayford. “I am at your service, however. What do you say?”

She offered her arm to Clara as she spoke. Clara refused it. She took Crayford’s arm, and clung to him.

“I’m frightened, dreadfully frightened!” she said to him, faintly. “You keep with me – a woman is no protection; I want to be with you.” She looked round again at the boat-house doorway. “Oh!” she whispered, “I’m cold all over – I’m frozen with fear of this place. Come into the yard! Come into the yard!”

“Leave her to me,” said Crayford to his wife. “I will call you, if she doesn’t get better in the open air.”

He took her out at once, and closed the yard door behind them.

“Mr. Steventon, do you understand this?” asked Mrs. Crayford. “What can she possibly be frightened of?”

She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main doorway of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was looking. This time there was something visible. She saw the shadow of a human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of the boat-house.

In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the door.

•  XVIII  •

The man was a sinister and terrible object to look at. His eyes glared like the eyes of a wild animal; his head was bare; his long grey hair was torn and tangled; his miserable garments hung about him in rags. He stood in the doorway, a speechless figure of misery and want, staring at the well-spread table like a hungry dog.

Steventon spoke to him.

“Who are you?”

He answered, in a hoarse, hollow voice,

“A starving man.”

He advanced a few steps, slowly and painfully, as if he were sinking under fatigue.

“Throw me some bones from the table,” he said. “Give me my share along with the dogs.”

There was madness as well as hunger in his eyes while he spoke those words. Steventon placed Mrs. Crayford behind him, so that he might be easily able to protect her in case of need, and beckoned to two sailors who were passing the door of the boat-house at the time.

“Give the man some bread and meat,” he said, “and wait near him.”

The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, long-nailed hands that looked like claws. After his first mouthful of the food, he stopped, considered vacantly with himself, and broke the bread and meat into two portions. One portion he put into an old canvas wallet that hung over his shoulder; the other he devoured voraciously. Steventon questioned him.

“Where do you come from?”

“From the sea.”

“Wrecked?”

“Yes.”

Steventon turned to Mrs. Crayford.

“There may be some truth in the poor wretch’s story,” he said. “I heard something of a strange boat having been cast on the beach thirty or forty miles higher up the coast. When were you wrecked, my man?”

The starving creature looked up from his food, and made an effort to collect his thoughts – to exert his memory. It was not to be done. He gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild as his looks.

“I can’t tell you,” he said. “I can’t get the wash of the sea out of my ears. I can’t get the shining stars all night, and the burning sun all day, out of my brain. When was I wrecked? When was I first adrift in the boat? When did I get the tiller in my hand and fight against hunger and sleep? When did the gnawing in my breast, and the burning in my head, first begin? I have lost all reckoning of it. I can’t think; I can’t sleep; I can’t get the wash of the sea out of my ears. What are you baiting me with questions for? Let me eat!”

Even the sailors pitied him. The sailors asked leave of their officer to add a little drink to his meal.

“We’ve got a drop of grog with us, sir, in a bottle. May we give it to him?”

“Certainly!”

He took the bottle fiercely, as he had taken the food, drank a little, stopped, and considered with himself again. He held up the bottle to the light, and, marking how much liquor it contained, carefully drank half of it only. This done, he put the bottle in his wallet along with the food.

“Are you saving it up for another time?” said Steventon.

“I’m saving it up,” the man answered. “Never mind what for. That’s my secret.”

He looked round the boat-house as he made that reply, and noticed Mrs. Crayford for the first time.

“A woman among you!” he said. “Is she English? Is she young? Let me look closer at her.”

He advanced a few steps toward the table.

“Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Crayford,” said Steventon.

“I am not afraid,” Mrs. Crayford replied. “He frightened me at first – he interests me now. Let him speak to me if he wishes it!”

He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman.

“Well?” said Steventon.

He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh.

“No!” he said to himself, “that’s not her face. No! not found yet.”

Mrs. Crayford’s interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to him.

“Who is it you want to find?” she asked. “Your wife?”

He shook his head again.

“Who, then? What is she like?”

He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones.

“Young,” he said; “with a fair, sad face – with kind, tender eyes – with a soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wander, wander, wander – restless, sleepless, homeless – till I find her! Over the ice and over the snow; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land; awake all night, awake all day; wander, wander, wander, till I find her!”

He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned wearily to go out.

At the same moment Crayford opened the yard door.

“I think you had better come to Clara,” he began, and checked himself, noticing the stranger. “Who is that?”

The shipwrecked man, hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Crayford advanced a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he passed her.

“It’s only a poor, mad creature, William,” she whispered – “shipwrecked and starving.”

“Mad?” Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. “Am I in my right senses?” He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized him by the throat. “Richard Wardour!” he cried, in a voice of fury. “Alive! – alive, to answer for Frank!”

The man struggled. Crayford held him.

“Where is Frank?” he said. “You villain, where is Frank?”

The man resisted no longer. He repeated vacantly,

“Villain? and where is Frank?”

As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and hurried into the room.

“I heard Richard’s name!” she said. “I heard Frank’s name! What does it mean?”

At the sound of her voice the outcast renewed the struggle to free himself, with a sudden frenzy of strength which Crayford was not able to resist. He broke away before the sailors could come to their officer’s assistance. Half-way down the length of the room he and Clara met one another face to face. A new light sparkled in the poor wretch’s eyes; a cry of recognition burst from his lips. He flung one hand up wildly in the air. “Found!” he shouted, and rushed out to the beach before any of the men present could stop him.

Mrs. Crayford put her arms round Clara and held her up. She had not made a movement: she had not spoken a word. The sight of Wardour’s face had petrified her.

The minutes passed, and there rose a sudden burst of cheering from the sailors on the beach, near the spot where the fishermen’s boats were drawn up. Every man left his work. Every man waved his cap in the air. The passengers, near at hand, caught the infection of enthusiasm, and joined the crew. A moment more, and Richard Wardour appeared again in the doorway, carrying a man in his arms. He staggered, breathless with the effort that he was making, to the place where Clara stood, held up in Mrs. Crayford’s arms.

“Saved, Clara!” he cried. “Saved for you!”

He released the man, and placed him in Clara’s arms.

Frank! footsore and weary – but living – saved; saved for her!

“Now, Clara!” cried Mrs. Crayford, “which of us is right? I who believed in the mercy of God? or you who believed in a dream?”

She never answered; she clung to Frank in speechless ecstasy. She never even looked at the man who had preserved him, in the first absorbing joy of seeing Frank alive. Step by step, slower and slower, Richard Wardour drew back, and left them by themselves.

“I may rest now,” he said, faintly. “I may sleep at last. The task is done. The struggle is over.”

His last reserves of strength had been given to Frank. He stopped – he staggered – his hands waved feebly in search of support. But for one faithful friend he would have fallen. Crayford caught him. Crayford laid his old comrade gently on some sails strewn in a corner, and pillowed Wardour’s weary head on his own bosom. The tears streamed over his face. “Richard! dear Richard!” he said. “Remember – and forgive me.”

Richard neither heeded nor heard him. His dim eyes still looked across the room at Clara and Frank.

“I have made her happy!” he murmured. “I may lay down my weary head now on the mother earth that hushes all her children to rest at last. Sink, heart! sink, sink to rest! Oh, look at them!” he said to Crayford, with a burst of grief. “They have forgotten me already.”

It was true! The interest was all with the two lovers. Frank was young and handsome and popular. Officers, passengers, and sailors, they all crowded round Frank. They all forgot the martyred man who had saved him – the man who was dying in Crayford’s arms.

Crayford tried once more to attract his attention – to win his recognition while there was yet time. “Richard, speak to me! Speak to your old friend!”

He look round; he vacantly repeated Crayford’s last word.

“Friend?” he said. “My eyes are dim, friend – my mind is dull. I have lost all memories but the memory of her. Dead thoughts – all dead thoughts but that one! And yet you look at me kindly! Why has your face gone down with the wreck of all the rest?”

He paused; his face changed; his thoughts drifted back from present to past; he looked at Crayford vacantly, lost in the terrible remembrances that were rising in him, as the shadows rise with the coming night.

“Hark ye, friend,” he whispered. “Never let Frank know it. There was a time when the fiend within me hungered for his life. I had my hands on the boat. I heard the voice of the Tempter speaking to me: Launch it, and leave him to die! I waited with my hands on the boat, and my eyes on the place where he slept. ‘Leave him! leave him!’ the voice whispered. ‘Love him!’ the lad’s voice answered, moaning and murmuring in his sleep. ‘Love him, Clara, for helping me!’ I heard the morning wind come up in the silence over the great deep. Far and near, I heard the groaning of the floating ice; floating, floating to the clear water and the balmy air. And the wicked Voice floated away with it – away, away, away forever! ‘Love him! love him, Clara, for helping me!’ No wind could float that away! ‘Love him, Clara—’”

His voice sank into silence; his head dropped on Crayford’s breast. Frank saw it. Frank struggled up on his bleeding feet and parted the friendly throng round him. Frank had not forgotten the man who had saved him.

“Let me go to him!” he cried. “I must and will go to him! Clara, come with me.”

Clara and Steventon supported him between them. He fell on his knees at Wardour’s side; he put his hand on Wardour’s bosom.

“Richard!”

The weary eyes opened again. The sinking voice was heard feebly once more.

“Ah! poor Frank. I didn’t forget you, Frank, when I came here to beg. I remembered you lying down outside in the shadow of the boats. I saved you your share of the food and drink. Too weak to get at it now! A little rest, Frank! I shall soon be strong enough to carry you down to the ship.”

The end was near. They all saw it now. The men reverently uncovered their heads in the presence of Death. In an agony of despair, Frank appealed to the friends round him.

“Get something to strengthen him, for God’s sake! Oh, men! men! I should never have been here but for him! He has given all his strength to my weakness; and now, see how strong I am, and how weak he is! Clara, I held by his arm all over the ice and snow. He kept watch when I was senseless in the open boat. His hand dragged me out of the waves when we were wrecked. Speak to him, Clara! speak to him!” His voice failed him, and his head dropped on Wardour’s breast.

She spoke, as well as her tears would let her.

“Richard, have you forgotten me?”

He rallied at the sound of that beloved voice. He looked up at her as she knelt at his head.

“Forgotten you?” Still looking at her, he lifted his hand with an effort, and laid it on Frank. “Should I have been strong enough to save him, if I could have forgotten you?” He waited a moment and turned his face feebly toward Crayford. “Stay!” he said. “Someone was here and spoke to me.” A faint light of recognition glimmered in his eyes. “Ah, Crayford! I recollect now. Dear Crayford! come nearer! My mind clears, but my eyes grow dim. You will remember me kindly for Frank’s sake? Poor Frank! why does he hide his face? Is he crying? Nearer, Clara – I want to look my last at you. My sister, Clara! Kiss me, sister, kiss me before I die!”

She stooped and kissed his forehead. A faint smile trembled on his lips. It passed away; and stillness possessed the face – the stillness of Death.

Crayford’s voice was heard in the silence.

“The loss is ours,” he said. “The gain is his. He has won the greatest of all conquests – the conquest of himself. And he has died in the moment of victory. Not one of us here but may live to envy his glorious death.”

The distant report of a gun came from the ship in the offing, and signalled the return to England and to home.

First published
Temple Bar Aug-Oct 1874

THE DREAM WOMAN

A MYSTERY
IN FOUR NARRATIVES

CONTENTS:

- First Narrative

Introductory Statement
of the Facts.
By Percy Fairbank

- Second Narrative

The Ostler’s Story.
Told by Himself

- Third Narrative

The Story Continued.
By Percy Fairbank

- Fourth (and Last) Narrative

The Statement
of Joseph Rigobert.

- Last Lines

Added By Percy Fairbank

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

—The original version of this story was published, many years since, in Household Words and was afterwards printed in the collection of my shorter stories called “The Queen of Hearts”. In the present version – written for my public readings in the United States – new characters and new incidents are introduced; and a new beginning and ending have been written. Indeed, the whole complexion of the narrative differs so essentially from the older and shorter version, as to justify me in believing that the reader will find in these pages what is, to all practical intents and purposes, a new story.

—W. C.

PERSONS OF THE MYSTERY

Francis Raven | …… | (Ostler)
Mrs. Raven | …… | (His mother)
Mrs. Chance | …… | (His aunt)
Percy Fairbank | …… | (His master
Mrs. Fairbank | …… | and mistress)
Joseph Rigobert | …… | (His fellow-servant)
Alicia Warlock | …… | (His wife)

period – The Present Time.

scene – Partly in England,
Partly in France.

THE FIRST NARRATIVE.

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT
OF THE FACTS.
BY PERCY FAIRBANK.

•  I  •

“Hullo, there! Hostler! Hullo-o-o!”

“My dear! why don’t you look for the bell?”

“I have looked – there is no bell.”

“And nobody in the yard. How very extraordinary! Call again, dear.”

“Hostler! Hullo, there! Hostler-r-r!”

My second call echoes through empty space, and rouses nobody – produces, in short, no visible result. I am at the end of my resources – I don’t know what to say or what to do next. Here I stand in the solitary inn yard of a strange town, with two horses to hold, and a lady to take care of. By way of adding to my responsibilities, it so happens that one of the horses is dead lame, and that the lady is my wife.

Who am I? – you will ask.

There is plenty of time to answer the question. Nothing happens; and nobody appears to receive us. Let me introduce myself and my wife.

I am Percy Fairbank – English gentleman – age (let us say) forty – no profession – moderate politics – middle height – fair complexion – easy character – plenty of money.

My wife is a French lady. She was Mademoiselle Clotilde Delorge – when I was first presented to her at her father’s house in France. I fell in love with her – I really don’t know why. It might have been because I was perfectly idle, and had nothing else to do at the time. Or it might have been because all my friends said she was the very last woman whom I ought to think of marrying. On the surface, I must own, there is nothing in common between Mrs. Fairbank and me. She is tall; she is dark; she is nervous, excitable, romantic; in all her opinions she proceeds to extremes. What could such a woman see in me? what could I see in her? I know no more than you do. In some mysterious manner we exactly suit each other. We have been man and wife for ten years, and our only regret is, that we have no children. I don’t know what you may think; I call that – upon the whole – a happy marriage.

So much for ourselves. The next question is – what has brought us into the inn yard? and why am I obliged to turn groom, and hold the horses?

We live for the most part in France – at the country house in which my wife and I first met. Occasionally, by way of variety, we pay visits to my friends in England. We are paying one of those visits now. Our host is an old college friend of mine, possessed of a fine estate in Somersetshire; and we have arrived at his house – called Farleigh Hall – toward the close of the hunting season.

On the day of which I am now writing – destined to be a memorable day in our calendar – the hounds meet at Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank and I are mounted on two of the best horses in my friend’s stables. We are quite unworthy of that distinction; for we know nothing and care nothing about hunting. On the other hand, we delight in riding, and we enjoy the breezy spring morning and the fair and fertile English landscape surrounding us on every side. While the hunt prospers, we follow the hunt. But when a check occurs – when time passes and patience is sorely tried; when the bewildered dogs run hither and thither, and strong language falls from the lips of exasperated sportsmen – we fail to take any further interest in the proceedings. We turn our horses’ heads in the direction of a grassy lane, delightfully shaded by trees. We trot merrily along the lane, and find ourselves on an open common. We gallop across the common, and follow the windings of a second lane. We cross a brook, we pass through a village, we emerge into pastoral solitude among the hills. The horses toss their heads, and neigh to each other, and enjoy it as much as we do. The hunt is forgotten. We are as happy as a couple of children; we are actually singing a French song – when in one moment our merriment comes to an end. My wife’s horse sets one of his forefeet on a loose stone, and stumbles. His rider’s ready hand saves him from falling. But, at the first attempt he makes to go on, the sad truth shows itself – a tendon is strained; the horse is lame.

What is to be done? We are strangers in a lonely part of the country. Look where we may, we see no signs of a human habitation. There is nothing for it but to take the bridle road up the hill, and try what we can discover on the other side. I transfer the saddles, and mount my wife on my own horse. He is not used to carry a lady; he misses the familiar pressure of a man’s legs on either side of him; he fidgets, and starts, and kicks up the dust. I follow on foot, at a respectful distance from his heels, leading the lame horse. Is there a more miserable object on the face of creation than a lame horse? I have seen lame men and lame dogs who were cheerful creatures; but I never yet saw a lame horse who didn’t look heartbroken over his own misfortune.

For half-an-hour my wife capers and curvets sideways along the bridle-road. I trudge on behind her; and the heartbroken horse halts behind me. Hard by the top of the hill, our melancholy procession passes a Somersetshire peasant at work in a field. I summon the man to approach us; and the man looks at me stolidly, from the middle of the field, without stirring a step. I ask at the top of my voice how far it is to Farleigh Hall. The Somersetshire peasant answers at the top of his voice:

“Vourteen mile. Gi’ oi a drap o’ zyder.”

I translate (for my wife’s benefit) from the Somersetshire language into the English language. We are fourteen miles from Farleigh Hall; and our friend in the field desires to be rewarded, for giving us that information, with a drop of cider. There is the peasant, painted by himself! Quite a bit of character, my dear! Quite a bit of character!

Mrs. Fairbank doesn’t view the study of agricultural human nature with my relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her a moment’s repose; she is beginning to lose her temper.

“We can’t go fourteen miles in this way,” she says. “Where is the nearest inn? Ask that brute in the field!”

I take a shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the sun. The shilling exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling draws the peasant slowly toward me from the middle of the field. I inform him that we want to put up the horses and to hire a carriage to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Where can we do that? The peasant answers (with his eye on the shilling):

“At Oonderbridge, to be zure.” (At Underbridge, to be sure.)

“Is it far to Underbridge?”

The peasant repeats, “Var to Oonderbridge?” – and laughs at the question. “Hoo-hoo-hoo!” (Underbridge is evidently close by – if we could only find it.) “Will you show us the way, my man?”  “Will you gi’ oi a drap of zyder?” I courteously bend my head, and point to the shilling. The agricultural intelligence exerts itself. The peasant joins our melancholy procession. My wife is a fine woman, but he never once looks at my wife – and, more extraordinary still, he never even looks at the horses. His eyes are with his mind – and his mind is on the shilling.

We reach the top of the hill – and, behold on the other side, nestling in a valley, the shrine of our pilgrimage, the town of Underbridge! Here our guide claims his shilling, and leaves us to find out the inn for ourselves. I am constitutionally a polite man. I say “Good morning” at parting. The guide looks at me with the shilling between his teeth to make sure that it is a good one. “Marnin!” he says savagely – and turns his back on us, as if we had offended him. A curious product, this, of the growth of civilization. If I didn’t see a church spire at Underbridge, I might suppose that we had lost ourselves on a savage island.

•  II  •

Arriving at the town, we had no difficulty in finding the inn. The town is composed of one desolate street; and midway in that street stands the inn – an ancient stone building sadly out of repair. The painting on the sign-board is obliterated. The shutters over the long range of front windows are all closed. A cock and his hens are the only living creatures at the door. Plainly, this is one of the old inns of the stagecoach period, ruined by the railway. We pass through the open arched doorway, and find no one to welcome us. We advance into the stable yard behind; I assist my wife to dismount – and there we are in the position already disclosed to view at the opening of this narrative. No bell to ring. No human creature to answer when I call. I stand helpless, with the bridles of the horses in my hand. Mrs. Fairbank saunters gracefully down the length of the yard and does – what all women do, when they find themselves in a strange place. She opens every door as she passes it, and peeps in. On my side, I have just recovered my breath, I am on the point of shouting for the hostler for the third and last time, when I hear Mrs. Fairbank suddenly call to me:

“Percy! come here!”

Her voice is eager and agitated. She has opened a last door at the end of the yard, and has started back from some sight which has suddenly met her view. I hitch the horses’ bridles on a rusty nail in the wall near me, and join my wife. She has turned pale, and catches me nervously by the arm.

“Good heavens!” she cries; “look at that!”

I look – and what do I see?

I see a dingy little stable, containing two stalls. In one stall a horse is munching his corn. In the other a man is lying asleep on the litter.

A worn, withered, woebegone man in a hostler’s dress. His hollow wrinkled cheeks, his scanty grizzled hair, his dry yellow skin, tell their own tale of past sorrow or suffering. There is an ominous frown on his eyebrows – there is a painful nervous contraction on the side of his mouth. I hear him breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and sighs in his sleep. It is not a pleasant sight to see, and I turn round instinctively to the bright sunlight in the yard. My wife turns me back again in the direction of the stable door.

“Wait!” she says. “Wait! he may do it again.”

“Do what again?”

“He was talking in his sleep, Percy, when I first looked in. He was dreaming some dreadful dream. Hush! he’s beginning again.”

I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed. The man speaks in a quick, fierce whisper through his clinched teeth. “Wake up! Wake up, there! Murder!”

There is an interval of silence. He moves one lean arm slowly until it rests over his throat; he shudders, and turns on his straw; he raises his arm from his throat, and feebly stretches it out; his hand clutches at the straw on the side toward which he has turned; he seems to fancy that he is grasping at the edge of something. I see his lips begin to move again; I step softly into the stable; my wife follows me, with her hand fast clasped in mine. We both bend over him. He is talking once more in his sleep – strange talk, mad talk, this time.

“Light grey eyes” (we hear him say), “and a droop in the left eyelid – flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it – all right, mother! fair, white arms with a down on them – little, lady’s hand, with a reddish look round the fingernails – the knife – the cursed knife – first on one side, then on the other – aha, you she-devil! where is the knife?”

He stops and grows restless on a sudden. We see him writhing on the straw. He throws up both his hands and gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes open suddenly. For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in them – then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he dreaming still? Yes; but the dream seems to have taken a new course. When he speaks next, the tone is altered; the words are few – sadly and imploringly repeated over and over again. “Say you love me! I am so fond of you. Say you love me! say you love me!” He sinks into deeper and deeper sleep, faintly repeating those words. They die away on his lips. He speaks no more.

By this time Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror; she is devoured by curiosity now. The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the imaginative side of her character. Her illimitable appetite for romance hungers and thirsts for more. She shakes me impatiently by the arm.

“Do you hear? There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy! There is love and murder in it, Percy! Where are the people of the inn? Go into the yard, and call to them again.”

My wife belongs, on her mother’s side, to the South of France. The South of France breeds fine women with hot tempers. I say no more. Married men will understand my position. Single men may need to be told that there are occasions when we must not only love and honour – we must also obey – our wives.

I turn to the door to obey my wife, and find myself confronted by a stranger who has stolen on us unawares. The stranger is a tiny, sleepy, rosy old man, with a vacant pudding-face, and a shining bald head. He wears drab breeches and gaiters, and a respectable square-tailed ancient black coat. I feel instinctively that here is the landlord of the inn.

“Good morning, sir,” says the rosy old man. “I’m a little hard of hearing. Was it you that was a-calling just now in the yard?”

Before I can answer, my wife interposes. She insists (in a shrill voice, adapted to our host’s hardness of hearing) on knowing who that unfortunate person is sleeping on the straw. “Where does he come from? Why does he say such dreadful things in his sleep? Is he married or single? Did he ever fall in love with a murderess? What sort of a looking woman was she? Did she really stab him or not? In short, dear Mr. Landlord, tell us the whole story!”

Dear Mr. Landlord waits drowsily until Mrs. Fairbank has quite done – then delivers himself of his reply as follows:

“His name’s Francis Raven. He’s an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five year old last birthday. And he’s my hostler. That’s his story.”

My wife’s hot southern temper finds its way to her foot, and expresses itself by a stamp on the stable yard.

The landlord turns himself sleepily round, and looks at the horses. “A fine pair of horses, them two in the yard. Do you want to put ’em in my stables?” I reply in the affirmative by a nod. The landlord, bent on making himself agreeable to my wife, addresses her once more. “I’m a-going to wake Francis Raven. He’s an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five year old last birthday. And he’s my hostler. That’s his story.”

Having issued this second edition of his interesting narrative, the landlord enters the stable. We follow him to see how he will wake Francis Raven, and what will happen upon that. The stable broom stands in a corner; the landlord takes it – advances toward the sleeping hostler – and coolly stirs the man up with a broom as if he was a wild beast in a cage. Francis Raven starts to his feet with a cry of terror – looks at us wildly, with a horrid glare of suspicion in his eyes – recovers himself the next moment – and suddenly changes into a decent, quiet, respectable serving-man.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. I beg your pardon, sir.”

The tone and manner in which he makes his apologies are both above his apparent station in life. I begin to catch the infection of Mrs. Fairbank’s interest in this man. We both follow him out into the yard to see what he will do with the horses. The manner in which he lifts the injured leg of the lame horse tells me at once that he understands his business. Quickly and quietly, he leads the animal into an empty stable; quickly and quietly, he gets a bucket of hot water, and puts the lame horse’s leg into it. “The warm water will reduce the swelling, sir. I will bandage the leg afterwards.” All that he does is done intelligently; all that he says, he says to the purpose.

Nothing wild, nothing strange about him now. Is this the same man whom we heard talking in his sleep? the same man who woke with that cry of terror and that horrid suspicion in his eyes? I determine to try him with one or two questions.

•  III  •

“Not much to do here,” I say to the hostler.

“Very little to do, sir,” the hostler replies.

“Anybody staying in the house?”

“The house is quite empty, sir.”

“I thought you were all dead. I could make nobody hear me.”

“The landlord is very deaf, sir, and the waiter is out on an errand.”

“Yes; and you were fast asleep in the stable. Do you often take a nap in the daytime?”

The worn face of the hostler faintly flushes. His eyes look away from my eyes for the first time. Mrs. Fairbank furtively pinches my arm. Are we on the eve of a discovery at last? I repeat my question. The man has no civil alternative but to give me an answer. The answer is given in these words:

“I was tired out, sir. You wouldn’t have found me asleep in the daytime but for that.”

“Tired out, eh? You had been hard at work, I suppose?”

“No, sir.”

“What was it, then?”

He hesitates again, and answers unwillingly, “I was up all night.”

“Up all night? Anything going on in the town?”

“Nothing going on, sir.”

“Anybody ill?”

“Nobody ill, sir.”

That reply is the last. Try as I may, I can extract nothing more from him. He turns away and busies himself in attending to the horse’s leg. I leave the stable to speak to the landlord about the carriage which is to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank remains with the hostler, and favours me with a look at parting. The look says plainly, “I mean to find out why he was up all night. Leave him to Me.”

The ordering of the carriage is easily accomplished. The inn possesses one horse and one chaise. The landlord has a story to tell of the horse, and a story to tell of the chaise. They resemble the story of Francis Raven – with this exception, that the horse and chaise belong to no religious persuasion. “The horse will be nine year old next birthday. I’ve had the shay for four-and-twenty year. Mr. Max, of Underbridge, he bred the horse; and Mr. Pooley, of Yeovil, he built the shay. It’s my horse and my shay. And that’s their story!” Having relieved his mind of these details, the landlord proceeds to put the harness on the horse. By way of assisting him, I drag the chaise into the yard. Just as our preparations are completed, Mrs. Fairbank appears. A moment or two later the hostler follows her out. He has bandaged the horse’s leg, and is now ready to drive us to Farleigh Hall. I observe signs of agitation in his face and manner, which suggest that my wife has found her way into his confidence. I put the question to her privately in a corner of the yard. “Well? Have you found out why Francis Raven was up all night?”

Mrs. Fairbank has an eye to dramatic effect. Instead of answering plainly, Yes or No, she suspends the interest and excites the audience by putting a question on her side.

“What is the day of the month, dear?”

“The day of the month is the first of March.”

“The first of March, Percy, is Francis Raven’s birthday.”

I try to look as if I was interested – and don’t succeed.

“Francis was born,” Mrs. Fairbank proceeds gravely, “at two o’clock in the morning.”

I begin to wonder whether my wife’s intellect is going the way of the landlord’s intellect. “Is that all?” I ask.

“It is not all,” Mrs. Fairbank answers. “Francis Raven sits up on the morning of his birthday because he is afraid to go to bed.”

“And why is he afraid to go to bed?”

“Because he is in peril of his life.”

“On his birthday?”

“On his birthday. At two o’clock in the morning. As regularly as the birthday comes round.”

There she stops. Has she discovered no more than that? No more thus far. I begin to feel really interested by this time. I ask eagerly what it means? Mrs. Fairbank points mysteriously to the chaise – with Francis Raven (hitherto our hostler, now our coachman) waiting for us to get in. The chaise has a seat for two in front, and a seat for one behind. My wife casts a warning look at me, and places herself on the seat in front.

The necessary consequence of this arrangement is that Mrs. Fairbank sits by the side of the driver during a journey of two hours and more. Need I state the result? It would be an insult to your intelligence to state the result. Let me offer you my place in the chaise. And let Francis Raven tell his terrible story in his own words.

THE SECOND NARRATIVE.

THE HOSTLER’S STORY.
TOLD BY HIMSELF.

•  IV  •

It is now ten years ago since I got my first warning of the great trouble of my life in the Vision of a Dream.

I shall be better able to tell you about it if you will please suppose yourselves to be drinking tea along with us in our little cottage in Cambridgeshire, ten years since.

The time was the close of day, and there were three of us at the table, namely, my mother, myself, and my mother’s sister, Mrs. Chance. These two were Scotchwomen by birth, and both were widows. There was no other resemblance between them that I can call to mind. My mother had lived all her life in England, and had no more of the Scotch brogue on her tongue than I have. My aunt Chance had never been out of Scotland until she came to keep house with my mother after her husband’s death. And when she opened her lips you heard broad Scotch, I can tell you, if you ever heard it yet!

As it fell out, there was a matter of some consequence in debate among us that evening. It was this: whether I should do well or not to take a long journey on foot the next morning.

Now the next morning happened to be the day before my birthday; and the purpose of the journey was to offer myself for a situation as groom at a great house in the neighbouring county to ours. The place was reported as likely to fall vacant in about three weeks’ time. I was as well fitted to fill it as any other man. In the prosperous days of our family, my father had been manager of a training stable, and he had kept me employed among the horses from my boyhood upward. Please to excuse my troubling you with these small matters. They all fit into my story farther on, as you will soon find out.

My poor mother was dead against my leaving home on the morrow.

“You can never walk all the way there and all the way back again by tomorrow night,” she says. “The end of it will be that you will sleep away from home on your birthday. You have never done that yet, Francis, since your father’s death, I don’t like your doing it now. Wait a day longer, my son – only one day.”

For my own part, I was weary of being idle, and I couldn’t abide the notion of delay. Even one day might make all the difference. Some other man might take time by the forelock, and get the place.

“Consider how long I have been out of work,” I says, “and don’t ask me to put off the journey. I won’t fail you, mother. I’ll get back by tomorrow night, if I have to pay my last sixpence for a lift in a cart.”

My mother shook her head. “I don’t like it, Francis – I don’t like it!” There was no moving her from that view. We argued and argued, until we were both at a dead lock. It ended in our agreeing to refer the difference between us to my mother’s sister, Mrs. Chance.

While we were trying hard to convince each other, my aunt Chance sat as dumb as a fish, stirring her tea and thinking her own thoughts. When we made our appeal to her, she seemed as it were to wake up. “Ye baith refer it to my puir judgement?” she says, in her broad Scotch. We both answered Yes. Upon that my aunt Chance first cleared the tea-table, and then pulled out from the pocket of her gown a pack of cards.

Don’t run away, if you please, with the notion that this was done lightly, with a view to amuse my mother and me. My aunt Chance seriously believed that she could look into the future by telling fortunes on the cards. She did nothing herself without first consulting the cards. She could give no more serious proof of her interest in my welfare than the proof which she was offering now. I don’t say it profanely; I only mention the fact – the cards had, in some incomprehensible way, got themselves jumbled up together with her religious convictions. You meet with people nowadays who believe in spirits working by way of tables and chairs. On the same principle (if there is any principle in it) my aunt Chance believed in Providence working by way of the cards.

“Whether you are right, Francie, or your mither – whether ye will do weel or ill, the morrow, to go or stay – the cairds will tell it. We are a’ in the hands of Proavidence. The cairds will tell it.”

Hearing this, my mother turned her head aside, with something of a sour look in her face. Her sister’s notions about the cards were little better than flat blasphemy to her mind. But she kept her opinion to herself. My aunt Chance, to own the truth, had inherited, through her late husband, a pension of thirty pounds a year. This was an important contribution to our housekeeping, and we poor relations were bound to treat her with a certain respect. As for myself, if my poor father never did anything else for me before he fell into difficulties, he gave me a good education, and raised me (thank God) above superstitions of all sorts. However, a very little amused me in those days; and I waited to have my fortune told, as patiently as if I believed in it too!

My aunt began her hocus pocus by throwing out all the cards in the pack under seven. She shuffled the rest with her left hand for luck; and then she gave them to me to cut. “Wi’ yer left hand, Francie. Mind that! Pet your trust in Proavidence – but dinna forget that your luck’s in yer left hand!” A long and roundabout shifting of the cards followed, reducing them in number until there were just fifteen of them left, laid out neatly before my aunt in a half circle. The card which happened to lie outermost, at the right-hand end of the circle, was, according to rule in such cases, the card chosen to represent Me. By way of being appropriate to my situation as a poor groom out of employment, the card was – the King of Diamonds.

“I tak’ up the King o’ Diamants,” says my aunt. “I count seven cairds fra’ richt to left; and I humbly ask a blessing on what follows.” My aunt shut her eyes as if she was saying grace before meat, and held up to me the seventh card. I called the seventh card – the Queen of Spades. My aunt opened her eyes again in a hurry, and cast a sly look my way. “The Queen o’ Spades means a dairk woman. Ye’ll be thinking in secret, Francie, of a dairk woman?”

When a man has been out of work for more than three months, his mind isn’t troubled much with thinking of women – light or dark. I was thinking of the groom’s place at the great house, and I tried to say so. My aunt Chance wouldn’t listen. She treated my interpretation with contempt. “Hoot-toot! there’s the caird in your hand! If ye’re no thinking of her the day, ye’ll be thinking of her the morrow. Where’s the harm of thinking of a dairk woman! I was aince a dairk woman myself, before my hair was grey. Haud yer peace, Francie, and watch the cairds.”

I watched the cards as I was told. There were seven left on the table. My aunt removed two from one end of the row and two from the other, and desired me to call the two outermost of the three cards now left on the table. I called the Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds. My aunt Chance lifted her eyes to the ceiling with a look of devout gratitude which sorely tried my mother’s patience. The Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Diamonds, taken together, signified – first, good news (evidently the news of the groom’s place); secondly, a journey that lay before me (pointing plainly to my journey tomorrow!); thirdly and lastly, a sum of money (probably the groom’s wages!) waiting to find its way into my pockets. Having told my fortune in these encouraging terms, my aunt declined to carry the experiment any further. “Eh, lad! it’s a clean tempting o’ Proavidence to ask mair o’ the cairds than the cairds have tauld us noo. Gae yer ways tomorrow to the great hoose. A dairk woman will meet ye at the gate; and she’ll have a hand in getting ye the groom’s place, wi’ a’ the gratifications and pairquisites appertaining to the same. And, mebbe, when yer poaket’s full o’ money, ye’ll no’ be forgetting yer aunt Chance, maintaining her ain unblemished widowhood – wi’ Proavidence assisting – on thratty punds a year!”

I promised to remember my aunt Chance (who had the defect, by the way, of being a terribly greedy person after money) on the next happy occasion when my poor empty pockets were to be filled at last. This done, I looked at my mother. She had agreed to take her sister for umpire between us, and her sister had given it in my favour. She raised no more objections. Silently, she got on her feet, and kissed me, and sighed bitterly – and so left the room. My aunt Chance shook her head. “I doubt, Francie, yer puir mither has but a heathen notion of the vairtue of the cairds!”

By daylight the next morning I set forth on my journey. I looked back at the cottage as I opened the garden gate. At one window was my mother, with her handkerchief to her eyes. At the other stood my aunt Chance, holding up the Queen of Spades by way of encouraging me at starting. I waved my hands to both of them in token of farewell, and stepped out briskly into the road. It was then the last day of February. Be pleased to remember, in connection with this, that the first of March was the day, and two o’clock in the morning the hour of my birth.

•  V  •

Now you know how I came to leave home. The next thing to tell is, what happened on the journey.

I reached the great house in reasonably good time considering the distance. At the very first trial of it, the prophecy of the cards turned out to be wrong. The person who met me at the lodge gate was not a dark woman – in fact, not a woman at all – but a boy. He directed me on the way to the servants’ offices; and there again the cards were all wrong. I encountered, not one woman, but three – and not one of the three was dark. I have stated that I am not superstitious, and I have told the truth. But I must own that I did feel a certain fluttering at the heart when I made my bow to the steward, and told him what business had brought me to the house. His answer completed the discomfiture of aunt Chance’s fortune-telling. My ill-luck still pursued me. That very morning another man had applied for the groom’s place, and had got it.

I swallowed my disappointment as well as I could, and thanked the steward, and went to the inn in the village to get the rest and food which I sorely needed by this time.

Before starting on my homeward walk I made some inquiries at the inn, and ascertained that I might save a few miles, on my return, by following a new road. Furnished with full instructions, several times repeated, as to the various turnings I was to take, I set forth, and walked on till the evening with only one stoppage for bread and cheese. Just as it was getting toward dark, the rain came on and the wind began to rise; and I found myself, to make matters worse, in a part of the country with which I was entirely unacquainted, though I guessed myself to be some fifteen miles from home. The first house I found to inquire at, was a lonely roadside inn, standing on the outskirts of a thick wood. Solitary as the place looked, it was welcome to a lost man who was also hungry, thirsty, footsore, and wet. The landlord was civil and respectable-looking; and the price he asked for a bed was reasonable enough. I was grieved to disappoint my mother. But there was no conveyance to be had, and I could go no farther afoot that night. My weariness fairly forced me to stop at the inn.

I may say for myself that I am a temperate man. My supper simply consisted of some rashers of bacon, a slice of home-made bread, and a pint of ale. I did not go to bed immediately after this moderate meal, but sat up with the landlord, talking about my bad prospects and my long run of ill-luck, and diverging from these topics to the subjects of horseflesh and racing. Nothing was said, either by myself, my host, or the few labourers who strayed into the taproom, which could, in the slightest degree, excite my mind, or set my fancy – which is only a small fancy at the best of times – playing tricks with my common sense.

At a little after eleven the house was closed. I went round with the landlord, and held the candle while the doors and lower windows were being secured. I noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts, bars, and iron-sheathed shutters.

“You see, we are rather lonely here,” said the landlord. “We never have had any attempts to break in yet, but it’s always as well to be on the safe side. When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house. My wife and daughter are timid, and the servant girl takes after her missuses. Another glass of ale, before you turn in? – No! – Well, how such a sober man as you comes to be out of a place is more than I can understand for one. – Here’s where you’re to sleep. You’re the only lodger tonight, and I think you’ll say my missus has done her best to make you comfortable. You’re quite sure you won’t have another glass of ale? – Very well. Good night.”

It was half-past eleven by the clock in the passage as we went upstairs to the bedroom. The window looked out on the wood at the back of the house.

I locked my door, set my candle on the chest of drawers, and wearily got me ready for bed. The bleak wind was still blowing, and the solemn, surging moan of it in the wood was very dreary to hear through the night silence. Feeling strangely wakeful, I resolved to keep the candle alight until I began to grow sleepy. The truth is, I was not quite myself. I was depressed in mind by my disappointment of the morning; and I was worn out in body by my long walk. Between the two, I own I couldn’t face the prospect of lying awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal moan of the wind in the wood.

Sleep stole on me before I was aware of it; my eyes closed, and I fell off to rest, without having so much as thought of extinguishing the candle.

The next thing that I remember was a faint shivering that ran through me from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at my heart, such as I had never felt before. The shivering only disturbed my slumbers – the pain woke me instantly. In one moment I passed from a state of sleep to a state of wakefulness – my eyes wide open – my mind clear on a sudden as if by a miracle.

The candle had burned down nearly to the last morsel of tallow, but the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the light was, for the moment, fair and full.

Between the foot of the bed and the closet door, I saw a person in my room. The person was a woman, standing looking at me, with a knife in her hand. It does no credit to my courage to confess it – but the truth is the truth. I was struck speechless with terror. There I lay with my eyes on the woman; there the woman stood (with the knife in her hand) with her eyes on me.

She said not a word as we stared each other in the face; but she moved after a little – moved slowly toward the left-hand side of the bed.

The light fell full on her face. A fair, fine woman, with yellowish flaxen hair, and light grey eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. I noticed these things and fixed them in my mind, before she was quite round at the side of the bed. Without saying a word; without any change in the stony stillness of her face; without any noise following her footfall, she came closer and closer; stopped at the bed-head; and lifted the knife to stab me. I laid my arm over my throat to save it; but, as I saw the blow coming, I threw my hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked my body over that way, just as the knife came down, like lightning, within a hair’s breadth of my shoulder.

My eyes fixed on her arm and her hand – she gave me time to look at them as she slowly drew the knife out of the bed. A white, well-shaped arm, with a pretty down lying lightly over the fair skin. A delicate lady’s hand, with a pink flush round the finger nails.

She drew the knife out, and passed back again slowly to the foot of the bed; she stopped there for a moment looking at me; then she came on without saying a word; without any change in the stony stillness of her face; without any noise following her footfall – came on to the side of the bed where I now lay.

Getting near me, she lifted the knife again, and I drew myself away to the left side. She struck, as before right into the mattress, with a swift downward action of her arm; and she missed me, as before; by a hair’s breadth. This time my eyes wandered from her to the knife. It was like the large clasp knives which labouring men use to cut their bread and bacon with. Her delicate little fingers did not hide more than two thirds of the handle; I noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the blade was, and looking like new.

For the second time she drew the knife out of the bed, and suddenly hid it away in the wide sleeve of her gown. That done, she stopped by the bedside watching me. For an instant I saw her standing in that position – then the wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket. The flame dwindled to a little blue point, and the room grew dark.

A moment, or less, if possible, passed so – and then the wick flared up, smokily, for the last time. My eyes were still looking for her over the right-hand side of the bed when the last flash of light came. Look as I might, I could see nothing. The woman with the knife was gone.

I began to get back to myself again. I could feel my heart beating; I could hear the woeful moaning of the wind in the wood; I could leap up in bed, and give the alarm before she escaped from the house. “Murder! Wake up there! Murder!”

Nobody answered to the alarm. I rose and groped my way through the darkness to the door of the room. By that way she must have got in. By that way she must have gone out.

The door of the room was fast locked, exactly as I had left it on going to bed!

I looked at the window. Fast locked too!

Hearing a voice outside, I opened the door. There was the landlord, coming toward me along the passage, with his burning candle in one hand, and his gun in the other.

“What is it?” he says, looking at me in no very friendly way.

I could only answer in a whisper, “A woman, with a knife in her hand. In my room. A fair, yellow-haired woman. She jobbed at me with the knife, twice over.”

He lifted his candle, and looked at me steadily from head to foot.

“She seems to have missed you – twice over.”

“I dodged the knife as it came down. It struck the bed each time. Go in, and see.”

The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.

“The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! There isn’t a mark in the bedclothes anywhere. What do you mean by coming into a man’s place and frightening his family out of their wits by a dream?”

A dream? The woman who had tried to stab me, not a living human being like myself? I began to shake and shiver. The horrors got hold of me at the bare thought of it.

“I’ll leave the house,” I said. “Better be out on the road in the rain and dark, than back in that room, after what I’ve seen in it. Lend me the light to get my clothes by, and tell me what I’m to pay.”

The landlord led the way back with his light into the bedroom. “Pay?” says he. “You’ll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs. I wouldn’t have taken you in for all the money you’ve got about you, if I had known your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand. Look at the bed – where’s the cut of a knife in it? Look at the window – is the lock bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten yourself) – is it broke in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

My eyes followed his hand as it pointed first to the bed – then to the window – then to the door. There was no gainsaying it. The bed sheet was as sound as on the day it was made. The window was fast. The door hung on its hinges as steady as ever. I huddled my clothes on without speaking. We went downstairs together. I looked at the clock in the bar room. The time was twenty minutes past two in the morning. I paid my bill, and the landlord let me out. The rain had ceased; but the night was dark, and the wind was bleaker than ever. Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the doubt about the way home matter to me. My mind was away from all these things. My mind was fixed on the vision in the bedroom. What had I seen trying to murder me? The creature of a dream? Or that other creature from the world beyond the grave, whom men call ghost? I could make nothing of it as I walked along in the night; I had made nothing by it by midday – when I stood at last, after many times missing my road, on the doorstep of home.

•  VI  •

My mother came out alone to welcome me back. There were no secrets between us two. I told her all that had happened, just as I have told it to you.

She kept silence till I had done. And then she put a question to me.

“What time was it, Francis, when you saw the Woman in your Dream?”

I had looked at the clock when I left the inn, and I had noticed that the hands pointed to twenty minutes past two. Allowing for the time consumed in speaking to the landlord, and in getting on my clothes, I answered that I must have first seen the Woman at two o’clock in the morning. In other words, I had not only seen her on my birthday, but at the hour of my birth.

My mother still kept silence. Lost in her own thoughts, she took me by the hand, and led me into the parlour. Her writing-desk was on the table by the fireplace. She opened it, and signed to me to take a chair by her side.

“My son! your memory is a bad one, and mine is fast failing me. Tell me again what the woman looked like. I want her to be as well known to both of us, years hence, as she is now.”

I obeyed; wondering what strange fancy might be working in her mind. I spoke; and she wrote the words as they fell from my lips:

“Light grey eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a golden-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little, lady’s hands, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails.”

“Did you notice how she was dressed, Francis?”

“No, mother.”

“Did you notice the knife?”

“Yes. A large clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, as good as new.”

My mother added the description of the knife. Also the year, month, day of the week, and hour of the day when the Dream-Woman appeared to me at the inn. That done, she locked up the paper in her desk.

“Not a word, Francis, to your aunt. Not a word to any living soul. Keep your Dream a secret between you and me.”

The weeks passed, and the months passed. My mother never returned to the subject again. As for me, time, which wears out all things, wore out my remembrance of the Dream. Little by little, the image of the Woman grew dimmer and dimmer. Little by little, she faded out of my mind.

•  VII  •

The story of the warning is now told. Judge for yourself if it was a true warning or a false, when you hear what happened to me on my next birthday.

In the Summer time of the year, the Wheel of Fortune turned the right way for me at last. I was smoking my pipe one day, near an old stone quarry at the entrance to our village, when a carriage accident happened, which gave a new turn, as it were, to my lot in life. It was an accident of the commonest kind – not worth mentioning at any length. A lady driving herself; a runaway horse; a cowardly manservant in attendance, frightened out of his wits; and the stone quarry too near to be agreeable – that is what I saw, all in a few moments, between two whiffs of my pipe. I stopped the horse at the edge of the quarry, and got myself a little hurt by the shaft of the chaise. But that didn’t matter. The lady declared I had saved her life; and her husband, coming with her to our cottage the next day, took me into his service then and there. The lady happened to be of a dark complexion; and it may amuse you to hear that my aunt Chance instantly pitched on that circumstance as a means of saving the credit of the cards. Here was the promise of the Queen of Spades performed to the very letter, by means of “a dark woman,” just as my aunt had told me. “In the time to come, Francis, beware o’ pettin’ yer ain blinded intairpretation on the cairds. Ye’re ower ready, I trow, to murmur under dispensation of Proavidence that ye canna fathom – like the Eesraelites of auld. I’ll say nae mair to ye. Mebbe when the money’s powering into yer poakets, ye’ll no forget yer aunt Chance, left like a sparrow on the housetop, wi’ a sma’ annuitee o’ thratty punds a year.”

I remained in my situation (at the West-end of London) until the Spring of the New Year.

About that time, my master’s health failed. The doctors ordered him away to foreign parts, and the establishment was broken up. But the turn in my luck still held good. When I left my place, I left it – thanks to the generosity of my kind master – with a yearly allowance granted to me, in remembrance of the day when I had saved my mistress’s life. For the future, I could go back to service or not, as I pleased; my little income was enough to support my mother and myself.

My master and mistress left England towards the end of February. Certain matters of business to do for them detained me in London until the last day of the month. I was only able to leave for our village by the evening train, to keep my birthday with my mother as usual. It was bedtime when I got to the cottage; and I was sorry to find that she was far from well. To make matters worse, she had finished her bottle of medicine on the previous day, and had omitted to get it replenished, as the doctor had strictly directed. He dispensed his own medicines, and I offered to go and knock him up. She refused to let me do this; and, after giving me my supper, sent me away to my bed.

I fell asleep for a little, and woke again. My mother’s bedchamber was next to mine. I heard my aunt Chance’s heavy footsteps going to and fro in the room, and, suspecting something wrong, knocked at the door. My mother’s pains had returned upon her; there was a serious necessity for relieving her sufferings as speedily as possible, I put on my clothes, and ran off, with the medicine-bottle in my hand, to the other end of the village, where the doctor lived. The church clock chimed the quarter to two on my birthday just as I reached his house. One ring of the night bell brought him to his bedroom window to speak to me. He told me to wait, and he would let me in at the surgery door. I noticed, while I was waiting, that the night was wonderfully fair and warm for the time of year. The old stone quarry where the carriage accident had happened was within view. The moon in the clear heavens lit it up almost as bright as day.

In a minute or two the doctor let me into the surgery. I closed the door, noticing that he had left his room very lightly clad. He kindly pardoned my mother’s neglect of his directions, and set to work at once at compounding the medicine. We were both intent on the bottle; he filling it, and I holding the light – when we heard the surgery door suddenly opened from the street.

•  VIII  •

Who could possibly be up and about in our quiet village at the second hour of the morning?

The person who opened the door appeared within range of the light of the candle. To complete our amazement, the person proved to be a woman!

She walked up to the counter, and standing side-by-side with me, lifted her veil. At the moment when she showed her face, I heard the church clock strike two. She was a stranger to me, and a stranger to the doctor. She was also, beyond all comparison, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.

“I saw the light under the door,” she said. “I want some medicine.”

She spoke quite composedly, as if there was nothing at all extraordinary in her being out in the village at two in the morning, and following me into the surgery to ask for medicine! The doctor stared at her as if he suspected his own eyes of deceiving him. “Who are you?” he asked. “How do you come to be wandering about at this time in the morning?”

She paid no heed to his questions. She only told him coolly what she wanted.

“I have got a bad toothache. I want a bottle of laudanum.”

The doctor recovered himself when she asked for the laudanum. He was on his own ground, you know, when it came to a matter of laudanum; and he spoke to her smartly enough this time.

“Oh, you have got the toothache, have you? Let me look at the tooth.”

She shook her head, and laid a two-shilling piece on the counter.

“I won’t trouble you to look at the tooth,” she said. “There is the money. Let me have the laudanum, if you please.”

The doctor put the two-shilling piece back again in her hand.

“I don’t sell laudanum to strangers,” he answered. “If you are in any distress of body or mind, that is another matter. I shall be glad to help you.”

She put the money back in her pocket. “You can’t help me,” she said, as quietly as ever. “Good morning.”

With that, she opened the surgery door to go out again into the street.

So far, I had not spoken a word on my side. I had stood with the candle in my hand (not knowing I was holding it) – with my eyes fixed on her, with my mind fixed on her like a man bewitched. Her looks betrayed, even more plainly than her words, her resolution, in one way or another, to destroy herself. When she opened the door, in my alarm at what might happen I found the use of my tongue.

“Stop!” I cried out. “Wait for me. I want to speak to you before you go away.”

She lifted her eyes with a look of careless surprise and a mocking smile on her lips.

“What can you have to say to me?” She stopped, and laughed to herself. “Why not?” she said. “I have got nothing to do, and nowhere to go.” She turned back a step, and nodded to me. “You’re a strange man – I think I’ll humour you – I’ll wait outside.” The door of the surgery closed on her. She was gone.

I am ashamed to own what happened next. The only excuse for me is that I was really and truly a man bewitched. I turned me round to follow her out, without once thinking of my mother. The doctor stopped me.

“Don’t forget the medicine,” he said. “And if you will take my advice, don’t trouble yourself about that woman. Rouse up the constable. It’s his business to look after her – not yours.”

I held out my hand for the medicine in silence: I was afraid I should fail in respect if I trusted myself to answer him. He must have seen, as I saw, that she wanted the laudanum to poison herself. He had, to my mind, taken a very heartless view of the matter. I just thanked him when he gave me the medicine – and went out.

She was waiting for me as she had promised; walking slowly to and fro – a tall, graceful, solitary figure in the bright moonbeams. They shed over her fair complexion, her bright golden hair, her large grey eyes, just the light that suited them best. She looked hardly mortal when she first turned to speak to me.

“Well?” she said. “And what do you want?”

In spite of my pride, or my shyness, or my better sense – whichever it might me – all my heart went out to her in a moment. I caught hold of her by the hands, and owned what was in my thoughts, as freely as if I had known her for half a lifetime.

“You mean to destroy yourself,” I said. “And I mean to prevent you from doing it. If I follow you about all night, I’ll prevent you from doing it.”

She laughed. “You saw yourself that he wouldn’t sell me the laudanum. Do you really care whether I live or die?” She squeezed my hands gently as she put the question: her eyes searched mine with a languid, lingering look in them that ran through me like fire. My voice died away on my lips; I couldn’t answer her.

She understood, without my answering. “You have given me a fancy for living, by speaking kindly to me,” she said. “Kindness has a wonderful effect on women, and dogs, and other domestic animals. It is only men who are superior to kindness. Make your mind easy – I promise to take as much care of myself as if I was the happiest woman living! Don’t let me keep you here, out of your bed. Which way are you going?”

Miserable wretch that I was, I had forgotten my mother – with the medicine in my hand!

“I am going home,” I said. “Where are you staying? At the inn?”

She laughed her bitter laugh, and pointed to the stone quarry. “There is my inn for tonight,” she said. “When I got tired of walking about, I rested there.”

We walked on together, on my way home. I took the liberty of asking her if she had any friends.

“I thought I had one friend left,” she said, “or you would never have met me in this place. It turns out I was wrong. My friend’s door was closed in my face some hours since; my friend’s servants threatened me with the police. I had nowhere else to go, after trying my luck in your neighbourhood; and nothing left but my two-shilling piece and these rags on my back. What respectable innkeeper would take me into his house? I walked about, wondering how I could find my way out of the world without disfiguring myself, and without suffering much pain. You have no river in these parts. I didn’t see my way out of the world, till I heard you ringing at the doctor’s house. I got a glimpse at the bottles in the surgery, when he let you in, and I thought of the laudanum directly. What were you doing there? Who is that medicine for? Your wife?”

“I am not married!”

She laughed again. “Not married! If I was a little better dressed there might be a chance for me. Where do you live? Here?”

We had arrived, by this time, at my mother’s door. She held out her hand to say good-bye. Houseless and homeless as she was, she never asked me to give her a shelter for the night. It was my proposal that she should rest, under my roof, unknown to my mother and my aunt. Our kitchen was built out at the back of the cottage: she might remain there unseen and unheard until the household was astir in the morning. I led her into the kitchen, and set a chair for her by the dying embers of the fire. I dare say I was to blame – shamefully to blame, if you like. I only wonder what you would have done in my place. On your word of honour as a man, would you have let that beautiful creature wander back to the shelter of the stone quarry like a stray dog? God help the woman who is foolish enough to trust and love you, if you would have done that!

I left her by the fire, and went to my mother’s room.

•  IX  •

If you have ever felt the heartache, you will know what I suffered in secret when my mother took my hand, and said, “I am sorry, Francis, that your night’s rest has been disturbed through me.” I gave her the medicine; and I waited by her till the pains abated. My aunt Chance went back to her bed; and my mother and I were left alone. I noticed that her writing-desk, moved from its customary place, was on the bed by her side. She saw me looking at it. “This is your birthday, Francis,” she said. “Have you anything to tell me?” I had so completely forgotten my Dream, that I had no notion of what was passing in her mind when she said those words. For a moment there was a guilty fear in me that she suspected something. I turned away my face, and said, “No, mother; I have nothing to tell.” She signed to me to stoop down over the pillow and kiss her. “God bless you, my love!” she said; “and many happy returns of the day.” She patted my hand, and closed her weary eyes, and, little by little, fell off peaceably into sleep.

I stole downstairs again. I think the good influence of my mother must have followed me down. At any rate, this is true: I stopped with my hand on the closed kitchen door, and said to myself: “Suppose I leave the house, and leave the village, without seeing her or speaking to her more?”

Should I really have fled from temptation in this way, if I had been left to myself to decide? Who can tell? As things were, I was not left to decide. While my doubt was in my mind, she heard me, and opened the kitchen door. My eyes and her eyes met. That ended it.

We were together, unsuspected and undisturbed, for the next two hours. Time enough for her to reveal the secret of her wasted life. Time enough for her to take possession of me as her own, to do with me as she liked. It is needless to dwell here on the misfortunes which had brought her low; they are misfortunes too common to interest anybody.

Her name was Alicia Warlock. She had been born and bred a lady. She had lost her station, her character, and her friends. Virtue shuddered at the sight of her; and Vice had got her for the rest of her days. Shocking and common, as I told you. It made no difference to me. I have said it already – I say it again – I was a man bewitched. Is there anything so very wonderful in that? Just remember who I was. Among the honest women in my own station in life, where could I have found the like of her? Could they walk as she walked? and look as she looked? When they gave me a kiss, did their lips linger over it as hers did? Had they her skin, her laugh, her foot, her hand, her touch? She never had a speck of dirt on her: I tell you her flesh was a perfume. When she embraced me, her arms folded round me like the wings of angels; and her smile covered me softly with its light like the sun in heaven. I leave you to laugh at me, or to cry over me, just as your temper may incline. I am not trying to excuse myself – I am trying to explain. You are gentlefolks; what dazzled and maddened me, is everyday experience to you. Fallen or not, angel or devil, it came to this – she was a lady; and I was a groom.

Before the house was astir, I got her away (by the workmen’s train) to a large manufacturing town in our parts.

Here – with my savings in money to help her – she could get her outfit of decent clothes and her lodging among strangers who asked no questions so long as they were paid. Here – now on one pretence and now on another – I could visit her, and we could both plan together what our future lives were to be. I need not tell you that I stood pledged to make her my wife. A man in my station always marries a woman of her sort.

Do you wonder if I was happy at this time? I should have been perfectly happy but for one little drawback. It was this: I was never quite at my ease in the presence of my promised wife.

I don’t mean that I was shy with her, or suspicious of her, or ashamed of her. The uneasiness I am speaking of was caused by a faint doubt in my mind whether I had not seen her somewhere, before the morning when we met at the doctor’s house. Over and over again, I found myself wondering whether her face did not remind me of some other face – what other I never could tell. This strange feeling, this one question that could never be answered, vexed me to a degree that you would hardly credit. It came between us at the strangest times – oftenest, however, at night, when the candles were lit. You have known what it is to try and remember a forgotten name – and to fail, search as you may, to find it in your mind. That was my case. I failed to find my lost face, just as you failed to find your lost name.

In three weeks we had talked matters over, and had arranged how I was to make a clean breast of it at home. By Alicia’s advice, I was to describe her as having been one of my fellow-servants during the time I was employed under my kind master and mistress in London. There was no fear now of my mother taking any harm from the shock of a great surprise. Her health had improved during the three weeks’ interval. On the first evening when she was able to take her old place at tea-time, I summoned my courage, and told her I was going to be married. The poor soul flung her arms round my neck, and burst out crying for joy. “Oh, Francis!” she says, “I am so glad you will have somebody to comfort you and care for you when I am gone!” As for my aunt Chance, you can anticipate what she did, without being told. Ah, me! If there had really been any prophetic virtue in the cards, what a terrible warning they might have given us that night!

It was arranged that I was to bring my promised wife to dinner at the cottage on the next day.

•  X  •

I own I was proud of Alicia when I led her into our little parlour at the appointed time. She had never, to my mind, looked so beautiful as she looked that day. I never noticed any other woman’s dress: I noticed hers as carefully as if I had been a woman myself! She wore a black silk gown, with plain collar and cuffs, and a modest lavender-coloured bonnet, with one white rose in it placed at the side. My mother, dressed in her Sunday best, rose up, all in a flutter, to welcome her daughter-in-law that was to be. She walked forward a few steps, half smiling, half in tears – she looked Alicia full in the face – and suddenly stood still. Her cheeks turned white in an instant; her eyes stared in horror; her hands dropped helplessly at her sides. She staggered back, and fell into the arms of my aunt, standing behind her. It was no swoon – she kept her senses. Her eyes turned slowly from Alicia to me. “Francis,” she said, “does that woman’s face remind you of nothing?”.

Before I could answer, she pointed to her writing-desk on the table at the fireside. “Bring it!” she cried, “bring it!”.

At the same moment I felt Alicia’s hand on my shoulder, and saw Alicia’s face red with anger – and no wonder!

“What does this mean?” she asked. “Does your mother want to insult me?”

I said a few words to quiet her; what they were I don’t remember – I was so confused and astonished at the time. Before I had done, I heard my mother behind me.

My aunt had fetched her desk. She had opened it; she had taken a paper from it. Step by step, helping herself along by the wall, she came nearer and nearer, with the paper in her hand. She looked at the paper – she looked in Alicia’s face – she lifted the long, loose sleeve of her gown, and examined her hand and arm. I saw fear suddenly take the place of anger in Alicia’s eyes. She shook herself free of my mother’s grasp. “Mad!” she said to herself, “and Francis never told me!” With those words she ran out of the room.

I was hastening out after her, when my mother signed to me to stop. She read the words written on the paper. While they fell slowly, one by one, from her lips, she pointed toward the open door.

“Light grey eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little, lady’s hand, with a rosy-red look about the fingernails. The Dream-Woman, Francis! The Dream-Woman!”

Something darkened the parlour window as those words were spoken. I looked sidelong at the shadow. Alicia Warlock had come back! She was peering in at us over the low window-blind. There was the fatal face which had first looked at me in the bedroom of the lonely inn. There, resting on the window blind, was the lovely little hand which had held the murderous knife. I had seen her before we met in the village. The Dream-Woman! The Dream-Woman!

•  XI  •

I expect nobody to approve of what I have next to tell of myself. In three weeks from the day when my mother had identified her with the Woman of the Dream, I took Alicia Warlock to church, and made her my wife. I was a man bewitched. Again and again I say it – I was a man bewitched!

During the interval before my marriage, our little household at the cottage was broken up. My mother and my aunt quarrelled. My mother, believing in the Dream, entreated me to break off my engagement. My aunt, believing in the cards, urged me to marry.

This difference of opinion produced a dispute between them, in the course of which my aunt Chance – quite unconscious of having any superstitious feelings of her own – actually set out the cards which prophesied happiness to me in my married life, and asked my mother how anybody but “a blinded heathen could be fule enough, after seeing those cairds, to believe in a dream!” This was, naturally, too much for my mother’s patience; hard words followed on either side; Mrs. Chance returned in dudgeon to her friends in Scotland. She left me a written statement of my future prospects, as revealed by the cards, and with it an address at which a post-office order would reach her. “The day was not that far off,” she remarked, “when Francie might remember what he owed to his aunt Chance, maintaining her ain unbleemished widowhood on thratty punds a year.”

Having refused to give her sanction to my marriage, my mother also refused to be present at the wedding, or to visit Alicia afterwards. There was no anger at the bottom of this conduct on her part. Believing as she did in this Dream, she was simply in mortal fear of my wife. I understood this, and I made allowances for her. Not a cross word passed between us. My one happy remembrance now – though I did disobey her in the matter of my marriage – is this: I loved and respected my good mother to the last.

As for my wife, she expressed no regret at the estrangement between her mother-in-law and herself. By common consent, we never spoke on that subject. We settled in the manufacturing town which I have already mentioned, and we kept a lodging-house. My kind master, at my request, granted me a lump sum in place of my annuity. This put us into a good house, decently furnished. For a while things went well enough. I may describe myself at this time of my life as a happy man.

My misfortunes began with a return of the complaint with which my mother had already suffered. The doctor confessed, when I asked him the question, that there was danger to be dreaded this time. Naturally, after hearing this, I was a good deal away at the cottage. Naturally also, I left the business of looking after the house, in my absence, to my wife. Little by little, I found her beginning to alter toward me. While my back was turned, she formed acquaintances with people of the doubtful and dissipated sort. One day, I observed something in her manner which forced the suspicion on me that she had been drinking. Before the week was out, my suspicion was a certainty. From keeping company with drunkards, she had grown to be a drunkard herself.

I did all a man could do to reclaim her. Quite useless! She had never really returned the love I felt for her: I had no influence; I could do nothing. My mother, hearing of this last worse trouble, resolved to try what her influence could do. Ill as she was, I found her one day dressed to go out.

“I am not long for this world, Francis,” she said. “I shall not feel easy on my deathbed, unless I have done my best to the last to make you happy. I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and go with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Take me home with you, Francis. Let me do all I can to help my son, before it is too late.”

How could I disobey her? We took the railway to the town: it was only half an hour’s ride. By one o’clock in the afternoon we reached my house. It was our dinner hour, and Alicia was in the kitchen. I was able to take my mother quietly into the parlour and then to prepare my wife for the visit. She had drunk but little at that early hour; and, luckily, the devil in her was tamed for the time.

She followed me into the parlour, and the meeting passed off better than I had ventured to forecast; with this one drawback, that my mother – though she tried hard to control herself – shrank from looking my wife in the face when she spoke to her. It was a relief to me when Alicia began to prepare the table for dinner.

She laid the cloth, brought in the bread tray, and cut some slices for us from the loaf. Then she returned to the kitchen. At that moment, while I was still anxiously watching my mother, I was startled by seeing the same ghastly change pass over her face which had altered it in the morning when Alicia and she first met. Before I could say a word, she started up with a look of horror.

“Take me back! – home, home again, Francis! Come with me, and never go back more!”

I was afraid to ask for an explanation; I could only sign her to be silent, and help her quickly to the door. As we passed the bread tray on the table, she stopped and pointed to it.

“Did you see what your wife cut your bread with?” she asked.

“No, mother; I was not noticing. What was it?”

“Look!”

I did look. A new clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, lay with the loaf in the bread-tray. I stretched out my hand to possess myself of it. At the same moment, there was a noise in the kitchen, and my mother caught me by the arm.

“The knife of the Dream! Francis, I’m faint with fear – take me away before she comes back!”

I couldn’t speak to comfort or even to answer her. Superior as I was to superstition, the discovery of the knife staggered me. In silence, I helped my mother out of the house; and took her home.

I held out my hand to say good-bye. She tried to stop me.

“Don’t go back, Francis! don’t go back!”.

“I must get the knife, mother. I must go back by the next train.”

I held to that resolution. By the next train I went back.

•  XII  •

My wife had, of course, discovered our secret departure from the house. She had been drinking. She was in a fury of passion. The dinner in the kitchen was flung under the grate; the cloth was off the parlour table. Where was the knife?

I was foolish enough to ask for it. She refused to give it to me. In the course of the dispute between us which followed, I discovered that there was a horrible story attached to the knife. It had been used in a murder – years since – and had been so skilfully hidden that the authorities had been unable to produce it at the trial. By help of some of her disreputable friends, my wife had been able to purchase this relic of a bygone crime. Her perverted nature set some horrid unacknowledged value on the knife. Seeing there was no hope of getting it by fair means, I determined to search for it, later in the day, in secret. The search was unsuccessful. Night came on, and I left the house to walk about the streets. You will understand what a broken man I was by this time, when I tell you I was afraid to sleep in the same room with her!

Three weeks passed. Still she refused to give up the knife; and still that fear of sleeping in the same room with her possessed me. I walked about at night, or dozed in the parlour, or sat watching by my mother’s bedside. Before the end of the first week in the new month, the worst misfortune of all befell me – my mother died. It wanted then but a short time to my birthday. She had longed to live till that day. I was present at her death. Her last words in this world were addressed to me.

“Don’t go back, my son – don’t go back!”

I was obliged to go back, if it was only to watch my wife. In the last days of my mother’s illness she had spitefully added a sting to my grief by declaring she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of all that I could do or say, she held to her word. On the day appointed for the burial she forced herself – inflamed and shameless with drink, into my presence, and swore she would walk in the funeral procession to my mother’s grave.

This last insult – after all I had gone through already – was more than I could endure. It maddened me. Try to make allowances for a man beside himself. I struck her.

The instant the blow was dealt, I repented it. She crouched down, silent, in a corner of the room, and eyed me steadily. It was a look that cooled my hot blood in an instant. There was no time now to think of making atonement. I could only risk the worst, and make sure of her till the funeral was over. I locked her into her bedroom.

When I came back, after laying my mother in the grave, I found her sitting by the bedside, very much altered in look and bearing, with a bundle on her lap. She faced me quietly; she spoke with a curious stillness in her voice – strangely and unnaturally composed in look and manner.

“No man has ever struck me yet,” she said. “My husband shall have no second opportunity. Set the door open, and let me go.”

She passed me, and left the room. I saw her walk away up the street.

Was she gone for good?

All that night I watched and waited. No footstep came near the house. The next night, overcome with fatigue, I lay down on the bed in my clothes, with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. My slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, passed, and nothing happened. I lay down on the seventh night, still suspicious of something happening; still in my clothes; still with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning.

My rest was disturbed. I awoke twice, without any sensation of uneasiness. The third time, that horrid shivering of the night at the lonely inn, that awful sinking pain at the heart, came back again, and roused me in an instant.

My eyes turned to the left-hand side of the bed. And there stood, looking at me—

The Dream Woman again? No! My wife. The living woman, with the face of the Dream – in the attitude of the Dream – the fair arm up; the knife clasped in the delicate white hand.

I sprang upon her on the instant; but not quickly enough to stop her from hiding the knife. Without a word from me, without a cry from her, I pinioned her in a chair. With one hand I felt up her sleeve; and there, where the Dream Woman had hidden the knife, my wife had hidden it – the knife with the buckhorn handle, that looked like new.

What I felt when I made that discovery I could not realize at the time, and I can’t describe now. I took one steady look at her with the knife in my hand.

“You meant to kill me?” I said.

“Yes,” she answered; “I meant to kill you.” She crossed her arms over her bosom, and stared me coolly in the face. “I shall do it yet,” she said. “With that knife.”

I don’t know what possessed me – I swear to you I am no coward; and yet I acted like a coward. The horrors got hold of me. I couldn’t look at her – I couldn’t speak to her. I left her (with the knife in my hand), and went out into the night.

There was a bleak wind abroad, and the smell of rain was in the air. The church clocks chimed the quarter as I walked beyond the last house in the town. I asked the first policeman I met what hour that was, of which the quarter past had just struck.

The man looked at his watch, and answered, “Two o’clock.” Two in the morning. What day of the month was this day that had just begun? I reckoned it up from the date of my mother’s funeral. The horrid parallel between the dream and the reality was complete – it was my birthday!

Had I escaped the mortal peril which the dream foretold? or had I only received a second warning?

As that doubt crossed my mind I stopped on my way out of the town. The air had revived me – I felt in some degree like my own self again. After a little thinking, I began to see plainly the mistake I had made in leaving my wife free to go where she liked and to do as she pleased.

I turned instantly, and made my way back to the house.

It was still dark. I had left the candle burning in the bedchamber. When I looked up to the window of the room now, there was no light in it. I advanced to the house door. On going away, I remembered to have closed it; on trying it now, I found it open.

I waited outside, never losing sight of the house till daylight. Then I ventured indoors – listened, and heard nothing – looked into the kitchen, scullery, parlour, and found nothing – went up at last into the bedroom. It was empty.

A pick-lock lay on the floor, which told me how she had gained entrance in the night. And that was the one trace I could find of the Dream-Woman.

•  XIII  •

I waited in the house till the town was astir for the day, and then I went to consult a lawyer. In the confused state of my mind at the time, I had one clear notion of what I meant to do: I was determined to sell my house and leave the neighbourhood. There were obstacles in the way which I had not counted on. I was told I had creditors to satisfy before I could leave – I, who had given my wife the money to pay my bills regularly every week! Inquiry showed that she had embezzled every farthing of the money I had entrusted to her. I had no choice but to pay over again.

Placed in this awkward position, my first duty was to set things right, with the help of my lawyer. During my forced sojourn in the town I did two foolish things. And, as a consequence that followed, I heard once more, and heard for the last time, of my wife.

In the first place, having got possession of the knife, I was rash enough to keep it in my pocket. In the second place, having something of importance to say to my lawyer, at a late hour of the evening, I went to his house after dark – alone and on foot. I got there safely enough. Returning, I was seized on from behind by two men: dragged down a passage and robbed – not only of the little money I had about me, but also of the knife. It was the lawyer’s opinion (as it was mine) that the thieves were among the disreputable acquaintances formed by my wife, and that they had attacked me at her instigation. To confirm this view I received a letter the next day, without date or address, written in Alicia’s hand. The first line informed me that the knife was back again in her possession. The second line reminded me of the day when I struck her. The third line warned me that she would wash out the stain of that blow in my blood, and repeated the words, “I shall do it with the knife!”

These things happened a year ago. The law laid hands on the men who had robbed me; but from that time to this, the law has failed completely to find a trace of my wife.

My story is told. When I had paid the creditors and paid the legal expenses, I had barely five pounds left out of the sale of my house; and I had the world to begin over again. Some months since – drifting here and there – I found my way to Underbridge. The landlord of the inn had known something of my father’s family in times past. He gave me (all he had to give) my food, and shelter in the yard. Except on market-days, there is nothing to do. In the coming winter the inn is to be shut up, and I shall have to shift for myself. My old master would help me if I applied to him – but I don’t like to apply: he has done more for me already than I deserve. Besides, in another year who knows but my troubles may all be at an end? Next winter will bring me nigh to my next birthday, and my next birthday may be the day of my death. Yes! it’s true I sat up all last night; and I heard two in the morning strike: and nothing happened. Still, allowing for that, the time to come is a time I don’t trust. My wife has got the knife – my wife is looking for me. I am above superstition, mind! I don’t say I believe in dreams; I only say, Alicia Warlock is looking for me. It is possible I may be wrong. It is possible I may be right. Who can tell?

•   •   •

THE THIRD NARRATIVE.

THE STORY CONTINUED
BY PERCY FAIRBANK.

•  XIV  •

We took leave of Francis Raven at the door of Farleigh Hall, with the understanding that he might expect to hear from us again.

The same night Mrs. Fairbank and I had a discussion in the sanctuary of our own room. The topic was “The Ostler’s Story;” and the question in dispute between us turned on the measure of charitable duty that we owed to the ostler himself.

The view I took of the man’s narrative was of the purely matter-of-fact kind. Francis Raven had, in my opinion, brooded over the misty connection between his strange dream and his vile wife, until his mind was in a state of partial delusion on that subject. I was quite willing to help him with a trifle of money, and to recommend him to the kindness of my lawyer, if he was really in any danger and wanted advice. There my idea of my duty toward this afflicted person began and ended.

Confronted with this sensible view of the matter, Mrs. Fairbank’s romantic temperament rushed, as usual, into extremes. “I should no more think of losing sight of Francis Raven when his next birthday comes round,” says my wife, “than I should think of laying down a good story with the last chapters unread. I am positively determined, Percy, to take him back with us when we return to France, in the capacity of groom. What does one man more or less among the horses matter to people as rich as we are?” In this strain the partner of my joys and sorrows ran on, perfectly impenetrable to everything that I could say on the side of common sense. Need I tell my married brethren how it ended? Of course I allowed my wife to irritate me, and spoke to her sharply. Of course my wife turned her face away indignantly on the conjugal pillow, and burst into tears. Of course upon that, “Mr.” made his excuses, and “Mrs.” had her own way.

Before the week was out we rode over to Underbridge, and duly offered to Francis Raven a place in our service as supernumerary groom.

At first the poor fellow seemed hardly able to realise his own extraordinary good fortune. Recovering himself, he expressed his gratitude modestly and becomingly. Mrs. Fairbank’s ready sympathies overflowed, as usual, at her lips. She talked to him about our home in France, as if the worn, grey-headed ostler had been a child. “Such a dear old house, Francis; and such pretty gardens! Stables ten times as big as your stables here: quite a choice of rooms for you. You must learn the name of our house – Maison Rouge. Our nearest town is Metz. We are within a walk of the beautiful River Moselle. And when we want a change we have only to take the railway to the frontier, and find ourselves in Germany.”

Listening, so far, with a very bewildered face, Francis started and changed colour when my wife reached the end of her last sentence. “Germany?” he repeated.

“Yes. Does Germany remind you of anything?”

The ostler’s eyes looked down sadly on the ground. “Germany reminds me of my wife,” he replied.

“Indeed! How?”

“She once told me she had lived in Germany – long before I knew her – in the time when she was a young girl.”

“Was she living with relations or friends?”

“She was living as governess in a foreign family.”

“In what part of Germany?”

“I don’t remember, ma’am. I doubt if she told me.”

“Did she tell you the name of the family?”

“Yes, ma’am. It was a foreign name, and it has slipped my memory long since. The head of the family was a wine-grower in a large way of business – I remember that.”

“Did you hear what sort of wine he grew? There are wine growers in our neighbourhood. Was it Moselle wine?”

“I couldn’t say, ma’am, I doubt if I ever heard.”

There the conversation dropped. We engaged to communicate with Francis Raven before we left England, and took our leave.

I had made arrangements to pay our round of visits to English friends, and to return to Maison Rouge in the summer. On the eve of departure, certain difficulties in connection with the management of some landed property of mine in Ireland obliged us to alter our plans. Instead of getting back to our house in France in the Summer, we only returned a week or two before Christmas. Francis Raven accompanied us, and was duly established, in the nominal capacity of stable keeper, among the servants at Maison Rouge.

Before long, some of the objections to taking him into our employment, which I had foreseen and had vainly mentioned to my wife, forced themselves on our attention in no very agreeable form.

Francis Raven failed (as I had feared he would) to get on smoothly with his fellow-servants They were all French; and not one of them understood English. Francis, on his side, was equally ignorant of French. His reserved manners, his melancholy temperament, his solitary ways – all told against him. Our servants called him “the English Bear.” He grew widely known in the neighbourhood under his nickname. Quarrels took place, ending once or twice in blows. It became plain, even to Mrs. Fairbank herself, that some wise change must be made. While we were still considering what the change was to be, the unfortunate ostler was thrown on our hands for some time to come by an accident in the stables. Still pursued by his proverbial ill-luck, the poor wretch’s leg was broken by a kick from a horse.

He was attended to by our own surgeon, in his comfortable bedroom at the stables. As the date of his birthday drew near, he was still confined to his bed.

Physically speaking, he was doing very well. Morally speaking, the surgeon was not satisfied. Francis Raven was suffering under some mysterious mental disturbance, which interfered seriously with his rest at night. Hearing this, I thought it my duty to tell the medical attendant what was preying on the patient’s mind. As a practical man, he shared my opinion that the ostler was in a state of delusion on the subject of his Wife and his Dream. “Curable delusion, in my opinion,” the surgeon added, “if the experiment could be fairly tried.”

“How can it be tried?” I asked.

Instead of replying, the surgeon put a question to me, on his side.

“Do you happen to know,” he said, “that this year is Leap Year?”

“Mrs. Fairbank reminded me of it yesterday,” I answered. “Otherwise I might not have known it.”

“Do you think Francis Raven knows that this year is Leap Year?”

(I began to see dimly what my friend was driving at.)

“It depends,” I answered, “on whether he has got an English almanack. Suppose he has not got the almanack – what then?”

“In that case,” pursued the surgeon, “Francis Raven is innocent of all suspicion that there is a twenty-ninth day in February this year. As a necessary consequence – what will he do? He will anticipate the appearance of the Woman with the Knife, at two in the morning of the twenty-ninth of February, instead of the first of March. Let him suffer all his superstitious terrors on the wrong day. Leave him, on the day that is really his birthday, to pass a perfectly quiet night, and to be as sound asleep as other people at two in the morning. And then, when he wakes comfortably in time for his breakfast, shame him out of his delusion by telling him the truth.”

I agreed to try the experiment. Leaving the surgeon to caution Mrs. Fairbank on the subject of Leap Year, I went to the stables to see Mr. Raven.

•  XV  •

The poor fellow was full of forebodings of the fate in store for him on the ominous first of March. He eagerly entreated me to order one of the menservants to sit up with him on the birthday morning. In granting his request, I asked him to tell me on which day of the week his birthday fell. He reckoned the days on his fingers; and proved his innocence of all suspicion that it was Leap Year, by fixing on the twenty-ninth of February, in the full persuasion that it was the first of March. Pledged to try the surgeon’s experiment, I left his error uncorrected, of course. In so doing, I took my first step blindfold toward the last act in the drama of the Ostler’s Dream.

The next day brought with it a little domestic difficulty, which indirectly and strangely associated itself with the coming end.

My wife received a letter, inviting us to assist in celebrating the “Silver Wedding” of two worthy German neighbours of ours – Mr. and Mrs. Beldheimer. Mr. Beldheimer was a large wine-grower on the banks of the Moselle. His house was situated on the frontier line of France and Germany; and the distance from our house was sufficiently considerable to make it necessary for us to sleep under our host’s roof. Under these circumstances, if we accepted the invitation, a comparison of dates showed that we should be away from home on the morning of the first of March. Mrs. Fairbank – holding to her absurd resolution to see with her own eyes what might, or might not, happen to Francis Raven on his birthday – flatly declined to leave Maison Rouge. “It’s easy to send an excuse,” she said, in her offhand manner.

I failed, for my part, to see any easy way out of the difficulty. The celebration of a “Silver Wedding” in Germany is the celebration of twenty-five years of happy married life; and the host’s claim upon the consideration of his friends on such an occasion is something in the nature of a royal “command.” After considerable discussion, finding my wife’s obstinacy invincible, and feeling that the absence of both of us from the festival would certainly offend our friends, I left Mrs. Fairbank to make her excuses for herself, and directed her to accept the invitation so far as I was concerned. In so doing, I took my second step, blindfold, toward the last act in the drama of the Ostler’s Dream.

A week elapsed; the last days of February were at hand. Another domestic difficulty happened; and, again, this event also proved to be strangely associated with the coming end.

My head groom at the stables was one Joseph Rigobert. He was an ill-conditioned fellow, inordinately vain of his personal appearance, and by no means scrupulous in his conduct with women. His one virtue consisted of his fondness for horses, and in the care he took of the animals under his charge. In a word, he was too good a groom to be easily replaced, or he would have quitted my service long since. On the occasion of which I am now writing, he was reported to me by my steward as growing idle and disorderly in his habits. The principal offence alleged against him was, that he had been seen that day in the city of Metz, in the company of a woman (supposed to be an Englishwoman), whom he was entertaining at a tavern, when he ought to have been on his way back to Maison Rouge. The man’s defence was that “the lady” (as he called her) was an English stranger, unacquainted with the ways of the place, and that he had only shown her where she could obtain some refreshments at her own request. I administered the necessary reprimand, without troubling myself to inquire further into the matter. In failing to do this, I took my third step, blindfold, toward the last act in the drama of the Ostler’s Dream.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth, I informed the servants at the stables that one of them must watch through the night by the Englishman’s bedside. Joseph Rigobert immediately volunteered for the duty – as a means, no doubt, of winning his way back to my favour. I accepted his proposal.

That day the surgeon dined with us. Toward midnight he and I left the smoking-room, and repaired to Francis Raven’s bedside. Rigobert was at his post, with no very agreeable expression on his face. The Frenchman and the Englishman had evidently not got on well together so far. Francis Raven lay helpless on his bed, waiting silently for two in the morning and the Dream-Woman.

“I have come, Francis, to bid you good night,” I said, cheerfully. “Tomorrow morning I shall look in at breakfast time, before I leave home on a journey.”

“Thank you for all your kindness, sir. You will not see me alive tomorrow morning. She will find me this time. Mark my words – she will find me this time.”

“My good fellow! she couldn’t find you in England. How in the world is she to find you in France?”

“It’s borne in on my mind, sir, that she will find me here. At two in the morning on my birthday I shall see her again, and see her for the last time.”

“Do you mean that she will kill you?”

“I mean that, sir, she will kill me – with the knife.”

“And with Rigobert in the room to protect you?”

“I am a doomed man. Fifty Rigoberts couldn’t protect me.”

“And you wanted somebody to sit up with you?”

“Mere weakness, sir. I don’t like to be left alone on my deathbed.”

I looked at the surgeon. If he had encouraged me, I should certainly, out of sheer compassion, have confessed to Francis Raven the trick that we were playing him. The surgeon held to his experiment; the surgeon’s face plainly said – “No.”

The next day (the twenty-ninth of February) was the day of the “Silver Wedding.” The first thing in the morning, I went to Francis Raven’s room. Rigobert met me at the door.

“How has he passed the night?” I asked.

“Saying his prayers, and looking for ghosts,” Rigobert answered. “A lunatic asylum is the only proper place for him.”

I approached the bedside. “Well, Francis, here you are, safe and sound, in spite of what you said to me last night.”

His eyes rested on mine with a vacant, wondering look.

“I don’t understand it,” he said.

“Did you see anything of your wife when the clock struck two?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anything happen?”

“Nothing happened, sir.”

“Doesn’t this satisfy you that you were wrong?”

His eyes still kept their vacant, wondering look. He only repeated the words he had spoken already:

“I don’t understand it.”

I made a last attempt to cheer him. “Come, come, Francis! keep a good heart. You will be out of bed in a fortnight.”

He shook his head on the pillow. “There’s something wrong,” he said. “I don’t expect you to believe me, sir. I only say there’s something wrong – and time will show it.”

I left the room. Half an hour later I started for Mr. Beldheimer’s house; leaving the arrangements for the morning of the first of March in the hands of the doctor and my wife.

•  XVI  •

The one thing which principally struck me when I joined the guests at the “Silver Wedding” is also the one thing which it is necessary to mention here. On this joyful occasion a noticeable lady present was out of spirits. That lady was no other than the heroine of the festival, the mistress of the house!

In the course of the evening I spoke to Mr. Beldheimer’s eldest son on the subject of his mother. As an old friend of the family, I had a claim on his confidence which the young man willingly recognised.

“We have had a very disagreeable matter to deal with,” he said; “and my mother has not recovered the painful impression left on her mind. Many years since, when my sisters were children, we had an English governess in the house. She left us, as we then understood, to be married. We heard no more of her until a week or ten days since, when my mother received a letter, in which our ex-governess described herself as being in a condition of great poverty and distress. After much hesitation she had ventured – at the suggestion of a lady who had been kind to her – to write to her former employers, and to appeal to their remembrance of old times. You know my mother: she is not only the most kind-hearted, but the most innocent of women – it is impossible to persuade her of the wickedness that there is in the world. She replied by return of post, inviting the governess to come here and see her, and enclosing the money for her travelling expenses. When my father came home, and heard what had been done, he wrote at once to his agent in London to make inquiries, enclosing the address on the governess’ letter. Before he could receive the agent’s reply the governess arrived. She produced the worst possible impression on his mind. The agent’s letter, arriving a few days later, confirmed his suspicions. Since we had lost sight of her, the woman had led a most disreputable life. My father spoke to her privately: he offered – on condition of her leaving the house – a sum of money to take her back to England. If she refused, the alternative would be an appeal to the authorities and a public scandal. She accepted the money, and left the house. On her way back to England she appears to have stopped at Metz. You will understand what sort of woman she is when I tell you that she was seen the other day in a tavern, with your handsome groom, Joseph Rigobert.”

While my informant was relating these circumstances, my memory was at work. I recalled what Francis Raven had vaguely told us of his wife’s experience in former days as governess in a German family. A suspicion of the truth suddenly flashed across my mind. “What was the woman’s name?” I asked.

Mr. Beldheimer’s son answered:

“Alicia Warlock.”

I had but one idea when I heard that reply – to get back to my house without a moment’s needless delay. It was then ten o’clock at night – the last train to Metz had left long since. I arranged with my young friend – after duly informing him of the circumstances – that I should go by the first train in the morning, instead of staying to breakfast with the other guests who slept in the house.

At intervals during the night I wondered uneasily how things were going on at Maison Rouge. Again and again the same question occurred to me, on my journey home in the early morning – the morning of the first of March. As the event proved, but one person in my house knew what really happened at the stables on Francis Raven’s birthday. Let Joseph Rigobert take my place as narrator, and tell the story of the end to You – as he told it, in times past, to his lawyer and to Me.

•   •   •

FOURTH (AND LAST) NARRATIVE.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH RIGOBERT:
ADDRESSED TO THE ADVOCATE
WHO DEFENDED HIM AT HIS TRIAL

Respected Sir, – On the twenty-seventh of February I was sent, on business connected with the stables at Maison Rouge, to the city of Metz. On the public promenade I met a magnificent woman. Complexion, blonde. Nationality, English. We mutually admired each other; we fell into conversation. (She spoke French perfectly – with the English accent.) I offered refreshment; my proposal was accepted. We had a long and interesting interview – we discovered that we were made for each other. So far, Who is to blame?

Is it my fault that I am a handsome man – universally agreeable as such to the fair sex? Is it a criminal offence to be accessible to the amiable weakness of love? I ask again, Who is to blame? Clearly, nature. Not the beautiful lady – not my humble self.

To resume. The most hard-hearted person living will understand that two beings made for each other could not possibly part without an appointment to meet again.

I made arrangements for the accommodation of the lady in the village near Maison Rouge. She consented to honour me with her company at supper, in my apartment at the stables, on the night of the twenty-ninth. The time fixed on was the time when the other servants were accustomed to retire – eleven o’clock.

Among the grooms attached to the stables was an Englishman, laid up with a broken leg. His name was Francis. His manners were repulsive; he was ignorant of the French language. In the kitchen he went by the nickname of the “English Bear.” Strange to say, he was a great favourite with my master and my mistress. They even humoured certain superstitious terrors to which this repulsive person was subject – terrors into the nature of which I, as an advanced freethinker, never thought it worth my while to inquire.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth the Englishman, being a prey to the terrors which I have mentioned, requested that one of his fellow servants might sit up with him for that night only. The wish that he expressed was backed by Mr. Fairbank’s authority. Having already incurred my master’s displeasure – in what way, a proper sense of my own dignity forbids me to relate – I volunteered to watch by the bedside of the English Bear. My object was to satisfy Mr. Fairbank that I bore no malice, on my side, after what had occurred between us. The wretched Englishman passed a night of delirium. Not understanding his barbarous language, I could only gather from his gesture that he was in deadly fear of some fancied apparition at his bedside. From time to time, when this madman disturbed my slumbers, I quieted him by swearing at him. This is the shortest and best way of dealing with persons in his condition.

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Fairbank left us on a journey.

Later in the day, to my unspeakable disgust, I found that I had not done with the Englishman yet. In Mr. Fairbank’s absence, Mrs. Fairbank took an incomprehensible interest in the question of my delirious fellow servant’s repose at night. Again, one or the other of us was to watch at his bedside, and report it, if anything happened. Expecting my fair friend to supper, it was necessary to make sure that the other servants at the stables would be safe in their beds that night. Accordingly, I volunteered once more to be the man who kept watch. Mrs. Fairbank complimented me on my humanity. I possess great command over my feelings. I accepted the compliment without a blush.

Twice, after nightfall, my mistress and the doctor (the last staying in the house in Mr. Fairbank’s absence) came to make inquiries. Once before the arrival of my fair friend – and once after. On the second occasion (my apartment being next door to the Englishman’s) I was obliged to hide my charming guest in the harness room. She consented, with angelic resignation, to immolate her dignity to the servile necessities of my position. A more amiable woman (so far) I never met with!

After the second visit I was left free. It was then close on midnight. Up to that time there was nothing in the behaviour of the mad Englishman to reward Mrs. Fairbank and the doctor for presenting themselves at his bedside. He lay half awake, half asleep, with an odd wondering kind of look in his face. My mistress at parting warned me to be particularly watchful of him toward two in the morning. The doctor (in case anything happened) left me a large hand bell to ring, which could easily be heard at the house.

Restored to the society of my fair friend, I spread the supper-table. A pâté, a sausage, and a few bottles of generous Moselle wine, composed our simple meal. When persons adore each other, the intoxicating illusion of Love transforms the simplest meal into a banquet. With immeasurable capacities for enjoyment, we sat down to table. At the very moment when I placed my fascinating companion in a chair, the infamous Englishman in the next room took that occasion, of all others, to become restless and noisy once more. He struck with his stick on the floor; he cried out, in a delirious access of terror, “Rigobert! Rigobert!”

The sound of that lamentable voice, suddenly assailing our ears, terrified my fair friend. She lost all her charming colour in an instant. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Who is that in the next room?”

“A mad Englishman.”

“An Englishman?”

“Compose yourself, my angel. I will quiet him.”

The lamentable voice called out on me again, “Rigobert! Rigobert!”

My fair friend caught me by the arm. “Who is he?” she cried. “What is his name?”

Something in her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of jealousy shook me to the soul. “You know him?” I said.

“His name!” she vehemently repeated; “his name!”

“Francis,” I answered.

“Francis – what?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I could neither remember nor pronounce the barbarous English surname. I could only tell her it began with an “R.”

She dropped back into the chair. Was she going to faint? No: she recovered, and more than recovered, her lost colour. Her eyes flashed superbly. What did it mean? Profoundly as I understand women in general, I was puzzled by this woman!

“You know him?” I repeated.

She laughed at me. “What nonsense! How should I know him? Go and quiet the wretch.”

My looking-glass was near. One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect. I hastened to the Englishman’s bedside.

The moment I appeared he pointed eagerly toward my room. He overwhelmed me with a torrent of words in his own language. I made out, from his gestures and his looks, that he had, in some incomprehensible manner, discovered the presence of my guest; and, stranger still, that he was scared by the idea of a person in my room. I endeavoured to compose him on the system which I have already mentioned – that is to say, I swore at him in my language. The result not proving satisfactory, I own I shook my fist in his face, and left the bedchamber.

Returning to my fair friend, I found her walking backward and forward in a state of excitement wonderful to behold. She had not waited for me to fill her glass – she had begun the generous Moselle in my absence. I prevailed on her with difficulty to place herself at the table. Nothing would induce her to eat. “My appetite is gone,” she said. “Give me wine.”

The generous Moselle deserves its name – delicate on the palate, with prodigious “body.” The strength of this fine wine produced no stupefying effect on my remarkable guest. It appeared to strengthen and exhilarate her – nothing more. She always spoke in the same low tone, and always, turn the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to the subject of the Englishman in the next room. In any other woman this persistency would have offended me. My lovely guest was irresistible; I answered her questions with the docility of a child. She possessed all the amusing eccentricity of her nation. When I told her of the accident which confined the Englishman to his bed, she sprang to her feet. An extraordinary smile irradiated her countenance. She said, “Show me the horse who broke the Englishman’s leg! I must see that horse!” I took her to the stables. She kissed the horse – on my word of honour, she kissed the horse! That struck me. I said. “You do know the man; and he has wronged you in some way.” No! she would not admit it, even then. “I kiss all beautiful animals,” she said. “Haven’t I kissed you?” With that charming explanation of her conduct, she ran back up the stairs. I only remained behind to lock the stable door again. When I rejoined her, I made a startling discovery. I caught her coming out of the Englishman’s room.

“I was just going downstairs again to call you,” she said. “The man in there is getting noisy once more.”

The mad Englishman’s voice assailed our ears once again.

“Rigobert! Rigobert!”

He was a frightful object to look at when I saw him this time. His eyes were staring wildly; the perspiration was pouring over his face. In a panic of terror he clasped his hands; he pointed up to heaven. By every sign and gesture that a man can make, he entreated me not to leave him again. I really could not help smiling. The idea of my staying with him, and leaving my fair friend by herself in the next room!

I turned to the door. When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out into a screech of despair – so shrill that I feared it might awaken the sleeping servants.

My presence of mind in emergencies is proverbial among those who know me. I tore open the cupboard in which he kept his linen – seized a handful of his handkerchiefs – gagged him with one of them, and secured his hands with the others. There was now no danger of his alarming the servants. After tying the last knot, I looked up.

The door between the Englishman’s room and mine was open. My fair friend was standing on the threshold – watching him as he lay helpless on the bed; watching me as I tied the last knot.

“What are you doing there?” I asked. “Why did you open the door?”

She stepped up to me, and whispered her answer in my ear, with her eyes all the time upon the man on the bed:

“I heard him scream.”

“Well?”

“I thought you had killed him.”

I drew back from her in horror. The suspicion of me which her words implied was sufficiently detestable in itself. But her manner when she uttered the words was more revolting still. It so powerfully affected me that I started back from that beautiful creature as I might have recoiled from a reptile crawling over my flesh.

Before I had recovered myself sufficiently to reply, my nerves were assailed by another shock. I suddenly heard my mistress’s voice calling to me from the stable yard.

There was no time to think – there was only time to act. The one thing needed was to keep Mrs. Fairbank from ascending the stairs, and discovering – not my lady-guest only – but the Englishman also, gagged and bound on his bed. I instantly hurried to the yard. As I ran down the stairs I heard the stable clock strike the quarter to two in the morning.

My mistress was eager and agitated. The doctor (in attendance on her) was smiling to himself, like a man amused at his own thoughts.

“Is Francis awake or asleep?” Mrs. Fairbank inquired.

“He has been a little restless, madam. But he is now quiet again. If he is not disturbed” (I added those words to prevent her from ascending the stairs), “he will soon fall off into a quiet sleep.”

“Has nothing happened since I was here last?”

“Nothing, madam.”

The doctor lifted his eyebrows with a comical look of distress.

“Alas, alas, Mrs. Fairbank!” he said. “Nothing has happened! The days of romance are over!”

“It is not two o’clock yet,” my mistress answered, a little irritably.

The smell of the stables was strong on the morning air. She put her handkerchief to her nose and led the way out of the yard by the north entrance – the entrance communicating with the gardens and the house. I was ordered to follow her, along with the doctor. Once out of the smell of the stables she began to question me again. She was unwilling to believe that nothing had occurred in her absence. I invented the best answers I could think of on the spur of the moment; and the doctor stood by laughing. So the minutes passed till the clock struck two. Upon that, Mrs. Fairbank announced her intention of personally visiting the Englishman in his room. To my great relief, the doctor interfered to stop her from doing this.

“You have heard that Francis is just falling asleep,” he said. “If you enter his room you may disturb him. It is essential to the success of my experiment that he should have a good night’s rest, and that he should own it himself, before I tell him the truth. I must request, madam, that you will not disturb the man. Rigobert will ring the alarm bell if anything happens.”

My mistress was unwilling to yield. For the next five minutes, at least, there was a warm discussion between the two. In the end Mrs. Fairbank was obliged to give way – for the time. “In half an hour,” she said, “Francis will either be sound asleep, or awake again. In half an hour I shall come back.” She took the doctor’s arm. They returned together to the house.

Left by myself, with half an hour before me, I resolved to take the Englishwoman back to the village – then, returning to the stables, to remove the gag and the bindings from Francis, and to let him screech to his heart’s content. What would his alarming the whole establishment matter to me after I had got rid of the compromising presence of my guest?

Returning to the yard I heard a sound like the creaking of an open door on its hinges. The gate of the north entrance I had just closed with my own hand. I went round to the west entrance, at the back of the stables. It opened on a field crossed by two footpaths in Mr. Fairbank’s grounds. The nearest footpath led to the village. The other led to the highroad and the river.

Arriving at the west entrance I found the door open – swinging to and fro slowly in the fresh morning breeze. I had myself locked and bolted that door after admitting my fair friend at eleven o’clock. A vague dread of something wrong stole its way into my mind. I hurried back to the stables.

I looked into my own room. It was empty. I went to the harness room. Not a sign of the woman was there. I returned to my room, and approached the door of the Englishman’s bedchamber. Was it possible that she had remained there during my absence? An unaccountable reluctance to open the door made me hesitate, with my hand on the lock. I listened. There was not a sound inside. I called softly. There was no answer. I drew back a step, still hesitating. I noticed something dark moving slowly in the crevice between the bottom of the door and the boarded floor. Snatching up the candle from the table, I held it low, and looked. The dark, slowly-moving object was a stream of blood!

That horrid sight roused me. I opened the door.

The Englishman lay on his bed – alone in the room. He was stabbed in two places – in the throat and in the heart. The weapon was left in the second wound. It was a knife of English manufacture, with a handle of buckhorn as good as new.

I instantly gave the alarm. Witnesses can speak to what followed. It is monstrous to suppose that I am guilty of the murder. I admit that I am capable of committing follies: but I shrink from the bare idea of a crime. Besides, I had no motive for killing the man. The woman murdered him in my absence. The woman escaped by the west entrance while I was talking to my mistress. I have no more to say. I swear to you what I have here written is a true statement of all that happened on the morning of the first of March.

Accept, sir, the assurance of my sentiments of profound gratitude and respect.

Joseph Rigobert

•   •   •

LAST LINES.

ADDED BY PERCY FAIRBANK.

Tried for the murder of Francis Raven, Joseph Rigobert was found Not Guilty; the papers of the assassinated man presenting ample evidence of the deadly animosity felt towards him by his wife.

The investigations pursued on the morning when the crime was committed showed that the murderess, after leaving the stable, had taken the footpath which led to the river. The river was dragged – without result. It remains doubtful to this day whether she died by drowning or not. The one thing certain is – that Alicia Warlock was never seen again.

So – beginning in mystery, ending in mystery – the Dream-Woman passes from your view. Ghost; demon; or living human creature – say for yourselves which she is. Or, knowing what unfathomed wonders are around you, what unfathomed wonders are in you, let the wise words of the greatest of all poets be explanation enough:

“We are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.”

First version “The Ostler” in “Holly-Tree Inn”
Household Words Christmas 1855

This version, revised for American reading tour,
first published in this collection.

JOHN JAGO’S GHOST

OR
THE DEAD ALIVE

•  I  •

THE SICK MAN

“Heart all right,” said the doctor. “Lungs all right. No organic disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don’t alarm yourself. You are not going to die yet. The disease you are suffering from is – overwork. The remedy in your case is – rest.”

So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the Temple (London); having been sent for to see me about half an hour after I had alarmed my clerk by fainting at my desk. I have no wish to intrude myself needlessly on the reader’s attention; but it may be necessary to add, in the way of explanation, that I am a “junior” barrister in good practice. I come from the channel Island of Jersey. The French spelling of my name (Lefranc) was Anglicized generations since – in the days when the letter “k” was still used in England at the end of words which now terminate in “c.” We hold our heads high, nevertheless, as a Jersey family. It is to this day a trial to my father to hear his son described as a member of the English bar.

“Rest!” I repeated, when my medical adviser had done. “My good friend, are you aware that it is term-time? The courts are sitting. Look at the briefs waiting for me on that table! Rest means ruin in my case.”

“And work,” added the doctor, quietly, “means death.”

I started. He was not trying to frighten me: he was plainly in earnest.

“It is merely a question of time,” he went on. “You have a fine constitution; you are a young man; but you cannot deliberately overwork your brain, and derange your nervous system, much longer. Go away at once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean air is the best of all air to build you up again. No: I don’t want to write a prescription. I decline to physic you. I have no more to say.”

With these words my medical friend left the room. I was obstinate: I went into court the same day.

The senior counsel in the case on which I was engaged applied to me for some information which it was my duty to give him. To my horror and amazement, I was perfectly unable to collect my ideas; facts and dates all mingled together confusedly in my mind. I was led out of court thoroughly terrified about myself. The next day my briefs went back to the attorneys; and I followed my doctor’s advice by taking my passage for America in the first steamer that sailed for New York.

I had chosen the voyage to America in preference to any other trip by sea, with a special object in view. A relative of my mother’s had emigrated to the United States many years since, and had thriven there as a farmer. He had given me a general invitation to visit him if I ever crossed the Atlantic. The long period of inaction, under the name of rest, to which the doctor’s decision had condemned me, could hardly be more pleasantly occupied, as I thought, than by paying a visit to my relation, and seeing what I could of America in that way. After a brief sojourn at New York, I started by railway for the residence of my host – Mr. Isaac Meadowcroft, of Morwick Farm.

There are some of the grandest natural prospects on the face of creation in America. There is also to be found in certain States of the Union, by way of wholesome contrast, scenery as flat, as monotonous, and as uninteresting to the traveller, as any that the earth can show. The part of the country in which M. Meadowcroft’s farm was situated fell within this latter category. I looked round me when I stepped out of the railway-carriage on the platform at Morwick Station; and I said to myself, “If to be cured means, in my case, to be dull, I have accurately picked out the very place for the purpose.”

I look back at those words by the light of later events; and I pronounce them, as you will soon pronounce them, to be the words of an essentially rash man, whose hasty judgement never stopped to consider what surprises time and chance together might have in store for him.

Mr. Meadowcroft’s eldest son, Ambrose, was waiting at the station to drive me to the farm.

There was no forewarning, in the appearance of Ambrose Meadowcroft, of the strange and terrible events that were to follow my arrival at Morwick. A healthy, handsome young fellow, one of thousands of other healthy, handsome young fellows, said, “How d’ye do, Mr. Lefrank? Glad to see you, sir. Jump into the buggy; the man will look after your portmanteau.” With equally conventional politeness I answered, “Thank you. How are you all at home?” So we started on the way to the farm.

Our conversation on the drive began with the subjects of agriculture and breeding. I displayed my total ignorance of crops and cattle before we had travelled ten yards on our journey. Ambrose Meadowcroft cast about for another topic, and failed to find it. Upon this I cast about on my side, and asked, at a venture, if I had chosen a convenient time for my visit The young farmer’s stolid brown face instantly brightened. I had evidently hit, haphazard, on an interesting subject.

“You couldn’t have chosen a better time,” he said. “Our house has never been so cheerful as it is now.”

“Have you any visitors staying with you?”

“It’s not exactly a visitor. It’s a new member of the family who has come to live with us.”

“A new member of the family! May I ask who it is?”

Ambrose Meadowcroft considered before he replied; touched his horse with the whip; looked at me with a certain sheepish hesitation; and suddenly burst out with the truth, in the plainest possible words:

“It’s just the nicest girl, sir, you ever saw in your life.”

“Ay, ay! A friend of your sister’s, I suppose?”

“A friend? Bless your heart! it’s our little American cousin, Naomi Colebrook.”

I vaguely remembered that a younger sister of Mr. Meadowcroft’s had married an American merchant in the remote past, and had died many years since, leaving an only child. I was now further informed that the father also was dead. In his last moments he had committed his helpless daughter to the compassionate care of his wife’s relations at Morwick.

“He was always a speculating man,” Ambrose went on. “Tried one thing after another, and failed in all. Died, sir, leaving barely enough to bury him. My father was a little doubtful, before she came here, how his American niece would turn out. We are English, you know; and, though we do live in the United States, we stick fast to our English ways and habits. We don’t much like American women in general, I can tell you; but when Naomi made her appearance she conquered us all. Such a girl! Took her place as one of the family directly. Learned to make herself useful in the dairy in a week’s time. I tell you this – she hasn’t been with us quite two months yet, and we wonder already how we ever got on without her!”

Once started on the subject of Naomi Colebrook, Ambrose held to that one topic and talked on it without intermission. It required no great gift of penetration to discover the impression which the American cousin had produced in this case. The young fellow’s enthusiasm communicated itself, in a certain tepid degree, to me. I really felt a mild flutter of anticipation at the prospect of seeing Naomi, when we drew up, toward the close of evening, at the gates of Morwick Farm.

•  II  •

THE NEW FACES

Immediately on my arrival, I was presented to Mr. Meadowcroft, the father.

The old man had become a confirmed invalid, confined by chronic rheumatism to his chair. He received me kindly, and a little wearily as well. His only unmarried daughter (he had long since been left a widower) was in the room, in attendance on her father. She was a melancholy, middle-aged woman, without visible attractions of any sort – one of those persons who appear to accept the obligation of living under protest, as a burden which they would never have consented to bear if they had only been consulted first. We three had a dreary little interview in a parlour of bare walls; and then I was permitted to go upstairs, and unpack my portmanteau in my own room.

“Supper will be at nine o’clock, sir,” said Miss Meadowcroft.

She pronounced those words as if “supper” was a form of domestic offence, habitually committed by the men, and endured by the women. I followed the groom up to my room, not over-well pleased with my first experience of the farm.

No Naomi and no romance, thus far!

My room was clean – oppressively clean. I quite longed to see a little dust somewhere. My library was limited to the Bible and the Prayer-book. My view from the window showed me a dead flat in a partial state of cultivation, fading sadly from view in the waning light. Above the head of my spruce white bed hung a scroll, bearing a damnatory quotation from Scripture in emblazoned letters of red and black. The dismal presence of Miss Meadowcroft had passed over my bedroom, and had blighted it. My spirits sank as I looked round me. Supper-time was still an event in the future. I lighted the candles and took from my portmanteau what I firmly believe to have been the first French novel ever produced at Morwick Farm. It was one of the masterly and charming stories of Dumas the elder. In five minutes I was in a new world, and my melancholy room was full of the liveliest French company. The sound of an imperative and uncompromising bell recalled me in due time to the regions of reality. I looked at my watch. Nine o’clock.

Ambrose met me at the bottom of the stairs, and showed me the way to the supper-room.

Mr. Meadowcroft’s invalid chair had been wheeled to the head of the table. On his right-hand side sat his sad and silent daughter. She signed to me, with a ghostly solemnity, to take the vacant place on the left of her father. Silas Meadowcroft came in at the same moment, and was presented to me by his brother. There was a strong family likeness between them, Ambrose being the taller and the handsomer man of the two. But there was no marked character in either face. I set them down as men with undeveloped qualities, waiting (the good and evil qualities alike) for time and circumstances to bring them to their full growth.

The door opened again while I was still studying the two brothers, without, I honestly confess, being very favourably impressed by either of them. A new member of the family circle, who instantly attracted my attention, entered the room.

He was short, spare, and wiry; singularly pale for a person whose life was passed in the country. The face was in other respects, besides this, a striking face to see. As to the lower part, it was covered with a thick black beard and moustache, at a time when shaving was the rule, and beards the rare exception, in America. As to the upper part of the face, it was irradiated by a pair of wild, glittering brown eyes, the expression of which suggested to me that there was something not quite right with the man’s mental balance. A perfectly sane person in all his sayings and doings, so far as I could see, there was still something in those wild brown eyes which suggested to me that, under exceptionally trying circumstances, he might surprise his oldest friends by acting in some exceptionally violent or foolish way. “A little cracked” – that in the popular phrase was my impression of the stranger who now made his appearance in the supper-room.

Mr. Meadowcroft the elder, having not spoken one word thus far, himself introduced the newcomer to me, with a side-glance at his sons, which had something like defiance in it – a glance which, as I was sorry to notice, was returned with the defiance on their side by the two young men.

“Philip Lefrank, this is my overlooker, Mr. Jago,” said the old man, formally presenting us. “John Jago, this is my young relative by marriage, Mr. Lefrank. He is not well; he has come over the ocean for rest, and change of scene. Mr. Jago is an American, Philip. I hope you have no prejudice against Americans. Make acquaintance with Mr. Jago. Sit together.” He cast another dark look at his sons; and the sons again returned it. They pointedly drew back from John Jago as he approached the empty chair next to me and moved round to the opposite side of the table. It was plain that the man with the beard stood high in the father’s favour, and that he was cordially disliked for that or for some other reason by the sons.

The door opened once more. A young lady quietly joined the party at the supper-table.

Was the young lady Naomi Colebrook? I looked at Ambrose, and saw the answer in his face. Naomi Colebrook at last!

A pretty girl, and, so far as I could judge by appearances, a good girl too. Describing her generally, I may say that she had a small head, well carried, and well set on her shoulders; bright grey eyes, that looked at you honestly, and meant what they looked; a trim, slight little figure – too slight for our English notions of beauty; a strong American accent; and (a rare thing in America) a pleasantly toned voice, which made the accent agreeable to English ears. Our first impressions of people are, in nine cases out of ten, the right impressions. I liked Naomi Colebrook at first sight; liked her pleasant smile; liked her hearty shake of the hand when we were presented to each other. “If I get on well with nobody else in this house,” I thought to myself, “I shall certainly get on well with you.”

For once in a way, I proved a true prophet. In the atmosphere of smoldering enmities at Morwick Farm, the pretty American girl and I remained firm and true friends from first to last. Ambrose made room for Naomi to sit between his brother and himself. She changed colour for a moment, and looked at him, with a pretty, reluctant tenderness, as she took her chair. I strongly suspected the young farmer of squeezing her hand privately, under cover of the tablecloth.

The supper was not a merry one. The only cheerful conversation was the conversation across the table between Naomi and me.

For some incomprehensible reason, John Jago seemed to be ill at ease in the presence of his young countrywoman. He looked up at Naomi doubtingly from his plate, and looked down again slowly with a frown. When I addressed him, he answered constrainedly. Even when he spoke to Mr. Meadowcroft, he was still on his guard – on his guard against the two young men, as I fancied by the direction which his eyes took on these occasions. When we began our meal, I had noticed for the first time that Silas Meadowcroft’s left hand was strapped up with surgical plaster; and I now further observed that John Jago’s wandering brown eyes, furtively looking at everybody round the table in turn, looked with a curious, cynical scrutiny at the young man’s injured hand.

By way of making my first evening at the farm all the more embarrassing to me as a stranger, I discovered before long that the father and sons were talking indirectly at each other, through Mr. Jago and through me. When old Mr. Meadowcroft spoke disparagingly to his overlooker of some past mistake made in the cultivation of the arable land of the farm, old Mr. Meadowcroft’s eyes pointed the application of his hostile criticism straight in the direction of his two sons When the two sons seized a stray remark of mine about animals in general, and applied it satirically to the mismanagement of sheep and oxen in particular, they looked at John Jago, while they talked to me. On occasions of this sort – and they happened frequently – Naomi struck in resolutely at the right moment, and turned the talk to some harmless topic. Every time she took a prominent part in this way in keeping the peace, melancholy Miss Meadowcroft looked slowly round at her in stern and silent disparagement of her interference. A more dreary and more disunited family party I never sat at the table with. Envy, hatred, malice and uncharitableness are never so essentially detestable to my mind as when they are animated by a sense of propriety, and work under the surface. But for my interest in Naomi, and my other interest in the little love-looks which I now and then surprised passing between her and Ambrose, I should never have sat through that supper. I should certainly have taken refuge in my French novel and my own room.

At last the unendurably long meal, served with ostentatious profusion, was at an end. Miss Meadowcroft rose with her ghostly solemnity, and granted me my dismissal in these words:

“We are early people at the farm, Mr. Lefrank. I wish you good-night.”

She laid her bony hands on the back of Mr. Meadowcroft’s invalid-chair, cut him short in his farewell salutation to me, and wheeled him out to his bed as if she were wheeling him out to his grave.

“Do you go to your room immediately, sir? If not, may I offer you a cigar – provided the young gentlemen will permit it?”

So, picking his words with painful deliberation, and pointing his reference to “the young gentlemen” with one sardonic side-look at them, Mr. John Jago performed the duties of hospitality on his side. I excused myself from accepting the cigar. With studied politeness, the man of the glittering brown eyes wished me a goodnight’s rest, and left the room.

Ambrose and Silas both approached me hospitably, with their open cigar-cases in their hands.

“You were quite right to say ‘No,’” Ambrose began. “Never smoke with John Jago. His cigars will poison you.”

“And never believe a word John Jago says to you,” added Silas. “He is the greatest liar in America, let the other be whom he may.”

Naomi shook her forefinger reproachfully at them, as if the two sturdy young farmers had been two children.

“What will Mr. Lefrank think,” she said, “if you talk in that way of a person whom your father respects and trusts? Go and smoke. I am ashamed of both of you.”

Silas slunk away without a word of protest. Ambrose stood his ground, evidently bent on making his peace with Naomi before he left her.

Seeing that I was in the way, I walked aside toward a glass door at the lower end of the room. The door opened on the trim little farm-garden, bathed at that moment in lovely moonlight. I stepped out to enjoy the scene, and found my way to a seat under an elm-tree. The grand repose of nature had never looked so unutterably solemn and beautiful as it now appeared, after what I had seen and heard inside the house. I understood, or thought I understood, the sad despair of humanity which led men into monasteries in the old times. The misanthropic side of my nature (where is the sick man who is not conscious of that side of him?) was fast getting the upper hand of me when I felt a light touch laid on my shoulder, and found myself reconciled to my species once more by Naomi Colebrook.

•  III  •

THE MOONLIGHT MEETING

“I want to speak to you,” Naomi began “You don’t think ill of me for following you out here? We are not accustomed to stand much on ceremony in America.”

“You are quite right in America. Pray sit down.”

She seated herself by my side, looking at me frankly and fearlessly by the light of the moon.

“You are related to the family here,” she resumed, “and I am related too. I guess I may say to you what I couldn’t say to a stranger. I am right glad you have come here, Mr. Lefrank; and for a reason, sir, which you don’t suspect.”

“Thank you for the compliment you pay me, Miss Colebrook, whatever the reason may be.”

She took no notice of my reply; she steadily pursued her own train of thought.

“I guess you may do some good, sir, in this wretched house,” the girl went on, with her eyes still earnestly fixed on my face. “There is no love, no trust, no peace, at Morwick Farm. They want somebody here, except Ambrose. Don’t think ill of Ambrose; he is only thoughtless. I say, the rest of them want somebody here to make them ashamed of their hard hearts, and their horrid, false, envious ways. You are a gentleman; you know more than they know; they can’t help themselves; they must look up to you. Try, Mr. Lefrank, when you have the opportunity – pray try, sir, to make peace among them. You heard what went on at supper-time; and you were disgusted with it. Oh yes, you were! I saw you frown to yourself; and I know what that means in you Englishmen.”

There was no choice but to speak one’s mind plainly to Naomi. I acknowledged the impression which had been produced on me at supper-time just as plainly as I have acknowledged it in these pages. Naomi nodded her head in undisguised approval of my candour.

“That will do, that’s speaking out,” she said. “But – oh my! you put it a deal too mildly, sir, when you say the men don’t seem to be on friendly terms together here. They hate each other. That’s the word, Mr. Lefrank – hate; bitter, bitter, bitter hate!” She clinched her little fists; she shook them vehemently, by way of adding emphasis to her last words; and then she suddenly remembered Ambrose. “Except Ambrose,” she added, opening her hand again, and laying it very earnestly on my arm. “Don’t go and misjudge Ambrose, sir. There is no harm in poor Ambrose.”

The girl’s innocent frankness was really irresistible.

“Should I be altogether wrong,” I asked, “if I guessed that you were a little partial to Ambrose?”

An Englishwoman would have felt, or would at least have assumed, some little hesitation at replying to my question. Naomi did not hesitate for an instant.

“You are quite right, sir,” she said with the most perfect composure. “If things go well, I mean to marry Ambrose.”

“If things go well,” I repeated. “What does that mean? Money?”

She shook her head.

“It means a fear that I have in my own mind,” she answered – “a fear, Mr. Lefrank, of matters taking a bad turn among the men here – the wicked, hard-hearted, unfeeling men. I don’t mean Ambrose, sir; I mean his brother Silas, and John Jago. Did you notice Silas’s hand? John Jago did that, sir, with a knife.”

“By accident?” I asked.

“On purpose,” she answered. “In return for a blow.”

This plain revelation of the state of things at Morwick Farm rather staggered me – blows and knives under the rich and respectable roof-tree of old Mr. Meadowcroft – blows and knives, not among the labourers, but among the masters! My first impression was like your first impression, no doubt. I could hardly believe it.

“Are you sure of what you say?” I inquired.

“I have it from Ambrose. Ambrose would never deceive me. Ambrose knows all about it.”

My curiosity was powerfully excited. To what sort of household had I rashly voyaged across the ocean in search of rest and quiet?

“May I know all about it too?” I said.

“Well, I will try and tell you what Ambrose told me. But you must promise me one thing first, sir. Promise you won’t go away and leave us when you know the whole truth. Shake hands on it, Mr. Lefrank; come, shake hands on it.”

There was no resisting her fearless frankness. I shook hands on it. Naomi entered on her narrative the moment I had given her my pledge, without wasting a word by way of preface.

“When you are shown over the farm here,” she began, “you will see that it is really two farms in one. On this side of it, as we look from under this tree, they raise crops: on the other side – on much the larger half of the land, mind – they raise cattle. When Mr. Meadowcroft got too old and too sick to look after his farm himself, the boys (I mean Ambrose and Silas) divided the work between them. Ambrose looked after the crops, and Silas after the cattle. Things didn’t go well, somehow, under their management. I can’t tell you why. I am only sure Ambrose was not in fault. The old man got more and more dissatisfied, especially about his beasts. His pride is in his beasts. Without saying a word to the boys, he looked about privately (I think he was wrong in that, sir; don’t you?) – he looked about privately for help; and, in an evil hour, he heard of John Jago. Do you like John Jago, Mr. Lefrank?”

“So far, no. I don’t like him.”

“Just my sentiments, sir. But I don’t know: it’s likely we may be wrong. There’s nothing against John Jago, except that he is so odd in his ways. They do say he wears all that nasty hair on his face (I hate hair on a man’s face) on account of a vow he made when he lost his wife. Don’t you think, Mr. Lefrank, a man must be a little mad who shows his grief at losing his wife by vowing that he will never shave himself again? Well, that’s what they do say John Jago vowed. Perhaps it’s a lie. People are such liars here! Anyway, it’s truth (the boys themselves confess that), when John came to the farm, he came with a first-rate character. The old father here isn’t easy to please; and he pleased the old father. Yes, that’s so. Mr. Meadowcroft don’t like my countrymen in general. He’s like his sons – English, bitter English, to the marrow of his bones. Somehow, in spite of that, John Jago got round him; maybe because John does certainly know his business. Oh yes! Cattle and crops, John knows his business. Since he’s been overlooker, things have prospered as they didn’t prosper in the time of the boys. Ambrose owned as much to me himself. Still, sir, it’s hard to be set aside for a stranger; isn’t it? John gives the orders now. The boys do their work; but they have no voice in it when John and the old man put their heads together over the business of the farm. I have been long in telling you of it, sir, but now you know how the envy and the hatred grew among the men before my time. Since I have been here, things seem to get worse and worse. There’s hardly a day goes by that hard words don’t pass between the boys and John, or the boys and their father. The old man has an aggravating way, Mr. Lefrank – a nasty way, as we do call it – of taking John Jago’s part. Do speak to him about it when you get the chance. The main blame of the quarrel between Silas and John the other day lies at his door, as I think. I don’t want to excuse Silas, either. It was brutal of him – though he is Ambrose’s brother – to strike John, who is the smaller and weaker man of the two. But it was worse than brutal in John, sir, to out with his knife and try to stab Silas. Oh, he did it! If Silas had not caught the knife in his hand (his hand’s awfully cut, I can tell you; I dressed it myself), it might have ended, for anything I know, in murder—”

She stopped as the word passed her lips, looked back over her shoulder, and started violently.

I looked where my companion was looking. The dark figure of a man was standing, watching us, in the shadow of the elm-tree. I rose directly to approach him. Naomi recovered her self-possession, and checked me before I could interfere.

“Who are you?” she asked, turning sharply toward the stranger. “What do you want there?”

The man stepped out from the shadow into the moonlight, and stood revealed to us as John Jago.

“I hope I am not intruding?” he said, looking hard at me.

“What do you want?” Naomi repeated.

“I don’t wish to disturb you, or to disturb this gentleman,” he proceeded. “When you are quite at leisure, Miss Naomi, you would be doing me a favour if you would permit me to say a few words to you in private.”

He spoke with the most scrupulous politeness; trying, and trying vainly, to conceal some strong agitation which was in possession of him. His wild brown eyes – wilder than ever in the moonlight – rested entreatingly, with a strange underlying expression of despair, on Naomi’s face. His hands, clasped lightly in front of him, trembled incessantly. Little as I liked the man, he did really impress me as a pitiable object at that moment.

“Do you mean that you want to speak to me tonight?” Naomi asked, in undisguised surprise.

“Yes, miss, if you please, at your leisure and at Mr. Lefrank’s.”

Naomi hesitated.

“Won’t it keep till tomorrow?” she said.

“I shall be away on farm business tomorrow, miss, for the whole day. Please to give me a few minutes this evening.” He advanced a step toward her; his voice faltered, and dropped timidly to a whisper. “I really have something to say to you, Miss Naomi. It would be a kindness on your part – a very, very great kindness – if you will let me say it before I rest tonight.”

I rose again to resign my place to him. Once more Naomi checked me.

“No,” she said. “Don’t stir.” She addressed John Jago very reluctantly: “If you are so much in earnest about it, Mr. John, I suppose it must be. I can’t guess what you can possibly have to say to me which cannot be said before a third person. However, it wouldn’t be civil, I suppose, to say ‘No’ in my place. You know it’s my business to wind up the hall-clock at ten every night. If you choose to come and help me, the chances are that we shall have the hall to ourselves. Will that do?”

“Not in the hall, miss, if you will excuse me.”

“Not in the hall!”

“And not in the house either, if I may make so bold.”

“What do you mean?” She turned impatiently, and appealed to me. “Do you understand him?”

John Jago signed to me imploringly to let him answer for himself.

“Bear with me, Miss Naomi,” he said. “I think I can make you understand me. There are eyes on the watch, and ears on the watch, in the house; and there are some footsteps – I won’t say whose – so soft, that no person can hear them.”

The last allusion evidently made itself understood. Naomi stopped him before he could say more.

“Well, where is it to be?” she asked, resignedly. “Will the garden do, Mr. John?”

“Thank you kindly, miss; the garden will do.” He pointed to a gravel-walk beyond us, bathed in the full flood of the moonlight. “There,” he said, “where we can see all round us, and be sure that nobody is listening. At ten o’clock.” He paused, and addressed himself to me. “I beg to apologize, sir, for intruding myself on your conversation. Please to excuse me.”

His eyes rested with a last anxious, pleading look on Naomi’s face. He bowed to us, and melted away into the shadow of the tree. The distant sound of a door closed softly came to us through the stillness of the night. John Jago had re-entered the house.

Now that he was out of hearing, Naomi spoke to me very earnestly:

“Don’t suppose, sir, I have any secrets with him,” she said. “I know no more than you do what he wants with me. I have half a mind not to keep the appointment when ten o’clock comes. What would you do in my place?”

“Having made the appointment,” I answered, “it seems to be due to yourself to keep it. If you feel the slightest alarm, I will wait in another part of the garden, so that I can hear if you call me.”

She received my proposal with a saucy toss of the head, and a smile of pity for my ignorance.

“You are a stranger, Mr. Lefrank, or you would never talk to me in that way. In America, we don’t do the men the honour of letting them alarm us. In America, the women take care of themselves. He has got my promise to meet him, as you say; and I must keep my promise. Only think,” she added, speaking more to herself than to me, “of John Jago finding out Miss Meadowcroft’s nasty, sly, underhand ways in the house! Most men would never have noticed her.”

I was completely taken by surprise. Sad and severe Miss Meadowcroft a listener and a spy! What next at Morwick Farm?

“Was that hint at the watchful eyes and ears, and the soft footsteps, really an allusion to Mr. Meadowcroft’s daughter?” I asked.

“Of course it was. Ah! she has imposed on you as she imposes on everybody else. The false wretch! She is secretly at the bottom of half the bad feeling among the men. I am certain of it – she keeps Mr. Meadowcroft’s mind bitter toward the boys. Old as she is, Mr. Lefrank, and ugly as she is, she wouldn’t object (if she could only make him ask her) to be John Jago’s second wife. No, sir; and she wouldn’t break her heart if the boys were not left a stick or a stone on the farm when the father dies. I have watched her, and I know it. Ah! I could tell you such things! But there’s no time now – it’s close on ten o’clock; we must say good-night. I am right glad I have spoken to you, sir. I say again, at parting, what I have said already: Use your influence, pray use your influence, to soften them, and to make them ashamed of themselves, in this wicked house. We will have more talk about what you can do tomorrow, when you are shown over the farm. Say good-bye now. Hark! there is ten striking! And look! here is John Jago stealing out again in the shadow of the tree! Good-night, friend Lefrank; and pleasant dreams.”

With one hand she took mine, and pressed it cordially; with the other she pushed me away without ceremony in the direction of the house. A charming girl – an irresistible girl! I was nearly as bad as the boys. I declare, I almost hated John Jago, too, as we crossed each other in the shadow of the tree.

Arrived at the glass door, I stopped and looked back at the gravelwalk.

They had met. I saw the two shadowy figures slowly pacing backward and forward in the moonlight, the woman a little in advance of the man. What was he saying to her? Why was he so anxious that not a word of it should be heard? Our presentiments are sometimes, in certain rare cases, the faithful prophecy of the future. A vague distrust of that moonlight meeting stealthily took a hold on my mind. “Will mischief come of it?” I asked myself as I closed the door and entered the house.

Mischief did come of it. You shall hear how.

•  IV  •

THE BEECHEN STICK

Persons of sensitive, nervous temperament, sleeping for the first time in a strange house, and in a bed that is new to them, must make up their minds to pass a wakeful night. My first night at Morwick Farm was no exception to this rule. The little sleep I had was broken and disturbed by dreams. Toward six o’clock in the morning, my bed became unendurable to me. The sun was shining in brightly at the window. I determined to try the reviving influence of a stroll in the fresh morning air.

Just as I got out of bed, I heard footsteps and voices under my window.

The footsteps stopped, and the voices became recognisable. I had passed the night with my window open; I was able, without exciting notice from below, to look out.

The persons beneath me were Silas Meadowcroft, John Jago, and three strangers, whose dress and appearance indicated plainly enough that they were labourers on the farm. Silas was swinging a stout beechen stick in his hand, and was speaking to Jago, coarsely and insolently enough, of his moonlight meeting with Naomi on the previous night.

“Next time you go courting a young lady in secret,” said Silas, “make sure that the moon goes down first, or wait for a cloudy sky. You were seen in the garden, Master Jago; and you may as well tell us the truth for once in a way. Did you find her open to persuasion, sir? Did she say ‘Yes?’”

John Jago kept his temper.

“If you must have your joke, Mr. Silas,” he said, quietly and firmly, “be pleased to joke on some other subject. You are quite wrong, sir, in what you suppose to have passed between the young lady and me.”

Silas turned about, and addressed himself ironically to the three labourers.

“You hear him, boys? He can’t tell the truth, try him as you may. He wasn’t making love to Naomi in the garden last night – oh dear, no! He has had one wife already; and he knows better than to take the yoke on his shoulders for the second time!”

Greatly to my surprise, John Jago met this clumsy jesting with a formal and serious reply.

“You are quite right, sir,” he said. “I have no intention of marrying for the second time. What I was saying to Miss Naomi doesn’t matter to you. It was not at all what you choose to suppose; it was something of quite another kind, with which you have no concern. Be pleased to understand once for all, Mr. Silas, that not so much as the thought of making love to the young lady has ever entered my head. I respect her; I admire her good qualities; but if she was the only woman left in the world, and if I was a much younger man than I am, I should never think of asking her to be my wife.” He burst out suddenly into a harsh, uneasy laugh. “No, no! not my style, Mr. Silas – not my style!”

Something in those words, or in his manner of speaking them, appeared to exasperate Silas. He dropped his clumsy irony, and addressed himself directly to John Jago in a tone of savage contempt.

“Not your style?” he repeated. “Upon my soul, that’s a cool way of putting it, for a man in your place! What do you mean by calling her ‘not your style?’ You impudent beggar! Naomi Colebrook is meat for your master!”

John Jago’s temper began to give way at last. He approached defiantly a step or two nearer to Silas Meadowcroft.

“Who is my master?” he asked.

“Ambrose will show you, if you go to him,” answered the other. “Naomi is his sweetheart, not mine. Keep out of his way, if you want to keep a whole skin on your bones.”

John Jago cast one of his sardonic side-looks at the farmer’s wounded left hand. “Don’t forget your own skin, Mr. Silas, when you threaten mine! I have set my mark on you once, sir. Let me by on my business, or I may mark you for a second time.”

Silas lifted his beechen stick. The labourers, roused to some rude sense of the serious turn which the quarrel was taking, got between the two men, and parted them. I had been hurriedly dressing myself while the altercation was proceeding; and I now ran downstairs to try what my influence could do toward keeping the peace at Morwick Farm.

The war of angry words was still going on when I joined the men outside.

“Be off with you on your business, you cowardly hound!” I heard Silas say. “Be off with you to the town! and take care you don’t meet Ambrose on the way!”

“Take you care you don’t feel my knife again before I go!” cried the other man.

Silas made a desperate effort to break away from the labourers who were holding him.

“Last time you only felt my fist!” he shouted “Next time you shall feel this!”

He lifted the stick as he spoke. I stepped up and snatched it out of his hand.

“Mr. Silas,” I said, “I am an invalid, and I am going out for a walk. Your stick will be useful to me. I beg leave to borrow it.”

The labourers burst out laughing. Silas fixed his eyes on me with a stare of angry surprise. John Jago, immediately recovering his self-possession, took off his hat, and made me a deferential bow.

“I had no idea, Mr. Lefrank, that we were disturbing you,” he said. “I am very much ashamed of myself, sir. I beg to apologize.”

“I accept your apology, Mr. Jago,” I answered, “on the understanding that you, as the older man, will set the example of forbearance if your temper is tried on any future occasion as it has been tried today. And I have further to request,” I added, addressing myself to Silas, “that you will do me a favour, as your father’s guest. The next time your good spirits lead you into making jokes at Mr. Jago’s expense, don’t carry them quite so far. I am sure you meant no harm, Mr. Silas. Will you gratify me by saying so yourself? I want to see you and Mr. Jago shake hands.”

John Jago instantly held out his hand, with an assumption of good feeling which was a little overacted, to my thinking. Silas Meadowcroft made no advance of the same friendly sort on his side.

“Let him go about his business,” said Silas. “I won’t waste any more words on him, Mr. Lefrank, to please you. But (saving your presence) I’m d – d if I take his hand!”

Further persuasion was plainly useless, addressed to such a man as this. Silas gave me no further opportunity of remonstrating with him, even if I had been inclined to do so. He turned about in sulky silence, and, retracing his steps along the path, disappeared round the corner of the house. The labourers withdrew next, in different directions, to begin the day’s, work. John Jago and I were alone.

I left it to the man of the wild brown eyes to speak first.

“In half an hour’s time, sir,” he said, “I shall be going on business to Narrabee, our market-town here. Can I take any letters to the post for you? or is there anything else that I can do in the town?”

I thanked him, and declined both proposals. He made me another deferential bow, and withdrew into the house. I mechanically followed the path in the direction which Silas had taken before me.

Turning the corner of the house, and walking on for a little way, I found myself at the entrance to the stables, and face to face with Silas Meadowcroft once more. He had his elbows on the gate of the yard, swinging it slowly backward and forward, and turning and twisting a straw between his teeth. When he saw me approaching him, he advanced a step from the gate, and made an effort to excuse himself, with a very ill grace.

“No offence, mister. Ask me what you will besides, and I’ll do it for you. But don’t ask me to shake hands with John Jago; I hate him too badly for that. If I touched him with one hand, sir, I tell you this, I should throttle him with the other.”

“That’s your feeling toward the man, Mr. Silas, is it?”

“That’s my feeling, Mr. Lefrank; and I’m not ashamed of it either.”

“Is there any such place as a church in your neighbourhood, Mr. Silas?”

“Of course there is.”

“And do you ever go to it?”

“Of course I do.”

“At long intervals, Mr. Silas?”

“Every Sunday, sir, without fail.”

Some third person behind me burst out laughing; some third person had been listening to our talk. I turned round, and discovered Ambrose Meadowcroft.

“I understand the drift of your catechism, sir, though my brother doesn’t,” he said. “Don’t be hard on Silas, sir. He isn’t the only Christian who leaves his Christianity in the pew when he goes out of church. You will never make us friends with John Jago, try as you may. Why, what have you got there, Mr. Lefrank? May I die if it isn’t my stick! I have been looking for it everywhere!”

The thick beechen stick had been feeling uncomfortably heavy in my invalid hand for some time past. There was no sort of need for my keeping it any longer. John Jago was going away to Narrabee, and Silas Meadowcroft’s savage temper was subdued to a sulky repose. I handed the stick back to Ambrose. He laughed as he took it from me.

“You can’t think how strange it feels, Mr. Lefrank, to be out without one’s stick,” he said. “A man gets used to his stick, sir; doesn’t he? Are you ready for your breakfast?”

“Not just yet. I thought of taking a little walk first.”

“All right, sir. I wish I could go with you; but I have got my work to do this morning, and Silas has his work too. If you go back by the way you came, you will find yourself in the garden. If you want to go further, the wicket-gate at the end will lead you into the lane.”

Through sheer thoughtlessness, I did a very foolish thing. I turned back as I was told, and left the brothers together at the gate of the stable-yard.

•  V  •

THE NEWS FROM NARRABEE

Arrived at the garden, a thought struck me. The cheerful speech and easy manner of Ambrose plainly indicated that he was ignorant thus far of the quarrel which had taken place under my window. Silas might confess to having taken his brother’s stick, and might mention whose head he had threatened with it. It was not only useless, but undesirable, that Ambrose should know of the quarrel. I retraced my steps to the stable-yard. Nobody was at the gate. I called alternately to Silas and to Ambrose. Nobody answered. The brothers had gone away to their work.

Returning to the garden, I heard a pleasant voice wishing me “Good-morning.” I looked round. Naomi Colebrook was standing at one of the lower windows of the farm. She had her working apron on, and she was industriously brightening the knives for the breakfast-table on an old-fashioned board. A sleek black cat balanced himself on her shoulder, watching the flashing motion of the knife as she passed it rapidly to and fro on the leather-covered surface of the board.

“Come here,” she said; “I want to speak to you.”

I noticed, as I approached, that her pretty face was clouded and anxious. She pushed the cat irritably off her shoulder; she welcomed me with only the faint reflection of her bright customary smile.

“I have seen John Jago,” she said. “He has been hinting at something which he says happened under your bedroom window this morning. When I begged him to explain himself, he only answered, ‘Ask Mr. Lefrank; I must be off to Narrabee.’ What does it mean? Tell me right away, sir! I’m out of temper, and I can’t wait!”

Except that I made the best instead of the worst of it, I told her what had happened under my window as plainly as I have told it here. She put down the knife that she was cleaning, and folded her hands before her, thinking.

“I wish I had never given John Jago that meeting,” she said. “When a man asks anything of a woman, the woman, I find, mostly repents it if she says ‘Yes.’”

She made that quaint reflection with a very troubled brow. The moonlight meeting had left some unwelcome remembrances in her mind. I saw that as plainly as I saw Naomi herself.

What had John Jago said to her? I put the question with all needful delicacy, making my apologies beforehand.

“I should like to tell you,” she began, with a strong emphasis on the last word.

There she stopped. She turned pale; then suddenly flushed again to the deepest red. She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever.

“I mustn’t tell you,” she resumed, with her head down over the knife. “I have promised not to tell anybody. That’s the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hush! here’s the spy who saw us last night on the walk and who told Silas!”

Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer-book; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age can look at a younger and prettier woman than herself.

“Prayers, Miss Colebrook,” she said in her sourest manner. She paused, and noticed me standing under the window. “Prayers, Mr. Lefrank,” she added, with a look of devout pity, directed exclusively to my address.

“We will follow you directly, Miss Meadowcroft,” said Naomi.

“I have no desire to intrude on your secrets Miss Colebrook.”

With that acrid answer, our priestess took herself and her Prayer-book out of the kitchen. I joined Naomi, entering the room by the garden door. She met me eagerly. “I am not quite easy about something,” she said. “Did you tell me that you left Ambrose and Silas together?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose Silas tells Ambrose of what happened this morning?”

The same idea, as I have already mentioned, had occurred to my mind. I did my best to reassure Naomi.

“Mr. Jago is out of the way,” I replied. “You and I can easily put things right in his absence.”

She took my arm.

“Come in to prayers,” she said. “Ambrose will be there, and I shall find an opportunity of speaking to him.”

Neither Ambrose nor Silas was in the breakfast-room when we entered it. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, Mr. Meadowcroft told his daughter to read the prayers. Miss Meadowcroft read, thereupon, in the tone of an injured woman taking the throne of mercy by storm, and insisting on her rights. Breakfast followed; and still the brothers were absent. Miss Meadowcroft looked at her father, and said, “From bad to worse, sir. What did I tell you?” Naomi instantly applied the antidote: “The boys are no doubt detained over their work, uncle.” She turned to me. “You want to see the farm, Mr. Lefrank. Come and help me to find the boys.”

For more than an hour we visited one part of the farm after another, without discovering the missing men. We found them at last near the outskirts of a small wood, sitting, talking together, on the trunk of a felled tree.

Silas rose as we approached, and walked away, without a word of greeting or apology, into the wood. As he got on his feet, I noticed that his brother whispered something in his ear; and I heard him answer, “All right.”

“Ambrose, does that mean you have something to keep a secret from us?” asked Naomi, approaching her lover with a smile. “Is Silas ordered to hold his tongue?”

Ambrose kicked sulkily at the loose stones lying about him. I noticed, with a certain surprise that his favourite stick was not in his hand, and was not lying near him.

“Business,” he said in answer to Naomi, not very graciously – “business between Silas and me. That’s what it means, if you must know.”

Naomi went on, woman-like, with her questioning, heedless of the reception which they might meet with from an irritated man.

“Why were you both away at prayers and breakfast-time?” she asked next.

“We had too much to do,” Ambrose gruffly replied, “and we were too far from the house.”

“Very odd,” said Naomi. “This has never happened before since I have been at the farm.”

“Well, live and learn. It has happened now.”

The tone in which he spoke would have warned any man to let him alone. But warnings which speak by implication only are thrown away on women. The woman, having still something in her mind to say, said it.

“Have you seen anything of John Jago this morning?”

The smoldering ill-temper of Ambrose burst suddenly – why, it was impossible to guess – into a flame. “How many more questions am I to answer?” he broke out violently. “Are you the parson putting me through my catechism? I have seen nothing of John Jago, and I have got my work to go on with. Will that do for you?”

He turned with an oath, and followed his brother into the wood. Naomi’s bright eyes looked up at me, flashing with indignation.

“What does he mean, Mr. Lefrank, by speaking to me in that way? Rude brute! How dare he do it?” She paused; her voice, look and manner suddenly changed. “This has never happened before, sir. Has anything gone wrong? I declare, I shouldn’t know Ambrose again, he is so changed. Say, how does it strike you?”

I still made the best of a bad case.

“Something has upset his temper,” I said. “The merest trifle, Miss Colebrook, upsets a man’s temper sometimes. I speak as a man, and I know it. Give him time, and he will make his excuses, and all will be well again.”

My presentation of the case entirely failed to re-assure my pretty companion. We went back to the house. Dinnertime came, and the brothers appeared. Their father spoke to them of their absence from morning prayers with needless severity, as I thought. They resented the reproof with needless indignation on their side, and left the room. A sour smile of satisfaction showed itself on Miss Meadowcroft’s thin lips. She looked at her father; then raised her eyes sadly to the ceiling, and said, “We can only pray for them, sir.”

Naomi disappeared after dinner. When I saw her again, she had some news for me.

“I have been with Ambrose,” she said, “and he has begged my pardon. We have made it up, Mr. Lefrank. Still – still—”

“Still – what, Miss Naomi?”

“He is not like himself, sir. He denies it; but I can’t help thinking he is hiding something from me.”

The day wore on; the evening came. I returned to my French novel. But not even Dumas himself could keep my attention to the story. What else I was thinking of I cannot say. Why I was out of spirits I am unable to explain. I wished myself back in England: I took a blind, unreasoning hatred to Morwick Farm.

Nine o’clock struck; and we all assembled again at supper, with the exception of John Jago. He was expected back to supper; and we waited for him a quarter of an hour, by Mr. Meadowcroft’s own directions. John Jago never appeared.

The night wore on, and still the absent man failed to return. Miss Meadowcroft volunteered to sit up for him. Naomi eyed her, a little maliciously I must own, as the two women parted for the night. I withdrew to my room; and again I was unable to sleep. When sunrise came, I went out, as before, to breathe the morning air.

On the staircase I met Miss Meadowcroft ascending to her own room. Not a curl of her stiff grey hair was disarranged; nothing about the impenetrable woman betrayed that she had been watching through the night.

“Has Mr. Jago not returned?” I asked.

Miss Meadowcroft slowly shook her head, and frowned at me.

“We are in the hands of Providence, Mr. Lefrank. Mr. Jago must have been detained for the night at Narrabee.”

The daily routine of the meals resumed its unalterable course. Breakfast-time came, and dinnertime came, and no John Jago darkened the doors of Morwick Farm. Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter consulted together, and determined to send in search of the missing man. One of the more intelligent of the labourers was dispatched to Narrabee to make inquiries.

The man returned late in the evening, bringing startling news to the farm. He had visited all the inns, and all the places of business resort in Narrabee; he had made endless inquiries in every direction, with this result – no one had set eyes on John Jago. Everybody declared that John Jago had not entered the town.

We all looked at each other, excepting the two brothers, who were seated together in a dark corner of the room. The conclusion appeared to be inevitable. John Jago was a lost man.

•  VI  •

THE LIME-KILN

Mr. Meadowcroft was the first to speak. “Somebody must find John,” he said.

“Without losing a moment,” added his daughter.

Ambrose suddenly stepped out of the dark corner of the room.

“I will inquire,” he said.

Silas followed him.

“I will go with you,” he added.

Mr. Meadowcroft interposed his authority.

“One of you will be enough; for the present, at least. Go you, Ambrose. Your brother may be wanted later. If any accident has happened (which God forbid!) we may have to inquire in more than one direction. Silas, you will stay at the farm.”

The brothers withdrew together; Ambrose to prepare for his journey, Silas to saddle one of the horses for him. Naomi slipped out after them. Left in company with Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter (both devoured by anxiety about the missing man, and both trying to conceal it under an assumption of devout resignation to circumstances), I need hardly add that I, too, retired, as soon as it was politely possible for me to leave the room. Ascending the stairs on my way to my own quarters, I discovered Naomi half hidden by the recess formed by an old-fashioned window-seat on the first landing. My bright little friend was in sore trouble. Her apron was over her face, and she was crying bitterly. Ambrose had not taken his leave as tenderly as usual. She was more firmly persuaded than ever that “Ambrose was hiding something from her.” We all waited anxiously for the next day. The next day made the mystery deeper than ever.

The horse which had taken Ambrose to Narrabee was ridden back to the farm by a groom from the hotel. He delivered a written message from Ambrose which startled us. Further inquiries had positively proved that the missing man had never been near Narrabee. The only attainable tidings of his whereabouts were tidings derived from vague report. It was said that a man like John Jago had been seen the previous day in a railway car, travelling on the line to New York. Acting on this imperfect information, Ambrose had decided on verifying the truth of the report by extending his inquiries to New York.

This extraordinary proceeding forced the suspicion on me that something had really gone wrong. I kept my doubts to myself; but I was prepared, from that moment, to see the disappearance of John Jago followed by very grave results.

The same day the results declared themselves.

Time enough had now elapsed for report to spread through the district the news of what had happened at the farm. Already aware of the bad feeling existing between the men, the neighbours had been now informed (no doubt by the labourers present) of the deplorable scene that had taken place under my bedroom window. Public opinion declares itself in America without the slightest reserve, or the slightest care for consequences. Public opinion declared on this occasion that the lost man was the victim of foul play, and held one or both of the brothers Meadowcroft responsible for his disappearance. Later in the day, the reasonableness of this serious view of the case was confirmed in the popular mind by a startling discovery. It was announced that a Methodist preacher lately settled at Morwick, and greatly respected throughout the district, had dreamed of John Jago in the character of a murdered man, whose bones were hidden at Morwick Farm. Before night the cry was general for a verification of the preacher’s dream. Not only in the immediate district, but in the town of Narrabee itself, the public voice insisted on the necessity of a search for the mortal remains of John Jago at Morwick Farm.

In the terrible turn which matters had now taken, Mr. Meadowcroft the elder displayed a spirit and an energy for which I was not prepared.

“My sons have their faults,” he said, “serious faults; and nobody knows it better than I do. My sons have behaved badly and ungratefully toward John Jago; I don’t deny that, either. But Ambrose and Silas are not murderers. Make your search! I ask for it; no, I insist on it, after what has been said, in justice to my family and my name!”

The neighbours took him at his word. The Morwick section of the American nation organized itself on the spot. The sovereign people met in committee, made speeches, elected competent persons to represent the public interests, and began the search the next day. The whole proceeding, ridiculously informal from a legal point of view, was carried on by these extraordinary people with as stern and strict a sense of duty as if it had been sanctioned by the highest tribunal in the land.

Naomi met the calamity that had fallen on the household as resolutely as her uncle himself. The girl’s courage rose with the call which was made on it. Her one anxiety was for Ambrose.

“He ought to be here,” she said to me. “The wretches in this neighbourhood are wicked enough to say that his absence is a confession of his guilt.”

She was right. In the present temper of the popular mind, the absence of Ambrose was a suspicious circumstance in itself.

“We might telegraph to New York,” I suggested, “if you only knew where a message would be likely to find him.”

“I know the hotel which the Meadowcrofts use at New York,” she replied. “I was sent there, after my father’s death, to wait till Miss Meadowcroft could take me to Morwick.”

We decided on telegraphing to the hotel. I was writing the message, and Naomi was looking over my shoulder, when we were startled by a strange voice speaking close behind us.

“Oh! that’s his address, is it?” said the voice. “We wanted his address rather badly.”

The speaker was a stranger to me. Naomi recognised him as one of the neighbours.

“What do you want his address for?” she asked, sharply.

“I guess we’ve found the mortal remains of John Jago, miss,” the man replied. “We have got Silas already, and we want Ambrose too, on suspicion of murder.”

“It’s a lie!” cried Naomi, furiously – “a wicked lie!”

The man turned to me.

“Take her into the next room, mister,” he said, “and let her see for herself.”

We went together into the next room.

In one corner, sitting by her father, and holding his hand, we saw stern and stony Miss Meadowcroft weeping silently. Opposite to them, crouched on the window-seat, his eyes wandering, his hands hanging helpless, we next discovered Silas Meadowcroft, plainly self-betrayed as a panic-stricken man. A few of the persons who had been engaged in the search were seated near, watching him. The mass of the strangers present stood congregated round a table in the middle of the room They drew aside as I approached with Naomi and allowed us to have a clear view of certain objects placed on the table.

The centre object of the collection was a little heap of charred bones. Round this were ranged a knife, two metal buttons, and a stick partially burned. The knife was recognised by the labourers as the weapon John Jago habitually carried about with him – the weapon with which he had wounded Silas Meadowcroft’s hand. The buttons Naomi herself declared to have a peculiar pattern on them, which had formerly attracted her attention to John Jago’s coat. As for the stick, burned as it was, I had no difficulty in identifying the quaintly-carved knob at the top. It was the heavy beechen stick which I had snatched out of Silas’s hand, and which I had restored to Ambrose on his claiming it as his own. In reply to my inquiries, I was informed that the bones, the knife, the buttons and the stick had all been found together in a lime-kiln then in use on the farm.

“Is it serious?” Naomi whispered to me as we drew back from the table.

It would have been sheer cruelty to deceive her now.

“Yes,” I whispered back; “it is serious.”

The search committee conducted its proceedings with the strictest regularity. The proper applications were made forthwith to a justice of the peace, and the justice issued his warrant. That night Silas was committed to prison; and an officer was dispatched to arrest Ambrose in New York.

For my part, I did the little I could to make myself useful. With the silent sanction of Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter, I went to Narrabee, and secured the best legal assistance for the defence which the town could place at my disposal. This done, there was no choice but to wait for news of Ambrose, and for the examination before the magistrate which was to follow. I shall pass over the misery in the house during the interval of expectation; no useful purpose could be served by describing it now. Let me only say that Naomi’s conduct strengthened me in the conviction that she possessed a noble nature. I was unconscious of the state of my own feelings at the time; but I am now disposed to think that this was the epoch at which I began to envy Ambrose the wife whom he had won.

The telegraph brought us our first news of Ambrose. He had been arrested at the hotel, and he was on his way to Morwick. The next day he arrived, and followed his brother to prison. The two were confined in separate cells, and were forbidden all communication with each other.

Two days later, the preliminary examination took place. Ambrose and Silas Meadowcroft were charged before the magistrate with the willful murder of John Jago. I was cited to appear as one of the witnesses; and, at Naomi’s own request, I took the poor girl into court, and sat by her during the proceedings. My host also was present in his invalid-chair, with his daughter by his side.

Such was the result of my voyage across the ocean in search of rest and quiet; and thus did time and chance fulfill my first hasty foreboding of the dull life I was to lead at Morwick Farm!

•  VII  •

The Materials for the Defence

On our way to the chairs allotted to us in the magistrate’s court, we passed the platform on which the prisoners were standing together.

Silas took no notice of us. Ambrose made a friendly sign of recognition, and then rested his hand on the “bar” in front of him. As she passed beneath him, Naomi was just tall enough to reach his hand on tiptoe. She took it. “I know you are innocent,” she whispered, and gave him one look of loving encouragement as she followed me to her place. Ambrose never lost his self-control. I may have been wrong; but I thought this a bad sign.

The case, as stated for the prosecution, told strongly against the suspected men.

Ambrose and Silas Meadowcroft were charged with the murder of John Jago (by means of the stick or by use of some other weapon), and with the deliberate destruction of the body by throwing it into the quicklime. In proof of this latter assertion, the knife which the deceased habitually carried about him, and the metal buttons which were known to belong to his coat, were produced. It was argued that these indestructible substances, and some fragments of the larger bones had alone escaped the action of the burning lime. Having produced medical witnesses to support this theory by declaring the bones to be human, and having thus circumstantially asserted the discovery of the remains in the kiln, the prosecution next proceeded to prove that the missing man had been murdered by the two brothers, and had been by them thrown into the quicklime as a means of concealing their guilt.

Witness after witness deposed to the inveterate enmity against the deceased displayed by Ambrose and Silas. The threatening language they habitually used toward him; their violent quarrels with him, which had become a public scandal throughout the neighbourhood, and which had ended (on one occasion at least) in a blow; the disgraceful scene which had taken place under my window; and the restoration to Ambrose, on the morning of the fatal quarrel, of the very stick which had been found among the remains of the dead man – these facts and events, and a host of minor circumstances besides, sworn to by witnesses whose credit was unimpeachable, pointed with terrible directness to the conclusion at which the prosecution had arrived.

I looked at the brothers as the weight of the evidence pressed more and more heavily against them. To outward view at least, Ambrose still maintained his self-possession. It was far otherwise with Silas. Abject terror showed itself in his ghastly face; in his great knotty hands, clinging convulsively to the bar at which he stood; in his staring eyes, fixed in vacant horror on each witness who appeared. Public feeling judged him on the spot. There he stood, self-betrayed already, in the popular opinion, as a guilty man!

The one point gained in cross-examination by the defence related to the charred bones.

Pressed on this point, a majority of the medical witnesses admitted that their examination had been a hurried one; and that it was just possible that the bones might yet prove to be the remains of an animal, and not of a man. The presiding magistrate decided upon this that a second examination should be made, and that the member of the medical experts should be increased.

Here the preliminary proceedings ended. The prisoners were remanded for three days.

The prostration of Silas, at the close of the inquiry, was so complete, that it was found necessary to have two men to support him on his leaving the court. Ambrose leaned over the bar to speak to Naomi before he followed the jailer out. “Wait,” he whispered, confidently, “till they hear what I have to say!” Naomi kissed her hand to him affectionately, and turned to me with the bright tears in her eyes.

“Why don’t they hear what he has to say at once?” she asked. “Anybody can see that Ambrose is innocent. It’s a crying shame, sir, to send him back to prison. Don’t you think so yourself?”

If I had confessed what I really thought, I should have said that Ambrose had proved nothing to my mind, except that he possessed rare powers of self-control. It was impossible to acknowledge this to my little friend. I diverted her mind from the question of her lover’s innocence by proposing that we should get the necessary order, and visit him in his prison on the next day. Naomi dried her tears, and gave me a little grateful squeeze of the hand.

“Oh my! what a good fellow you are!” cried the outspoken American girl. “When your time comes to be married, sir, I guess the woman won’t repent saying yes to you!”

Mr. Meadowcroft preserved unbroken silence as we walked back to the farm on either side of his invalid-chair. His last reserves of resolution seemed to have given way under the overwhelming strain laid on them by the proceedings in court. His daughter, in stern indulgence to Naomi, mercifully permitted her opinion to glimmer on us only through the medium of quotation from Scripture texts. If the texts meant anything, they meant that she had foreseen all that had happened; and that the one sad aspect of the case, to her mind, was the death of John Jago, unprepared to meet his end.

I obtained the order of admission to the prison the next morning.

We found Ambrose still confident of the favourable result, for his brother and for himself, of the inquiry before the magistrate. He seemed to be almost as eager to tell, as Naomi was to hear, the true story of what had happened at the lime-kiln. The authorities of the prison – present, of course, at the interview – warned him to remember that what he said might be taken down in writing, and produced against him in court.

“Take it down, gentlemen, and welcome,” Ambrose replied. “I have nothing to fear; I am only telling the truth.”

With that he turned to Naomi, and began his narrative, as nearly as I can remember, in these words:

“I may as well make a clean breast of it at starting, my girl. After Mr. Lefrank left us that morning, I asked Silas how he came by my stick. In telling me how, Silas also told me of the words that had passed between him and John Jago under Mr. Lefrank’s window. I was angry and jealous; and I own it freely, Naomi, I thought the worst that could be thought about you and John.”

Here Naomi stopped him without ceremony.

“Was that what made you speak to me as you spoke when we found you at the wood?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And was that what made you leave me, when you went away to Narrabee, without giving me a kiss at parting?”

“It was.”

“Beg my pardon for it before you say a word more.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Say you are ashamed of yourself.”

“I am ashamed of myself,” Ambrose answered penitently.

“Now you may go on,” said Naomi. “Now I’m satisfied.”

Ambrose went on.

“We were on our way to the clearing at the other side of the wood while Silas was talking to me; and, as ill luck would have it, we took the path that led by the lime-kiln. Turning the corner, we met John Jago on his way to Narrabee. I was too angry, I tell you, to let him pass quietly. I gave him a bit of my mind. His blood was up too, I suppose; and he spoke out, on his side, as freely as I did. I own I threatened him with the stick; but I’ll swear to it I meant him no harm. You know – after dressing Silas’s hand – that John Jago is ready with his knife. He comes from out West, where they are always ready with one weapon or another handy in their pockets. It’s likely enough he didn’t mean to harm me, either; but how could I be sure of that? When he stepped up to me, and showed his weapon, I dropped the stick, and closed with him. With one hand I wrenched the knife away from him; and with the other I caught him by the collar of his rotten old coat, and gave him a shaking that made his bones rattle in his skin. A big piece of the cloth came away in my hand. I shied it into the quicklime close by us, and I pitched the knife after the cloth; and, if Silas hadn’t stopped me, I think it’s likely I might have shied John Jago himself into the lime next. As it was, Silas kept hold of me. Silas shouted out to him, ‘Be off with you! and don’t come back again, if you don’t want to be burned in the kiln!’ He stood looking at us for a minute, fetching his breath, and holding his torn coat round him. Then he spoke with a deadly-quiet voice and a deadly-quiet look: ‘Many a true word, Mr. Silas,’ he says, ‘is spoken in jest. I shall not come back again.’ He turned about, and left us. We stood staring at each other like a couple of fools. ‘You don’t think he means it?’ I says. ‘Bosh!’ says Silas. ‘He’s too sweet on Naomi not to come back.’ What’s the matter now, Naomi?”

I had noticed it too. She started and turned pale, when Ambrose repeated to her what Silas had said to him.

“Nothing is the matter,” Naomi answered. “Your brother has no right to take liberties with my name. Go on. Did Silas say any more while he was about it?”

“Yes; he looked into the kiln; and he says, ‘What made you throw away the knife, Ambrose?’ – ‘How does a man know why he does anything,’ I says, ‘when he does it in a passion?’ – ‘It’s a ripping good knife,’ says Silas; ‘in your place, I should have kept it.’ I picked up the stick off the ground. ‘Who says I’ve lost it yet?’ I answered him; and with that I got up on the side of the kiln, and began sounding for the knife, to bring it, you know, by means of the stick, within easy reach of a shovel, or some such thing. ‘Give us your hand,’ I says to Silas. ‘Let me stretch out a bit and I’ll have it in no time.’ Instead of finding the knife, I came nigh to falling myself into the burning lime. The vapour overpowered me, I suppose. All I know is, I turned giddy, and dropped the stick in the kiln. I should have followed the stick to a dead certainty, but for Silas pulling me back by the hand. ‘Let it be,’ says Silas. ‘If I hadn’t had hold of you, John Jago’s knife would have been the death of you, after all!’ He led me away by the arm, and we went on together on the road to the wood. We stopped where you found us, and sat down on the felled tree. We had a little more talk about John Jago. It ended in our agreeing to wait and see what happened, and to keep our own counsel in the meantime. You and Mr. Lefrank came upon us, Naomi, while we were still talking; and you guessed right when you guessed that we had a secret from you. You know the secret now.”

There he stopped. I put a question to him – the first that I had asked yet.

“Had you or your brother any fear at that time of the charge which has since been brought against you?” I said.

“No such thought entered our heads, sir,” Ambrose answered. “How could we foresee that the neighbours would search the kiln, and say what they have said of us? All we feared was, that the old man might hear of the quarrel, and be bitterer against us than ever. I was the more anxious of the two to keep things secret, because I had Naomi to consider as well as the old man. Put yourself in my place, and you will own, sir, that the prospect at home was not a pleasant one for me, if John Jago really kept away from the farm, and if it came out that it was all my doing.”

(This was certainly an explanation of his conduct; but it was not satisfactory to my mind.)

“As you believe, then,” I went on, “John Jago has carried out his threat of not returning to the farm? According to you, he is now alive, and in hiding somewhere?”

“Certainly!” said Ambrose.

“Certainly!” repeated Naomi.

“Do you believe the report that he was seen travelling on the railway to New York?”

“I believe it firmly, sir; and, what is more, I believe I was on his track. I was only too anxious to find him; and I say I could have found him if they would have let me stay in New York.”

I looked at Naomi.

“I believe it too,” she said. “John Jago is keeping away.”

“Do you suppose he is afraid of Ambrose and Silas?”

She hesitated.

“He may be afraid of them,” she replied, with a strong emphasis on the word “may.”

“But you don’t think it likely?”

She hesitated again. I pressed her again.

“Do you think there is any other motive for his absence?”

Her eyes dropped to the floor. She answered obstinately, almost doggedly,

“I can’t say.”

I addressed myself to Ambrose.

“Have you anything more to tell us?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I have told you all I know about it.”

I rose to speak to the lawyer whose services I had retained. He had helped us to get the order of admission, and he had accompanied us to the prison. Seated apart he had kept silence throughout, attentively watching the effect of Ambrose Meadowcroft’s narrative on the officers of the prison and on me.

“Is this the defence?” I inquired, in a whisper.

“This is the defence, Mr. Lefrank. What do you think, between ourselves?”

“Between ourselves, I think the magistrate will commit them for trial.”

“On the charge of murder?”

“Yes, on the charge of murder.”

•  VIII  •

THE CONFESSION

My replies to the lawyer accurately expressed the conviction in my mind. The narrative related by Ambrose had all the appearance, in my eyes, of a fabricated story, got up, and clumsily got up, to pervert the plain meaning of the circumstantial evidence produced by the prosecution. I reached this conclusion reluctantly and regretfully, for Naomi’s sake. I said all I could say to shake the absolute confidence which she felt in the discharge of the prisoners at the next examination.

The day of the adjourned inquiry arrived.

Naomi and I again attended the court together. Mr. Meadowcroft was unable, on this occasion, to leave the house. His daughter was present, walking to the court by herself, and occupying a seat by herself.

On his second appearance at the “bar,” Silas was more composed, and more like his brother. No new witnesses were called by the prosecution. We began the battle over the medical evidence relating to the charred bones; and, to some extent, we won the victory. In other words, we forced the doctors to acknowledge that they differed widely in their opinions. Three confessed that they were not certain. Two went still further, and declared that the bones were the bones of an animal, not of a man. We made the most of this; and then we entered upon the defence, founded on Ambrose Meadowcroft’s story.

Necessarily, no witnesses could be called on our side. Whether this circumstance discouraged him, or whether he privately shared my opinion of his client’s statement, I cannot say. It is only certain that the lawyer spoke mechanically, doing his best, no doubt, but doing it without genuine conviction or earnestness on his own part. Naomi cast an anxious glance at me as he sat down. The girl’s hand, as I took it, turned cold in mine. She saw plain signs of the failure of the defence in the look and manner of the counsel for the prosecution; but she waited resolutely until the presiding magistrate announced his decision. I had only too clearly foreseen what he would feel it to be his duty to do. Naomi’s head dropped on my shoulder as he said the terrible words which committed Ambrose and Silas Meadowcroft to take their trial on the charge of murder.

I led her out of the court into the air. As I passed the “bar,” I saw Ambrose, deadly pale, looking after us as we left him: the magistrate’s decision had evidently daunted him. His brother Silas had dropped in abject terror on the jailer’s chair; the miserable wretch shook and shuddered dumbly, like a cowed dog.

Miss Meadowcroft returned with us to the farm, preserving unbroken silence on the way back. I could detect nothing in her bearing which suggested any compassionate feeling for the prisoners in her stern and secret nature. On Naomi’s withdrawal to her own room, we were left together for a few minutes; and then, to my astonishment, the outwardly merciless woman showed me that she, too, was one of Eve’s daughters, and could feel and suffer, in her own hard way, like the rest of us. She suddenly stepped close up to me, and laid her hand on my arm.

“You are a lawyer, ain’t you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you had any experience in your profession?”

“Ten years’ experience.”

“Do you think—” She stopped abruptly; her hard face softened; her eyes dropped to the ground. “Never mind,” she said, confusedly. “I’m upset by all this misery, though I may not look like it. Don’t notice me.”

She turned away. I waited, in the firm persuasion that the unspoken question in her mind would sooner or later force its way to utterance by her lips. I was right. She came back to me unwillingly, like a woman acting under some influence which the utmost exertion of her will was powerless to resist.

“Do you believe John Jago is still a living man?”

She put the question vehemently, desperately, as if the words rushed out of her mouth in spite of her.

“I do not believe it,” I answered.

“Remember what John Jago has suffered at the hands of my brothers,” she persisted. “Is it not in your experience that he should take a sudden resolution to leave the farm?”

I replied, as plainly as before,

“It is not in my experience.”

She stood looking at me for a moment with a face of blank despair; then bowed her grey head in silence, and left me. As she crossed the room to the door, I saw her look upward; and I heard her say to herself softly, between her teeth, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”

It was the requiem of John Jago, pronounced by the woman who loved him.

When I next saw her, her mask was on once more. Miss Meadowcroft was herself again. Miss Meadowcroft could sit by, impenetrably calm, while the lawyers discussed the terrible position of her brothers, with the scaffold in view as one of the possibilities of the “case.”

Left by myself, I began to feel uneasy about Naomi. I went upstairs, and, knocking softly at her door, made my inquiries from outside. The clear young voice answered me sadly, “I am trying to bear it: I won’t distress you when we meet again.” I descended the stairs, feeling my first suspicion of the true nature of my interest in the American girl. Why had her answer brought the tears into my eyes? I went out, walking alone, to think undisturbedly. Why did the tones of her voice dwell on my ear all the way? Why did my hand still feel the last cold, faint pressure of her fingers when I led her out of court?

I took a sudden resolution to go back to England.

When I returned to the farm, it was evening. The lamp was not yet lighted in the hall. Pausing to accustom my eyes to the obscurity indoors, I heard the voice of the lawyer whom we had employed for the defence speaking to someone very earnestly.

“I’m not to blame,” said the voice. “She snatched the paper out of my hand before I was aware of her.”

“Do you want it back?” asked the voice of Miss Meadowcroft.

“No; it’s only copy. If keeping it will help to quiet her, let her keep it by all means. Good evening.”

Saying these last words, the lawyer approached me on his way out of the house. I stopped him without ceremony; I felt an ungovernable curiosity to know more.

“Who snatched the paper out of your hand?” I asked, bluntly.

The lawyer started. I had taken him by surprise. The instinct of professional reticence made him pause before he answered me.

In the brief interval of silence, Miss Meadowcroft replied to my question from the other end of the hall.

“Naomi Colebrook snatched the paper out of his hand.”

“What paper?”

A door opened softly behind me. Naomi herself appeared on the threshold; Naomi herself answered my question.

“I will tell you,” she whispered. “Come in here.”

One candle only was burning in the room. I looked at her by the dim light. My resolution to return to England instantly became one of the lost ideas of my life.

“Good God!” I exclaimed, “what has happened now?”

She handed me the paper which she had taken from the lawyer’s hand.

The “copy” to which he had referred was a copy of the written confession of Silas Meadowcroft on his return to prison. He accused his brother Ambrose of the murder of John Jago. He declared on his oath that he had seen his brother Ambrose commit the crime.

In the popular phrase, I could “hardly believe my own eyes.” I read the last sentences of the confession for the second time:

…I heard their voices at the lime-kiln. They were having words about Cousin Naomi. I ran to the place to part them. I was not in time. I saw Ambrose strike the deceased a terrible blow on the head with his (Ambrose’s) heavy stick. The deceased dropped without a cry. I put my hand on his heart. He was dead. I was horribly frightened. Ambrose threatened to kill me next if I said a word to any living soul. He took up the body and cast it into the quicklime, and threw the stick in after it. We went on together to the wood. We sat down on a felled tree outside the wood. Ambrose made up the story that we were to tell if what he had done was found out. He made me repeat it after him, like a lesson. We were still at it when Cousin Naomi and Mr. Lefrank came up to us. They know the rest. This, on my oath, is a true confession. I make it of my own free-will, repenting me sincerely that I did not make it before.

(Signed)
Silas Meadowcroft.

I laid down the paper, and looked at Naomi once more. She spoke to me with a strange composure. Immovable determination was in her eye; immovable determination was in her voice.

“Silas has lied away his brother’s life to save himself,” she said. “I see cowardly falsehood and cowardly cruelty in every line on that paper. Ambrose is innocent, and the time has come to prove it.”

“You forget,” I said, “that we have just failed to prove it.”

“John Jago is alive, in hiding from us and from all who know him,” she went on. “Help me, friend Lefrank, to advertise for him in the newspapers.”

I drew back from her in speechless distress. I own I believed that the new misery which had fallen on her had affected her brain.

“You don’t believe it,” she said. “Shut the door.”

I obeyed her. She seated herself, and pointed to a chair near her.

“Sit down,” she proceeded. “I am going to do a wrong thing; but there is no help for it. I am going to break a sacred promise. You remember that moonlight night when I met him on the garden walk?”

“John Jago?”

“Yes. Now listen. I am going to tell you what passed between John Jago and me.”

•  IX  •

THE ADVERTISEMENT

I waited in silence for the disclosure that was now to come. Naomi began by asking me a question.

“You remember when we went to see Ambrose in the prison?” she said.

“Perfectly.”

“Ambrose told us of something which his villain of a brother said of John Jago and me. Do you remember what it was?”

I remembered perfectly. Silas had said, “John Jago is too sweet on Naomi not to come back.”

“That’s so,” Naomi remarked when I had repeated the words. “I couldn’t help starting when I heard what Silas had said; and I thought you noticed me.”

“I did notice you.”

“Did you wonder what it meant?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell you. It meant this: What Silas Meadowcroft said to his brother of John Jago was what I myself was thinking of John Jago at that very moment. It startled me to find my own thought in a man’s mind spoken for me by a man. I am the person, sir, who has driven John Jago away from Morwick Farm; and I am the person who can and will bring him back again.”

There was something in her manner, more than in her words, which let the light in suddenly on my mind.

“You have told me the secret,” I said. “John Jago is in love with you.”

“Mad about me!” she rejoined, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Stark, staring mad! – that’s the only word for him. After we had taken a few turns on the gravel-walk, he suddenly broke out like a man beside himself. He fell down on his knees; he kissed my gown, he kissed my feet; he sobbed and cried for love of me. I’m not badly off for courage, sir, considering I’m a woman. No man, that I can call to mind, ever really scared me before. But I own John Jago frightened me; oh my! he did frighten me! My heart was in my mouth, and my knees shook under me. I begged and prayed of him to get up and go away. No; there he knelt, and held by the skirt of my gown. The words poured out from him like – well, like nothing I can think of but water from a pump. His happiness and his life, and his hopes in earth and heaven, and Lord only knows what besides, all depended, he said, on a word from me. I plucked up spirit enough at that to remind him that I was promised to Ambrose. ‘I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ I said, ‘to own that you’re wicked enough to love me when you know I am promised to another man!’ When I spoke to him he took a new turn; he began abusing Ambrose. That straightened me up. I snatched my gown out of his hand, and I gave him my whole mind. ‘I hate you!’ I said. ‘Even if I wasn’t promised to Ambrose, I wouldn’t marry you – no! not if there wasn’t another man left in the world to ask me. I hate you, Mr. Jago! I hate you!’ He saw I was in earnest at last. He got up from my feet, and he settled down quiet again, all on a sudden. ‘You have said enough’ (that was how he answered me). ‘You have broken my life. I have no hopes and no prospects now. I had a pride in the farm, miss, and a pride in my work; I bore with your brutish cousins’ hatred of me; I was faithful to Mr. Meadowcroft’s interests; all for your sake, Naomi Colebrook – all for your sake! I have done with it now; I have done with my life at the farm. You will never be troubled with me again. I am going away, as the dumb creatures go when they are sick, to hide myself in a corner, and die. Do me one last favour. Don’t make me the laughingstock of the whole neighbourhood. I can’t bear that; it maddens me only to think of it. Give me your promise never to tell any living soul what I have said to you tonight – your sacred promise to the man whose life you have broken!’ I did as he bade me; I gave him my sacred promise with the tears in my eyes. Yes, that is so. After telling him I hated him (and I did hate him), I cried over his misery; I did! Mercy, what fools women are! What is the horrid perversity, sir, which makes us always ready to pity the men? He held out his hand to me; and he said, ‘Good-bye forever!’ and I pitied him. I said, ‘I’ll shake hands with you if you will give me your promise in exchange for mine. I beg of you not to leave the farm. What will my uncle do if you go away? Stay here, and be friends with me, and forget and forgive, Mr. John.’ He gave me his promise (he can refuse me nothing); and he gave it again when I saw him again the next morning. Yes. I’ll do him justice, though I do hate him! I believe he honestly meant to keep his word as long as my eye was on him. It was only when he was left to himself that the Devil tempted him to break his promise and leave the farm. I was brought up to believe in the Devil, Mr. Lefrank; and I find it explains many things. It explains John Jago. Only let me find out where he has gone, and I’ll engage he shall come back and clear Ambrose of the suspicion which his vile brother has cast on him. Here is the pen all ready for you. Advertise for him, friend Lefrank; and do it right away, for my sake!”

I let her run on, without attempting to dispute her conclusions, until she could say no more. When she put the pen into my hand, I began the composition of the advertisement as obediently as if I, too, believed that John Jago was a living man.

In the case of anyone else, I should have openly acknowledged that my own convictions remained unshaken. If no quarrel had taken place at the lime-kiln, I should have been quite ready, as I viewed the case, to believe that John Jago’s disappearance was referable to the terrible disappointment which Naomi had inflicted on him. The same morbid dread of ridicule which had led him to assert that he cared nothing for Naomi, when he and Silas had quarrelled under my bedroom window, might also have impelled him to withdraw himself secretly and suddenly from the scene of his discomfiture. But to ask me to believe, after what had happened at the lime-kiln, that he was still living, was to ask me to take Ambrose Meadowcroft’s statement for granted as a true statement of facts.

I had refused to do this from the first; and I still persisted in taking that course. If I had been called upon to decide the balance of probability between the narrative related by Ambrose in his defence and the narrative related by Silas in his confession, I must have owned, no matter how unwillingly, that the confession was, to my mind, the least incredible story of the two.

Could I say this to Naomi? I would have written fifty advertisements inquiring for John Jago rather than say it; and you would have done the same, if you had been as fond of her as I was. I drew out the advertisement, for insertion in the Morwick Mercury, in these terms:

MURDER. – Printers of newspapers throughout the United States are desired to publish that Ambrose Meadowcroft and Silas Meadowcroft, of Morwick Farm, Morwick County, are committed for trial on the charge of murdering John Jago, now missing from the farm and from the neighbourhood. Any person who can give information of the existence of said Jago may save the lives of two wrongly-accused men by making immediate communication. Jago is about five feet four inches high. He is spare and wiry; his complexion is extremely pale, his eyes are dark, and very bright and restless. The lower part of his face is concealed by a thick black beard and moustache. The whole appearance of the man is wild and flighty.

I added the date and the address. That evening a servant was sent on horseback to Narrabee to procure the insertion of the advertisement in the next issue of the newspaper.

When we parted that night, Naomi looked almost like her brighter and happier self. Now that the advertisement was on its way to the printing-office, she was more than sanguine: she was certain of the result.

“You don’t know how you have comforted me,” she said, in her frank, warm-hearted way, when we parted for the night. “All the newspapers will copy it, and we shall hear of John Jago before the week is out.” She turned to go, and came back again to me. “I will never forgive Silas for writing that confession!” she whispered in my ear. “If he ever lives under the same roof with Ambrose again, I – well, I believe I wouldn’t marry Ambrose if he did! There!”

She left me. Through the wakeful hours of the night my mind dwelt on her last words. That she should contemplate, under any circumstances, even the bare possibility of not marrying Ambrose, was, I am ashamed to say, a direct encouragement to certain hopes which I had already begun to form in secret. The next day’s mail brought me a letter on business. My clerk wrote to inquire if there was any chance of my returning to England in time to appear in court at the opening of next law term. I answered, without hesitation, “It is still impossible for me to fix the date of my return.” Naomi was in the room while I was writing. How would she have answered, I wonder, if I had told her the truth, and said, “You are responsible for this letter?”

•  X  •

THE SHERIFF
AND THE GOVERNOR

The question of time was now a serious question at Morwick Farm. In six weeks the court for the trial of criminal cases was to be opened at Narrabee.

During this interval no new event of any importance occurred.

Many idle letters reached us relating to the advertisement for John Jago; but no positive information was received. Not the slightest trace of the lost man turned up; not the shadow of a doubt was cast on the assertion of the prosecution, that his body had been destroyed in the kiln. Silas Meadowcroft held firmly to the horrible confession that he had made. His brother Ambrose, with equal resolution, asserted his innocence, and reiterated the statement which he had already advanced. At regular periods I accompanied Naomi to visit him in the prison. As the day appointed for the opening of the court approached, he seemed to falter a little in his resolution; his manner became restless; and he grew irritably suspicious about the merest trifles. This change did not necessarily imply the consciousness of guilt: it might merely have indicated natural nervous agitation as the time for the trial drew near. Naomi noticed the alteration in her lover. It greatly increased her anxiety, though it never shook her confidence in Ambrose. Except at meal-times, I was left, during the period of which I am now writing, almost constantly alone with the charming American girl. Miss Meadowcroft searched the newspapers for tidings of the living John Jago in the privacy of her own room. Mr. Meadowcroft would see nobody but his daughter and his doctor, and occasionally one or two old friends. I have since had reason to believe that Naomi, in these days of our intimate association, discovered the true nature of the feeling with which she had inspired me. But she kept her secret. Her manner toward me steadily remained the manner of a sister; she never overstepped by a hairbreadth the safe limits of the character that she had assumed.

The sittings of the court began. After hearing the evidence, and examining the confession of Silas Meadowcroft, the grand jury found a true bill against both the prisoners. The day appointed for their trial was the first day in the new week.

I had carefully prepared Naomi’s mind for the decision of the grand jury. She bore the new blow bravely.

“If you are not tired of it,” she said, “come with me to the prison tomorrow. Ambrose will need a little comfort by that time.” She paused, and looked at the day’s letters lying on the table. “Still not a word about John Jago,” she said. “And all the papers have copied the advertisement. I felt so sure we should hear of him long before this!”

“Do you still feel sure that he is living?” I ventured to ask.

“I am as certain of it as ever,” she replied, firmly. “He is somewhere in hiding; perhaps he is in disguise. Suppose we know no more of him than we know now when the trial begins? Suppose the jury—” She stopped, shuddering. Death – shameful death on the scaffold – might be the terrible result of the consultation of the jury. “We have waited for news to come to us long enough,” Naomi resumed. “We must find the tracks of John Jago for ourselves. There is a week yet before the trial begins. Who will help me to make inquiries? Will you be the man, friend Lefrank!”

It is needless to add (though I knew nothing would come of it) that I consented to be the man.

We arranged to apply that day for the order of admission to the prison, and, having seen Ambrose, to devote ourselves immediately to the contemplated search. How that search was to be conducted was more than I could tell, and more than Naomi could tell. We were to begin by applying to the police to help us to find John Jago, and we were then to be guided by circumstances. Was there ever a more hopeless programme than this?

“Circumstances” declared themselves against us at starting. I applied, as usual, for the order of admission to the prison, and the order was for the first time refused; no reason being assigned by the persons in authority for taking this course. Inquire as I might, the only answer given was, “not today.”

At Naomi’s suggestion, we went to the prison to seek the explanation which was refused to us at the office. The jailer on duty at the outer gate was one of Naomi’s many admirers. He solved the mystery cautiously in a whisper. The sheriff and the governor of the prison were then speaking privately with Ambrose Meadowcroft in his cell; they had expressly directed that no persons should be admitted to see the prisoner that day but themselves.

What did it mean? We returned, wondering, to the farm. There Naomi, speaking by chance to one of the female servants, made certain discoveries.

Early that morning the sheriff had been brought to Morwick by an old friend of the Meadowcrofts. A long interview had been held between Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter and the official personage introduced by the friend. Leaving the farm, the sheriff had gone straight to the prison, and had proceeded with the governor to visit Ambrose in his cell. Was some potent influence being brought privately to bear on Ambrose? Appearances certainly suggested that inquiry. Supposing the influence to have been really exerted, the next question followed, What was the object in view? We could only wait and see.

Our patience was not severely tried. The event of the next day enlightened us in a very unexpected manner. Before noon, the neighbours brought startling news from the prison to the farm.

Ambrose Meadowcroft had confessed himself to be the murderer of John Jago! He had signed the confession in the presence of the sheriff and the governor on that very day.

I saw the document. It is needless to reproduce it here. In substance, Ambrose confessed what Silas had confessed; claiming, however, to have only struck Jago under intolerable provocation, so as to reduce the nature of his offence against the law from murder to manslaughter. Was the confession really the true statement of what had taken place? or had the sheriff and the governor, acting in the interests of the family name, persuaded Ambrose to try this desperate means of escaping the ignominy of death on the scaffold? The sheriff and the governor preserved impenetrable silence until the pressure put on them judicially at the trial obliged them to speak.

Who was to tell Naomi of this last and saddest of all the calamities which had fallen on her? Knowing how I loved her in secret, I felt an invincible reluctance to be the person who revealed Ambrose Meadowcroft’s degradation to his betrothed wife. Had any other member of the family told her what had happened? The lawyer was able to answer me; Miss Meadowcroft had told her.

I was shocked when I heard it. Miss Meadowcroft was the last person in the house to spare the poor girl; Miss Meadowcroft would make the hard tidings doubly terrible to bear in the telling. I tried to find Naomi, without success. She had been always accessible at other times. Was she hiding herself from me now? The idea occurred to me as I was descending the stairs after vainly knocking at the door of her room. I was determined to see her. I waited a few minutes, and then ascended the stairs again suddenly. On the landing I met her, just leaving her room.

She tried to run back. I caught her by the arm, and detained her. With her free hand she held her handkerchief over her face so as to hide it from me.

“You once told me I had comforted you,” I said to her, gently. “Won’t you let me comfort you now?”

She still struggled to get away, and still kept her head turned from me.

“Don’t you see that I am ashamed to look you in the face?” she said, in low, broken tones. “Let me go.”

I still persisted in trying to soothe her. I drew her to the window-seat. I said I would wait until she was able to speak to me.

She dropped on the seat, and wrung her hands on her lap. Her downcast eyes still obstinately avoided meeting mine.

“Oh!” she said to herself, “what madness possessed me? Is it possible that I ever disgraced myself by loving Ambrose Meadowcroft?” She shuddered as the idea found its way to expression on her lips. The tears rolled slowly over her cheeks. “Don’t despise me, Mr. Lefrank!” she said, faintly.

I tried, honestly tried, to put the confession before her in its least unfavourable light.

“His resolution has given way,” I said. “He has done this, despairing of proving his innocence, in terror of the scaffold.”

She rose, with an angry stamp of her foot. She turned her face on me with the deep-red flush of shame in it, and the big tears glistening in her eyes.

“No more of him!” she said, sternly. “If he is not a murderer, what else is he? A liar and a coward! In which of his characters does he disgrace me most? I have done with him forever! I will never speak to him again!” She pushed me furiously away from her; advanced a few steps toward her own door; stopped, and came back to me. The generous nature of the girl spoke in her next words. “I am not ungrateful to you, friend Lefrank. A woman in my place is only a woman; and, when she is shamed as I am, she feels it very bitterly. Give me your hand! God bless you!”

She put my hand to her lips before I was aware of her, and kissed it, and ran back into her room.

I sat down on the place which she had occupied. She had looked at me for one moment when she kissed my hand. I forgot Ambrose and his confession; I forgot the coming trial; I forgot my professional duties and my English friends. There I sat, in a fool’s elysium of my own making, with absolutely nothing in my mind but the picture of Naomi’s face at the moment when she had last looked at me!

I have already mentioned that I was in love with her. I merely add this to satisfy you that I tell the truth.

•  XI  •

THE PEBBLE AND THE WINDOW

Miss Meadowcroft and I were the only representatives of the family at the farm who attended the trial. We went separately to Narrabee. Excepting the ordinary greetings at morning and night, Miss Meadowcroft had not said one word to me since the time when I had told her that I did not believe John Jago to be a living man.

I have purposely abstained from encumbering my narrative with legal details. I now propose to state the nature of the defence in the briefest outline only.

We insisted on making both the prisoners plead not guilty. This done, we took an objection to the legality of the proceedings at starting. We appealed to the old English law, that there should be no conviction for murder until the body of the murdered person was found, or proof of its destruction obtained beyond a doubt. We denied that sufficient proof had been obtained in the case now before the court.

The judges consulted, and decided that the trial should go on.

We took our next objection when the confessions were produced in evidence. We declared that they had been extorted by terror, or by undue influence; and we pointed out certain minor particulars in which the two confessions failed to corroborate each other. For the rest, our defence on this occasion was, as to essentials, what our defence had been at the inquiry before the magistrate. Once more the judges consulted, and once more they overruled our objection. The confessions were admitted in evidence. On their side, the prosecution produced one new witness in support of their case. It is needless to waste time in recapitulating his evidence. He contradicted himself gravely on cross-examination. We showed plainly, and after investigation proved, that he was not to be believed on his oath.

The chief-justice summed up.

He charged, in relation to the confessions, that no weight should be attached to a confession incited by hope or fear; and he left it to the jury to determine whether the confessions in this case had been so influenced. In the course of the trial, it had been shown for the defence that the sheriff and the governor of the prison had told Ambrose, with his father’s knowledge and sanction, that the case was clearly against him; that the only chance of sparing his family the disgrace of his death by public execution lay in making a confession; and that they would do their best, if he did confess, to have his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life. As for Silas, he was proved to have been beside himself with terror when he made his abominable charge against his brother. We had vainly trusted to the evidence on these two points to induce the court to reject the confessions: and we were destined to be once more disappointed in anticipating that the same evidence would influence the verdict of the jury on the side of mercy. After an absence of an hour, they returned into court with a verdict of “Guilty” against both the prisoners.

Being asked in due form if they had anything to say in mitigation of their sentence, Ambrose and Silas solemnly declared their innocence, and publicly acknowledged that their respective confessions had been wrung from them by the hope of escaping the hangman’s hands. This statement was not noticed by the bench. The prisoners were both sentenced to death.

On my return to the farm, I did not see Naomi. Miss Meadowcroft informed her of the result of the trial. Half an hour later, one of the women-servants handed to me an envelope bearing my name on it in Naomi’s handwriting.

The envelope enclosed a letter, and with it a slip of paper on which Naomi had hurriedly written these words: “For God’s sake, read the letter I send to you, and do something about it immediately!”

I looked at the letter. It assumed to be written by a gentleman in New York. Only the day before, he had, by the merest accident, seen the advertisement for John Jago cut out of a newspaper and pasted into a book of “curiosities” kept by a friend. Upon this he wrote to Morwick Farm to say that he had seen a man exactly answering to the description of John Jago, but bearing another name, working as a clerk in a merchant’s office in Jersey City. Having time to spare before the mail went out, he had returned to the office to take another look at the man before he posted his letter. To his surprise, he was informed that the clerk had not appeared at his desk that day. His employer had sent to his lodgings, and had been informed that he had suddenly packed up his hand-bag after reading the newspaper at breakfast; had paid his rent honestly, and had gone away, nobody knew where!

It was late in the evening when I read these lines. I had time for reflection before it would be necessary for me to act.

Assuming the letter to be genuine, and adopting Naomi’s explanation of the motive which had led John Jago to absent himself secretly from the farm, I reached the conclusion that the search for him might be usefully limited to Narrabee and to the surrounding neighbourhood.

The newspaper at his breakfast had no doubt given him his first information of the “finding” of the grand jury, and of the trial to follow. It was in my experience of human nature that he should venture back to Narrabee under these circumstances, and under the influence of his infatuation for Naomi. More than this, it was again in my experience, I am sorry to say, that he should attempt to make the critical position of Ambrose a means of extorting Naomi’s consent to listen favourably to his suit. Cruel indifference to the injury and the suffering which his sudden absence might inflict on others was plainly implied in his secret withdrawal from the farm. The same cruel indifference, pushed to a further extreme, might well lead him to press his proposals privately on Naomi, and to fix her acceptance of them as the price to be paid for saving her cousin’s life.

To these conclusions I arrived after much thinking. I had determined, on Naomi’s account, to clear the matter up; but it is only candid to add that my doubts of John Jago’s existence remained unshaken by the letter. I believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid “hoax.”

The striking of the hall-clock roused me from my meditations. I counted the strokes – midnight!

I rose to go up to my room. Everybody else in the farm had retired to bed, as usual, more than an hour since. The stillness in the house was breathless. I walked softly, by instinct, as I crossed the room to look out at the night. A lovely moonlight met my view; it was like the moonlight on the fatal evening when Naomi had met John Jago on the garden walk.

My bedroom candle was on the side-table; I had just lighted it. I was just leaving the room, when the door suddenly opened, and Naomi herself stood before me!

Recovering the first shook of her sudden appearance, I saw instantly in her eager eyes, in her deadly-pale cheeks, that something serious had happened. A large cloak was thrown over her; a white handkerchief was tied over her head. Her hair was in disorder; she had evidently just risen in fear and in haste from her bed.

“What is it?” I asked, advancing to meet her.

She clung, trembling with agitation, to my arm.

“John Jago!” she whispered.

You will think my obstinacy invincible. I could hardly believe it, even then!

“Where?” I asked.

“In the backyard,” she replied, “under my bedroom window!”

The emergency was far too serious to allow of any consideration for the small proprieties of everyday life.

“Let me see him!” I said.

“I am here to fetch you,” she answered, in her frank and fearless way. “Come upstairs with me.”

Her room was on the first floor of the house, and was the only bedroom which looked out on the back yard. On our way up the stairs she told me what had happened.

“I was in bed,” she said, “but not asleep, when I heard a pebble strike against the windowpane. I waited, wondering what it meant. Another pebble was thrown against the glass. So far, I was surprised, but not frightened. I got up, and ran to the window to look out. There was John Jago looking up at me in the moonlight!”

“Did he see you?”

“Yes. He said, ‘Come down and speak to me! I have something serious to say to you!’”

“Did you answer him?”

“As soon as I could catch my breath, I said, ‘Wait a little,’ and ran downstairs to you. What shall I do?”

“Let me see him, and I will tell you.”

We entered her room. Keeping cautiously behind the window-curtain, I looked out.

There he was! His beard and moustache were shaved off; his hair was close cut. But there was no disguising his wild, brown eyes, or the peculiar movement of his spare, wiry figure, as he walked slowly to and fro in the moonlight waiting for Naomi. For the moment, my own agitation almost overpowered me; I had so firmly disbelieved that John Jago was a living man!

“What shall I do?” Naomi repeated.

“Is the door of the dairy open?” I asked.

“No; but the door of the tool-house, round the corner, is not locked.”

“Very good. Show yourself at the window, and say to him, ‘I am coming directly.’”

The brave girl obeyed me without a moment’s hesitation.

There had been no doubt about his eyes and his gait; there was no doubt now about his voice, as he answered softly from below – “All right!”

“Keep him talking to you where he is now,” I said to Naomi, “until I have time to get round by the other way to the tool-house. Then pretend to be fearful of discovery at the dairy, and bring him round the corner, so that I can hear him behind the door.”

We left the house together, and separated silently. Naomi followed my instructions with a woman’s quick intelligence where stratagems are concerned. I had hardly been a minute in the tool-house before I heard him speaking to Naomi on the other side of the door.

The first words which I caught distinctly related to his motive for secretly leaving the farm. Mortified pride – doubly mortified by Naomi’s contemptuous refusal and by the personal indignity offered to him by Ambrose – was at the bottom of his conduct in absenting himself from Morwick. He owned that he had seen the advertisement, and that it had actually encouraged him to keep in hiding!

“After being laughed at and insulted and denied, I was glad,” said the miserable wretch, “to see that some of you had serious reason to wish me back again. It rests with you, Miss Naomi, to keep me here, and to persuade me to save Ambrose by showing myself and owning to my name.”

“What do you mean?” I heard Naomi ask, sternly.

He lowered his voice; but I could still hear him.

“Promise you will marry me,” he said, “and I will go before the magistrate tomorrow, and show him that I am a living man.”

“Suppose I refuse?”

“In that case you will lose me again, and none of you will find me till Ambrose is hanged.”

“Are you villain enough, John Jago, to mean what you say?” asked the girl, raising her voice.

“If you attempt to give the alarm,” he answered, “as true as God’s above us, you will feel my hand on your throat! It’s my turn now, miss; and I am not to be trifled with. Will you have me for your husband – yes or no?”

“No!” she answered, loudly and firmly.

I burst open the door, and seized him as he lifted his hand on her. He had not suffered from the nervous derangement which had weakened me, and he was the stronger man of the two. Naomi saved my life. She struck up his pistol as he pulled it out of his pocket with his free hand and presented it at my head. The bullet was fired into the air. I tripped up his heels at the same moment The report of the pistol had alarmed the house. We two together kept him on the ground until help arrived.

•  XII  •

THE END OF IT

John Jago was brought before the magistrate, and John Jago was identified the next day.

The lives of Ambrose and Silas were, of course, no longer in peril, so far as human justice was concerned. But there were legal delays to be encountered, and legal formalities to be observed, before the brothers could be released from prison in the characters of innocent men.

During the interval which thus elapsed, certain events happened which may be briefly mentioned here before I close my narrative.

Mr. Meadowcroft the elder, broken by the suffering which he had gone through, died suddenly of a rheumatic affection of the heart. A codicil attached to his will abundantly justified what Naomi had told me of Miss Meadowcroft’s influence over her father, and of the end she had in view in exercising it. A life income only was left to Mr. Meadowcroft’s sons. The freehold of the farm was bequeathed to his daughter, with the testator’s recommendation added, that she should marry his “best and dearest friend, Mr. John Jago.”

Armed with the power of the will, the heiress of Morwick sent an insolent message to Naomi, requesting her no longer to consider herself one of the inmates at the farm. Miss Meadowcroft, it should be here added, positively refused to believe that John Jago had ever asked Naomi to be his wife, or had ever threatened her, as I had heard him threaten her, if she refused. She accused me, as she accused Naomi, of trying meanly to injure John Jago in her estimation, out of hatred toward “that much-injured man;” and she sent to me, as she had sent to Naomi, a formal notice to leave the house.

We two banished ones met the same day in the hall, with our travelling-bags in our hands.

“We are turned out together, friend Lefrank,” said Naomi, with her quaintly-comical smile. “You will go back to England, I guess; and I must make my own living in my own country. Women can get employment in the States if they have a friend to speak for them. Where shall I find somebody who can give me a place?”

I saw my way to saying the right word at the right moment.

“I have got a place to offer you,” I replied.

She suspected nothing, so far.

“That’s lucky, sir,” was all she said. “Is it in a telegraph-office or in a dry-goods store?”

I astonished my little American friend by taking her then and there in my arms, and giving her my first kiss.

“The office is by my fireside,” I said; “the salary is anything in reason you like to ask me for; and the place, Naomi, if you have no objection to it, is the place of my wife.”

•   •   •

I have no more to say, except that years have passed since I spoke those words and that I am as fond of Naomi as ever.

Some months after our marriage, Mrs. Lefrank wrote to a friend at Narrabee for news of what was going on at the farm. The answer informed us that Ambrose and Silas had emigrated to New Zealand, and that Miss Meadowcroft was alone at Morwick Farm. John Jago had refused to marry her. John Jago had disappeared again, nobody knew where.

•   •   •   •   •   •

NOTE IN CONCLUSION. – The first idea of this little story was suggested to the author by a printed account of a trial which actually took place, early in the present century, in the United States. The published narrative of this strange case is entitled “The Trial, Confessions, and Conviction of Jesse and Stephen Boorn for the Murder of Russell Colvin, and the Return of the Man supposed to have been murdered. By Hon. Leonard Sargeant, Ex-Lieutenant Governor of Vermont. (Manchester, Vermont, Journal Book and Job Office, 1873.)” It may not be amiss to add, for the benefit of incredulous readers, that all the “improbable events” in the story are matters of fact, taken from the printed narrative. Anything which “looks like truth” is, in nine cases out of ten, the invention of the author. —W. C.

First published
The Home Journal 27 Dec 1873

[aka “The Dead-Alive”]

LITTLE NOVELS

CONTENTS

Mrs. Zant and the Ghost
Miss Morris and the Stranger
Mr. Cosway and the Landlady
Mr. Medhurst and the Princess
Mr. Lismore and the Widow
Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman
Miss Mina and the Groom
Mr. Lepel and the Housekeeper
Mr. Captain and the Nymph
Mr. Marmaduke and the Minister
Mr. Percy and the Prophet
Miss Bertha and the Yankee
Miss Dulane and My Lord
Mr. Policeman and the Cook

MRS. ZANT
AND THE GHOST

OR,
THE GHOST’S TOUCH

•  I  •

The course of this narrative describes the return of a disembodied spirit to earth, and leads the reader on new and strange ground.

Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of day, did the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither revealed by a vision, nor announced by a voice, it reached mortal knowledge through the sense which is least easily self-deceived: the sense that feels.

The record of this event will of necessity produce conflicting impressions. It will raise, in some minds, the doubt which reason asserts; it will invigorate, in other minds, the hope which faith justifies; and it will leave the terrible question of the destinies of man, where centuries of vain investigation have left it – in the dark.

Having only undertaken in the present narrative to lead the way along a succession of events, the writer declines to follow modern examples by thrusting himself and his opinions on the public view. He returns to the shadow from which he has emerged, and leaves the opposing forces of incredulity and belief to fight the old battle over again, on the old ground.

•  II  •

The events happened soon after the first thirty years of the present century had come to an end.

On a fine morning, early in the month of April, a gentleman of middle age (named Rayburn) took his little daughter Lucy out for a walk in the woodland pleasure-ground of Western London, called Kensington Gardens.

The few friends whom he possessed reported of Mr. Rayburn (not unkindly) that he was a reserved and solitary man. He might have been more accurately described as a widower devoted to his only surviving child. Although he was not more than forty years of age, the one pleasure which made life enjoyable to Lucy’s father was offered by Lucy herself.

Playing with her ball, the child ran on to the southern limit of the Gardens, at that part of it which still remains nearest to the old Palace of Kensington. Observing close at hand one of those spacious covered seats, called in England “alcoves,” Mr. Rayburn was reminded that he had the morning’s newspaper in his pocket, and that he might do well to rest and read. At that early hour the place was a solitude.

“Go on playing, my dear,” he said; “but take care to keep where I can see you.”

Lucy tossed up her ball; and Lucy’s father opened his newspaper. He had not been reading for more than ten minutes, when he felt a familiar little hand laid on his knee.

“Tired of playing?” he inquired – with his eyes still on the newspaper.

“I’m frightened, papa.”

He looked up directly. The child’s pale face startled him. He took her on his knee and kissed her.

“You oughtn’t to be frightened, Lucy, when I am with you,” he said, gently. “What is it?” He looked out of the alcove as he spoke, and saw a little dog among the trees. “Is it the dog?” he asked.

Lucy answered:

“It’s not the dog – it’s the lady.”

The lady was not visible from the alcove.

“Has she said anything to you?” Mr. Rayburn inquired.

“No.”

“What has she done to frighten you?”

The child put her arms round her father’s neck.

“Whisper, papa,” she said; “I’m afraid of her hearing us. I think she’s mad.”

“Why do you think so, Lucy?”

“She came near to me. I thought she was going to say something. She seemed to be ill.”

“Well? And what then?”

“She looked at me.”

There, Lucy found herself at a loss how to express what she had to say next – and took refuge in silence.

“Nothing very wonderful, so far,” her father suggested.

“Yes, papa – but she didn’t seem to see me when she looked.”

“Well, and what happened then?”

“The lady was frightened – and that frightened me. I think,” the child repeated positively, “she’s mad.”

It occurred to Mr. Rayburn that the lady might be blind. He rose at once to set the doubt at rest.

“Wait here,” he said, “and I’ll come back to you.”

But Lucy clung to him with both hands; Lucy declared that she was afraid to be by herself. They left the alcove together.

The new point of view at once revealed the stranger, leaning against the trunk of a tree. She was dressed in the deep mourning of a widow. The pallor of her face, the glassy stare in her eyes, more than accounted for the child’s terror – it excused the alarming conclusion at which she had arrived.

“Go nearer to her,” Lucy whispered.

They advanced a few steps. It was now easy to see that the lady was young, and wasted by illness – but (arriving at a doubtful conclusion perhaps under the present circumstances) apparently possessed of rare personal attractions in happier days. As the father and daughter advanced a little, she discovered them. After some hesitation, she left the tree; approached with an evident intention of speaking; and suddenly paused. A change to astonishment and fear animated her vacant eyes. If it had not been plain before, it was now beyond all doubt that she was not a poor blind creature, deserted and helpless. At the same time, the expression of her face was not easy to understand. She could hardly have looked more amazed and bewildered, if the two strangers who were observing her had suddenly vanished from the place in which they stood.

Mr. Rayburn spoke to her with the utmost kindness of voice and manner.

“I am afraid you are not well,” he said. “Is there anything that I can do—”

The next words were suspended on his lips. It was impossible to realize such a state of things; but the strange impression that she had already produced on him was now confirmed. If he could believe his senses, her face did certainly tell him that he was invisible and inaudible to the woman whom he had just addressed! She moved slowly away with a heavy sigh, like a person disappointed and distressed. Following her with his eyes, he saw the dog once more – a little smooth-coated terrier of the ordinary English breed. The dog showed none of the restless activity of his race. With his head down and his tail depressed, he crouched like a creature paralysed by fear. His mistress roused him by a call. He followed her listlessly as she turned away.

After walking a few paces only, she suddenly stood still.

Mr. Rayburn heard her talking to herself.

“Did I feel it again?” she said, as if perplexed by some doubt that awed or grieved her. After a while her arms rose slowly, and opened with a gentle caressing action – an embrace strangely offered to the empty air! “No,” she said to herself, sadly, after waiting a moment. “More perhaps when tomorrow comes – no more today.” She looked up at the clear blue sky. “The beautiful sunlight! the merciful sunlight!” she murmured. “I should have died if it had happened in the dark.”

Once more she called to the dog; and once more she walked slowly away.

“Is she going home, papa?” the child asked.

“We will try and find out,” the father answered.

He was by this time convinced that the poor creature was in no condition to be permitted to go out without someone to take care of her. From motives of humanity, he was resolved on making the attempt to communicate with her friends.

•  III  •

The lady left the Gardens by the nearest gate; stopping to lower her veil before she turned into the busy thoroughfare which leads to Kensington. Advancing a little way along the High Street, she entered a house of respectable appearance, with a card in one of the windows which announced that apartments were to let.

Mr. Rayburn waited a minute – then knocked at the door, and asked if he could see the mistress of the house. The servant showed him into a room on the ground floor, neatly but scantily furnished. One little white object varied the grim brown monotony of the empty table. It was a visiting-card.

With a child’s unceremonious curiosity Lucy pounced on the card, and spelled the name, letter by letter: “Z, A, N, T,” she repeated. “What does that mean?”

Her father looked at the card, as he took it away from her, and put it back on the table. The name was printed, and the address was added in pencil: “Mr. John Zant, Purley’s Hotel.”

The mistress made her appearance. Mr. Rayburn heartily wished himself out of the house again, the moment he saw her. The ways in which it is possible to cultivate the social virtues are more numerous and more varied than is generally supposed. This lady’s way had apparently accustomed her to meet her fellow-creatures on the hard ground of justice without mercy. Something in her eyes, when she looked at Lucy, said: “I wonder whether that child gets punished when she deserves it?”

“Do you wish to see the rooms which I have to let?” she began.

Mr. Rayburn at once stated the object of his visit – as clearly, as civilly, and as concisely as a man could do it. He was conscious (he added) that he had been guilty perhaps of an act of intrusion.

The manner of the mistress of the house showed that she entirely agreed with him. He suggested, however, that his motive might excuse him. The mistress’s manner changed, and asserted a difference of opinion.

“I only know the lady whom you mention,” she said, “as a person of the highest respectability, in delicate health. She has taken my first-floor apartments, with excellent references; and she gives remarkably little trouble. I have no claim to interfere with her proceedings, and no reason to doubt that she is capable of taking care of herself.”

Mr. Rayburn unwisely attempted to say a word in his own defence.

“Allow me to remind you—” he began.

“Of what, sir?”

“Of what I observed, when I happened to see the lady in Kensington Gardens.”

“I am not responsible for what you observed in Kensington Gardens. If your time is of any value, pray don’t let me detain you.”

Dismissed in those terms, Mr. Rayburn took Lucy’s hand and withdrew. He had just reached the door, when it was opened from the outer side. The Lady of Kensington Gardens stood before him. In the position which he and his daughter now occupied, their backs were toward the window. Would she remember having seen them for a moment in the Gardens?

“Excuse me for intruding on you,” she said to the landlady. “Your servant tells me my brother-in-law called while I was out. He sometimes leaves a message on his card.”

She looked for the message, and appeared to be disappointed: there was no writing on the card.

Mr. Rayburn lingered a little in the doorway on the chance of hearing something more. The landlady’s vigilant eyes discovered him.

“Do you know this gentleman?” she said maliciously to her lodger.

“Not that I remember.”

Replying in those words, the lady looked at Mr. Rayburn for the first time; and suddenly drew back from him.

“Yes,” she said, correcting herself; “I think we met—”

Her embarrassment overpowered her; she could say no more.

Mr. Rayburn compassionately finished the sentence for her.

“We met accidentally in Kensington Gardens,” he said.

She seemed to be incapable of appreciating the kindness of his motive. After hesitating a little she addressed a proposal to him, which seemed to show distrust of the landlady.

“Will you let me speak to you upstairs in my own rooms?” she asked.

Without waiting for a reply, she led the way to the stairs. Mr. Rayburn and Lucy followed. They were just beginning the ascent to the first floor, when the spiteful landlady left the lower room, and called to her lodger over their heads: “Take care what you say to this man, Mrs. Zant! He thinks you’re mad.”

Mrs. Zant turned round on the landing, and looked at him. Not a word fell from her lips. She suffered, she feared, in silence. Something in the sad submission of her face touched the springs of innocent pity in Lucy’s heart. The child burst out crying.

That artless expression of sympathy drew Mrs. Zant down the few stairs which separated her from Lucy.

“May I kiss your dear little girl?” she said to Mr. Rayburn. The landlady, standing on the mat below, expressed her opinion of the value of caresses, as compared with a sounder method of treating young persons in tears: “If that child was mine,” she remarked, “I would give her something to cry for.”

In the meantime, Mrs. Zant led the way to her rooms.

The first words she spoke showed that the landlady had succeeded but too well in prejudicing her against Mr. Rayburn.

“Will you let me ask your child,” she said to him, “why you think me mad?”

He met this strange request with a firm answer.

“You don’t know yet what I really do think. Will you give me a minute’s attention?”

“No,” she said positively. “The child pities me, I want to speak to the child. What did you see me do in the Gardens, my dear, that surprised you?” Lucy turned uneasily to her father; Mrs. Zant persisted. “I first saw you by yourself, and then I saw you with your father,” she went on. “When I came nearer to you, did I look very oddly – as if I didn’t see you at all?”

Lucy hesitated again; and Mr. Rayburn interfered.

“You are confusing my little girl,” he said. “Allow me to answer your questions – or excuse me if I leave you.”

There was something in his look, or in his tone, that mastered her. She put her hand to her head.

“I don’t think I’m fit for it,” she answered vacantly. “My courage has been sorely tried already. If I can get a little rest and sleep, you may find me a different person. I am left a great deal by myself; and I have reasons for trying to compose my mind. Can I see you tomorrow? Or write to you? Where do you live?”

Mr. Rayburn laid his card on the table in silence. She had strongly excited his interest. He honestly desired to be of some service to this forlorn creature – abandoned so cruelly, as it seemed, to her own guidance. But he had no authority to exercise, no sort of claim to direct her actions, even if she consented to accept his advice. As a last resource he ventured on an allusion to the relative of whom she had spoken downstairs.

“When do you expect to see your brother-in-law again?” he said.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I should like to see him – he is so kind to me.”

She turned aside to take leave of Lucy.

“Good-bye, my little friend. If you live to grow up, I hope you will never be such a miserable woman as I am.” She suddenly looked round at Mr. Rayburn. “Have you got a wife at home?” she asked.

“My wife is dead.”

“And you have a child to comfort you! Please leave me; you harden my heart. Oh, sir, don’t you understand? You make me envy you!”

Mr. Rayburn was silent when he and his daughter were out in the street again. Lucy, as became a dutiful child, was silent, too. But there are limits to human endurance – and Lucy’s capacity for self-control gave way at last.

“Are you thinking of the lady, papa?” she said.

He only answered by nodding his head. His daughter had interrupted him at that critical moment in a man’s reflections, when he is on the point of making up his mind. Before they were at home again Mr. Rayburn had arrived at a decision. Mrs. Zant’s brother-in-law was evidently ignorant of any serious necessity for his interference – or he would have made arrangements for immediately repeating his visit. In this state of things, if any evil happened to Mrs. Zant, silence on Mr. Rayburn’s part might be indirectly to blame for a serious misfortune. Arriving at that conclusion, he decided upon running the risk of being rudely received, for the second time, by another stranger.

Leaving Lucy under the care of her governess, he went at once to the address that had been written on the visiting-card left at the lodging-house, and sent in his name. A courteous message was returned. Mr. John Zant was at home, and would be happy to see him.

•  IV  •

Mr. Rayburn was shown into one of the private sitting-rooms of the hotel.

He observed that the customary position of the furniture in a room had been, in some respects, altered. An armchair, a side-table, and a footstool had all been removed to one of the windows, and had been placed as close as possible to the light. On the table lay a large open roll of morocco leather, containing rows of elegant little instruments in steel and ivory. Waiting by the table, stood Mr. John Zant. He said “Good-morning” in a bass voice, so profound and so melodious that those two commonplace words assumed a new importance, coming from his lips. His personal appearance was in harmony with his magnificent voice – he was a tall, finely-made man of dark complexion; with big brilliant black eyes, and a noble curling beard, which hid the whole lower part of his face. Having bowed with a happy mingling of dignity and politeness, the conventional side of this gentleman’s character suddenly vanished; and a crazy side, to all appearance, took its place. He dropped on his knees in front of the footstool. Had he forgotten to say his prayers that morning, and was he in such a hurry to remedy the fault that he had no time to spare for consulting appearances? The doubt had hardly suggested itself, before it was set at rest in a most unexpected manner. Mr. Zant looked at his visitor with a bland smile, and said:

“Please let me see your feet.”

For the moment, Mr. Rayburn lost his presence of mind. He looked at the instruments on the side-table.

“Are you a corn-cutter?” was all he could say.

“Excuse me, sir,” returned the polite operator, “the term you use is quite obsolete in our profession.” He rose from his knees, and added modestly: “I am a Chiropodist.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Don’t mention it! You are not, I imagine, in want of my professional services. To what motive may I attribute the honour of your visit?”

By this time Mr. Rayburn had recovered himself.

“I have come here,” he answered, “under circumstances which require apology as well as explanation.”

Mr. Zant’s highly polished manner betrayed signs of alarm; his suspicions pointed to a formidable conclusion – a conclusion that shook him to the innermost recesses of the pocket in which he kept his money.

“The numerous demands on me—” he began.

Mr. Rayburn smiled.

“Make your mind easy,” he replied. “I don’t want money. My object is to speak with you on the subject of a lady who is a relation of yours.”

“My sister-in-law!” Mr. Zant exclaimed. “Pray take a seat.”

Doubting if he had chosen a convenient time for his visit, Mr. Rayburn hesitated.

“Am I likely to be in the way of persons who wish to consult you?” he asked.

“Certainly not. My morning hours of attendance on my clients are from eleven to one.” The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter-past one as he spoke. “I hope you don’t bring me bad news?” he said, very earnestly. “When I called on Mrs. Zant this morning, I heard that she had gone out for a walk. Is it indiscreet to ask how you became acquainted with her?”

Mr. Rayburn at once mentioned what he had seen and heard in Kensington Gardens; not forgetting to add a few words, which described his interview afterward with Mrs. Zant.

The lady’s brother-in-law listened with an interest and sympathy, which offered the strongest possible contrast to the unprovoked rudeness of the mistress of the lodging-house. He declared that he could only do justice to his sense of obligation by following Mr. Rayburn’s example, and expressing himself as frankly as if he had been speaking to an old friend.

“The sad story of my sister-in-law’s life,” he said, “will, I think, explain certain things which must have naturally perplexed you. My brother was introduced to her at the house of an Australian gentleman, on a visit to England. She was then employed as governess to his daughters. So sincere was the regard felt for her by the family that the parents had, at the entreaty of their children, asked her to accompany them when they returned to the Colony. The governess thankfully accepted the proposal.”

“Had she no relations in England?” Mr. Rayburn asked.

“She was literally alone in the world, sir. When I tell you that she had been brought up in the Foundling Hospital, you will understand what I mean. Oh, there is no romance in my sister-in-law’s story! She never has known, or will know, who her parents were or why they deserted her. The happiest moment in her life was the moment when she and my brother first met. It was an instance, on both sides, of love at first sight. Though not a rich man, my brother had earned a sufficient income in mercantile pursuits. His character spoke for itself. In a word, he altered all the poor girl’s prospects, as we then hoped and believed, for the better. Her employers deferred their return to Australia, so that she might be married from their house. After a happy life of a few weeks only—”

His voice failed him; he paused, and turned his face from the light.

“Pardon me,” he said; “I am not able, even yet, to speak composedly of my brother’s death. Let me only say that the poor young wife was a widow, before the happy days of the honeymoon were over. That dreadful calamity struck her down. Before my brother had been committed to the grave, her life was in danger from brain-fever.”

Those words placed in a new light Mr. Rayburn’s first fear that her intellect might be deranged. Looking at him attentively, Mr. Zant seemed to understand what was passing in the mind of his guest.

“No!” he said. “If the opinions of the medical men are to be trusted, the result of the illness is injury to her physical strength – not injury to her mind. I have observed in her, no doubt, a certain waywardness of temper since her illness; but that is a trifle. As an example of what I mean, I may tell you that I invited her, on her recovery, to pay me a visit. My house is not in London – the air doesn’t agree with me – my place of residence is at St. Sallins-on-Sea. I am not myself a married man; but my excellent housekeeper would have received Mrs. Zant with the utmost kindness. She was resolved – obstinately resolved, poor thing – to remain in London. It is needless to say that, in her melancholy position, I am attentive to her slightest wishes. I took a lodging for her; and, at her special request, I chose a house which was near Kensington Gardens.”

“Is there any association with the Gardens which led Mrs. Zant to make that request?”

“Some association, I believe, with the memory of her husband. By the way, I wish to be sure of finding her at home, when I call tomorrow. Did you say (in the course of your interesting statement) that she intended – as you supposed – to return to Kensington Gardens tomorrow? Or has my memory deceived me?”

“Your memory is perfectly accurate.”

“Thank you. I confess I am not only distressed by what you have told me of Mrs. Zant – I am at a loss to know how to act for the best. My only idea, at present, is to try change of air and scene. What do you think yourself?”

“I think you are right.”

Mr. Zant still hesitated.

“It would not be easy for me, just now,” he said, “to leave my patients and take her abroad.”

The obvious reply to this occurred to Mr. Rayburn. A man of larger worldly experience might have felt certain suspicions, and might have remained silent. Mr. Rayburn spoke.

“Why not renew your invitation and take her to your house at the seaside?” he said.

In the perplexed state of Mr. Zant’s mind, this plain course of action had apparently failed to present itself. His gloomy face brightened directly.

“The very thing!” he said. “I will certainly take your advice. If the air of St. Sallins does nothing else, it will improve her health and help her to recover her good looks. Did she strike you as having been (in happier days) a pretty woman?”

This was a strangely familiar question to ask – almost an indelicate question, under the circumstances A certain furtive expression in Mr. Zant’s fine dark eyes seemed to imply that it had been put with a purpose. Was it possible that he suspected Mr. Rayburn’s interest in his sister-in-law to be inspired by any motive which was not perfectly unselfish and perfectly pure? To arrive at such a conclusion as this might be to judge hastily and cruelly of a man who was perhaps only guilty of a want of delicacy of feeling. Mr. Rayburn honestly did his best to assume the charitable point of view. At the same time, it is not to be denied that his words, when he answered, were carefully guarded, and that he rose to take his leave.

Mr. John Zant hospitably protested.

“Why are you in such a hurry? Must you really go? I shall have the honour of returning your visit tomorrow, when I have made arrangements to profit by that excellent suggestion of yours. Good-bye. God bless you.”

He held out his hand: a hand with a smooth surface and a tawny colour, that fervently squeezed the fingers of a departing friend. “Is that man a scoundrel?” was Mr. Rayburn’s first thought, after he had left the hotel. His moral sense set all hesitation at rest – and answered: “You’re a fool if you doubt it.”

•  V  •

Disturbed by presentiments, Mr. Rayburn returned to his house on foot, by way of trying what exercise would do toward composing his mind.

The experiment failed. He went upstairs and played with Lucy; he drank an extra glass of wine at dinner; he took the child and her governess to a circus in the evening; he ate a little supper, fortified by another glass of wine, before he went to bed – and still those vague forebodings of evil persisted in torturing him. Looking back through his past life, he asked himself if any woman (his late wife of course excepted!) had ever taken the predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had assumed – without any discernible reason to account for it? If he had ventured to answer his own question, the reply would have been: Never!

All the next day he waited at home, in expectation of Mr. John Zant’s promised visit, and waited in vain.

Toward evening the parlour-maid appeared at the family tea-table, and presented to her master an unusually large envelope sealed with black wax, and addressed in a strange handwriting. The absence of stamp and postmark showed that it had been left at the house by a messenger.

“Who brought this?” Mr. Rayburn asked.

“A lady, sir – in deep mourning.”

“Did she leave any message?”

“No, sir.”

Having drawn the inevitable conclusion, Mr. Rayburn shut himself up in his library. He was afraid of Lucy’s curiosity and Lucy’s questions, if he read Mrs. Zant’s letter in his daughter’s presence.

Looking at the open envelope after he had taken out the leaves of writing which it contained, he noticed these lines traced inside the cover:

“My one excuse for troubling you, when I might have consulted my brother-in-law, will be found in the pages which I enclose. To speak plainly, you have been led to fear that I am not in my right senses. For this very reason, I now appeal to you. Your dreadful doubt of me, sir, is my doubt too. Read what I have written about myself – and then tell me, I entreat you, which I am: A person who has been the object of a supernatural revelation? or an unfortunate creature who is only fit for imprisonment in a madhouse?”

Mr. Rayburn opened the manuscript. With steady attention, which soon quickened to breathless interest, he read what follows:

•  VI  •

THE LADY’S MANUSCRIPT.

Yesterday morning the sun shone in a clear blue sky – after a succession of cloudy days, counting from the first of the month.

The radiant light had its animating effect on my poor spirits. I had passed the night more peacefully than usual; undisturbed by the dream, so cruelly familiar to me, that my lost husband is still living – the dream from which I always wake in tears. Never, since the dark days of my sorrow, have I been so little troubled by the self-tormenting fancies and fears which beset miserable women, as when I left the house, and turned my steps toward Kensington Gardens – for the first time since my husband’s death.

Attended by my only companion, the little dog who had been his favourite as well as mine, I went to the quiet corner of the Gardens which is nearest to Kensington.

On that soft grass, under the shade of those grand trees, we had loitered together in the days of our betrothal. It was his favourite walk; and he had taken me to see it in the early days of our acquaintance. There, he had first asked me to be his wife. There, we had felt the rapture of our first kiss. It was surely natural that I should wish to see once more a place sacred to such memories as these? I am only twenty-three years old; I have no child to comfort me, no companion of my own age, nothing to love but the dumb creature who is so faithfully fond of me.

I went to the tree under which we stood, when my dear one’s eyes told his love before he could utter it in words. The sun of that vanished day shone on me again; it was the same noontide hour; the same solitude was around me. I had feared the first effect of the dreadful contrast between past and present. No! I was quiet and resigned. My thoughts, rising higher than earth, dwelt on the better life beyond the grave. Some tears came into my eyes. But I was not unhappy. My memory of all that happened may be trusted, even in trifles which relate only to myself – I was not unhappy.

The first object that I saw, when my eyes were clear again, was the dog. He crouched a few paces away from me, trembling pitiably, but uttering no cry. What had caused the fear that overpowered him?

I was soon to know.

I called to the dog; he remained immovable – conscious of some mysterious coming thing that held him spellbound. I tried to go to the poor creature, and fondle and comfort him.

At the first step forward that I took, something stopped me.

It was not to be seen, and not to be heard. It stopped me.

The still figure of the dog disappeared from my view: the lonely scene round me disappeared – excepting the light from heaven, the tree that sheltered me, and the grass in front of me. A sense of unutterable expectation kept my eyes riveted on the grass. Suddenly, I saw its myriad blades rise erect and shivering. The fear came to me of something passing over them with the invisible swiftness of the wind. The shivering advanced. It was all round me. It crept into the leaves of the tree over my head; they shuddered, without a sound to tell of their agitation; their pleasant natural rustling was struck dumb. The song of the birds had ceased. The cries of the water-fowl on the pond were heard no more. There was a dreadful silence.

But the lovely sunshine poured down on me, as brightly as ever.

In that dazzling light, in that fearful silence, I felt an Invisible Presence near me. It touched me gently.

At the touch, my heart throbbed with an overwhelming joy. Exquisite pleasure thrilled through every nerve in my body. I knew him! From the unseen world – himself unseen – he had returned to me. Oh, I knew him!

And yet, my helpless mortality longed for a sign that might give me assurance of the truth. The yearning in me shaped itself into words. I tried to utter the words. I would have said, if I could have spoken: “Oh, my angel, give me a token that it is You!” But I was like a person struck dumb – I could only think it.

The Invisible Presence read my thought. I felt my lips touched, as my husband’s lips used to touch them when he kissed me. And that was my answer. A thought came to me again. I would have said, if I could have spoken: “Are you here to take me to the better world?”

I waited. Nothing that I could feel touched me.

I was conscious of thinking once more. I would have said, if I could have spoken: “Are you here to protect me?”

I felt myself held in a gentle embrace, as my husband’s arms used to hold me when he pressed me to his breast. And that was my answer.

The touch that was like the touch of his lips, lingered and was lost; the clasp that was like the clasp of his arms, pressed me and fell away. The garden-scene resumed its natural aspect. I saw a human creature near, a lovely little girl looking at me.

At that moment, when I was my own lonely self again, the sight of the child soothed and attracted me. I advanced, intending to speak to her. To my horror I suddenly ceased to see her. She disappeared as if I had been stricken blind.

And yet I could see the landscape round me; I could see the heaven above me. A time passed – only a few minutes, as I thought – and the child became visible to me again; walking hand-in-hand with her father. I approached them; I was close enough to see that they were looking at me with pity and surprise. My impulse was to ask if they saw anything strange in my face or my manner. Before I could speak, the horrible wonder happened again. They vanished from my view.

Was the Invisible Presence still near? Was it passing between me and my fellow-mortals; forbidding communication, in that place and at that time?

It must have been so. When I turned away in my ignorance, with a heavy heart, the dreadful blankness which had twice shut out from me the beings of my own race, was not between me and my dog. The poor little creature filled me with pity; I called him to me. He moved at the sound of my voice, and followed me languidly; not quite awakened yet from the trance of terror that had possessed him.

Before I had retired by more than a few steps, I thought I was conscious of the Presence again. I held out my longing arms to it. I waited in the hope of a touch to tell me that I might return. Perhaps I was answered by indirect means? I only know that a resolution to return to the same place, at the same hour, came to me, and quieted my mind.

The morning of the next day was dull and cloudy; but the rain held off. I set forth again to the Gardens.

My dog ran on before me into the street – and stopped: waiting to see in which direction I might lead the way. When I turned toward the Gardens, he dropped behind me. In a little while I looked back. He was following me no longer; he stood irresolute. I called to him. He advanced a few steps – hesitated – and ran back to the house.

I went on by myself. Shall I confess my superstition? I thought the dog’s desertion of me a bad omen.

Arrived at the tree, I placed myself under it. The minutes followed each other uneventfully. The cloudy sky darkened. The dull surface of the grass showed no shuddering consciousness of an unearthly creature passing over it.

I still waited, with an obstinacy which was fast becoming the obstinacy of despair. How long an interval elapsed, while I kept watch on the ground before me, I am not able to say. I only know that a change came.

Under the dull grey light I saw the grass move – but not as it had moved, on the day before. It shrivelled as if a flame had scorched it. No flame appeared. The brown underlying earth showed itself winding onward in a thin strip – which might have been a footpath traced in fire. It frightened me. I longed for the protection of the Invisible Presence. I prayed for a warning of it, if danger was near.

A touch answered me. It was as if a hand unseen had taken my hand – had raised it, little by little – had left it, pointing to the thin brown path that wound toward me under the shrivelled blades of grass.

I looked to the far end of the path.

The unseen hand closed on my hand with a warning pressure: the revelation of the coming danger was near me – I waited for it. I saw it.

The figure of a man appeared, advancing toward me along the thin brown path. I looked in his face as he came nearer. It showed me dimly the face of my husband’s brother – John Zant.

The consciousness of myself as a living creature left me. I knew nothing; I felt nothing. I was dead.

When the torture of revival made me open my eyes, I found myself on the grass. Gentle hands raised my head, at the moment when I recovered my senses. Who had brought me to life again? Who was taking care of me?

I looked upward, and saw – bending over me – John Zant.

•  VII  •

There, the manuscript ended.

Some lines had been added on the last page; but they had been so carefully erased as to be illegible. These words of explanation appeared below the cancelled sentences:

“I had begun to write the little that remains to be told, when it struck me that I might, unintentionally, be exercising an unfair influence on your opinion. Let me only remind you that I believe absolutely in the supernatural revelation which I have endeavoured to describe. Remember this – and decide for me what I dare not decide for myself.”

There was no serious obstacle in the way of compliance with this request.

Judged from the point of view of the materialist, Mrs. Zant might no doubt be the victim of illusions (produced by a diseased state of the nervous system), which have been known to exist – as in the celebrated case of the bookseller, Nicolai, of Berlin – without being accompanied by derangement of the intellectual powers. But Mr. Rayburn was not asked to solve any such intricate problem as this. He had been merely instructed to read the manuscript, and to say what impression it had left on him of the mental condition of the writer; whose doubt of herself had been, in all probability, first suggested by remembrance of the illness from which she had suffered – brain-fever.

Under these circumstances, there could be little difficulty in forming an opinion. The memory which had recalled, and the judgement which had arranged, the succession of events related in the narrative, revealed a mind in full possession of its resources.

Having satisfied himself so far, Mr. Rayburn abstained from considering the more serious question suggested by what he had read.

At any time his habits of life and his ways of thinking would have rendered him unfit to weigh the arguments, which assert or deny supernatural revelation among the creatures of earth. But his mind was now so disturbed by the startling record of experience which he had just read, that he was only conscious of feeling certain impressions – without possessing the capacity to reflect on them. That his anxiety on Mrs. Zant’s account had been increased, and that his doubts of Mr. John Zant had been encouraged, were the only practical results of the confidence placed in him of which he was thus far aware. In the ordinary exigencies of life a man of hesitating disposition, his interest in Mrs. Zant’s welfare, and his desire to discover what had passed between her brother-in-law and herself, after their meeting in the Gardens, urged him into instant action. In half an hour more, he had arrived at her lodgings. He was at once admitted.

•  VIII  •

Mrs. Zant was alone, in an imperfectly lighted room.

“I hope you will excuse the bad light,” she said; “my head has been burning as if the fever had come back again. Oh, don’t go away! After what I have suffered, you don’t know how dreadful it is to be alone.”

The tone of her voice told him that she had been crying. He at once tried the best means of setting the poor lady at ease, by telling her of the conclusion at which he had arrived, after reading her manuscript. The happy result showed itself instantly: her face brightened, her manner changed; she was eager to hear more.

“Have I produced any other impression on you?” she asked.

He understood the allusion. Expressing sincere respect for her own convictions, he told her honestly that he was not prepared to enter on the obscure and terrible question of supernatural interposition. Grateful for the tone in which he had answered her, she wisely and delicately changed the subject.

“I must speak to you of my brother-in-law,” she said. “He has told me of your visit; and I am anxious to know what you think of him. Do you like Mr. John Zant?”

Mr. Rayburn hesitated.

The careworn look appeared again in her face. “If you had felt as kindly toward him as he feels toward you,” she said, “I might have gone to St. Sallins with a lighter heart.”

Mr. Rayburn thought of the supernatural appearances, described at the close of her narrative. “You believe in that terrible warning,” he remonstrated; “and yet, you go to your brother-in-law’s house!”

“I believe,” she answered, “in the spirit of the man who loved me in the days of his earthly bondage. I am under his protection. What have I to do but to cast away my fears, and to wait in faith and hope? It might have helped my resolution if a friend had been near to encourage me.” She paused and smiled sadly. “I must remember,” she resumed, “that your way of understanding my position is not my way. I ought to have told you that Mr. John Zant feels needless anxiety about my health. He declares that he will not lose sight of me until his mind is at ease. It is useless to attempt to alter his opinion. He says my nerves are shattered – and who that sees me can doubt it? He tells me that my only chance of getting better is to try change of air and perfect repose – how can I contradict him? He reminds me that I have no relation but himself, and no house open to me but his own – and God knows he is right!”

She said those last words in accents of melancholy resignation, which grieved the good man whose one merciful purpose was to serve and console her. He spoke impulsively with the freedom of an old friend,

“I want to know more of you and Mr. John Zant than I know now,” he said. “My motive is a better one than mere curiosity. Do you believe that I feel a sincere interest in you?”

“With my whole heart.”

That reply encouraged him to proceed with what he had to say. “When you recovered from your fainting-fit,” he began, “Mr. John Zant asked questions, of course?”

“He asked what could possibly have happened, in such a quiet place as Kensington Gardens, to make me faint.”

“And how did you answer?”

“Answer? I couldn’t even look at him!”

“You said nothing?”

“Nothing. I don’t know what he thought of me; he might have been surprised, or he might have been offended.”

“Is he easily offended?” Mr. Rayburn asked.

“Not in my experience of him.”

“Do you mean your experience of him before your illness?”

“Yes. Since my recovery, his engagements with country patients have kept him away from London. I have not seen him since he took these lodgings for me. But he is always considerate. He has written more than once to beg that I will not think him neglectful, and to tell me (what I knew already through my poor husband) that he has no money of his own, and must live by his profession.”

“In your husband’s lifetime, were the two brothers on good terms?”

“Always. The one complaint I ever heard my husband make of John Zant was that he didn’t come to see us often enough, after our marriage. Is there some wickedness in him which we have never suspected? It may be – but how can it be? I have every reason to be grateful to the man against whom I have been supernaturally warned! His conduct to me has been always perfect. I can’t tell you what I owe to his influence in quieting my mind, when a dreadful doubt arose about my husband’s death.”

“Do you mean doubt if he died a natural death?”

“Oh, no! no! He was dying of rapid consumption – but his sudden death took the doctors by surprise. One of them thought that he might have taken an overdose of his sleeping drops, by mistake. The other disputed this conclusion, or there might have been an inquest in the house. Oh, don’t speak of it any more! Let us talk of something else. Tell me when I shall see you again.”

“I hardly know. When do you and your brother-in-law leave London?”

“Tomorrow.” She looked at Mr. Rayburn with a piteous entreaty in her eyes; she said, timidly: “Do you ever go to the seaside, and take your dear little girl with you?”

The request, at which she had only dared to hint, touched on the idea which was at that moment in Mr. Rayburn’s mind.

Interpreted by his strong prejudice against John Zant, what she had said of her brother-in-law filled him with forebodings of peril to herself; all the more powerful in their influence, for this reason – that he shrank from distinctly realising them. If another person had been present at the interview, and had said to him afterward: “That man’s reluctance to visit his sister-in-law, while her husband was living, is associated with a secret sense of guilt which her innocence cannot even imagine: he, and he alone, knows the cause of her husband’s sudden death: his feigned anxiety about her health is adopted as the safest means of enticing her into his house,” – if those formidable conclusions had been urged on Mr. Rayburn, he would have felt it his duty to reject them, as unjustifiable aspersions on an absent man. And yet, when he took leave that evening of Mrs. Zant, he had pledged himself to give Lucy a holiday at the seaside: and he had said, without blushing, that the child really deserved it, as a reward for general good conduct and attention to her lessons!

•  IX  •

Three days later, the father and daughter arrived toward evening at St. Sallins-on-Sea. They found Mrs. Zant at the station.

The poor woman’s joy, on seeing them, expressed itself like the joy of a child. “Oh, I am so glad! so glad!” was all she could say when they met. Lucy was half-smothered with kisses, and was made supremely happy by a present of the finest doll she had ever possessed. Mrs. Zant accompanied her friends to the rooms which had been secured at the hotel. She was able to speak confidentially to Mr. Rayburn, while Lucy was in the balcony hugging her doll, and looking at the sea.

The one event that had happened during Mrs. Zant’s short residence at St. Sallins was the departure of her brother-in-law that morning, for London. He had been called away to operate on the feet of a wealthy patient who knew the value of his time: his housekeeper expected that he would return to dinner.

As to his conduct toward Mrs. Zant, he was not only as attentive as ever – he was almost oppressively affectionate in his language and manner. There was no service that a man could render which he had not eagerly offered to her. He declared that he already perceived an improvement in her health; he congratulated her on having decided to stay in his house; and (as a proof, perhaps, of his sincerity) he had repeatedly pressed her hand. “Have you any idea what all this means?” she said, simply.

Mr. Rayburn kept his idea to himself. He professed ignorance; and asked next what sort of person the housekeeper was.

Mrs. Zant shook her head ominously.

“Such a strange creature,” she said, “and in the habit of taking such liberties that I begin to be afraid she is a little crazy.”

“Is she an old woman?”

“No – only middle-aged. This morning, after her master had left the house, she actually asked me what I thought of my brother-in-law! I told her, as coldly as possible, that I thought he was very kind. She was quite insensible to the tone in which I had spoken; she went on from bad to worse. ‘Do you call him the sort of man who would take the fancy of a young woman?’ was her next question. She actually looked at me (I might have been wrong; and I hope I was) as if the ‘young woman’ she had in her mind was myself! I said: ‘I don’t think of such things, and I don’t talk about them.’ Still, she was not in the least discouraged; she made a personal remark next: ‘Excuse me – but you do look wretchedly pale.’ I thought she seemed to enjoy the defect in my complexion; I really believe it raised me in her estimation. ‘We shall get on better in time,’ she said; ‘I am beginning to like you.’ She walked out humming a tune. Don’t you agree with me? Don’t you think she’s crazy?”

“I can hardly give an opinion until I have seen her. Does she look as if she might have been a pretty woman at one time of her life?”

“Not the sort of pretty woman whom I admire!”

Mr. Rayburn smiled. “I was thinking,” he resumed, “that this person’s odd conduct may perhaps be accounted for. She is probably jealous of any young lady who is invited to her master’s house – and (till she noticed your complexion) she began by being jealous of you.”

Innocently at a loss to understand how she could become an object of the housekeeper’s jealousy, Mrs. Zant looked at Mr. Rayburn in astonishment. Before she could give expression to her feeling of surprise, there was an interruption – a welcome interruption. A waiter entered the room, and announced a visitor; described as “a gentleman.”

Mrs. Zant at once rose to retire.

“Who is the gentleman?” Mr. Rayburn asked – detaining Mrs. Zant as he spoke.

A voice which they both recognised answered gaily, from the outer side of the door:

“A friend from London.”

•  X  •

“Welcome to St. Sallins!” cried Mr. John Zant. “I knew that you were expected, my dear sir, and I took my chance at finding you at the hotel.” He turned to his sister-in-law, and kissed her hand with an elaborate gallantry worthy of Sir Charles Grandison himself. “When I reached home, my dear, and heard that you had gone out, I guessed that your object was to receive our excellent friend. You have not felt lonely while I have been away? That’s right! that’s right!” he looked toward the balcony, and discovered Lucy at the open window, staring at the magnificent stranger. “Your little daughter, Mr. Rayburn? Dear child! Come and kiss me.”

Lucy answered in one positive word: “No.”

Mr. John Zant was not easily discouraged.

“Show me your doll, darling,” he said. “Sit on my knee.”

Lucy answered in two positive words – “I won’t.”

Her father approached the window to administer the necessary reproof. Mr. John Zant interfered in the cause of mercy with his best grace. He held up his hands in cordial entreaty. “Dear Mr. Rayburn! The fairies are sometimes shy; and this little fairy doesn’t take to strangers at first sight. Dear child! All in good time. And what stay do you make at St. Sallins? May we hope that our poor attractions will tempt you to prolong your visit?”

He put his flattering little question with an ease of manner which was rather too plainly assumed; and he looked at Mr. Rayburn with a watchfulness which appeared to attach undue importance to the reply. When he said: “What stay do you make at St. Sallins?” did he really mean: “How soon do you leave us?” Inclining to adopt this conclusion, Mr. Rayburn answered cautiously that his stay at the seaside would depend on circumstances. Mr. John Zant looked at his sister-in-law, sitting silent in a corner with Lucy on her lap. “Exert your attractions,” he said; “make the circumstances agreeable to our good friend. Will you dine with us today, my dear sir, and bring your little fairy with you?”

Lucy was far from receiving this complimentary allusion in the spirit in which it had been offered. “I’m not a fairy,” she declared. “I’m a child.”

“And a naughty child,” her father added, with all the severity that he could assume.

“I can’t help it, papa; the man with the big beard puts me out.”

The man with the big beard was amused – amiably, paternally amused – by Lucy’s plain speaking. He repeated his invitation to dinner; and he did his best to look disappointed when Mr. Rayburn made the necessary excuses.

“Another day,” he said (without, however, fixing the day). “I think you will find my house comfortable. My housekeeper may perhaps be eccentric – but in all essentials a woman in a thousand. Do you feel the change from London already? Our air at St. Sallins is really worthy of its reputation. Invalids who come here are cured as if by magic. What do you think of Mrs. Zant? How does she look?”

Mr. Rayburn was evidently expected to say that she looked better. He said it. Mr. John Zant seemed to have anticipated a stronger expression of opinion.

“Surprisingly better!” he pronounced. “Infinitely better! We ought both to be grateful. Pray believe that we are grateful.”

“If you mean grateful to me,” Mr. Rayburn remarked, “I don’t quite understand—”

“You don’t quite understand? Is it possible that you have forgotten our conversation when I first had the honour of receiving you? Look at Mrs. Zant again.”

Mr. Rayburn looked; and Mrs. Zant’s brother-in-law explained himself.

“You notice the return of her colour, the healthy brightness of her eyes. (No, my dear, I am not paying you idle compliments; I am stating plain facts.) For that happy result, Mr. Rayburn, we are indebted to you.”

“Surely not?”

“Surely yes! It was at your valuable suggestion that I thought of inviting my sister-in-law to visit me at St. Sallins. Ah, you remember it now. Forgive me if I look at my watch; the dinner hour is on my mind. Not, as your dear little daughter there seems to think, because I am greedy, but because I am always punctual, in justice to the cook. Shall we see you tomorrow? Call early, and you will find us at home.”

He gave Mrs. Zant his arm, and bowed and smiled, and kissed his hand to Lucy, and left the room. Recalling their interview at the hotel in London, Mr. Rayburn now understood John Zant’s object (on that occasion) in assuming the character of a helpless man in need of a sensible suggestion. If Mrs. Zant’s residence under his roof became associated with evil consequences, he could declare that she would never have entered the house but for Mr. Rayburn’s advice.

With the next day came the hateful necessity of returning this man’s visit.

Mr. Rayburn was placed between two alternatives. In Mrs. Zant’s interests he must remain, no matter at what sacrifice of his own inclinations, on good terms with her brother-in-law – or he must return to London, and leave the poor woman to her fate. His choice, it is needless to say, was never a matter of doubt. He called at the house, and did his innocent best – without in the least deceiving Mr. John Zant – to make himself agreeable during the short duration of his visit. Descending the stairs on his way out, accompanied by Mrs. Zant, he was surprised to see a middle-aged woman in the hall, who looked as if she was waiting there expressly to attract notice.

“The housekeeper,” Mrs. Zant whispered. “She is impudent enough to try to make acquaintance with you.”

This was exactly what the housekeeper was waiting in the hall to do.

“I hope you like our watering-place, sir,” she began. “If I can be of service to you, pray command me. Any friend of this lady’s has a claim on me – and you are an old friend, no doubt. I am only the housekeeper; but I presume to take a sincere interest in Mrs. Zant; and I am indeed glad to see you here. We none of us know – do we? – how soon we may want a friend. No offence, I hope? Thank you, sir. Good-morning.”

There was nothing in the woman’s eyes which indicated an unsettled mind; nothing in the appearance of her lips which suggested habits of intoxication. That her strange outburst of familiarity proceeded from some strong motive seemed to be more than probable. Putting together what Mrs. Zant had already told him, and what he had himself observed, Mr. Rayburn suspected that the motive might be found in the housekeeper’s jealousy of her master.

•  XI  •

Reflecting in the solitude of his own room, Mr. Rayburn felt that the one prudent course to take would be to persuade Mrs. Zant to leave St. Sallins. He tried to prepare her for this strong proceeding, when she came the next day to take Lucy out for a walk.

“If you still regret having forced yourself to accept your brother-in-law’s invitation,” was all he ventured to say, “don’t forget that you are perfect mistress of your own actions. You have only to come to me at the hotel, and I will take you back to London by the next train.”

She positively refused to entertain the idea.

“I should be a thankless creature, indeed,” she said, “if I accepted your proposal. Do you think I am ungrateful enough to involve you in a personal quarrel with John Zant? No! If I find myself forced to leave the house, I will go away alone.”

There was no moving her from this resolution. When she and Lucy had gone out together, Mr. Rayburn remained at the hotel, with a mind ill at ease. A man of readier mental resources might have felt at a loss how to act for the best, in the emergency that now confronted him. While he was still as far as ever from arriving at a decision, some person knocked at the door.

Had Mrs. Zant returned? He looked up as the door was opened, and saw to his astonishment – Mr. John Zant’s housekeeper.

“Don’t let me alarm you, sir,” the woman said. “Mrs. Zant has been taken a little faint, at the door of our house. My master is attending to her.”

“Where is the child?” Mr. Rayburn asked.

“I was bringing her back to you, sir, when we met a lady and her little girl at the door of the hotel. They were on their way to the beach – and Miss Lucy begged hard to be allowed to go with them. The lady said the two children were playfellows, and she was sure you would not object.”

“The lady is quite right. Mrs. Zant’s illness is not serious, I hope?”

“I think not, sir. But I should like to say something in her interests. May I? Thank you.” She advanced a step nearer to him, and spoke her next words in a whisper. “Take Mrs. Zant away from this place, and lose no time in doing it.”

Mr. Rayburn was on his guard. He merely asked: “Why?”

The housekeeper answered in a curiously indirect manner – partly in jest, as it seemed, and partly in earnest.

“When a man has lost his wife,” she said, “there’s some difference of opinion in Parliament, as I hear, whether he does right or wrong, if he marries his wife’s sister. Wait a bit! I’m coming to the point. My master is one who has a long head on his shoulders; he sees consequences which escape the notice of people like me. In his way of thinking, if one man may marry his wife’s sister, and no harm done, where’s the objection if another man pays a compliment to the family, and marries his brother’s widow? My master, if you please, is that other man. Take the widow away before she marries him.”

This was beyond endurance.

“You insult Mrs. Zant,” Mr. Rayburn answered, “if you suppose that such a thing is possible!”

“Oh! I insult her, do I? Listen to me. One of three things will happen. She will be entrapped into consenting to it – or frightened into consenting to it – or drugged into consenting to it—”

Mr. Rayburn was too indignant to let her go on.

“You are talking nonsense,” he said. “There can be no marriage; the law forbids it.”

“Are you one of the people who see no further than their noses?” she asked insolently. “Won’t the law take his money? Is he obliged to mention that he is related to her by marriage, when he buys the license?” She paused; her humour changed; she stamped furiously on the floor. The true motive that animated her showed itself in her next words, and warned Mr. Rayburn to grant a more favourable hearing than he had accorded to her yet. “If you won’t stop it,” she burst out, “I will! If he marries anybody, he is bound to marry ME. Will you take her away? I ask you, for the last time – will you take her away?”

The tone in which she made that final appeal to him had its effect.

“I will go back with you to John Zant’s house,” he said, “and judge for myself.”

She laid her hand on his arm:

“I must go first – or you may not be let in. Follow me in five minutes; and don’t knock at the street door.”

On the point of leaving him, she abruptly returned.

“We have forgotten something,” she said. “Suppose my master refuses to see you. His temper might get the better of him; he might make it so unpleasant for you that you would be obliged to go.”

“My temper might get the better of me,” Mr. Rayburn replied; “and – if I thought it was in Mrs. Zant’s interests – I might refuse to leave the house unless she accompanied me.”

“That will never do, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because I should be the person to suffer.”

“In what way?”

“In this way. If you picked a quarrel with my master, I should be blamed for it because I showed you upstairs. Besides, think of the lady. You might frighten her out of her senses, if it came to a struggle between you two men.”

The language was exaggerated; but there was a force in this last objection which Mr. Rayburn was obliged to acknowledge.

“And, after all,” the housekeeper continued, “he has more right over her than you have. He is related to her, and you are only her friend.”

Mr. Rayburn declined to let himself be influenced by this consideration, “Mr. John Zant is only related to her by marriage,” he said. “If she prefers trusting in me – come what may of it, I will be worthy of her confidence.”

The housekeeper shook her head.

“That only means another quarrel,” she answered. “The wise way, with a man like my master, is the peaceable way. We must manage to deceive him.”

“I don’t like deceit.”

“In that case, sir, I’ll wish you good-bye. We will leave Mrs. Zant to do the best she can for herself.”

Mr. Rayburn was unreasonable. He positively refused to adopt this alternative.

“Will you hear what I have got to say?” the housekeeper asked.

“There can be no harm in that,” he admitted. “Go on.”

She took him at his word.

“When you called at our house,” she began, “did you notice the doors in the passage, on the first floor? Very well. One of them is the door of the drawing-room, and the other is the door of the library. Do you remember the drawing-room, sir?”

“I thought it a large well-lighted room,” Mr. Rayburn answered. “And I noticed a doorway in the wall, with a handsome curtain hanging over it.”

“That’s enough for our purpose,” the housekeeper resumed. “On the other side of the curtain, if you had looked in, you would have found the library. Suppose my master is as polite as usual, and begs to be excused for not receiving you, because it is an inconvenient time. And suppose you are polite on your side and take yourself off by the drawing-room door. You will find me waiting downstairs, on the first landing. Do you see it now?”

“I can’t say I do.”

“You surprise me, sir. What is to prevent us from getting back softly into the library, by the door in the passage? And why shouldn’t we use that second way into the library as a means of discovering what may be going on in the drawing-room? Safe behind the curtain, you will see him if he behaves uncivilly to Mrs. Zant, or you will hear her if she calls for help. In either case, you may be as rough and ready with my master as you find needful; it will be he who has frightened her, and not you. And who can blame the poor housekeeper because Mr. Rayburn did his duty, and protected a helpless woman? There is my plan, sir. Is it worth trying?”

He answered, sharply enough: “I don’t like it.”

The housekeeper opened the door again, and wished him good-bye.

If Mr. Rayburn had felt no more than an ordinary interest in Mrs. Zant, he would have let the woman go. As it was, he stopped her; and, after some further protest (which proved to be useless), he ended in giving way.

“You promise to follow my directions?” she stipulated.

He gave the promise. She smiled, nodded, and left him. True to his instructions, Mr. Rayburn reckoned five minutes by his watch, before he followed her.

•  XII  •

The housekeeper was waiting for him, with the street-door ajar.

“They are both in the drawing-room,” she whispered, leading the way upstairs. “Step softly, and take him by surprise.”

A table of oblong shape stood midway between the drawing-room walls. At the end of it which was nearest to the window, Mrs. Zant was pacing to and fro across the breadth of the room. At the opposite end of the table, John Zant was seated. Taken completely by surprise, he showed himself in his true character. He started to his feet, and protested with an oath against the intrusion which had been committed on him.

Heedless of his action and his language, Mr. Rayburn could look at nothing, could think of nothing, but Mrs. Zant. She was still walking slowly to and fro, unconscious of the words of sympathy which he addressed to her, insensible even as it seemed to the presence of other persons in the room.

John Zant’s voice broke the silence. His temper was under control again: he had his reasons for still remaining on friendly terms with Mr. Rayburn.

“I am sorry I forgot myself just now,” he said.

Mr. Rayburn’s interest was concentrated on Mrs. Zant; he took no notice of the apology.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

“About a quarter of an hour ago. I was fortunately at home. Without speaking to me, without noticing me, she walked upstairs like a person in a dream.”

Mr. Rayburn suddenly pointed to Mrs. Zant.

“Look at her!” he said. “There’s a change!”

All restlessness in her movements had come to an end. She was standing at the further end of the table, which was nearest to the window, in the full flow of sunlight pouring at that moment over her face. Her eyes looked out straight before her – void of all expression. Her lips were a little parted: her head drooped slightly toward her shoulder, in an attitude which suggested listening for something or waiting for something. In the warm brilliant light, she stood before the two men, a living creature self-isolated in a stillness like the stillness of death.

John Zant was ready with the expression of his opinion.

“A nervous seizure,” he said. “Something resembling catalepsy, as you see.”

“Have you sent for a doctor?”

“A doctor is not wanted.”

“I beg your pardon. It seems to me that medical help is absolutely necessary.”

“Be so good as to remember,” Mr. John Zant answered, “that the decision rests with me, as the lady’s relative. I am sensible of the honour which your visit confers on me. But the time has been unhappily chosen. Forgive me if I suggest that you will do well to retire.”

Mr. Rayburn had not forgotten the housekeeper’s advice, or the promise which she had exacted from him. But the expression in John Zant’s face was a serious trial to his self-control. He hesitated, and looked back at Mrs. Zant.

If he provoked a quarrel by remaining in the room, the one alternative would be the removal of her by force. Fear of the consequences to herself, if she was suddenly and roughly roused from her trance, was the one consideration which reconciled him to submission. He withdrew.

The housekeeper was waiting for him below, on the first landing. When the door of the drawing-room had been closed again, she signed to him to follow her, and returned up the stairs. After another struggle with himself, he obeyed. They entered the library from the corridor – and placed themselves behind the closed curtain which hung over the doorway. It was easy so to arrange the edge of the drapery as to observe, without exciting suspicion, whatever was going on in the next room.

Mrs. Zant’s brother-in-law was approaching her at the time when Mr. Rayburn saw him again.

In the instant afterward, she moved – before he had completely passed over the space between them. Her still figure began to tremble. She lifted her drooping head. For a moment there was a shrinking in her – as if she had been touched by something. She seemed to recognise the touch: she was still again.

John Zant watched the change. It suggested to him that she was beginning to recover her senses. He tried the experiment of speaking to her.

“My love, my sweet angel, come to the heart that adores you!”

He advanced again; he passed into the flood of sunlight pouring over her.

“Rouse yourself!” he said.

She still remained in the same position; apparently at his mercy, neither hearing him nor seeing him.

“Rouse yourself!” he repeated. “My darling, come to me!”

At the instant when he attempted to embrace her – at the instant when Mr. Rayburn rushed into the room – John Zant’s arms, suddenly turning rigid, remained outstretched. With a shriek of horror, he struggled to draw them back – struggled, in the empty brightness of the sunshine, as if some invisible grip had seized him.

“What has got me?” the wretch screamed. “Who is holding my hands? Oh, the cold of it! the cold of it!”

His features became convulsed; his eyes turned upward until only the white eyeballs were visible. He fell prostrate with a crash that shook the room.

The housekeeper ran in. She knelt by her master’s body. With one hand she loosened his cravat. With the other she pointed to the end of the table.

Mrs. Zant still kept her place; but there was another change. Little by little, her eyes recovered their natural living expression – then slowly closed. She tottered backward from the table, and lifted her hands wildly, as if to grasp at something which might support her. Mr. Rayburn hurried to her before she fell – lifted her in his arms – and carried her out of the room.

One of the servants met them in the hall. He sent her for a carriage. In a quarter of an hour more, Mrs. Zant was safe under his care at the hotel.

•  XIII  •

That night a note, written by the housekeeper, was delivered to Mrs. Zant.

“The doctors give little hope. The paralytic stroke is spreading upward to his face. If death spares him, he will live a helpless man. I shall take care of him to the last. As for you – forget him.”

Mrs. Zant gave the note to Mr. Rayburn.

“Read it, and destroy it,” she said. “It is written in ignorance of the terrible truth.”

He obeyed – and looked at her in silence, waiting to hear more. She hid her face. The few words she had addressed to him, after a struggle with herself, fell slowly and reluctantly from her lips.

She said: “No mortal hand held the hands of John Zant. The guardian spirit was with me. The promised protection was with me. I know it. I wish to know no more.”

Having spoken, she rose to retire. He opened the door for her, seeing that she needed rest in her own room.

Left by himself, he began to consider the prospect that was before him in the future. How was he to regard the woman who had just left him? As a poor creature weakened by disease, the victim of her own nervous delusion? or as the chosen object of a supernatural revelation – unparalleled by any similar revelation that he had heard of, or had found recorded in books? His first discovery of the place that she really held in his estimation dawned on his mind, when he felt himself recoiling from the conclusion which presented her to his pity, and yielding to the nobler conviction which felt with her faith, and raised her to a place apart among other women.

•  XIV  •

They left St. Sallins the next day.

Arrived at the end of the journey, Lucy held fast by Mrs. Zant’s hand. Tears were rising in the child’s eyes.

“Are we to bid her good-bye?” she said sadly to her father.

He seemed to be unwilling to trust himself to speak; he only said:

“My dear, ask her yourself.”

But the result justified him. Lucy was happy again.

First published as
“The Ghost’s Touch”
Harper’s Weekly 23 Oct 1885

MISS MORRIS
AND THE STRANGER

•  I  •

When I first saw him, he was lost in one of the Dead Cities of England – situated on the South Coast, and called Sandwich.

Shall I describe Sandwich? I think not. Let us own the truth; descriptions of places, however nicely they may be written, are always more or less dull. Being a woman, I naturally hate dullness. Perhaps some description of Sandwich may drop out, as it were, from my report of our conversation when we first met as strangers in the street.

He began irritably. “I’ve lost myself,” he said.

“People who don’t know the town often do that,” I remarked.

He went on: “Which is my way to the Fleur de Lys Inn?”

His way was, in the first place, to retrace his steps. Then to turn to the left. Then to go on until he found two streets meeting. Then to take the street on the right. Then to look out for the second turning on the left. Then to follow the turning until he smelled stables – and there was the inn. I put it in the clearest manner, and never stumbled over a word.

“How the devil am I to remember all that?” he said.

This was rude. We are naturally and properly indignant with any man who is rude to us. But whether we turn our backs on him in contempt, or whether we are merciful and give him a lesson in politeness, depends entirely on the man. He may be a bear, but he may also have his redeeming qualities. This man had redeeming qualities. I cannot positively say that he was either handsome or ugly, young or old, well or ill dressed. But I can speak with certainty to the personal attractions which recommended him to notice. For instance, the tone of his voice was persuasive. (Did you ever read a story, written by one of us, in which we failed to dwell on our hero’s voice?) Then, again, his hair was reasonably long. (Are you acquainted with any woman who can endure a man with a cropped head?) Moreover, he was of a good height. (It must be a very tall woman who can feel favourably inclined toward a short man.) Lastly, although his eyes were not more than fairly presentable in form and colour, the wretch had in some unaccountable manner become possessed of beautiful eyelashes. They were even better eyelashes than mine. I write quite seriously. There is one woman who is above the common weakness of vanity – and she holds the present pen.

So I gave my lost stranger a lesson in politeness. The lesson took the form of a trap. I asked him if he would like me to show him the way to the inn. He was still annoyed at losing himself. As I had anticipated, he bluntly answered: “Yes.”

“When you were a boy, and you wanted something,” I said, “did your mother teach you to say ‘Please’?”

He positively blushed. “She did,” he admitted; “and she taught me to say ‘Beg your pardon’ when I was rude. I’ll say it now: ‘Beg your pardon.’”

This curious apology increased my belief in his redeeming qualities. I led the way to the inn. He followed me in silence. No woman who respects herself can endure silence when she is in the company of a man. I made him talk.

“Do you come to us from Ramsgate?” I began. He only nodded his head. “We don’t think much of Ramsgate here,” I went on. “There is not an old building in the place. And their first Mayor was only elected the other day!”

This point of view seemed to be new to him. He made no attempt to dispute it; he only looked around him, and said: “Sandwich is a melancholy place, miss.” He was so rapidly improving in politeness, that I encouraged him by a smile. As a citizen of Sandwich, I may say that we take it as a compliment when we are told that our town is a melancholy place. And why not? Melancholy is connected with dignity. And dignity is associated with age. And we are old. I teach my pupils logic, among other things – there is a specimen. Whatever may be said to the contrary, women can reason. They can also wander; and I must admit that I am wandering. Did I mention, at starting, that I was a governess? If not, that allusion to “pupils” must have come in rather abruptly. Let me make my excuses, and return to my lost stranger.

“Is there any such thing as a straight street in all Sandwich?” he asked.

“Not one straight street in the whole town.”

“Any trade, miss?”

“As little as possible – and that is expiring.”

“A decayed place, in short?”

“Thoroughly decayed.”

My tone seemed to astonish him. “You speak as if you were proud of its being a decayed place,” he said.

I quite respected him; this was such an intelligent remark to make. We do enjoy our decay: it is our chief distinction. Progress and prosperity everywhere else; decay and dissolution here. As a necessary consequence, we produce our own impression, and we like to be original. The sea deserted us long ago: it once washed our walls, it is now two miles away from us – we don’t regret the sea. We had sometimes ninety-five ships in our harbour, Heaven only knows how many centuries ago; we now have one or two small coasting vessels, half their time aground in a muddy little river – we don’t regret our harbour. But one house in the town is daring enough to anticipate the arrival of resident visitors, and announces furnished apartments to let. What a becoming contrast to our modern neighbour, Ramsgate! Our noble marketplace exhibits the laws made by the corporation; and every week there are fewer and fewer people to obey the laws. How convenient! Look at our one warehouse by the river side – with the crane generally idle, and the windows mostly boarded up; and perhaps one man at the door, looking out for the job which his better sense tells him cannot possibly come. What a wholesome protest against the devastating hurry and over-work elsewhere, which has shattered the nerves of the nation! “Far from me and from my friends” (to borrow the eloquent language of Doctor Johnson) “be such frigid enthusiasm as shall conduct us indifferent and unmoved” over the bridge by which you enter Sandwich, and pay a toll if you do it in a carriage. “That man is little to be envied (Doctor Johnson again) who can lose himself in our labyrinthine streets, and not feel that he has reached the welcome limits of progress, and found a haven of rest in an age of hurry.”

I am wandering again. Bear with the unpremeditated enthusiasm of a citizen who only attained years of discretion at her last birthday. We shall soon have done with Sandwich; we are close to the door of the inn.

“You can’t mistake it now, sir,” I said. “Good-morning.”

He looked down at me from under his beautiful eyelashes (have I mentioned that I am a little woman?), and he asked in his persuasive tones: “Must we say good-bye?”

I made him a bow.

“Would you allow me to see you safe home?” he suggested.

Any other man would have offended me. This man blushed like a boy, and looked at the pavement instead of looking at me. By this time I had made up my mind about him. He was not only a gentleman beyond all doubt, but a shy gentleman as well. His bluntness and his odd remarks were, as I thought, partly efforts to disguise his shyness, and partly refuges in which he tried to forget his own sense of it. I answered his audacious proposal amiably and pleasantly. “You would only lose your way again,” I said, “and I should have to take you back to the inn for the second time.”

Wasted words! My obstinate stranger only made another proposal.

“I have ordered lunch here,” he said, “and I am quite alone.” He stopped in confusion, and looked as if he rather expected me to box his ears. “I shall be forty next birthday,” he went on; “I am old enough to be your father.” I all but burst out laughing, and stepped across the street, on my way home. He followed me. “We might invite the landlady to join us,” he said, looking the picture of a headlong man, dismayed by the consciousness of his own imprudence. “Couldn’t you honour me by lunching with me if we had the landlady?” he asked.

This was a little too much. “Quite out of the question, sir – and you ought to know it,” I said with severity. He half put out his hand. “Won’t you even shake hands with me?” he inquired piteously. When we have most properly administered a reproof to a man, what is the perversity which makes us weakly pity him the minute afterward? I was fool enough to shake hands with this perfect stranger. And, having done it, I completed the total loss of my dignity by running away. Our dear crooked little streets hid me from him directly.

As I rang at the doorbell of my employer’s house, a thought occurred to me which might have been alarming to a better regulated mind than mine.

“Suppose he should come back to Sandwich?”

•  II  •

Before many more days passed I had troubles of my own to contend with, which put the eccentric stranger out of my head for the time.

Unfortunately, my troubles are part of my story; and my early life mixes itself up with them. In consideration of what is to follow, may I say two words relating to the period before I was a governess?

I am the orphan daughter of a shopkeeper of Sandwich. My father died, leaving to his widow and child an honest name and a little income of L80 a year. We kept on the shop – neither gaining nor losing by it. The truth is nobody would buy our poor little business. I was thirteen years old at the time; and I was able to help my mother, whose health was then beginning to fail. Never shall I forget a certain bright summer’s day, when I saw a new customer enter our shop. He was an elderly gentleman; and he seemed surprised to find so young a girl as myself in charge of the business, and, what is more, competent to support the charge. I answered his questions in a manner which seemed to please him. He soon discovered that my education (excepting my knowledge of the business) had been sadly neglected; and he inquired if he could see my mother. She was resting on the sofa in the back parlour – and she received him there. When he came out, he patted me on the cheek. “I have taken a fancy to you,” he said, “and perhaps I shall come back again.” He did come back again. My mother had referred him to the rector for our characters in the town, and he had heard what our clergyman could say for us. Our only relations had emigrated to Australia, and were not doing well there. My mother’s death would leave me, so far as relatives were concerned, literally alone in the world. “Give this girl a first-rate education,” said our elderly customer, sitting at our tea-table in the back parlour, “and she will do. If you will send her to school, ma’am, I’ll pay for her education.” My poor mother began to cry at the prospect of parting with me. The old gentleman said: “Think of it,” and got up to go. He gave me his card as I opened the shop-door for him. “If you find yourself in trouble,” he whispered, so that my mother could not hear him, “be a wise child, and write and tell me of it.” I looked at the card. Our kind-hearted customer was no less a person than Sir Gervase Damian, of Garrum Park, Sussex – with landed property in our county as well! He had made himself (through the rector, no doubt) far better acquainted than I was with the true state of my mother’s health. In four months from the memorable day when the great man had taken tea with us, my time had come to be alone in the world. I have no courage to dwell on it; my spirits sink, even at this distance of time, when I think of myself in those days. The good rector helped me with his advice – I wrote to Sir Gervase Damian.

A change had come over his life as well as mine in the interval since we had met.

Sir Gervase had married for the second time – and, what was more foolish still, perhaps, at his age, had married a young woman. She was said to be consumptive, and of a jealous temper as well. Her husband’s only child by his first wife, a son and heir, was so angry at his father’s second marriage that he left the house. The landed property being entailed, Sir Gervase could only express his sense of his son’s conduct by making a new will, which left all his property in money to his young wife.

These particulars I gathered from the steward, who was expressly sent to visit me at Sandwich.

“Sir Gervase never makes a promise without keeping it,” this gentleman informed me. “I am directed to take you to a first-rate ladies’ school in the neighbourhood of London, and to make all the necessary arrangements for your remaining there until you are eighteen years of age. Any written communications in the future are to pass, if you please, through the hands of the rector of Sandwich. The delicate health of the new Lady Damian makes it only too likely that the lives of her husband and herself will be passed, for the most part, in a milder climate than the climate of England. I am instructed to say this, and to convey to you Sir Gervase’s best wishes.”

By the rector’s advice, I accepted the position offered to me in this unpleasantly formal manner – concluding (quite correctly, as I afterward discovered) that I was indebted to Lady Damian for the arrangement which personally separated me from my benefactor. Her husband’s kindness and my gratitude, meeting on the neutral ground of Garrum Park, were objects of conjugal distrust to this lady. Shocking! shocking! I left a sincerely grateful letter to be forwarded to Sir Gervase; and, escorted by the steward, I went to school – being then just fourteen years old.

I know I am a fool. Never mind. There is some pride in me, though I am only a small shopkeeper’s daughter. My new life had its trials – my pride held me up.

For the four years during which I remained at the school, my poor welfare might be a subject of inquiry to the rector, and sometimes even the steward – never to Sir Gervase himself. His winters were no doubt passed abroad; but in the summer time he and Lady Damian were at home again. Not even for a day or two in the holiday time was there pity enough felt for my lonely position to ask me to be the guest of the housekeeper (I expected nothing more) at Garrum Park. But for my pride, I might have felt it bitterly. My pride said to me, “Do justice to yourself.” I worked so hard, I behaved so well, that the mistress of the school wrote to Sir Gervase to tell him how thoroughly I had deserved the kindness that he had shown to me. No answer was received. (Oh, Lady Damian!) No change varied the monotony of my life – except when one of my schoolgirl friends sometimes took me home with her for a few days at vacation time. Never mind. My pride held me up.

As the last half-year of my time at school approached, I began to consider the serious question of my future life.

Of course, I could have lived on my eighty pounds a year; but what a lonely, barren existence it promised to be! – unless somebody married me; and where, if you please, was I to find him? My education had thoroughly fitted me to be a governess. Why not try my fortune, and see a little of the world in that way? Even if I fell among ill-conditioned people, I could be independent of them, and retire on my income.

The rector, visiting London, came to see me. He not only approved of my idea – he offered me a means of carrying it out. A worthy family, recently settled at Sandwich, were in want of a governess. The head of the household was partner in a business (the exact nature of which it is needless to mention) having “branches” out of London. He had become superintendent of a new “branch” – tried as a commercial experiment, under special circumstances, at Sandwich. The idea of returning to my native place pleased me – dull as the place was to others. I accepted the situation.

When the steward’s usual half-yearly letter arrived soon afterward, inquiring what plans I had formed on leaving school, and what he could do to help them, acting on behalf of Sir Gervase, a delicious tingling filled me from head to foot when I thought of my own independence. It was not ingratitude toward my benefactor; it was only my little private triumph over Lady Damian. Oh, my sisters of the sex, can you not understand and forgive me?

So to Sandwich I returned; and there, for three years, I remained with the kindest people who ever breathed the breath of life. Under their roof I was still living when I met with my lost gentleman in the street.

Ah, me! the end of that quiet, pleasant life was near. When I lightly spoke to the odd stranger of the expiring trade of the town, I never expected that my employer’s trade was expiring too. The speculation had turned out to be a losing one; and all his savings had been embarked in it. He could no longer remain at Sandwich, or afford to keep a governess. His wife broke the sad news to me. I was so fond of the children, I proposed to her to give up my salary. Her husband refused even to consider the proposal. It was the old story of poor humanity over again. We cried, we kissed, we parted.

What was I to do next? – Write to Sir Gervase?

I had already written, soon after my return to Sandwich; breaking through the regulations by directly addressing Sir Gervase. I expressed my grateful sense of his generosity to a poor girl who had no family claim on him; and I promised to make the one return in my power by trying to be worthy of the interest he had taken in me. The letter was written without any alloy of mental reserve. My new life as a governess was such a happy one that I had forgotten my paltry bitterness of feeling against Lady Damian.

It was a relief to think of this change for the better, when the secretary at Garrum Park informed me that he had forwarded my letter to Sir Gervase, then at Madeira with his sick wife. She was slowly and steadily wasting away in a decline. Before another year had passed, Sir Gervase was left a widower for the second time, with no child to console him under his loss. No answer came to my grateful letter. I should have been unreasonable indeed if I had expected the bereaved husband to remember me in his grief and loneliness. Could I write to him again, in my own trumpery little interests, under these circumstances? I thought (and still think) that the commonest feeling of delicacy forbade it. The only other alternative was to appeal to the ever-ready friends of the obscure and helpless public. I advertised in the newspapers.

The tone of one of the answers which I received impressed me so favourably, that I forwarded my references. The next post brought my written engagement, and the offer of a salary which doubled my income.

The story of the past is told; and now we may travel on again, with no more stoppages by the way.

•  III  •

The residence of my present employer was in the north of England. Having to pass through London, I arranged to stay in town for a few days to make some necessary additions to my wardrobe. An old servant of the rector, who kept a lodging-house in the suburbs, received me kindly, and guided my choice in the serious matter of a dressmaker. On the second morning after my arrival an event happened. The post brought me a letter forwarded from the rectory. Imagine my astonishment when my correspondent proved to be Sir Gervase Damian himself!

The letter was dated from his house in London. It briefly invited me to call and see him, for a reason which I should hear from his own lips. He naturally supposed that I was still at Sandwich, and requested me, in a postscript, to consider my journey as made at his expense.

I went to the house the same day. While I was giving my name, a gentleman came out into the hall. He spoke to me without ceremony.

“Sir Gervase,” he said, “believes he is going to die. Don’t encourage him in that idea. He may live for another year or more, if his friends will only persuade him to be hopeful about himself.”

With that, the gentleman left me; the servant said it was the doctor.

The change in my benefactor, since I had seen him last, startled and distressed me. He lay back in a large armchair, wearing a grim black dressing-gown, and looking pitiably thin and pinched and worn. I do not think I should have known him again, if we had met by accident. He signed to me to be seated on a little chair by his side.

“I wanted to see you,” he said quietly, “before I die. You must have thought me neglectful and unkind, with good reason. My child, you have not been forgotten. If years have passed without a meeting between us, it has not been altogether my fault—”

He stopped. A pained expression passed over his poor worn face; he was evidently thinking of the young wife whom he had lost. I repeated – fervently and sincerely repeated – what I had already said to him in writing. “I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness.” Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put it to my lips.

He gently drew his hand away from me, and sighed as he did it. Perhaps she had sometimes kissed his hand.

“Now tell me about yourself,” he said.

I told him of my new situation, and how I had got it. He listened with evident interest.

“I was not self-deceived,” he said, “when I first took a fancy to you in the shop. I admire your independent feeling; it’s the right kind of courage in a girl like you. But you must let me do something more for you – some little service to remember me by when the end has come. What shall it be?”

“Try to get better, sir; and let me write to you now and then,” I answered. “Indeed, indeed, I want nothing more.”

“You will accept a little present, at least?” With those words he took from the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown an enamelled cross attached to a gold chain. “Think of me sometimes,” he said, as he put the chain round my neck. He drew me to him gently, and kissed my forehead. It was too much for me. “Don’t cry, my dear,” he said; “don’t remind me of another sad young face—”

Once more he stopped; once more he was thinking of the lost wife. I pulled down my veil, and ran out of the room.

•  IV  •

The next day I was on my way to the north. My narrative brightens again – but let us not forget Sir Gervase Damian.

I ask permission to introduce some persons of distinction: Mrs. Fosdyke, of Carsham Hall, widow of General Fosdyke; also Master Frederick, Miss Ellen, and Miss Eva, the pupils of the new governess; also two ladies and three gentlemen, guests staying in the house.

Discreet and dignified; handsome and well-bred – such was my impression of Mrs. Fosdyke, while she harangued me on the subject of her children, and communicated her views on education. Having heard the views before from others, I assumed a listening position, and privately formed my opinion of the schoolroom. It was large, lofty, perfectly furnished for the purpose; it had a big window and a balcony looking out over the garden terrace and the park beyond – a wonderful schoolroom, in my limited experience. One of the two doors which it possessed was left open, and showed me a sweet little bedroom, with amber draperies and maplewood furniture, devoted to myself. Here were wealth and liberality, in the harmonious combination so seldom discovered by the spectator of small means. I controlled my first feeling of bewilderment just in time to answer Mrs. Fosdyke on the subject of reading and recitation – viewed as minor accomplishments which a good governess might be expected to teach.

“While the organs are young and pliable,” the lady remarked, “I regard it as of great importance to practice children in the art of reading aloud, with an agreeable variety of tone and correctness of emphasis. Trained in this way, they will produce a favourable impression on others, even in ordinary conversation, when they grow up. Poetry, committed to memory and recited, is a valuable means toward this end. May I hope that your studies have enabled you to carry out my views?”

Formal enough in language, but courteous and kind in manner. I relieved Mrs. Fosdyke from anxiety by informing her that we had a professor of elocution at school. And then I was left to improve my acquaintance with my three pupils.

They were fairly intelligent children; the boy, as usual, being slower than the girls. I did my best – with many a sad remembrance of the far dearer pupils whom I had left – to make them like me and trust me; and I succeeded in winning their confidence. In a week from the time of my arrival at Carsham Hall, we began to understand each other.

The first day in the week was one of our days for reciting poetry, in obedience to the instructions with which I had been favoured by Mrs. Fosdyke. I had done with the girls, and had just opened (perhaps I ought to say profaned) Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” in the elocutionary interests of Master Freddy. Half of Mark Antony’s first glorious speech over Caesar’s dead body he had learned by heart; and it was now my duty to teach him, to the best of my small ability, how to speak it. The morning was warm. We had our big window open; the delicious perfume of flowers in the garden beneath filled the room.

I recited the first eight lines, and stopped there feeling that I must not exact too much from the boy at first. “Now, Freddy,” I said, “try if you can speak the poetry as I have spoken it.”

“Don’t do anything of the kind, Freddy,” said a voice from the garden; “it’s all spoken wrong.”

Who was this insolent person? A man unquestionably – and, strange to say, there was something not entirely unfamiliar to me in his voice. The girls began to giggle. Their brother was more explicit. “Oh,” says Freddy, “it’s only Mr. Sax.”

The one becoming course to pursue was to take no notice of the interruption. “Go on,” I said. Freddy recited the lines, like a dear good boy, with as near an imitation of my style of elocution as could be expected from him.

“Poor devil!” cried the voice from the garden, insolently pitying my attentive pupil.

I imposed silence on the girls by a look – and then, without stirring from my chair, expressed my sense of the insolence of Mr. Sax in clear and commanding tones. “I shall be obliged to close the window if this is repeated.” Having spoken to that effect, I waited in expectation of an apology. Silence was the only apology. It was enough for me that I had produced the right impression. I went on with my recitation.

“Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest

(For Brutus is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men),

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me—”

“Oh, good heavens, I can’t stand that! Why don’t you speak the last line properly? Listen to me.”

Dignity is a valuable quality, especially in a governess. But there are limits to the most highly trained endurance. I bounced out into the balcony – and there, on the terrace, smoking a cigar, was my lost stranger in the streets of Sandwich!

He recognised me, on his side, the instant I appeared. “Oh, Lord!” he cried in tones of horror, and ran round the corner of the terrace as if my eyes had been mad bulls in close pursuit of him. By this time it is, I fear, useless for me to set myself up as a discreet person in emergencies. Another woman might have controlled herself. I burst into fits of laughter. Freddy and the girls joined me. For the time, it was plainly useless to pursue the business of education. I shut up Shakespeare, and allowed – no, let me tell the truth, encouraged – the children to talk about Mr. Sax.

They only seemed to know what Mr. Sax himself had told them. His father and mother and brothers and sisters had all died in course of time. He was the sixth and last of the children, and he had been christened “Sextus” in consequence, which is Latin (here Freddy interposed) for sixth. Also christened “Cyril” (here the girls recovered the lead) by his mother’s request; “Sextus” being such a hideous name. And which of his Christian names does he use? You wouldn’t ask if you knew him! “Sextus,” of course, because it is the ugliest. Sextus Sax? Not the romantic sort of name that one likes, when one is a woman. But I have no right to be particular. My own name (is it possible that I have not mentioned it in these pages yet?) is only Nancy Morris. Do not despise me – and let us return to Mr. Sax.

Is he married? The eldest girl thought not. She had heard mamma say to a lady, “An old German family, my dear, and, in spite of his oddities, an excellent man; but so poor – barely enough to live on – and blurts out the truth, if people ask his opinion, as if he had twenty thousand a year!”  “Your mamma knows him well, of course?”  “I should think so, and so do we. He often comes here. They say he’s not good company among grown-up people. We think him jolly. He understands dolls, and he’s the best back at leapfrog in the whole of England.” Thus far we had advanced in the praise of Sextus Sax, when one of the maids came in with a note for me. She smiled mysteriously, and said, “I’m to wait for an answer, miss.”

I opened the note, and read these lines:

“I am so ashamed of myself, I daren’t attempt to make my apologies personally. Will you accept my written excuses? Upon my honour, nobody told me when I got here yesterday that you were in the house. I heard the recitation, and – can you excuse my stupidity? – I thought it was a stage-struck housemaid amusing herself with the children. May I accompany you when you go out with the young ones for your daily walk? One word will do. Yes or no. Penitently yours – S. S.”

In my position, there was but one possible answer to this. Governesses must not make appointments with strange gentlemen – even when the children are present in the capacity of witnesses. I said, No. Am I claiming too much for my readiness to forgive injuries, when I add that I should have preferred saying Yes?

We had our early dinner, and then got ready to go out walking as usual. These pages contain a true confession. Let me own that I hoped Mr. Sax would understand my refusal, and ask Mrs. Fosdyke’s leave to accompany us. Lingering a little as we went downstairs, I heard him in the hall – actually speaking to Mrs. Fosdyke! What was he saying? That darling boy, Freddy, got into a difficulty with one of his bootlaces exactly at the right moment. I could help him, and listen – and be sadly disappointed by the result. Mr. Sax was offended with me.

“You needn’t introduce me to the new governess,” I heard him say. “We have met on a former occasion, and I produced a disagreeable impression on her. I beg you will not speak of me to Miss Morris.”

Before Mrs. Fosdyke could say a word in reply, Master Freddy changed suddenly from a darling boy to a detestable imp. “I say, Mr. Sax!” he called out, “Miss Morris doesn’t mind you a bit – she only laughs at you.”

The answer to this was the sudden closing of a door. Mr. Sax had taken refuge from me in one of the ground-floor rooms. I was so mortified, I could almost have cried.

Getting down into the hall, we found Mrs. Fosdyke with her garden hat on, and one of the two ladies who were staying in the house (the unmarried one) whispering to her at the door of the morning-room. The lady – Miss Melbury – looked at me with a certain appearance of curiosity which I was quite at a loss to understand, and suddenly turned away toward the further end of the hall.

“I will walk with you and the children,” Mrs. Fosdyke said to me. “Freddy, you can ride your tricycle if you like.” She turned to the girls. “My dears, it’s cool under the trees. You may take your skipping-ropes.”

She had evidently something special to say to me; and she had adopted the necessary measures for keeping the children in front of us, well out of hearing. Freddy led the way on his horse on three wheels; the girls followed, skipping merrily. Mrs. Fosdyke opened the business by the most embarrassing remark that she could possibly have made under the circumstances.

“I find that you are acquainted with Mr. Sax,” she began; “and I am surprised to hear that you dislike him.”

She smiled pleasantly, as if my supposed dislike of Mr. Sax rather amused her. What “the ruling passion” may be among men, I cannot presume to consider. My own sex, however, I may claim to understand. The ruling passion among women is Conceit. My ridiculous notion of my own consequence was wounded in some way. I assumed a position of the loftiest indifference.

“Really, ma’am,” I said, “I can’t undertake to answer for any impression that Mr. Sax may have formed. We met by the merest accident. I know nothing about him.”

Mrs. Fosdyke eyed me slyly, and appeared to be more amused than ever.

“He is a very odd man,” she admitted, “but I can tell you there is a fine nature under that strange surface of his. However,” she went on, “I am forgetting that he forbids me to talk about him in your presence. When the opportunity offers, I shall take my own way of teaching you two to understand each other: you will both be grateful to me when I have succeeded. In the meantime, there is a third person who will be sadly disappointed to hear that you know nothing about Mr. Sax.”

“May I ask, ma’am, who the person is?”

“Can you keep a secret, Miss Morris? Of course you can! The person is Miss Melbury.”

(Miss Melbury was a dark woman. It cannot be because I am a fair woman myself – I hope I am above such narrow prejudices as that – but it is certainly true that I don’t admire dark women.)

“She heard Mr. Sax telling me that you particularly disliked him,” Mrs. Fosdyke proceeded. “And just as you appeared in the hall, she was asking me to find out what your reason was. My own opinion of Mr. Sax, I ought to tell you, doesn’t satisfy her; I am his old friend, and I present him of course from my own favourable point of view. Miss Melbury is anxious to be made acquainted with his faults – and she expected you to be a valuable witness against him.”

Thus far we had been walking on. We now stopped, as if by common consent, and looked at one another.

In my previous experience of Mrs. Fosdyke, I had only seen the more constrained and formal side of her character. Without being aware of my own success, I had won the mother’s heart in winning the goodwill of her children. Constraint now seized its first opportunity of melting away; the latent sense of humour in the great lady showed itself, while I was inwardly wondering what the nature of Miss Melbury’s extraordinary interest in Mr. Sax might be. Easily penetrating my thoughts, she satisfied my curiosity without committing herself to a reply in words. Her large grey eyes sparkled as they rested on my face, and she hummed the tune of the old French song, “C’est l’amour, l’amour, l’amour!” There is no disguising it – something in this disclosure made me excessively angry. Was I angry with Miss Melbury? or with Mr. Sax? or with myself? I think it must have been with myself.

Finding that I had nothing to say on my side, Mrs. Fosdyke looked at her watch, and remembered her domestic duties. To my relief, our interview came to an end.

“I have a dinner-party today,” she said, “and I have not seen the housekeeper yet. Make yourself beautiful, Miss Morris, and join us in the drawing-room after dinner.”

•  V  •

I wore my best dress; and, in all my life before, I never took such pains with my hair. Nobody will be foolish enough, I hope, to suppose that I did this on Mr. Sax’s account. How could I possibly care about a man who was little better than a stranger to me? No! the person I dressed at was Miss Melbury.

She gave me a look, as I modestly placed myself in a corner, which amply rewarded me for the time spent on my toilet. The gentlemen came in. I looked at Mr. Sax (mere curiosity) under shelter of my fan. His appearance was greatly improved by evening dress. He discovered me in my corner, and seemed doubtful whether to approach me or not. I was reminded of our first odd meeting; and I could not help smiling as I called it to mind. Did he presume to think that I was encouraging him? Before I could decide that question, he took the vacant place on the sofa. In any other man – after what had passed in the morning – this would have been an audacious proceeding. He looked so painfully embarrassed, that it became a species of Christian duty to pity him.

“Won’t you shake hands?” he said, just as he had said it at Sandwich.

I peeped round the corner of my fan at Miss Melbury. She was looking at us. I shook hands with Mr. Sax.

“What sort of sensation is it,” he asked, “when you shake hands with a man whom you hate?”

“I really can’t tell you,” I answered innocently; “I have never done such a thing.”

“You would not lunch with me at Sandwich,” he protested; “and, after the humblest apology on my part, you won’t forgive me for what I did this morning. Do you expect me to believe that I am not the special object of your antipathy? I wish I had never met with you! At my age, a man gets angry when he is treated cruelly and doesn’t deserve it. You don’t understand that, I dare say.”

“Oh, yes, I do. I heard what you said about me to Mrs. Fosdyke, and I heard you bang the door when you got out of my way.”

He received this reply with every appearance of satisfaction. “So you listened, did you? I’m glad to hear that.”

“Why?”

“It shows you take some interest in me, after all.”

Throughout this frivolous talk (I only venture to report it because it shows that I bore no malice on my side) Miss Melbury was looking at us like the basilisk of the ancients. She owned to being on the wrong side of thirty; and she had a little money – but these were surely no reasons why she should glare at a poor governess. Had some secret understanding of the tender sort been already established between Mr. Sax and herself? She provoked me into trying to find out – especially as the last words he had said offered me the opportunity.

“I can prove that I feel a sincere interest in you,” I resumed. “I can resign you to a lady who has a far better claim to your attention than mine. You are neglecting her shamefully.”

He stared at me with an appearance of bewilderment, which seemed to imply that the attachment was on the lady’s side, so far. It was of course impossible to mention names; I merely turned my eyes in the right direction. He looked where I looked – and his shyness revealed itself, in spite of his resolution to conceal it. His face flushed; he looked mortified and surprised. Miss Melbury could endure it no longer. She rose, took a song from the music-stand, and approached us.

“I am going to sing,” she said, handing the music to him. “Please turn over for me, Mr. Sax.”

I think he hesitated – but I cannot feel sure that I observed him correctly. It matters little. With or without hesitation, he followed her to the piano.

Miss Melbury sang – with perfect self-possession, and an immense compass of voice. A gentleman near me said she ought to be on the stage. I thought so too. Big as it was, our drawing-room was not large enough for her. The gentleman sang next. No voice at all – but so sweet, such true feeling! I turned over the leaves for him. A dear old lady, sitting near the piano, entered into conversation with me. She spoke of the great singers at the beginning of the present century. Mr. Sax hovered about, with Miss Melbury’s eye on him. I was so entranced by the anecdotes of my venerable friend, that I could take no notice of Mr. Sax. Later, when the dinner-party was over, and we were retiring for the night, he still hovered about, and ended in offering me a bedroom candle. I immediately handed it to Miss Melbury. Really a most enjoyable evening!

•  VI  •

The next morning we were startled by an extraordinary proceeding on the part of one of the guests. Mr. Sax had left Carsham Hall by the first train – nobody knew why.

Nature has laid – so, at least, philosophers say – some heavy burdens upon women. Do those learned persons include in their list the burden of hysterics? If so, I cordially agree with them. It is hardly worth speaking of in my case – a constitutional outbreak in the solitude of my own room, treated with eau-de-cologne and water, and quite forgotten afterward in the absorbing employment of education. My favourite pupil, Freddy, had been up earlier than the rest of us – breathing the morning air in the fruit-garden. He had seen Mr. Sax and had asked him when he was coming back again. And Mr. Sax had said, “I shall be back again next month.” (Dear little Freddy!)

In the meanwhile we, in the schoolroom, had the prospect before us of a dull time in an empty house. The remaining guests were to go away at the end of the week, their hostess being engaged to pay a visit to some old friends in Scotland.

During the next three or four days, though I was often alone with Mrs. Fosdyke, she never said one word on the subject of Mr. Sax. Once or twice I caught her looking at me with that unendurably significant smile of hers. Miss Melbury was equally unpleasant in another way. When we accidentally met on the stairs, her black eyes shot at me passing glances of hatred and scorn. Did these two ladies presume to think—?

No; I abstained from completing that inquiry at the time, and I abstain from completing it here.

The end of the week came, and I and the children were left alone at Carsham Hall.

I took advantage of the leisure hours at my disposal to write to Sir Gervase; respectfully inquiring after his health, and informing him that I had been again most fortunate in my engagement as a governess. By return of post an answer arrived. I eagerly opened it. The first lines informed me of Sir Gervase Damian’s death.

The letter dropped from my hand. I looked at my little enamelled cross. It is not for me to say what I felt. Think of all that I owed to him; and remember how lonely my lot was in the world. I gave the children a holiday; it was only the truth to tell them that I was not well.

How long an interval passed before I could call to mind that I had only read the first lines of the letter, I am not able to say. When I did take it up I was surprised to see that the writing covered two pages. Beginning again where I had left off, my head, in a moment more, began to swim. A horrid fear overpowered me that I might not be in my right mind, after I had read the first three sentences. Here they are, to answer for me that I exaggerate nothing:

“The will of our deceased client is not yet proved. But, with the sanction of the executors, I inform you confidentially that you are the person chiefly interested in it. Sir Gervase Damian bequeaths to you, absolutely, the whole of his personal property, amounting to the sum of seventy thousand pounds.”

If the letter had ended there, I really cannot imagine what extravagances I might not have committed. But the writer (head partner in the firm of Sir Gervase’s lawyers) had something more to say on his own behalf. The manner in which he said it strung up my nerves in an instant. I can not, and will not, copy the words here. It is quite revolting enough to give the substance of them.

The man’s object was evidently to let me perceive that he disapproved of the will. So far I do not complain of him – he had, no doubt, good reason for the view he took. But, in expressing his surprise “at this extraordinary proof of the testator’s interest in a perfect stranger to the family,” he hinted his suspicion of an influence, on my part, exercised over Sir Gervase, so utterly shameful, that I cannot dwell on the subject. The language, I should add, was cunningly guarded. Even I could see that it would bear more than one interpretation, and would thus put me in the wrong if I openly resented it. But the meaning was plain; and part at least of the motive came out in the following sentences:

“The present Sir Gervase, as you are doubtless aware, is not seriously affected by his father’s will. He is already more liberally provided for, as heir under the entail to the whole of the landed property. But, to say nothing of old friends who are forgotten, there is a surviving relative of the late Sir Gervase passed over, who is nearly akin to him by blood. In the event of this person disputing the will, you will of course hear from us again, and refer us to your legal adviser.”

The letter ended with an apology for delay in writing to me, caused by difficulty in discovering my address.

And what did I do? – Write to the rector, or to Mrs. Fosdyke, for advice? Not I!

At first I was too indignant to be able to think of what I ought to do. Our post-time was late, and my head ached as if it would burst into pieces. I had plenty of leisure to rest and compose myself. When I got cool again, I felt able to take my own part, without asking anyone to help me.

Even if I had been treated kindly, I should certainly not have taken the money when there was a relative living with a claim to it. What did I want with a large fortune! To buy a husband with it, perhaps? No, no! from all that I have heard, the great Lord Chancellor was quite right when he said that a woman with money at her own disposal was “either kissed out of it or kicked out of it, six weeks after her marriage.” The one difficulty before me was not to give up my legacy, but to express my reply with sufficient severity, and at the same time with due regard to my own self-respect. Here is what I wrote:

Sir – I will not trouble you by attempting to express my sorrow on hearing of Sir Gervase Damian’s death. You would probably form your own opinion on that subject also; and I have no wish to be judged by your unenviable experience of humanity for the second time.

With regard to the legacy, feeling the sincerest gratitude to my generous benefactor, I nevertheless refuse to receive the money.

Be pleased to send me the necessary document to sign, for transferring my fortune to that relative of Sir Gervase mentioned in your letter. The one condition on which I insist is, that no expression of thanks shall be addressed to me by the person in whose favour I resign the money. I do not desire (even supposing that justice is done to my motives on this occasion) to be made the object of expressions of gratitude for only doing my duty.

So it ended. I may be wrong, but I call that strong writing.

In due course of post a formal acknowledgement arrived. I was requested to wait for the document until the will had been proved, and was informed that my name should be kept strictly secret in the interval. On this occasion the executors were almost as insolent as the lawyer. They felt it their duty to give me time to reconsider a decision which had been evidently formed on impulse. Ah, how hard men are – at least, some of them! I locked up the acknowledgement in disgust, resolved to think no more of it until the time came for getting rid of my legacy. I kissed poor Sir Gervase’s little keepsake. While I was still looking at it, the good children came in, of their own accord, to ask how I was. I was obliged to draw down the blind in my room, or they would have seen the tears in my eyes. For the first time since my mother’s death, I felt the heartache. Perhaps the children made me think of the happier time when I was a child myself.

•  VII  •

The will had been proved, and I was informed that the document was in course of preparation when Mrs. Fosdyke returned from her visit to Scotland.

She thought me looking pale and worn.

“The time seems to me to have come,” she said, “when I had better make you and Mr. Sax understand each other. Have you been thinking penitently of your own bad behaviour?”

I felt myself blushing. I had been thinking of my conduct to Mr. Sax – and I was heartily ashamed of it, too.

Mrs. Fosdyke went on, half in jest, half in earnest. “Consult your own sense of propriety!” she said. “Was the poor man to blame for not being rude enough to say No, when a lady asked him to turn over her music? Could he help it, if the same lady persisted in flirting with him? He ran away from her the next morning. Did you deserve to be told why he left us? Certainly not – after the vixenish manner in which you handed the bedroom candle to Miss Melbury. You foolish girl! Do you think I couldn’t see that you were in love with him? Thank Heaven, he’s too poor to marry you, and take you away from my children, for some time to come. There will be a long marriage engagement, even if he is magnanimous enough to forgive you. Shall I ask Miss Melbury to come back with him?”

She took pity on me at last, and sat down to write to Mr. Sax. His reply, dated from a country house some twenty miles distant, announced that he would be at Carsham Hall in three days’ time.

On that third day the legal paper that I was to sign arrived by post. It was Sunday morning; I was alone in the schoolroom.

In writing to me, the lawyer had only alluded to “a surviving relative of Sir Gervase, nearly akin to him by blood.” The document was more explicit. It described the relative as being a nephew of Sir Gervase, the son of his sister. The name followed.

It was Sextus Cyril Sax.

I have tried on three different sheets of paper to describe the effect which this discovery produced on me – and I have torn them up one after another. When I only think of it, my mind seems to fall back into the helpless surprise and confusion of that time. After all that had passed between us – the man himself being then on his way to the house! what would he think of me when he saw my name at the bottom of the document? what, in Heaven’s name, was I to do?

How long I sat petrified, with the document on my lap, I never knew. Somebody knocked at the schoolroom door, and looked in and said something, and went out again. Then there was an interval. Then the door was opened again. A hand was laid kindly on my shoulder. I looked up – and there was Mrs. Fosdyke, asking, in the greatest alarm, what was the matter with me.

The tone of her voice roused me into speaking. I could think of nothing but Mr. Sax; I could only say, “Has he come?”

“Yes – and waiting to see you.”

Answering in those terms, she glanced at the paper in my lap. In the extremity of my helplessness, I acted like a sensible creature at last. I told Mrs. Fosdyke all that I have told here.

She neither moved nor spoke until I had done. Her first proceeding, after that, was to take me in her arms and give me a kiss. Having so far encouraged me, she next spoke of poor Sir Gervase.

“We all acted like fools,” she announced, “in needlessly offending him by protesting against his second marriage. I don’t mean you – I mean his son, his nephew, and myself. If his second marriage made him happy, what business had we with the disparity of years between husband and wife? I can tell you this, Sextus was the first of us to regret what he had done. But for his stupid fear of being suspected of an interested motive, Sir Gervase might have known there was that much good in his sister’s son.”

She snatched up a copy of the will, which I had not even noticed thus far.

“See what the kind old man says of you,” she went on, pointing to the words. I could not see them; she was obliged to read them for me. “I leave my money to the one person living who has been more than worthy of the little I have done for her, and whose simple unselfish nature I know that I can trust.”

I pressed Mrs. Fosdyke’s hand; I was not able to speak. She took up the legal paper next.

“Do justice to yourself, and be above contemptible scruples,” she said. “Sextus is fond enough of you to be almost worthy of the sacrifice that you are making. Sign – and I will sign next as the witness.”

I hesitated.

“What will he think of me?” I said.

“Sign!” she repeated, “and we will see to that.”

I obeyed. She asked for the lawyer’s letter. I gave it to her, with the lines which contained the man’s vile insinuation folded down, so that only the words above were visible, which proved that I had renounced my legacy, not even knowing whether the person to be benefited was a man or a woman. She took this, with the rough draft of my own letter, and the signed renunciation – and opened the door.

“Pray come back, and tell me about it!” I pleaded.

She smiled, nodded, and went out.

Oh, what a long time passed before I heard the long-expected knock at the door! “Come in,” I cried impatiently.

Mrs. Fosdyke had deceived me. Mr. Sax had returned in her place. He closed the door. We two were alone.

He was deadly pale; his eyes, as they rested on me, had a wild startled look. With icy cold fingers he took my hand, and lifted it in silence to his lips. The sight of his agitation encouraged me – I don’t to this day know why, unless it appealed in some way to my compassion. I was bold enough to look at him. Still silent, he placed the letters on the table – and then he laid the signed paper beside them. When I saw that, I was bolder still. I spoke first.

“Surely you don’t refuse me?” I said.

He answered, “I thank you with my whole heart; I admire you more than words can say. But I can’t take it.”

“Why not?”

“The fortune is yours,” he said gently. “Remember how poor I am, and feel for me if I say no more.”

His head sank on his breast. He stretched out one hand, silently imploring me to understand him. I could endure it no longer. I forgot every consideration which a woman, in my position, ought to have remembered. Out came the desperate words, before I could stop them.

“You won’t take my gift by itself?” I said.

“No.”

“Will you take Me with it?”

•   •   •

That evening, Mrs. Fosdyke indulged her sly sense of humour in a new way. She handed me an almanac.

“After all, my dear,” she remarked, “you needn’t be ashamed of having spoken first. You have only used the ancient privilege of the sex. This is Leap Year.”

First published as
“How I Married Him”
Spirit of the Times 24 Dec 1881

MR. COSWAY
AND THE LANDLADY

•  I  •

The guests would have enjoyed their visit to Sir Peter’s country house – but for Mr. Cosway. And to make matters worse, it was not Mr. Cosway but the guests who were to blame. They repeated the old story of Adam and Eve, on a larger scale. The women were the first sinners; and the men were demoralized by the women.

Mr. Cosway’s bitterest enemy could not have denied that he was a handsome, well-bred, unassuming man. No mystery of any sort attached to him. He had adopted the Navy as a profession – had grown weary of it after a few years’ service – and now lived on the moderate income left to him, after the death of his parents. Out of this unpromising material the lively imaginations of the women built up a romance. The men only noticed that Mr. Cosway was rather silent and thoughtful; that he was not ready with his laugh; and that he had a fancy for taking long walks by himself. Harmless peculiarities, surely? And yet, they excited the curiosity of the women as signs of a mystery in Mr. Cosway’s past life, in which some beloved object unknown must have played a chief part.

As a matter of course, the influence of the sex was tried, under every indirect and delicate form of approach, to induce Mr. Cosway to open his heart, and tell the tale of his sorrows. With perfect courtesy, he baffled curiosity, and kept his supposed secret to himself. The most beautiful girl in the house was ready to offer herself and her fortune as consolations, if this impenetrable bachelor would only have taken her into his confidence. He smiled sadly, and changed the subject.

Defeated so far, the women accepted the next alternative.

One of the guests staying in the house was Mr. Cosway’s intimate friend – formerly his brother-officer on board ship. This gentleman was now subjected to the delicately directed system of investigation which had failed with his friend. With unruffled composure he referred the ladies, one after another, to Mr. Cosway. His name was Stone. The ladies decided that his nature was worthy of his name.

The last resource left to our fair friends was to rouse the dormant interest of the men, and to trust to the confidential intercourse of the smoking-room for the enlightenment which they had failed to obtain by other means.

In the accomplishment of this purpose, the degree of success which rewarded their efforts was due to a favouring state of affairs in the house. The shooting was not good for much; the billiard-table was under repair; and there were but two really skilled whist-players among the guests. In the atmosphere of dullness thus engendered, the men not only caught the infection of the women’s curiosity, but were even ready to listen to the gossip of the servants’ hall, repeated to their mistresses by the ladies’ maids. The result of such an essentially debased state of feeling as this was not slow in declaring itself. But for a lucky accident, Mr. Cosway would have discovered to what extremities of ill-bred curiosity idleness and folly can lead persons holding the position of ladies and gentlemen, when he joined the company at breakfast on the next morning.

The newspapers came in before the guests had risen from the table. Sir Peter handed one of them to the lady who sat on his right hand.

She first looked, it is needless to say, at the list of births, deaths, and marriages; and then she turned to the general news – the fires, accidents, fashionable departures, and so on. In a few minutes, she indignantly dropped the newspaper in her lap.

“Here is another unfortunate man,” she exclaimed, “sacrificed to the stupidity of women! If I had been in his place, I would have used my knowledge of swimming to save myself, and would have left the women to go to the bottom of the river as they deserved!”

“A boat accident, I suppose?” said Sir Peter.

“Oh yes – the old story. A gentleman takes two ladies out in a boat. After a while they get fidgety, and feel an idiotic impulse to change places. The boat upsets as usual; the poor dear man tries to save them – and is drowned along with them for his pains. Shameful! shameful!”

“Are the names mentioned?”

“Yes. They are all strangers to me; I speak on principle.” Asserting herself in those words, the indignant lady handed the newspaper to Mr. Cosway, who happened to sit next to her. “When you were in the navy,” she continued, “I dare say your life was put in jeopardy by taking women in boats. Read it yourself, and let it be a warning to you for the future.”

Mr. Cosway looked at the narrative of the accident – and revealed the romantic mystery of his life by a burst of devout exclamation, expressed in the words:

“Thank God, my wife’s drowned!”

•  II  •

To declare that Sir Peter and his guests were all struck speechless, by discovering in this way that Mr. Cosway was a married man, is to say very little. The general impression appeared to be that he was mad. His neighbours at the table all drew back from him, with the one exception of his friend. Mr. Stone looked at the newspaper: pressed Mr. Cosway’s hand in silent sympathy – and addressed himself to his host.

“Permit me to make my friend’s apologies,” he said, “until he is composed enough to act for himself. The circumstances are so extraordinary that I venture to think they excuse him. Will you allow us to speak to you privately?”

Sir Peter, with more apologies addressed to his visitors, opened the door which communicated with his study. Mr. Stone took Mr. Cosway’s arm, and led him out of the room. He noticed no one, spoke to no one – he moved mechanically, like a man walking in his sleep.

After an unendurable interval of nearly an hour’s duration, Sir Peter returned alone to the breakfast-room. Mr. Cosway and Mr. Stone had already taken their departure for London, with their host’s entire approval.

“It is left to my discretion,” Sir Peter proceeded, “to repeat to you what I have heard in my study. I will do so, on one condition – that you all consider yourselves bound in honour not to mention the true names and the real places, when you tell the story to others.”

Subject to this wise reservation, the narrative is here repeated by one of the company. Considering how he may perform his task to the best advantage, he finds that the events which preceded and followed Mr. Cosway’s disastrous marriage resolve themselves into certain well-marked divisions. Adopting this arrangement, he proceeds to relate:

The First Epoch
in Mr. Cosway’s Life

The sailing of her Majesty’s ship Albicore was deferred by the severe illness of the captain. A gentleman not possessed of political influence might, after the doctor’s unpromising report of him, have been superseded by another commanding officer. In the present case, the Lords of the Admiralty showed themselves to be models of patience and sympathy. They kept the vessel in port, waiting the captain’s recovery.

Among the unimportant junior officers, not wanted on board under these circumstances, and favoured accordingly by obtaining leave to wait for orders on shore, were two young men, aged respectively twenty-two and twenty-three years, and known by the names of Cosway and Stone. The scene which now introduces them opens at a famous seaport on the south coast of England, and discloses the two young gentlemen at dinner in a private room at their inn.

“I think that last bottle of champagne was corked,” Cosway remarked. “Let’s try another. You’re nearest the bell, Stone. Ring.”

Stone rang, under protest. He was the elder of the two by a year, and he set an example of discretion.

“I am afraid we are running up a terrible bill,” he said. “We have been here more than three weeks—”

“And we have denied ourselves nothing,” Cosway added. “We have lived like princes. Another bottle of champagne, waiter. We have our riding-horses, and our carriage, and the best box at the theatre, and such cigars as London itself could not produce. I call that making the most of life. Try the new bottle. Glorious drink, isn’t it? Why doesn’t my father have champagne at the family dinner-table?”

“Is your father a rich man, Cosway?”

“I should say not. He didn’t give me anything like the money I expected, when I said good-bye – and I rather think he warned me solemnly, at parting, to take the greatest care of it.’ There’s not a farthing more for you,’ he said, ‘till your ship returns from her South American station.’ Your father is a clergyman, Stone.”

“Well, and what of that?”

“And some clergymen are rich.”

“My father is not one of them, Cosway.”

“Then let us say no more about him. Help yourself, and pass the bottle.”

Instead of adopting this suggestion, Stone rose with a very grave face, and once more rang the bell. “Ask the landlady to step up,” he said, when the waiter appeared.

“What do you want with the landlady?” Cosway inquired.

“I want the bill.”

The landlady – otherwise Mrs. Pounce – entered the room. She was short, and old, and fat, and painted, and a widow. Students of character, as revealed in the face, would have discovered malice and cunning in her bright black eyes, and a bitter vindictive temper in the lines about her thin red lips. Incapable of such subtleties of analysis as these, the two young officers differed widely, nevertheless, in their opinions of Mrs. Pounce. Cosway’s reckless sense of humour delighted in pretending to be in love with her. Stone took a dislike to her from the first. When his friend asked for the reason, he made a strangely obscure answer. “Do you remember that morning in the wood when you killed the snake?” he said. “I took a dislike to the snake.” Cosway made no further inquiries.

“Well, my young heroes,” said Mrs. Pounce (always loud, always cheerful, and always familiar with her guests), “what do you want with me now?”

“Take a glass of champagne, my darling,” said Cosway; “and let me try if I can get my arm round your waist. That’s all I want with you.”

The landlady passed this over without notice. Though she had spoken to both of them, her cunning little eyes rested on Stone from the moment when she appeared in the room. She knew by instinct the man who disliked her – and she waited deliberately for Stone to reply.

“We have been here some time,” he said, “and we shall be obliged, ma’am, if you will let us have our bill.”

Mrs. Pounce lifted her eyebrows with an expression of innocent surprise.

“Has the captain got well, and must you go on board tonight?” she asked.

“Nothing of the sort!” Cosway interposed. “We have no news of the captain, and we are going to the theatre tonight.”

“But,” persisted Stone, “we want, if you please, to have the bill.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Pounce, with a sudden assumption of respect. “But we are very busy downstairs, and we hope you will not press us for it tonight?”

“Of course not!” cried Cosway.

Mrs. Pounce instantly left the room, without waiting for any further remark from Cosway’s friend.

“I wish we had gone to some other house,” said Stone. “You mark my words – that woman means to cheat us.”

Cosway expressed his dissent from this opinion in the most amiable manner. He filled his friend’s glass, and begged him not to say ill-natured things of Mrs. Pounce.

But Stone’s usually smooth temper seemed to be ruffled; he insisted on his own view. “She’s impudent and inquisitive, if she is not downright dishonest,” he said. “What right had she to ask you where we lived when we were at home; and what our Christian names were; and which of us was oldest, you or I? Oh, yes – it’s all very well to say she only showed a flattering interest in us! I suppose she showed a flattering interest in my affairs, when I awoke a little earlier than usual, and caught her in my bedroom with my pocketbook in her hand. Do you believe she was going to lock it up for safety’s sake? She knows how much money we have got as well as we know it ourselves. Every half-penny we have will be in her pocket tomorrow. And a good thing, too – we shall be obliged to leave the house.”

Even this cogent reasoning failed in provoking Cosway to reply. He took Stone’s hat, and handed it with the utmost politeness to his foreboding friend. “There’s only one remedy for such a state of mind as yours,” he said. “Come to the theatre.”

•   •   •

At ten o’clock the next morning Cosway found himself alone at the breakfast-table. He was informed that Mr. Stone had gone out for a little walk, and would be back directly. Seating himself at the table, he perceived an envelope on his plate, which evidently enclosed the bill. He took up the envelope, considered a little, and put it back again unopened. At the same moment Stone burst into the room in a high state of excitement.

“News that will astonish you!” he cried. “The captain arrived yesterday evening. His doctors say that the sea-voyage will complete his recovery. The ship sails today – and we are ordered to report ourselves on board in an hour’s time. Where’s the bill?”

Cosway pointed to it. Stone took it out of the envelope.

It covered two sides of a prodigiously long sheet of paper. The sum total was brightly decorated with lines in red ink. Stone looked at the total, and passed it in silence to Cosway. For once, even Cosway was prostrated. In dreadful stillness the two young men produced their pocketbooks; added up their joint stores of money, and compared the result with the bill. Their united resources amounted to a little more than one-third of their debt to the landlady of the inn.

The only alternative that presented itself was to send for Mrs. Pounce; to state the circumstances plainly; and to propose a compromise on the grand commercial basis of credit.

Mrs. Pounce presented herself superbly dressed in walking costume. Was she going out; or had she just returned to the inn? Not a word escaped her; she waited gravely to hear what the gentlemen wanted. Cosway, presuming on his position as favourite, produced the contents of the two pocketbooks and revealed the melancholy truth.

“There is all the money we have,” he concluded. “We hope you will not object to receive the balance in a bill at three months.”

Mrs. Pounce answered with a stern composure of voice and manner entirely new in the experience of Cosway and Stone.

“I have paid ready money, gentlemen, for the hire of your horses and carriages,” she said; “here are the receipts from the livery stables to vouch for me; I never accept bills unless I am quite sure beforehand that they will be honoured. I defy you to find an overcharge in the account now rendered; and I expect you to pay it before you leave my house.”

Stone looked at his watch.

“In three-quarters of an hour,” he said, “we must be on board.”

Mrs. Pounce entirely agreed with him. “And if you are not on board,” she remarked “you will be tried by court-martial, and dismissed the service with your characters ruined for life.”

“My dear creature, we haven’t time to send home, and we know nobody in the town,” pleaded Cosway. “For God’s sake take our watches and jewellery, and our luggage – and let us go.”

“I am not a pawnbroker,” said the inflexible lady. “You must either pay your lawful debt to me in honest money, or—”

She paused and looked at Cosway. Her fat face brightened – she smiled graciously for the first time.

Cosway stared at her in unconcealed perplexity. He helplessly repeated her last words. “We must either pay the bill,” he said, “or what?”

“Or,” answered Mrs. Pounce, “one of you must marry ME.”

Was she joking? Was she intoxicated? Was she out of her senses? Neither of the three; she was in perfect possession of herself; her explanation was a model of lucid and convincing arrangement of facts.

“My position here has its drawbacks,” she began. “I am a lone widow; I am known to have an excellent business, and to have saved money. The result is that I am pestered to death by a set of needy vagabonds who want to marry me. In this position, I am exposed to slanders and insults. Even if I didn’t know that the men were after my money, there is not one of them whom I would venture to marry. He might turn out a tyrant and beat me; or a drunkard, and disgrace me; or a betting man, and ruin me. What I want, you see, for my own peace and protection, is to be able to declare myself married, and to produce the proof in the shape of a certificate. A born gentleman, with a character to lose, and so much younger in years than myself that he wouldn’t think of living with me – there is the sort of husband who suits my book! I’m a reasonable woman, gentlemen. I would undertake to part with my husband at the church door – never to attempt to see him or write to him afterward – and only to show my certificate when necessary, without giving any explanations. Your secret would be quite safe in my keeping. I don’t care a straw for either of you, so long as you answer my purpose. What do you say to paying my bill (one or the other of you) in this way? I am ready dressed for the altar; and the clergyman has notice at the church. My preference is for Mr. Cosway,” proceeded this terrible woman with the cruelest irony, “because he has been so particular in his attentions toward me. The license (which I provided on the chance a fortnight since) is made out in his name. Such is my weakness for Mr. Cosway. But that don’t matter if Mr. Stone would like to take his place. He can hail by his friend’s name. Oh, yes, he can! I have consulted my lawyer. So long as the bride and bridegroom agree to it, they may be married in any name they like, and it stands good. Look at your watch again, Mr. Stone. The church is in the next street. By my calculation, you have just got five minutes to decide. I’m a punctual woman, my little dears; and I will be back to the moment.”

She opened the door, paused, and returned to the room.

“I ought to have mentioned,” she resumed, “that I shall make you a present of the bill, receipted, on the conclusion of the ceremony. You will be taken to the ship in my own boat, with all your money in your pockets, and a hamper of good things for the mess. After that I wash my hands of you. You may go to the devil your own way.”

With this parting benediction, she left them.

Caught in the landlady’s trap, the two victims looked at each other in expressive silence. Without time enough to take legal advice; without friends on shore; without any claim on officers of their own standing in the ship, the prospect before them was literally limited to Marriage or Ruin. Stone made a proposal worthy of a hero.

“One of us must marry her,” he said; “I’m ready to toss up for it.”

Cosway matched him in generosity. “No,” he answered. “It was I who brought you here; and I who led you into these infernal expenses. I ought to pay the penalty – and I will.”

Before Stone could remonstrate, the five minutes expired. Punctual Mrs. Pounce appeared again in the doorway.

“Well?” she inquired, “which is it to be – Cosway, or Stone?”

Cosway advanced as reckless as ever, and offered his arm.

“Now then, Fatsides,” he said, “come and be married!”

In five-and-twenty minutes more, Mrs. Pounce had become Mrs. Cosway; and the two officers were on their way to the ship.

The Second Epoch
in Mr. Cosway’s Life

Four years elapsed before the Albicore returned to the port from which she had sailed.

In that interval, the death of Cosway’s parents had taken place. The lawyer who had managed his affairs, during his absence from England, wrote to inform him that his inheritance from his late father’s “estate” was eight hundred a year. His mother only possessed a life interest in her fortune; she had left her jewels to her son, and that was all.

Cosway’s experience of the life of a naval officer on foreign stations (without political influence to hasten his promotion) had thoroughly disappointed him. He decided on retiring from the service when the ship was “paid off.” In the meantime, to the astonishment of his comrades, he seemed to be in no hurry to make use of the leave granted him to go on shore. The faithful Stone was the only man on board who knew that he was afraid of meeting his “wife.” This good friend volunteered to go to the inn, and make the necessary investigation with all needful prudence. “Four years is a long time, at her age,” he said. “Many things may happen in four years.”

An hour later, Stone returned to the ship, and sent a written message on board, addressed to his brother-officer, in these words: “Pack up your things at once, and join me on shore.”

“What news?” asked the anxious husband.

Stone looked significantly at the idlers on the landing-place. “Wait,” he said, “till we are by ourselves.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the railway station.”

They got into an empty carriage; and Stone at once relieved his friend of all further suspense.

“Nobody is acquainted with the secret of your marriage, but our two selves,” he began quietly. “I don’t think, Cosway, you need go into mourning.”

“You don’t mean to say she’s dead!”

“I have seen a letter (written by her own lawyer) which announces her death,” Stone replied. “It was so short that I believe I can repeat it word for word: ‘Dear Sir – I have received information of the death of my client. Please address your next and last payment, on account of the lease and goodwill of the inn, to the executors of the late Mrs. Cosway.’ There, that is the letter. ‘Dear Sir’ means the present proprietor of the inn. He told me your wife’s previous history in two words. After carrying on the business with her customary intelligence for more than three years, her health failed, and she went to London to consult a physician. There she remained under the doctor’s care. The next event was the appearance of an agent, instructed to sell the business in consequence of the landlady’s declining health. Add the death at a later time – and there is the beginning and the end of the story. Fortune owed you a good turn, Cosway – and Fortune has paid the debt. Accept my best congratulations.”

Arrived in London, Stone went on at once to his relations in the North. Cosway proceeded to the office of the family lawyer (Mr. Atherton), who had taken care of his interests in his absence. His father and Mr. Atherton had been schoolfellows and old friends. He was affectionately received, and was invited to pay a visit the next day to the lawyer’s villa at Richmond.

“You will be near enough to London to attend to your business at the Admiralty,” said Mr. Atherton, “and you will meet a visitor at my house, who is one of the most charming girls in England – the only daughter of the great Mr. Restall. Good heavens! have you never heard of him? My dear sir, he’s one of the partners in the famous firm of Benshaw, Restall, and Benshaw.”

Cosway was wise enough to accept this last piece of information as quite conclusive. The next day, Mrs. Atherton presented him to the charming Miss Restall; and Mrs. Atherton’s young married daughter (who had been his playfellow when they were children) whispered to him, half in jest, half in earnest: “Make the best use of your time; she isn’t engaged yet.”

Cosway shuddered inwardly at the bare idea of a second marriage. Was Miss Restall the sort of woman to restore his confidence?

She was small and slim and dark – a graceful, well-bred, brightly intelligent person, with a voice exquisitely sweet and winning in tone. Her ears, hands, and feet were objects to worship; and she had an attraction, irresistibly rare among the women of the present time – the attraction of a perfectly natural smile. Before Cosway had been an hour in the house, she discovered that his long term of service on foreign stations had furnished him with subjects of conversation which favourably contrasted with the commonplace gossip addressed to her by other men. Cosway at once became a favourite, as Othello became a favourite in his day.

The ladies of the household all rejoiced in the young officer’s success, with the exception of Miss Restall’s companion (supposed to hold the place of her lost mother, at a large salary), one Mrs. Margery.

Too cautious to commit herself in words, this lady expressed doubt and disapprobation by her looks. She had white hair, iron-grey eyebrows, and protuberant eyes; her looks were unusually expressive. One evening, she caught poor Mr. Atherton alone, and consulted him confidentially on the subject of Mr. Cosway’s income. This was the first warning which opened the eyes of the good lawyer to the nature of the “friendship” already established between his two guests. He knew Miss Restall’s illustrious father well, and he feared that it might soon be his disagreeable duty to bring Cosway’s visit to an end.

On a certain Saturday afternoon, while Mr. Atherton was still considering how he could most kindly and delicately suggest to Cosway that it was time to say good-bye, an empty carriage arrived at the villa. A note from Mr. Restall was delivered to Mrs. Atherton, thanking her with perfect politeness for her kindness to his daughter. “Circumstances,” he added, “rendered it necessary that Miss Restall should return home that afternoon.”

The “circumstances” were supposed to refer to a garden-party to be given by Mr. Restall in the ensuing week. But why was his daughter wanted at home before the day of the party?

The ladies of the family, still devoted to Cosway’s interests, entertained no doubt that Mrs. Margery had privately communicated with Mr. Restall, and that the appearance of the carriage was the natural result. Mrs. Atherton’s married daughter did all that could be done: she got rid of Mrs. Margery for one minute, and so arranged it that Cosway and Miss Restall took leave of each other in her own sitting-room.

When the young lady appeared in the hall she had drawn her veil down. Cosway escaped to the road and saw the last of the carriage as it drove away. In a little more than a fortnight his horror of a second marriage had become one of the dead and buried emotions of his nature. He stayed at the villa until Monday morning, as an act of gratitude to his good friends, and then accompanied Mr. Atherton to London. Business at the Admiralty was the excuse. It imposed on nobody. He was evidently on his way to Miss Restall.

“Leave your business in my hands,” said the lawyer, on the journey to town, “and go and amuse yourself on the Continent. I can’t blame you for falling in love with Miss Restall; I ought to have foreseen the danger, and waited till she had left us before I invited you to my house. But I may at least warn you to carry the matter no further. If you had eight thousand instead of eight hundred a year, Mr. Restall would think it an act of presumption on your part to aspire to his daughter’s hand, unless you had a title to throw into the bargain. Look at it in the true light, my dear boy; and one of these days you will thank me for speaking plainly.”

Cosway promised to “look at it in the true light.”

The result, from his point of view, led him into a change of residence. He left his hotel and took a lodging in the nearest bystreet to Mr. Restall’s palace at Kensington.

On the same evening he applied (with the confidence due to a previous arrangement) for a letter at the neighbouring post-office, addressed to E. C. – the initials of Edwin Cosway. “Pray be careful,” Miss Restall wrote; “I have tried to get you a card for our garden party. But that hateful creature, Margery, has evidently spoken to my father; I am not trusted with any invitation cards. Bear it patiently, dear, as I do, and let me hear if you have succeeded in finding a lodging near us.”

Not submitting to this first disappointment very patiently, Cosway sent his reply to the post-office, addressed to A. R. – the initials of Adela Restall. The next day the impatient lover applied for another letter. It was waiting for him, but it was not directed in Adela’s handwriting. Had their correspondence been discovered? He opened the letter in the street; and read, with amazement, these lines:

“Dear Mr. Cosway, my heart sympathizes with two faithful lovers, in spite of my age and my duty. I enclose an invitation to the party tomorrow. Pray don’t betray me, and don’t pay too marked attention to Adela. Discretion is easy. There will be twelve hundred guests. Your friend, in spite of appearances, Louisa Margery.”

How infamously they had all misjudged this excellent woman! Cosway went to the party a grateful, as well as a happy man. The first persons known to him, whom he discovered among the crowd of strangers, were the Athertons. They looked, as well they might, astonished to see him. Fidelity to Mrs. Margery forbade him to enter into any explanations. Where was that best and truest friend? With some difficulty he succeeded in finding her. Was there any impropriety in seizing her hand and cordially pressing it? The result of this expression of gratitude was, to say the least of it, perplexing.

Mrs. Margery behaved like the Athertons! She looked astonished to see him and she put precisely the same question: “How did you get here?” Cosway could only conclude that she was joking. “Who should know that, dear lady, better than yourself?” he rejoined. “I don’t understand you,” Mrs. Margery answered, sharply. After a moment’s reflection, Cosway hit on another solution of the mystery. Visitors were near them; and Mrs. Margery had made her own private use of one of Mr. Restall’s invitation cards. She might have serious reasons for pushing caution to its last extreme. Cosway looked at her significantly. “The least I can do is not to be indiscreet,” he whispered – and left her.

He turned into a side walk; and there he met Adela at last!

It seemed like a fatality. She looked astonished; and she said: “How did you get here?” No intrusive visitors were within hearing, this time. “My dear!” Cosway remonstrated, “Mrs. Margery must have told you, when she sent me my invitation.” Adela turned pale. “Mrs. Margery?” she repeated. “Mrs. Margery has said nothing to me; Mrs. Margery detests you. We must have this cleared up. No; not now – I must attend to our guests. Expect a letter; and, for heaven’s sake, Edwin, keep out of my father’s way. One of our visitors whom he particularly wished to see has sent an excuse – and he is dreadfully angry about it.”

She left him before Cosway could explain that he and Mr. Restall had thus far never seen each other.

He wandered away toward the extremity of the grounds, troubled by vague suspicions; hurt at Adela’s cold reception of him. Entering a shrubbery, which seemed intended to screen the grounds, at this point, from a lane outside, he suddenly discovered a pretty little summer-house among the trees. A stout gentleman, of mature years, was seated alone in this retreat. He looked up with a frown. Cosway apologized for disturbing him, and entered into conversation as an act of politeness.

“A brilliant assembly today, sir.”

The stout gentleman replied by an inarticulate sound – something between a grunt and a cough.

“And a splendid house and grounds,” Cosway continued.

The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound.

Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and dumb?

“Excuse my entering into conversation,” he persisted. “I feel like a stranger here. There are so many people whom I don’t know.”

The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had touched a sympathetic fibre at last.

“There are a good many people here whom I don’t know,” he said, gruffly. “You are one of them. What’s your name?”

“My name is Cosway, sir. What’s yours?”

The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out with an oath; and added the in tolerable question, already three times repeated by others: “How did you get here?” The tone was even more offensive than the oath. “Your age protects you, sir,” said Cosway, with the loftiest composure. “I’m sorry I gave my name to so rude a person.”

“Rude?” shouted the old gentleman. “You want my name in return, I suppose? You young puppy, you shall have it! My name is Restall.”

He turned his back and walked off. Cosway took the only course now open to him. He returned to his lodgings.

The next day no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the post-office. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening – and, with the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to him. She looked like a servant; and she was the bearer of a mysterious message.

“Please be at the garden-door that opens on the lane, at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Knock three times at the door – and then say ‘Adela.’ Someone who wishes you well will be alone in the shrubbery, and will let you in. No, sir! I am not to take anything; and I am not to say a word more.” She spoke – and vanished.

Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three times; he pronounced Miss Restall’s Christian name. Nothing happened. He waited a while, and tried again. This time Adela’s voice answered strangely from the shrubbery in tones of surprise: “Edwin, is it really you?”

“Did you expect anyone else?” Cosway asked. “My darling, your message said ten o’clock – and here I am.”

The door was suddenly unlocked.

“I sent no message,” said Adela, as they confronted each other on the threshold.

In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the summer-house. At Adela’s request, Cosway repeated the message that he had received, and described the woman who had delivered it. The description applied to no person known to Miss Restall. “Mrs. Margery never sent you the invitation; and I repeat, I never sent you the message. This meeting has been arranged by someone who knows that I always walk in the shrubbery after breakfast. There is some underhand work going on—”

Still mentally in search of the enemy who had betrayed them, she checked herself, and considered a little. “Is it possible—?” she began, and paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. “My mind is so completely upset,” she said, “that I can’t think clearly of anything. Oh, Edwin, we have had a happy dream, and it has come to an end. My father knows more than we think for. Some friends of ours are going abroad tomorrow – and I am to go with them. Nothing I can say has the least effect upon my father. He means to part us forever – and this is his cruel way of doing it!”

She put her arm round Cosway’s neck and lovingly laid her head on his shoulder. With tenderest kisses they reiterated their vows of eternal fidelity until their voices faltered and failed them. Cosway filled up the pause by the only useful suggestion which it was now in his power to make – he proposed an elopement.

Adela received this bold solution of the difficulty in which they were placed exactly as thousands of other young ladies have received similar proposals before her time, and after.

She first said positively No. Cosway persisted. She began to cry, and asked if he had no respect for her. Cosway declared that his respect was equal to any sacrifice except the sacrifice of parting with her forever. He could, and would, if she preferred it, die for her, but while he was alive he must refuse to give her up. Upon this she shifted her ground. Did he expect her to go away with him alone? Certainly not. Her maid could go with her, or, if her maid was not to be trusted, he would apply to his landlady, and engage “a respectable elderly person” to attend on her until the day of their marriage. Would she have some mercy on him, and just consider it? No: she was afraid to consider it. Did she prefer misery for the rest of her life? Never mind his happiness: it was her happiness only that he had in his mind. Travelling with unsympathetic people; absent from England, no one could say for how long; married, when she did return, to some rich man whom she hated – would she, could she, contemplate that prospect? She contemplated it through tears; she contemplated it to an accompaniment of sighs, kisses, and protestations – she trembled, hesitated, gave way. At an appointed hour of the coming night, when her father would be in the smoking-room, and Mrs. Margery would be in bed, Cosway was to knock at the door in the lane once more; leaving time to make all the necessary arrangements in the interval.

The one pressing necessity, under these circumstances, was to guard against the possibility of betrayal and surprise. Cosway discreetly alluded to the unsolved mysteries of the invitation and the message. “Have you taken anybody into our confidence?” he asked.

Adela answered with some embarrassment. “Only one person,” She said – “dear Miss Benshaw.”

“Who is Miss Benshaw?”

“Don’t you really know, Edwin? She is richer even than papa – she has inherited from her late brother one half-share in the great business in the City. Miss Benshaw is the lady who disappointed papa by not coming to the garden-party. You remember, dear, how happy we were when we were together at Mr. Atherton’s? I was very miserable when they took me away. Miss Benshaw happened to call the next day and she noticed it. ‘My dear,’ she said (Miss Benshaw is quite an elderly lady now), ‘I am an old maid, who has missed the happiness of her life, through not having had a friend to guide and advise her when she was young. Are you suffering as I once suffered?’ She spoke so nicely – and I was so wretched – that I really couldn’t help it. I opened my heart to her.”

Cosway looked grave. “Are you sure she is to be trusted?” he asked.

“Perfectly sure.”

“Perhaps, my love, she has spoken about us (not meaning any harm) to some friend of hers? Old ladies are so fond of gossip. It’s just possible – don’t you think so?”

Adela hung her head.

“I have thought it just possible myself,” she admitted. “There is plenty of time to call on her today. I will set our doubts at rest before Miss Benshaw goes out for her afternoon drive.”

On that understanding they parted.

Toward evening Cosway’s arrangements for the elopement were completed. He was eating his solitary dinner when a note was brought to him. It had been left at the door by a messenger. The man had gone away without waiting for an answer. The note ran thus:

“Miss Benshaw presents her compliments to Mr. Cosway, and will be obliged if he can call on her at nine o’clock this evening, on business which concerns himself.”

This invitation was evidently the result of Adela’s visit earlier in the day. Cosway presented himself at the house, troubled by natural emotions of anxiety and suspense. His reception was not of a nature to compose him. He was shown into a darkened room. The one lamp on the table was turned down low, and the little light thus given was still further obscured by a shade. The corners of the room were in almost absolute darkness.

A voice out of one of the corners addressed him in a whisper:

“I must beg you to excuse the darkened room. I am suffering from a severe cold. My eyes are inflamed, and my throat is so bad that I can only speak in a whisper. Sit down, sir. I have got news for you.”

“Not bad news, I hope, ma’am?” Cosway ventured to inquire.

“The worst possible news,” said the whispering voice. “You have an enemy striking at you in the dark.”

Cosway asked who it was, and received no answer. He varied the form of inquiry, and asked why the unnamed person struck at him in the dark. The experiment succeeded; he obtained a reply.

“It is reported to me,” said Miss Benshaw, “that the person thinks it necessary to give you a lesson, and takes a spiteful pleasure in doing it as mischievously as possible. The person, as I happen to know, sent you your invitation to the party, and made the appointment which took you to the door in the lane. Wait a little, sir; I have not done yet. The person has put it into Mr. Restall’s head to send his daughter abroad tomorrow.”

Cosway attempted to make her speak more plainly.

“Is this wretch a man or a woman?” he said.

Miss Benshaw proceeded without noticing the interruption.

“You needn’t be afraid, Mr. Cosway; Miss Restall will not leave England. Your enemy is all-powerful. Your enemy’s object could only be to provoke you into planning an elopement – and, your arrangements once completed, to inform Mr. Restall, and to part you and Miss Adela quite as effectually as if you were at opposite ends of the world. Oh, you will undoubtedly be parted! Spiteful, isn’t it? And, what is worse, the mischief is as good as done already.”

Cosway rose from his chair.

“Do you wish for any further explanation?” asked Miss Benshaw.

“One thing more,” he replied. “Does Adela know of this?”

“No,” said Miss Benshaw; “it is left to you to tell her.”

There was a moment of silence. Cosway looked at the lamp. Once roused, as usual with men of his character, his temper was not to be trifled with.

“Miss Benshaw,” he said, “I dare say you think me a fool; but I can draw my own conclusion, for all that. You are my enemy.”

The only reply was a chuckling laugh. All voices can be more or less effectually disguised by a whisper but a laugh carries the revelation of its own identity with it. Cosway suddenly threw off the shade over the lamp and turned up the wick.

The light flooded the room, and showed him – His Wife.

The Third Epoch
in Mr. Cosway’s Life

Three days had passed. Cosway sat alone in his lodging – pale and worn: the shadow already of his former self.

He had not seen Adela since the discovery. There was but one way in which he could venture to make the inevitable disclosure – he wrote to her; and Mr. Atherton’s daughter took care that the letter should be received. Inquiries made afterward, by help of the same good friend, informed him that Miss Restall was suffering from illness.

The mistress of the house came in.

“Cheer up, sir,” said the good woman. “There is better news of Miss Restall today.”

He raised his head.

“Don’t trifle with me!” he answered fretfully; “tell me exactly what the servant said.”

The mistress repeated the words. Miss Restall had passed a quieter night, and had been able for a few hours to leave her room. He asked next if any reply to his letter had arrived. No reply had been received.

If Adela definitely abstained from writing to him, the conclusion would be too plain to be mistaken. She had given him up – and who could blame her?

There was a knock at the street-door. The mistress looked out.

“Here’s Mr. Stone come back, sir!” she exclaimed joyfully – and hurried away to let him in.

Cosway never looked up when his friend appeared.

“I knew I should succeed,” said Stone. “I have seen your wife.”

“Don’t speak of her,” cried Cosway. “I should have murdered her when I saw her face, if I had not instantly left the house. I may be the death of the wretch yet, if you presist in speaking of her!”

Stone put his hand kindly on his friend’s shoulder.

“Must I remind you that you owe something to your old comrade?” he asked. “I left my father and mother, the morning I got your letter – and my one thought has been to serve you. Reward me. Be a man, and hear what is your right and duty to know. After that, if you like, we will never refer to the woman again.”

Cosway took his hand, in silent acknowledgement that he was right. They sat down together. Stone began.

“She is so entirely shameless,” he said, “that I had no difficulty in getting her to speak. And she so cordially hates you that she glories in her own falsehood and treachery.”

“Of course, she lies,” Cosway said bitterly, “when she calls herself Miss Benshaw?”

“No; she is really the daughter of the man who founded the great house in the City. With every advantage that wealth and position could give her the perverse creature married one of her father’s clerks, who had been deservedly dismissed from his situation. From that moment her family discarded her. With the money procured by the sale of her jewels, her husband took the inn which we have such bitter cause to remember – and she managed the house after his death. So much for the past. Carry your mind on now to the time when our ship brought us back to England. At that date, the last surviving member of your wife’s family – her elder brother – lay at the point of death. He had taken his father’s place in the business, besides inheriting his father’s fortune. After a happy married life he was left a widower, without children; and it became necessary that he should alter his will. He deferred performing his duty. It was only at the time of his last illness that he had dictated instructions for a new will, leaving his wealth (excepting certain legacies to old friends) to the hospitals of Great Britain and Ireland. His lawyer lost no time in carrying out the instructions. The new will was ready for signature (the old will having been destroyed by his own hand), when the doctors sent a message to say that their patient was insensible, and might die in that condition.”

“Did the doctors prove to be right?”

“Perfectly right. Our wretched landlady, as next of kin, succeeded, not only to the fortune, but (under the deed of partnership) to her late brother’s place in the firm: on the one easy condition of resuming the family name. She calls herself ‘Miss Benshaw.’ But as a matter of legal necessity she is set down in the deed as ‘Mrs. Cosway Benshaw.’ Her partners only now know that her husband is living, and that you are the Cosway whom she privately married. Will you take a little breathing time? or shall I go on, and get done with it?”

Cosway signed to him to go on.

“She doesn’t in the least care,” Stone proceeded, “for the exposure. ‘I am the head partner,’ she says ‘and the rich one of the firm; they daren’t turn their backs on Me.’ You remember the information I received – in perfect good faith on his part – from the man who keeps the inn? The visit to the London doctor, and the assertion of failing health, were adopted as the best means of plausibly severing the lady’s connection (the great lady now!) with a calling so unworthy of her as the keeping of an inn. Her neighbours at the seaport were all deceived by the stratagem, with two exceptions. They were both men – vagabonds who had pertinaciously tried to delude her into marrying them in the days when she was a widow. They refused to believe in the doctor and the declining health; they had their own suspicion of the motives which had led to the sale of the inn, under very unfavourable circumstances; and they decided on going to London, inspired by the same base hope of making discoveries which might be turned into a means of extorting money.”

“She escaped them, of course,” said Cosway. “How?”

“By the help of her lawyer, who was not above accepting a handsome private fee. He wrote to the new landlord of the inn, falsely announcing his client’s death, in the letter which I repeated to you in the railway carriage on our journey to London. Other precautions were taken to keep up the deception, on which it is needless to dwell. Your natural conclusion that you were free to pay your addresses to Miss Restall, and the poor young lady’s innocent confidence in ‘Miss Benshaw’s’ sympathy, gave this unscrupulous woman the means of playing the heartless trick on you which is now exposed. Malice and jealousy – I have it, mind, from herself! – were not her only motives. ‘But for that Cosway,’ she said (I spare you the epithet which she put before your name), ‘with my money and position, I might have married a needy lord, and sunned myself in my old age in the full blaze of the peerage.’ Do you understand how she hated you, now? Enough of the subject! The moral of it, my dear Cosway, is to leave this place, and try what change of scene will do for you. I have time to spare; and I will go abroad with you. When shall it be?”

“Let me wait a day or two more,” Cosway pleaded.

Stone shook his head. “Still hoping, my poor friend, for a line from Miss Restall? You distress me.”

“I am sorry to distress you, Stone. If I can get one pitying word from her, I can submit to the miserable life that lies before me.”

“Are you not expecting too much?”

“You wouldn’t say so, if you were as fond of her as I am.”

They were silent. The evening slowly darkened; and the mistress came in as usual with the candles. She brought with her a letter for Cosway.

He tore it open; read it in an instant; and devoured it with kisses. His highly wrought feelings found their vent in a little allowable exaggeration. “She has saved my life!” he said, as he handed the letter to Stone.

It only contained these lines:

“My love is yours, my promise is yours. Through all trouble, through all profanation, through the hopeless separation that may be before us in this world, I live yours – and die yours. My Edwin, God bless and comfort you.”

The Fourth Epoch
in Mr. Cosway’s Life

The separation had lasted for nearly two years, when Cosway and Stone paid that visit to the country house which is recorded at the outset of the present narrative. In the interval nothing had been heard of Miss Restall, except through Mr. Atherton. He reported that Adela was leading a very quiet life. The one remarkable event had been an interview between “Miss Benshaw” and herself. No other person had been present; but the little that was reported placed Miss Restall’s character above all praise. She had forgiven the woman who had so cruelly injured her!

The two friends, it may be remembered, had travelled to London, immediately after completing the fullest explanation of Cosway’s startling behaviour at the breakfast-table. Stone was not by nature a sanguine man. “I don’t believe in our luck,” he said. “Let us be quite sure that we are not the victims of another deception.”

The accident had happened on the Thames; and the newspaper narrative proved to be accurate in every respect. Stone personally attended the inquest. From a natural feeling of delicacy toward Adela, Cosway hesitated to write to her on the subject. The ever-helpful Stone wrote in his place.

After some delay, the answer was received. It enclosed a brief statement (communicated officially by legal authority) of the last act of malice on the part of the late head-partner in the house of Benshaw and Company. She had not died intestate, like her brother. The first clause of her will contained the testator’s grateful recognition of Adela Restall’s Christian act of forgiveness. The second clause (after stating that there were neither relatives nor children to be benefited by the will) left Adela Restall mistress of Mrs. Cosway Benshaw’s fortune – on the one merciless condition that she did not marry Edwin Cosway. The third clause – if Adela Restall violated the condition – handed over the whole of the money to the firm in the City, “for the extension of the business, and the benefit of the surviving partners.”

Some months later, Adela came of age. To the indignation of Mr. Restall, and the astonishment of the “Company,” the money actually went to the firm. The fourth epoch in Mr. Cosway’s life witnessed his marriage to a woman who cheerfully paid half a million of money for the happiness of passing her life, on eight hundred a year, with the man whom she loved.

But Cosway felt bound in gratitude to make a rich woman of his wife, if work and resolution could do it. When Stone last heard of him, he was reading for the bar; and Mr. Atherton was ready to give him his first brief.

NOTE. – That “most improbable” part of the present narrative, which is contained in the division called The First Epoch, is founded on an adventure which actually occurred to no less a person than a cousin of Sir Walter Scott. In Lockhart’s delightful “Life,” the anecdote will be found as told by Sir Walter to Captain Basil Hall. The remainder of the present story is entirely imaginary. The writer wondered what such a woman as the landlady would do under certain given circumstances, after her marriage to the young midshipman – and here is the result.

First published as
“Your Money or Your Life”
People’s Library 17 Dec 1881

MR. MEDHURST
AND THE PRINCESS

•  I  •

The day before I left London, to occupy the post of second secretary of legation at a small German Court, I took leave of my excellent French singing-master, Monsieur Bonnefoy, and of his young and pretty daughter named Jeanne.

Our farewell interview was saddened by Monsieur Bonnefoy’s family anxieties. His elder brother, known in the household as Uncle David, had been secretly summoned to Paris by order of a republican society. Anxious relations in London (whether reasonably or not, I am unable to say) were in some fear of the political consequences that might follow.

At parting, I made Mademoiselle Jeanne a present, in the shape of a plain gold brooch. For some time past, I had taken my lessons at Monsieur Bonnefoy’s house; his daughter and I often sang together under his direction. Seeing much of Jeanne, under these circumstances, the little gift that I had offered to her was only the natural expression of a true interest in her welfare. Idle rumour asserted – quite falsely – that I was in love with her. I was sincerely the young lady’s friend: no more, no less.

Having alluded to my lessons in singing, it may not be out of place to mention the circumstances under which I became Monsieur Bonnefoy’s pupil, and to allude to the change in my life that followed in due course of time.

Our family property – excepting the sum of five thousand pounds left to me by my mother – is landed property strictly entailed. The estates were inherited by my only brother, Lord Medhurst; the kindest, the best, and, I grieve to say it, the unhappiest of men. He lived separated from a bad wife; he had no children to console him; and he only enjoyed at rare intervals the blessing of good health. Having myself nothing to live on but the interest of my mother’s little fortune, I had to make my own way in the world. Poor younger sons, not possessed of the commanding ability which achieves distinction, find the roads that lead to prosperity closed to them, with one exception. They can always apply themselves to the social arts which make a man agreeable in society. I had naturally a good voice, and I cultivated it. I was ready to sing, without being subject to the wretched vanity which makes objections and excuses – I pleased the ladies – the ladies spoke favourably of me to their husbands – and some of their husbands were persons of rank and influence. After no very long lapse of time, the result of this combination of circumstances declared itself. Monsieur Bonnefoy’s lessons became the indirect means of starting me on a diplomatic career – and the diplomatic career made poor Ernest Medhurst, to his own unutterable astonishment, the hero of a love story!

The story being true, I must beg to be excused, if I abstain from mentioning names, places, and dates, when I enter on German ground. Let it be enough to say that I am writing of a bygone year in the present century, when no such thing as a German Empire existed, and when the revolutionary spirit of France was still an object of well-founded suspicion to tyrants by right divine on the continent of Europe.

•  II  •

On joining the legation, I was not particularly attracted by my chief, the Minister. His manners were oppressively polite; and his sense of his own importance was not sufficiently influenced by diplomatic reserve. I venture to describe him (mentally speaking) as an empty man, carefully trained to look full on public occasions.

My colleague, the first secretary, was a far more interesting person. Bright, unaffected, and agreeable, he at once interested me when we were introduced to each other. I pay myself a compliment, as I consider, when I add that he became my firm and true friend.

We took a walk together in the palace gardens on the evening of my arrival. Reaching a remote part of the grounds, we were passed by a lean, sallow, sour-looking old man, drawn by a servant in a chair on wheels. My companion stopped, whispered to me, “Here is the Prince,” and bowed bareheaded. I followed his example as a matter of course. The Prince feebly returned our salutation. “Is he ill?” I asked, when we had put our hats on again.

“Shakespeare,” the secretary replied, “tells us that ‘one man in his time plays many parts.’ Under what various aspects the Prince’s character may have presented itself, in his younger days, I am not able to tell you. Since I have been here, he has played the part of a martyr to illness, misunderstood by his doctors.”

“And his daughter, the Princess – what do you say of her?”

“Ah, she is not so easily described! I can only appeal to your memory of other women like her, whom you must often have seen – women who are tall and fair, and fragile and elegant; who have delicate aquiline noses and melting blue eyes – women who have often charmed you by their tender smiles and their supple graces of movement. As for the character of this popular young lady, I must not influence you either way; study it for yourself.”

“Without a hint to guide me?”

“With a suggestion,” he replied, “which may be worth considering. If you wish to please the Princess, begin by endeavouring to win the good graces of the Baroness.”

“Who is the Baroness?”

“One of the ladies in waiting – bosom friend of her Highness, and chosen repository of all her secrets. Personally, not likely to attract you; short and fat, and ill-tempered and ugly. Just at this time, I happen myself to get on with her better than usual. We have discovered that we possess one sympathy in common – we are the only people at Court who don’t believe in the Prince’s new doctor.”

“Is the new doctor a quack?”

The secretary looked round, before he answered, to see that nobody was near us.

“It strikes me,” he said, “that the Doctor is a spy. Mind! I have no right to speak of him in that way; it is only my impression – and I ought to add that appearances are all in his favour. He is in the service of our nearest royal neighbour, the Grand Duke; and he has been sent here expressly to relieve the sufferings of the Duke’s good friend and brother, our invalid Prince. This is an honourable mission no doubt. And the man himself is handsome, well-bred, and (I don’t quite know whether this is an additional recommendation) a countryman of ours. Nevertheless I doubt him, and the Baroness doubts him. You are an independent witness; I shall be anxious to hear if your opinion agrees with ours.”

I was presented at Court, toward the end of the week; and, in the course of the next two or three days, I more than once saw the Doctor. The impression that he produced on me surprised my colleague. It was my opinion that he and the Baroness had mistaken the character of a worthy and capable man.

The secretary obstinately adhered to his own view.

“Wait a little,” he answered, “and we shall see.”

He was quite right. We did see.

•  III  •

But the Princess – the gentle, gracious, beautiful Princess – what can I say of her Highness?

I can only say that she enchanted me.

I had been a little discouraged by the reception that I met with from her father. Strictly confining himself within the limits of politeness, he bade me welcome to his Court in the fewest possible words, and then passed me by without further notice. He afterward informed the English Minister that I had been so unfortunate as to try his temper: “Your new secretary irritates me, sir – he is a person in an offensively perfect state of health.” The Prince’s charming daughter was not of her father’s way of thinking; it is impossible to say how graciously, how sweetly I was received. She honoured me by speaking to me in my own language, of which she showed herself to be a perfect mistress. I was not only permitted, but encouraged, to talk of my family, and to dwell on my own tastes, amusements, and pursuits. Even when her Highness’s attention was claimed by other persons waiting to be presented, I was not forgotten. The Baroness was instructed to invite me for the next evening to the Princess’s tea-table; and it was hinted that I should be especially welcome if I brought my music with me, and sang.

My friend the secretary, standing near us at the time, looked at me with a mysterious smile. He had suggested that I should make advances to the Baroness – and here was the Baroness (under royal instructions) making advances to Me!

“We know what that means,” he whispered.

In justice to myself, I must declare that I entirely failed to understand him.

On the occasion of my second reception by the Princess, at her little evening party, I detected the Baroness, more than once, in the act of watching her Highness and myself, with an appearance of disapproval in her manner, which puzzled me. When I had taken my leave, she followed me out of the room.

“I have a word of advice to give you,” she said. “The best thing you can do, sir, is to make an excuse to your Minister, and go back to England.”

I declare again, that I entirely failed to understand the Baroness.

•  IV  •

Before the season came to an end, the Court removed to the Prince’s country-seat, in the interests of his Highness’s health. Entertainments were given (at the Doctor’s suggestion), with a view of raising the patient’s depressed spirits. The members of the English legation were among the guests invited. To me it was a delightful visit. I had again every reason to feel gratefully sensible of the Princess’s condescending kindness. Meeting the secretary one day in the library, I said that I thought her a perfect creature. Was this an absurd remark to make? I could see nothing absurd in it – and yet my friend burst out laughing.

“My good fellow, nobody is a perfect creature,” he said. “The Princess has her faults and failings, like the rest of us.”

I denied it positively.

“Use your eyes,” he went on; “and you will see, for example, that she is shallow and frivolous. Yesterday was a day of rain. We were all obliged to employ ourselves somehow indoors. Didn’t you notice that she had no resources in herself? She can’t even read.”

“There you are wrong at any rate,” I declared. “I saw her reading the newspaper.”

“You saw her with the newspaper in her hand. If you had not been deaf and blind to her defects, you would have noticed that she couldn’t fix her attention on it. She was always ready to join in the chatter of the ladies about her. When even their stores of gossip were exhausted, she let the newspaper drop on her lap, and sat in vacant idleness smiling at nothing.”

I reminded him that she might have met with a dull number of the newspaper. He took no notice of this unanswerable reply.

“You were talking the other day of her warmth of feeling,” he proceeded. “She has plenty of sentiment (German sentiment), I grant you, but no true feeling. What happened only this morning, when the Prince was in the breakfast-room, and when the Princess and her ladies were dressed to go out riding? Even she noticed the wretchedly depressed state of her father’s spirits. A man of that hypochondriacal temperament suffers acutely, though he may only fancy himself to be ill. The Princess overflowed with sympathy, but she never proposed to stay at home, and try to cheer the old man. Her filial duty was performed to her own entire satisfaction when she had kissed her hand to the Prince. The moment after, she was out of the room – eager to enjoy her ride. We all heard her laughing gaily among the ladies in the hall.”

I could have answered this also, if our discussion had not been interrupted at the moment. The Doctor came into the library in search of a book. When he had left us, my colleague’s strong prejudice against him instantly declared itself.

“Be on your guard with that man,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Haven’t you noticed,” he replied, “that when the Princess is talking to you, the Doctor always happens to be in that part of the room?”

“What does it matter where the Doctor is?”

My friend looked at me with an oddly mingled expression of doubt and surprise. “Do you really not understand me?” he said.

“I don’t indeed.”

“My dear Ernest, you are a rare and admirable example to the rest of us – you are a truly modest man.”

What did he mean?

•  V  •

Events followed, on the next day, which (as will presently be seen) I have a personal interest in relating.

The Baroness left us suddenly, on leave of absence. The Prince wearied of his residence in the country; and the Court returned to the capital. The charming Princess was reported to be “indisposed,” and retired to the seclusion of her own apartments.

A week later, I received a note from the Baroness, marked “private and confidential.” It informed me that she had resumed her duties as lady-in-waiting, and that she wished to see me at my earliest convenience. I obeyed at once; and naturally asked if there were better accounts of her Highness’s health.

The Baroness’s reply a little surprised me. She said, “The Princess is perfectly well.”

“Recovered already!” I exclaimed.

“She has never been ill,” the Baroness answered. “Her indisposition was a sham; forced on her by me, in her own interests. Her reputation is in peril; and you – you hateful Englishman – are the cause of it.”

Not feeling disposed to put up with such language as this, even when it was used by a lady, I requested that she would explain herself. She complied without hesitation. In another minute my eyes were opened to the truth. I knew – no; that is too positive – let me say I had reason to believe that the Princess loved me!

It is simply impossible to convey to the minds of others any idea of the emotions that overwhelmed me at that critical moment of my life. I was in a state of confusion at the time; and, when my memory tries to realize it, I am in a state of confusion now. The one thing I can do is to repeat what the Baroness said to me when I had in some degree recovered my composure.

“I suppose you are aware,” she began, “of the disgrace to which the Princess’s infatuation exposes her, if it is discovered? On my own responsibility I repeat what I said to you a short time since. Do you refuse to leave this place immediately?”

Does the man live, honoured as I was, who would have hesitated to refuse? Find him if you can!

“Very well,” she resumed. “As the friend of the Princess, I have no choice now but to take things as they are, and to make the best of them. Let us realize your position to begin with. If you were (like your elder brother) a nobleman possessed of vast estates, my royal mistress might be excused. As it is, whatever you may be in the future, you are nothing now but an obscure young man, without fortune or title. Do you see your duty to the Princess? or must I explain it to you?”

I saw my duty as plainly as she did. “Her Highness’s secret is a sacred secret,” I said. “I am bound to shrink from no sacrifice which may preserve it.”

The Baroness smiled maliciously. “I may have occasion,” she answered, “to remind you of what you have just said. In the meanwhile the Princess’s secret is in danger of discovery.”

“By her father?”

“No. By the Doctor.”

At first, I doubted whether she was in jest or in earnest. The next instant, I remembered that the secretary had expressly cautioned me against that man.

“It is evidently one of your virtues,” the Baroness proceeded, “to be slow to suspect. Prepare yourself for a disagreeable surprise. The Doctor has been watching the Princess, on every occasion when she speaks to you, with some object of his own in view. During my absence, young sir, I have been engaged in discovering what that object is. My excellent mother lives at the Court of the Grand Duke, and enjoys the confidence of his Ministers. He is still a bachelor; and, in the interests of the succession to the throne, the time has arrived when he must marry. With my mother’s assistance, I have found out that the Doctor’s medical errand here is a pretence. Influenced by the Princess’s beauty the Grand Duke has thought of her first as his future duchess. Whether he has heard slanderous stories, or whether he is only a cautious man, I can’t tell you. But this I know: he has instructed his physician – if he had employed a professed diplomatist his motive might have been suspected – to observe her Highness privately, and to communicate the result. The object of the report is to satisfy the Duke that the Princess’s reputation is above the reach of scandal; that she is free from entanglements of a certain kind; and that she is in every respect a person to whom he can with propriety offer his hand in marriage. The Doctor, Mr. Ernest, is not disposed to allow you to prevent him from sending in a favourable report. He has drawn his conclusions from the Princess’s extraordinary kindness to the second secretary of the English legation; and he is only waiting for a little plainer evidence to communicate his suspicions to the Prince. It rests with you to save the Princess.”

“Only tell me how I am to do it!” I said.

“There is but one way of doing it,” she answered; “and that way has (comically enough) been suggested to me by the Doctor himself.”

Her tone and manner tried my patience.

“Come to the point!” I said.

She seemed to enjoy provoking me.

“No hurry, Mr. Ernest – no hurry! You shall be fully enlightened, if you will only wait a little. The Prince, I must tell you, believes in his daughter’s indisposition. When he visited her this morning, he was attended by his medical adviser. I was present at the interview. To do him justice, the Doctor is worthy of the trust reposed in him – he boldly attempted to verify his suspicions of the daughter in the father’s presence.”

“How?”

“Oh, in the well-known way that has been tried over and over again, under similar circumstances! He merely invented a report that you were engaged in a love-affair with some charming person in the town. Don’t be angry; there’s no harm done.”

“But there is harm done,” I insisted. “What must the Princess think of me?”

“Do you suppose she is weak enough to believe the Doctor? Her Highness beat him at his own weapons; not the slightest sign of agitation on her part rewarded his ingenuity. All that you have to do is to help her to mislead this medical spy. It’s as easy as lying: and easier. The Doctor’s slander declares that you have a love-affair in the town. Take the hint – and astonish the Doctor by proving that he has hit on the truth.”

It was a hot day; the Baroness was beginning to get excited. She paused and fanned herself.

“Do I startle you?” she asked.

“You disgust me.”

She laughed.

“What a thick-headed man this is!” she said, pleasantly. “Must I put it more plainly still? Engage in what your English prudery calls a ‘flirtation,’ with some woman here – the lower in degree the better, or the Princess might be jealous – and let the affair be seen and known by everybody about the Court. Sly as he is, the Doctor is not prepared for that! At your age, and with your personal advantages, he will take appearances for granted; he will conclude that he has wronged you, and misinterpreted the motives of the Princess. The secret of her Highness’s weakness will be preserved – thanks to that sacrifice, Mr. Ernest, which you are so willing and so eager to make.”

It was useless to remonstrate with such a woman as this. I simply stated my own objection to her artfully devised scheme.

“I don’t wish to appear vain,” I said; “but the woman to whom I am to pay these attentions may believe that I really admire her – and it is just possible that she may honestly return the feeling which I am only assuming.”

“Well – and what then?”

“It’s hard on the woman, surely?”

The Baroness was shocked, unaffectedly shocked.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, “how can anything that you do for the Princess be hard on a woman of the lower orders? There must be an end of this nonsense, sir! You have heard what I propose, and you know what the circumstances are. My mistress is waiting for your answer. What am I to say?”

“Let me see her Highness, and speak for myself,” I said.

“Quite impossible today, without running too great a risk. Your reply must be made through me.”

There was to be a Court concert at the end of the week. On that occasion I should be able to make my own reply. In the meanwhile I only told the Baroness I wanted time to consider.

“What time?” she asked.

“Until tomorrow. Do you object?”

“On the contrary, I cordially agree. Your base hesitation may lead to results which I have not hitherto dared to anticipate.”

“What do you mean?”

“Between this and tomorrow,” the horrid woman replied, “the Princess may end in seeing you with my eyes. In that hope I wish you good-morning.”

•  VI  •

My enemies say that I am a weak man, unduly influenced by persons of rank – because of their rank. If this we re true, I should have found little difficulty in consenting to adopt the Baroness’s suggestion. As it was, the longer I reflected on the scheme the less I liked it. I tried to think of some alternative that might be acceptably proposed. The time passed, and nothing occurred to me. In this embarrassing position my mind became seriously disturbed; I felt the necessity of obtaining some relief, which might turn my thoughts for a while into a new channel. The secretary called on me, while I was still in doubt what to do. He reminded me that a new prima donna was advertised to appear on that night; and he suggested that we should go to the opera. Feeling as I did at the time, I readily agreed.

We found the theatre already filled, before the performance began. Two French gentlemen were seated in the row of stalls behind us. They were talking of the new singer.

“She is advertised as ‘Mademoiselle Fontenay,’” one of them said. “That sounds like an assumed name.”

“It is an assumed name,” the other replied. “She is the daughter of a French singing-master, named Bonnefoy.”

To my friend’s astonishment I started to my feet, and left him without a word of apology. In another minute I was at the stage-door, and had sent in my card to “Mademoiselle Fontenay.” While I was waiting, I had time to think. Was it possible that Jeanne had gone on the stage? Or were there two singing-masters in existence named Bonnefoy? My doubts were soon decided. The French woman-servant whom I remembered when I was Monsieur Bonnefoy’s pupil, made her appearance, and conducted me to her young mistress’s dressing-room. Dear good Jeanne, how glad she was to see me!

I found her standing before the glass, having just completed her preparations for appearing on the stage. Dressed in her picturesque costume, she was so charming that I expressed my admiration heartily, as became her old friend. “Do you really like me?” she said, with the innocent familiarity which I recollected so well. “See how I look in the glass – that is the great test.” It was not easy to apply the test. Instead of looking at her image in the glass, it was far more agreeable to look at herself. We were interrupted – too soon interrupted – by the call-boy. He knocked at the door, and announced that the overture had begun.

“I have a thousand things to ask you,” I told her. “What has made this wonderful change in your life? How is it that I don’t see your father—”

Her face instantly saddened; her hand trembled as she laid it on my arm to silence me.

“Don’t speak of him now,” she said, “or you will unnerve me. Come to me tomorrow when the stage will not be waiting; Annette will give you my address.” She opened the door to go out, and returned. “Will you think me very unreasonable if I ask you not to make one of my audience tonight? You have reminded me of the dear old days that can never come again. If I feel that I am singing to you—” She left me to understand the rest, and turned away again to the door. As I followed her out, to say good-bye, she drew from her bosom the little brooch which had been my parting gift, and held it out to me. “On the stage, or off,” she said, “I always wear it. Good-night, Ernest.”

I was prepared to hear sad news when we met the next morning.

My good old friend and master had died suddenly. To add to the bitterness of that affliction, he had died in debt to a dear and intimate friend. For his daughter’s sake he had endeavoured to add to his little savings by speculating with borrowed money on the Stock Exchange. He had failed, and the loan advanced had not been repaid, when a fit of apoplexy struck him down. Offered the opportunity of trying her fortune on the operatic stage, Jeanne made the attempt, and was now nobly employed in earning the money to pay her father’s debt.

“It was the only way in which I could do justice to his memory,” she said, simply. “I hope you don’t object to my going on the stage?”

I took her hand, poor child – and let that simple action answer for me. I was too deeply affected to be able to speak.

“It is not in me to be a great actress,” she resumed; “but you know what an admirable musician my father was. He has taught me to sing, so that I can satisfy the critics, as well as please the public. There was what they call a great success last night. It has earned me an engagement for another year to come, and an increase of salary. I have already sent some money to our good old friend at home, and I shall soon send more. It is my one consolation – I feel almost happy again when I am paying my poor father’s debt. No more now of my sad story! I want to hear all that you can tell me of yourself.” She moved to the window, and looked out. “Oh, the beautiful blue sky! We used sometimes to take a walk, when we were in London, on fine days like this. Is there a park here?”

I took her to the palace gardens, famous for their beauty in that part of Germany.

Arm in arm we loitered along the pleasant walks. The lovely flowers, the bright sun, the fresh fragrant breeze, all helped her to recover her spirits. She began to be like the happy Jeanne of my past experience, as easily pleased as a child. When we sat down to rest, the lap of her dress was full of daisies. “Do you remember,” she said, “when you first taught me to make a daisy-chain? Are you too great a man to help me again now?”

We were still engaged with our chain, seated close together, when the smell of tobacco-smoke was wafted to us on the air.

I looked up and saw the Doctor passing us, enjoying his cigar. He bowed; eyed my pretty companion with a malicious smile; and passed on.

“Who is that man?” she asked.

“The Prince’s physician,” I replied.

“I don’t like him,” she said; “why did he smile when he looked at me?”

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “he thought we were lovers.”

She blushed. “Don’t let him think that! tell him we are only old friends.”

We were not destined to finish our flower chain on that day.

Another person interrupted us, whom I recognised as the elder brother of Monsieur Bonnefoy – already mentioned in these pages, under the name of Uncle David. Having left France for political reasons, the old republican had taken care of his niece after her father’s death, and had accepted the position of Jeanne’s business manager in her relations with the stage. Uncle David’s object, when he joined us in the garden, was to remind her that she was wanted at rehearsal, and must at once return with him to the theatre. We parted, having arranged that I was to see the performance on that night.

Later in the day, the Baroness sent for me again.

“Let me apologize for having misunderstood you yesterday,” she said: “and let me offer you my best congratulations. You have done wonders already in the way of misleading the Doctor. There is only one objection to that girl at the theatre – I hear she is so pretty that she may possibly displease the Princess. In other respects, she is just in the public position which will make your attentions to her look like the beginning of a serious intrigue. Bravo, Mr. Ernest – bravo!”

I was too indignant to place any restraint on the language in which I answered her.

“Understand, if you please,” I said, “that I am renewing an old friendship with Mademoiselle Jeanne – begun under the sanction of her father. Respect that young lady, madam, as I respect her.”

The detestable Baroness clapped her hands, as if she had been at the theatre.

“If you only say that to the Princess,” she remarked, “as well as you have said it to me, there will be no danger of arousing her Highness’s jealousy. I have a message for you. At the concert, on Saturday, you are to retire to the conservatory, and you may hope for an interview when the singers begin the second part of the programme. Don’t let me detain you any longer. Go back to your young lady, Mr. Ernest – pray go back!”

•  VII  •

On the second night of the opera the applications for places were too numerous to be received. Among the crowded audience, I recognised many of my friends. They persisted in believing an absurd report (first circulated, as I imagine, by the Doctor), which asserted that my interest in the new singer was something more than the interest of an old friend. When I went behind the scenes to congratulate Jeanne on her success, I was annoyed in another way – and by the Doctor again. He followed me to Jeanne’s room, to offer his congratulations; and he begged that I would introduce him to the charming prima donna. Having expressed his admiration, he looked at me with his insolently suggestive smile, and said he could not think of prolonging his intrusion. On leaving the room, he noticed Uncle David, waiting as usual to take care of Jeanne on her return from the theatre – looked at him attentively – bowed, and went out.

The next morning, I received a note from the Baroness, expressed in these terms:

“More news! My rooms look out on the wing of the palace in which the Doctor is lodged. Half an hour since, I discovered him at his window, giving a letter to a person who is a stranger to me. The man left the palace immediately afterward. My maid followed him, by my directions. Instead of putting the letter in the post, he took a ticket at the railway-station – for what place the servant was unable to discover. Here, you will observe, is a letter important enough to be dispatched by special messenger, and written at a time when we have succeeded in freeing ourselves from the Doctor’s suspicions. It is at least possible that he has decided on sending a favourable report of the Princess to the Grand Duke. If this is the case, please consider whether you will not act wisely (in her Highness’s interests) by keeping away from the concert.”

Viewing this suggestion as another act of impertinence on the part of the Baroness, I persisted in my intention of going to the concert. It was for the Princess to decide what course of conduct I was bound to follow. What did I care for the Doctor’s report to the Duke! Shall I own my folly? I do really believe I was jealous of the Duke.

•  VIII  •

Entering the Concert Room, I found the Princess alone on the dais, receiving the company. “Nervous prostration” had made it impossible for the Prince to be present. He was confined to his bedchamber; and the Doctor was in attendance on him.

I bowed to the Baroness, but she was too seriously offended with me for declining to take her advice to notice my salutation. Passing into the conservatory, it occurred to me that I might be seen, and possibly suspected, in the interval between the first and second parts of the programme, when the music no longer absorbed the attention of the audience. I went on, and waited outside on the steps that led to the garden; keeping the glass door open, so as to hear when the music of the second part of the concert began.

After an interval which seemed to be endless, I saw the Princess approaching me.

She had made the heat in the Concert Room an excuse for retiring for a while; and she had the Baroness in attendance on her to save appearances. Instead of leaving us to ourselves, the malicious creature persisted in paying the most respectful attentions to her mistress. It was impossible to make her understand that she was not wanted any longer until the Princess said sharply, “Go back to the music!” Even then, the detestable woman made a low curtsey, and answered: “I will return, Madam, in five minutes.”

I ventured to present myself in the conservatory.

The Princess was dressed with exquisite simplicity, entirely in white. Her only ornaments were white roses in her hair and in her bosom. To say that she looked lovely is to say nothing. She seemed to be the ethereal creature of some higher sphere; too exquisitely delicate and pure to be approached by a mere mortal man like myself. I was awed; I was silent. Her Highness’s sweet smile encouraged me to venture a little nearer. She pointed to a footstool which the Baroness had placed for her. “Are you afraid of me, Ernest?” she asked softly.

Her divinely beautiful eyes rested on me with a look of encouragement. I dropped on my knees at her feet. She had asked if I was afraid of her. This, if I may use such an expression, roused my manhood. My own boldness astonished me. I answered: “Madam, I adore you.”

She laid her fair hand on my head, and looked at me thoughtfully. “Forget my rank,” she whispered – “have I not set you the example? Suppose that I am nothing but an English Miss. What would you say to Miss?”

“I should say, I love you.”

“Say it to Me.”

My lips said it on her hand. She bent forward. My heart beats fast at the bare remembrance of it. Oh, heavens, her Highness kissed me!

“There is your reward,” she murmured, “for all you have sacrificed for my sake. What an effort it must have been to offer the pretence of love to an obscure stranger! The Baroness tells me this actress – this singer – what is she? – is pretty. Is it true?”

The Baroness was quite mischievous enough to have also mentioned the false impression, prevalent about the Court, that I was in love with Jeanne. I attempted to explain. The gracious Princess refused to hear me.

“Do you think I doubt you?” she said. “Distinguished by me, could you waste a look on a person in that rank of life?” She laughed softly, as if the mere idea of such a thing amused her. It was only for a moment: her thoughts took a new direction – they contemplated the uncertain future. “How is this to end?” she asked. “Dear Ernest, we are not in Paradise; we are in a hard cruel world which insists on distinctions in rank. To what unhappy destiny does the fascination which you exercise over me condemn us both?”

She paused – took one of the white roses out of her bosom – touched it with her lips – and gave it to me.

“I wonder whether you feel the burden of life as I feel it?” she resumed. “It is immaterial to me, whether we are united in this world or in the next. Accept my rose, Ernest, as an assurance that I speak with perfect sincerity. I see but two alternatives before us. One of them (beset with dangers) is elopement. And the other,” she added, with truly majestic composure, “is suicide.”

Would Englishmen in general have rightly understood such fearless confidence in them as this language implied? I am afraid they might have attributed it to what my friend the secretary called “German sentiment.” Perhaps they might even have suspected the Princess of quoting from some old-fashioned German play. Under the irresistible influence of that glorious creature, I contemplated with such equal serenity the perils of elopement and the martyrdom of love, that I was for the moment at a loss how to reply. In that moment, the evil genius of my life appeared in the conservatory. With haste in her steps, with alarm in her face, the Baroness rushed up to her royal mistress, and said, “For God’s sake, Madam, come away! The Prince desires to speak with you instantly.”

Her Highness rose, calmly superior to the vulgar excitement of her lady in waiting. “Think of it tonight,” she said to me, “and let me hear from you tomorrow.”

She pressed my hand; she gave me a farewell look. I sank into the chair that she had just left. Did I think of elopement? Did I think of suicide? The elevating influence of the Princess no longer sustained me; my nature became degraded. Horrid doubts rose in my mind. Did her father suspect us?

•  IX  •

Need I say that I passed a sleepless night?

The morning found me with my pen in my hand, confronting the serious responsibility of writing to the Princess, and not knowing what to say. I had already torn up two letters, when Uncle David presented himself with a message from his niece. Jeanne was in trouble, and wanted to ask my advice.

My state of mind, on hearing this, became simply inexplicable. Here was an interruption which ought to have annoyed me. It did nothing of the kind – it inspired me with a feeling of relief!

I naturally expected that the old Frenchman would return with me to his niece, and tell me what had happened. To my surprise, he begged that I would excuse him, and left me without a word of explanation. I found Jeanne walking up and down her little sitting-room, flushed and angry. Fragments of torn paper and heaps of flowers littered the floor; and three unopen jewel-cases appeared to have been thrown into the empty fireplace. She caught me excitedly by the hand the moment I entered the room.

“You are my true friend,” she said; “you were present the other night when I sang. Was there anything in my behaviour on the stage which could justify men who call themselves gentlemen in insulting me?”

“My dear, how can you ask the question?”

“I must ask it. Some of them send flowers, and some of them send jewels; and every one of them writes letters – infamous, abominable letters – saying they are in love with me, and asking for appointments as if I was—”

She could say no more. Poor dear Jeanne – her head dropped on my shoulder; she burst out crying. Who could see her so cruelly humiliated – the faithful loving daughter, whose one motive for appearing on the stage had been to preserve her father’s good name – and not feel for her as I did? I forgot all considerations of prudence; I thought of nothing but consoling her; I took her in my arms; I dried her tears; I kissed her; I said, “Tell me the name of any one of the wretches who has written to you, and I will make him an example to the rest!” She shook her head, and pointed to the morsels of paper on the floor. “Oh, Ernest, do you think I asked you to come here for any such purpose as that? Those jewels, those hateful jewels, tell me how I can send them back! spare me the sight of them!”

So far it was easy to console her. I sent the jewels at once to the manager of the theatre – with a written notice to be posted at the stage door, stating that they were waiting to be returned to the persons who could describe them.

“Try, my dear, to forget what has happened,” I said. “Try to find consolation and encouragement in your art.”

“I have lost all interest in my success on the stage,” she answered, “now I know the penalty I must pay for it. When my father’s memory is clear of reproach, I shall leave the theatre never to return to it again.”

“Take time to consider, Jeanne.”

“I will do anything you ask of me.”

For a while we were silent. Without any influence to lead to it that I could trace, I found myself recalling the language that the Princess had used in alluding to Jeanne. When I thought of them now, the words and the tone in which they had been spoken jarred on me. There is surely something mean in an assertion of superiority which depends on nothing better than the accident of birth. I don’t know why I took Jeanne’s hand; I don’t know why I said, “What a good girl you are! how glad I am to have been of some little use to you!” Is my friend the secretary right, when he reproaches me with acting on impulse, like a woman? I don’t like to think so; and yet, this I must own – it was well for me that I was obliged to leave her, before I had perhaps said other words which might have been alike unworthy of Jeanne, of the Princess, and of myself. I was called away to speak to my servant. He brought with him the secretary’s card, having a line written on it: “I am waiting at your rooms, on business which permits of no delay.”

As we shook hands, Jeanne asked me if I knew where her uncle was. I could only tell her that he had left me at my own door. She made no remark; but she seemed to be uneasy on receiving that reply.

•  X  •

When I arrived at my rooms, my colleague hurried to meet me the moment I opened the door.

“I am going to surprise you,” he said; “and there is no time to prepare you for it. Our chief, the Minister, has seen the Prince this morning, and has been officially informed of an event of importance in the life of the Princess. She is engaged to be married to the Grand Duke.”

Engaged to the Duke – and not a word from her to warn me of it! Engaged – after what she had said to me no longer ago than the past night! Had I been made a plaything to amuse a great lady? Oh, what degradation! I was furious; I snatched up my hat to go to the palace – to force my way to her – to overwhelm her with reproaches. My friend stopped me. He put an official document into my hand.

“There is your leave of absence from the legation,” he said; “beginning from today. I have informed the Minister, in strict confidence, of the critical position in which you are placed. He agrees with me that the Princess’s inexcusable folly is alone to blame. Leave us, Ernest, by the next train. There is some intrigue going on, and I fear you may be involved in it. You know that the rulers of these little German States can exercise despotic authority when they choose?”

“Yes! yes!”

“Whether the Prince has acted of his own free will – or whether he has been influenced by some person about him – I am not able to tell you. He has issued an order to arrest an old Frenchman, known to be a republican, and suspected of associating with one of the secret societies in this part of Germany. The conspirator has taken to flight; having friends, as we suppose, who warned him in time. But this, Ernest, is not the worst of it. That charming singer, that modest, pretty girl—”

“You don’t mean Jeanne?”

“I am sorry to say I do. Advantage has been taken of her relationship to the old man, to include that innocent creature in political suspicions which it is simply absurd to suppose that she has deserved. She is ordered to leave the Prince’s domains immediately. – Are you going to her?”

“Instantly!” I replied.

Could I feel a moment’s hesitation, after the infamous manner in which the Princess had sacrificed me to the Grand Duke? Could I think of the poor girl, friendless, helpless – with nobody near her but a stupid woman-servant, unable to speak the language of the country – and fail to devote myself to the protection of Jeanne? Thank God, I reached her lodgings in time to tell her what had happened, and to take it on myself to receive the police.

•  XI  •

In three days more, Jeanne was safe in London; having travelled under my escort. I was fortunate enough to find a home for her, in the house of a lady who had been my mother’s oldest and dearest friend.

We were separated, a few days afterward, by the distressing news which reached me of the state of my brother’s health. I went at once to his house in the country. His medical attendants had lost all hope of saving him: they told me plainly that his release from a life of suffering was near at hand.

While I was still in attendance at his bedside, I heard from the secretary. He enclosed a letter, directed to me in a strange handwriting. I opened the envelope and looked for the signature. My friend had been entrapped into sending me an anonymous letter.

Besides addressing me in French (a language seldom used in my experience at the legation), the writer disguised the identity of the persons mentioned by the use of classical names. In spite of these precautions, I felt no difficulty in arriving at a conclusion. My correspondent’s special knowledge of Court secrets, and her malicious way of communicating them, betrayed the Baroness.

I translate the letter; restoring to the persons who figure in it the names under which they are already known. The writer began in these satirically familiar terms:

When you left the Prince’s dominions, my dear sir, you no doubt believed yourself to be a free agent. Quite a mistake! You were a mere puppet; and the strings that moved you were pulled by the Doctor.

Let me tell you how.

On a certain night, which you well remember, the Princess was unexpectedly summoned to the presence of her father. His physician’s skill had succeeded in relieving the illustrious Prince, prostrate under nervous miseries. He was able to attend to a state affair of importance, revealed to him by the Doctor – who then for the first time acknowledged that he had presented himself at Court in a diplomatic, as well as in a medical capacity.

This state affair related to a proposal for the hand of the Princess, received from the Grand Duke through the authorized medium of the Doctor. Her Highness, being consulted, refused to consider the proposal. The Prince asked for her reason. She answered: ‘I have no wish to be married.’ Naturally irritated by such a ridiculous excuse, her father declared positively that the marriage should take place.

The impression produced on the Grand Duke’s favourite and emissary was of a different kind.

Certain suspicions of the Princess and yourself, which you had successfully contrived to dissipate, revived in the Doctor’s mind when he heard the lady’s reason for refusing to marry his royal master. It was now too late to regret that he had suffered himself to be misled by cleverly managed appearances. He could not recall the favourable report which he had addressed to the Duke – or withdraw the proposal of marriage which he had been commanded to make.

In this emergency, the one safe course open to him was to get rid of You – and, at the same time, so to handle circumstances as to excite against you the pride and anger of the Princess. In the pursuit of this latter object he was assisted by one of the ladies in waiting, sincerely interested in the welfare of her gracious mistress, and therefore ardently desirous of seeing her Highness married to the Duke.

A wretched old French conspirator was made the convenient pivot on which the intrigue turned.

An order for the arrest of this foreign republican having been first obtained, the Prince was prevailed on to extend his distrust of the Frenchman to the Frenchman’s niece. You know this already; but you don’t know why it was done. Having believed from the first that you were really in love with the young lady, the Doctor reckoned confidently on your devoting yourself to the protection of a friendless girl, cruelly exiled at an hour’s notice.

The one chance against us was that tender considerations, associated with her Highness, might induce you to hesitate. The lady in waiting easily moved this obstacle out of the way. She abstained from delivering a letter addressed to you, entrusted to her by the Princess. When the great lady asked why she had not received your reply, she was informed (quite truly) that you and the charming opera singer had taken your departure together. You may imagine what her Highness thought of you, and said of you, when I mention in conclusion that she consented, the same day, to marry the Duke.

So, Mr. Ernest, these clever people tricked you into serving their interests, blindfold. In relating how it was done, I hope I may have assisted you in forming a correct estimate of the state of your own intelligence. You have made a serious mistake in adopting your present profession. Give up diplomacy – and get a farmer to employ you in keeping his sheep.

•   •   •

Do I sometimes think regretfully of the Princess?

Permit me to mention a circumstance, and to leave my answer to be inferred. Jeanne is Lady Medhurst.

First published as
“Royal Love”
Longman’s Magazine Christmas 1884

MR. LISMORE
AND THE WIDOW

•  I  •

Late in the autumn, not many years since, a public meeting was held at the Mansion House, London, under the direction of the Lord Mayor.

The list of gentlemen invited to address the audience had been chosen with two objects in view. Speakers of celebrity, who would rouse public enthusiasm, were supported by speakers connected with commerce, who would be practically useful in explaining the purpose for which the meeting was convened. Money wisely spent in advertising had produced the customary result – every seat was occupied before the proceedings began.

Among the late arrivals, who had no choice but to stand or to leave the hall, were two ladies. One of them at once decided on leaving the hall. “I shall go back to the carriage,” she said, “and wait for you at the door.” Her friend answered, “I shan’t keep you long. He is advertised to support the second Resolution; I want to see him – and that is all.”

An elderly gentleman, seated at the end of a bench, rose and offered his place to the lady who remained. She hesitated to take advantage of his kindness, until he reminded her that he had heard what she said to her friend. Before the third Resolution was proposed, his seat would be at his own disposal again. She thanked him, and without further ceremony took his place He was provided with an opera-glass, which he more than once offered to her, when famous orators appeared on the platform; she made no use of it until a speaker – known in the City as a ship-owner – stepped forward to support the second Resolution.

His name (announced in the advertisements) was Ernest Lismore.

The moment he rose, the lady asked for the opera-glass. She kept it to her eyes for such a length of time, and with such evident interest in Mr. Lismore, that the curiosity of her neighbours was aroused. Had he anything to say in which a lady (evidently a stranger to him) was personally interested? There was nothing in the address that he delivered which appealed to the enthusiasm of women. He was undoubtedly a handsome man, whose appearance proclaimed him to be in the prime of life – midway perhaps between thirty and forty years of age. But why a lady should persist in keeping an opera-glass fixed on him all through his speech, was a question which found the general ingenuity at a loss for a reply.

Having returned the glass with an apology, the lady ventured on putting a question next. “Did it strike you, sir, that Mr. Lismore seemed to be out of spirits?” she asked.

“I can’t say it did, ma’am.”

“Perhaps you noticed that he left the platform the moment he had done?”

This betrayal of interest in the speaker did not escape the notice of a lady, seated on the bench in front. Before the old gentleman could answer, she volunteered an explanation.

“I am afraid Mr. Lismore is troubled by anxieties connected with his business,” she said. “My husband heard it reported in the City yesterday that he was seriously embarrassed by the failure—”

A loud burst of applause made the end of the sentence inaudible. A famous member of Parliament had risen to propose the third Resolution. The polite old man took his seat, and the lady left the hall to join her friend.

•   •   •

“Well, Mrs. Callender, has Mr. Lismore disappointed you?”

“Far from it! But I have heard a report about him which has alarmed me: he is said to be seriously troubled about money matters. How can I find out his address in the City?”

“We can stop at the first stationer’s shop we pass, and ask to look at the Directory. Are you going to pay Mr. Lismore a visit?”

“I am going to think about it.”

•  II  •

The next day a clerk entered Mr. Lismore’s private room at the office, and presented a visiting-card. Mrs. Callender had reflected, and had arrived at a decision. Underneath her name she had written these explanatory words: “On important business.”

“Does she look as if she wanted money?” Mr. Lismore inquired.

“Oh dear, no! She comes in her carriage.”

“Is she young or old?”

“Old, sir.”

To Mr. Lismore – conscious of the disastrous influence occasionally exercised over busy men by youth and beauty – this was a recommendation in itself. He said: “Show her in.”

Observing the lady, as she approached him, with the momentary curiosity of a stranger, he noticed that she still preserved the remains of beauty. She had also escaped the misfortune, common to persons at her time of life, of becoming too fat. Even to a man’s eye, her dressmaker appeared to have made the most of that favourable circumstance. Her figure had its defects concealed, and its remaining merits set off to advantage. At the same time she evidently held herself above the common deceptions by which some women seek to conceal their age. She wore her own grey hair; and her complexion bore the test of daylight. On entering the room, she made her apologies with some embarrassment. Being the embarrassment of a stranger (and not of a youthful stranger), it failed to impress Mr. Lismore favourably.

“I am afraid I have chosen an inconvenient time for my visit,” she began.

“I am at your service,” he answered a little stiffly; “especially if you will be so kind as to mention your business with me in few words.”

She was a woman of some spirit, and that reply roused her.

“I will mention it in one word,” she said smartly. “My business is – gratitude.”

He was completely at a loss to understand what she meant, and he said so plainly. Instead of explaining herself, she put a question.

“Do you remember the night of the eleventh of March, between five and six years since?”

He considered for a moment.

“No,” he said, “I don’t remember it. Excuse me, Mrs. Callender, I have affairs of my own to attend to which cause me some anxiety—”

“Let me assist your memory, Mr. Lismore; and I will leave you to your affairs. On the date that I have referred to, you were on your way to the railway-station at Bexmore, to catch the night express from the North to London.”

As a hint that his time was valuable the ship-owner had hitherto remained standing. He now took his customary seat, and began to listen with some interest. Mrs. Callender had produced her effect on him already.

“It was absolutely necessary,” she proceeded, “that you should be on board your ship in the London Docks at nine o’clock the next morning. If you had lost the express, the vessel would have sailed without you.”

The expression of his face began to change to surprise. “Who told you that?” he asked.

“You shall hear directly. On your way into the town, your carriage was stopped by an obstruction on the highroad. The people of Bexmore were looking at a house on fire.”

He started to his feet.

“Good heavens! are you the lady?”

She held up her hand in satirical protest.

“Gently, sir! You suspected me just now of wasting your valuable time. Don’t rashly conclude that I am the lady, until you find that I am acquainted with the circumstances.”

“Is there no excuse for my failing to recognise you?” Mr. Lismore asked. “We were on the dark side of the burning house; you were fainting, and I—”

“And you,” she interposed, “after saving me at the risk of your own life, turned a deaf ear to my poor husband’s entreaties, when he asked you to wait till I had recovered my senses.”

“Your poor husband? Surely, Mrs. Callender, he received no serious injury from the fire?”

“The firemen rescued him under circumstances of peril,” she answered, “and at his great age he sank under the shock. I have lost the kindest and best of men. Do you remember how you parted from him – burned and bruised in saving me? He liked to talk of it in his last illness. ‘At least’ (he said to you), ‘tell me the name of the man who has preserved my wife from a dreadful death.’ You threw your card to him out of the carriage window, and away you went at a gallop to catch your train! In all the years that have passed I have kept that card, and have vainly inquired for my brave sea-captain. Yesterday I saw your name on the list of speakers at the Mansion House. Need I say that I attended the meeting? Need I tell you now why I come here and interrupt you in business hours?”

She held out her hand. Mr. Lismore took it in silence, and pressed it warmly.

“You have not done with me yet,” she resumed with a smile. “Do you remember what I said of my errand, when I first came in?”

“You said it was an errand of gratitude.”

“Something more than the gratitude which only says ‘Thank you,’” she added. “Before I explain myself, however, I want to know what you have been doing, and how it was that my inquiries failed to trace you after that terrible night.”

The appearance of depression which Mrs. Callender had noticed at the public meeting showed itself again in Mr. Lismore’s face. He sighed as he answered her.

“My story has one merit,” he said; “it is soon told. I cannot wonder that you failed to discover me. In the first place, I was not captain of my ship at that time; I was only mate. In the second place, I inherited some money, and ceased to lead a sailor’s life, in less than a year from the night of the fire. You will now understand what obstacles were in the way of your tracing me. With my little capital I started successfully in business as a ship-owner. At the time, I naturally congratulated myself on my own good fortune. We little know, Mrs. Callender, what the future has in store for us.”

He stopped. His handsome features hardened – as if he was suffering (and concealing) pain. Before it was possible to speak to him, there was a knock at the door. Another visitor, without an appointment, had called; the clerk appeared again, with a card and a message.

“The gentleman begs you will see him, sir. He has something to tell you which is too important to be delayed.”

Hearing the message, Mrs. Callender rose immediately.

“It is enough for today that we understand each other,” she said. “Have you any engagement tomorrow, after the hours of business?”

“None.”

She pointed to her card on the writing-table. “Will you come to me tomorrow evening at that address? I am like the gentleman who has just called; I, too, have my reason for wishing to see you.”

He gladly accepted the invitation. Mrs. Callender stopped him as he opened the door for her.

“Shall I offend you,” she said, “if I ask a strange question before I go? I have a better motive, mind, than mere curiosity. Are you married?”

“No.”

“Forgive me again,” she resumed. “At my age, you cannot possibly misunderstand me; and yet—”

She hesitated. Mr. Lismore tried to give her confidence. “Pray don’t stand on ceremony, Mrs. Callender. Nothing that you can ask me need be prefaced by an apology.”

Thus encouraged, she ventured to proceed.

“You may be engaged to be married?” she suggested. “Or you may be in love?”

He found it impossible to conceal his surprise. But he answered without hesitation.

“There is no such bright prospect in my life,” he said. “I am not even in love.”

She left him with a little sigh. It sounded like a sigh of relief.

Ernest Lismore was thoroughly puzzled. What could be the old lady’s object in ascertaining that he was still free from a matrimonial engagement? If the idea had occurred to him in time, he might have alluded to her domestic life, and might have asked if she had children? With a little tact he might have discovered more than this. She had described her feeling toward him as passing the ordinary limits of gratitude; and she was evidently rich enough to be above the imputation of a mercenary motive. Did she propose to brighten those dreary prospects to which he had alluded in speaking of his own life? When he presented himself at her house the next evening, would she introduce him to a charming daughter?

He smiled as the idea occurred to him. “An appropriate time to be thinking of my chances of marriage!” he said to himself. “In another month I may be a ruined man.”

•  III  •

The gentleman who had so urgently requested an interview was a devoted friend – who had obtained a means of helping Ernest at a serious crisis in his affairs.

It had been truly reported that he was in a position of pecuniary embarrassment, owing to the failure of a mercantile house with which he had been intimately connected. Whispers affecting his own solvency had followed on the bankruptcy of the firm. He had already endeavoured to obtain advances of money on the usual conditions, and had been met by excuses for delay. His friend had now arrived with a letter of introduction to a capitalist, well known in commercial circles for his daring speculations and for his great wealth.

Looking at the letter, Ernest observed that the envelope was sealed. In spite of that ominous innovation on established usage, in cases of personal introduction, he presented the letter. On this occasion, he was not put off with excuses. The capitalist flatly declined to discount Mr. Lismore’s bills, unless they were backed by responsible names.

Ernest made a last effort.

He applied for help to two mercantile men whom he had assisted in their difficulties, and whose names would have satisfied the money-lender. They were most sincerely sorry – but they, too, refused.

The one security that he could offer was open, it must be owned, to serious objections on the score of risk. He wanted an advance of twenty thousand pounds, secured on a homeward-bound ship and cargo. But the vessel was not insured; and, at that stormy season, she was already more than a month overdue. Could grateful colleagues be blamed if they forgot their obligations when they were asked to offer pecuniary help to a merchant in this situation? Ernest returned to his office, without money and without credit.

A man threatened by ruin is in no state of mind to keep an engagement at a lady’s tea-table. Ernest sent a letter of apology to Mrs. Call ender, alleging extreme pressure of business as the excuse for breaking his engagement.

“Am I to wait for an answer, sir?” the messenger asked.

“No; you are merely to leave the letter.”

•  IV  •

In an hour’s time – to Ernest’s astonishment – the messenger returned with a reply.

“The lady was just going out, sir, when I rang at the door,” he explained, “and she took the letter from me herself. She didn’t appear to know your handwriting, and she asked me who I came from. When I mentioned your name, I was ordered to wait.”

Ernest opened the letter.

Dear Mr. Lismore – One of us must speak out, and your letter of apology forces me to be that one. If you are really so proud and so distrustfull as you seem to be, I shall offend you. If not, I shall prove myself to be your friend.

Your excuse is ‘pressure of business.’ The truth (as I have good reason to believe) is ‘want of money.’ I heard a stranger, at that public meeting, say that you were seriously embarrassed by some failure in the City.

Let me tell you what my own pecuniary position is in two words. I am the childless widow of a rich man—

Ernest paused. His anticipated discovery of Mrs. Callender’s “charming daughter” was in his mind for the moment. “That little romance must return to the world of dreams,” he thought – and went on with the letter.

After what I owe to you, I don’t regard it as repaying an obligation – I consider myself as merely performing a duty when I offer to assist you by a loan of money.

Wait a little before you throw my letter into the wastepaper basket.

Circumstances (which it is impossible for me to mention before we meet) put it out of my power to help you – unless I attach to my most sincere offer of service a very unusual and very embarrassing condition. If you are on the brink of ruin, that misfortune will plead my excuse – and your excuse, too, if you accept the loan on my terms. In any case, I rely on the sympathy and forbearance of the man to whom I owe my life.

After what I have now written, there is only one thing to add. I beg to decline accepting your excuses; and I shall expect to see you tomorrow evening, as we arranged. I am an obstinate old woman – but I am also your faithful friend and servant,

Mary Callender.

Ernest looked up from the letter. “What can this possibly mean?” he wondered.

But he was too sensible a man to be content with wondering – he decided on keeping his engagement.

•  V  •

What Doctor Johnson called “the insolence of wealth” appears far more frequently in the houses of the rich than in the manners of the rich. The reason is plain enough. Personal ostentation is, in the very nature of it, ridiculous. But the ostentation which exhibits magnificent pictures, priceless china, and splendid furniture, can purchase good taste to guide it, and can assert itself without affording the smallest opening for a word of depreciation, or a look of contempt. If I am worth a million of money, and if I am dying to show it, I don’t ask you to look at me – I ask you to look at my house.

Keeping his engagement with Mrs. Callender, Ernest discovered that riches might be lavishly and yet modestly used.

In crossing the hall and ascending the stairs, look where he might, his notice was insensibly won by proofs of the taste which is not to be purchased, and the wealth which uses but never exhibits its purse. Conducted by a manservant to the landing on the first floor, he found a maid at the door of the boudoir waiting to announce him. Mrs. Callender advanced to welcome her guest, in a simple evening dress perfectly suited to her age. All that had looked worn and faded in her fine face, by daylight, was now softly obscured by shaded lamps. Objects of beauty surrounded her, which glowed with subdued radiance from their background of sober colour. The influence of appearances is the strongest of all outward influences, while it lasts. For the moment, the scene produced its impression on Ernest, in spite of the terrible anxieties which consumed him. Mrs. Callender, in his office, was a woman who had stepped out of her appropriate sphere. Mrs. Callender, in her own house, was a woman who had risen to a new place in his estimation.

“I am afraid you don’t thank me for forcing you to keep your engagement,” she said, with her friendly tones and her pleasant smile.

“Indeed I do thank you,” he replied. “Your beautiful house and your gracious welcome have persuaded me into forgetting my troubles – for a while.”

The smile passed away from her face. “Then it is true,” she said gravely.

“Only too true.”

She led him to a seat beside her, and waited to speak again until her maid had brought in the tea.

“Have you read my letter in the same friendly spirit in which I wrote it?” she asked, when they were alone again.

“I have read your letter gratefully, but—”

“But you don’t know yet what I have to say. Let us understand each other before we make any objections on either side. Will you tell me what your present position is – at its worst? I can and will speak plainly when my turn comes, if you will honour me with your confidence. Not if it distresses you,” she added, observing him attentively.

He was ashamed of his hesitation – and he made amends for it.

“Do you thoroughly understand me?” he asked, when the whole truth had been laid before her without reserve.

She summed up the result in her own words.

“If your overdue ship returns safely, within a month from this time, you can borrow the money you want, without difficulty. If the ship is lost, you have no alternative (when the end of the month comes) but to accept a loan from me or to suspend payment. Is that the hard truth?”

“It is.”

“And the sum you require is – twenty thousand pounds?”

“Yes.”

“I have twenty times as much money as that, Mr. Lismore, at my sole disposal – on one condition.”

“The condition alluded to in your letter?”

“Yes.”

“Does the fulfillment of the condition depend in some way on any decision of mine?”

“It depends entirely on you.”

That answer closed his lips.

With a composed manner and a steady hand she poured herself out a cup of tea.

“I conceal it from you,” she said; “but I want confidence. Here” (she pointed to the cup) “is the friend of women, rich or poor, when they are in trouble. What I have now to say obliges me to speak in praise of myself. I don’t like it – let me get it over as soon as I can. My husband was very fond of me: he had the most absolute confidence in my discretion, and in my sense of duty to him and to myself. His last words, before he died, were words that thanked me for making the happiness of his life. As soon as I had in some degree recovered, after the affliction that had fallen on me, his lawyer and executor produced a copy of his will, and said there were two clauses in it which my husband had expressed a wish that I should read. It is needless to say that I obeyed.”

She still controlled her agitation – but she was now unable to conceal it. Ernest made an attempt to spare her.

“Am I concerned in this?” he asked.

“Yes. Before I tell you why, I want to know what you would do – in a certain case which I am unwilling even to suppose. I have heard of men, unable to pay the demands made on them, who began business again, and succeeded, and in course of time paid their creditors.”

“And you want to know if there is any likelihood of my following their example?” he said. “Have you also heard of men who have made that second effort – who have failed again – and who have doubled the debts they owed to their brethren in business who trusted them? I knew one of those men myself. He committed suicide.”

She laid her hand for a moment on his.

“I understand you,” she said. “If ruin comes—”

“If ruin comes,” he interposed, “a man without money and without credit can make but one last atonement. Don’t speak of it now.”

She looked at him with horror.

“I didn’t mean that!” she said.

“Shall we go back to what you read in the will?” he suggested.

“Yes – if you will give me a minute to compose myself.”

•  VI  •

In less than the minute she had asked for, Mrs. Callender was calm enough to go on.

“I now possess what is called a life-interest in my husband’s fortune,” she said. “The money is to be divided, at my death, among charitable institutions; excepting a certain event—”

“Which is provided for in the will?” Ernest added, helping her to go on.

“Yes. I am to be absolute mistress of the whole of the four hundred thousand pounds—” her voice dropped, and her eyes looked away from him as she spoke the next words – “on this one condition, that I marry again.”

He looked at her in amazement.

“Surely I have mistaken you,” he said. “You mean on this one condition, that you do not marry again?”

“No, Mr. Lismore; I mean exactly what I have said. You now know that the recovery of your credit and your peace of mind rests entirely with yourself.”

After a moment of reflection he took her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips. “You are a noble woman!” he said.

She made no reply. With drooping head and downcast eyes she waited for his decision. He accepted his responsibility.

“I must not, and dare not, think of the hardship of my own position,” he said; “I owe it to you to speak without reference to the future that may be in store for me. No man can be worthy of the sacrifice which your generous forgetfulness of yourself is willing to make. I respect you; I admire you; I thank you with my whole heart. Leave me to my fate, Mrs. Callender – and let me go.”

He rose. She stopped him by a gesture.

“A young woman,” she answered, “would shrink from saying – what I, as an old woman, mean to say now. I refuse to leave you to your fate. I ask you to prove that you respect me, admire me, and thank me with your whole heart. Take one day to think – and let me hear the result. You promise me this?”

He promised. “Now go,” she said.

•  VII  •

Next morning Ernest received a letter from Mrs. Callender. She wrote to him as follows:

There are some considerations which I ought to have mentioned yesterday evening, before you left my house.

I ought to have reminded you – if you consent to reconsider your decision – that the circumstances do not require you to pledge yourself to me absolutely.

At my age, I can with perfect propriety assure you that I regard our marriage simply and solely as a formality which we must fulfill, if I am to carry out my intention of standing between you and ruin.

Therefore – if the missing ship appears in time, the only reason for the marriage is at an end. We shall be as good friends as ever; without the encumbrance of a formal tie to bind us.

In the other event, I should ask you to submit to certain restrictions which, remembering my position, you will understand and excuse.

We are to live together, it is unnecessary to say, as mother and son. The marriage ceremony is to be strictly private; and you are so to arrange your affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps) some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives – if we stay in our own country – in a manner which would be unendurable to a woman like me.

As to our future lives, I have the most perfect confidence in you, and I should leave you in the same position of independence which you occupy now. When you wish for my company you will always be welcome. At other times, you are your own master. I live on my side of the house, and you live on yours – and I am to be allowed my hours of solitude every day, in the pursuit of musical occupations, which have been happily associated with all my past life and which I trust confidently to your indulgence.

A last word, to remind you of what you may be too kind to think of yourself.

At my age, you cannot, in the course of Nature, be troubled by the society of a grateful old woman for many years. You are young enough to look forward to another marriage, which shall be something more than a mere form. Even if you meet with the happy woman in my lifetime, honestly tell me of it – and I promise to tell her that she has only to wait.

In the meantime, don’t think, because I write composedly, that I write heartlessly. You pleased and interested me, when I first saw you, at the public meeting. I don’t think I could have proposed, what you call this sacrifice of myself, to a man who had personally repelled me – though I might have felt my debt of gratitude as sincerely as ever. Whether your ship is saved, or whether your ship is lost, old Mary Callender likes you – and owns it without false shame.

Let me have your answer this evening, either personally or by letter – whichever you like best.

•  VIII  •

Mrs. Callender received a written answer long before the evening. It said much in few words:

“A man impenetrable to kindness might be able to resist your letter. I am not that man. Your great heart has conquered me.”

•   •   •

The few formalities which precede marriage by special license were observed by Ernest. While the destiny of their future lives was still in suspense, an unacknowledged feeling of embarrassment, on either side, kept Ernest and Mrs. Callender apart. Every day brought the lady her report of the state of affairs in the City, written always in the same words: “No news of the ship.”

•  IX  •

On the day before the ship-owner’s liabilities became due, the terms of the report from the City remained unchanged – and the special license was put to its contemplated use. Mrs. Callender’s lawyer and Mrs. Callender’s maid were the only persons trusted with the secret. Leaving the chief clerk in charge of the business, with every pecuniary demand on his employer satisfied in full, the strangely married pair quitted England.

They arranged to wait for a few days in Paris, to receive any letters of importance which might have been addressed to Ernest in the interval. On the evening of their arrival, a telegram from London was waiting at their hotel. It announced that the missing ship had passed up Channel – undiscovered in a fog, until she reached the Downs – on the day before Ernest’s liabilities fell due.

“Do you regret it?” Mrs. Lismore said to her husband.

“Not for a moment!” he answered.

They decided on pursuing their journey as far as Munich.

Mrs. Lismore’s taste for music was matched by Ernest’s taste for painting. In his leisure hours he cultivated the art, and delighted in it. The picture-galleries of Munich were almost the only galleries in Europe which he had not seen. True to the engagements to which she had pledged herself, his wife was willing to go wherever it might please him to take her. The one suggestion she made was, that they should hire furnished apartments. If they lived at an hotel, friends of the husband or the wife (visitors like themselves to the famous city) might see their names in the book, or might meet them at the door.

They were soon established in a house large enough to provide them with every accommodation which they required.

Ernest’s days were passed in the galleries; Mrs. Lismore remaining at home, devoted to her music, until it was time to go out with her husband for a drive. Living together in perfect amity and concord, they were nevertheless not living happily. Without any visible reason for the change, Mrs. Lismore’s spirits were depressed. On the one occasion when Ernest noticed it she made an effort to be cheerful, which it distressed him to see. He allowed her to think that she had relieved him of any further anxiety. Whatever doubts he might feel were doubts delicately concealed from that time forth.

But when two people are living together in a state of artificial tranquillity, it seems to be a law of Nature that the element of disturbance gathers unseen, and that the outburst comes inevitably with the lapse of time.

In ten days from the date of their arrival at Munich, the crisis came. Ernest returned later than usual from the picture-gallery, and – for the first time in his wife’s experience – shut himself up in his own room.

He appeared at the dinner-hour with a futile excuse. Mrs. Lismore waited until the servant had withdrawn. “Now, Ernest,” she said, “it’s time to tell me the truth.”

Her manner, when she said those few words, took him by surprise. She was unquestionably confused; and, instead of lookin g at him, she trifled with the fruit on her plate. Embarrassed on his side, he could only answer:

“I have nothing to tell.”

“Were there many visitors at the gallery?” she asked.

“About the same as usual.”

“Any that you particularly noticed?” she went on. “I mean, among the ladies.”

He laughed uneasily. “You forget how interested I am in the pictures,” he said.

There was a pause. She looked up at him – and suddenly looked away again. But he saw it plainly: there were tears in her eyes.

“Do you mind turning down the gas?” she said. “My eyes have been weak all day.”

He complied with her request – the more readily, having his own reasons for being glad to escape the glaring scrutiny of the light.

“I think I will rest a little on the sofa,” she resumed. In the position which he occupied, his back would have been now turned on her. She stopped him when he tried to move his chair. “I would rather not look at you, Ernest,” she said, “when you have lost confidence in me.”

Not the words, but the tone, touched all that was generous and noble in his nature. He left his place, and knelt beside her – and opened to her his whole heart.

“Am I not unworthy of you?” he asked, when it was over.

She pressed his hand in silence.

“I should be the most ungrateful wretch living,” he said, “if I did not think of you, and you only, now that my confession is made. We will leave Munich tomorrow – and, if resolution can help me, I will only remember the sweetest woman my eyes ever looked on as the creature of a dream.”

She hid her face on his breast, and reminded him of that letter of her writing, which had decided the course of their lives.

“When I thought you might meet the happy woman in my life-time, I said to you, ‘Tell me of it – and I promise to tell her that she has only to wait.’ Time must pass, Ernest, before it can be needful to perform my promise. But you might let me see her. If you find her in the gallery tomorrow, you might bring her here.”

Mrs. Lismore’s request met with no refusal. Ernest was only at a loss to know how to grant it.

“You tell me she is a copyist of pictures,” his wife reminded him. “She will be interested in hearing of the portfolio of drawings by the great French artists which I bought for you in Paris. Ask her to come and see them, and to tell you if she can make some copies. And say, if you like, that I shall be glad to become acquainted with her.”

He felt her breath beating fast on his bosom. In the fear that she might lose all control over herself, he tried to relieve her by speaking lightly. “What an invention yours is!” he said. “If my wife ever tries to deceive me, I shall be a mere child in her hands.”

She rose abruptly from the sofa – kissed him on the forehead – and said wildly, “I shall be better in bed!” Before he could move or speak, she had left him.

•  X  •

The next morning he knocked at the door of his wife’s room and asked how she had passed the night.

“I have slept badly,” she answered, “and I must beg you to excuse my absence at breakfast-time.” She called him back as he was about to withdraw. “Remember,” she said, “when you return from the gallery today, I expect that you will not return alone.”

•   •   •

Three hours later he was at home again. The young lady’s services as a copyist were at his disposal; she had returned with him to look at the drawings.

The sitting-room was empty when they entered it. He rang for his wife’s maid – and was informed that Mrs. Lismore had gone out. Refusing to believe the woman, he went to his wife’s apartments. She was not to be found.

When he returned to the sitting-room, the young lady was not unnaturally offended. He could make allowances for her being a little out of temper at the slight that had been put on her; but he was inexpressibly disconcerted by the manner – almost the coarse manner – in which she expressed herself.

“I have been talking to your wife’s maid, while you have been away,” she said. “I find you have married an old lady for her money. She is jealous of me, of course?”

“Let me beg you to alter your opinion,” he answered. “You are wronging my wife; she is incapable of any such feeling as you attribute to her.”

The young lady laughed. “At any rate you are a good husband,” she said satirically. “Suppose you own the truth? Wouldn’t you like her better if she was young and pretty like me?”

He was not merely surprised – he was disgusted. Her beauty had so completely fascinated him, when he first saw her, that the idea of associating any want of refinement and good breeding with such a charming creature never entered his mind. The disenchantment to him was already so complete that he was even disagreeably affected by the tone of her voice: it was almost as repellent to him as the exhibition of unrestrained bad temper which she seemed perfectly careless to conceal.

“I confess you surprise me,” he said, coldly.

The reply produced no effect on her. On the contrary, she became more insolent than ever.

“I have a fertile fancy,” she went on, “and your absurd way of taking a joke only encourages me! Suppose you could transform this sour old wife of yours, who has insulted me, into the sweetest young creature that ever lived, by only holding up your finger – wouldn’t you do it?”

This passed the limits of his endurance. “I have no wish,” he said, “to forget the consideration which is due to a woman. You leave me but one alternative.” He rose to go out of the room.

She ran to the door as he spoke, and placed herself in the way of his going out.

He signed to her to let him pass.

She suddenly threw her arms round his neck, kissed him passionately, and whispered, with her lips at his ear: “Oh, Ernest, forgive me! Could I have asked you to marry me for my money if I had not taken refuge in a disguise?”

•  XI  •

When he had sufficiently recovered to think, he put her back from him. “Is there an end of the deception now?” he asked, sternly. “Am I to trust you in your new character?”

“You are not to be harder on me than I deserve,” she answered, gently. “Did you ever hear of an actress named Miss Max?”

He began to understand her. “Forgive me if I spoke harshly,” he said. “You have put me to a severe trial.”

She burst into tears. “Love,” she murmured, “is my only excuse.”

From that moment she had won her pardon. He took her hand, and made her sit by him.

“Yes,” he said, “I have heard of Miss Max and of her wonderful powers of personation – and I have always regretted not having seen her while she was on the stage.”

“Did you hear anything more of her, Ernest?”

“Yes, I heard that she was a pattern of modesty and good conduct, and that she gave up her profession, at the height of her success, to marry an old man.”

“Will you come with me to my room?” she asked. “I have something there which I wish to show you.”

It was the copy of her husband’s will.

“Read the lines, Ernest, which begin at the top of the page. Let my dead husband speak for me.”

The lines ran thus:

“My motive in marrying Miss Max must be stated in this place, in justice to her – and, I will venture to add, in justice to myself. I felt the sincerest sympathy for her position. She was without father, mother, or friends; one of the poor forsaken children, whom the mercy of the Foundling Hospital provides with a home. Her after life on the stage was the life of a virtuous woman: persecuted by profligates; insulted by some of the baser creatures associated with her, to whom she was an object of envy. I offered her a home, and the protection of a father – on the only terms which the world would recognise as worthy of us. My experience of her since our marriage has been the experience of unvarying goodness, sweetness, and sound sense. She has behaved so nobly, in a trying position, that I wish her (even in this life) to have her reward. I entreat her to make a second choice in marriage, which shall not be a mere form. I firmly believe that she will choose well and wisely – that she will make the happiness of a man who is worthy of her – and that, as wife and mother, she will set an example of inestimable value in the social sphere that she occupies. In proof of the heartfelt sincerity with which I pay my tribute to her virtues, I add to this my will the clause that follows.”

With the clause that followed, Ernest was already acquainted.

“Will you now believe that I never loved till I saw your face for the first time?” said his wife. “I had no experience to place me on my guard against the fascination – the madness some people might call it – which possesses a woman when all her heart is given to a man. Don’t despise me, my dear! Remember that I had to save you from disgrace and ruin. Besides, my old stage remembrances tempted me. I had acted in a play in which the heroine did – what I have done! It didn’t end with me, as it did with her in the story. She was represented as rejoicing in the success of her disguise. I have known some miserable hours of doubt and shame since our marriage. When I went to meet you in my own person at the picture-gallery – oh, what relief, what joy I felt, when I saw how you admired me – it was not because I could no longer carry on the disguise. I was able to get hours of rest from the effort; not only at night, but in the daytime, when I was shut up in my retirement in the music-room; and when my maid kept watch against discovery. No, my love! I hurried on the disclosure, because I could no longer endure the hateful triumph of my own deception. Ah, look at that witness against me! I can’t bear even to see it!”

She abruptly left him. The drawer that she had opened to take out the copy of the will also contained the false grey hair which she had discarded. It had only that moment attracted her notice. She snatched it up, and turned to the fireplace.

Ernest took it from her, before she could destroy it. “Give it to me,” he said.

“Why?”

He drew her gently to his bosom, and answered: “I must not forget my old wife.”

First published as
“She Loves and Lies”
Spirit of the Times 22 Dec 1883

MISS JEROMETTE
AND THE CLERGYMAN

•  I  •

My brother, the clergyman, looked over my shoulder before I was aware of him, and discovered that the volume which completely absorbed my attention was a collection of famous Trials, published in a new edition and in a popular form.

He laid his finger on the Trial which I happened to be reading at the moment. I looked up at him; his face startled me. He had turned pale. His eyes were fixed on the open page of the book with an expression which puzzled and alarmed me.

“My dear fellow,” I said, “what in the world is the matter with you?”

He answered in an odd absent manner, still keeping his finger on the open page.

“I had almost forgotten,” he said. “And this reminds me.”

“Reminds you of what?” I asked. “You don’t mean to say you know anything about the Trial?”

“I know this,” he said. “The prisoner was guilty.”

“Guilty?” I repeated. “Why, the man was acquitted by the jury, with the full approval of the judge! What call you possibly mean?”

“There are circumstances connected with that Trial,” my brother answered, “which were never communicated to the judge or the jury – which were never so much as hinted or whispered in court. I know them – of my own knowledge, by my own personal experience. They are very sad, very strange, very terrible. I have mentioned them to no mortal creature. I have done my best to forget them. You – quite innocently – have brought them back to my mind. They oppress, they distress me. I wish I had found you reading any book in your library, except that book!”

My curiosity was now strongly excited. I spoke out plainly.

“Surely,” I suggested, “you might tell your brother what you are unwilling to mention to persons less nearly related to you. We have followed different professions, and have lived in different countries, since we were boys at school. But you know you can trust me.”

He considered a little with himself.

“Yes,” he said. “I know I can trust you.” He waited a moment, and then he surprised me by a strange question.

“Do you believe,” he asked, “that the spirits of the dead can return to earth, and show themselves to the living?”

I answered cautiously – adopting as my own the words of a great English writer, touching the subject of ghosts.

“You ask me a question,” I said, “which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided. On that account alone, it is a question not to be trifled with.”

My reply seemed to satisfy him.

“Promise me,” he resumed, “that you will keep what I tell you a secret as long as I live. After my death I care little what happens. Let the story of my strange experience be added to the published experience of those other men who have seen what I have seen, and who believe what I believe. The world will not be the worse, and may be the better, for knowing one day what I am now about to trust to your ear alone.”

My brother never again alluded to the narrative which he had confided to me, until the later time when I was sitting by his deathbed. He asked if I still remembered the story of Jeromette. “Tell it to others,” he said, “as I have told it to you.”

I repeat it after his death – as nearly as I can in his own words.

•  II  •

On a fine summer evening, many years since, I left my chambers in the Temple, to meet a fellow-student, who had proposed to me a night’s amusement in the public gardens at Cremorne.

You were then on your way to India; and I had taken my degree at Oxford. I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession, in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an excuse for enjoying the pleasures of a London life. The study of the Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law as my profession accordingly.

On reaching the place at which we had arranged to meet, I found that my friend had not kept his appointment. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, my patience gave way and I went into the Gardens by myself.

I took two or three turns round the platform devoted to the dancers without discovering my fellow-student, and without seeing any other person with whom I happened to be acquainted at that time.

For some reason which I cannot now remember, I was not in my usual good spirits that evening. The noisy music jarred on my nerves, the sight of the gaping crowd round the platform irritated me, the blandishments of the painted ladies of the profession of pleasure saddened and disgusted me. I opened my cigar-case, and turned aside into one of the quiet by-walks of the Gardens.

A man who is habitually careful in choosing his cigar has this advantage over a man who is habitually careless. He can always count on smoking the best cigar in his case, down to the last. I was still absorbed in choosing my cigar, when I heard these words behind me – spoken in a foreign accent and in a woman’s voice:

“Leave me directly, sir! I wish to have nothing to say to you.”

I turned round and discovered a little lady very simply and tastefully dressed, who looked both angry and alarmed as she rapidly passed me on her way to the more frequented part of the Gardens. A man (evidently the worse for the wine he had drunk in the course of the evening) was following her, and was pressing his tipsy attentions on her with the coarsest insolence of speech and manner. She was young and pretty, and she cast one entreating look at me as she went by, which it was not in manhood – perhaps I ought to say, in young-manhood – to resist.

I instantly stepped forward to protect her, careless whether I involved myself in a discreditable quarrel with a blackguard or not. As a matter of course, the fellow resented my interference, and my temper gave way. Fortunately for me, just as I lifted my hand to knock him down, at policeman appeared who had noticed that he was drunk, and who settled the dispute officially by turning him out of the Gardens.

I led her away from the crowd that had collected. She was evidently frightened – I felt her hand trembling on my arm – but she had one great merit; she made no fuss about it.

“If I can sit down for a few minutes,” she said in her pretty foreign accent, “I shall soon be myself again, and I shall not trespass any further on your kindness. I thank you very much, sir, for taking care of me.”

We sat down on a bench in a retired par t of the Gardens, near a little fountain. A row of lighted lamps ran round the outer rim of the basin. I could see her plainly.

I have said that she was “a little lady.” I could not have described her more correctly in three words.

Her figure was slight and small: she was a well-made miniature of a woman from head to foot. Her hair and her eyes were both dark. The hair curled naturally; the expression of the eyes was quiet, and rather sad; the complexion, as I then saw it, very pale; the little mouth perfectly charming. I was especially attracted, I remembered, by the carriage of her head; it was strikingly graceful and spirited; it distinguished her, little as she was and quiet as she was, among the thousands of other women in the Gardens, as a creature apart. Even the one marked defect in her – a slight “cast” in the left eye – seemed to add, in some strange way, to the quaint attractiveness of her face. I have already spoken of the tasteful simplicity of her dress. I ought now to add that it was not made of any costly material, and that she wore no jewels or ornaments of any sort. My little lady was not rich; even a man’s eye could see that.

She was perfectly unembarrassed and unaffected. We fell as easily into talk as if we had been friends instead of strangers.

I asked how it was that she had no companion to take care of her. “You are too young and too pretty,” I said in my blunt English way, “to trust yourself alone in such a place as this.”

She took no notice of the compliment. She calmly put it away from her as if it had not reached her ears.

“I have no friend to take care of me,” she said simply. “I was sad and sorry this evening, all by myself, and I thought I would go to the Gardens and hear the music, just to amuse me. It is not much to pay at the gate; only a shilling.”

“No friend to take care of you?” I repeated. “Surely there must be one happy man who might have been here with you tonight?”

“What man do you mean?” she asked.

“The man,” I answered thoughtlessly, “whom we call, in England, a Sweetheart.”

I would have given worlds to have recalled those foolish words the moment they passed my lips. I felt that I had taken a vulgar liberty with her. Her face saddened; her eyes dropped to the ground. I begged her pardon.

“There is no need to beg my pardon,” she said. “If you wish to know, sir – yes, I had once a sweetheart, as you call it in England. He has gone away and left me. No more of him, if you please. I am rested now. I will thank you again, and go home.”

She rose to leave me.

I was determined not to part with her in that way. I begged to be allowed to see her safely back to her own door. She hesitated. I took a man’s unfair advantage of her, by appealing to her fears. I said, “Suppose the blackguard who annoyed you should be waiting outside the gates?” That decided her. She took my arm. We went away together by the bank of the Thames, in the balmy summer night.

A walk of half an hour brought us to the house in which she lodged – a shabby little house in a by-street, inhabited evidently by very poor people.

She held out her hand at the door, and wished me good-night. I was too much interested in her to consent to leave my little foreign lady without the hope of seeing her again. I asked permission to call on her the next day. We were standing under the light of the street-lamp. She studied my face with a grave and steady attention before she made any reply.

“Yes,” she said at last. “I think I do know a gentleman when I see him. You may come, sir, if you please, and call upon me tomorrow.”

So we parted. So I entered – doubting nothing, foreboding nothing – on a scene in my life which I now look back on with unfeigned repentance and regret.

•  III  •

I am speaking at this later time in the position of a clergyman, and in the character of a man of mature age. Remember that; and you will understand why I pass as rapidly as possible over the events of the next year of my life – why I say as little as I can of the errors and the delusions of my youth.

I called on her the next day. I repeated my visits during the days and weeks that followed, until the shabby little house in the by-street had become a second and (I say it with shame and self-reproach) a dearer home to me.

All of herself and her story which she thought fit to confide to me under these circumstances may be repeated to you in few words.

The name by which letters were addressed to her was “Mademoiselle Jeromette.” Among the ignorant people of the house and the small tradesmen of the neighbourhood – who found her name not easy of pronunciation by the average English tongue – she was known by the friendly nickname of “The French Miss.” When I knew her, she was resigned to her lonely life among strangers. Some years had elapsed since she had lost her parents, and had left France. Possessing a small, very small, income of her own, she added to it by colouring miniatures for the photographers. She had relatives still living in France; but she had long since ceased to correspond with them. “Ask me nothing more about my family,” she used to say. “I am as good as dead in my own country and among my own people.”

This was all – literally all – that she told me of herself. I have never discovered more of her sad story from that day to this.

She never mentioned her family name – never even told me what part of France she came from or how long she had lived in England. That she was by birth and breeding a lady, I could entertain no doubt; her manners, her accomplishments, her ways of thinking and speaking, all proved it. Looking below the surface, her character showed itself in aspects not common among young women in these days. In her quiet way she was an incurable fatalist, and a firm believer in the ghostly reality of apparitions from the dead. Then again in the matter of money, she had strange views of her own. Whenever my purse was in my hand, she held me resolutely at a distance from first to last. She refused to move into better apartments; the shabby little house was clean inside, and the poor people who lived in it were kind to her – and that was enough. The most expensive present that she ever permitted me to offer her was a little enamelled ring, the plainest and cheapest thing of the kind in the jeweller’s shop. In all relations with me she was sincerity itself. On all occasions, and under all circumstances, she spoke her mind (as the phrase is) with the same uncompromising plainness.

“I like you,” she said to me; “I respect you; I shall always be faithful to you while you are faithful to me. But my love has gone from me. There is another man who has taken it away with him, I know not where.”

Who was the other man?

She refused to tell me. She kept his rank and his name strict secrets from me. I never discovered how he had met with her, or why he had left her, or whether the guilt was his of making of her an exile from her country and her friends. She despised herself for still loving him; but the passion was too strong for her – she owned it and lamented it with the frankness which was so pre-eminently a part of her character. More than this, she plainly told me, in the early days of our acquaintance, that she believed he would return to her. It might be tomorrow, or it might be years hence. Even if he failed to repent of his own cruel conduct, the man would still miss her, as something lost out of his life; and, sooner or later, he would come back.

“And will you receive him if he does come back?” I asked.

“I shall receive him,” she replied, “against my own better judgement – in spite of my own firm persuasion that the day of his return to me will bring with it the darkest days of my life.”

I tried to remonstrate with her.

“You have a will of your own,” I said. “Exert it if he attempts to return to you.”

“I have no will of my own,” she answered quietly, “where he is concerned. It is my misfortune to love him.” Her eyes rested for a moment on mine, with the utter self-abandonment of despair. “We have said enough about this,” she added abruptly. “Let us say no more.”

From that time we never spoke again of the unknown man. During the year that followed our first meeting, she heard nothing of him directly or indirectly. He might be living, or he might be dead. There came no word of him, or from him. I was fond enough of her to be satisfied with this – he never disturbed us.

•  IV  •

The year passed – and the end came. Not the end as you may have anticipated it, or as I might have foreboded it.

You remember the time when your letters from home informed you of the fatal termination of our mother’s illness? It is the time of which I am now speaking. A few hours only before she breathed her last, she called me to her bedside, and desired that we might be left together alone. Reminding me that her death was near, she spoke of my prospects in life; she noticed my want of interest in the studies which were then supposed to be engaging my attention, and she ended by entreating me to reconsider my refusal to enter the Church.

“Your father’s heart is set upon it,” she said. “Do what I ask of you, my dear, and you will help to comfort him when I am gone.”

Her strength failed her: she could say no more. Could I refuse the last request she would ever make to me? I knelt at the bedside, and took her wasted hand in mine, and solemnly promised her the respect which a son owes to his mother’s last wishes.

Having bound myself by this sacred engagement, I had no choice but to accept the sacrifice which it imperatively exacted from me. The time had come when I must tear myself free from all unworthy associations. No matter what the effort cost me, I must separate myself at once and forever from the unhappy woman who was not, who never could be, my wife.

At the close of a dull foggy day I set forth with a heavy heart to say the words which were to part us forever.

Her lodging was not far from the banks of the Thames. As I drew near the place the darkness was gathering, and the broad surface of the river was hidden from me in a chill white mist. I stood for a while, with my eyes fixed on the vaporous shroud that brooded over the flowing water – I stood and asked myself in despair the one dreary question: “What am I to say to her?”

The mist chilled me to the bones. I turned from the riverbank, and made my way to her lodgings hard by. “It must be done!” I said to myself, as I took out my key and opened the house door.

She was not at her work, as usual, when I entered her little sitting-room. She was standing by the fire, with her head down and with an open letter in her hand.

The instant she turned to meet me, I saw in her face that something was wrong. Her ordinary manner was the manner of an unusually placid and self-restrained person. Her temperament had little of the liveliness which we associate in England with the French nature. She was not ready with her laugh; and in all my previous experience, I had never yet known her to cry. Now, for the first time, I saw the quiet face disturbed; I saw tears in the pretty brown eyes. She ran to meet me, and laid her head on my breast, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping that shook her from head to foot.

Could she by any human possibility have heard of the coming change in my life? Was she aware, before I had opened my lips, of the hard necessity which had brought me to the house?

It was simply impossible; the thing could not be.

I waited until her first burst of emotion had worn itself out. Then I asked – with an uneasy conscience, with a sinking heart – what had happened to distress her.

She drew herself away from me, sighing heavily, and gave me the open letter which I had seen in her hand.

“Read that,” she said. “And remember I told you what might happen when we first met.”

I read the letter.

It was signed in initials only; but the writer plainly revealed himself as the man who had deserted her. He had repented; he had returned to her. In proof of his penitence he was willing to do her the justice which he had hitherto refused – he was willing to marry her, on the condition that she would engage to keep the marriage a secret, so long as his parents lived. Submitting this proposal, he waited to know whether she would consent, on her side, to forgive and forget.

I gave her back the letter in silence. This unknown rival had done me the service of paving the way for our separation. In offering her the atonement of marriage, he had made it, on my part, a matter of duty to her, as well as to myself, to say the parting words. I felt this instantly. And yet, I hated him for helping me.

She took my hand, and led me to the sofa. We sat down, side by side. Her face was composed to a sad tranquillity. She was quiet; she was herself again.

“I have refused to see him,” she said, “until I had first spoken to you. You have read his letter. What do you say?”

I could make but one answer. It was my duty to tell her what my own position was in the plainest terms. I did my duty – leaving her free to decide on the future for herself. Those sad words said, it was useless to prolong the wretchedness of our separation. I rose, and took her hand for the last time.

I see her again now, at that final moment, as plainly as if it had happened yesterday. She had been suffering from an affection of the throat; and she had a white silk handkerchief tied loosely round her neck. She wore a simple dress of purple merino, with a black-silk apron over it. Her face was deadly pale; her fingers felt icily cold as they closed round my hand.

“Promise me one thing,” I said, “before I go. While I live, I am your friend – if I am nothing more. If you are ever in trouble, promise that you will let me know it.”

She started, and drew back from me as if I had struck her with a sudden terror.

“Strange!” she said, speaking to herself. “He feels as I feel. He is afraid of what may happen to me, in my life to come.”

I attempted to reassure her. I tried to tell her what was indeed the truth – that I had only been thinking of the ordinary chances and changes of life, when I spoke.

She paid no heed to me; she came back and put her hands on my shoulders and thoughtfully and sadly looked up in my face.

“My mind is not your mind in this matter,” she said. “I once owned to you that I had my forebodings, when we first spoke of this man’s return. I may tell you now, more than I told you then. I believe I shall die young, and die miserably. If I am right, have you interest enough still left in me to wish to hear of it?”

She paused, shuddering – and added these startling words:

“You shall hear of it.”

The tone of steady conviction in which she spoke alarmed and distressed me. My face showed her how deeply and how painfully I was affected.

“There, there!” she said, returning to her natural manner; “don’t take what I say too seriously. A poor girl who has led a lonely life like mine thinks strangely and talks strangely – sometimes. Yes; I give you my promise. If I am ever in trouble, I will let you know it. God bless you – you have been very kind to me – good-bye!”

A tear dropped on my face as she kissed me. The door closed between us. The dark street received me.

It was raining heavily. I looked up at her window, through the drifting shower. The curtains were parted: she was standing in the gap, dimly lit by the lamp on the table behind her, waiting for our last look at each other. Slowly lifting her hand, she waved her farewell at the window, with the unsought native grace which had charmed me on the night when we first met. The curtain fell again – she disappeared – nothing was before me, nothing was round me, but the darkness and the night.

•  V  •

In two years from that time, I had redeemed the promise given to my mother on her deathbed. I had entered the Church.

My father’s interest made my first step in my new profession an easy one. After serving my preliminary apprenticeship as a curate, I was appointed, before I was thirty years of age, to a living in the West of England.

My new benefice offered me every advantage that I could possibly desire – with the one exception of a sufficient income. Although my wants were few, and although I was still an unmarried man, I found it desirable, on many accounts, to add to my resources. Following the example of other young clergymen in my position, I determined to receive pupils who might stand in need of preparation for a career at the Universities. My relatives exerted themselves; and my good fortune still befriended me. I obtained two pupils to start with. A third would complete the number which I was at present prepared to receive. In course of time, this third pupil made his appearance, under circumstances sufficiently remarkable to merit being mentioned in detail.

It was the summer vacation; and my two pupils had gone home. Thanks to a neighbouring clergyman, who kindly undertook to perform my duties for me, I too obtained a fortnight’s holiday, which I spent at my father’s house in London.

During my sojourn in the metropolis, I was offered an opportunity of preaching in a church, made famous by the eloquence of one of the popular pulpit-orators of our time. In accepting the proposal, I felt naturally anxious to do my best, before the unusually large and unusually intelligent congregation which would be assembled to hear me.

At the period of which I am now speaking, all England had been startled by the discovery of a terrible crime, perpetrated under circumstances of extreme provocation. I chose this crime as the main subject of my sermon. Admitting that the best among us were frail mortal creatures, subject to evil promptings and provocations like the worst among us, my object was to show how a Christian man may find his certain refuge from temptation in the safeguards of his religion. I dwelt minutely on the hardship of the Christian’s first struggle to resist the evil influence – on the help which his Christianity inexhaustibly held out to him in the worst relapses of the weaker and viler part of his nature – on the steady and certain gain which was the ultimate reward of his faith and his firmness – and on the blessed sense of peace and happiness which accompanied the final triumph. Preaching to this effect, with the fervent conviction which I really felt, I may say for myself, at least, that I did no discredit to the choice which had placed me in the pulpit. I held the attention of my congregation, from the first word to the last.

While I was resting in the vestry on the conclusion of the service, a note was brought to me written in pencil. A member of my congregation – a gentleman – wished to see me, on a matter of considerable importance to himself. He would call on me at any place, and at any hour, which I might choose to appoint. If I wished to be satisfied of his respectability, he would beg leave to refer me to his father, with whose name I might possibly be acquainted.

The name given in the reference was undoubtedly familiar to me, as the name of a man of some celebrity and influence in the world of London. I sent back my card, appointing an hour for the visit of my correspondent on the afternoon of the next day.

•  VI  •

The stranger made his appearance punctually. I guessed him to be some two or three years younger than myself. He was undeniably handsome; his manners were the manners of a gentleman – and yet, without knowing why, I felt a strong dislike to him the moment he entered the room.

After the first preliminary words of politeness had been exchanged between us, my visitor informed me as follows of the object which he had in view.

“I believe you live in the country, sir?” he began.

“I live in the West of England,” I answered.

“Do you make a long stay in London?”

“No. I go back to my rectory tomorrow.”

“May I ask if you take pupils?”

“Yes.”

“Have you any vacancy?”

“I have one vacancy.”

“Would you object to let me go back with you tomorrow, as your pupil?”

The abruptness of the proposal took me by surprise. I hesitated.

In the first place (as I have already said), I disliked him. In the second place, he was too old to be a fit companion for my other two pupils – both lads in their teens. In the third place, he had asked me to receive him at least three weeks before the vacation came to an end. I had my own pursuits and amusements in prospect during that interval, and saw no reason why I should inconvenience myself by setting them aside.

He noticed my hesitation, and did not conceal from me that I had disappointed him.

“I have it very much at heart,” he said, “to repair without delay the time that I have lost. My age is against me, I know. The truth is – I have wasted my opportunities since I left school, and I am anxious, honestly anxious, to mend my ways, before it is too late. I wish to prepare myself for one of the Universities – I wish to show, if I can, that I am not quite unworthy to inherit my father’s famous name. You are the man to help me, if I can only persuade you to do it. I was struck by your sermon yesterday; and, if I may venture to make the confession in your presence, I took a strong liking to you. Will you see my father, before you decide to say No? He will be able to explain whatever may seem strange in my present application; and he will be happy to see you this afternoon, if you can spare the time. As to the question of terms, I am quite sure it can be settled to your entire satisfaction.”

He was evidently in earnest – gravely, vehemently in earnest. I unwillingly consented to see his father.

Our interview was a long one. All my questions were answered fully and frankly.

The young man had led an idle and desultory life. He was weary of it, and ashamed of it. His disposition was a peculiar one. He stood sorely in need of a guide, a teacher, and a friend, in whom he was disposed to confide. If I disappointed the hopes which he had centred in me, he would be discouraged, and he would relapse into the aimless and indolent existence of which he was now ashamed. Any terms for which I might stipulate were at my disposal if I would consent to receive him, for three months to begin with, on trial.

Still hesitating, I consulted my father and my friends.

They were all of opinion (and justly of opinion so far) that the new connection would be an excellent one for me. They all reproached me for taking a purely capricious dislike to a well-born and well-bred young man, and for permitting it to influence me, at the outset of my career, against my own interests. Pressed by these considerations, I allowed myself to be persuaded to give the new pupil a fair trial. He accompanied me, the next day, on my way back to the rectory.

•  VII  •

Let me be careful to do justice to a man whom I personally disliked. My senior pupil began well: he produced a decidedly favourable impression on the persons attached to my little household.

The women, especially, admired his beautiful light hair, his crisply-curling beard, his delicate complexion, his clear blue eyes, and his finely shaped hands and feet. Even the inveterate reserve in his manner, and the downcast, almost sullen, look which had prejudiced me against him, aroused a common feeling of romantic enthusiasm in my servants’ hall. It was decided, on the high authority of the housekeeper herself, that “the new gentleman” was in love – and, more interesting still, that he was the victim of an unhappy attachment which had driven him away from his friends and his home.

For myself, I tried hard, and tried vainly, to get over my first dislike to the senior pupil.

I could find no fault with him. All his habits were quiet and regular; and he devoted himself conscientiously to his reading. But, little by little, I became satisfied that his heart was not in his studies. More than this, I had my reasons for suspecting that he was concealing something from me, and that he felt painfully the reserve on his own part which he could not, or dared not, break through. There were moments when I almost doubted whether he had not chosen my remote country rectory as a safe place of refuge from some person or persons of whom he stood in dread.

For example, his ordinary course of proceeding, in the matter of his correspondence, was, to say the least of it, strange.

He received no letters at my house. They waited for him at the village post office. He invariably called for them himself, and invariably forbore to trust any of my servants with his own letters for the post. Again, when we were out walking together, I more than once caught him looking furtively over his shoulder, as if he suspected some person of following him, for some evil purpose. Being constitutionally a hater of mysteries, I determined, at an early stage of our intercourse, on making an effort to clear matters up. There might be just a chance of my winning the senior pupil’s confidence, if I spoke to him while the last days of the summer vacation still left us alone together in the house.

“Excuse me for noticing it,” I said to him one morning, while we were engaged over our books – “I cannot help observing that you appear to have some trouble on your mind. Is it indiscreet, on my part, to ask if I can be of any use to you?”

He changed colour – looked up at me quickly – looked down again at his book – struggled hard with some secret fear or secret reluctance that was in him – and suddenly burst out with this extraordinary question: “I suppose you were in earnest when you preached that sermon in London?”

“I am astonished that you should doubt it,” I replied.

He paused again; struggled with himself again; and startled me by a second outbreak, even stranger than the first.

“I am one of the people you preached at in your sermon,” he said. “That’s the true reason why I asked you to take me for your pupil. Don’t turn me out! When you talked to your congregation of tortured and tempted people, you talked of Me.”

I was so astonished by the confession, that I lost my presence of mind. For the moment, I was unable to answer him.

“Don’t turn me out!” he repeated. “Help me against myself. I am telling you the truth. As God is my witness, I am telling you the truth!”

“Tell me the whole truth,” I said; “and rely on my consoling and helping you – rely on my being your friend.”

In the fervour of the moment, I took his hand. It lay cold and still in mine; it mutely warned me that I had a sullen and a secret nature to deal with.

“There must be no concealment between us,” I resumed. “You have entered my house, by your own confession, under false pretences. It is your duty to me, and your duty to yourself, to speak out.”

The man’s inveterate reserve – cast off for the moment only – renewed its hold on him. He considered, carefully considered, his next words before he permitted them to pass his lips.

“A person is in the way of my prospects in life,” he began slowly, with his eyes cast down on his book. “A person provokes me horribly. I feel dreadful temptations (like the man you spoke of in your sermon) when I am in the person’s company. Teach me to resist temptation. I am afraid of myself, if I see the person again. You are the only man who can help me. Do it while you can.”

He stopped, and passed his handkerchief over his forehead.

“Will that do?” he asked – still with his eyes on his book.

“It will not do,” I answered. “You are so far from really opening your heart to me, that you won’t even let me know whether it is a man or a woman who stands in the way of your prospects in life. You used the word ‘person,’ over and over again – rather than say ‘he’ or ‘she’ when you speak of the provocation which is trying you. How can I help a man who has so little confidence in me as that?”

My reply evidently found him at the end of his resources. He tried, tried desperately, to say more than he had said yet. No! The words seemed to stick in his throat. Not one of them would pass his lips.

“Give me time,” he pleaded piteously. “I can’t bring myself to it, all at once. I mean well. Upon my soul, I mean well. But I am slow at this sort of thing. Wait till tomorrow.”

Tomorrow came – and again he put it off.

“One more day!” he said. “You don’t know how hard it is to speak plainly. I am half afraid; I am half ashamed. Give me one more day.”

I had hitherto only disliked him. Try as I might (and did) to make merciful allowance for his reserve, I began to despise him now.

•  VIII  •

The day of the deferred confession came, and brought an event with it, for which both he and I were alike unprepared. Would he really have confided in me but for that event? He must either have done it, or have abandoned the purpose which had led him into my house.

We met as usual at the breakfast-table. My housekeeper brought in my letters of the morning. To my surprise, instead of leaving the room again as usual, she walked round to the other side of the table, and laid a letter before my senior pupil – the first letter, since his residence with me, which had been delivered to him under my roof.

He started, and took up the letter. He looked at the address. A spasm of suppressed fury passed across his face; his breath came quickly; his hand trembled as it held the letter. So far, I said nothing. I waited to see whether he would open the envelope in my presence or not.

He was afraid to open it in my presence. He got on his feet; he said, in tones so low that I could barely hear him: “Please excuse me for a minute” – and left the room.

I waited for half an hour – for a quarter of an hour after that – and then I sent to ask if he had forgotten his breakfast.

In a minute more, I heard his footstep in the hall. He opened the breakfast-room door, and stood on the threshold, with a small travelling-bag in his hand.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, still standing at the door. “I must ask for leave of absence for a day or two. Business in London.”

“Can I be of any use?” I asked. “I am afraid your letter has brought you bad news?”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “Bad news. I have no time for breakfast.”

“Wait a few minutes,” I urged. “Wait long enough to treat me like your friend – to tell me what your trouble is before you go.”

He made no reply. He stepped into the hall and closed the door – then opened it again a little way, without showing himself.

“Business in London,” he repeated – as if he thought it highly important to inform me of the nature of his errand. The door closed for the second time. He was gone.

I went into my study, and carefully considered what had happened.

The result of my reflections is easily described. I determined on discontinuing my relations with my senior pupil. In writing to his father (which I did, with all due courtesy and respect, by that day’s post), I mentioned as my reason for arriving at this decision: First, that I had found it impossible to win the confidence of his son. Secondly, that his son had that morning suddenly and mysteriously left my house for London, and that I must decline accepting any further responsibility toward him, as the necessary consequence.

I had put my letter in the postbag, and was beginning to feel a little easier after having written it, when my housekeeper appeared in the study, with a very grave face, and with something hidden apparently in her closed hand.

“Would you please look, sir, at what we have found in the gentleman’s bedroom, since he went away this morning?”

I knew the housekeeper to possess a woman’s full share of that amicable weakness of the sex which goes by the name of “Curiosity.” I had also, in various indirect ways, become aware that my senior pupil’s strange departure had largely increased the disposition among the women of my household to regard him as the victim of an unhappy attachment. The time was ripe, as it seemed to me, for checking any further gossip about him, and any renewed attempts at prying into his affairs in his absence.

“Your only business in my pupil’s bedroom,” I said to the housekeeper, “is to see that it is kept clean, and that it is properly aired. There must be no interference, if you please, with his letters, or his papers, or with anything else that he has left behind him. Put back directly whatever you may have found in his room.”

The housekeeper had her full share of a woman’s temper as well as of a woman’s curiosity. She listened to me with a rising colour, and a just perceptible toss of the head.

“Must I put it back, sir, on the floor, between the bed and the wall?” she inquired, with an ironical assumption of the humblest deference to my wishes. “That’s where the girl found it when she was sweeping the room. Anybody can see for themselves,” pursued the housekeeper indignantly, “that the poor gentleman has gone away broken-hearted. And there, in my opinion, is the hussy who is the cause of it!”

With those words, she made me a low curtsey, and laid a small photographic portrait on the desk at which I was sitting.

I looked at the photograph.

In an instant, my heart was beating wildly – my head turned giddy – the housekeeper, the furniture, the walls of the room, all swayed and whirled round me.

The portrait that had been found in my senior pupil’s bedroom was the portrait of Jeromette!

•  IX  •

I had sent the housekeeper out of my study. I was alone, with the photograph of the Frenchwoman on my desk.

There could surely be little doubt about the discovery that had burst upon me. The man who had stolen his way into my house, driven by the terror of a temptation that he dared not reveal, and the man who had been my unknown rival in the bygone time, were one and the same!

Recovering self-possession enough to realize this plain truth, the inferences that followed forced their way into my mind as a matter of course. The unnamed person who was the obstacle to my pupil’s prospects in life, the unnamed person in whose company he was assailed by temptations which made him tremble for himself, stood revealed to me now as being, in all human probability, no other than Jeromette. Had she bound him in the fetters of the marriage which he had himself proposed? Had she discovered his place of refuge in my house? And was the letter that had been delivered to him of her writing? Assuming these questions to be answered in the affirmative, what, in that case, was his “business in London”? I remembered how he had spoken to me of his temptations, I recalled the expression that had crossed his face when he recognised the handwriting on the letter – and the conclusion that followed literally shook me to the soul. Ordering my horse to be saddled, I rode instantly to the railway-station.

The train by which he had travelled to London had reached the terminus nearly an hour since. The one useful course that I could take, by way of quieting the dreadful misgivings crowding one after another on my mind, was to telegraph to Jeromette at the address at which I had last seen her. I sent the subjoined message – prepaying the reply:

“If you are in any trouble, telegraph to me. I will be with you by the first train. Answer, in any case.”

There was nothing in the way of the immediate dispatch of my message. And yet the hours passed, and no answer was received. By the advice of the clerk, I sent a second telegram to the London office, requesting an explanation. The reply came back in these terms:

“Improvements in street. Houses pulled down. No trace of person named in telegram.”

I mounted my horse, and rode back slowly to the rectory.

“The day of his return to me will bring with it the darkest days of my life.” … “I shall die young, and die miserably. Have you interest enough still left in me to wish to hear of it?” … “You shall hear of it.” Those words were in my memory while I rode home in the cloudless moonlight night. They were so vividly present to me that I could hear again her pretty foreign accent, her quiet clear tones, as she spoke them. For the rest, the emotions of that memorable day had worn me out. The answer from the telegraph office had struck me with a strange and stony despair. My mind was a blank. I had no thoughts. I had no tears.

I was about half-way on my road home, and I had just heard the clock of a village church strike ten, when I became conscious, little by little, of a chilly sensation slowly creeping through and through me to the bones. The warm, balmy air of a summer night was abroad. It was the month of July. In the month of July, was it possible that any living creature (in good health) could feel cold? It was not possible – and yet, the chilly sensation still crept through and through me to the bones.

I looked up. I looked all round me.

My horse was walking along an open highroad. Neither trees nor waters were near me. On either side, the flat fields stretched away bright and broad in the moonlight.

I stopped my horse, and looked round me again.

Yes: I saw it. With my own eyes I saw it. A pillar of white mist – between five and six feet high, as well as I could judge – was moving beside me at the edge of the road, on my left hand. When I stopped, the white mist stopped. When I went on, the white mist went on. I pushed my horse to a trot – the pillar of mist was with me. I urged him to a gallop – the pillar of mist was with me. I stopped him again – the pillar of mist stood still.

The white colour of it was the white colour of the fog which I had seen over the river – on the night when I had gone to bid her farewell. And the chill which had then crept through me to the bones was the chill that was creeping through me now.

I went on again slowly. The white mist went on again slowly – with the clear bright night all round it.

I was awed rather than frightened. There was one moment, and one only, when the fear came to me that my reason might be shaken. I caught myself keeping time to the slow tramp of the horse’s feet with the slow utterances of these words, repeated over and over again: “Jeromette is dead. Jeromette is dead.” But my will was still my own: I was able to control myself, to impose silence on my own muttering lips. And I rode on quietly. And the pillar of mist went quietly with me.

My groom was waiting for my return at the rectory gate. I pointed to the mist, passing through the gate with me.

“Do you see anything there?” I said.

The man looked at me in astonishment.

I entered the rectory. The housekeeper met me in the hall. I pointed to the mist, entering with me.

“Do you see anything at my side?” I asked.

The housekeeper looked at me as the groom had looked at me.

“I am afraid you are not well, sir,” she said. “Your colour is all gone – you are shivering. Let me get you a glass of wine.”

I went into my study, on the ground-floor, and took the chair at my desk. The photograph still lay where I had left it. The pillar of mist floated round the table, and stopped opposite to me, behind the photograph.

The housekeeper brought in the wine. I put the glass to my lips, and set it down again. The chill of the mist was in the wine. There was no taste, no reviving spirit in it. The presence of the housekeeper oppressed me. My dog had followed her into the room. The presence of the animal oppressed me. I said to the woman: “Leave me by myself, and take the dog with you.”

They went out, and left me alone in the room.

I sat looking at the pillar of mist, hovering opposite to me.

It lengthened slowly, until it reached to the ceiling. As it lengthened, it grew bright and luminous. A time passed, and a shadowy appearance showed itself in the centre of the light. Little by little, the shadowy appearance took the outline of a human form. Soft brown eyes, tender and melancholy, looked at me through the unearthly light in the mist. The head and the rest of the face broke next slowly on my view. Then the figure gradually revealed itself, moment by moment, downward and downward to the feet. She stood before me as I had last seen her, in her purple-merino dress, with the black-silk apron, with the white handkerchief tied loosely round her neck. She stood before me, in the gentle beauty that I remembered so well; and looked at me as she had looked when she gave me her last kiss – when her tears had dropped on my cheek.

I fell on my knees at the table. I stretched out my hands to her imploringly. I said: “Speak to me – O, once again speak to me, Jeromette.”

Her eyes rested on me with a divine compassion in them. She lifted her hand, and pointed to the photograph on my desk, with a gesture which bade me turn the card. I turned it. The name of the man who had left my house that morning was inscribed on it, in her own handwriting.

I looked up at her again, when I had read it. She lifted her hand once more, and pointed to the handkerchief round her neck. As I looked at it, the fair white silk changed horribly in colour – the fair white silk became darkened and drenched in blood.

A moment more – and the vision of her began to grow dim. By slow degrees, the figure, then the face, faded back into the shadowy appearance that I had first seen. The luminous inner light died out in the white mist. The mist itself dropped slowly downward – floated a moment in airy circles on the floor – vanished. Nothing was before me but the familiar wall of the room, and the photograph lying face downward on my desk.

•  X  •

The next day, the newspapers reported the discovery of a murder in London. A Frenchwoman was the victim. She had been killed by a wound in the throat. The crime had been discovered between ten and eleven o’clock on the previous night.

I leave you to draw your conclusion from what I have related. My own faith in the reality of the apparition is immovable. I say, and believe, that Jeromette kept her word with me. She died young, and died miserably. And I heard of it from herself.

Take up the Trial again, and look at the circumstances that were revealed during the investigation in court. His motive for murdering her is there.

You will see that she did indeed marry him privately; that they lived together contentedly, until the fatal day when she discovered that his fancy had been caught by another woman; that violent quarrels took place between them, from that time to the time when my sermon showed him his own deadly hatred toward her, reflected in the case of another man; that she discovered his place of retreat in my house, and threatened him by letter with the public assertion of her conjugal rights; lastly, that a man, variously described by different witnesses, was seen leaving the door of her lodgings on the night of the murder. The Law – advancing no further than this – may have discovered circumstances of suspicion, but no certainty. The Law, in default of direct evidence to convict the prisoner, may have rightly decided in letting him go free.

But I persisted in believing that the man was guilty. I declare that he, and he alone, was the murderer of Jeromette. And now, you know why.

First published
Canadian Monthly Aug–Sep 1875

MISS MINA
AND THE GROOM

•  I  •

I hear that the “shocking story of my conduct” was widely circulated at the ball, and that public opinion (among the ladies), in every part of the room, declared I had disgraced myself. But there was one dissentient voice in this chorus of general condemnation. You spoke, Madam, with all the authority of your wide celebrity and your high rank. You said: “I am personally a stranger to the young lady who is the subject of remark. If I venture to interfere, it is only to remind you that there are two sides to every question. May I ask if you have waited to pass sentence, until you have heard what the person accused has to say in her own defence?”

These just and generous words produced, if I am correctly informed, a dead silence. Not one of the women who had condemned me had heard me in my own defence. Not one of them ventured to answer you.

How I may stand in the opinions of such persons as these, is a matter of perfect indifference to me. My one anxiety is to show that I am not quite unworthy of your considerate interference in my favour. Will you honour me by reading what I have to say for myself in these pages?

I will pass as rapidly as I can over the subject of my family; and I will abstain (in deference to motives of gratitude and honour) from mentioning surnames in my narrative.

My father was the second son of an English nobleman. A German lady was his first wife, and my mother. Left a widower, he married for the second time; the new wife being of American birth. She took a stepmother’s dislike to me – which, in some degree at least, I must own that I deserved.

When the newly married pair went to the United States they left me in England, by my own desire, to live under the protection of my uncle – a General in the army. This good man’s marriage had been childless, and his wife (Lady Claudia) was, perhaps on that account, as kindly ready as her husband to receive me in the character of an adopted daughter. I may add here, that I bear my German mother’s Christian name, Wilhelmina. All my friends, in the days when I had friends, used to shorten this to Mina. Be my friend so far, and call me Mina, too.

After these few words of introduction, will your patience bear with me, if I try to make you better acquainted with my uncle and aunt, and if I allude to circumstances connected with my new life which had, as I fear, some influence in altering my character for the worse?

•  II  •

When I think of the good General’s fatherly kindness to me, I really despair of writing about him in terms that do justice to his nature. To own the truth, the tears get into my eyes, and the lines mingle in such confusion that I cannot read them myself. As for my relations with my aunt, I only tell the truth when I say that she performed her duties toward me without the slightest pretension, and in the most charming manner.

At nearly fifty years old, Lady Claudia was still admired, though she had lost the one attraction which distinguished her before my time – the attraction of a perfectly beautiful figure. With fine hair and expressive eyes, she was otherwise a plain woman. Her unassuming cleverness and her fascinating manners were the qualities no doubt which made her popular everywhere. We never quarrelled. Not because I was always amiable, but because my aunt would not allow it. She managed me, as she managed her husband, with perfect tact. With certain occasional checks, she absolutely governed the General. There were eccentricities in his character which made him a man easily ruled by a clever woman. Deferring to his opinion, so far as appearances went, Lady Claudia generally contrived to get her own way in the end. Except when he was at his Club, happy in his gossip, his good dinners, and his whist, my excellent uncle lived under a despotism, in the happy delusion that he was master in his own house.

Prosperous and pleasant as it appeared on the surface, my life had its sad side for a young woman.

In the commonplace routine of our existence, as wealthy people in the upper rank, there was nothing to ripen the growth of any better capacities which may have been in my nature. Heartily as I loved and admired my uncle, he was neither of an age nor of a character to be the chosen depositary of my most secret thoughts, the friend of my inmost heart who could show me how to make the best and the most of my life. With friends and admirers in plenty, I had found no one who could hold this position toward me. In the midst of society I was, unconsciously, a lonely woman.

As I remember them, my hours of happiness were the hours when I took refuge in my music and my books. Out of the house, my one diversion, always welcome and always fresh, was riding. Without, any false modesty, I may mention that I had lovers as well as admirers; but not one of them produced an impression on my heart. In all that related to the tender passion, as it is called, I was an undeveloped being. The influence that men have on women, because they are men, was really and truly a mystery to me. I was ashamed of my own coldness – I tried, honestly tried, to copy other girls; to feel my heart beating in the presence of the one chosen man. It was not to be done. When a man pressed my hand, I felt it in my rings, instead of my heart.

These confessions made, I have done with the past, and may now relate the events which my enemies, among the ladies, have described as presenting a shocking story.

•  III  •

We were in London for the season. One morning, I went out riding with my uncle, as usual, in Hyde Park.

The General’s service in the army had been in a cavalry regiment – service distinguished by merits which justified his rapid rise to the high places in his profession. In the hunting-field, he was noted as one of the most daring and most accomplished riders in our county. He had always delighted in riding young and high-spirited horses; and the habit remained with him after he had quitted the active duties of his profession in later life. From first to last he had met with no accident worth remembering, until the unlucky morning when he went out with me.

His horse, a fiery chestnut, ran away with him, in that part of the Park-ride called Rotten Row. With the purpose of keeping clear of other riders, he spurred his runaway horse at the rail which divides the Row from the grassy enclosure at its side. The terrified animal swerved in taking the leap, and dashed him against a tree. He was dreadfully shaken and injured; but his strong constitution carried him through to recovery – with the serious drawback of an incurable lameness in one leg.

The doctors, on taking leave of their patient, united in warning him (at his age, and bearing in mind his weakened leg) to ride no more restive horses. “A quiet cob, General,” they all suggested. My uncle was sorely mortified and offended. “If I am fit for nothing but a quiet cob,” he said, bitterly, “I will ride no more.” He kept his word. No one ever saw the General on horseback again.

Under these sad circumstances (and my aunt being no horsewoman), I had apparently no other choice than to give up riding also. But my kind-hearted uncle was not the man to let me be sacrificed to his own disappointment. His riding-groom had been one of his soldier-servants in the cavalry regiment – a quaint sour tempered old man, not at all the sort of person to attend on a young lady taking her riding-exercise alone. “We must find a smart fellow who can be trusted,” said the General. “I shall inquire at the club.”

For a week afterward, a succession of grooms, recommended by friends, applied for the vacant place.

The General found insurmountable objections to all of them. “I’ll tell you what I have done,” he announced one day, with the air of a man who had hit on a grand discovery; “I have advertised in the papers.”

Lady Claudia looked up from her embroidery with the placid smile that was peculiar to her. “I don’t quite like advertising for a servant,” she said. “You are at the mercy of a stranger; you don’t know that you are not engaging a drunkard or a thief.”

“Or you may be deceived by a false character,” I added on my side. I seldom ventured, at domestic consultations, on giving my opinion unasked – but the new groom represented a subject in which I felt a strong personal interest. In a certain sense, he was to be my groom.

“I’m much obliged to you both for warning me that I am so easy to deceive,” the General remarked satirically. “Unfortunately, the mischief is done. Three men have answered my advertisement already. I expect them here tomorrow to be examined for the place.”

Lady Claudia looked up from her embroidery again. “Are you going to see them yourself?” she asked softly. “I thought the steward—”

“I have hitherto considered myself a better judge of a groom than my steward,” the General interposed. “However, don’t be alarmed; I won’t act on my own sole responsibility, after the hint you have given me. You and Mina shall lend me your valuable assistance, and discover whether they are thieves, drunkards, and what not, before I feel the smallest suspicion of it, myself.”

•  IV  •

We naturally supposed that the General was joking. No. This was one of those rare occasions on which Lady Claudia’s tact – infallible in matters of importance – proved to be at fault in a trifle. My uncle’s self-esteem had been touched in a tender place; and he had resolved to make us feel it. The next morning a polite message came, requesting our presence in the library, to see the grooms. My aunt (always ready with her smile, but rarely tempted into laughing outright) did for once laugh heartily. “It is really too ridiculous!” she said. However, she pursued her policy of always yielding, in the first instance. We went together to the library.

The three grooms were received in the order in which they presented themselves for approval. Two of them bore the ineffaceable mark of the public-house so plainly written on their villainous faces, that even I could see it. My uncle ironically asked us to favour him with our opinions. Lady Claudia answered with her sweetest smile: “Pardon me, General – we are here to learn.” The words were nothing; but the manner in which they were spoken was perfect. Few men could have resisted that gentle influence – and the General was not one of the few. He stroked his moustache, and returned to his petticoat government. The two grooms were dismissed.

The entry of the third and last man took me completely by surprise.

If the stranger’s short coat and light trousers had not proclaimed his vocation in life, I should have taken it for granted that there had been some mistake, and that we were favoured with a visit from a gentleman unknown. He was between dark and light in complexion, with frank clear blue eyes; quiet and intelligent, if appearances were to be trusted; easy in his movements; respectful in his manner, but perfectly free from servility. “I say!” the General blurted out, addressing my aunt confidentially, “he looks as if he would do, doesn’t he?”

The appearance of the new man seemed to have had the same effect on Lady Claudia which it had produced on me. But she got over her first feeling of surprise sooner than I did. “You know best,” she answered, with the air of a woman who declined to trouble herself by giving an opinion.

“Step forward, my man,” said the General. The groom advanced from the door, bowed, and stopped at the foot of the table – my uncle sitting at the head, with my aunt and myself on either side of him. The inevitable questions began.

“What is your name?”

“Michael Bloomfield.”

“Your age?”

“Twenty-six.”

My aunt’s want of interest in the proceedings expressed itself by a little weary sigh. She leaned back resignedly in her chair.

The General went on with his questions: “What experience have you had as a groom?”

“I began learning my work, sir, before I was twelve years old.”

“Yes! yes! I mean what private families have you served in?”

“Two, sir.”

“How long have you been in your two situations?”

“Four years in the first; and three in the second.”

The General looked agreeably surprised. “Seven years in only two situations is a good character in itself,” he remarked. “Who are your references?”

The groom laid two papers on the table.

“I don’t take written references,” said the General.

“Be pleased to read my papers, sir,” answered the groom.

My uncle looked sharply across the table. The groom sustained the look with respectful but unshaken composure. The General took up the papers, and seemed to be once more favourably impressed as he read them. “Personal references in each case if required in support of strong written recommendations from both his employers,” he informed my aunt. “Copy the addresses, Mina. Very satisfactory, I must say. Don’t you think so yourself?” he resumed, turning again to my aunt.

Lady Claudia replied by a courteous bend of her head. The General went on with his questions. They related to the management of horses; and they were answered to his complete satisfaction.

“Michael Bloomfield, you know your business,” he said, “and you have a good character. Leave your address. When I have consulted your references, you shall hear from me.”

The groom took out a blank card, and wrote his name and address on it. I looked over my uncle’s shoulder when he received the card. Another surprise! The handwriting was simply irreproachable – the lines running perfectly straight, and every letter completely formed. As this perplexing person made his modest bow, and withdrew, the General, struck by an afterthought, called him back from the door.

“One thing more,” said my uncle. “About friends and followers? I consider it my duty to my servants to allow them to see their relations; but I expect them to submit to certain conditions in return—”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the groom interposed. “I shall not give you any trouble on that score. I have no relations.”

“No brothers or sisters?” asked the General.

“None, sir.”

“Father and mother both dead?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know! What does that mean?”

“I am telling you the plain truth, sir. I never heard who my father and mother were – and I don’t expect to hear now.”

He said those words with a bitter composure which impressed me painfully. Lady Claudia was far from feeling it as I did. Her languid interest in the engagement of the groom seemed to be completely exhausted – and that was all. She rose, in her easy graceful way, and looked out of the window at the courtyard and fountain, the house-dog in his kennel, and the box of flowers in the coachman’s window.

In the meanwhile, the groom remained near the table, respectfully waiting for his dismissal. The General spoke to him sharply, for the first time. I could see that my good uncle had noticed the cruel tone of that passing reference to the parents, and thought of it as I did.

“One word more, before you go,” he said. “If I don’t find you more mercifully inclined toward my horses than you seem to be toward your father and mother, you won’t remain long in my service. You might have told me you had never heard who your parents were, without speaking as if you didn’t care to hear.”

“May I say a bold word, sir, in my own defence?”

He put the question very quietly, but, at the same time, so firmly that he even surprised my aunt. She looked round from the window – then turned back again, and stretched out her hand toward the curtain, intending, as I supposed, to alter the arrangement of it. The groom went on.

“May I ask, sir, why I should care about a father and mother who deserted me? Mind what you are about, my lady!” he cried – suddenly addressing my aunt. “There’s a cat in the folds of that curtain; she might frighten you.”

He had barely said the words before the housekeeper’s large tabby cat, taking its noonday siesta in the looped-up fold of the curtain, leaped out and made for the door.

Lady Claudia was, naturally enough, a little perplexed by the man’s discovery of an animal completely hidden in the curtain. She appeared to think that a person who was only a groom had taken a liberty in presuming to puzzle her. Like her husband, she spoke to Michael sharply.

“Did you see the cat?” she asked.

“No, my lady.”

“Then how did you know the creature was in the curtain?”

For the first time since he had entered the room the groom looked a little confused.

“It’s a sort of presumption for a man in my position to be subject to a nervous infirmity,” he answered. “I am one of those persons (the weakness is not uncommon, as your ladyship is aware) who know by their own unpleasant sensations when a cat is in the room. It goes a little further than that with me. The ‘antipathy,’ as the gentlefolks call it, tells me in what part of the room the cat is.”

My aunt turned to her husband, without attempting to conceal that she took no sort of interest in the groom’s antipathies.

“Haven’t you done with the man yet?” she asked.

The General gave the groom his dismissal.

“You shall hear from me in three days’ time. Good-morning.”

Michael Bloomfield seemed to have noticed my aunt’s ungracious manner. He looked at her for a moment with steady attention before he left the room.

•  V  •

“You don’t mean to engage that man?” said Lady Claudia as the door closed.

“Why not?” asked my uncle.

“I have taken a dislike to him.”

This short answer was so entirely out of the character of my aunt that the General took her kindly by the hand, and said:

“I am afraid you are not well.”

She irritably withdrew her hand.

“I don’t feel well. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Claudia. What can I do for you?”

“Write to the man—” She paused and smiled contemptuously. “Imagine a groom with an antipathy to cats!” she said, turning to me. “I don’t know what you think, Mina. I have a strong objection, myself, to servants who hold themselves above their position in life. Write,” she resumed, addressing her husband, “and tell him to look for another place.”

“What objection can I make to him?” the General asked, helplessly.

“Good heavens! can’t you make an excuse? Say he is too young.”

My uncle looked at me in expressive silence – walked slowly to the writing-table – and glanced at his wife, in the faint hope that she might change her mind. Their eyes met – and she seemed to recover the command of her temper. She put her hand caressingly on the General’s shoulder.

“I remember the time,” she said, softly, “when any caprice of mine was a command to you. Ah, I was younger then!”

The General’s reception of this little advance was thoroughly characteristic of him. He first kissed Lady Claudia’s hand, and then he wrote the letter. My aunt rewarded him by a look, and left the library.

“What the deuce is the matter with her?” my uncle said to me when we were alone. “Do you dislike the man, too?”

“Certainly not. As far as I can judge, he appears to be just the sort of person we want.”

“And knows thoroughly well how to manage horses, my dear. What can be your aunt’s objection to him?”

As the words passed his lips Lady Claudia opened the library door.

“I am so ashamed of myself,” she said, sweetly. “At my age, I have been behaving like a spoiled child. How good you are to me, General! Let me try to make amends for my misconduct. Will you permit me?”

She took up the General’s letter, without waiting for permission; tore it to pieces, smiling pleasantly all the while; and threw the fragments into the waste-paper basket. “As if you didn’t know better than I do!” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “Engage the man by all means.”

She left the room for the second time. For the second time my uncle looked at me in blank perplexity – and I looked back at him in the same condition of mind. The sound of the luncheon bell was equally a relief to both of us. Not a word more was spoken on the subject of the new groom. His references were verified; and he entered the General’s service in three days’ time.

•  VI  •

Always careful in anything that concerned my welfare, no matter how trifling it might be, my uncle did not trust me alone with the new groom when he first entered our service. Two old friends of the General accompanied me at his special request, and reported the man to be perfectly competent and trustworthy. After that, Michael rode out with me alone; my friends among young ladies seldom caring to accompany me, when I abandoned the park for the quiet country roads on the north and west of London. Was it wrong in me to talk to him on these expeditions? It would surely have been treating a man like a brute never to take the smallest notice of him – especially as his conduct was uniformly respectful toward me. Not once, by word or look, did he presume on the position which my favour permitted him to occupy.

Ought I to blush when I confess (though he was only a groom) that he interested me?

In the first place, there was something romantic in the very blankness of the story of his life.

He had been left, in his infancy, in the stables of a gentleman living in Kent, near the highroad between Gravesend and Rochester. The same day, the stable-boy had met a woman running out of the yard, pursued by the dog. She was a stranger, and was not well-dressed. While the boy was protecting her by chaining the dog to his kennel, she was quick enough to place herself beyond the reach of pursuit.

The infant’s clothing proved, on examination, to be of the finest linen. He was warmly wrapped in a beautiful shawl of some foreign manufacture, entirely unknown to all the persons present, including the master and mistress of the house. Among the folds of the shawl there was discovered an open letter, without date, signature, or address, which it was presumed the woman must have forgotten.

Like the shawl, the paper was of foreign manufacture. The handwriting presented a strongly marked character; and the composition plainly revealed the mistakes of a person imperfectly acquainted with the English language. The contents of the letter, after alluding to the means supplied for the support of the child, announced that the writer had committed the folly of enclosing a sum of a hundred pounds in a banknote, “to pay expenses.” In a postscript, an appointment was made for a meeting in six months’ time, on the eastward side of London Bridge. The stable-boy’s description of the woman who had passed him showed that she belonged to the lower class. To such a person a hundred pounds would be a fortune. She had, no doubt, abandoned the child, and made off with the money.

No trace of her was ever discovered. On the day of the appointment the police watched the eastward side of London Bridge without obtaining any result. Through the kindness of the gentleman in whose stable he had been found, the first ten years of the boy’s life were passed under the protection of a charitable asylum. They gave him the name of one of the little inmates who had died; and they sent him out to service before he was eleven years old. He was harshly treated and ran away; wandered to some training-stables near Newmarket; attracted the favourable notice of the head-groom, was employed among the other boys, and liked the occupation. Growing up to manhood, he had taken service in private families as a groom. This was the story of twenty-six years of Michael’s life.

But there was something in the man himself which attracted attention, and made one think of him in his absence.

I mean by this, that there was a spirit of resistance to his destiny in him, which is very rarely found in serving-men of his order. I remember accompanying the General “on one of his periodical visits of inspection to the stable.” He was so well satisfied that he proposed extending his investigations to the groom’s own room.

“If you don object, Michael?” he added, with his customary consideration for the self-respect of all persons in his employment. Michael’s colour rose a little; he looked at me. “I am afraid the young lady will not find my room quite so tidy as it ought to be,” he said as he opened the door for us.

The only disorder in the groom’s room was produced, to our surprise, by the groom’s books and papers.

Cheap editions of the English poets, translations of Latin and Greek classics, handbooks for teaching French and German “without a master,” carefully written “exercises” in both languages, manuals of shorthand, with more “exercises” in that art, were scattered over the table, round the central object of a reading-lamp, which spoke plainly of studies by night. “Why, what is all this?” cried the General. “Are you going to leave me, Michael, and set up a school?” Michael answered in sad, submissive tones. “I try to improve myself, sir – though I sometimes lose heart and hope.”  “Hope of what?” asked my uncle. “Are you not content to be a servant? Must you rise in the world, as the saying is?” The groom shrank a little at that abrupt question. “If I had relations to care for me and help me along the hard ways of life,” he said, “I might be satisfied, sir, to remain as I am. As it is, I have no one to think about but myself – and I am foolish enough sometimes to look beyond myself.”

So far, I had kept silence; but I could no longer resist giving him a word of encouragement – his confession was so sadly and so patiently made. “You speak too harshly of yourself,” I said; “the best and greatest men have begun like you by looking beyond themselves.” For a moment our eyes met. I admired the poor lonely fellow trying so modestly and so bravely to teach himself – and I did not care to conceal it. He was the first to look away; some suppressed emotion turned him deadly pale. Was I the cause of it? I felt myself tremble as that bold question came into my mind. The General, with one sharp glance at me, diverted the talk (not very delicately, as I thought) to the misfortune of Michael’s birth.

“I have heard of your being deserted in your infancy by some woman unknown,” he said. “What has become of the things you were wrapped in, and the letter that was found on you? They might lead to a discovery, one of these days.” The groom smiled. “The last master I served thought of it as you do, Sir. He was so good as to write to the gentleman who was first burdened with the care of me – and the things were sent to me in return.”

He took up an unlocked leather bag, which opened by touching a brass knob, and showed us the shawl, the linen (sadly faded by time) and the letter. We were puzzled by the shawl. My uncle, who had served in the East, thought it looked like a very rare kind of Persian work. We examined with interest the letter, and the fine linen. When Michael quietly remarked, as we handed them back to him, “They keep the secret, you see,” we could only look at each other, and own there was nothing more to be said.

•  VII  •

That night, lying awake thinking, I made my first discovery of a great change that had come over me. I felt like a new woman.

Never yet had my life been so enjoyable to me as it was now. I was conscious of a delicious lightness of heart. The simplest things pleased me; I was ready to be kind to everybody, and to admire everything. Even the familiar scenery of my rides in the park developed beauties which I had never noticed before. The enchantments of music affected me to tears. I was absolutely in love with my dogs and my birds – and, as for my maid, I bewildered the girl with presents, and gave her holidays almost before she could ask for them. In a bodily sense, I felt an extraordinary accession of strength and activity. I romped with the dear old General, and actually kissed Lady Claudia, one morning, instead of letting her kiss me as usual. My friends noticed my new outburst of gaiety and spirit – and wondered what had produced it. I can honestly say that I wondered too! Only on that wakeful night which followed our visit to Michael’s room did I arrive at something like a clear understanding of myself. The next morning completed the process of enlightenment. I went out riding as usual. The instant when Michael put his hand under my foot as I sprang into the saddle, his touch flew all over me like a flame. I knew who had made a new woman of me from that moment.

As to describing the first sense of confusion that overwhelmed me, even if I were a practised writer I should be incapable of doing it. I pulled down my veil, and rode on in a sort of trance. Fortunately for me, our house looked on the park, and I had only to cross the road. Otherwise I should have met with some accident if I had ridden through the streets. To this day, I don’t know where I rode. The horse went his own way quietly – and the groom followed me.

The groom! Is there any human creature so free from the hateful and anti-Christian pride of rank as a woman who loves with all her heart and soul, for the first time in her life? I only tell the truth (in however unfavourable a light it may place me) when I declare that my confusion was entirely due to the discovery that I was in love. I was not ashamed of myself for being in love with the groom. I had given my heart to the man. What did the accident of his position matter? Put money into his pocket and a title before his name – by another accident: in speech, manners, and attainments, he would be a gentleman worthy of his wealth and worthy of his rank.

Even the natural dread of what my relations and friends might say, if they discovered my secret, seemed to be a sensation so unworthy of me and of him, that I looked round, and called to him to speak to me, and asked him questions about himself which kept him riding nearly side by side with me. Ah, how I enjoyed the gentle deference and respect of his manner as he answered me! He was hardly bold enough to raise his eyes to mine, when I looked at him. Absorbed in the Paradise of my own making, I rode on slowly, and was only aware that friends had passed and had recognised me, by seeing him touch his hat. I looked round and discovered the women smiling ironically as they rode by. That one circumstance roused me rudely from my dream. I let Michael fall back again to his proper place, and quickened my horse’s pace; angry with myself, angry with the world in general, then suddenly changing, and being fool enough and child enough to feel ready to cry. How long these varying moods lasted, I don’t know. On returning, I slipped off my horse without waiting for Michael to help me, and ran into the house without even wishing him “Good-day.”

•  VIII  •

After taking off my riding-habit, and cooling my hot face with eau-de-cologne and water, I went down to the room which we called the morning-room. The piano there was my favourite instrument and I had the idea of trying what music would do toward helping me to compose myself.

As I sat down before the piano, I heard the opening of the door of the breakfast-room (separated from me by a curtained archway), and the voice of Lady Claudia asking if Michael had returned to the stable. On the servant’s reply in the affirmative, she desired that he might be sent to her immediately.

No doubt, I ought either to have left the morning-room, or to have let my aunt know of my presence there. I did neither the one nor the other. Her first dislike of Michael had, to all appearance, subsided. She had once or twice actually taken opportunities of speaking to him kindly. I believed this was due to the caprice of the moment. The tone of her voice too suggested, on this occasion, that she had some spiteful object in view, in sending for him. I knew it was unworthy of me – and yet, I deliberately waited to hear what passed between them.

Lady Claudia began.

“You were out riding today with Miss Mina?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Turn to the light. I wish to see people when I speak to them. You were observed by some friends of mine; your conduct excited remark. Do you know your business as a lady’s groom?”

“I have had seven years’ experience, my lady.”

“Your business is to ride at a certain distance behind your mistress. Has your experience taught you that?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“You were not riding behind Miss Mina – your horse was almost side by side with hers. Do you deny it?”

“No, my lady.”

“You behaved with the greatest impropriety – you were seen talking to Miss Mina. Do you deny that?”

“No, my lady.”

“Leave the room. No! come back. Have you any excuse to make?”

“None, my lady.”

“Your insolence is intolerable! I shall speak to the General.”

The sound of the closing door followed.

I knew now what the smiles meant on the false faces of those women-friends of mine who had met me in the park. An ordinary man, in Michael’s place, would have mentioned my own encouragement of him as a sufficient excuse. He, with the inbred delicacy and reticence of a gentleman, had taken all the blame on himself. Indignant and ashamed, I advanced to the breakfast-room, bent on instantly justifying him. Drawing aside the curtain, I was startled by a sound as of a person sobbing. I cautiously looked in. Lady Claudia was prostrate on the sofa, hiding her face in her hands, in a passion of tears.

I withdrew, completely bewildered. The extraordinary contradictions in my aunt’s conduct were not at an end yet. Later in the day, I went to my uncle, resolved to set Michael right in his estimation, and to leave him to speak to Lady Claudia. The General was in the lowest spirits; he shook his head ominously the moment. I mentioned the groom’s name. “I dare say the man meant no harm – but the thing has been observed. I can’t have you made the subject of scandal, Mina. My wife makes a point of it – Michael must go.”

“You don’t mean to say that she has insisted on your sending Michael away?”

Before he could answer me, a footman appeared with a message. “My lady wishes to see you, sir.”

The General rose directly. My curiosity had got, by this time, beyond all restraint. I was actually indelicate enough to ask if I might go with him! He stared at me, as well he might. I persisted; I said I particularly wished to see Lady Claudia. My uncle’s punctilious good breeding still resisted me. “Your aunt may wish to speak to me in private,” he said. “Wait a moment, and I will send for you.”

I was incapable of waiting: my obstinacy was something superhuman. The bare idea that Michael might lose his place, through my fault, made me desperate, I suppose. “I won’t trouble you to send for me,” I persisted; “I will go with you at once as far as the door, and wait to hear if I may come in.” The footman was still present, holding the door open; the General gave way. I kept so close behind him that my aunt saw me as her husband entered the room. “Come in, Mina,” she said, speaking and looking like the charming Lady Claudia of everyday life. Was this the woman whom I had seen crying her heart out on the sofa hardly an hour ago?

“On second thoughts,” she continued, turning to the General, “I fear I may have been a little hasty. Pardon me for troubling you about it again – have you spoken to Michael yet? No? Then let us err on the side of kindness; let us look over his misconduct this time.”

My uncle was evidently relieved. I seized the opportunity of making my confession, and taking the whole blame on myself. Lady Claudia stopped me with the perfect grace of which she was mistress.

“My good child, don’t distress yourself! don’t make mountains out of molehills!” She patted me on the cheek with two plump white fingers which felt deadly cold. “I was not always prudent, Mina, when I was your age. Besides, your curiosity is naturally excited about a servant who is – what shall I call him? – a foundling.”

She paused and fixed her eyes on me attentively. “What did he tell you?” she asked. “Is it a very romantic story?”

The General began to fidget in his chair. If I had kept my attention on him, I should have seen in his face a warning to me to be silent. But my interest at the moment was absorbed in my aunt. Encouraged by her amiable reception, I was not merely unsuspicious of the trap that she had set for me – I was actually foolish enough to think that I could improve Michael’s position in her estimation (remember that I was in love with him!) by telling his story exactly as I have already told it in these pages. I spoke with fervour. Will you believe it? – her humour positively changed again! She flew into a passion with me for the first time in her life.

“Lies!” she cried. “Impudent lies on the face of them – invented to appeal to your interest. How dare you repeat them? General! if Mina had not brought it on herself, this man’s audacity would justify you in instantly dismissing him. Don’t you agree with me?”

The General’s sense of fair play roused him for once into openly opposing his wife.

“You are completely mistaken,” he said. “Mina and I have both had the shawl and the letter in our hands – and (what was there besides?) – ah, yes, the very linen the child was wrapped in.”

What there was in those words to check Lady Claudia’s anger in its full flow I was quite unable to understand. If her husband had put a pistol to her head, he could hardly have silenced her more effectually. She did not appear to be frightened, or ashamed of her outbreak of rage – she sat vacant and speechless, with her eyes on the General and her hands crossed on her lap. After waiting a moment (wondering as I did what it meant) my uncle rose with his customary resignation and left her. I followed him. He was unusually silent and thoughtful; not a word passed between us. I afterward discovered that he was beginning to fear, poor man, that his wife’s mind must be affected in some way, and was meditating a consultation with the physician who helped us in cases of need.

As for myself, I was either too stupid or too innocent to feel any positive forewarning of the truth, so far. After luncheon, while I was alone in the conservatory, my maid came to me from Michael, asking if I had any commands for him in the afternoon. I thought this rather odd; but it occurred to me that he might want some hours to himself. I made the inquiry.

To my astonishment, the maid announced that Lady Claudia had employed Michael to go on an errand for her. The nature of the errand was to take a letter to her bookseller, and to bring back the books which she had ordered. With three idle footmen in the house, whose business it was to perform such service as this, why had she taken the groom away from his work? The question obtained such complete possession of my mind that I actually summoned courage enough to go to my aunt. I said I had thought of driving out in my pony-carriage that afternoon, and I asked if she objected to sending one of the three indoor servants for her books in Michael’s place.

She received me with a strange hard stare, and answered with obstinate self-possession: “I wish Michael to go!” No explanation followed. With reason or without it, agreeable to me or not agreeable to me, she wished Michael to go.

I begged her pardon for interfering, and replied that I would give up the idea of driving on that day. She made no further remark. I left the room, determining to watch her. There is no defence for my conduct; it was mean and unbecoming, no doubt. I was drawn on, by some force in me which I could not even attempt to resist. Indeed, indeed I am not a mean person by nature!

At first, I thought of speaking to Michael; not with any special motive, but simply because I felt drawn toward him as the guide and helper in whom my heart trusted at this crisis in my life. A little consideration, however, suggested to me that I might be seen speaking to him, and might so do him an injury. While I was still hesitating, the thought came to me that my aunt’s motive for sending him to her bookseller might be to get him out of her way.

Out of her way in the house? No: his place was not in the house. Out of her way in the stable? The next instant, the idea flashed across my mind of watching the stable door.

The best bedrooms, my room included, were all in front of the house. I went up to my maid’s room, which looked on the courtyard; ready with my excuse, if she happened to be there. She was not there. I placed myself at the window, in full view of the stable opposite.

An interval elapsed – long or short, I cannot say which; I was too much excited to look at my watch. All I know is that I discovered her! She crossed the yard, after waiting to make sure that no one was there to see her; and she entered the stable by the door which led to that part of the building occupied by Michael. This time I looked at my watch.

Forty minutes passed before I saw her again. And then, instead of appearing at the door, she showed herself at the window of Michael’s room; throwing it wide open. I concealed myself behind the window curtain, just in time to escape discovery, as she looked up at the house. She next appeared in the yard, hurrying back. I waited a while, trying to compose myself in case I met anyone on the stairs. There was little danger of a meeting at that hour. The General was at his club; the servants were at their tea. I reached my own room without being seen by anyone, and locked myself in.

What had my aunt been doing for forty minutes in Michael’s room? And why had she opened the window?

I spare you my reflections on these perplexing questions. A convenient headache saved me from the ordeal of meeting Lady Claudia at the dinner-table. I passed a restless and miserable night; conscious that I had found my way blindly, as it were, to some terrible secret which might have its influence on my whole future life, and not knowing what to think, or what to do next. Even then, I shrank instinctively from speaking to my uncle. This was not wonderful. But I felt afraid to speak to Michael – and that perplexed and alarmed me. Consideration for Lady Claudia was certainly not the motive that kept me silent, after what I had seen.

The next morning my pale face abundantly justified the assertion that I was still ill.

My aunt, always doing her maternal duty toward me, came herself to inquire after my health before I was out of my room. So certain was she of not having been observed on the previous day – or so prodigious was her power of controlling herself – that she actually advised me to go out riding before lunch, and try what the fresh air and the exercise would do to relieve me! Feeling that I must end in speaking to Michael, it struck me that this would be the one safe way of consulting him in private. I accepted her advice, and had another approving pat on the cheek from her plump white fingers. They no longer struck cold on my skin; the customary vital warmth had returned to them. Her ladyship’s mind had recovered its tranquillity.

•  IX  •

I left the house for my morning ride.

Michael was not in his customary spirits. With some difficulty, I induced him to tell me the reason. He had decided on giving notice to leave his situation in the General’s employment. As soon as I could command myself, I asked what had happened to justify this incomprehensible proceeding on his part. He silently offered me a letter. It was written by the master whom he had served before he came to us; and it announced that an employment as secretary was offered to him, in the house of a gentleman who was “interested in his creditable efforts to improve his position in the world.”

What it cost me to preserve the outward appearance of composure as I handed back the letter, I am ashamed to tell. I spoke to him with some bitterness. “Your wishes are gratified,” I said; “I don’t wonder that you are eager to leave your place.” He reined back his horse and repeated my words. “Eager to leave my place? I am heartbroken at leaving it.” I was reckless enough to ask why. His head sank. “I daren’t tell you,” he said. I went on from one imprudence to another. “What are you afraid of?” I asked. He suddenly looked up at me. His eyes answered: “You.”

Is it possible to fathom the folly of a woman in love? Can any sensible person imagine the enormous importance which the veriest trifles assume in her poor little mind? I was perfectly satisfied – even perfectly happy, after that one look. I rode on briskly for a minute or two – then the forgotten scene at the stable recurred to my memory. I resumed a foot-pace and beckoned to him to speak to me.

“Lady Claudia’s bookseller lives in the City, doesn’t he?” I began.

“Yes, miss.”

“Did you walk both ways?”

“Yes.”

“You must have felt tired when you got back?”

“I hardly remember what I felt when I got back – I was met by a surprise.”

“May I ask what it was?”

“Certainly, miss. Do you remember a black bag of mine?”

“Perfectly.”

“When I returned from the City I found the bag open; and the things I kept in it – the shawl, the linen, and the letter—”

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

My heart gave one great leap in me, and broke into vehement throbbings, which made it impossible for me to say a word more. I reined up my horse, and fixed my eyes on Michael. He was startled; he asked if I felt faint. I could only sign to him that I was waiting to hear more.

“My own belief,” he proceeded, “is that some person burned the things in my absence, and opened the window to prevent any suspicion being excited by the smell. I am certain I shut the window before I left my room. When I closed it on my return, the fresh air had not entirely removed the smell of burning; and, what is more, I found a heap of ashes in the grate. As to the person who has done me this injury, and why it has been done, those are mysteries beyond my fathoming – I beg your pardon, miss – I am sure you are not well. Might I advise you to return to the house?”

I accepted his advice and turned back.

In the tumult of horror and amazement that filled my mind, I could still feel a faint triumph stirring in me through it all, when I saw how alarmed and how anxious he was about me. Nothing more passed between us on the way back. Confronted by the dreadful discovery that I had now made, I was silent and helpless. Of the guilty persons concerned in the concealment of the birth, and in the desertion of the infant, my nobly-born, highly-bred, irreproachable aunt now stood revealed before me as one! An older woman than I might have been hard put to it to preserve her presence of mind, in such a position as mine. Instinct, not reason, served me in my sore need. Instinct, not reason, kept me passively and stupidly silent when I got back to the house. “We will talk about it tomorrow,” was all I could say to Michael, when he gently lifted me from my horse.

I excused myself from appearing at the luncheon-table; and I drew down the blinds in my sitting-room, so that my face might not betray me when Lady Claudia’s maternal duty brought her upstairs to make inquiries. The same excuse served in both cases – my ride had failed to relieve me of my headache. My aunt’s brief visit led to one result which is worth mentioning. The indescribable horror of her that I felt forced the conviction on my mind that we two could live no longer under the same roof. While I was still trying to face this alternative with the needful composure, my uncle presented himself, in some anxiety about my continued illness. I should certainly have burst out crying, when the kind and dear old man condoled with me, if he had not brought news with him which turned back all my thoughts on myself and my aunt. Michael had shown the General his letter and had given notice to leave. Lady Claudia was present at the time. To her husband’s amazement, she abruptly interfered with a personal request to Michael to think better of it, and to remain in his place!

“I should not have troubled you, my dear, on this unpleasant subject,” said my uncle, “if Michael had not told me that you were aware of the circumstances under which he feels it his duty to leave us. After your aunt’s interference (quite incomprehensible to me), the man hardly knows what to do. Being your groom, he begs me to ask if there is any impropriety in his leaving the difficulty to your decision. I tell you of his request, Mina; but I strongly advise you to decline taking any responsibility on yourself.”

I answered mechanically, accepting my uncle’s suggestion, while my thoughts were wholly absorbed in this last of the many extraordinary proceedings on Lady Claudia’s part since Michael had entered the house. There are limits – out of books and plays – to the innocence of a young unmarried woman. After what I had just heard the doubts which had thus far perplexed me were suddenly and completely cleared up. I said to my secret self: “She has some human feeling left. If her son goes away, she knows that they may never meet again!”

From the moment when my mind emerged from the darkness, I recovered the use of such intelligence and courage as I naturally possessed. From this point, you will find that, right or wrong, I saw my way before me, and took it.

To say that I felt for the General with my whole heart, is merely to own that I could be commonly grateful. I sat on his knee, and laid my cheek against his cheek, and thanked him for his long, long years of kindness to me. He stopped me in his simple generous way. “Why, Mina, you talk as if you were going to leave us!” I started up, and went to the window, opening it and complaining of the heat, and so concealing from him that he had unconsciously anticipated the event that was indeed to come. When I returned to my chair, he helped me to recover myself by alluding once more to his wife. He feared that her health was in some way impaired. In the time when they had first met, she was subject to nervous maladies, having their origin in a “calamity” which was never mentioned by either of them in later days. She might possibly be suffering again, from some other form of nervous derangement, and he seriously thought of persuading her to send for medical advice.

Under ordinary circumstances, this vague reference to a “calamity” would not have excited any special interest in me. But my mind was now in a state of morbid suspicion. I had not heard how long my uncle and aunt had been married; but I remembered that Michael had described himself as being twenty-six years old. Bearing these circumstances in mind, it struck me that I might be acting wisely (in Michael’s interest) if I persuaded the General to speak further of what had happened, at the time when he met the woman whom an evil destiny had bestowed on him for a wife. Nothing but the consideration of serving the man I loved would have reconciled me to making my own secret use of the recollections which my uncle might innocently confide to me. As it was, I thought the means would, in this case, he for once justified by the end. Before we part, I have little doubt that you will think so too.

I found it an easier task than I had anticipated to turn the talk back again to the days when the General had seen Lady Claudia for the first time. He was proud of the circumstances under which he had won his wife. Ah, how my heart ached for him as I saw his eyes sparkle, and the colour mount in his fine rugged face!

This is the substance of what I heard from him. I tell it briefly, because it is still painful to me to tell it at all.

•   •   •

My uncle had met Lady Claudia at her father’s country house. She had then reappeared in society, after a period of seclusion, passed partly in England, partly on the Continent. Before the date of her retirement, she had been engaged to marry a French nobleman, equally illustrious by his birth and by his diplomatic services in the East. Within a few weeks of the wedding-day, he was drowned by the wreck of his yacht. This was the calamity to which my uncle had referred.

Lady Claudia’s mind was so seriously affected by the dreadful event, that the doctors refused to answer for the consequences, unless she was at once placed in the strictest retirement. Her mother, and a French maid devotedly attached to her, were the only persons whom it was considered safe for the young lady to see, until time and care had in some degree composed her. Her return to her friends and admirers, after the necessary interval of seclusion, was naturally a subject of sincere rejoicing among the guests assembled in her father’s house. My uncle’s interest in Lady Claudia soon developed into love. They were equals in rank, and well suited to each other in age. The parents raised no obstacles; but they did not conceal from their guest that the disaster which had befallen their daughter was but too likely to disincline her to receive his addresses, or any man’s addresses, favourably. To their surprise, they proved to be wrong. The young lady was touched by the simplicity and the delicacy with which her lover urged his suit. She had lived among worldly people. This was a man whose devotion she could believe to be sincere. They were married.

Had no unusual circumstances occurred? Had nothing happened which the General had forgotten? Nothing.

•  X  •

It is surely needless that I should stop here, to draw the plain inferences from the events just related.

Any person who remembers that the shawl in which the infant was wrapped came from those Eastern regions which were associated with the French nobleman’s diplomatic services – also, that the faults of composition in the letter found on the child were exactly the faults likely to have been committed by the French maid – any person who follows these traces can find his way to the truth as I found mine.

Returning for a moment to the hopes which I had formed of being of some service to Michael, I have only to say that they were at once destroyed, when I heard of the death by drowning of the man to whom the evidence pointed as his father. The prospect looked equally barren when I thought of the miserable mother. That she should openly acknowledge her son in her position was perhaps not to be expected of any woman. Had she courage enough, or, in plainer words, heart enough to acknowledge him privately?

I called to mind again some of the apparent caprices and contradictions in Lady Claudia’s conduct, on the memorable day when Michael had presented himself to fill the vacant place. Look back with me to the record of what she said and did on that occasion, by the light of your present knowledge, and you will see that his likeness to his father must have struck her when he entered the room, and that his statement of his age must have correctly described the age of her son. Recall the actions that followed, after she had been exhausted by her first successful efforts at self-control – the withdrawal to the window to conceal her face; the clutch at the curtain when she felt herself sinking; the harshness of manner under which she concealed her emotions when she ventured to speak to him; the reiterated inconsistencies and vacillations of conduct that followed, all alike due to the protest of Nature, desperately resisted to the last – and say if I did her injustice when I believed her to be incapable of running the smallest risk of discovery at the prompting of maternal love.

There remained, then, only Michael to think of. I remember how he had spoken of the unknown parents whom he neither expected nor cared to discover. Still, I could not reconcile it to my conscience to accept a chance outbreak of temper as my sufficient justification for keeping him in ignorance of a discovery which so nearly concerned him. It seemed at least to be my duty to make myself acquainted with the true state of his feelings, before I decided to bear the burden of silence with me to my grave.

What I felt it my duty to do in this serious matter, I determined to do at once. Besides, let me honestly own that I felt lonely and desolate, oppressed by the critical situation in which I was placed, and eager for the relief that it would be to me only to hear the sound of Michael’s voice. I sent my maid to say that I wished to speak to him immediately. The crisis was already hanging over my head. That one act brought it down.

•  XI  •

He came in, and stood modestly waiting at the door.

After making him take a chair, I began by saying that I had received his message, and that, acting on my uncle’s advice, I must abstain from interfering in the question of his leaving, or not leaving, his place. Having in this way established a reason for sending for him, I alluded next to the loss that he had sustained, and asked if he had any prospect of finding out the person who had entered his room in his absence. On his reply in the negative, I spoke of the serious results to him of the act of destruction that had been committed. “Your last chance of discovering your parents,” I said, “has been cruelly destroyed.”

He smiled sadly. “You know already, miss, that I never expected to discover them.”

I ventured a little nearer to the object I had in view.

“Do you never think of your mother?” I asked. “At your age, she might be still living. Can you give up all hope of finding her, without feeling your heart ache?”

“If I have done her wrong, in believing that she deserted me,” he answered, “the heartache is but a poor way of expressing the remorse that I should feel.”

I ventured nearer still.

“Even if you were right,” I began – “even it she did desert you—”

He interrupted me sternly. “I would not cross the street to see her,” he said. “A woman who deserts her child is a monster. Forgive me for speaking so, miss! When I see good mothers and their children it maddens me when I think of what my childhood was.”

Hearing these words, and watching him attentively while he spoke, I could see that my silence would be a mercy, not a crime. I hastened to speak of other things.

“If you decide to leave us,” I said, “when shall you go?”

His eyes softened instantly. Little by little the colour faded out of his face as he answered me.

“The General kindly said, when I spoke of leaving my place—” His voice faltered, and he paused to steady it. “My master,” he resumed, “said that I need not keep my new employer waiting by staying for the customary month, provided – provided you were willing to dispense with my services.”

So far, I had succeeded in controlling myself. At that reply I felt my resolution failing me. I saw how he suffered; I saw how manfully he struggled to conceal it.

“I am not willing,” I said. “I am sorry – very, very sorry to lose you. But I will do anything that is for your good. I can say no more.”

He rose suddenly, as if to leave the room; mastered himself; stood for a moment silently looking at me – then looked away again, and said his parting words.

“If I succeed, Miss Mina, in my new employment – if I get on to higher things – is it – is it presuming too much, to ask if I might, someday – perhaps when you are out riding alone – if I might speak to you – only to ask if you are well and happy—”

He could say no more. I saw the tears in his eyes; saw him shaken by the convulsive breathings which break from men in the rare moments when they cry. He forced it back even then. He bowed to me – oh, God, he bowed to me, as if he were only my servant! as if he were too far below me to take my hand, even at that moment! I could have endured anything else; I believe I could still have restrained myself under any other circumstances. It matters little now; my confession must be made, whatever you may think of me. I flew to him like a frenzied creature – I threw my arms round his neck – I said to him, “Oh, Michael, don’t you know that I love you?” And then I laid my head on his breast, and held him to me, and said no more.

In that moment of silence, the door of the room was opened. I started, and looked up. Lady Claudia was standing on the threshold.

I saw in her face that she had been listening – she must have followed him when he was on his way to my room. That conviction steadied me. I took his hand in mine, and stood side by side with him, waiting for her to speak first. She looked at Michael, not at me. She advanced a step or two, and addressed him in these words:

“It is just possible that you have some sense of decency left. Leave the room.”

That deliberate insult was all that I wanted to make me completely mistress of myself. I told Michael to wait a moment, and opened my writing desk. I wrote on an envelope the address in London of a faithful old servant, who had attended my mother in her last moments. I gave it to Michael. “Call there tomorrow morning,” I said. “You will find me waiting for you.”

He looked at Lady Claudia, evidently unwilling to leave me alone with her. “Fear nothing,” I said; “I am old enough to take care of myself. I have only a word to say to this lady before I leave the house.” With that, I took his arm, and walked with him to the door, and said good-bye almost as composedly as if we had been husband and wife already.

Lady Claudia’s eyes followed me as I shut the door again and crossed the room to a second door which led into my bedchamber. She suddenly stepped up to me, just as I was entering the room, and laid her hand on my arm.

“What do I see in your face?” she asked as much of herself as of me – with her eyes fixed in keen inquiry on mine.

“You shall know directly,” I answered. “Let me get my bonnet and cloak first.”

“Do you mean to leave the house?”

“I do.”

She rang the bell. I quietly dressed myself, to go out.

The servant answered the bell, as I returned to the sitting-room.

“Tell your master I wish to see him instantly,” said Lady Claudia.

“My master has gone out, my lady.”

“To his club?”

“I believe so, my lady.”

“I will send you with a letter to him. Come back when I ring again.” She turned to me as the man withdrew. “Do you refuse to stay here until the General returns?”

“I shall be happy to see the General, if you will enclose my address in your letter to him.”

Replying in those terms, I wrote the address for the second time. Lady Claudia knew perfectly well, when I gave it to her, that I was going to a respectable house kept by a woman who had nursed me when I was a child.

“One last question,” she said. “Am I to tell the General that it is your intention to marry your groom?”

Her tone stung me into making an answer which I regretted the moment it had passed my lips.

“You can put it more plainly, if you like,” I said. “You can tell the General that it is my intention to marry your son.”

She was near the door, on the point of leaving me. As I spoke, she turned with a ghastly stare of horror – felt about her with her hands as if she was groping in darkness – and dropped on the floor.

I instantly summoned help. The women-servants carried her to my bed. While they were restoring her to herself, I wrote a few lines telling the miserable woman how I had discovered her secret.

“Your husband’s tranquillity,” I added, “is as precious to me as my own. As for your son, you know what he thinks of the mother who deserted him. Your secret is safe in my keeping – safe from your husband, safe from your son, to the end of my life.”

I sealed up those words, and gave them to her when she had come to herself again. I never heard from her in reply. I have never seen her from that time to this. She knows she can trust me.

And what did my good uncle say, when we next met? I would rather report what he did, when he had got the better of his first feelings of anger and surprise on hearing of my contemplated marriage. He consented to receive us on our wedding-day; and he gave my husband the appointment which places us both in an independent position for life.

But he had his misgivings. He checked me when I tried to thank him.

“Come back in a year’s time,” he said. “I will wait to be thanked till the experience of your married life tells me that I have deserved it.”

The year passed; and the General received the honest expression of my gratitude. He smiled and kissed me; but there was something in his face which suggested that he was not quite satisfied yet.

“Do you believe that I have spoken sincerely?” I asked.

“I firmly believe it,” he answered – and there he stopped.

A wiser woman would have taken the hint and dropped the subject. My folly persisted in putting another question:

“Tell me, uncle. Haven’t I proved that I was right when I married my groom?”

“No, my dear. You have only proved that you are a lucky woman!”

First published as
“A Shocking Story”
Barnes’ International Review Nov–Dec 1878

MR. LEPEL
AND THE HOUSEKEEPER

•  FIRST EPOCH  •

The Italians are born actors.

At this conclusion I arrived, sitting in a Roman theatre – now many years since. My friend and travelling companion, Rothsay, cordially agreed with me. Experience had given us some claim to form an opinion. We had visited, at that time, nearly every city in Italy. Wherever a theatre was open, we had attended the performances of the companies which travel from place to place; and we had never seen bad acting from first to last. Men and women, whose names are absolutely unknown in England, played (in modern comedy and drama for the most part) with a general level of dramatic ability which I have never seen equalled in the theatres of other nations. Incapable Italian actors there must be, no doubt. For my own part I have only discovered them, by ones and twos, in England; appearing among the persons engaged to support Salvini and Ristori before the audiences of London.

On the occasion of which I am now writing, the night’s performances consisted of two plays. An accident, to be presently related, prevented us from seeing more than the introductory part of the second piece. That one act – in respect of the influence which the remembrance of it afterward exercised over Rothsay and myself – claims a place of its own in the opening pages of the present narrative.

The scene of the story was laid in one of the principalities of Italy, in the bygone days of the Carbonaro conspiracies. The chief persons were two young noblemen, friends affectionately attached to each other, and a beautiful girl born in the lower ranks of life.

On the rising of the curtain, the scene before us was the courtyard of a prison. We found the beautiful girl (called Celia as well as I can recollect) in great distress; confiding her sorrows to the jailer’s daughter. Her father was pining in the prison, charged with an offence of which he was innocent; and she herself was suffering the tortures of hopeless love. She was on the point of confiding her secret to her friend, when the appearance of the young nobleman closed her lips. The girls at once withdrew; and the two friends – whom I now only remember as the Marquis and the Count – began the dialogue which prepared us for the story of the play.

The Marquis had been tried for conspiracy against the reigning Prince and his government; had been found guilty, and is condemned to be shot that evening. He accepts his sentence with the resignation of a man who is weary of his life. Young as he is, he has tried the round of pleasures without enjoyment; he has no interests, no aspirations, no hopes; he looks on death as a welcome release. His friend the Count, admitted to a farewell interview, has invented a stratagem by which the prisoner may escape and take to flight. The Marquis expresses a grateful sense of obligation, and prefers being shot. “I don’t value my life,” he says; “I am not a happy man like you.” Upon this the Count mentions circumstances which he has hitherto kept secret. He loves the charming Celia, and loves in vain. Her reputation is unsullied; she possesses every good quality that a man can desire in a wife – but the Count’s social position forbids him to marry a woman of low birth. He is heartbroken; and he too finds life without hope a burden that is not to be borne. The Marquis at once sees a way of devoting himself to his friend’s interests. He is rich; his money is at his own disposal; he will bequeath a marriage portion to Celia which will make her one of the richest women in Italy. The Count receives this proposal with a sigh. “No money,” he says, “will remove the obstacle that still remains. My father’s fatal objection to Celia is her rank in life.” The Marquis walks apart – considers a little – consults his watch – and returns with a new idea. “I have nearly two hours of life still left,” he says. “Send for Celia: she was here just now, and she is probably in her father’s cell.” The Count is at a loss to understand what this proposal means. The Marquis explains himself. “I ask your permission,” he resumes, “to offer marriage to Celia – for your sake. The chaplain of the prison will perform the ceremony. Before dark, the girl you love will be my widow. My widow is a lady of title – a fit wife for the greatest nobleman in the land.” The Count protests and refuses in vain. The jailer is sent to find Celia. She appears. Unable to endure the scene, the Count rushes out in horror. The Marquis takes the girl into his confidence, and makes his excuses. If she becomes a widow of rank, she may not only marry the Count, but will be in a position to procure the liberty of the innocent old man, whose strength is failing him under the rigours of imprisonment. Celia hesitates. After a struggle with herself, filial love prevails, and she consents. The jailer announces that the chaplain is waiting; the bride and bridegroom withdraw to the prison chapel. Left on the stage, the jailer hears a distant sound in the city, which he is at a loss to understand. It sinks, increases again, travels nearer to the prison, and now betrays itself as the sound of multitudinous voices in a state of furious uproar. Has the conspiracy broken out again? Yes! The whole population has risen; the soldiers have refused to fire on the people; the terrified Prince has dismissed his ministers, and promises a constitution. The Marquis, returning from the ceremony which has just made Celia his wife, is presented with a free pardon, and with the offer of a high place in the re-formed ministry. A new life is opening before him – and he has innocently ruined his friend’s prospects! On this striking situation the drop-curtain falls.

While we were still applauding the first act, Rothsay alarmed me: he dropped from his seat at my side, like a man struck dead. The stifling heat in the theatre had proved too much for him. We carried him out at once into the fresh air. When he came to his senses, my friend entreated me to leave him, and see the end of the play. To my mind, he looked as if he might faint again. I insisted on going back with him to our hotel.

On the next day I went to the theatre, to ascertain if the play would be repeated. The box-office was closed. The dramatic company had left Rome.

My interest in discovering how the story ended led me next to the booksellers’ shops – in the hope of buying the play. Nobody knew anything about it. Nobody could tell me whether it was the original work of an Italian writer, or whether it had been stolen (and probably disfigured) from the French. As a fragment I had seen it. As a fragment it has remained from that time to this.

•  SECOND EPOCH  •

One of my objects in writing these lines is to vindicate the character of an innocent woman (formerly in my service as housekeeper) who has been cruelly slandered. Absorbed in the pursuit of my purpose, it has only now occurred to me that strangers may desire to know something more than they know now of myself and my friend. “Give us some idea,” they may say, “of what sort of persons you are, if you wish to interest us at the outset of your story.”

A most reasonable suggestion, I admit. Unfortunately, I am not the right man to comply with it.

In the first place, I cannot pretend to pronounce judgement on my own character. In the second place, I am incapable of writing impartially of my friend. At the imminent risk of his own life, Rothsay rescued me from a dreadful death by accident, when we were at college together. Who can expect me to speak of his faults? I am not even capable of seeing them.

Under these embarrassing circumstances – and not forgetting, at the same time, that a servant’s opinion of his master and his master’s friends may generally be trusted not to err on the favourable side – I am tempted to call my valet as a witness to character.

I slept badly on our first night at Rome; and I happened to be awake while the man was talking of us confidentially in the courtyard of the hotel – just under my bedroom window. Here, to the best of my recollection, is a faithful report of what he said to some friend among the servants who understood English:

“My master’s well connected, you must know – though he’s only plain Mr. Lepel. His uncle’s the great lawyer, Lord Lepel; and his late father was a banker. Rich, did you say? I should think he was rich – and be hanged to him! No, not married, and not likely to be. Owns he was forty last birthday; a regular old bachelor. Not a bad sort, taking him altogether. The worst of him is, he is one of the most indiscreet persons I ever met with. Does the queerest things, when the whim takes him, and doesn’t care what other people think of it. They say the Lepels have all got a slate loose in the upper story. Oh, no; not a very old family – I mean, nothing compared to the family of his friend, young Rothsay. They count back, as I have heard, to the ancient kings of Scotland. Between ourselves, the ancient kings haven’t left the Rothsays much money. They would be glad, I’ll be bound, to get my rich master for one of their daughters. Poor as Job, I tell you. This young fellow, travelling with us, has never had a spare five-pound note since he was born. Plenty of brains in his head, I grant you; and a little too apt sometimes to be suspicious of other people. But liberal – oh, give him his due – liberal in a small way. Tips me with a sovereign now and then. I take it – Lord bless you, I take it. What do you say? Has he got any employment? Not he! Dabbles in chemistry (experiments, and that sort of thing) by way of amusing himself; and tells the most infernal lies about it. The other day he showed me a bottle about as big as a thimble, with what looked like water in it, and said it was enough to poison everybody in the hotel. What rot! Isn’t that the clock striking again? Near about bedtime, I should say. Wish you good night.”

There are our characters – drawn on the principle of justice without mercy, by an impudent rascal who is the best valet in England. Now you know what sort of persons we are; and now we may go on again.

•   •   •

Rothsay and I parted, soon after our night at the theatre. He went to Civita Vecchia to join a friend’s yacht, waiting for him in the harbour. I turned homeward, travelling at a leisurely rate through the Tyrol and Germany.

After my arrival in England, certain events in my life occurred which did not appear to have any connection at the time. They led, nevertheless, to consequences which seriously altered the relations of happy past years between Rothsay and myself.

The first event took place on my return to my house in London. I found among the letters waiting for me an invitation from Lord Lepel to spend a few weeks with him at his country seat in Sussex.

I had made so many excuses, in past years, when I received invitations from my uncle, that I was really ashamed to plead engagements in London again. There was no unfriendly feeling between us. My only motive for keeping away from him took its rise in dislike of the ordinary modes of life in an English country-house. A man who feels no interest in politics, who cares nothing for field sports, who is impatient of amateur music and incapable of small talk, is a man out of his element in country society. This was my unlucky case. I went to Lord Lepel’s house sorely against my will; longing already for the day when it would be time to say good-bye.

The routine of my uncle’s establishment had remained unaltered since my last experience of it.

I found my lord expressing the same pride in his collection of old masters, and telling the same story of the wonderful escape of his picture-gallery from fire – I renewed my acquaintance with the same members of Parliament among the guests, all on the same side in politics – I joined in the same dreary amusements – I saluted the same resident priest (the Lepels are all born and bred Roman Catholics) – I submitted to the same rigidly early breakfast hour; and inwardly cursed the same peremptory bell, ringing as a means of reminding us of our meals. The one change that presented itself was a change out of the house. Death had removed the lodgekeeper at the park-gate. His widow and daughter (Mrs. Rymer and little Susan) remained in their pretty cottage. They had been allowed by my lord’s kindness to take charge of the gate.

Out walking, on the morning after my arrival, I was caught in a shower on my way back to the park, and took shelter in the lodge.

In the bygone days I had respected Mrs. Rymer’s husband as a thoroughly worthy man – but Mrs. Rymer herself was no great favourite of mine. She had married beneath her, as the phrase is, and she was a little too conscious of it. A woman with a sharp eye to her own interests; selfishly discontented with her position in life, and not very scrupulous in her choice of means when she had an end in view: that is how I describe Mrs. Rymer. Her daughter, whom I only remembered as a weakly child, astonished me when I saw her again after the interval that had elapsed. The backward flower had bloomed into perfect health. Susan was now a lovely little modest girl of seventeen – with a natural delicacy and refinement of manner, which marked her to my mind as one of Nature’s gentlewomen. When I entered the lodge she was writing at a table in a corner, having some books on it, and rose to withdraw. I begged that she would proceed with her employment, and asked if I might know what it was. She answered me with a blush, and a pretty brightening of her clear blue eyes. “I am trying, sir, to teach myself French,” she said. The weather showed no signs of improving – I volunteered to help her, and found her such an attentive and intelligent pupil that I looked in at the lodge from time to time afterward, and continued my instructions. The younger men among my uncle’s guests set their own stupid construction on my attentions “to the girl at the gate,” as they called her – rather too familiarly, according to my notions of propriety. I contrived to remind them that I was old enough to be Susan’s father, in a manner which put an end to their jokes; and I was pleased to hear, when I next went to the lodge, that Mrs. Rymer had been wise enough to keep these facetious gentlemen at their proper distance.

The day of my departure arrived. Lord Leper took leave of me kindly, and asked for news of Rothsay. “Let me know when your friend returns,” my uncle said; “he belongs to a good old stock. Put me in mind of him when I next invite you to come to my house.”

On my way to the train I stopped of course at the lodge to say good-bye. Mrs. Rymer came out alone I asked for Susan.

“My daughter is not very well today.”

“Is she confined to her room?”

“She is in the parlour.”

I might have been mistaken, but I thought Mrs. Rymer answered me in no very friendly way. Resolved to judge for myself, I entered the lodge, and found my poor little pupil sitting in a corner, crying. When I asked her what was the matter, the excuse of a “bad headache” was the only reply that I received. The natures of young girls are a hopeless puzzle to me. Susan seemed, for some reason which it was impossible to understand, to be afraid to look at me.

“Have you and your mother been quarrelling?” I asked.

“Oh, no!”

She denied it with such evident sincerity that I could not for a moment suspect her of deceiving me. Whatever the cause of her distress might be, it was plain that she had her own reasons for keeping it a secret.

Her French books were on the table. I tried a little allusion to her lessons.

“I hope you will go on regularly with your studies,” I said.

“I will do my best, sir – without you to help me.”

She said it so sadly that I proposed – purely from the wish to encourage her – a continuation of our lessons through the post.

“Send your exercises to me once a week,” I suggested; “and I will return them corrected.”

She thanked me in low tones, with a shyness of manner which I had never noticed in her before. I had done my best to cheer her – and I was conscious, as we shook hands at parting, that I had failed. A feeling of disappointment overcomes me when I see young people out of spirits. I was sorry for Susan.

•  THIRD EPOCH  •

One of my faults (which has not been included in the list set forth by my valet) is a disinclination to occupy myself with my own domestic affairs. The proceedings of my footman, while I had been away from home, left me no alternative but to dismiss him on my return. With this exertion of authority my interference as chief of the household came to an end. I left it to my excellent housekeeper, Mrs. Mozeen, to find a sober successor to the drunken vagabond who had been sent away. She discovered a respectable young man – tall, plump, and rosy – whose name was Joseph, and whose character was beyond reproach. I have but one excuse for noticing such a trifling event as this. It took its place, at a later period, in the chain which was slowly winding itself round me.

My uncle had asked me to prolong my visit and I should probably have consented, but for anxiety on the subject of a near and dear relative – my sister. Her health had been failing since the death of her husband, to whom she was tenderly attached. I heard news of her while I was in Sussex, which hurried me back to town. In a month more, her death deprived me of my last living relation. She left no children; and my two brothers had both died unmarried while they were still young men.

This affliction placed me in a position of serious embarrassment, in regard to the disposal of my property after my death.

I had hitherto made no will; being well aware that my fortune (which was entirely in money) would go in due course of law to the person of all others who would employ it to the best purpose – that is to say, to my sister as my nearest of kin. As I was now situated, my property would revert to my uncle if I died intestate. He was a richer man than I was. Of his two children, both sons, the eldest would inherit his estates: the youngest had already succeeded to his mother’s ample fortune. Having literally no family claims on me, I felt bound to recognise the wider demands of poverty and misfortune, and to devote my superfluous wealth to increasing the revenues of charitable institutions. As to minor legacies, I owed it to my good housekeeper, Mrs. Mozeen, not to forget the faithful services of past years. Need I add – if I had been free to act as I pleased – that I should have gladly made Rothsay the object of a handsome bequest? But this was not to be. My friend was a man morbidly sensitive on the subject of money. In the early days of our intercourse we had been for the first and only time on the verge of a quarrel, when I had asked (as a favour to myself) to be allowed to provide for him in my will.

“It is because I am poor,” he explained, “that I refuse to profit by your kindness – though I feel it gratefully.”

I failed to understand him – and said so plainly.

“You will understand this,” he resumed; “I should never recover my sense of degradation, if a mercenary motive on my side was associated with our friendship. Don’t say it’s impossible! You know as well as I do that appearances would be against me, in the eyes of the world. Besides, I don’t want money; my own small income is enough for me. Make me your executor if you like, and leave me the customary present of five hundred pounds. If you exceed that sum I declare on my word of honour that I will not touch one farthing of it.” He took my hand, and pressed it fervently. “Do me a favour,” he said. “Never let us speak of this again!”

I understood that I must yield – or lose my friend.

In now making my will, I accordingly appointed Rothsay one of my executors, on the terms that he had prescribed. The minor legacies having been next duly reduced to writing, I left the bulk of my fortune to public charities.

My lawyer laid the fair copy of the will on my table.

“A dreary disposition of property for a man of your age,” he said, “I hope to receive a new set of instructions before you are a year older.”

“What instructions?” I asked.

“To provide for your wife and children,” he answered.

My wife and children! The idea seemed to be so absurd that I burst out laughing. It never occurred to me that there could be any absurdity from my own point of view.

I was sitting alone, after my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the house-door which I thought I recognised. In another minute Rothsay’s bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned from the Mediterranean that morning.

“Am I interrupting you?” he asked, pointing to the leaves of manuscript before me. “Are you writing a book?”

“I am making my will.”

His manner changed; he looked at me seriously.

“Do you remember what I said, when we once talked of your will?” he asked. I set his doubts at rest immediately – but he was not quite satisfied yet. “Can’t you put your will away?” he suggested. “I hate the sight of anything that reminds me of death.”

“Give me a minute to sign it,” I said – and rang to summon the witnesses.

Mrs. Mozeen answered the bell. Rothsay looked at her, as if he wished to have my housekeeper put away as well as my will. From the first moment when he had seen her, he conceived a great dislike to that good creature. There was nothing, I am sure, personally repellent about her. She was a little slim quiet woman, with a pale complexion and bright brown eyes. Her movements were gentle; her voice was low; her decent grey dress was adapted to her age. Why Rothsay should dislike her was more than he could explain himself. He turned his unreasonable prejudice into a joke – and said he hated a woman who wore slate coloured cap-ribbons!

I explained to Mrs. Mozeen that I wanted witnesses to the signature of my will. Naturally enough – being in the room at the time – she asked if she could be one of them.

I was obliged to say No; and not to mortify her, I gave the reason.

“My will recognises what I owe to your good services,” I said. “If you are one of the witnesses, you will lose your legacy. Send up the menservants.”

With her customary tact, Mrs. Mozeen expressed her gratitude silently, by a look – and left the room.

“Why couldn’t you tell that woman to send the servants, without mentioning her legacy?” Rothsay asked. “My friend Lepel, you have done a very foolish thing.”

“In what way?”

“You have given Mrs. Mozeen an interest in your death.”

It was impossible to make a serious reply to this ridiculous exhibition of Rothsay’s prejudice against poor Mrs. Mozeen.

“When am I to be murdered?” I asked. “And how is it to be done? Poison?”

“I’m not joking,” Rothsay answered. “You are infatuated about your housekeeper. When you spoke of her legacy, did you notice her eyes.”

“Yes.”

“Did nothing strike you?”

“It struck me that they were unusually well preserved eyes for a woman of her age.”

The appearance of the valet and the footman put an end to this idle talk. The will was executed, and locked up. Our conversation turned on Rothsay’s travels by sea. The cruise had been in every way successful. The matchless shores of the Mediterranean defied description; the sailing of the famous yacht had proved to be worthy of her reputation; and, to crown all, Rothsay had come back to England, in a fair way, for the first time in his life, of making money.

“I have discovered a treasure,” he announced.

“It was a dirty little modern picture, picked up in a by-street at Palermo. It is a Virgin and Child, by Guido.”

On further explanation it appeared that the picture exposed for sale was painted on copper. Noticing the contrast between the rare material and the wretchedly bad painting that covered it, Rothsay had called t o mind some of the well-known stories of valuable works of art that had been painted over for purposes of disguise. The price asked for the picture amounted to little more than the value of the metal. Rothsay bought it. His knowledge of chemistry enabled him to put his suspicion successfully to the test; and one of the guests on board the yacht – a famous French artist – had declared his conviction that the picture now revealed to view was a genuine work by Guido. Such an opinion as this convinced me that it would be worth while to submit my friend’s discovery to the judgement of other experts. Consulted independently, these critics confirmed the view taken by the celebrated personage who had first seen the work. This result having been obtained, Rothsay asked my advice next on the question of selling his picture. I at once thought of my uncle. An undoubted work by Guido would surely be an acquisition to his gallery. I had only (in accordance with his own request) to let him know that my friend had returned to England. We might take the picture with us, when we received our invitation to Lord Lepel’s house.

•  FOURTH EPOCH  •

My uncle’s answer arrived by return of post. Other engagements obliged him to defer receiving us for a month. At the end of that time, we were cordially invited to visit him, and to stay as long as we liked.

In the interval that now passed, other events occurred – still of the trifling kind.

One afternoon, just as I was thinking of taking my customary ride in the park, the servant appeared charged with a basket of flowers, and with a message from Mrs. Rymer, requesting me to honour her by accepting a little offering from her daughter. Hearing that she was then waiting in the hall, I told the man to show her in. Susan (as I ought to have already mentioned) had sent her exercises to me regularly every week. In returning them corrected, I had once or twice added a word of well-deserved approval. The offering of flowers was evidently intended to express my pupil’s grateful sense of the interest taken in her by her teacher.

I had no reason, this time, to suppose that Mrs. Rymer entertained an unfriendly feeling toward me. At the first words of greeting that passed between us I perceived a change in her manner, which ran in the opposite extreme. She overwhelmed me with the most elaborate demonstrations of politeness and respect; dwelling on her gratitude for my kindness in receiving her, and on her pride at seeing her daughter’s flowers on my table, until I made a resolute effort to stop her by asking (as if it was actually a matter of importance to me!) whether she was in London on business or on pleasure.

“Oh, on business, sir! My poor husband invested his little savings in bank stock, and I have just been drawing my dividend. I do hope you don’t think my girl over-bold in venturing to send you a few flowers. She wouldn’t allow me to interfere. I do assure you she would gather and arrange them with her own hands. In themselves I know they are hardly worth accepting; but if you will allow the motive to plead—”

I made another effort to stop Mrs. Rymer; I said her daughter could not have sent me a prettier present.

The inexhaustible woman only went on more fluently than ever.

“She is so grateful, sir, and so proud of your goodness in looking at her exercises. The difficulty of the French language seem as nothing to her, now her motive is to please you. She is so devoted to her studies that I find it difficult to induce her to take the exercise necessary to her health; and, as you may perhaps remember, Susan was always rather weakly as a child. She inherits her father’s constitution, Mr. Lepel – not mine.”

Here, to my infinite relief, the servant appeared, announcing that my horse was at the door.

Mrs. Rymer opened her mouth. I saw a coming flood of apologies on the point of pouring out – and seized my hat on the spot. I declared I had an appointment; I sent kind remembrances to Susan (pitying her for having such a mother with my whole heart); I said I hoped to return to my uncle’s house soon, and to continue the French lessons. The one thing more that I remember was finding myself safe in the saddle, and out of the reach of Mrs. Rymer’s tongue.

Reflecting on what had passed, it was plain to me that this woman had some private end in view, and that my abrupt departure had prevented her from finding the way to it. What motive could she possibly have for that obstinate persistence in presenting poor Susan under a favourable aspect, to a man who had already shown that he was honestly interested in her pretty modest daughter? I tried hard to penetrate the mystery – and gave it up in despair.

Three days before the date at which Rothsay and I were to pay our visit to Lord Lepel, I found myself compelled to undergo one of the minor miseries of human life. In other words I became one of the guests at a large dinner-party. It was a rainy day in October. My position at the table placed me between a window that was open and a door that was hardly ever shut. I went to bed shivering; and woke the next morning with a headache and a difficulty in breathing. On consulting the doctor, I found that I was suffering from an attack of bronchitis. There was no reason to be alarmed. If I remained indoors, and submitted to the necessary treatment, I might hope to keep my engagement with my uncle in ten days or a fortnight.

There was no alternative but to submit. I accordingly arranged with Rothsay that he should present himself at Lord Lepel’s house (taking the picture with him), on the date appointed for our visit, and that I should follow as soon as I was well enough to travel.

On the day when he was to leave London, my friend kindly came to keep me company for a while. He was followed into my room by Mrs. Mozeen, with a bottle of medicine in her hand. This worthy creature, finding that the doctor’s directions occasionally escaped my memory, devoted herself to the duty of administering the remedies at the prescribed intervals of time. When she left the room, having performed her duties as usual, I saw Rothsay’s eyes follow her to the door with an expression of sardonic curiosity. He put a strange question to me as soon as we were alone.

“Who engaged that new servant of yours?” he asked. “I mean the fat fellow, with the curly flaxen hair.”

“Hiring servants,” I replied, “is not much in my way. I left the engagement of the new man to Mrs. Mozeen.”

Rothsay walked gravely up to my bedside.

“Lepel,” he said, “your respectable housekeeper is in love with the fat young footman.”

It is not easy to amuse a man suffering from bronchitis. But this new outbreak of absurdity was more than I could resist, even with a mustard-plaster on my chest.

“I thought I should raise your spirits,” Rothsay proceeded. “When I came to your house this morning, the valet opened the door to me. I expressed my surprise at his condescending to take that trouble. He informed me that Joseph was otherwise engaged. ‘With anybody in particular?’ I asked, humouring the joke. ‘Yes, sir, with the housekeeper. She’s teaching him how to brush his hair, so as to show off his good looks to the best advantage.’ Make up your mind, my friend, to lose Mrs. Mozeen – especially if she happens to have any money.”

“Nonsense, Rothsay! The poor woman is old enough to be Joseph’s mother.”

“My good fellow, that won’t make any difference to Joseph. In the days when we were rich enough to keep a manservant, our footman – as handsome a fellow as ever you saw, and no older than I am – married a witch with a lame leg. When I asked him why he had made such a fool of himself he looked quite indignant, and said: ‘Sir! she has got six hundred pounds.’ He and the witch keep a public house. What will you bet me that we don’t see your housekeeper drawing beer at the bar, and Joseph getting drunk in the parlour, before we are a year older?”

I was not well enough to prolong my enjoyment of Rothsay’s boyish humour. Besides, exaggeration to be really amusing must have some relation, no matter how slender it may be, to the truth. My housekeeper belonged to a respectable family, and was essentially a person accustomed to respect herself. Her brother occupied a position of responsibility in the establishment of a firm of chemists whom I had employed for years past. Her late husband had farmed his own land, and had owed his ruin to calamities for which he was in no way responsible. Kind-hearted Mrs. Mozeen was just the woman to take a motherly interest in a well-disposed lad like Joseph; and it was equally characteristic of my valet – especially when Rothsay was thoughtless enough to encourage him – to pervert an innocent action for the sake of indulging in a stupid jest. I took advantage of my privilege as an invalid, and changed the subject.

A week passed. I had expected to hear from Rothsay. To my surprise and disappointment no letter arrived.

Susan was more considerate. She wrote, very modestly and prettily, to say that she and her mother had heard of my illness from Mr. Rothsay, and to express the hope that I should soon be restored to health. A few days later, Mrs. Rymer’s politeness carried her to the length of taking the journey to London to make inquiries at my door. I did not see her, of course. She left word that she would have the honour of calling again.

The second week followed. I had by that time perfectly recovered from my attack of bronchitis – and yet I was too ill to leave the house.

The doctor himself seemed to be at a loss to understand the symptoms that now presented themselves. A vile sensation of nausea tried my endurance, and an incomprehensible prostration of strength depressed my spirits. I felt such a strange reluctance to exert myself that I actually left it to Mrs. Mozeen to write to my uncle in my name, and say that I was not yet well enough to visit him. My medical adviser tried various methods of treatment; my housekeeper administered the prescribed medicines with unremitting care; but nothing came of it. A physician of great authority was called into consultation. Being completely puzzled, he retreated to the last refuge of bewildered doctors. I asked him what was the matter with me. And he answered: “Suppressed gout.”

•  FIFTH EPOCH  •

Midway in the third week, my uncle wrote to me as follows:

“I have been obliged to request your friend Rothsay to bring his visit to a conclusion. Although he refuses to confess it, I have reason to believe that he has committed the folly of falling seriously in love with the young girl at my lodge gate. I have tried remonstrance in vain; and I write to his father at the same time that I write to you. There is much more that I might say. I reserve it for the time when I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you, restored to health.”

Two days after the receipt of this alarming letter Rothsay returned to me.

Ill as I was, I forgot my sufferings the moment I looked at him. Wild and haggard, he stared at me with bloodshot eyes like a man demented.

“Do you think I am mad? I dare say I am. I can’t live without her.” Those were the first words he said when we shook hands.

But I had more influence over him than any other person; and, weak as I was, I exerted it. Little by little, he became more reasonable; he began to speak like his old self again.

To have expressed any surprise, on my part, at what had happened, would have been not only imprudent, but unworthy of him and of me. My first inquiry was suggested by the fear that he might have been hurried into openly confessing his passion to Susan – although his position forbade him to offer marriage. I had done him an injustice. His honourable nature had shrunk from the cruelty of raising hopes, which, for all he knew to the contrary, might never be realized. At the same time, he had his reasons for believing that he was at least personally acceptable to her.

“She was always glad to see me,” said poor Rothsay. “We constantly talked of you. She spoke of your kindness so prettily and so gratefully. Oh, Lepel, it is not her beauty only that has won my heart! Her nature is the nature of an angel.”

His voice failed him. For the first time in my remembrance of our long companionship, he burst into tears.

I was so shocked and distressed that I had the greatest difficulty in preserving my own self-control. In the effort to comfort him, I asked if he had ventured to confide in his father.

“You are the favourite son,” I reminded him. “Is there no gleam of hope in the future?”

He had written to his father. In silence he gave me the letter in reply.

It was expressed with a moderation which I had hardly dared to expect. Mr. Rothsay the elder admitted that he had himself married for love, and that his wife’s rank in the social scale (although higher than Susan’s) had not been equal to his own.

“In such a family as ours,” he wrote – perhaps with pardonable pride – “we raise our wives to our own degree. But this young person labours under a double disadvantage. She is obscure, and she is poor. What have you to offer her? Nothing. And what have I to give you? Nothing.”

This meant, as I interpreted it, that the main obstacle in the way was Susan’s poverty. And I was rich! In the excitement that possessed me, I followed the impulse of the moment headlong, like a child.

“While you were away from me,” I said to Rothsay, “did you never once think of your old friend? Must I remind you that I can make Susan your wife with one stroke of my pen?” He looked at me in silent surprise. I took my chequebook from the drawer of the table, and placed the inkstand within reach. “Susan’s marriage portion,” I said, “is a matter of a line of writing, with my name at the end of it.”

He burst out with an exclamation that stopped me, just as my pen touched the paper.

“Good heavens!” he cried, “you are thinking of that play we saw at Rome! Are we on the stage? Are you performing the part of the Marquis – and am I the Count?”

I was so startled by this wild allusion to the past – I recognised with such astonishment the reproduction of one of the dramatic situations in the play, at a crisis in his life and mine – that the use of the pen remained suspended in my hand. For the first time in my life I was conscious of a sensation which resembled superstitious dread.

Rothsay recovered himself first. He misinterpreted what was passing in my mind.

“Don’t think me ungrateful,” he said. “You dear, kind, good fellow, consider for a moment, and you will see that it can’t be. What would be said of her and of me, if you made Susan rich with your money, and if I married her? The poor innocent would be called your cast-off mistress. People would say: ‘He has behaved liberally to her, and his needy friend has taken advantage of it.’”

The point of view which I had failed to see was put with terrible directness of expression: the conviction that I was wrong was literally forced on me. What reply could I make? Rothsay evidently felt for me.

“You are ill,” he said, gently; “let me leave you to rest.”

He held out his hand to say good-bye. I insisted on his taking up his abode with me, for the present at least. Ordinary persuasion failed to induce him to yield. I put it on selfish grounds next.

“You have noticed that I am ill,” I said, “I want you to keep me company.”

He gave way directly.

Through the wakeful night, I tried to consider what moral remedies might be within our reach. The one useful conclusion at which I could arrive was to induce Rothsay to try what absence and change might do to compose his mind. To advise him to travel alone was out of the question. I wrote to his one other old friend besides myself – the friend who had taken him on a cruise in the Mediterranean.

The owner of the yacht had that very day given directions to have his vessel laid up for the winter season. He at once countermanded the order by telegraph. “I am an idle man,” he said, “and I am as fond of Rothsay as you are. I will take him wherever he likes to go.” It was not easy to persuade the object of these kind intentions to profit by them. Nothing that I could say roused him. I spoke to him of his picture. He had left it at my uncle’s house, and neither knew nor cared to know whether it had been sold or not. The one consideration which ultimately influenced Rothsay was presented by the doctor; speaking as follows (to quote his own explanation) in the interests of my health:

“I warned your friend,” he said, “that his conduct was causing anxiety which you were not strong enough to bear. On hearing this he at once promised to follow the advice which you had given to him, and to join the yacht. As you know, he has kept his word. May I ask if he has ever followed the medical profession?”

Replying in the negative, I begged the doctor to tell me why he had put his question.

He answered, “Mr. Rothsay requested me to tell him all that I knew about your illness. I complied, of course; mentioning that I had lately adopted a new method of treatment, and that I had every reason to feel confident of the results. He was so interested in the symptoms of your illness, and in the remedies being tried, that he took notes in his pocketbook of what I had said. When he paid me that compliment, I thought it possible that I might be speaking to a colleague.”

I was pleased to hear of my friend’s anxiety for my recovery. If I had been in better health, I might have asked myself what reason he could have had for making those entries in his pocketbook.

Three days later, another proof reached me of Rothsay’s anxiety for my welfare.

The owner of the yacht wrote to beg that I would send him a report of my health, addressed to a port on the south coast of England, to which they were then bound. “If we don’t hear good news,” he added, “I have reason to fear that Rothsay will overthrow our plans for the recovery of his peace of mind by leaving the vessel, and making his own inquiries at your bedside.”

With no small difficulty I roused myself sufficiently to write a few words with my own hand. They were words that lied – for my poor friend’s sake. In a postscript, I begged my correspondent to let me hear if the effect produced on Rothsay had answered to our hopes and expectations.

•  SIXTH EPOCH  •

The weary days followed each other – and time failed to justify the doctor’s confidence in his new remedies. I grew weaker and weaker.

My uncle came to see me. He was so alarmed that he insisted on a consultation being held with his own physician. Another great authority was called in, at the same time, by the urgent request of my own medical man. These distinguished persons held more than one privy council, before they would consent to give a positive opinion. It was an evasive opinion (encumbered with hard words of Greek and Roman origin) when it was at last pronounced. I waited until they had taken their leave, and then appealed to my own doctor. “What do these men really think?” I asked. “Shall I live, or die?”

The doctor answered for himself as well as for his illustrious colleagues. “We have great faith in the new prescriptions,” he said.

I understood what that meant. They were afraid to tell me the truth. I insisted on the truth.

“How long shall I live?” I said. “Till the end of the year?”

The reply followed in one terrible word:

“Perhaps.”

It was then the first week in December. I understood that I might reckon – at the utmost – on three weeks of life. What I felt, on arriving at this conclusion, I shall not say. It is the one secret I keep from the readers of these lines.

The next day, Mrs. Rymer called once more to make inquiries. Not satisfied with the servant’s report, she entreated that I would consent to see her. My housekeeper, with her customary kindness, undertook to convey the message. If she had been a wicked woman, would she have acted in this way? “Mrs. Rymer seems to be sadly distressed,” she pleaded. “As I understand, sir, she is suffering under some domestic anxiety which can only be mentioned to yourself.”

Did this anxiety relate to Susan? The bare doubt of it decided me. I consented to see Mrs. Rymer. Feeling it necessary to control her in the use of her tongue, I spoke the moment the door was opened.

“I am suffering from illness; and I must ask you to spare me as much as possible. What do you wish to say to me?”

The tone in which I addressed Mrs. Rymer would have offended a more sensitive woman. The truth is, she had chosen an unfortunate time for her visit. There were fluctuations in the progress of my malady; there were days when I felt better, and days when I felt worse – and this was a bad day. Moreover, my uncle had tried my temper that morning. He had called to see me, on his way to winter in the south of France by his physician’s advice; and he recommended a trial of change of air in my case also. His country house (only thirty miles from London) was entirely at my disposal; and the railway supplied beds for invalids. It was useless to answer that I was not equal to the effort. He reminded me that I had exerted myself to leave my bedchamber for my armchair in the next room, and that a little additional resolution would enable me to follow his advice. We parted in a state of irritation on either side which, so far as I was concerned, had not subsided yet.

“I wish to speak to you, sir, about my daughter,” Mrs. Rymer answered.

The mere allusion to Susan had its composing effect on me. I said kindly that I hoped she was well.

“Well in body,” Mrs. Rymer announced. “Far from it, sir, in mind.”

Before I could ask what this meant, we were interrupted by the appearance of the servant, bringing the letters which had arrived for me by the afternoon post. I told the man, impatiently, to put them on the table at my side.

“What is distressing Susan?” I inquired, without stopping to look at the letters.

“She is fretting, sir, about your illness. Oh, Mr. Lepel, if you would only try the sweet country air! If you only had my good little Susan to nurse you!”

She, too, taking my uncle’s view! And talking of Susan as my nurse!

“What are you thinking of?” I asked her. “A young girl like your daughter nursing Me! You ought to have more regard for Susan’s good name!”

“I know what you ought to do!” She made that strange reply with a furtive look at me, half in anger, half in alarm.

“Go on,” I said.

“Will you turn me out of your house for my impudence?” she asked.

“I will hear what you have to say to me. What ought I to do?”

“Marry Susan.”

I heard the woman plainly – and yet, I declare, I doubted the evidence of my senses.

“She’s breaking her heart for you,” Mrs. Rymer burst out. “She’s been in love with you since you first darkened our doors – and it will end in the neighbours finding it out. I did my duty to her; I tried to stop it; I tried to prevent you from seeing her, when you went away. Too late; the mischief was done. When I see my girl fading day by day – crying about you in secret, talking about you in her dreams – I can’t stand it; I must speak out. Oh, yes, I know how far beneath you she is – the daughter of your uncle’s servant. But she’s your equal, sir, in the sight of Heaven. My lord’s priest converted her only last year – and my Susan is as good a Papist as yourself.”

How could I let this go on? I felt that I ought to have stopped it before.

“It’s possible,” I said, “that you may not be deliberately deceiving me. If you are yourself deceived, I am bound to tell you the truth. Mr. Rothsay loves your daughter, and, what is more, Mr. Rothsay has reason to know that Susan—”

“That Susan loves him?” she interposed, with a mocking laugh. “Oh, Mr. Lepel, is it possible that a clever man like you can’t see clearer than that? My girl in love with Mr. Rothsay! She wouldn’t have looked at him a second time if he hadn’t talked to her about you. When I complained privately to my lord of Mr. Rothsay hanging about the lodge, do you think she turned as pale as ashes, and cried when he passed through the gate, and said good-bye?”

She had complained of Rothsay to Lord Lepel – I understood her at last! She knew that my friend and all his family were poor. She had put her own construction on the innocent interest that I had taken in her daughter. Careless of the difference in rank, blind to the malady that was killing me, she was now bent on separating Rothsay and Susan, by throwing the girl into the arms of a rich husband like myself!

“You are wasting your breath,” I told her; “I don’t believe one word you say to me.”

“Believe Susan, then!” cried the reckless woman. “Let me bring her here. If she’s too shamefaced to own the truth, look at her – that’s all I ask – look at her, and judge for yourself!”

This was intolerable. In justice to Susan, in justice to Rothsay, I insisted on silence. “No more of it!” I said. “Take care how you provoke me. Don’t you see that I am ill? don’t you see that you are irritating me to no purpose?”

She altered her tone. “I’ll wait,” she said, quietly, “while you compose yourself.”

With those words, she walked to the window, and stood there with her back toward me. Was the wretch taking advantage of my helpless condition? I stretched out my hand to ring the bell, and have her sent away – and hesitated to degrade Susan’s mother, for Susan’s sake. In my state of prostration, how could I arrive at a decision? My mind was dreadfully disturbed; I felt the imperative necessity of turning my thoughts to some other subject. Looking about me, the letters on the table attracted my attention. Mechanically, I took them up; mechanically I put them down again. Two of them slipped from my trembling fingers; my eyes fell on the uppermost of the two. The address was in the handwriting of the good friend with whom Rothsay was sailing.

Just as I had been speaking of Rothsay, here was the news of him for which I had been waiting.

I opened the letter and read these words:

“There is, I fear, but little hope for our friend – unless this girl on whom he has set his heart can (by some lucky change of circumstances) become his wife. He has tried to master his weakness; but his own infatuation is too much for him. He is really and truly in a state of despair. Two evenings since – to give you a melancholy example of what I mean – I was in my cabin, when I heard the alarm of a man overboard. The man was Rothsay. My sailing-master, seeing that he was unable to swim, jumped into the sea and rescued him, as I got on deck. Rothsay declares it to have been an accident; and everybody believes him but myself. I know the state of his mind. Don’t be alarmed; I will have him well looked after; and I won’t give him up just yet. We are still bound southward, with a fair wind. If the new scenes which I hope to show him prove to be of no avail, I must reluctantly take him back to England. In that case, which I don’t like to contemplate, you may see him again – perhaps in a month’s time.”

He might return in a month’s time – return to hear of the death of the one friend, on whose power and will to help him he might have relied. If I failed to employ in his interests the short interval of life still left to me, could I doubt (after what I had just read) what the end would be? How could I help him? Oh, God! how could I help him?

Mrs. Rymer left the window, and returned to the chair which she had occupied when I first received her.

“Are you quieter in your mind now?” she asked.

I neither answered her nor looked at her.

Still determined to reach her end, she tried again to force her unhappy daughter on me. “Will you consent,” she persisted, “to see Susan?”

If she had been a little nearer to me, I am afraid I should have struck her. “You wretch!” I said, “do you know that I am a dying man?”

“While there’s life there’s hope,” Mrs. Rymer remarked.

I ought to have controlled myself; but it was not to be done.

“Hope of your daughter being my rich widow?” I asked.

Her bitter answer followed instantly.

“Even then,” she said, “Susan wouldn’t marry Rothsay.”

A lie! If circumstances favoured her, I knew, on Rothsay’s authority, what Susan would do.

The thought burst on my mind, like light bursting on the eyes of a man restored to sight. If Susan agreed to go through the form of marriage with a dying bridegroom, my rich widow could (and would) become Rothsay’s wife. Once more, the remembrance of the play at Rome returned, and set the last embers of resolution, which sickness and suffering had left to me, in a flame. The devoted friend of that imaginary story had counted on death to complete his generous purpose in vain: he had been condemned by the tribunal of man, and had been reprieved. I – in his place, and with his self-sacrifice in my mind – might found a firmer trust in the future; for I had been condemned by the tribunal of God.

Encouraged by my silence, the obstinate woman persisted. “Won’t you even send a message to Susan?” she asked.

Rashly, madly, without an instant’s hesitation, I answered:

“Go back to Susan, and say I leave it to her.”

Mrs. Rymer started to her feet. “You leave it to Susan to be your wife, if she likes?”

“I do.”

“And if she consents?”

“I consent.”

•   •   •

In two weeks and a day from that time, the deed was done. When Rothsay returned to England, he would ask for Susan – and he would find my virgin-widow rich and free.

•  SEVENTH EPOCH  •

Whatever may be thought of my conduct, let me say this in justice to myself – I was resolved that Susan should not be deceived.

Half an hour after Mrs. Rymer had left my house, I wrote to her daughter, plainly revealing the motive which led me to offer marriage, solely in the future interest of Rothsay and herself. “If you refuse,” I said in conclusion, “you may depend on my understanding you and feeling for you. But, if you consent – then I have a favour to ask Never let us speak to one another of the profanation that we have agreed to commit, for your faithful lover’s sake.”

I had formed a high opinion of Susan – too high an opinion as it seemed. Her reply surprised and disappointed me. In other words, she gave her consent.

I stipulated that the marriage should be kept strictly secret, for a certain period. In my own mind I decided that the interval should be held to expire, either on the day of my death, or on the day when Rothsay returned.

My next proceeding was to write in confidence to the priest whom I have already mentioned, in an earlier part of these pages. He has reasons of his own for not permitting me to disclose the motive which induced him to celebrate my marriage privately in the chapel at Lord Lepel’s house. My uncle’s desire that I should try change of air, as offering a last chance of recovery, was known to my medical attendant, and served as a sufficient reason (although he protested against the risk) for my removal to the country. I was carried to the station, and placed on a bed – slung by ropes to the ceiling of a saloon carriage, so as to prevent me from feeling the vibration when the train was in motion. Faithful Mrs. Mozeen entreated to be allowed to accompany me. I was reluctantly compelled to refuse compliance with this request, in justice to the claims of my lord’s housekeeper; who had been accustomed to exercise undivided authority in the household, and who had made every preparation for my comfort. With her own hands, Mrs. Mozeen packed everything that I required, including the medicines prescribed for the occasion. She was deeply affected, poor soul, when we parted.

I bore the journey – happily for me, it was a short one – better than had been anticipated. For the first few days that followed, the purer air of the country seemed, in some degree, to revive me. But the deadly sense of weakness, the slow sinking of the vital power in me, returned as the time drew near for the marriage. The ceremony was performed at night. Only Susan and her mother were present. No persons in the house but ourselves had the faintest suspicion of what had happened.

I signed my new will (the priest and Mrs. Rymer being the witnesses) in my bed that night. It left everything that I possessed, excepting a legacy to Mrs. Mozeen, to my wife.

Obliged, it is needless to say, to preserve appearances, Susan remained at the lodge as usual. But it was impossible to resist her entreaty to be allowed to attend on me, for a few hours daily, as assistant to the regular nurse. When she was alone with me, and had no inquisitive eyes to dread, the poor girl showed a depth of feeling, which I was unable to reconcile with the motives that could alone have induced her (as I then supposed) to consent to the mockery of our marriage. On occasions when I was so far able to resist the languor that oppressed me as to observe what was passing at my bedside – I saw Susan look at me as if there were thoughts in her pressing for utterance which she hesitated to express. Once, she herself acknowledged this. “I have so much to say to you,” she owned, “when you are stronger and fitter to hear me.” At other times, her nerves seemed to be shaken by the spectacle of my sufferings. Her kind hands trembled and made mistakes, when they had any nursing duties to perform near me. The servants, noticing her, used to say, “That pretty girl seems to be the most awkward person in the house.” On the day that followed the ceremony in the chapel, this want of self-control brought about an accident which led to serious results.

In removing the small chest which held my medicines from the shelf on which it was placed, Susan let it drop on the floor. The two full bottles still left were so completely shattered that not even a teaspoonful of the contents was saved.

Shocked at what she had done, the poor girl volunteered to go herself to my chemist in London by the first train. I refused to allow it. What did it matter to me now, if my death from exhaustion was hastened by a day or two? Why need my life be prolonged artificially by drugs, when I had nothing left to live for? An excuse for me which would satisfy others was easily found. I said that I had been long weary of physic, and that the accident had decided me on refusing to take more.

That night I did not wake quite so often as usual. When she came to me the next day, Susan noticed that I looked better. The day after, the other nurse made the same observation. At the end of the week, I was able to leave my bed, and sit by the fireside, while Susan read to me. Some mysterious change in my health had completely falsified the prediction of the medical men. I sent to London for my doctor – and told him that the improvement in me had begun on the day when I left off taking his remedies. “Can you explain it?” I asked.

He answered that no such “resurrection from the dead” (as he called it) had ever happened in his long experience. On leaving me, he asked for the latest prescriptions that had been written. I inquired what he was going to do with them. “I mean to go to the chemist,” he replied, “and to satisfy myself that your medicines have been properly made up.”

I owed it to Mrs. Mozeen’s true interest in me to tell her what had happened. The same day I wrote to her. I also mentioned what the doctor had said, and asked her to call on him, and ascertain if the prescriptions had been shown to the chemist, and if any mistake had been made.

A more innocently intended letter than this never was written. And yet there are people who have declared that it was inspired by suspicion of Mrs. Mozeen!

•  EIGHTH EPOCH  •

Whether I was so weakened by illness as to be incapable of giving my mind to more than one subject for reflection at a time (that subject being now the extraordinary recovery of my health) – or whether I was preoccupied by the effort, which I was in honour bound to make, to resist the growing attraction to me of Susan’s society – I cannot presume to say. This only I know: when the discovery of the terrible position toward Rothsay in which I now stood suddenly overwhelmed me, an interval of some days had passed. I cannot account for it. I can only say – so it was.

Susan was in the room. I was wholly unable to hide from her the sudden change of colour which betrayed the horror that had overpowered me. She said, anxiously: “What has frightened you?”

I don’t think I heard her. The play was in my memory again – the fatal play, which had wound itself into the texture of Rothsay’s life and mine. In vivid remembrance, I saw once more the dramatic situation of the first act, and shrank from the reflection of it in the disaster which had fallen on my friend and myself.

“What has frightened you?” Susan repeated.

I answered in one word – I whispered his name: “Rothsay!”

She looked at me in innocent surprise. “Has he met with some misfortune?” she asked, quietly.

“Misfortune” – did she call it? Had I not said enough to disturb her tranquillity in mentioning Rothsay’s name? “I am living!” I said. “Living – and likely to live!”

Her answer expressed fervent gratitude. “Thank God for it!”

I looked at her, astonished as she had been astonished when she looked at me.

“Susan, Susan,” I cried – “must I own it? I love you!”

She came nearer to me with timid pleasure in her eyes – with the first faint light of a smile playing round her lips.

“You say it very strangely,” she murmured. “Surely, my dear one, you ought to love me? Since the first day when you gave me my French lesson – haven’t I loved You?”

“You love me?” I repeated. “Have you read—?” My voice failed me; I could say no more.

She turned pale. “Read what?” she asked.

“My letter.”

“What letter?”

“The letter I wrote to you before we were married.”

•   •   •

Am I a coward? The bare recollection of what followed that reply makes me tremble. Time has passed. I am a new man now; my health is restored; my happiness is assured: I ought to be able to write on. No: it is not to be done. How can I think coolly? how force myself to record the suffering that I innocently, most innocently, inflicted on the sweetest and truest of women? Nothing saved us from a parting as absolute as the parting that follows death but the confession that had been wrung from me at a time when my motive spoke for itself. The artless avowal of her affection had been justified, had been honoured, by the words which laid my heart at her feet when I said “I love you.”

•   •   •

She had risen to leave me. In a last look, we had silently resigned ourselves to wait, apart from each other, for the day of reckoning that must follow Rothsay’s return, when we heard the sound of carriage-wheels on the drive that led to the house. In a minute more the man himself entered the room.

He looked first at Susan – then at me. In both of us he saw the traces that told of agitation endured, but not yet composed. Worn and weary he waited, hesitating, near the door.

“Am I intruding?” he asked.

“We were thinking of you, and speaking of you,” I replied, “just before you came in.”

“We?” he repeated, turning toward Susan once more. After a pause, he offered me his hand – and drew it back.

“You don’t shake hands with me,” he said.

“I am waiting, Rothsay, until I know that we are the same firm friends as ever.”

For the third time he looked at Susan.

“Will you shake hands?” he asked.

She gave him her hand cordially. “May I stay here?” she said, addressing herself to me.

In my situation at that moment, I understood the generous purpose that animated her. But she had suffered enough already – I led her gently to the door. “It will be better,” I whispered, “if you will wait downstairs in the library.” She hesitated. “What will they say in the house?” she objected, thinking of the servants and of the humble position which she was still supposed to occupy. “It matters nothing what they say, now.” I told her. She left us.

“There seems to be some private understanding between you,” Rothsay said, when we were alone.

“You shall hear what it is,” I answered. “But I must beg you to excuse me if I speak first of myself.”

“Are you alluding to your health?”

“Yes.”

“Quite needless, Lepel. I met your doctor this morning. I know that a council of physicians decided you would die before the year was out.”

He paused there.

“And they proved to be wrong,” I added.

“They might have proved to be right,” Rothsay rejoined, “but for the accident which spilled your medicine and the despair of yourself which decided you on taking no more.”

I could hardly believe that I understood him. “Do you assert,” I said, “that my medicine would have killed me, if I had taken the rest of it?”

“I have no doubt that it would.”

“Will you explain what you mean?”

“Let me have your explanation first. I was not prepared to find Susan in your room. I was surprised to see traces of tears in her face. Something has happened in my absence. Am I concerned in it?”

“You are.”

I said it quietly – in full possession of myself. The trial of fortitude through which I had already passed seemed to have blunted my customary sense of feeling. I approached the disclosure which I was now bound to make with steady resolution, resigned to the worst that could happen when the truth was known.

“Do you remember the time,” I resumed, “when I was so eager to serve you that I proposed to make Susan your wife by making her rich?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember asking me if I was thinking of the play we saw together at Rome? Is the story as present to your mind now, as it was then?”

“Quite as present.”

“You asked if I was performing the part of the Marquis – and if you were the Count. Rothsay! the devotion of that ideal character to his friend has been my devotion; his conviction that his death would justify what he had done for his friend’s sake, has been my conviction; and as it ended with him, so it has ended with me – his terrible position is my terrible position toward you, at this moment.”

“Are you mad?” Rothsay asked, sternly.

I passed over that first outbreak of his anger in silence.

“Do you mean to tell me you have married Susan?” he went on.

“Bear this in mind,” I said. “When I married her, I was doomed to death. Nay, more. In your interests – as God is my witness – I welcomed death.”

He stepped up to me, in silence, and raised his hand with a threatening gesture.

That action at once deprived me of my self-possession. I spoke with the ungovernable rashness of a boy.

“Carry out your intention,” I said. “Insult me.”

His hand dropped.

“Insult me,” I repeated; “it is one way out of the unendurable situation in which we are placed. You may trust me to challenge you. Duels are still fought on the Continent; I will follow you abroad; I will choose pistols; I will take care that we fight on the fatal foreign system; and I will purposely miss you. Make her what I intended her to be – my rich widow.”

He looked at me attentively.

“Is that your refuge?” he asked, scornfully. “No! I won’t help you to commit suicide.”

God forgive me! I was possessed by a spirit of reckless despair; I did my best to provoke him.

“Reconsider your decision,” I said; “and remember – you tried to commit suicide yourself.”

He turned quickly to the door, as if he distrusted his own powers of self-control.

“I wish to speak to Susan,” he said, keeping his back turned on me.

“You will find her in the library.”

He left me.

I went to the window. I opened it and let the cold wintry air blow over my burning head. I don’t know how long I sat at the window. There came a time when I saw Rothsay on the house steps. He walked rapidly toward the park gate. His head was down; he never once looked back at the room in which he had left me.

As he passed out of my sight, I felt a hand laid gently on my shoulder. Susan had returned to me.

“He will not come back,” she said. “Try still to remember him as your old friend. He asks you to forgive and forget.”

She had made the peace between us. I was deeply touched; my eyes filled with tears as I looked at her. She kissed me on the forehead and went out. I afterward asked what had passed between them when Rothsay spoke with her in the library. She never has told me what they said to each other; and she never will. She is right.

Later in the day I was told that Mrs. Rymer had called, and wished to “pay her respects.”

I refused to see her. Whatever claim she might have otherwise had on my consideration had been forfeited by the infamy of her conduct, when she intercepted my letter to Susan. Her sense of injury on receiving my message was expressed in writing, and was sent to me the same evening. The last sentence in her letter was characteristic of the woman.

“However your pride may despise me,” she wrote, “I am indebted to you for the rise in life that I have always desired. You may refuse to see me – but you can’t prevent my being the mother-in-law of a gentleman.”

Soon afterward, I received a visit which I had hardly ventured to expect. Busy as he was in London, my doctor came to see me. He was not in his usual good spirits.

“I hope you don’t bring me any bad news?” I said.

“You shall judge for yourself,” he replied. “I come from Mr. Rothsay, to say for him what he is not able to say for himself.”

“Where is he?”

“He has left England.”

“For any purpose that you know of?”

“Yes. He has sailed to join the expedition of rescue – I ought rather to call it the forlorn hope – which is to search for the lost explorers in Central Australia.”

In other words, he had gone to seek death in the fatal footsteps of Burke and Wills. I could not trust myself to speak.

The doctor saw that there was a reason for my silence, and that he would do well not to notice it. He changed the subject.

“May I ask,” he said, “if you have heard from the servants left in charge at your house in London?”

“Has anything happened?”

“Something has happened which they are evidently afraid to tell you, knowing the high opinion which you have of Mrs. Mozeen. She has suddenly quitted your service, and has gone, nobody knows where. I have taken charge of a letter which she left for you.”

He handed me the letter. As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked at it.

There was this inscription on the address: “For my good master, to wait until he returns home.” The few lines in the letter itself ran thus:

Distressing circumstances oblige me to leave you, sir, and do not permit me to enter into particulars. In asking your pardon, I offer my sincere thanks for your kindness, and my fervent prayers for your welfare.

That was all. The date had a special interest for me. Mrs. Mozeen had written on the day when she must have received my letter – the letter which has already appeared in these pages.

“Is there really nothing known of the poor woman’s motives?” I asked.

“There are two explanations suggested,” the doctor informed me. “One of them, which is offered by your female servants, seems to me absurd. They declare that Mrs. Mozeen, at her mature age, was in love with the young man who is your footman! It is even asserted that she tried to recommend herself to him, by speaking of the money which she expected to bring to the man who would make her his wife. The footman’s reply, informing her that he was already engaged to be married, is alleged to be the cause which has driven her from your house.”

I begged that the doctor would not trouble himself to repeat more of what my women servants had said.

“If the other explanation,” I added, “is equally unworthy of notice—”

“The other explanation,” the doctor interposed, “comes from Mr. Rothsay, and is of a very serious kind.”

Rothsay’s opinion demanded my respect.

“What view does he take?” I inquired.

“A view that startles me,” the doctor said. “You remember my telling you of the interest he took in your symptoms, and in the remedies I had employed? Well! Mr. Rothsay accounts for the incomprehensible recovery of your health by asserting that poison – probably administered in small quantities, and intermitted at intervals in fear of discovery – has been mixed with your medicine; and he asserts that the guilty person is Mrs. Mozeen.”

It was impossible that I could openly express the indignation that I felt on hearing this. My position toward Rothsay forced me to restrain myself.

“May I ask,” the doctor continued, “if Mrs. Mozeen was aware that she had a legacy to expect at your death?”

“Certainly.”

“Has she a brother who is one of the dispensers employed by your chemists?”

“Yes.”

“Did she know that I doubted if my prescriptions had been properly prepared, and that I intended to make inquiries?”

“I wrote to her myself on the subject.”

“Do you think her brother told her that I was referred to him, when I went to the chemists?”

“I have no means of knowing what her brother did.”

“Can you at least tell me when she received your letter?”

“She must have received it on the day when she left my house.”

The doctor rose with a grave face.

“These are rather extraordinary coincidences,” he remarked.

I merely replied, “Mrs. Mozeen is as incapable of poisoning as I am.”

The doctor wished me good-morning.

I repeat here my conviction of my housekeeper’s innocence. I protest against the cruelty which accuses her. And, whatever may have been her motive in suddenly leaving my service, I declare that she still possesses my sympathy and esteem, and I invite her to return to me if she ever sees these lines.

I have only to add, by way of postscript, that we have heard of the safe return of the expedition of rescue. Time, as my wife and I both hope, may yet convince Rothsay that he will not be wrong in counting on Susan’s love – the love of a sister.

In the meanwhile we possess a memorial of our absent friend. We have bought his picture.

First published as
“The Girl at the Gate”
Spirit of the Times 6 Dec 1884

MR. CAPTAIN
AND THE NYMPH

•  I  •

“The Captain is still in the prime of life,” the widow remarked. “He has given up his ship; he possesses a sufficient income, and he has nobody to live with him. I should like to know why he doesn’t marry.”

“The Captain was excessively rude to Me,” the widow’s younger sister added, on her side. “When we took leave of him in London, I asked if there was any chance of his joining us at Brighton this season. He turned his back on me as if I had mortally offended him; and he made me this extraordinary answer: ‘Miss! I hate the sight of the sea.’ The man has been a sailor all his life. What does he mean by saying that he hates the sight of the sea?”

These questions were addressed to a third person present – and the person was a man. He was entirely at the mercy of the widow and the widow’s sister. The other ladies of the family – who might have taken him under their protection – had gone to an evening concert. He was known to be the Captain’s friend, and to be well acquainted with events in the Captain’s life. As it happened, he had reasons for hesitating to revive associations connected with those events. But what polite alternative was left to him? He must either inflict disappointment, and, worse still, aggravate curiosity – or he must resign himself to circumstances, and tell the ladies why the Captain would never marry, and why (sailor as he was) he hated the sight of the sea. They were both young women and handsome women – and the person to whom they had appealed (being a man) followed the example of submission to the sex, first set in the garden of Eden. He enlightened the ladies, in the terms that follow:

•  II  •

The British merchantman, Fortuna, sailed from the port of Liverpool (at a date which it is not necessary to specify) with the morning tide. She was bound for certain islands in the Pacific Ocean, in search of a cargo of sandalwood – a commodity which, in those days, found a ready and profitable market in the Chinese Empire.

A large discretion was reposed in the Captain by the owners, who knew him to be not only trustworthy, but a man of rare ability, carefully cultivated during the leisure hours of a seafaring life. Devoted heart and soul to his professional duties, he was a hard reader and an excellent linguist as well. Having had considerable experience among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, he had attentively studied their characters, and had mastered their language in more than one of its many dialects. Thanks to the valuable information thus obtained, the Captain was never at a loss to conciliate the islanders. He had more than once succeeded in finding a cargo under circumstances in which other captains had failed.

Possessing these merits, he had also his fair share of human defects. For instance, he was a little too conscious of his own good looks – of his bright chestnut hair and whiskers, of his beautiful blue eyes, of his fair white skin, which many a woman had looked at with the admiration that is akin to envy. His shapely hands were protected by gloves; a broad-brimmed hat sheltered his complexion in fine weather from the sun. He was nice in the choice of his perfumes; he never drank spirits, and the smell of tobacco was abhorrent to him. New men among his officers and his crew, seeing him in his cabin, perfectly dressed, washed, and brushed until he was an object speckless to look upon – a merchant-captain soft of voice, careful in his choice of words, devoted to study in his leisure hours – were apt to conclude that they had trusted themselves at sea under a commander who was an anomalous mixture of a schoolmaster and a dandy. But if the slightest infraction of discipline took place, or if the storm rose and the vessel proved to be in peril, it was soon discovered that the gloved hands held a rod of iron; that the soft voice could make itself heard through wind and sea from one end of the deck to the other; and that it issued orders which the greatest fool on board discovered to be orders that had saved the ship. Throughout his professional life, the general impression that this variously gifted man produced on the little world about him was always the same. Some few liked him; everybody respected him; nobody understood him. The Captain accepted these results. He persisted in reading his books and protecting his complexion, with this result: his owners shook hands with him, and put up with his gloves.

The Fortuna touched at Rio for water, and for supplies of food which might prove useful in case of scurvy. In due time the ship rounded Cape Horn, favoured by the finest weather ever known in those latitudes by the oldest hand on board. The mate – one Mr. Duncalf – a boozing, wheezing, self-confident old sea-dog, with a flaming face and a vast vocabulary of oaths, swore that he didn’t like it. “The foul weather’s coming, my lads,” said Mr. Duncalf. “Mark my words, there’ll be wind enough to take the curl out of the Captain’s whiskers before we are many days older!”

For one uneventful week, the ship cruised in search of the islands to which the owners had directed her. At the end of that time the wind took the predicted liberties with the Captain’s whiskers; and Mr. Duncalf stood revealed to an admiring crew in the character of a true prophet.

For three days and three nights the Fortuna ran before the storm, at the mercy of wind and sea. On the fourth morning the gale blew itself out, the sun appeared again toward noon, and the Captain was able to take an observation. The result informed him that he was in a part of the Pacific Ocean with which he was entirely unacquainted. Thereupon, the officers were called to a council in the cabin.

Mr. Duncalf, as became his rank, was consulted first. His opinion possessed the merit of brevity. “My lads, this ship’s bewitched. Take my word for it, we shall wish ourselves back in our own latitudes before we are many days older.” Which, being interpreted, meant that Mr. Duncalf was lost, like his superior officer, in a part of the ocean of which he knew nothing.

The remaining members of the council having no suggestions to offer, left the Captain to take his own way. He decided (the weather being fine again) to stand on under an easy press of sail for four-and-twenty hours more, and to see if anything came of it.

Soon after nightfall, something did come of it. The lookout forward hailed the quarter-deck with the dread cry, “Breakers ahead!” In less than a minute more, everybody heard the crash of the broken water. The Fortuna was put about, and came round slowly in the light wind. Thanks to the timely alarm and the fine weather, the safety of the vessel was easily provided for. They kept her under a short sail; and they waited for the morning.

The dawn showed them in the distance a glorious green island, not marked in the ship’s charts – an island girt about by a coral-reef, and having in its midst a high-peaked mountain which looked, through the telescope, like a mountain of volcanic origin. Mr. Duncalf, taking his morning draught of rum and water, shook his groggy old head and said (and swore): “My lads, I don’t like the look of that island.” The Captain was of a different opinion. He had one of the ship’s boats put into the water; he armed himself and four of his crew who accompanied him; and away he went in the morning sunlight to visit the island.

Skirting round the coral reef, they found a natural breach, which proved to be broad enough and deep enough not only for the passage of the boat, but of the ship herself if needful. Crossing the broad inner belt of smooth water, they approached the golden sands of the island, strewed with magnificent shells, and crowded by the dusky islanders – men, women, and children, all waiting in breathless astonishment to see the strangers land.

The Captain kept the boat off, and examined the islanders carefully. The innocent, simple people danced, and sang, and ran into the water, imploring their wonderful white visitors by gestures to come on shore. Not a creature among them carried arms of any sort; a hospitable curiosity animated the entire population. The men cried out, in their smooth musical language, “Come and eat!” and the plump black-eyed women, all laughing together, added their own invitation, “Come and be kissed!” Was it in mortals to resist such temptations as these? The Captain led the way on shore, and the women surrounded him in an instant, and screamed for joy at the glorious spectacle of his whiskers, his complexion, and his gloves. So the mariners from the far north were welcomed to the newly-discovered island.

•  III  •

The morning wore on. Mr. Duncalf, in charge of the ship, cursing the island over his rum and water, as a “beastly green strip of a place, not laid down in any Christian chart,” was kept waiting four mortal hours before the Captain returned to his command, and reported himself to his officers as follows:

He had found his knowledge of the Polynesian dialects sufficient to make himself in some degree understood by the natives of the new island. Under the guidance of the chief he had made a first journey of exploration, and had seen for himself that the place was a marvel of natural beauty and fertility. The one barren spot in it was the peak of the volcanic mountain, composed of crumbling rock; originally no doubt lava and ashes, which had cooled and consolidated with the lapse of time. So far as he could see, the crater at the top was now an extinct crater. But, if he had understood rightly, the chief had spoken of earthquakes and eruptions at certain bygone periods, some of which lay within his own earliest recollections of the place.

Adverting next to considerations of practical utility, the Captain announced that he had seen sandalwood enough on the island to load a dozen ships, and that the natives were willing to part with it for a few toys and trinkets generally distributed among them. To the mate’s disgust, the Fortuna was taken inside the reef that day, and was anchored before sunset in a natural harbour. Twelve hours of recreation, beginning with the next morning, were granted to the men, under the wise restrictions in such cases established by the Captain. That interval over, the work of cutting the precious wood and loading the ship was to be unremittingly pursued.

Mr. Duncalf had the first watch after the Fortuna had been made snug. He took the boatswain aside (an ancient sea-dog like himself), and he said in a gruff whisper: “My lad, this here ain’t the island laid down in our sailing orders. See if mischief don’t come of disobeying orders before we are many days older.”

Nothing in the shape of mischief happened that night. But at sunrise the next morning a suspicious circumstance occurred; and Mr. Duncalf whispered to the boatswain: “What did I tell you?” The Captain and the chief of the islanders held a private conference in the cabin, and the Captain, after first forbidding any communication with the shore until his return, suddenly left the ship, alone with the chief, in the chief’s own canoe.

What did this strange disappearance mean? The Captain himself, when he took his seat in the canoe, would have been puzzled to answer that question. He asked, in the nearest approach that his knowledge could make to the language used in the island, whether he would be a long time or a short time absent from his ship.

The chief answered mysteriously (as the Captain understood him) in these words: “Long time or short time, your life depends on it, and the lives of your men.”

Paddling his light little boat in silence over the smooth water inside the reef, the chief took his visitor ashore at a part of the island which was quite new to the Captain. The two crossed a ravine, and ascended an eminence beyond. There the chief stopped, and silently pointed out to sea.

The Captain looked in the direction indicated to him, and discovered a second and a smaller island, lying away to the south-west. Taking out his telescope from the case by which it was slung at his back, he narrowly examined the place. Two of the native canoes were lying off the shore of the new island; and the men in them appeared to be all kneeling or crouching in curiously chosen attitudes. Shifting the range of his glass, he next beheld a white-robed figure, tall and solitary – the one inhabitant of the island whom he could discover. The man was standing on the highest point of a rocky cape. A fire was burning at his feet. Now he lifted his arms solemnly to the sky; now he dropped some invisible fuel into the fire, which made a blue smoke; and now he cast other invisible objects into the canoes floating beneath him, which the islanders reverently received with bodies that crouched in abject submission. Lowering his telescope, the Captain looked round at the chief for an explanation. The chief gave the explanation readily. His language was interpreted by the English stranger in these terms:

“Wonderful white man! the island you see yonder is a Holy Island. As such it is Taboo – an island sanctified and set apart. The honourable person whom you notice on the rock is an all-powerful favourite of the gods. He is by vocation a Sorcerer, and by rank a Priest. You now see him casting charms and blessings into the canoes of our fishermen, who kneel to him for fine weather and great plenty of fish. If any profane person, native or stranger, presumes to set foot on that island, my otherwise peaceful subjects will (in the performance of a religious duty) put that person to death. Mention this to your men. They will be fed by my male people, and fondled by my female people, so long as they keep clear of the Holy Isle. As they value their lives, let them respect this prohibition. Is it understood between us? Wonderful white man! my canoe is waiting for you. Let us go back.”

Understanding enough of the chief’s language (illustrated by his gestures) to receive in the right spirit the communication thus addressed to him, the Captain repeated the warning to the ship’s company in the plainest possible English. The officers and men then took their holiday on shore, with the exception of Mr. Duncalf, who positively refused to leave the ship. For twelve delightful hours they were fed by the male people, and fondled by the female people, and then they were mercilessly torn from the fleshpots and the arms of their new friends, and set to work on the sandalwood in good earnest. Mr. Duncalf superintended the loading, and waited for the mischief that was to come of disobeying the owners’ orders with a confidence worthy of a better cause.

•  IV  •

Strangely enough, chance once more declared itself in favour of the mate’s point of view. The mischief did actually come; and the chosen instrument of it was a handsome young islander, who was one of the sons of the chief.

The Captain had taken a fancy to the sweet-tempered, intelligent lad. Pursuing his studies in the dialect of the island, at leisure hours, he had made the chief’s son his tutor, and had instructed the youth in English by way of return. More than a month had passed in this intercourse, and the ship’s lading was being rapidly completed – when, in an evil hour, the talk between the two turned on the subject of the Holy Island.

“Does nobody live on the island but the Priest?” the Captain asked.

The chief’s son looked round him suspiciously. “Promise me you won’t tell anybody!” he began very earnestly.

The Captain gave his promise.

“There is one other person on the island,” the lad whispered; “a person to feast your eyes upon, if you could only see her! She is the Priest’s daughter. Removed to the island in her infancy, she has never left it since. In that sacred solitude she has only looked on two human beings – her father and her mother. I once saw her from my canoe, taking care not to attract her notice, or to approach too near the holy soil. Oh, so young, dear master, and, oh, so beautiful!” The chief’s son completed the description by kissing his own hands as an expression of rapture.

The Captain’s fine blue eyes sparkled. He asked no more questions; but, later on that day, he took his telescope with him, and paid a secret visit to the eminence which overlooked the Holy Island. The next day, and the next, he privately returned to the same place. On the fourth day, fatal Destiny favoured him. He discovered the nymph of the island.

Standing alone upon the cape on which he had already seen her father, she was feeding some tame birds which looked like turtle-doves. The glass showed the Captain her white robe, fluttering in the sea-breeze; her long black hair falling to her feet; her slim and supple young figure; her simple grace of attitude, as she turned this way and that, attending to the wants of her birds. Before her was the blue ocean; behind her rose the lustrous green of the island forest. He looked and looked until his eyes and arms ached. When she disappeared among the trees, followed by her favourite birds, the Captain shut up his telescope with a sigh, and said to himself: “I have seen an angel!”

From that hour he became an altered man; he was languid, silent, interested in nothing. General opinion, on board his ship, decided that he was going to be taken ill.

A week more elapsed, and the officers and crew began to talk of the voyage to their market in China. The Captain refused to fix a day for sailing. He even took offence at being asked to decide. Instead of sleeping in his cabin, he went ashore for the night.

Not many hours afterward (just before daybreak), Mr. Duncalf, snoring in his cabin on deck, was aroused by a hand laid on his shoulder. The swinging lamp, still alight, showed him the dusky face of the chief’s son, convulsed with terror. By wild signs, by disconnected words in the little English which he had learned, the lad tried to make the mate understand him. Dense Mr. Duncalf, understanding nothing, hailed the second officer, on the opposite side of the deck. The second officer was young and intelligent; he rightly interpreted the terrible news that had come to the ship.

The Captain had broken his own rules. Watching his opportunity, under cover of the night, he had taken a canoe, and had secretly crossed the channel to the Holy Island. No one had been near him at the time but the chief’s son. The lad had vainly tried to induce him to abandon his desperate enterprise, and had vainly waited on the shore in the hope of hearing the sound of the paddle announcing his return. Beyond all reasonable doubt, the infatuated man had set foot on the shores of the tabooed island.

The one chance for his life was to conceal what he had done, until the ship could be got out of the harbour, and then (if no harm had come to him in the interval) to rescue him after nightfall. It was decided to spread the report that he had really been taken ill, and that he was confined to his cabin. The chief’s son, whose heart the Captain’s kindness had won, could be trusted to do this, and to keep the secret faithfully for his good friend’s sake.

Toward noon, the next day, they attempted to take the ship to sea, and failed for want of wind. Hour by hour, the heat grew more oppressive. As the day declined, there were ominous appearances in the western heaven. The natives, who had given some trouble during the day by their anxiety to see the Captain, and by their curiosity to know the cause of the sudden preparations for the ship’s departure, all went ashore together, looking suspiciously at the sky, and reappeared no more. Just at midnight, the ship (still in her snug berth inside the reef) suddenly trembled from her keel to her uppermost masts. Mr. Duncalf, surrounded by the startled crew, shook his knotty fist at the island as if he could see it in the dark. “My lads, what did I tell you? That was a shock of earthquake.”

With the morning the threatening aspect of the weather unexpectedly disappeared. A faint hot breeze from the land, just enough to give the ship steerage-way, offered Mr. Duncalf a chance of getting to sea. Slowly the Fortuna, with the mate himself at the wheel, half sailed, half drifted into the open ocean. At a distance of barely two miles from the island the breeze was felt no more, and the vessel lay becalmed for the rest of the day.

At night the men waited their orders, expecting to be sent after their Captain in one of the boats. The intense darkness, the airless heat, and a second shock of earthquake (faintly felt in the ship at her present distance from the land) warned the mate to be cautious. “I smell mischief in the air,” said Mr. Duncalf. “The Captain must wait till I am surer of the weather.”

Still no change came with the new day. The dead calm continued, and the airless heat. As the day declined, another ominous appearance became visible. A thin line of smoke was discovered through the telescope, ascending from the topmost peak of the mountain on the main island. Was the volcano threatening an eruption? The mate, for one, entertained no doubt of it. “By the Lord, the place is going to burst up!” said Mr. Duncalf. “Come what may of it, we must find the Captain tonight!”

•  V  •

What was the Captain doing? and what chance had the crew of finding him that night?

He had committed himself to his desperate adventure, without forming any plan for the preservation of his own safety; without giving even a momentary consideration to the consequences which might follow the risk that he had run. The charming figure that he had seen haunted him night and day. The image of the innocent creature, secluded from humanity in her island solitude, was the one image that filled his mind. A man, passing a woman in the street, acts on the impulse to turn and follow her, and in that one thoughtless moment shapes the destiny of his future life. The Captain had acted on a similar impulse, when he took the first canoe he had found on the beach, and shaped his reckless course for the tabooed island.

Reaching the shore while it was still dark, he did one sensible thing – he hid the canoe so that it might not betray him when the daylight came. That done, he waited for the morning on the outskirts of the forest.

The trembling light of dawn revealed the mysterious solitude around him. Following the outer limits of the trees, first in one direction, then in another, and finding no trace of any living creature, he decided on penetrating to the interior of the island. He entered the forest.

An hour of walking brought him to rising ground. Continuing the ascent, he got clear of the trees, and stood on the grassy top of a broad cliff which overlooked the sea. An open hut was on the cliff. He cautiously looked in, and discovered that it was empty. The few household utensils left about, and the simple bed of leaves in a corner, were covered with fine sandy dust. Night-birds flew blundering out of the inner cavities of the roof, and took refuge in the shadows of the forest below. It was plain that the hut had not been inhabited for some time past.

Standing at the open doorway and considering what he should do next, the Captain saw a bird flying toward him out of the forest. It was a turtle-dove, so tame that it fluttered close up to him. At the same moment the sound of sweet laughter became audible among the trees. His heart beat fast; he advanced a few steps and stopped. In a moment more the nymph of the island appeared, in her white robe, ascending the cliff in pursuit of her truant bird. She saw the strange man, and suddenly stood still; struck motionless by the amazing discovery that had burst upon her. The Captain approached, smiling and holding out his hand. She never moved; she stood before him in helpless wonderment – her lovely black eyes fixed spellbound on his face; her dusky bosom palpitating above the fallen folds of her robe; her rich red lips parted in mute astonishment. Feasting his eyes on her beauty in silence, the Captain after a while ventured to speak to her in the language of the main island. The sound of his voice, addressing her in the words that she understood, roused the lovely creature to action. She started, stepped close up to him, and dropped on her knees at his feet.

“My father worships invisible deities,” she said, softly. “Are you a visible deity? Has my mother sent you?” She pointed as she spoke to the deserted hut behind them. “You appear,” she went on, “in the place where my mother died. Is it for her sake that you show yourself to her child? Beautiful deity, come to the Temple – come to my father!”

The Captain gently raised her from the ground. If her father saw him, he was a doomed man.

Infatuated as he was, he had sense enough left to announce himself plainly in his own character, as a mortal creature arriving from a distant land. The girl instantly drew back from him with a look of terror.

“He is not like my father,” she said to herself; “he is not like me. Is he the lying demon of the prophecy? Is he the predestined destroyer of our island?”

The Captain’s experience of the sex showed him the only sure way out of the awkward position in which he was now placed. He appealed to his personal appearance.

“Do I look like a demon?” he asked.

Her eyes met his eyes; a faint smile trembled on her lips. He ventured on asking what she meant by the predestined destruction of the island. She held up her hand solemnly, and repeated the prophecy.

The Holy Island was threatened with destruction by an evil being, who would one day appear on its shores. To avert the fatality the place had been sanctified and set apart, under the protection of the gods and their priest. Here was the reason for the taboo, and for the extraordinary rigour with which it was enforced. Listening to her with the deepest interest, the Captain took her hand and pressed it gently.

“Do I feel like a demon?” he whispered.

Her slim brown fingers closed frankly on his hand. “You feel soft and friendly,” she said with the fearless candour of a child. “Squeeze me again. I like it!”

The next moment she snatched her hand away from him; the sense of his danger had suddenly forced itself on her mind. “If my father sees you,” she said, “he will light the signal fire at the Temple, and the people from the other island will come here and put you to death. Where is your canoe? No! It is daylight. My father may see you on the water.” She considered a little, and, approaching him, laid her hands on his shoulders. “Stay here till nightfall,” she resumed. “My father never comes this way. The sight of the place where my mother died is horrible to him. You are safe here. Promise to stay where you are till night-time.”

The Captain gave his promise.

Freed from anxiety so far, the girl’s mobile temperament recovered its native cheerfulness, its sweet gaiety and spirit. She admired the beautiful stranger as she might have admired a new bird that had flown to her to be fondled with the rest. She patted his fair white skin, and wished she had a skin like it. She lifted the great glossy folds of her long black hair, and compared it with the Captain’s bright curly locks, and longed to change colours with him from the bottom of her heart. His dress was a wonder to her; his watch was a new revelation. She rested her head on his shoulder to listen delightedly to the ticking, as he held the watch to her ear. Her fragrant breath played on his face, her warm, supple figure rested against him softly. The Captain’s arm stole round her waist, and the Captain’s lips gently touched her cheek. She lifted her head with a look of pleased surprise. “Thank you,” said the child of Nature, simply. “Kiss me again; I like it. May I kiss you?” The tame turtle-dove perched on her shoulder as she gave the Captain her first kiss, and diverted her thoughts to the pets that she had left, in pursuit of the truant dove. “Come,” she said, “and see my birds. I keep them on this side of the forest. There is no danger, so long as you don’t show yourself on the other side. My name is Aimata. Aimata will take care of you. Oh, what a beautiful white neck you have!” She put her arm admiringly round his neck. The Captain’s arm held her tenderly to him. Slowly the two descended the cliff, and were lost in the leafy solitudes of the forest. And the tame dove fluttered before them, a winged messenger of love, cooing to his mate.

•  VI  •

The night had come, and the Captain had not left the island.

Aimata’s resolution to send him away in the darkness was a forgotten resolution already. She had let him persuade her that he was in no danger, so long as he remained in the hut on the cliff; and she had promised, at parting, to return to him while the Priest was still sleeping, at the dawn of day.

He was alone in the hut. The thought of the innocent creature whom he loved was sorrowfully as well as tenderly present to his mind. He almost regretted his rash visit to the island. “I will take her with me to England,” he said to himself. “What does a sailor care for the opinion of the world? Aimata shall be my wife.”

The intense heat oppressed him. He stepped out on the cliff, toward midnight, in search of a breath of air.

At that moment, the first shock of earthquake (felt in the ship while she was inside the reef) shook the ground he stood on. He instantly thought of the volcano on the main island. Had he been mistaken in supposing the crater to be extinct? Was the shock that he had just felt a warning from the volcano, communicated through a submarine connection between the two islands? He waited and watched through the hours of darkness, with a vague sense of apprehension, which was not to be reasoned away. With the first light of daybreak he descended into the forest, and saw the lovely being whose safety was already precious to him as his own, hurrying to meet him through the trees.

She waved her hand distractedly as she approached him. “Go!” she cried; “go away in your canoe before our island is destroyed!”

He did his best to quiet her alarm. Was it the shock of earthquake that had frightened her? No: it was more than the shock of earthquake – it was something terrible which had followed the shock. There was a lake near the Temple, the waters of which were supposed to be heated by subterranean fires. The lake had risen with the earthquake, had bubbled furiously, and had then melted away into the earth and been lost. Her father, viewing the portent with horror, had gone to the cape to watch the volcano on the main island, and to implore by prayers and sacrifices the protection of the gods. Hearing this, the Captain entreated Aimata to let him see the emptied lake, in the absence of the Priest. She hesitated; but his influence was all-powerful. He prevailed on her to turn back with him through the forest.

Reaching the furthest limit of the trees, they came out upon open rocky ground which sloped gently downward toward the centre of the island. Having crossed this space, they arrived at a natural amphitheatre of rock. On one side of it the Temple appeared, partly excavated, partly formed by a natural cavern. In one of the lateral branches of the cavern was the dwelling of the Priest and his daughter. The mouth of it looked out on the rocky basin of the lake. Stooping over the edge, the Captain discovered, far down in the empty depths, a light cloud of steam. Not a drop of water was visible, look where he might.

Aimata pointed to the abyss, and hid her face on his bosom. “My father says,” she whispered, “that it is your doing.”

The Captain started. “Does your father know that I am on the island?”

She looked up at him with a quick glance of reproach. “Do you think I would tell him, and put your life in peril?” she asked. “My father felt the destroyer of the island in the earthquake; my father saw the coming destruction in the disappearance of the lake.” Her eyes rested on him with a loving languor. “Are you indeed the demon of the prophecy?” she said, winding his hair round her finger. “I am not afraid of you, if you are. I am a creature bewitched; I love the demon.” She kissed him passionately. “I don’t care if I die,” she whispered between the kisses, “if I only die with you!”

The Captain made no attempt to reason with her. He took the wiser way – he appealed to her feelings.

“You will come and live with me happily in my own country,” he said. “My ship is waiting for us. I will take you home with me, and you shall be my wife.”

She clapped her hands for joy. Then she thought of her father, and drew back from him in tears.

The Captain understood her. “Let us leave this dreary place,” he suggested. “We will talk about it in the cool glades of the forest, where you first said you loved me.”

She gave him her hand. “Where I first said I loved you!” she repeated, smiling tenderly as she looked at him. They left the lake together.

•  VII  •

The darkness had fallen again; and the ship was still becalmed at sea.

Mr. Duncalf came on deck after his supper. The thin line of smoke, seen rising from the peak of the mountain that evening, was now succeeded by ominous flashes of fire from the same quarter, intermittently visible. The faint hot breeze from the land was felt once more. “There’s just an air of wind,” Mr. Duncalf remarked. “I’ll try for the Captain while I have the chance.”

One of the boats was lowered into the water – under command of the second mate, who had already taken the bearings of the tabooed island by daylight. Four of the men were to go with him, and they were all to be well armed. Mr. Duncalf addressed his final instructions to the officer in the boat.

“You will keep a lookout, sir, with a lantern in the bows. If the natives annoy you, you know what to do. Always shoot natives. When you get anigh the island, you will fire a gun and sing out for the Captain.”

“Quite needless,” interposed a voice from the sea. “The Captain is here!”

Without taking the slightest notice of the astonishment that he had caused, the commander of the Fortuna paddled his canoe to the side of the ship. Instead of ascending to the deck, he stepped into the boat, waiting alongside. “Lend me your pistols,” he said quietly to the second officer, “and oblige me by taking your men back to their duties on board.” He looked up at Mr. Duncalf and gave some further directions. “If there is any change in the weather, keep the ship standing off and on, at a safe distance from the land, and throw up a rocket from time to time to show your position. Expect me on board again by sunrise.”

“What!” cried the mate. “Do you mean to say you are going back to the island – in that boat – all by yourself?”

“I am going back to the island,” answered the Captain, as quietly as ever; “in this boat – all by myself.” He pushed off from the ship, and hoisted the sail as he spoke.

“You’re deserting your duty!” the old sea-dog shouted, with one of his loudest oaths.

“Attend to my directions,” the Captain shouted back, as he drifted away into the darkness.

Mr. Duncalf – violently agitated for the first time in his life – took leave of his superior officer, with a singular mixture of solemnity and politeness, in these words:

“The Lord have mercy on your soul! I wish you good-evening.”

•  VIII  •

Alone in the boat, the Captain looked with a misgiving mind at the flashing of the volcano on the main island.

If events had favoured him, he would have removed Aimata to the shelter of the ship on the day when he saw the emptied basin on the lake. But the smoke of the Priest’s sacrifice had been discovered by the chief; and he had dispatched two canoes with instructions to make inquiries. One of the canoes had returned; the other was kept in waiting off the cape, to place a means of communicating with the main island at the disposal of the Priest. The second shock of earthquake had naturally increased the alarm of the chief. He had sent messages to the Priest, entreating him to leave the island, and other messages to Aimata suggesting that she should exert her influence over her father, if he hesitated. The Priest refused to leave the Temple. He trusted in his gods and his sacrifices – he believed they might avert the fatality that threatened his sanctuary.

Yielding to the holy man, the chief sent re-enforcements of canoes to take their turn at keeping watch off the headland. Assisted by torches, the islanders were on the alert (in superstitious terror of the demon of the prophecy) by night as well as by day. The Captain had no alternative but to keep in hiding, and to watch his opportunity of approaching the place in which he had concealed his canoe. It was only after Aimata had left him as usual, to return to her father at the close of evening, that the chances declared themselves in his favour. The fire-flashes from the mountain, visible when the night came, had struck terror into the hearts of the men on the watch. They thought of their wives, their children, and their possessions on the main island, and they one and all deserted their Priest. The Captain seized the opportunity of communicating with the ship, and of exchanging a frail canoe which he was ill able to manage, for a swift-sailing boat capable of keeping the sea in the event of stormy weather.

As he now neared the land, certain small sparks of red, moving on the distant water, informed him that the canoes of the sentinels had been ordered back to their duty.

Carefully avoiding the lights, he reached his own side of the island without accident, and, guided by the boat’s lantern, anchored under the cliff. He climbed the rocks, advanced to the door of the hut, and was met, to his delight and astonishment, by Aimata on the threshold.

“I dreamed that some dreadful misfortune had parted us forever,” she said; “and I came here to see if my dream was true. You have taught me what it is to be miserable; I never felt my heart ache till I looked into the hut and found that you had gone. Now I have seen you, I am satisfied. No! you must not go back with me. My father may be out looking for me. It is you that are in danger, not I. I know the forest as well by dark as by daylight.”

The Captain detained her when she tried to leave him.

“Now you are here,” he said, “why should I not place you at once in safety? I have been to the ship; I have brought back one of the boats. The darkness will befriend us – let us embark while we can.”

She shrank away as he took her hand. “You forget my father!” she said.

“Your father is in no danger, my love. The canoes are waiting for him at the cape; I saw the lights as I passed.”

With that reply he drew her out of the hut and led her toward the sea. Not a breath of the breeze was now to be felt. The dead calm had returned – and the boat was too large to be easily managed by one man alone at the oars.

“The breeze may come again,” he said. “Wait here, my angel, for the chance.”

As he spoke, the deep silence of the forest below them was broken by a sound. A harsh wailing voice was heard, calling:

“Aimata! Aimata!”

“My father!” she whispered; “he has missed me. If he comes here you are lost.”

She kissed him with passionate fervour; she held him to her for a moment with all her strength.

“Expect me at daybreak,” she said, and disappeared down the landward slope of the cliff.

He listened, anxious for her safety. The voices of the father and daughter just reached him from among the trees. The Priest spoke in no angry tones; she had apparently found an acceptable excuse for her absence. Little by little, the failing sound of their voices told him that they were on their way back together to the Temple. The silence fell again. Not a ripple broke on the beach. Not a leaf rustled in the forest. Nothing moved but the reflected flashes of the volcano on the main island over the black sky. It was an airless and an awful calm.

He went into the hut, and laid down on his bed of leaves – not to sleep, but to rest. All his energies might be required to meet the coming events of the morning. After the voyage to and from the ship, and the long watching that had preceded it, strong as he was he stood in need of repose.

For some little time he kept awake, thinking. Insensibly the oppression of the intense heat, aided in its influence by his own fatigue, treacherously closed his eyes. In spite of himself, the weary man fell into a deep sleep.

He was awakened by a roar like the explosion of a park of artillery. The volcano on the main island had burst into a state of eruption. Smoky flame-light overspread the sky, and flashed through the open doorway of the hut. He sprang from his bed – and found himself up to his knees in water.

Had the sea overflowed the land?

He waded out of the hut, and the water rose to his middle. He looked round him by the lurid light of the eruption. The one visible object within the range of view was the sea, stained by reflections from the blood-red sky, swirling and rippling strangely in the dead calm. In a moment more, he became conscious that the earth on which he stood was sinking under his feet. The water rose to his neck; the last vestige of the roof of the hut disappeared.

He looked round again, and the truth burst on him. The island was sinking – slowly, slowly sinking into volcanic depths, below even the depth of the sea! The highest object was the hut, and that had dropped inch by inch under water before his own eyes. Thrown up to the surface by occult volcanic influences, the island had sunk back, under the same influences, to the obscurity from which it had emerged!

A black shadowy object, turning in a wide circle, came slowly near him as the all-destroying ocean washed its bitter waters into his mouth. The buoyant boat, rising as the sea rose, had dragged its anchor, and was floating round in the vortex made by the slowly sinking island. With a last desperate hope that Aimata might have been saved as he had been saved, he swam to the boat, seized the heavy oars with the strength of a giant, and made for the place (so far as he could guess at it now) where the lake and the Temple had once been.

He looked round and round him; he strained his eyes in the vain attempt to penetrate below the surface of the seething dimpling sea. Had the panic-stricken watchers in the canoes saved themselves, without an effort to preserve the father and daughter? Or had they both been suffocated before they could make an attempt to escape? He called to her in his misery, as if she could hear him out of the fathomless depths: “Aimata! Aimata!” The roar of the distant eruption answered him. The mounting fires lit the solitary sea far and near over the sinking island. The boat turned slowly and more slowly in the lessening vortex. Never again would those gentle eyes look at him with unutterable love! Never again would those fresh lips touch his lips with their fervent kiss! Alone, amid the savage forces of Nature in conflict, the miserable mortal lifted his hands in frantic supplication – and the burning sky glared down on him in its pitiless grandeur, and struck him to his knees in the boat. His reason sank with his sinking limbs. In the merciful frenzy that succeeded the shock, he saw afar off, in her white robe, an angel poised on the waters, beckoning him to follow her to the brighter and the better world. He loosened the sail, he seized the oars; and the faster he pursued it, the faster the mocking vision fled from him over the empty and endless sea.

•  IX  •

The boat was discovered, on the next morning, from the ship.

All that the devotion of the officers of the Fortuna could do for their unhappy commander was done on the homeward voyage. Restored to his own country, and to skilled medical help, the Captain’s mind by slow degrees recovered its balance. He has taken his place in society again – he lives and moves and manages his affairs like the rest of us. But his heart is dead to all new emotions; nothing remains in it but the sacred remembrance of his lost love. He neither courts nor avoids the society of women. Their sympathy finds him grateful, but their attractions seem to be lost on him; they pass from his mind as they pass from his eyes – they stir nothing in him but the memory of Aimata.

•   •   •

“Now you know, ladies, why the Captain will never marry, and why (sailor as he is) he hates the sight of the sea.”

First published as
“The Captain’s Last Love”
Spirit of the Times 23 Dec 1876

MR. MARMADUKE
AND THE MINISTER

•  I  •

September 13th. – Winter seems to be upon us, on the Highland Border, already.

I looked out of window, as the evening closed in, before I barred the shutters and drew the curtains for the night. The clouds hid the hilltops on either side of our valley. Fantastic mists parted and met again on the lower slopes, as the varying breeze blew them. The blackening waters of the lake before our window seemed to anticipate the coming darkness. On the more distant hills the torrents were just visible, in the breaks of the mist, stealing their way over the brown ground like threads of silver. It was a dreary scene. The stillness of all things was only interrupted by the splashing of our little waterfall at the back of the house. I was not sorry to close the shutters, and confine the view to the four walls of our sitting-room.

The day happened to be my birthday. I sat by the peat-fire, waiting for the lamp and the tea-tray, and contemplating my past life from the vantage-ground, so to speak, of my fifty-fifth year.

There was wonderfully little to look back on. Nearly thirty years since, it pleased an all-wise Providence to cast my lot in this remote Scottish hamlet, and to make me Minister of Cauldkirk, on a stipend of seventy-four pounds sterling per annum. I and my surroundings have grown quietly older and older together. I have outlived my wife; I have buried one generation among my parishioners, and married another; I have borne the wear and tear of years better than the kirk in which I minister and the manse (or parsonage-house) in which I live – both sadly out of repair, and both still trusting for the means of reparation to the pious benefactions of people richer than myself. Not that I complain, be it understood, of the humble position which I occupy. I possess many blessings; and I thank the Lord for them. I have my little bit of land and my cow. I have also my good daughter, Felicia; named after her deceased mother, but inheriting her comely looks, it is thought, rather from myself.

Neither let me forget my elder sister, Judith; a friendless single person, sheltered under my roof, whose temperament I could wish somewhat less prone to look at persons and things on the gloomy side, but whose compensating virtues Heaven forbid that I should deny. No; I am grateful for what has been given me (from on high), and resigned to what has been taken away. With what fair prospects did I start in life! Springing from a good old Scottish stock, blessed with every advantage of education that the institutions of Scotland and England in turn could offer; with a career at the Bar and in Parliament before me – and all cast to the winds, as it were, by the measureless prodigality of my unhappy father, God forgive him! I doubt if I had five pounds left in my purse, when the compassion of my relatives on the mother’s side opened a refuge to me at Cauldkirk, and hid me from the notice of the world for the rest of my life.

September 14th. – Thus far I had posted up my Diary on the evening of the 13th, when an event occurred so completely unexpected by my household and myself, that the pen, I may say, dropped incontinently from my hand.

It was the time when we had finished our tea, or supper – I hardly know which to call it. In the silence, we could hear the rain pouring against the window, and the wind that had risen with the darkness howling round the house. My sister Judith, taking the gloomy view according to custom – copious draughts of good Bohea and two helpings of such a mutton ham as only Scotland can produce had no effect in raising her spirits – my sister, I say, remarked that there would be ships lost at sea and men drowned this night. My daughter Felicia, the brightest-tempered creature of the female sex that I have ever met with, tried to give a cheerful turn to her aunt’s depressing prognostication. “If the ships must be lost,” she said, “we may surely hope that the men will be saved.”  “God willing,” I put in – thereby giving to my daughter’s humane expression of feeling the fit religious tone that was all it wanted – and then went on with my written record of the events and reflections of the day. No more was said. Felicia took up a book. Judith took up her knitting.

On a sudden, the silence was broken by a blow on the house-door.

My two companions, as is the way of women, set up a scream. I was startled myself, wondering who could be out in the rain and the darkness and striking at the door of the house. A stranger it must be. Light or dark, any person in or near Cauldkirk, wanting admission, would know where to find the bell-handle at the side of the door. I waited a while to hear what might happen next. The stroke was repeated, but more softly. It became me as a man and a minister to set an example. I went out into the passage, and I called through the door, “Who’s there?”

A man’s voice answered – so faintly that I could barely hear him – “A lost traveller.”

Immediately upon this my cheerful sister expressed her view of the matter through the open parlour door. “Brother Noah, it’s a robber. Don’t let him in!”

What would the Good Samaritan have done in my place? Assuredly he would have run the risk and opened the door. I imitated the Good Samaritan.

A man, dripping wet, with a knapsack on his back and a thick stick in his hand, staggered in, and would, I think, have fallen in the passage if I had not caught him by the arm. Judith peeped out at the parlour door, and said, “He’s drunk.” Felicia was behind her, holding up a lighted candle, the better to see what was going on. “Look at his face, aunt,” says she. “Worn out with fatigue, poor man. Bring him in, father – bring him in.”

Good Felicia! I was proud of my girl. “He’ll spoil the carpet,” says sister Judith. I said, “Silence, for shame!” and brought him in, and dropped him dripping into my own armchair. Would the Good Samaritan have thought of his carpet or his chair? I did think of them, but I overcame it. Ah, we are a decadent generation in these latter days!

“Be quick, father”‘ says Felicia; “he’ll faint if you don’t give him something!”

I took out one of our little drinking cups (called among us a “Quaigh”), while Felicia, instructed by me, ran to the kitchen for the cream-jug. Filling the cup with whisky and cream in equal proportions, I offered it to him. He drank it off as if it had been so much water. “Stimulant and nourishment, you’ll observe, sir, in equal portions,” I remarked to him. “How do you feel now?”

“Ready for another,” says he.

Felicia burst out laughing. I gave him another. As I turned to hand it to him, sister Judith came behind me, and snatched away the cream-jug. Never a generous person, sister Judith, at the best of times – more especially in the matter of cream.

He handed me back the empty cup. “I believe, sir, you have saved my life,” he said. “Under Providence,” I put in – adding, “But I would remark, looking to the state of your clothes, that I have yet another service to offer you, before you tell us how you came into this pitiable state.” With that reply, I led him upstairs, and set before him the poor resources of my wardrobe, and left him to do the best he could with them. He was rather a small man, and I am in stature nigh on six feet. When he came down to us in my clothes, we had the merriest evening that I can remember for years past. I thought Felicia would have had a hysteric fit; and even sister Judith laughed – he did look such a comical figure in the minister’s garments.

As for the misfortune that had befallen him, it offered one more example of the preternatural rashness of the English traveller in countries unknown to him. He was on a walking tour through Scotland; and he had set forth to go twenty miles a-foot, from a town on one side of the Highland Border, to a town on the other, without a guide. The only wonder is that he found his way to Cauldkirk, instead of perishing of exposure among the lonesome hills.

“Will you offer thanks for your preservation to the Throne of Grace, in your prayers tonight?” I asked him. And he answered, “Indeed I will!”

We have a spare room at the manse; but it had not been inhabited for more than a year past. Therefore we made his bed, for that night, on the sofa in the parlour; and so left him, with the fire on one side of his couch, and the whisky and the mutton ham on the other in case of need. He mentioned his name when we bade him good-night. Marmaduke Falmer of London, son of a minister of the English Church Establishment, now deceased. It was plain, I may add, before he spoke, that we had offered the hospitality of the manse to a man of gentle breeding.

September 15th. – I have to record a singularly pleasant day; due partly to a return of the fine weather, partly to the good social gifts of our guest.

Attired again in his own clothing, he was, albeit wanting in height, a finely proportioned man, with remarkably small hands and feet; having also a bright mobile face, and large dark eyes of an extraordinary diversity of expression. Also, he was of a sweet and cheerful humour; easily pleased with little things, and amiably ready to make his gifts agreeable to all of us. At the same time, a person of my experience and penetration could not fail to perceive that he was most content when in company with Felicia. I have already mentioned my daughter’s comely looks and good womanly qualities. It was in the order of nature that a young man (to use his own phrase) getting near to his thirty-first birthday should feel drawn by sympathy toward a well-favoured young woman in her four-and-twentieth year. In matters of this sort I have always cultivated a liberal turn of mind, not forgetting my own youth.

As the evening closed in, I was sorry to notice a certain change in our guest for the worse. He showed signs of fatigue – falling asleep at intervals in his chair, and waking up and shivering. The spare room was now well aired, having had a roaring fire in it all day.

I begged him not to stand on ceremony, and to betake himself at once to his bed. Felicia (having learned the accomplishment from her excellent mother) made him a warm sleeping-draught of eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and spirits, delicious alike to the senses of smell and taste. Sister Judith waited until he had closed the door behind him, and then favoured me with one of her dismal predictions. “You’ll rue the day, brother, when you let him into the house. He is going to fall ill on our hands.”

•  II  •

November 28th. – God be praised for all His mercies! This day, our guest, Marmaduke Falmer, joined us downstairs in the sitting-room for the first time since his illness.

He is sadly deteriorated, in a bodily sense, by the wasting rheumatic fever that brought him nigh to death; but he is still young, and the doctor (humanly speaking) has no doubt of his speedy and complete recovery. My sister takes the opposite view. She remarked, in his hearing, that nobody ever thoroughly got over a rheumatic fever. Oh, Judith! Judith! it’s well for humanity that you’re a single person! If haply, there had been any man desperate enough to tackle such a woman in the bonds of marriage, what a pessimist progeny must have proceeded from you!

Looking back over my Diary for the last two months and more, I see one monotonous record of the poor fellow’s sufferings; cheered and varied, I am pleased to add, by the devoted services of my daughter at the sick man’s bedside. With some help from her aunt (most readily given when he was nearest to the point of death), and with needful services performed in turn by two of our aged women in Cauldkirk, Felicia could not have nursed him more assiduously if he had been her own brother. Half the credit of bringing him through it belonged (as the doctor himself confessed) to the discreet young nurse, always ready through the worst of the illness, and always cheerful through the long convalescence that followed. I must also record to the credit of Marmaduke that he was indeed duly grateful. When I led him into the parlour, and he saw Felicia waiting by the armchair, smiling and patting the pillows for him, he took her by the hand, and burst out crying. Weakness, in part, no doubt – but sincere gratitude at the bottom of it, I am equally sure.

November 29th. – However, there are limits even to sincere gratitude. Of this truth Mr. Marmaduke seems to be insufficiently aware. Entering the sitting-room soon after noon today, I found our convalescent guest and his nurse alone. His head was resting on her shoulder; his arm was round her waist – and (the truth before everything) Felicia was kissing him.

A man may be of a liberal turn of mind, and may yet consistently object to freedom when it takes the form of unlicensed embracing and kissing; the person being his own daughter, and the place his own house. I signed to my girl to leave us; and I advanced to Mr. Marmaduke, with my opinion of his conduct just rising in words to my lips – when he staggered me with amazement by asking for Felicia’s hand in marriage.

“You need feel no doubt of my being able to offer to your daughter a position of comfort and respectability,” he said. “I have a settled income of eight hundred pounds a year.”

His raptures over Felicia; his protestations that she was the first woman he had ever really loved; his profane declaration that he preferred to die, if I refused to let him be her husband – all these flourishes, as I may call them, passed in at one of my ears and out at the other. But eight hundred pounds sterling per annum, descending as it were in a golden avalanche on the mind of a Scottish minister (accustomed to thirty years’ annual contemplation of seventy-four pounds) – eight hundred a year, in one young man’s pocket, I say, completely overpowered me. I just managed to answer, “Wait till tomorrow” – and hurried out of doors to recover my self-respect, if the thing was to be anywise done. I took my way through the valley. The sun was shining, for a wonder. When I saw my shadow on the hillside, I saw the Golden Calf as an integral part of me, bearing this inscription in letters of flame – “Here’s another of them!”

November 30th. – I have made amends for yesterday’s backsliding; I have acted as becomes my parental dignity and my sacred calling.

The temptation to do otherwise, has not been wanting. Here is sister Judith’s advice: “Make sure that he has got the money first; and, for Heaven’s sake, nail him!” Here is Mr. Marmaduke’s proposal: “Make any conditions you please, so long as you give me your daughter.” And, lastly, here is Felicia’s confession: “Father, my heart is set on him. Oh, don’t be unkind to me for the first time in your life!”

But I have stood firm. I have refused to hear any more words on the subject from any one of them, for the next six months to come.

“So serious a venture as the venture of marriage,” I said, “is not to be undertaken on impulse. As soon as Mr. Marmaduke can travel, I request him to leave us, and not to return again for six months. If, after that interval, he is still of the same mind, and my daughter is still of the same mind, let him return to Cauldkirk, and (premising that I am in all other respects satisfied) let him ask me for his wife.”

There were tears, there were protestations; I remained immovable. A week later, Mr. Marmaduke left us, on his way by easy stages to the south. I am not a hard man. I rewarded the lovers for their obedience by keeping sister Judith out of the way, and letting them say their farewell words (accompaniments included) in private.

•  III  •

May 28th. – A letter from Mr. Marmaduke, informing me that I may expect him at Cauldkirk, exactly at the expiration of the six months’ interval – viz., on June the seventh.

Writing to this effect, he added a timely word on the subject of his family. Both his parents were dead; his only brother held a civil appointment in India, the place being named. His uncle (his father’s brother) was a merchant resident in London; and to this near relative he referred me, if I wished to make inquiries about him. The names of his bankers, authorized to give me every information in respect to his pecuniary affairs, followed. Nothing could be more plain and straightforward. I wrote to his uncle, and I wrote to his bankers. In both cases the replies were perfectly satisfactory – nothing in the slightest degree doubtful, no prevarications, no mysteries. In a word, Mr. Marmaduke himself was thoroughly well vouched for, and Mr. Marmaduke’s income was invested in securities beyond fear and beyond reproach. Even sister Judith, bent on picking a hole in the record somewhere, tried hard, and could make nothing of it.

The last sentence in Mr. Marmaduke’s letter was the only part of it which I failed to read with pleasure.

He left it to me to fix the day for the marriage, and he entreated that I would make it as early a day as possible. I had a touch of the heartache when I thought of parting with Felicia, and being left at home with nobody but Judith. However, I got over it for that time, and, after consulting my daughter, we decided on naming a fortnight after Mr. Marmaduke’s arrival – that is to say, the twenty-first of June. This gave Felicia time for her preparations, besides offering to me the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with my son-in-law’s disposition. The happiest marriage does indubitably make its demands on human forbearance; and I was anxious, among other things, to assure myself of Mr. Marmaduke’s good temper.

•  IV  •

June 22d. – The happy change in my daughter’s life (let me say nothing of the change in my life) has come: they were married yesterday. The manse is a desert; and sister Judith was never so uncongenial a companion to me as I feel her to be now. Her last words to the married pair, when they drove away, were: “Lord help you both; you have all your troubles before you!”

I had no heart to write yesterday’s record, yesterday evening, as usual. The absence of Felicia at the supper-table completely overcame me. I, who have so often comforted others in their afflictions, could find no comfort for myself. Even now that the day has passed, the tears come into my eyes, only with writing about it. Sad, sad weakness! Let me close my Diary, and open the Bible – and be myself again.

June 23d. – More resigned since yesterday; a more becoming and more pious frame of mind – obedient to God’s holy will, and content in the belief that my dear daughter’s married life will be a happy one.

They have gone abroad for their holiday – to Switzerland, by way of France. I was anything rather than pleased when I heard that my son-in-law proposed to take Felicia to that sink of iniquity, Paris. He knows already what I think of balls and playhouses, and similar devils’ diversions, and how I have brought up my daughter to think of them – the subject having occurred in conversation among us more than a week since. That he could meditate taking a child of mine to the headquarters of indecent jiggings and abominable stage-plays, of spouting rogues and painted Jezebels, was indeed a heavy blow.

However, Felicia reconciled me to it in the end. She declared that her only desire in going to Paris was to see the picture-galleries, the public buildings, and the fair outward aspect of the city generally. “Your opinions, father, are my opinions,” she said; “and Marmaduke, I am sure, will so shape our arrangements as to prevent our passing a Sabbath in Paris.” Marmaduke not only consented to this (with the perfect good temper of which I have observed more than one gratifying example in him), but likewise assured me that, speaking for himself personally, it would be a relief to him when they got to the mountains and the lakes. So that matter was happily settled. Go where they may, God bless and prosper them!

Speaking of relief, I must record that Judith has gone away to Aberdeen on a visit to some friends. “You’ll be wretched enough here,” she said at parting, “all by yourself.” Pure vanity and self-complacence! It may be resignation to her absence, or it may be natural force of mind, I began to be more easy and composed the moment I was alone, and this blessed state of feeling has continued uninterruptedly ever since.

•  V  •

September 5th. – A sudden change in my life, which it absolutely startles me to record. I am going to London!

My purpose in taking this most serious step is of a twofold nature. I have a greater and a lesser object in view.

The greater object is to see my daughter, and to judge for myself whether certain doubts on the vital question of her happiness, which now torment me night and day, are unhappily founded on truth. She and her husband returned in August from their wedding-tour, and took up their abode in Marmaduke’s new residence in London. Up to this time, Felicia’s letters to me were, in very truth, the delight of my life – she was so entirely happy, so amazed and delighted with all the wonderful things she saw, so full of love and admiration for the best husband that ever lived. Since her return to London, I perceive a complete change.

She makes no positive complaint, but she writes in a tone of weariness and discontent; she says next to nothing of Marmaduke, and she dwells perpetually on the one idea of my going to London to see her. I hope with my whole heart that I am wrong; but the rare allusions to her husband, and the constantly repeated desire to see her father (while she has not been yet three months married), seem to me to be bad signs. In brief, my anxiety is too great to be endured. I have so arranged matters with one of my brethren as to be free to travel to London cheaply by steamer; and I begin the journey tomorrow.

My lesser object may be dismissed in two words. Having already decided on going to London, I propose to call on the wealthy nobleman who owns all the land hereabouts, and represent to him the discreditable, and indeed dangerous, condition of the parish kirk for want of means to institute the necessary repairs. If I find myself well received, I shall put in a word for the manse, which is almost in as deplorable a condition as the church. My lord is a wealthy man – may his heart and his purse be opened unto me!

Sister Judith is packing my portmanteau. According to custom, she forbodes the worst. “Never forget,” she says, “that I warned you against Marmaduke, on the first night when he entered the house.”

•  VI  •

September 10th. – After more delays than one, on land and sea, I was at last set ashore near the Tower, on the afternoon of yesterday. God help us, my worst anticipations have been realized! My beloved Felicia has urgent and serious need of me.

It is not to be denied that I made my entry into my son-in-law’s house in a disturbed and irritated frame of mind. First, my temper was tried by the almost interminable journey, in the noisy and comfortless vehicle which they call a cab, from the river-wharf to the west-end of London, where Marmaduke lives. In the second place, I was scandalized and alarmed by an incident which took place – still on the endless journey from east to west – in a street hard by the market of Covent Garden.

We had just approached a large building, most profusely illuminated with gas, and exhibiting prodigious coloured placards having inscribed on them nothing but the name of Barrymore. The cab came suddenly to a standstill; and looking out to see what the obstacle might be, I discovered a huge concourse of men and women, drawn across the pavement and road alike, so that it seemed impossible to pass by them. I inquired of my driver what this assembling of the people meant. “Oh,” says he, “Barrymore has made another hit.” This answer being perfectly unintelligible to me, I requested some further explanation, and discovered that “Barrymore” was the name of a stage-player favoured by the populace; that the building was a theatre, and that all these creatures with immortal souls were waiting, before the doors opened, to get places at the show!

The emotions of sorrow and indignation caused by this discovery so absorbed me that I failed to notice an attempt the driver made to pass through, where the crowd seemed to be thinner, until the offended people resented the proceeding. Some of them seized the horse’s head; others were on the point of pulling the driver off his box, when providentially the police interfered. Under their protection, we drew back, and reached our destination in safety, by another way. I record this otherwise unimportant affair, because it grieved and revolted me (when I thought of the people’s souls), and so indisposed my mind to take cheerful views of anything. Under these circumstances, I would fain hope that I have exaggerated the true state of the case, in respect to my daughter’s married life.

My good girl almost smothered me with kisses. When I at last got a fair opportunity of observing her, I thought her looking pale and worn and anxious. Query: Should I have arrived at this conclusion if I had met with no example of the wicked dissipations of London, and if I had ridden at my ease in a comfortable vehicle?

They had a succulent meal ready for me, and, what I call, fair enough whisky out of Scotland. Here again I remarked that Felicia ate very little, and Marmaduke nothing at all. He drank wine, too – and, good heavens, champagne wine! – a needless waste of money surely when there was whisky on the table. My appetite being satisfied, my son-in-law went out of the room, and returned with his hat in his hand. “You and Felicia have many things to talk about on your first evening together. I’ll leave you for a while – I shall only be in the way.” So he spoke. It was in vain that his wife and I assured him he was not in the way at all. He kissed his hand, and smiled pleasantly, and left us.

“There, father!” says Felicia. “For the last ten days he has gone out like that, and left me alone for the whole evening. When we first returned from Switzerland, he left me in the same mysterious way, only it was after breakfast then. Now he stays at home in the daytime, and goes out at night.”

I inquired if she had not summoned him to give her some explanation.

“I don’t know what to make of his explanation,” says Felicia. “When he went away in the daytime, he told me he had business in the City. Since he took to going out at night, he says he goes to his club.”

“Have you asked where his club is, my dear?”

“He says it’s in Pall Mall. There are dozens of clubs in that street – and he has never told me the name of his club. I am completely shut out of his confidence. Would you believe it, father? he has not introduced one of his friends to me since we came home. I doubt if they know where he lives, since he took this house.”

What could I say?

I said nothing, and looked round the room. It was fitted up with perfectly palatial magnificence. I am an ignorant man in matters of this sort, and partly to satisfy my curiosity, partly to change the subject, I asked to see the house. Mercy preserve us, the same grandeur everywhere! I wondered if even such an income as eight hundred a year could suffice for it all. In a moment when I was considering this, a truly frightful suspicion crossed my mind. Did these mysterious absences, taken in connection with the unbridled luxury that surrounded us, mean that my son-in-law was a gamester? a shameless shuffler of cards, or a debauched bettor on horses? While I was still completely overcome by my own previsions of evil, my daughter put her arm in mine to take me to the top of the house.

For the first time I observed a bracelet of dazzling gems on her wrist. “Not diamonds?” I said. She answered, with as much composure as if she had been the wife of a nobleman, “Yes, diamonds – a present from Marmaduke.” This was too much for me; my previsions, so to speak, forced their way into words. “Oh, my poor child!” I burst out, “I’m in mortal fear that your husband’s a gamester!”

She showed none of the horror I had anticipated; she only shook her head and began to cry.

“Worse than that, I’m afraid,” she said.

I was petrified; my tongue refused its office, when I would fain have asked her what she meant. Her besetting sin, poor soul, is a proud spirit. She dried her eyes on a sudden, and spoke out freely, in these words: “I am not going to cry about it. The other day, father, we were out walking in the park. A horrid, bold, yellow-haired woman passed us in an open carriage. She kissed her hand to Marmaduke, and called out to him, ‘How are you, Marmy?’ I was so indignant that I pushed him away from me, and told him to go and take a drive with his lady. He burst out laughing. ‘Nonsense!’ he said; ‘she has known me for years – you don’t understand our easy London manners.’ We have made it up since then; but I have my own opinion of the creature in the open carriage.”

Morally speaking, this was worse than all. But, logically viewed, it completely failed as a means of accounting for the diamond bracelet and the splendour of the furniture.

We went on to the uppermost story. It was cut off from the rest of the house by a stout partition of wood, and a door covered with green baize.

When I tried the door it was locked. “Ha!” says Felicia, “I wanted you to see it for yourself!” More suspicious proceedings on the part of my son-in-law! He kept the door constantly locked, and the key in his pocket. When his wife asked him what it meant, he answered: “My study is up there – and I like to keep it entirely to myself.” After such a reply as that, the preservation of my daughter’s dignity permitted but one answer: “Oh, keep it to yourself, by all means!”

My previsions, upon this, assumed another form.

I now asked myself – still in connection with my son-in-law’s extravagant expenditure – whether the clew to the mystery might not haply be the forging of banknotes on the other side of the baize door. My mind was prepared for anything by this time. We descended again into the dining-room. Felicia saw how my spirits were dashed, and came and perched upon my knee. “Enough of my troubles for tonight, father,” she said. “I am going to be your little girl again, and we will talk of nothing but Cauldkirk, until Marmaduke comes back.” I am one of the firmest men living, but I could not keep the hot tears out of my eyes when she put her arm round my neck and said those words. By good fortune I was sitting with my back to the lamp; she didn’t notice me.

A little after eleven o’clock Marmaduke returned. He looked pale and weary. But more champagne, and this time something to eat with it, seemed to set him to rights again – no doubt by relieving him from the reproaches of a guilty conscience.

I had been warned by Felicia to keep what had passed between us a secret from her husband for the present; so we had (superficially speaking) a merry end to the evening. My son-in-law was nearly as good company as ever, and wonderfully fertile in suggestions and expedients when he saw they were wanted. Hearing from his wife, to whom I had mentioned it, that I purposed representing the decayed condition of the kirk and manse to the owner of Cauldkirk and the country round about, he strongly urged me to draw up a list of repairs that were most needful, before I waited on my lord. This advice, vicious and degraded as the man who offered it may be, is sound advice nevertheless. I shall assuredly take it.

So far I had written in my Diary, in the forenoon. Returning to my daily record, after a lapse of some hours, I have a new mystery of iniquity to chronicle. My abominable son-in-law now appears (I blush to write it) to be nothing less than an associate of thieves!

After the meal they call luncheon, I thought it well before recreating myself with the sights of London, to attend first to the crying necessities of the kirk and the manse. Furnished with my written list, I presented myself at his lordship’s residence. I was immediately informed that he was otherwise engaged, and could not possibly receive me. If I wished to see my lord’s secretary, Mr. Helmsley, I could do so. Consenting to this, rather than fail entirely in my errand, I was shown into the secretary’s room.

Mr. Helmsley heard what I had to say civilly enough; expressing, however, grave doubts whether his lordship would do anything for me, the demands on his purse being insupportably numerous already. However, he undertook to place my list before his employer, and to let me know the result. “Where are you staying in London?” he asked. I answered: “With my son-in-law, Mr. Marmaduke Falmer.” Before I could add the address, the secretary started to his feet and tossed my list back to me across the table in the most uncivil manner.

“Upon my word,” says he, “your assurance exceeds anything I ever heard of. Your son-in-law is concerned in the robbery of her ladyship’s diamond bracelet – the discovery was made not an hour ago. Leave the house, sir, and consider yourself lucky that I have no instructions to give you in charge to the police.” I protested against this unprovoked outrage, with a violence of language which I would rather not recall. As a minister, I ought, under every provocation, to have preserved my self-control.

The one thing to do next was to drive back to my unhappy daughter.

Her guilty husband was with her. I was too angry to wait for a fit opportunity of speaking. The Christian humility which I have all my life cultivated as the first of virtues sank, as it were, from under me. In terms of burning indignation I told them what had happened. The result was too distressing to be described. It ended in Felicia giving her husband back the bracelet. The hardened reprobate laughed at us. “Wait till I have seen his lordship and Mr. Helmsley,” he said, and left the house.

Does he mean to escape to foreign parts? Felicia, womanlike, believes in him still; she is quite convinced that there must be some mistake. I am myself in hourly expectation of the arrival of the police.

With gratitude to Providence, I note before going to bed the harmless termination of the affair of the bracelet – so far as Marmaduke is concerned. The agent who sold him the jewel has been forced to come forward and state the truth. His lordship’s wife is the guilty person; the bracelet was hers – a present from her husband. Harassed by debts that she dare not acknowledge, she sold it; my lord discovered that it was gone; and in terror of his anger the wretched woman took refuge in a lie.

She declared that the bracelet had been stolen from her. Asked for the name of the thief, the reckless woman (having no other name in her mind at the moment) mentioned the man who had innocently bought the jewel of her agent, otherwise my unfortunate son-in-law. Oh, the profligacy of the modern Babylon! It was well I went to the secretary when I did or we should really have had the police in the house. Marmaduke found them in consultation over the supposed robbery, asking for his address. There was a dreadful exhibition of violence and recrimination at his lordship’s residence: in the end he re-purchased the bracelet. My son-in-law’s money has been returned to him; and Mr. Helmsley has sent me a written apology.

In a worldly sense, this would, I suppose, be called a satisfactory ending.

It is not so to my mind. I freely admit that I too hastily distrusted Marmaduke; but am I, on that account, to give him back immediately the place which he once occupied in my esteem? Again this evening he mysteriously quitted the house, leaving me alone with Felicia, and giving no better excuse for his conduct than that he had an engagement. And this when I have a double claim on his consideration, as his father-in-law and his guest.

September 11th. – The day began well enough. At breakfast, Marmaduke spoke feelingly of the unhappy result of my visit to his lordship, and asked me to let him look at the list of repairs. “It is just useless to expect anything from my lord, after what has happened,” I said. “Besides, Mr. Helmsley gave me no hope when I stated my case to him.” Marmaduke still held out his hand for the list. “Let me try if I can get some subscribers,” he replied. This was kindly meant, at any rate. I gave him the list; and I began to recover some of my old friendly feeling for him. Alas! the little gleam of tranquillity proved to be of short duration.

We made out our plans for the day pleasantly enough. The check came when Felicia spoke next of our plans for the evening. “My father has only four days more to pass with us,” she said to her husband. “Surely you won’t go out again tonight, and leave him?” Marmaduke’s face clouded over directly; he looked embarrassed and annoyed. I sat perfectly silent, leaving them to settle it by themselves.

“You will stay with us this evening, won’t you?” says Felicia. No: he was not free for the evening. “What! another engagement? Surely you can put it off?” No; impossible to put it off. “Is it a ball, or a party of some kind?” No answer; he changed the subject – he offered Felicia the money repaid to him for the bracelet. “Buy one for yourself, my dear, this time.” Felicia handed him back the money, rather too haughtily, perhaps. “I don’t want a bracelet,” she said; “I want your company in the evening.”

He jumped up, good-tempered as he was, in something very like a rage – then looked at me, and checked himself on the point (as I believe) of using profane language. “This is downright persecution!” he burst out, with an angry turn of his head toward his wife. Felicia got up, in her turn. “Your language is an insult to my father and to me!” He looked thoroughly staggered at this: it was evidently their first serious quarrel.

Felicia took no notice of him. “I will get ready directly, father; and we will go out together.” He stopped her as she was leaving the room – recovering his good temper with a readiness which it pleased me to see. “Come, come, Felicia! We have not quarrelled yet, and we won’t quarrel now. Let me off this one time more, and I will devote the next three evenings of your father’s visit to him and to you. Give me a kiss, and make it up.” My daughter doesn’t do things by halves. She gave him a dozen kisses, I should think – and there was a happy end of it.

“But what shall we do tomorrow evening?” says Marmaduke, sitting down by his wife, and patting her hand as it lay in his.

“Take us somewhere,” says she. Marmaduke laughed. “Your father objects to public amusements. Where does he want to go to?” Felicia took up the newspaper. “There is an oratorio at Exeter Hall,” she said; “my father likes music.” He turned to me. “You don’t object to oratorios, sir?”  “I don’t object to music,” I answered, “so long as I am not required to enter a theatre.” Felicia handed the newspaper to me. “Speaking of theatres, father, have you read what they say about the new play? What a pity it can’t be given out of a theatre!” I looked at her in speechless amazement. She tried to explain herself. “The paper says that the new play is a service rendered to the cause of virtue; and that the great actor, Barrymore, has set an example in producing it which deserves the encouragement of all truly religious people. Do read it, father!” I held up my hands in dismay. My own daughter perverted! pinning her faith on a newspaper! speaking, with a perverse expression of interest, of a stage-play and an actor! Even Marmaduke witnessed this lamentable exhibition of backsliding with some appearance of alarm. “It’s not her fault, sir,” he said, interceding with me. “It’s the fault of the newspaper. Don’t blame her!” I held my peace; determining inwardly to pray for her. Shortly afterward my daughter and I went out. Marmaduke accompanied us part of the way, and left us at a telegraph office. “Who are you going to telegraph to?” Felicia asked. Another mystery! He answered, “Business of my own, my dear” – and went into the office.

September 12th. – Is my miserable son-in-law’s house under a curse? The yellow-haired woman in the open carriage drove up to the door at half-past ten this morning, in a state of distraction. Felicia and I saw her from the drawing-room balcony – a tall woman in gorgeous garments. She knocked with her own hand at the door – she cried out distractedly, “Where is he? I must see him!” At the sound of her voice, Marmaduke (playing with his little dog in the drawing-room) rushed downstairs and out into the street. “Hold your tongue!” we heard him say to her. “What are you here for?”

What she answered we failed to hear; she was certainly crying. Marmaduke stamped on the pavement like a man beside himself – took her roughly by the arm, and led her into the house.

Before I could utter a word, Felicia left me and flew headlong down the stairs.

She was in time to hear the dining-room locked. Following her, I prevented the poor jealous creature from making a disturbance at the door. God forgive me – not knowing how else to quiet her – I degraded myself by advising her to listen to what they said. She instantly opened the door of the back dining-room, and beckoned to me to follow. I naturally hesitated. “I shall go mad,” she whispered, “if you leave me by myself!” What could I do? I degraded myself the second time. For my own child – in pity for my own child!

We heard them, through the flimsy modern folding-doors, at those times when he was most angry, and she most distracted. That is to say, we heard them when they spoke in their loudest tones.

“How did you find out where I live?” says he. “Oh, you’re ashamed of me?” says she. “Mr. Helmsley was with us yesterday evening. That’s how I found out!”  “What do you mean?”  “I mean that Mr. Helmsley had your card and address in his pocket. Ah, you were obliged to give your address when you had to clear up that matter of the bracelet! You cruel, cruel man, what have I done to deserve such a note as you sent me this morning?”  “Do what the note tells you!”  “Do what the note tells me? Did anybody ever hear a man talk so, out of a lunatic asylum? Why, you haven’t even the grace to carry out your own wicked deception – you haven’t even gone to bed!” There the voices grew less angry, and we missed what followed. Soon the lady burst out again, piteously entreating him this time. “Oh, Marmy, don’t ruin me! Has anybody offended you? Is there anything you wish to have altered? Do you want more money? It is too cruel to treat me in this way – it is indeed!” He made some answer, which we were not able to hear; we could only suppose that he had upset her temper again. She went on louder than ever “I’ve begged and prayed of you – and you’re as hard as iron. I’ve told you about the Prince – and that has had no effect on you. I have done now. We’ll see what the doctor says.” He got angry, in his turn; we heard him again. “I won’t see the doctor!”  “Oh, you refuse to see the doctor? – I shall make your refusal known – and if there’s law in England, you shall feel it!” Their voices dropped again; some new turn seemed to be taken by the conversation. We heard the lady once more, shrill and joyful this time. “There’s a dear! You see it, don’t you, in the right light? And you haven’t forgotten the old times, have you? You’re the same dear, honourable, kind-hearted fellow that you always were!”

I caught hold of Felicia, and put my hand over her mouth.

There was a sound in the next room which might have been – I cannot be certain – the sound of a kiss. The next moment, we heard the door of the room unlocked. Then the door of the house was opened, and the noise of retreating carriage-wheels followed. We met him in the hall, as he entered the house again.

My daughter walked up to him, pale and determined.

“I insist on knowing who that woman is, and what she wants here.” Those were her first words. He looked at her like a man in utter confusion. “Wait till this evening; I am in no state to speak to you now!” With that, he snatched his hat off the hall table and rushed out of the house.

It is little more than three weeks since they returned to London from their happy wedding-tour – and it has come to this!

The clock has just struck seven; a letter has been left by a messenger, addressed to my daughter. I had persuaded her, poor soul, to lie down in her own room. God grant that the letter may bring her some tidings of her husband! I please myself in the hope of hearing good news.

My mind has not been kept long in suspense. Felicia’s waiting-woman has brought me a morsel of writing paper, with these lines pencilled on it in my daughter’s handwriting: “Dearest father, make your mind easy. Everything is explained. I cannot trust myself to speak to you about it tonight – and he doesn’t wish me to do so. Only wait till tomorrow, and you shall know all. He will be back about eleven o’clock. Please don’t wait up for him – he will come straight to me.”

September 13th. – The scales have fallen from my eyes; the light is let in on me at last. My bewilderment is not to be uttered in words – I am like a man in a dream.

Before I was out of my room in the morning, my mind was upset by the arrival of a telegram addressed to myself. It was the first thing of the kind I ever received; I trembled under the prevision of some new misfortune as I opened the envelope.

Of all the people in the world, the person sending the telegram was sister Judith! Never before did this distracting relative confound me as she confounded me now. Here is her message: “You can’t come back. An architect from Edinburgh asserts his resolution to repair the kirk and the manse. The man only waits for his lawful authority to begin. The money is ready – but who has found it? Mr. Architect is forbidden to tell. We live in awful times. How is Felicia?”

Naturally concluding that Judith’s mind must be deranged, I went downstairs to meet my son-in-law (for the first time since the events of yesterday) at the late breakfast which is customary in this house. He was waiting for me – but Felicia was not present. “She breakfasts in her room this morning,” says Marmaduke; “and I am to give you the explanation which has already satisfied your daughter. Will you take it at great length, sir? or will you have it in one word?” There was something in his manner that I did not at all like – he seemed to be setting me at defiance. I said, stiffly, “Brevity is best; I will have it in one word.”

“Here it is then,” he answered. “I am Barrymore.”

POSTSCRIPT
ADDED BY FELICIA

If the last line extracted from my dear father’s Diary does not contain explanation enough in itself, I add some sentences from Marmaduke’s letter to me, sent from the theatre last night. (N. B. – I leave out the expressions of endearment: they are my own private property.)

… Just remember how your father talked about theatres and actors, when I was at Cauldkirk, and how you listened in dutiful agreement with him. Would he have consented to your marriage if he had known that I was one of the ‘spouting rogues,’ associated with the ‘painted Jezebels’ of the playhouse? He would never have consented – and you yourself, my darling, would have trembled at the bare idea of marrying an actor.

Have I been guilty of any serious deception? and have my friends been guilty in helping to keep my secret? My birth, my name, my surviving relatives, my fortune inherited from my father – all these important particulars have been truly stated. The name of Barrymore is nothing but the name that I assumed when I went on the stage.

As to what has happened, since our return from Switzerland, I own that I ought to have made my confession to you. Forgive me if I weakly hesitated. I was so fond of you; and I so distrusted the Puritanical convictions which your education had rooted in your mind, that I put it off from day to day. Oh, my angel…!

Yes, I kept the address of my new house a secret from all my friends, knowing they would betray me if they paid us visits. As for my mysteriously-closed study, it was the place in which I privately rehearsed my new part. When I left you in the mornings, it was to go to the theatre rehearsals. My evening absences began of course with the first performance.

Your father’s arrival seriously embarrassed me. When you (most properly) insisted on my giving up some of my evenings to him, you necessarily made it impossible for me to appear on the stage. The one excuse I could make to the theatre was, that I was too ill to act. It did certainly occur to me to cut the Gordian knot by owning the truth. But your father’s horror, when you spoke of the newspaper review of the play, and the shame and fear you showed at your own boldness, daunted me once more.

The arrival at the theatre of my written excuse brought the manageress down upon me, in a state of distraction. Nobody could supply my place; all the seats were taken; and the Prince was expected. There was what we call a scene between the poor lady and myself. I felt I was in the wrong; I saw that the position in which I had impulsively placed myself was unworthy of me – and it ended in my doing my duty to the theatre and the public. But for the affair of the bracelet, which obliged me as an honourable man to give my name and address, the manageress would not have discovered me. She, like everyone else, only knew of my address at my bachelor chambers. How could you be jealous of the old theatrical comrade of my first days on the stage? Don’t you know yet that you are the one woman in the world…?

A last word relating to your father, and I have done.

Do you remember my leaving you at the telegraph office? It was to send a message to a friend of mine, an architect in Edinburgh, instructing him to go immediately to Cauldkirk, and provide for the repairs at my expense. The theatre, my dear, more than trebles my paternal income, and I can well afford it. Will your father refuse to accept a tribute of respect to a Scottish minister, because it is paid out of an actor’s pocket? You shall ask him the question.

And, I say, Felicia – will you come and see me act? I don’t expect your father to enter a theatre; but, by way of further reconciling him to his son-in-law, suppose you ask him to hear me read the play?

First published as
“The Mystery of Marmaduke”
Spirit of the Times 28 Dec 1878

MR. PERCY
AND THE PROPHET

PART I
THE PREDICTION

•  I

THE QUACK

The disasters that follow the hateful offence against Christianity, which men call war, were severely felt in England during the peace that ensued on the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo. With rare exceptions, distress prevailed among all classes of the community. The starving nation was ripe and ready for a revolutionary rising against its rulers, who had shed the people’s blood and wasted the people’s substance in a war which had yielded to the popular interests absolutely nothing in return.

Among the unfortunate persons who were driven, during the disastrous early years of this century, to strange shifts and devices to obtain the means of living, was a certain obscure medical man, of French extraction, named Lagarde. The Doctor (duly qualified to bear the title) was an inhabitant of London; living in one of the narrow streets which connect the great thoroughfare of the Strand with the bank of the Thames.

The method of obtaining employment chosen by poor Lagarde, as the one alternative left in the face of starvation, was, and is still considered by the medical profession to be, the method of a quack. He advertised in the public journals.

Addressing himself especially to two classes of the community, the Doctor proceeded in these words:

“I have the honour of inviting to my house, in the first place: Persons afflicted with maladies which ordinary medical practice has failed to cure – and, in the second place: Persons interested in investigations, the object of which is to penetrate the secrets of the future. Of the means by which I endeavour to alleviate suffering and to enlighten doubt, it is impossible to speak intelligibly within the limits of an advertisement. I can only offer to submit my system to public inquiry, without exacting any preliminary fee from ladies and gentlemen who may honour me with a visit. Those who see sufficient reason to trust me, after personal experience, will find a money-box fixed on the waiting-room table, into which they can drop their offerings according to their means. Those whom I am not fortunate enough to satisfy will be pleased to accept the expression of my regret, and will not be expected to give anything. I shall be found at home every evening between the hours of six and ten.”

Toward the close of the year 1816 this strange advertisement became a general topic of conversation among educated people in London. For some weeks the Doctor’s invitations were generally accepted – and, all things considered, were not badly remunerated. A faithful few believed in him, and told wonderful stories of what he had pronounced and prophesied in the sanctuary of his consulting-room. The majority of his visitors simply viewed him in the light of a public amusement, and wondered why such a gentlemanlike man should have chosen to gain his living by exhibiting himself as a quack.

•  II  •

THE NUMBERS

On a raw and snowy evening toward the latter part of January, 1817, a gentleman, walking along the Strand, turned into the street in which Doctor Lagarde lived, and knocked at the physician’s door.

He was admitted by an elderly male servant to a waiting-room on the first floor. The light of one little lamp, placed on a bracket fixed to the wall, was so obscured by a dark green shade as to make it difficult, if not impossible, for visitors meeting by accident to recognise each other. The metal money-box fixed to the table was just visible. In the flickering light of a small fire, the stranger perceived the figures of three men seated, apart and silent, who were the only occupants of the room beside himself.

So far as objects were to be seen, there was nothing to attract attention in the waiting-room. The furniture was plain and neat, and nothing more. The elderly servant handed a card, with a number inscribed on it, to the new visitor, said in a whisper, “Your number will be called, sir, in your turn,” and disappeared. For some minutes nothing disturbed the deep silence but the faint ticking of a clock. After a while a bell rang from an inner room, a door opened, and a gentleman appeared, whose interview with Doctor Lagarde had terminated. His opinion of the sitting was openly expressed in one emphatic word – “Humbug!” No contribution dropped from his hand as he passed the money-box on his way out.

The next number (being Number Fifteen) was called by the elderly servant, and the first incident occurred in the strange series of events destined to happen in the Doctor’s house that night.

One after another the three men who had been waiting rose, examined their cards under the light of the lamp, and sat down again surprised and disappointed.

The servant advanced to investigate the matter. The numbers possessed by the three visitors, instead of being Fifteen, Sixteen and Seventeen, proved to be Sixteen, Seventeen and Eighteen. Turning to the stranger who had arrived the last, the servant said:

“Have I made a mistake, sir? Have I given you Number Fifteen instead of Number Eighteen?”

The gentleman produced his numbered card.

A mistake had certainly been made, but not the mistake that the servant supposed. The card held by the latest visitor turned out to be the card previously held by the dissatisfied stranger who had just left the room – Number Fourteen! As to the card numbered Fifteen, it was only discovered the next morning lying in a corner, dropped on the floor!

Acting on his first impulse, the servant hurried out, calling to the original holder of Fourteen to come back and bear his testimony to that fact. The street-door had been opened for him by the landlady of the house. She was a pretty woman – and the gentleman had fortunately lingered to talk to her. He was induced, at the intercession of the landlady, to ascend the stairs again.

On returning to the waiting-room, he addressed a characteristic question to the assembled visitors. “More humbug?” asked the gentleman who liked to talk to a pretty woman.

The servant – completely puzzled by his own stupidity – attempted to make his apologies.

“Pray forgive me, gentlemen,” he said. “I am afraid I have confused the cards I distribute with the cards returned to me. I think I had better consult my master.”

Left by themselves, the visitors began to speak jestingly of the strange situation in which they were placed. The original holder of Number Fourteen described his experience of the Doctor in his own pithy way. “I applied to the fellow to tell my fortune. He first went to sleep over it, and then he said he could tell me nothing. I asked why. ‘I don’t know,’ says he. ‘ I do,’ says I – ‘humbug!’ I’ll bet you the long odds, gentlemen, that you find it humbug, too.”

Before the wager could be accepted or declined, the door of the inner room was opened again. The tall, spare, black figure of a new personage appeared on the threshold, relieved darkly against the light in the room behind him. He addressed the visitors in these words:

“Gentlemen, I must beg your indulgence. The accident – as we now suppose it to be – which has given to the last comer the number already held by a gentleman who has unsuccessfully consulted me, may have a meaning which we can none of us at present see. If the three visitors who have been so good as to wait will allow the present holder of Number Fourteen to consult me out of his turn – and if the earlier visitor who left me dissatisfied with his consultation will consent to stay here a little longer – something may happen which will justify a trifling sacrifice of your own convenience. Is ten minutes’ patience too much to ask of you?”

The three visitors who had waited longest consulted among themselves, and (having nothing better to do with their time) decided on accepting the Doctor’s proposal. The visitor who believed it all to be “humbug” coolly took a gold coin out of his pocket, tossed it into the air, caught it in his closed hand, and walked up to the shaded lamp on the bracket.

“Heads, stay,” he said, “Tails, go.” He opened his hand, and looked at the coin. “Heads! Very good. Go on with your hocus-pocus, Doctor – I’ll wait.”

“You believe in chance,” said the Doctor, quietly observing him. “That is not my experience of life.”

He paused to let the stranger who now held Number Fourteen pass him into the inner room – then followed, closing the door behind him.

•  III  •

THE CONSULTATION

The consulting-room was better lighted than the waiting-room, and that was the only difference between the two. In the one, as in the other, no attempt was made to impress the imagination. Everywhere, the commonplace furniture of a London lodging-house was left without the slightest effort to alter or improve it by changes of any kind.

Seen under the clearer light, Doctor Lagarde appeared to be the last person living who would consent to degrade himself by an attempt at imposture of any kind. His eyes were the dreamy eyes of a visionary; his look was the prematurely-aged look of a student, accustomed to give the hours to his book which ought to have been given to his bed. To state it briefly, he was a man who might easily be deceived by others, but who was incapable of consciously practising deception himself.

Signing to his visitor to be seated, he took a chair on the opposite side of the small table that stood between them – waited a moment with his face hidden in his hands, as if to collect himself – and then spoke.

“Do you come to consult me on a case of illness?” he inquired, “or do you ask me to look to the darkness which hides your future life?”

The answer to these questions was frankly and briefly expressed. “I have no need to consult you about my health. I come to hear what you can tell me of my future life.”

“I can try,” pursued the Doctor; “but I cannot promise to succeed.”

“I accept your conditions,” the stranger rejoined. “I never believe nor disbelieve. If you will excuse my speaking frankly, I mean to observe you closely, and to decide for myself.”

Doctor Lagarde smiled sadly.

“You have heard of me as a charlatan who contrives to amuse a few idle people,” he said. “I don’t complain of that; my present position leads necessarily to misinterpretation of myself and my motives. Still, I may at least say that I am the victim of a sincere avowal of my belief in a great science. Yes! I repeat it, a great science! New, I dare say, to the generation we live in, though it was known and practised in the days when pyramids were built. The age is advancing; and the truths which it is my misfortune to advocate, before the time is ripe for them, are steadily forcing their way to recognition. I am resigned to wait. My sincerity in this matter has cost me the income that I derived from my medical practice. Patients distrust me; doctors refuse to consult with me. I could starve if I had no one to think of but myself. But I have another person to consider, who is very dear to me; and I am driven, literally driven, either to turn beggar in the streets, or do what I am doing now.”

He paused, and looked round toward the corner of the room behind him. “Mother,” he said gently, “are you ready?”

An elderly lady, dressed in deep mourning, rose from her seat in the corner. She had been, thus far, hidden from notice by the high back of the easy-chair in which her son sat. Excepting some folds of fine black lace, laid over her white hair so as to form a head-dress at once simple and picturesque, there was nothing remarkable in her attire. The visitor rose and bowed. She gravely returned his salute, and moved so as to place herself opposite to her son.

“May I ask what this lady is going to do?” said the stranger.

“To be of any use to you,” answered Doctor Lagarde, “I must be thrown into the magnetic trance. The person who has the strongest influence over me is the person who will do it tonight.”

He turned to his mother. “When you like,” he said.

Bending over him, she took both the Doctor’s hands, and looked steadily into his eyes. No words passed between them; nothing more took place. In a minute or two, his head was resting against the back of the chair, and his eyelids had closed.

“Are you sleeping?” asked Madame Lagarde.

“I am sleeping,” he answered.

She laid his hands gently on the arms of the chair, and turned to address the visitor.

“Let the sleep gain on him for a minute or two more,” she said. “Then take one of his hands, and put to him what questions you please.”

“Does he hear us now, madam?”

“You might fire off a pistol, sir, close to his ear, and he would not hear it. The vibration might disturb him; that is all. Until you or I touch him, and so establish the nervous sympathy, he is as lost to all sense of our presence here, as if he were dead.”

“Are you speaking of the thing called Animal Magnetism, madam?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you believe in it, of course?”

“My son’s belief, sir, is my belief in this thing as in other things. I have heard what he has been saying to you. It is for me that he sacrifices himself by holding these exhibitions; it is in my poor interests that his hardly-earned money is made. I am in infirm health; and, remonstrate as I may, my son persists in providing for me, not the bare comforts only, but even the luxuries of life. Whatever I may suffer, I have my compensation; I can still thank God for giving me the greatest happiness that a woman can enjoy, the possession of a good son.”

She smiled fondly as she looked at the sleeping man. “Draw your chair nearer to him,” she resumed, “and take his hand. You may speak freely in making your inquiries. Nothing that happens in this room goes out of it.”

With those words she returned to her place, in the corner behind her son’s chair.

The visitor took Doctor Lagarde’s hand. As they touched each other, he was conscious of a faintly-titillating sensation in his own hand – a sensation which oddly reminded him of bygone experiments with an electrical machine, in the days when he was a boy at school!

“I wish to question you about my future life,” he began. “How ought I to begin?”

The Doctor spoke his first words in the monotonous tones of a man talking in his sleep.

“Own your true motive before you begin,” he said. “Your interest in your future life is centred in a woman. You wish to know if her heart will be yours in the time that is to come – and there your interest in your future life ends.”

This startling proof of the sleeper’s capacity to look, by sympathy, into his mind, and to see there his most secret thoughts, instead of convincing the stranger, excited his suspicions. “You have means of getting information,” he said, “that I don’t understand.”

The Doctor smiled, as if the idea amused him.

Madame Lagarde rose from her seat and interposed.

“Hundreds of strangers come here to consult my son,” she said quietly. “If you believe that we know who those strangers are, and that we have the means of inquiring into their private lives before they enter this room, you believe in something much more incredible than the magnetic sleep!”

This was too manifestly true to be disputed. The visitor made his apologies.

“I should like to have some explanation,” he added. “The thing is so very extraordinary. How can I prevail upon Doctor Lagarde to enlighten me?”

“He can only tell you what he sees,” Madame Lagarde answered; “ask him that, and you will get a direct reply. Say to him: ‘Do you see the lady?’”

The stranger repeated the question. The reply followed at once, in these words:

“I see two figures standing side by side. One of them is your figure. The other is the figure of a lady. She only appears dimly. I can discover nothing but that she is taller than women generally are, and that she is dressed in pale blue.”

The man to whom he was speaking started at those last words. “Her favourite colour!” he thought to himself – forgetting that, while he held the Doctor’s hand, the Doctor could think with his mind.

“Yes,” added the sleeper quietly, “her favourite colour, as you know. She fades and fades as I look at her,” he went on. “She is gone. I only see you, under a new aspect. You have a pistol in your hand. Opposite to you, there stands the figure of another man. He, too, has a pistol in his hand. Are you enemies? Are you meeting to fight a duel? Is the lady the cause? I try, but I fail to see her.”

“Can you describe the man?”

“Not yet. So far, he is only a shadow in the form of a man.”

There was another interval. An appearance of disturbance showed itself on the sleeper’s face. Suddenly, he waved his free hand in the direction of the waiting-room.

“Send for the visitors who are there,” he said. “They are all to come in. Each one of them is to take one of my hands in turn – while you remain where you are, holding the other hand. Don’t let go of me, even for a moment. My mother will ring.”

Madame Lagarde touched a bell on the table. The servant received his orders from her and retired. After a short absence, he appeared again in the consulting-room, with one visitor only waiting on the threshold behind him.

•  IV  •

THE MAN

“The other three gentlemen have gone away, madam,” the servant explained, addressing Madame Lagarde. “They were tired of waiting. I found this gentleman fast asleep; and I am afraid he is angry with me for taking the liberty of waking him.”

“Sleep of the common sort is evidently not allowed in this house.” With that remark the gentleman entered the room, and stood revealed as the original owner of the card numbered Fourteen.

Viewed by the clear lamplight, he was a tall, finely-made man, in the prime of life, with a florid complexion, golden-brown hair, and sparkling blue eyes. Noticing Madame Lagarde, he instantly checked the flow of his satire, with the instinctive good-breeding of a gentleman. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I have a great many faults, and a habit of making bad jokes is one of them. Is the servant right, madam, in telling me that I have the honour of presenting myself here at your request?”

Madame Lagarde briefly explained what had passed.

The florid gentleman (still privately believing it to be all “humbug”) was delighted to make himself of any use. “I congratulate you, sir,” he said, with his easy humour, as he passed the visitor who had become possessed of his card. “Number Fourteen seems to be a luckier number in your keeping than it was in mine.”

As he spoke, he took Doctor Lagarde’s disengaged hand. The instant they touched each other the sleeper started. His voice rose; his face flushed. “You are the man!” he exclaimed. “I see you plainly now!”

“What am I doing?”

“You are standing opposite to the gentleman here who is holding my other hand; and (as I have said already) you have met to fight a duel.”

The unbeliever cast a shrewd look at his companion in the consultation.

“Considering that you and I are total strangers, sir,” he said, “don’t you think the Doctor had better introduce us, before he goes any further? We have got to fighting a duel already, and we may as well know who we are, before the pistols go off.” He turned to Doctor Lagarde. “Dramatic situations don’t amuse me out of the theatre,” he resumed. “Let me put you to a very commonplace test. I want to be introduced to this gentleman. Has he told you his name?”

“No.”

“Of course, you know it, without being told?”

“Certainly. I have only to look into your own knowledge of yourselves, while I am in this trance, and while you have got my hands, to know both your names as well as you do.”

“Introduce us, then!” retorted the jesting gentleman. “And take my name first.”

“Mr. Percy Linwood,” replied the Doctor; “I have the honour of presenting you to Captain Bervie, of the Artillery.”

With one accord, the gentlemen both dropped Doctor Lagarde’s hands, and looked at each other in blank amazement.

“Of course he has discovered our names somehow!” said Mr. Percy Linwood, explaining the mystery to his own perfect satisfaction in that way.

Captain Bervie had not forgotten what Madame Lagarde had said to him, when he too had suspected a trick. He now repeated it (quite ineffectually) for Mr. Linwood’s benefit. “If you don’t feel the force of that argument as I feel it,” he added, “perhaps, as a favour to me, sir, you will not object to our each taking the Doctor’s hand again, and hearing what more he can tell us while he remains in the state of trance?”

“With the greatest pleasure!” answered good-humoured Mr. Linwood. “Our friend is beginning to amuse me; I am as anxious as you are to know what he is going to see next.”

Captain Bervie put the next question.

“You have seen us ready to fight a duel – can you tell us the result?”

“I can tell you nothing more than I have told you already. The figures of the duellists have faded away, like the other figures I saw before them. What I see now looks like the winding gravel-path of a garden. A man and a woman are walking toward me. The man stops, and places a ring on the woman’s finger, and kisses her.”

Captain Bervie opened his lips to continue his inquiries – turned pale – and checked himself. Mr. Linwood put the next question.

“Who is the happy man?” he asked.

“You are the happy man,” was the instantaneous reply.

“Who is the woman?” cried Captain Bervie, before Mr. Linwood could speak again.

“The same woman whom I saw before; dressed in the same colour, in pale blue.”

Captain Bervie positively insisted on receiving clearer information than this. “Surely you can see something of her personal appearance?” he said.

“I can see that she has long dark-brown hair, falling below her waist. I can see that she has lovely dark-brown eyes. She has the look of a sensitive nervous person. She is quite young. I can see no more.”

“Look again at the man who is putting the ring on her finger,” said the Captain. “Are you sure that the face you see is the face of Mr. Percy Linwood?”

“I am absolutely sure.”

Captain Bervie rose from his chair.

“Thank you, madam,” he said to the Doctor’s mother. “I have heard enough.”

He walked to the door. Mr. Percy Linwood dropped Doctor Lagarde’s hand, and appealed to the retiring Captain with a broad stare of astonishment.

“You don’t really believe this?” he said.

“I only say I have heard enough,” Captain Bervie answered.

Mr. Linwood could hardly fail to see that any further attempt to treat the matter lightly might lead to undesirable results.

“It is difficult to speak seriously of this kind of exhibition,” he resumed quietly. “But I suppose I may mention a mere matter of fact, without meaning or giving offence. The description of the lady, I can positively declare, does not apply in any single particular to anyone whom I know.”

Captain Bervie turned round at the door. His patience was in some danger of failing him. Mr. Linwood’s unruffled composure, assisted in its influence by the presence of Madame Lagarde, reminded him of the claims of politeness. He restrained the rash words as they rose to his lips. “You may make new acquaintances, sir,” was all that he said. “You have the future before you.”

Upon that, he went out. Percy Linwood waited a little, reflecting on the Captain’s conduct.

Had Doctor Lagarde’s description of the lady accidentally answered the description of a living lady whom Captain Bervie knew? Was he by any chance in love with her? and had the Doctor innocently reminded him that his love was not returned? Assuming this to be likely, was it really possible that he believed in prophetic revelations offered to him under the fantastic influence of a trance? Could any man in the possession of his senses go to those lengths? The Captain’s conduct was simply incomprehensible.

Pondering these questions, Percy decided on returning to his place by the Doctor’s chair. “Of one thing I am certain, at any rate,” he thought to himself. “I’ll see the whole imposture out before I leave the house!”

He took Doctor Lagarde’s hand. “Now, then! what is the next discovery?” he asked.

The sleeper seemed to find some difficulty in answering the question.

“I indistinctly see the man and the woman again,” he said.

“Am I the man still?” Percy inquired.

“No. The man, this time, is the Captain. The woman is agitated by something that he is saying to her. He seems to be trying to persuade her to go away with him. She hesitates. He whispers something in her ear. She yields. He leads her away. The darkness gathers behind them. I look and look, and I can see no more.”

“Shall we wait awhile?” Percy suggested, “and then try again?”

Doctor Lagarde sighed, and reclined in his chair. “My head is heavy,” he said; “my spirits are dull. The darkness baffles me. I have toiled long enough for you. Drop my hand and leave me to rest.”

Hearing those words, Madame Lagarde approached her son’s chair.

“It will be useless, sir, to ask him any more questions tonight,” she said. “He has been weak and nervous all day, and he is worn out by the effort he has made. Pardon me, if I ask you to step aside for a moment, while I give him the repose that he needs.”

She laid her right hand gently on the Doctor’s head, and kept it there for a minute or so. “Are you at rest now?” she asked.

“I am at rest,” he answered, in faint, drowsy tones.

Madame Lagarde returned to Percy. “If you are not yet satisfied,” she said, “my son will be at your service tomorrow evening, sir.”

“Thank you, madam, I have only one more question to ask, and you can no doubt answer it. When your son wakes, will he remember what he has said to Captain Bervie and to myself?”

“My son will be as absolutely ignorant of everything that he has seen, and of everything that he has said in the trance, as if he had been at the other end of the world.”

Percy Linwood swallowed this last outrageous assertion with an effort which he was quite unable to conceal. “Many thanks, madam,” he said; “I wish you good-night.”

Returning to the waiting-room, he noticed the money-box fixed to the table. “These people look poor,” he thought to himself, “and I feel really indebted to them for an amusing evening. Besides, I can afford to be liberal, for I shall certainly never go back.” He dropped a five-pound note into the money-box, and left the house.

Walking toward his club, Percy’s natural serenity of mind was a little troubled by the remembrance of Captain Bervie’s language and conduct. The Captain had interested the young man in spite of himself. His first idea was to write to Bervie, and mention what had happened at the renewed consultation with Doctor Lagarde. On second thoughts, he saw reason to doubt how the Captain might receive such an advance as this, on the part of a stranger. “After all,” Percy decided, “the whole thing is too absurd to be worth thinking about seriously. Neither he nor I are likely to meet again, or to see the Doctor again – and there’s an end of it.”

He never was more mistaken in his life. The end of it was not to come for many a long day yet.

PART II
THE FULFILLMENT

•  V  •

THE BALLROOM.

While the consultation at Doctor Lagarde’s was still fresh in the memory of the persons present at it, Chance or Destiny, occupied in sowing the seeds for the harvest of the future, discovered as one of its fit instruments a retired military officer named Major Mulvany.

The Major was a smart little man, who persisted in setting up the appearance of youth as a means of hiding the reality of fifty. Being still a bachelor, and being always ready to make himself agreeable, he was generally popular in the society of women. In the ballroom he was a really welcome addition to the company. The German waltz had then been imported into England little more than three years since. The outcry raised against the dance, by persons skilled in the discovery of latent impropriety, had not yet lost its influence in certain quarters. Men who could waltz were scarce. The Major had successfully grappled with the difficulties of learning the dance in mature life; and the young ladies rewarded him nobly for the effort. That is to say, they took the assumption of youth for granted in the palpable presence of fifty.

Knowing everybody and being welcome everywhere, playing a good hand at whist, and having an inexhaustible fancy in the invention of a dinner, Major Mulvany naturally belonged to all the best clubs of his time. Percy Linwood and he constantly met in the billiard-room or at the dinner-table. The Major approved of the easy, handsome, pleasant-tempered young man. “I have lost the first freshness of youth,” he used to say, with pathetic resignation, “and I see myself revived, as it were, in Percy. Naturally I like Percy.”

About three weeks after the memorable evening at Doctor Lagarde’s, the two friends encountered each other on the steps of a club.

“Have you got anything to do tonight?” asked the Major.

“Nothing that I know of,” said Percy, “unless I go to the theatre.”

“Let the theatre wait, my boy. My old regiment gives a ball at Woolwich tonight. I have got a ticket to spare; and I know several sweet girls who are going. Some of them waltz, Percy! Gather your rosebuds while you may. Come with me.”

The invitation was accepted as readily as it was given. The Major found the carriage, and Percy paid for the post-horses. They entered the ballroom among the earlier guests; and the first person whom they met, waiting near the door, was – Captain Bervie.

Percy bowed a little uneasily. “I feel some doubt,” he said, laughing, “whether we have been properly introduced to one another or not.”

“Not properly introduced!” cried Major Mulvany. “I’ll soon set that right. My dear friend, Percy Linwood; my dear friend, Arthur Bervie – be known to each other! esteem each other!”

Captain Bervie acknowledged the introduction by a cold salute. Percy, yielding to the good-natured impulse of the moment, alluded to what had happened in Doctor Lagarde’s consulting-room.

“You missed something worth hearing when you left the Doctor the other night,” he said. “We continued the sitting; and you turned up again among the persons of the drama, in a new character—”

“Excuse me for interrupting you,” said Captain Bervie. “I am a member of the committee, charged with the arrangements of the ball, and I must really attend to my duties.”

He withdrew without waiting for a reply. Percy looked round wonderingly at Major Mulvany. “Strange!” he said, “I feel rather attracted toward Captain Bervie; and he seems to have taken such a dislike to me that he can hardly behave with common civility. What does it mean?”

“I’ll tell you,” answered the Major, confidentially. “Arthur Bervie is madly in love – madly is really the word – with a Miss Bowmore. And (this is between ourselves) the young lady doesn’t feel it quite in the same way. A sweet girl; I’ve often had her on my knee when she was a child. Her father and mother are old friends of mine. She is coming to the ball tonight. That’s the true reason why Arthur left you just now. Look at him – waiting to be the first to speak to her. If he could have his way, he wouldn’t let another man come near the poor girl all through the evening; he really persecutes her. I’ll introduce you to Miss Bowmore; and you will see how he looks at us for presuming to approach her. It’s a great pity; she will never marry him. Arthur Bervie is a man in a thousand; but he’s fast becoming a perfect bear under the strain on his temper. What’s the matter? You don’t seem to be listening to me.”

This last remark was perfectly justified. In telling the Captain’s love-story, Major Mulvany had revived his young friend’s memory of the lady in the blue dress, who had haunted the visions of Doctor Lagarde.

“Tell me,” said Percy, “what is Miss Bowmore like? Is there anything remarkable in her personal appearance? I have a reason for asking.”

As he spoke, there arose among the guests in the rapidly-filling ballroom a low murmur of surprise and admiration. The Major laid one hand on Percy’s shoulder, and, lifting the other, pointed to the door.

“What is Miss Bowmore like?” he repeated. “There she is! Let her answer for herself.”

Percy turned toward the lower end of the room.

A young lady was entering, dressed in plain silk, and the colour of it was a pale blue! Excepting a white rose at her breast, she wore no ornament of any sort. Doubly distinguished by the perfect simplicity of her apparel, and by her tall, supple, commanding figure, she took rank at once as the most remarkable woman in the room. Moving nearer to her through the crowd, under the guidance of the complaisant Major, young Linwood gained a clearer view of her hair, her complexion, and the colour of her eyes. In every one of these particulars she was the living image of the woman described by Doctor Lagarde!

While Percy was absorbed over this strange discovery, Major Mulvany had got within speaking distance of the young lady and of her mother, as they stood together in conversation with Captain Bervie. “My dear Mrs. Bowmore, how well you are looking! My dear Miss Charlotte, what a sensation you have made already! The glorious simplicity (if I may so express myself) of your dress is – is – what was I going to say? – the ideas come thronging on me; I merely want words.”

Miss Bowmore’s magnificent brown eyes, wandering from the Major to Percy, rested on the young man with a modest and momentary interest, which Captain Bervie’s jealous attention instantly detected.

“They are forming a dance,” he said, pressing forward impatiently to claim his partner. “If we don’t take our places we shall be too late.”

“Stop! stop!” cried the Major. “There is a time for everything, and this is the time for presenting my dear friend here, Mr. Percy Linwood. He is like me, Miss Charlotte – he has been struck by your glorious simplicity, and he wants words.” At this part of the presentation, he happened to look toward the irate Captain, and instantly gave him a hint on the subject of his temper. “I say, Arthur Bervie! we are all good-humoured people here. What have you got on your eyebrows? It looks like a frown; and it doesn’t become you. Send for a skilled waiter, and have it brushed off and taken away directly!”

“May I ask, Miss Bowmore, if you are disengaged for the next dance?” said Percy, the moment the Major gave him an opportunity of speaking.

“Miss Bowmore is engaged to me for the next dance,” said the angry Captain, before the young lady could answer.

“The third dance, then?” Percy persisted, with his brightest smile.

“With pleasure, Mr. Linwood,” said Miss Bowmore. She would have been no true woman if she had not resented the open exhibition of Arthur’s jealousy; it was like asserting a right over her to which he had not the shadow of a claim. She threw a look at Percy as her partner led her away, which was the severest punishment she could inflict on the man who ardently loved her.

The third dance stood in the programme as a waltz.

In jealous distrust of Percy, the Captain took the conductor of the band aside, and used his authority as committeeman to substitute another dance. He had no sooner turned his back on the orchestra than the wife of the Colonel of the regiment, who had heard him, spoke to the conductor in her turn, and insisted on the original programme being retained. “Quote the Colonel’s authority,” said the lady, “if Captain Bervie ventures to object.” In the meantime, the Captain, on his way to rejoin Charlotte, was met by one of his brother officers, who summoned him officially to an impending debate of the committee charged with the administrative arrangements of the supper-table. Bervie had no choice but to follow his brother officer to the committee-room.

Barely a minute later the conductor appeared at his desk, and the first notes of the music rose low and plaintive, introducing the third dance.

“Percy, my boy!” cried the Major, recognising the melody, “you’re in luck’s way – it’s going to be a waltz!”

Almost as he spoke, the notes of the symphony glided by subtle modulations into the inspiriting air of the waltz. Percy claimed his partner’s hand. Miss Charlotte hesitated, and looked at her mother.

“Surely you waltz?” said Percy.

“I have learned to waltz,” she answered, modestly; “but this is such a large room, and there are so many people!”

“Once round,” Percy pleaded; “only once round!”

Miss Bowmore looked again at her mother. Her foot was keeping time with the music, under her dress; her heart was beating with a delicious excitement; kind-hearted Mrs. Bowmore smiled and said: “Once round, my dear, as Mr. Linwood suggests.”

In another moment Percy’s arm took possession of her waist, and they were away on the wings of the waltz!

Could words describe, could thought realize, the exquisite enjoyment of the dance? Enjoyment? It was more – it was an epoch in Charlotte’s life – it was the first time she had waltzed with a man. What a difference between the fervent clasp of Percy’s arm and the cold, formal contact of the mistress who had taught her! How brightly his eyes looked down into hers; admiring her with such a tender restraint, that there could surely be no harm in looking up at him now and then in return. Round and round they glided, absorbed in the music and in themselves. Occasionally her bosom just touched him, at those critical moments when she was most in need of support. At other intervals, she almost let her head sink on his shoulder in trying to hide from him the smile which acknowledged his admiration too boldly. “Once round,” Percy had suggested; “once round,” her mother had said. They had been ten, twenty, thirty times round; they had never stopped to rest like other dancers; they had centred the eyes of the whole room on them – including the eyes of Captain Bervie – without knowing it; her delicately pale complexion had changed to rosy-red; the neat arrangement of her hair had become disturbed; her bosom was rising and falling faster and faster in the effort to breathe – before fatigue and heat overpowered her at last, and forced her to say to him faintly, “I’m very sorry – I can’t dance any more!”

Percy led her into the cooler atmosphere of the refreshment-room, and revived her with a glass of lemonade. Her arm still rested on his – she was just about to thank him for the care he had taken of her – when Captain Bervie entered the room.

“Mrs. Bowmore wishes me to take you back to her,” he said to Charlotte. Then, turning to Percy, he added: “Will you kindly wait here while I take Miss Bowmore to the ballroom? I have a word to say to you – I will return directly.”

The Captain spoke with perfect politeness – but his face betrayed him. It was pale with the sinister whiteness of suppressed rage.

Percy sat down to cool and rest himself. With his experience of the ways of men, he felt no surprise at the marked contrast between Captain Bervie’s face and Captain Bervie’s manner. “He has seen us waltzing, and he is coming back to pick a quarrel with me.” Such was the interpretation which Mr. Linwood’s knowledge of the world placed on Captain Bervie’s politeness. In a minute or two more the Captain returned to the refreshment-room, and satisfied Percy that his anticipations had not deceived him.

•  VI  •

LOVE

Four days had passed since the night of the ball.

Although it was no later in the year than the month of February, the sun was shining brightly, and the air was as soft as the air of a day in spring. Percy and Charlotte were walking together in the little garden at the back of Mr. Bowmore’s cottage, near the town of Dartford, in Kent.

“Mr. Linwood,” said the young lady, “you were to have paid us your first visit the day after the ball. Why have you kept us waiting? Have you been too busy to remember your new friends?”

“I have counted the hours since we parted, Miss Charlotte. If I had not been detained by business—”

“I understand! For three days business has controlled you. On the fourth day, you have controlled business – and here you are? I don’t believe one word of it, Mr. Linwood!”

There was no answering such a declaration as this. Guiltily conscious that Charlotte was right in refusing to accept his well-worn excuse, Percy made an awkward attempt to change the topic of conversation.

They happened, at the moment, to be standing near a small conservatory at the end of the garden. The glass door was closed, and the few plants and shrubs inside had a lonely, neglected look. “Does nobody ever visit this secluded place?” Percy asked, jocosely, “or does it hide discoveries in the rearing of plants which are forbidden mysteries to a stranger?”

“Satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Linwood, by all means,” Charlotte answered in the same tone. “Open the door, and I will follow you.”

Percy obeyed. In passing through the doorway, he encountered the bare hanging branches of some creeping plant, long since dead, and detached from its fastenings on the woodwork of the roof. He pushed aside the branches so that Charlotte could easily follow him in, without being aware that his own forced passage through them had a little deranged the folds of spotless white cambric which a well-dressed gentleman wore round his neck in those days. Charlotte seated herself, and directed Percy’s attention to the desolate conservatory with a saucy smile.

“The mystery which your lively imagination has associated with this place,” she said, “means, being interpreted, that we are too poor to keep a gardener. Make the best of your disappointment, Mr. Linwood, and sit here by me. We are out of hearing and out of sight of mamma’s other visitors. You have no excuse now for not telling me what has really kept you away from us.”

She fixed her eyes on him as she said those words. Before Percy could think of another excuse, her quick observation detected the disordered condition of his cravat, and discovered the upper edge of a black plaster attached to one side of his neck.

“You have been hurt in the neck!” she said. “That is why you have kept away from us for the last three days!”

“A mere trifle,” he answered, in great confusion; “please don’t notice it.”

Her eyes, still resting on his face, assumed an expression of suspicious inquiry, which Percy was entirely at a loss to understand. Suddenly, she started to her feet, as if a new idea had occurred to her. “Wait here,” she said, flushing with excitement, “till I come back: I insist on it!”

Before Percy could ask for an explanation she had left the conservatory.

In a minute or two, Miss Bowmore returned, with a newspaper in her hand. “Read that,” she said, pointing to a paragraph distinguished by a line drawn round it in ink.

The passage that she indicated contained an account of a duel which had recently taken place in the neighbourhood of London. The names of the duellists were not mentioned. One was described as an officer, and the other as a civilian. They had quarrelled at cards, and had fought with pistols. The civilian had had a narrow escape of his life. His antagonist’s bullet had passed near enough to the side of his neck to tear the flesh, and had missed the vital parts, literally, by a hair’s-breadth.

Charlotte’s eyes, riveted on Percy, detected a sudden change of colour in his face the moment he looked at the newspaper. That was enough for her. “You are the man!” she cried. “Oh, for shame, for shame! To risk your life for a paltry dispute about cards!”

“I would risk it again,” said Percy, “to hear you speak as if you set some value on it.”

She looked away from him without a word of reply. Her mind seemed to be busy again with its own thoughts. Did she meditate returning to the subject of the duel? Was she not satisfied with the discovery which she had just made?

No such doubts as these troubled the mind of Percy Linwood. Intoxicated by the charm of her presence, emboldened by her innocent betrayal of the interest that she felt in him, he opened his whole heart to her as unreservedly as if they had known each other from the days of their childhood. There was but one excuse for him. Charlotte was his first love.

“You don’t know how completely you have become a part of my life, since we met at the ball,” he went on. “That one delightful dance seemed, by some magic which I can’t explain, to draw us together in a few minutes as if we had known each other for years. Oh, dear! I could make such a confession of what I felt – only I am afraid of offending you by speaking too soon. Women are so dreadfully difficult to understand. How is a man to know at what time it is considerate toward them to conceal his true feelings; and at what time it is equally considerate to express his true feelings? One doesn’t know whether it is a matter of days or weeks or months – there ought to be a law to settle it. Dear Miss Charlotte, when a poor fellow loves you at first sight, as he has never loved any other woman, and when he is tormented by the fear that some other man may be preferred to him, can’t you forgive him if he lets out the truth a little too soon?” He ventured, as he put that very downright question, to take her hand. “It really isn’t my fault,” he said, simply. “My heart is so full of you I can talk of nothing else.”

To Percy’s delight, the first experimental pressure of his hand, far from being resented, was softly returned. Charlotte looked at him again, with a new resolution in her face.

“I’ll forgive you for talking nonsense, Mr. Linwood,” she said; “and I will even permit you to come and see me again, on one condition – that you tell the whole truth about the duel. If you conceal the smallest circumstance, our acquaintance is at an end.”

“Haven’t I owned everything already?” Percy inquired, in great perplexity. “Did I say No, when you told me I was the man?”

“Could you say No, with that plaster on your neck?” was the ready rejoinder. “I am determined to know more than the newspaper tells me. Will you declare, on your word of honour, that Captain Bervie had nothing to do with the duel? Can you look me in the face, and say that the real cause of the quarrel was a disagreement at cards? When you were talking with me just before I left the ball, how did you answer a gentleman who asked you to make one at the whist-table? You said, ‘I don’t play at cards.’ Ah! You thought I had forgotten that? Don’t kiss my hand! Trust me with the whole truth, or say good-bye forever.”

“Only tell me what you wish to know, Miss Charlotte,” said Percy humbly. “If you will put the questions, I will give the answers – as well as I can.”

On this understanding, Percy’s evidence was extracted from him as follows:

“Was it Captain Bervie who quarrelled with you?”

“Yes.”

“Was it about me?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I had committed an impropriety in waltzing with you.”

“Why?”

“Because your parents disapproved of your waltzing in a public ballroom.”

“That’s not true! What did he say next?”

“He said I had added tenfold to my offence, by waltzing with you in such a manner as to make you the subject of remark to the whole room.”

“Oh! did you let him say that?”

“No; I contradicted him instantly. And I said, besides, ‘It’s an insult to Miss Bowmore, to suppose that she would permit any impropriety.’”

“Quite right! And what did he say?”

“Well, he lost his temper; I would rather not repeat what he said when he was mad with jealousy. There was nothing to be done with him but to give him his way.”

“Give him his way? Does that mean fight a duel with him?”

“Don’t be angry – it does.”

“And you kept my name out of it, by pretending to quarrel at the card-table?”

“Yes. We managed it when the cardroom was emptying at supper-time, and nobody was present but Major Mulvany and another friend as witnesses.”

“And when did you fight the duel?”

“The next morning.”

“You never thought of me, I suppose?”

“Indeed, I did; I was very glad that you had no suspicion of what we were at.”

“Was that all?”

“No; I had your flower with me, the flower you gave me out of your nosegay, at the ball.”

“Well?”

“Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. What did you do with my flower?”

“I gave it a sly kiss while they were measuring the ground; and (don’t tell anybody!) I put it next to my heart to bring me luck.”

“Was that just before he shot at you?”

“Yes.”

“How did he shoot?”

“He walked (as the seconds had arranged it) ten paces forward; and then he stopped, and lifted his pistol—”

“Don’t tell me any more! Oh, to think of my being the miserable cause of such horrors! I’ll never dance again as long as I live. Did you think he had killed you, when the bullet wounded your poor neck?”

“No; I hardly felt it at first.”

“Hardly felt it? How he talks! And when the wretch had done his best to kill you, and when it came to your turn, what did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“What! You didn’t walk your ten paces forward?”

“No.”

“And you never shot at him in return?”

“No; I had no quarrel with him, poor fellow; I just stood where I was, and fired in the air—”

Before he could stop her, Charlotte seized his hand, and kissed it with an hysterical fervour of admiration, which completely deprived him of his presence of mind.

“Why shouldn’t I kiss the hand of a hero?” she cried, with tears of enthusiasm sparkling in her eyes. “Nobody but a hero would have given that man his life; nobody but a hero would have pardoned him, while the blood was streaming from the wound that he had inflicted. I respect you, I admire you. Oh, don’t think me bold! I can’t control myself when I hear of anything noble and good. You will understand me better when we get to be old friends – won’t you?”

She spoke in low sweet tones of entreaty. Percy’s arm stole softly round her.

“Are we never to be nearer and dearer to each other than old friends?” he asked in a whisper. “I am not a hero – your goodness overrates me, dear Miss Charlotte. My one ambition is to be the happy man who is worthy enough to win you. At your own time! I wouldn’t distress you, I wouldn’t confuse you, I wouldn’t for the whole world take advantage of the compliment which your sympathy has paid to me. If it offends you, I won’t even ask if I may hope.”

She sighed as he said the last words; trembled a little, and silently looked at him.

Percy read his answer in her eyes. Without meaning it on either side their heads drew nearer together; their cheeks, then their lips, touched. She started back from him, and rose to leave the conservatory. At the same moment, the sound of slowly-approaching footsteps became audible on the gravel walk of the garden. Charlotte hurried to the door.

“My father!” she exclaimed, turning to Percy. “Come, and be introduced to him.”

Percy followed her into the garden.

•  VII  •

POLITICS.

Judging by appearances, Mr. Bowmore looked like a man prematurely wasted and worn by the cares of a troubled life. His eyes presented the one feature in which his daughter resembled him. In shape and colour they were exactly reproduced in Charlotte; the difference was in the expression. The father’s look was habitually restless, eager, and suspicious. Not a trace was to be seen in it of the truthfulness and gentleness which made the charm of the daughter’s expression. A man whose bitter experience of the world had soured his temper and shaken his faith in his fellow-creatures – such was Mr. Bowmore as he presented himself on the surface. He received Percy politely – but with a preoccupied air. Every now and then, his restless eyes wandered from the visitor to an open letter in his hand. Charlotte, observing him, pointed to the letter.

“Have you any bad news there, papa?” she asked.

“Dreadful news!” Mr. Bowmore answered. “Dreadful news, my child, to every Englishman who respects the liberties which his ancestors won. My correspondent is a man who is in the confidence of the Ministers,” he continued, addressing Percy. “What do you think is the remedy that the Government proposes for the universal distress among the population, caused by an infamous and needless war? Despotism, Mr. Linwood; despotism in this free country is the remedy! In one week more, sir, Ministers will bring in a Bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act!”

Before Percy could do justice in words to the impression produced on him, Charlotte innocently asked a question which shocked her father.

“What is the Habeas Corpus Act, papa”‘

“Good God!” cried Mr. Bowmore, “is it possible that a child of mine has grown up to womanhood, in ignorance of the palladium of English liberty? Oh, Charlotte! Charlotte!”

“I am very sorry, papa. If you will only tell me, I will never forget it.”

Mr. Bowmore reverently uncovered his head, saluting an invisible Habeas Corpus Act. He took his daughter by the hand, with a certain parental sternness: his voice trembled with emotion as he spoke his next words:

“The Habeas Corpus Act, my child, forbids the imprisonment of an English subject, unless that imprisonment can be first justified by law. Not even the will of the reigning monarch can prevent us from appearing before the judges of the land, and summoning them to declare whether our committal to prison is legally just.”

He put on his hat again. “Never forget what I have told you, Charlotte!” he said solemnly. “I would not remove my hat, sir,” he continuing, turning to Percy, “in the presence of the proudest autocrat that ever sat on a throne. I uncover, in homage to the grand law which asserts the sacredness of human liberty. When Parliament has sanctioned the infamous Bill now before it, English patriots may be imprisoned, may even be hanged, on warrants privately obtained by the paid spies and informers of the men who rule us. Perhaps I weary you, sir. You are a young man; the conduct of the Ministry may not interest you.”

“On the contrary,” said Percy, “I have the strongest personal interest in the conduct of the Ministry.”

“How? in what way?” cried Mr. Bowmore eagerly.

“My late father had a claim on government,” Percy answered, “for money expended in foreign service. As his heir, I inherit the claim, which has been formally recognised by the present Ministers. My petition for a settlement will be presented by friends of mine who can advocate my interests in the House of Commons.”

Mr. Bowmore took Percy’s hand, and shook it warmly.

“In such a matter as this you cannot have too many friends to help you,” he said. “I myself have some influence, as representing opinion outside the House; and I am entirely at your service. Come tomorrow, and let us talk over the details of your claim at my humble dinner-table. Today I must attend a meeting of the Branch-Hampden-Club, of which I am vice-president, and to which I am now about to communicate the alarming news which my letter contains. Excuse me for leaving you – and count on a hearty welcome when we see you tomorrow.”

The amiable patriot saluted his daughter with a smile, and disappeared.

“I hope you like my father?” said Charlotte. “All our friends say he ought to be in Parliament. He has tried twice. The expenses were dreadful; and each time the other man defeated him. The agent says he would be certainly elected, if he tried again; but there is no money, and we mustn’t think of it.”

A man of a suspicious turn of mind might have discovered, in those artless words, the secret of Mr. Bowmore’s interest in the success of his young friend’s claim on the Government. One British subject, with a sum of ready money at his command, may be an inestimably useful person to another British subject (without ready money) who cannot sit comfortably unless he sits in Parliament. But honest Percy Linwood was not a man of a suspicious turn of mind. He had just opened his lips to echo Charlotte’s filial glorification of her father, when a shabbily-dressed manservant met them with a message, for which they were both alike unprepared:

“Captain Bervie has called, Miss, to say good-bye, and my mistress requests your company in the parlour.”

•  VIII  •

THE WARNING.

Having delivered his little formula of words, the shabby servant cast a look of furtive curiosity at Percy and withdrew. Charlotte turned to her lover, with indignation sparkling in her eyes and flushing on her cheeks at the bare idea of seeing Captain Bervie again. “Does he think I will breathe the same air,” she exclaimed, “with the man who attempted to take your life!”

Percy gently remonstrated with her.

“You are sadly mistaken,” he said. “Captain Bervie stood to receive my fire as fairly as I stood to receive his. When I discharged my pistol in the air, he was the first man who ran up to me, and asked if I was seriously hurt. They told him my wound was a trifle; and he fell on his knees and thanked God for preserving my life from his guilty hand. ‘I am no longer the rival who hates you,’ he said. ‘Give me time to try if change of scene will quiet my mind; and I will be your brother, and her brother.’ Whatever his faults may be, Charlotte, Arthur Bervie has a great heart. Go in, I entreat you, and be friends with him as I am.”

Charlotte listened with downcast eyes and changing colour. “You believe him?” she asked in low and trembling tones.

“I believe him as I believe You,” Percy answered.

She secretly resented the comparison, and detested the Captain more heartily than ever. “I will go in and see him, if you wish it,” she said. “But not by myself. I want you to come with me.”

“Why?” Percy asked.

“I want to see what his face says, when you and he meet.”

“Do you still doubt him, Charlotte?”

She made no reply. Percy had done his best to convince her, and had evidently failed.

They went together into the cottage. Fixing her eyes steadily on the Captain’s face, Charlotte saw it turn pale when Percy followed her into the parlour. The two men greeted one another cordially. Charlotte sat down by her mother, preserving her composure so far as appearances went. “I hear you have called to bid us good-bye,” she said to Bervie. “Is it to be a long absence?”

“I have got two months’ leave,” the Captain answered, without looking at her while he spoke.

“Are you going abroad?”

“Yes. I think so.”

She turned away to her mother. Bervie seized the opportunity of speaking to Percy. “I have a word of advice for your private ear.” At the same moment, Charlotte whispered to her mother: “Don’t encourage him to prolong his visit.”

The Captain showed no intention to prolong his visit. To Charlotte’s surprise, when he took leave of the ladies, Percy also rose to go. “His carriage,” he said, “was waiting at the door; and he had offered to take Captain Bervie back to London.”

Charlotte instantly suspected an arrangement between the two men for a confidential interview. Her obstinate distrust of Bervie strengthened tenfold. She reluctantly gave him her hand, as he parted from her at the parlour-door. The effort of concealing her true feeling toward him gave a colour and a vivacity to her face which made her irresistibly beautiful. Bervie looked at the woman whom he had lost with an immeasurable sadness in his eyes. “When we meet again,” he said, “you will see me in a new character.” He hurried out of the gate, as if he feared to trust himself for a moment longer in her presence.

Charlotte followed Percy into the passage. “I shall be here tomorrow, dearest!” he said, and tried to raise her hand to his lips. She abruptly drew it away. “Not that hand!” she answered. “Captain Bervie has just touched it. Kiss the other!”

“Do you still doubt the Captain?” said Percy, amused by her petulance.

She put her arm over his shoulder, and touched the plaster on his neck gently with her finger. “There’s one thing I don’t doubt,” she said: “the Captain did that!”

Percy left her, laughing. At the front gate of the cottage he found Arthur Bervie in conversation with the same shabbily-dressed manservant who had announced the Captain’s visit to Charlotte.

“What has become of the other servant?” Bervie asked. “I mean the old man who has been with Mr. Bowmore for so many years.”

“He has left his situation, sir.”

“Why?”

“As I understand, sir, he spoke disrespectfully to the master.”

“Oh! And how came the master to hear of you?”

“I advertised; and Mr. Bowmore answered my advertisement.”

Bervie looked hard at the man for a moment, and then joined Percy at the carriage door. The two gentlemen started for London.

“What do you think of Mr. Bowmore’s new servant?” asked the Captain as they drove away from the cottage. “I don’t like the look of the fellow.”

“I didn’t particularly notice him,” Percy answered.

There was a pause. When the conversation was resumed, it turned on commonplace subjects. The Captain looked uneasily out of the carriage window. Percy looked uneasily at the Captain.

They had left Dartford about two miles behind them, when Percy noticed an old gabled house, sheltered by magnificent trees, and standing on an eminence well removed from the high-road. Carriages and saddle-horses were visible on the drive in front, and a flag was hoisted on a staff placed in the middle of the lawn.

“Something seems to be going on there,” Percy remarked. “A fine old house! Who does it belong to?”

Bervie smiled. “It belongs to my father,” he said. “He is chairman of the bench of local magistrates, and he receives his brother justices today, to celebrate the opening of the sessions.”

He stopped and looked at Percy with some embarrassment. “I am afraid I have surprised and disappointed you,” he resumed, abruptly changing the subject. “I told you when we met just now at Mr. Bowmore’s cottage that I had something to say to you; and I have not yet said it. The truth is, I don’t feel sure whether I have been long enough your friend to take the liberty of advising you.”

“Whatever your advice is,” Percy answered, “trust me to take it kindly on my side.”

Thus encouraged, the Captain spoke out.

“You will probably pass much of your time at the cottage,” he began, “and you will be thrown a great deal into Mr. Bowmore’s society. I have known him for many years. Speaking from that knowledge, I most seriously warn you against him as a thoroughly unprincipled and thoroughly dangerous man.”

This was strong language – and, naturally enough, Percy said so. The Captain justified his language.

“Without alluding to Mr. Bowmore’s politics,” he went on, “I can tell you that the motive of everything he says and does is vanity. To the gratification of that one passion he would sacrifice you or me, his wife or his daughter, without hesitation and without remorse. His one desire is to get into Parliament. You are wealthy, and you can help him. He will leave no effort untried to reach that end; and, if he gets you into political difficulties, he will desert you without scruple.”

Percy made a last effort to take Mr. Bowmore’s part – for the one irresistible reason that he was Charlotte’s father.

“Pray don’t think I am unworthy of your kind interest in my welfare,” he pleaded. “Can you tell me of any facts which justify what you have just said?”

“I can tell you of three facts,” Bervie said. “Mr. Bowmore belongs to one of the most revolutionary clubs in England; he has spoken in the ranks of sedition at public meetings; and his name is already in the black book at the Home Office. So much for the past. As to the future, if the rumour be true that Ministers mean to stop the insurrectionary risings among the population by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, Mr. Bowmore will certainly be in danger; and it may be my father’s duty to grant the warrant that apprehends him. Write to my father to verify what I have said, and I will forward your letter by way of satisfying him that he can trust you. In the meantime, refuse to accept Mr. Bowmore’s assistance in the matter of your claim on Parliament; and, above all things, stop him at the outset, when he tries to steal his way into your intimacy. I need not caution you to say nothing against him to his wife and daughter. His wily tongue has long since deluded them. Don’t let him delude you! Have you thought any more of our evening at Doctor Lagarde’s?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“I hardly know,” said Percy, still under the impression of the formidable warning which he had just received.

“Let me jog your memory,” the other continued. “You went on with the consultation by yourself, after I had left the Doctor’s house. It will be really doing me a favour if you can call to mind what Lagarde saw in the trance – in my absence?”

Thus entreated Percy roused himself. His memory of events were still fresh enough to answer the call that his friend had made on it. In describing what had happened, he accurately repeated all that the Doctor had said.

Bervie dwelt on the words with alarm in his face as well as surprise.

“A man like me, trying to persuade a woman like—” he checked himself, as if he was afraid to let Charlotte’s name pass his lips. “Trying to induce a woman to go away with me,” he resumed, “and persuading her at last? Pray, go on! What did the Doctor see next?”

“He was too much exhausted, he said, to see any more.”

“Surely you returned to consult him again?”

“No; I had had enough of it.”

“When we get to London,” said the Captain, “we shall pass along the Strand, on the way to your chambers. Will you kindly drop me at the turning that leads to the Doctor’s lodgings?”

Percy looked at him in amazement. “You still take it seriously?” he said.

“Is it not serious?” Bervie asked. “Have you and I, so far, not done exactly what this man saw us doing? Did we not meet, in the days when we were rivals (as he saw us meet), with the pistols in our hands? Did you not recognise his description of the lady when you met her at the ball, as I recognised it before you?”

“Mere coincidences!” Percy answered, quoting Charlotte’s opinion when they had spoken together of Doctor Lagarde, but taking care not to cite his authority. “How many thousand men have been crossed in love? How many thousand men have fought duels for love? How many thousand women choose blue for their favourite colour, and answer to the vague description of the lady whom the Doctor pretended to see?”

“Say that it is so,” Bervie rejoined. “The thing is remarkable, even from your point of view. And if more coincidences follow, the result will be more remarkable still.”

Arrived at the Strand, Percy set the Captain down at the turning which led to the Doctor’s lodgings. “You will call on me or write me word, if anything remarkable happens?” he said.

“You shall hear from me without fail,” Bervie replied.

That night, the Captain’s pen performed the Captain’s promise, in few and startling words.

“Melancholy news! Madame Lagarde is dead. Nothing is known of her son but that he has left England. I have found out that he is a political exile. If he has ventured back to France, it is barely possible that I may hear something of him. I have friends at the English embassy in Paris who will help me to make inquiries; and I start for the Continent in a day or two. Write to me while I am away, to the care of my father, at ‘The Manor House, near Dartford.’ He will always know my address abroad, and will forward your letters. For your own sake, remember the warning I gave you this afternoon! Your faithful friend, A. B.”

•  IX  •

OFFICIAL SECRETS

There was a more serious reason than Bervie was aware of, at the time, for the warning which he had thought it his duty to address to Percy Linwood. The new footman who had entered Mr. Bowmore’s service was a Spy.

Well practised in the infamous vocation that he followed, the wretch had been chosen by the Department of Secret Service at the Home Office, to watch the proceedings of Mr. Bowmore and his friends, and to report the result to his superiors. It may not be amiss to add that the employment of paid spies and informers, by the English Government of that time, was openly acknowledged in the House of Lords, and was defended as a necessary measure in the speeches of Lord Redesdale and Lord Liverpool.[*]

The reports furnished by the Home Office Spy, under these circumstances, begin with the month of March, and take the form of a series of notes introduced as follows:

Mr. Secretary – Since I entered Mr. Bowmore’s service, I have the honour to inform you that my eyes and ears have been kept in a state of active observation; and I can further certify that my means of making myself useful in the future to my honourable employers are in no respect diminished. Not the slightest suspicion of my true character is felt by any person in the house.

FIRST NOTE.

The young gentleman now on a visit to Mr. Bowmore is, as you have been correctly informed, Mr. Percy Linwood. Although he is engaged to be married to Miss Bowmore, he is not discreet enough to conceal a certain want of friendly feeling, on his part, toward her father. The young lady has noticed this, and has resented it. She accuses her lover of having allowed himself to be prejudiced against Mr. Bowmore by some slanderous person unknown.

Mr. Percy’s clumsy defence of himself led (in my hearing) to a quarrel! Nothing but his prompt submission prevented the marriage engagement from being broken off.

“If you showed a want of confidence in Me” (I heard Miss Charlotte say), “I might forgive it. But when you show a want of confidence in a man so noble as my father, I have no mercy on you.” After such an expression of filial sentiment as this, Mr. Percy wisely took the readiest way of appealing to the lady’s indulgence. The young man has a demand on Parliament for moneys due to his father’s estate; and he pleased and flattered Miss Charlotte by asking Mr. Bowmore to advise him as to the best means of asserting his claim. By way of advancing his political interests, Mr. Bowmore introduced him to the local Hampden Club; and Miss Charlotte rewarded him with a generosity which must not be passed over in silence. Her lover was permitted to put an engagement ring on her finger, and to kiss her afterward to his heart’s content.

SECOND NOTE.

Mr. Percy has paid more visits to the Republican Club; and Justice Bervie (father of the Captain) has heard of it, and has written to his son. The result that might have been expected has followed. Captain Bervie announces his return to England, to exert his influence for political good against the influence of Mr. Bowmore for political evil.

In the meanwhile, Mr. Percy’s claim has been brought before the House of Commons, and has been adjourned for further consideration in six months’ time. Both the gentlemen are indignant – especially Mr. Bowmore. He has called a meeting of the Club to consider his young friend’s wrongs, and has proposed the election of Mr. Percy as a member of that revolutionary society.

THIRD NOTE.

Mr. Percy has been elected. Captain Bervie has tried to awaken his mind to a sense of the danger that threatens him, if he persists in associating with his republican friends – and has utterly failed. Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Percy have made speeches at the Club, intended to force the latter gentleman’s claim on the immediate attention of Government. Mr. Bowmore’s flow of frothy eloquence has its influence (as you know from our shorthand writers’ previous reports) on thousands of ignorant people. As it seems to me, the reasons for at once putting this man in prison are beyond dispute. Whether it is desirable to include Mr. Percy in the order of arrest, I must not venture to decide. Let me only hint that his seditious speech rivals the more elaborate efforts of Mr. Bowmore himself.

So much for the present. I may now respectfully direct your attention to the future.

On the second of April next the Club assembles a public meeting, ‘in aid of British liberty,’ in a field near Dartford. Mr. Bowmore is to preside, and is to be escorted afterward to Westminster Hall on his way to plead Mr. Percy’s cause, in his own person, before the House of Commons. He is quite serious in declaring that ‘the minions of Government dare not touch a hair of his head.’ Miss Charlotte agrees with her father And Mr. Percy agrees with Miss Charlotte. Such is the state of affairs at the house in which I am acting the part of domestic servant.

I enclose shorthand reports of the speeches recently delivered at the Hampden Club, and have the honour of waiting for further orders.

FOURTH NOTE.

Your commands have reached me by this morning’s post.

I immediately waited on Justice Bervie (in plain clothes, of course), and gave him your official letter, instructing me to arrest Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Percy Linwood.

The venerable magistrate hesitated.

He quite understood the necessity for keeping the arrest a strict secret, in the interests of Government. The only reluctance he felt in granting the warrant related to his son’s intimate friend. But for the peremptory tone of your letter, I really believe he would have asked you to give Mr. Percy time for consideration. Not being rash enough to proceed to such an extreme as this, he slyly consulted the young man’s interests by declining, on formal grounds, to date the warrant earlier than the second of April. Please note that my visit to him was paid at noon, on the thirty-first of March.

If the object of this delay (to which I was obliged to submit) is to offer a chance of escape to Mr. Percy, the same chance necessarily includes Mr. Bowmore, whose name is also in the warrant. Trust me to keep a watchful eye on both these gentlemen; especially on Mr. Bowmore. He is the most dangerous man of the two, and the most likely, if he feels any suspicions, to slip through the fingers of the law.

I have also to report that I discovered three persons in the hall of Justice Bervie’s house, as I went out.

One of them was his son, the Captain; one was his daughter, Miss Bervie; and the third was that smooth-tongued old soldier, Major Mulvany. If the escape of Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Linwood is in contemplation, mark my words: the persons whom I have just mentioned will be concerned in it – and perhaps Miss Charlotte herself as well. At present, she is entirely unsuspicious of any misfortune hanging over her head; her attention being absorbed in the preparation of her bridal finery. As an admirer myself of the fair sex, I must own that it seems hard on the girl to have her lover clapped into prison, before the wedding-day.

I will bring you word of the arrest myself. There will be plenty of time to catch the afternoon coach to London.

Here – unless something happens which it is impossible to foresee – my report may come to an end.

FOOTNOTE [*] Readers who may desire to test the author’s authority for this statement, are referred to “The Annual Register” for 1817, Chapters I. and III.; and, further on, to page 66 in the same volume.

•  X  •

THE ELOPEMENT.

On the evening of the first of April, Mrs. Bowmore was left alone with the servants. Mr. Bowmore and Percy had gone out together to attend a special meeting of the Club. Shortly afterward Miss Charlotte had left the cottage, under very extraordinary circumstances.

A few minutes only after the departure of her father and Percy, she received a letter, which appeared to cause her the most violent agitation. She said to Mrs. Bowmore:

“Mamma, I must see Captain Bervie for a few minutes in private, on a matter of serious importance to all of us. He is waiting at the front gate, and he will come in if I show myself at the hall door.”

Upon this, Mrs. Bowmore had asked for an explanation.

“There is no time for explanation,” was the only answer she received; “I ask you to leave me for five minutes alone with the Captain.”

Mrs. Bowmore still hesitated. Charlotte snatched up her garden hat, and declared, wildly, that she would go out to Captain Bervie, if she was not permitted to receive him at home. In the face of this declaration, Mrs. Bowmore yielded, and left the room.

In a minute more the Captain made his appearance.

Although she had given way, Mrs. Bowmore was not disposed to trust her daughter, without supervision, in the society of a man whom Charlotte herself had reviled as a slanderer and a false friend. She took up her position in the veranda outside the parlour, at a safe distance from one of the two windows of the room which had been left partially open to admit the fresh air. Here she waited and listened.

The conversation was for some time carried on in whispers.

As they became more and more excited, both Charlotte and Bervie ended in unconsciously raising their voices.

“I swear it to you on my faith as a Christian!” Mrs. Bowmore heard the Captain say. “I declare before God who hears me that I am speaking the truth!”

And Charlotte had answered, with a burst of tears:

“I can’t believe you! I daren’t believe you! Oh, how can you ask me to do such a thing? Let me go! let me go!”

Alarmed at those words, Mrs. Bowmore advanced to the window and looked in.

Bervie had put her daughter’s arm on his arm, and was trying to induce her to leave the parlour with him. She resisted, and implored him to release her. He dropped her arm, and whispered in her ear. She looked at him – and instantly made up her mind.

“Let me tell my mother where I am going,” she said; “and I will consent.”

“Be it so!” he answered. “And remember one thing: every minute is precious; the fewest words are the best.”

Mrs. Bowmore re-entered the cottage by the adjoining room, and met them in the passage. In few words, Charlotte spoke.

“I must go at once to Justice Bervie’s house. Don’t be afraid, mamma! I know what I am about, and I know I am right.”

“Going to Justice Bervie’s!” cried Mrs. Bowmore, in the utmost extremity of astonishment. “What will your father say, what will Percy think, when they come back from the Club?”

“My sister’s carriage is waiting for me close by,” Bervie answered. “It is entirely at Miss Bowmore’s disposal. She can easily get back, if she wishes to keep her visit a secret, before Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Linwood return.”

He led her to the door as he spoke. She ran back and kissed her mother tenderly. Mrs. Bowmore called to them to wait.

“I daren’t let you go,” she said to her daughter, “without your father’s leave!”

Charlotte seemed not to hear, the Captain seemed not to hear. They ran across the front garden, and through the gate – and were out of sight in less than a minute.

More than two hours passed; the sun sank below the horizon, and still there were no signs of Charlotte’s return.

Feeling seriously uneasy, Mrs. Bowmore crossed the room to ring the bell, and send the manservant to Justice Bervie’s house to hasten her daughter’s return.

As she approached the fireplace, she was startled by a sound of stealthy footsteps in the hall, followed by a loud noise as of some heavy object that had dropped on the floor. She rang the bell violently, and opened the door of the parlour. At the same moment, the spy-footman passed her, running out, apparently in pursuit of somebody, at the top of his speed. She followed him, as rapidly as she could, across the little front garden, to the gate. Arrived in the road, she was in time to see him vault upon the luggage-board at the back of a post-chaise before the cottage, just as the postilion started the horses on their way to London. The spy saw Mrs. Bowmore looking at him, and pointed, with an insolent nod of his head, first to the inside of the vehicle, and then over it to the high-road; signing to her that he designed to accompany the person in the post-chaise to the end of the journey.

Turning to go back, Mrs. Bowmore saw her own bewilderment reflected in the faces of the two female servants, who had followed her out.

“Who can the footman be after, ma’am?” asked the cook. “Do you think it’s a thief?”

The housemaid pointed to the post-chaise, barely visible in the distance.

“Simpleton!” she said. “Do thieves travel in that way? I wish my master had come back,” she proceeded, speaking to herself: “I’m afraid there’s something wrong.”

Mrs. Bowmore, returning through the garden-gate, instantly stopped and looked at the woman.

“What makes you mention your master’s name, Amelia, when you fear that something is wrong?” she asked.

Amelia changed colour, and looked confused.

“I am loth to alarm you, ma’am,” she said; “and I can’t rightly see what it is my duty to do.”

Mrs. Bowmore’s heart sank within her under the cruelest of all terrors, the terror of something unknown. “Don’t keep me in suspense,” she said faintly. “Whatever it is, let me know it.”

She led the way back to the parlour. The housemaid followed her. The cook (declining to be left alone) followed the housemaid.

“It was something I heard early this afternoon, ma’am,” Amelia began. “Cook happened to be busy—”

The cook interposed: she had not forgiven the housemaid for calling her a simpleton. “No, Amelia, if you must bring me into it – not busy. Uneasy in my mind on the subject of the soup.”

“I don’t know that your mind makes much difference,” Amelia resumed. “What it comes to is this – it was I, and not you, who went into the kitchen-garden for the vegetables.”

“Not by my wish, Heaven knows!” persisted the cook.

“Leave the room!” said Mrs. Bowmore. Even her patience had given way at last.

The cook looked as if she declined to believe her own ears. Mrs. Bowmore pointed to the door. The cook said “Oh?” – accenting it as a question. Mrs. Bowmore’s finger still pointed. The cook, in solemn silence, yielded to circumstances, and banged the door.

“I was getting the vegetables, ma’am,” Amelia proceeded, “when I heard voices on the other side of the paling. The wood is so old that one can see through the cracks easy enough. I saw my master, and Mr. Linwood, and Captain Bervie. The Captain seemed to have stopped the other two on the pathway that leads to the field; he stood, as it might be, between them and the back way to the house – and he spoke severely, that he did!”

“What did Captain Bervie say?”

“He said these words, ma’am: ‘For the last time, Mr. Bowmore,’ says he, ‘will you understand that you are in danger, and that Mr. Linwood is in danger, unless you both leave this neighbourhood tonight?’ My master made light of it. ‘For the last time,’ says he, ‘will you refer us to a proof of what you say, and allow us to judge for ourselves?’  ‘I have told you already,’ says the Captain, ‘I am bound by my duty toward another person to keep what I know a secret.’  ‘Very well,’ says my master, ‘I am bound by my duty to my country. And I tell you this,’ says he, in his high and mighty way, ‘neither Government, nor the spies of Government, dare touch a hair of my head: they know it, sir, for the head of the people’s friend!’”

“That’s quite true,” said Mrs. Bowmore, still believing in her husband as firmly as ever.

Amelia went on:

“Captain Bervie didn’t seem to think so,” she said. “He lost his temper. ‘What stuff!’ says he; ‘there’s a Government spy in your house at this moment, disguised as your footman.’ My master looked at Mr. Linwood, and burst out laughing. ‘You won’t beat that, Captain,’ says he, ‘if you talk till doomsday.’ He turned about without a word more, and went home. The Captain caught Mr. Linwood by the arm, as soon as they were alone. ‘For God’s sake,’ says he, ‘don’t follow that madman’s example!’”

Mrs. Bowmore was shocked. “Did he really call my husband a madman?” she asked.

“He did, indeed, ma’am – and he was in earnest about it, too. ‘If you value your liberty,’ he says to Mr. Linwood; ‘if you hope to become Charlotte’s husband, consult your own safety. I can give you a passport. Escape to France and wait till this trouble is over.’ Mr. Linwood was not in the best of tempers – Mr. Linwood shook him off. ‘Charlotte’s father will soon be my father,’ says he, ‘do you think I will desert him? My friends at the Club have taken up my claim; do you think I will forsake them at the meeting tomorrow? You ask me to be unworthy of Charlotte, and unworthy of my friends – you insult me, if you say more.’ He whipped round on his heel, and followed my master.”

“And what did the Captain do?”

“Lifted up his hands, ma’am, to the heavens, and looked – I declare it turned my blood to see him. If there’s truth in mortal man, it’s my firm belief—”

What the housemaid’s belief was, remained unexpressed. Before she could get to her next word, a shriek of horror from the hall announced that the cook’s powers of interruption were not exhausted yet.

Mistress and servant both hurried out in terror of they knew not what. There stood the cook, alone in the hall, confronting the stand on which the overcoats and hats of the men of the family were placed.

“Where’s the master’s travelling coat?” cried the cook, staring wildly at an unoccupied peg. “And where’s his cap to match! Oh Lord, he’s off in the post-chaise! and the footman’s after him!”

Simpleton as she was, the woman had blundered on a very serious discovery.

Coat and cap – both made after a foreign pattern, and both strikingly remarkable in form and colour to English eyes – had unquestionably disappeared. It was equally certain that they were well known to the foot man, whom the Captain had declared to be a spy, as the coat and cap which his master used in travelling. Had Mr. Bowmore discovered (since the afternoon) that he was really in danger? Had the necessities of instant flight only allowed him time enough to snatch his coat and cap out of the hall? And had the treacherous manservant seen him as he was making his escape to the post-chaise? The cook’s conclusions answered all these questions in the affirmative – and, if Captain Bervie’s words of warning had been correctly reported, the cook’s conclusion for once was not to be despised.

Under this last trial of her fortitude, Mrs. Bowmore’s feeble reserves of endurance completely gave way. The poor lady turned faint and giddy. Amelia placed her on a chair in the hall, and told the cook to open the front door, and let in the fresh air.

The cook obeyed; and instantly broke out with a second terrific scream; announcing nothing less, this time, than the appearance of Mr. Bowmore himself, alive and hearty, returning with Percy from the meeting at the Club!

The inevitable inquiries and explanations followed.

Fully assured, as he had declared himself to be, of the sanctity of his person (politically speaking), Mr. Bowmore turned pale, nevertheless, when he looked at the unoccupied peg on his clothes stand. Had some man unknown personated him? And had a post-chaise been hired to lead an impending pursuit of him in the wrong direction? What did it mean? Who was the friend to whose services he was indebted? As for the proceedings of the manservant, but one interpretation could now be placed on them. They distinctly justified what Captain Bervie had said of him. Mr. Bowmore thought of the Captain’s other assertion, relating to the urgent necessity for making his escape; and looked at Percy in silent dismay; and turned paler than ever.

Percy’s thoughts, diverted for the moment only from the lady of his love, returned to her with renewed fidelity. “Let us hear what Charlotte thinks of it,” he said. “Where is she?”

It was impossible to answer this question plainly and in few words.

Terrified at the effect which her attempt at explanation produced on Percy, helplessly ignorant when she was called upon to account for her daughter’s absence, Mrs. Bowmore could only shed tears and express a devout trust in Providence. Her husband looked at the new misfortune from a political point of view. He sat down and slapped his forehead theatrically with the palm of his hand. “Thus far,” said the patriot, “my political assailants have only struck at me through the newspapers. Now they strike at me through my child!”

Percy made no speeches. There was a look in his eyes which boded ill for Captain Bervie if the two met. “I am going to fetch her,” was all he said, “as fast as a horse can carry me.”

He hired his horse at an inn in the town, and set forth for Justice Bervie’s house at a gallop.

During Percy’s absence, Mr. Bowmore secured the front and back entrances to the cottage with his own hands.

These first precautions taken, he ascended to his room and packed his travelling-bag. “Necessaries for my use in prison,” he remarked. “The bloodhounds of Government are after me.”  “Are they after Percy, too?” his wife ventured to ask. Mr. Bowmore looked up impatiently, and cried “Pooh!” – as if Percy was of no consequence. Mrs. Bowmore thought otherwise: the good woman privately packed a bag for Percy, in the sanctuary of her own room.

For an hour, and more than an hour, no event of any sort occurred.

Mr. Bowmore stalked up and down the parlour, meditating. At intervals, ideas of flight presented themselves attractively to his mind. At intervals, ideas of the speech that he had prepared for the public meeting on the next day took their place. “If I fly tonight,” he wisely observed, “what will become of my speech? I will not fly tonight! The people shall hear me.”

He sat down and crossed his arms fiercely. As he looked at his wife to see what effect he had produced on her, the sound of heavy carriage-wheels and the trampling of horses penetrated to the parlour from the garden-gate.

Mr. Bowmore started to his feet, with every appearance of having suddenly altered his mind on the question of flight. Just as he reached the hall, Percy’s voice was heard at the front door. “Let me in. Instantly! Instantly!”

Mrs. Bowmore drew back the bolts before the servants could help her. “Where is Charlotte?” she cried; seeing Percy alone on the doorstep.

“Gone!” Percy answered furiously. “Eloped to Paris with Captain Bervie! Read her own confession. They were just sending the messenger with it, when I reached the house.”

He handed a note to Mrs. Bowmore, and turned aside to speak to her husband while she read it. Charlotte wrote to her mother very briefly; promising to explain everything on her return. In the meantime, she had left home under careful protection – she had a lady for her companion on the journey – and she would write again from Paris. So the letter, evidently written in great haste, began and ended.

Percy took Mr. Bowmore to the window, and pointed to a carriage and four horses waiting at the garden-gate.

“Do you come with me, and back me with your authority as her father?” he asked, sternly. “Or do you leave me to go alone?”

Mr. Bowmore was famous among his admirers for his “happy replies.” He made one now.

“I am not Brutus,” he said. “I am only Bowmore. My daughter before everything. Fetch my travelling-bag.”

While the travellers’ bags were being placed in the chaise, Mr. Bowmore was struck by an idea.

He produced from his coat-pocket a roll of many papers thickly covered with writing. On the blank leaf in which they were tied up, he wrote in the largest letters: “Frightful domestic calamity! Vice-President Bowmore obliged to leave England! Welfare of a beloved daughter! His speech will be read at the meeting by Secretary Joskin, of the Club. (Private to Joskin. Have these lines printed and posted everywhere. And, when you read my speech, for God’s sake don’t drop your voice at the ends of the sentences.)”

He threw down the pen, and embraced Mrs. Bowmore in the most summary manner. The poor woman was ordered to send the roll of paper to the Club, without a word to comfort and sustain her from her husband’s lips. Percy spoke to her hopefully and kindly, as he kissed her cheek at parting.

On the next morning, a letter, addressed to Mrs. Bowmore, was delivered at the cottage by private messenger.

Opening the letter, she recognised the handwriting of her husband’s old friend, and her old friend – Major Mulvany. In breathless amazement, she read these lines:

Dear Mrs. Bowmore – In matters of importance, the golden rule is never to waste words. I have performed one of the great actions of my life – I have saved your husband.

How I discovered that my friend was in danger, I must not tell you at present. Let it be enough if I say that I have been a guest under Justice Bervie’s hospitable roof, and that I know of a Home Office spy who has taken you unawares, under pretence of being your footman. If I had not circumvented him, the scoundrel would have imprisoned your husband, and another dear friend of mine. This is how I did it.

I must begin by appealing to your memory.

Do you happen to remember that your husband and I are as near as may be of about the same height? Very good, so far. Did you, in the next place, miss Bowmore’s travelling coat and cap from their customary peg? I am the thief, dearest lady; I put them on my own humble self. Did you hear a sudden noise in the hall? Oh, forgive me – I made the noise! And it did just what I wanted of it. It brought the spy up from the kitchen, suspecting that something might be wrong.

What did the wretch see when he got into the hall? His master, in travelling costume, running out. What did he find when he reached the garden? His master escaping, in a post-chaise, on the road to London. What did he do, the born blackguard that he was? Jumped up behind the chaise to make sure of his prisoner. It was dark when we got to London. In a hop, skip, and jump, I was out of the carriage, and in at my own door, before he could look me in the face.

The date of the warrant, you must know, obliged him to wait till the morning. All that night, he and the Bow Street runners kept watch They came in with the sunrise – and who did they find? Major Mulvany snug in his bed, and as innocent as the babe unborn. Oh, they did their duty! Searched the place from the kitchen to the garrets – and gave it up. There’s but one thing I regret – I let the spy off without a good thrashing. No matter. I’ll do it yet, one of these days.

Let me know the first good news of our darling fugitives, and I shall be more than rewarded for what little I have done.

Your always devoted,

Terence Mulvany.

•  XI  •

PURSUIT AND DISCOVERY.

Feeling himself hurried away on the road to Dover, as fast as four horses could carry him, Mr. Bowmore had leisure to criticise Percy’s conduct, from his own purely selfish point of view.

“If you had listened to my advice,” he said, “you would have treated that man Bervie like the hypocrite and villain that he is. But no! you trusted to your own crude impressions. Having given him your hand after the duel (I would have given him the contents of my pistol!) you hesitated to withdraw it again, when that slanderer appealed to your friendship not to cast him off. Now you see the consequence!”

“Wait till we get to Paris!” All the ingenuity of Percy’s travelling companion failed to extract from him any other answer than that.

Foiled so far, Mr. Bowmore began to start difficulties next. Had they money enough for the journey? Percy touched his pocket, and answered shortly, “Plenty.” Had they passports? Percy sullenly showed a letter. “There is the necessary voucher from a magistrate,” he said. “The consul at Dover will give us our passports. Mind this!” he added, in warning tones, “I have pledged my word of honour to Justice Bervie that we have no political object in view in travelling to France. Keep your politics to yourself, on the other side of the Channel.”

Mr. Bowmore listened in blank amazement. Charlotte’s lover was appearing in a new character – the character of a man who had lost his respect for Charlotte’s father!

It was useless to talk to him. He deliberately checked any further attempts at conversation by leaning back in the carriage, and closing his eyes. The truth is, Mr. Bowmore’s own language and conduct were insensibly producing the salutary impression on Percy’s mind which Bervie had vainly tried to convey, under the disadvantage of having Charlotte’s influence against him. Throughout the journey, Percy did exactly what Bervie had once entreated him to do – he kept Mr. Bowmore at a distance.

At every stage, they inquired after the fugitives. At every stage, they were answered by a more or less intelligible description of Bervie and Charlotte, and of the lady who accompanied them. No disguise had been attempted; no person had in any case been bribed to conceal the truth.

When the first tumult of his emotions had in some degree subsided, this strange circumstance associated itself in Percy’s mind with the equally unaccountable conduct of Justice Bervie, on his arrival at the manor house.

The old gentleman met his visitor in the hall, without expressing, and apparently without feeling, any indignation at his son’s conduct. It was even useless to appeal to him for information. He only said, “I am not in Arthur’s confidence; he is of age, and my daughter (who has volunteered to accompany him) is of age. I have no claim to control them. I believe they have taken Miss Bowmore to Paris; and that is all I know about it.”

He had shown the same dense insensibility in giving his official voucher for the passports. Percy had only to satisfy him on the question of politics; and the document was drawn out as a matter of course. Such had been the father’s behaviour; and the conduct of the son now exhibited the same shameless composure. To what conclusion did this discovery point? Percy abandoned the attempt to answer that question in despair.

They reached Dover toward two o’clock in the morning.

At the pier-head they found a coast-guardsman on duty, and received more information.

In 1817 the communication with France was still by sailing-vessels. Arriving long after the departure of the regular packet, Bervie had hired a lugger, and had sailed with the two ladies for Calais, having a fresh breeze in his favour. Percy’s first angry impulse was to follow him instantly. The next moment he remembered the insurmountable obstacle of the passports. The Consul would certainly not grant those essentially necessary documents at two in the morning!

The only alternative was to wait for the regular packet, which sailed some hours later – between eight and nine o’clock in the forenoon. In this case, they might apply for their passports before the regular office hours, if they explained the circumstances, backed by the authority of the magistrate’s letter.

Mr. Bowmore followed Percy to the nearest inn that was open, sublimely indifferent to the delays and difficulties of the journey. He ordered refreshments with the air of a man who was performing a melancholy duty to himself, in the name of humanity.

“When I think of my speech,” he said, at supper, “my heart bleeds for the people. In a few hours more, they will assemble in their thousands, eager to hear me. And what will they see? Joskin in my place! Joskin with a manuscript in his hand! Joskin, who drops his voice at the ends of his sentences! I will never forgive Charlotte. Waiter, another glass of brandy and water.”

After an unusually quick passage across the Channel, the travellers landed on the French coast, before the defeated spy had returned from London to Dartford by stagecoach. Continuing their journey by post as far as Amiens, they reached that city in time to take their places by the diligence to Paris.

Arrived in Paris, they encountered another incomprehensible proceeding on the part of Captain Bervie.

Among the persons assembled in the yard to see the arrival of the diligence was a man with a morsel of paper in his hand, evidently on the lookout for some person whom he expected to discover among the travellers. After consulting his bit of paper, he looked with steady attention at Percy and Mr. Bowmore, and suddenly approached them. “If you wish to see the Captain,” he said, in broken English, “you will find him at that hotel.” He handed a printed card to Percy, and disappeared among the crowd before it was possible to question him.

Even Mr. Bowmore gave way to human weakness, and condescended to feel astonished in the face of such an event as this. “What next?” he exclaimed.

“Wait till we get to the hotel,” said Percy.

In half an hour more the landlord had received them, and the waiter had led them to the right door. Percy pushed the man aside, and burst into the room.

Captain Bervie was alone, reading a newspaper. Before the first furious words had escaped Percy’s lips, Bervie silenced him by pointing to a closed door on the right of the fireplace.

“She is in that room,” he said; “speak quietly, or you may frighten her. I know what you are going to say,” he added, as Percy stepped nearer to him. “Will you hear me in my own defence, and then decide whether I am the greatest scoundrel living, or the best friend you ever had?”

He put the question kindly, with something that was at once grave and tender in his look and manner. The extraordinary composure with which he acted and spoke had its tranquillizing influence over Percy. He felt himself surprised into giving Bervie a hearing.

“I will tell you first what I have done,” the Captain proceeded, “and next why I did it. I have taken it on myself, Mr. Linwood, to make an alteration in your wedding arrangements. Instead of being married at Dartford church, you will be married (if you see no objection) at the chapel of the embassy in Paris, by my old college friend the chaplain.”

This was too much for Percy’s self-control. “Your audacity is beyond belief,” he broke out.

“And beyond endurance,” Mr. Bowmore added. “Understand this, sir! Whatever your defence may be, I object, under any circumstances, to be made the victim of a trick.”

“You are the victim of your own obstinate refusal to profit by a plain warning,” Bervie rejoined. “At the eleventh hour, I entreated you, and I entreated Mr. Linwood, to provide for your own safety; and I spoke in vain.”

Percy’s patience gave way once more.

“To use your own language,” he said, “I have still to decide whether you have behaved toward me like a scoundrel or a friend. You have said nothing to justify yourself yet.”

“Very well put!” Mr. Bowmore chimed in. “Come to the point, sir! My daughter’s reputation is in question.”

“Miss Bowmore’s reputation is not in question for a single instant,” Bervie answered. “My sister has been the companion of her journey from first to last.”

“Journey?” Mr. Bowmore repeated, indignantly. “I want to know, sir, what the journey means. As an outraged father, I ask one plain question. Why did you run away with my daughter?”

Bervie took a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to Percy with a smile.

It was a copy of the warrant which Justice Bervie’s duty had compelled him to issue for the “arrest of Orlando Bowmore and Percy Linwood.” There was no danger in divulging the secret now. British warrants were waste-paper in France, in those days.

“I ran away with the bride,” Bervie said coolly, “in the certain knowledge that you and Mr. Bowmore would run after me. If I had not forced you both to follow me out of England on the first of April, you would have been made State prisoners on the second. What do you say to my conduct now?”

“Wait, Percy, before you answer him,” Mr. Bowmore interposed. “He is ready enough at excusing himself. But, observe – he hasn’t a word to say in justification of my daughter’s readiness to run away with him.”

“Have you quite done?” Bervie asked, as quietly as ever.

Mr. Bowmore reserved the right of all others which he most prized, the right of using his tongue. “For the present,” he answered in his loftiest manner, “I have done.”

Bervie proceeded: “Your daughter consented to run away with me, because I took her to my father’s house, and prevailed upon him to trust her with the secret of the coming arrests. She had no choice left but to let her obstinate father and her misguided lover go to prison – or to take her place with my sister and me in the travelling-carriage.” He appealed once more to Percy. “My friend, you remember the day when you spared my life. Have I remembered it, too?”

For once, there was an Englishman who was not contented to express the noblest emotions that humanity can feel by the commonplace ceremony of shaking hands. Percy’s heart overflowed. In an outburst of unutterable gratitude he threw himself on Bervie’s breast. As brothers the two men embraced. As brothers they loved and trusted one another, from that day forth.

The door on the right was softly opened from within. A charming face – the dark eyes bright with happy tears, the rosy lips just opening into a smile – peeped into the room. A low sweet voice, with an under-note of trembling in it, made this modest protest, in the form of an inquiry:

“When you have quite done, Percy, with our good friend, perhaps you will have something to say to me?”

LAST WORDS

The persons immediately interested in the marriage of Percy and Charlotte were the only persons present at the ceremony.

At the little breakfast afterward, in the French hotel, Mr. Bowmore insisted on making a speech to a select audience of six; namely, the bride and bridegroom, the bridesmaid, the Chaplain, the Captain, and Mrs. Bowmore. But what does a small audience matter? The English frenzy for making speeches is not to be cooled by such a trifle as that. At the end of the world, the expiring forces of Nature will hear a dreadful voice – the voice of the last Englishman delivering the last speech.

Percy wisely made his honeymoon a long one; he determined to be quite sure of his superior influence over his wife before he trusted her within reach of her father again.

Mr. and Mrs. Bowmore accompanied Captain Bervie and Miss Bervie on their way back to England, as far as Boulogne. In that pleasant town the banished patriot set up his tent. It was a cheaper place to live in than Paris, and it was conveniently close to England, when he had quite made up his mind whether to be an exile on the Continent, or to go back to his own country and be a martyr in prison. In the end, the course of events settled that question for him. Mr. Bowmore returned to England, with the return of the Habeas Corpus Act.

•   •   •

The years passed. Percy and Charlotte (judged from the romantic point of view) became two uninteresting married people. Bervie (always remaining a bachelor) rose steadily in his profession, through the higher grades of military rank. Mr. Bowmore, wisely overlooked by a new Government, sank back again into the obscurity from which shrewd Ministers would never have assisted him to emerge. The one subject of interest left, among the persons of this little drama, was now represented by Doctor Lagarde. Thus far, not a trace had been discovered of the French physician, who had so strangely associated the visions of his magnetic sleep with the destinies of the two men who had consulted him.

Steadfastly maintaining his own opinion of the prediction and the fulfillment, Bervie persisted in believing that he and Lagarde (or Percy and Lagarde) were yet destined to meet, and resume the unfinished consultation at the point where it had been broken off. Persons, happy in the possession of “sound common sense,” who declared the prediction to be skilled guesswork, and the fulfillment manifest coincidence, ridiculed the idea of finding Doctor Lagarde as closely akin to that other celebrated idea of finding the needle in the bottle of hay. But Bervie’s obstinacy was proverbial. Nothing shook his confidence in his own convictions.

More than thirteen years had elapsed since the consultation at the Doctor’s lodgings, when Bervie went to Paris to spend a summer holiday with his friend, the chaplain at the English embassy. His last words to Percy and Charlotte when he took his leave were: “Suppose I meet with Doctor Lagarde?”

It was then the year 1830. Bervie arrived at his friend’s rooms on the 24th of July. On the 27th of the month the famous revolution broke out which dethroned Charles the Tenth in three days.

On the second day, Bervie and his host ventured into the streets, watching the revolution (like other reckless Englishmen) at the risk of their lives. In the confusion around them they were separated. Bervie, searching for his companion, found his progress stopped by a barricade, which had been desperately attacked, and desperately defended. Men in blouses and men in uniform lay dead and dying together: the tricoloured flag waved over them, in token of the victory of the people.

Bervie had just revived a poor wretch with a drink from an overthrown bowl of water, which still had a few drops left in it, when he felt a hand laid on his shoulder from behind. He turned and discovered a National Guard, who had been watching his charitable action. “Give a helping hand to that poor fellow,” said the citizen-soldier, pointing to a workman standing near, grimed with blood and gunpowder. The tears were rolling down the man’s cheeks. “I can’t see my way, sir, for crying,” he said. “Help me to carry that sad burden into the next street.” He pointed to a rude wooden litter, on which lay a dead or wounded man, his face and breast covered with an old cloak. “There is the best friend the people ever had,” the workman said. “He cured us, comforted us, respected us, loved us. And there he lies, shot dead while he was binding up the wounds of friends and enemies alike!”

“Whoever he is, he has died nobly,” Bervie answered “May I look at him?”

The workman signed that he might look.

Bervie lifted the cloak – and met with Doctor Lagarde once more.

First published as
“Percy and the Prophet”
All The Year Round Summer number 1877

MISS BERTHA
AND THE YANKEE

[PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS OF WITNESSES FOR THE DEFENCE, COLLECTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR.]

No. 1 — Miss Bertha Laroche, of Nettlegrove Hall, testifies and says:

•  I  •

Toward the middle of June, in the year 1817, I went to take the waters at Maplesworth, in Derbyshire, accompanied by my nearest relative – my aunt.

I am an only child; and I was twenty-one years old at my last birthday. On coming of age I inherited a house and lands in Derbyshire, together with a fortune in money of one hundred thousand pounds. The only education which I have received has been obtained within the last two or three years of my life; and I have thus far seen nothing of Society, in England or in any other civilized part of the world. I can be a competent witness, it seems, in spite of these disadvantages. Anyhow, I mean to tell the truth.

My father was a French colonist in the island of Saint Domingo. He died while I was very young; leaving to my mother and to me just enough to live on, in the remote part of the island in which our little property was situated. My mother was an Englishwoman. Her delicate health made it necessary for her to leave me, for many hours of the day, under the care of our household slaves. I can never forget their kindness to me; but, unfortunately, their ignorance equalled their kindness. If we had been rich enough to send to France or England for a competent governess we might have done very well. But we were not rich enough. I am ashamed to say that I was nearly thirteen years old before I had learned to read and write correctly.

Four more years passed – and then there came a wonderful event in our lives, which was nothing less than the change from Saint Domingo to England.

My mother was distantly related to an ancient and wealthy English family. She seriously offended those proud people by marrying an obscure foreigner, who had nothing to live on but his morsel of land in the West Indies. Having no expectations from her relatives, my mother preferred happiness with the man she loved to every other consideration; and I, for one, think she was right. From that moment she was cast off by the head of the family. For eighteen years of her life, as wife, mother, and widow, no letters came to her from her English home. We had just celebrated my seventeenth birthday when the first letter came. It informed my mother that no less than three lives, which stood between her and the inheritance of certain portions of the family property, had been swept away by death. The estate and the fortune which I have already mentioned had fallen to her in due course of law, and her surviving relatives were magnanimously ready to forgive her at last!

We wound up our affairs at Saint Domingo, and we went to England to take possession of our new wealth.

At first, the return to her native air seemed to have a beneficial effect on my mother’s health. But it was a temporary improvement only. Her constitution had been fatally injured by the West Indian climate, and just as we had engaged a competent person to look after my neglected education, my constant attendance was needed at my mother’s bedside. We loved each other dearly, and we wanted no strange nurses to come between us. My aunt (my mother’s sister) relieved me of my cares in the intervals when I wanted rest.

For seven sad months our dear sufferer lingered. I have only one remembrance to comfort me; my mother’s last kiss was mine – she died peacefully with her head on my bosom.

I was nearly nineteen years old before I had sufficiently rallied my courage to be able to think seriously of myself and my prospects.

At that age one does not willingly submit one’s self for the first time to the authority of a governess. Having my aunt for a companion and protectress, I proposed to engage my own masters and to superintend my own education.

My plans failed to meet with the approval of the head of the family. He declared (most unjustly, as the event proved) that my aunt was not a fit person to take care of me. She had passed all the later years of her life in retirement. A good creature, he admitted, in her own way, but she had no knowledge of the world, and no firmness of character. The right person to act as my chaperon, and to superintend my education, was the high-minded and accomplished woman who had taught his own daughters.

I declined, with all needful gratitude and respect, to take his advice. The bare idea of living with a stranger so soon after my mother’s death revolted me. Besides, I liked my aunt, and my aunt liked me. Being made acquainted with my decision, the head of the family cast me off, exactly as he had cast off my mother before me.

So I lived in retirement with my good aunt, and studied industriously to improve my mind until my twenty-first birthday came. I was now an heiress, privileged to think and act for myself. My aunt kissed me tenderly. We talked of my poor mother, and we cried in each other’s arms on the memorable day that made a wealthy woman of me. In a little time more, other troubles than vain regrets for the dead were to try me, and other tears were to fill my eyes than the tears which I had given to the memory of my mother.

•  II  •

I may now return to my visit, in June, 1817, to the healing springs at Maplesworth.

This famous inland watering-place was only between nine and ten miles from my new home called Nettlegrove Hall. I had been feeling weak and out of spirits for some months, and our medical adviser recommended change of scene and a trial of the waters at Maplesworth. My aunt and I established ourselves in comfortable apartments, with a letter of introduction to the chief doctor in the place. This otherwise harmless and worthy man proved, strangely enough, to be the innocent cause of the trials and troubles which beset me at the outset of my new life.

The day after we had presented our letter of introduction, we met the doctor on the public walk. He was accompanied by two strangers, both young men, and both (so far as my ignorant opinion went) persons of some distinction, judging by their dress and manners. The doctor said a few kind words to us, and rejoined his two companions. Both the gentlemen looked at me, and both took off their hats as my aunt and I proceeded on our walk.

I own I thought occasionally of the well-bred strangers during the rest of the day, especially of the shortest of the two, who was also the handsomest of the two to my thinking. If this confession seems rather a bold one, remember, if you please, that I had never been taught to conceal my feelings at Saint Domingo, and that the events which followed our arrival in England had kept me completely secluded from the society of other young ladies of my age.

The next day, while I was drinking my glass of healing water (extremely nasty water, by the way) the doctor joined us.

While he was asking me about my health, the two strangers made their appearance again, and took off their hats again. They both looked expectantly at the doctor, and the doctor (in performance of a promise which he had already made, as I privately suspected) formally introduced them to my aunt and to me. First (I put the handsomest man first) Captain Arthur Stanwick, of the army, home from India on leave, and staying at Maplesworth to take the waters; secondly, Mr. Lionel Varleigh, of Boston, in America, visiting England, after travelling all over Europe, and stopping at Maplesworth to keep company with his friend the Captain.

On their introduction, the two gentlemen, observing, no doubt, that I was a little shy, forbore delicately from pressing their society on us.

Captain Stanwick, with a beautiful smile, and with teeth worthy of the smile, stroked his whiskers, and asked me if I had found any benefit from taking the waters. He afterward spoke in great praise of the charming scenery in the neighbourhood of Maplesworth, and then, turning away, addressed his next words to my aunt. Mr. Varleigh took his place. Speaking with perfect gravity, and with no whiskers to stroke, he said:

“I have once tried the waters here out of curiosity. I can sympathize, miss, with the expression which I observed on your face when you emptied your glass just now. Permit me to offer you something nice to take the taste of the waters out of your mouth.” He produced from his pocket a beautiful little box filled with sugar-plums. “I bought it in Paris,” h e explained. “Having lived a good deal in France, I have got into a habit of making little presents of this sort to ladies and children. I wouldn’t let the doctor see it, miss, if I were you. He has the usual medical prejudice against sugar-plums.” With that quaint warning, he, too, made his bow and discreetly withdrew.

Thinking it over afterward, I acknowledged to myself that the English Captain – although he was the handsomest man of the two, and possessed the smoothest manners – had failed, nevertheless, to overcome my shyness. The American traveller’s unaffected sincerity and good-humour, on the other hand, set me quite at my ease. I could look at him and thank him, and feel amused at his sympathy with the grimace I had made, after swallowing the ill-flavoured waters. And yet, while I lay awake at night, wondering whether we should meet our new acquaintances on the next day, it was the English Captain that I most wanted to see again, and not the American traveller! At the time, I set this down to nothing more important than my own perversity. Ah, dear! dear! I know better than that now.

The next morning brought the doctor to our hotel on a special visit to my aunt. He invented a pretext for sending me into the next room, which was so plainly a clumsy excuse that my curiosity was aroused. I gratified my curiosity. Must I make my confession plainer still? Must I acknowledge that I was mean enough to listen on the other side of the door?

I heard my dear innocent old aunt say: “Doctor! I hope you don’t see anything alarming in the state of Bertha’s health.”

The doctor burst out laughing. “My dear madam! there is nothing in the state of the young lady’s health which need cause the smallest anxiety to you or to me. The object of my visit is to justify myself for presenting those two gentlemen to you yesterday. They are both greatly struck by Miss Bertha’s beauty, and they both urgently entreated me to introduce them. Such introductions, I need hardly say, are marked exceptions to my general rule. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I should have said No. In the cases of Captain Stanwick and Mr. Varleigh, however, I saw no reason to hesitate. Permit me to assure you that I am not intruding on your notice two fortune-hunting adventurers. They are both men of position and men of property. The family of the Stanwicks has been well known to me for years; and Mr. Varleigh brought me a letter from my oldest living friend, answering for him as a gentleman in the highest sense of the word. He is the wealthiest man of the two; and it speaks volumes for him, in my opinion, that he has preserved his simplicity of character after a long residence in such places as Paris and Vienna. Captain Stanwick has more polish and ease of manner, but, looking under the surface, I rather fancy there may be something a little impetuous and domineering in his temper. However, we all have our faults. I can only say, for both these young friends of mine, that you need feel no scruple about admitting them to your intimacy, if they happen to please you – and your niece. Having now, I hope, removed any doubts which may have troubled you, pray recall Miss Bertha. I am afraid I have interrupted you in discussing your plans for the day.”

The smoothly eloquent doctor paused for the moment; and I darted away from the door.

Our plans for the day included a drive through the famous scenery near the town. My two admirers met us on horseback. Here, again, the Captain had the advantage over his friend. His seat in the saddle and his riding-dress were both perfect things in their way. The Englishman rode on one side of the carriage and the American on the other. They both talked well, but Mr. Varleigh had seen more of the world in general than Captain Stanwick, and he made himself certainly the more interesting and more amusing companion of the two.

On our way back my admiration was excited by a thick wood, beautifully situated on rising ground at a little distance from the high-road: “Oh, dear,” I said, “how I should like to take a walk in that wood!” Idle, thoughtless words; but, oh, what remembrances crowd on me as I think of them now!

Captain Stanwick and Mr. Varleigh at once dismounted and offered themselves as my escort. The coachman warned them to be careful; people had often lost themselves, he said, in that wood. I asked the name of it. The name was Herne Wood. My aunt was not very willing to leave her comfortable seat in the carriage, but it ended in her going with us.

Before we entered the wood, Mr. Varleigh noted the position of the high-road by his pocket-compass. Captain Stanwick laughed at him, and offered me his arm. Ignorant as I was of the ways of the world and the rules of coquetry, my instinct (I suppose) warned me not to distinguish one of the gentlemen too readily at the expense of the other. I took my aunt’s arm and settled it in that way.

A winding path led us into the wood.

On a nearer view, the place disappointed me; the further we advanced, the more horribly gloomy it grew. The thickly-growing trees shut out the light; the damp stole over me little by little until I shivered; the undergrowth of bushes and thickets rustled at intervals mysteriously, as some invisible creeping creature passed through it. At a turn in the path we reached a sort of clearing, and saw the sky and the sunshine once more. But, even here, a disagreeable incident occurred. A snake wound his undulating way across the open space, passing close by me, and I was fool enough to scream. The Captain killed the creature with his riding-cane, taking a pleasure in doing it which I did not like to see.

We left the clearing and tried another path, and then another. And still the horrid wood preyed on my spirits. I agreed with my aunt that we should do well to return to the carriage. On our way back we missed the right path, and lost ourselves for the moment. Mr. Varleigh consulted his compass, and pointed in one direction. Captain Stanwick, consulting nothing but his own jealous humour, pointed in the other. We followed Mr. Varleigh’s guidance, and got back to the clearing. He turned to the Captain, and said, good-humouredly: “You see the compass was right.” Captain Stanwick, answered, sharply: “There are more ways than one out of an English wood; you talk as if we were in one of your American forests.”

Mr. Varleigh seemed to be at a loss to understand his rudeness; there was a pause. The two men looked at each other, standing face to face on the brown earth of the clearing – the Englishman’s ruddy countenance, light auburn hair and whiskers, and well-opened bold blue eyes, contrasting with the pale complexion, the keenly-observant look, the dark closely-cut hair, and the delicately-lined face of the American. It was only for a moment: I had barely time to feel uneasy before they controlled themselves and led us back to the carriage, talking as pleasantly as if nothing had happened. For days afterward, nevertheless, that scene in the clearing – the faces and figures of the two men, the dark line of trees hemming them in on all sides, the brown circular patch of ground on which they stood – haunted my memory, and got in the way of my brighter and happier thoughts. When my aunt inquired if I had enjoyed the day, I surprised her by saying No. And when she asked why, I could only answer: “It was all spoiled by Herne Wood.”

•  III  •

Three weeks passed.

The terror of those dreadful days creeps over me again when I think of them. I mean to tell the truth without shrinking; but I may at least consult my own feelings by dwelling on certain particulars as briefly as I can. I shall describe my conduct toward the two men who courted me in the plainest terms, if I say that I distinguished neither of them. Innocently and stupidly I encouraged them both.

In books, women are generally represented as knowing their own minds in matters which relate to love and marriage. This is not my experience of myself. Day followed day; and, ridiculous as it may appear, I could not decide which of my two admirers I liked best!

Captain Stanwick was, at first, the man of my choice. While he kept his temper under control, h e charmed me. But when he let it escape him, he sometimes disappointed, sometimes irritated me. In that frame of mind I turned for relief to Lionel Varleigh, feeling that he was the more gentle and the more worthy man of the two, and honestly believing, at such times, that I preferred him to his rival. For the first few days after our visit to Herne Wood I had excellent opportunities of comparing them. They paid their visits to us together, and they divided their attentions carefully between me and my aunt. At the end of the week, however, they began to present themselves separately. If I had possessed any experience of the natures of men, I might have known what this meant, and might have seen the future possibility of some more serious estrangement between the two friends, of which I might be the unfortunate cause. As it was; I never once troubled my head about what might be passing out of my presence. Whether they came together, or whether they came separately, their visits were always agreeable to me. and I thought of nothing and cared for nothing more.

But the time that was to enlighten me was not far off.

One day Captain Stanwick called much earlier than usual. My aunt had not yet returned from her morning walk. The Captain made some excuse for presenting himself under these circumstances which I have now forgotten.

Without actually committing himself to a proposal of marriage he spoke with such tender feeling, he managed his hold on my inexperience so delicately, that he entrapped me into saying some words, on my side, which I remembered with a certain dismay as soon as I was left alone again. In half an hour more, Mr. Lionel Varleigh was announced as my next visitor. I at once noticed a certain disturbance in his look and manner which was quite new in my experience of him. I offered him a chair. To my surprise he declined to take it.

“I must trust to your indulgence to permit me to put an embarrassing question to you,” he began. “It rests with you, Miss Laroche, to decide whether I shall remain here, or whether I shall relieve you of my presence by leaving the room.”

“What can you possibly mean?” I asked.

“Is it your wish,” he went on, “that I should pay you no more visits except in Captain Stanwick’s company, or by Captain Stanwick’s express permission?”

My astonishment deprived me for the moment of the power of answering him. “Do you really mean that Captain Stanwick has forbidden you to call on me?” I asked as soon as I could speak.

“I have exactly repeated what Captain Stanwick said to me half an hour since,” Lionel Varleigh answered.

In my indignation at hearing this, I entirely forgot the rash words of encouragement which the Captain had entrapped me into speaking to him. When I think of it now, I am ashamed to repeat the language in which I resented this man’s presumptuous assertion of authority over me. Having committed one act of indiscretion already, my anxiety to assert my freedom of action hurried me into committing another. I bade Mr. Varleigh welcome whenever he chose to visit me, in terms which made his face flush under the emotions of pleasure and surprise which I had aroused in him. My wounded vanity acknowledged no restraints. I signed to him to take a seat on the sofa at my side; I engaged to go to his lodgings the next day, with my aunt, and see the collection of curiosities which he had amassed in the course of his travels. I almost believe, if he had tried to kiss me, that I was angry enough with the Captain to have let him do it!

Remember what my life had been – remember how ignorantly I had passed the precious days of my youth, how insidiously a sudden accession of wealth and importance had encouraged my folly and my pride – and try, like good Christians, to make some allowance for me!

My aunt came in from her walk, before Mr. Varleigh’s visit had ended. She received him rather coldly, and he perceived it. After reminding me of our appointment for the next day, he took his leave.

“What appointment does Mr. Varleigh mean?” my aunt asked, as soon as we were alone. “Is it wise, under the circumstances, to make appointments with Mr. Varleigh?” she said, when I had answered her question. I naturally inquired what she meant. My aunt replied, “I have met Captain Stanwick while I was out walking. He has told me something which I am quite at a loss to understand. Is it possible, Bertha, that you have received a proposal of marriage from him favourably, without saying one word about your intentions to me?”

I instantly denied it. However rashly I might have spoken, I had certainly said nothing to justify Captain Stanwick in claiming me as his promised wife. In his mean fear of a fair rivalry with Mr. Varleigh, he had deliberately misinterpreted me. “If I marry either of the two,” I said, “it will be Mr. Varleigh!”

My aunt shook her head. “These two gentlemen seem to be both in love with you, Bertha. It is a trying position for you between them, and I am afraid you have acted with some indiscretion. Captain Stanwick tells me that he and his friend have come to a separation already. I fear you are the cause of it. Mr. Varleigh has left the hotel at which he was staying with the Captain, in consequence of a disagreement between them this morning. You were not aware of that when you accepted his invitation. Shall I write an excuse for you? We must, at least, put off the visit, my dear, until you have set yourself right with Captain Stanwick.”

I began to feel a little alarmed, but I was too obstinate to yield without a struggle. “Give me time to think over it,” I said. “To write an excuse seems like acknowledging the Captain’s authority. Let us wait till tomorrow morning.”

•  IV  •

The morning brought with it another visit from Captain Stanwick. This time my aunt was present. He looked at her without speaking, and turned to me, with his fiery temper showing itself already in his eyes.

“I have a word to say to you in private,” he began.

“I have no secrets from my aunt,” I answered. “Whatever you have to say, Captain Stanwick, may be said here.”

He opened his lips to reply, and suddenly checked himself. He was controlling his anger by so violent an effort that it turned his ruddy face pale. For the moment he conquered his temper – he addressed himself to me with the outward appearance of respect at least.

“Has that man Varleigh lied?” he asked; “or have you given him hopes, too – after what you said to me yesterday?”

“I said nothing to you yesterday which gives you any right to put that question to me,” I rejoined. “You have entirely misunderstood me, if you think so.”

My aunt attempted to say a few temperate words, in the hope of soothing him. He waved his hand, refusing to listen to her, and advanced closer to me.

“You have misunderstood me,” he said, “if you think I am a man to be made a plaything of in the hands of a coquette!”

My aunt interposed once more, with a resolution which I had not expected from her.

“Captain Stanwick,” she said, “you are forgetting yourself.”

He paid no heed to her; he persisted in speaking to me. “It is my misfortune to love you,” he burst out. “My whole heart is set on you. I mean to be your husband, and no other man living shall stand in my way. After what you said to me yesterday, I have a right to consider that you have favoured my addresses. This is not a mere flirtation. Don’t think it! I say it’s the passion of a life! Do you hear? It’s the passion of a man’s whole life! I am not to be trifled with. I have had a night of sleepless misery about you – I have suffered enough for you – and you’re not worth it. Don’t laugh! This is no laughing matter. Take care, Bertha! Take care!”

My aunt rose from her chair. She astonished me. On all ordinary occasions the most retiring, the most feminine of women, she now walked up to Captain Stanwick and looked him full in the face, without flinching for an instant.

“You appear to have forgotten that you are speaking in the presence of two ladies,” she said. “Alter your tone, sir, or I shall be obliged to take my niece out of the room.”

Half angry, half frightened, I tried to speak in my turn. My aunt signed to me to be silent. The Captain drew back a step as if he felt her reproof. But his eyes, still fixed on me, were as fiercely bright as ever. There the gentleman’s superficial good-breeding failed to hide the natural man beneath.

“I will leave you in undisturbed possession of the room,” he said to my aunt with bitter politeness. “Before I go, permit me to give your niece an opportunity of reconsidering her conduct before it is too late.” My aunt drew back, leaving him free to speak to me. After considering for a moment, he laid his hand firmly, but not roughly, on my arm. “You have accepted Lionel Varleigh’s invitation to visit him,” he said, “under pretence of seeing his curiosities. Think again before you decide on keeping that engagement. If you go to Varleigh tomorrow, you will repent it to the last day of your life.” Saying those words, in a tone which made me tremble in spite of myself, he walked to the door. As he laid his hand on the lock, he turned toward me for the last time. “I forbid you to go to Varleigh’s lodgings,” he said, very distinctly and quietly. “Understand what I tell you. I forbid it.”

With those words he left us.

My aunt sat down by me and took my hand kindly. “There is only one thing to be done,” she said; “we must return at once to Nettlegrove. If Captain Stanwick attempts to annoy you in your own house, we have neighbours who will protect us, and we have Mr. Loring, our rector, to appeal to for advice. As for Mr. Varleigh, I will write our excuses myself before we go away.”

She put out her hand to ring the bell and order the carriage. I stopped her. My childish pride urged me to assert myself in some way, after the passive position that I had been forced to occupy during the interview with Captain Stanwick.

“No,” I said, “it is not acting fairly toward Mr. Varleigh to break our engagement with him. Let us return to Nettlegrove by all means, but let us first call on Mr. Varleigh and take our leave. Are we to behave rudely to a gentleman who has always treated us with the utmost consideration, because Captain Stanwick has tried to frighten us by cowardly threats? The commonest feeling of self-respect forbids it.”

My aunt protested against this outbreak of folly with perfect temper and good sense. But my obstinacy (my firmness as I thought it!) was immovable. I left her to choose between going with me to Mr. Varleigh, or letting me go to him by myself. Finding it useless to resist, she decided, it is needless to say, on going with me.

We found Mr. Varleigh very courteous, but more than usually grave and quiet. Our visit only lasted for a few minutes; my aunt using the influence of her age and her position to shorten it. She mentioned family affairs as the motive which recalled us to Nettlegrove. I took it on myself to invite Mr. Varleigh to visit me at my own house. He bowed and thanked me, without engaging himself to accept the invitation. When I offered him my hand at parting, he raised it to his lips, and kissed it with a fervour that agitated me. His eyes looked into mine with a sorrowful admiration, with a lingering regret, as if they were taking their leave of me for a long while. “Don’t forget me!” he whispered, as he stood at the door, while I followed my aunt out. “Come to Nettlegrove,” I whispered back. His eyes dropped to the ground; he let me go without a word more.

This, I declare solemnly, was all that passed at our visit. By some unexpressed consent among us, no allusion whatever was made to Captain Stanwick; not even his name was mentioned. I never knew that the two men had met, just before we called on Mr. Varleigh. Nothing was said which could suggest to me the slightest suspicion of any arrangement for another meeting between them later in the day. Beyond the vague threats which had escaped Captain Stanwick’s lips – threats which I own I was rash enough to despise – I had no warning whatever of the dreadful events which happened at Maplesworth on the day after our return to Nettlegrove Hall.

I can only add that I am ready to submit to any questions that may be put to me. Pray don’t think me a heartless woman. My worst fault was ignorance. In those days, I knew nothing of the false pretences under which men hide what is selfish and savage in their natures from the women whom it is their interest to deceive.

No. 2. — Julius Bender, fencing-master, testifies and says:

I am of German nationality; established in England as teacher of the use of the sword and the pistol since the beginning of the present year.

Finding business slack in London, it unfortunately occurred to me to try what I could do in the country. I had heard of Maplesworth as a place largely frequented by visitors on account of the scenery, as well as by invalids in need of taking the waters; and I opened a gallery there at the beginning of the season of 1817, for fencing and pistol practice. About the visitors I had not been deceived; there were plenty of idle young gentlemen among them who might have been expected to patronize my establishment. They showed the most barbarous indifference to the noble art of attack and defence – came by twos and threes, looked at my gallery, and never returned. My small means began to fail me. After paying my expenses, I was really at my wits’ end to find a few pounds to go on with, in the hope of better days.

One gentleman, I remember, who came to see me, and who behaved most liberally.

He described himself as an American, and said he had travelled a great deal. As my ill luck would have it, he stood in no need of my instructions. On the two or three occasions when he amused himself with my foils and my pistols, he proved to be one of the most expert swordsmen and one of the finest shots that I ever met with. It was not wonderful: he had by nature cool nerves and a quick eye; and he had been taught by the masters of the art in Vienna and Paris.

Early in July – the 9th or 10th of the month, I think – I was sitting alone in my gallery, looking ruefully enough at the last two sovereigns in my purse, when a gentleman was announced who wanted a lesson. “A private lesson,” he said, with emphasis, looking at the man who cleaned and took care of my weapons.

I sent the man out of the room. The stranger (an Englishman, and, as I fancied, judging by outward appearances, a military man as well) took from his pocketbook a fifty-pound banknote, and held it up before me. “I have a heavy wager depending on a fencing match,” he said, “and I have no time to improve myself. Teach me a trick which will make me a match for a man skilled in the use of the foil, and keep the secret – and there are fifty pounds for you.”

I hesitated. I did indeed hesitate, poor as I was. But this devil of a man held his banknote before me whichever way I looked, and I had only two pounds left in the world!

“Are you going to fight a duel?” I asked.

“I have already told you what I am going to do,” he answered.

I waited a little. The infernal banknote still tempted me. In spite of myself, I tried him again.

“If I teach you the trick,” I persisted, “will you undertake to make no bad use of your lesson?”

“Yes,” he said, impatiently enough.

I was not quite satisfied yet.

“Will you promise it, on your word of honour?” I asked.

“Of course I will,” he answered. “Take the money, and don’t keep me waiting any longer.”

I took the money, and I taught him the trick – and I regretted it almost as soon as it was done. Not that I knew, mind, of any serious consequences that followed; for I returned to London the next morning. My sentiments were those of a man of honour, who felt that he had degraded his art, and who could not be quite sure that he might not have armed the hand of an assassin as well. I have no more to say.

No. 3. — Thomas Outwater, servant to Captain Stanwick, testifies and says:

If I did not firmly believe my master to be out of his senses, no punishment that I could receive would prevail upon me to tell of him what I am going to tell now.

But I say he is mad, and therefore not accountable for what he has done – mad for love of a young woman. If I could have my way, I should like to twist her neck, though she is a lady, and a great heiress into the bargain. Before she came between them, my master and Mr. Varleigh were more like brothers than anything else. She set them at variance, and whether she meant to do it or not is all the same to me. I own I took a dislike to her when I first saw her. She was one of the light-haired, blue-eyed sort, with an innocent look and a snaky waist – not at all to be depended on, as I have found them.

I hear I am not expected to give an account of the disagreement between the two gentlemen, of which this lady was the cause. I am to state what I did in Maplesworth, and what I saw afterward in Herne Wood. Poor as I am, I would give a five-pound note to anybody who could do it for me. Unfortunately, I must do it for myself.

On the 10th of July, in the evening, my master went, for the second time that day, to Mr. Varleigh’s lodgings.

I am certain of the date, because it was the day of publication of the town newspaper, and there was a law report in it which set everybody talking. There had been a duel with pistols, a day or two before, between a resident in the town and a visitor, caused by some dispute about horses. Nothing very serious came of the meeting. One of the men only was hurt, and the wound proved to be of no great importance. The awkward part of the matter was that the constables appeared on the ground, before the wounded man had been removed. He and his two seconds were caught, and the prisoners were committed for trial. Duelling (the magistrates said) was an inhuman and unchristian practice, and they were determined to put the law in force and stop it. This sentence made a great stir in the town, and fixed the date, as I have just said, in my mind.

Having been accidentally within hearing of some of the disputes concerning Miss Laroche between my master and Mr. Varleigh, I had my misgivings about the Captain’s second visit to the friend with whom he had quarrelled already. A gentleman called on him, soon after he had gone out, on important business. This gave me an excuse for following him to Mr. Varleigh’s rooms with the visitor’s card, and I took the opportunity.

I heard them at high words on my way upstairs, and waited a little on the landing. The Captain was in one of his furious rages; Mr. Varleigh was firm and cool as usual. After listening for a minute or so, I heard enough (in my opinion) to justify me in entering the room. I caught my master in the act of lifting his cane – threatening to strike Mr. Varleigh. He instantly dropped his hand, and turned on me in a fury at my intrusion. Taking no notice of this outbreak of temper, I gave him his friend’s card, and went out. A talk followed in voices too low for me to hear outside the room, and then the Captain approached the door. I got out of his way, feeling very uneasy about what was to come next. I could not presume to question Mr. Varleigh. The only thing I could think of was to tell the young lady’s aunt what I had seen and heard, and to plead with Miss Laroche herself to make peace between them. When I inquired for the ladies at their lodgings, I was told that they had left Maplesworth.

I saw no more of the Captain that night.

The next morning he seemed to be quite himself again. He said to me, “Thomas, I am going sketching in Herne Wood. Take the paint-box and the rest of it, and put this into the carriage.”

He handed me a packet as thick as my arm, and about three feet long, done up in many folds of canvas. I made bold to ask what it was. He answered that it was an artist’s sketching umbrella, packed for travelling.

In an hour’s time, the carriage stopped on the road below Herne Wood. My master said he would carry his sketching things himself, and I was to wait with the carriage. In giving him the so-called umbrella, I took the occasion of his eye being off me for the moment to pass my hand over it carefully; and I felt, through the canvas, the hilt of a sword. As an old soldier, I could not be mistaken – the hilt of a sword.

What I thought, on making this discovery, does not much matter. What I did was to watch the Captain into the wood, and then to follow him.

I tracked him along the path to where there was a clearing in the midst of the trees. There he stopped, and I got behind a tree. He undid the canvas, and produced two swords concealed in the packet. If I had felt any doubts before, I was certain of what was coming now. A duel without seconds or witnesses, by way of keeping the town magistrates in the dark – a duel between my master and Mr. Varleigh! As his name came into my mind, the man himself appeared, making his way into the clearing from the other side of the wood.

What could I do to stop it? No human creature was in sight. The nearest village was a mile away, reckoning from the further side of the wood. The coachman was a stupid old man, quite useless in a difficulty, even if I had had time enough to go back to the road and summon him to help me. While I was thinking about it, the Captain and Mr. Varleigh had stripped to their shirts and trousers. When they crossed their swords, I could stand it no longer – I burst in on them. “For God Almighty’s sake, gentlemen,” I cried out, “don’t fight without seconds!” My master turned on me, like the madman he was, and threatened me with the point of his sword. Mr. Varleigh pulled me back out of harm’s way. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, as he led me back to the verge of the clearing; “I have chosen the sword instead of the pistol expressly to spare his life.”

Those noble words (spoken by as brave and true a man as ever breathed) quieted me. I knew Mr. Varleigh had earned the repute of being one of the finest swordsmen in Europe.

The duel began. I was placed behind my master, and was consequently opposite to his antagonist. The Captain stood on his defence, waiting for the other to attack. Mr. Varleigh made a pass. I was opposite the point of his sword; I saw it touch the Captain’s left shoulder. In the same instant of time my master struck up his opponent’s sword with his own weapon, seized Mr. Varleigh’s right wrist in his left hand, and passed his sword clean through Mr. Varleigh’s breast. He fell, the victim of a murderous trick – fell without a word or a cry.

The Captain turned slowly, and faced me with his bloody sword in his hand. I can’t tell you how he looked; I can only say that the sight of him turned me faint with terror. I was at Waterloo – I am no coward. But I tell you the cold sweat poured down my face like water. I should have dropped if I had not held by the branch of a tree.

My master waited until I had in a measure recovered myself. “Feel if his heart beats,” he said, pointing to the man on the ground.

I obeyed. He was dead – the heart was still; the beat of the pulse was gone. I said, “You have killed him!”

The Captain made no answer. He packed up the two swords again in the canvas, and put them under his arm. Then he told me to follow him with the sketching materials. I drew back from him without speaking; there was a horrid hollow sound in his voice that I did not like. “Do as I tell you,” he said: “you have yourself to thank for it if I refuse to lose sight of you now.” I managed to say that he might trust me to say nothing. He refused to trust me; he put out his hand to take hold of me. I could not stand that. “I’ll go with you,” I said; “don’t touch me!” We reached the carriage and returned to Maplesworth. The same day we travelled by post to London.

In London I contrived to give the Captain the slip. By the first coach the next morning I want back to Maplesworth, eager to hear what had happened, and if the body had been found. Not a word of news reached me; nothing seemed to be known of the duel in Herne Wood.

I went to the wood – on foot, fearing that I might be traced if I hired a carriage. The country round was as solitary as usual. Not a creature was near when I entered the wood; not a creature was near when I looked into the clearing.

There was nothing on the ground. The body was gone.

No. 4. — The Reverend Alfred Loring, Rector of Nettlegrove, testifies and says:

•  I  •

Early in the month of October, 1817, I was informed that Miss Bertha Laroche had called at my house, and wished to see me in private.

I had first been presented to Miss Laroche on her arrival, with her aunt, to take possession of her property at Nettlegrove Hall. My opportunities of improving my acquaintance with her had not been so numerous as I could have desired, and I sincerely regretted it. She had produced a very favourable impression on me. Singularly inexperienced and impulsive – with an odd mixture of shyness and vivacity in her manner, and subject now and then to outbursts of vanity and petulance which she was divertingly incapable of concealing – I could detect, nevertheless, under the surface the signs which told of a true and generous nature, of a simple and pure heart. Her personal appearance, I should add, was attractive in a remarkable degree. There was something in it so peculiar, and at the same time so fascinating, that I am conscious it may have prejudiced me in her favour. For fear of this acknowledgement being misunderstood, I think it right to add that I am old enough to be her grandfather, and that I am also a married man.

I told the servant to show Miss Laroche into my study.

The moment she entered the room, her appearance alarmed me: she looked literally panic-stricken. I offered to send for my wife; she refused the proposal. I entreated her to take time at least to compose herself. It was not in her impulsive nature to do this. She said, “Give me your hand to encourage me, and let me speak while I can.” I gave her my hand, poor soul. I said, “Speak to me, my dear, as if I were your father.”

So far as I could understand the incoherent statement which she addressed to me, she had been the object of admiration (while visiting Maplesworth) of two gentlemen, who both desired to marry her. Hesitating between them and perfectly inexperienced in such matters, she had been the unfortunate cause of enmity between the rivals, and had returned to Nettlegrove, at her aunt’s suggestion, as the best means of extricating herself from a very embarrassing position. The removal failing to alleviate her distressing recollections of what had happened, she and her aunt had tried a further change by making a tour of two months on the Continent. She had returned in a more quiet frame of mind. To her great surprise, she had heard nothing of either of her two suitors, from the day when she left Maplesworth to the day when she presented herself at my rectory.

Early that morning she was walking, after breakfast, in the park at Nettlegrove when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned, and found herself face to face with one of her suitors at Maplesworth. I am informed that there is no necessity now for my suppressing the name. The gentleman was Captain Stanwick.

He was so fearfully changed for the worse that she hardly knew him again.

After his first glance at her, he held his hand over his bloodshot eyes as if the sunlight hurt them. Without a word to prepare her for the disclosure, he confessed that he had killed Mr. Varleigh in a duel. His remorse (he declared) had unsettled his reason: only a few days had passed since he had been released from confinement in an asylum.

“You are the cause of it,” he said wildly. “It is for love of you. I have but one hope left to live for – my hope in you. If you cast me off, my mind is made up. I will give my life for the life that I have taken; I will die by my own hand. Look at me, and you will see that I am in earnest. My future as a living man depends on your decision. Think of it today, and meet me here tomorrow. Not at this time; the horrid daylight feels like fire in my eyes, and goes like fire to my brain. Wait till sunset – you will find me here.”

He left her as suddenly as he had appeared. When she had sufficiently recovered herself to be able to think, she decided on saying nothing of what had happened to her aunt. She took her way to the rectory to seek my advice.

It is needless to encumber my narrative by any statement of the questions which I felt it my duty to put to her under these circumstances. My inquiries informed me that Captain Stanwick had in the first instance produced a favourable impression on her. The less showy qualities of Mr. Varleigh had afterward grown on her liking; aided greatly by the repelling effect on her mind of the Captain’s violent language and conduct when he had reason to suspect that his rival was being preferred to him. When she knew the horrible news of Mr. Varleigh’s death, she “knew her own heart” (to repeat her exact words to me) by the shock that she felt. Toward Captain Stanwick the only feeling of which she was now conscious was, naturally, a feeling of the strongest aversion.

My own course in this difficult and painful matter appeared to me to be clear. “It is your duty as a Christian to see this miserable man again,” I said. “And it is my duty as your friend and pastor, to sustain you under the trial. I will go with you tomorrow to the place of meeting.”

•  II  •

The next evening we found Captain Stanwick waiting for us in the park.

He drew back on seeing me. I explained to him, temperately and firmly, what my position was. With sullen looks he resigned himself to endure my presence. By degrees I won his confidence. My first impression of him remains unshaken – the man’s reason was unsettled. I suspected that the assertion of his release was a falsehood, and that he had really escaped from the asylum. It was impossible to lure him into telling me where the place was. He was too cunning to do this – too cunning to say anything about his relations, when I tried to turn the talk that way next. On the other hand, he spoke with a revolting readiness of the crime that he had committed, and of his settled resolution to destroy himself if Miss Laroche refused to be his wife. “I have nothing else to live for; I am alone in the world,” he said. “Even my servant has deserted me. He knows how I killed Lionel Varleigh.” He paused and spoke his next words in a whisper to me. “I killed him by a trick – he was the best swordsman of the two.”

This confession was so horrible that I could only attribute it to an insane delusion. On pressing my inquiries, I found that the same idea must have occurred to the poor wretch’s relations, and to the doctors who signed the certificates for placing him under medical care. This conclusion (as I afterward heard) was greatly strengthened by the fact that Mr. Varleigh’s body had not been found on the reported scene of the duel. As to the servant, he had deserted his master in London, and had never reappeared. So far as my poor judgement went, the question before me was not of delivering a self-accused murderer to justice (with no corpse to testify against him), but of restoring an insane man to the care of the persons who had been appointed to restrain him.

I tried to test the strength of his delusion in an interval when he was not urging his shocking entreaties on Miss Laroche. “How do you know that you killed Mr. Varleigh?” I said.

He looked at me with a wild terror in his eyes. Suddenly he lifted his right hand, and shook it in the air, with a moaning cry, which was unmistakably a cry of pain. “Should I see his ghost,” he asked, “if I had not killed him? I know it, by the pain that wrings me in the hand that stabbed him. Always in my right hand! always the same pain at the moment when I see him!” He stopped and ground his teeth in the agony and reality of his delusion. “Look!” he cried. “Look between the two trees behind you. There he is – with his dark hair, and his shaven face, and his steady look! There he is, standing before me as he stood in the wood, with his eyes on my eyes, and his sword feeling mine!” He turned to Miss Laroche. “Do you see him too?” he asked eagerly. “Tell me the truth. My whole life depends on your telling me the truth.”

She controlled herself with a wonderful courage. “I don’t see him,” she answered.

He took out his handkerchief, and passed it over his face with a gasp of relief. “There is my last chance!” he said. “If she will be true to me – if she will be always near me, morning, noon, and night, I shall be released from the sight of him. See! he is fading away already! Gone!” h e cried, with a scream of exultation. He fell on his knees, and looked at Miss Laroche like a savage adoring his idol. “Will you cast me off now?” he asked, humbly. “Lionel was fond of you in his lifetime. His spirit is a merciful spirit. He shrinks from frightening you, he has left me for your sake; he will release me for your sake. Pity me, take me to live with you – and I shall never see him again!”

It was dreadful to hear him. I saw that the poor girl could endure no more. “Leave us,” I whispered to her; “I will join you at the house.”

He heard me, and instantly placed himself between us. “Let her promise, or she shan’t go.”

She felt, as I felt, the imperative necessity of saying anything that might soothe him. At a sign from me she gave him her promise to return.

He was satisfied – he insisted on kissing her hand, and then he let her go. I had by this time succeeded in inducing him to trust me. He proposed, of his own accord, that I should accompany him to the inn in the village at which he had been staying. The landlord (naturally enough distrusting his wretched guest) had warned him that morning to find some other place of shelter. I engaged to use my influence with the man to make him change his purpose, and I succeeded in effecting the necessary arrangements for having the poor wretch properly looked after. On my return to my own house, I wrote to a brother magistrate living near me, and to the superintendent of our county asylum, requesting them to consult with me on the best means of lawfully restraining Captain Stanwick until we could communicate with his relations. Could I have done more than this? The event of the next morning answered that question – answered it at once and forever.

•  III  •

Presenting myself at Nettlegrove Hall toward sunset, to take charge of Miss Laroche, I was met by an obstacle in the shape of a protest from her aunt.

This good lady had been informed of the appearance of Captain Stanwick in the park, and she strongly disapproved of encouraging any further communication with him on the part of her niece. She also considered that I had failed in my duty in still leaving the Captain at liberty. I told her that I was only waiting to act on the advice of competent persons, who would arrive the next day to consult with me; and I did my best to persuade her of the wisdom of the course that I had taken in the meantime. Miss Laroche, on her side, was resolved to be true to the promise that she had given. Between us, we induced her aunt to yield on certain conditions.

“I know the part of the park in which the meeting is to take place,” the old lady said; “it is my niece’s favourite walk. If she is not brought back to me in half an hour’s time, I shall send the menservants to protect her.”

The twilight was falling when we reached the appointed place. We found Captain Stanwick angry and suspicious; it was not easy to pacify him on the subject of our delay. His insanity seemed to me to be now more marked than ever. He had seen, or dreamed of seeing, the ghost during the past night. For the first time (he said) the apparition of the dead man had spoken to him. In solemn words it had condemned him to expiate his crime by giving his life for the life that he had taken. It had warned him not to insist on marriage with Bertha Laroche: “She shall share your punishment if she shares your life. And you shall know it by this sign – She shall see me as you see me.”

I tried to compose him. He shook his head in immovable despair. “No,” he answered; “if she sees him when I see him, there ends the one hope of release that holds me to life. It will be good-bye between us, and good-bye forever!”

We had walked on, while we were speaking, to a part of the park through which there flowed a rivulet of clear water. On the further bank, the open ground led down into a wooded valley. On our side of the stream rose a thick plantation of fir-trees intersected by a winding path. Captain Stanwick stopped as we reached the place. His eyes rested, in the darkening twilight, on the narrow space pierced by the path among the trees. On a sudden he lifted his right hand, with the same cry of pain which we had heard before; with his left hand he took Miss Laroche by the arm. “There!” he said. “Look where I look! Do you see him there?”

As the words passed his lips, a dimly-visible figure appeared, advancing toward us along the path.

Was it the figure of a living man? or was it the creation of my own excited fancy? Before I could ask myself the question, the man advanced a step nearer to us. A last gleam of the dying light fell on his face through an opening in the trees. At the same instant Miss Laroche started back from Captain Stanwick with a scream of terror. She would have fallen if I had not been near enough to support her. The Captain was instantly at her side again. “Speak!” he cried. “Do you see it, too?”

She was just able to say “Yes” before she fainted in my arms.

He stooped over her, and touched her cold cheek with his lips. “Good-bye!” he said, in tones suddenly and strangely changed to the most exquisite tenderness. “Good-bye, forever!”

He leaped the rivulet; he crossed the open ground; he was lost to sight in the valley beyond.

As he disappeared, the visionary man among the fir-trees advanced; passed in silence; crossed the rivulet at a bound; and vanished as the figure of the Captain had vanished before him.

I was left alone with the swooning woman. Not a sound, far or near, broke the stillness of the coming night.

No. 5. — Mr. Frederic Darnel, Member of the College of Surgeons, testifies and says:

In the intervals of my professional duty I am accustomed to occupy myself in studying Botany, assisted by a friend and neighbour, whose tastes in this respect resemble my own. When I can spare an hour or two from my patients, we go out together searching for specimens. Our favourite place is Herne Wood. It is rich in material for the botanist, and it is only a mile distant from the village in which I live.

Early in July, my friend and I made a discovery in the wood of a very alarming and unexpected kind. We found a man in the clearing, prostrated by a dangerous wound, and to all appearance dead.

We carried him to the gamekeeper’s cottage on the outskirts of the woods, and on the side of it nearest to our village. He and his boy were out, but the light cart in which he makes his rounds, in the remoter part of his master’s property, was in the outhouse. While my friend was putting the horse to, I examined the stranger’s wound. It had been quite recently inflicted, and I doubted whether it had (as yet, at any rate) really killed him. I did what I could with the linen and cold water which the gamekeeper’s wife offered to me, and then my friend and I removed him carefully to my house in the cart. I applied the necessary restoratives, and I had the pleasure of satisfying myself that the vital powers had revived. He was perfectly unconscious, of course, but the action of the heart became distinctly perceptible, and I had hopes.

In a few days more I felt fairly sure of him. Then the usual fever set in. I was obliged, in justice to his friends, to search his clothes in presence of a witness. We found his handkerchief, his purse, and his cigar-case, and nothing more. No letters or visiting cards; nothing marked on his clothes but initials. There was no help for it but to wait to identify him until he could speak.

When that time came, he acknowledged to me that he had divested himself purposely of any clew to his identity, in the fear (if some mischance happened to him) of the news of it reaching his father and mother abruptly, by means of the newspapers. He had sent a letter to his bankers in London, to be forwarded to his parents, if the bankers neither saw him nor heard from him in a month’s time. His first act was to withdraw this letter. The other particulars which he communicated to me are, I am told, already known. I need only add that I willingly kept his secret, simply speaking of him in the neighbourhood as a traveller from foreign parts who had met with an accident.

His convalescence was a long one. It was the beginning of October before he was completely restored to health. When he left us he went to London. He behaved most liberally to me; and we parted with sincere good wishes on either side.

No. 6. — Mr. Lionel Varleigh, of Boston, U. S. A., testifies and says:

My first proceeding, on my recovery, was to go to the relations of Captain Stanwick in London, for the purpose of making inquiries about him.

I do not wish to justify myself at the expense of that miserable man. It is true that I loved Miss Laroche too dearly to yield her to any rival except at her own wish. It is also true that Captain Stanwick more than once insulted me, and that I endured it. He had suffered from sunstroke in India, and in his angry moments he was hardly a responsible being. It was only when he threatened me with personal chastisement that my patience gave way. We met sword in hand. In my mind was the resolution to spare his life. In his mind was the resolution to kill me. I have forgiven him. I will say no more.

His relations informed me of the symptoms of insane delusion which he had shown after the duel; of his escape from the asylum in which he had been confined; and of the failure to find him again.

The moment I heard this news the dread crossed my mind that Stanwick had found his way to Miss Laroche. In an hour more I was travelling to Nettlegrove Hall.

I arrived late in the evening, and found Miss Laroche’s aunt in great alarm about her niece’s safety. The young lady was at that very moment speaking to Stanwick in the park, with only an old man (the rector) to protect her. I volunteered to go at once, and assist in taking care of her. A servant accompanied me to show me the place of meeting. We heard voices indistinctly, but saw no one. The servant pointed to a path through the fir-trees. I went on quickly by myself, leaving the man within call. In a few minutes I came upon them suddenly, at a little distance from me, on the bank of a stream.

The fear of seriously alarming Miss Laroche, if I showed myself too suddenly, deprived me for a moment of my presence of mind. Pausing to consider what it might be best to do, I was less completely protected from discovery by the trees than I had supposed. She had seen me; I heard her cry of alarm. The instant afterward I saw Stanwick leap over the rivulet and take to flight. That action roused me. Without stopping for a word of explanation, I pursued him.

Unhappily, I missed my footing in the obscure light, and fell on the open ground beyond the stream. When I had gained my feet once more, Stanwick had disappeared among the trees which marked the boundary of the park beyond me. I could see nothing of him, and I could hear nothing of him, when I came out on the high-road. There I met with a labouring man who showed me the way to the village. From the inn I sent a letter to Miss Laroche’s aunt, explaining what had happened, and asking leave to call at the Hall on the next day.

Early in the morning the rector came to me at the inn. He brought sad news. Miss Laroche was suffering from a nervous attack, and my visit to the Hall must be deferred. Speaking next of the missing man, I heard all that Mr. Loring could tell me. My intimate knowledge of Stanwick enabled me to draw my own conclusion from the facts. The thought instantly crossed my mind that the poor wretch might have committed his expiatory suicide at the very spot on which he had attempted to kill me. Leaving the rector to institute the necessary inquiries, I took post-horses to Maplesworth on my way to Herne Wood.

Advancing from the high-road to the wood, I saw two persons at a little distance from me – a man in the dress of a gamekeeper, and a lad. I was too much agitated to take any special notice of them; I hurried along the path which led to the clearing. My presentiment had not misled me. There he lay, dead on the scene of the duel, with a bloodstained razor by his side! I fell on my knees by the corpse; I took his cold hand in mine; and I thanked God that I had forgiven him in the first days of my recovery.

I was still kneeling, when I felt myself seized from behind. I struggled to my feet, and confronted the gamekeeper. He had noticed my hurry in entering the wood; his suspicions had been aroused, and he and the lad had followed me. There was blood on my clothes; there was horror in my face. Appearances were plainly against me; I had no choice but to accompany the gamekeeper to the nearest magistrate.

My instructions to my solicitor forbade him to vindicate my innocence by taking any technical legal objections to the action of the magistrate or of the coroner. I insisted on my witnesses being summoned to the lawyer’s office, and allowed to state, in their own way, what they could truly declare on my behalf; and I left my defence to be founded upon the materials thus obtained. In the meanwhile I was detained in custody, as a matter of course.

With this event the tragedy of the duel reached its culminating point. I was accused of murdering the man who had attempted to take my life!

This last incident having been related, all that is worth noticing in my contribution to the present narrative comes to an end. I was tried in due course of law. The evidence taken at my solicitor’s office was necessarily altered in form, though not in substance, by the examination to which the witnesses were subjected in a court of justice. So thoroughly did our defence satisfy the jury, that they became restless toward the close of the proceedings, and returned their verdict of Not Guilty without quitting the box.

When I was a free man again, it is surely needless to dwell on the first use that I made of my honourable acquittal. Whether I deserved the enviable place that I occupied in Bertha’s estimation, it is not for me to say. Let me leave the decision to the lady who has ceased to be Miss Laroche – I mean the lady who has been good enough to become my wife.

First published as
“The Duel in Herne Wood”
Spirit of the Times 22 Dec 1877

MISS DULANE
AND MY LORD

PART I

TWO REMONSTRATIONS.

•  I  •

One afternoon old Miss Dulane entered her drawing-room; ready to receive visitors, dressed in splendour, and exhibiting every outward appearance of a defiant frame of mind.

Just as a saucy bronze nymph on the mantelpiece struck the quarter to three on an elegant clock under her arm, a visitor was announced – “Mrs. Newsham.”

Miss Dulane wore her own undisguised grey hair, dressed in perfect harmony with her time of life. Without an attempt at concealment, she submitted to be too short and too stout. Her appearance (if it had only been made to speak) would have said, in effect: “I am an old woman, and I scorn to disguise it.”

Mrs. Newsham, tall and elegant, painted and dyed, acted on the opposite principle in dressing, which confesses nothing. On exhibition before the world, this lady’s disguise asserted that she had reached her thirtieth year on her last birthday. Her husband was discreetly silent, and Father Time was discreetly silent: they both knew that her last birthday had happened thirty years since.

“Shall we talk of the weather and the news, my dear? Or shall we come to the object of your visit at once?” So Miss Dulane opened the interview.

“Your tone and manner, my good friend, are no doubt provoked by the report in the newspaper of this morning. In justice to you, I refuse to believe the report.” So Mrs. Newsham adopted her friend’s suggestion.

“You kindness is thrown away, Elizabeth. The report is true.”

“Matilda, you shock me!”

“Why?”

“At your age!”

“If he doesn’t object to my age, what does it matter to you?”

“Don’t speak of that man!”

“Why not?”

“He is young enough to be your son; and he is marrying you – impudently, undisguisedly marrying you – for your money!”

“And I am marrying him – impudently, undisguisedly marrying him – for his rank.”

“You needn’t remind me, Matilda, that you are the daughter of a tailor.”

“In a week or two more, Elizabeth, I shall remind you that I am the wife of a nobleman’s son.”

“A younger son; don’t forget that.”

“A younger son, as you say. He finds the social position, and I find the money – half a million at my own sole disposal. My future husband is a good fellow in his way, and his future wife is another good fellow in her way. To look at your grim face, one would suppose there were no such things in the world as marriages of convenience.”

“Not at your time of life. I tell you plainly, your marriage will be a public scandal.”

“That doesn’t frighten us,” Miss Dulane remarked. “We are resigned to every ill-natured thing that our friends can say of us. In course of time, the next nine days’ wonder will claim public attention, and we shall be forgotten. I shall be none the less on that account Lady Howel Beaucourt. And my husband will be happy in the enjoyment of every expensive taste which a poor man call gratify, for the first time in his life. Have you any more objections to make? Don’t hesitate to speak plainly.”

“I have a question to ask, my dear.”

“Charmed, I am sure, to answer it – if I can.”

“Am I right in supposing that Lord Howel Beaucourt is about half your age?”

“Yes, dear; my future husband is as nearly as possible half as old as I am.”

Mrs. Newsham’s uneasy virtue shuddered. “What a profanation of marriage!” she exclaimed.

“Nothing of the sort,” her friend pronounced positively. “Marriage, by the law of England (as my lawyer tells me), is nothing but a contract. Who ever heard of profaning a contract?”

“Call it what you please, Matilda. Do you expect to live a happy life, at your age, with a young man for your husband?”

“A happy life,” Miss Dulane repeated, “because it will be an innocent life.” She laid a certain emphasis on the last word but one.

Mrs. Newsham resented the emphasis, and rose to go. Her last words were the bitterest words that she had spoken yet.

“You have secured such a truly remarkable husband, my dear, that I am emboldened to ask a great favour. Will you give me his lordship’s photograph?”

“No,” said Miss Dulane, “I won’t give you his lordship’s photograph.”

“What is your objection, Matilda?”

“A very serious objection, Elizabeth. You are not pure enough in mind to be worthy of my husband’s photograph.”

With that reply the first of the remonstrances assumed hostile proportions, and came to an untimely end.

•  II  •

The second remonstrance was reserved for a happier fate. It took its rise in a conversation between two men who were old and true friends. In other words, it led to no quarrelling.

The elder man was one of those admirable human beings who are cordial, gentle, and good-tempered, without any conscious exercise of their own virtues. He was generally known in the world about him by a fond and familiar use of his Christian name. To call him “Sir Richard” in these pages (except in the character of one of his servants) would be simply ridiculous. When he lent his money, his horses, his house, and (sometimes, after unlucky friends had dropped to the lowest social depths) even his clothes, this general benefactor was known, in the best society and the worst society alike, as “Dick.” He filled the hundred mouths of Rumour with his nickname, in the days when there was an opera in London, as the proprietor of the “Beauty-box.” The ladies who occupied the box were all invited under the same circumstances. They enjoyed operatic music; but their husbands and fathers were not rich enough to be able to gratify that expensive taste. Dick’s carriage called for them, and took them home again; and the beauties all agreed (if he ever married) that Mrs. Dick would be the most enviable woman on the face of the civilized earth. Even the false reports, which declared that he was privately married already, and on bad terms with his wife, slandered him cordially under the popular name. And his intimate companions, when they alluded among each other to a romance in his life which would remain a hidden romance to the end of his days, forgot that the occasion justified a serious and severe use of his surname, and blamed him affectionately as “poor dear Dick.”

The hour was midnight; and the friends, whom the most hospitable of men delighted to assemble round his dinner-table, had taken their leave with the exception of one guest specially detained by the host, who led him back to the dining-room.

“You were angry with our friends,” Dick began, “when they asked you about that report of your marriage. You won’t be angry with Me. Are you really going to be the old maid’s husband?”

This plain question received a plain reply: “Yes, I am.”

Dick took the young lord’s hand. Simply and seriously, he said: “Accept my congratulations.”

Howel Beaucourt started as if he had received a blow instead of a compliment.

“There isn’t another man or woman in the whole circle of my acquaintance,” he declared, “who would have congratulated me on marrying Miss Dulane. I believe you would make allowances for me if I had committed murder.”

“I hope I should,” Dick answered gravely. “When a man is my friend – murder or marriage – I take it for granted that he has a reason for what he does. Wait a minute. You mustn’t give me more credit than I deserve. I don’t agree with you. If I were a marrying man myself, I shouldn’t pick an old maid – I should prefer a young one. That’s a matter of taste. You are not like me. You always have a definite object in view. I may not know what the object is. Never mind! I wish you joy all the same.”

Beaucourt was not unworthy of the friendship he had inspired. “I should be ungrateful indeed,” he said, “if I didn’t tell you what my object is. You know that I am poor?”

“The only poor friend of mine,” Dick remarked, “who has never borrowed money of me.”

Beaucourt went on without noticing this. “I have three expensive tastes,” he said. “I want to get into Parliament; I want to have a yacht; I want to collect pictures. Add, if you like, the selfish luxury of helping poverty and wretchedness, and hearing my conscience tell me what an excellent man I am. I can’t do all this on five hundred a year – but I can do it on forty times five hundred a year. Moral: marry Miss Dulane.”

Listening attentively until the other had done, Dick showed a sardonic side to his character never yet discovered in Beaucourt’s experience of him.

“I suppose you have made the necessary arrangements,” he said. “When the old lady releases you, she will leave consolation behind her in her will.”

“That’s the first ill-natured thing I ever heard you say, Dick. When the old lady dies, my sense of honour takes fright, and turns its back on her will. It’s a condition on my side, that every farthing of her money shall be left to her relations.”

“Don’t you call yourself one of them?”

“What a question! Am I her relation because the laws of society force a mock marriage on us? How can I make use of her money unless I am her husband? and how can she make use of my title unless she is my wife? As long as she lives I stand honestly by my side of the bargain. But when she dies the transaction is at an end, and the surviving partner returns to his five hundred a year.”

Dick exhibited another surprising side to his character. The most compliant of men now became as obstinate as the proverbial mule.

“All very well,” he said, “but it doesn’t explain why – if you must sell yourself – you have sold yourself to an old lady. There are plenty of young ones and pretty ones with fortunes to tempt you. It seems odd that you haven’t tried your luck with one of them.”

“No, Dick. It would have been odd, and worse than odd, if I had tried my luck with a young woman.”

“I don’t see that.”

“You shall see it directly. If I marry an old woman for her money, I have no occasion to be a hypocrite; we both know that our marriage is a mere matter of form. But if I make a young woman my wife because I want her money, and if that young woman happens to be worth a straw, I must deceive her and disgrace myself by shamming love. That, my boy, you may depend upon it, I will never do.”

Dick’s face suddenly brightened with a mingled expression of relief and triumph.

“Ha! my mercenary friend,” he burst out, “there’s something mixed up in this business which is worthier of you than anything I have heard yet. Stop! I’m going to be clever for the first time in my life. A man who talks of love as you do, must have felt love himself. Where is the young one and the pretty one? And what has she done, poor dear, to be deserted for an old woman? Good God! how you look at me! I have hurt your feelings – I have been a greater fool than ever – I am more ashamed of myself than words can say!”

Beaucourt stopped him there, gently and firmly.

“You have made a very natural mistake,” he said. “There was a young lady. She has refused me – absolutely refused me. There is no more love in my life. It’s a dark life and an empty life for the rest of my days. I must see what money can do for me next. When I have thoroughly hardened my heart I may not feel my misfortune as I feel it now. Pity me or despise me. In either case let us say goodnight.”

He went out into the hall and took his hat. Dick went out into the hall and took his hat.

“Have your own way,” he answered, “I mean to have mine – I’ll go home with you.”

The man was simply irresistible. Beaucourt sat down resignedly on the nearest of the hall chairs. Dick asked him to return to the dining-room. “No,” he said; “it’s not worth while. What I can tell you may be told in two minutes.” Dick submitted, and took the next of the hall chairs. In that inappropriate place the young lord’s unpremeditated confession was forced out of him, by no more formidable exercise of power than the kindness of his friend.

“When you hear where I met with her,” he began, “you will most likely not want to hear any more. I saw her, for the first time, on the stage of a music hall.”

He looked at Dick. Perfectly quiet and perfectly impenetrable, Dick only said, “Go on.” Beaucourt continued in these words:

“She was singing Arne’s delicious setting of Ariel’s song in the ‘Tempest,’ with a taste and feeling completely thrown away on the greater part of the audience. That she was beautiful – in my eyes at least – I needn’t say. That she had descended to a sphere unworthy of her and new to her, nobody could doubt. Her modest dress, her refinement of manner, seemed rather to puzzle than to please most of the people present; they applauded her, but not very warmly, when she retired. I obtained an introduction through her music-master, who happened to be acquainted professionally with some relatives of mine. He told me that she was a young widow; and he assured me that the calamity through which her family had lost their place in the world had brought no sort of disgrace on them. If I wanted to know more, he referred me to the lady herself. I found her very reserved. A long time passed before I could win her confidence – and a longer time still before I ventured to confess the feeling with which she had inspired me. You know the rest.”

“You mean, of course, that you offered her marriage?”

“Certainly.”

“And she refused you on account of your position in life.”

“No. I had foreseen that obstacle, and had followed the example of the adventurous nobleman in the old story. Like him, I assumed a name, and presented myself as belonging to her own respectable middle class of life. You are too old a friend to suspect me of vanity if I tell you that she had no objection to me, and no suspicion that I had approached her (personally speaking) under a disguise.”

“What motive could she possibly have had for refusing you?” Dick asked.

“A motive associated with her dead husband,” Beaucourt answered. “He had married her – mind, innocently married her – while his first wife was living. The woman was an inveterate drunkard; they had been separated for years. Her death had been publicly reported in the newspapers, among the persons killed in a railway accident abroad. When she claimed her unhappy husband he was in delicate health. The shock killed him. His widow – I can’t, and won’t, speak of her misfortune as if it was her fault – knew of no living friends who were in a position to help her. Not a great artist with a wonderful voice, she could still trust to her musical accomplishments to provide for the necessities of life. Plead as I might with her to forget the past, I always got the same reply: ‘If I was base enough to let myself be tempted by the happy future that you offer, I should deserve the unmerited disgrace which has fallen on me. Marry a woman whose reputation will bear inquiry, and forget me.’ I was mad enough to press my suit once too often. When I visited her on the next day she was gone. Every effort to trace her has failed. Lost, my friend – irretrievably lost to me!”

He offered his hand and said good-night. Dick held him back on the doorstep.

“Break off your mad engagement to Miss Dulane,” he said. “Be a man, Howel; wait and hope! You are throwing away your life when happiness is within your reach, if you will only be patient. That poor young creature is worthy of you. Lost? Nonsense! In this narrow little world people are never hopelessly lost till they are dead and underground. Help me to recognise her by a description, and tell me her name. I’ll find her; I’ll persuade her to come back to you – and, mark my words, you will live to bless the day when you followed my advice.”

This well-meant remonstrance was completely thrown away. Beaucourt’s despair was deaf to every entreaty that Dick had addressed to him. “Thank you with all my heart,” he said. “You don’t know her as I do. She is one of the very few women who mean No when they say No. Useless, Dick – useless!”

Those were the last words he said to his friend in the character of a single man.

PART II

PLATONIC MARRIAGE.

•  III  •

Seven months have passed, my dear Dick, since my ‘inhuman obstinacy’ (those were the words you used) made you one of the witnesses at my marriage to Miss Dulane, sorely against your will. Do you remember your parting prophecy when you were out of the bride’s hearing? “A miserable life is before that woman’s husband – and, by Jupiter, he has deserved it!”

Never, my dear boy, attempt to forecast the future again. Viewed as a prophet you are a complete failure. I have nothing to complain of in my married life.

But you must not mistake me. I am far from saying that I am a happy man; I only declare myself to be a contented man. My old wife is a marvel of good temper and good sense. She trusts me implicitly, and I have given her no reason to regret it. We have our time for being together, and our time for keeping apart. Within our inevitable limits we understand each other and respect each other, and have a truer feeling of regard on both sides than many people far better matched than we are in point of age. But you shall judge for yourself. Come and dine with us, when I return on Wednesday next from the trial trip of my new yacht. In the meantime I have a service to ask of you.

My wife’s niece has been her companion for years. She has left us to be married to an officer, who has taken her to India; and we are utterly at a loss how to fill her place. The good old lady doesn’t want much. A nice-tempered refined girl, who can sing and play to her with some little taste and feeling, and read to her now and then when her eyes are weary – there is what we require; and there, it seems, is more than we can get, after advertising for a week past. Of all the ‘companions’ who have presented themselves, not one has turned out to be the sort of person whom Lady Howel wants.

Can you help us? In any case, my wife sends you her kind remembrances; and (true to the old times) I add my love.

On the day which followed the receipt of this letter, Dick paid a visit to Lady Howel Beaucourt.

“You seem to be excited,” she said. “Has anything remarkable happened?”

“Pardon me if I ask a question first,” Dick replied. “Do you object to a young widow?”

“That depends on the widow.”

“Then I have found the very person you want. And, oddly enough, your husband has had something to do with it.”

“Do you mean that my husband has recommended her?”

There was an undertone of jealousy in Lady Howel’s voice – jealousy excited not altogether without a motive. She had left it to Beaucourt’s sense of honour to own the truth, if there had been any love affair in his past life which ought to make him hesitates before he married. He had justified Miss Dulane’s confidence in him; acknowledging an attachment to a young widow, and adding that she had positively refused him. “We have not met since,” he said, “and we shall never meet again.” Under those circumstances, Miss Dulane had considerately abstained from asking for any further details. She had not thought of the young widow again, until Dick’s language had innocently inspired her first doubt. Fortunately for both of them, he was an outspoken man; and he reassured her unreservedly in these words: “Your husband knows nothing about it.”

“Now,” she said, “you may tell me how you came to hear of the lady.”

“Through my uncle’s library,” Dick replied. “His will has left me his collection of books – in such a wretchedly neglected condition that I asked Beaucourt (not being a reading man myself) if he knew of any competent person who could advise me how to set things right. He introduced me to Farleigh & Halford, the well-known publishers. The second partner is a book collector himself, as well as a bookseller. He kindly looks in now and then, to see how his instructions for mending and binding are being carried out. When he called yesterday I thought of you, and I found he could help us to a young lady employed in his office at correcting proof sheets.”

“What is the lady’s name?”

“Mrs. Evelin.”

“Why does she leave her employment?”

“To save her eyes, poor soul. When the senior partner, Mr. Farleigh, met with her, she was reduced by family misfortunes to earn her own living. The publishers would have been only too glad to keep her in their office, but for the oculist’s report. He declared that she would run the risk of blindness, if she fatigued her weak eyes much longer. There is the only objection to this otherwise invaluable person – she will not be able to read to you.”

“Can she sing and play?”

“Exquisitely. Mr. Farleigh answers for her music.”

“And her character?”

“Mr. Halford answers for her character.”

“And her manners?”

“A perfect lady. I have seen her and spoken to her; I answer for her manners, and I guarantee her personal appearance. Charming – charming!”

For a moment Lady Howel hesitated. After a little reflection, she decided that it was her duty to trust her excellent husband. “I will receive the charming widow,” she said, “tomorrow at twelve o’clock; and, if she produces the right impression, I promise to overlook the weakness of her eyes.”

•  IV  •

Beaucourt had prolonged the period appointed for the trial trip of his yacht by a whole week. His apology when he returned delighted the kind-hearted old lady who had made him a present of the vessel.

“There isn’t such another yacht in the whole world,” he declared. “I really hadn’t the heart to leave that beautiful vessel after only three days experience of her.” He burst out with a torrent of technical praises of the yacht, to which his wife listened as attentively as if she really understood what he was talking about. When his breath and his eloquence were exhausted alike, she said, “Now, my dear, it’s my turn. I can match your perfect vessel with my perfect lady.”

“What! you have found a companion?”

“Yes.”

“Did Dick find her for you?”

“He did indeed. You shall see for yourself how grateful I ought to be to your friend.”

She opened a door which led into the next room. “Mary, my dear, come and be introduced to my husband.”

Beaucourt started when he heard the name, and instantly recovered himself. He had forgotten how many Marys there are in the world.

Lady Howel returned, leading her favourite by the hand, and gaily introduced her the moment they entered the room.

“Mrs. Evelin; Lord—”

She looked at her husband. The utterance of his name was instantly suspended on her lips. Mrs. Evelin’s hand, turning cold at the same moment in her hand, warned her to look round. The face of the woman more than reflected the inconcealable agitation in the face of the man.

The wife’s first words, when she recovered herself, were addressed to them both.

“Which of you can I trust,” she asked, “to tell me the truth?”

“You can trust both of us,” her husband answered.

The firmness of his tone irritated her. “I will judge of that for myself,” she said. “Go back to the next room,” she added, turning to Mrs. Evelin; “I will hear you separately.”

The companion, whose duty it was to obey – whose modesty and gentleness had won her mistress’s heart – refused to retire.

“No,” she said; “I have been deceived too. I have my right to hear what Lord Howel has to say for himself.”

Beaucourt attempted to support the claim that she had advanced. His wife sternly signed to him to be silent. “What do you mean?” she said, addressing the question to Mrs. Evelin.

“I mean this. The person whom you speak of as a nobleman was presented to me as ‘Mr. Vincent, an artist.’ But for that deception I should never have set foot in your ladyship’s house.”

“Is this true, my lord?” Lady Howel asked, with a contemptuous emphasis on the title of nobility.

“Quite true,” her husband answered. “I thought it possible that my rank might prove an obstacle in the way of my hopes. The blame rests on me, and on me alone. I ask Mrs. Evelin to pardon me for an act of deception which I deeply regret.”

Lady Howel was a just woman. Under other circumstances she might have shown herself to be a generous woman. That brighter side of her character was incapable of revealing itself in the presence of Mrs. Evelin, young and beautiful, and in possession of her husband’s heart. She could say, “I beg your pardon, madam; I have not treated you justly.” But no self-control was strong enough to restrain the next bitter words from passing her lips. “At my age,” she said, “Lord Howel will soon be free; you will not have long to wait for him.”

The young widow looked at her sadly – answered her sadly.

“Oh, my lady, your better nature will surely regret having said that!”

For a moment her eyes rested on Beaucourt, dim with rising tears. She left the room – and left the house.

There was silence between the husband and wife. Beaucourt was the first to speak again.

“After what you have just heard, do you persist in your jealousy of that lady, and your jealousy of me?” he asked.

“I have behaved cruelly to her and to you. I am ashamed of myself,” was all she said in reply. That expression of sorrow, so simple and so true, did not appeal in vain to the gentler side of Beaucourt’s nature. He kissed his wife’s hand; he tried to console her.

“You may forgive me,” she answered. “I cannot forgive myself. That poor lady’s last words have made my heart ache. What I said to her in anger I ought to have said generously. Why should she not wait for you? After your life with me – a life of kindness, a life of self-sacrifice – you deserve your reward. Promise me that you will marry the woman you love – after my death has released you.”

“You distress me, and needlessly distress me,” he said. “What you are thinking of, my dear, can never happen; no, not even if—” He left the rest unsaid.

“Not even if you were free?” she asked.

“Not even then.”

She looked toward the next room. “Go in, Howel, and bring Mrs. Evelin back; I have something to say to her.”

The discovery that she had left the house caused no fear that she had taken to flight with the purpose of concealing herself. There was a prospect before the poor lonely woman which might be trusted to preserve her from despair, to say the least of it.

During her brief residence in Beaucourt’s house she had shown to Lady Howel a letter received from a relation, who had emigrated to New Zealand with her husband and her infant children some years since. They had steadily prospered; they were living in comfort, and they wanted for nothing but a trustworthy governess to teach their children. The mother had accordingly written, asking if her relative in England could recommend a competent person, and offering a liberal salary. In showing the letter to Lady Howel, Mrs. Evelin had said: “If I had not been so happy as to attract your notice, I might have offered to be the governess myself.”

Assuming that it had now occurred to her to act on this idea, Lady Howel felt assured that she would apply for advice either to the publishers who had recommended her, or to Lord Howel’s old friend.

Beaucourt at once offered to make th e inquiries which might satisfy his wife that she had not been mistaken. Readily accepting his proposal, she asked at the same time for a few minutes of delay.

“I want to say to you,” she explained, “what I had in my mind to say to Mrs. Evelin. Do you object to tell me why she refused to marry you? I couldn’t have done it in her place.”

“You would have done it, my dear, as I think, if her misfortune had been your misfortune.” With those prefatory words he told the miserable story of Mrs. Evelin’s marriage.

Lady Howel’s sympathies, strongly excited, appeared to have led her to a conclusion which she was not willing to communicate to her husband. She asked him, rather abruptly, if he would leave it to her to find Mrs. Evelin. “I promise,” she added, “to tell you what I am thinking of, when I come back.”

In two minutes more she was ready to go out, and had hurriedly left the house.

•  V  •

After a long absence Lady Howel returned, accompanied by Dick. His face and manner betrayed unusual agitation; Beaucourt noticed it.

“I may well be excited,” Dick declared, “after what I have heard, and after what we have done. Lady Howel, yours is the brain that thinks to some purpose. Make our report – I wait for you.”

But my lady preferred waiting for Dick. He consented to speak first, for the thoroughly characteristic reason that he could “get over it in no time.”

“I shall try the old division,” he said, “into First, Second, and Third. Don’t be afraid; I am not going to preach – quite the contrary; I am going to be quick about it. First, then, Mrs. Evelin has decided, under sound advice, to go to New Zealand. Second, I have telegraphed to her relations at the other end of the world to tell them that she is coming. Third, and last, Farleigh & Halford have sent to the office, and secured a berth for her in the next ship that sails – date the day after tomorrow. Done in half a minute. Now, Lady Howel!”

“I will begin and end in half a minute too,” she said, “if I can. First,” she continued, turning to her husband, “I found Mrs. Evelin at your friend’s house. She kindly let me say all that I could say for the relief of my poor heart. Secondly—”

She hesitated, smiled uneasily, and came to a full stop.

“I can’t do it, Howel,” she confessed; “I speak to you as usual, or I can never get on. Saying many things in few words – if the ladies who assert our rights will forgive me for confessing it – is an accomplishment in which we are completely beaten by the men. You must have thought me rude, my dear, for leaving you very abruptly, without a word of explanation. The truth is, I had an idea in my head, and I kept it to myself (old people are proverbially cautious, you know) till I had first found out whether it was worth mentioning. When you were speaking of the wretched creature who had claimed Mrs. Evelin’s husband as her own, you said she was an inveterate drunkard. A woman in that state of degradation is capable, as I persist in thinking, of any wickedness. I suppose this put it into my head to doubt her – no; I mean, to wonder whether Mr. Evelin – do you know that she keeps her husband’s name by his own entreaty addressed to her on his deathbed? – oh, I am losing myself in a crowd of words of my own collecting! Say the rest of it for me, Sir Richard!”

“No, Lady Howel. Not unless you call me ‘Dick.’”

“Then say it for me – Dick.”

“No, not yet, on reflection. Dick is too short, say ‘Dear Dick.’”

“Dear Dick – there!”

“Thank you, my lady. Now we had better remember that your husband is present.” He turned to Beaucourt. “Lady Howel had the idea,” he proceeded, “which ought to have presented itself to you and to me. It was a serious misfortune (as she thought) that Mr. Evelin’s sufferings in his last illness, and his wife’s anxiety while she was nursing him, had left them unfit to act in their own defence. They might otherwise not have submitted to the drunken wretch’s claim, without first making sure that she had a right to advance it. Taking her character into due consideration, are we quite certain that she was herself free to marry, when Mr. Evelin unfortunately made her his wife? To that serious question we now mean to find an answer. With Mrs. Evelin’s knowledge of the affair to help us, we have discovered the woman’s address, to begin with. She keeps a small tobacconist’s shop at the town of Grailey in the north of England. The rest is in the hands of my lawyer. If we make the discovery that we all hope for, we have your wife to thank for it.” He paused, and looked at his watch. “I’ve got an appointment at the club. The committee will blackball the best fellow that ever lived if I don’t go and stop them. Good-bye.”

The last day of Mrs. Evelin’s sojourn in England was memorable in more ways than one.

On the first occasion in Beaucourt’s experience of his married life, his wife wrote to him instead of speaking to him, although they were both in the house at the time. It was a little note only containing these words: “I thought you would like to say good-bye to Mrs. Evelin. I have told her to expect you in the library, and I will take care that you are not disturbed.”

Waiting at the window of her sitting-room, on the upper floor, Lady Howel perceived that the delicate generosity of her conduct had been gratefully felt. The interview in the library barely lasted for five minutes. She saw Mrs. Evelin leave the house with her veil down. Immediately afterward, Beaucourt ascended to his wife’s room to thank her. Carefully as he had endeavoured to hide them, the traces of tears in his eyes told her how cruelly the parting scene had tried him. It was a bitter moment for his admirable wife. “Do you wish me dead?” she asked with sad self-possession. “Live,” he said, “and live happily, if you wish to make me happy too.” He drew her to him and kissed her forehead. Lady Howel had her reward.

PART III

NEWS FROM THE COLONY.

•  VI  •

Furnished with elaborate instructions to guide him, which included golden materials for bribery, a young Jew holding the place of third clerk in the office of Dick’s lawyer was sent to the town of Grailey to make discoveries. In the matter of successfully instituting private inquiries, he was justly considered to be a match for any two Christians who might try to put obstacles in his way. His name was Moses Jackling.

Entering the cigar-shop, the Jew discovered that he had presented himself at a critical moment.

A girl and a man were standing behind the counter. The girl looked like a maid-of-all-work: she was rubbing the tears out of her eyes with a big red fist. The man, smart in manner and shabby in dress, received the stranger with a peremptory eagerness to do business. “Now, then! what for you?” Jackling bought the worst cigar he had ever smoked, in the course of an enormous experience of bad tobacco, and tried a few questions with this result. The girl had lost her place; the man was in “possession”; and the stock and furniture had been seized for debt. Jackling thereupon assumed the character of a creditor, and ask to speak with the mistress.

“She’s too ill to see you, sir,” the girl said.

“Tell the truth, you fool,” cried the man in possession. He led the way to a door with a glass in the upper part of it, which opened into a parlour behind the shop. As soon as his back was turned, Jackling whispered to the maid, “When I go, slip out after me; I’ve got something for you.” The man lifted the curtain over the glass. “Look through,” he said, “and see what’s the matter with her for yourself.”

Jackling discovered the mistress flat on her back on the floor, helplessly drunk. That was enough for the clerk – so far. He took leave of the man in possession, with the one joke which never wears out in the estimation of Englishmen; the joke that foresees the drinker’s headache in the morning. In a minute or two more the girl showed herself, carrying an empty jug. She had been sent for the man’s beer, and she was expected back directly. Jackling, having first overwhelmed her by a present of five shillings, proposed another appointment in the evening. The maid promised to be at the place of meeting; and in memory of the five shillings she kept her word.

“What wages do you get?” was the first question that astonished her.

“Three pounds a year, sir,” the unfortunate creature replied.

“All paid?”

“Only one pound paid – and I say it’s a crying shame.”

“Say what you like, my dear, so long as you listen to me. I want to know everything that your mistress says and does – first when she’s drunk, and then when she’s sober. Wait a bit; I haven’t done yet. If you tell me everything you can remember – mind everything – I’ll pay the rest of your wages.”

Madly excited by this golden prospect, the victim of domestic service answered inarticulately with a scream. Jackling’s right hand and left hand entered his pockets, and appeared again holding two sovereigns separately between two fingers and thumbs. From that moment, he was at liberty to empty the maid-of-all-work’s memory of every saying and doing that it contained.

The sober moments of the mistress yielded little or nothing to investigation. The report of her drunken moments produced something worth hearing. There were two men whom it was her habit to revile bitterly in her cups. One of them was Mr. Evelin, whom she abused – sometimes for the small allowance that he made to her; sometimes for dying before she could prosecute him for bigamy. Her drunken remembrances of the other man were associated with two names. She called him “Septimus”; she called him “Darts”; and she despised him occasionally for being a “common sailor.” It was clearly demonstrated that he was one man, and not two. Whether he was “Septimus,” or whether he was “Darts,” he had always committed the same atrocities. He had taken her money away from her; he had called her by an atrocious name; and he had knocked her down on more than one occasion. Provided with this information, Jackling rewarded the girl, and paid a visit to her mistress the next day.

The miserable woman was exactly in the state of nervous prostration (after the excess of the previous evening) which offered to the clerk his best chance of gaining his end. He presented himself as the representative of friends, bent on helping her, whose modest benevolence had positively forbidden him to mention their names.

“What sum of money must you pay,” he asked, “to get rid of the man in possession?”

Too completely bewildered to speak, her trembling hand offered to him a slip of paper on which the amount of the debt and the expenses was set forth: L51 12s. 10d.

With some difficulty the Jew preserved his gravity. “Very well,” he resumed. “I will make it up to sixty pounds (to set you going again) on two conditions.”

She suddenly recovered her power of speech. “Give me the money!” she cried, with greedy impatience of delay.

“First condition,” he continued, without noticing the interruption: “you are not to suffer, either in purse or person, if you give us the information that we want.”

She interrupted him again. “Tell me what it is, and be quick about it.”

“Second condition,” he went on as impenetrably as ever; “you take me to the place where I can find the certificate of your marriage to Septimus Darts.”

Her eyes glared at him like the eyes of a wild animal. Furies, hysterics, faintings, denials, threats – Jackling endured them all by turns. It was enough for him that his desperate guess of the evening before, had hit the mark on the morning after. When she had completely exhausted herself he returned to the experiment which he had already tried with the maid. Well aware of the advantage of exhibiting gold instead of notes, when the object is to tempt poverty, he produced the promised bribe in sovereigns, pouring them playfully backward and forward from one big hand to the other.

The temptation was more than the woman could resist. In another half-hour the two were travelling together to a town in one of the midland counties.

The certificate was found in the church register, and duly copied.

It also appeared that one of the witnesses to the marriage was still living. His name and address were duly noted in the clerk’s pocketbook. Subsequent inquiry, at the office of the Customs Comptroller, discovered the name of Septimus Darts on the captain’s official list of the crew of an outward bound merchant vessel. With this information, and with a photographic portrait to complete it, the man was discovered, alive and hearty, on the return of the ship to her port.

His wife’s explanation of her conduct included the customary excuse that she had every reason to believe her husband to be dead, and was followed by a bold assertion that she had married Mr. Evelin for love. In Moses Jackling’s opinion she lied when she said this, and lied again when she threatened to prosecute Mr. Evelin for bigamy. “Take my word for it,” said this new representative of the unbelieving Jew, “she would have extorted money from him if he had lived.” Delirium tremens left this question unsettled, and closed the cigar shop soon afterward, under the authority of death.

The good news, telegraphed to New Zealand, was followed by a letter containing details.

At a later date, a telegram arrived from Mrs. Evelin. She had reached her destination, and had received the dispatch which told her that she had been lawfully married. A letter to Lady Howel was promised by the next mail.

While the necessary term of delay was still unexpired, the newspapers received the intelligence of a volcanic eruption in the northern island of the New Zealand group. Later particulars, announcing a terrible destruction of life and property, included the homestead in which Mrs. Evelin was living. The farm had been overwhelmed, and every member of the household had perished.

PART IV

THE NIGHT NURSE.

•  VII  •

Endorsed as follows: “Reply from Sir Richard, addressed to Farleigh & Halford.”

Your courteous letter has been forwarded to my house in the country.

I really regret that you should have thought it necessary to apologize for troubling me. Your past kindness to the unhappy Mrs. Evelin gives you a friendly claim on me which I gladly recognise – as you shall soon see.

“The extraordinary story,” as you very naturally call it, is nevertheless true. I am the only person now at your disposal who can speak as an eyewitness of the events.

In the first place I must tell you that the dreadful intelligence, received from New Zealand, had an effect on Lord Howel Beaucourt which shocked his friends and inexpressibly distressed his admirable wife. I can only describe him, at that time, as a man struck down in mind and body alike.

Lady Howel was unremitting in her efforts to console him. He was thankful and gentle. It was true that no complaint could be made of him. It was equally true that no change for the better rewarded the devotion of his wife.

The state of feeling which this implied embittered the disappointment that Lady Howel naturally felt. As some relief to her overburdened mind, she associated herself with the work of mercy, carried on under the superintendence of the rector of the parish. I thought he was wrong in permitting a woman, at her advanced time of life, to run the risk encountered in visiting the sick and suffering poor at their own dwelling-places. Circumstances, however, failed to justify my dread of the perilous influences of infection and foul air. The one untoward event that happened, seemed to be too trifling to afford any cause for anxiety. Lady Howel caught cold.

Unhappily, she treated that apparently trivial accident with indifference. Her husband tried in vain to persuade her to remain at home. On one of her charitable visits she was overtaken by a heavy fall of rain; and a shivering fit seized her on returning to the house. At her age the results were serious. A bronchial attack followed. In a week more, the dearest and best of women had left us nothing to love but the memory of the dead.

Her last words were faintly whispered to me in her husband’s presence: “Take care of him,” the dying woman said, “when I am gone.”

No effort of mine to be worthy of that sacred trust was left untried. How could I hope to succeed where she had failed? My house in London and my house in the country were both open to Beaucourt; I entreated him to live with me, or (if he preferred it) to be my guest for a short time only, or (if he wished to be alone) to choose the place of abode which he liked best for his solitary retreat. With sincere expressions of gratitude, his inflexible despair refused my proposals.

In one of the ancient ‘Inns,’ built centuries since for the legal societies of London, he secluded himself from friends and acquaintances alike. One by one, they were driven from his dreary chambers by a reception which admitted them with patient resignation and held out little encouragement to return. After an interval of no great length, I was the last of his friends who intruded on his solitude.

Poor Lady Howel’s will (excepting some special legacies) had left her fortune to me in trust, on certain conditions with which it is needless to trouble you. Beaucourt’s resolution not to touch a farthing of his dead wife’s money laid a heavy responsibility on my shoulders; the burden being ere long increased by forebodings which alarmed me on the subject of his health.

He devoted himself to the reading of old books, treating (as I was told) of that branch of useless knowledge generally described as “occult science.” These unwholesome studies so absorbed him, that he remained shut up in his badly ventilated chambers for weeks together, without once breathing the outer air even for a few minutes. Such defiance of the ordinary laws of nature as this could end but in one way; his health steadily declined and feverish symptoms showed themselves. The doctor said plainly, “There is no chance for him if he stays in this place.”

Once more he refused to be removed to my London house. The development of the fever, he reminded me, might lead to consequences dangerous to me and to my household. He had heard of one of the great London hospitals, which reserved certain rooms for the occupation of persons capable of paying for the medical care bestowed on them. If he were to be removed at all, to that hospital he would go. Many advantages, and no objections of importance, were presented by this course of proceeding. We conveyed him to the hospital without a moment’s loss of time.

When I think of the dreadful illness that followed, and when I recall the days of unrelieved suspense passed at the bedside, I have not courage enough to dwell on this part of my story. Besides, you know already that Beaucourt recovered – or, as I might more correctly describe it, that he was snatched back to life when the grasp of death was on him. Of this happier period of his illness I have something to say which may surprise and interest you.

On one of the earlier days of his convalescence my visit to him was paid later than usual. A matter of importance, neglected while he was in danger, had obliged me to leave town for a few days, after there was nothing to be feared. Returning, I had missed the train which would have brought me to London in better time.

My appearance evidently produced in Beaucourt a keen feeling of relief. He requested the day nurse, waiting in the room, to leave us by ourselves.

“I was afraid you might not have come to me today,” he said. “My last moments would have been embittered, my friend, by your absence.”

“Are you anticipating your death,” I asked, “at the very time when the doctors answer for your life?”

“The doctors have not seen her,” he said; “I saw her last night.”

“Of whom are you speaking?”

“Of my lost angel, who perished miserably in New Zealand. Twice her spirit has appeared to me. I shall see her for the third time, tonight; I shall follow her to the better world.”

Had the delirium of the worst time of the fever taken possession of him again? In unutterable dread of a relapse, I took his hand. The skin was cool. I laid my fingers on his pulse. It was beating calmly.

“You think I am wandering in my mind,” he broke out. “Stay here tonight – I command you, stay! – and see her as I have seen her.”

I quieted him by promising to do what he had asked of me. He had still one more condition to insist on.

“I won’t be laughed at,” he said. “Promise that you will not repeat to any living creature what I have just told you.”

My promise satisfied him. He wearily closed his eyes. In a few minutes more his poor weak body was in peaceful repose.

The day-nurse returned, and remained with us later than usual. Twilight melted into darkness. The room was obscurely lit by a shaded lamp, placed behind a screen that kept the sun out of the sick man’s eyes in the daytime.

“Are we alone?” Beaucourt asked.

“Yes.”

“Watch the door.”

“Why?”

“You will see her on the threshold.”

As he said those words the door slowly opened. In the dim light I could only discern at first the figure of a woman. She slowly advanced toward me. I saw the familiar face in shadow; the eyes were large and faintly luminous – the eyes of Mrs. Evelin.

The wild words spoken to me by Beaucourt, the stillness and the obscurity in the room, had their effect, I suppose, on my imagination. You will think me a poor creature when I confess it. For the moment I did assuredly feel a thrill of superstitious terror.

My delusion was dispelled by a change in her face. Its natural expression of surprise, when she saw me, set my mind free to feel the delight inspired by the discovery that she was a living woman. I should have spoken to her if she had not stopped me by a gesture.

Beaucourt’s voice broke the silence. “Ministering Spirit!” he said, “free me from the life of earth. Take me with you to the life eternal.”

She made no attempt to enlighten him. “Wait,” she answered calmly, “wait and rest.”

Silently obeying her, he turned his head on the pillow; we saw his face no more.

I have related the circumstances exactly as they happened: the ghost story which report has carried to your ears has no other foundation than this.

Mrs. Evelin led the way to that further end of the room in which the screen stood. Placing ourselves behind it, we could converse in whispers without being heard. Her first words told me that she had been warned by one of the hospital doctors to respect my friend’s delusion for the present. His mind partook in some degree of the weakness of his body, and he was not strong enough yet to bear the shock of discovering the truth.

She had been saved almost by a miracle.

Released (in a state of insensibility) from the ruins of the house, she had been laid with her dead relatives awaiting burial. Happily for her, an English traveller visiting the island was among the first men who volunteered to render help. He had been in practice as a medical man, and he saved her from being buried alive. Nearly a month passed before she was strong enough to bear removal to Wellington (the capital city) and to be received into the hospital.

I asked why she had not telegraphed or written to me.

“When I was strong enough to write,” she said, “I was strong enough to bear the sea-voyage to England. The expenses so nearly exhausted my small savings that I had no money to spare for the telegraph.”

On her arrival in London, only a few days since, she had called on me at the time when I had left home on the business which I have already mentioned. She had not heard of Lady Howel’s death, and had written ignorantly to prepare that good friend for seeing her. The messenger sent with the letter had found the house in the occupation of strangers, and had been referred to the agent employed in letting it. She went herself to this person, and so heard that Lord Howel Beaucourt had lost his wife, and was reported to be dying in one of the London hospitals.

“If he had been in his usual state of health,” she said, “it would have been indelicate on my part – I mean it would have seemed like taking a selfish advantage of the poor lady’s death – to have let him know that my life had been saved, in any other way than by writing to him. But when I heard he was dying, I forgot all customary considerations. His name was so well-known in London that I easily discovered at what hospital he had been received. There I heard that the report was false and that he was out of danger. I ought to hav e been satisfied with that – but oh, how could I be so near him and not long to see him? The old doctor with whom I had been speaking discovered, I suppose, that I was in trouble about something. He was so kind and fatherly, and he seemed to take such interest in me, that I confessed everything to him. After he had made me promise to be careful, he told the night-nurse to let me take her place for a little while, when the dim light in the room would not permit his patient to see me too plainly. He waited at the door when we tried the experiment. Neither he nor I foresaw that Lord Howel would put such a strange interpretation on my presence. The nurse doesn’t approve of my coming back – even for a little while only – and taking her place again tonight. She is right. I have had my little glimpse of happiness, and with that little I must be content.”

What I said in answer to this, and what I did as time advanced, it is surely needless to tell you. You have read the newspapers which announce their marriage, and their departure for Italy. What else is there left for me to say?

There is, perhaps, a word more still wanting.

Obstinate Lord Howel persisted in refusing to take the fortune that was waiting for him. In this difficulty, the conditions under which I was acting permitted me to appeal to the bride. When she too said No, I was not to be trifled with. I showed her poor Lady’s Howel’s will. After reading the terms in which my dear old friend alluded to her she burst out crying. I interpreted those grateful tears as an expression of repentance for the ill-considered reply which I had just received. As yet, I have not been told that I was wrong.

First published as
“An Old Maid’s Husband”
Spirit of the Times 25 Dec 1886

MR. POLICEMAN
AND THE COOK

A FIRST WORD FOR MYSELF

Before the doctor left me one evening, I asked him how much longer I was likely to live. He answered: “It’s not easy to say; you may die before I can get back to you in the morning, or you may live to the end of the month.”

I was alive enough on the next morning to think of the needs of my soul, and (being a member of the Roman Catholic Church) to send for the priest.

The history of my sins, related in confession, included blameworthy neglect of a duty which I owed to the laws of my country. In the priest’s opinion – and I agreed with him – I was bound to make public acknowledgement of my fault, as an act of penance becoming to a Catholic Englishman. We concluded, thereupon, to try a division of labour. I related the circumstances, while his reverence took the pen and put the matter into shape.

Here follows what came of it:

•  I  •

When I was a young man of five-and-twenty, I became a member of the London police force. After nearly two years’ ordinary experience of the responsible and ill-paid duties of that vocation, I found myself employed on my first serious and terrible case of official inquiry – relating to nothing less than the crime of Murder.

The circumstances were these:

I was then attached to a station in the northern district of London – which I beg permission not to mention more particularly. On a certain Monday in the week, I took my turn of night duty. Up to four in the morning, nothing occurred at the station-house out of the ordinary way. It was then springtime, and, between the gas and the fire, the room became rather hot. I went to the door to get a breath of fresh air – much to the surprise of our Inspector on duty, who was constitutionally a chilly man. There was a fine rain falling; and a nasty damp in the air sent me back to the fireside. I don’t suppose I had sat down for more than a minute when the swinging-door was violently pushed open. A frantic woman ran in with a scream, and said: “Is this the station-house?”

Our Inspector (otherwise an excellent officer) had, by some perversity of nature, a hot temper in his chilly constitution. “Why, bless the woman, can’t you see it is?” he says. “What’s the matter now?”

“Murder’s the matter!” she burst out. “For God’s sake, come back with me. It’s at Mrs. Crosscapel’s lodging-house, number 14 Lehigh Street. A young woman has murdered her husband in the night! With a knife, sir. She says she thinks she did it in her sleep.”

I confess I was startled by this; and the third man on duty (a sergeant) seemed to feel it too. She was a nice-looking young woman, even in her terrified condition, just out of bed, with her clothes huddled on anyhow. I was partial in those days to a tall figure – and she was, as they say, my style. I put a chair for her; and the sergeant poked the fire. As for the Inspector, nothing ever upset him. He questioned her as coolly as if it had been a case of petty larceny.

“Have you seen the murdered man?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Or the wife?”

“No, sir. I didn’t dare go into the room; I only heard about it!”

“Oh? And who are You? One of the lodgers?”

“No, sir. I’m the cook.”

“Isn’t there a master in the house?”

“Yes, sir. He’s frightened out of his wits. And the housemaid’s gone for the doctor. It all falls on the poor servants, of course. Oh, why did I ever set foot in that horrible house?”

The poor soul burst out crying, and shivered from head to foot. The Inspector made a note of her statement, and then asked her to read it, and sign it with her name. The object of this proceeding was to get her to come near enough to give him the opportunity of smelling her breath. “When people make extraordinary statements,” he afterward said to me, “it sometimes saves trouble to satisfy yourself that they are not drunk. I’ve known them to be mad – but not often. You will generally find that in their eyes.”

She roused herself and signed her name – “Priscilla Thurlby.” The Inspector’s own test proved her to be sober; and her eyes – a nice light blue colour, mild and pleasant, no doubt, when they were not staring with fear, and red with crying – satisfied him (as I supposed) that she was not mad. He turned the case over to me, in the first instance. I saw that he didn’t believe in it, even yet.

“Go back with her to the house,” he says. “This may be a stupid hoax, or a quarrel exaggerated. See to it yourself, and hear what the doctor says. If it is serious, send word back here directly, and let nobody enter the place or leave it till we come. Stop! You know the form if any statement is volunteered?”

“Yes, sir. I am to caution the persons that whatever they say will be taken down, and may be used against them.”

“Quite right. You’ll be an Inspector yourself one of these days. Now, miss!” With that he dismissed her, under my care.

Lehigh Street was not very far off – about twenty minutes’ walk from the station. I confess I thought the Inspector had been rather hard on Priscilla. She was herself naturally angry with him. “What does he mean,” she says, “by talking of a hoax? I wish he was as frightened as I am. This is the first time I have been out at service, sir – and I did think I had found a respectable place.”

I said very little to her – feeling, if the truth must be told, rather anxious about the duty committed to me. On reaching the house the door was opened from within, before I could knock. A gentleman stepped out, who proved to be the doctor. He stopped the moment he saw me.

“You must be careful, policeman,” he says. “I found the man lying on his back, in bed, dead – with the knife that had killed him left sticking in the wound.”

Hearing this, I felt the necessity of sending at once to the station. Where could I find a trustworthy messenger? I took the liberty of asking the doctor if he would repeat to the police what he had already said to me. The station was not much out of his way home. He kindly granted my request.

The landlady (Mrs. Crosscapel) joined us while we were talking. She was still a young woman; not easily frightened, as far as I could see, even by a murder in the house. Her husband was in the passage behind her. He looked old enough to be her father; and he so trembled with terror that some people might have taken him for the guilty person. I removed the key from the street door, after locking it; and I said to the landlady: “Nobody must leave the house, or enter the house, till the Inspector comes. I must examine the premises to see if any on e has broken in.”

“There is the key of the area gate,” she said, in answer to me. “It’s always kept locked. Come downstairs and see for yourself.” Priscilla went with us. Her mistress set her to work to light the kitchen fire. “Some of us,” says Mrs. Crosscapel, “may be the better for a cup of tea.” I remarked that she took things easy, under the circumstances. She answered that the landlady of a London lodging-house could not afford to lose her wits, no matter what might happen.

I found the gate locked, and the shutters of the kitchen window fastened. The back kitchen and back door were secured in the same way. No person was concealed anywhere. Returning upstairs, I examined the front parlour window. There, again, the barred shutters answered for the security of that room. A cracked voice spoke through the door of the back parlour. “The policeman can come in,” it said, “if he will promise not to look at me.” I turned to the landlady for information. “It’s my parlour lodger, Miss Mybus,” she said, “a most respectable lady.” Going into the room, I saw something rolled up perpendicularly in the bed curtains. Miss Mybus had made herself modestly invisible in that way. Having now satisfied my mind about the security of the lower part of the house, and having the keys safe in my pocket, I was ready to go upstairs.

On our way to the upper regions I asked if there had been any visitors on the previous day. There had been only two visitors, friends of the lodgers – and Mrs. Crosscapel herself had let them both out. My next inquiry related to the lodgers themselves. On the ground floor there was Miss Mybus. On the first floor (occupying both rooms) Mr. Barfield, an old bachelor, employed in a merchant’s office. On the second floor, in the front room, Mr. John Zebedee, the murdered man, and his wife. In the back room, Mr. Deluc; described as a cigar agent, and supposed to be a Creole gentleman from Martinique. In the front garret, Mr. and Mrs. Crosscapel. In the back garret, the cook and the housemaid. These were the inhabitants, regularly accounted for. I asked about the servants. “Both excellent characters,” says the landlady, “or they would not be in my service.”

We reached the second floor, and found the housemaid on the watch outside the door of the front room. Not as nice a woman, personally, as the cook, and sadly frightened of course. Her mistress had posted her, to give the alarm in the case of an outbreak on the part of Mrs. Zebedee, kept locked up in the room. My arrival relieved the housemaid of further responsibility. She ran downstairs to her fellow-servant in the kitchen.

I asked Mrs. Crosscapel how and when the alarm of the murder had been given.

“Soon after three this morning,” says she, “I was woke by the screams of Mrs. Zebedee. I found her out here on the landing, and Mr. Deluc, in great alarm, trying to quiet her. Sleeping in the next room he had only to open his door, when her screams woke him. ‘My dear John’s murdered! I am the miserable wretch – I did it in my sleep!’ She repeated these frantic words over and over again, until she dropped in a swoon. Mr. Deluc and I carried her back into the bedroom. We both thought the poor creature had been driven distracted by some dreadful dream. But when we got to the bedside – don’t ask me what we saw; the doctor has told you about it already. I was once a nurse in a hospital, and accustomed, as such, to horrid sights. It turned me cold and giddy, notwithstanding. As for Mr. Deluc, I thought he would have had a fainting fit next.”

Hearing this, I inquired if Mrs. Zebedee had said or done any strange things since she had been Mrs. Crosscapel’s lodger.

“You think she’s mad?” says the landlady. “And anybody would be of your mind, when a woman accuses herself of murdering her husband in her sleep. All I can say is that, up to this morning, a more quiet, sensible, well-behaved little person than Mrs. Zebedee I never met with. Only just married, mind, and as fond of her unfortunate husband as a woman could be. I should have called them a pattern couple, in their own line of life.”

There was no more to be said on the landing. We unlocked the door and went into the room.

•  II  •

He lay in bed on his back as the doctor had described him. On the left side of his nightgown, just over his heart, the blood on the linen told its terrible tale. As well as one could judge, looking unwillingly at a dead face, he must have been a handsome young man in his lifetime. It was a sight to sadden anybody – but I think the most painful sensation was when my eyes fell next on his miserable wife.

She was down on the floor, crouched up in a corner – a dark little woman, smartly dressed in gay colours. Her black hair and her big brown eyes made the horrid paleness of her face look even more deadly white than perhaps it really was. She stared straight at us without appearing to see us. We spoke to her, and she never answered a word. She might have been dead – like her husband – except that she perpetually picked at her fingers, and shuddered every now and then as if she was cold. I went to her and tried to lift her up. She shrank back with a cry that well-nigh frightened me – not because it was loud, but because it was more like the cry of some animal than of a human being. However quietly she might have behaved in the landlady’s previous experience of her, she was beside herself now. I might have been moved by a natural pity for her, or I might have been completely upset in my mind – I only know this, I could not persuade myself that she was guilty. I even said to Mrs. Crosscapel, “I don’t believe she did it.”

While I spoke there was a knock at the door. I went downstairs at once, and admitted (to my great relief) the Inspector, accompanied by one of our men.

He waited downstairs to hear my report, and he approved of what I had done. “It looks as if the murder had been committed by somebody in the house.” Saying this, he left the man below, and went up with me to the second floor.

Before he had been a minute in the room, he discovered an object which had escaped my observation.

It was the knife that had done the deed.

The doctor had found it left in the body – had withdrawn it to probe the wound – and had laid it on the bedside table. It was one of those useful knives which contain a saw, a corkscrew, and other like implements. The big blade fastened back, when open, with a spring. Except where the blood was on it, it was as bright as when it had been purchased. A small metal plate was fastened to the horn handle, containing an inscription, only partly engraved, which ran thus: “To John Zebedee, from—” There it stopped, strangely enough.

Who or what had interrupted the engraver’s work? It was impossible even to guess. Nevertheless, the Inspector was encouraged.

“This ought to help us,” he said – and then he gave an attentive ear (looking all the while at the poor creature in the corner) to what Mrs. Crosscapel had to tell him.

The landlady having done, he said he must now see the lodger who slept in the next bedchamber.

Mr. Deluc made his appearance, standing at the door of the room, and turning away his head with horror from the sight inside.

He was wrapped in a splendid blue dressing-gown, with a golden girdle and trimmings. His scanty brownish hair curled (whether artificially or not, I am unable to say) in little ringlets. His complexion was yellow; his greenish-brown eyes were of the sort called “goggle” – they looked as if they might drop out of his face, if you held a spoon under them. His moustache and goat’s beard were beautifully oiled; and, to complete his equipment, he had a long black cigar in his mouth.

“It isn’t insensibility to this terrible tragedy,” he explained. “My nerves have been shattered, Mr. Policeman, and I can only repair the mischief in this way. Be pleased to excuse and feel for me.”

The Inspector questioned this witness sharply and closely. He was not a man to be misled by appearances; but I could see that he was far from liking, or even trusting, Mr. Deluc. Nothing came of the examination, except what Mrs. Crosscapel had in substance already mentioned to me. Mr. Deluc returned to his room.

“How long has he been lodging with you?” the Inspector asked, as soon as his back was turned.

“Nearly a year,” the landlady answered.

“Did he give you a reference?”

“As good a reference as I could wish for.” Thereupon, she mentioned the names of a well-known firm of cigar merchants in the city. The Inspector noted the information in his pocketbook.

I would rather not relate in detail what happened next: it is too distressing to be dwelt on. Let me only say that the poor demented woman was taken away in a cab to the station-house. The Inspector possessed himself of the knife, and of a book found on the floor, called “The World of Sleep.” The portmanteau containing the luggage was locked – and then the door of the room was secured, the keys in both cases being left in my charge. My instructions were to remain in the house, and allow nobody to leave it, until I heard again shortly from the Inspector.

•  III  •

The coroner’s inquest was adjourned; and the examination before the magistrate ended in a remand – Mrs. Zebedee being in no condition to understand the proceedings in either case. The surgeon reported her to be completely prostrated by a terrible nervous shock. When he was asked if he considered her to have been a sane woman before the murder took place, he refused to answer positively at that time.

A week passed. The murdered man was buried; his old father attending the funeral. I occasionally saw Mrs. Crosscapel, and the two servants, for the purpose of getting such further information as was thought desirable. Both the cook and the housemaid had given their month’s notice to quit; declining, in the interest of their characters, to remain in a house which had been the scene of a murder. Mr. Deluc’s nerves led also to his removal; his rest was now disturbed by frightful dreams. He paid the necessary forfeit-money, and left without notice. The first-floor lodger, Mr. Barfield, kept his rooms, but obtained leave of absence from his employers, and took refuge with some friends in the country. Miss Mybus alone remained in the parlours. “When I am comfortable,” the old lady said, “nothing moves me, at my age. A murder up two pairs of stairs is nearly the same thing as a murder in the next house. Distance, you see, makes all the difference.”

It mattered little to the police what the lodgers did. We had men in plain clothes watching the house night and day. Everybody who went away was privately followed; and the police in the district to which they retired were warned to keep an eye on them, after that. As long as we failed to put Mrs. Zebedee’s extraordinary statement to any sort of test – to say nothing of having proved unsuccessful, thus far, in tracing the knife to its purchaser – we were bound to let no person living under Mr. Crosscapel’s roof, on the night of the murder, slip through our fingers.

•  IV  •

In a fortnight more, Mrs. Zebedee had sufficiently recovered to make the necessary statement – after the preliminary caution addressed to persons in such cases. The surgeon had no hesitation, now, in reporting her to be a sane woman.

Her station in life had been domestic service. She had lived for four years in her last place as lady’s-maid, with a family residing in Dorsetshire. The one objection to her had been the occasional infirmity of sleepwalking, which made it necessary that one of the other female servants should sleep in the same room, with the door locked and the key under her pillow. In all other respects the lady’s-maid was described by her mistress as “a perfect treasure.”

In the last six months of her service, a young man named John Zebedee entered the house (with a written character) as a footman. He soon fell in love with the nice little lady’s-maid, and she heartily returned the feeling. They might have waited for years before they were in a pecuniary position to marry, but for the death of Zebedee’s uncle, who left him a little fortune of two thousand pounds. They were now, for persons in their station, rich enough to please themselves; and they were married from the house in which they had served together, the little daughters of the family showing their affection for Mrs. Zebedee by acting as her bridesmaids.

The young husband was a careful man. He decided to employ his small capital to the best advantage, by sheep-farming in Australia. His wife made no objection; she was ready to go wherever John went.

Accordingly they spent their short honeymoon in London, so as to see for themselves the vessel in which their passage was to be taken. They went to Mrs. Crosscapel’s lodging-house because Zebedee’s uncle had always stayed there when in London. Ten days were to pass before the day of embarkation arrived. This gave the young couple a welcome holiday, and a prospect of amusing themselves to their heart’s content among the sights and shows of the great city.

On their first evening in London they went to the theatre. They were both accustomed to the fresh air of the country, and they felt half stifled by the heat and the gas. However, they were so pleased with an amusement which was new to them that they went to another theatre on the next evening. On this second occasion, John Zebedee found the heat unendurable. They left the theatre, and got back to their lodgings toward ten o’clock.

Let the rest be told in the words used by Mrs. Zebedee herself. She said:

“We sat talking for a little while in our room, and John’s headache got worse and worse. I persuaded him to go to bed, and I put out the candle (the fire giving sufficient light to undress by), so that he might the sooner fall asleep. But he was too restless to sleep. He asked me to read him something. Books always made him drowsy at the best of times.

“I had not myself begun to undress. So I lit the candle again, and I opened the only book I had. John had noticed it at the railway bookstall by the name of ‘The World of Sleep.’ He used to joke with me about my being a sleepwalker; and he said, ‘Here’s something that’s sure to interest you’ – and he made me a present of the book.

“Before I had read to him for more than half an hour he was fast asleep. Not feeling that way inclined, I went on reading to myself.

“The book did indeed interest me. There was one terrible story which took a hold on my mind – the story of a man who stabbed his own wife in a sleepwalking dream. I thought of putting down my book after that, and then changed my mind again and went on. The next chapters were not so interesting; they were full of learned accounts of why we fall asleep, and what our brains do in that state, and such like. It ended in my falling asleep, too, in my armchair by the fireside.

“I don’t know what o’clock it was when I went to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, or whether I dreamed or not. The candle and the fire had both burned out, and it was pitch dark when I woke. I can’t even say why I woke – unless it was the coldness of the room.

“There was a spare candle on the chimney-piece. I found the matchbox, and got a light. Then for the first time, I turned round toward the bed; and I saw—”

She had seen the dead body of her husband, murdered while she was unconsciously at his side – and she fainted, poor creature, at the bare remembrance of it.

The proceedings were adjourned. She received every possible care and attention; the chaplain looking after her welfare as well as the surgeon.

I have said nothing of the evidence of the landlady and servants. It was taken as a mere formality. What little they knew proved nothing against Mrs. Zebedee. The police made no discoveries that supported her first frantic accusation of herself. Her master and mistress, where she had been last in service, spoke of her in the highest terms. We were at a complete deadlock.

It had been thought best not to surprise Mr. Deluc, as yet, by citing him as a witness. The action of the law was, however, hurried in this case by a private communication received from the chaplain.

After twice seeing, and speaking with, Mrs. Zebedee, the reverend gentleman was persuaded that she had no more to do than himself with the murder of her husband. He did not consider that he was justified in repeating a confidential communication – he would only recommend that Mr. Deluc should be summoned to appear at the next examination. This advice was followed.

The police had no evidence against Mrs. Zebedee when the inquiry was resumed. To assist the ends of justice she was now put into the witness-box. The discovery of her murdered husband, when she woke in the small hours of the morning, was passed over as rapidly as possible. Only three questions of importance were put to her.

First, the knife was produced. Had she ever seen it in her husband’s possession? Never. Did she know anything about it? Nothing whatever.

Secondly: Did she, or did her husband, lock the bedroom door when they returned from the theatre? No. Did she afterward lock the door herself? No.

Thirdly: Had she any sort of reason to give for supposing that she had murdered her husband in a sleepwalking dream? No reason, except that she was beside herself at the time, and the book put the thought into her head.

After this the other witnesses were sent out of court The motive for the chaplain’s communication now appeared. Mrs. Zebedee was asked if anything unpleasant had occurred between Mr. Deluc and herself.

Yes. He had caught her alone on the stairs at the lodging-house; had presumed to make love to her; and had carried the insult still farther by attempting to kiss her. She had slapped his face, and had declared that her husband should know of it, if his misconduct was repeated. He was in a furious rage at having his face slapped; and he said to her: “Madam, you may live to regret this.”

After consultation, and at the request of our Inspector, it was decided to keep Mr. Deluc in ignorance of Mrs. Zebedee’s statement for the present. When the witnesses were recalled, he gave the same evidence which he had already given to the Inspector – and he was then asked if he knew anything of the knife. He looked at it without any guilty signs in his face, and swore that he had never seen it until that moment. The resumed inquiry ended, and still nothing had been discovered.

But we kept an eye on Mr. Deluc. Our next effort was to try if we could associate him with the purchase of the knife.

Here again (there really did seem to be a sort of fatality in this case) we reached no useful result. It was easy enough to find out the wholesale cutlers, who had manufactured the knife at Sheffield, by the mark on the blade. But they made tens of thousands of such knives, and disposed of them to retail dealers all over Great Britain – to say nothing of foreign parts. As to finding out the person who had engraved the imperfect inscription (without knowing where, or by whom, the knife had been purchased) we might as well have looked for the proverbial needle in the bundle of hay. Our last resource was to have the knife photographed, with the inscribed side uppermost, and to send copies to every police-station in the kingdom.

At the same time we reckoned up Mr. Deluc – I mean that we made investigations into his past life – on the chance that he and the murdered man might have known each other, and might have had a quarrel, or a rivalry about a woman, on some former occasion. No such discovery rewarded us.

We found Deluc to have led a dissipated life, and to have mixed with very bad company. But he had kept out of reach of the law. A man may be a profligate vagabond; may insult a lady; may say threatening things to her, in the first stinging sensation of having his face slapped – but it doesn’t follow from these blots on his character that he has murdered her husband in the dead of the night.

Once more, then, when we were called upon to report ourselves, we had no evidence to produce. The photographs failed to discover the owner of the knife, and to explain its interrupted inscription. Poor Mrs. Zebedee was allowed to go back to her friends, on entering into her own recognisance to appear again if called upon. Articles in the newspapers began to inquire how many more murderers would succeed in baffling the police. The authorities at the Treasury offered a reward of a hundred pounds for the necessary information. And the weeks passed and nobody claimed the reward.

Our Inspector was not a man to be easily beaten. More inquiries and examinations followed. It is needless to say anything about them. We were defeated – and there, so far as the police and the public were concerned, was an end of it.

The assassination of the poor young husband soon passed out of notice, like other undiscovered murders. One obscure person only was foolish enough, in his leisure hours, to persist in trying to solve the problem of Who Killed Zebedee? He felt that he might rise to the highest position in the police force if he succeeded where his elders and betters had failed – and he held to his own little ambition, though everybody laughed at him. In plain English, I was the man.

•  V  •

Without meaning it, I have told my story ungratefully.

There were two persons who saw nothing ridiculous in my resolution to continue the investigation, single-handed. One of them was Miss Mybus; and the other was the cook, Priscilla Thurlby.

Mentioning the lady first, Miss Mybus was indignant at the resigned manner in which the police accepted their defeat. She was a little bright-eyed wiry woman; and she spoke her mind freely.

“This comes home to me,” she said. “Just look back for a year or two. I can call to mind two cases of persons found murdered in London – and the assassins have never been traced. I am a person, too; and I ask myself if my turn is not coming next. You’re a nice-looking fellow and I like your pluck and perseverance. Come here as often as you think right; and say you are my visitor, if they make any difficulty about letting you in. One thing more! I have nothing particular to do, and I am no fool. Here, in the parlours, I see everybody who comes into the house or goes out of the house. Leave me your address – I may get some information for you yet.”

With the best intentions, Miss Mybus found no opportunity of helping me. Of the two, Priscilla Thurlby seemed more likely to be of use.

In the first place, she was sharp and active, and (not having succeeded in getting another situation as yet) was mistress of her own movements.

In the second place, she was a woman I could trust. Before she left home to try domestic service in London, the parson of her native parish gave her a written testimonial, of which I append a copy. Thus it ran:

I gladly recommend Priscilla Thurlby for any respectable employment which she may be competent to undertake. Her father and mother are infirm old people, who have lately suffered a diminution of their income; and they have a younger daughter to maintain. Rather than be a burden on her parents, Priscilla goes to London to find domestic employment, and to devote her earnings to the assistance of her father and mother. This circumstance speaks for itself. I have known the family many years; and I only regret that I have no vacant place in my own household which I can offer to this good girl,

(Signed)“Henry Deerington, Rector of Roth.

After reading those words, I could safely ask Priscilla to help me in reopening the mysterious murder case to some good purpose.

My notion was that the proceedings of the persons in Mrs. Crosscapel’s house had not been closely enough inquired into yet. By way of continuing the investigation, I asked Priscilla if she could tell me anything which associated the housemaid with Mr. Deluc. She was unwilling to answer. “I may be casting suspicion on an innocent person,” she said. “Besides, I was for so short a time the housemaid’s fellow servant—”

“You slept in the same room with her,” I remarked; “and you had opportunities of observing her conduct toward the lodgers. If they had asked you, at the examination, what I now ask, you would have answered as an honest woman.”

To this argument she yielded. I heard from her certain particulars, which threw a new light on Mr. Deluc, and on the case generally. On that information I acted. It was slow work, owing to the claims on me of my regular duties; but with Priscilla’s help, I steadily advanced toward the end I had in view.

Besides this, I owed another obligation to Mrs. Crosscapel’s nice-looking cook. The confession must be made sooner or later – and I may as well make it now. I first knew what love was, thanks to Priscilla. I had delicious kisses, thanks to Priscilla. And, when I asked if she would marry me, she didn’t say No. She looked, I must own, a little sadly, and she said: “How can two such poor people as we are ever hope to marry?” To this I answered: “It won’t be long before I lay my hand on the clew which my Inspector has failed to find. I shall be in a position to marry you, my dear, when that time comes.”

At our next meeting we spoke of her parents. I was now her promised husband. Judging by what I had heard of the proceedings of other people in my position, it seemed to be only right that I should be made known to her father and mother. She entirely agreed with me; and she wrote home that day to tell them to expect us at the end of the week.

I took my turn of night-duty, and so gained my liberty for the greater part of the next day. I dressed myself in plain clothes, and we took our tickets on the railway for Yateland, being the nearest station to the village in which Priscilla’s parents lived.

•  VI  •

The train stopped, as usual, at the big town of Waterbank. Supporting herself by her needle, while she was still unprovided with a situation, Priscilla had been at work late in the night – she was tired and thirsty. I left the carriage to get her some soda-water. The stupid girl in the refreshment room failed to pull the cork out of the bottle, and refused to let me help her. She took a corkscrew, and used it crookedly. I lost all patience, and snatched the bottle out of her hand. Just as I drew the cork, the bell rang on the platform. I only waited to pour the soda-water into a glass – but the train was moving as I left the refreshment room. The porters stopped me when I tried to jump on to the step of the carriage. I was left behind.

As soon as I had recovered my temper, I looked at the time-table. We had reached Waterbank at five minutes past one. By good luck, the next train was due at forty-four minutes past one, and arrived at Yateland (the next station) ten minutes afterward. I could only hope that Priscilla would look at the time-table too, and wait for me. If I had attempted to walk the distance between the two places, I should have lost time instead of saving it. The interval before me was not very long; I occupied it in looking over the town.

Speaking with all due respect to the inhabitants, Waterbank (to other people) is a dull place. I went up one street and down another – and stopped to look at a shop which struck me; not from anything in itself, but because it was the only shop in the street with the shutters closed.

A bill was posted on the shutters, announcing that the place was to let. The outgoing tradesman’s name and business, announced in the customary painted letters, ran thus: James Wycomb, Cutler, etc.

For the first time, it occurred to me that we had forgotten an obstacle in our way, when we distributed our photographs of the knife. We had none of us remembered that a certain proportion of cutlers might be placed, by circumstances, out of our reach – either by retiring from business or by becoming bankrupt. I always carried a copy of the photograph about me; and I thought to myself, “Here is the ghost of a chance of tracing the knife to Mr. Deluc!”

The shop door was opened, after I had twice rung the bell, by an old man, very dirty and very deaf. He said “You had better go upstairs, and speak to Mr. Scorrier – top of the house.”

I put my lips to the old fellow’s ear-trumpet, and asked who Mr. Scorrier was.

“Brother-in-law to Mr. Wycomb. Mr. Wycomb’s dead. If you want to buy the business apply to Mr. Scorrier.”

Receiving that reply, I went upstairs, and found Mr. Scorrier engaged in engraving a brass doorplate. He was a middle-aged man, with a cadaverous face and dim eyes After the necessary apologies, I produced my photograph.

“May I ask, sir, if you know anything of the inscription on that knife?” I said.

He took his magnifying glass to look at it.

“This is curious,” he remarked quietly. “I remember the queer name – Zebedee. Yes, sir; I did the engraving, as far as it goes. I wonder what prevented me from finishing it?”

The name of Zebedee, and the unfinished inscription on the knife, had appeared in every English newspaper. He took the matter so coolly that I was doubtful how to interpret his answer. Was it possible that he had not seen the account of the murder? Or was he an accomplice with prodigious powers of self-control?

“Excuse me,” I said, “do you read the newspapers?”

“Never! My eyesight is failing me. I abstain from reading, in the interests of my occupation.”

“Have you not heard the name of Zebedee mentioned – particularly by people who do read the newspapers?”

“Very likely; but I didn’t attend to it. When the day’s work is done, I take my walk. Then I have my supper, my drop of grog, and my pipe. Then I go to bed. A dull existence you think, I daresay! I had a miserable life, sir, when I was young. A bare subsistence, and a little rest, before the last perfect rest in the grave – that is all I want. The world has gone by me long ago. So much the better.”

The poor man spoke honestly. I was ashamed of having doubted him. I returned to the subject of the knife.

“Do you know where it was purchased, and by whom?” I asked.

“My memory is not so good as it was,” he said; “but I have got something by me that helps it.”

He took from a cupboard a dirty old scrapbook. Strips of paper, with writing on them, were pasted on the pages, as well as I could see. He turned to an index, or table of contents, and opened a page. Something like a flash of life showed itself on his dismal face.

“Ha! now I remember,” he said. “The knife was bought of my late brother-in-law, in the shop downstairs. It all comes back to me, sir. A person in a state of frenzy burst into this very room, and snatched the knife away from me, when I was only half way through the inscription!”

I felt that I was now close on discovery. “May I see what it is that has assisted your memory?” I asked.

“Oh yes. You must know, sir, I live by engraving inscriptions and addresses, and I paste in this book the manuscript instructions which I receive, with marks of my own on the margin. For one thing, they serve as a reference to new customers. And for another thing, they do certainly help my memory.”

He turned the book toward me, and pointed to a slip of paper which occupied the lower half of a page.

I read the complete inscription, intended for the knife that killed Zebedee, and written as follows:

“To John Zebedee. From Priscilla Thurlby.”

•  VII  •

I declare that it is impossible for me to describe what I felt when Priscilla’s name confronted me like a written confession of guilt. How long it was before I recovered myself in some degree, I cannot say. The only thing I can clearly call to mind is, that I frightened the poor engraver.

My first desire was to get possession of the manuscript inscription. I told him I was a policeman, and summoned him to assist me in the discovery of a crime. I even offered him money. He drew back from my hand. “You shall have it for nothing,” he said, “if you will only go away and never come here again.” He tried to cut it out of the page – but his trembling hands were helpless. I cut it out myself, and attempted to thank him. He wouldn’t hear me. “Go away!” he said, “I don’t like the look of you.”

It may be here objected that I ought not to have felt so sure as I did of the woman’s guilt, until I had got more evidence against her. The knife might have been stolen from her, supposing she was the person who had snatched it out of the engraver’s hands, and might have been afterward used by the thief to commit the murder. All very true. But I never had a moment’s doubt in my own mind, from the time when I read the damnable line in the engraver’s book.

I went back to the railway without any plan in my head. The train by which I had proposed to follow her had left Waterbank. The next train that arrived was for London. I took my place in it – still without any plan in my head.

At Charing Cross a friend met me. He said, “You’re looking miserably ill. Come and have a drink.”

I went with him. The liquor was what I really wanted; it strung me up, and cleared my head. He went his way, and I went mine. In a little while more, I determined what I would do.

In the first place, I decided to resign my situation in the police, from a motive which will presently appear. In the second place, I took a bed at a public-house. She would no doubt return to London, and she would go to my lodgings to find out why I had broken my appointment. To bring to justice the one woman whom I had dearly loved was too cruel a duty for a poor creature like me. I preferred leaving the police force. On the other hand, if she and I met before time had helped me to control myself, I had a horrid fear that I might turn murderer next, and kill her then and there. The wretch had not only all but misled me into marrying her, but also into charging the innocent housemaid with being concerned in the murder.

The same night I hit on a way of clearing up such doubts as still harassed my mind. I wrote to the rector of Roth, informing him that I was engaged to marry her, and asking if he would tell me (in consideration of my position) what her former relations might have been with the person named John Zebedee.

By return of post I got this reply:

“Sir – Under the circumstances, I think I am bound to tell you confidentially what the friends and well-wishers of Priscilla have kept secret, for her sake.

“Zebedee was in service in this neighbourhood. I am sorry to say it, of a man who has come to such a miserable end – but his behaviour to Priscilla proves him to have been a vicious and heartless wretch. They were engaged – and, I add with indignation, he tried to seduce her under a promise of marriage. Her virtue resisted him, and he pretended to be ashamed of himself. The banns were published in my church. On the next day Zebedee disappeared, and cruelly deserted her. He was a capable servant; and I believe he got another place. I leave you to imagine what the poor girl suffered under the outrage inflicted on her. Going to London, with my recommendation, she answered the first advertisement that she saw, and was unfortunate enough to begin her career in domestic service in the very lodging-house to which (as I gather from the newspaper report of the murder) the man Zebedee took the person whom he married, after deserting Priscilla. Be assured that you are about to unite yourself to an excellent girl, and accept my best wishes for your happiness.”

It was plain from this that neither the rector nor the parents and friends knew anything of the purchase of the knife. The one miserable man who knew the truth was the man who had asked her to be his wife.

I owed it to myself – at least so it seemed to me – not to let it be supposed that I, too, had meanly deserted her. Dreadful as the prospect was, I felt that I must see her once more, and for the last time.

She was at work when I went into her room. As I opened the door she started to her feet. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes flashed with anger. I stepped forward – and she saw my face. My face silenced her.

I spoke in the fewest words I could find.

“I have been to the cutler’s shop at Waterbank,” I said. “There is the unfinished inscription on the knife, complete in your handwriting. I could hang you by a word. God forgive me – I can’t say the word.”

Her bright complexion turned to a dreadful clay-colour. Her eyes were fixed and staring, like the eyes of a person in a fit. She stood before me, still and silent. Without saying more, I dropped the inscription into the fire. Without saying more, I left her.

I never saw her again.

•  VIII  •

But I heard from her a few days later. The letter has long since been burned. I wish I could have forgotten it as well. It sticks to my memory. If I die with my senses about me, Priscilla’s letter will be my last recollection on earth.

In substance it repeated what the rector had already told me. Further, it informed me that she had bought the knife as a keepsake for Zebedee, in place of a similar knife which he had lost. On the Saturday, she made the purchase, and left it to be engraved. On the Sunday, the banns were put up. On the Monday, she was deserted; and she snatched the knife from the table while the engraver was at work.

She only knew that Zebedee had added a new sting to the insult inflicted on her when he arrived at the lodgings with his wife. Her duties as cook kept her in the kitchen – and Zebedee never discovered that she was in the house. I still remember the last lines of her confession:

“The devil entered into me when I tried their door, on my way up to bed, and found it unlocked, and listened a while, and peeped in. I saw them by the dying light of the candle – one asleep on the bed, the other asleep by the fireside. I had the knife in my hand, and the thought came to me to do it, so that they might hang her for the murder. I couldn’t take the knife out again, when I had done it. Mind this! I did really like you – I didn’t say Yes, because you could hardly hang your own wife, if you found out who killed Zebedee.”

Since the past time I have never heard again of Priscilla Thurlby; I don’t know whether she is living or dead. Many people may think I deserve to be hanged myself for not having given her up to the gallows. They may, perhaps, be disappointed when they see this confession, and hear that I have died decently in my bed. I don’t blame them. I am a penitent sinner. I wish all merciful Christians good-bye forever.

First published as
“Who Killed Zebedee”
Spirit of the Times 25 Dec 1880

ADDITIONAL STORIES

THE UNCOLLECTED STORIES

Compiled by book producer ECM

These seem not to have been collected during Collins’ lifetime.

CONTENTS

Volpurno
The Last Stage Coachman
The Twin Sisters
A Passage in the Life of Mr. Perugino Potts
The Midnight Mass
Nine O’Clock
Mr. Wray’s Cash Box
The Poetry Did It
Farmer Fairweather
A Sad Death and a Brave Life
The Hidden Cash
The First Officer’s Confession

VOLPURNO

OR, THE STUDENT

“—Memory, like a drop that, night and day,

Falls cold and ceaseless, wore her heart away.”

– Lalla Rookh

Perfectly overcome by the heat of an Italian evening at Venice, I quitted the bustling gaiety of St Mark’s Place for the quiet of a gondola, and directing the man to shape his course for the island of Lido, (a narrow strip of land dividing the “lagunes,” or shallows beyond the city, from the open sea,) I seated myself on the prow of the vessel, with a firm determination to make the most of the flimsy wafts of air that every now and then ruffled the surface of the still, dark waters.

Nothing intercepted my view of the distant city, whose mighty buildings glowed beneath the long, red rays of the setting sun, save occasionally, when a market boat on its return floated lazily past us, or the hull of some tall merchantman shut out for an instant the dome of a magnificent church or the deep red brickwork of the Ducal Palace. Inexpressibly beautiful was the glimmering of the far off lights in the houses, as, one after another, they seemed to start out of the bosom of the deep; and at that quiet hour the repose – the peculiar repose of Venice – seemed mellowed into perfect harmony with the delicious languor of the atmosphere. The sounds of laughter, or snatches of rude songs that now and then came over the waves, instead of interupting [sic], invested with fresh charms the luxurious silence of the moment. We touched the narrow strip of sand that forms the beach of the little island, and stepping ashore, I enjoyed the only particle of green sward in all Venice.

I walked backward and forward for some time, thinking of England and English friends, (for at such hours the mind wanders to distant scenes and old customs,) without interruption, until a slight rustling among the bushes of the island reminded me that I was not the only tenant of the garden of the Lido, and looking through the fast gathering darkness, I discovered an aged female pacing the smooth walk near, apparently lost in contemplation.

My curiosity was rather excited by the presence of a lone old woman in such an unfrequented place; but the haze of the evening prevented my observing her with any degree of accuracy, and as I feared to disturb her by advancing too near, I could only guess at her features. At last the dwarf trees in the island “began to glitter with the climbing moon,” and I saw that she was weeping bitterly. Her thick grey [sic] tresses were braided over a face that had evidently once been beautiful, and there was a dignity and propriety in her demeanour, and a native nobleness of expression in her countenance, which told me that I looked on no common person. She continued her solitary walk for some time, occasionally pausing to look up to the stars that now gemmed the clear glowing firmament, or to pluck a few dead leaves from a little rose bush that grew in an obscure corner of the garden, until a thought seemed suddenly to strike her, and hastening to the shore she stepped into a small gondola that was in waiting and rapidly disappeared.

On my return to Venice, I mentioned the circumstance to my cicerone, or guide, a remarkably intelligent fellow; and much to my astonishment, he solved the mystery of the lonely lady to me immediately. As her history is one of great devotion and misfortune, it may perhaps merit repetition.

It appeared, then, from the statement of the cicerone, that the elderly lady was an English woman who had once been the beauty of the gay circles of Venince [sic]. She had there met with a student in astronomy; and whether it was his lonely mystic life, the charm of his conversation and person, or his scientific attainments, that won her, I know not, but he gained her affections, and it is still remembered by those acquainted with her at the time, that her attachment to him [was] so intensely passive in its devotion as to seem almost unearthly, and that very Lido, now the scene of her affliction, was once the favourite spot for their early love greetings.

He was a strange, wild creature, that student – his family were natives of a distant land, and he had travelled to Italy to devote himself, body and mind, to his favourite pursuit. From the after testimony of one of his friends, it appeared that in childhood he had been attacked with fits of temporary derangement, and his extraordinary application to the mysterious, exciting study of astronomy had increased this infirmity in a most extraordinary and terrible manner. At times he was haunted by a vision of a woman of disgusting ugliness who seemed to pursue and torment him wherever he went. In a few hours, delirium, and sometimes raging madness, would ensue from this hallucination, and though he regularly recovered free from the terrible creation of his mind, it was with a constitution more and more decayed by each successive ravage of his disorder. As he advanced, however, to manhood, these violent and destructive fits became less and less frequent and at the time that he met with the beautiful English lady, though his conscience seemed to tell him that he was no companion for a delicate woman, he tried to persuade himself that his constitution had at last mastered his imagination and that he was as fit for society as his less excitable fellow men. And he thought there was much excuse for him, for who could withstand the quiet yet intense affection of the English woman? Who could resist the temptation of listening to her sweet musical voice, of watching her sad soft blue eyes, or of hearing her fascinating conversation? She was so devoted, so gentle, so enthusiastic on his favourite subject, so patient of his little fits of peevishness, and melancholy, so considerate of his enjoyments, so comforting in his afflictions, he must surely have been without heart or feeling to have been coldly calculating on possibilities at such a time. He schooled himself to think that it was his solitary life that had so affected his faculties, and that a companion – and such a companion as his betrothed – would drive out all remains of his disorder, even supposing it to be still existing. In short, the eloquent pleading of the heart prevailed over the still small whisper of conscience; the wedding day was fixed, and it was remarked with surprise that the nearer it approached, the more melancholy did Volpurno become. However, the ceremony was performed with great splendour, and the bridal party set out to spend the day on the mainland, where the friends of the bride were to say farewell before she proceeded with her husband on the wedding tour. They were chatting merrily in the little hotel at Mestri, on the mainland, when they were horrified by suddenly hearing sounds of frantic laughter, followed by wild shrieks of agony, and the student rushed into the room, his frame convulsed with horror, with a drawn sword in his hand, as if pursuing something a few yards before him, with an expression of mingled fury and despair. Before the horrified guests could interfere, he had jumped from the window, and with the same shrieks of laughter, sped across the country in pursuit of his phantom enemy.

Assistance was at hand; he was instantly followed; but with supernatural strength he held on his course for hours. He was occasionally seen, as he paused for an instant to strike furiously in the air, and his cries of anguish were sometimes borne by the wind to the ears of his pursuers; but they never gained on him, and unless he neared a village, and was stopped by the inhabitants, his capture seemed impracticable. At last, as night grew on, he sunk exhausted at a lone hovel by the way side, and the bride and her party came up with the maniac bridegroom. But the stern fit was past and gone, and he was lifted insensible upon a coarse pallet in the hut. The Englishwoman sat by his side and bathed his temples, and watched his deep, long slumber, from the rise of the moon to the bright advent of day. And thus passed the bridal night of the heiress and the beauty.

Towards the going down of the sun, Volpurno became conscious, and though the fit had left him, the agony of his situation allowed no repose to his jarred, disordered nerves. His remorse was terrible to behold: over and over again did he heap curses on his selfishness in drawing an innocent. Trusting woman into such a labyrinth of suffering. All her repeated assurances of her forgiveness, of her happiness at his recovery, of her hopes for the future, failed to quiet him; and so, between soothing his anguish and administering his remedies, three days passed, and on the third a material changed took place. The dim eye of the student brightened, and his wan cheek flushed with the hue of health. He commanded all to leave the room but his bride, and to her he made full confession of his terrible infirmity, and of its seizing him with tenfold violence at the inn at Mestri, and of the frightful forebodings he had felt as their wedding approached. And then he grew calmer, and the smile again came forth upon his lip, and the melody returned to his voice, and at his favourite hour of midnight, – in a peaceful quietude that had been unknown to him in his life, – Volpurno died.

The corpse was carried to Venice and interred by the Englishwoman by her former trysting-place on the Lido. People wondered at her calmness under such an affliction, for she lived on, but little changed – save that she was paler and thinner – from the quiet creature that had won the fatal affection of Volpurno.

By degrees her more immediate friends died, or were called into other countries, and she was left alone in Venice: and then her solitary pilgrimages to the Lido became more and more frequent. As years grew on, and the finger of time imprinted the first furrows on the fair, delicate cheek, and planted the grey among the rich beauties of her hair, these visits increased. While, from day to day, the powers of her body became older, the faculties of her heart grew greener and younger. Years dulled not the pristine delicacy of her feelings, and age seemed in her to nourish instead of impairing the silent growth of memory.

•   •   •

A few months afterwards I again visited the Lido at the same hour, but the Englishwoman did not appear. I walked towards the rose bush which I conjectured grew over the grave of Volpurno; its withered leaves were untrimmed, and the earth around it was newly heaped up. I asked no more questions; the freshness of the mould [earth], and the neglect of the rose tree, were eloquent informers.

The Albion 8 Jul 1843

THE LAST STAGE COACHMAN

It falls upon the ear of everyone but a shareholder in railways, with a boding, melancholy sound. In spite of our natural reverence for the wonders of science, our hearts grow heavy at the thought of never again beholding the sweet-smelling nosegay, the unimpeachable top boots, and fair white breeches; once so prominent as the uniform of the fraternity. With all our respect for expeditious and businesslike travelling, we experience a feeling nearly akin to disgust, at being marshalled to our places by a bell and a fellow with a badge on his shoulder; instead of hearing the cheery summons “Now then, gentlemen,” and being regaled by a short and instructive conversation with a ruddy-faced personage in a dustless olive green coat and prismatic belcher handkerchief. What did we want with smoke? Had we not the coachman’s cigar if we were desirous of observing its shapes and appearances? Who would be so unreasonable as to languish for steam, when he could inhale it on a cool, autumnal morning, naturally concocted from the backs of four blood horses? Who! – Alas! we may propose questions and find out answers to the end of the chapter, and yet fail in reforming the perverted taste of the present generation; we know that the attempt is useless, and we give up in sorrowful and philosophic resignation and proceed undaunted by the probable sneers of railway directors, to the recital of—

A VISION

Methought I walked forth one autumn evening to observe the arrival of a stage coach. I wandered on, yet nothing of the kind met my eye. I tried many an old public road – they were now grass-grown and miry, or desecrated by the abominable presence of a “station.” I wended my way towards a famous roadside inn: it was desolate and silent, or in other words, “To Let.” I looked for “the commercial room:” not a pot of beer adorned the mouldering tables and not a pipe lay scattered over the wild and beautiful seclusions of its once numerous “boxes.” It was deserted and useless; the voice of the traveller rung no longer round its walls, and the merry horn of the guard startled no more the sleepy few, who once congregated round its hospitable door. The chill fireplace and broad, antiquated mantelpiece presented but one bill – the starting time of an adjacent railroad; surmounted by a representation of those engines of destruction, in dull, frowsy lithograph.

I turned to the yard. Where was the ostler with his unbraced breeches and his upturned shirt sleeves? Where was the stable boy with his wisp of straw and his sieve of oats? Where were the coquettish mares and the tall blood horses? Where was the manger and the stable door—? – All gone – all disappeared: the buildings dilapidated and tottering – of what use is a stable to a stoker? The ostler and stable boy had passed away – what fellowship have either with a boiler? The inn yard was no more! The very dunghill in its farthest corner was choked by dust and old bricks, and the cock, the pride of the country round, clamoured no longer on the ruined and unsightly wall. I thought it was possible that he had satisfied long since the cravings of a railway committee; and I sat down on a ruined water-tub to give way to the melancholy reflections called up by the sight before me.

I know not how long I meditated. There was no officious waiter to ask me, “What I would please to order?” No chambermaid to simper out “This way, Sir,” – not even a stray cat to claim acquaintance with the calves of my legs, or a horse’s hoof to tread upon my toe. There was nothing to disturb my miserable reverie, and I anathematised railways without distinction or exception.

The distant sound of slow and stealthy footsteps at last attracted my attention. I looked to the far end of the yard. Heavens above! a stage coachman was pacing its worn and weedy pavement.

There was no mistaking him – he wore the low-crowned, broad-brimmed, whitey-brown, well-brushed hat; the voluminous checked neckcloth; the ample-skirted coat; the striped waistcoat; the white cords; and last, not least, the immortal boots. But alas! the calf that had once filled them out, had disappeared; they clanked heavily on the pavement, instead of creaking tightly and noisily wherever he went. His waistcoat, evidently once filled almost to bursting, hung in loose, uncomfortable folds about his emaciated waist: large wrinkles marred the former beauty of the fit of his coat: and his face was all lines and furrows, instead of smiles and jollity. The spirit of the fraternity had passed away from him – he was the stage coachman only in dress.

He walked backwards and forwards for some time without turning his head. one way or the other, except now and then to peer into the deserted stable, or to glance mournfully at the whip he held in his hand: at last the sound of the arrival of a train struck upon his ear!

He drew himself up to his full height, slowly and solemnly shook his clenched fist in the direction of the sound and looked – Oh that look! it spoke annihilation to the mightiest engine upon the rail, it scoffed at steam, and flashed furious derision at the largest terminus that ever was erected; it was an awfully comprehensive look – the concentrated essence of the fierce and deadly enmity of all the stage coachmen in England to steam conveyance.

To my utter astonishment, not, it must be owned, unmixed with fear, he suddenly turned his eyes towards my place of shelter, and walked up to me.

“That’s the rail,” said he, between his set teeth.

“It is,” said I, considerably embarrassed.

“Damn it!” returned the excited Stage Coachman. There was something inexpressibly awful about this execration; and I confess I felt a strong internal conviction that the next day’s paper would teem with horrible railway accidents in every column.

“I did my utmost to hoppose ’em,” said the Stage Coachman, in softened accents. “I wos the last that guv’ in, I kep’ a losing day after day, and yet I worked on; I wos determined to do my dooty, and I drove a coach the last day with an old hooman and a carpet bag inside and three little boys and seven whopping empty portmanteaus outside. I wos determined my last kick to have some passengers to show to the rail, so I took my wife and children ‘cos nobody else would’nt go, and then we guv’ in. Hows’ever the last time as I wos on the road I didn’t go and show ’em an empty coach – we wasn’t full, but we wasn’t empty; we wos game to the last!”

A grim smile of triumph lit up the features of the deposed Coachman as he gave vent to this assertion. he took hold of me by the buttonhole, and led the way into the house.

“This landlord wos an austerious sort of a man,” said he; “he used to hobserve, that he only wished a Railway Committee would dine at his house, he’d pison ’em all, and emigrate; and he’d ha’ done it, too!”

I did not venture to doubt this, so the stage coachman continued.

“I’ve smoked my pipe by the hour together in that fireplace, I’ve read ‘The Times’ adwertisements and Perlice Reports in that box till I fell asleep; I’ve walked up and down this here room a saying all sorts of things about the rail, and a busting for happiness. Outside this wery door I’ve bin a drownded in thankys from ladies for never lettin’ nobody step through their band-boxes. The chambermaids used to smile, and the dogs used to bark, wherever I came. – But it’s all hover now – the poor feller as kep’ this place takes tickets at a Station, and the chambermaids makes scalding hot tea behind a mahuggany counter for people as has no time to drink it in!”

As the Stage Coachman uttered these words, a contemptuous sneer puckered his sallow cheek, he led me back into the yard; the ruined appearance of which, looked doubly mournful, under the faint rays of moonlight that every here and there stole through the dilapidated walls of the stable. An owl had taken up his abode, where the chief ostler’s bedroom had once rejoiced in the grotesque majesty of huge portraits of every winner of every “Derby,” since the first days of Epsom. The bird of night flew heavily off at our approach, and my companion pointed gloomily up to the fragments of mouldy, worm-eaten wood, the last relics of the stable loft.

“He wos a great friend of mine, was that h’ostler,” said the Coachman, “but he’s left this railway-bothered world – he was finished by the train.”

At my earnest entreaty to hear further, he continued,

“When this h’old place, wos guv up and ruinated; the h’oastler as ’ud never look at the rail before, went down to have a sight of it, and as he wos a leaning his elbows on the wall, and a wishing as how he had the stabling of all the steam h’ingines (he’d ha’ done ’em justice!) wot should he see, but one of his ’osses as wos thrown out of employ by the rail, a walking along jist where the train was coming. Bill jumped down, and as he wos a leading of him h’off, up comes the train, and went over his leg and cut the ’oss in two – ‘Tom,’ says he to me when we picked him up; ‘I’m a going eleven mile an hour, to the last stage as is left for me to do. I’ve always done my dooty with the ’osses; I’ve bin and done it now – bury that ere poor ’oss and me out of the noise of the rail.’ We got the surgeons to him, but he never spoke no more, Poor Bill! Poor Bill!”

This last recollection seemed too much for the Stage Coachman, he wrung my hand, and walked abruptly to the furthest corner of the yard.

I took care not to interrupt him, and watched him carefully from a distance.

At first, the one expression of his countenance was melancholy; but by degrees, other thoughts came crowding from his mind, and mantled on his woebegone visage. Poor fellow, I could see that he was again in imagination the beloved of the ladies and the adored of the chambermaids: a faint reflection of the affable, yet majestic demeanour, required by his calling, flitted occasionally over his pinched, attenuated features: and brightened the cold, melancholy expression of his countenance.

As I still looked, it grew darker and darker, yet the face of the Stage Coachman was never for an instant hidden from me. The same artificial expression of pleasure characterized its lineaments as before. Suddenly I heard a strange, unnatural noise in the airflow it seemed like the distant trampling of horses; and now again, like the rumbling of a heavily laden coach along a public road. A faint, sickly light, spread itself over that part of the Heavens whence the sounds proceeded; and after an interval, a fully equipped Stage Coach appeared in the clouds, with a railway director strapped fast to each wheel, and a stoker between the teeth of each of the four horses.

In place of luggage, fragments of broken steam carriages, and red carpet bags filled with other mementos of railway accidents, occupied the roof. Chance passengers appeared to be the only tenants of the outside places. In front sat Julius Caesar and Mrs. Hannah Moore; and behind, Sir Joseph Banks and Mrs. Brownrigge. Of all the “insides” I could, I grieve to say, see nothing.

On the box was a little man with fuzzy hair and large iron grey whiskers; clothed in a coat of engineers’ skin, with gloves of the hide of railway police. He pulled up opposite my friend, and bowing profoundly motioned him to the box seat.

A gleam of unutterable joy irradiated the Stage Coachman’s countenance, as be stepped lightly into his place, seized the reins, and with one hearty “good night,” addressed to an imaginary inn-full of people, started the horses.

Off they drove! my friend in the plenitude of his satisfaction cracking the whip every instant as he drove the phantom coach into the air. And amidst the shrieks of the railway directors at the wheel, the groans of James Watt, the bugle of the guard, and the tremendous cursing of the invisible “insides,” fast and furiously disappeared from my eyes.

Illuminated Magazine 1 Aug 1843

THE TWIN SISTERS

A True Story

Among those who attended the first of the King’s levées, during the London season of 18— , was an unmarried gentleman of large fortune, named Streatfield. While his carriage was proceeding slowly down St. James’s Street, he naturally sought such amusement and occupation as he could find in looking on the brilliant scene around him. The day was unusually fine; crowds of spectators thronged the street and the balconies of the houses on either side of it, all gazing at the different equipages with as eager a curiosity and interest, as if fine vehicles and fine people inside them were the rarest objects of contemplation in the whole metropolis. Proceeding at a slower and slower pace, Mr. Streatfield’s carriage had just arrived at the middle of the street, when a longer stoppage than usual occurred. He looked carelessly up at the nearest balcony; and there, among some eight or ten ladies, all strangers to him, he saw one face that riveted his attention immediately.

He had never beheld anything so beautiful,anything which struck him with such strange, mingled, and sudden sensations, as this face. He gazed and gazed on it, hardly knowing where he was, or what he was doing, until the line of vehicles began again to move on. Then – after first ascertaining the number of the house – he flung himself back in the carriage, and tried to examine his feelings, to reason himself into self-possession; but it was all in vain. He was seized with that amiable form of social monomania, called “love at first sight.”

He entered the palace, greeted his friends, and performed all the necessary Court ceremonies, feeling the whole time like a man in a trance. He spoke mechanically, and moved mechanically – the lovely face in the balcony occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. On his return home, he had engagements for the afternoon and evening – he forgot and broke them all; and walked back to St. James’s Street as soon as he had changed his dress.

The balcony was empty; the sight-seers who had filled it but a few hours before, had departed – but obstacles of all sorts now tended only to stimulate Mr. Streatfield; he was determined to ascertain the parentage of the young lady, determined to look on the lovely face again – the thermometer of his heart had risen already to Fever Heat! Without loss of time, the shopkeeper to whom the house belonged was bribed to loquacity by a purchase. All that he could tell, in answer to inquiries, was that he had let his lodgings to an elderly gentleman and his wife, from the country, who had asked some friends into their balcony to see the carriages go to the levée. Nothing daunted, Mr. Streatfield questioned and questioned again. What was the old gentleman’s name? – Dimsdale. – Could he see Mr. Dimsdale’s servant? – The obsequious shopkeeper had no doubt that he could: Mr. Dimsdale’s servant should be sent for immediately.

In a few minutes the servant, the all-important link in the chain of Love’s evidence, made his appearance. He was a pompous, portly man, who listened with solemn attention, with a stern judicial calmness, to Mr. Streatfield’s rapid and somewhat confused inquiries, which were accompanied by a minute description of the young lady, and by several explanatory statements, all very fictitious, and all very plausible. Stupid as the servant was, and suspicious as all stupid people are, he had nevertheless sense enough to perceive that he was addressed by a gentleman, and gratitude enough to feel considerably mollified by the handsome douceur which was quietly slipped into his hand. After much pondering and doubting, he at last arrived at the conclusion that the fair object of Mr. Streatfield’s inquiries was a Miss Langley, who joined the party in the balcony that morning, with her sister; and who was the daughter of Mr. Langley, of Langley Hall, in ———shire. The family were now staying in London, at ——— Street. More information than this, the servant stated that he could not afford – he was certain that he had made no mistake, for the Miss Langleys were the only very young ladies in the house that morning – however, if Mr. Streatfield wished to speak to his master, he was ready to carry any message with which he might be charged.

But Mr. Streatfield had already heard enough for his purpose, and departed at once for his club, determined to discover some means of being introduced in due form to Miss Langley, before he slept that night – though he should travel round the whole circle of his acquaintance – high and low, rich and poor – on making the attempt. Arrived at the club, he began to inquire resolutely, in all directions, for a friend who knew Mr. Langley, of Langley Hall. He disturbed gastronomic gentlemen at their dinner; he interrupted agricultural gentlemen who were deep in the moaning over the prospects of the harvest; he startled literary gentlemen who were deep in the critical mysteries of the last Review; he invaded billiard-room, dressing-room, smoking-room; he was more like a frantic ministerial whipper-in, hunting up stray members for a division than an ordinary man; and the oftener he was defeated in his object, the more determined he was to succeed. At last, just as he had vainly inquired of everybody that he knew, just as he was standing in the hall of the clubhouse thinking where he should go next, a friend entered, who at once relieved him of all his difficulties – a precious, an inestimable man, who was on intimate terms with Mr. Langley, and had been lately staying at Langley Hall. To this friend all the lover’s cares and anxieties were at once confided; and a fitter depositary for such secrets of the heart could hardly have been found. He made no jokes – for he was not a bachelor; he abstained from shaking his head and recommending prudence – for he was not a seasoned husband, or an experienced widower; what he really did, was to enter heart and soul into his friend’s projects – for he was precisely in that position, the only position, in which the male sex generally take a proper interest in matchmaking: he was a newly married man.

Two days after, Mr. Streatfield was the happiest of mortals – he was introduced to the lady of his love, to Miss Jane Langley. He really enjoyed the priceless privilege of looking once more on the face in the balcony, and looking on it almost as often as he wished. It was perfect Elysium. Mr. and Mrs. Langley saw little, or no company – Miss Jane was always accessible, never monopolised – the light of her beauty shone, day after day, for her adorer alone; and his love blossomed in it, fast as flowers in a hot-house. Passing quickly by all the minor details of the wooing to arrive the sooner at the grand fact of the winning, let us simply relate that Mr. Streatfield’s object in seeking an introduction to Mr. Langley was soon explained, and was indeed visible enough long before the explanation. He was a handsome man, an accomplished man, and a rich man. His first two qualifications conquered the daughter, and his third the father. In six weeks Mr. Streatfield was the accepted suitor of Miss Jane Langley.

The wedding-day was fixed – it was arranged that the marriage should take place at Langley Hall, whither the family proceeded, leaving the unwilling lover in London, a prey to all the inexorable business formalities of the occasion. For ten days did the ruthless lawyers – those dead weights that burden the back of Hymen – keep their victim imprisoned in the metropolis, occupied over settlements that never seemed likely to be settled. But even the long march of the Law has its end like other mortal things: at the expiration of the ten days all was completed, and Mr. Streatfield found himself at liberty to start for Langley Hall.

A large party was assembled at the house to grace the approaching nuptials. There were to be tableaux, charades, boating-trips, riding-excursions, amusements of all sorts – the whole to conclude (in the playbill phrase) with the grand climax of the wedding. Mr. Streatfield arrived late; dinner was ready; he had barely time to dress, and then the bustle into the drawing-room, just as the guests were leaving it, to offer his arm to Miss Jane – all greetings with friends and introductions to strangers being postponed till the party met round the dining-table.

Grace had been said; the covers were taken off; the loud cheerful hum of conversation was just beginning, when Mr. Streatfield’s eyes met the eyes of a young lady who was seated opposite, at the table. The guests near him, observing at the same moment, that he continued standing after everyone else had been placed, glanced at him inquiringly. To their astonishment and alarm, they observed that his face had suddenly become deadly pale – his rigid features looked struck in paralysis. Several of his friends spoke to him; but for the first few moments he returned no answer. Then, still fixing his eyes upon the young lady opposite, he abruptly exclaimed in a voice, the altered tones of which startled everyone who heard him: “That is the face I saw in the balcony! – that woman is the only woman I can ever marry!” The next instant, without a word more either of explanation or apology, he hurried from the room.

One or two of the guests mechanically started up, as if to follow him; the rest remained at the table, looking on each other in speechless surprise. But, before anyone could either act or speak, almost at the moment when the door closed on Mr. Streatfield, the attention of all was painfully directed to Jane Langley. She had fainted. Her mother and sisters removed her from the room immediately, aided by the servants. As they disappeared, a dead silence again sank down over the company – they all looked round with one accord to the master of the house.

Mr. Langley’s face and manner sufficiently revealed the suffering and suspense that he was secretly enduring. But he was a man of the world – neither by word nor action did he betray what was passing within him. He resumed his place at the table, and begged his guests to do the same. He affected to make light of what had happened; entreated everyone to forget it, or, if they remembered it at all, to remember it only as a mere accident which would no doubt be satisfactorily explained. Perhaps it was only a jest on Mr. Streatfield’s part – rather too serious a one, he must own. At any rate, whatever was the cause of the interruption to the dinner which had just happened, it was not important enough to require everybody to fast around the table of the feast. He asked it as a favour to himself, that no further notice might be taken of what had occurred. While Mr. Langley was speaking thus, he hastily wrote a few lines on a piece of paper, and gave it to one of the servants. The note was directed to Mr. Streatfield; the lines contained only these words: “Two hours hence, I shall expect to see you alone in the library.”

The dinner proceeded; the places occupied by the female members of the Langley family, and by the young lady who had attracted Mr. Streatfield’s notice in so extraordinary a manner, being left vacant. Everyone present endeavoured to follow Mr. Langley’s advice, and go through the business of the dinner, as if nothing had occurred; but the attempt failed miserably. Long, blank pauses occurred in the conversation; general topics were started, but never pursued; it was more like an assembly of strangers, than a meeting of friends; people neither ate nor drank, as they were accustomed to eat and drink; they talked in altered voices, and sat with unusual stillness, even in the same positions. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances, all alike perceived that some great domestic catastrophe had happened; all foreboded that some serious, if not fatal, explanation of Mr. Streatfield’s conduct would ensue: and it was vain and hopeless – a very mockery of self-possession – to attempt to shake off the sinister and chilling influences that recent events had left behind them, and resume at will the thoughtlessness and hilarity of ordinary life.

Still, however, Mr. Langley persisted in doing the honours of his table, in proceeding doggedly through all the festive ceremonies of the hour, until the ladies rose and retired. Then, after looking at his watch, he beckoned to one of his sons to take his place; and quietly left the room. He only stopped once, as he crossed the hall, to ask news of his daughter from one of the servants. The reply was, that she had had a hysterical fit; that the medical attendant of the family had been sent for; and that since his arrival she had become more composed. When the man had spoken, Mr. Langley made no remark, but proceeded at once to the library. He locked the door behind him, as soon as he entered the room.

Mr. Streatfield was already waiting there – he was seated at the table, endeavouring to maintain an appearance of composure, by mechanically turning over the leaves of the books before him. Mr. Langley drew a chair near him; and in low, but very firm tones, began the conversation thus:

“I have given you two hours, Sir, to collect yourself, to consider your position fully – I presume, therefore, that you are now prepared to favour me with an explanation of your conduct at my table, today.”

“What explanation can I make? – what can I say, or think of this most terrible of fatalities?” exclaimed Mr. Streatfield, speaking faintly and confusedly; and still not looking up – “There has been an unexampled error committed! – a fatal mistake, which I could never have anticipated, and over which I had no control!”

“Enough, sir, of the language of romance,” interrupted Mr. Langley, coldly; “I am neither of an age nor a disposition to appreciate it. I come here to ask plain questions honestly, and I insist, as my right, on receiving answers in the same spirit. You, Mr. Streatfield, sought an introduction to me – you professed attached to my daughter Jane – your proposals were (I fear unhappily for us) accepted – your wedding-day was fixed – and now, after all this, when you happen to observe my daughter’s twin-sister sitting opposite to you—”

“Her twin-sister!” exclaimed Mr. Streatfield; and his trembling hand crumpled the leaves of the book, which he still held while he spoke. “Why is it, intimate as I have been with your family, that I now know for the first time that Miss Jane Langley has a twin-sister?”

“Do you descend, sir, to a subterfuge, when I ask you for an explanation?” returned Mr. Langley, angrily. “You must have heard, over and over again, that my children, Jane and Clara, were twins.”

“On my word and honour, I declare that—”

“Spare me all appeals to your word or your honour, sir; I am beginning to doubt both.”

“I will not make the unhappy situation in which we are all placed, still worse, by answering your last words, as I might, at other times, feel inclined to answer them,” said Mr. Streatfield, assuming a calmer demeanour than he had hitherto displayed. “I tell you the truth, when I tell you that, before today, I never knew that any of your children were twins. Your daughter, Jane, has frequently spoken to me of her absent sister, Clara, but never spoke of her as her twin-sister. Until today, I have had no opportunity of discovering the truth; for until today, I have never met Miss Clara Langley since I saw her in the balcony of the house in St. James’s Street. The only one of your children who was never present during my intercourse with your family, in London, was your daughter Clara – the daughter whom I now know, for the first time, as the young lady who really arrested my attention on my way to the levée – whose affections it was really my object to win in seeking an introduction to you. To me, the resemblance between the twin-sisters has been a fatal resemblance; the long absence of one, a fatal absence.”

There was a momentary pause, as Mr. Streatfield sadly and calmly pronounced the last words. Mr. Langley appeared to be absorbed in thought. At length he proceeded, speaking to himself:

“It is strange! I remember that Clara left London on the day of the levée, to set out on a visit to her aunt; and only returned here two days since, to be present at her sister’s marriage. Well, sir,” he continued, addressing Mr. Streatfield, “granting what you say, granting that we all mentioned my absent daughter to you, as we are accustomed to mention her among ourselves, simply as ‘Clara,’ you have still not excused your conduct in my eyes. Remarkable as the resemblance is between the sisters, more remarkable even, I am willing to admit, than the resemblance usually is between twins, there is yet a difference, which, slight, indescribable though it may be, is nevertheless discernible to all their relations and to all their friends. How is it that you, who represent yourself as so vividly impressed by your first sight of my daughter Clara, did not discover the error when you were introduced to her sister Jane, as the lady who had so much attracted you?”

“You forget, sir,” rejoined Mr. Streatfield, “that I have never beheld the sisters together until today. Though both were in the balcony when I first looked up at it, it was Miss Clara Langley alone who attracted my attention. Had I only received the smallest hint that the absent sister of Miss Jane Langley was her twin-sister, I would have seen her, at any sacrifice, before making my proposals. For it is my duty to confess to you, Mr. Langley (with the candour which is your undoubted due), that when I was first introduced to your daughter Jane, I felt an unaccountable impression that she was the same as, and yet different from, the lady whom I had seen in the balcony. Soon, however, this impression wore off. Under the circumstances, could I regard it as anything but a mere caprice, a lover’s wayward fancy? I dismissed it from my mind; it ceased to affect me, until today, when I first discovered that it was a warning which I had most unhappily disregarded; that a terrible error had been committed, for which no one of us was to blame, but which was fraught with misery, undeserved misery, to us all!”

“These, Mr. Streatfield, are explanations which may satisfy you,” said Mr. Langley, in a milder tone, “but they cannot satisfy me; they will not satisfy the world. You have repudiated, in the most public and most abrupt manner, an engagement, in the fulfilment of which the honour and the happiness of my family are concerned. You have given me reasons for your conduct, it is true; but will those reasons restore to my daughter the tranquillity which she has lost, perhaps forever? Will they stop the whisperings of calumny? Will they carry conviction to those strangers to me, or enemies of mine, whose pleasure it may be to disbelieve them? You have placed both yourself and me, sir, in a position of embarrassment – nay, a position of danger and disgrace, from which the strongest reasons and the best excuses cannot extricate us.”

“I entreat you to believe,” replied Mr. Streatfield, “that I deplore from my heart the error – the fault, if you will – of which I have been unconsciously guilty. I implore your pardon, both for what I said and did at your table today; but I cannot do more. I cannot and I dare not pronounce the marriage vows to your daughter, with my lips, when I know that neither my conscience nor my heart can ratify them. The commonest justice, and the commonest respect towards a young lady who deserves both, and more than both, from everyone who approaches her, strengthen me to persevere in the only course which it is consistent with honour and integrity for me to take.”

“You appear to forget,” said Mr. Langley, “that it is not merely your own honour, but the honour of others, that is to be considered in the course of conduct which you are now to pursue.”

“I have by no means forgotten what is due to you,” continued Mr. Streatfield, “or what responsibilities I have incurred from the nature of my intercourse with your family. Do I put too much trust in your forbearance, if I now assure you, candidly and unreservedly, that I still place all my hopes of happiness in the prospect of becoming connected by marriage with a daughter of yours? Miss Clara Langley—”

Here the speaker paused. His position was becoming a delicate and a dangerous one; but he made no effort to withdraw from it. Almost bewildered by the pressing and perilous emergency of the moment, harassed by such a tumult of conflicting emotions within him as he had never known before, he risked the worst, with all the blindfold desperation of love. The angry flush was rising on Mr. Langley’s cheek; it was evidently costing him a severs struggle to retain his assumed self-possession; but he did not speak. After an interval, Mr. Streatfield proceeded thus:

“However unfortunately I may express myself, I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I am now speaking from my heart on a subject (to me) of the most vital importance. Place yourself in my situation, consider all that has happened, consider that this may be, for aught I know to the contrary, the last opportunity I may have of pleading my cause; and then say whether it is possible for me to conceal from you that I can only look to your forbearance and sympathy for permission to retrieve my error, to – to – Mr. Langley! I cannot choose expressions at such a moment as this. I can only tell you that the feeling with which I regarded your daughter Clara, when I first saw her, still remains what it was. I cannot analyse it; I cannot reconcile its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions; I cannot explain how, while I may seem to you and to everyone to have varied and vacillated with insolent caprice, I have really remained, in my own heart and to my own conscience, true to my first sensations and my first convictions. I can only implore you not to condemn me to a life of disappointment and misery, by judging me with hasty irritation. Favour me, so far at least, as to relate the conversation which has passed between us to your two daughters. Let me hear how it affects each of them towards me. Let me know what they are willing to think and ready to do under such unparalleled circumstances as have now occurred. I will wait your time, and their time; I will abide by your decision and their decision, pronounced after the first poignant distress and irritation of this day’s events have passed over.”

Still Mr. Langley remained silent; the angry word was on his tongue; the contemptuous rejection of what he regarded for the moment as a proposition equally ill-timed and insolent, seemed bursting to his lips; but once more he restrained himself. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly backwards and forwards, deep in thought. Mr. Streatfield was too much overcome by his own agitation to plead his cause further by another word. There was a silence in the room now, which lasted for some time.

We have said that Mr. Langley was a man of the world. He was strongly attached to his children; but he had a little of the selfishness and much of the reverence for wealth of a man of the world. As he now endeavoured to determine mentally on his proper course of action – to disentangle the whole case from all its mysterious intricacies – to view it, extraordinary as it was, in its proper bearings, his thoughts began gradually to assume what is called, “a practical turn.” He reflected that he had another daughter, besides the twin-sisters, to provide for; and that he had two sons to settle in life. He was not rich enough to portion three daughters; and he had not interest enough to start his sons favourably in a career of eminence. Mr. Streatfield, on the contrary, was a man of great wealth, and of great “connections” among people in power. Was such a son-in-law to be rejected, even after all that had happened, without at least consulting his wife and daughters first? He thought not. Had not Mr. Streatfield, in truth, been the victim of a remarkable fatality, of an incredible accident, and were no allowances, under such circumstances, to be made for him? He began to think there were. Reflecting thus, he determined at length to proceed with moderation and caution at all hazards; and regained composure enough to continue the conversation in a cold, but still in a polite tone.

“I will commit myself, sir, to no agreement or promise whatever,” he began, “nor will I consider this interview in any respect as a conclusive one, either on your side or mine; but if I think, on consideration, that it is desirable that our conversation should be repeated to my wife and daughters, I will make them acquainted with it, and will let you know the result. In the meantime, I think you will agree with me, that it is most fit that the next communications between us should take place by letter alone.”

Mr. Streatfield was not slow in taking the hint conveyed by Mr. Langley’s last words. After what had occurred, and until something was definitely settled, he felt that the suffering and suspense which he was already enduring would be increased tenfold if he remained longer in the same house with the twin-sisters – the betrothed of one, the lover of the other! Murmuring a few inaudible words of acquiescence in the arrangements which had just been proposed to him, he left the room. The same evening he quitted Langley Hall.

The next morning the remainder of the guests departed, their curiosity to know all the particulars of what had happened remaining ungratified. They were simply informed that an extraordinary and unexpected obstacle had arisen to delay the wedding; that no blame attached to anyone in the matter; and that as soon as everything had been finally determined, everything would be explained. Until then, it was not considered necessary to enter in any way into particulars. By the middle of the day every visitor had left the house; and a strange and melancholy spectacle it presented when they were all gone. Rooms were now empty and silent, which the day before had been filled with animated groups, and had echoed with merry laughter. In one apartment, the fittings for the series of “Tableaux” which had been proposed, remained half completed: the dresses that were to have been worn, lay scattered on the floor; the carpenter who had come to proceed with his work, gathered up his tools in ominous silence, and departed as quickly as he could. Here lay books still open at the last page read; there was an album, with the drawing of the day before unfinished, and the colour-box enclosed by its side. On the deserted billiard-table, the positions of the “cues” and balls showed traces of an interrupted game. Flowers were scattered on the rustic tables in the garden, half-made into nosegays, and beginning to wither already. The very dogs wandered in a moody, unsettled way about the house, missing the friendly hands that had fondled and fed them for so many days past, and whining impatiently in the deserted drawing-rooms. The social desolation of the scene was miserably complete in all its aspects.

Immediately after the departure of his guests, Mr. Langley had a long interview with his wife. He repeated to her the conversation which had taken place between Mr. Streatfield and himself, and received from her in return such an account of the conduct of his daughter, under the trial that had befallen her, as filled him with equal astonishment and admiration. It was a new revelation to him of the character of his own child.

“As soon as the violent symptoms had subsided,” said Mrs. Langley, in answer to her husband’s first inquiries, “as soon as the hysterical fit was subdued, Jane seemed suddenly to assume a new character, to become another person. She begged that the doctor might be released from his attendance, and that she might be left alone with me and with her sister Clara. When everyone else had quitted the room, she continued to sit in the easy chair where we had at first placed her, covering her face with her hands. She entreated us not to speak to her for a short time, and, except that she shuddered occasionally, sat quite still and silent. When she at last looked up, we were shocked to see the deadly paleness of her face, and the strange alteration that had come over her expression; but she spoke to us so coherently, so solemnly even, that we were amazed; we knew not what to think or what to do; it hardly seemed to be our Jane who was now speaking to us.”

“What did she say?” asked Mr. Langley, eagerly.

“She said that the first feeling of her heart, at that moment, was gratitude on her own account. She thanked God that the terrible discovery had not been made too late, when her married life might have been a life of estrangement and misery. Up to the moment when Mr. Streatfield had uttered that one fatal exclamation, she had loved him, she told us, fondly and fervently; now, no explanation, no repentance (if either were tendered), no earthly persuasion or command (in case Mr. Streatfield should think himself bound, as a matter of atonement, to hold to his rash engagement), could ever induce her to become his wife.”

“Mr. Streatfield will not test her resolution,” said Mr. Langley, bitterly; “he deliberately repeated his repudiation of his engagement in this room; nay, more, he—”

“I have something important to say to you from Jane on this point,” interrupted Mrs. Langley. “After she had spoken the first few words which I have already repeated to you, she told us that she had been thinking – thinking more calmly perhaps than we could imagine – on all that had happened; on what Mr. Streatfield had said at the dinner-table; on the momentary glance of recognition which she had seen pass between him and her sister Clara, whose accidental absence, during the whole period of Mr. Streatfield’s intercourse with us in London, she now remembered and reminded me of. The cause of the fatal error, and the manner in which it had occurred, seemed to be already known to her, as if by intuition. We entreated her to refrain from speaking on the subject for the present; but she answered that it was her duty to speak on it – her duty to propose something which should alleviate the suspense and distress we were all enduring on her account. No words can describe to you her fortitude, her noble endurance—” Mrs. Langley’s voice faltered as she pronounced the last words. It was some minutes ere she became sufficiently composed to proceed thus:

“I am charged with a message to you from Jane – I should say, charged with her entreaties, that you will not suspend our intercourse with Mr. Streatfield, or view his conduct in any other than a merciful light – as conduct for which accident and circumstances are alone to blame. After she had given me this message to you, she turned to Clara, who sat weeping by her side, completely overcome; and kissing her, said that they were to blame, if anyone was to be blamed in the matter, for being so much alike as to make all who saw them apart doubt which was Clara and which was Jane. She said this with a faint smile, and an effort to speak playfully, which touched us to the heart. Then, in a tone and manner which I can never forget, she asked her sister – charging her, on their mutual affection and mutual confidence, to answer sincerely – if she had noticed Mr. Streatfield on the day of the levée, and afterwards remembered him at the dinner-table, as he had noticed and remembered her? It was only after Jane had repeated this appeal, still more earnestly and affectionately, that Clara summoned courage and composure enough to confess that she had noticed Mr. Streatfield on the day of the levée, had thought of him afterwards during her absence from London, and had recognised him at our table, as he had recognised her.”

“Is it possible! I own I had not anticipated – not thought for one moment of that,” said Mr. Langley.

“Perhaps,” continued his wife, “it is best that you should see Jane now, and judge for yourself. For my part, her noble resignation under this great trial, has so astonished and impressed me, that I only feel competent to advise as she advises, to act as she thinks fit. I begin to think that it is not we who are to guide her, but she who is to guide us.”

Mr. Langley lingered irresolute for a few minutes; then quitted the room, and proceeded alone to Jane Langley’s apartment.

When he knocked at the door, it was opened by Clara. There was an expression partly of confusion, partly of sorrow on her face; and when her father stopped as if to speak to her, she merely pointed into the room, and hurried away without uttering a word.

Mr. Langley had been prepared by his wife for the change that had taken place in his daughter since the day before; but he felt startled, almost overwhelmed, as he now looked on her. One of the poor girl’s most prominent attractions, from her earliest years, had been the beauty of her complexion; and now, the freshness and the bloom had entirely departed from her face; it seemed absolutely colourless. Her expression, too, appeared to Mr. Langley’s eyes, to have undergone a melancholy alteration; to have lost its youthfulness suddenly; to have assumed a strange character of firmness and thoughtfulness, which he had never observed in it before. She was sitting by an open window, commanding a lovely view of wide, sunny landscape; a Bible which her mother had given her, lay open on her knees; she was reading it as her father entered. For the first time in his life, he paused, speechless, as he approached to speak to one of his own children.

“I am afraid I look very ill,” she said, holding out her hand to him; “but I am better than I look; I shall be quite well in a day or two. Have you heard my message, father? have you been told?”

“My love, we will not speak of it yet; we will wait a few days,” said Mr. Langley.

“You have always been so kind to me,” she continued, in less steady tones, “that I am sure you will let me go on. I have very little to say, but that little must be said now, and then we need never recur to it again. Will you consider all that has happened, as something forgotten? You have heard already what it is I entreat you to do; will you let him – Mr. Streatfield—” (She stopped, her voice failed for a moment, but she recovered herself again almost immediately.) “Will you let Mr. Streatfield remain here, or recall him if he is gone, and give him an opportunity of explaining himself to my sister? If poor Clara should refuse to see him for my sake, pray do not listen to her. I am sure this is what ought to be done; I have been thinking of it very calmly, and I feel that it is right. And there is something more I have to beg of you, father; it is, that, while Mr. Streatfield is here, you will allow me to go and stay with my aunt. You know how fond she is of me. Her house is not a day’s journey from home. It is best for everybody (much the best for me) that I should not remain here at present; and – and – dear father! I have always been your spoiled child; and I know you will indulge me still. If you do what I ask you, I shall soon get over this heavy trial. I shall be well again if I am away at my aunt’s – if—”

She paused; and putting one trembling arm around her father’s neck, hid her face on his breast. For some minutes, Mr. Langley could not trust himself to answer her. There was something, not deeply touching only, but impressive and sublime, about the moral heroism of this young girl, whose heart and mind – hitherto wholly inexperienced in the harder and darker emergencies of life – now rose in the strength of their native purity superior to the bitterest, cruellest trial that either could undergo; whose patience and resignation, called forth for the first time by a calamity which suddenly thwarted the purposes and paralysed the affections that had been destined to endure for a life, could thus appear at once in the fullest maturity of virtue and beauty. As the father thought on these things; as he vaguely and imperfectly estimated the extent of the daughter’s sacrifice; as he reflected on the nature of the affliction that had befallen her – which combined in itself a fatality that none could have foreseen, a fault that could neither be repaired nor resented, a judgement against which there was no appeal – and then remembered how this affliction had been borne, with what words and what actions it had been met, he felt that it would be almost a profanation to judge the touching petition just addressed to him, by the criterion of his worldly doubts and his worldly wisdom. His eye fell on the Bible, still open beneath it; he remembered the little child who was set in the midst of the disciples, as teacher and example to all; and when at length he spoke in answer to his daughter, it was not to direct or to advise, but to comfort and comply.

They delayed her removal for a few days, to see if she faltered in her resolution, if her bodily weakness increased; but she never wavered; nothing in her appearance changed, either for better or for worse. A week after the startling scene at the dinner-table, she was living in the strictest retirement in the house of her aunt.

About the period of her departure, a letter was received from Mr. Streatfield. It was little more than a recapitulation of what he had already said to Mr. Langley – expressed, however, on this occasion, in stronger and, at the same time, in more respectful terms. The letter was answered briefly; he was informed that nothing had, as yet, been determined on, but that the next communication would bring him a final reply.

Two months passed. During that time, Jane Langley was frequently visited at her aunt’s house, by her father and mother. She still remained calm and resolved; still looked pale and thoughtful, as at first. Doctors were consulted: they talked of a shock to the nervous system; of great hope from time, and their patient’s strength of mind; and of the necessity of acceding to her wishes in all things. Then, the advice of the aunt was sought. She was a woman of an eccentric, masculine character, who had herself experienced a love-disappointment in early life, and had never married. She gave her opinion unreservedly and abruptly, as she always gave it. “Do as Jane tells you!” said the old lady, severely; “that poor child has more moral courage and determination than all the rest of you put together! I know better than anybody what a sacrifice she has had to make; but she has made it; and made it nobly – like a heroine, as some people would say; like a good, high-minded, courageous girl, as I say! Do as she tells you! Let that poor, selfish fool of a man have his way, and marry her sister – he has made one mistake already about a face – see if he doesn’t find out, someday, that he has made another, about a wife! Let him! – Jane is too good for him, or for any man! Leave her to me; let her stop here; she shan’t lose by what has happened! You know this place is mine – I mean it to be hers, when I’m dead. You know I’ve got some money – I shall leave it to her. I’ve made my will: it’s all done and settled! Go back home; send for the man, and tell Clara to marry him without any more fuss! You wanted my opinion – there it is for you!”

At last Mr. Langley decided. The important letter was written, which recalled Mr. Streatfield to Langley Hall. As Jane had foreseen, Clara at first refused to hold any communication with him; but a letter from her sister, and the remonstrances of her father, soon changed her resolution. There was nothing in common between the twin-sisters but their personal resemblance. Clara had been guided all her life by the opinions of others, and she was guided by them now.

Once permitted the opportunity of pleading his cause, Mr. Streatfield did not neglect his own interests. It would be little to our purpose to describe the doubts and difficulties which delayed at first the progress of his second courtship – pursued as it was under circumstances, not only extraordinary, but unprecedented. It is no longer, with him, or with Clara Langley, that the interest of our story is connected. Suffice it to say, that he ultimately overcame all the young lady’s scruples; and that, a few months afterwards, some of Mr. Langley’s intimate friends found themselves again assembled round his table as wedding-guests, and congratulating Mr. Streatfield on his approaching union with Clara, as they had already congratulated him, scarcely a year back, on his approaching union with Jane!

The social ceremonies of the wedding-day were performed soberly – almost sadly. Some of the guests (especially the unmarried ladies) thought that Miss Clara had allowed herself to be won too easily – others were picturing to themselves the situation of the poor girl who was absent; and contributed little towards the gaiety of the party. On this occasion, however, nothing occurred to interrupt the proceedings; the marriage took place; and, immediately after it, Mr. Streatfield and his bride started for a tour on the Continent.

On their departure, Jane Langley returned home. She made no reference whatever to her sister’s marriage; and no one mentioned it in her presence. Still the colour did not return to her cheek, or the old gaiety to her manner. The shock that she had suffered had left its traces on her for life. But there was no evidence that she was sinking under the remembrances which neither time nor resolution could banish. The strong, pure heart had undergone a change, but not a deterioration. All that had been brilliant in her character was gone; but all that was noble in it remained. Never had her intercourse with her family and her friends been so affectionate and so kindly as it was now.

When, after a long absence, Mr. Streatfield and his wife returned to England, it was observed, at her first meeting with them, that the momentary confusion and embarrassment were on their side, not on hers. During their stay at Langley Hall, she showed not the slightest disposition to avoid them. No member of the family welcomed them more cordially; entered into all their plans and projects more readily; or bade them farewell with a kinder or better grace, when they departed for their own home.

Our tale is nearly ended: what remains of it, must comprise the history of many years in the compass of a few words.

Time passed on; and Death and Change told of its lapse among the family at Langley Hall. Five years after the events above related, Mr. Langley died; and was followed to the grave, shortly afterwards, by his wife. Of their two sons, the eldest was rising into good practice at the bar; the youngest had become attaché to a foreign embassy. Their third daughter was married, and living at the family seat of her husband, in Scotland. Mr. and Mrs. Streatfield had children of their own, now, to occupy their time and absorb their care. The career of life was over for some – the purposes of life had altered for others – Jane Langley alone, still remained unchanged.

She now lived entirely with her aunt. At intervals – as their worldly duties and worldly avocations permitted them – the other members of her family, or one or two intimate friends, came to the house. Offers of marriage were made to her, but were all declined. The first, last love of her girlish days – abandoned as a hope, and crushed as a passion; living only as a quiet grief, as a pure remembrance – still kept its watch, as guardian and defender, over her heart. Years passed on and worked no change in the sad uniformity of her life, until the death of her aunt left her mistress of the house in which she had hitherto been a guest. Then it was observed that she made fewer and fewer efforts to vary the tenor of existence, to forget her old remembrances for awhile in the society of others. Such invitations as reached her from relations and friends were more frequently declined than accepted. She was growing old herself now; and, with each advancing year, the busy pageant of the outer world presented less and less that could attract her eye.

So she began to surround herself, in her solitude, with the favourite books that she had studied, with the favourite music that she had played, in the days of her hopes and her happiness. Everything that was associated, however slightly, with that past period, now acquired a character of inestimable value in her eyes, as aiding her mind to seclude itself more and more strictly in the sanctuary of its early recollections. Was it weakness in her to live thus; to abandon the world and the world’s interests, as one who had no hope, or part in either? Had she earned the right, by the magnitude and resolution of her sacrifice, thus to indulge in the sad luxury of fruitless remembrance? Who shall say! – who shall presume to decide that cannot think with her thoughts, and look back with her recollections!

Thus she lived – alone, and yet not lonely; without hope, but with no despair; separate and apart from the world around her, except when she approached it by her charities to the poor, and her succour to the afflicted; by her occasional interviews with the surviving members of her family and a few old friends, when they sought her in her calm retreat; and by little presents which she constantly sent to brothers’ and sisters’ children, who worshipped, as their invisible good genius, “the kind lady” whom most of them had never seen. Such was her existence throughout the closing years of her life: such did it continue – calm and blameless – to the last.

Reader, when you are told, that what is impressive and pathetic in the Drama of Human Life has passed with a past age of Chivalry and Romance, remember Jane Langley, and quote in contradiction the story of the Twin Sisters!

Bentley’s Miscellany Mar 1851

A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE
OF Mr. PERUGINO POTTS

December 7th, 18— I have just been one week in Rome, and have determined to keep a journal. Most men in my situation would proceed to execute such a resolution as this, by writing about the antiquities of the “Eternal City”: I shall do nothing of the sort; I shall write about a much more interesting subject – myself.

I may be wrong, but my impression is that, as an Historical Painter, my biography will be written some of these days: personal particulars of me will then be wanted. I have great faith in the affectionate remembrance of any surviving friends I may leave behind me; but, upon the whole, I would rather provide these particulars myself. My future biographer shall have P.P. sketched by P.P. I paint my own pictures; why should I not paint my own character? The commencement of a new journal offers the opportunity of doing this – let me take it!

I was destined to be an artist from my cradle; my father was a great connoisseur, and a great collector of pictures; he christened me “Perugino,” after the name of his favourite master, left me five hundred a-year, and told me with his last breath to be Potts, R.A., or perish in the attempt. I determined to obey him; but, though I have hitherto signally failed in becoming an R.A., I have not the slightest intention even of so much as beginning to perish, in compliance with the alternative suggested to me by my late lamented parent. Let the Royal Academy perish first! I mean to exist for the express purpose of testifying against that miserably managed institution as long as I possibly can.

This may be thought strong language: I will justify it by facts. For seven years I have vainly sought a place in the annual exhibition – for seven years has modest genius knocked for admission at the door of the Royal Academy, and invariably the answer of the Royal Academicians has been, “not at home!” The first year I painted, “the Smothering of the Princes in the Tower,” muscular murderers, flabby children, florid colouring; quite in the Rubens’ style – turned out! The second year I tried the devotional and severe, “the Wise and Foolish Virgins”; ten angular women, in impossible attitudes, with a landscape background, painted from the anti-perspective point of view – turned out! The third year I changed to the sentimental and pathetic; it was Sterne’s “Maria,” this time, with her goat; Maria was crying, the goat was crying, Sterne himself (in the background) was crying, with his face buried in a white cambric pocket-handkerchief, wet through with tears – turned out! The fourth year I fell back on the domestic and familiar; a young Housemaid in the kitchen, plighting her troth, at midnight, to a private in the Grenadier Guards, while the policeman of the neighbourhood, a prey to jealousy and despair, flashed his “bull’s-eye” on them through the window, from the area railings above – turned out! The fifth year I gave up figures, and threw my whole soul into landscape, – classical landscape. I sent in a picture of three ruined columns, five pine-trees, a lake, a temple, distant mountains, and a gorgeous sunset, the whole enlivened by a dance of nymphs in Roman togas, in front of the ruined columns to be sold for the ludicrously small price of fifty guineas – turned out! The sixth year, I resolved to turn mercenary in self-defence; and, abandoning high art, to take to portraiture. I produced a “portrait of a lady” (she was a professional model, who sat at a shilling an hour – but no matter); I depicted her captivatingly clothed in white satin, and grinning serenely; in the background appeared a red curtain, gorgeously bound books on a round table, and thunderstorm clouds – turned out! The seventh year I humbly resigned myself to circumstances, and sank at once to “still life,” represented on the smallest possible scale. A modest canvas, six inches long by four inches broad, containing striking likenesses of a pot of porter, a pipe, and a plate of bread and cheese, and touchingly entitled, “the Labourer’s best Friends,” was my last modest offering; and this – even this! the poor artist’s one little ewe-lamb of a picture, was – turned out! The eighth year was the year when I started in disgust to seek nobler fields for pictorial ambition in the regions of Italian Art! The eighth year has brought me to Rome – here I am! – I, Perugino Potts! vowed to grapple with Raphael and Michaelnbsp;Angelo on their own ground! Grand idea!

Personally (when I have my high-heeled boots on) I stand five feet, three inches high. Let me at once acknowledge – for I have no concealments from posterity – that I am, outwardly, what is termed a little man. I have nothing great about me but my mustachios and my intellect; I am of the light-complexioned order of handsome fellows, and have hitherto discovered nothing that I can conscientiously blame in my temper and general disposition. The fire of artistic ambition that burns within me, shoots upward with a lambent glow – in a word, I am a good-humoured man of genius. This is much to say, but I could add yet more; were I not unhappily writing with an Italian pen on Italian paper: the pen splutters inveterately; the paper absorbs my watery ink like a blotting-book – human patience can stand it no longer: I give up for the day, in despair!

8th – Intended to proceed with my interesting autobiographical particulars, but was suddenly stopped at the very outset by an idea for a new picture. Subject: The primitive Father Polycarp, writing his Epistles; to be treated in the sublime style of Michael Angelo’s Prophets, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Polycarp to be several sizes larger than life, and well developed about the beard and muscles.

9th – Made inquiries for a good model, and found the very man I wanted. When I entered his humble abode, he was preparing his breakfast; the meal was characterised by a primitive simplicity and a strong smell. He first pulled out his stiletto knife, and cut off a large crust of bread: the outside of this crust he rubbed with garlic till it shone like a walnut-wood table in an English farmhouse; the inside he saturated with oil and vinegar. By the time he had done that, the whole crust looked like a cold poultice in a polished calf-leather saucer. He ate this remarkable compound with voracious enjoyment, while I looked at him. I found him a rather difficult man to estimate in a physiognomical point of view; nothing was to be seen of his face but two goggle eyes and a hook nose, peering out of a forest of hair – such hair! just the iron-grey sort of thing I wanted. Such a beard! the most devotional I ever saw. I engaged him on the spot, and jocosely christened him Polycarp the Second, in allusion to the character he was to represent on my canvas.

10th – Polycarp the Second came to sit; he was polite, talkative, and apparently somewhat infested by fleas. I had an explanation with him on the last-mentioned of his personal characteristics. He asserted consolingly, that the fleas were not likely to leave him to go to me – they patriotically preferred Italian to English pasturage. Trusting he was right, I changed the subject and asked about his history. His answer tended to show that he had been ill-used and misunderstood by everybody from his cradle. His father, his mother, his relations, the priests, the police, the high populace and the low populace, throughout every degree – they had all maltreated, persecuted, falsely accused, and unrelentingly pursued Polycarp the Second. He attributed this miserable state of things partly to the invincible piety and honesty of his character, which, of course, exposed him to the malice of the world; and partly to his strong and disinterested attachment to the English nation, which lowered him in the eyes of his prejudiced countrymen. He wept as he said this – his beard became a disconsolate beard with the tears that trickled down it. Excellent-hearted Polycarp! I sympathise with him already in spite of the fleas.

11th – Another sitting from my worthy model. The colossal figure is, by this time (so rapid a workman am I) entirely sketched in. My physical exertions are tremendous. My canvas is fourteen feet high; and Polycarp reaches from top to bottom. I can only pursue my labour by incessantly getting up and down a pair of steps; by condemning myself heroically to a sort of pictorial treadmill. Already, however, I have tasted the compensating sweets of triumph. My model is in raptures with my design – he was so profoundly affected that he cried over it, just as he cried over his own history. What taste these Italians naturally possess! What impressibility! What untaught sympathies with genius! How delightfully different their disposition from the matter-of-fact English character! How stolid is a British Royal Academician, compared to Polycarp the Second!

12th – Model again. Crying again. Previous history again. Raptures again. I wish he would not smell quite so strong of garlic. At present he repels my nose as powerfully as he attracts my heart. Sent him on an errand, to buy me lamp-black and flake-white: I mean to lay it on rather thick when I come to Polycarp’s beard. Gave him the money to pay for the paint – about fourpence English. The honest creature showed himself worthy of my confidence, by bringing me back one halfpenny of change with the colours. Poor Polycarp! Poor persecuted, lost sheep! the malicious world has singed the wool off your innocent back: be it mine to see it grow again under the British artist’s fostering care!

13th, 14th, 15th, 16th – Too much occupied to make regular entries in my journal. I must have been up and down several miles of steps, during my four days’ labour on my fourteen feet of canvas. The quantity of paint I am obliged to use is so enormous that it quite overpowers all Polycarp’s garlic, and will, I imagine, in process of time poison all Polycarp’s fleas. I feel fatigued, especially in the calves of my legs; but with such a design as I am producing, to cheer me on; and with such a model as I have got, to appreciate my genius and run my errands, fatigue itself becomes an enjoyment. Physically as well as intellectually, I feel the Samson of High Art!

17th – Horror! humiliation! disenchantment! despair! – Polycarp the Second is off with my watch, chain, and purse containing Roman money to the amount of five pounds English. I feel the most forlorn, deluded, miserable ass under the canopy of Heaven! I have been the dupe of a hypocritical, whimpering scoundrel! The scent of his garlic still floats aggravatingly on the atmosphere of my studio, outraging my nose and my feelings both together. But I can write no more on this disastrous day: I must either go mad, or go to dinner immediately. Let me embrace the latter alternative, while it is still within my power. Away! away to forget myself in the national Roman dish of kid’s flesh and pistachio nuts!

18th – The national Roman dish has disagreed with me: I sit bilious before my fourteen canvas feet of thickly-painted but still unfinished Polycarp. This is an opportunity for relating in a proper spirit of lamentation the history of my discomfiture. It happened thus: Powerfully as my legs are made, they gave way under me on the morning of the 17th, after I had been three hours engaged in incessantly getting up the steps to put hairs on Polycarp’s beard, and incessantly getting down again to go to the other end of the room and look at the effect of them. I told my perfidious model that he might take a rest, and set him the example by taking a rest myself. Overpowered by weariness, and the pressure of ideas, I fell asleep – unaccountably and barbarously fell asleep in my chair – before my own picture. The toil-worn British artist innocently reposed; and the whimpering Italian scoundrel took advantage of his slumbers! The bearded villain must have coolly taken my chain off my neck, my watch out of my waistcoat, my purse out of my pocket, while I was asleep. When I awoke it was dusk: I yawned loudly – no notice taken of it: I called out more loudly – no answer: I struck a light – no chain, no watch, no purse, no Polycarp. After a moment of bewilderment and horror, I rushed to the traitor’s dwelling. The people of the house knew nothing about him, except that he was not home. I proclaimed my wrongs furiously to the rest of the lodgers. Another bearded man among them threatened me with assassination if I did not immediately hold my tongue: I held it. The bearded man’s mother recommended me to go home (ominously swinging a saucepan full of dirty water towards me, while she spoke): I took her advice. When I am in a den of thieves I do not find the courageous part of my character quite so fully developed as I could wish.

19th – Sought redress and restitution from the Police. They appeared to consider my application first as a joke, and then as an insult. Could they not catch Polycarp the Second? (I asked.) – Yes; they might possibly catch him in the process of time. Then, why not set about his capture at once? – in the sacred name of Justice, why not? Because it was of no use: he must have sold the watch and chain, and spent the money by this time. Besides, suppose him caught, it would be inconvenient to punish him, for the prisons were all full – there was no room for him anywhere. I was an Englishman, therefore rich, and therefore able to put up with my loss. Surely I had better go away, and not make a fuss about the business in bad Italian. Shade of Brutus! can this be Roman justice?

20th – A visit from a brother artist – a German who chirps his national songs all day; paints in the severs style; and lives on an income of forty ponds a year. This esteemed fellow-labourer gave me some advice, on hearing of my disaster. He assured me that I should get no assistance from the police without bribing them handsomely to do their work. Supposing they really took decisive steps, after that; it was more than probable that Polycarp, or some of his friends, would put me out of their way in the night, by sticking an inch or two of stiletto into my ribs. I had better not move in the matter, if I valued either my pocket or my life. “This,” said the German student, lighting his pipe, “this, O Anglo-Saxon brother, is not thy fatherland. At Rome, the mind-and-body-comforting virtues they practise not – they grant no justice, and they quaff no beer.”

21st – After mature consideration, arrived at the conclusion that I had better leave Rome. To go on with my picture, after what has happened, is impossible. The train of thought in which it originated, is broken up forever. Moreover, envious fellow-students are already beginning to make a joke of my disaster; and, for aught I know to the contrary, Polycarp the Second may be lying in wait for my life, every night, at the corner of the street. Pursued by ridicule, and threatened by assassination, no course is left me but dignified retreat. Rome farewell! Romans! one more master spirit that dwelt among ye has now been outraged and proscribed! Coriolanus – Potts.

22nd – Early in the morning, took my canvas off the stretcher; rolled it up, and deposited it in the studio of my friend, the German artist. He promises to complete my design, as soon as he can afford paint enough to cover so colossal a canvas. I wrung his hand in silence, and left him my lamp-black, as a stock-in-trade f colours to begin with. Half an hour afterwards I was on the road to Florence, hastening to seek intellectual consolation at the feet of the Venus de Medici.

24th – Arrived at the Tuscan capital in the late evening. Rain, hail, snow, wind rising to a hurricane. People who praise the climate of Italy must be the paid agents of Italian innkeepers. I have never suffered such cold as this in England in my life.

25th – Called on an Italian gentleman, to whom I had a letter of introduction, for the purpose of inquiring about lodgings. Told him I only wanted a bedroom and a studio. He informed me that I could get both (the studio fifty feet long, if I liked it), at the palace of the Marchesa – . “Lodgings at a palace!” cried I. “Yes, and very cheap, too,” answered my new friend. Cheap! Can a Marchioness drive bargains? Readily. The Marchioness has not fifty pounds of your money for her whole yearly income. “Has she any children?”  “One unmarried daughter, the Marchesina.”  “What’s that?”  “A diminutive term of endearment; it means, the little Marchioness, my dear sir, in your language.” This last reply decided me. Serene visions re Marchesina Potts swam benignant before my eyes. In an evil hour, and little thinking into what fatal embarrassments I was plunging myself, I asked for the address of the palace, and determined to lodge with the Marchioness. (Christmas-day; and no roast-beef or plum-pudding. I wish I was back in England, in spite of my brilliant prospects with the Italian aristocracy.)

26th – Went to my noble landlady’s, having dreamt all night of Polycarp the Second. (Is this a warning that I am to see that miscreant again?) Found the palace situated in a back street; an enormous building in a very deficient state of repair. The flagstones of the courtyard grass-grown; the fountain in the middle throwing up no water, and entirely surrounded by weeds and puddles; the staircase rugged with hard dirt – but for thinking of the Marchesina, I should have run away at my first external view of my future lodgings. Saw the Marchesa. Where does all the flesh of all the old women in Italy go to? What substance absorbs, what grave receives it? Why is there no such thing as a fat lady of sixty in the whole Peninsula? Oh, what a thoroughly Italian old woman was this Marchesa! She was little, crooked, fleshless; her yellow skin had shrivelled up tight over her bones; her nose looked preternaturally aquiline, without an atom of cheek to relieve it; her hair was white; her eyes were blazing black; and to crown all, she was as stealthily civil as any watering-place landlady in England that I ever met with. She must have exercised some hideous fascination over me, for I fell into her toils, and chartered a bedroom and studio before I had been in her presence ten minutes. The bedroom was comparatively small for a palace, only about thirty feet long by twenty broad. The studio was a vasty mausoleum of a drawing-room: sixty feet by forty of marble floor, without a fireplace or a single article of furniture on any part of it, do not look comfortable in the month of February, when the snow is falling out of doors. I shall have to sit and paint in a sentry-box!

27th – Removed to my dungeon – I can call it nothing else.… I have just seen the Marchesina, and feel faint and giddy after the sight. “The little Marchioness” – to use my friend’s translation of her name – stands five feet eleven in her slippers; her hair and eyes are as black as ink; her arm is as thick as my leg; her complexion is sallow. She is as fleshy a subject as I ever remember to have met with. I know where all the old woman’s fat has gone now; it has gone to the Marchesina. My first intuitive resolve, on being introduced to this magnificent aristocrat, was as follows: “I must make friends with you, madam, for I see that you can thrash me!”

28th – The domestic life of the two noble ladies exhibits some peculiarities. I have observed that neither of them appears to possess such a thing as a gown; they are both swaddled in quantities of shapeless, dark-coloured robes, wrapped about them in a very mysterious manner. They appear to live exclusively on salad. They make salads not only of every kind of vegetable, but of bread, nuts and sponge-cakes. If the Marchesina by any accident ever set herself on fire, I feel assured that she would blaze like a beacon, from the quantity of oil she imbibes. Both the ladies keep me company in my studio, because I have got a chafing-dish of charcoal in it to preserve me from freezing, and they like to be economical in point of fire. But, besides my fire, they have their own, which they carry in their laps. An earthenware pipkin a-piece, with an arched handle, and with a small provision of burning charcoal in it, is the extraordinary portable fire that they hold on their knees all day long. I suspect the Marchesina of having a second pipkin full of live charcoal, under her robes, for the purpose of warming her feet and so forth. But of this I am not yet certain.

29th – The mighty Marchesina has proposed a subject to me to paint – a life-size portrait of herself in the character of a Sibyl. Ah, merciful Heaven! I must have another huge canvas for this! It will be another “Polycarp,” in female form! More getting up and down steps! More gallons of black paint! But I must submit. The Marchesina has been hitherto very kind, sometimes even alarmingly affectionate. Nevertheless, if I oppose, or neglect her, I feel perfectly certain that she is capable of knocking me down! – Why! why did I ever come to Italy?

January 1st – I mark this day’s entry with red ink. The new year has begun for me with one of the most outstanding adventures that ever happened to anybody – Baron Munchausen included. Let me note it down in these pages.

I had just begun this morning to make a sketch for the future Sibyl picture, when the Sibyl herself burst into my studio in a great hurry. She had her bonnet on; and was dressed for the first time, since I had seen her, in something which really looked like a petticoat.

“Industrious little man,” said the Marchesina, with an air of jocular authority, “put on your hat, and come out with me.”

Of course I obeyed directly. We were going to the nunnery church of Santa So-and-so (I am afraid of being prosecuted for libel if I write the real name), to see the live object of the last new miracle, which had set all Florence in an uproar of astonishment and admiration. This object was a poor man who had been miraculously restored from blindness, by praying to a certain statue of the Madonna. He had only pursued his devotions for two days, when he was “cured in an instant,” like the man with the toothache, on the outside cover of a certain quack medicine bottle, that I remember in England. Besides gaining his sight, he gained a great deal of money, subscribed for him by the devout rich. He was exhibited every day in the church; and it was the great sight of Florence to go and see him.

Well! we got to the church. Such a scene inside! Crowds of people; soldiers in full uniform to keep order; the organ thundering sublimely; the choir singing hosannas; clouds of incense floating through the church; devotees, some kneeling, some prostrate on their faces, wherever they could find room, – all the magnificence of the magnificent Roman Catholic worship, was displayed before us in its grandest festival garb. My companion was right, this was a sight worth seeing indeed.

The Marchesina being a person of some weight, both in respect of physical formation and social standing, made her way victoriously through the crowd, dragging me after her in triumph. At the inner extremity of the church we saw the wonder-working statue of the Madonna, raised on high, and profusely decorated with the jewels presented to it by the faithful. To get a view of the man on whom the miracle had been wrought was, however, by no means easy. He was closely surrounded by a circle of gazers five deep. ere, long, however, the indomitable Marchesina contrived to force her way and mine through every obstacle. We reached the front row, I looked eagerly under a tall man’s elbow; and saw—

Portentous powers of scoundrelism and hypocrisy! It was – yes! there was no mistaking him – it was POLYCARP THE SECOND!!!

I never really knew what it was to doubt my own eyes before; and yet there was no doubt here. There, kneeling beneath the statue of the Madonna, in an elegant pose of adoration, was my wide-awake miscreant of a model, changed to the hero of the most fashionable miracle of the day. The tears were trickling over his villainous beard, exactly as they trickled in my studio; I just detected the smell of garlic faintly predominant over the smell of incense, as I used to detect it at Rome. My sham model had turned sham blind man to all Florence, sham miracle-subject to a convent of illustrious nuns. The fellow had reached the sublime acme of rascality at a single stride.

The shock of my first recognition of him deprived me of my presence of mind. I forgot where I was, forgot all the people present, and unconsciously uttered aloud our national English ejaculation of astonishment, “Hullo!” The spectators in my neighbourhood all turned round upon me immediately. A priest among the number beckoned to a soldier standing near, and said, “Remove the British heretic.” This was rather too violent a proceeding to be patiently borne. I was determined to serve the cause of truth, and avenge myself on Polycarp the Second at the same time.

“Sir,” said I to the priest, “before I am taken away, I should like to speak in private to the lady abbess of this convent.”

“Remove the heretic!” reiterated the furious bigot.

“Remove the heretic!” echoed the indignant congregation.

“If you do remove me,” I continued resolutely, “without first granting what I ask, I will publicly proclaim, before you can get me out at the door of the church, a certain fact which you would give the best jewel on that statue up there to keep concealed. Will you let me see the abbess, or will you not?”

My naturally limpid and benevolent eye must have flashed lightnings of wrath as I spoke, my usually calm and mellow voice must have sounded like a clarion of defiance; for the priest suddenly changed his tactics. He signed to the soldier to let me go.

“The Englishman is mad; and must be managed by persuasion, not force,” said the wily churchman to the congregation.

“He is not mad – he is only a genius,” exclaimed my gigantic and generous Marchesina, taking my part.

“Leave him to me, and hold your peace, all of you,” said the priest, taking my arm, and leading me quickly out of the crowd.

He showed me into a little room behind the body of the church: shut the door carefully, and turning quickly and fiercely on me, said:

“Now, you fanatic of an Englishman, what do you want?”

“Bigot of an Italian!” I answered in rage, “I want to prove your miracle man there, to be a thief and impostor. I know him. He was no more blind, when he came to Florence, than I am.”

The priest turned ghastly with rage, and opened his mouth to speak again, when, by a second door at the other end of the room, in came the abbess herself.

She tried at first the same plan as the priest. I never saw a fiercer, leaner, sharper old woman in my life. But bullying me would not do. I knew I was right: and stuck manfully to my point. After stating the whole of the great Polycarp robbery case, I wound up brilliantly by announcing my intention of sending to Rome for witnesses who could prove the identity of my thief of a model, and their sham of a miracle man, beyond the possibility of refutation. This threat conquered; the abbess got frightened in real earnest, and came to terms; or, in other words, began to humbug me on the spot.

In the course of my life I have known a great many wily old women. The tart-seller at school was a wily old woman; a maternal aunt of mine, who wheedled my father out of a special legacy, was a wily old woman; the laundress I employed in London was a wily old woman; the Marchioness I now lodge with is a wily old woman; but the abbess was wilier than all four put together. She flattered and cringed, lamented and shed tears, prayed for me and to me, all in a breath. Even the magnificent depths of humbug displayed by Polycarp the Second, looked shallow and transparent by contrast with the unfathomable profundities of artifice exhibited by the lady abbess!

Of course, the petitions that the abbess now poured on me in torrents were all directed towards the one object of getting me to hold my tongue forever on the subject of Signor Polycarp’s assumed blindness. Of course, her defence of the miracle-exhibition going on in her church was, that she and the whole nunnery (officiating priests included) had been imposed on by the vagabond stranger who had come to them from Rome. Whether this was true or not I really cannot say. I had a faint consciousness all the time the abbess was speaking that she was making a fool of me; and yet, for the life of me, I could not help believing some of the things she said; I could not refrain from helplessly granting her all that she asked. In return for this docility on my part, she gratefully promised that Polycarp should be ignominiously turned out of the church, without receiving a single farthing of the sums collected for him; which happened to be still remaining in the convent cash-box. Thus avenged on my pickpocket model, I felt perfectly satisfied, and politely assured the abbess (who undertook to account satisfactorily to the public for the disappearance of the miracle-man) that whatever her story was, I would not contradict it. This done, the pious old lady gave me her blessing; the priest “followed on the same side,” and I left them writing down my name, to be prayed for among the convent list of personages of high rank, who were all benefited by the abbess’s interest with Heaven! Rather different this from being removed as a heretic in the custody of a soldier!

2nd – A quiet day at home, after yesterday’s excitement. The behaviour of the Marchesina begins to give me serious uneasiness. Gracious powers! – does she mean to fall in love with me? It seems awfully like it. On returning to the palace yesterday she actually embraced me! I was half suffocated by her congratulatory hug. The hug over, she playfully pinned me into a corner, till she made me tell her the whole of my adventure in the church. And, worse than all! not half an hour since, she coolly desired me to pull the foot-warming pipkin from under her robes – I was right about her having one there), to poke the embers, and then to put it back again; speaking just as composedly as if she were only asking me to help her on with her shawl! This looks very bad. What had I better do? – run away?

3rd – Another adventure! A fearful, life-and-death adventure this time. This evening somebody gave the Marchesina a box at the opera. She took me with her. Confound the woman, she will take me with her everywhere! Being a beautiful moonlight night, we walked home. As we were crossing the “Piazza” I became aware that a man was following us, and proposed to the Marchesina that we should mend our pace. “Never!” exclaimed that redoubtable woman. “None of my family have ever known what fear was a worthy daughter of the house, and I don’t know! Courage, Signor Potts, and keep step with me!”

This was all very well, but my house was the house of Potts, and every member had, at one time or other, known fear quite intimately. My position was dreadful. The resolute Marchesina kept tight hold of my arm, and positively slackened her pace rather than otherwise! The man still followed us, always at the same distance, evidently bent on robbery or assassination, or perhaps both. I would gladly have given the Marchesina five pounds to forget her family dignity and run.

On looking over my shoulder for about the five hundredth time, just as we entered the back street where the palace stood, I missed the mysterious stranger, to my infinite relief. The next moment, to my unutterable horror, I beheld him before us, evidently waiting to intercept our progress. We came up with him in the moonshine. Death and destruction! Polycarp the Second again!

“I know you!” growled the ruffian, grinding his teeth at me. “You got me turned out of the church! Body of Bacchus! I’ll be revenged on you for that!”

He thrust his hand into his waistcoat. Before I could utter even the faintest cry for help, the heroic Marchesina had caught him fast by the beard and wrist, and had pinned him helpless against the wall. “Pass on, Signor Potts!” said this lioness of a woman, quite complacently. “Pass on; there’s plenty of room now.” Just as I passed on I heard the sound of a kick behind me, and, turning round, saw Polycarp the Second prostrate in the kennel. “La, la, la-la-la-la-la – la!” sang the Marchesina from “Suoni la Tromba” (which we had just heard at the Opera), as she took my arm once more, and led me safely up the palace stairs – “La, la, la-la – la! We’ll have a salad for supper tonight, Signor Potts!” Majestic, Roman matron-minded woman! She could kick an assassin and talk of a salad both at the same moment!

4th – A very bad night’s rest: dreams of gleaming stilettos and midnight assassination. The fact is, my life is no longer safe in Florence. I can’t take the Marchesina about with me everywhere as a bodyguard (she is a great deal too affectionate already); and yet, without my Amazonian protectress what potent interposition is to preserve my life from the bloodthirsty Polycarp, when he next attempts it? I begin to be afraid that I am not quite so brave a man as I have been accustomed to think myself. Why have I not the courage Marchesina and her mother warning, and so leave Florence? Oh, Lord! here comes the tall woman to sit for the Sibyl picture! She will embrace me again, I know she will! She’s got into the habit of doing it; she takes an unfair advantage of her size and strength. Why can’t she practise fair play, and embrace a man of her own weight and inches?

5th – Another mess! I shall be dead soon; killed by getting into perpetual scrapes; if I am not killed by a stiletto! I’ve been stabbing an innocent man now; and have had to pay something like three pounds of compensation-money. This was how the thing happened: Yesterday I got away from the Marchesina (she hugged me, just as I foretold she would) about dusk, and immediately went and bought a sword-stick, as a defence against Polycarp. I don’t mind confessing that I was afraid to return to the palace at night without a weapon of some sort. They never shut the courtyard door till everybody is ready to go to bed; the great staircase is perfectly dark all the way up, and affords some capital positions for assassination on every landing-place. Knowing this, I drew my new sword (a murderous-looking steel skewer, about three feet long) out of the stick, as I advanced towards home, and began or Polycarp in the darkness, the moment I mounted the first stair. Up I went, stabbing every inch of my way before me, in the most scientific and complete manner; spitting invisible assassins like larks for supper. I was just exploring the corners of the second landing-place on this peculiar defensive system of my own, when my sword-point encountered a soft substance, and my ears were instantly greeted by a yell of human agony. In the fright of the moment, I echoed the yell, and fell down flat on my back. The Marchesina rushed out on the stairs at the noise, with a lamp in her hand. I sat up and looked round in desperation. There was the miserable old porter of the palace, bleeding and blubbering in a corner, and there was my deadly skewer of a sword stuck in a piece of tough Italian beef by his side! The meat must have attracted the skewer, like a magnet; and it saved the porter’s life. He was not much hurt; the beef (stolen property with which he was escaping to his lodge, when my avenging sword-point met him) acted like a shield, and was much the worse wounded of the two. The Marchesina found this out directly; and began to upbraid the porter for thieving. The porter upbraided me for stabbing, and I, having nobody else to upbraid, upbraided Destiny for leading me into a fresh scrape. The uproar we made was something quite indescribable; we three outscreamed all Billingsgate-market in the olden time. At last I calmed the storm by giving the porter every farthing I had about me, and asking the Marchesina to accept the sword part of my sword stick as a new spit to adorn the kitchen department of the palace. She called me “an angel;” and hugged me furiously on the spot. If this hugging is not stopped by tomorrow I shall put myself under the protection of the British ambassador – I will, or my name isn’t Potts!

6th – No protection is henceforth available! No British ambassador can now defend my rights! No threats of assassination from Polycarp the Second can terrify me more! – All my other calamities are now merged in one enormous misfortune that will last for the rest of my life: the Marchesina has declared her intention of marrying me!

It was done at supper last night, after I had pinked the porter. We sat round the inevitable, invariable salad, on which we were condemned to graze – the Nebuchadnezzars of modern life – in this accursed gazebo of a palace. My stomach began to ache beforehand as I saw the Marchesina pouring in the vinegar, and heard her, at the same time, dropping certain hints in my direction – frightfully broad hints, with which she has terrified and bewildered me for the last three or four days. I sat silent. In England I should have rushed to the window and screamed for the police; but I was in Florence, defenceless and a stranger, before an Amazon who was fast ogling me into terrified submission to my fate. She soon got beyond even the ogling. When we were all three helped to salad, just at the pause before eating, the Marchesina looked round at her fleshless, yellow old parent.

“Mother,” says she, “shall I have him?”

“Beloved angel,” was the answer, “you are of age, I leave your choice to yourself; pick where you like?”

“Very well then,” pursued the Amazonian daughter, “very well! Potts! here is my hand.” She held out her mighty fist towards me, with a diabolical grin. I felt I must either take it or have my head broken. I now sincerely wish I had preferred the latter alternative; but an unlucky emotion of terror misled me into accepting the former. I received an amorous squeeze that made the bones of my fingers crack again.

“You are a little man, and not noble,” observed the Marchesina, critically looking me over, as if I had been a piece of meat that she was purchasing in the market, “but you get both size and rank in getting me. Let us therefore be perfectly happy, and proceed with our salad.”

“I beg your pardon,” said I, faintly shivering all over in a sort of cold horror, “I beg your pardon; but really—”

“Come, come!” interrupted the Marchesina, crushing my hand with another squeeze; “too much diffidence is a fault; you have genius and wealth to offer in exchange for all I confer on you, you have, you modest little cherub of a man! As for the day, my venerated mother!” she continued, turning towards the old woman; “shall we say this day week?”

“Certainly, this day week,” said mamma, looking yellower than ever, as she mopped up all the oil and vinegar in her plate with a large spoon. The next minute I received the old woman’s blessing; I was ordered to kiss the Marchesina’s hand; I was wished good night, – and then found myself alone with three empty salad plates; “left for execution” that very day week; left without the slightest chance of a reprieve!

I write these lines at the dead of night, – myself, more dead than alive. I am in my bedroom; the door is locked and barricaded against the possible entrance of the Marchesina and her mamma. I am covered from head to foot with a cold perspiration, but am nevertheless firm in my resolution to run away tomorrow. I must leave all my luggage behind me, and resort to stratagem or I shall not get off. Tomorrow, the moment the palace gate is opened, I shall take to my heels, carrying with me nothing but my purse, my passport, and my nightcap. Hush! a stealthy breathing sounds outside the door – an eye is at the keyhole – it is the old woman watching me! Hark! a footstep in the street outside – Polycarp the Second, with his stiletto lying in wait before the house! I shall be followed, I know I shall, however cunningly and secretly I get away tomorrow! Marriage and murder – murder and marriage, will alternately threaten me for the remainder of my life! Art, farewell! henceforth the rest of my existence is dedicated to perpetual flight!

[NOTE BY THE EDITOR
OF THE FOREGOING FRAGMENTS]

With the ominous word “flight,” the journal of Mr. Potts abruptly ends. I became possessed of the manuscript in this manner: The other day, while I was quietly sitting in my study in London, the door of the room was flung violently open, and the ill-fated Potts himself rushed in, his eyes glaring, his hair dishevelled.

“Print that!” cried my gifted, but unhappy friend; “enlist for me the sympathies, procure for me the protection, of the British public! The Marchesina is after me – she has followed me to England – she is at the bottom of the street! Farewell, farewell, forever!”

“Who is the Marchesina? Where are you going to?” I exclaimed, aghast.

“To Scotland! To hide myself in the inaccessible caverns of the most desolate island I can find among the Hebrides!” cried Potts, dashing out of the room like a madman. I ran to my window, which opens on the street, just in time to see my friend fly past, at the top of his speed. The next passenger proceeding in the same direction was a woman of gigantic stature, striding over the pavement in a manner awful to behold. Could that be the Marchesina? For my friend’s sake I devoutly hope not.

Bentley’s Miscellany Feb 1852

THE MIDNIGHT MASS

AN EPISODE
IN THE HISTORY
OF THE REIGN OF TERROR

About eight o’clock on the night of the 22nd of January, 1793, while the Reign of Terror was still at its height in Paris, an old woman descended the rapid eminence in that city, which terminates before the Church of St. Laurent. The snow had fallen so heavily during the whole day, that the sound of footsteps was scarcely audible. The streets were deserted; and the fear that silence naturally inspires, was increased by the general terror which then assailed France. The old woman passed on her way, without perceiving a living soul in the streets; her feeble sight preventing her from observing in the distance, by the lamplight, several foot passengers, who flitted like shadows over the vast space of the Faubourg, through which she was proceeding. She walked on courageously through the solitude, as if her age were a talisman which could shield her from every calamity. No sooner, however, had she passed the Rue des Morts, than she thought she heard the firm and heavy footsteps of a man walking behind her. It struck her that she had not heard this sound for the first time. Trembling at the idea of being followed, she quickened her pace, in order to confirm her suspicions by the rays of light which proceeded from an adjacent shop. As soon as she had reached it, she abruptly turned her head, and perceived, through the fog, the outline of a human form. This indistinct vision was enough: she shuddered violently the moment she saw it – doubting not that the stranger had followed her from the moment she had quitted home. But the desire to escape from a spy soon renewed her courage, and she quickened her pace, vainly thinking that, by such means, she could escape from a man necessarily much more active than herself.

After running for some minutes, she arrived at a pastry-cook’s shop – entered – and sank, rather than sat down, on a chair which stood before the counter. The moment she raised the latch of the door, a woman in the shop looked quickly through the windows towards the street; and, observing the old lady, immediately opened a drawer in the counter, as if to take out something which she had to deliver to her. Not only did the gestures and expression of the young woman show her desire to be quickly relieved of the newcomer, as of a person whom it was not safe to welcome; but she also let slip a few words of impatience at finding the drawer empty. Regardless of the old lady’s presence, she unceremoniously quitted the counter, retired to an inner apartment, and called her husband, who at once obeyed the summons.

“Where have you placed the—?” inquired she, with a mysterious air, glancing towards the visitor, instead of finishing the sentence.

Although the pastry-cook could only perceive the large hood of black silk, ornamented with bows of violet-coloured ribbon, which formed the old lady’s head-dress, he at once cast a significant look at his wife, as much as to say – “Could you think me careless enough to leave what you ask for, in such a place as the shop!” and then hurriedly disappeared.

Surprised at the silence and immobility of the stranger lady, the young woman approached her; and, on beholding her face, experienced a feeling of compassion – perhaps, we may add, a feeling of curiosity, as well.

Although the complexion of the old lady was naturally colourless, like that of one long accustomed to secret austerities, it was easy to see that a recent emotion had cast over it an additional paleness. Her headdress was so disposed as completely to hide her hair; and thereby to give her face an appearance of religious severity. At the time of which we write, the manners and habits of people of quality were so different from those of the lower classes, that it was easy to identify a person of distinction from outward appearance alone. Accordingly, the pastry-cook’s wife at once discovered that the strange visitor was an ex-aristocrat – or, as we should now express it, “a born lady.”

“Madame!” she exclaimed respectfully – forgetting, at the moment, that this, like all other titles, was now proscribed under the Republic.

The old lady made no answer, but fixed her eyes steadfastly on the shop windows, as if they disclosed some object that terrified her.

“What is the matter with you, citizen?” asked the pastry-cook, who made his appearance at this moment, and disturbed her reverie by handing her a small pasteboard box, wrapped up in blue paper.

“Nothing, nothing, my good friends,” she replied, softly. While speaking, she looked gratefully at the pastry-cook; then, observing on his head the revolutionary red cap, she abruptly exclaimed – “You are a Republican! you have betrayed me!”

The pastry-cook and his wife indignantly disclaimed the imputation by a gesture. The old lady blushed as she noticed it – perhaps, with shame, at having suspected them – perhaps with pleasure, at finding them trustworthy.

“Pardon me,” said she, with childlike gentleness, drawing from her pocket a louis d’or. “There,” she continued, “there is the stipulated price.”

There is a poverty which the poor alone can discover. The pastry-cook and his wife felt the same conviction as they looked at each other – it was perhaps the last louis d’or which the old lady possessed. When she offered the coin her hand trembled: she had gazed upon it with some sorrow, but with no avarice; and yet, in giving it, she seemed to be fully aware that she was making a sacrifice. The shopkeepers, equally moved by pity and interest, began by comforting their consciences with civil words.

“You seem rather poorly, citizen,” said the pastry-cook.

“Would you like to take any refreshment, Madame?” interrupted his wife.

“We have some excellent soup,” continued the husband.

“The cold has perhaps affected you, Madame,” resumed the young woman; “pray step in, and sit and warm yourself by our fire.”

“We may be Republicans,” observed the pastry-cook; “but the devil is not always so black as he is painted.”

Encouraged by the kind words addressed to her by the shopkeepers, the old lady confessed that she had been followed by a strange man, and that she was afraid to return home by herself.

“Is that all?” replied the valiant pastry-cook. “I’ll be ready to go home with you in a minute, citizen.”

He gave the louis d’or to his wife, and then – animated by that sort of gratitude which all tradesmen feel at receiving a large price for an article of little value – hastened to put on his National Guard’s uniform, and soon appeared in complete military array. In the meanwhile, however, his wife had found time to reflect; and in her case, as in many others, reflection closed the open hand of charity. Apprehensive that her husband might be mixed up in some misadventure, she tried hard to detain him; but, strong in his benevolent impulse, the honest fellow persisted in offering himself as the old lady’s escort.

“Do you imagine, Madame, that the man you are so much afraid of, is still waiting outside the shop?” asked the young woman.

“I feel certain of it,” replied the lady.

“Suppose he should be a spy! Suppose the whole affair should be a conspiracy! Don’t go! Get back the box we gave her.” These words whispered to the pastry-cook by his wife, had the effect of cooling his courage with extraordinary rapidity.

“I’ll just say two words to that mysterious personage outside, and relieve you of all annoyance immediately,” said he, hastily quitting the shop.

The old lady, passive as a child, and half bewildered, reseated herself.

The pastry-cook was not long before he returned. His face, which was naturally ruddy, had turned quite pale; he was so panic-stricken, that his legs trembled under him, and his eyes rolled like the eyes of a drunken man.

“Are you trying to get our throats cut for us, you rascally aristocrat?” cried he, furiously. “Do you think you can make me the tool of a conspiracy—? Quick! show us your heels! and never let us see your face again!”

So saying, he endeavoured to snatch away the box, which the old lady had placed in her pocket. No sooner, however, had his hands touched her dress, than, preferring any perils in the street to losing the treasure for which she had just paid so large a price, she darted with the activity of youth towards the door, opened it violently, and disappeared in a moment from the eyes of the bewildered shopkeepers.

Upon gaining the street again, she walked at her utmost speed; but her strength soon failed, when she heard the spy who had so remorselessly followed her, crunching the snow under his heavy tread. She involuntarily stopped short: the man stopped short too! At first, her terror prevented her from speaking, or looking round at him; but it is in the nature of us all – even of the most infirm – to relapse into comparative calm immediately after violent agitation; for, though our feelings may be unbounded, the organs which express them have their limits. Accordingly, the old lady, finding that she experienced no particular annoyance from her imaginary persecutor, willingly tried to convince herself that he might be a secret friend, resolved at all hazards to protect her. She reconsidered the circumstances which had attended the stranger’s appearance, and soon contrived to persuade herself that his object in following her, was much more likely to be a good than an evil one.

Forgetful, therefore, of the fear with which he had inspired the pastry-cook, she now went on her way with greater confidence. After a walk of half an hour, she arrived at a house situated at the corner of a street leading to the Barrière Pantin – even at the present day, the most deserted locality in all Paris. A cold north-easterly wind whistled sharply across the few houses, or rather tenements, scattered about almost uninhabited region. The place seemed, from its utter desolation, the natural asylum of penury and despair.

The stranger, who still resolutely dogged the poor old lady’s steps, seemed struck with the scene on which his eyes now rested. He stopped – erect, thoughtful, and hesitating – his figure feebly lighted by a lamp, the uncertain rays of which scarcely penetrated the fog. Fear had quickened the old lady’s eyes. She now thought she perceived something sinister in the features of the stranger. All her former terrors returned, and she took advantage of the man’s temporary indecision, to steal away in the darkness towards the door of a solitary house. She pressed a spring under the latch, and disappeared with the rapidity of a phantom.

The stranger, still standing motionless, contemplated the house, which bore the same appearance of misery as the rest of the Faubourg. Built of irregular stones, and stuccoed with yellowish plaster, it seemed, from the wide cracks in the walls, as if a strong gust of wind would bring the crazy building to the ground. The roof, formed of brown tiles, long since covered with moss, was so sunk in several places that it threatened to give way under the weight of snow which now lay upon it. Each story had three windows, the frames of which, rotted with damp and disjointed by the heat of the sun, showed how bitterly the cold must penetrate into the apartments. The comfortless, isolated dwelling resembled some old tower which Time had forgotten to destroy. One faint light glimmered from the windows of the gable in which the top of the building terminated; the remainder of the house was plunged in the deepest obscurity.

Meanwhile, the old woman ascended with some difficulty a rude and dilapidated flight of stairs, assisting herself by a rope, which supplied the place of bannisters. She knocked mysteriously at the door of one of the rooms situated on the garret-floor, was quickly let in by an old man, and then sank down feebly into a chair which he presented to her.

“Hide yourself! Hide yourself!” she exclaimed. “Seldom as we venture out, our steps have been traced; our proceedings are known!”

“What is the matter?” asked another old woman seated near the fire.

“The man whom we have seen loitering about the house since yesterday, has followed me this evening,” she replied.

At these words, the three inmates of the miserable abode looked on each other in silent terror. The old man was the least agitated – perhaps for the very reason that his danger was really the greatest. When tried by heavy affliction, or threatened by bitter persecution, the first principle of a courageous man is, at all times, to contemplate calmly the sacrifice of himself for the safety of others. The expression in the faces of his two companions showed plainly, as they looked on the old man, that he was the sole object of their most vigilant solicitude.

“Let us not distrust the goodness of God, my sisters,” said he, in grave, reassuring tones. “We sang His praises even in the midst of the slaughter that raged through our Convent. If it was His good will that I should be saved from the fearful butchery committed in that holy place by the Republicans, it was no doubt to reserve me for another destiny which I must accept without a murmur. God watches over His chosen, and disposes of them as seems best to His good will. Think of yourselves, my sisters – think not of me!”

“Impossible!” said one of the women. “What are our lives – the lives of two poor nuns – in comparison with yours; in comparison with the life of a priest?”  “Here, father,” said the old nun who had just returned; “here are the consecrated wafers of which you sent me in search.” She handed him the box which she had received from the pastry-cook.

“Hark!” cried the other nun; “I hear footsteps coming upstairs.” They all listened intently. The noise of footsteps ceased.

“Do not alarm yourselves,” said the priest. “Whatever happens, I have already engaged a person on whose fidelity we can depend, to escort you in safety over the frontier; to rescue you from the martyrdom which the ferocious will of Robespierre and his coadjutors of the Reign of Terror would decree against every servant of the church.”

“Do you not mean to accompany us?” asked the two nuns, affrightedly.

“My place, sisters, is with the martyrs – not with the saved,” said the old priest, calmly.

“Hark! the steps on the staircase! – the heavy steps we heard before!” cried the women.

This time it was easy to distinguish, in the midst of the silence of night, the echoing sound of footsteps on the stone stairs. The nuns, as they heard it approach nearer and nearer, forced the priest into a recess at one end of the room, closed the door, and hurriedly heaped some old clothes against it. The moment after, they were startled by three distinct knocks at the outer door.

The person who demanded admittance appeared to interpret the terrified silence which had seized the nuns on hearing his knock, into a signal to enter. He opened the door himself, and the affrighted women immediately recognised him as the man whom they had detected watching the house – the spy who had watched one of them through the streets that night.

The stranger was tall and robust, but there was nothing in his features or general appearance to denote that he was a dangerous man. Without attempting to break the silence, he slowly looked round the room. Two bundles of straw, strewn upon boards, served as a bed for the two nuns. In the centre of the room was a table, on which were placed a copper candlestick, some plates, three knives, and a loaf of bread. There was but a small fire in the grate, and the scanty supply of wood piled near it, plainly showed the poverty of the inmates. The old walls, which at some distant period had been painted, indicated the miserable state of the roof, by the patches of brown streaked across them by the rain, which had filtered drop by drop through the ceiling. A sacred relic, saved probably from the pillage of the convent to which the two nuns and the priest had been attached, was placed on the chimney-piece. Three chairs, two boxes, and an old chest-of-drawers completed the furniture of the apartment.

At one corner near the mantelshelf, a door had been constructed which indicated that there was a second room in that direction.

An expression of pity appeared on the countenance of the stranger, as his eyes fell on the two nuns, after having surveyed their wretched apartment. He was the first to break the strange silence that had hitherto prevailed, by addressing the two poor creatures before him in such tones of kindness as were best adapted to the nervous terror under which they were evidently suffering.

“Citizens!” he began, “I do not come to you as an enemy.” He stopped for a moment, and then continued – “If any misfortune has befallen you, rest assured that I am not the cause of it. My only object here is to ask a great favour of you.”

The nuns still kept silence.

“If my presence causes you any anxiety,” he went on, “tell me so at once, and I will depart; but believe me, I am really devoted to your interests; and if there is anything in which I can befriend you, you may confide in me without fear. I am, perhaps, the only man in Paris whom the law cannot assail, now that the Kings of France are no more.”

There was such a tone of sincerity in these words, as he spoke them, that Sister Agatha (the nun to whom the reader was introduced at the outset of this narrative, and whose manners exhibited all the court refinement of the old school) instinctively pointed to one of the chairs, as if to request the stranger to be seated. His expression showed a mixture of satisfaction and melancholy, as he acknowledged this little attention, of which he did not take advantage until the nuns had first seated themselves.

“You have given an asylum here,” continued he, “to a venerable priest, who has miraculously escaped from massacre at a Carmelite convent.”

“Are you the person,” asked Sister Agatha, eagerly, “appointed to protect our flight from—?”

“I am not the person whom you expected to see,” he replied calmly.

“I assure you, sir,” interrupted the other nun, anxiously, “that we have no priest here; we have not, indeed.”

“You had better be a little more careful about appearances on a future occasion,” he replied gently, taking from the table a Latin breviary. “May I ask if you are both in the habit of reading the Latin language?” he inquired, with a slight inflexion of sarcasm in his voice.

No answer was returned. Observing the anguish depicted on the countenance of the nuns, the trembling of their limbs, the tears that filled their eyes, the stranger began to fear that he had gone too far.

“Compose yourselves,” he continued, frankly. “For three days I have been acquainted with the state of distress in which you are living. I know your names, and the name of the venerable priest whom you are concealing. It is—”

“Hush! do not speak it,” cried Sister Agatha, placing her finger on her lips.

“I have now said enough,” he went on, “to show that if I had conceived the base design of betraying you, I could have accomplished my object before now.”

On the utterance of these words, the priest, who had heard all that had passed, left his hiding-place, and appeared in the room.

“I cannot believe, sir,” said he, “that you are leagued with my persecutors; and I therefore willingly confide in you. What do you require of me—?”

The noble confidence of the priest – the saint-like purity expressed in his features – must have struck even an assassin with respect. The mysterious personage who had intruded on the scene of misery and resignation which the garret presented, looked silently for a moment on the three beings before him, and then, in tones of secrecy, thus addressed the priest:

“Father, I am come to entreat you to celebrate a mortuary mass for the repose of the soul of – of a – of a person whose life the laws once held sacred, but whose corpse will never rest in holy ground.”

An involuntary shudder seized the priest, as he guessed the hidden meaning in these words. The nuns, unable to imagine what person was indicated by the stranger, looked on him with equal curiosity and alarm.

“Your wish shall be granted,” said the priest, in low, awe-struck tones. “Return to this place at midnight, and you will find me ready to celebrate the only funeral service which the church can offer in expiation of the crime to which I understand you to allude.”

The stranger trembled violently for a moment, then composed himself, respectfully saluted the priest and the two nuns, and departed without uttering a word.

About two hours afterwards, a soft knock at the outer door announced the mysterious visitor’s return. He was admitted by Sister Agatha, who conducted him into the second apartment of their modest retreat, where everything had been prepared for the midnight mass. Near the fireplace the nuns had placed their old chest of drawers, the clumsy workmanship of which was concealed under a rich altar-cloth of green velvet. A large crucifix, formed of ivory and ebony, was hung against the bare plaster wall. Four small tapers, fixed by sealing-wax on the temporary altar, threw a faint and mysterious gleam over the crucifix, but hardly penetrated to any other part of the walls of the room. Thus almost exclusively confined to the sacred objects immediately above and around it, the glow from the tapers looked like a light falling from heaven itself on that unadorned and unpretending altar. The floor of the room was damp. The miserable roof, sloping on either side, was pierced with rents, through which the cold night air penetrated into the rooms. Nothing could be less magnificent, and yet nothing could be more truly solemn than the manner in which the preliminaries of the funeral ceremony had been arranged. A deep, dread silence, through which the slightest noise in the street could be heard, added to the dreary grandeur of the midnight scene – a grandeur majestically expressed by the contrast between the homeliness of the temporary church, and the solemnity of the service to which it was now devoted. On each side of the altar, the two aged women kneeling on the tiled floor, unmindful of its deadly dampness, were praying in concert with the priest, who, clothed in his sacerdotal robes, raised on high a golden chalice, adorned with precious stones, the most sacred of the few relics saved from the pillage of the Carmelite Convent.

The stranger, approaching after an interval, knelt reverently between the two nuns. As he looked up towards the crucifix, he saw, for the first time, that a piece of black crape was attached to it. On beholding this simple sign of mourning, terrible recollections appeared to be awakened within him; the big drops of agony started thick and fast on his massive brow.

Gradually,as the four actors in this solemn scene still fervently prayed together, their souls began to sympathize the one with the other, Mending in one common feeling of religious awe. Awful, in truth, was the service in which they were now secretly engaged! Beneath that mouldering roof, those four Christians were then interceding with Heaven for the soul of a martyred King of France; performing, at the peril of their lives, in those days of anarchy and terror, a funeral service for that hapless Louis the Sixteenth, who died on the scaffold, who was buried without a coffin or a shroud! It was, in them, the purest of all acts of devotion, – the purest, from its disinterestedness, from its courageous fidelity. The last relics of the loyalty of France were collected in that poor room, enshrined in the prayers of a priest and two aged women. Perhaps, too, the dark spirit of the Revolution was present there as well, impersonated by the stranger, whose face, while he knelt before the altar, betrayed an expression of the most poignant remorse.

The most gorgeous mass ever celebrated in the gorgeous Cathedral of St. Peter, at Rome, could not have expressed the sincere feeling of prayer so nobly as it was now expressed, by those four persons, under that lowly roof!

There was one moment, during the progress of the service, at which the nuns detected that tears were trickling fast over the stranger’s cheeks. It was when the Pater Noster was said.

On the termination of the midnight mass, the priest made a sign to the two nuns, who immediately left the room. As soon as they were alone, he thus addressed the stranger:

“My son, if you have imbrued your hands in the blood of the martyred King, confide in me, and in my sacred office. Repentance so deep and sincere as yours appears to be, may efface even the crime of regicide, in the eyes of God.”

“Holy father,” replied the other, in trembling accents, “no man is less guilty than I am of shedding the King’s blood.”

“I would fain believe you,” answered the priest. He paused for a moment as he said this, looked steadfastly on the penitent man before him, and then continued:

“But remember, my son, you cannot be absolved of the crime of regicide, because you have not co-operated in it. Those who had the power of defending their King, and who, having that power, still left the sword in the scabbard, will be called to render a heavy account at the day of judgement, before the King of kings; yes, a heavy and an awful account indeed! for, in remaining passive, they became the involuntary accomplices of the worst of murders.”

“Do you think then, father,” murmured the stranger, deeply abashed, “that all indirect participations are visited with punishment? Is the soldier guilty of the death of Louis who obeyed the order to guard the scaffold—?”

The priest hesitated.

“I should be ashamed,” continued the other, betraying by his expression some satisfaction at the dilemma in which he had placed the old man – “I should be ashamed of offering you any pecuniary recompense for such a funeral service as you have celebrated. It is only possible to repay an act so noble by an offering which is priceless. Honour me by accepting this sacred relic. The day perhaps will come when you will understand its value.”

So saying, he presented to the priest a small box, extremely light in weight, which the aged ecclesiastic took, as it were, involuntarily; for he felt awed by the solemn tones in which the man spoke as he offered it. Briefly expressing his thanks for the mysterious present, the priest conducted his guest into the outer room, where the two nuns remained in attendance.

“The house you now inhabit,” said the stranger, addressing the nuns as well as the priest, “belongs to a landlord who outwardly affects extreme republicanism, but who is at heart devoted to the royal cause. He was formerly a huntsman in the service of one of the Bourbons, the Prince de Conti, to whom he is indebted for all that he possesses. So long as you remain in this house you are safer than in any other place in France. Remain here, therefore. Persons worthy of trust will supply all your necessities, and you will be able to await in safety the prospect of better times. In a year from this day, on the 21st of January, should you still remain the occupants of this miserable abode, I will return to repeat with you the celebration of tonight’s expiatory mass.” He paused abruptly, and bowed without adding another word; then delayed a moment more, to cast a parting look on the objects of poverty which surrounded him, and left the room.

To the two simple-minded nuns, the whole affair had all the interest of a romance. Their faces displayed the most intense anxiety, the moment the priest informed them of the mysterious gift which the stranger had so solemnly presented to him. Sister Agatha immediately opened the box, and discovered in it a handkerchief, made of the finest cambric, and soiled with marks of perspiration. They unfolded it eagerly, and then found that it was defaced in certain places with dark stains.

“Those stains are blood stains!” exclaimed the priest.

“The handkerchief is marked with the royal crown!” cried Sister Agatha.

Both the nuns dropped the precious relic, marked by the King’s blood, with horror. To their simple minds, the mystery which was attached to the stranger, now deepened fearfully. As for the priest, from that moment he ceased, even in thought, to attempt identifying his visitor, or discovering the means by which he bad become possessed of the royal handkerchief.

Throughout the atrocities practised during a year of the Reign of Terror, the three refugees were safely guarded by the same protecting interference, ever at work for their advantage. At first, they received large supplies of fuel and provisions; then the two nuns found reason to imagine that one of their own sex had become associated with their invisible protector, for they were furnished with the necessary linen and clothing which enabled them to go out without attracting attention by any peculiarities of attire. Besides this, warnings of danger constantly came to the priest in the most unexpected manner, and always opportunely. And then, again, in spite of the famine which at that period afflicted Paris, the inhabitants of the garret were sure to find placed every morning at their door, a supply of the best wheaten bread, regularly left for them by some invisible hand.

They could only guess that the agent of the charitable attentions thus lavished on them, was the landlord of the house, and that the person by whom he was employed was no other than the stranger who had celebrated with them the funeral mass for the repose of the King’s soul. Thus, this mysterious man was regarded with especial reverence by the priest and the nuns, whose lives for the present and whose hopes for the future, depended on their strange visitor. They added to their usual prayers at night and morning, prayers for him.

At length the long-expected night of the 2lst of January arrived, and, exactly as the clock struck twelve, the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs announced the approach of the stranger. The room had been carefully prepared for his reception, the altar had been arranged, and, on this occasion, the nuns eagerly opened the door, even before they heard the knock.

“Welcome back again! most welcome!” cried they; “we have been anxiously awaiting you.”

The stranger raised his head, looked gloomily on the nuns, and made no answer. Chilled by his cold reception of their kind greeting, they did not venture to utter another word. He seemed to have frozen at their hearts, in an instant, all the gratitude, all the friendly aspirations of the long year that had passed. They now perceived but too plainly that their visitor desired to remain a complete stranger to them, and that they must resign all hope of ever making a friend of him. The old priest fancied he had detected a smile on the lips of their guest when he entered, but that smile – if it had really appeared – vanished again the moment he observed the preparations which had been made for his reception. He knelt to hear the funeral mass, prayed fervently as before, and then abruptly took his departure; briefly declining, by a few civil words, to partake of the simple refreshment offered to him, on the expiration of the service, by the two nuns.

Day after day wore on, and nothing more was heard of the stranger by the inhabitants of the garret. After the fall of Robespierre, the church was delivered from all actual persecution, and the priest and the nuns were free to appear publicly in Paris, without the slightest risk of danger. One of the first expeditions undertaken by the aged ecclesiastic led him to a perfumer’s shop, kept by a man who had formerly been one of the Court tradesmen, and who had always remained faithful to the Royal Family. The priest, clothed once more in his clerical dress, was standing at the shop door talking to the perfumer, when he observed a great crowd rapidly advancing along the street. “What is the matter yonder?” he inquired of the shopkeeper.

“Nothing,” replied the man, carelessly, “but the cart with the condemned criminals going to the place of execution. Nobody pities them – and nobody ought!”

“You are not speaking like a Christian,” exclaimed the priest. “Why not pity them?”

“Because,” answered the perfumer, “those men who are going to execution are the last accomplices of Robespierre. They only travel the same fatal road which their innocent victims took before them.”

The cart with the prisoners condemned to the guillotine had by this time arrived opposite the perfumer’s shop. As the old priest looked curiously towards the state criminals, he saw, standing erect and undaunted among his drooping fellow prisoners, the very man at whose desire he had twice celebrated the funeral service for the martyred King of France!

“Who is that, standing upright in the cart?” cried the priest, breathlessly.

The perfumer looked in the direction indicated, and answered—

“The Executioner of Louis the Sixteenth!”

Bentley’s Miscellany Jun 1852

NINE O’CLOCK

The night of the 30th of June, 1793, is memorable in the prison annals of Paris, as the last night in confinement of the leaders of the famous Girondin party in the first French revolution. On the morning of the 31st, the twenty-one deputies who represented the department of the Gironde, were guillotined to make way for Robespierre and the Reign of Terror.

With these men fell the last revolutionists of that period who shrank from founding a republic on massacre; who recoiled from substituting for a monarchy of corruption, a monarchy of bloodshed. The elements of their defeat lay as much in themselves, as in the events of their time. They were not, as a party, true to their own convictions; they temporized; they fatally attempted to take a middle course amid the terrible emergencies of a terrible epoch, and they fell – fell before worse men, because those men were in earnest.

Condemned to die, the Girondins submitted nobly to their fate; their great glory was the glory of their deaths. The speech of one of them on hearing his sentence pronounced, was a prophecy of the future, fulfilled to the letter.

“I die,” he said to the Jacobin judges, the creatures of Robespierre, who tried him. “I die at a time when the people have lost their reason; you will die on the day when they recover it.” Valazé was the only member of the condemned party who displayed a momentary weakness; he stabbed himself on hearing his sentence pronounced. But the blow was not mortal – he died on the scaffold, and died bravely with the rest.

On the night of the 30th the Girondins held their famous banquet in the prison; celebrated, with the ferocious stoicism of the time, their last social meeting before the morning on which they were to die. Other men, besides the twenty-one, were present at this supper of the condemned. They were prisoners who held Girondin opinions, but whose names were not illustrious enough for history to preserve. Though sentenced to confinement they were not sentenced to death. Some of their number, who had protested most boldly against the condemnation of the deputies, were ordered to witness the execution on the morrow, as a timely example to terrify them into submission. More than this, Robespierre and his colleagues did not, as yet, venture to attempt: the Reign of Terror was a cautious reign at starting.

The supper-table of the prison was spread; the guests, twenty-one of their number stamped already with the seal of death, were congregated at the last Girondin banquet; toast followed toast; the Marseillaise was sung; the desperate triumph of the feast was rising fast to its climax, when a new and ominous subject of conversation was started at the lower end of the table, and spread electrically, almost in a moment , to the top.

This subject (by whom originated no one knew) was simply a question as to the hour in the morning at which the execution was to take place. Every one of the prisoners appeared to be in ignorance on this point; and the gaolers either could not, or would not, enlighten them. Until the cart for the condemned rolled into the prison-yard, not one of the Girondins could tell whether he was to be called out to the guillotine soon after sunrise, or not till near noon.

This uncertainty was made a topic for discussion, or for jesting on all sides. It was eagerly seized on as a pretext for raising to the highest pitch the ghastly animation and hilarity of the evening. In some quarters, the recognised hour of former executions was quoted as precedent sure to be followed by the executioners of the morrow; in others, it was asserted that Robespierre and his party would purposely depart from established customs in this, as in previous instances. Dozens of wild schemes were suggested for guessing the hour by fortune-telling rules on the cards; bets were offered and accepted among the prisoners who were not condemned to death, and witnessed in stoical mockery by the prisoners who were. Jests were exchanged about early rising and hurried toilets; in short, every man contributed an assertion, with one solitary exception. That exception was the Girondin, Duprat, one of the deputies who was sentenced to die by the guillotine.

He was a younger man than the majority of his brethren, and was personally remarkable by his pale, handsome, melancholy face, and his reserved yet gentle manners. Throughout the evening, he had spoken but rarely; there was something of the silence and serenity of a martyr in his demeanour. That he feared death as little as any of his companions was plainly visible in his bright, steady eye; in his unchanging complexion; in his firm, calm voice, when he occasionally addressed those who happened to be near him. But he was evidently out of place at the banquet; his temperament was reflective, his disposition serious; feasts were at no time a sphere in which he was calculated to shine.

His taciturnity, while the hour of the execution was under discussion, had separated him from most of those with whom he sat, at the lower end of the table. They edged up towards the top, where the conversation was most general and most animated. One of his friends, however, still kept his place by Duprat’s side, and thus questioned him anxiously, but in low tones, on the cause of his immovable silence:

“Are you the only man of the company, Duprat, who has neither a guess nor a joke to make about the time of the execution?”

“I never joke, Marginy,” was the answer, given with a slight smile which had something of the sarcastic in it; “and as for guessing at the time of the execution, I never guess at things which I know.”

“Know! You know the hour of the execution! Then why not communicate your knowledge to your friends around you?”

“Because not one of them would believe what I said.”

“But, surely, you could prove it. Somebody must have told you.”

“Nobody has told me.”

“You have seen some private letter, then; or you have managed to get sight of the execution-order; or—”

“Spare your conjectures, Marginy. I have not read, as I have not been told, what is the hour at which we are to die tomorrow.”

“Then how on earth can you possibly know it?”

“I do not know when the execution will begin, or when it will end. I only know that it will be going on at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Out of the twenty-one who are to suffer death, one will be guillotined exactly at that hour. Whether he will be the first whose head falls, or the last, I cannot tell.”

“And pray who may this man be, who is going to die exactly at nine o’clock? Of course, prophetically knowing so much, you know that!”

“I do know it. I am the man whose death by the guillotine will take place exactly at the hour I have mentioned.”

“You said just now, Duprat, that you never joked. Do you expect me to believe that what you have just spoken is spoken in earnest?”

“I repeat that I never joke; and I answer that I expect you to believe me. I know the hour at which my death will take place tomorrow, just as certainly as I know the fact of my own existence tonight.”

“But how? My dear friend, can you really lay claim to supernatural intuition, in this eighteenth century of the world, in this renowned Age of reason?”

“No two men, Marginy, understand that word, supernatural, exactly in the same sense; you and I differ about its meaning, or, in other words, differ about the real distinction between the doubtful and the true. We will not discuss the subject: I wish to be understood, at the outset, as laying claim to no superior intuitions whatever; but I tell you, at the same time, that even in this Age of Reason, I have reason for what I have said. My father and my brother both died at nine o’clock in the morning, and were both warned very strangely of their deaths. I am the last of my family; I was warned last night, as they were warned; and I shall die by the guillotine, as they died in their beds, at the fatal hour of nine.”

“But, Duprat, why have I never heard of this before? As your oldest and, I am sure, your dearest friend, I thought you had long since trusted me with all your secrets.”

“And you shall know this secret; I only kept it from you till the time when I would be certain that my death would substantiate my words, to the very letter. Come! you are as bad supper-company as I am; let us slip away from the table unperceived, while our friends are all engaged in conversation. Yonder end of the hall is dark and quiet – we can speak there uninterruptedly, for some hours to come,”

He led the way from the supper-table, followed by Marginy. Arrived at one of the darkest and most retired corners of the great hall of the prison, Duprat spoke again:

“I believe, Marginy,” he said, “that you are one of those who have been ordered by our tyrants to witness my execution, and the execution of my brethren, as a warning spectacle for an enemy to the Jacobin cause?”

“My dear, dear friend! it is too true; I am ordered to witness the butchery which I cannot prevent – our last awful parting will be at the foot of the scaffold. I am among the victims who are spared – mercilessly spared – for a little while yet.”

“Say the martyrs! We die as martyrs, calmly, hopefully, innocently. When I am placed under the guillotine tomorrow morning, listen, my friend, for the striking of the church clocks; listen for the hour while you look your last on me. Until that time, suspend your judgement on the strange chapter of family history which I am now about to relate.”

Marginy took his friend’s hand, and promised compliance with the request. Duprat then began as follows:

•   •   •

You knew my brother Alfred, when he was quite a youth, and you knew something of what people flippantly termed, the eccentricities of his character. He was three years my junior; but from childhood, he showed far less of a child’s innate levity and happiness than his elder brother. He was noted for his seriousness and thoughtfulness as a boy; showed little inclination for a boy’s usual lessons, and less still for a boy’s usual recreations, – in short, he was considered by everybody (my father included) as deficient in intellect; as a vacant dreamer, and an inveterate idler, whom it was hopeless to improve. our tutor tried to lead him to various studies, and tried in vain. It was the same when the cultivation of his mind was given up, and the cultivation of his body was next attempted. The fencing-master could make nothing of him; and the dancing-master, after the first three lessons, resigned in despair. Seeing that it was useless to set others to teach him, my father made a virtue of necessity, and left him, if he chose, to teach himself.

To the astonishment of everyone, he had not been long consigned to his own guidance, when he was discovered in the library, reading every old treatise on astrology which he could lay his hands on. He had rejected all useful knowledge for the most obsolete of obsolete sciences – the old, abandoned delusion of divination by stars! My father laughed heartily over the strange study to which his idle son had at last applied himself, but made no attempt to oppose his new caprice, and sarcastically presented him with a telescope on his next birthday. I should remind you here, of what you may perhaps have forgotten, that my father was a philosopher of the Voltaire school, who believed that the summit of human wisdom was to arrive at the power of sneering at all enthusiasms, and doubting of all truths. Apart from his philosophy, he was a kind-hearted, easy man, of quick, rather than profound intelligence. He could see nothing in my brother’s new occupation, but the evidence of a new idleness, a fresh caprice which would be abandoned in a few months. My father was not the man to appreciate those yearnings towards the poetical and the spiritual, which were part of Alfred’s temperament, and which gave to his peculiar studies of the stars and their influences, a certain charm altogether unconnected with the more practical attractions of scientific investigation.

This idle caprice of my brother’s, as my father insisted on terming it, had lasted more than a twelvemonth, when there occurred the first of a series of mysterious and – as I consider them – supernatural events, with all of which Alfred was very remarkably connected. I was myself a witness of the strange circumstance, which I am now about to relate to you.

One day – my brother being then sixteen years of age – I happened to go into my father’s study, during his absence, and found Alfred there, standing close to a window, which looked into the garden. I walked up to him, and observed a curious expression of vacancy and rigidity in his face, especially in his eyes. Although I knew him to be subject to what are called fits of absence, I still thought it rather extraordinary that he never moved, and never noticed me when I was close to him. I took his hand, and asked if he was unwell. his flesh felt quite cold; neither my touch nor my voice produced the smallest sensation in him. Almost at the same moment when I noticed this, I happened to be looking accidentally towards the garden. There was my father walking along one of the paths, and there, by his side, walking with him, was another Alfred! – Another, yet exactly the same as the Alfred by whose side I was standing, whose hand I still held in mine!

Thoroughly panic-stricken, I dropped his hand, and uttered a cry of terror. At the loud sound of my voice, the statue-like presence before me immediately began to show signs of animation. I looked round again at the garden. The figure of my brother, which I had beheld there, was gone, and I saw to my horror, that my father was looking for it – looking in all directions for the companion (spectre, or human being?) of his walk!

When I turned towards Alfred once more, he had (if I may so express it) come to life again, and was asking, with his usual gentleness of manner and kindness of voice, why I was looking so pale? I evaded the question by making some excuse, and in my turn inquired of him, how long he had been in my father’s study.

“Surely you ought to know best,” he answered with a laugh, “for you must have been here before me. It is not many minutes ago since I was walking in the garden with—”

Before he could complete the sentence my father entered the room.

“Oh! here you are, Master Alfred,” said he. “May I ask for what purpose you took it into your wise head to vanish in that extraordinary manner? Why you slipped away from me in an instant, while I was picking a flower! On my word, sir, you’re a better player at hide-and-seek than your brother, – he would only have run into the shrubbery, you have managed to run in here, though how you did it in the time passes my poor comprehension. I was not a moment picking the flower, yet in that moment you were gone!”

Alfred glanced suddenly and searchingly at me; his face became deadly pale, and, without speaking a word, he hurried from the room.

“Can you explain this?” said my father, looking very much astonished.

I hesitated a moment, and then told him what I had seen. He took a pinch of snuff – a favourite habit with him when he was going to be sarcastic, in imitation of Voltaire.

“One visionary in a family is enough,” said he; “I recommend you not to turn yourself into a bad imitation of your brother Alfred! Send your ghost after me, my good boy! I am going back into the garden, and should like to see him again!”

Ridicule, even much sharper than this, would have had little effect on me. If I was certain of anything in the world, I was certain that I had seen my brother in the study – nay, more, had touched him, – and equally certain that I had seen his double – his exact similitude, in the garden. As far as any man could know that he was in possession of his own senses, I knew myself to be in possession of mine. Left alone to think over what I had beheld, I felt a supernatural terror creeping through me – a terror which increased, when I recollected that, on one or two occasions friends had said they had seen Alfred out of doors, when we all knew him to be at home. These statements, which my father had laughed at, and had taught me to laugh at, either as a trick, or a delusion on the part of others, now recurred to my memory as startling corroborations of what I had just seen myself. The solitude of the study oppressed me in a manner which I cannot describe. I left the apartment to seek Alfred, determined to question him, with all possible caution, on the subject of his strange trance, and his sensations at the moment when I had awakened him from it.

I found him in his bedroom, still pale, and now very thoughtful. As the first words in reference to the scene in the study passed my lips, he started violently, and entreated me, with very unusual warmth of speech and manner, never to speak to him on that subject again, – never, if I had any love or regard for him! Of course, I complied with his request. The mystery, however, was not destined to end here.

About two months after the event which I have just related, we had arranged, one evening, to go to the theatre. My father had insisted that Alfred should be of the party, otherwise he would certainly have declined accompanying us; for he had no inclination whatever for public amusements of any kind. However, with his usual docility, he prepared to obey my father’s desire, by going upstairs to put on his evening dress. It was wintertime, so he was obliged to take a candle with him.

We waited in the drawing-room for his return a very long time, so long, that my father was on the point of sending upstairs to remind him of the lateness of the hour, when Alfred reappeared without the candle which he had taken with him from the room. The ghostly alteration over his face – the hideous, death-look that distorted his features I shall never forget, – I shall see it tomorrow on the scaffold!

Before either my father or I could utter a word, my brother said: “I have been taken suddenly ill; but I am better now. Do you still wish me to go to the theatre?”

“Certainly not, my dear Alfred,” answered my father; “we must send for the doctor immediately.”

“Pray do not call in the doctor, sir; he would be of no use. I will tell you why, if you will let me speak to you alone.”

My father, looking seriously alarmed, signed to me to leave the room. For more than half an hour I remained absent, suffering almost unendurable suspense and anxiety on my brother’s account. When I was recalled, I observed that Alfred was quite calm, though still deadly pale. My father’s manner displayed an agitation which I had never observed in it before. He rose from his chair when I re-entered the room, and left me alone with my brother.

“Promise me,” said Alfred, in answer to my entreaties to know what had happened, “promise that you will not ask me to tell you more than my father has permitted me to tell. It is his desire that I should keep certain things a secret from you.”

I gave the required promise, but gave it most unwillingly. Alfred then proceeded.

“When I left you to go and dress for the theatre, I felt a sense of oppression all over me, which I cannot describe. As soon as I was alone, it seemed as if some part of the life within me was slowly wasting away. I could hardly breathe the air around me, big drops of perspiration burst out on my forehead, and then a feeling of terror seized me which I was utterly unable to control. Some of those strange fancies of seeing my mother’s spirit, which used to influence me at the time of her death, came back again to my mind. I ascended the stairs slowly and painfully, not daring to look behind me, for I heard – yes, heard! – something following me. When I got into my room, and had shut the door, I began to recover my self-possession a little. But the sense of oppression was still as heavy on me as ever, when I approached the wardrobe to get out my clothes. Just as I stretched forth my hand to turn the key, I saw, to my horror, the two doors of the wardrobe opening of themselves, opening slowly and silently. The candle went out at the same moment, and the whole inside of the wardrobe became to me like a great mirror, with a bright light shining in the middle of it. Out of that light there came a figure, the exact counterpart of myself. Over its breast hung an open scroll, and on that I read the warning of my own death, and a revelation of the destinies of my father and his race. Do not ask me what were the words on the scroll, I have given my promise not to tell you. I may only say that, as soon as I had read all, the room grew dark, and the vision disappeared.”

Forgetful of my promise, I entreated Alfred to repeat to me the words on the scroll. He smiled sadly, and refused to speak on the subject any more. I next sought out my father, and begged him to divulge the secret. Still sceptical to the last, he answered that one diseased imagination in the family was enough, and that he would not permit me to run the risk of being infected by Alfred’s mental malady. I passed the whole of that day and the next in a state of agitation and alarm which nothing could tranquillise. The sight I had seen in the study gave a terrible significance to the little that my brother had told me. I was uneasy if he was a moment out of my sight. There was something in his expression, – calm and even cheerful as it was, – which made me dread the worst.

On the morning of the third day after the occurrence I have just related, I rose very early, after a sleepless night, and went into Alfred’s bedroom. He was awake, and welcomed me with more than usual affection and kindness. As I drew a chair to his bedside, he asked me to get pen, ink, and paper, and write down something from his dictation. I obeyed, and found to my terror and distress, that the idea of death was more present to his imagination than ever. He employed me in writing a statement of his wishes in regard to the disposal of all his own little possessions, as keepsakes to be given, after he was no more, to my father, myself, the house-servants, and one or two of his own most intimate friends. Over and over again I entreated him to tell me whether he really believed that his death was near. He invariably replied that I should soon know, and then led the conversation to indifferent topics. As the morning advanced, he asked to see my father, who came, accompanied by the doctor, the latter having been in attendance for the last two days.

Alfred took my father’s hand, and begged his forgiveness of any offence, any disobedience of which he had ever been guilty. Then, reaching out his other hand, and taking mine, as I stood on the opposite side of the bed, he asked what the time was. A clock was placed on the mantelpiece of the room, but not in a position in which he could see it, as he now lay. I turned round to look at the dial, and answered that, it was just on the stroke of nine.

“Farewell!” said Alfred, calmly; “in this world, farewell forever!”

The next instant the clock struck. I felt his fingers tremble in mine, then grow quite still. The doctor seized a hand-mirror that lay on the table, and held it over his lips. He was dead – dead, as the last chime of the hour echoed through the awful silence of the room!

I pass over the first days of our affliction. You, who have suffered the loss of a beloved sister, can well imagine their misery. I pass over these days, and pause for a moment at the time when we could speak with some calmness and resignation on the subject of our bereavement. On the arrival of that period, I ventured, in conversation with my father, to refer to the vision which had been seen by our dear Alfred in his bedroom, and to the prophecy which he described himself as having read upon the supernatural scroll.

Even yet my father persisted in his scepticism; but now, as it seemed to me, more because he was afraid, than because he was unwilling, to believe. I again recalled to his memory what I myself had seen in the study. I asked him to recollect how certain Alfred had been beforehand, and how fatally right, about the day and hour of his death. Still I could get but one answer; my brother had died of a nervous disorder (the doctor said so); his imagination had been diseased from his childhood; there was only one way of treating the vision which he described himself as having seen, and that was, not to speak of it again between ourselves; never to speak of it at all to our friends.

We were sitting in the study during this conversation. It was evening. As my father uttered the last words of his reply to me, I saw his eye turn suddenly and uneasily towards the further end of the room. In dead silence, I looked in the same direction, and saw the door opening of itself. the vacant space beyond was filled with a bright, steady glow, which hid all outer objects in the hall, and which I cannot describe to you by likening it to any light that we are accustomed to behold either by day or night. In my terror, I caught my father by the arm, and asked him, in a whisper, whether he did not see something extraordinary in the direction of the doorway?

“Yes,” he answered, in tones as low as mine, “I see, or fancy I see, a strange light. the subject on which we have been speaking has impressed our feelings as it should not. Our nerves are still unstrung by the shock of the bereavement we have suffered: our senses are deluding us. Let us look away towards the garden.”

“But the opening of the door, father; remember the opening of the door!”

“Ours is not the first door which has accidentally flown open of itself.”

“Then why not shut it again?”

“Why not, indeed. I will close it at once.” He rose, advanced a few paces, then stopped, and came back to his place. “It is a warm evening,” he said, avoiding my eyes, which were eagerly fixed on him, “the room will be all the cooler, if the door is suffered to remain open.”

His face grew quite pale as he spoke. The light lasted for a few minutes longer, then suddenly disappeared. For the rest of the evening my father’s manner was very much altered. He was silent and thoughtful, and complained of a feeling of oppression and languor, which he tried to persuade himself was produced by the heat of the weather. At an unusually hour he retired to his room.

The next morning, when I got downstairs, I found, to my astonishment, that the servants were engaged in preparations for the departure of somebody from the house. I made inquiries of one of them who was hurriedly packing a trunk. “My master, sir, starts for Lyons the first thing this morning,” was the reply. I immediately repaired to my father’s room, and found him there with an open letter in his hand, which he was reading. His face, as he looked up at me on my entrance, expressed the most violent emotions of apprehension and despair.

“I hardly know whether I am awake or dreaming; whether I am the dupe of a terrible delusion, or the victim of a supernatural reality more terrible still,” he said in low awe-struck tones as I approached him. “One of the prophecies which Alfred told me in private that he had read upon the scroll, has come true! He predicted the loss of the bulk of my fortune – here is the letter, which informs me that the merchant at Lyons in whose hands my money was placed, has become bankrupt. Can the occurrence of this ruinous calamity be the chance fulfilment of a mere guess? Or was the doom of my family really revealed to my dead son? I go to Lyons immediately to know the truth: this letter may have been written under false information; it may be the work of an impostor. And yet, Alfred’s prediction – I shudder to think of it!”

“The light, father!” I exclaimed, “the light we saw last night in the study!”

“Hush! don’t speak of it! Alfred said that I should be warned of the truth of the prophecy, and of its immediate fulfilment, by the shining of the same supernatural light that he had seen – I tried to disbelieve what I beheld last night – I hardly know whether I dare believe it even now! This prophecy is not the last: there are others yet to be fulfilled – but let us not speak, let us not think of them! I must start at once for Lyons; I must be on the spot, if this horrible news is true, to save what I can from the wreck. The letter – give me back the letter! – I must go directly!”

He hurried back from the room. I followed him; and, with some difficulty, obtained permission to be the companion of his momentous journey. When we arrived at Lyons, we found that the statement in the letter was true. My father’s fortune was gone: a mere pittance, derived from a small estate that had belonged to my mother, was all that was left to us.

My father’s health gave way under this misfortune. He never referred again to Alfred’s prediction, and I was afraid to mention the subject; but I saw that it was affecting his mind quite as painfully as the loss of his property. Over, and over again, he checked himself very strangely when he was on the point of speaking to me about my brother. I saw that there was some secret pressing heavily on his mind, which he was afraid to disclose to me. It was useless to ask for his confidence. His temper had become irritable under disaster; perhaps, also, under the dread uncertainties which were now evidently tormenting him in secret. My situation was a very sad, and a very dreary one, at that time: I had no remembrances of the past that were not mournful and affrighting remembrances; I had no hopes for the future that were not darkened by a vague presentiment of troubles and perils to come; and I was expressly forbidden by my father to say a word about the terrible events which had cast an unnatural gloom over my youthful career, to any of the friends (yourself included) whose counsel and whose sympathy might have guided and sustained me in the day of trial.

We returned to Paris; sold our house there; and retired to live on the small estate, to which I have referred, as the last possession left us. We had not been many days in our new abode, when my father imprudently exposed himself to a heavy shower of rain, and suffered in consequence from a violent attack of cold. This temporary malady was not dreaded by the medical attendant; but it was soon aggravated by a fever, produced as much by the anxiety and distress of mind from which he continued to suffer, as by any other cause. Still the doctor gave hope; but still he grew daily worse – so much worse, that I removed my bed into his room, and never quitted him night or day.

One night I had fallen asleep, overpowered by fatigue and anxiety, when I was awakened by a cry from my father. I instantly trimmed the light, and ran to his side. He was sitting up in bed, with his eyes fixed on the door, which had been left ajar to ventilate the room. I saw nothing in that direction, and asked what was the matter. He murmured some expressions of affection towards me, and begged me to sit by his bedside till the morning; but gave no definite answer to my question. Once or twice, I thought he wandered a little; and I observed that he occasionally moved his hand under the pillow, as if searching for something there. However, when the morning came, he appeared to be calm and self-possessed. The doctor arrived; and pronouncing him to be better, retired to the dressing-room to write a prescription. The moment his back was turned, my father laid his weak hand on my arm, and whispered faintly: “Last night I saw the supernatural light again – the second prediction – true, true – my death this time – the same hour as Alfred’s – nine – nine o’clock, this morning.” He paused a moment through weakness; then added: “Take that sealed paper – under the pillow – when I am dead, read it – now go into the dressing-room – my watch is there – I have heard the church clock strike eight; let me see how long it is now till nine – go – go quickly!”

Horror-stricken, moving and acting like a man in a trance, I silently obeyed him. The doctor was still in the dressing-room: despair made me catch eagerly at any chance of saving my father; I told his medical attendant what I had just heard, and entreated advice and assistance without delay.

“He is a little delirious,” said the doctor – “don’t be alarmed: we can cheat him out of his dangerous idea, and so perhaps save his life. Where is the watch?” (I produced it) – “See: it is ten minutes to nine. I will put back the hands one hour; that will give good time for a composing draught to operate. There! take him the watch, and let him see the false time with his own eyes. He will be comfortably asleep before the hour hand gets round again to nine.”

I went back with the watch to my father’s bedside. “Too slow,” he murmured, as he looked at the dial – “too slow by an hour – the church clock – I counted eight.”

“Father! dear father! you are mistaken,” I cried, “I counted also: it was only seven.”

“Only seven!” he echoed faintly, “another hour then – another hour to live!” He evidently believed what I had said to him. In spite of the fatal experiences of the past, I now ventured to hope the best for our stratagem, as I resumed my place by his side.

The doctor came in; but my father never noticed him. He kept his eyes fixed on the watch, which lay between us, on the coverlid. When the minute hand was within a few seconds of indicating the false hour of eight, he looked round at me, murmured very feebly and doubtingly, “another hour to live!” and then gently closed his eyes. I looked at the watch, and saw that it was just eight o’clock, according to our alteration of the right time. At the same moment, I heard the doctor, whose hand had been on my father’s pulse, exclaim, “My God! it’s stopped! He has died at nine o’clock!”

The fatality, which no human stratagem or human science could turn aside, was accomplished! I was alone in the world!

In the solitude of our little cottage, on the day of my father’s burial, I opened the sealed letter, which he had told me to take from the pillow of his deathbed. In preparing to read it, I knew that I was preparing for the knowledge of my own doom; but I neither trembled nor wept. I was beyond grief: despair such as mine was then, is calm and self-possessed to the last.

The letter ran thus: “After your father and brother have fallen under the fatality that pursues our house, it is right, my dear son, that you should be warned how you are included in the last of the predictions which still remains unaccomplished. Know then, that the final lines read by our dear Alfred on the scroll, prophesied that you should die, as we have died, at the fatal hour of nine; but by a bloody and violent death, the day of which was not foretold. My beloved boy! you know not, you never will know, what I suffered in the possession of this terrible secret, as the truth of the former prophecies forced itself more and more plainly on my mind! Even now, as I write, I hope against all hope; believe vainly and desperately against all experience, that this last, worst doom may be avoided. Be cautious; be patient; look well before you at each step of your career. The fatality by which you are threatened is terrible; but there is a Power above fatality; and before that Power my spirit and my child’s spirit now pray for you. Remember this when your heart is heavy, your path through life grows dark. Remember that the better world is still before you, the world where we shall all meet! Farewell!”

When I first read those lines, I read them with the gloomy, immovable resignation of the Eastern fatalists; and that resignation never left me afterwards. Here, in this prison, I feel it, calm as ever. I bowed patiently to my doom, when it was only predicted: I bow to it as patiently now, when it is on the eve of accomplishment. You have often wondered, my friend, at the tranquil, equable sadness of my manner: after what I have just told you, can you wonder any longer?

But let me return for a moment to the past. Though I had no hope of escaping the fatality which had overtaken my father and my brother, my life, after my double bereavement, was the existence of all others which might seem most likely to evade the accomplishment of my predicted doom. Yourself and one other friend excepted, I saw no society; my walks were limited to the cottage garden and the neighbouring fields, and my everyday, unvarying occupation was confined to that hard and resolute course of study, by which alone I could hope to prevent my mind from dwelling on what I had suffered in the past, or on what I might still be condemned to suffer in the future. Never was there a life more quiet and more uneventful than mine!

You know how I awoke to an ambition, which irresistibly impelled me to change this mode of existence. News from Paris penetrated even to my obscure retreat, and disturbed my self-imposed tranquillity. I heard of the last errors and weaknesses of Louis the Sixteenth; I heard of the assembling of the States-General; and I knew that the French Revolution had begun. The tremendous emergencies of that epoch drew men of all characters from private to public pursuits, and made politics the necessity rather than the choice of every Frenchman’s life. The great change preparing for the country acted universally on individuals, even to the humblest, and it acted on me.

I was elected a deputy, more for the sake of the name I bore, than on account of any little influence which my acquirements and my character might have exercised in the neighbourhood of my country abode. I removed to Paris, and took my seat in the Chamber, little thinking at that time, of the crime and the bloodshed to which our revolution, so moderate in its beginning, would lead; little thinking that I had taken the first, irretrievable steps towards the bloody and violent death which was lying in store for me.

Need I go on? You know how warmly I joined the Girondin party; you know how we have been sacrificed; you know what the death is which I and my brethren are to suffer tomorrow. On now ending, I repeat what I said at beginning: Judge not of my narrative till you have seen with your own eyes what really takes place in the morning. I have carefully abstained from all comment, I have simply related events as they happened, forbearing to add my own views of their significance, my own ideas on the explanation of which they admit. You may believe us to have been a family of nervous visionaries, witnesses of certain remarkable contingencies; victims of curious, but not impossible chances, which we have fancifully and falsely interpreted into supernatural events. I leave you undisturbed in this conviction (if you really feel it); tomorrow you will think differently; tomorrow you will be an altered man. In the mean time, remember what I now say, as you would remember my dying words: Last night I saw the supernatural radiance which warned my father and my brother; and which warns me, that, whatever the time when the execution begins, whatever the order in which the twenty-one Girondins are chosen for death, I shall be the man who kneels under the guillotine, as the clock strikes nine!

•   •   •

It was morning. Of the ghastly festivities of the night no sign remained. The prison-hall wore an altered look, as the twenty-one condemned men (followed by those who were ordered to witness their execution) were marched out to the carts appointed to take them from the dungeon to the scaffold.

The sky was cloudless, the sun warm and brilliant, as the Girondin leaders and their companions were drawn slowly through the streets to the place of execution. Duprat and Marginy were placed in separate vehicles: the contrast in their demeanour at that awful moment was strongly marked. The features of the doomed man still preserved their noble and melancholy repose; his glance was steady; his colour never changed. The face of Marginy, on the contrary, displayed the strongest agitation; he was pale even to his lips. The terrible narrative he had heard, the anticipation of the final and appalling proof by which its truth was now to be tested, had robbed him, for the first time in his life, of all his self-possession. Duprat had predicted truly; the morrow had come, and he was an altered man already.

The carts drew up at the foot of the scaffold which was soon to be stained with the blood of twenty-one human beings. The condemned deputies mounted it; and ranged themselves at the end opposite the guillotine. The prisoners who were to behold the execution remained in their cart. Before Duprat ascended the steps, he friend’s hand for the last time: “Farewell!” he said, calmly. “Farewell! I go to my father, and my brother! Remember my words of last night.”

With straining eyes, and bloodless cheeks, Marginy saw Duprat take his position in the middle row of his companions, who stood in three ranks of seven each. Then the awful spectacle of the execution began. After the first seven deputies had suffered there was a pause; the horrible traces of the judicial massacre were being removed.When the execution proceeded, Duprat was the third taken from the middle rank of the condemned. As he came forward, he stood for an instant erect under the guillotine, he looked with a smile on his friend, and repeated in a clear voice the word, “Remember!” – then bowed himself on the block. The blood stood still at Marginy’s heart, as he looked and listened, during the moment of silence that followed. That moment past, the church clocks of Paris struck. He dropped down in the cart, and covered his face with his hands; for through the heavy beat of the hour he heard the fall of the fatal steel.

“Pray, sir, was it nine or ten that struck just now?” said one of Marginy’s fellow-prisoners to an officer of the guard who stood near the cart.

The person addressed referred to his watch, and answered—

“NINE O’CLOCK!”

Bentley’s Miscellany Aug 1852

MR. WRAY’S CASH BOX

OR,
THE MASK AND THE MYSTERY
– A CHRISTMAS SKETCH

ADVERTISEMENT

The main incident on which the following story turns, is founded on a fact which many readers of these pages will probably recognise as having formed a subject of conversation, a few years back, among persons interested in Literature and Art. I have endeavoured, in writing my little book, to keep the spirit of its title-page motto in view, and tell my ‘honest tale’ as ‘plainly’ as I could – or, in other words, as plainly as if I were only relating it to an audience of friends at my own fireside.

W. W. C.

Hanover Terrace, Regent’s Place
January, 1852

•  I  •

I should be insulting the intelligence of readers generally, if I thought it at all necessary to describe to them that widely-celebrated town, Tidbury-on-the-Marsh. As a genteel provincial residence, who is unacquainted with it? The magnificent new hotel that has grown on to the side of the old inn; the extensive library, to which, not satisfied with only adding new books, they are now adding a new entrance as well; the projected crescent of palatial abodes in the Grecian style, on the top of the hill, to rival the completed crescent of castellated abodes, in the Gothic style, at the bottom of the hill – are not such local objects as these perfectly well known to any intelligent Englishman? Of course they are! The question is superfluous. Let us get on at once, without wasting more time, from Tidbury in general to the High Street in particular, and to our present destination there – the commercial establishment of Messrs Dunball and Dark.

Looking merely at the coloured liquids, the miniature statue of a horse, the corn plasters, the oilskin bags, the pots of cosmetics, and the cut-glass saucers full of lozenges in the shop window, you might at first imagine that Dunball and Dark were only chemists. Looking carefully through the entrance, towards an inner apartment, an inscription; a large, upright, mahogany receptacle, or box, with a hole in it; brass rails protecting the hole; a green curtain ready to draw over the hole; and a man with a copper money shovel in his hand, partially visible behind the hole; would be sufficient to inform you that Dunball and Dark were not chemists only, but “Branch Bankers” as well.

It is a rough squally morning at the end of November. Mr. Dunball (in the absence of Mr. Dark, who has gone to make a speech at the vestry meeting) has got into the mahogany box, and has assumed the whole business and direction of the branch bank. He is a very fat man, and looks absurdly over-large for his sphere of action. Not a single customer has, as yet, applied for money – nobody has come even to gossip with the branch banker through the brass rails of his commercial prison house. There he sits, staring calmly through the chemical part of the shop into the street – his gold in one drawer, his notes in another, his elbows on his ledgers, his copper shovel under his thumb; the picture of monied loneliness; the hermit of British finance.

In the outer shop is the young assistant, ready to drug the public at a moment’s notice. But Tidbury-on-the-Marsh is an unprofitably healthy place; and no public appears. By the time the young assistant has ascertained from the shop clock that it is a quarter past ten, and from the weather-cock opposite that the wind is “Sou’-sou’-west”, he has exhausted all external sources of amusement, and is reduced to occupying himself by first sharpening his penknife, and then cutting his nails. He has completed his left hand, and has just begun on the right hand thumb, when a customer actually darkens the shop door at last!

Mr. Dunball starts, and grasps the copper shovel: the young assistant shuts up his penknife in a hurry, and makes a bow. The customer is a young girl, and she has come for a pot of lip salve.

She is very neatly and quietly dressed; looks about eighteen or nineteen years of age; and has something in her face which I can only characterize by the epithet – lovable. There is a beauty of innocence and purity about her forehead, brow, and eyes – a calm, kind, happy expression as she looks as you – and a curious home-sound in her clear utterance when she speaks, which, altogether, make you fancy, stranger as you are, that you must have known her and loved her long ago, and somehow or other ungratefully forgotten her in the lapse of time. Mixed up, however, with the girlish gentleness and innocence which form her more prominent charm, there is a look of firmness – especially noticeable about the expression of her lips – that gives a certain character and originality to her face. Her figure—

I stop at her figure. Not by any means for want of phrases to describe it; but from a disheartening conviction of the powerlessness of any description of her at all to produce the right effect on the minds of others. If I were asked in what particular efforts of literature the poverty of literary material most remarkably appears, I should answer, in personal descriptions of heroines. We have all read these by the hundred – some of them so carefully and finely finished, that we are not only informed about the lady’s eyes, eyebrows, nose, cheeks, complexion, mouth, teeth, neck, ears, head, hair, and the way it was dressed; but are also made acquainted with the particular manner in which the sentiments below made the bosom above heave or swell; besides the exact position of head in which her eyelashes were just long enough to cast a shadow on her cheeks. We have read all this attentively and admiringly, as it deserves; and have yet risen from the reading, without the remotest approach to a realisation in our own minds of what sort of a woman the heroine really was. We vaguely knew she was beautiful, at the beginning of the description; and we know just as much – just as vaguely – at the end.

Penetrated with the conviction above-mentioned, I prefer leaving the reader to form his own realisation of the personal appearance of the customer at Messrs Dunball and Dark’s. Eschewing the magnificent beauties of his acquaintance, let him imagine her to be like any pretty intelligent girl whom he knows – any of those pleasant little fireside angels, who can charm us even in a merino morning gown, darning an old pair of socks. Let this be the sort of female reality in the reader’s mind; and neither author, nor heroine, need have any reason to complain.

Well; our young lady came to the counter, and asked for lip salve. The assistant, vanquished at once by the potent charm of her presence, paid her the first little tribute of politeness in his power, by asking permission to send the gallipot home for her.

“I beg your pardon, miss,” said he; “but I think you live lower down, at No. 12. I was passing; and I think I saw you going in there, yesterday, with an old gentleman, and another gentleman – I think I did, miss?”

“Yes: we lodge at No. 12,” said the young girl; “but I will take the lip salve home with me, if you please. I have a favour, however, to ask of you before I go,” she continued very modestly, but without the slightest appearance of embarrassment; “if you have room to hang this up in your window, my grandfather, Mr. Wray, would feel much obliged by your kindness.”

And here, to the utter astonishment of the young assistant, she handed him a piece of cardboard, with a string to hang it up by, on which appeared the following inscription, neatly written:

Mr. Reuben Wray, pupil of the late celebrated John Kemble, Esquire, begs respectfully to inform his friends and the public that he gives lessons in elocution, delivery, and reading aloud, price two-and-sixpence the lesson of an hour. Pupils prepared for the stage, or private theatricals, on a principle combining intelligent interpretation of the text, with the action of the arms and legs adopted by the late illustrious Roscius of the English stage, J. Kemble, Esquire; and attentively studied from close observation of Mr. J.K. by Mr. R.W. Orators and clergymen improved (with the strictest secrecy), at three-and-sixpence the lesson of an hour. Impediments and hesitation of utterance combated and removed. Young ladies taught the graces of delivery, and young gentlemen the proprieties of diction. A discount allowed to schools and large classes. Please to address, Mr. Reuben Wray (late of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane), 12, High Street, Tidbury-on-the-Marsh.

No Babylonian inscription that ever was cut, no manuscript on papyrus that ever was penned, could possibly have puzzled the young assistant more than this remarkable advertisement. He read it all through in a state of stupefaction; and then observed, with a bewildered look at the young girl on the other side of the counter:

“Very nicely written, miss; and very nicely composed indeed! I suppose – in fact, I’m sure Mr. Dunball” – Here a creaking was heard, as of some strong wooden construction being gradually rent asunder. It was Mr. Dunball himself, squeezing his way out of the branch bank box, and coming to examine the advertisement.

He read it all through very attentively, following each line with his forefinger; and then cautiously and gently laid the cardboard down on the counter. When I state that neither Mr. Dunball nor his assistant were quite certain what a “Roscius of the English stage” meant, or what precise branch of human attainment Mr. Wray designed to teach in teaching “Elocution”, I do no injustice either to master or man.

“So you want this hung up in the window, my – in the window, miss?” asked Mr. Dunball. He was about to say, “my dear”; but something in the girl’s look and manner stopped him.

“If you could hang it up without inconvenience, sir.”

“May I ask what’s your name? and where you come from?”

“My name is Annie Wray; and the last place we came from was Stratford-upon-Avon.”

“Ah! indeed – and Mr. Wray teaches, does he? – elocution for half-a-crown – eh?”

“My grandfather only desires to let the inhabitants of this place know that he can teach those who wish it, to speak or read with a good delivery and a proper pronunciation.”

Mr. Dunball felt rather puzzled by the straightforward, self-possessed manner in which he – a branch banker, a chemist, and a municipal authority – was answered by little Annie Wray. He took up the advertisement again; and walked away to read it a second time in the solemn monetary seclusion of the back shop.

The young assistant followed. “I think they’re respectable people, sir,” said he, in a whisper; “I was passing when the old gentleman went into No. 12, yesterday. The wind blew his cloak on one side, and I saw him carrying a large cash box under it – I did indeed, sir; and it seemed a heavy one.”

“Cash box!” cried Mr. Dunball. “What does a man with a cash box want with elocution, and two-and-sixpence an hour? Suppose he should be a swindler!”

“He can’t be, sir: look at the young lady! Besides, the people at No. 12 told me he gave a reference, and paid a week’s rent in advance.”

“He did – did he? I say, are you sure it was a cash box?”

“Certain, sir. I suppose it had money in it, of course?”

“What’s the use of a cash box, without cash?” said the branch banker, contemptuously. “It looks rather odd, though! Stop! maybe it’s a wager. I’ve heard of gentlemen doing queer things for wagers. Or, maybe, he’s cracked! Well, she’s a nice girl; and hanging up this thing can’t do any harm. I’ll make enquiries about them, though, for all that.”

Frowning portentously as he uttered this last cautious resolve, Mr. Dunball leisurely returned into the chemist’s shop. He was, however, nothing like so ill-natured a man as he imagined himself to be; and, in spite of his dignity and his suspicions, he smiled far more cordially than he at all intended, as he now addressed little Annie Wray.

“It’s out of our line, miss,” said he; “but we’ll hang the thing up to oblige you. Of course, if I want a reference, you can give it? Yes, yes! of course. There! there’s the card in the window for you – a nice prominent place (look at it as you go out) – just between the string of corn plasters and the dried poppy-heads! I wish Mr. Wray success; though I rather think Tidbury is not quite the sort of place to come to for what you call elocution – eh?”

“Thank you, sir; and good morning,” said little Annie. And she left the shop just as composedly as she had entered it.

“Cool little girl, that!” said Mr. Dunball, watching her progress down the street to No. 12.

“Pretty little girl, too!” thought the assistant, trying to watch, like his master, from the window.

“I should like to know who Mr. Wray is,” said Mr. Dunball, turning back into the shop, as Annie disappeared. “And I’d give something to find out what Mr. Wray keeps in his cash box,” continued the banker-chemist, as he thoughtfully re-entered the mahogany money chest in the back premises.

You are a wise man, Mr. Dunball; but you won’t solve those two mysteries in a hurry, sitting alone in that branch bank sentry-box of yours! – Can anybody solve them? I can.

Who is Mr. Wray? and what has he got in his cash box? – Come to No. 12, and see!

•  II  •

Before we go boldly into Mr. Wray’s lodgings, I must first speak a word or two about him, behind his back – but by no means slanderously. I will take his advertisement, now hanging up in the shop window of Messrs Dunball and Dark, as the text of my discourse.

Mr. Reuben Wray became, as he phrased it, a “pupil of the late celebrated John Kemble, Esquire” in this manner. He began life by being apprenticed for three years to a statuary. Whether the occupation of taking casts and clipping stones proved of too sedentary a nature to suit his temperament, or whether an evil counsellor within him, whose name was VANITY, whispered: “Seek public admiration, and be certain of public applause,” – I know not; but the fact is, that, as soon as his time was out, he left his master and his native place to join a company of strolling players; or, as he himself more magniloquently expressed it, he went on the stage.

Nature had gifted him with good lungs, large eyes, and a hook nose; his success before barn audiences was consequently brilliant. His professional exertions, it must be owned, barely sufficed to feed and clothe him; but then he had a triumph on the London stage, always present in the far perspective to console him. While waiting this desirable event, he indulged himself in a little intermediate luxury, much in favour as a profitable resource for young men in extreme difficulties – he married; married at the age of nineteen, or thereabouts, the charming Columbine of the company.

And he got a good wife. Many people, I know, will refuse to believe this, – it is a truth, nevertheless. The one redeeming success of the vast social failure which his whole existence was doomed to represent, was this very marriage of his with a strolling Columbine. She, poor girl, toiled as hard and as cheerfully to get her own bread after marriage, as before; trudged many a weary mile by his side from town to town, and never uttered a complaint; praised his acting; partook his hopes; patched his clothes; pardoned his ill-humour; paid court for him to his manager; made up his squabbles; – in a word, and in the best and highest sense of that word, loved him. May I be allowed to add, that she only brought him one child – a girl? And, considering the state of his pecuniary resources, am I justified in ranking this circumstance as a strong additional proof of her excellent qualities as a married woman?

After much perseverance and many disappointments, Reuben at last succeeded in attaching himself to a regular provincial company – Tate Wilkinson’s at York. He had to descend low enough from his original dramatic pedestal before he succeeded in subduing the manager. From the leading business in Tragedy and Melodrama, he sank at once, in the established provincial company, to a “minor utility” – words of theatrical slang signifying an actor who is put to the smaller dramatic uses which the necessities of the stage require. Still, in spite of this, he persisted in hoping for the chance that was never to come; and still poor Columbine faithfully hoped with him to the last.

Time passed – years of it; and this chance never arrived; and he and Columbine found themselves one day in London, forlorn and starving. Their life at this period would make a romance of itself, if I had time and space to write it; but I must get on, as fast as may be, to later dates; and the reader must be contented merely to know that, at the last gasp – the last of hope; almost the last of life – Reuben got employment, as an actor of the lower degree, at Drury Lane.

Behold him, then, now – still a young man, but crushed in his young man’s ambition forever – receiving the lowest theatrical wages for the lowest theatrical work; appearing on the stage as soldier, waiter, footman, and so on; with not a line in the play to speak; just showing his poverty-shrunken carcase to the audience, clothed in the frowsiest habiliments of the old Drury Lane wardrobe, for a minute or two at a time, at something like a shilling a night – a miserable being, in a miserable world; the World behind the Scenes!

John Philip Kemble is now acting at the theatre: and his fame is rising to its climax. How the roar of applause follows him almost every time he leaves the scene! How majestically he stalks away into the Green Room, abstractedly inhaling his huge pinches of snuff as he goes! How the poor inferior brethren of the buskin, as they stand at the wing and stare upon him reverently, long for his notice; and how few of them can possibly get it! There is, nevertheless, one among this tribe of unfortunates whom he has really remarked, though he has not yet spoken to him. He has detected this man, shabby and solitary, constantly studying his acting from any vantage-ground the poor wretch could get amid the dust, dirt, draughts, and confusion behind the scenes. Mr. Kemble also observes, that whenever a play of Shakespeare’s is being acted, this stranger has a tattered old book in his hands; and appears to be following the performance closely from the text, instead of huddling into warm corners over a pint of small beer, with the rest of his supernumerary brethren. Remarking these things, Mr. Kemble over and over again intends to speak to the man, and find out who he is; and over and over again utterly forgets it. But, at last, a day comes when the long-deferred personal communication really takes place; and it happens thus:

A new Tragedy is to be produced – a pre-eminently bad one, by-the-by, even in those days of pre-eminently bad Tragedy-writing. The scene is laid in Scotland; and Mr. Kemble is determined to play his part in a Highland dress. The idea of acting a drama in the appropriate costume of the period which that drama illustrates, is considered so dangerous an innovation, that no one else dare follow his example; and he, of all the characters, is actually about to wear the only Highland dress in a Highland play. This does not at all daunt him. He has acted Othello, a night or two before, in the uniform of a British General Officer, and is so conscious of the enormous absurdity of the thing, that he is determined to persevere, and start the reform in stage costume, which he was afterwards destined so thoroughly to carry out.

The night comes; the play begins. Just as the stage waits for Mr. Kemble, Mr. Kemble discovers that his goatskin purse – one of the most striking peculiarities of the Highland dress – is not on him. There is no time to seek it – all is lost for the cause of costume! – he must go on the stage exposed to public view as only half a Highlander! No! Not yet! While everybody else hurries frantically hither and thither in vain, one man quickly straps something about Mr. Kemble’s waist, just in the nick of time. It is the lost purse! and Roscius after all steps on the stage, a Highlander complete from top to toe!

On his first exit, Mr. Kemble inquires for the man who found the purse. It is that very poor player whom he has already remarked. The great actor had actually been carrying the purse about in his own hands before the performance; and, in a moment of abstraction, had put it down on a chair, in a dark place behind the prompter’s box. The humble admirer, noticing everything he did, noticed this; and so found the missing goatskin in time, when nobody else could.

“Sir, I am infinitely obliged to you,” says Mr. Kemble, courteously, to the confused, blushing man before him – “You have saved me from appearing incomplete, and therefore ridiculous, before a Drury Lane audience. I have marked you, sir, before; reading, while waiting for your call, our divine Shakespeare – the poetic bond that unites all men, however professional distances may separate them. Accept, sir, this offered pinch – this pinch of snuff.”

When the penniless player went home that night, what wonderful news he had for his wife! And how proud and happy poor Columbine was, when she heard that Reuben Wray had been offered a pinch of snuff out of Mr. Kemble’s own box!

But the kind-hearted tragedian did not stop merely at a fine speech and a social condescension. Reuben read Shakespeare, when none of his comrades would have cared to look into the book at all; and that of itself was enough to make him interesting to Mr. Kemble. Besides, he was a young man; and might have capacities which only wanted encouragement.

“I beg you to recite to me, sir,” said the great John Philip, one night; desirous of seeing what his humble admirer really could do. The result of the recitation was unequivocal: poor Wray could do nothing that hundreds of his brethren could not have equalled. In him, the yearning to become a great actor was only the ambition without the power.

Still, Reuben gained something by the goatskin purse. A timely word from his new protector raised him two or three degrees higher in the company, and increased his salary in proportion. He got parts now with some lines to speak in them; and – condescension on condescension! – Mr. Kemble actually declaimed them for his instruction at rehearsal, and solemnly showed him (oftener, I am afraid, in jest than earnest) how a patriotic Roman soldier, or a bereaved father’s faithful footman, should tread the stage.

These instructions were always received by the grateful Wray in the most perfect good faith; and it was precisely in virtue of his lessons thus derived – numbering about half-a-dozen, and lasting about two minutes each – that he afterwards advertised himself, as teacher of elocution and pupil of John Kemble. Many a great man has blazed away famously before the public eye, as pupil of some other great man, from no larger a supply of original educational fuel than belonged to Mr. Reuben Wray.

Having fairly traced our friend to his connection with Mr. Kemble, I may dismiss the rest of his advertisement more briefly. All, I suppose, that you now want further explained, is: How he came to teach elocution, and how he got on by teaching it.

Well: Reuben stuck fast to Drury Lane theatre through rivalries, and quarrels, and disasters, and fluctuations in public taste, which overthrew more important interests than his own. The theatre was rebuilt, and burnt, and rebuilt again; and still Old Wray (as he now began to be called) was part and parcel of the establishment, however others might desert it. During this long lapse of monotonous years, affliction and death preyed cruelly on the poor actor’s home. First, his kind, patient Columbine died; then, after a long interval, Columbine’s only child married early; – and woe is me! – married a sad rascal, who first ill-treated and then deserted her. She soon followed her mother to the grave, leaving one girl – the little Annie of this story – to Reuben’s care. One of the first things her grandfather taught the child was to call herself Annie Wray. He never could endure hearing her dissolute father’s name pronounced by anybody; and was resolved that she should always bear his own.

Ah! what woeful times were those for the poor player! How many a night he sat in the darkest corner behind the scenes, with his tattered Shakespeare – the only thing about him he had never pawned – in his hand, and the tears rolling down his hollow, painted cheeks, as he thought on the dear lost Columbine, and Columbine’s child! How often those tears still stood thick in his eyes when he marched across the stage at the head of a mock army, or hobbled up to deliver the one eternal letter to the one eternal dandy hero of high Comedy! – Comedy, indeed! If the people before the lamps, who were roaring with laughter at the fun of the mercurial fine gentleman of the play, had only seen what was tugging at the heart of the miserable old stage footman who brought him his chocolate and newspapers, all the wit in the world would not have saved the comedy from being wept over as the most affecting tragedy that was ever written.

But the time was to come – long after this, however – when Reuben’s connection with the theatre was to cease. As if fate had ironically bound up together the stage destinies of the great actor and the small, the year of Mr. Kemble’s retirement from the boards, was the year of Mr. Wray’s dismissal from them.

He had been, for some time past, getting too old to be useful – then, the theatrical world in which he had been bred was altering, and he could not alter with it. A little man with fiery black eyes, whose name was Edmund Kean, had come up from the country and blazed like a comet through the thick old conventional mists of the English stage. From that time, the new school began to rise, and the old school to sink; and Reuben went down, with other insignificant atoms, in the vortex. At the end of the season, he was informed that his services were no longer required.

It was then, when he found himself once more forlorn in the world – almost as forlorn as when he had first come to London with poor Columbine – that the notion of trying elocution struck him. He had a little sum of money to begin with, subscribed for him by his richer brethren when he left the theatre. Why might he not get on as a teacher of elocution in the country, just as some of his superior fellow-players got on in the same vocation in London? Necessity whispered, Doubt not, but try. He had a grandchild to support – so he did try.

His method of teaching was exceedingly simple. He had one remedy for the deficiencies of every class whom he addressed – the Kemble remedy: he had watched Mr. Kemble year by year, till he knew every inch of him; and, so to speak, had learnt him by heart. Did a pupil want to walk the stage properly? – teach him Mr. Kemble’s walk. Did a rising politician want to become impressive as an orator? – teach him Mr. Kemble’s gesticulations in Brutus. So again, with regard to strictly vocal necessities. Did gentleman number one, wish to learn the art of reading aloud? – let him learn the Kemble cadences. Did gentleman number two, feel weak in his pronunciation? – let him sound vowels, consonants, and crack-jaw syllables, just as Mr. Kemble sounded them on the stage. And, out of what book were they to be taught? – from what manual were the clergymen and orators, the aspirants for dramatic fame, the young ladies whose delivery was ungraceful, and the young gentlemen whose diction was improper, to be all alike improved! From Shakespeare – every one of them from Shakespeare! He had no idea of anything else: literature meant Shakespeare to him. It was his great glory and triumph, that he had Shakespeare by heart. All that he knew, every tender and lovable recollection, every small honour he had gained in his own poor blank sphere, was somehow sure to be associated with William Shakespeare!

And why not? What is Shakespeare but a great sun that shines upon humanity – the large heads and the little, alike? Have not the rays of that mighty light penetrated into many poor and lowly places for good? What marvel then that they should fall, pleasant and invigorating, even upon Reuben Wray?

So – right or wrong – with Shakespeare for his textbook, and Mr. Kemble for his model, our friend in his old age bravely invaded provincial England as a teacher of elocution, with all its supplementary accomplishments. And, wonderful to relate, though occasionally enduring dreadful privations, he just managed to make elocution – or what passed instead of it with his patrons – keep his grandchild and himself!

I cannot say that any orators or clergymen anxiously demanded secret improvement from him (see advertisement) at three-and-sixpence an hour; or that young ladies sought the graces of delivery, and young gentlemen the proprieties of diction (see advertisement again) from his experienced tongue. But he got on in other ways, nevertheless. Sometimes he was hired to drill the boys on a speech day at a country school. Sometimes he was engaged to prevent provincial amateur actors from murdering the dialogue outright, and incessantly jostling each other on the stage. In this last capacity, he occasionally got good employment, especially with regular amateur societies, who found his terms cheap enough, and his knowledge of theatrical discipline inestimably useful.

But chances like these were as nothing to the chances he got when he was occasionally employed to superintend all the toilsome part of the business in arranging private theatricals at country houses. Here, he met with greater generosity than he had ever dared to expect: here, the letter from Mr. Kemble, vouching for his honesty and general stage-knowledge – the great actor’s legacy of kindness to him, which he carried about everywhere – was sure to produce prodigious effect. He and little Annie, and a third member of the family whom I shall hereafter introduce, lived for months together on the proceeds of such a windfall as a private theatrical party – for the young people, in the midst of their amusement, found leisure to pity the poor old ex-player, and to admire his pretty granddaughter; and liberally paid him for his services full five times as much as he would ever have ventured to ask.

Thus, wandering about from town to town, sometimes miserably unsuccessful, sometimes re-animated by a little prosperity, he had come from Stratford-upon-Avon, while the present century was some twenty-five years younger than it is now, to try his luck at elocution with the people of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh – to teach the graces of delivery at seventy years of age, with half his teeth gone! Will he succeed? I, for one, hope so. There is something in the spectacle of this poor old man, sorely battered by the world, yet still struggling for life and for the grandchild whom he loves better than life – struggling hard, himself a remnant of a bygone age, to keep up with a new age which has already got past him, and will hardly hear his feeble voice of other times, except to laugh at it – there is surely something in this which forbids all thought of ridicule, and bids fair with everybody for compassion and goodwill.

But we have had talk enough, by this time, about Mr. Reuben Wray. Let us now go at once and make acquaintance with him – not forgetting his mysterious cash box – at No. 12.

•  III  •

The breakfast things are laid in the little drawing-room at Reuben’s lodgings. This drawing-room, observe, has not been hired by our friend; he never possessed such a domestic luxury in his life. The apartment, not being taken, has only been lent to him by his landlady, who is hugely impressed by the tragic suavity of her new tenant’s manner and “delivery”. The breakfast things, I say again, are laid. Three cups, a loaf, half-a-pound of salt butter, some moist sugar in a saucer, and a black earthenware teapot, with a broken spout; such are the sumptuous preparations which tempt Mr. Wray and his family to come down at nine o’clock in the morning, and yet nobody appears!

Hark! there is a sound of creaking boots, descending, apparently, from some loft at the top of the house, so distant is the noise they make at first. This sound, coming heavily nearer and nearer, only stops at the drawing-room door, and heralds the entry of—

Mr. Wray, of course? No! – no such luck: my belief is, that we shall never succeed in getting to Mr. Wray personally. The individual in question is not even any relation of his; but he is a member of the family, for all that; and as the first to come downstairs, he certainly merits the reward of immediate notice.

He is nearly six feet high, proportionately strong and stout, and looks about thirty years of age. His gait is as awkward as it well can be; his features are large and ill-proportioned, his face is pitted with the smallpox, and what hair he has on his head – not much – seems to be growing in all sorts of contrary directions at once. I know nothing about him, personally, that I can praise, but his expression; and that is so thoroughly good-humoured, so candid, so innocent even, that it really makes amends for everything else. Honesty and kindliness look out so brightly from his eyes, as to dazzle your observation of his clumsy nose, and lumpy mouth and chin, until you hardly know whether they are ugly or not. Some men, in a certain sense, are ugly with the lineaments of the Apollo Belvedere; and others handsome, with features that might sit for a caricature. Our new acquaintance was of the latter order.

Allow me to introduce him to you: THE GENTLE READER – JULIUS CAESAR. Stop! start not at those classic syllables; I will explain all.

The history of Mr. Martin Blunt, alias “Julius Caesar”, is a good deal like the history of Mr. Reuben Wray. Like him, Blunt began life with strolling players – not, however, as an actor, but as stage-carpenter, candle-snuffer, door-keeper, and general errand-boy. On one occasion, when the company were ambitiously bent on the horrible profanation of performing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the actor who was to personate the emperor fell ill. Nobody was left to supply his place – every other available member of the company was engaged in the play; so, in despair, they resorted to Martin Blunt. He was big enough for a Roman hero; and that was all they looked to.

They first cut out as much of his part as they could, and then half crammed the rest into his reluctant brains; they clapped a white sheet about the poor lad’s body for a toga, stuck a truncheon into his hand, and a short beard on his chin; and remorselessly pushed him on the stage. His performance was received with shouts of laughter; but he went through it; was duly assassinated; and fell with a thump that shook the surrounding scenery to its centre, and got him a complete round of applause all to himself.

He never forgot this. It was his first and last appearance; and, in the innocence of his heart, he boasted of it on every occasion, as the great distinction of his life. When he found his way to London; and as a really skilful carpenter, procured employment at Drury Lane, his fellow-workmen managed to get the story of his first performance out of him directly, and made a standing joke of it. He was elected a general butt, and nicknamed “Julius Caesar”, by universal acclamation. Everybody conferred on him that classic title; and I only follow the general fashion in these pages. If you don’t like the name, call him any other you please: he is too good-humoured to be offended with you, do what you will.

He was thus introduced to old Wray:

At the time when Reuben was closing his career at Drury Lane, our stout young carpenter had just begun to work there. One night, about a week before the performance of a new Pantomime, some of the heavy machinery tottered just as Wray was passing by it; and would have fallen on him, but for “Julius Caesar” (I really can’t call him Blunt!), who, at the risk of his own limbs, caught the tumbling mass; and by a tremendous exertion of main strength arrested it in its fall, till the old man had hobbled out of harm’s way. This led to gratitude, friendship, intimacy. Wray and his preserver, in spite of the difference in their characters and ages, seemed to suit each other, somehow. In fine, when Reuben started to teach elocution in the country, the carpenter followed him, as protector, assistant, servant, or whatever you please.

“Julius Caesar” had one special motive for attaching himself to old Wray’s fortunes, which will speedily appear, when little Annie enters the drawing-room. Awkward as he might be, he was certainly no encumbrance. He made himself useful and profitable in fifty different ways. He took round handbills soliciting patronage; constructed the scenery when Mr. Wray got private theatrical engagements; worked as journeyman-carpenter when other resources failed; and was, in fact, ready for anything, from dunning for a bad debt, to cleaning a pair of boots. His master might at times be as fretful as he pleased, and treat him like an infant during occasional fits of crossness – he never replied, and never looked sulky. The only things he could not be got to do, were to abstain from inadvertently knocking everything down that came in his reach, and to improve the action of his arms and legs on the principle of the late Mr. Kemble.

Let us return to the drawing-room, and the breakfast-things. “Julius Caesar”, of the creaking boots, came into the room with a small work-box (which he had been secretly engaged in making for some time past) in one hand, and a new muslin cravat in the other. It was Annie’s birthday. The box was a present; the cravat, what the French would call, a homage to the occasion.

His first proceeding was to drop the work-box, and pick it up again in a great hurry; his second, to go to the looking glass (no such piece of furniture ornamented his loft bedroom), and try to put on the new cravat. He had only half tied it, and was hesitating, utterly helpless, over the bow, when a light step sounded on the floor-cloth outside. Annie came in.

“Julius Caesar at the looking-glass! Oh, good gracious, what can have come to him!” exclaimed the little girl with a merry laugh.

•   •   •

How fresh, and blooming, and pretty she looked, as she ran up the next moment; and telling him to stoop, tied his cravat directly – standing on tiptoe. “There,” she cried, “now that’s done, what have you got to say to me, sir, on my birthday!”

“I’ve got a box; and I’m so glad it’s your birthday,” says Julius Caesar, too confused by the suddenness of the cravat-tying to know exactly what he is talking about.

“Oh, what a splendid work-box! how kind of you, to be sure! what care I shall take of it! Come, sir, I suppose I must tell you to give me a kiss after that,” and, standing on tiptoe again, she held up her fresh rosy cheek to be kissed, with such a pretty mixture of bashfulness, gratitude, and arch enjoyment in her look, that “Julius Caesar”, I regret to say, felt inclined then and there to go down upon both his knees and worship her outright.

Before the decorous reader has time to consider all this very improper, I had better, perhaps, interpose a word, and explain that Annie Wray had promised Martin Blunt, (I give his real name again here, because this is serious business,) yes; had actually promised him that one day she would be his wife. She kept all her promises; but I can tell you she was especially determined to keep this.

Impossible! exclaims the lady reader. With her good looks she might aspire many degrees above a poor carpenter; besides, how could she possibly care about a great lumpish, awkward fellow, who is ugly, say what you will about his expression?

I might reply, madam, that our little Annie had looked rather deeper than the skin in choosing her husband; and had found out certain qualities of heart and disposition about this poor carpenter, which made her love – aye, and respect and admire him too. But I prefer asking you a question, by way of answer. Did you never meet with any individuals of your own sex, lovely, romantic, magnificent young women, who have fairly stupefied the whole circle of their relatives and friends by marrying particularly short, scrubby, matter-of-fact, middle-aged men, showing, too, every symptom of fondness for them into the bargain? I fancy you must have seen such cases as I have mentioned; and, when you can explain them to my satisfaction, I shall be happy to explain the anomalous engagement of little Annie to yours.

In the meantime it may be well to relate, that this odd love affair was only once hinted at to Mr. Wray. The old man flew into a frantic passion directly; and threatened dire extremities if the thing was ever thought of more. Lonely, and bereaved of all other ties, as he was, he had, in regard to his granddaughter, that jealousy of other people loving her, which is of all weaknesses, in such cases as his, the most pardonable and the most pure. If a duke had asked for Annie in marriage, I doubt very much whether Mr. Wray would have let him have her, except upon the understanding that they were all to live together.

Under these circumstances, the engagement was never hinted at again. Annie told her lover they must wait, and be patient, and remain as brother and sister to one another, till better chances and better times came. And “Julius Caesar” listened, and strictly obeyed. He was a good deal like a large, faithful dog to his little betrothed: he loved her, watched over her, guarded her, with his whole heart and strength; only asking in return, the privilege of fulfilling her slightest wish.

Well; this kiss, about which I have been digressing so long, was fortunately just over, when another footstep sounded outside; the door opened; and – yes! we have got him at last, in his own proper person! Enter Mr. Reuben Wray!

Age has given him a stoop, which he tries to conceal, but cannot. His cheeks are hollow; his face is seamed with wrinkles, the work not only of time, but of trial, too. Still, there is vitality of mind, courage of heart about the old man, even yet. His look has not lost all its animation, nor his smile its warmth. There is the true Kemble walk, and the true Kemble carriage of the head for you, if you like! – there is the second-hand tragic grandeur and propriety, which the unfortunate “Julius Caesar” daily contemplates, yet cannot even faintly copy! Look at his dress, again. Threadbare as it is (patched, I am afraid, in some places), there is not a speck of dust on it, and what little hair is left on his bald head is as carefully brushed as if he rejoiced in the love-locks of Absalom himself. No! though misfortune, and disappointment, and grief, and heavy-handed penury have all been assailing him ruthlessly enough for more than half a century, they have not got the brave old fellow down yet! At seventy years of age he is still on his legs in the prize-ring of Life; badly punished all over (as the pugilists say), but determined to win the fight to the last!

“Many happy returns of the day, my love,” says old Reuben, going up to Annie, and kissing her. “This is the twentieth birthday of yours I’ve lived to see. Thank God for that!”

“Look at my present, grandfather,” cries the little girl, proudly showing her work-box. “Can you guess who made it?”

“You are a good fellow, Julius Caesar!” exclaims Mr. Wray, guessing directly. “Good morning; shake hands.” – (Then, in a lower voice to Annie) – “Has he broken anything in particular, since he’s been up?”  “No!”  “I’m very glad to hear it. Julius Caesar, let me offer you a pinch of snuff,” and here he pulled out his box quite in the Kemble style. He had his natural manner, and his Kemble manner. The first only appeared when anything greatly pleased or affected him – the second was for those ordinary occasions when he had time to remember that he was a teacher of elocution, and a pupil of the English Roscius.

“Thank ye, kindly, sir,” said the gratified carpenter, cautiously advancing his huge finger and thumb towards the offered box.

“Stop!” cried old Wray, suddenly withdrawing it. He always lectured to Julius Caesar on elocution when he had nobody else to teach, just to keep his hand in. “Stop! that won’t do. In the first place, ‘Thank ye, kindly, sir’, though good-humoured, is grossly inelegant. ‘Sir, I am obliged to you’, is the proper phrase – mind you sound the i in obliged – never say obleeged, as some people do; and remember, what I am now telling you, Mr. Kemble once said to the Prince Regent! The next hint I have to give is this – never take your pinch of snuff with your right hand finger and thumb; it should be always the left. Perhaps you would like to know why?”

“Yes, please, sir,” says the admiring disciple, very humbly.

“‘Yes, if you please, sir,’ would have been better; but let that pass as a small error. – And now, I will tell you why, in an anecdote. Matthews was one day mimicking Mr. Kemble to his face, in Penruddock – the great scene where he stops to take a pinch of snuff. ‘Very good, Matthews; very like me,’ says Mr. Kemble complacently, when Matthews had done; ‘but you have made one great mistake.’  ‘What’s that?’ cries Matthews sharply. ‘My friend, you have not represented me taking snuff like a gentleman: now, I always do. You took your pinch, in imitating my Penruddock, with your right hand: I use my left – a gentleman invariably does, because then he has his right hand always clean from tobacco to give to his friend!’ – There! remember that: and now you may take your pinch.”

Mr. Wray next turned round to speak to Annie; but his voice was instantly drowned in a perfect explosion of sneezes, absolutely screamed out by the unhappy “Julius Caesar”, whose nasal nerves were convulsed by the snuff. Mentally determining never to offer his box to his faithful follower again, old Reuben gave up making his proposed remark, until they were all quietly seated round the breakfast table: then, he returned to the charge with renewed determination.

“Annie, my dear,” said he, “you and I have read a great deal together of our divine Shakespeare, as Mr. Kemble always called him. You are my regular pupil, you know, and ought to be able to quote by this time almost as much as I can. I am going to try you with something quite new – suppose I had offered you the pinch of snuff (Mr. Julius Caesar shall never have another, I can promise him); what would you have said from Shakespeare applicable to that? Just think now!”

“But, grandfather, snuff wasn’t invented in Shakespeare’s time – was it?” said Annie.

“That’s of no consequence,” retorted the old man: “Shakespeare was for all time: you can quote him for everything in the world, as long as the world lasts. Can’t you quote him for snuff? I can. Now, listen. You say to me, ‘I offer you a pinch of snuff?’ I answer from Cymbeline (Act iv, scene 2): ‘Pisanio! I’ll now taste of thy drug.’ There! won’t that do? What’s snuff but a drug for the nose? It just fits – everything of the divine Shakespeare’s does, when you know him by heart, as I do – eh, little Annie? And now give me some more sugar; I wish it was lump for your sake, dear; but I’m afraid we can only afford moist. Anybody called about the advertisement? a new pupil this morning – eh?”

No! no pupils at all: not a man, woman, or child in the town, to teach elocution to yet! Mr. Wray was not at all despondent about this; he had made up his mind that a pupil must come in the course of the day; and that was enough for him. His little quibbling from Shakespeare about the snuff had put him in the best of good humours. He went on making quotations, talking elocution, and eating bread and butter, as brisk and happy, as if all Tidbury had combined to form one mighty class for him, and resolved to pay ready money for every lesson.

But after breakfast, when the things were taken away, the old man seemed suddenly to recollect something which changed his manner altogether. He grew first embarrassed; then silent; then pulled out his Shakespeare, and began to read with ostentatious assiduity, as if he were especially desirous that nobody should speak to him.

At the same time, a close observer might have detected Mr. “Julius Caesar” making various uncouth signs and grimaces to Annie, which the little girl apparently understood, but did not know how to answer. At last, with an effort, as if she were summoning extraordinary resolution, she said:

“Grandfather – you have not forgotten your promise?”

No answer from Mr. Wray. Probably, he was too much absorbed over Shakespeare to hear.

“Grandfather,” repeated Annie, in a louder tone; “you promised to explain a certain mystery to us, on my birthday.”

Mr. Wray was obliged to hear this time. He looked up with a very perplexed face.

“Yes, dear,” said he; “I did promise; but I almost wish I had not. It’s rather a dangerous mystery to explain, little Annie, I can tell you! Why should you be so very curious to know about it?”

“I’m sure, grandfather,” pleaded Annie, “you can’t say I am over-curious, or Julius Caesar either, in wanting to know it. Just recollect – we had been only three days at Stratford-upon-Avon, when you came in, looking so dreadfully frightened, and said we must go away directly. And you made us pack up; and we all went off in a hurry, more like prisoners escaping, than honest people.”

“We did!” groaned old Reuben, beginning to look like a culprit already.

“Well,” continued Annie; “and you wouldn’t tell us a word of what it was all for, beg as hard as we might. And then, when we asked why you never let that old cash box (which I used to keep my odds and ends in) out of your own hands, after we left Stratford – you wouldn’t tell us that, either, and ordered us never to mention the thing again. It was only in one of your particular good humours, that I just got you to promise you would tell us all about it on my next birthday – to celebrate the day, you said. I’m sure we are to be trusted with any secrets; and I don’t think it’s being very curious to want to know this.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Wray, rising, with a sort of desperate calmness; “I’ve promised, and, come what may, I’ll keep my promise. Wait here; I’ll be back directly.” And he left the room, in a great hurry.

He returned immediately, with the cash box. A very battered, shabby affair, to make such a mystery about! thought Annie, as he put the box on the table, and solemnly laid his hands across it.

“Now, then,” said old Wray, in his deepest tragedy tones, and with very serious looks; “Promise me, on your word of honour – both of you – that you’ll never say a word of what I’m going to tell, to anybody, on any account whatever – I don’t care what happens – on any account whatever!”

Annie and her lover gave their promises directly, and very seriously. They were getting a little agitated by all these elaborate preparations for the coming disclosure.

“Shut the door!” said Mr. Wray, in a stage whisper. “Now sit close and listen; I’m ready to explain the mystery.”

•  IV  •

“I suppose,” said old Reuben, “you have neither of you forgotten that, on the second day of our visit to Stratford, I went out in the afternoon to dine with an intimate friend of mine, whom I’d known from a boy, and who lived at some little distance from the town—”

“Forget that!” cried Annie! “I don’t think we ever shall – I was frightened about you, all the time you were gone.”

“Frightened about what?” asked Mr. Wray sharply. “Do you mean to tell me, Annie, you suspected—”

“I don’t know what I suspected, grandfather; but I thought your going away by yourself, to sleep at your friend’s house (as you told us), and not to come back till the next morning, something very extraordinary. It was the first time we had ever slept under different roofs – only think of that!”

“I’m ashamed to say, my dear” – rejoined Mr. Wray, suddenly beginning to look and speak very uneasily – “that I turned hypocrite, and something worse, too, on that occasion. I deceived you. I had no friend to go and dine with; and I didn’t pass that night in any house at all.”

“Grandfather!” – cried Annie, jumping up in a fright – “What can you mean!”

“Beg pardon, sir,” added “Julius Caesar”, turning very red, and slowly clenching both his enormous fists as he spoke – “Beg pardon; but if you was put upon, or made fun of by any chaps that night, I wish you’d just please tell me where I could find ’em.”

“Nobody ill-used me,” said the old man, in steady, and even solemn tones. “I passed that night by the grave of William Shakespeare, in Stratford-upon-Avon Church!”

Annie sank back into her seat, and lost all her pretty complexion in a moment. The worthy carpenter gave such a start, that he broke the back rail of his chair. It was a variation on his usual performances of this sort, which were generally confined to cups, saucers, and wineglasses.

Mr. Wray took no notice of the accident. This was of itself enough to show that he was strongly agitated by something. After a momentary silence, he spoke again, completely forgetting the Kemble manner and the Kemble elocution, as he went on.

“I say again, I passed all that night in Stratford Church; and you shall know for what. You went with me, Annie, in the morning – it was Tuesday: yes, Tuesday morning – to see Shakespeare’s bust in the church. You looked at it, like other people, just as a curiosity – I looked at it, as the greatest treasure in the world; the only true likeness of Shakespeare! It’s been done from a mask, taken from his own face, after death – I know it: I don’t care what people say, I know it. Well, when we went home, I felt as if I’d seen Shakespeare himself, risen from the dead! Strangers would laugh if I told them so; but it’s true – I did feel it. And this thought came across me, quick, like the shooting of a sudden pain: I must make that face of Shakespeare mine; my possession, my companion, my great treasure that no money can pay for! And I’ve got it! – Here! – the only cast in the world from the Stratford bust is locked up in this old cash box!”

He paused a moment. Astonishment kept both his auditors silent.

“You both know,” he continued, “that I was bred apprentice to a statuary. Among other things, he taught me to take casts: it was part of our business – the easiest part. I knew I could take a mould off the Stratford bust, if I had the courage; and the courage came to me: on the Tuesday, it came. I went and bought some plaster, some soft soap, and a quart basin – those were my materials – and tied them up together in an old canvas bag. Water was all I wanted besides; and that I saw in the church vestry, in the morning – a jug of it, left I suppose since Sunday, where it had been put for the clergyman’s use. I could carry my bag under my cloak quite comfortably, you understand. The only thing that troubled me now was how to get into the church again, without being suspected. While I was thinking, I passed the inn door. Some people were on the steps, talking to some other people in the street: they were making an appointment to go all together, and see Shakespeare’s bust and grave that very afternoon. This was enough for me: I determined to go into the church with them.”

“What! and stop there all night, grandfather?”

“And stop there all night, Annie. Taking a mould, you know, is not a very long business; but I wanted to take mine unobserved; and the early morning, before anybody was up, was the only time to do that safely in the church. Besides, I wanted plenty of leisure, because I wasn’t sure I should succeed at first, after being out of practice so long in making casts. But you shall hear how I did it, when the time comes. Well, I made up the story about dining and sleeping at my friend’s, because I didn’t know what might happen, and because – because, in short, I didn’t like to tell you what I was going to do. So I went out secretly, near the church; and waited for the party coming. They were late – late in the afternoon, before they came. We all went in together; I with my bag, you know, hid under my cloak. The man who showed us over the church in the morning, luckily for me, wasn’t there: an old woman took his duty for him in the afternoon. I waited till the visitors were all congregated round Shakespeare’s grave, bothering the poor woman with foolish questions about him. I knew that was my time, and slipped off into the vestry, and opened the cupboard, and hid myself among the surplices, as quiet as a mouse. After a while, I heard one of the strangers in the church (they were very rude, boisterous people) asking the other, what had become of the ‘old fogey with the cloak?’ and the other answered that he must have gone out, like a wise man, and that they had all better go after him, for it was precious cold and dull in the church. They went away: I heard the doors shut, and knew I was locked in for the night.”

“All night in a church! Oh, grandfather, how frightened you must have been!”

“Well, Annie, I was a little frightened; but more at what I was going to do, than at being alone in the church. Let me get on with my story though. Being autumn weather, it grew too dark after the people went, for me to do anything then; so I screwed my courage up to wait for the morning. The first thing I did was to go and look quietly, all by myself, at the bust; and I made up my mind that I could take the mould in about three or four pieces. All I wanted was what they call a mask: that means just a forehead and face, without the head. It’s an easy thing to take a mask off a bust – I knew I could do it; but, somehow, I didn’t feel quite comfortable just then. The bust began to look very awful to me, in the fading light, all alone in the church. It was almost like looking at the ghost of Shakespeare, in that place, and at that time. If the door hadn’t been locked, I think I should have run out of the church; but I couldn’t do that; so I knelt down and kissed the grave-stone – a curious fancy coming over me as I did so, that it was like wishing Shakespeare good night – and then I groped my way back to the vestry. When I got in, and had shut the door between me and the grave, I grew bolder, I can tell you; and thought to myself – I’m doing no harm; I’m not going to hurt the bust; I only want what an Englishman and an old actor may fairly covet, a copy of Shakespeare’s face; why shouldn’t I eat my bit of supper here, and say my prayers as usual, and get my nap into the bargain, if I can? Just as I thought that – BANG went the clock, striking the hour! It almost knocked me down, bold as I felt the moment before. I was obliged to wait till it was all still again, before I could pull the bit of bread and cheese I had got with me out of my pocket. And when I did, I couldn’t eat: I was too impatient for the morning; so I sat down in the parson’s armchair; and tried, next, whether I could sleep at all.”

“And could you, grandfather?”

“No – I couldn’t sleep either; at least, not at first. It was quite dark now; and I began to feel cold and awe-struck again. The only thing I could think of to keep up my spirits at all, was first saying my prayers, and then quoting Shakespeare. I went at it, Annie, like a dragon; play after play – except the tragedies; I was afraid of them, in a church at night, all by myself. Well: I think I had got half through the Midsummer Night’s Dream, whispering over bit after bit of it; when I whispered myself into a doze. Then I fell into a queer sleep; and then I had such a dream! I dreamt that the church was full of moonlight – brighter moonlight than ever I saw awake. I walked out of the vestry; and there were the fairies of the Midsummer Night’s Dream – all creatures like sparks of silver light – dancing round the Shakespeare bust! The moment they caught sight of me, they all called out in their sweet nightingale voices: ‘Come along, Reuben! sly old Reuben! we know what you’re here for, and we don’t mind you a bit! You love Shakespeare, and so do we – dance, Reuben, and be happy! Shakespeare likes an old actor; he was an actor himself – nobody sees us! we’re out for the night! foot it, old Reuben – foot it away!’ And we all danced like mad: now, up in the air; now, down on the pavement; and now, all round the bust five hundred thousand times at least without stopping, till – BANG went the clock! and I woke up in the dark, in a cold perspiration.”

“I’m in one too!” gasped “Julius Caesar”, dabbing his brow vehemently with a ragged cotton pocket handkerchief.

“Well, after that dream I fell to reciting again; and got another doze; and had another dream – a terrible one, about ghosts and witches, that I don’t recollect so well as the other. I woke up once more, cold, and in a great fright that I’d slept away all the precious morning daylight. No! all dark still! I went into the church again, and then back to the vestry, not being able to stay there. I suppose I did this a dozen times without knowing why. At last, never going to sleep again, I got somehow through the night – the night that seemed never to be done. Soon after daybreak, I began to walk up and down the church briskly, to get myself warm, keeping at it for a long time. Then, just as I saw through the windows that the sun was rising, I opened my bag at last, and got ready for work. I can tell you my hand trembled and my sight grew dim – I think the tears were in my eyes; but I don’t know why – as I first soaped the bust all over to prevent the plaster I was going to put on it from sticking. Then I mixed up the plaster and water in my quart basin, taking care to leave no lumps, and finding it come as natural to me as if I had only left the statuary’s shop yesterday; then – but it’s no use telling you, little Annie, about what you don’t understand; I’d better say shortly I made the mould, in four pieces, as I thought I should – two for the upper part of the face, and two for the lower. Then, having put on the outer plaster case to hold the mould, I pulled all off clean together, and looked, and knew that I had got a mask of Shakespeare from the Stratford bust!”

“Oh, grandfather, how glad you must have been then!”

“No, that was the odd part of it. At first, I felt as if I had robbed the bank, or the King’s jewels, or had set fire to a train of gunpowder to blow up all London; it seemed such a thing to have done! Such a tremendously daring, desperate thing! But, a little while after, a frantic sort of joy came over me: I could hardly prevent myself from shouting and singing at the top of my voice. Then I felt a perfect fever of impatience to cast the mould directly; and see whether the mask would come out without a flaw. The keeping down that impatience was the hardest thing I had had to do since I first got into the church.”

“But, please, sir, whenever did you get out at last? Do pray tell us that!” asked “Julius Caesar”.

“Not till after the clock had struck twelve, and I’d eaten all my bread and cheese,” said Mr. Wray, rather piteously. “I was glad enough when I heard the church door open at last, from the vestry where I had popped in but a moment before. It was the same woman came in who had shown the bust in the afternoon. I waited my time; and then slipped into the church; but she turned round sharply, just as I’d got half way out, and came up to me. I never was frightened by an old woman before; but I can tell you, she frightened me. ‘Oh! there are you again!’ says she: ‘Come, I say! this won’t do. You sneaked out yesterday afternoon without paying anything; and you sneak in again after me, as soon as I open the door this morning – ain’t you ashamed of being so shabby as that, at your age? – ain’t you?’ I never paid money in my life, Annie, with pleasure, till I gave that old woman some to stop her mouth! And I don’t recollect either that I’d ever tried to run since leaving the stage (where we had a good deal of running, first and last, in the battle scenes); but I ran as soon as I got well away from the church, I can promise you – ran almost the whole way home.”

“That’s what made you look so tired when you came in, grandfather,” said Annie; “we couldn’t think what was the matter with you at the time.”

“Well,” continued the old man, “as soon as I could possibly get away from you, after coming back, I went and locked myself into my bedroom, pulled the mould in a great hurry out of the canvas bag, and took the cast at once – a beautiful cast! a perfect cast! I never produced a better when I was in good practice, Annie! When I sat down on the side of the bed, and looked at Shakespeare – my Shakespeare – got with so much danger, and made with my own hands – so white and pure and beautiful, just out of the mould! Old as I am, it was all I could do to keep myself from dancing for joy!”

“And yet, grandfather,” said Annie reproachfully, “you could keep all that joy to yourself: you could keep it from me!”

“It was wrong my love, wrong on my part not to trust you – I’m sorry for it now. But the joy, after all, lasted a very little while – only from the afternoon to the evening. In the evening, if you remember, I went out to the butcher’s to buy something for my own supper; something I could fancy, to make me comfortable before I went to bed (you little thought how I wanted my bed that night!). Well, when I got into the shop, several people were there; and what do you think they were all talking about? It makes me shudder even to remember it now! They were talking about a cast having been taken – feloniously taken, just fancy that, from the Stratford bust!”

Annie looked pale again instantly at this part of the story. As for “Julius Caesar”, though he said nothing, he was evidently suffering from a second attack of the sympathetic cold perspiration which had already troubled him. He used the cotton handkerchief more copiously than ever just at this moment.

“The butcher was speaking when I came in,” pursued Mr. Wray. “‘Who’s been and took it,’ says the fellow, (his grammar and elocution were awful, Annie!) ‘nobody don’t know yet; but the Town Council will know by tomorrow, and then he’ll be took himself.’  ‘Ah,’ says a dirty little man in black, ‘he’ll be cast into prison, for taking a cast – eh?’ They laughed, actually laughed at this vile pun. Then another man asked how it had been found out. ‘Some says,’ answered the butcher, ‘he was seen a doin’ of it, through the window, by some chap looking in accidental like: some says, nobody don’t know but the churchwardens, and they won’t tell till they’ve got him.’  ‘Well,’ says a woman, waiting with a basket to be served, ‘but how will they get him? – (two chops, please, when you’re quite ready) – that’s the thing: how will they get him?’  ‘Quite easy; take my word for it;’ says the man who made the bad pun. ‘In the first place, they’ve posted up handbills, offering a reward for him; in the second place, they’re going to examine the people who show the church; in the third place—’  ‘Bother your places!’ cried the woman, ‘I wish I could get my chops.’  ‘There you are Mum,’ says the butcher, cutting off the chops, ‘and if you want my opinion about this business, it’s this here: they’ll transport him right away, in no time.’  ‘They can’t,’ cries the dirty man, ‘they can only imprison him.’  ‘For life – eh?’ says the woman, going off with the chops. ‘Be so kind as to let me have a couple of kidneys,’ said I; for my knees knocked together, and I could stand it no longer.”

“Then you thought, grandfather, that they suspected you?”

“I thought everything that was horrible, Annie. However, I got my kidneys, and went out unhindered, leaving them still talking about it. On my way home I saw the handbill – the handbill itself! Ten pounds reward for apprehending the man who had taken the cast! I read it twice through, in a sort of trance of terror. My mask taken away, and myself put in prison, if not transported – that was the prospect I had to give me an appetite for the kidneys. There was only one thing to be done: to get away from Stratford while I had the chance. The night-coach went that very evening, straight through to this place, which was far enough off for safety. We had some money, you know, left, after that last private-theatrical party, where they treated us so generously. In short, I made you pack up, Annie, as you said just now, and got you both off by the coach, in time, not daring to speak a word about my secret, and as miserable as I could be the whole journey. But let us say no more about that – here we are, safe and sound! and here’s my face of Shakespeare – my diamond above all price – safe and sound, too! You shall see it; you shall look at the mask, both of you, and then, I hope, you’ll acknowledge that you know as much as I do about the mystery!”

“But the mould,” cried Annie; “haven’t you got the mould with you, too?”

“Lord bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Wray, slapping both hands, in desperation, on the lid of the cash box. “Between the fright and the hurry of getting away, I quite forgot it – it’s left at Stratford!”

“Left at Stratford!” echoed Annie, with a vague feeling of dismay, that she could not account for.

“Yes: rolled up in the canvas bag, and poked behind the landlord’s volumes of the Annual Register, on the top shelf of the cupboard, in my bedroom. Between thinking of how to take care of the mask, and how to take care of myself, I quite forgot it. Don’t look so frightened, Annie! The people at the lodgings are not likely to find it; and if they did, they wouldn’t know what it was, and would throw it away. I’ve got the mask; and that’s all I want – the mould is of no consequence to me, now – it’s the mask that’s everything – everything in the world!”

“I can’t help feeling frightened, grandfather; and I can’t help wishing you had brought away the mould, though I don’t know why.”

“You’re frightened, Annie, about the Stratford people coming after me here – that’s what you’re frightened about. But, if you and Julius Caesar keep the secret from everybody – and I know you will – there is no fear at all. They won’t catch me back at Stratford again, or you either; and if the churchwardens themselves found the mould, that wouldn’t tell them where I was gone, would it? Look up, you silly little Annie! We’re quite safe here. Look up, and see the great sight I’m going to show you – a sight that nobody in England can show, but me; – the mask! the mask of Shakespeare!”

His cheeks flushed, his fingers trembled, as he took the key out of his pocket and put it into the lock of the old cash box. “Julius Caesar”, breathless with wonder and suspense, clapped both his hands behind him, to make sure of breaking nothing this time. Even Annie caught the infection of the old man’s triumph and delight, and breathed quicker than usual when she heard the click of the opening lock.

“There!” cried Mr. Wray, throwing back the lid; “there is the face of William Shakespeare! there is the treasure which the greatest lord in this land doesn’t possess – a copy of the Stratford bust! Look at the forehead! Who’s got such a forehead now? Look at his eyes; look at his nose. He was not only the greatest man that ever lived, but the handsomest, too! Who says this isn’t just what his face was; his face taken after death? Who’s bold enough to say so? Just look at the mouth, dropped and open – that’s one proof? Look at the cheek, under the right eye; don’t you see a little paralytic gathering up of the muscle, not visible on the other side? – that’s another proof! Oh, Annie, Annie! there’s the very face that once looked out, alive and beaming, on this poor old world of ours! There’s the man who’s comforted me, informed me, made me what I am! There’s the ‘counterfeit presentment’, the precious earthly relic of that great spirit who is now with the angels in Heaven, and singing among the sweetest of them!”

His voice grew faint, and his eyes moistened. He stood looking at the mask, with a rapture and a triumph which no speech could express. At such moments as those, even through that poor, meagre face, the immortal spirit within could still shine out in the beauty which never dies! – even in that frail old earthly tenement, could still vindicate outwardly the divine destiny of all mankind!

They were yet gathered silently round the Shakespeare cast, when a loud knock sounded at the room door. Instantly, old Reuben banged down the lid of the cash box, and locked it; and as instantly, without waiting for permission to enter, a stranger walked in.

He was dressed in a long greatcoat, wore a red comforter round his neck, and carried a very old and ill-looking cat-skin cap in his hand. His face was uncommonly dirty; his eyes uncommonly inquisitive; his whiskers uncommonly plentiful; and his voice most uncommonly and determinately gruff, in spite of his efforts to dulcify it for the occasion.

“Miss, and gentlemen both, beggin’ all your pardons,” said this new arrival, “vich is Mr. Wray?” As he spoke, his eyes travelled all round the room, seeing everything and everybody in it; and then glancing sharply at the cash box.

“I am Mr. Wray, sir,” exclaimed our old friend, considerably startled, but recovering the Kemble manner and the Kemble elocution as if by magic.

“Wery good,” said the stranger. “Then beggin’ your pardon again, sir, in pertickler, could you be so kind as to ’blige me with a card o’ terms? It’s for a young gentleman as wants you, Mr. Wray,” he continued in a whisper, approaching the old man, and quite abstractedly leaning one hand on the cash box.

“Take your hand off that box, sir,” cried Mr. Wray, in a very fierce manner, but with a very trembling voice. At the same moment “Julius Caesar” advanced a step or two, partially doubling his fist. The man with the cat-skin cap had probably never before been so nearly knocked down in his life. Perhaps he suspected as much; for he took his hand off the box in great hurry.

“It was inadwertent, sir,” he remarked in explanation – “a little inadwertency of mine, that’s all. But could you ’blige me vith that card o’ terms? The young gentleman as wants it has heerd of your advertisement; and, bein’ d’awful shaky in his pronounciashun, as vell as ’scruciatin’ bad at readin’ aloud, he’s ’ard up for improvement – the sort o” secret thing you gives, you know, to the oraytors and the clujymen, at three-and-six an hour. You’ll heer from him in secret, Mr. Wray, sir; and precious vork you’ll ’ave to git him to rights; but do just ’blige me ’vith the card o’ terms and the number of the ’ouse; “cos I promised to git ’em for him today.”

“There is a card, sir, and I will engage to improve his delivery be it ever so bad,” said Mr. Wray, considerably relieved at hearing the real nature of the stranger’s errand.

“Miss, and gentlemen both, good mornin’,” said the man, putting on his cat-skin cap, “you’ll heer from the young gentleman today; and wotever you do, sir, mind you keep the h’applicashun a secret – mind that!” He winked; and went out.

“I declare,” muttered Mr. Wray, as the door closed, “I thought he was a thief-taker from Stratford. Think of his being only a messenger from a new pupil! I told you we should have a pupil today. I told you so.”

“A very strange-looking messenger, grandfather, for a young gentleman to choose!” said Annie.

“He can’t help his looks, my dear; and I’m sure we shan’t mind them, if he brings us money. Have you seen enough of the mask? if you hav’nt I’ll open the box again.”

“Enough for today, I think, grandfather. But, tell me, why do you keep the mask in that old cash box?”

“Because I’ve nothing else, Annie, that will hold it, and lock up too. I was sorry, my dear, to disturb your ‘odds and ends’, as you call them; but really there was nothing else to take. Stop! I’ve a thought! Julius Caesar shall make me a new box for the mask, and then you shall have your old one back again.”

“I don’t want it, grandfather! I’d rather we none of us had it. Carrying a cash box like that about with us, might make some people think we had money in it.”

“Money! People think I have any money! Come, come, Annie! that really won’t do! That’s much too good a joke, you sly little puss, you!” And the old man laughed heartily, as he hurried off, to deposit the precious mask in his bedroom.

“You’ll make that new box, Julius Caesar, won’t you?” said Annie earnestly, as soon as her grandfather left the room.

“I’ll get some wood, this very day,” answered the carpenter, “and turn out such a box, by tomorrow, as – as—” He was weak at comparisons; so he stopped at the second “as”.

“Make it quick, dear, make it quick,” said the little girl, anxiously; “and then we’ll give away the old cash box. If grandfather had only told us what he was going to do, at first, he need never have used it; for you could have made him a new box beforehand. But, never mind! make it quick, now!”

Oh, “Julius Caesar!” strictly obey your little betrothed in this, as in all other injunctions! You know not how soon that new box may be needed, or how much evil it may yet prevent!

•  V  •

Perhaps, by this time, you are getting tired of three such simple, homely characters as Mr. and Miss Wray, and Mr. “Julius Caesar”, the carpenter. I strongly suspect you, indeed, of being downright anxious to have a little literary stimulant provided in the shape of a villain. You shall taste this stimulant – double distilled; for I have two villains all ready for you in the present chapter.

But, take my word for it, when you know your new company, you will be only too glad to get back again to Mr. Wray and his family.

About three miles from Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, there is a village called Little London; sometimes, popularly entitled, in allusion to the characters frequenting it, “Hell-End”. It is a dirty, ruinous-looking collection of some dozen cottages, and an ale-house. Ruffianly men, squalid women, filthy children, are its inhabitants. The chief support of this pleasant population is currently supposed to be derived from their connection with the poaching and petty larcenous interests of their native soil. In a word, Little London looks bad, smells bad, and is bad; a fouler blot of a village, in the midst of a prettier surrounding landscape, is not to be found in all England.

Our principal business is with the ale-house. The “Jolly Ploughboys” is the sign; and Judith Grimes, widow, is the proprietor. The less said about Mrs. Grimes’s character, the better; it is not quite adapted to bear discussion in these pages. Mrs. Grimes’s mother (who is now bordering on eighty) may be also dismissed to merciful oblivion; for, at her daughter’s age, she was – if possible – rather the worse of the two. Towards her son, Mr. Benjamin Grimes (as one of the rougher sex), I feel less inclined to be compassionate. When I assert that he was in every respect a complete specimen of a provincial scoundrel, I am guilty, according to a profound and reasonable maxim of our law, of uttering a great libel, because I am repeating a great truth.

You know the sort of man well. You have seen the great, hulking, heavy-browed, sallow-complexioned fellow often enough, lounging at village corners, with a straw in his mouth and a bludgeon in his hand. Perhaps you have asked your way of him; and have been answered by a growl and a petition for money; or, you have heard of him in connection with a cowardly assault on your rural policeman; or a murderous fight with your friend’s gamekeeper; or a bad case for your other friend, the magistrate, at petty sessions. Anybody who has ever been in the country, knows the man – the ineradicable plague-spot of his whole neighbourhood – as well as I do.

About eight o’clock in the evening, and on the same day which had been signalized by Mr. Wray’s disclosures, Mrs. Grimes, senior – or, as she was generally called, “Mother Grimes” – sat in her armchair in the private parlour of The Jolly Ploughboys, just making up her mind to go to bed. Her ideas on this subject rather wanted acceleration; and they got it from her dutiful son, Mr. Benjamin Grimes.

“Coom, old ’ooman, why doesn’t thee trot upstairs?” demanded this provincial worthy.

“I’m a-going, Ben, – gently, Judith! – I’m a-going!” mumbled the old woman, as Mrs. Grimes, junior, entered the room, and very unceremoniously led her mother off.

“Mind thee doesn’t let nobody in here tonight,” bawled Benjamin, as his sister went out. “Chummy Dick’s going to coom,” he added, in a mysterious whisper.

Left to himself to await the arrival of Chummy Dick, Mr. Grimes found time hung rather heavy on his hands. He first looked out of the window. The view commanded a few cottages and fields, with a wood beyond on the rising ground, – a homely scene enough in itself; but the heavenly purity of the shining moonlight gave it, just now, a beauty not its own. This beauty was not apparently to the taste of Mr. Grimes, for he quickly looked away from the window back into the room. Staring dreamily, his sunken sinister grey eyes fixed upon the opposite wall, encountering there nothing but four coloured prints, representing the career of the prodigal son. He had seen them hundreds of times before; but he looked at them again from mere habit.

In the first of the series, the prodigal son was clothed in a bright red dress coat, and was just getting on horseback (the wrong side); while his father, in a bright blue coat, helped him on with one hand, and pointed disconsolately with the other to a cheese-coloured road, leading straight from the horse’s forefeet to a distant city in the horizon, entirely composed of towers. In the second plate, master prodigal was feasting between two genteel ladies, holding gold wine glasses in their hands; while a debauched companion sprawled on the ground by his side, in a state of cataleptic drunkenness. In the third, he lay on his back; his red coat torn, and showing his purple skin; one of his stockings off; a thunderstorm raging over his head, and two white sows standing on either side of him – one of them apparently feeding off the calf of his leg. In the fourth—

Just as Mr. Grimes had got to the fourth print he heard somebody whistling a tune outside, and turned to the window. It was Chummy Dick; or, in other words, the man with the cat-skin cap, who had honoured Mr. Wray with a morning call.

Chummy Dick’s conduct on entering the parlour had the merit of originality as an exhibition of manners. He took no more notice of Mr. Grimes than if he had not been in the room; drew his chair to the fireplace; put one foot on each of the hobs; pulled a little card out of his greatcoat pocket; read it; and then indulged himself in a long, steady, unctuous fit of laughter, cautiously pitched in what musicians would call the “minor key”.

“What dost thee laugh about like that?” asked Grimes.

“Git us a glass of ’ot grog fust – two lumps o’ sugar, mind! – and then, Benjamin, you’ll know in no time!” said Chummy Dick, maintaining an undercurrent of laughter all the while he spoke.

While Benjamin is gone for the grog, there is time enough for a word or two of explanation.

Possibly you may remember that the young assistant at Messrs Dunball and Dark’s happened to see Mr. Wray carrying his cash box into No. 12. The same gust of wind which, by blowing aside old Reuben’s cloak, betrayed what he had got under it to this assistant, exposed the same thing, at the same time, to the observation of Mr. Grimes, who happened to be lounging about the High Street on the occasion in question. Knowing nothing about either the mask or the mystery connected with it, it was only natural that Benjamin should consider the cash box to be a receptacle for cash; and it was, furthermore, not at all out of character that he should ardently long to be possessed of that same cash, and should communicate his desire to Chummy Dick.

And for this reason. With all the ambition to be a rascal of first-rate ability, Mr. Grimes did not possess the necessary cunning and capacity, and had not received the early London education requisite to fit him for so exalted a position. Stealing poultry out of a farmyard, for instance, was quite in Benjamin’s line; but stealing a cash box out of a barred and bolted-up house, standing in the middle of a large town, was an achievement above his powers – an achievement that but one man in his circle of acquaintance was mighty enough to compass – and that man was Chummy Dick, the great London housebreaker. Certain recent passages in the life of this illustrious personage had rendered London and its neighbourhood very insecure, in his case, for purposes of residence, so he had retired to a safe distance in the provinces; and had selected Tidbury and the adjacent country as a suitable field for action, and a very pretty refuge from the Bow Street Runners into the bargain.

“Wery good, Benjamin; and not too sveet,” remarked Chummy Dick, tasting the grog which Grimes had brought him. He was not, by any means, one of your ferocious housebreakers, except under strong provocation. There was more of oil than of aqua fortis in the mixture of his temperament. His robberies were marvels of skill, cunning, and cool determination. In short, he stole plate or money out of dwelling houses, as cats steal cream off breakfast tables – by biding his time, and never making a noise.

“Hast thee seen the cash box?” asked Grimes, in an eager whisper.

“Look at my ’and, Benjamin,” was the serenely triumphant answer. “It’s bin on the cash box! You’re all right: the swag’s ready for us.”

“Swag! Wot be that?”

“That’s swag!” said Chummy Dick, pulling half-a-crown out of his pocket, and solemnly holding it up for Benjamin’s inspection. “I haven’t got a fi’ pun’ note, or a christenin’ mug about me; but notes and silver’s swag, too. Now, young Grimes, you knows swag; and you’ll have your swag before long, if you looks out sharp. If it ain’t quite so fine a night tomorrer – if there ain’t quite so much of that moonshine as there is now to let gratis for nothin’ – why, we’ll ’ave the cash box!”

“Half on it for me! Thee knows’t that, Chummy Dick!”

“Check that ’ere talky-talky tongue of your’n; and you’ll ’ave your ’alf. I’ve bin to see the old man; and he’s gived me his wisitin’ card, with the number of the ’ouse. Ho! ho! ho! think of his givin’ his card to me! It’s as good as inwitin’ one to break into the ’ouse – it is, every bit!” And, with another explosion of laughter, Chummy Dick triumphantly threw Mr. Wray’s card into the fire.

“But that ain’t the pint,” he resumed, when he had recovered his breath. “We’ll stick to the pint – the pint’s the cash box.” And, to do him justice, he did stick to the point, never straying away from it, by so much as a hair’s breadth, for a full half-hour.

The upshot of the long harangue to which he now treated Mr. Benjamin Grimes, was briefly this: he had invented a plan, after reading the old man’s advertisement first, for getting into Mr. Wray’s lodgings unsuspected; he had seen the cash box with his own eyes, and was satisfied, from certain indications, that there was money in it – he held the owner of this property to be a miser, whose gains were all hoarded up in his cash box, stray shillings and stray sovereigns together – he had next found out who were the inmates of the house; and had discovered that the only formidable person sleeping at No. 12 was our friend the carpenter – he had then examined the premises; and had seen that they were easily accessible by the back drawing-room window, which looked out on the wash-house roof – finally, he had ascertained that the two watchmen appointed to guard the town, performed that duty by going to bed regularly at eleven o’clock, and leaving the town to guard itself; the whole affair was perfectly easy – too easy in fact for anybody but a young beginner.

“Now, Benjamin,” said Chummy Dick, in conclusion – “mind this: no wiolence! Take your swag quiet, and you takes it safe. Wiolence is sometimes as bad as knockin’ up a whole street – wiolence is the downy cracksman’s last kick-out when he’s caught in a fix. Fust and foremost, you’ve got your mask,” (here he pulled out a shabby domino mask,) “wery good; nobody can’t swear to you in that. Then, you’ve got your barker,” (he produced a pistol,) “just to keep ’em quiet with the look of it, and if that won’t do, there’s your gag and bit o’ rope” (he drew them forth,) “for their mouths and ’ands. Never pull your trigger, till you see another man ready to pull his. Then you must make your row; and then you make it to some purpose. The nobs in our business – remember this, young Grimes! – always takes the swag easy; and when they can’t take it easy, they takes it as easy as they can. That’s visdom – the visdom of life!”

“Why thee bean’t a-going, man?” asked Benjamin in astonishment, as the philosophical housebreaker abruptly moved towards the door.

“Me and you mustn’t be seen together, tomorrer,” said Chummy Dick, in a whisper. “You let me alone: I’ve got business to do tonight – never mind wot! At eleven tomorrer night, you be at the cross roads that meets on the top of the common. Look out sharp; and you’ll see me.”

“But if so be it do keep moonshiny,” suggested Grimes.

“On second thoughts, Benjamin,” said the housebreaker, after a moment’s reflection, “we’ll risk all the moonshine as ever shone – High Street, Tidbury, ain’t Bow Street, London! – we may risk it safe. Moon, or no moon, young Grimes! tomorrer night’s our night!”

By this time he had walked out of the house. They separated at the door. The radiant moonlight falling lovely on all things, fell lovely even on them. How pure it was! how doubly pure, to shine on Benjamin Grimes and Chummy Dick, and not be soiled by the contact!

•  VI  •

During the whole remainder of Annie’s birthday, Mr. Wray sat at home, anxiously expecting the promised communication from the mysterious new pupil whose elocution wanted so much setting to rights. Though he never came, and never wrote, old Reuben still persisted in expecting him forthwith; and still waited for him as patiently the next morning, as he had waited the day before.

Annie sat in the room with her grandfather, occupied in making lace. She had learnt this art, so as to render herself, if possible, of some little use in contributing to the general support; and, sometimes, her manufacture actually poured a few extra shillings into the scantily filled family coffer. Her lace was not at all the sort of thing that your fine people would care to look at twice – it was just simple and pretty, like herself; and only sold (when it did sell, and that alas! was not often!) among ladies whose purses were very little better furnished than her own.

“Julius Caesar” was downstairs, in the back kitchen, making the all-important box – or, as the landlady irritably phrased it, “making a mess about the house”. She was not partial to sawdust and shavings, and almost lost her temper when the glue pot invaded the kitchen fire. But work away, honest carpenter! work away, and never mind her! Get the mask of Shakespeare out of the old box, and into the new, before night comes; and you will have done the best day’s work you ever completed in your life!

Annie and her grandfather had a great deal of talk about the Shakespeare cast, while they were sitting together in the drawing-room. If I were to report all old Reuben’s rhapsodies and quotations during that period, I might fill the whole remaining space accorded to me in this little book. It was only once that the conversation varied at all. Annie just asked, by way of changing the subject a little, how a plaster cast was taken from the mould; and Mr. Wray instantly went off at a tangent, in the midst of a new quotation, to tell her. He was still describing, for the second time, how the plaster and water were to be mixed, how the mixture was to be left to “set”, and how the mould was to be pulled off it, when the landlady, looking very hot and important, bustled into the room, exclaiming:

“Mr. Wray, sir! Mr. Wray! Here’s Squire Colebatch, of Cropley Court, coming upstairs to see you!” She then added, in a whisper: “He’s very hot-tempered and odd, sir, but the best gentleman in the world—”

“That will do, ma’am! that will do!” interrupted a hearty voice, outside the door. “I can introduce myself; an old playwriter and an old play-actor don’t want much introduction, I fancy! How are you, Mr. Wray? I’ve come to make your acquaintance: how do you do, sir!”

Before the Squire came in, Mr. Wray’s first idea was that the young gentleman pupil had arrived at last – but when the Squire appeared, he discovered that he was mistaken. Mr. Colebatch was an old gentleman with a very rosy face, with bright black eyes that twinkled incessantly, and with perfectly white hair, growing straight up from his head in a complete forest of venerable bristles. Moreover, his elocution wanted no improvement at all; and his “delivery” proclaimed itself at once, as the delivery of a gentleman – a very eccentric one, but a gentleman still.

“Now, Mr. Wray,” said the Squire, sitting down, and throwing open his greatcoat, with the air of an old friend; “I’ve a habit of speaking to the point, because I hate ceremony and botheration. My name’s Matthew Colebatch; I live at Cropley Court, just outside the town; and I come to see you, because I’ve had an argument about your character with the Reverend Daubeny Daker, the Rector here!”

Astonishment bereft Mr. Wray of all power of speech, while he listened to this introductory address.

“I’ll tell you how it was, sir,” continued the Squire. “In the first place, Daubeny Daker’s a canting sneak – a sort of fellow who goes into poor people’s cottages, asking what they’ve got for dinner, and when they tell him, he takes the cover off the saucepan and sniffs at it, to make sure that they’ve spoken the truth. That’s what he calls doing his duty to the poor, and what I call being a canting sneak! Well, Daubeny Daker saw your advertisement in Dunball’s shop window. I must tell you, by-the-by, that he calls theatres the devil’s houses, and actors the devil’s missionaries; I heard him say that in a sermon, and have never been into his church since! Well, sir, he read your advertisement; and when he came to that part about improving clergymen at three-and-sixpence an hour (it would be damned cheap to improve Daubeny Daker at that price!) he falls into one of his nasty, cold-blooded, sneering rages, goes into the shop, and insists on having the thing taken down, as an insult offered by a vagabond actor to the clerical character – don’t lose your temper, Mr. Wray, don’t, for God’s sake – I trounced him about it handsomely, I can promise you! And now, what do you think that fat jackass Dunball did, when he heard what the parson said? Took your card down! – took it out of the window directly, as if Daubeny Daker was King of Tidbury, and it was death to disobey him!”

“My character, sir!” interposed Mr. Wray.

“Stop, Mr. Wray! I beg your pardon; but I must tell you how I trounced him. Half an hour after the thing had been taken down, I dropped into the shop. Dunball, smiling like a fool, tells me about the business. ‘Put it up again, directly!’ said I; ‘I won’t have any man’s character bowled down like that by people who don’t know him!’ Dunball makes a wry face and hesitates. I pull out my watch, and say to him, ‘I give you a minute to decide between my custom and interest, and Daubeny Daker’s.’ I happen to be what’s called a rich man, Mr. Wray; so Dunball decided in about two seconds, and up went your advertisement again, just where it was before!”

“I have no words, sir, to thank you for your kindness,” said poor old Reuben.

“Hear how I trounced Daubeny Daker, sir – hear that! I met him out at dinner, the same night. He was talking about you, and what he’d done – as proud as a peacock! ‘In fact,’ says he, at the end of his speech, ‘I considered it my duty, as a clergyman, to have the advertisement taken down.’  ‘And I considered it my duty, as a gentleman,’ said I, ‘to have it put up again.’ Then, we began the argument (he hates me, because I once wrote a play – I know he does). I won’t tell you what he said, because it would distress you. But it ended, after we’d been at it, hammer and tongs, for about an hour, by my saying that his conduct in setting you down as a disreputable character, without making a single enquiry about you, showed a want of Christianity, justice, and common sense. ‘I can bear with your infirmities of temper, Mr. Colebatch,’ says he, in his nasty, sneering way; ‘but allow me to ask, do you, who defend Mr. Wray so warmly, know any more of him than I do?’ He thought this was a settler; but I was at him again, quick as lightning. ‘No, sir; but I’ll set you a proper example, by going tomorrow morning, and judging of the man from the man himself!’ That was a settler for him: and now, here I am this morning, to do what I said.”

“I will show you, Mr. Colebatch, that I have deserved the honour of being defended by you,” said Mr. Wray, with a mixture of artless dignity and manly gratitude in his manner, which became him wonderfully; “I have a letter, sir, from the late Mr. Kemble—”

“What, my old friend, John Philip!” cried the Squire; “let’s see it instantly! He, Mr. Wray, was ‘the noblest Roman of them all’, as Shakespeare says.”

Here was an inestimable friend indeed! He knew Mr. Kemble and quoted Shakespeare. Old Reuben could actually have embraced the Squire at that moment; but he contented himself with producing the great Kemble letter.

Mr. Colebatch read it, and instantly declared that, as a certificate of character, it beat all other certificates that ever were written completely out of the field; and established Mr. Wray’s reputation as above the reach of all calumny. “It’s the most tremendous crusher for Daubeny Daker that ever was composed, sir!” Just as the old gentleman said this, his eyes encountered little Annie, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room, going on with her lace. He had hardly allowed himself leisure enough to look at her, in the first heat of his introductory address, but he made up for lost time now, with characteristic celerity.

“Who’s that pretty little girl?” said he; and his bright eyes twinkled more than ever as he spoke.

“My granddaughter, Annie,” answered Mr. Wray, proudly.

“Nice little thing! how pretty and quiet she sits making her lace!” cried Mr. Colebatch, enthusiastically. “Don’t move, Annie; don’t go away! I like to look at you! You won’t mind a queer old bachelor, like me – will you? You’ll let me look at you – won’t you? Go on with your lace, my dear, and Mr. Wray and I will go on with our chat.”

This “chat” completed what the Kemble letter had begun. Encouraged by the Squire, old Reuben artlessly told the little story of his life, as if to an intimate friend; and told it with all the matchless pathos of simplicity and truth. What time Mr. Colebatch could spare from looking at Annie – and that was not much – he devoted to anathematising his implacable enemy, Daubeny Daker, in a series of violent expletives; and anticipating, with immense glee, the sort of consummate “trouncing” he should now be able to inflict on that reverend gentleman, the next time he met with him. Mr. Wray only wanted to take one step more after this in the Squire’s estimation, to be considered the phoenix of all professors of elocution, past, present, and future: and he took it. He actually recollected the production of Mr. Colebatch’s play – a tragedy all bombast and bloodshed – at Drury Lane Theatre; and, more than that, he had himself performed one of the minor characters in it!

The Squire seized his hand immediately. This play (in virtue of which he considered himself a dramatic author,) was his weak point. It had enjoyed a very interrupted “run” of one night; and had never been heard of after. Mr. Colebatch attributed this circumstance entirely to public misappreciation; and, in his old age, boasted of his tragedy wherever he went, utterly regardless of the reception it had met with. It has often been asserted that the parents of sickly children are the parents who love their children best. This remark is sometimes, and only sometimes, true. Transfer it, however, to the sickly children of literature, and it directly becomes a rule which the experience of the whole world is powerless to confute by a single exception!

“My dear sir!” cried Mr. Colebatch, “your remembrance of my play is a new bond between us! It was entitled – of course you recollect – The Mysterious Murderess. Gad, sir, do you happen to call to mind the last four lines of the guilty Lindamira’s death scene? It ran thus, Mr. Wray:

“Murder and midnight hail! Come all ye horrors!

My soul’s congenial darkness quite defies ye!

I’m sick with guilt! – What is to cure me? – This! (Stabs herself)

Ha! ha! I’m better now – (smiles faintly) – I’m comfortable!” (Dies)

“If that’s not pretty strong writing, sir, my name’s not Matthew Colebatch! and yet the besotted audience failed to appreciate it! Bless my soul!” (pulling out his watch) “one o’clock, already! I ought to be at home! I must go directly. Goodbye, Mr. Wray. I’m so glad to have seen you, that I could almost thank Daubeny Daker for putting me in the towering passion that sent me here. You remind me of my young days, when I used to go behind the scenes, and sup with Kemble and Matthews. Goodbye, little Annie! I’m a wicked old fellow, and I mean to kiss you someday! Not a step further, Mr. Wray; not a step, by George, sir; or I’ll never come again. I mean to make the Tidbury people employ your talents; they’re the most infernal set of asses under the canopy of heaven; but they shall employ them! I engage you to read my play, if nothing else will do, at the Mechanics’ Institution. We’ll make their flesh creep, sir; and their hair stand on end, with a little tragedy of the good old school. Goodbye, till I see you again, and God bless you!” And away the talkative old Squire went, in a mighty hurry, just as he had come in.

“Oh, grandfather! what a nice old gentleman!” exclaimed Annie, looking up for the first time from her lace cushion.

“What unexampled kindness to me! What perfect taste in everything! Did you hear him quote Shakespeare?” cried old Reuben, in an ecstasy. They went on alternately, in this way, with raptures about Mr. Colebatch, for something like an hour. After that time, Annie left her work, and walked to the window.

“It’s raining – raining fast,” she said. “Oh, dear me! we can’t have our walk today!”

“Hark! there’s the wind moaning,” said the old man. “It’s getting colder, too. Annie! we are going to have a stormy night.”

•   •   •

Four o’clock! And the carpenter still at his work in the back kitchen. Faster, “Julius Caesar”; faster. Let us have that mask of Shakespeare out of Mr. Wray’s cash box, and snugly ensconced in your neat wooden casket, before anybody goes to bed tonight. Faster, man! – Faster!

•  VII  •

For some household reason not worth mentioning, they dined later that day than usual at No. 12. It was five o’clock before they sat down to table. The conversation all turned on the visitor of the morning; no terms in Mr. Wray’s own vocabulary being anything like choice enough to characterize the eccentric old squire, he helped himself to Shakespeare, even more largely than usual, every time he spoke of Mr. Colebatch. He managed to discover some striking resemblance to that excellent gentleman (now in one particular, and now in another), in every noble and venerable character, throughout the whole series of the plays – not forgetting either, on one or two occasions, to trace the corresponding likeness between the more disreputable and intriguing personages, and that vindictive enemy to all plays, players, and playhouses, the Reverend Daubeny Daker. Never did any professed commentator on Shakespeare (and the assertion is a bold one) wrest the poet’s mighty meaning more dexterously into harmony with his own microscopic ideas, than Mr. Wray now wrested it, to furnish him with eulogies on the goodness and generosity of Mr. Matthew Colebatch, of Cropley Court.

Meanwhile, the weather got worse and worse, as the evening advanced. The wind freshened almost to a gale; and dashed the fast-falling rain against the window, from time to time, with startling violence. It promised to be one of the wildest, wettest, darkest nights they had had at Tidbury since the winter began.

Shortly after the table was cleared, having pretty well exhausted himself on the subject of Mr. Colebatch, for the present, old Reuben fell asleep in his chair. This was rather an unusual indulgence for him, and was probably produced by the especial lateness of the dinner. Mr. Wray generally took that meal at two o’clock, and set off for his walk afterwards, reckless of all the ceremonial observances of digestion. He was a poor man, and could not afford the luxurious distinction of being dyspeptic.

The behaviour of Mr. “Julius Caesar”, the carpenter, when he appeared from the back kitchen to take his place at dinner, was rather perplexing. He knocked down a salt-cellar; spurted some gravy over his shirt; and spilt a potato, in trying to transport it a distance of about four inches, from the dish to Annie’s plate. This, to begin with, was rather above the general average of his number of table accidents at one meal. Then, when dinner was over, he announced his intention of returning to the back kitchen for the rest of the evening, in tones of such unwonted mystery, that Annie’s curiosity was aroused, and she began to question him. Had he not done the new box yet? No! Why, he might have made such a box in an hour, surely? Yes, he might. And why had he not? “Wait a bit, Annie, and you’ll see!” And having said that, he laid his large finger mysteriously against the side of his large nose, and walked out of the room forthwith.

In half-an-hour afterwards he came in again, looking very sheepish and discomposed, and trying, unsuccessfully, to hide an enormous poultice – a perfect loaf of warm bread and water – which decorated the palm of his right hand. This time, Annie insisted on an explanation.

It appeared that he had conceived the idea of ornamenting the lid of the new box with some uncouth carvings of his own, in compliment to Mr. Wray and the mask of Shakespeare. Being utterly unpractised in the difficult handiwork he proposed to perform, he had run a splinter into the palm of his hand. And there the box was now in the back kitchen, waiting for lock and hinges, while the only person in the house who could put them on, was not likely to handle a hammer again for days to come. Miserable “Julius Caesar!” Never was well-meant attention more fatally misdirected than this attention of yours! Of all the multifarious accidents of your essentially accidental life, this special casualty, which has hindered you from finishing the new box tonight, is the most ill-timed and the most irreparable!

When the tea came in Mr. Wray woke up; and as it usually happens with people who seldom indulge in the innocent sensuality of an after-dinner nap, changed at once, from a state of extreme somnolence to a state of extreme wakefulness. By this time the night was at its blackest; the rain fell fierce and thick, and the wild wind walked abroad in the darkness, in all its might and glory. The storm began to affect Annie’s spirits a little, and she hinted as much to her grandfather, when he awoke. Old Reuben’s extraordinary vivacity immediately suggested a remedy for this. He proposed to read a play of Shakespeare’s as the surest mode of diverting attention from the weather; and, without allowing a moment for the consideration of his offer, he threw open the book, and began Macbeth.

As he not only treated his hearers to every one of the Kemble pauses, and every infinitesimal inflection of the Kemble elocution, throughout the reading; but also exhibited a serious parody of Mrs. Siddons’ effects in Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene, with the aid of a white pocket-handkerchief, tied under his chin, and a japanned bedroom candlestick in his hand – and as, in addition to these special and strictly dramatic delays, he further hindered the progress of his occupation by vigilantly keeping his eye on “Julius Caesar”, and unmercifully waking up that ill-starred carpenter every time he went to sleep, (which, by the way, was once in every ten minutes,) nobody can be surprised to hear that Macbeth was not finished before eleven o’clock. The hour was striking from Tidbury Church, as Mr. Wray solemnly declaimed the last lines of the tragedy, and shut up the book.

“There!” said old Reuben, “I think I’ve put the weather out of your head, Annie, by this time! You look sleepy, my dear; go to bed. I had a few remarks to make, about the right reading of Macbeth’s dagger-scene, but I can make them tomorrow morning, just as well. I won’t keep you up any longer. Good night, love!”

Was Mr. Wray not going to bed, too? No: he never felt more awake in his life; he would sit up a little, and have a good “warm” over the fire. Should Annie bear him company? By no means! he would not keep poor Annie from her bed, on any account. Should “Julius Caesar”? – Certainly not! he was sure to go to sleep immediately; and to hear him snore, Mr. Wray said, was worse than hearing him sneeze. So the two young people wished the old man goodnight, and left him to have his “warm”, as he desired. This was the way in which he prepared himself to undergo that luxurious process:

He drew his armchair in front of the fire, then put a chair on either side of it, then unlocked the cupboard, and took out the cash box that contained the mask of Shakespeare. This he deposited upon one of the side chairs; and upon the other he put his copy of the Plays, and the candle. Finally, he sat down in the middle – cosy beyond all description – and slowly inhaled a copious pinch of snuff.

“How it blows, outside!” said old Reuben, “and how snug I am, in here!”

He unlocked the cash box, and taking it on his knee, looked down on the mask that lay inside. Gradually, the pride and pleasure at first appearing in his eyes, gave place to a dreamy fixed expression. He gently closed the lid, and reclined back in his chair; but he did not shut up the cash box for the night, for he never turned the key in the lock.

Old recollections were crowding on him, revived by his conversation of the morning with Mr. Colebatch; and now evoked by many a Shakespeare association of his own, always connected with the treasured, the inestimable mask. Tender remembrances spoke piteously and solemnly within him. Poor Columbine – lost, but never forgotten – moved loveliest and holiest of all those memory shadows, through the dim world of his waking visions. How little the grave can hide of us! The love that began before it, lasts after it. The sunlight to which our eyes looked, while it shone on earth, changes but to the star that guides our memories when it passes to heaven!

Hark! the church clock chimes the quarters; each stroke sounds with the ghostly wildness of all bell-tones, when heard amid the tumult of a storm, but fails to startle old Reuben now. He is far away in other scenes; living again in other times. Twelve strikes; and then, when the clock bell rings its long midnight peal, he rouses – he hears that.

The fire has died down to one, dull, red spot: he feels chilled; and sitting up in his chair, yawning, tries to summon resolution enough to rise and go upstairs to bed. His expression is just beginning to grow utterly listless and weary, when it suddenly alters. His eyes look eager again; his lips close firmly; his cheeks get pale all at once – he is listening.

He fancies that, when the wind blows in the loudest gusts, or when the rain dashes heaviest against the window, he hears a very faint, curious sound – sometimes like a scraping noise, sometimes like a tapping noise. But in what part of the house – or even whether outside or in – he cannot tell. In the calmer moments of the storm, he listens with especial attention to find this out; but it is always at that very time that he hears nothing.

It must be imagination. And yet, that imagination is so like a reality that it has made him shudder all over twice in the last minute.

Surely he hears that strange noise now! Why not get up, and go to the window, and listen if the faint tapping comes by any chance from outside, in front of the house? Something seems to keep him in his chair, perfectly motionless – something makes him afraid to turn his head, for fear of seeing a sight of horror close at his side—

Hush! it sounds again, plainer and plainer. And now it changes to a cracking noise – close by – at the shutter of the back drawing-room window.

What is that, sliding along the crack between the folding doors and the floor? – a light! – a light in that empty room which nobody uses. And now, a whisper – footsteps – the handle on the lock of the door moves—

“Help! Help! for God’s sake! – Murder! Mur—”

Just as that cry for help passed the old man’s lips, the two robbers, masked and armed, appeared in the room; and the next instant, Chummy Dick’s gag was fast over his mouth.

He had the cash box clasped tight to his breast. Mad with terror, his eyes glared like a dead man’s, while he struggled in the powerful arms that held him.

Grimes, unused to such scenes, was so petrified by astonishment at finding the old man out of bed, and the room lit up, that he stood with his pistol extended, staring helplessly through the eyeholes of his mask. Not so with his experienced leader. Chummy Dick’s ears and eyes were as quick as his hands – the first informed him that Reuben’s cry for help (skilfully as he had stifled it with the gag) had aroused someone in the house: the second instantly detected the cash box, as Mr. Wray clasped it to his breast.

“Put up your pop-gun, you precious yokel, you!” whispered the housebreaker fiercely. “Look alive; and pull it out of his arms. Damn you! do it quick! they’re awake, upstairs!”

It was not easy to “do it quick”. Weak as he was, Reuben actually held his treasure with the convulsive strength of despair, against the athletic ruffian who was struggling to get it away. Furious at the resistance, Grimes exerted his whole force, and tore the box so savagely from the old man’s grasp, that the mask of Shakespeare flew several feet away, through the open lid, before it fell, shattered into fragments on the floor.

For an instant, Grimes stood aghast at the sight of what the contents of the cash box really were. Then, frantic with the savage passions produced by the discovery, he rushed up to the fragments, and, with a horrible oath, stamped his heavy boot upon them, as if the very plaster could feel his vengeance. “I’ll kill him, if I swing for it!” cried the villain, turning on Mr. Wray the next moment, and raising his horse-pistol by the barrel over the old man’s head.

But, exactly at the same time, brave as his heroic namesake, “Julius Caesar” burst into the room. In the heat of the moment, he struck at Grimes with his wounded hand. Dealt even under that disadvantage, the blow was heavy enough to hurl the fellow right across the room, till he dropped down against the opposite wall. But the triumph of the stout carpenter was a short one. Hardly a second after his adversary had fallen, he himself lay stunned on the floor by the pistol-butt of Chummy Dick.

Even the nerve of the London housebreaker deserted him, at the first discovery of the astounding self-deception of which he and his companion had been the victims. He only recovered his characteristic coolness and self-possession when the carpenter attacked Grimes. Then, true to his system of never making unnecessary noise, or wasting unnecessary powder, he hit “Julius Caesar” just behind the ear, with unerring dexterity. The blow made no sound, and seemed to be inflicted by a mere turn of the wrist; but it was decisive – he had thoroughly stunned his man.

And now, the piercing screams of the landlady, from the bedroom floor poured quicker and quicker into the street, through the opened window. They were mingled with the fainter cries of Annie, whom the good woman forcibly detained from going into danger downstairs. The female servant (the only other inmate of the house) rivalled her mistress in shrieking madly and incessantly for help, from the window of the garret above.

“The whole street will be up in a crack!” cried Chummy Dick, swearing at every third word he uttered, and hauling the partially-recovered Grimes into an erect position again, “there’s no swag to be got here! step out quick, young yokel, or you’ll be nabbed!”

He pushed Grimes into the back drawing-room; hustled him over the windowsill on to the wash-house roof, leaving him to find his own way, how he could, to the ground; and then followed, with Mr. Wray’s watch and purse, and a brooch of Annie’s that had been left on the chimney-piece, all gathered into his capacious greatcoat pocket in a moment. They were not worth much as spoils; but the dexterity with which they were taken instantly with one hand, while he had Grimes to hold with the other; and the strength, coolness, and skill he displayed in managing the retreat, were worthy even of the reputation of Chummy Dick. Long before the two Tidbury watchmen had begun to think of a pursuit, the housebreaker and his companion were out of reach – even though the Bow Street Runners themselves had been on the spot to give chase. How long the old man has kept in that one position! – crouching down there in the corner of the room, without stirring a limb or uttering a word. He dropped on his knees at that place, when the robbers left him; and nothing has moved him from it since.

When Annie broke away from the landlady, and ran downstairs – he never stirred. When the long wail of agony burst from her lips, as she saw the dead look of the brave man lying stunned on the floor – he never spoke. When the street door was opened; and the crowd of terrified, half-dressed neighbours all rushed together into the house, shouting and trampling about, half panic-stricken at the news they heard – he never noticed a single soul. When the doctor was sent for; and, amid an awful hush of expectation, proceeded to restore the carpenter to his senses – even at that enthralling moment, he never looked up. It was only when the room was cleared again – when his granddaughter came to his side, and, putting her arm round his neck, laid her cold cheek close to his – that he seemed to live at all. Then, he just heaved a heavy sigh; his head dropped down lower on his breast; and he shivered throughout his whole frame, as if some icy influence was freezing him to the heart.

All that long, long time he had been looking on one sight – the fragments of the mask of Shakespeare lying beneath him. And there he kept now – when they tried in their various methods to coax him away – still crouching over them; just in the same position; just with the same hard, frightful look about his face that they had seen from the first.

Annie went and fetched the cash box; and tremblingly put it down before him. The instant he saw it, his eyes began to flash. He pounced in a fury of haste upon the fragments of the mask, and huddled them all together into the box, with shaking hands, and quick panting breath. He picked up the least chip of plaster that the robber had ground under his boot; and strained his eyes to look for more, when not an atom more was left. At last, he locked the box, and caught it up tight to his breast; and then he let them raise him up, and lead him gently away from the place.

He never quitted hold of his box, while they got him into bed. Annie, and her lover, and the landlady, all sat up together in his room; and all, in different degrees, felt the same horrible foreboding about him, and shrank from communicating it to one another. Occasionally, they heard him beating his hands strangely on the lid of the box; but he never spoke; and, as far as they could discover, never slept.

The doctor had said he would be better when the daylight came. – Did the doctor really know what was the matter with him? – and had the doctor any suspicion that something precious had been badly injured that night, besides the mask of Shakespeare?

•  VIII  •

By the next morning the news of the burglary had not only spread all through Tidbury, but all through the adjacent villages as well. The very first person who called at No. 12, to see how they did after the fright of the night before, was Mr. Colebatch. The old gentleman’s voice was heard louder than ever, as he ascended the stairs with the landlady. He declared he would have both the Tidbury watchmen turned off, as totally unfit to take care of the town. He swore that, if it cost him a hundred pounds, he would fetch the Bow Street Runners down from London, and procure the catching, trying, convicting, and hanging of “those two infernal housebreakers” before Christmas came. Invoking vengeance and retribution in this way, at every fresh stair, the Squire’s temperament was up at “bloodheat”, by the time he got into the drawing-room. It fell directly, however, to “temperate” again, when he found nobody there; and it sank twenty degrees lower still, at the sight of little Annie’s face, when she came down to see him.

“Cheer up, Annie!” said the old gentleman with a last faint attempt at joviality. “It’s all over now, you know: how’s grandfather? Very much frightened still – eh?”

“Oh, sir! frightened, I’m afraid out of his mind!” and unable to control herself any longer, poor Annie fairly burst into tears.

“Don’t cry, Annie! no crying! I can’t stand it – you mustn’t really!” said the Squire in anything but steady tones, “I’ll talk him back into his mind; I will, as sure as my name’s Matthew Colebatch – Stop!” (here he pulled out his voluminous India pocket handkerchief, and began very gently and caressingly to wipe away her tears, as if she had been a little child, and his own daughter). “There, now we’ve dried them up – no we haven’t! there’s one left – And now that’s gone, let’s have a little talk about this business, my dear, and see what’s to be done. In the first place, what’s all this I hear about a plaster cast being broken?”

Annie would have given the world to open her heart about the mask of Shakespeare, to Mr. Colebatch; but she thought of her promise, and she thought, also, of the Town Council of Stratford, who might hear of the secret somehow, if it was once disclosed to anybody; and might pursue her grandfather with all the powers of the law, miserable and shattered though he now was, even to his hiding-place, at Tidbury-on-the-Marsh.

“I’ve promised, sir, not to say anything about the plaster cast to anybody,” she began, looking very embarrassed and unhappy.

“And you’ll keep your promise,” interposed the Squire; “that’s right – good, honest little girl! I like you all the better for it; we won’t say a word more about the cast; but what have they taken? what have the infernal scoundrels taken?”

“Grandfather’s old silver watch, sir, and his purse with seventeen and sixpence in it, and my brooch – but that’s nothing.”

“Nothing – Annie’s brooch nothing!” cried the Squire, recovering his constitutional testiness. “But, never mind, I’m determined to have the rascals caught and hung, if it’s only for stealing that brooch! And now, look here, my dear; if you don’t want to put me into one of my passions, take that, and say nothing about it!”

“Take” what? gracious powers! “take” Golconda! he had crumpled a ten pound note into her hand!

“I say, again, you obstinate little thing, don’t put me in one of my passions!” exclaimed the old gentleman, as poor Annie made some faint show of difficulty in taking the gift. “God forbid I should think of hurting your feelings, my dear, for such a paltry reason as having a few more pounds in my pocket, than you have in yours!” he continued, in such serious, kind tones, that Annie’s eyes began to fill again. “We’ll call that bank note, if you like, payment beforehand, for a large order for lace, from me. I saw you making lace, you know, yesterday; and I mean to consider you my lace manufacturer in ordinary, for the rest of your life. By George!” – he went on, resuming his odd abrupt manner, – “it’s unknown the quantity of lace I shall want to buy! There’s my old housekeeper, Mrs. Buddle – hang me, Annie, if I don’t dress her in nothing but lace, from top to toe, inside and out, all over! Only mind this, you don’t set to work at the order till I tell you! We must wait till Mrs. Buddle has worn out her old stock of petticoats, before we begin – eh? There! there! there! don’t go crying again! Can I see Mr. Wray? No? – Quite right! better not disturb him so soon. Give him my compliments, and say I’ll call tomorrow. Put up the note! put up the note! and don’t be low-spirited – and don’t do another thing, little Annie; don’t forget you’ve got a queer old friend, who lives at Cropley Court!”

Running on in this way, the good Squire fairly talked himself out of the room, without letting Annie get in a word edgewise. Once on the stairs, he fell foul of the housebreakers again, with undiminished fury. The last thing the landlady heard him say, as she closed the street-door after him, was, that he was off now, to “trounce” the two Tidbury watchmen, for not stopping the robbery – to “trounce them handsomely”, as sure as his name was Matthew Colebatch!

Carefully putting away the kind old gentleman’s gift, (they were penniless before she received it), Annie returned to her grandfather’s room. He had altered a little, as the morning advanced, and was now occupied over an employment which it wrung her heart to see – he was trying to restore the mask of Shakespeare.

The first words he had spoken since the burglary, were addressed to Annie. He seemed not to know that the robbers had effected their retreat, before she got downstairs; and asked whether they had hurt her. Calmed on this point, he next beckoned the carpenter to him, and entreated, in an eager whisper, to have some glue made directly. They could not imagine, at first, what he wanted it for; but they humoured him gladly.

When the glue was brought, he opened his cash box, with a look of faint pining hope in his face, that it was very mournful to see, and began to arrange the fragments of the mask, on the bed before him. They were shattered past all mending; but still he moved them about here and there, with his trembling hands, murmuring sadly, all the while, that he knew it was very difficult, but felt sure he should succeed at last. Sometimes he selected the pieces wrongly; stuck, perhaps, two or three together with the glue; and then had to pull them apart again. Even when he chose the fragments properly, he could not find enough that would join sufficiently well to reproduce only one poor quarter of the mask in its former shape. Still he went on, turning over piece after piece of the broken plaster, down to the very smallest, patiently and laboriously, with the same false hope of success, and the same vain perseverance under the most disheartening failure, animating him for hours together. He had begun early in the morning – he had not given up, when Annie returned from her interview with Mr. Colebatch. To know how utterly fruitless all his efforts must be, and still to see him so anxiously continuing them in spite of failure, was a sight to despair over, and to tremble at, indeed.

At last, Annie entreated him to put the fragments away in the box, and take a little rest. He would listen to nobody else; but he listened to her, and did what she asked; saying that his head was not clear enough for the work of repairing, today; but that he felt certain he should succeed tomorrow. When he had locked the box, and put it under his pillow, he laid back, and fell into a sleep directly.

Such was his condition! Every idea was now out of his mind, but the idea of restoring the mask of Shakespeare. Divert him from that; and he either fell asleep, or sat up vacant and speechless. It was suspension, not loss of the faculties, with him. The fibre of his mind relaxed with the breaking of the beloved possession to which it had been attached. Those still, cold, plaster features had been his thought by day, his dream by night; in them, his deep and beautiful devotion to Shakespeare – beautiful as an innate poetic faith that had lived through every poetic privation of life – had found its dearest outward manifestation. All about that mask, he had unconsciously hung fresh votive offerings of pride and pleasure, and humble happiness, almost with every fresh hour. It had been the one great achievement of his life, to get it; and the one great determination of his life, to keep it. And now it was broken! The dearest household god, next to his grandchild, that the poor actor had ever had to worship, his own eyes had seen lying shattered on the floor!

It was this – far more than the fright produced by the burglary, – that had altered him, as he was altered now.

There was no rousing him. Everybody tried, and everybody failed. He went on patiently, day after day, at his miserably hopeless task of joining the fragments of the plaster; and always had some excuse for failure, always some reason for beginning the attempt anew. Annie could influence him in everything else, – for his heart, which was all hers, had escaped the blow that had stunned his mind, – but, on any subject connected with the mask, her interference was powerless.

The good Squire came to try what he could do – came every day; and joked, entreated, lectured, and advised, in his own hearty, eccentric manner; but the old man only smiled faintly; and forgot what had been said to him, as soon as the words were out of the sayer’s mouth. Mr. Colebatch, reduced to his last resources, hit on what he considered a first-rate stratagem. He privately informed Annie, that he would insist on his whole establishment of servants, with Mrs. Buddle, the housekeeper, at their head, learning elocution; so as to employ Mr. Wray again, in a duty he was used to perform. “None of those infernal Tidbury people will learn,” said the kind old Squire; “so my servants shall make a class for him, with Mrs. Buddle at the top, to keep them in order. Set him teaching in his own way; and he must come round – he must from force of habit!” But he did not. They told him a class of new pupils was waiting for him; he just answered he was very glad to hear it; and forgot all about the matter the moment afterwards.

The doctor endeavoured to help them. He tried stimulants, and tried sedatives; he tried keeping his patient in bed, and tried keeping him up; he tried blistering, and tried cupping; and then he gave over; saying that Mr. Wray must certainly have something on his mind, and that physic and regimen were of no use. One word of comfort, however, the doctor still had to speak. The physical strength of the old man had failed him very little, as yet. He was always ready to be got out of bed, and dressed; and seemed glad when he was seated in his chair. This was a good sign; but there was no telling how long it might last.

It had lasted a whole week – a long, blank melancholy winter’s week! And now, Christmas Day was fast coming; coming for the first time as a day of mourning, to the little family who, in spite of poverty and all poverty’s hardening disasters, had hitherto enjoyed it happily and lovingly together, as the blessed holiday of the whole year! Ah! how doubly heavy-hearted poor Annie felt, as she entered her bedroom for the night, and remembered that that day fortnight would be Christmas Day!

She was beginning to look wan and thin already. It is not joy only, that shows soonest and plainest in the young: grief – alas that it should be so – shares, in this world, the same privilege: and Annie now looked, as she felt, sick at heart. That day had brought no change: she had left the old man for the night, and left him no better. He had passed hours again, in trying to restore the mask; still instinctively exhibiting from time to time some fondness and attention towards his grandchild – but just as hopelessly vacant to every other influence as ever.

Annie listlessly sat down on the one chair in her small bedroom, thinking (it was her only thought now,) of what new plan could be adopted to rouse her grandfather on the morrow; and still mourning over the broken mask, as the one fatal obstacle to every effort she could try. Thus she sat for some minutes, languid and dreamy – when, suddenly, a startling and a wonderful change came over her, worked from within. She bounded up from her chair, as dead-pale and as dead-still as if she had been struck to stone. Then, a moment after, her face flushed crimson, she clasped her hands violently together, and drew her breath quick. And then, the paleness came once more – she trembled all over – and knelt down by the bedside, hiding her face in her hands.

When she rose again, the tears were rolling fast over her cheeks. She poured out some water, and washed them away. A strange expression of firmness – a glow of enthusiasm, beautiful in its brightness and purity – overspread her face, as she took up her candle, and left the room.

She went to the very top of the house, where the carpenter slept; and knocked at his door.

“Are you not gone to bed yet, Martin?” – she whispered – (the old joke of calling him “Julius Caesar” was all over now!)

He opened the door in astonishment, saying he had only that moment got upstairs.

“Come down to the drawing-room, Martin,” she said; looking brightly at him – almost wildly, as he thought. “Come quick! I must speak to you at once.”

He followed her downstairs. When they got into the drawing-room, she carefully closed the door; and then said:

“A thought has come to me, Martin, that I must tell you. It came to me just now, when I was alone in my room; and I believe God sent it!”

She beckoned to him to sit by her side; and then began to whisper in his ear – quickly, eagerly, without pause.

His face began to turn pale at first, as hers had done, while he listened. Then it flushed, then grew firm like hers, but in a far stronger degree. When she had finished speaking, he only said, it was a terrible risk every way – repeating “every way” with strong emphasis; but that she wished it; and therefore it should be done.

As they rose to separate, she said tenderly and gravely:

“You have always been very good to me, Martin: be good, and be a brother to me more than ever now – for now I am trusting you with all I have to trust.”

Years afterwards when they were married, and when their children were growing up around them, he remembered Annie’s last look, and Annie’s last words, as they parted that night.

•  IX  •

The next morning, when the old man was ready to get out of bed and be dressed, it was not the honest carpenter who came to help him as usual, but a stranger – the landlady’s brother. He never noticed this change. What thoughts he had left, were all preoccupied. The evening before, from an affectionate wish to humour him in the caprice which had become the one leading idea of his life, Annie had bought for him a bottle of cement. And now, he went on murmuring to himself, all the while he was being dressed, about the certainty of his succeeding at last in piecing together the broken fragments of the mask, with the aid of this cement. It was only the glue, he said, that had made him fail hitherto; with cement to aid him, he was quite certain of success.

The landlady and her brother helped him down into the drawing-room. Nobody was there; but on the table, where the breakfast things were laid, was placed a small note. He looked round inquisitively when he first saw that the apartment was empty. Then, the only voice within him that was not silenced – the voice of his heart – spoke, and told him that Annie ought to have been in the room to meet him as usual.

“Where is she?” he asked eagerly.

“Don’t leave me alone with him, James,” whispered the landlady to her brother, “there’s bad news to tell him.”

“Where is she?” he reiterated; and his eye got a wild look, as he asked the question for the second time.

“Pray, compose yourself, sir; and read that letter,” said the landlady, in soothing tones; “Miss Annie’s quite safe, and wants you to read this.” She handed him the letter.

He struck it away; so fiercely that she started back in terror. Then he cried out violently for the third time:

“Where is she?”

“Tell him,” whispered the landlady’s brother, “tell him at once, or you’ll make him worse.”

“Gone, sir,” said the woman – “gone away; but only for three days. The last words she said were, tell my grandfather I shall be back in three days; and give him that letter with my dearest love. Oh, don’t look so, sir – don’t look so! She’s sure to be back.”

He was muttering “gone” several times to himself, with a fearful expression of vacancy in his eyes. Suddenly, he signed to have the letter picked up from the ground; tore it open the moment it was given to him; and began to try to read the contents.

The letter was short, and written in very blotted unsteady characters. It ran thus:

“Dearest Grandfather, – I never left you before in my life; and I only go now to try and serve you, and do you good. In three days, or sooner, if God pleases, I will come back, bringing something with me that will gladden your heart, and make you love me even better than ever. I dare not tell you where I am going, or what I am going for – you would be so frightened, and would perhaps send after me to fetch me back; but believe there is no danger! And oh, dear dear grandfather, don’t doubt your little Annie; and don’t doubt I will be back as I say, bringing something to make you forgive me for going away without your leave. We shall be so happy again, if you will only wait the three days! He – you know who – goes with me, to take care of me. Think, dear grandfather, of the blessed Christmas time that will bring us all together again, happier than ever! I can’t write any more, but that I pray God to bless and keep you, till we meet again! – ANNIE WRAY.”

He had not read the letter more than half through, when he dropped it, uttering the one word, “gone”, in a shrill scream, that it made them shudder to hear. Then, it seemed as if a shadow, an awful, indescribable shadow, were stealing over his face. His fingers worked and fidgeted with an end of the tablecloth close by him; and he began to speak in faint whispering tones.

“I’m afraid I’m going mad; I’m afraid something’s frightened me out of my wits,” he murmured, under his breath. “Stop! let me try if I know anything. There now! there! That’s the breakfast table: I know that. There’s her cup and saucer; and there’s mine. Yes! and that third place, on the other side, whose is that? – whose, whose, whose? Ah! my God! my God! I am mad! I’ve forgotten that third place!” He stopped, shivering all over. Then, the moment after, he shrieked out – “Gone! who says she’s gone? It’s a lie; no, no, it’s a cruel joke put upon me. Annie! I won’t be joked with. Come down, Annie! Call her, some of you! Annie! they’ve broken it all to pieces – the plaster won’t stick together again! You can’t leave me, now they’ve broken it all to pieces! Annie! Annie! come and mend it! Annie! little Annie!”

He called on her name for the last time, in tones of entreaty unutterably plaintive; then sank down on a chair, moaning; then became silent – doggedly silent – and fiercely suspicious of everything. In that mood he remained, till his strength began to fail him; and then he let them lead him to the sofa. When he lay down, he fell off quickly into a heavy, feverish slumber.

Ah, Annie! Annie! carefully as you watched him, you knew but little of his illness; you never foreboded such a result of your absence as this; or, brave and loving as your purpose was in leaving him, you would have shrunk from the fatal necessity of quitting his bedside for three days together!

Mr. Colebatch came in shortly after the old man had fallen asleep, accompanied by a new doctor – a medical man of great renown, who had stolen a little time from his London practice, partly to visit some relations who lived at Tidbury, and partly to recruit his own health, which had suffered in repairing other people’s. The good Squire, the moment he heard that such assistance as this was accidentally available in the town, secured it for poor old Reuben, without a moment’s delay.

“Oh, sir!” said the landlady, meeting them downstairs; “he’s been going on in such a dreadful way! What we are to do, I really don’t know.”

“It’s lucky somebody else does,” interrupted the Squire, peevishly.

“But you don’t know, sir, that Miss Annie’s gone – gone without saying where!”

“Yes, I happen to know that too!” said Mr. Colebatch; “I’ve got a letter from her, asking me to take care of her grandfather, while she’s away; and here I am to do what she tells me. First of all, ma’am, let us get into some room, where this gentleman and I can have five minutes’ talk in private.”

“Now, sir” – said the Squire, when he and the doctor were closeted together in the back parlour – “the long and the short of the case is this: A week ago, two infernal housebreakers broke into this house, and found old Mr. Wray sitting up alone in the drawing-room. Of course, they frightened him out of his wits; and they stole some trifles too – but that’s nothing. They managed somehow to break a plaster cast of his. There’s a mystery about this cast, that the family won’t explain, and that nobody can find out; but the fact appears to be, that the old man was as fond of his cast as if it was one of his children – a queer thing, you’ll say; but true, sir; true as my name’s Colebatch! Well: ever since, he’s been weak in his mind; always striving to mend this wretched cast, and taking no notice of anything else. This sort of thing has lasted for six or seven days. – And now, another mystery! I get a letter from his granddaughter – the kindest, dearest little thing! – begging me to look after him – you never saw such a lovely, tender-hearted letter! – to look after him, I say, while she’s gone for three days, to come back with a surprise for him that she says will work miracles. She don’t say what surprise – or, where she’s going – but she promises to come back in three days; and she’ll do it! I’d stake my existence on little Annie sticking to her word! Now the question is – till we see her again, and all this precious mystery’s cleared up – what are we to do for the poor old man? – what? – eh?”

“Perhaps” – said the doctor, smiling at the conclusion of this characteristic harangue – “perhaps, I had better see the patient, before we say any more.”

“By George! what a fool I am!” – cried the Squire – “Of course! – see him directly – this way, doctor: this way!”

They went into the drawing-room. The sufferer was still on the sofa, moving and talking in his sleep. The doctor signed to Mr. Colebatch to keep silence; and they sat down and listened.

The old man’s dreams seemed to be connected with some of the later scenes in his life, which had been passed at country towns, in teaching country actors. He was laughing just at this moment.

“Ho! Ho! young gentlemen” – they heard him say – “do you call that acting? Ah, dear! dear! we professional people don’t bump against each other on the stage, in that way – it’s lucky you called me in, before your friends came to see you! – Stop, sir! that won’t do! you mustn’t die in that way – fall on your knee first; then sink down – then – Oh, dear! how hard it is to get people to have a proper delivery, and not go dropping their voices, at the end of every sentence. I shall never – never—”

Here the wild words stopped; then altered, and grew sad.

“Hush! Hush!” – he murmured, in husky, wandering tones – “Silence there, behind the scenes! Don’t you hear Mr. Kemble speaking now? listen, and get a lesson, as I do. Ah! laugh away, fools, who don’t know good acting when you see it! – Let me alone! What are you pushing me for? I’m doing you no harm! I’m only looking at Mr. Kemble – Don’t touch that book! – it’s my Shakespeare – yes! mine. I suppose I may read Shakespeare if I like, though I am only an actor at a shilling a night! – A shilling a night; – starving wages – Ha! Ha! Ha! – starving wages!”

Again the sad strain altered to a still wilder and more plaintive key.

“Ah!” he cried now, “don’t be hard with me! Don’t for God’s sake! My wife, my poor dear wife, died only a week ago! Oh, I’m cold! starved with cold here, in this draughty place. I can’t help crying, sir; she was so good to me! But I’ll take care and go on the stage when I’m called to go, if you’ll please not take any notice of me now; and not let them laugh at me. Oh, Mary! Mary! Why has God taken you from me? Ah! why! why! why!”

Here, the murmurs died away; then began again, but more confusedly. Sometimes his wandering speech was all about Annie; sometimes it changed to lamentations over the broken mask; sometimes it went back again to the old days behind the scenes at Drury Lane.

“Oh, Annie! Annie!” cried the Squire, with his eyes full of tears; “why did you ever go away?”

“I am not sure,” said the doctor, “that her going may not do good in the end. It has evidently brought matters to a climax with him; I can see that. Her coming back will be a shock to his mind – it’s a risk, sir; but that shock may act in the right way. When a man’s faculties struggle to recover themselves, as his are doing, those faculties are not altogether gone. The young lady will come back, you say, the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, yes!” answered the Squire, “with a ‘surprise’, she says. What surprise? Good Heavens! why couldn’t she say what!”

“We need not mind that,” rejoined the other. “Any surprise will do, if his physical strength will bear it. We’ll keep him quiet – as much sleep as possible – till she comes back. I’ve seen some very curious cases of this kind, Mr. Colebatch; cases that were cured by the merest accidents, in the most unaccountable manner. I shall watch this particular case with interest.”

“Cure it, doctor! cure it; and, by Jupiter! I’ll—”

“Hush! you’ll wake him. We had better go now. I shall come back in an hour, and will tell the landlady where she can let me know, if anything happens before that.”

They went out softly; and left him as they had found him, muttering and murmuring in his sleep.

•   •   •

On the third day, late in the afternoon, Mr. Colebatch and the doctor were again in the drawing-room at No. 12; and again intently occupied in studying the condition of poor old Reuben Wray.

This time, he was wide awake; and was restlessly and feebly moving up and down the room, talking to himself, now mournfully about the broken mask, now fiercely and angrily about Annie’s absence. Nothing attracted his notice in the smallest degree; he seemed to be perfectly unaware that anybody was in the room with him.

“Why can’t you keep him quiet?” whispered the Squire; “why don’t you give him an opiate, or whatever you call it, as you did yesterday?”

“His grandchild comes back today,” answered the doctor. “Today must be left to the great physician – Nature. At this crisis, it is not for me to meddle, but to watch and learn.”

They waited again in silence. Lights were brought in; for it grew dark while they kept their anxious watch. Still no arrival!

Five o’clock struck; and, about ten minutes after, a knock sounded on the street door.

“She has come back!” exclaimed the doctor.

“How do you know that already?” asked Mr. Colebatch, eagerly.

“Look there, sir!” and the doctor pointed to Mr. Wray.

He had been moving about with increased restlessness, and talking with increased vehemence, just before the knock. The moment it sounded he stopped; and there he stood now, perfectly speechless and perfectly still. There was no expression on his face. His very breathing seemed suspended. What secret influences were moving within him now? What dread command went forth over the dark waters in which his spirit toiled, saying to them, “Peace! be still!” That, no man – not even the man of science – could tell.

As the door opened, and the landlady’s joyful exclamation of recognition, sounded cheerily from below, the doctor rose from his seat, and gently placed himself close behind the old man.

Footsteps hurried up the stairs. Then, Annie’s voice was heard, breathless and eager, before she came in. “Grandfather, I’ve got the mould! Grandfather, I’ve brought a new cast! The mask – thank God! – the mask of Shakespeare!”

She flew into his arms, without even a look at anybody else in the room. When her head was on his bosom, the spirit of the brave little girl deserted her for the first time since her absence, and she burst into an hysterical passion of weeping before she could utter another word.

He gave a great cry the moment she touched him – an inarticulate voice of recognition from the spirit within. Then his arms closed tight over her; so tight, that the doctor advanced a step or two towards them, showing in his face the first look of alarm it had yet betrayed.

But, at that instant, the old man’s arms dropped again, powerless and heavy, by his side. What does he see now, in that open box in the carpenter’s hand? The Mask! – his Mask, whole as ever! white, and smooth, and beautiful, as when he first drew it from the mould, in his own bedroom at Stratford!

The struggle of the vital principle at that sight – the straining and writhing of every nerve – was awful to look on. His eyes rolled, distended, in their orbits; a dark red flush of blood heaved up and overspread his face; he drew his breath in heavy, hoarse gasps of agony. This lasted for a moment – one dread moment; then he fell forward, to all appearance death-struck, in the doctor’s arms.

He was borne to the sofa, amid the silence of that suspense which is too terrible for words. The doctor laid his finger on his wrist, waited an instant, then looked up, and slightly nodded his head. The pulse was feebly beating again, already!

Long and delicate was the process of restoring him to animation. It was like aiding the faint new life to develop itself in a child just born. But the doctor was as patient as he was skilful; and they heard the old man draw his breath again, gently and naturally, at last.

His weakness was so great, that his eyelids closed at his first effort to look round him. When they opened again, his eyes seemed strangely liquid and soft – almost like the eyes of a young girl. Perhaps this was partly because they turned on Annie the moment they could see.

Soon, his lips moved; but his voice was so faint, that the doctor was obliged to listen close at his mouth to hear him. He said, in fluttering accents, that he had had a dreadful dream, which had made him very ill, he was afraid; but that it was all over, and he was better now, though not quite strong enough to receive so many visitors yet. Here his strength for speaking failed, and he looked round on Annie again in silence. In a minute more he whispered to her. She went to the table and fetched the new mask; and, kneeling down, held it before him to look at.

The doctor beckoned Mr. Colebatch, the landlady, and the carpenter, to follow him into the back-room.

“Now,” said he, “I’ve one, and only one, important direction to give you all; and you must communicate it to Miss Wray when she is a little less agitated. On no account let the patient imagine he’s wrong in thinking that all his troubles have been the troubles of a dream. That will be the weak point in his intellectual consciousness for the rest of his life. When he gets stronger, he is sure to question you curiously about his dream; keep him in his self-deceit, as you value his sanity! He’s only got his reason back by getting it out of the very jaws of death, I can tell you – give it full time to strengthen! You know, I dare say, that a joint which is dislocated by a jerk, is also replaced by a jerk. Consider his mind, in the same way, to have been dislocated by one shock, and now replaced by another; and treat his intellect as you would treat a limb that had only just been slipped back into its proper place – treat it tenderly. By the bye,” added the doctor, after a moment’s consideration, “if you can’t get the key of his box, without suspicion, pick the lock; and throw away the fragments of the old cast (which he was always talking about in his delirium) – destroy them altogether. If he ever sees them again, they may do him dreadful mischief. He must always imagine what he imagines at present, that the new cast is the same cast that he has had all along. It’s a very remarkable case, Mr. Colebatch, very remarkable: I really feel indebted to you for enabling me to study it. Compose yourself, sir, you’re a little shaken and startled by this, I see; but there’s no danger for him now. Look there: that man, except on one point, is as sane as ever he was in his life!”

They looked, as the doctor spoke. Mr. Wray was still on the sofa, gazing at the mask of Shakespeare, which Annie supported before him, as she knelt by his side. His arm was round her neck; and, from time to time, he whispered to her, smiling faintly, but very happily, as she replied in whispers also. The sight was simple enough; but the landlady, thinking on all that had passed, began to weep as she beheld it. The honest carpenter looked very ready to follow her example; and Mr. Colebatch probably shared the same weakness at that moment, though he was less candid in betraying it. “Come,” said the Squire, very huskily and hastily, “we are only in the way here; let us leave them together!”

“Quite right, sir,” observed the doctor; “that pretty little girl is the only medical attendant fit to be with him now! I wait for you, Mr. Colebatch!”

“I say, young fellow,” said the Squire to the carpenter, as they went downstairs, “be in the way tomorrow morning: I’ve a good deal to ask you in private when I’m not all over in a twitter, as I am at present. Now our good old friend’s getting round, my curiosity’s getting round too. Be in the way tomorrow, at ten, when I come here. Quite ready, doctor! No! after you, if you please. Ah, thank God! we came into this house mourners, and we go out of it to rejoice. It will be a happy Christmas, doctor, and a merry New Year, after all!”

•  X  •

When ten o’clock came, the Squire came – punctual to a minute. Instead of going upstairs, he mysteriously sent for the carpenter into the back parlour.

“Now, in the first place, how is Mr. Wray?” – said the old gentleman, as anxiously as if he had not already sent three times the night before, and twice earlier in the morning, to ask that very question.

“Lord bless you, sir!” – answered the carpenter with a grin, and a very expressive rubbing of the hands – “He’s coming to again, after his nice sleep last night, as brave as ever. He’s dreadful weak still, to be sure; but he’s got like himself again, already. He’s been down on me twice in the last half hour, sir, about my elocution; he’s making Annie read Shakespeare to him; and he’s asking whether any new pupils are coming – all just in the old way again. Oh, sir, it is so jolly to see him like that once more – if you’ll only come upstairs—”

“Stop, till we’ve had our talk” – said the Squire – “sit down. By the bye! has he said anything yet about that infernal cash box?”

“I picked the lock of the box this morning, sir, as the gentleman told me; and buried every bit of plaster out of it, deep in the kitchen garden. He saw the box afterwards, and gave a tremble, like. ‘Take it away,’ says he, ‘never let me see it again: it reminds me of that dreadful dream.’ And then, sir, he told us about what had happened, just as if he really had dreamt it; saying he couldn’t get the subject quite out of his head, the whole thing was so much as if it had truly taken place. Afterwards, sir, he thanked me for making the new box for the cast – he remembered my promising to do that, though it was only just before all our trouble!”

“And of course, you humour him in everything, and let him think he’s right?” – said the Squire – “He must never know that he hasn’t been dreaming, to his dying day.”

And he never did know it – never, in this world, had even a suspicion of what he owed to Annie! It was but little matter; they could not have loved each other better, if he had discovered everything.

“Now, master carpenter,” pursued the Squire, “you’ve answered very nicely hitherto. Just answer as nicely the next question I ask. What’s the whole history of this mysterious plaster cast? It’s no use fidgeting! I’ve seen the cast; I know it’s a portrait of Shakespeare! and I’ve made up my mind to find out all about it. Do you mean to say you think I’m not a friend fit to be trusted? Eh, you sir?”

“I never could think so, after all your goodness, sir. But, if you please, I really did promise to keep the thing a secret,” said the carpenter, looking very much as if he were watching his opportunity to open the door, and run out of the room; “I promised, sir; I did, indeed!”

“Promised a fiddlestick!” exclaimed the Squire, in a passion. “What’s the use of keeping a secret that’s half let out already? I’ll tell you what, you Mr. – , what’s your name? There’s some joke about calling you Julius Caesar. What’s your real name, if you really have one?”

“Martin Blunt, sir. But don’t, pray don’t ask me to tell the secret! I don’t say you would blab it, sir; but if it did leak out, like; and get to Stratford-upon-Avon,” – here he suddenly became silent, feeling he was beginning to commit himself already.

“Stop! I’ve got it!” cried Mr. Colebatch. “Hang me, if I haven’t got it at last!”

“Don’t tell me, sir! Pray don’t tell me, if you have!”

“Stick to your chair, Mr. Martin Blunt! No shirking with me! I was a fool not to suspect the thing, the moment I saw it was a portrait of Shakespeare. I’ve seen the Stratford bust, Master Blunt! You’re afraid of Stratford, are you? – Why? I know! Some of you have been taking that cast from the Stratford bust, without leave – it’s as like it, as two peas! Now, young fellow, I’ll tell you what! if you don’t make a clean breast to me at once, I’m off to the office of the ‘Tidbury Mercury’, to put in my version of the whole thing, as a good local anecdote! Will you tell me? or will you not? – I’m asking this in Mr. Wray’s interests, or I’d die before I asked you at all!”

Confused, threatened, bullied, bawled at, and out-manoeuvred, the unfortunate carpenter fairly gave way. “If it’s wrong in me to tell you, sir, it’s your fault what I do,” said the simple fellow; and he forthwith retailed, in a very roundabout, stammering manner, the whole of the disclosure he had heard from old Reuben – the Squire occasionally throwing in an explosive interjection of astonishment, or admiration; but, otherwise, receiving the narrative with remarkable calmness and attention.

“What the deuce is all this nonsense about the Stratford Town Council, and the penalties of the law?” – cried Mr. Colebatch, when the carpenter had done – “But never mind; we can come to that afterwards. Now tell me about going back to get the mould out of the cupboard, and making the new cast. I know who did it! It’s that dear, darling, incomparable little girl! – but tell me all about it – come! quick, quick! – don’t keep me waiting!”

“Julius Caesar” got on with his second narrative much more glibly than with the first. How Annie had suddenly remembered, one night, in her bedroom, about the mould having been left behind – how she was determined to try and restore her grandfather’s health and faculties, by going to seek it; and how he (the carpenter), had gone also, to protect her – how they got to Stratford, by the coach (outside places, in the cold, to save money) – how Annie appealed to the mercy of their former landlord; and instead of inventing some falsehood to deceive him, fairly told her whole story in all its truth – how the landlord pitied them, and promised to keep their secret – how they went up into the bedroom, and found the mould in the old canvas bag, behind the volumes of the Annual Register, just where Mr. Wray had left it – how Annie, remembering what her grandfather had told her, about the process of making a cast, bought plaster, and followed out her instructions; failing in the first attempt, but admirably succeeding in the second – how they were obliged, in frightful suspense, to wait till the third day for the return coach; and how they finally got back, safe and sound, not only with the new cast, but with the mould as well. – All these particulars flowed from the carpenter’s lips, in a strain of homely eloquence, which no elocutionary aid could have furnished with one atom of additional effect, that would have done it any good whatever.

“We’d no notion, sir,” said “Julius Caesar”, in conclusion, “that poor Mr. Wray was so bad as he really was, when we went away. It was a dreadful trial to Annie, sir, to go. She went down on her knees to the landlady – I saw her do it, half wild, like; she was in such a state – she went down on her knees, sir, to ask the woman to be as a daughter to the old man, till she came back. Well, sir, even after that, it was a toss-up whether she went away, when the morning came. But she was obliged to do it. She durstn’t trust me to go alone, for fear I should let the mould tumble down, when I got it (which I’m afraid, sir, was very likely!) – or get into some scrape, by telling what I oughtn’t, where I oughtn’t; and so be taken up, mould and all, before the Town Council, who were going to put Mr. Wray in prison, only we ran off to Tidbury; and so—”

“Nonsense! stuff! they could no more put him in prison for taking the cast than I can,” cried the Squire. “Stop! I’ve got a thought! I’ve got a thought at least, that’s worth – Is the mould here? – Yes or No?”

“Yes, sir! Bless us and save us, what’s the matter!”

“Run!” cried Mr. Colebatch, pacing up and down the room like mad. “No. 15 in the street! Dabbs and Clutton, the lawyers! Fetch one of them in a second! Damn it, run! or I shall burst a blood vessel!”

The carpenter ran to No. 15; and Mr. Dabbs, who happened to be in, ran from No. 15. Mr. Colebatch met him at the street door, dragged him into the back parlour, pushed him on to a chair, and instantly stated the case between Mr. Wray and the authorities at Stratford, in the fewest possible words and the hastiest possible tones. “Now,” said the old gentleman at the end, “can they, or can they not, hurt him for what he’s done?”

“It’s a very nice point,” said Mr. Dabbs, “a very nice point indeed, sir.”

“Hang it, man!” cried the Squire, “don’t talk to me about ‘nice points’, as if a point was something good to eat! Can they, or can they not, hurt him? Answer that in three words!”

“They can’t,” said Dabbs, answering it triumphantly in two.

“Why?” asked the Squire, beating him by a rejoinder in one.

“For this reason,” said Dabbs. “What does Mr. Wray take with him into the church? Plaster of his own, in powder. What does he bring out with him? The same plaster, in another form. Does any right of copyright reside in a bust two hundred years old? Impossible. Has Mr. Wray hurt the bust? No; or they would have found him out here, and prosecuted directly – for they know where he is. I heard of the thing from a Stratford man, yesterday, who said they knew he was at Tidbury. Under all these circumstances, where’s there a shadow of a case against Mr. Wray? Nowhere!”

“Capital, Dabbs! capital! you’ll be Lord Chancellor someday: never heard a better opinion in my life! Now, Mr. Julius Caesar Blunt, do you see what my thought is? No! Look here. Take casts from that mould till your arms ache again; clap them upon slabs of black marble to show off the white face; sell them, at a guinea each, to the loads of people who would give anything to have a portrait of Shakespeare; and then open your breeches’ pockets fast enough to let the gold tumble in, if you can! Tell Mr. Wray that; and you tell him he’s a rich man, or – no don’t, you’re no more fit to do it properly than I am! Tell every syllable you’ve heard here to Annie, directly; she’ll know how to break it to him; go! be off!”

“But what are we to say about how we got the mould here, sir? We can’t tell Mr. Wray the truth.”

“Tell him a flam, of course! Say it’s been found in the cupboard, by the landlord, at Stratford, and sent on here. Dabbs will bear witness that the Stratford people know he’s at Tidbury, and know they can’t touch him: he’s sure to think that a pretty good proof that we are right. Say I bullied you out of the secret, when I saw the mould come here – say anything – but only go, and settle matters at once! I’m off to take my walk, and see about the black slabs at the stone masons. I’ll be back in an hour, and see Mr. Wray.”

The next moment, the impetuous old Squire was out of the house; and before the hour was up, he was in it again, rather more impetuous than ever.

When he entered the drawing-room, the first sight that greeted him was the carpenter, hanging up a box containing the mask (with the lid taken off) boldly and publicly over the fireplace.

“I’m glad to see that, sir,” said Mr. Colebatch, shaking hands with Mr. Wray. “Annie has told you my good news – eh?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the old man; “the best news I’ve heard for some time: I can hang up my treasure there, now, where I can see it all day. It was rather too bad, sir, of those Stratford people to go frightening me, by threatening what they couldn’t do. The best man among them is the man who was my landlord; he’s an honest, careful fellow, to send me back my old canvas bag, and the mould (which must have seemed worthless to him), just because they were belonging to me, and left in my bedroom. I’m rather proud, sir, of making that mask. I can never repay you for your kindness in defending my character, and taking me up as you’ve done – but if you would accept a copy of the cast, now we have the mould to take it from, as Annie says—”

“That I will, and thankfully,” said the Squire, “and I order five more copies, as presents to my friends, when you begin to sell to the public.”

“I really don’t know, sir, about that,” said Mr. Wray, rather uneasily. “Selling the cast is like making my great treasure very common; it’s like giving up my particular possession to everybody.”

Mr. Colebatch parried this objection instantly. Could Mr. Wray, he asked, seriously mean to be so selfish as to deny to other lovers of Shakespeare the privilege he prized so much himself, of possessing Shakespeare’s portrait? – to say nothing of as good as plumply refusing a pretty round sum of money at the same time. Could he be selfish enough, and inconsiderate enough to do that? No: Mr. Wray, on consideration, allowed he could not. He saw the subject in a new light now; and begging Mr. Colebatch’s pardon, if he had seemed selfish or unthankful, he would take the Squire’s advice.

“That’s right!” said the old gentleman. “Now I’m happy. You’ll soon be strong enough, my good friend, to take the cast yourself.”

“I hope so,” said Mr. Wray. “It’s very odd that a mere dream should make me feel so weak as I do – I suppose they told you, sir, what a horrible dream it was. If I didn’t see the mask hanging up there now, as whole as ever, I should really believe it had been broken to pieces, just as I dreamt it. It must have been a dream, you know, sir of course; for I dreamt that Annie had gone away and left me; and I found her at home as usual, when I woke up. It seems, too, that I’m a week or more behindhand, in my notion about the day of the month. In short, sir, I should almost think myself bewitched,” he added, pressing his trembling hand over his forehead, “if I didn’t know it was near Christmas time, and didn’t believe what sweet Will Shakespeare says in Hamlet – a passage, by-the-by, sir, which Mr. Kemble always regretted to see struck out of the acting copy.”

Here he began to declaim – faintly, but still with all the old Kemble cadences – the exquisite lines to which he referred; the Squire beating time to each modulation, with his forefinger:

“Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes,

Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

This bird of dawning singeth all night long:

And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;

The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”

“There’s poetry!” exclaimed Mr. Colebatch, looking up at the mask. “That’s a cut above my tragedy of the Mysterious Murderess, I’m afraid. Eh, sir? And how you recite, – splendid! Hang it! we havn’t had half our talk, yet, about Shakespeare and John Kemble. A chat with an old stager like you, is new life to me, in such a barbarous place as this! Ah, Mr. Wray!” (and here the Squire’s voice lowered, and grew strangely tender for such a rough old gentleman), “you are a happy man, to have a grandchild to keep you company at all times, but especially at Christmas time. I’m a lonely old bachelor, and must eat my Christmas dinner without wife or child to sweeten the taste to me of a single morsel!”

As little Annie heard this, she rose, and stole up to the Squire’s side. Her pale face was covered with blushes (all her pretty natural colour had not come back yet); she looked softly at Mr. Colebatch, for a moment – then looked down – then said—

“Don’t say you’re lonely sir! If you would let me be like a grandchild to you, I should be so glad. I – I always make the plum pudding, sir, on Christmas Day, for grandfather – if he would allow, – and if – if you—”

“If that little love isn’t trying to screw her courage up to ask me to taste her plum pudding, I’m a Dutchman” – cried the Squire, catching Annie in his arms, and fairly kissing her – “Without ceremony, Mr. Wray, I invite myself here, to a Christmas dinner. We would have had it at Cropley Court; but you’re not strong enough yet, to go out these cold nights. Never mind! all the dinner, except Annie’s pudding, shall be done by my cook; Mrs. Buddle, the housekeeper, shall come and help; and we’ll have such a feast, please God, as no king ever sat down to! No apologies, my good friend, on either side: I’m determined to spend the happiest Christmas Day I ever did in my life; and so shall you!”

•   •   •

And the good Squire kept his word. It was, of course, noised abroad over the whole town, that Matthew Colebatch, Esquire, Lord of the Manor of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, was going to dine on Christmas Day with an old player, in a lodging house. The genteel population were universally scandalized and indignant. The Squire had exhibited his levelling tendencies pretty often before, they said. He had, for instance, been seen cutting jokes in the High Street with a travelling tinker, to whom he had applied in broad daylight to put a new ferrule on his walking stick; he had been detected coolly eating bacon and greens in one of his tenant farmer’s cottages; he had been heard singing, “Begone, dull care,” in a cracked tenor, to amuse another tenant farmer’s child. These actions were disreputable enough; but to go publicly, and dine with an obscure stage-player, put the climax on everything! The Reverend Daubeny Daker said the Squire’s proper sphere of action, after that, was a lunatic asylum; and the Reverend Daubeny Daker’s friends echoed the sentiment.

Perfectly reckless of this expression of genteel popular opinion, Mr. Colebatch arrived to dinner at No. 12, on Christmas Day; and, what is more, wore his black tights and silk stockings, as if he had been going to a grand party. His dinner had arrived before him; and fat Mrs. Buddle, in her lavender silk gown, with a cambric handkerchief pinned in front to keep splashes off, appeared auspiciously with the banquet. Never did Annie feel the responsibility of having a plum-pudding to make, so acutely as she felt it, on seeing the savoury feast which Mr. Colebatch had ordered, to accompany her one little item of saccharine cookery.

They sat down to dinner, with the Squire at the top of the table (Mr. Wray insisted on that); and Mrs. Buddle at the bottom (he insisted on that also); old Reuben and Annie, at one side; and “Julius Caesar” all by himself (they knew his habits, and gave him elbow room), at the other. Things were comparatively genteel and quiet, till Annie’s pudding came in. At sight of that, Mr. Colebatch set up a cheer, as if he had been behind a pack of fox-hounds. The carpenter, thrown quite off his balance by noise and excitement, knocked down a spoon, a wine glass, and a pepperbox, one after the other, in such quick succession, that Mrs. Buddle thought him mad; and Annie – for the first time, poor little thing, since all her troubles – actually began to laugh again, as prettily as ever. Mr. Colebatch did ample justice, it must be added, to her pudding. Twice did his plate travel up to the dish – a third time it would have gone; but the faithful housekeeper raised her warning voice, and reminded the old gentleman that he had a stomach.

When the tables were cleared, and the glasses filled with the Squire’s rare old port, that excellent man rose slowly and solemnly from his chair, announcing that he had three toasts to propose, and one speech to make; the latter, he said, being contingent on the chance of his getting properly at his voice, through two helpings of plum-pudding; a chance which he thought rather remote, principally in consequence of Annie’s having rather overdone the proportion of suet in mixing her ingredients.

“The first toast,” said the old gentleman, “is the health of Mr. Reuben Wray; and God bless him!” When this had been drunk with immense fervour, Mr. Colebatch went on at once to his second toast, without pausing to sit down – a custom which other after-dinner orators would do well to imitate.

“The second toast,” said he, taking Mr. Wray’s hand, and looking at the mask, which hung opposite, prettily decorated with holly, – “the second toast, is a wide circulation and a hearty welcome all through England, for the Mask of Shakespeare!” This was duly honoured; and immediately Mr. Colebatch went on like lightning to the third toast.

“The third,” said he, “is the speech toast.” Here he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to cough up his voice out of the plum pudding. “I say, ladies and gentlemen, this is the speech toast.” He stopped again, and desired the carpenter to pour him out a small glass of brandy; having swallowed which, he went on fluently.

“Mr. Wray, sir,” pursued the old gentleman, “I address you in particular, because you are particularly concerned in what I am going to say. Three days ago, I had a little talk in private with those two young people. Young people, sir, are never wholly free from some imprudent tendencies; and falling in love’s one of them.” (At this point, Annie slunk behind her grandfather; the carpenter, having nobody to slink behind, put himself quite at his ease, by knocking down an orange.) “Now, sir,” continued the Squire, “the private talk that I was speaking of, leads me to suppose that those two particular young people mean to marry each other. You, I understand, objected at first to their engagement; and like good and obedient children, they respected your objection. I think it’s time to reward them for that, now. Let them marry, if they will, sir, while you can live happily to see it! I say nothing about our little darling there, but this: the vital question for her, and for all girls, is not how high, but how good, she, and they, marry. And I must confess, I don’t think she’s altogether chosen so badly.” (The Squire hesitated a moment. He had in his mind, what he could not venture to speak – that the carpenter had saved old Reuben’s life when the burglars were in the house; and that he had shown himself well worthy of Annie’s confidence, when she asked him to accompany her, in going to recover the mould from Stratford.) “In short, sir,” Mr. Colebatch resumed, “to cut short this speechifying, I don’t think you can object to let them marry, provided they can find means of support. This, I think, they can do. First there are the profits sure to come from the mask, which you are sure to share with them, I know.” (This prophecy about the profits was fulfilled: fifty copies of the cast were ordered by the new year; and they sold better still, after that.) “This will do to begin on, I think, Mr. Wray. Next, I intend to get our friend there a good berth as master-carpenter for the new crescent they’re going to build on my land, at the top of the hill – and that won’t be a bad thing, I can tell you! Lastly, I mean you all to leave Tidbury, and live in a cottage of mine that’s empty now, and going to rack and ruin for want of a tenant. I’ll charge rent, mind, Mr. Wray, and come for it every quarter myself, as regular as a tax-gatherer. I don’t insult an independent man by the offer of an asylum. Heaven forbid! but till you can do better, I want you to keep my cottage warm for me. I can’t give up seeing my new grandchild sometimes! and I want my chat with an old stager, about the British Drama and glorious John Kemble! To cut the thing short, sir: with such a prospect before them as this, do you object to my giving the healths of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Blunt that are to be!”

Conquered by the Squire’s kind looks and words, as much as by his reasons, Old Reuben murmured approval of the toast, adding tenderly, as he looked round on Annie, “If she’ll only promise always to let me live with her!”

“There, there!” cried Mr. Colebatch, “don’t go kissing your grandfather before company like that you little jade; making other people envious of him on Christmas Day! Listen to this! Mr. and Mrs. Martin Blunt that are to be – married in a week!” added the old gentleman peremptorily.

“Lord, sir!” said Mrs. Buddle, “she can’t get her dresses ready in that time!”

“She shall, ma’am, if every mantua-making wench in Tidbury stitches her fingers off for it! and there’s an end of my speech-making!” Having said this, the Squire dropped back into his chair with a gasp of satisfaction.

“Now we are all happy!” he exclaimed, filling his glass; “and now we’ll set in to enjoy our port in earnest – eh, my good friend?”

“Yes; all happy!” echoed old Reuben, patting Annie’s hand, which lay in his; “but I think I should be still happier, though, if I could only manage not to remember that horrible dream!”

“Not remember it!” cried Mr. Colebatch, “we’ll all remember it – all remember it together, from this time forth, in the same pleasant way!”

“How? How?” exclaimed Mr. Wray, eagerly.

“Why, my good friend!” answered the Squire, tapping him briskly on the shoulder, “we’ll all remember it gaily, as nothing but a STORY FOR A CHRISTMAS FIRESIDE!”

In book form, first edition: London: Richard Bentley, 13 Dec 1851

THE POETRY DID IT

AN EVENT IN THE LIFE
OF MAJOR EVERGREEN

•  I  •

An employment which he enjoyed represented the bright side, and an enemy whom he abhorred personified the dark side, of Major Evergreen’s life. He had plenty of money, excellent health, and a hare-brained little niece who might have caused some anxiety to other men in his position. The major’s constitutional tranquillity accepted responsibilities of all sorts with a good-humoured indifference which set them at defiance. If Miss Mabel had eloped with the footman, he would have said: “Well, I hope they may be happy.” If she had come down one morning to breakfast, and had announced that she felt a vocation to be a nun, he would have answered: “You know best, my dear; I only beg you won’t trouble me to find the convent.”

Persons who wished to see Major Evergreen in earnest – terribly in earnest – had only to look at him when he had pen, ink, and paper before him, and was writing poetry.

This was the employment that he enjoyed; this was the occupation of every day in his life. He must have written hundreds of thousands of lines, without a single thought in them which was not unconsciously borrowed from somebody else. Every form that poetry can take was equally easy and delightful to him. Blank verse and rhyming verse; epic poems and sonnets; tragedies, satires, epigrams; passionate poetry in the manner of Byron; narrative poetry in the manner of Scott; philosophical poetry in the manner of Wordsworth; poetry of the modern type which gets into the pulpit, and reminds us of our moral duties – this wonderful man was equal to every imaginable effort in verse; and, more deplorable still, being rich, he published his works. They appeared in volumes (first edition), and disappeared as waste paper – and appeared again (second edition), and disappeared as before. The printing was perfection; the paper was expressly manufactured to make it worthy of the printing; and the happy major, closing his eyes on facts, firmly believed in his own popularity.

One day, towards the end of summer, the poet had laid down his pen, and was considering whether he should write a few hundred lines more, when his niece looked over his shoulder, and asked if she might speak to him.

Miss Mabel was little and dark, and slim and active; her brightly restless eyes were never in repose, except when she was asleep; her voice was cheerful, her manner was brisk, and her figure was plump. She was further entitled to claim general admiration by a system of dress which was the perfection of elegance, and by possessing a fortune of eighty thousand pounds. And last, not least on the list of her virtues, she read Major Evergreen’s poetry.

“Well, Mabel, what is it?”

“It’s about my marriage, uncle.”

“Marry anybody you like, my dear.”

“Even your ugly old publisher?”

“Yes, if you prefer him.”

“Or anybody else!”

“Certainly, if you like him better.”

“The fact is, uncle, you don’t care what becomes of me.”

“I am of your way of thinking, my dear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you care what becomes of you?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then I care too.”

There was an interval of silence. Mabel was considering what she should say next. She decided on speaking plainly, come what might of it.

“This is serious,” she resumed.

The major was glad to hear it.

“I’m only afraid of one thing – I’m afraid I shall offend you.”

The major declared that it was impossible to offend him.

“Remember what you have said, uncle! I have just had an offer of marriage.”

“From my ugly publisher?”

“No; from Sir John Bosworth.”

Major Evergreen – usually the laziest of men – jumped out of his chair, and walked up and down the room, transformed from a pleasant uncle who wrote poetry to a disagreeable old bachelor who was angry with his niece.

And for what reason? For this excellent reason: she had mentioned the name of the enemy whom he abhorred.

Sir John Bosworth was a gentleman who indulged in the hazardous speculations of modern life. He owned racehorses, and he built theatres; he was also proprietor of a weekly journal. In that newspaper had appeared the only review of Major Evergreen’s poems which had ever noticed them at any length. Of the tone adopted by the critic, it is merely necessary to say that it hurried away the easy-tempered major to his lawyer’s office, to bring an action for libel against Sir John Bosworth. The wise lawyer pronounced the article to be simply inhuman, but not libellous. Sir John (already under the influence of Mabel) expressed his regret in the handsomest manner; and declared that the article had been published by his editor without his knowledge. Major Evergreen submitted to circumstances – recovered his customary good spirits – and went on writing poetry more industriously than ever. But what author has succeeded in forgetting an inhuman review? To mention the name of the proprietor of the paper was to wound the poet in his tenderest place. When Sir John Bosworth paid visits to the charming niece, the unforgiving uncle was never in his way. Major Evergreen was “engaged in his study.”

“I couldn’t help mentioning the name, uncle,” Mabel pleaded. “I was obliged to tell you who it was that had asked me to marry him.”

The major received this apology with a word of serious advice. “You might have spared me the name, my dear – you might have said, That Man. I should have known whom you meant.”

Mabel accepted the suggestion. “I wished to tell you that I didn’t engage to marry That Man,” she proceeded; “I only said I wanted time to consider. I don’t think I like him. I rather believe I want to get away from him, before he calls again.”

The major returned quietly to his chair.

“Very right indeed,” he said – and looked at his pen and ink. He was longing to get rid of his niece and go back to his poetry.

“This is about the time of year,” Mabel persisted, “when we go to the country.”

The major was quite willing. “Just as you please; they’re ready for us at Stillbrook.”

“Stillbrook won’t do, uncle. If we go to your country house That Man will follow us. Suppose we take refuge at Oakapple Hall?”

“With all my heart.”

“Then I may write to Mrs. Corydon?”

“Certainly.”

Mabel went away to write a letter; and Mabel’s uncle remained, to write poetry.

•  II  •

A widow of mild and retiring character, married late in life; and possessed of one son who exactly resembled her in disposition: there is the briefly sufficient description of Mrs. Corydon.

Arriving at Oakapple Hall, Major Evergreen and his niece encountered a surprise held in reserve for them by their amiable hostess. They were received at the house-door by Mrs. Corydon’s son. On the last two occasions when they had enjoyed the widow’s hospitality, Mr. Cyril Corydon had been absent, pursuing his studies at Oxford. Mabel had not seen him since he had left school.

Cyril had greatly improved in the interval. Still modest and a little reserved, he was no longer awkward; he kept his hands out of his pockets, and his nails exhibited no black rims; his fair complexion was without pimples; his vacant smile of former days had meaning in it now; and, to complete the transformation, Mabel saw a slim young man who fed delicately, in place of a devouring fat boy who approached his dinner as a pig approaches a trough. She also noticed his pretty little flaxen moustache, and shy tenderness in the expression of his gentle blue eyes. Upon the whole, he reminded her of a description of a Troubadour, in one of her uncle’s poems.

Oakapple Hall, in one respect, resembled the famous abbey described by Rabelais – the inhabitants did as they pleased. When luncheon was over Major Evergreen retired to his room and his pen and ink. Mrs. Corydon resumed work on an immense embroidered counterpane, which had already occupied her patient fingers for the greater part of her life. The two young people took a walk in the park: Cyril offered his arm, and Mabel started the conversation.

“Have you really left Oxford for good?” she began. “And are you sorry for it?”

“I was sorry for it, until today.”

Cyril laid a strong emphasis on the last three words, and ventured on a look which sent his artful compliment straight to its right address. Mabel acknowledged the look by an innocent little question: “Do you think I am improved, since you saw me last?”

Cyril burst into an exclamation. Expressed in letters, it was only, “Oh!” The manner and the tone made it eloquent, and ought to be described. But description requires appropriate words. Where, in this case, are the words? Mabel’s innocence, requiring no description, pursued its artless way: “Mr. Corydon, you mustn’t flatter me.” Mr. Corydon immediately proceeded to flatter her.

“Don’t call me ‘Mr!’ You used to call me ‘Cyril,’ in the days when I was insensible to that honour and happiness. My one ambition is to hear you call me ‘Cyril’ now.”

“You were a boy then, Mr. Corydon: you are a young man now. I am afraid it wouldn’t be quite right.”

Cyril hit on a poetical allusion which might have fallen from the lips of the major himself. “Juliet didn’t hesitate,” he remarked, “to call Romeo by his Christian name.”

This – for a shy man – was, as Mabel thought, getting on at rather too rapid a rate. She turned the talk back into the prosaic channels of modern life. “I thought your mother and you were serious people,” she said. “Have you really been to the play?”

“Only to Shakespeare,” Cyril reminded her. “I was taken to the theatre, in the last vacation, by a man of high position, and large experience, whom I am proud to call my friend. His younger brother read with me under the same tutor – and I first came to know him in that way.”

“Who is this remarkable gentleman?”

“Sir John Bosworth.”

Mabel stood stock-still, and looked at the unsuspecting heir of Oakapple Hall. That good fellow was honestly pleased. “Sir John’s fame has reached you,” he said. “And perhaps you may have met him in society?”

Mabel acknowledged that she had met him, and said no more. Cyril sang his praises.

“What a man! He builds places of public amusement, he wins money on racecourses, he sits on the throne of the Press and dictates the policy of Europe – and, only think, he is My Friend!”

But Mabel’s thoughts were otherwise employed. A young person, hitherto free from any weak leanings towards superstition, she now dimly perceived the hand of Fate, mysteriously pointing to Sir John, at the very time when she had determined to dismiss him from her mind and from her list of visitors. What would be the next event? Would he discover Oakapple Hall? Preceded by his celebrity, would he obtain an introduction to Mrs. Corydon, and renew his offer of marriage? With the ready inconsistency of her sex and age, Mabel began to feel a certain reluctant interest in Sir John. He assumed romantic proportions in his absence. She had left him a shadowy figure disappearing, as it were, in the background. And here he was in the front of the picture again; presenting himself through the innocent medium of this nice boy – so proud of him, so grateful to him! Her curiosity was excited by the very man whom she had despised not three days since. She encouraged poor Cyril to talk of Sir John. One of Eve’s daughters – there is nothing else to be said for her: one of Eve’s daughters.

The course of their walk had brought them back, by this time, to the house. Cyril suddenly made an apology.

“Excuse me for one moment; I have something to show you.” He ran into the house, and ran out again with the local newspaper in his hand.

“Nothing that I can say of our gifted friend will be as interesting to you as this,” he announced, and pointed to the column of the newspaper filled by the London correspondent with news from the fashionable world. There was Sir John again! “A brilliant circle had assembled” at the country seat of a great nobleman, situated within an hour’s drive of Oakapple Hall – and in two days more Sir John Bosworth was expected as a welcome addition to the number of his lordship’s guests.

Mabel made the first excuse that occurred to her, and escaped from Cyril to the solitude of her own room. It was high time to consider what she had better do next.

•  III  •

Decision of character is, generally speaking, a plant of slow growth, in the human constitution. When the age is seventeen, the sex female, and the question: What am I to do next? – perplexing circumstances wait for an answer, and seldom get it. Mabel could not venture to consult her uncle – and if Mrs. Corydon had an amiable weakness, it took the form of habitual reliance on other people’s advice. In this emergency, Mabel’s temper escaped from control; and Cyril’s position in the estimation of his charming friend receded, without any reason for that deplorable event which it was possible to discover. Ignorant of the ways of women – in love, with the ready inflammability of a young man who has led an innocent life – Cyril was foolish enough to ask if he had offended Mabel. He made the mistake with the utmost humility of manner and language – and was received with a toss of the head, and a reply which expressed surprise that a member of an English University should prove to be an ill-bred man.

Three days passed. Sir John Bosworth (if the newspaper could be trusted) was already established as a guest at the country seat of his noble friend. In sheer despair of recovering the ground that he had lost by any effort of his own, Cyril decided on asking the advice of the one competent and trustworthy person within his reach.

Sir John was in the house; Sir John hurried into the room in which Cyril was waiting for him, and shook hands with a cordial squeeze. This inestimable friend of Cyril’s was a tall finely-made man, rather dark than light in complexion, and a little bald; otherwise remarkable for bushy eyebrows, a strong Roman nose, and magnificent whiskers; eyes bright and striking in themselves, but a little shifty in expression at times: in one word, a most agreeable person – with a false nature, concealed from the mass of mankind under a surface of easy humour and hearty good spirits.

“My dear boy, how glad I am to see you! You are one of us, of course? and you have come to luncheon? No? You are not invited by my lord? Come along and see him. Between ourselves, he’s a bit of a bore – and a bright young fellow like you will be a perfect godsend to the rest of us. You won’t? Now I look at you again, I see signs of something wrong. Am I rushing at rash conclusions if I suspect that my young friend is in a scrape? No explanations! At your age there is only one scrape – a woman.”

“The loveliest girl in the world, Sir John. I am in sore need of your advice. Can we speak here without interruption?”

“Of course we can!”

He rang the bell as he replied, and gave his orders to the servant as coolly as if he had been in his own house. He was obsequiously obeyed. The servant knew him to be the proprietor of a newspaper; and, like his betters (including some of the highest personages in the land) the footman was afraid of the Press.

Sir John administered his first dose of advice. “Sit down, my good fellow – take a cigar – and out with it!”

Cyril told his melancholy story. “She treats me cruelly,” he said, by way of conclusion. “And I assure you, on my word of honour, I haven’t observed it.”

Sir John administered the second dose. “Exactly my case,” he remarked coolly. “I am devoted to the loveliest girl in the world, and she treats me cruelly. Would you believe it? – she has left London to avoid me, and I don’t know where to find her. Do as I do: take it easy.”

“I’m too fond of her, Sir John, to take it easy.”

“Oh, if you come to that, I’m broken-hearted. At the same time, I don’t disguise from myself that we are both rowing in the same boat. You’re the favourite plaything of one coquette; and I the favourite plaything of another. There it is in a nutshell.”

This offhand way of speaking of the beloved object shocked Cyril. “You may be right about your lady,” he answered. “Excuse me for saying that you are wrong about mine.”

Sir John laughed. “I was as innocent once as you are,” he said. “Let’s get at the facts first. Mine is quite a young one. Is yours quite a young one too?”

“In the first lovely bloom of youth!”

“You curious boy! Your imagination is misleading you – and you don’t know it. All girls are alike.”

Cyril indignantly struck his fist on the table. “There isn’t another girl in the world like my Mabel!”

Sir John suddenly became serious.

“Mabel?” he repeated. “There’s something in that name which sounds familiar to me. Not the niece of Major Evergreen, surely?”

“Yes!” cried simple Cyril, “the same. How stupid of me not to have thought of it before! She has met you in society; and she is naturally interested in a celebrated man like yourself.You would have some influence over her. Oh, Sir John, if you would only see Mabel, and say a word to her in my interests, how truly obliged to you I should be!”

The impenetrable face of the man of the world expressed nothing but perfect readiness to make himself useful. Far more experienced eyes than Cyril’s would have discovered nothing in Sir John Bosworth’s manner even remotely suggesting that the two lovers had been, all this time, talking of the same lady.

“With pleasure!” cried Sir John. “But where shall we find her?”

Cyril seized his hand. “You good friend!” he exclaimed, with tears in his eyes. “She’s staying with my mother at our house – only a short ride from this place. When will you let me introduce you to my mother?”

“Whenever you like.”

“At once?”

And that excellent man smiled, and cheerfully echoed the words: “At once!”

•  IV  •

The two gentlemen discovered Miss Mabel walking up and down the garden terrace in front of Oakapple Hall, reading a book. Good girl! It was a volume of her uncle’s poetry.

“I felt sure you would be glad to meet Sir John Bosworth again,” Cyril began.

His manner was a great deal too humble. Before he could get any farther, Sir John spoke for himself.

“The happiness is all mine,” he said in his easy way. “If I happen, however, to be intruding, pray don’t scruple to say so.”

Mabel raised her eyes from her book. She had only to look at Cyril, and to see what had happened. Angry, perplexed, flattered, amused – in this conflict of small emotions she was completely at a loss how to assert herself to the best advantage; and she took refuge in a cold composure which, for the time being at least, committed her to nothing. “I was certainly engaged in reading,” she replied – and put a mark in her book with a sigh of resignation.

Impenetrable Sir John received the blow without flinching. “You led me to hope for the honour of being introduced to Mrs. Corydon,” he said to Cyril. “Shall we find her at home?”

He took Cyril’s arm and led him to the house. “That’s the way to manage her,” he whispered. “I’ll bet you five to one she’s vexed at our leaving her – and ten to one that she receives us more civilly when she sees us again. Don’t look back! You’re a lost man if she discovers that you’re thinking of her. Which is the way to the drawing-room?”

Sir John Bosworth effected the conquest of Mrs. Corydon at the first interview. She treated him as she was accustomed to treat her best friends. In other words, she offered to show him over the house. Oakapple Hall was a place of great age and celebrity. In the upper regions two Kings of England had slept, and the ground floor still showed traces of the passage of Oliver Cromwell and his men. Sir John made his excuses for that day. Having heard that Mabel’s uncle was in the house, he was courteously unwilling to disturb the major in the agonies of poetical composition. When he had taken his leave he whispered to Cyril, on his way to the house door: “I’ll lay you another wager, if you like – we shall see Miss Mabel still on the terrace.” And they did see her.

She was seated, with her closed book on her lap, deep in thought.

Hesitating between her two lovers, she had decided at first in favour of Cyril: he had youth on his side, he was handsome, he was modest and amiable. If he had happened to appear on the terrace, at that moment, he would have been the man preferred. But he was indoors, in attendance on his friend; and he left Mabel time to remember that there was a weak side to his character. In Cyril’s place would Sir John have consulted another man, and have brought him to visit her, without once suspecting that he might be a rival in disguise? Mabel was already leaning to the side of Sir John, when she heard footsteps on the walk – and, looking up, saw the man himself approaching her, alone.

In the present state of her inclinations, she was disposed, as an accomplished flirt, to begin by trifling with him. He saw her intention in the bright malice of her eyes, and put an obstacle in her way. Taking the book off her lap, he assumed to be interested in her reading.

“Tired of poetry, Miss Mabel?”

“Never tired of it, Sir John.”

“You read a great deal of poetry.”

“I believe I have read all the English poets.”

“Including the major. Do you find him equal to the others?”

“My uncle reminds me of the others – always pleasantly.”

Sir John opened the book, at that part of it in which a mark had been left, and read the title of the poem: The Rival Minstrels: a Contest in Verse.

“Is it very interesting?”

His tone irritated Mabel. “It is perfectly charming,” she answered – “and reminds me of Walter Scott. Two minstrels are in love with the same fair lady; she challenges them to an exhibition of their art; they are each to address her in verse; and she offers her hand to the poet whose lines she most admires. Ah, what a position women occupied in those days!”

“You would like to have been that fair lady, I suppose?”

“I should indeed! Especially,” she added with a saucy smile, “if you were a minstrel.”

“I never wrote anything in my life – except letters. A proprietor of a newspaper, Miss Mabel, leaves prose and verse to his editor and his contributors. Are you looking for anything?”

“I am looking for Mr. Corydon. Where is he?” Mabel asked, with an appearance of deepest interest.

Sir John determined to stop the coming flirtation in another way.

“Staying in the house,” he answered gravely, “by my advice.”

“And why does he want your advice?”

“Because he is under my protection. I feel the truest regard for him, and the sincerest sympathy with him in his present trying situation.”

Sir John knew his young lady well. His object was to puzzle her by presenting himself in an angry and jealous character entirely new to her experience – to keep her flighty mind by this means employed in trying to understand him, when he was obliged to leave her – to return the next day, and, by means of humble excuses and ardent entreaties for a reconciliation, to place poor Cyril’s mild and modest fidelity in a light of comparison which it would be little likely to endure.

Thus far he had succeeded. Mabel listened, and looked at him, and said, “I don’t understand you.”

“I will make myself understood,” Sir John rejoined. “Have you forgotten the offer of marriage which I ventured to address to you in London? You didn’t say No; you told me you wished for time to consider. I called again, to hear what your decision might be; and I found that you had not only gone away into the country, without a word of apology, but had left strict instructions that the place of your retreat was not to be mentioned to anybody. If this was not a deliberate insult, it was something extremely like it. When I told you just now that Mr. Corydon was under my protection, I meant that I would not allow that excellent young man to be treated as you have treated me.”

Mabel’s indignation was equal to the one possible reply to this.

“Make your mind easy,” she said; “Mr. Corydon is in no danger of being treated as I have treated you.”

“I sincerely hope for my young friend’s sake,” Sir John answered, “that you really mean what you say.”

Mabel got more and more angry. “Mr. Corydon is charming!” she burst out. “Mr. Corydon is a young man whom I esteem and admire!”

“Allow me to thank you, Miss Mabel, for your candour. You relieve me from the anxiety that I have been feeling on my friend’s account. If you will only say to him what you have just said to me I shall retire, happy in the conviction that my intercession in Mr. Corydon’s favour has been crowned with success. Good morning.”

•  V  •

Left by herself, Mabel felt the composing influence of solitude. Little by little, her cheeks recovered their everyday delicacy of colour; her eyebrows took their proper places on her forehead; and her pulse returned to the customary moderation of its beat. She was able to listen to the gentle promptings of her own vanity; and, as a matter of course, she began to look at Sir John’s insolence from a new point of view. He, the self-possessed man of the world, had completely forgotten himself, and there could be but one reason for it. “Mad with jealousy,” she concluded complacently. “How fond he must be of me!”

Who was this, approaching slowly from the house with steps that hesitated? This was the fatal young man who was under Sir John’s protection, and who had repaid the obligation by rousing emotions of jealous rage in Sir John’s breast. Mabel was not sure whether she despised him or pitied him. In this difficulty, she took a middle course, and only said, “What do you want?”

“May I not have the happiness of speaking to you?”

“It depends, Mr. Corydon, on what you have to say. I forbid you to speak of Sir John Bosworth; I won’t hear you if you speak of yourself; and I shall retire to my room if you speak to me. Have you any harmless remarks to make? Suppose you try the weather?”

Humble Cyril looked up at the sky. “Beautiful weather,” he said submissively.

“Or politics?” Miss Mabel continued.

“Conservative,” Cyril answered, as if he was saying his catechism.

“Or literature?”

“I haven’t got any.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean , I wish I was as well read as you are. Oh, Miss Mabel, don’t be so hard on a poor fellow who loves you with all his heart. I didn’t mean any harm when I asked Sir John—”

“Be quiet!”

“If there is any sort of atonement that I can make – if you could only tell me what a young lady wants – I mean, what she looks for in a young man—”

“She looks, Mr. Corydon, for what she doesn’t find in you.”

“May I ask what that is?”

“May I ask if you object to the form of vulgarity which is called – Slang?”

“I object to nothing from You. Pray tell me in what I am deficient.”

“Pluck!”

She looked at him with a moment’s saucy attention – bowed, and returned to the house. Even Cyril discovered that she was not positively angry this time.

•  VI  •

Sir John Bosworth appeared again on the next day – with an excellent reason for returning so soon. He had not yet been shown over Oakapple Hall.

On this occasion, the servant conducted him to the music-room. Mabel was at the piano; and Cyril was turning the leaves of the music for her. Sir John had only to look at them, and to suspect that his modest young friend had been gaining ground in his absence. He approached the piano with his genial smile, and examined the music. “Maiden Musings” was the title; and, in one respect at least, the composer had deserved well of the public of the present day – he had given them plenty of notes for their money. “Go on, please,” said the amiable visitor. Mabel went on. Notes that thundered, notes that shrieked, notes in cataracts of sound represented the maiden’s musings. “What were those remarks,” Sir John asked when it was over, “that Mozart made on the subject of melody? Cyril, my dear fellow, have you got Kelly’s Reminiscences in the library? Kelly was Mozart’s pupil. Do try to find the book.”

Before he complied with this request, Cyril looked at Mabel, and received a look in return. Then, and only then, he left the room. Sir John saw that he had not a moment to lose. The door was barely closed on his young rival, before he possessed himself of Mabel’s hand, and said, “Oh, forgive me!”

She released her hand, and assumed an icy composure. “I confess I am a little surprised to see you again,” she remarked.

“You see a man crushed by sorrow and shame,” Sir John proceeded. “Some devil must have possessed me when I spoke to you yesterday. I have not had one quiet moment since. You are literally the one hope of my life. Try, pray try to imagine what I felt, when I had every reason to fear that I had lost you – and to what a man!”

“A very agreeable man, Sir John.”

“Torture me, if you like; I have deserved it. But don’t tell me that you – with your bright intelligence, your tact and delicacy, your superiority to the little weaknesses and vanities of ordinary women – can feel a serious attachment to such a person as Cyril Corydon. No! Despise me as you may, Mabel; destroy all the hopes that I have centred in you; doom me to be a wretched man for the rest of my life – there is one thing you can not do: I defy you to lower yourself in my estimation. You have been the one woman in the world to me since I first saw you; and the one woman you will remain to the day of my death!”

He caught her by the hand again: it trembled in his hand; her ready tongue had literally nothing to say. The power of nonsense, in every form which it can take, is one of the great moral forces to which humanity instinctively submits. When Cyril returned (without having discovered the book) Sir John’s nonsense, admirably spoken, had answered Sir John’s purpose. Placed between her two admirers, Mabel was not able to determine which she really preferred.

“There’s no such book in the library,” Cyril announced. “If he wanted to get rid of me, don’t you think , Miss Mabel, he might have said so plainly?”

For the moment Sir John was thunderstruck. Was this the same confiding helpless young gentleman who had brought him to Oakapple Hall? He recovered himself directly.

“My dear boy, is there gout in your family?” he asked. “I am at a loss to understand this extraordinary outbreak of temper – unless there is a first fit coming on, at an unusually early age.”

Cyril passed this question over without notice. His fair complexion reddened with anger. Never had love wrought such a transformation in a man since the time of Cymon.

“I saw you take Miss Mabel’s hand just now, when I came in,” he declared stoutly. “I consider that to be a liberty.”

Sir John’s satirical composure was not disturbed even by this . “May I inquire, merely as a matter of curiosity, whether you claim a right of property in this young lady’s hand?”

“Yes, I do! I have reason to hope that this young lady will do me the honour of marrying me.”

“So have I!”

“I have a prior claim on her, Sir John.”

“Nothing of the sort. I asked Miss Mabel to marry me last week.”

Cyril turned indignantly to Mabel. “Is that true?”

Sir John cautioned her. “You’re not bound to answer,” he said.

“She is bound!”

“No, Cyril – no.”

“Do you hear him, Mabel?”

Sir John pointed to Cyril’s flaming cheeks. “Do you see him, Mabel?”

She burst out laughing. This disconcerted both the men: there was an awful pause. “Must I decide between you,” she asked, “without any time to think first?” Neither the one nor the other offered her time to think first. Mabel’s eyes suddenly brightened: a new idea had occurred to her. She turned to Sir John.

“I see a way out of the difficulty,” she said. “Do you remember my uncle’s poem – the Contest of the Minstrels? Suppose you and Mr. Corydon each address me in a little poem of your own composing – and suppose I imitate the fair lady of the ballad, and choose the minstrel whose verse I like best?”

Cyril was reduced to silence. Even Sir John could only say: “You’re joking.”

She was joking. But the consternation visible in the faces of the two men roused the spirit of mischief in her. “I’m quite in earnest,” she answered. “If you wish me to decide between you, you have heard the only terms on which I consent. The day is before you: do your best.”

As she opened the door to leave them, Mrs. Corydon came in. The amiable old lady said she was at Sir John’s service when he wished to see the house.

•  VII  •

Major Evergreen proved to be useless, on this occasion, as a means for making an excuse; he had gone out for a walk. All the rooms to Oakapple Hall were open to Sir John. He heard how the two Kings had slept in the house, how Oliver Cromwell had battered the house, how one part of it was built in one century, and another part in another. He was not even spared the interesting spectacle of Major Evergreen’s study. “So characteristic of a poet,” Mrs. Corydon said; “look at the manuscripts all scattered about!” Sir John looked at the manuscripts. Mrs. Corydon left him, and led the way to the window. “And now look at the view!” Sir John looked at the view.

Released at last, he had leisure to consider whether he should humour Mabel’s absurd caprice, or decline to make himself ridiculous, and leave her to recover her senses. He was a man greedy for money, as well as a man in love. Remembering that she had a handsome fortune, and that a rival younger than himself was also courting her, he made his way to the library.

At one of the writing-tables, Cyril was sitting forlorn, surrounded by morsels of torn paper. “What have you done?” the elder minstrel asked of the younger. The melancholy answer was, “Nothing!” Cyril’s voice sounded as if he was a child again, and was ready to cry.

Sir John sat down at a second table, in a distant part of the room, and began to write. The quiet in the library was only disturbed, now and then, by the heavy sighs of Cyril, and the sound of paper being torn up.

•  VIII  •

There was a knock at the door. A fresh young voice asked gaily: “May I come in?”

“Don’t let me disturb you,” said Mabel. “The fair ladies of past times were remarkable for their patience – especially with minstrels. I can wait.”

She looked at Cyril, who was seated nearest to her. Too cruelly mortified to speak, he took her hand, and put it on his hot forehead: he pointed to the mass of torn paper all round him. The tears rose in his eyes – he opened the door and went out.

Mabel’s face lost its expression of malicious enjoyment. She looked ashamed of herself; and she said softly: “Poor fellow!”

Sir John crossed the room, with a smile of conscious superiority. He was not a man who did anything by halves. Having decided on humouring the young lady, he presented his poetic offering with chivalrous humility, dropping on one knee.

Mabel read his verses. They had one great merit – there were very few of them.

They say she’s dark; yes, like the night

Whose beauty shines from starry skies

Oh, my sweet saint, how darkly bright

The mellow radiance of those eyes

I love in you the tender light—

The light the gaudy day

“Very pretty,” Mabel said – “and reminds me of Byron. Did you ever read his Hebrew Melodies?”

“Never!” Sir John declared fervently. “Allow me, my angel, to kiss your hand, and claim your promise.”

At that critical moment, Major Evergreen returned from his walk, and entered the library in search of a book. He stood petrified at the sight of the enemy whom he abhorred. “That Man!” he cried – and ran out of the room with a furious look at his niece.

She ran out after him. Sir John followed on tiptoe, and listened at the half-opened door.

“There’s more excuse for me, uncle, than you think,” Mabel pleaded. “Sir John Bosworth has one merit which you really ought to allow. He is a poet like yourself – he has just written this.”

She began to read the verses:

They say she’s dark; yes, like the night

Whose beauty shines from starry skies—

Her uncle snatched the paper out of her hand. “My Poetry!” he shouted.

Before his niece could stop him, he was back again in the library. “Thief!” he called out at the top of his voice.

Mabel made a vain attempt to quiet him. She had forgotten the inhuman review. Not so the major. Even at that trying moment he could have repeated the most atrocious insults inflicted on him in the newspaper without missing a word.

“The scoundrel has been among My Manuscripts!” cried the infuriated poet. “I’ve longed to murder him for the last six months. And now I’ll do it!”

It was useless to search the room. Sir John Bosworth had made his escape.

•   •   •

At a later period, when Mabel was asked why she had married Cyril instead of Sir John, she used to answer—

“The Poetry did it.”

The Spirit of the Times 26 Dec 1885

FARMER FAIRWEATHER

I am the last surviving witness who appeared at the trial, and unless I reduce to writing what I happen to know, there will be no record of the true particulars left after my death.

In the town of Betminster, and round about it for many a good English mile, I am known as Dame Roundwood. I have never been married, and at my present age, I never shall be. My one living relative, at the past time of which I now write, was my sister – married to a man named Morcom. He was settled in France, as a breeder of horses. Now and then he crossed over to England on his business, and went back again.?

I took such a dislike to Morcom that I refused to be present at the wedding. This led, of course, to a quarrel. Nephews and nieces, if there had been any, might perhaps have reconciled me with my sister. As it was, we never wrote to each other after she went to France with her husband. And I never saw her again until she lay on her deathbed. So much about myself, to begin with.

Circumstances, which it is neither needful nor pleasant to dwell on in this place, occasioned the loss of my income, while I was still in the prime of my life. I had no choice but to make the best of a bad bargain, and to earn my bread by going out to service.

Having provided myself with good recommendations, I applied for the vacant place of housekeeper to Farmer Fairweather. I had heard of him as a well-to-do old bachelor, cultivating his land nigh on five miles in a northerly direction beyond Betminster. But I positively declare that I had never been in his house, or exchanged a word with him, on the day when I set forth for the farm.

The door was opened to me by a nice little girl. I noticed that her manners were pretty, and her voice was a remarkably strong one for her age. She had, I may also mention, the finest blue eyes I ever saw in any young creature’s face. When she looked at you, there was just a cast, as they call it, in her left eye, barely noticeable, and not a deformity in any sense of the word. The one drawback that I could find in this otherwise pleasing young person was that she had a rather sullen look, and that she seemed to be depressed in her spirits.

But, like most people the girl was ready enough to talk about herself. I found that her name was Dina Coomb, and that she had lost both her parents. Farmer Fairweather was her guardian, as well as her uncle, and held a fortune of ten thousand pounds ready and waiting for her when she came of age.

What would become of the money if she died in her youth, was more than Dina could tell me. Her mother’s timepiece had already been given to her, by directions in her mother’s will. It looked of great value to my eyes, and it flattered her vanity to see how I admired her grand gold watch.

“I hope you are coming to stay here,” she said to me.

This seemed, as I thought, rather a sudden fancy to take to a stranger. “Why do you want me to stay with you?” I asked.

And she hung her head, and had nothing to say. The farmer came in from his fields, and I entered on my business with him. At the same time I noticed, with some surprise, that Dina slipped out of the room by one door when her uncle came in by the other.

He was pleased with my recommendations, and he civilly offered me sufficient wages. Moreover, he was still fair to look upon, and not (as some farmers are) slovenly in his dress. So far from being an enemy to this miserable man, as has been falsely asserted, I gladly engaged to take my place at the farm on the next day at twelve o’clock, noon.

A friendly neighbour at Betminster, one Master Gouch, gave me a cast in his gig. We arrived true to the appointed time. While Master Gouch waited to bring my box after me, I opened the garden gate and rang the bell at the door. There was no answer. I had just rung once more, when I heard a scream in the house. There were words that followed the scream, in a voice which I recognised as the voice of Dina Coomb:

“Oh, uncle, don’t kill me!”

I was too frightened to know what to do. Master Gouch, having heard that dreadful cry as I did, jumped out of the gig and tried the door. It was not fastened inside. Just as he was stepping over the threshold, the farmer bounced out of a room that opened into the passage, and asked what he did there.

My good neighbour answered, “Here, sir, is Dame Roundwood, come to your house by your own appointment.”

Thereupon Farmer Fairweather said he had changed his mind, and meant to do without a housekeeper. He spoke in an angry manner, and he took the door in his hand, as if he meant to shut us out. But before he could do this, we heard a moaning in the room that he had just come out of. Says my neighbour,

“There’s somebody hurt, I’m afraid.”

Says I, “Is it your niece, sir?”

The farmer slammed the door in our faces, and then locked it against us. There was no help for it after this but to go back to Betminster.

Master Gouch, a cautious man in all things, recommended that we should wait awhile before we spoke of what had happened, on the chance of receiving an explanation and apology from the farmer when he recovered his temper. I agreed to this. But there! I am a woman, and I did take a lady (a particular friend of mine) into my confidence. The next day it was all over the town. Inquiries were made; some of the labourers on the farm said strange things; the mayor and aldermen heard of what was going on. When I next saw Farmer Fairweather he was charged with the murder of his niece, and I was called, along with Master Gouch and the labourers, as witnesses against him.

The ins and outs of the law are altogether beyond me. I can only report that Dina Coomb was certainly missing, and this, taken with what Master Gouch and I had heard and seen, was (as the lawyers said) the case against the farmer. His defence was that Dina was a bad girl. He found it necessary, standing towards her in the place of her father, to correct his niece with a leather strap from time to time; and we upset his temper by trying to get into his house when strangers were not welcome, and might misinterpret his actions. As for the disappearance of Dina, he could only conclude that she had run away, and where she had gone to was more than he had been able to discover.

To this the law answered, “You have friends to help you, and you are rich enough to pay the expense of a strict search. Find Dina Coomb, and produce her here to prove what you have said. We will give you reasonable time. Make the best use of it.”

Ten days passed, and we, the witnesses, were summoned again. How it came out I don’t know. Everybody in Betminster was talking of it; Farmer Fairweather’s niece had been found.

The girl told her story, and the people who had discovered her told their story. It was all plain and straightforward, and I had just begun to wonder what I was wanted for, when up got the lawyer who had the farmer’s interests in charge, and asked that the witnesses might be ordered to leave the court. We were turned out under the care of an usher; and we were sent for as the authorities wanted us, to speak to the identity of Dina, one at a time. The parson of Farmer Fairweather’s parish church was the first witness called. Then came the turn of the labourers. I was sent for last.

When I had been sworn, and when the girl and I were, for the first time, set close together face to face, a most extraordinary interest seemed to be felt in my evidence. How I first came to be in Dina’s company, and how long a time had passed while I was talking with her, were questions which I answered as I had answered them once already, ten days since.

When a voice warned me to be careful and to take my time, and another said. “Is that Dina Coomb?” I was too much excited – I may even say, too much frightened – to turn my head and see who was speaking to me. The longer I looked at the girl, the more certain I felt that I was not looking at Dina.

What could I do? As an honest woman giving evidence on her oath I was bound, come what might of it, to tell the truth. To the voice which had asked me if that was Dina Coomb, I answered positively, “No.”

My reasons when given, were two in number. First, both this girl’s eyes were as straight as straight could be – not so much as the vestige of a cast could I see in her left eye. Secondly, she was fatter than Dina in the face, and fatter in the neck and arms, and rounder in the shoulders. I owned, when the lawyer put the question to me, that she was the same height as Dina, and had the same complexion and the same fine blue colour in her eyes. But I stuck fast to the differences I had noticed – and they said I turned the scale against the prisoner.

As I afterwards discovered, we witnesses had not been agreed. The labourers declared that the girl was Dina. The parson, who had seen Dina hundreds of times at his school, said exactly what I had said. Other competent witnesses were sought for and found the next day. Their testimony was our testimony repeated again and again. Later still, the abominable father and mother who had sold their child for purposes of deception were discovered, and were afterwards punished, along with the people who had paid the money.

Driven to the wall, the prisoner owned that he had failed to find his runaway niece; and that, in terror of being condemned to die on the scaffold for murder, he had made this desperate attempt to get himself acquitted by deceiving the law. His confession availed him nothing; his solemn assertion of innocence availed him nothing. Farmer Fairweather was hanged.  [*]

With the passing away of time the memory of things passes away too. I was beginning to be an old woman, and the trial was only remembered by elderly people like myself, when I got a letter relating to my sister. It was written for her by the English consul at the French town in which she lived. he informed me that she had been a widow for some years past; and he summoned me instantly to her bedside if I wished to see her again before she died.

I was just in time to find her living. She was past speaking to me but, thank God, she understood what I meant when I kissed her and asked her to forgive me. Towards evening the poor soul passed away quietly, with her head resting on my breast.

The consul had written down what she had wanted to say to me. I leave the persons who may read this to judge what my feelings were when I discovered that my sister’s husband was the wretch who had assisted the escape of Dina Coomb, and who had thus been the means of condemning an innocent man to death on the scaffold.

On one of those visits on business to England of which I have already spoken , he had met a little girl sitting under a hedge at the side of the high road, lost, footsore, and frightened, and had spoken to her. She owned that she had run away from home after a most severe beating. She showed the marks. A worthy man would have put her under the protection of the nearest magistrate.

My rascally brother-in-law noticed her valuable watch, and, suspecting that she might be connected with wealthy people, he encouraged her to talk. When he was well assured of her expectations, and of the use to which he might put them in her friendless situation, he offered to adopt her, and he took her away with him to France.

My sister, having no child of her own took a liking to Dina, and readily believed what her husband chose to tell her. For three years the girl lived with them. She cared little for the good woman who was always kind to her, but she was most unreasonably fond of the villain who had kidnapped her.

After his death this runaway creature – then aged fifteen – was missing again. She left a farewell letter to my sister, saying that she had found another friend: and from that time forth nothing more had been heard of her, for years on years. This had weighed on my sister’s mind, and this was what she had wanted to tell me on her deathbed. Knowing nothing of the trial, she was aware that Dina belonged to the neighbourhood of Betminster, and she thought in her ignorance that I might communicate with Dina’s friends, if such persons existed.

On my return to England I thought it a duty to show to the Mayor of Betminster what the consul had written from my sister’s dictation. He read it and heard what I had to tell him. Then he reckoned up the years that had passed. says he, “The girl must be of age by this time: I shall cause inquiries to be made in London.”

In a week more we did hear of Dina Coomb. She had returned to her own country, with a French husband at her heels, had proved her claim, and had got her money.

[*] This terrible miscarriage of justice happened before the time when trials were reported in the newspapers, and led to one valuable result: Since that time it has been a first and foremost condition of a trial for murder that the body of the slain person shall have been discovered and identified. – W. C.

The Youth’s Companion 19 Aug 1886

A SAD DEATH AND A BRAVE LIFE

At that memorable period in the early history of the United States when American citizens resented the tyranny of George the Third and his Parliament by destroying a cargo of taxed tea, a Bristol trader arrived in the harbour of Boston, having one passenger on board. This person was a young English woman, named Esther Calvert, daughter of a shopkeeper at Cheltenham, and niece of the captain of the ship.

Some years before her departure from England, Esther had suffered an affliction – associated with a deplorable public event – which had shaken her attachment to her native land. Free, at a later period, to choose for herself, she resolved on leaving England, as soon as employment could be found for her in another country. After a weary interval of expectation, the sea-captain had obtained a situation for his niece, as housekeeper in the family of Mrs. Anderkin – a widow lady living in Boston.

Esther had been well practised in domestic duties during the long illness of her mother. Intelligent, modest and sweet-tempered, she soon became a favourite with Mrs. Anderkin and the members of her young family. The children found but one fault with the new housekeeper; she dressed invariably in dismal black; and it was impossible to prevail upon her to give the cause. It was known that she was an orphan, and she acknowledged that no relation of hers had recently died – and yet she persisted in wearing mourning. Some great grief had evidently overshadowed the life of the gentle English housekeeper.

In her intervals of leisure, she soon became the chosen friend of Mrs. Anderkin’s children; always ready to teach them new games, clever at dressing the girls’ dolls and at mending the boys’ toys, Esther was in one respect only not in sympathy with her young friends – she never laughed. One day, they boldly put the question to her: “When we are all laughing, why don’t you laugh too?”

Esther took the right way to silence children whose earliest lessons had taught them the golden rule: Do unto others as you would they should do unto you. She only replied in these words:

“I shall think it kind of you if you won’t ask me that question again.”

The young people deserved her confidence in them: they never mentioned the subject from that time forth.

But there was another member of the family, whose desire to know something of the housekeeper’s history was, from motives of delicacy, concealed from Esther herself. This was the governess – Mrs. Anderkin’s well-loved friend, as well as the teacher of her children.

On the day before he sailed on his homeward voyage, the sea-captain called to take leave of his niece – and then asked if he could also pay his respects to Mrs. Anderkin. He was informed that the lady of the house had gone out, but that the governess would be happy to receive him. At the interview which followed they talked of Esther, and agreed so well in their good opinion of her, that the captain paid a long visit. The governess had persuaded him to tell the story of his niece’s wasted life.

But he insisted on one condition.

“If we had been in England,” he said, “I should have kept the matter secret, for the sake of the family. Here, in America, Esther is a stranger – here she will stay – and no slur will be cast on the family name at home. But mind one thing! I trust to your honour to take no one into your confidence – excepting only the mistress of the house.”

More than one hundred years have passed since those words were spoken.

Esther’s sad story may be harmlessly told now. In the year 1762, a young man named John Jennings, employed as a waiter at a Yorkshire inn, astonished his master by announcing that he was engaged to be married, and that he proposed retiring from service on next quarter-day.

Further inquiry showed that the young woman’s name was Esther Calvert, and that Jennings was greatly inferior in social rank. Her father’s consent to the marriage depended on her lover’s success in rising in the world. Friends with money were inclined to trust Jennings, and to help him to start a business of his own, if Miss Calvert’s father would do something for the young people on his side. He made no objection, and the marriage engagement was sanctioned accordingly.

One evening, when the last days of Jennings’ service were drawing to an end, a gentleman on horseback stopped at the inn. In a state of great agitation, he informed the landlady that he was on his way to Hull, but that he had been so frightened as to make it impossible for him to continue his journey. A highwayman had robbed him of a purse containing twenty guineas. The thief’s face (as usual in those days) was concealed by a mask; and there was but one chance of bringing him to justice. It was the traveller’s custom to place a private mark on every gold piece that he carried with him on a journey: and the stolen guineas might possibly be traced in that way.

The landlord (one Mr. Brunell) attended on his guest at supper. His wife had only that moment told him of the robbery; and he had a circumstance to mention which might lead to the discovery of the thief. In the first place, however, he wished to ask at what time the crime had been committed. The traveller answered that he had been robbed late in the evening, just as it was beginning to get dark. On hearing this, Mr. Brunell looked very much distressed.

“I have got a waiter here, named Jennings,” he said; “a man superior to his station in life – good manners and a fair education – in fact, a general favourite. But for some little time past I have observed that he has been rather free with his money and that habits of drinking have grown on him. I am afraid he is not worthy of the good opinion entertained of him by myself and by other persons. This evening I sent him out to get some small silver for me; giving him a guinea to change. He came back intoxicated, telling me that change was not to be had. I ordered him to bed – and then happened to look at the guinea which he had brought back. Unfortunately I had not at that time, heard of the robbery; and I paid the guinea away with some other money, in settlement of a tradesman’s account. But this I am sure of – there was a mark on the guinea which Jennings gave back to me. It is, of course, possible that there might have been a mark (which escaped my notice) on the guinea which I took out of my purse when I sent for change.”

“Or,” the traveller suggested, “it may have been one of my stolen guineas, given back by mistake by this drunken waiter of yours instead of the guinea handed to him by yourself. Do you think he is asleep?”

“Sure to be asleep, sir, in his condition.”

“Do you object, Mr. Brunell, after what you have told me, to setting this matter at rest by searching the man’s clothes?”

The landlord hesitated.

“It seems hard on Jennings,” he said, “if we prove to have been suspicious of him without a cause. Can you speak positively, sir, to the mark which you put on your money?”

The traveller declared that he could swear to his mark. Mr. Brunell yielded. The two went up together to the waiter’s room.

Jennings was fast asleep. At the very outset of the search they found the stolen bag of money in his pocket. The guineas – nineteen in umber – had a mark on each one of them, and that mark the traveller identified After this discovery there was but one course to take. The waiter’s protestations of innocence, when they woke him and accused him of the robbery, were words flatly contradicted by facts. He was charged before a magistrate with the theft of the money, and, as a matter of course, was committed for trial.

The circumstances were so strongly against him that his own friends recommended Jennings to plead guilty, and appeal to the mercy of the Court. He refused to follow their advice, and he was bravely encouraged to persist in that decision by the poor girl, who believed in his innocence with her whole heart. At that dreadful crisis in her life she secured the best legal assistance, and took from her little dowry the money that paid the expenses.

At the next assizes the case was tried. The proceedings before the judge were a repetition (at great length and with more solemnity) of the proceedings before the magistrate. No skill in cross-examination could shake the direct statement of the witnesses. The evidence was made absolutely complete by the appearance of the tradesman to whom Mr. Brunell had paid the marked guinea. The coin (so marked) was a curiosity: the man had kept it, and he now produced it in court.

The judge summed up, finding literally nothing that he could say, as an honest man, in favour of the prisoner. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, after a consultation which was a mere matter of form. Clearer circumstantial evidence of guilt had never been produced, in the opinion of every person – but one – who was present at the trial. The sentence on Jennings for highway robbery was, by the law of those days, death on the scaffold.

Friends were found to help Esther in the last effort that the faithful creature could now make – the attempt to obtain a commutation of the sentence. She was admitted to an interview with the Home Secretary, and her petition was presented to the king. Here, again, the indisputable evidence forbade the exercise of mercy. Esther’s betrothed husband was hanged at Hull. His last words declared his innocence – with the rope round his neck.

Before a year had passed the one poor consolation that she could hope for in this world found Esther in her misery. The proof that Jennings had died a martyr to the fallibility of human justice was made public by the confession of the guilty man.

Another criminal trial took place at the assizes. The landlord of an inn was found guilty of having stolen the property of a person staying in his house. It was stated in evidence that this was not his first offence. He had been habitually a robber on the highway, and his name was Brunell.

The wretch confessed that he was the masked highwayman who had stolen the bag of guineas. Riding, by a nearer way than was known to the traveller, he had reached the inn first. There he found a person in trade waiting by appointment for the settlement of a bill. Not having enough money of his own about him to pay the whole amount, Brunell had made use of one of the stolen guineas, and had only heard the traveller declare that his money was marked after the tradesman had left the house. To ask for the return of the fatal guinea was more than he dared to attempt. But one other alternative presented itself. The merciless villain ensured his own safety by the sacrifice of an innocent man.

After the time when the sea-captain had paid his visit at Mrs. Anderkin’s house, Esther’s position became subject to certain changes. One little domestic privilege followed another, so gradually and so modestly that the housekeeper found herself a loved and honoured member of the family, without being able to trace by what succession of events she had risen to the new place that she occupied. The secret confided to the two ladies had been strictly preserved; Esther never even suspected that they knew the deplorable story of her lover’s death. Her life, after what she had suffered, was not prolonged to a great age. She died, peacefully unconscious of the terrors of death. Her last words were spoken with a smile. She looked at the loving friends assembled round her bed, and said to them, “My dear one is waiting for me. Good-bye.”

Boy’s Own Paper 23 Oct 1886
Youth’s Companion 16 Dec 1886

THE HIDDEN CASH

•  I  •

Parson Tibbald, a magistrate living within a day’s ride of the ancient city of York, surprised the members of his family, one morning, by presenting himself at breakfast without an appetite. Upon his wife asking him if the dishes on the table were not to his taste, he answered, “My day’s work is not to my taste. For the first time since I have been one of his majesty’s justices, a charge of murder is coming before me, and the man accused is one of our neighbours.”

The person in this miserable plight was Thomas Harris, an innkeeper, charged with murdering James Gray, a traveller sleeping in his house.

The witnesses against him were his own servants: Elias Morgan, variously employed as waiter, hostler and gardener; and Maria Mackling, chambermaid. In his evidence against his master, Morgan declared that he had seen Thomas Harris on the traveller’s bed, killing the man by strangling. In fear of what might happen if he remained in the room, Morgan feigned to go downstairs. Returning secretly, he looked through the keyhole of a door in an adjoining bedchamber, and saw the landlord rifling James Gray’s pockets.

Harris answered to this, that all his neighbours knew him to be an honest man. He had found Gray in a fit, and had endeavoured to restore him to his senses without success. The doctor who had examined the body, supported this assertion by declaring that he had found no marks of violence on the dead traveller. In the opinion of the magistrate, the case against Harris had now broken down, and the prisoner would have been discharged, but for the appearance of the maid-servant asking to be sworn.

Maria Mackling then made the statement that follows:

“On the morning when my fellow-servant found Mr. Harris throttling James Gray, I was in the back wash-house, which looks out on the garden. I saw my master in the garden, and wondered what he wanted there at that early hour. I watched him. He was within a few yards of the window, when I saw him take a handful of gold pieces out of his pocket, and wrap them up in something that looked like a bit of canvas. After that, he went on to a tree in a corner of the garden, and dug a hole under the tree and hid the money in it. Send the constable with me to the garden, and let him see if I have not spoken the truth.”

But good Parson Tibbald waited awhile to give his neighbour an opportunity of answering the maid-servant. Thomas Harris startled everybody present by turning pale, and failing to defend himself intelligently against the serious statement made by the girl. The constable was accordingly sent to the garden with Maria Mackling – and there, under the tree, the gold pieces were found. After this the magistrate had but one alternative left. He committed the prisoner for trial at the next assizes.

•  II  •

The witnesses having repeated their evidence before the judge and the jury, Thomas Harris was asked what he had to say In his own defence.

In those days the merciless law did not allow prisoners to have the assistance of counsel. Harris was left to do his best for himself. During his confinement in prison, he had found time to compose his mind, and to consider beforehand how he might most fitly plead his own cause. After a solemn assertion of his innocence, he proceeded in these words:

“At my examination before the magistrate, my maidservant’s evidence took me by surprise. I was ashamed to acknowledge what I am now resolved to confess. My lord, I am by nature a covetous man, fond of money, afraid of thieves, and suspicious of people about me who know that I am well-to-do in the world. I admit that I did what other miserly men have done before me: I hid the gold as the girl has said. But I buried it in secret for my own better security. Every farthing of that money is my property, and has been honestly come by.”

Such was the defence in substance. Having heard it, the judge summed up the case.

His lordship dwelt particularly on the circumstance of the hiding of the money; pointing out the weakness of the reasons assigned by the prisoner for his conduct, and leaving it to the jury to decide which they believed – the statement given in evidence by the witnesses, or the statement made by Harris. The jury appeared to think consultation among themselves, in this case, a mere waste of time. In two minutes they found the prisoner guilty of the murder of James Gray.

In these days, if a man had been judicially condemned to death on doubtful evidence, after two minutes of consideration, our parliament and our press would have saved his life. In the bad old times Thomas Harris was hanged; meeting his fate with firmness, and declaring his innocence with his last breath.

•  III  •

Between five and six months after the date of the execution, an Englishman who had been employed in foreign military service returned to his own country, after an absence of twelve years, and set himself to discover the members of his family who might yet be in the land of the living. This man was Antony Gray, a younger brother of the deceased James.

He succeeded in tracing his mother’s sister and her husband, two childless old people in feeble health. From the husband, who had been present at the trial, but who had not been included among the witnesses, Antony heard the terrible story which has just been told. The evidence of the doctor and the defence of Thomas Harris produced a strong impression on him. He asked a question which ought to have been put at the trial:

“Was my brother James rich enough to have a handful of gold pieces about him, when he slept at the inn?”

The old man knew little or nothing of James and his affairs. The good wife, who was better informed, answered: “He never, to my knowledge, had as much as a spare pound in his pocket at any time in his life.”

Antony, remembering the landlord’s explanation of his brother’s death, asked next if his aunt had ever heard that James was liable to fits. She confessed to a suspicion that James had suffered in that way. “He and his mother,” she explained, “kept this infirmity of my nephew’s (if he had it) a secret. When they were both staying with us on a visit, he was found lying for dead in the road. His mother said, and he said, it was an accident caused by a fall. All I can tell you is, that the doctor who brought him to his senses called it a fit.”

After considering a little with himself, Antony begged leave to put one question more. He asked for the name of the village in which the inn, once kept by Thomas Harris, was situated. Having received this information, he got up to say good-bye. His uncle and aunt wanted to know why he was leaving them in that sudden way.

To this he returned rather a strange answer: “I have a fancy for making acquaintance with two of the witnesses at the trial, and I mean to try if I can hear of them in the village.”

•  IV  •

The manservant and the woman-servant who had been in the employment of Thomas Harris, had good characters, and were allowed to keep their places by the person who succeeded to possession of the inn. Under the new proprietor the business had fallen off. The place was associated with a murder, and a prejudice against it existed in the minds of travellers. The bedrooms were all empty, one evening, when a stranger arrived, who described himself as an angler desirous of exercising his skill in the trout-stream which ran near the village.

He was a handsome man, still young, with pleasant manners, and with something in his fine upright figure which suggested to the new landlord that he might have been at one time in the army. Everybody in the village liked him; he spent his money freely; and he was especially kind and considerate towards the servants.

Elias Morgan frequently accompanied him on his fishing excursions. Maria Mackling looked after his linen with extraordinary care; contrived to meet him constantly on the stairs; and greatly enjoyed the compliments which the handsome gentleman paid to her on those occasions.

In the exchange of confidences that followed, he told Maria that he was a single man, and he was thereupon informed that the chambermaid and the waiter were engaged to be married. They were only waiting to find better situations, and to earn money enough to start in business for themselves.

In the third week of the stranger’s residence at the inn, there occurred a change for the worse in his relations with one of the two servants. He excited the jealousy of Elias Morgan.

This man set himself to watch Maria, and made discoveries which so enraged him, that he not only behaved with brutality to his affianced wife, but forgot the respect due to his master’s guest. The amiable gentleman, who had shown such condescending kindness towards his inferiors, suddenly exhibited a truculent temper. He knocked the waiter down. Elias got up again with an evil light in his eyes. He said, “The man who once kept this house knocked me down, and he lived, sir, to be sorry for it.”

Self-betrayed by those threatening words, Elias went out of the room.

Having discovered in this way that his suspicions of one of the witnesses against the unfortunate Harris had been well founded, Antony Gray set his trap next to catch the woman, and achieved a result which he had not ventured to contemplate.

Having obtained a private interview with Maria Mackling, he presented himself in the character of a penitent man. “I am afraid,” he said, “that I have innocently lowered you in the estimation of your jealous sweetheart; I shall never forgive myself, if I have been so unfortunate as to raise an obstacle to your marriage.”

Maria rewarded the handsome, single gentleman with a look which expressed modest anxiety to obtain a position in his estimation.

“I must forgive you, if you can’t forgive yourself,” she answered, softly. “Indeed, I owe you a debt of gratitude. You have released me from an engagement to a brute. And, what is more,” she added, beginning to lose her temper, “an ungrateful brute. But for me, Elias Morgan might have been put in prison, and have richly deserved it!”

Antony did his best to persuade her to speak more plainly. But Maria was on her guard and plausibly deferred explanation to a future opportunity. She had, nevertheless, said enough already to lead to serious consequences.

The jealous waiter, still a self-appointed spy on Maria’s movements, had heard in hiding all that passed at the interview. Partly in revenge, partly in his own interests, he decided on anticipating any confession on the chambermaid’s part. The same day he presented himself before Parson Tibbald as a repentant criminal, resigned to enlighten justice in the character of King’s Evidence.

•  V  •

The infamous conspiracy to which Thomas Harris had fallen a victim had been first suggested by his own miserly habits.

Purely by accident, in the first instance, the woman-servant had seen him secretly burying money under the tree, and had informed the manservant of her discovery.

He had examined the hiding-place, with a view to robbery which might benefit his sweetheart and himself, and had found the sum secreted too small to be worth the risk of committing theft. Biding their time, he and his accomplice privately watched the additions made to their master’s store. On the day when James Gray slept at the inn, they found gold enough to tempt them at last.

How to try the experiment of theft without risk of discovery, was the one difficulty that presented itself. In this emergency, Elias Morgan conceived the diabolical scheme of charging Harris with the murder of the traveller who had died in a fit. The failure of the false evidence, and the prospect of the prisoner’s discharge, terrified Maria Mackling.

Elias had placed himself in a position which threatened him with indictment for perjury. The woman claimed to be heard as a witness, and deliberately sacrificed her master on the scaffold to secure the safety of her accomplice.

The two wretches were committed to prison. It is not often that poetical justice punishes crime, out of the imaginary court of appeal which claims our sympathies on the stage. But, in this case, retribution did really overtake atrocious guilt. Elias Morgan and Maria Mackling both died in prison of the disease then known as gaol fever.

Youth’s Companion 21 Apr 1887

THE FIRST OFFICER’S CONFESSION

•  I  •

She is at the present time, as I have every reason to believe, the most distinguished woman in England – she has never written a novel.

I first saw her on board of our steamship, bound from New York to Liverpool. She was accompanied by her dog; and there occurred a little difference of opinion between the commander of the vessel and herself.

The captain began it with his customary politeness:

“Excuse me, Miss: I must beg you to submit to a little disappointment. You can’t have your dog with you in the saloon. Dogs are not allowed, on board our ships, among the passengers.”

To this the young lady answered: “And pray, sir, – if these tyrannical regulations are to be carried out – where is my dog to go?”

“Your dog is to go Miss, to the butcher.”

“You brute!”

I declare it on my word of honour, she did actually express her opinion in those terms to the only absolute despot now to be found on the face of the earth – the commander of a ship, afloat on his own vessel. What an ill-natured man might have done under these circumstances I hardly like to guess. Our captain’s sweet temper saw the humorous side of the insult offered to him; he burst out laughing. I stepped up, before the lady’s answer could express itself in stronger language still, and tried the effect of polite explanation.

“The butcher at sea.” I said, “is like the butcher on shore. In spite of his calling, Miss, he is not, generally speaking, of a bloodthirsty disposition. Our man here is accustomed to take care of passenger’s dogs. He will let you see your dog whenever you please; and the one risk you pet will be likely to run is the risk of being too well fed. May I be allowed to lead you to the forward part of the vessel, so that you can judge for yourself?”

We were rolling, at the time, as usual in all well-regulated Atlantic steam ships. I took the greatest care of our charming passenger; and she took the greatest care of her dog. The captain gave me a look as we passed him. I was sacrificing some of the precious time included in my turn of rest below. He attributed this act of folly (as he afterwards told me) to the influence of love at first sight. Having suffered, as will be presently seen, from concealment of the truth by other persons, I am all the readier to speak frankly of myself. The captain’s interpretation of my conduct was undeniably correct. While the young lady, the butcher, and the dog were all three in course of arriving at a friendly understanding, I reached a conclusion in my own private mind. “Whether she is above me, or whether she is below me,” I said to myself, “is something which remains to be discovered. But this I know already. Either I have found my wife, or I shall live and die an unmarried man.”

Who am I? And who is she?

I am Evan Fencote, first officer of the ship, and third son of a country gentleman; left a widower at my birth. He spent all his money in a great lawsuit, and died leaving barely enough to pay his debts and to bury him. I had to get my own living, and I got it at sea. My stature is five feet ten inches; my age is thirty-two; my temper is considered impetuous – and that is all I have to say for myself on the present occasion.

My young lady is Miss Mira Ringmore, daughter of an Englishman established in business in the United States. Her father had recently married for the second time. The new wife hated Miss Ringmore and Miss Ringmore hated the new wife. Being of age, and having her own little income (inherited from her mother), she had nothing to do but to please herself. Happening to notice our ship in the harbour – dressed in flags in honour of the captain’s birthday – she took a fancy to our pretty colours; felt an impulse to go back to the old country with us; and followed the lead of her own feelings at a day’s notice. Having friends on the other side – I mean in England – she purposed to visit them, beginning with her maternal aunt, a single lady whose kindness she remembered with gratitude in the time when she was a child.

As for her personal appearance. I can call it delicious. Her colour is dark; her stature is (I say it thankfully) not remarkable in the matter of height, and not encumbered by what I particularly dislike in a young woman, excess of flesh. Her manner I may describe as modestly irresistible. And I sum up the list of her perfections when I declare that she is not sick at sea.

•  II  •

How other men pay their addresses to women, and pave the way for favourable consideration of a proposal of marriage, I have not contrived to discover. Never yet has a friend come in my way who could tell me how he made himself acceptable, in the days of his courtship, to his wife. The obstacles to success, in the case of my own love-affair, raised perpetually by my professional duties on board, would, I am inclined to believe, have disheartened and defeated me if I had been left to contend against them single-handed. Let me be permitted to thank my stars for having provided me with two powerful friends, whose generous assistance was rendered to me in my hour of need.

One of them was the captain; and the other was the dog.

“He is so kind, he is so attentive, and he offers us the great advantage of being a steady married man.” Hundreds of times I have heard these words spoken of my commanding officer by fathers, husbands and brothers when circumstances compelled them to let their female relatives cross the Atlantic alone. As a guardian of the fair sex, afloat, our captain was, I firmly believe, without an equal in the honourable profession to which he belonged. He made kind inquiries, through their cabin doors, when the ladies were ill below; his gallant arm was ready for them when they got well enough to promenade the deck: and he exercised a fascinating influence over their timid appetites, when they ventured to appear at the dinner table for the first time. His experience of the sex, obtained in this way, (and in other ways not so well known to me) was ready for any emergency that might call on it. I was myself indebted to his instructions for precious private interviews with Miss Ringmore; and, let me add, it was not the captain’s fault that consequences followed which the most cautious man in existence must have failed to foresee.

Never neglecting his own duties, our commander never permitted neglect on the part of his subordinates. After waiting a day, and satisfying himself that his chief officer attended to the service of the ship as devotedly as ever, he favoured me, in private, with invaluable advice.

“If I was in love with that young lady,” he said, “do you know how I should recommend myself to her favourable notice?”

“I can’t say I do, sir.”

“In your place, Evan, I should begin by making a friend of the dog.”

From the lips of Solomon himself wiser words than those never dropped. I at once relieved the butcher of the trouble of feeding the dog. He was a clever little smooth haired terrier of the English breed. Miss Mira found her favourite pleased and flattered, when she saw us together, and was naturally pleased and flattered herself. A common ground of sympathy was, in this way, established between us. I stole time from my sleep and stole time from my meals, and made the most of my opportunities. To crown all, the captain favoured me with another offering from his stores of good advice:

“The art of making love, my friend, has one great merit – it succeeds by simple means. Are you acquainted with the means?”

“I am afraid not, sir.”

“Then listen to me. Bear in mind, Evan, that the sex (excepting the blackguard members, of course) hates violence. In making your advances, gain ground by fine degrees; never let a loud word or sudden action escape you. The serpentine way succeeded with the first woman, in the Garden of Eden; and it has succeeded with her posterity from that time to this.”

I followed the serpentine way as cleverly as I could. But the truth is, I was too fond of her to prove myself worthy of my instructions. If I try to put on record the various steps by which I advanced to my end, I may possibly produce a sort of guide book to the art of making love at sea. How useful it may be to passengers crossing the Atlantic!

First Day : The dog is the subject of conversation. Miss Mira tells anecdotes of his affectionate disposition and his rare intelligence. I listen with interest. A message arrives which informs me that the first officer is wanted. The little terrier whines when I get up to go. His mistress caresses him, and looks at me with approving smiles. “He is almost as fond of you as he is of me,” she says. – First step forward in Miss Mira’s affections.

Second Day : The story of my life forms the new subject of conversation. I tell it as shortly as possible. Miss Mira is interested when she hears that I am the son of a ruined father, who was once a country gentleman. She puts an intelligent question: “Why do I follow an arduous profession, which exposes me to be drowned, when my father’s surviving friends must be persons with influence who might do something better for me?” I can only reply that a man, like myself, who is alone in the world, feels no interest in improving his position. We look at each other. Miss Mira’s attention devotes itself, with some appearance of confusion, to the dog on her lap. – Second step forward.

Third Day : The story of my young lady’s life came, next. She begins, however, by noticing (with a woman’s nicety of observation) that there is a change in my dress. I have just been relieved from my watch on deck; and I happen to be wearing a warmer waistcoat than usual, knitted in bright-coloured wool. “You made your waistcoat, Mr. Fencote?”  “Mrs. Jennet made it.”  “And who is Mrs. Jennet?”  “A grateful woman, Miss Ringmore.”  “A young woman?”  “No: an old woman.”  “And why was she grateful to you?” There is but one way in which I can answer this last question. I am obliged to mention a common place event in the life of every good swimmer employed on board ship. One of our boys, being in danger of drowning, I happen to save his life. He mentions the circumstance to a grateful old grandmother, and my waistcoat ends the story. With some difficulty, I induce Miss Ringmore to drop the subject and talk of herself. Her social prospects are not very brilliant; she can only hope to be kindly received by her good aunt. Name of the aunt, Miss Urban; station in life, mistress of a ladies’ school since the death of her elder sister who founded the establishment; address, Lewk-Bircot, West Riding, Yorkshire; attractions of Lewk-Bircot, beautiful scenery in the neighbourhood. The first officer is eager to visit the scenery; and the fair passenger would be pleased to show it to him, as a means of expressing her sense of his kindness. – Third step.

Fourth Day : A gentle breeze, a fine sun, a bright sea. She comes on deck at the time when we are passing a large merchantman, under all sail. Impressed by that fine sight, she encourages me to tell her the names of the ship’s masts and sails. After the first few moments her attention begins to wander: she listens absently. I express the fear that she must be getting tired of the voyage. Answer, “If I could feel tired of the voyage, I should be ungrateful indeed to You.” – Fourth step.

Fifth Day : A dreadful blank. She has got a nervous headache, and the doctor keeps her in her cabin. But she is good enough to correspond with me. That is to say, she sends me a slip of paper with a line written on it in pencil. “Pray take care of my little dog.” – Fifth step.

Sixth Day : Perfect recovery of the invalid. The dog is still an invaluable friend to me; the care I have taken of him is gratefully acknowledged. Beyond this circumstance my recollections of the sixth day do not carry me. In whatever way I may have gained my next step in advance, it ceases to be of any importance by comparison with the great, I may say final, event which made a new man of me in four and twenty hours more.

Seventh Day : When we meet on this grand occasion she notices that I am not in good spirits. I own that my mind is ill at ease. Our voyage is coming to an end. On the next evening the ship will probably be passing the Fastnet light, off the Irish Coast. “I hope you won’t be offended.” I venture to say: “my spirits sink, Miss Ringmore, at the prospect of bidding you goodbye.” She makes no reply in words; her eyes rest on me for a moment and then look away again. I find it quite impossible to explain the effect which she produces on me. The captain’s excellent advice loses its hold on my mind. I forget the importance of making my advances by fine degrees. I become incapable of taking the serpentine way with this charming creature which once succeeded with Mother Eve in the Garden of Eden. What I intend to say is, that the happiness of my life depends on persuading Miss Mira to let me be her husband. What I actually do say, it is impossible for me to relate. She understands me, although I am incapable of understanding myself. There is one private place of retreat, and one only, on the deck of an ocean steamship in the day time. Between the after end of the vessel, called the taffrail, and the stout little wooden house which shelters the man at the helm, lucky lovers may sometimes find an unoccupied and unobserved interval of space. There I receive my reply: and there we register her favourable decision in our first kiss. My own impression is that the dog, at the other end of the ship, sees (or smells) reason to be jealous of me. He howls furiously. We have no alternative but to hurry to the butcher’s quarters and comfort him. Who is the author of the remark, that serious things and comic things tread close on each other’s heels? What a first officer that great observer would have made!

•  III  •

Mira’s interests were my interests now.

Her sudden departure from New York had rendered it impossible to communicate by letter with her aunt. When the vessel reached Liverpool, my first proceeding was to send a telegraphic message, in her name, to Miss Urban: “Expect me by the afternoon train; explanations when we meet.” I begged hard to be allowed to travel with her. In this case I deserved a refusal, and I got what I deserved.

“It is quite bad enough,” Mira said, “for me to take Miss Urban by surprise. I must not venture to bring a stranger with me, until I have secured a welcome for him by telling my aunt of our marriage engagement. When she has heard all that I can say in your favour, expect a letter from me with an invitation.”

“May I hope for your letter tomorrow?”

She smiled at my impatience. “I will do all I can,” she said kindly, “to hurry my aunt.”

Some people, as I have heard, feel presentiments of evil when unexpected troubles are lying in wait for them. No such forebodings weighed on Mira’s mind or on mine. When I put her into the railway carriage, she asked if I had any message for her aunt. I sent my love. She laughed over my audacious familiarity, as gaily as a child.

The next day came, and brought with it no letter. I tried to quiet my impatience by anticipating the arrival of a telegram. The day wore on to evening, and no telegram appeared.

My first impulse was to follow Mira, without waiting for a formal invitation from her aunt. On reflection, however, I felt that such a headlong proceeding as this might perhaps injure me in Miss Urban’s estimation. There was nothing for it but to practise self-restraint, and hope to find myself rewarded on the next morning.

I was up and ready at the door of the lodging to take my expected letter from the postman’s hand. There were letters for other people in the house – nothing had arrived for me. For two hours more I waited on the chance of getting a telegram, and still waited in vain. My suspense and anxiety were no longer to be trifled with. Come what might of it, I resolved to follow Mira to her aunt’s house.

There was no difficulty in discovering Miss Urban. Everybody at Lewk-Bircot knew the schoolmistress’s spacious and handsome establishment for young ladies. The fear had come to me, in the railway, that Mira might not have met with the reception which she had anticipated, and might have left her aunt, under a sense of injury only too natural in a high-spirited young woman. In horrid doubt, I asked if Miss Ringmore was at home. When the man servant said “Yes, sir,” so great was my sense of relief that I protest I could have hugged him.

I was shown into a little drawing-room, while the servant took my card upstairs. The window looked out on a garden. It was the hour of recreation: the young ladies were amusing themselves. They failed to interest me. The one object I cared to look at was the door of the room. At last it was opened; suddenly, violently opened. Mira came in with such an altered expression in her face, such a singular mingling in her eyes and confusion in her manner, that I stood like a fool, looking at her in silence. She was the first to speak.

“Why have you come here?” That was what she said to me.

A man of my temper, finding himself treated in this way by any woman – and especially when she is a woman whom he adores – feels the serious necessity of preserving his self-control. Instead of complaining of the ungracious welcome that I had received, I told her how I had waited, and what I had suffered: and I said in conclusion: “Surely, you might make some allowance for the anxieties of a man who loves you, left without news of you.”

“You might have been content with writing to me,” she answered.

“I couldn’t have waited for the reply.”

“Why not?”

“Because your silence alarmed me. Come, come, Mira! speak as plainly to me as I have spoken to you. I appear to have arrived at an unfortunate time. Is your aunt ill?”

“No.”

“Does she object to your marrying me?”

“She is too kind and too just to object to a person whom she has never seen.”

That something had gone wrong nevertheless, and that there were reasons for not letting me know what it was, admitted by this time of no doubt. I took Mira’s hand, led her to the sofa, and made her sit down by me. Then I ventured on one more inquiry, the last.

“Have you changed your mind?” I asked her. “Are you sorry you promised to be my wife?”

All her own pretty self came back in an instant. She put her arm round my neck, and rested her head on my shoulder, and began to cry. How would a landsman have taken such an answer as this? A sailor received it with gratitude; repaid it with kisses; and then remembered what was due to his dear’s peace of mind.

“It’s plain to me,” I said, “that I ought not to have come here without first asking leave. Let me set that right. My heart’s at ease about you now: I’ll go back again at once, and wait for our next meeting till you allow of it.” She looked at me, surprised to find that I was such a biddable man. I said : “My darling, I will do anything to please you; and whether you choose to tell me your secrets, or whether you prefer keeping them to yourself, will make no difference to me. I shall believe in you all the same.”

She came close to me, and laid her hands on my shoulders. her hands trembled.

“Suppose,” she said, “that you see things and hear things which you don’t understand, will your confidence in me take my good faith for granted, without asking for an explanation?”

“I won’t even wish for an explanation.”

Somewhere or other, I have read of the language of flowers. Mira stood up on tiptoe, and thanked me in the language of kisses. I had my hat in my hand ready to go. She took it away.

“You are to stay here with me,” she said, “and be introduced to my aunt?”

Was this pleasant change of purpose a reward? It was that and something more; it proved to be the first of many tests to which my sincerity was submitted. No fear of this troubled me at the time! I was too happy to think of consequences.

•  IV  •

The door of the room was opened again. A tall, elegant woman came in, looking neither old nor young. She was dressed plainly in dark coloured garments; there were furrows on her handsome face, and tinges of grey in her fine thick hair, which gave me the idea of a person who had seen troubled days in the course of her life. She had a slip of paper in her hand and gave it to Mira with these words:

“Here is a list of invitations to the party, my dear. If you will write on the cards we can send them round to my friends this evening.” As she laid the cards on the writing-table she noticed me. “Who is this gentleman?”

“I have already spoken of him, aunt. He is the gentleman to whom I am engaged. Evan, let me present you to Miss Urban.”

The grand schoolmistress shook hands with me civilly enough. She was a little majestic in offering her congratulations; but I had heard of the manners of the old school and took it for granted that I saw them now. I made my apologies for having presumed to present myself without a formal invitation.

Miss Urban’s lofty courtesy paid me a compliment, in reply: “Excuses are quite needless, Mr. Fencote. You might have been sure of your welcome from Mrs. Motherwell and from me.”

I looked round the room. No other lady was to be seen. “Where is Mrs. Motherwell?” I asked.

Miss Urban lifted her hand – a large strong hand that looked capable of boxing little girls’ ears – and smiling sweetly, waved it towards Mira.

“There is Mrs. Motherwell,” she said.Mira heard her, and never denied it. I looked backwards and forwards from the aunt to the niece and from the niece to the aunt. In the infernal confusion of the moment I presumed to correct the schoolmistress, I said:

“No. Miss Ringmore.”

Miss Urban assumed the duties of correction on her side.

“Mrs. Motherwell, formerly Miss Ringmore,” she reminded me. “Are you doing me the honour, sir, of attending to what I say?”

I was not attending. My eyes and my mind were both fixed on Mira. To my dismay, she kept her back turned on me – afraid, evidently afraid, to let me see her face. A second opportunity had been offered to her of denying that she was a married woman – and again she was silent, when silence meant a confession of guilt. It is all very well to say that a man is bound to restrain himself, no matter how angry he may be, in the presence of a woman. There are occasions on which it is useless to expect a man to restrain himself. I was certainly loud, I dare say I was fierce.

“You have infamously deceived me.” I called out: “I loved you. I trusted you. You are a heartless woman!”

Instead of looking at me, she looked at her aunt. I saw reproach in her eyes; I saw anger in the flush of her face. I heard her say to herself: “Cruel! cruel!”

The schoolmistress – Lord! how I hated her – interfered directly. “I can’t allow you, Mr. Fencote, to frighten my niece. Control yourself, or I must ask you to leave the room.”

In justice to myself, I took the woman’s advice. The most stupid thing I could possibly do would be to give her an excuse for turning me out. Besides, I now had an object in view, in which I was especially interested. I may have been a brute, or I may have been a fool. The prospect of avenging my wrongs on Mira’s husband presented the first ray of comfort which had dawned on me yet.

“Is Mr. Motherwell in the house?” I inquired.

To this the schoolmistress replied mysteriously.

“Mr. Motherwell is in the last house of all.”

“What do you mean, ma’am?”

“I mean the churchyard.”

“A widow?” I burst out.

“What else should she be, sir?”

I was determined to have it, in words – and from Mira’s own lips. “Are you a widow?” I asked.

She turned round, and faced me. What thoughts had been in her mind, up to that time, it was impossible for me to divine. I could only see that she was mistress of herself again – a little pale perhaps: and (I did really think) a little sorry for me.

“Evan,” she began gently, “what did we say to each other, before my aunt came in?”

She was my charming girl, before her aunt came in. She was my deceitful widow now. I remembered that, and remembered nothing more. “I don’t understand you,” I said.

My face no doubt showed some perplexity. It seemed to amuse her; she smiled. What are women made of? Oh, if my father had only sent me to be educated in a monastery and brought up to the business (whatever it may be) of a monk! She remembered everything: “I led you to suppose, Evan, that things might happen here for which you were not at all prepared, and I asked you if your confidence in me would take my good faith for granted, without wanting an explanation. And how did you answer me? You even went beyond what I had expected. You declared that you would not even wish for an explanation. Has my memory misled me?”

“No.”

“Did you mean what you said?”

“I did.”

“Will you be as good as your word?”

The aunt and niece looked at each other. I am not skilled in interpreting looks which pass between women – and it is, I dare say, natural to be suspicious of what we cannot understand. Anyway, I found myself making a cautious reply.

“You have put me to a hard trial,” I said. “All through our voyage, you have kept back the truth. You even accepted my proposal of marriage, without taking me into your confidence. After the discoveries that I have made in this room, how can I engage to be as good as my word, when I don’t know what confessions may be coming next. I can promise to try – and that’s all.”

“It’s all that I have a right to expect.” Saying that, Mira turned away to the window.

Miss Urban consulted her watch. A deep-toned bell was rung at the same time in the lower part of the house. The schoolmistress begged me to excuse her. “Our young ladies,” she explained, “are returning to their studies; my duties are waiting for me.” Passing her niece, on her way out of the room, she whispered something. I could only hear Mira’s reply: “I can’t do it! I won’t do it!” Her aunt considered a little, and came back to me.

“Mr. Fencote,” she said, “do you like little boys?”

I had got so distrustful of both of them, that I made another cautious reply to this effect:

“Suppose I say Yes, or suppose I say No, what difference does it make?”

“Ask my niece.”

Only three words! Having spoken them, Miss Urban attempted to leave the room. I stopped her; my dull mind was beginning to be enlightened by something like a gleam of truth.

“You began it,” I told her: “I shall not ask your niece to explain what you mean – I shall ask you. What am I to understand by your talking of little boys?”

“I ought to have mentioned one little boy, Mr. Fencote.”

“Who is he?”

She pointed to Mira, still standing at the window.

“Mrs. Motherwell’s little boy,” she answered; “the sweetest child I ever met with.”

I had been holding the schoolmistress by the arm, to prevent her from leaving me. My hand dropped. She must have made her way out; I neither saw her, nor heard her.

Having already suffered the shock of discovering that Mira had been a married woman, it would seem likely to most people that I might have been prepared to hear next of the existence of her child. I was not prepared; I felt the revelation of the child – why, God only knows – more keenly than I had felt the revelation of her husband. At that horrid moment, not a word would pass my lips. In the silence that had now fallen on us, Mira confronted me once more. Something in my face – I am afraid, something cruel – appeared to strike her with terror. She burst, poor soul, into wild entreaties:

“Evan! don’t look at me like that. Try, dear, to do me justice. If you only knew what my position is! Believe me you are wrong to trust to appearances. I love you, my darling. I love you with all my heart and soul. Oh, he doesn’t believe me! There’s no enduring this. Come what may of it, I don’t care; I’ll tell you—”

“Tell me nothing more,” I said, “I have heard enough.”

It was beyond what I could bear, to see what I saw at that moment; I made for the door. She called me back with a cry of misery:

“You’re not going to leave me?”

When I look back now at that miserable time, I thank God that my heart was moved with pity for her, and that I gave her my promise to return. I could do no more. My head was in a whirl; my longing for solitude and quiet was not to be told in words. I ran down the stairs. At one end of the hall, a glass door led into the garden; not a creature was to be seen there. The bright flowers, the fine old trees looked like glimpses of Heaven after what I had gone through. In a minute more, I was breathing the fresh air: I was sheltered under the peaceful shade.

•  V  •

As for the state of my mind, I can say no more about it than I have said already.

If I can trust my memory I may, however, mention that my thoughts were now more busy with Miss Urban than with her niece. I had turned a deaf ear to Mira’s entreaties at the time; but they had their own irresistible influence when I found myself alone; and they led me to the conviction that the schoolmistress must be answerable for what had befallen me since I entered her house. How was she answerable? To find the right reply to this, was the one obstacle that no effort of mine could overcome. There was a provocation in constantly trying, and constantly failing, to hit on a reasonable interpretation of what Mira had said, which ended in making me too restless to remain in my place of repose. I left the pleasant shade, and wandered away; still battling with my difficulties, and neither knowing nor caring whither I went.

On a sudden, I found myself called back to present things, oddly enough, by a pull at my coat-tail.

Looking around, I discovered a little boy who seemed to be about five or six years of age – a really pretty child, with bright merry eyes and beautiful dark red hair. Here no doubt was the fatal creature who had caused me such suffering when I heard who his mother was. If he had not spoken first, I am afraid I should have gone on without taking any notice of him.

“Do come, sir, and see my garden.”

He took hold of my hand as he preferred that request, and he looked up in my face with a smile, so innocent and so pretty, that Herod himself must have felt the charm of it.

We took the way to his garden, “My little man,” I said, “suppose you tell me your name?”

“The boys call me Blazes – because of my red hair.”

“Have you no other name besides that?”

“Yes; I’m Kit.”

“Well, Kit, and who do you belong to?”

“I belong to Aunt Urban.”

“Have you got no father and mother?”

“I don’t know that I’ve got a father. They tell me mother lives far away, somewhere.”

“Have you any playfellows?”

The child shook his head: “I’m left to play by myself. Here’s my garden.”

It was a barren little spot in a corner between two walls. Kit’s pride in his few sickly-looking flowers, and his small crookedly directed walks, might have made some people laugh; it made me feel readier to cry.

“I hope you like my garden?” the boy said.

“Indeed I do like it.”

“And you call me a good boy?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“I like to be praised – I don’t get much of it,” poor little Kit confessed. He took up his small toy spade. “I want to make a new walk. You’re a good-natured fellow. Will you help me?”

I marked out the course of a new path, and left him hard at work on it. The sooner we separated the better it would be for me: the poor boy innocently embittered my mind against the mother who had deserted him – who had ignored his existence at the very time when she had promised to be my wife. I was afraid to go back to her until I had mastered my own indignation by the help of time.

Walking straight on, and still failing to compose myself, experience reminded me of the comforting and companionable friend of man through the journey of life. In a moment more, my pipe and pouch were in my hand – but I had lost or mislaid the means of lighting the tobacco. While I was still vainly searching my pockets, I noticed a thin blue column of smoke rising through a clump of trees on my left hand. Advancing in that direction, I reached the limit of the grounds and discovered a gate with the customary Lodge by the side of it.

An old woman was knitting at an open window. I asked her if she would kindly give me a light for my pipe.

“Surely, sir,” was the cheerful reply. “Please come round to the door.”

She was waiting for me on the threshold. When I approached her, she lifted her withered brown hands in amazement. Her brightening face made her look ten years younger directly. “Lord bless us and save us, Mr. Fencote, don’t you know me?”

I was near enough to her now to make a likely guess. “Not Mrs. Jennet?” I said.

“Come in , sir! come in! Who but Mrs. Jennet should it be?” She insisted on placing me in her own arm chair; and she spoke of her grandson, “thriving and married and happy, when he might have been dead at the bottom of the sea, sir, but for you.” I listened with every appearance of interest that I could command, and flattered myself that I had concealed the state of my mind from the good old soul who was so honestly glad to see me. It soon appeared that I was mistaken.

“You don’t look like your own bright and cheery self, sir. Has anything happened to trouble you at the schoolhouse?”

“Yes,” I said, “something has happened to trouble me.”

Why I suddenly changed my mind, and owned the truth in this offhand way, I hardly know. People sometimes act on impulses which they are not themselves able to explain. That I had no distinct purpose in view, I am quite sure; the result that I produced took me completely by surprise.

My old friend eyed me attentively. “Any misunderstanding, sir, between my mistress and you?” she asked. “I make no doubt you’re a friend of Miss Urban’s, or why should you be here in the grounds?”

“I can’t call myself a friend of Miss Urban,” I said; “I was only introduced to her about an hour ago.”

The temperature of Mrs. Jennet’s curiosity rose a little higher.

“Will it be considered a liberty,” she went on, “if I ask who made you and Miss Urban known to one another?”

Now, when it was probably too late, prudence suggested the necessity of speaking with reserve. I refrained from mentioning Mira’s name.

“The person who introduced me,” I answered, “was a young lady.”

Mrs. Jennet’s eyes fastened on me with an expression of dismay; Mrs. Jennet’s voice sank to a whisper.

“Miss Urban’s niece?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps some relation of yours?”

“She may be.”

“May be? What does that mean?”

“It means that she may be a very near relation of mine – if I marry her.”

That reply put an end to all further hesitation, on Mrs. Jennet’s side and on mine. “I know what has happened now,” she said; “as well as if I had seen you and heard you. Mr. Fencote, I warned my mistress, at the time, that she might expect to meet with some such ill-luck as the misfortune that has fallen on her now. When that telegram surprised us with the news that her niece was coming, I resisted temptation; I didn’t say ‘I told you so’ – I only thought it. Ha! I don’t doubt that you have been hardly dealt with. But there’s another person – you know who she is! – whom I pity more than I pity you. No! you mustn’t tempt me to enter into particulars. What am I to do,” the poor woman asked, “between you who saved my grandson’s life, and my mistress who trusts me after thirty years spent in her service? Why don’t you ask the young lady to tell you that miserable story?”

“I don’t want to distress the young lady,” I said. “My temper is quieter by this time. I find I’m too fond of my darling to desert her. Whether you take me into your confidence, or whether you don’t – I’ll marry her all the same.”

Mrs. Jennet seemed to be strongly impressed by this.

“Upon you soul, sir?” she said solemnly.

“Upon my soul,” I answered.

What had I done to make the good old dame as reckless of consequences as I was, let others find out. “Light your pipe,” she said; “and I’ll tell you all about it.”

•  VI  •

“A great deal of mischief is sometimes done, sir,” Mrs. Jennet began, “among pleasure parties who go to enjoy themselves at the seaside. It was in the Midsummer holidays, six or seven years ago (I don’t rightly recollect which), that we went wrong. When I say We, I only mean the eldest Miss Urban, who was then alive – the youngest Miss Urban, now mistress of the school – and my old self, in past days lady’s maid, and afterwards keeper of the gate. My health was not as good in those days as it is now. So the two Misses Urban, as good creatures as ever lived, took me with them to the seaside. We had been about a fortnight in comfortable lodgings, when Miss Esther, (who was the eldest one) says to me: ‘I’m afraid my sister is going to do a very foolish thing.’ You will not be surprised to hear, sir, that a man was at the bottom of it. Also, that he was thought to be a perfect gentleman. Also, that he was handsome and clever and reputed to be well born. Also, that Miss Arabella (that is to say the present Miss Urban) was determined to marry him – and did marry him.”

“And they are now separated,” I ventured to guess. “And Miss Arabella has returned to her maiden name?”

“Worse than that, Mr. Fencote. She never was married at all. A lady – a perfect lady if ever there was one yet – heard where the newly-married couple had gone for their honeymoon. She says to my mistress, breaking it very kindly to her: ‘I am his victim, and you are his victim; look at my marriage certificate.’ You will ask if he was caught and punished. Not he! Early in the morning, the wretch said he was going out for a walk. He never came back, and has never been heard of since. It all happened within the six weeks of the Midsummer holidays; a hundred miles, and more, away from this place. We were saved, owing to those circumstances, from a scandal that might have ruined the school; and, like foolish women, we thought ourselves well out of it. Who could have foreseen, sir, that more misfortunes were going to fall on us? The first of them was the death of the eldest Miss Urban. The second – well some people might blame me for calling it a misfortune. What else is it, I should be glad to know, when a single lady, left sole mistress of a thriving school for girls, finds herself in a way to be a mother – cheated out of her lawful marriage by a villain who went to church with her, the husband of another woman?”

I thought of the little lovable boy whom I had left at work in his garden. But I had not courage enough to speak of him; remembering with shame how cruelly my headlong anger had injured Mira in my thoughts.

“There’s but little more for me to say,” Mrs. Jennet resumed. “You don’t need to be told that a time came when the ‘health’ of the mistress obliged her to leave the management of the school, for a few weeks, to the teachers, and that I was the servant who attended her. But please notice this: I am not to blame for the story which Miss Urban’s cleverness made up (when the child was put out at nurse) to save her reputation. From first to last, I was against that story. Miss Mira was then settled in America with her father and mother, and there was no prospect of the parents or the daughter returning to the old country. What does my mistress do but turn her niece into ‘Mrs. Motherwell, a widow,’ living abroad, and obliged by circumstances to confide her little boy to the care of her aunt in England. That lie succeeded very well. But I have had a good education, Mr. Fencote; and I was taught to observe things, before family troubles forced me to take to domestic service. This I have noticed, that lies turn traitors, in the long run, against the very people whom they have served. Miss Urban found this to be true, when your young lady unexpectedly returned to England. Ah, sir, I see what you are thinking of!”

I was thinking of the first interview between the aunt and the niece – and of how my intrusion must have complicated their deplorable position towards each other.

These were Mrs. Jennet’s last words:

“Miss Urban sent for me to bear witness, before her niece, to the cruel deception by which she had suffered. It was the only excuse she could offer by way of appeasing Miss Mira’s indignation – natural indignation, just indignation, I say! The next thing was to offer atonement, so far as it could be done. My mistress proposed to retire from the school, and to sell the business; and to live out her life (with her boy) among strangers. Until this could be done, she threw herself, as the saying is, on Miss Mira’s mercy. ‘It rests with you,’ she said, going down on her knees, ‘to promise to keep up the deception for a few weeks, or to ruin me for life.’ You know how it ended. In having the chance of getting that noble young woman for your wife, I consider you, sir, to be the luckiest man I ever set eyes on. And remember this, if you had not said that your mind was made up to marry her – or, to put it more plainly still, if you had not shown yourself ready to trust her, when you were quite ignorant of what had really happened – not one word of all that I have said to you would have passed my lips. Now I have spoken my mind – and there is an end of it.”

POSTSCRIPT

There is an end of it also, so far as this narrative is concerned.

It is plainly needless to describe what happened when I got back to the house. Results alone are important enough to deserve notice. Mrs. Jennet paid the penalty of taking me into her confidence by the loss of her situation, and entered my service on the spot. She accompanied Mira when we went back to Liverpool to be married. Miss Urban, safe in our silence on the subject of her private affairs, was left in possession of her school, her reputation, and her (adopted) son. At the time when I write my confession – offering it as a valuable lesson to my children, and inventing nothing in it but names of persons and places – my wife and I are old people; little Kit has become a fine man and a thorough sailor; our aunt and our good housekeeper have long since been reconciled in death; and I have been, for a quarter of a century past, the happiest man that ever drew a prize in the lottery of marriage.

Spirit of the Times 24 Dec 1887

UNCOLLECTED
BY REQUEST

Compiled by book producer ECM

CONTENTS

The Devil’s Spectacles
Love’s Random Shot
Fie! Fie!

In January 1887, Collins wrote a note concerning “The Devil’s Spectacles”, “Love’s Random Shot” and “Fie! Fie! Or, the Fair Physician”:

“These stories have served their purpose in periodicals, but are not worthy of re-publication in book form. They were written in a hurry, and the sooner they are drowned in the waters of oblivion the better. I desire that they shall not be republished after my death.”

However, these have since appeared in a number of collections and anthologies, and here they are again for your perusal.

THE DEVIL’S SPECTACLES

•  I  •

MEMOIRS
OF AN ARCTIC VOYAGER

“He says, sir, he thinks he’s nigh to his latter end, and he would like, if convenient, to see you before he goes.”

“Do you mean before he dies?”

“That’s about it, sir.”

I was in no humour (for reasons to be hereafter mentioned) for seeing anybody, under disastrous circumstances of any sort; but the person who had sent me word that he was “nigh to his latter end” had special claims on my consideration.

He was an old sailor, who had first seen blue water under the protection of my father, then a post-captain in the navy. Born on our estate, and the only male survivor of our head gamekeeper’s family of seven children, he had received a good education through my father’s kindness, and he ought to have got on well in the world; but he was one of those born vagabonds who set education at defiance. His term of service having expired, he disappeared for many years. During part of the time he was supposed to have been employed in the merchant navy. At the end of that long interval he turned up one day at our country house, an invalided man, without a penny in his pocket. My good father, then nearing the end of his life, was invalided too. Whether he had a fellow-feeling for the helpless creature whom he had once befriended, or whether he only took counsel of his own generous nature, it is now needless to inquire. He appointed Septimus Notman to be lodge-keeper at the second of our two park gates, and he recommended Septimus to my personal care on his deathbed. “I’m afraid he’s an old scoundrel,” my father confessed; “but somebody must look after him as long as he lasts, and if you don’t take his part, Alfred, nobody else will.” After this Septimus kept his place at the gate while we were in the country. When we returned to our London house the second gate was closed. The old sailor was lodged (by a strong exertion of my influence) in a room over a disused stable, which our coachman had proposed to turn into a hayloft. Everybody disliked Septimus Notman. He was said to be mad; to be a liar, a hypocrite, a vicious wretch, and a disagreeable brute. There were people who even reported that he had been a pirate during the time when we lost sight of him and who declared, when they were asked for their proof, that his crimes were written in his face. He was not in the least affected by the opinions of his neighbours; he chewed his tobacco and drank his grog, and, in the words of the old song, “He cared for nobody, no, not he!” Well had my poor father said, that I didn’t take his part nobody else would. And shall I tell you a secret? Though I strictly carried out my father’s wishes, and though Septimus was disposed in his own rough way to be grateful to me, I didn’t like him either.

So I went to the room over the stables (we were in London at the time) with dry eyes and I sat down by his bed and cut up a cake of tobacco for him, and said, “Well, what’s the matter?” as coolly as if he had sent me word that he thought he had caught a cold in the head. “I’m called away.” Septimus answered, “and before I go I’ve got a confession to make, and something useful to offer you. It’s reported among the servants, Mr. Alfred, that you’re in trouble just now between two ladies. You may see your way clear in that matter, sir, if death spares me long enough to say a few last words.”

“Never mind me, Septimus. Has a doctor seen you?”

“The doctor knows no more about me than I know myself. The doctor be—!”

“Have you any last wishes I can attend to?”

“None, sir.”

“Shall I send for a clergyman?”

Septimus Notman looked at me as directly as he could – he was afflicted with a terrible squint. Otherwise he was a fine, stoutly-built man, with a ruddy face profusely encircled by white hair and whiskers, a hoarse, heavy voice, and the biggest hands I ever saw. He put one of these enormous hands under his pillow before he answered me.

“If you think,” he said, “that a clergyman will come to a man who has got the Devil’s Spectacles here, under his pillow, and who has only to put those Spectacles on to see through that clergyman’s clothes, flesh, and what not, and read everything that’s written in his secret mind as plain as print, fetch him, Master Alfred – fetch him!”

I thought the clergyman might not like this, and withdrew my suggestion accordingly. The least I could do, as a matter of common politeness, after giving up the clergyman, was to ask if I might look at the Devil’s Spectacles.

“Hear how I came by them first!” said Septimus.

“Will it take long?” I inquired.

“It will take long, and it will make your flesh creep.”

I remembered my promise to my father, and placed myself and my flesh at the mercy of Septimus Notman. But he was not ready to begin yet.

“Do you see that white jug?” he said, pointing to the wash-stand.

“Yes. Do you want water?”

“I want grog. There’s grog in the white jug. And there’s a pewter mug on the chimney-piece. I must be strung up, Master Alfred – I must be strung up.”

The white jug contained at least half a gallon of rum and water, roughly calculated. I strung him up. In the case of any other dying person I might have hesitated. But a man who possessed the Devil’s Spectacles was surely an exception to ordinary rules, and might finish his career and finish his grog at one and the same time.

“Now I’m ready,” he said, “What do you think I was up to in the time when you all lost sight of me? The latter part of that time, I mean?”

“They say you were a pirate,” I replied.

“Worse than that. Guess again.”

I tried to persuade myself that there might be such a human anomaly as a merciful pirate, and guessed once more.

“A murderer,” I suggested.

“Worse than that. Guess again.”

I declined to guess again. “Tell me yourself what you have been,” I said.

He answered without the least appearance of discomposure, “I’ve been a Cannibal.”

Perhaps it was weak of me – but I did certainly start to my feet and make for the door.

“Hear the circumstances,” said Septimus. “You know the proverb, sir? Circumstances alter cases.”

There was no disputing the proverb. I sat down again. I was a young and tender man, which, in my present position, was certainly against me. But I had very little flesh on my bones and that was in my favour.

“It happened when I went out with the Arctic expedition,” Septimus proceeded. “I’ve forgotten all my learning, and lost my memory for dates. The year escapes me, and the latitude and longitude escape me. But I can tell you the rest of it. We were an exploring party, you must know, with sledges. It was getting close to the end of the summer months in those parts, and we were higher than any of them have ever got since to the North Pole. We should have found our way there – don’t you doubt it – but for three of our best men who fell sick of the scurvy. The second lieutenant, who was in command, called a halt, as the soldiers say. ‘With this loss of strength,’ says he, ‘it’s my duty to take you back to the ships. We must let the North Pole be, and pray God that we may have no more invalided men to carry. I give you half an hour’s rest before we turn back.’ The carpenter was one of our sound men. He spoke next. He reported one of the two sledges not fit for service. ‘How long will you be making it fit?’ says the lieutenant. ‘In a decent climate,’ says the carpenter, ‘I should say two or three hours, sir. Here, double that time, at least.’ You may say why not do without the sledge? I’ll tell you why. On account of the sick men to be carried. ‘Be as quick about it as you can,’ says the lieutenant: ‘time means life in our predicament.’ Most of the men were glad enough to rest. Only two of us murmured at not going on. One was a boatswain’s mate; t’other was me. ‘Do you think the North Pole’s the other side of that rising ground there?’ says the lieutenant. The boatswain’s mate was young and self-conceited. ‘I should like to try, sir,’ he says, ‘if any other man has pluck enough to go along with me.’ He looked at me when he said that. I wasn’t going to have my courage called in question publicly by a slip of a lad; and, moreover, I had a fancy to try for the North Pole, too. I volunteered to go along with him. Our notion, you will understand, was to take a compass and some grub with us; to try what we could find in a couple hours’ march forward; and to get back in good time for our duty on the return journey. The lieutenant wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I’m responsible for every man in my charge,’ says he. ‘You’re a couple of fools. Stay where you are.’ We were a couple of fools. We watched our opportunity, while they were all unloading the broken-down sledge; and slipped off to try our luck, and get the reward for discovering the North Pole.”

There he stopped, and pointed to the grog. “Dry-work, talking,” he said. “Give us a drop more.”

I filled the pewter mug again. And again Septimus Notman emptied it.

“We set our course northwest by north,” he went on; “and after a while (seeing the ground favoured us) we altered it again to due north. I can’t tell you how long we walked (we neither of us had watches) – but this I’ll swear to. Just as the last of the daylight was dying out, we got to the top of a hillock; and there we saw the glimmer of the open Polar Sea! No! not the Sound that enters Kennedy’s Channel, which has been mistaken for it, I know – but the real thing, the still and lonesome Polar Sea! What would you have done in our place? I’ll tell you what we did. We sat down on some nice dry snow, and took out our biscuits and grog. Freezing work, do you say? You’ll find it in the books, if you don’t believe me – the further north you get in those parts, the less cold there is, and the more open water you find. Ask Captain M’Clure what sort of a bed he slept upon, on the night of October thirtieth, ’fifty-one. Well, and what do you think we did when we had eaten and drunk? Lit our pipes. And what next? Fell fast asleep, after our long walk, on our nice dry snow. And what sort of prospect met us when we woke? Darkness and drizzle and mist. I had the compass, and I tried to set our course on the way back. I could no more see the compass than if I had been blind. We had no means of striking a light, except my matchbox. I had left it on the snow by my side when I fell asleep. Not a match would light. As for help of any sort, it was not to be thought of. We couldn’t have been less than five miles distant from the place where we had left our messmates. So there we were, the boatswain’s mate and me, alone in the desert, lost at the North Pole.”

I began to feel interested. “You tried to get back, I suppose, dark as it was?” I said.

“We walked till we dropped,” Septimus answered; “and then we yelled and shouted till we had no voices left; and then we hollowed out a hole in the snow, and waited for daylight.”

“What did you expect when daylight came?”

“I expected nothing, Master Alfred. The boatswain’s mate (beginning to get a little light-headed, you know) expected the lieutenant to send in search of us, or wait till we returned. A likely thing for an officer in charge to do, with the lives of the sledging party depending on his getting them back to the ships, and only two men missing, who had broken orders and deserted their duty. A good riddance of bad rubbish – that’s what he said of us when we were reported missing, I’ll be bound. When the light came we tried to get back; and we did set our course cleverly enough. But, bless you, we had nothing left to eat or drink! When the light failed us again we were done up. We dropped on the snow, under the lee of a rock, and gave out. The boatswain’s mate said his prayers, and I said Amen. Not the least use! On the contrary, as the night advanced it got colder and colder. We were both close together, to keep each other warm. I don’t know how long it was, I only know it was still pitch dark, when I heard the boatswain’s mate give a little flutter of a sigh, and no more. I opened his clothes, and put my hand on his heart. Dead, of cold and exhaustion, and no mistake. I shouldn’t have been long after him but for my own presence of mind.”

“Your presence of mind? What did you do?”

“Stripped every rag of clothes off him, and put them all on myself. What are you shivering about? He Couldn’t feel it, could he? I tell you, he’d have been frozen stiff before the next day’s light came – but for my presence of mind again. As well as my failing strength would let me, I buried him under the snow. Virtue, they say, Master Alfred, is its own reward. That good action proved to be the saving of my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t I tell you I buried him?”

“Well!”

“Well, in that freezing air, the burying of him kept him eatable. Don’t you see?”

“You wretch!”

“Put yourself in my place, and don’t call names. I held out till I was mad with hunger. And then I did open my knife with my teeth. And I did burrow down in the snow till I felt him – .”

I could hear no more of it. “Get on to the end!” I said. “Why didn’t you die at the North Pole?”

“Because somebody helped me to get away.”

“Who helped you?”

“The Devil.”

He showed his yellow old teeth in a horrible grin. I could draw but one conclusion – his mind was failing him before death. Anything that spared me his hideous confession of cannibalism was welcome. I asked how the supernatural rescue happened.

“More grog first,” he said. “The horrors come on me when I think of it.” He was evidently sinking. Without the grog I doubt if he could have said much more.

“I can’t tell you how many days passed,” he went on; “I only know that the time was nigh when it was all dark and no light. The darker it got, the deeper I scooped the sort of cavern I’d made for myself under the snow. Whether it was night, or whether it was day I know no more than you do. On a sudden, in the awful silence and solitude, I heard a voice, high up, as it were, on the rock behind me. It was a cheering and a pleasant voice, and it said, ‘Well, Septimus Notman, is there much left of the boatswain’s mate by this time? Did he eat short while he lasted?’ I cried out in fright, ‘Who the devil—?’ The voice stopped me before I could say the rest. ‘You’ve hit it,’ says the voice, ‘I am that person; and it’s about time the Devil helped you out of this.’  ‘No,’ says I, ‘I’d rather perish by cold than fire any day.’  ‘Make your mind easy,’ says he, taking the point, ‘I don’t want you in my place yet. I expect you to do a deal more in the way of degrading your humanity before you come to me, and I offer you a safe passage back to the nearest settlement. Friend Septimus, you’re a man after my own heart.’  ‘As how, sir?’ says I. ‘Because you’re such a complete beast,’ says he. ‘A human being who elevates himself, and rises higher and higher to his immortal destiny, is a creature I hate. He gets above me, even in his earthly lifetime. But you have dropped – you dear good fellow – to the level of a famished wolf. You have gobbled up your dead companion; and if you ever had such a thing as a soul – ha, Septimus! – it parted company with you at the first morsel you tasted of the Boatswain’s mate. Do you think I’ll leave such a prime specimen of the Animal Man as you are, deserted at the North Pole? No, no; I grant you a free pass by my railway; darkness and distance are no obstacles to Me. Are you ready?’ You may not believe me; but I felt myself being lifted up, as it were, against my own will. ‘Give us a light,’ I says, ‘I can’t travel in the dark.’  ‘Take my spectacles,’ says he, ‘they’ll help you to see more than you bargain for. Look through them at your fellow mortals, and you’ll see the inmost thoughts of their hearts as plain as I do, and, considering your nature, Septimus, that will drop you even below the level of a wolf.’  ‘Suppose I don’t want to look,’ says I, ‘may I throw the spectacles away?’  ‘They’ll come back to you,’ says he. ‘May I smash them up?’  ‘They’ll put themselves together again.’  ‘What am I to do with them?’  ‘Give them to another man. Now then! One, two, three – and away!’ You may not believe me again; I lost my senses, Master Alfred. Hold me up; I’m losing them now. More grog – that’s right – more grog. I came to myself at Upernavik, with the Devil’s Spectacles in my pocket. Take them, sir. And read those two ladies’ hearts. And act accordingly. Hush! I hear him speaking to me again. Behind my pillow. Just as he spoke on the rock. Most polite and cheering. Calling to me, as it were, ‘Come, Cannibal – come!’ Like a song, isn’t it? ‘Come, Cannibal – come!’”

He sang the last words faintly, and died with a smile on his face. Delirium or lies? With the Spectacles actually in my hands, I was inclined to think lies. They were of the old-fashioned sort, with big, circular glasses, and stout tortoise-shell frames; they smelt musty, but not sulphurous. I possess a sense of humour, I am happy to say. When they were thoroughly cleaned, I determined to try the Devil’s Spectacles on the two ladies, and submit to the consequences, whatever they might be.’

II

MEMOIRS OF MYSELF

Who were the two ladies?

They were both young and unmarried. As a matter of delicacy, I ask permission to mention them by their Christian names only. Zilla, aged seventeen. Cecilia, aged two and twenty.

And what was my position between them?

I was the same age as Cecilia. She was my mother’s companion and reader; handsome, well-born and poor. I had made her a proposal, and had been accepted. There were no money difficulties in the way of our marriage, in spite of my sweetheart’s empty purse. I was an only child, and I had inherited, excepting my mother’s jointure, the whole of the large property that my father left at his death. In social rank Cecilia was more than my equal; we were therefore not ill-matched from the worldly point of view. Nevertheless, there was an obstacle to our union, and a person interested in making the most of it. The obstacle was Zilla. The person interested was my mother. Zilla was her niece – her elder brother’s daughter. The girl’s parents had died in India, and she had been sent to school in England, under the care of her uncle and guardian. I had never seen her, and had hardly heard of her, until there was a question of her spending the Christmas holidays (in the year when Septimus Notman died) at our house.

“Her uncle has no objection,” my mother said; “and I shall be more than glad to see her. A most interesting creature, as I hear. So lovely, and so good, that they call her Thenbsp;Angel, at school. I say nothing about her nice little fortune or the high military rank that her poor father possessed. You don’t care for these things. But, oh, Alfred, it would make me so happy if you fell in love with Zilla and married her!”

Three days before, I had made my proposal to Cecilia, and had been accepted – subject to my mother’s approval. I thought this a good opportunity of stating my case plainly; and I spoke out. Never before had I seen my mother so outraged and disappointed – enraged with Cecilia; disappointed with me. “A woman without a farthing of a dowry; a woman who was as old as I was; a woman who had taken advantage of her position in the house to mislead and delude me!” and so on. Cecilia would certainly have been sent away if I had not declared that I should feel it my duty, in that event, to marry her immediately. My mother knew my temper, and refrained from giving Cecilia any cause of offence. Cecilia, on her side, showed what is called a proper pride; she declined to become my wife until my mother approved of her. She considered herself to be a martyr; and I considered myself to be an abominably treated man. Between us, I am afraid we made our good mother’s life unendurable – she was obliged to be the first who gave way. It was understood that we were to be married in the spring. It was also understood that Zilla was bitterly disappointed at having her holiday visit to us put off. “She was so anxious to see you, poor child,” my mother said to me; “but I really daren’t ask her here under present circumstances. She is so fresh, so innocent, so infinitely superior in personal attractions to Cecilia, that I don’t know what might happen if you saw her now. You are the soul of honour, Alfred; but you and Zilla had better remain strangers to each other – you might repent your rash engagement.” After this, it is needless to say that I was dying to see Zilla; while, at the same time, I never for an instant swerved from my fidelity to Cecilia.

Such was my position, on the memorable day when Septimus Notman died, leaving me possessor of the Devil’s Spectacles.

III

THE TEST OF THE SPECTACLES

The first person whom I encountered on returning to the house was the butler. He met me in the hall, with a receipted account in his hand which I had sent him to pay. The amount was close on a hundred pounds, and I had paid it immediately. “Is there no discount?” I asked, looking at the receipt.

“The parties expect cash, sir, and charge accordingly.”

He looked so respectable when he made this answer, he had served us for so many years, that I felt an irresistible temptation to try the Devil’s Spectacles on the butler, before I ventured to look through them at the ladies of my family. Our honest old servant would be such an excellent test.

“I am afraid my sight is failing me,” I said.

With this exceedingly simple explanation I put on the spectacles and looked at the butler.

The hall whirled round with me; on my word of honour I tremble and turn cold while I write of it now. Septimus Notman had spoken the truth!

In an instant the butler’s heart became hideously visible – a fat organ seen through the medium of the infernal glasses. The thought in him was plainly legible to me in these words: “Does my master think I’m going to give him the five per cent off the bill? Beastly meanness, interfering with the butler’s perquisites.”

I took off my spectacles and put them in my pocket.

“You are a thief,” I said to the butler. “You have got the discount money on this bill – five pounds all but a shilling or two – in your pocket. Send in your accounts; you leave my service.”

“Tomorrow, sir, if you like!” answered the butler, indignantly. “After serving your family for five-and-twenty years, to be called a thief for only taking my perquisites is an insult, Mr. Alfred, that I have not deserved.” He put his handkerchief to his eyes and left me.

It was true that he had served us for a quarter of a century; it was also true that he had taken his perquisite and told a fib about it. But he had his compensating virtues. When I was a child he had given me many a ride on his knee and many a stolen drink of wine and water. His cellar-book had always been honestly kept; and his wife herself admitted that he was a model husband. At other times I should have remembered this, I should have felt that I had been hasty, and have asked his pardon. At this time I failed to feel the slightest compassion for him, and never faltered for a moment in my resolution to send him away. What change had passed over me?

The library door opened, and an old schoolfellow and college friend of mine looked out. “I thought I heard your voice in the hall,” he said; “I have been waiting an hour for you.”

“Anything very important,” I asked, leading the way back to the library.

“Nothing of the least importance to you,” he replied, modestly.

I wanted no further explanation. More than once already I had lent him money, and, sooner or later, he had always repaid me. “Another little loan?” I inquired, smiling pleasantly.

“I am really ashamed to ask you again, Alfred. But if you could lend me fifty pounds – just look at that letter?”

He made some joke, suggested by the quaint appearance of the Spectacles. I was too closely occupied to appreciate his sense of humour. What had he just said to me? He had said. “I am ashamed to ask you again.” And what had he thought while he was speaking? He had thought. “When one has a milch cow at one’s disposal, who but a fool would fail to take advantage of it?”

I handed him back the letter (from a lawyer, threatening “proceedings”) and I said, in my hardest tones, “It’s not convenient to oblige you this time.”

He stared at me like a man thunderstruck. “Is this a joke, Alfred?” he asked.

“Do I look as if I was joking?”

He took up his hat. “There is but one excuse for you,” he said. “Your social position is too much for your weak brain – your money has got into your head. Good morning.”

I had been indebted to him for all sorts of kind services at school and college. He was an honourable man, and a faithful friend. If the galling sense of his own narrow means made him unjustly contemptuous towards rich people, it was a fault (in my case, an exasperating fault), no doubt. But who is perfect? And what are fifty pounds to me? This is what I should once have felt, before he could have found time enough to get to the door. As things were, I let him go, and thought myself well rid of a mean hanger-on who only valued me for my money.

Being now free to visit the ladies, I rang the bell and asked if my mother was at home. She was in her boudoir. And where was Miss Cecilia? In the boudoir, too.

On entering the room I found visitors in the way, and put off the trial of the Spectacles until they had taken their leave. Just as they were going a thundering knock at the door announced more visitors. This time, fortunately, we escaped with no worse consequences than the delivery of cards. We actually had two minutes to ourselves. I seized the opportunity of reminding my mother that I was constitutionally inaccessible to the claims of Society, and that I thought we might as well have our house to ourselves for half an hour or so. “Send word downstairs,” I said, “that you are not at home.”

My mother – magnificent in her old lace, her admirably-dressed grey hair, and her finely falling robe of purple-silk – looked across the fireplace at Cecilia – tall, and lazy, and beautiful, with lovely brown eyes, luxuriant black hair, a warmly-pale complexion, and an amber-coloured dress – and said to me, “You forget Cecilia. She likes Society.”

Cecilia looked at my mother with an air of languid surprise. “What an extraordinary mistake!” she answered. “I hate Society.”

My mother smiled – rang the bell – and gave the order – Not at home. I produced my spectacles. There was an outcry at the hideous ugliness of them. I laid blame on “my oculist,” and waited for what was to follow between the two ladies. My mother spoke. Consequently I looked at my mother.

[I present her words first, and her thoughts next, in parenthesis.]

“So you hate society, my dear? Surely you have changed your opinion lately?” (“She doesn’t mind how she lies as long as she can curry favour with Alfred. False creature.”)

[I report Cecilia’s answer on the same plan.]

“Pardon me; I haven’t in the least changed my opinion – I was only afraid to express it. I hope I have not given offence by expressing it now.” (“She can’t exist without gossip, and then she tries to lay it on me. Worldly old wretch!”)

What I began to think of my mother, I am ashamed to record. What I thought of Cecilia may be stated in two words. I was more eager than ever to see “The Angel of the school,” the good and lovely Zilla.

My mother stopped the further progress of my investigations. “Take off those hideous Spectacles, Alfred, or leave us to our visitors. I don’t say your sight may not be failing; I only say change your oculist.”

I took off the Spectacles, all the more willingly that I began to be really afraid of them. The talk between the ladies went on.

“Yours is a strange confession, my dear,” my mother said to Cecilia. “May I ask what motive so young a lady can have for hating Society?”

“Only the motive of wanting to improve myself,” Cecilia answered. “If I knew a little more of modern languages, and if I could be something better than a feeble amateur when I paint in water colours, you might think me worthier to be Alfred’s wife. But Society is always in the way when I open my book or take up my brushes. In London I have no time to myself, and, I really can’t disguise it, the frivolous life I lead is not to my taste.”

I thought this – (my Spectacles being in my pocket, remember) – very well and very prettily said. My mother looked at me. “I quite agree with Cecilia,” I said, answering the look. “We cannot count on having five minutes to ourselves in London from morning to night.” Another knock at the street door contributed its noisy support to my views as I spoke. “We daren’t even look out of the window,” I remarked, “for fear Society may look up at the same moment, and see that we are at home.”

My mother smiled. “You are certainly two remarkable young people,” she said, with an air of satirical indulgence – and paused for a moment, as if an idea had occurred to her which was more than usually worthy of consideration. If her eye had not been on me at the moment, I believe I should have taken my Spectacles out of my pocket. “You are both so thoroughly agreed in disliking Society and despising London,” she resumed, “that I feel it my duty, as a good mother, to make your lives a little more in harmony with your tastes, if I can. You complain, Alfred, that you can never count on having five minutes to yourself with Cecilia, Cecilia complains that she is perpetually interrupted in the laudable effort to improve her mind. I offer you both the whole day to yourselves, week after week, for the next three months. We will spend the winter at Long Fallas.”

Long Fallas was our country seat. There was no hunting; the shooting was let; the place was seven miles from Timbercombe town and station; and our nearest neighbour was a young Ritualistic clergyman, popularly reported in the village to be starving himself to death. I declined my mother’s extraordinary proposal without a moment’s hesitation. Cecilia, with the readiest and sweetest submission, accepted it.

This was our first open difference of opinion. Even without the Spectacles I could see that my mother hailed it as a good sign. She had consented to our marriage in the spring, without in the least altering her opinion that the angelic Zilla was the right wife for me. “Settle it between yourselves, my dears,” she said, and left her chair to look for her work. Cecilia rose immediately to save her the trouble.

The instant their backs were turned on me I put on the terrible glasses. Is there such a thing in anatomy as a back view of the heart? There is such a thing assuredly when you look through the Devil’s Spectacles. My mother’s private sentiments presented themselves to me, as follows: “If they don’t get thoroughly sick of each other in a winter at Long Fallas I give up all knowledge of human nature. He shall marry Zilla yet.” Cecilia’s motives asserted themselves with transparent simplicity in these words, “His mother fully expects me to say ‘No.’ Horrible as the prospect is, I’ll disappoint her by saying ‘Yes.’”

“Horrible as the prospect is” was to my mind a very revolting expression, considering that I was personally included in the prospect. My mother’s mischievous test of our affection for each other now presented itself to me in the light of a sensible proceeding. In the solitude of Long Fallas, I should surely discover whether Cecilia was about to marry me for my money or for myself. I concealed my Spectacles, and said nothing at the time. But later, when my mother entered the drawing-room dressed to go out for dinner, I waylaid her, quite willing to go to Long Fallas. Cecilia came in dressed for dinner also. She had never looked so irresistibly lovely as when she was informed of my change of opinion. “What a happy time we shall have,” she said, and smiled as if she really meant it?

They went away to their party. I was in the library when they returned. Hearing the carriage stop at the door I went out into the hall, and was suddenly checked on my way to the ladies by the sound of a man’s voice: “Many thanks; I am close at home now.” My mother’s voice followed: “I will let you know if we go to the country, Sir John. You will ride over and see us?”  “With thee greatest pleasure. Good-night, Miss Cecilia.” There was no mistaking the tone in which those last four words were spoken. Sir John’s accent expressed indescribable tenderness. I retired again to the library.

My mother came in, followed by her charming companion.

“Here is a new complication,” she said. “Cecilia doesn’t want to go to Long Fallas.” I asked why. Cecilia answered, without looking at me, “Oh, I have changed my mind.” She turned aside to relieve my mother of her fur cloak. I instantly consulted my Spectacles, and obtained my information in these mysterious terms: “Sir John goes to Timbercombe.”

Very short, and yet suggestive of more than one interpretation. A little inquiry made the facts more clear. Sir John had been one of the guests at the dinner, and he and Cecilia had shaken hands like old friends. At my mother’s request, he had been presented to her. He had produced such an excellent impression that she had taken him in her carriage part of his way home. She had also discovered that he was about to visit a relative living at Timbercombe (already mentioned, I think, as our nearest town). Another momentary opportunity with the Spectacles completed my discoveries. Sir John had proposed marriage (unsuccessfully) to Cecilia, and being still persistently in love with her, only wanted a favourable opportunity to propose again. The excellent impression which he had produced on my mother was perfectly intelligible now.

In feeling reluctant to give her rejected lover that other opportunity, was Cecilia afraid of Sir John, or afraid of herself? My Spectacles informed me that she deliberately declined to face that question, even in her thoughts.

Under these circumstances, the test of a dreary winter residence at Long Fallas became, to my mind, more valuable than ever. Single-handed, Cecilia might successfully keep up appearances and deceive other people, though she might not deceive me. But, in combination with Sir John, there was a chance that she might openly betray the true state of her feelings. If I was really the favoured man, she would, of course, be dearer to me than ever. If not (with more producible proof than the Devil’s Spectacles to justify me), I need not hesitate to break off the engagement.

“Second thoughts are not always best, dear Cecilia,” I said. “Do me a favour. Let us try Long Fallas, and if we find the place quite unendurable, let us return to London.”

Cecilia looked at me and hesitated – looked at my mother, and submitted to Long Fallas in the sweetest manner. The more they were secretly at variance, the better the two ladies appeared to understand each other.

We did not start for the country until three days afterward. The packing up was a serious matter to begin with, and my mother prolonged the delay by paying a visit to her niece at the school in the country. She kept the visit a secret from Cecilia, of course. But even when we were alone, and when I asked about Zilla, I was only favoured with a very brief reply. She merely lifted her eyes to Heaven, and said, “Perfectly charming!”

IV

THE TEST OF LONG FALLAS

We had had a week of it. If we had told each other the truth we should have said, “Let us go back to London.”

Thus far there had been no signs of Sir John. The Spectacles informed me that he had arrived at Timbercombe, and that Cecilia had written to him. But, strangely enough, they failed to disclose what she had said. Has she forgotten it already, or was there some defect, hitherto unsuspected, in my supernatural glasses?

Christmas Day was near at hand. The weather was, so far, almost invariably misty and wet. Cecilia began to yawn over her favourite intellectual resources. My mother waited with superhuman patience for events. As for myself, having literally nothing else to amuse me, I took to gratifying an improper curiosity in the outlying regions of the family circle. In plain English, I discovered a nice little needlewoman, who was employed at Long Fallas. Her name was Miss Peskey. When nobody was looking, I amused myself with Miss Peskey.

Let no person of strict principles be alarmed. It was an innocent flirtation, on my side; and the nice little needlewoman rigidly refused to give me the smallest encouragement. Quite a young girl, Miss Peskey had the self-possession of a mature woman. She allowed me time to see that she had a trim little figure, soft blue eyes, and glossy golden hair; and then, in the sweetest of voices, respectfully requested me to leave her to her work. If I tried to persuade her to let me stay a little longer, she rose meekly, and said “I shall, most unwillingly, be compelled to place myself under the protection of the housekeeper.” Once I attempted to take her hand. She put her handkerchief to her eyes and said, “Is it manly, sir, to insult a defenceless girl?” In one word, Miss Peskey foiled me at every point. For the first week I never even got the chance of looking at her through the Devil’s Spectacles.

On the first day of the new week the weather cleared up wonderfully; spring seemed to have come to us in the middle of winter.

Cecilia and I went out riding. On our return, having nothing better to do, I accompanied the horses back to the stables, and naturally offended the groom, who thought I was “watching him.” Returning toward the house, I passed the window of the ground-floor room, at the back of the building, devoted to the needlewoman. A railed yard kept me at a respectful distance, but at the same time gave me a view of the interior of the room. Miss Peskey was not alone; my mother was with her. They were evidently talking, but not a word reached my ears. It mattered nothing. While I could see them through my Spectacles, their thoughts were visible to me before they found their way into words.

My mother was speaking – “Well, my dear, have you formed your opinion of him yet?”

Miss Peskey replied, “Not quite yet.”

“You are wonderfully cautious in arriving at a conclusion. How much longer is this clever contrivance of yours to last?”

“Give me two days more, dear madam; I can’t decide until Sir John helps me.”

“Is Sir John really coming here?”

“I think so.”

“And have you managed it?”

“If you will kindly excuse me, I would rather not answer just yet.”

The housekeeper entered the room, and called my mother away on some domestic business. As she walked to the door, I had time to read her thought before she went out – “Very extraordinary to find such resources of clever invention in such a young girl!”

Miss Peskey, left in maiden meditation with her work on her lap, smiled to herself. I turned the glasses on her, and made a discovery that petrified me. To put it plainly, the charming needlewoman was deceiving us all (with the one exception of my mother) under an assumed name and vocation in life. Miss Peskey was no other than my cousin Zilla, “the Angel of the school!”

Let me do my poor mother justice. She was guilty of the consenting to the deception, and of no more. The invention of the trick, and the entire responsibility of carrying it out, rested wholly and exclusively with Miss Zilla, aged seventeen.

I followed the train of thought which my mother’s questions had set going in the mind of this young person. To justify my own conduct, I must report the result as briefly as I can. Have you heard of “fasting” girls? have you heard of “mesmeric” girls? have you heard of girls (in the newspapers) who have invented the most infamous charges against innocent men? Then don’t accuse my Spectacles of seeing impossible sights!

My report of Miss Zilla’s thoughts, as they succeeded each other, begins as follows:

First Thought: “My small fortune is all very well; but I want to be mistress of a great establishment, and get away from school. Alfred, dear fellow, is reported to have fifteen thousand a year. Is his mother’s companion to be allowed to catch this rich fish, without the least opposition? Not if I know it!”

Second Thought: “How very simple old people are! His mother visits me, invites me to Long Fallas, and expects me to cut out Cecilia. Men are such fools (the writing master has fallen in love with me) that she would only have to burst out crying, and keep him to herself. I have proposed a better way than fair fighting for Alfred, suggested by a play I read the other day. The old mother consents, with conditions. ‘I am sure you will do nothing, my dear, unbecoming to a young lady. Win him, as Miss Hardcastle won Mr. Marlow in She Stoops to Conquer, if you like; but do nothing to forfeit your self-respect.’ What astonishing simplicity! Where did she go to school when she was young?”

Third Thought: “How amazingly lucky that Cecilia’s maid is lazy, and that the needlewoman dines in the servants’ hall! The maid had the prospect of getting up before six in the morning, to be ready to go in the chaise-car with the servant who does the household errands at Timbercombe – and for what? To take a note from her mistress to Sir John, and wait for an answer. The good little needlewoman hears this, smiles, and says, ‘I don’t mind how early I get up; I’ll take it for you, and bring back the answer.’”

Fourth Thought: “What a blessing it is to have blue eyes and golden hair! Sir John was quite struck with me. I thought at the time he would do instead of Alfred. Fortunately I have since asked the simple old mother about him. He is a poor baronet. Not to be thought of for an instant. ‘My Lady’ – without a corresponding establishment! Too dreadful! But I didn’t throw away my fascinations. I saw him wince when he read the letter. ‘No bad news, I hope, sir,’ I ventured to say. He shook his head solemnly. ‘Your mistress’ (he took me, of course, for Cecilia’s maid) forbids me to call at Long Fallas.’ I thought to myself what a hypocrite Cecilia must be, and I said modestly to Sir John, to keep up appearances. Our private arrangement is that he is to ride over to Long Fallas tomorrow, and wait in the shrubbery at half-past two. If it rains or snows he is to try the next fine day. In either case the poor needlewoman will ask for a half holiday, and will induce Miss Cecilia to take a little walk in the right direction. Sir John gave me two sovereigns and a kiss at parting. I accepted both tributes with the most becoming humility. He shall have his money’s worth, though he is a poor baronet; he shall meet his young lady in the shrubbery. And I may catch the rich fish, after all!”

Fifth Thought: “Bother this horrid work! It is all very well to be clever with one’s needle, but how it disfigures one’s forefinger! No matter, I must play my part while it lasts, or I shall be reported lazy by the most detestable woman I ever met with – the housekeeper at Long Fallas.”

She threaded her needle, and I put my Spectacles in my pocket.

I don’t think I suspected it at the time; but I am now well aware that Septimus Notman’s diabolical gift was exerting an influence over me. I was wickedly cool, under circumstances which would have roused my righteous indignation in the days before my Spectacles. Sir John and the Angel; my mother and her family interests; Cecilia and her unacknowledged lover – what a network of conspiracy and deception was wound about me! and what a perfectly fiendish pleasure I felt in planning to match them on their own ground! The method of obtaining this object presented itself to me in the simplest form. I had only to take my mother for a walk in the near neighbourhood of the shrubbery – and the exposure would be complete! That night I studied the barometer with unutterable anxiety. The prospect of the weather was all that I could wish.

V

THE TRUTH
IN THE SHRUBBERY

On the next day, the friendly sun shone, the balmy air invited everybody to go out. I made no further use of the Spectacles that morning: my purpose was to keep them in my pocket until the interview in the shrubbery was over. Shall I own the motive? It was simply fear – fear of making further discoveries, and of losing the masterly self-control on which the whole success of my project depended.

We lunched at one o’clock. Had Cecilia and Zilla come to a private understanding on the subject of the interview in the shrubbery? By way of ascertaining this, I asked Cecilia if she would like to go out riding in the afternoon. She declined the proposal – she wanted to finish a sketch. I was sufficiently answered.

“Cecilia complains that your manner has grown cold toward her lately,” mother said, when we were left together.

My mind was dwelling on Cecilia’s letter to Sir John. Would any man have so easily adopted Zilla’s suggestion not to take Cecilia on her word, unless there had been something to encourage him? I could only trust myself to answer my mother very briefly. “Cecilia is changed towards me” – was all my reply.

My mother was evidently gratified by this prospect of a misunderstanding between us. “Ah!” she said, “if Cecilia only had Zilla’s sweet temper.”

This was a little too much to endure – but I did endure it. “Will you come out with me, mamma, for a walk in the grounds?” I asked.

My mother accepted the invitation so gladly, that I really think I should have felt ashamed of myself – if I had not had the contaminating Spectacles in my pocket. We had just settled to start soon after two o’clock, when there was a timid knock at the door. The angelic needlewoman appeared to ask for her half holiday. My mother actually blushed! Old habits will cling to the members of the past generation. “What is it?” she said, in low uncertain tones. “Might I go to the village, ma’am, to buy some little things?”  “Certainly.” The door closed again. “Now for the shrubbery!” I thought. “Make haste, mamma,” I said, “the best of the day is going. And mind one thing – put on your thickest boots!”

On one side of the shrubbery were the gardens. The other side was bounded by a wooden fence. A footpath, running part of the way beside the fence, crossed the grass beyond, and made a short cut between the nearest park gate and the servants’ offices. This was the safe place that I had chosen. We could hear perfectly – though the closely-planted evergreens might prevent the exercise of sight. I had recommended “thick boots” because there was no help but to muffle the sound of our footsteps by walking on the wet grass. At its further end, the shrubbery joined the carriage road up to the house.

My mother’s surprise at the place that I had chosen for our walk would have been expressed in words, as well as by looks, if I had not stopped her by a whispered warning. “Keep perfectly quiet,” I said, “and listen. I have a motive for bringing you here.”

The words had hardly passed my lips, before we heard the voices of Cecilia and the needlewoman in the shrubbery.

“Wait a minute,” said Cecilia; “you must be a little more explicit, before I consent to go any farther. How came you to take my letter to Sir John, instead of my maid?”

“Only to oblige her, Miss. She was not very well, and she didn’t fancy going all the way to Timbercombe. I can buy no good needles in the village, and I was glad of the opportunity of getting to the town.”

There was a pause. Cecilia was reflecting, as I supposed. My mother began to turn pale.

Cecilia resumed. “There is nothing in Sir John’s answer to my letter,” she said, “ that leads me to suppose he can be guilty of an act of rudeness. I have always believed him to be a gentleman. No gentleman would force his way into my presence, when I wrote expressly to ask him to spare me. Pray how did you know he was determined only to take his dismissal from my lips?”

“Gentlemen’s feelings sometimes get the better of them, Miss. Sir John was very much distressed—”

Cecilia interrupted her. “There was nothing in my letter to distress him,” she said.

“He was distressed, Miss; and he did say, ‘I cannot take my answer this way – I must and will see her.’ And then he asked me to get you to walk out today, and to say nothing so that he might take you by surprise. He is so madly in love with you, Miss, that he is all but beside himself. I am really afraid of what might happen, if you don’t soften his disappointment to him in some way. How any lady can treat such a handsome gentleman so cruelly, passes my poor judgement!”

Cecilia instantly resented the familiarity implied in those last words. “You are not called upon to exercise your judgement,” she said. “You can go back to the house.”

“Hadn’t I better see Sir John first, Miss?”

“Certainly not! You and Sir John have seen quite enough of each other already.”

There was another pause. My mother stood holding by my arm, pale and trembling. We could neither of us speak. My own mind was strangely agitated. Either Cecilia was a monster of deceit, or she had thus far spoken and acted as became a true and highly-bred woman. The distant sound of horses’ hoofs on the park road, told us both that the critical moment was at hand. In another minute, the sound ceased. Sir John had probably dismounted, and tied up his horse at the entrance of the shrubbery. After an interval, we heard Cecilia’s voice again, farther away from us. We followed the voice. The interview which was to decide my future destiny in life had begun.

“No, Sir John; I must have my question answered first. Is there anything in my letter – was there anything in my conduct, when we met in London – which justifies this?”

“Love justifies everything, Cecilia!”

“You are not to call me Cecilia, if you please. Have you no plainer answer to give me?”

“Have you no mercy on a man, who cannot live without you? Is there really nothing in myself and my title to set against the perfectly obscure person, to whom you have so rashly engaged yourself? It would be an insult to suppose that his wealth has tempted you. What can be his merit in your eyes? His own friends can say no more in his favour than that he is a good-natured fool. I don’t blame you; women often drift into engagements that they repent of afterwards. Do yourself justice! Be true to the nobility of character – and be the angel who makes our two lives happy, before it is too late!”

“Have you done, Sir John?”

There was a moment of silence. It was impossible to mistake her tone – Sir John’s flow of eloquence came to a full stop.

“Before I answer you,” Cecilia proceeded, “I have something to say first. The girl who took my letter to you, was not my maid, as you may have supposed. She is a stranger to me; and I suspect her of being a false creature with some purpose of her own to serve. I find a difficulty in attributing to a person in your rank of life the mean deceit which answers my letter in terms that lead me to trust you, and then takes me by surprise in this way. My messenger (as I believe) is quite insolent enough to have suggested this course to you. Am I right? I expect a reply, Sir John, that is worthy in its entire truthfulness of you and your title. Am I right?”

“You are right, Miss Cecilia. Pray don’t despise me. The temptation to plead with you once more—”

“I will speak to you, Sir John, as candidly as you have spoken to me. You are entirely wrong in supposing it possible for me to repent of my marriage engagement. The man, whose false friends have depreciated him in your estimation, is the only man I love, and the only man I will marry. And I beg you to understand, if he lost the whole of his fortune tomorrow, I would marry him the next day, if he asked me. Must I say more? or will you treat me with the delicacy of a gentleman, and take your leave?”

I don’t remember whether he said anything or not, before he left her. I only know that they parted. Don’t ask me to confess what I felt. Don’t ask me to describe what my mother felt. Let the scene be changed, and the narrative be resumed at a later hour of the day.

VI

THE END
OF THE SPECTACLES

I asked myself a question, which I beg to repeat here. What did I owe to the Devil’s Spectacles?

In the first place, I was indebted to my glasses for seeing all the faults, and none of the merits, in the persons about me. In the second place, I arrived at the discovery that, if we are to live usefully and happily with our fellow-creatures, we must take them at their best, and not at their worst. Having reached these conclusions, I trusted my own unassisted insight, and set myself to ascertain what the Devil had not helped me to discover in the two persons who were dearest to me – my mother and Cecilia.

I began with Cecilia, leaving my mother time to recover after the shock that had fallen on her.

It was impossible to acknowledge what I had seen through the Spectacles, or what I had heard at the shrubbery fence. In speaking to Cecilia, I could only attribute my coldness of manner to jealousy of the mere name of “Sir John,” and ask to be pardoned for even a momentary distrust of the most constant and charming of women. There was something, I suppose, in my contrite consciousness of having wronged her, that expressed itself in my looks and in my tones. We were sitting together on the sofa. For the first time since our engagement, she put her arm around my neck, and kissed me, without waiting to be kissed first.

“I am not very demonstrative,” she said, softly; “and I don’t think, Alfred, you have ever known how fond I am of you. My dear, when Sir John and I met again at that dinner party, I was too faithful to you to even allow myself to think of him. Your poor mother irritated me by seeming to doubt whether I could trust myself within reach of Timbercombe, or I should never have consented to go to Long Fallas. You remember that she invited Sir John to ride over and see us. I wrote to him, informing him of my engagement to you, and telling him, in the plainest words, that if he did call at this house, nothing would induce me to see him. I had every reason to suppose that he would understand and respect my motives—”

She paused. The rich colour rose in her lovely face. I refused to let her distress herself by saying a word of what had happened in the shrubbery. Look back, if you have forgotten it, and see how completely the Spectacles failed to show me the higher and nobler motives that had animated her. The little superficial irritabilities and distrusts, they exhibited to perfection; but the true regard for each other, hidden below the surface in my mother and in my promised wife, was completely beyond them.

“Shall we go back to London, tomorrow?” I asked.

“Are you tired of being here with me, Alfred?”

“I am tired of waiting till the spring, my angel. I will live with you wherever you like, if you will only consent to hasten the transformation which makes you my wife. Will you consent?”

“If your mother asks me. Don’t hurry her, Alfred.”

But I did hurry her. After what we had heard in the shrubbery I could look into my mother’s heart (without assistance), and feel sure that the nobler part of her nature would justify my confidence in it. She was not only ready to “ask Cecilia,” then and there – she was eager, poor soul, to confess hoe completely she had been mislaid by her natural interest in her brother’s child. Being firmly resolved to keep the secret of my discovery of her niece, I refused to hear her, as I had refused to hear Cecilia. Did I not know, without being told, what child’s play it would be to Zilla to dazzle and delude my innocent mother? I merely asked if “the needlewoman was still in the house.” The answer was thoroughly explicit: “She is at the railway station by this time, and she will never enter any house of mine again.”

We returned to London the next morning.

I had a moment’s private talk with the station-master at Timbercombe. Sir John had left his friends at the town, on the previous day. He and Zilla had met on the platform, waiting for the London train. She had followed him into the smoking-carriage. Just as the station-master was going to start the train, Sir John opened the door, with a strong expression of disgust, and took refuge in another carriage. She had tried the baronet as a last resource, and he had slipped through her fingers too. What did it matter to Zilla? She had plenty of time before her, and she belonged to the order of persons who never fail to make the most of her advantages. The other day I saw the announcement of her marriage to a great ironmaster, a man worth millions of money, with establishments to correspond. Bravo, Zilla! No need to look for your nobler motives with the naked eye.

A few days before I became a married man I was a guest at the dinner table of a bachelor friend, and I met Sir John. It would have been ridiculous to leave the room; I merely charged my host to keep my name concealed. I sat next to the baronet, and he doesn’t know, to this day, who his “very agreeable neighbour” was.

Instead of spending our honeymoon abroad, Cecilia and I went back to Long Fallas. We found the place delightful, even in the winter time.

Did I take the Devil’s Spectacles back with me?

No.

Did I throw them away or smash them into small morsels?

Neither. I remembered what Septimus Notman had told me. The one way of getting rid of them was to give them to some other man.

And to what other man did I give them?

I had not forgotten what my rival had said of me in the shrubbery. I gave the Devil’s Spectacles to Sir John.

VII

BETWEEN THE READER
AND THE EDITOR

Are we to have no satisfactory explanation of the supernatural element in the story? How did it come into the Editor’s hands? Was there neither name or address on the manuscript?

There was an address, if you must know. But I decline to mention it.

Suppose I guess that the address was at a lunatic asylum? What would you say to that?

I should say I suspected you of being a critic, and I should have the honour of wishing you good morning.

As “The Magic Spectacles”
in Spirit of the Times 20 Dec 1879
The Seaside Library June 1880

LOVE’S RANDOM SHOT

I

The scene is a famous city in Scotland.

The chief personage is the best police-officer we had in the time when I served the office of Sheriff.

He was an old man, about to retire on a well-earned pension at the period of his life to which my narrative refers. A theft of a priceless picture, which had escaped discovery by the other members of our police force, roused old Benjamin Parley to exert himself for the last time. The money motive was not the motive that mainly influenced him, although the large reward originally offered for the recovery of the picture had been doubled. “If the rest of you can’t find the thief,” he said, “I must take the case in hand, for the honour of Scotland.”

Having arrived at this decision, Parley presented himself at my house. I gave him a letter of introduction to the proprietor of the picture – then on the point of applying for help to London.

You have heard of Lord Dalton’s famous gallery. A Madonna, by Raphael, was the gem of the collection. Early one morning the servants discovered the empty frame, without finding a trace of the means by which the audacious robbery had been committed. Having allowed our veteran officer to make his own preliminary investigations, my lord (a man of rare ability and of marked originality of character) was at once impressed by the startling novelty of the conclusion at which Parley arrived, and by the daring nature of the plan that he devised for solving the mystery of the theft.

Lord Dalton pointed to a letter on his library table, addressed to the Chief of the London Detective Police Force.

“I will delay posting this for a week,” he said. “If, at the end of the time, you send me a sufficiently encouraging first report, the case shall be left unreservedly in your hands.”

At the end of the week the report was sent in. Lord Dalton first destroyed his letter to London, and then spoke to Parley on the subject of the reward.

“As a well-informed police-officer,” he said, “you are no doubt aware that I am one of the three richest men in Scotland. Have you also heard that I am a stingy man?”

“I have heard exactly the contrary, my lord,” Parley answered, with perfect truth.

“Very good. You will be inclined to believe me, when I tell you that the money value of my picture (large as it may be) is the least part of its value in my estimation. The sheriff tells me that you have a wife and two daughters at home, and that you were about to retire on a pension when you offered your services. At your age, I must take that circumstance into consideration. Do you mind telling me what income you have to look forward to; adding your other pecuniary resources (if you have any) to your pension?”

Parley answered the question without hesitation, and without reserve. Ha was not an easy man to astonish; but Lord Dalton’s next words literally struck him speechless.

“Put my Raphael back in the frame, within a month from this day,” said his lordship, “and I will treble your income, and secure it to your widow and children after you.”

In less than three weeks from that date, Benjamin Parley (just arrived from Brussels) walked into the picture gallery, and put the Raphael back into the frame with his own hands. He refused to say how he had recovered the picture. But he announced, with an appearance of self-reproach which entirely failed to deceive Lord Dalton, the disastrous escape of his prisoner on the journey to Scotland. At a later period, scandal whispered that this same prisoner was a vagabond member of my lord’s family, and that Parley’s success had been due, in the first instance, to his wise courage in daring to suspect a nobleman’s relative. I don’t know what your experience may be. For my own part, I have now and then found scandal building on a well-secured foundation.

II

In relating the circumstances which made the generous nobleman and the skilled police-officer acquainted with each other, I have borne in mind certain results, the importance of which you have yet to estimate. The day on which Benjamin Parley received his magnificent reward proved to be the fatal day in his life.

He had originally planned to retire to the village in Perthshire in which he had been born. Being now possessed of an income which enabled him to indulge the ambition of his wife and daughters, it was decided that he should fix his residence in one of the suburbs of the city. Mrs. Parley and her two girls, established in “a genteel villa,” assumed the position of “ladies”; and old Benjamin, when time hung heavy on his hands, was within half an hour’s walk of his colleagues in the police force. “But for my lord’s generosity,” his wife remarked, “he would not have had the resource. If we had gone to Perthshire, he would never, in all likelihood, have seen our city again.”

To give you some idea of this poor fellow’s excellent character, and of the high estimation in which he was deservedly held, I may mention that his retirement was celebrated by the presentation of a testimonial. It assumed the quaint form of a receipted bill, representing the expenses incurred in furnishing his new house. I took the chair at the meeting. The landed gentry, the lawyers, and the merchants were present in large numbers; all equally desirous of showing their respect for a man who, in a position beset by temptations, had set an example of incorruptible integrity from first to last.

Some family troubles of mine, at that time, obliged me to apply for leave of absence. For two months my duties were performed by deputy.

Examining the letters and cards which covered the study-table on my return, I found a morsel of paper with some lines of writing on it in pencil, signed by Parley’s wife. “When you can spare a little time, sir, pray be so good as to let me say a word to you – at your house.”

The handwriting showed plain signs of agitation; and the last three words were underlined. Was the good woman burdened with a domestic secret? and were her husband and children not admitted to her confidence?

I was so busily occupied, after my absence, that I could only make an appointment to see Mrs. Parley at my breakfast time. The hour was so early that she would be sure to find me alone.

The moment she entered the room I saw a change in her, which prepared me for something serious. It may be, perhaps, desirable to add, by way explaining a certain tendency to excitement and exaggeration in Mrs. Parley’s ways of thinking and speaking, that she was a Welsh woman.

“Is there anything wrong at home?” I asked.

She began to cry. “You know how proud I was, sir, of our grand house, and our splendid income. I wish we had gone where we first thought of going – hundred, of miles away from this place! I wish Parley had never seen his lordship, and never earned the great reward!”

“You don’t mean to tell me,” I said, “that you and your husband have quarrelled?”

“Worse, sir, – worse than that. Parley is so changed that my own husband is like a stranger to me. For God’s sake, don’t mention it! In your old age, after sleeping together for thirty years and more, I’m cast off. Parley has his bedroom, and I have mine!” She looked at me – and blushed. At nearly sixty years of age, the poor creature blushed like a young girl!

It is needless to say that the famous question of the French philosopher was on the tip of my tongue: “Who is she?” But I owed it to Parley’s unblemished reputation to hesitate before I committed myself to a positive opinion. The question of the beds was clearly beyond the reach of my interference. “In what other ways does Parley seem to be changed?” I inquired.

“Seem?” she repeated. “Why even the girls notice it! They their father doesn’t care about them now. And it’s true! In our present prosperity, we can afford to pay a governess; and when we first settled in the new house, Parley agreed with me that the poor things ought to be better educated. He has lost all interest in their welfare. If I only mention the matter now, he says, ‘Oh! bother!’ and discourages me in that way. You know, sir, he always dressed respectably, according to his station and time of life. That’s all altered now. He has gone to a new tailor; he wears smart cutaway coats, like the young men; I found an elastic belt among his clothes – the sort of thing they advertise to keep down fat, and preserve the figure. You were so kind as to give him a snuffbox, on his last birthday. It’s of no more use to him now. Benjamin has given up taking snuff.”

Here I thought it desirable, in the interests of good Mrs. Parley herself, to bring the recital of her grievances to a close. The domestic situation (to speak the language of the stage) was more than sufficiently revealed to me. After an exemplary life, the model husband and father had fallen in the way of one of those temptations which are especially associated with the streets of a great city – and had yielded at the end of his career. A disastrous downfall; not altogether without precedent in the history of frail humanity, even at the wintry period of life! I was sorry, truly sorry; but in my position what could I do?

“I am at your service,” I said, “if you will only tell me how I can advise you.”

“Some hussy has got hold of Benjamin!” cried the poor woman. “And I don’t know where to find her. What am I to do? Benjamin’s too deep for me – I believe I shall go mad!”

She fell back on her chair, and began to beat her hands on her lap. If I permitted this hysterical agitation to proceed in its usual course of development, the household would be alarmed by an outburst of screaming. There was but one way of composing Mrs. Parley, and I took it.

“Suppose I speak to your husband?” I suggested.

“Oh, Mr. Sheriff—!”

In Mrs. Parley’s excitable Welsh nature even gratitude threatened to express itself hysterically. I checked the new outbreak by putting some necessary questions. The few facts which I succeeded in eliciting did not present my coming interview with the husband in an encouraging light.

After moving into the new house, Parley had found some difficulty (naturally enough) in reconciling himself to the change in his life. From time to time (as his wife had suggested) he looked in at the police office, and had offered the benefit of his experience to his colleagues when they were in need of advice. For a while these visits to the city produced the good results which had been anticipated. Then followed the very complete and very suspicious change in him, already related to me. While the husband and wife still occupied the same room at night, Mrs. Parley discovered that Benjamin was disturbed by dreams. For the first time in all her experience, she heard him talking in his sleep. Here and there, words escaped him which seemed to allude to a woman – a woman whom he called “my dear” – a woman who had apparently placed some agitating confidence in him. Sensible enough under other circumstances, Mrs. Parley’s jealousy had hurried her into an act of folly. She woke her husband and insisted on an explanation. The result had been the institution of separate bedrooms – on the pretence that Parley’s sense of conjugal duty would not permit him to be the means of disturbing his wife’s rest. Arriving, correctly enough, at the conclusion that he was afraid of betraying himself, Mrs. Parley had tried the desperate experiment of following him privately when he next left the house. A police-officer of forty years’ experience, with a secret to keep, sees before him and behind him, and on his right hand and his left, at one and the same time. Poor Mrs. Parley, discovered as a spy, felt the look that her husband gave her (to use her own expression) “in the marrow of her bones.” His language had been equally alarming. “Try it again,” he said, “and you will have seen the last of me.” She had naturally been afraid to try it again; and there she was, at my breakfast table, with but one hope left – the hope that the Sheriff would assist her!

III

Such was my interview with the wife. My interview with the husband produced one result, for which I was in some degree prepared. It satisfied me that any interference on my part would be worse than useless.

I had certain claims on Parley’s gratitude and respect, which he had hitherto recognised with heartfelt sincerity. When we now stood face to face – before a word had passed between us – I saw one ting clearly: my hold over him was lost.

For Mrs. Parley’s sake I could not allow myself to be discouraged at the outset.

“Your wife was with me yesterday,” I said, “in great distress.”

His voice told me that he had suffered – and was still suffering – keenly. I also noticed that the lines marked by age in his face had deepened. He evidently felt that he stood before me a man self-degraded in his old age. On the other hand, it was just as plain that he was determined to deceive me if I attempted to penetrate his secret.

My one chance of producing the right impression was to appeal to his sense of self-respect, if any such sense was still left in him.

“Don’t suppose that I presume to interfere between you and your wife,” I resumed. “In what little I have now to say to you, I shall bear in mind the high character that you have always maintained, not only among your own friends, but among persons like myself, who are placed above you by the accidents of birth and position.”

“You are very good, sir. I assure you I feel—”

He paused. I waited to let him go on. His eyes dropped before mine. He seemed to be afraid to follow the good impulse that I had roused in him. I tried again.

“Without repeating what Mrs. Parley has said to me,” I proceeded, “I may tell you at what conclusion I have myself arrived. It is only doing you justice to suppose that your wife has been mislaid by false appearances. Will you go back to her, and satisfy that she has been mistaken?”

“She wouldn’t believe me, sir.”

“Will you at least, try the experiment?”

He shook his head doggedly. “Quite useless,” he answered. “My wife’s temper—”

I stopped him there.

“Make some allowance for your wife’s temper,” I said, “and don’t forget that you owe some consideration to your daughters. Spare them the shame and distress of seeing their father and mother at enmity.”

His manner changed: I had said something which appeared to give him confidence.

“Did my wife say anything to you about our girls?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She thought you neglectful of your daughters.”

“Anything else, sir?”

“She said you had, at one time, acknowledged that the girls ought to have a good governess; but she now finds you indifferent to the best interests of your children.”

He lifted one of his hands, with a theatrical exaggeration of gesture, quite new in my experience of him.

“She said that, did she? Now, Mr. Sheriff, judge for yourself what my wife’s complaints of me are worth! I have this day engaged a governess for my children.”

I looked at him.

Once more his eyes dropped before mine.

“Does Mrs. Parley know what you have done?” I inquired.

“She shall know,” he answered loudly, almost insolently, “when I return home.”

“I am obliged to you for coming here, Mr. Parley. Don’t let me detain you any longer.”

“Does that mean, sir, that you disapprove of what I have done?”

“I pronounce no opinion.”

“Does it mean that you doubt the governess’s character?”

“It means that I regret having troubled you to come here – and that I have no more to say.”

He walked to the door – opened it – hesitated – and came back to me.

“I ask your pardon, sir, if I have been in any way rough in speaking to you. You will understand perhaps that I am a little troubled in my mind.” He considered with himself, and took from his pocket the snuffbox to which his wife had alluded. “I’ve given up the habit, sir, of taking snuff. It’s slovenly, and – and not good for the health. But I don’t feel the less honoured by your gift. I shall prize it gratefully, as long as I live.”

He turned his head away – but not quickly enough to hide the tears that filled his eyes. For a moment all that was best and truest in the nature of Benjamin Parley had forced its way to expression. But the devil in possession of him was not to be cast out. He became basely ashamed of the good impulse that did him honour. “The sun is very bright this morning,” he muttered confusedly; “my eyes are rather weak, sir. I wish you good morning.”

IV

Left by myself I rang the bell, and gave the servant his instructions. If Mr. or Mrs. Parley called again at the house they were to be told that I was not able to see them.

Was this a harsh act on my part? Let us look the matter fairly in the face and see.

It is possible that some persons, not having had my experience of the worst aspects of human nature, might have been inclined to attribute Mrs. Parley’s suspicions to her jealous temper, and might have been not unwilling to believe that her husband had engaged a governess for his children in perfect good faith. No such merciful view of the matter presented itself to my mind. Nothing could be plainer to me than that Parley was an instrument in the hands of a bold and wicked woman; who had induced him, for reasons of her own, to commit an act which was nothing less than an outrage on his wife. To what purpose could I interfere? The one person who could help poor Mrs. Parley must be armed with the authority of a relation. And, even in this case, what good result could be anticipated if the woman played her part as governess discreetly, and if Parley held firm? A more hopeless domestic prospect, so far, had never presented itself to my view. It vexed and humiliated me to find myself waiting helplessly for events. What else could I do?

On the next day Mrs. Parley called, and the servant followed his instructions.

On the day after (with the pardonable pertinacity of a woman in despair), she wrote to me.

The letter has been long since destroyed; but the substance of it remains in my memory. It informed me that the governess was actually established in the house; and described her, it is needless to say, as the most shameless wretch that had ever breathed the breath of life. Asked if he had obtained a reference to her character, Parley had replied that he was old enough to know how to engage a governess: that he refused to answer impertinent questions; and that he had instructed “Miss Beaumont” (this was the lady’s well-sounding name) to follow his example. She had already contrived to steal her way into the confidence of her two innocent pupils, and to produce a favourable impression on a visitor who had called at the house that morning. In one word, Mrs. Parley’s position was, on her own showing, beyond the reach of help. As I had anticipated, the false governess played her part with discretion, and the infatuated husband asserted his authority.

Ten days later, I happened to be driving through the suburb of our city, and I discovered Mrs. Parley in close conversation with one of the younger members of the detective police force, named Butler. They were walking slowly along a retired path which led out of the high-road; so interested apparently in what they had to say to each other that they failed to notice me, though I passed close by them.

The next morning Butler presented himself at my office, and asked leave to speak to me. Being busy that day, I sent a message back, inquiring if the matter was of any importance. The answer was, “Of most serious importance.” He was immediately admitted to my private room.

V

The little I had heard of this young police officer represented him to be “a rising man,” resolute and clever, and not very scrupulous in finding his way to his own ends. “Thoroughly useful, but wants looking after.” There was the superintendent’s brief description of Mr. Butler.

I warned him at the outset that I had but little time to spare. “Say what is necessary, but put it in few words. What is your business with me?”

“My business relates, sir, to something that has happened in the house of Benjamin Parley. He has got himself into a serious scrape.”

I should have made a bad detective policeman. When I hear anything that interests or excites me, my face has got a habit of owning it. Butler had merely to look at me, and to see that he might pass over certain explanations which he had been prepared to offer.

“Mrs. Parley told me, sir, that you had permitted her husband to speak to you. May I take it for granted that you have heard of the governess? Parley met the woman in the street. He was struck by her personal appearance; he got into conversation with her; he took her into a restaurant, and gave her a dinner; he heard her interesting story; he fell in love with her, like an infernal old fool – oh, I beg your pardon!”

“Quite needless to apologise, Mr. Butler. When he permitted the woman to be governess to his children, he behaved like a scoundrel, as well as a fool. Go on. You have discovered, of course, what object she has in establishing herself in Parley’s house?”

“I will ask leave to tell you first, sir, how I made the discovery.”

“Why?”

“Because you won’t believe who the woman really is, unless I convince you beforehand that I have committed no mistake.”

“Is she a person of celebrity?”

“She is known wherever there is a newspaper published.”

“And conceals herself, of course,” I said, “under an assumed name?”

“And what is more, sir, she would never have been found out – but for the wife’s jealousy. Everybody but that old woman was wheedled into liking Miss Beaumont. Mrs. Parley believed the charming governess to be an imposter, and, being determined to expose her, applied to me for advice. The one morsel of evidence that induced me to look into the matter, came from the servant girl. Miss Beaumont’s bedroom was at the back of the house. One night the servant heard her softly open her window, and saw her empty her wash-hand basin into the garden. The customary means of emptying her basin, were, of course, ready and waiting in her room. Have you ever dropped into an actor’s dressing-room, sir, when he has done his work on the stage?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you accidentally looked at the basin when he washes his face before he goes home?”

“Not that I remember.”

“In such cases, sir, the actor often leaves, what you may call, a tinge of his complexion in the water; and the colour might strike an observant person. If I had not begun life on the stage, it would never have occurred to me that Miss Beaumont’s reason for privately emptying her basin might be connected with a false complexion – occasionally removed, you know, at night, and put on again the next morning. A mere guess, you will say, and more likely to be wrong than right. I don’t dispute it; I only say that my guess encouraged me to make one or two inquiries. It’s needless to trouble you, sir, by speaking of the difficulties that I found in my way. Let me only say that I contrived to get the better of them. Last night, after old Parley was safe in bed, his wife and his servant and I invaded the sanctuary of Miss Beaumont’s room. We were not at all afraid of waking the lady, having taken the precaution (at supper time) of giving her – let us say, the blessing of a good night’s rest. She had seemingly been a little irritable and restless before she went to sleep. At any rate, her wig was thrown on the floor. We passed by that, and went to the bed. She lay on her back; her mouth was open, and her arms were flung out on either side of her. Her own pretty fair hair was not very long; and her false colour (she was disguised, sir, as a dark lady in public) was left that night on her face and neck and hands. So far, we had only discovered that she was, what Mrs. Parley believed her to be – an imposter, unknown. It was left for me to find out who the woman really was. The fastening of her nightdress round the throat had given way. Her bosom was exposed. Upon my soul I was terrified when the truth burst on me! There it was, sir, and no mistake – there, on the right side, under the right breast—”

I started out of my chair. On my writing-table lay a handbill, which I had read and re-read till I knew it by heart. It had been distributed by the London authorities throughout the United Kingdom; and it contained the description of a woman suspected of a terrible crime, who had baffled the pursuit of the police. I looked at the handbill; I looked at the man who was speaking to me.

“Good God!” I cried, “did you see the scar?”

“I saw it, Mr. Sheriff, as plainly as I see you.”

“And the false eye-tooth on the left side of her mouth?”

“Yes, sir – with the gold fastening to speak for it.”

Years have passed since the conversation took place which I have just related. But some persons must remember a famous criminal trail in London – and would recognise, if I felt myself at liberty to mention it, the name of the most atrocious murderess of modern times.

VI

The warrant was issued for the woman’s arrest. Competent witnesses identified her, and the preliminaries of the law took their course.

To me, the serious part of the discovery was the part which cast suspicion on the unfortunate Benjamin Parley. Appearances were indisputably against him. He was not only suspected; he was actually charged with assisting the murderess to escape from justice. For the trouble that had now fallen on him, I could be of some use in assisting Parley, and in comforting his unhappy family.

You will hardly believe the assertion, but I declare it to be true, the man’s infatuation kept its hold on him more firmly than ever. His own interests were of no sort of importance to him; he seemed to be but little affected even by the distress of his wife and family; his one over-whelming anxiety was for the prisoner. “I believe in her innocence,” he actually said to me, “as I believe in my religion. She is falsely accused, sir, of that horrible crime.” He was incapable of resenting, he was even incapable of appreciating the cruel deception that she had practised on him. In one word, he was more devotedly in love with her than ever.

And, mind, there was no madness in this! I can answer for it, from my own experience; he was in perfect possession of his faculties.

The order came to have the woman removed to London, to be tried at the Central Criminal Court. Parley had heard of it. In the most moving terms he entreated me to have him set at liberty, and to trust him with the duty of taking charge of the prisoner!

It was my business to see her placed in the railway carriage, under proper guard. The train started in the morning. She refused to leave her bed. As a matter of course, I was sent for in this emergency.

The murderess was not a beautiful woman; she was not even a pretty woman. But she had a voluptuous smile, a singularly musical voice, a fine figure, and a supreme confidence in herself. The moment I entered the room, the horrible creature tried her powers of fascination on the Sheriff – she assumed the character of an innocent victim, overwhelmed by suffering of body and mind. I looked at my watch, and told her she had no time to lose. Not in the least disconcerted, she shifted to a new character; she took me, gaily and cynically, into her confidence. “My dear sir, you would never have caught me,” she said, “if I had not made one mistake. As governess in the family of an ex-police-officer I should have been safe from discovery if I had not taken for granted that I could twist Parley’s old woman round my little finger, like the rest of them. Who would have thought she could have been jealous of an ugly old husband at her time of life? Wouldn’t you have said yourself, ‘All that sort of thing must have been over long ago, when a woman is sixty years old and more?’ Can there be jealousy without love? And do we love when we are hideously flabby creatures covered with wrinkles? Oh, fie! fie!”

I took out my watch once more.

“If I don’t hear that you are up and dressed in ten minutes,” I said, “I will have you wrapped in a blanket and taken to the railway by main force.”

With that warning I left the room. The women in charge of her told me afterward that her language was too terrible to be repeated. But she was quick enough to see that I was in earnest; and she was up and dressed in time for the train.

VII

When I tell you that Parley was one of the witnesses examined at the trial, you will understand that we had relieved him from the serious charge of being (in the legal phrase) “an accessory after the fact.” He went to London as firmly convinced of her innocence as ever. She was found guilty on irresistible evidence, and sentenced to death.

On the conclusion of the trial, Parley had not returned to his family; he had not even written. His wife followed him to London. He seemed hardly to know her again.

The one idea in possession of him was the hopeless idea of obtaining a reprieve. He was absolutely indifferent to every other earthly consideration. Ignorant people thought him mad. He wrote to the newspapers; he haunted the Government offices; he forced his way into the house of the judge who had presided at the trial. An eminent medical man was consulted. After careful examination he pronounced the patient to be perfectly sane.

Through the influence of friends in London, who were known to the city authorities, the poor wretch gained admittance to the prison, while the criminal was waiting for execution. His wife heard what happened at the interview; but was never able to repeat it; to me or to anyone. The same miserable cry always escaped her if she was pressed on the subject. “Oh don’t ask me! Don’t ask me!”

On the evening before the execution, he burst into a fit of hysterical crying. That outbreak of violent emotion was followed by a cataleptic seizure. More than eight and forty hours passed before consciousness returned. They feared the loss of reason when he had gained the capacity to feel and suffer. No such result attended his recovery.

On the same day he spoke of her to others for the first and last time. He said, very quietly, with a remarkable stillness in his face, “Is she dead?” They answered, Yes. He said no more.

The next morning his wife asked if he would go back to Scotland with her. He was quite ready to do anything that she wished. Two or three days after their return I saw him. His grey hair had become perfectly white; his manner was subdued; his face, full of vivid expression in past days, seemed to have fallen into a state of changeless repose. That was all.

After an interval, I asked his wife and children if they noticed any change for the worse in him. Except that he was very silent, they noticed no change for the worse. He was once more the good husband and kind father of their past happy experience. Did he ever speak of the woman? Never.

I was not quite satisfied. A month later Mrs. Parley asked me if I thought a friend of mine, who was one of our greatest living physicians, could do Benjamin any good. I asked what was the matter with him. “He seems to be getting weak,” was the only reply.

The same day I took my friend with me to Parley’s house. After looking at the patient, and putting some questions, he asked to be allowed to make a complete examination. The two retired. When they returned, Mrs. Parley was naturally a little alarmed. “Is there anything that’s wrong, sir?” she asked. And to my astonishment, the doctor answered, “Nothing that I can find out.”

When we had left the house, I put the question to him, “What does this mean?”

“It means,” he answered, “that the old man is dying; and I can’t find out why.”

Once in every week the great physician visited Parley, always refusing to take his fee; but now and then asking permission to bring a medical friend with him. One day he called on me, and said, “If you want to say ‘good-bye’ to the old police-officer, you have no time to lose.” I went to the house the same day. Parley was asleep. I returned some hours later. Parley was dead. I asked what he had died of, and the doctor said, “We have obtained the widow’s permission to make a post mortem examination. Wait a little.”

I waited until the funeral was over, and then returned to the subject.

“What discoveries did you make at the post-mortem examination?”

“We made no discoveries.”

“But there must have been some cause for his death?”

“I called it ‘decay of nature’ on the certificate,” my friend answered. “A mere pretence! The man’s constitution was sound; and he had not reached seventy years of age. A registrar of deaths has nothing to do with questions of sentiment. A doctor’s certificate is bound to deal with facts, otherwise—”

He paused, and drew me out of hearing of the mourners lingering in the churchyard.

“Don’t mention it among my colleagues,” he said. “If there really is such a thing – Benjamin Parley has died of a broken heart.”

The Pictorial World in London Christmas number 1883

Le Figaro Illustré Christmas edition 1883

Love’s Random Shot and Other Stories by Wilkie Collins (Seaside Library: New York: George Munro’s Sons, 1894)

FIE! FIE!
OR, THE FAIR PHYSICIAN

I

On Christmas Eve, Mrs. Crossmichael made an interesting announcement in her family circle. She said, “I am positively determined to write an account of it; I shall furnish the raw material, and an editor shall manufacture the narrative.”

Whatever is said of Mrs. Crossmichael’s family in these pages must be said from Mrs. Crossmichael’s point of view. The editor would prefer his own point of view; but he knows his lady, and uses his pen cautiously when he mentions her father, her mother, and her unmarried sister. A profound scholar and a handsome old man; a venerable lady with grand remains of beauty; a sweet girl, who is also an accomplished musician – named respectively Reverend and Mrs. Skirton, and Miss Salome Skirton – comprise the audience addressed by Mrs. Crossmichael, when she expressed her resolution to produce the present narrative.

“My mind being quite made up,” she said, “I am now ready to hear what you think of it.” Her husband came in at the moment; but she took no notice of him.

Mrs. Skirton smiled over her knitting, and made no remark. In the cases of some rare persons, silent smiles have a meaning of their own: Mrs. Skirton’s smile meant gentle encouragement. Reverend Mr. Skirton expressed himself in words. “Have it privately printed, my dear, and it cannot fail to be productive of advantage to others.” Miss Salome modestly exhibited her father’s view in detail. “It will be productive,” she said “of a warning to young ladies.” Nobody consulted Mr. Crossmichael, sitting modestly in a corner. Like the present Editor (but with infinitely superior opportunities), he knew his lady, and he kept his opinions to himself. Had he not promised at the altar (as Mrs. Crossmichael frequently reminded him) to love, honour, and obey his wife? They were the happiest married couple in all England.

Venerable and learned and charming as they were, the family had failed, nevertheless, to penetrate the object which Mrs. Crossmichael had in view. It was not to please her excellent mother; it was not to “prove of advantage to others;” it was not to “offer a warning to young ladies,” that she had determined to take up her pen. Her one motive for favouring the Editor with his “raw material” shall be stated in the lady’s own words:

“I hate her.”

Who was she? And why did Mrs. Crossmichael hate her?

Here, again, the expressive brevity of “the raw material” may be quoted with advantage. The instructions run as follows: “Say the worst you can of her at starting; and condemn her unheard by means of her own visiting card.”

Here it is:

Sophia Pillico, M.D.

Is M.D. sufficiently intelligible? Let no hasty persons answer, “Of course!” There are full-grown inhabitants of the civilised universe who have never heard of Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, or Napoleon the Great. There may be other inhabitants, who are not aware that we have invented fair physicians in these latter days. M.D. (let it be known to these benighted brethren) means that Sophia has passed her examination, and has taken her Doctor’s degree. Mrs. Crossmichael is further willing to admit that Miss Pillico is sufficiently young, and – we all know there is no accounting for tastes – passably pretty. (NOTE, attached to the instructions: “We are not on oath, and we may be allowed our own merciful reserves. Never mind her figure – oh dear no, never mind her figure: Men-doctors get on very well with clumsy legs and no waists. Why should women doctors not do the same? Equal justice to the two sexes, Sophia, was the subject of your last lecture – I was present, and heard you say it!”)

The second question still remains unanswered. Why did Mrs. Crossmichael hate her?

For three good reasons. Because she delivered lectures on the rights of women in our Assembly Room. Because she set herself up in medical practice, and in our south-eastern suburb of London, and within five minutes walk of our house. Because she became acquainted with our next-door neighbours, and to my sister Salome. The Editor can bear witness to this. (He bears witness with pleasure.) The Editor can describe our next-door neighbours. (No: he is not sufficiently well acquainted with them. He knows a lady who can take the story, at the present stage of it, out of his hands – and to that lady he makes his bow, and offers his pen.)

Mrs. Crossmichael abhors flattery, and considers descriptions to be the bane of literature. If she is to accept the pen, it must be on one condition. The next-door neighbours shall describe themselves.

II

Our suburb possesses the most convenient detached houses in all England. The gardens are worthy of the houses – and the rents are frightful. A sudden death, and an executor in a hurry, offered the lease of the next house a bargain. Alderman Sir John Dowager took it on speculation, and is waiting to dispose of it on his own outrageous terms. In the meantime, he and his family occupy the premises. Sir John is stingy; his wife is deaf; his daughter is sour, his son is sulky. The one other member of this detestable family is an interesting exception to the rest: he is Lady Dowager’s son, by her first husband. Let this gentleman wait a little while, and be introduced presently by himself.

Our new neighbours took possession during an excessively hot summer. On the first day, they were occupied in settling themselves in their house. On the second day, they enjoyed their garden. We were sitting on our lawn; and they were sitting on their lawn. In consideration of Lady Dowager’s deafness, they talked loud enough (especially the daughter, Miss Bess, and the son, Young John) to be heard all over our grounds. This said, let them describe their own characters in an extract from their conversation. I am the reporter. And I own I peeped over the wall.

Stingy Sir John. – I gave orders, my dear, about those two pieces of bread that were left yesterday; and I find nobody can give any account of them. Is this the manner in which I am to be treated by my own servants?

Deaf Lady Dowager (addressing her daughter). – What does your papa say, Bess?

Sour Bess. – Pa’s abusing the servants; and all about two bits of bread.

Sir John. – I’ll thank you, miss, not to misrepresent me to my own face. You do it on purpose.

Sulky Young John. – She does everything on purpose.

Miss Bess. – That’s a lie.

Lady Dowager. – What is it? I can’t hear. What is it?

Sir John. – My dear, your deafness is certainly growing on you.

Young John. – And a good thing too, in such a family as ours.

Sir John. – That is a most improper observation to make.

Miss Bess. – He looked at me when he made it.

Lady Dowager. – Who’s speaking now? Bess! what is the matter?

Miss Bess. – Papa and John are quarrelling with me as usual.

Sir John. – How dare you speak in that way of your father? Over and over again, Miss Elizabeth, I have had occasion to remark—

Young John. – It’s a perfect misery to live in the same house with her.

Sir John. – What do you mean, sir, by interrupting me?

Lady Dowager. – I think it’s rather hard on me that nobody speaks loud enough to be heard. I shall go into the house.

Sir John (looking after his wife). – Her temper gets more irritable every day.

Bess (looking at Young John)

Young John (looking at Bess)

(simultaneously) – No wonder!

There are our next-door neighbours presented by themselves. Why do I introduce such people into these pages? Alas! I am not able to keep them out. They are mixed up, by the inscrutable decrees of Providence, with Sophia Pillico wickedness, and with my sister Salome’s dearest hopes in life. Does my sister’s Christian name sound disagreeably? Let me mention the associations; and no reasonable person will object to it. She was called Salome, and I was called Lois, after my father’s two maiden sisters. Excellent women! They lived in the West of England – they left us their money – and they went to Heaven. (Instructions to the Editor: Now go on.)

III

The Editor introduces Mr. and Mrs. Wholebrook; directors of the famous Hydropathic Establishment at Cosgrove.

As man and wife, they were naturally accustomed to talk over the affairs of the day, in bed. One night, they held an especially interesting conversation. Both agreed – they had not been very long married – in lamenting the departure of a retiring member of the household; registered in the books by the odd name of, “Otto Fitzmark.”

“Why should he leave us?” Mr. Wholebrook asked. “He has not gone through the cure; and, when I inquired if he had any complaint to make, he spoke in the most gratifying manner of the comfort of the house, and the excellence of the cooking.”

“My dear, if you knew him as well as I do—”

“What do you mean, Louisa? Has Mr. Fitzmark been—?”

“Don’t be a fool, James. Mr. Fitzmark is a ladies’ man; young and handsome, and in delicate health. He likes to confide in women, poor fellow; especially when they happen to be – there! that will do; I forgive you: don’t interrupt me again. And understand this: I, who am in Mr. Otto’s confidence, expected him to say he was going back to London, at least a week since.”

“Is it business, my dear?”

“Business! Mr. Fitzmark has absolutely nothing to do. His valet is a treasure; and he has a comfortable income left him by his father.”

“His father was a foreigner, wasn’t he?”

“Good Heavens! what has that got to do with it?”

“I only spoke. If I am to be taken up short because I only speak, we’ll say good night.”

“Don’t be angry, darling! Won’t you forgive me? won’t you? won’t you?”

“What were we talking about, dear?”

“What indeed! Wasn’t it Mr. Fitzmark’s father? You were quite right about him: he was sort of half foreigner. He settled in England, and married an Englishwoman; she led him a horrid life. Mr. Otto – you don’t mind my calling him by his Christian name? I like manly men, James, like you; I only pity Mr. Otto. Always delicate, brought up at home, indulged in everything. His stupid mother married again; and he didn’t get on with the new family; and he had a private tutor; and he and the tutor went abroad; and there he had it all his own way, and was flattered by everybody. Are you going to sleep, dear?”

“No! No!”

“You see I want you to understand that Mr. Otto has his whim and caprices – and soon gets tired when the novelty of a thing wears off. But, there’s another reason for his leaving our place; there’s a lady in the case. He hasn’t mentioned her name to me: she lives in London or in the neighbourhood, I’m not sure which. Plays divinely on the piano, and is lovely and elegant, and all that. He hasn’t openly avowed his admiration – not having made up his mind yet about her family. She has a married sister, who rather frightens him; clever, and a will of her own, and so on. However, to come to the point, his main reason for trying our place – What? his main reason must be his health? Nothing of the sort, you dear simple creature! He never expects to be well again. Not that he disbelieves in the cold water cure; but what he really wanted was to try if absence from the young lady would weaken the impression – or, as he put it, rather funnily, if deluges of cold water could drown his memory of a charming girl. She’s not to be disposed of, James, in that way. Wet sheets won’t pack her out; and ten tumblers of cold water a day only make her more lively than ever. Well, it’s past a joke; he is really going back to her tomorrow. Love – ah, We know it, don’t we? – love is a wonderful thing! What? Asleep? He is asleep. Snoring, positively snoring. And kicking me. Brute! brute!”

IV

Mr Otto Fitzmark reached London, late in the evening.

He was so fatigued by the journey, that he went straight to the rooms prepared for him in Sir John’s house. On those occasions when he visited his mother, his stepfather arranged – with absolute shamelessness peculiar to misers – to receive compensation privately for trouble and expense. When Lady Dowager sometimes complained that her son treated the house as if it were an hotel, she little thought what a defence of his conduct lay hidden in Sir John’s guilty pocket.

The next morning, the valet – a grave, ponderous, and respectable English servant – came in with coffee and the news, as usual.

“I have had a wretched night, Frederick. Sir John must have got his beastly bed a bargain. What’s the news? The last time I was here I was driven away by a row in the family. Any more quarrels this time?”

“The worst row I remember, sir (if I may be allowed to say so), in all our experience,” Frederick answered.

“Is my mother in it?”

“It’s said to be Lady Dowager’s doing, sir.”

“The devil it is! Give me some more sugar. Did you make this coffee yourself?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Go to the place in Piccadilly, and buy something that really is coffee: this is muck. Well? what’s the new row about?”

“About a woman, sir.”

“You don’t mean to say Sir John—”

“I beg your pardon, sir, I ought to have expressed myself more correctly. The woman in question is a She-Doctor.”

“No wonder there’s a row! The fair physician is a bony old wretch with a wig and spectacles, of course?”

“That’s not the account given to me, sir, by the footman. Except Miss Salome, next door, Sir John’s man says she’s the prettiest young woman he’s seen for many a long day past.”

Otto stared at the valet in astonishment. Frederick went steadily on with his story.

“The lady has lately set up in practice, in the neighbourhood. And, what with her good looks and her lectures, she’s turned the people’s heads hereabouts, already. The resident medical man has got a red nose, and is suspected of drinking. He’s losing his lady-patients as fast as he can. They say Miss Pillico—”

“Miss – who?”

“The lady’s name, sir, is Miss Sophia Pillico.”

“I pity Sophia with all my heart. The sooner she changes her name the better.”

“That’s the joke among the women downstairs, sir. I was about to say that Miss Pillico is not content to doctor her own sex only. She considers it a part of the Rights of Women to doctor the men; and she has begun with Sir John—”

Here Frederick incomprehensibly checked himself, and prepared for shaving his master by sharpening the razor.

“Why don’t you go on?” said Otto. “Sophia means to doctor the men; and she’s beginning with Sir John—”

He suddenly checked himself, and started up in the bed. His next question seemed to burst out of him irrepressibly. “You don’t mean to say, Frederick, that my mother is jealous?”

The valet, still sharpening the razor, looked up. “That’s the row, sir,” he answered as gravely as ever.

Otto fell back on the bed, and pulled the clothes over his face. Deaf Lady Dowager owned to having arrived at sixty years of age. Sir John’s biography (in the past time when he had been Lord Mayor of London) fixed the date of his birth at a period of seventy-four years since. The bedclothes heaved, and the bed shook; violent emotion of some kind was overwhelming Lady Dowager’s son. Not the ghost of a smile – though he was at liberty to indulge his sense of humour as things were now – appeared on the wooden face of Frederick. He laid out his shaving materials, and waited until Mr. Fitzmark’s beard was ready for him.

Otto rose again above the horizon of the bedclothes. He looked completely exhausted – but that was all. The altar of appearances, waiting for the sacrifice, claimed and received the necessary recognition. Having first got out of bed – by way of separating himself from irreverent associations possibly lurking in the mind of his valet – Otto posed, as the French say, in an attitude of severe propriety.

“Drop the subject,” he said.

Frederick gently lathered his master’s chin, and answered, “Just so, sir.”

V

Otto breakfasted in his own room.

His mother’s maid brought word that her ladyship was ill in bed, with a sick headache: she would see Mr. Fitzmark towards luncheon time. The valet not being present to draw his own conclusions, Otto privately extracted information from the maid. Miss Doctor Pillico would professionally visit Sir John, at her usual hour – two o’clock. And in what part of the house would Sir John receive her? He looked at himself in the glass when he put that question. The maid began to understand the nature of his interest in the medical young woman. She took the liberty of smiling, and answered, “In the library, sir.”

Towards two o’clock, Otto called for his hat and cane, and said he would take a turn in the garden.

Before he went downstairs he once more surveyed himself in the glass. Yes: he could not have been more becomingly dressed – and he looked, in his own delicate way, surprisingly well. His auburn hair and whiskers; his fair complexion; his sensitive mouth, and his long white hands were in perfect order. In the garden he met Young John, sulkily smoking.

“How is Bess?” he asked indulgently. Young John answered, “I don’t know; I’ve not been on speaking terms with my sister since yesterday.”  “And how is your father?” Young John answered, “I don’t care. He told me last week I was a sulky lout, and he has not apologised yet; I don’t speak to him, either.” Otto left his half-brother, cordially agreeing with his half-brother’s father.

The library opened, by means of French windows, on the terrace. He picked a flower for his buttonhole, and sauntered that way. The windows being open, he entered the room in a genial impulsive manner. “Ha, Sir John, how are you? Oh, I beg your pardon!”

Sir John was seated bolt upright in his chair, looking at vacancy, and drawing in and puffing out his breath in a highly elaborate manner. A finely-developed young woman, with brown hair and eyes, and warm rosy cheeks, dressed to perfection in a style of severe simplicity, was sitting close by him. Her arm was around his neck, and her ear was at his breast. So absorbed was this charming creature in listening that she held up a pretty plump little hand, in mute entreaty for silence. “Yes,” she said, in clear, positive tones, “you confirm my diagnosis, Sir John; I persist in saying that your medical attendant has mistaken the case.” Her bright resolute eyes, turning towards Otto, softened as they rested on his beautiful hair and his sensitive lips: a little increase of colour deepened the delicately ruddy tint of her cheeks. “Pray excuse me,” she resumed, with a captivating smile; “I am, in a professional point of view, naturally interested in Sir John. His life is public property: if I make any mistake here, I disgrace myself – and my cause! – in the eyes of the nation.” Otto’s countenance preserved a gravity worthy of his valet. “Permit me to introduce myself,” he said, “before I renew my apologies. I am Sir John’s stepson, Otto Fitzmark.” The charming Doctor bowed with a look of modest interest. Sir John did what he had done from the first – he sat in solemn silence, looking foolish. It was not everybody who remembered that he had once been Lord Mayor of London, and who attended to him as a famous personage. It was also the first occasion (for at least forty years past) on which he had felt the arm of a handsome young woman round his neck, and the head of a handsome young woman on his breast. Add that the fair physician had said, on the first day of her attendance, “It is a rule of mine never to accept fees from public characters” – and the catalogue of Sir John’s overwhelming emotions will be complete.

“I can only atone for my intrusion in one way,” Otto proceeded. “Permit me to hope for an early opportunity of improving our acquaintance – and to return to the garden.”

“Not on my account, Mr. Fitzmark! In any other case, my visit would be at an end. But I am perhaps morbidly anxious to ‘make assurance doubly sure’ (the words of Shakespeare, I think?) in the case of Sir John. Besides, I have the prejudice of the world against me; always on the look-out for an opportunity of asserting that a woman is not fit to be a doctor.”

This seemed to be the right place for a burst of enthusiasm: Otto did it with perfect tact and dexterity. “Miss Pillico, I sincerely sympathise with you in the battle you are fighting against ignorance and stupidity. The Woman-Movement, in all its departments, has my heartfelt admiration and good wishes!” His heavenly blue eyes became irresistible as this expression of generous feeling escaped him.

Sophia was too proud and too grateful to be able to reply in words. She rewarded the friend of the Women by a look – and turned with a sigh to business and Sir John.

“May I try once more before I write my prescription?” she asked. “No, my dear sir, your back this time. Lean well forward – so – and now draw a long breath.” Her pretty hand grasped his shoulder, and her little rosy ear pressed (medically pressed) Sir John’s broad back.

At this interesting moment the library door opened. Lady Dowager appeared – and paused indignantly on the threshold. Otto advanced to salute his mother. Her ladyship waved him back with one hand, and pointed to the Doctor and the patient with the other. Sir John visibly trembled. Sophia kept her ear at his back as composedly as if nothing had happened.

“Look at her!” said Lady Dowager, addressing Otto in the muffled monotonous tones peculiar to the deaf. “Hugging my husband before my face – and he seventy-four years old, last birthday. You unnatural hussy, let go of him. You a doctor indeed? I know what you are. Fie! fie!”

“My dear mother!”

“I can’t hear you, Otto.”

“My dear mother!”

“Yes, yes; I’ll kiss you directly. Look at that old fool, your stepfather! He a knight; he an alderman? Ha! ha! a nasty, mangy, rusty old Tomcat. I won’t live with him any longer. You’re a witness, Otto – you see what’s going on in that chair – I’ll have a divorce. Ha! look at her hair,” said Lady Dowager, as Sir John’s physician quietly lifted her head from Sir John’s back – “look at her hair, all rumpled with her horrid passions. I blush for my sex. Fie, Miss Pillico – fie!”

Sophia sat down at the desk, and wrote her prescription. “Two tablespoonfuls, Sir John, by measure glass, three times in the twenty-four hours. Your lungs are as sound as mine. Suppressed gout – that’s what is the matter with you – suppressed gout.”

She put on her bonnet (laid aside in the interests of auscultation), and held out her hand to Otto, with modest frankness. “A friend to my cause, Mr. Fitzmark, is my friend. Your excellent mother,” she continued, encountering the furious eyes of Lady Dowager with a little pleasant smile, “is naturally prejudiced against me. Early education – on the narrow stand-point of fifty years since – has much to answer for. I am sorry to have made this excellent lady angry; and I heartily forgive the heard words she has said to me. On the day after tomorrow, Sir John, I will look in, and see what my prescription has done for you. Thank you, Mr. Fitzmark, I have no carriage to call; I am not rich enough to keep a carriage. Besides, my next visit is only next door. Ah, you know the Skirtons? The daughter is indeed a sweet girl. And the dear old father,” Miss Pillico added, demurely announcing the medical conquest of another elderly gentleman, “is my patient. Neuralgia, ignorantly treated as pure rheumatism. Good morning, my lady.”

She bowed respectfully to the formidable enemy of the Rights of Women – posted at the doorway, and following her with glaring eyes as she glided out.

“Ha! she’s going to the other old fool now,” said Lady Dowager. “Susannah and the Elders! Do you hear, Miss Pillico? I call you Susannah and the Elders!” She turned to her guilty husband (rising to retreat), with a look which threw him back into his chair. “Now, Sir John!”

Otto was too wise to remain in the room. He slipped into the garden.

After taking a turn or two, reflection convinced him that it was his duty to pay a visit next door. He had an opportunity of comparing two different orders of beauty, as represented by Sophia and Salome, which it would be injudicious on his part to neglect. A man of his tastes would be naturally interested in comparing the two girls together. At the same time, he had not ceased to feel the attraction that had lured him back to London: he was true to his young lady. When he entered Mr. Skirton’s house, it was with loyal conviction that Salome’s superiority would be proved by comparison.

VI

In ten day’s time events had made a great advance. Miss Pillico’s patients felt the powerful influence of Miss Pillico treatment. Sir John’s improved health bore witness to the capacity of his new doctor; Mr. Skirton was well enough to give a small musical party at his house; Mr. Otto Fitzmark, false to Mrs. Wholebrook and Hydropathy, was entered triumphantly on Miss Pillico’s sick list. Last, but by no means least, Lady Dowager had anticipated her divorce by retiring to the seaside.

The case of Mr. Fitzmark was not sufficiently formidable, in the opinion of his new physician, to seclude him from the pleasures of Society. He was allowed to accept an invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Skirton’s musical entertainment – and, by a happy combination of circumstances, he and his medical adviser entered the drawing-room together.

The primitive little party began at eight o’clock. By half-past eleven, the guests had retired, the master and mistress of the house has gone to bed – and Mr. and Mrs. Crossmichael and Salome were left together in an empty room.

Mrs. Crossmichael issued her orders to her husband. “Go to the club, and return in half-an-hour. You needn’t come in again. Wait for me in the cab.”

The one person in the way having been disposed of, the conference between the sisters began.

“Now, Salome, we can have a little talk. You have been wretchedly out of spirits all the evening.”

“You would have been out of spirits, Lois, in my place, if you had seen them come into the room together as if they were man and wife already!”

“Aggravating,” Mrs. Crossmichael admitted; “but you might have controlled yourself when you went to the piano; I never heard you play so badly. Let us get back to Mr. Fitzmark. My opinion of him doesn’t matter – I may, and do, think him a poor effeminate creature, quite unworthy of such a girl as you are. The question is, what do you think? Are you, or are you not, seriously in love with him?”

“I know it’s weak of me,” Salome answered piteously; “and I haven’t got any reasons to give. Oh, Lois, I do love him!”

“Stop!” said Mrs. Crossmichael. “If you begin to cry, I leave you to your fate. Stop it! stop it! I won’t have your eyes dim; I won’t have your nose red. I want your eyes, and I want your nose, for my argument.”

This extraordinary announcement effectually controlled the flow of Salome’s tears.

“Now look at me,” the resolute lady resumed. “Yes, you will do. You see the glass, at the other end of the room. Go, and look at yourself. I mean what I say. Go!”

Salome obeyed, and contemplated the style of beauty, immortalised by Byron in one line: “A kind of sleepy Venus was Dudu.” The glass drew a pretty picture, presenting soft drowsy languishing grey eyes – plentiful hair, bright with the true golden colour, as distinguished from the hideous counterfeit – a pure pale complexion, a mild smile, and a weak little chin, made to be fondled and kissed. A more complete contrast to the brown and brisk beauty of Sophia Pillico could not have been found, through the whole range of female humanity.

“Well,” said Mrs. Crossmichael, “are you quite satisfied that you have no reason to be afraid of Sophia, on personal grounds? Yes! yes! I know it’s his opinion that is of importance to us – but I want you to be confident. Sophia is confident; and humility is thrown away upon the molly-coddle who has taken your foolish fancy. Come, and sit by me. There was a fat guest in my way, when Mr. Fitzmark said good night. Did he squeeze your hand; and did he look at you – like this?”

Mrs. Crossmichael’s eyes assumed an amorous expression.

Salome blushed, and said, “Yes, he did.”

“Now another question. When you got up from the piano (Chopin would have twisted your neck, and you would have deserved it, for murdering his music) Mr. Fitzmark followed you into a corner. I saw that he was tender and confidential – did he come to the point? How stupid you are, Salome! Did he make a proposal?”

“Not exactly, in words, dear. But if you had seen how he looked at me—”

“Nonsense! He must be made to speak out – and I will help you to do it. I want a perfect bonnet for the flower-show next month; and I have ordered my husband to take me to Paris. For you sake, I will put it off for a week; and we will come and stay here, instead – so that I may be ready on the spot for anything that happens. No; you needn’t kiss me – you will do infinitely better if you listen to what I have too say. I have been carefully watching Sophia and your young man, and I have arrived at the conclusion that his doctor is certainly in love with him. (Haven’t I told you to listen? Then why don’t you let me go on?) I am equally certain, Salome, that he is not in love with her. (Will you listen?) But she flatters his conceit – and many a woman has caught her man in that way. Besides this danger, she has one terrible advantage over you: she is his doctor. And she has the devil’s own luck – I am too excited to choose my language – with papa and Sir John. Otto is disposed to believe in her; and papa and that wretched Alderman just get well enough to encourage him. Did you notice, at supper, that she ordered him to take this, and forbade him to take that – and treated the poor creature like a child? Oh, I can tell you, we have no time to lose!”

“What are we to do, Lois?”

“Will you listen? This is the second of the month. Give my love to the dear old people upstairs, and say that we must have another party, a garden-party, on the fifth. It is the safest way of getting at Pillico. If I call on her, she’s quite sharp enough to suspect that I have a reason for it. What’s the matter now?”

Salome looked towards the door. “Don’t I hear the cab? Oh, dear, your husband has come back already!”

“Haven’t I told him to wait? They say marriage strengthens girls’ minds – and I sincerely hope they are right! In all probability Mr. Fitzmark will call tomorrow, to make polite inquiries. You must not be at home. What do you mean by saying, ‘Oh!’ If you don’t take my advice, I shall go to Paris.”

“I beg your pardon, Lois: I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

Mrs. Crossmichael rose, and rang for her cloak. “There’s on e thing more you must do – provoke his jealousy. The mother of that other young fellow who is dangling after you is just the person you want for the purpose. I heard her ask you to fix a day for visiting them at Windsor. You promised to write. Write tomorrow; and propose the day after, for your visit – returning the next morning, of course, for the garden-party. Leave word where you have gone, when the beautiful Otto calls again. In the language of Miss Pillico, my dear, he wants a stimulant. I know what I am about. Good night.”

VII

Mr Fitzmark called the next day, as Mrs. Crossmichael had anticipated, and returned to his quarters at Sir John’s a disappointed man. An hour later his doctor arrived, and found him in the garden, consoling himself with a cigarette. She took it out of his mouth with a fascinating familiarity, and threw it away.

“I find I must speak seriously, Mr. Fitzmark. There’s nobody in the garden. Suppose we sit down in the summer-house?”

They took their chairs, and Miss Pillico produced her stethoscope.

“Open your waistcoat, please. Thank you – that will do.” She used her stethoscope, and then she used her ear; and then she took his hand. Not to press it! Only to put him into the right position to have his pulse felt. “I have already told you that there is really no danger,” she said. “The action of your heart is irregular – and I find I have underrated the necessity of taking certain precautions. But I have no doubt of being able to restore you to health, if—” she let go of his hand, and looked at him tenderly – “if you will believe in your doctor, and do your best to help me.”

Otto only waited for his instructions. “I am careful about my diet,” he said; “I never hurry myself in going upstairs; and, now I know you object to it, I won’t smoke. Is there anything more?”

“One thing more,” said Sophia softly. “After what I saw last night, I cannot conceal from myself that Society is bad for you. You were excited – oh, you were! Your doctor thought of your heart, and had her eye on you when you were talking to that lovely girl. Of course you are invited to the garden-party? Do me a favour (in my medical capacity) – help your poor heart; write an excuse.”

Otto consented, not very willingly, to make a sacrifice to the necessities, as distinguished from the inclinations, of his heart. Sophia’s pretty brown eyes stole a look at him – a gentle, appealing look. “I am afraid you hate me for keeping you away from Miss Salome,” she said.

This demand on Otto’s gallantry only admitted of one reply. “Miss Pillico, the man doesn’t live who could hate you.”

The Doctor blushed. “I wonder whether I may put a bold question,” she murmured – “entirely in the interest of your health?” She hesitated, and toyed confusedly with her stethoscope. “I hardly know how to put it. Pray remember what I have already told you about your heart! Pleasurable excitement is just as bad for it as painful excitement. Bear that in mind, and let me suppose something quite likely – an event in which all your friends must feel the deepest interest. Let me suppose (professionally) that you are going to be married.”

Otto denied it, without stopping to think first. The effect he produced on Miss Pillico rather alarmed him. She clasped her hands, and exclaimed fervently, “What a relief!”

She was a strong-minded woman, and she followed a man’s profession. Would she take a man’s privilege, and make him an offer of marriage? Otto’s weak heart began to flutter. Sophia still played with her stethoscope.

“I was thinking of my medical responsibility,” she explained. “Please let me listen again.”

Otto submitted. There was a prolonged examination. “Yes,” she said, “under present conditions there can be no doubt of it. You mustn’t! Indeed, you mustn’t!”

“Mustn’t – what?” Otto asked.

“Marry!” Miss Pillico answered sternly.

“Never?” Otto persisted piteously.

Sophia informed him that it depended on the treatment. “What I have said to you,” she proceeded, not unmindful of the future in her own interests, “refers to the present time. If you had been engaged to marry some young lady, for instance, I should have said, Put it off. Or, if you only contemplated such a thing, I should say, Pause. In one word, we have an interval to pass: long or short, is more than I can yet tell.” She rose, and laid her hand persuasively on his arm. “Pray be regular with your medicine,” she pleaded, “and let me know directly if you feel any change in your heart.” They passed a flowerbed on their way back to the house. Miss Pillico admired the roses. Otto instantly presented her with a rose. She put it in her bosom – and sighed – and gave him a farewell look. For the first time he left the look unreturned. He had accidentally picked the rose which bore Salome’s favourite colour – he was thinking of the grey-eyed girl with golden hair. Before Sophia could win back his attention to herself, Young John, with his pipe in his mouth, appeared at a turn in the path. The Doctor took her leave in depressed spirits.

Otto hesitated about giving up the garden-party. It was only on the next day that he decided on staying at home. He wrote his excuses to Salome.

In the meanwhile Young John advanced lazily towards the summer-house, and discovered his sister in ambush at the back of the building. Sour Bess was in such a state of excitement that she actually forgot her quarrel with her brother. “I’ve heard every word they said to each other!” she burst out. “That hateful wretch is sweet on Otto, and means to make him marry her. Oh, Johnny! how can I stop it? Who can I speak to first?”

Young John’s sympathy with his sister – when she happened to be in an especially malicious mood – expressed itself in a broad grin. United by their mutual interest in making mischief, these amiable young people met, in reconciliation, on common ground. “It’s no use speaking to Otto,” Johnny remarked, “he’s such a fool. And, as for my father, he’d sooner believe Pillico than either of us. The girl next door is fond of Otto. How would it be if you told her?”

Bess refused even to consider the suggestion. “No,” she said, “it might be doing a service to Salome, and we are not on speaking terms.”

Young John, under these circumstances, counselled patience. “Don’t throw away a good chance, Bess, by being in a hurry. It won’t hurt to wait for Skirton’s garden-party. Miss Pillico will be there; she’ll give you another opportunity.”

Bess was struck by his last suggestion. “I didn’t intend to go to the party,” she said. “You’re quite right; I’ll accept the invitation.”

VIII

The servant who had delivered Otto’s written excuses came back with a message. His letter would be given to Miss Salome on her return from Windsor.

This announcement at once proved Mrs. Crossmichael’s calculations to be correct. Otto was at no loss to interpret the meaning of Salome’s absence at Windsor. She was visiting the mother of his rival, at a time when her son was staying in the house. In other words, she was indirectly encouraging a man who was reported to have already made her an unsuccessful offer of marriage, and to be prepared to try again. Otto sent the servant back to ascertain the exact time at which Miss Salome was expected to return. The reply informed him that she was to travel by an early train, and that she would be at home on the morning of the garden-party by twelve o’clock. A second letter was thereupon despatched, asking for an interview soon after that time. Jealousy had determined Otto to take the gloomiest view of the state of his heart. Instead of asking Salome to make loving allowance for the formidable revelations of the stethoscope, he proposed to retire from the field in favour of the “fortunate gentleman whom she preferred.” Such was the vindictive feeling with which this otherwise inoffensive young man regarded his sweetheart’s visit to Windsor; and so had Mrs. Crossmichael’s clever calculations defeated themselves.

At two o’clock on the day of the party, Salome’s devoted sister performed her promise.

She and her husband arrived, to occupy the room which was always reserved for them in Mr. Skirton’s house. Asking at once for her sister, she was informed that Salome was behaving very strangely; she had locked herself up in her room, and would open the door to nobody. Mrs. Crossmichael applied for admission, with the energy peculiar to herself. “You know that my husband invariably obeys my orders, and that he is one of the biggest men in England. If you don’t let me in, I shall call him up, and say, Burst open that door.” Salome gave way. Her eyes were red, her cheeks were stained with tears. “You’re the worst enemy I have!” she cried passionately, as her sister entered the room; “I’ll never forgive you for sending me to Windsor.”

“A row with Otto?” Mrs. Crossmichael asked quietly.

“Otto has given me up! Otto leave the other man (whom I hate and detest) free to marry me! That’s what comes of taking your advice.”

Mrs. Crossmichael preserved her temper. “Had he any other reason to give,” she continued, “besides jealousy of the other man? If that was his only motive, you will have reason to be grateful to me, Salome, as long as you live.”

“He had another reason – a dreadful reason – a mysterious reason. Marriage is forbidden to him. And, when I wanted to know why, he looked the picture of despair, and said, ‘Ask no more!’”

“Is he coming to the party?”

“Of course not!”

“What’s his excuse?”

“Ill-health.”

“Wait here, Salome, till I come back.”

Mrs. Crossmichael immediately presented herself at the next house. Mr. Fitzmark was not well enough to see her. the message was positive; and the wooden-faced valet was impenetrable. Not daunted yet, the obstinate visitor asked for Miss Pillico. Miss Pillico was not in the house. Mrs. Crossmichael returned, defeated, but not discouraged yet.

She appeared to be quite satisfied when Salome told her that the fair physician would be present at the garden-party.

The guests began to arrive; and Sophia was among them.

Her two faithful patients, Sir John and Mr. Skirton, noticed that she was serious and silent. Mr. Skirton asked if she had visited Otto that day. No; she had not thought it necessary, and he had not sent to say that he wanted her. Mrs. Crossmichael, waiting her opportunity, got into conversation with Sophia, in a quiet part of the grounds. Salome waylaid her sister, when the interview was over: “What have you found out?” Mrs. Crossmichael whispered back, “Pillico was not born yesterday. She has some reason for being discontented with Otto – that’s all I can discover so far. Hush! don’t turn round too suddenly. Do you see that cat?”

The “cat” was Sir John’s daughter. She had just met Miss Pillico on the lawn, and had only been noticed by a formal bow. Sour Bess looked after the lady-doctor with an expression of devilish malice which was not lost on Mrs. Crossmichael. “An enemy to Sophia!” she whispered to her sister. “Ah, Miss Dowager, it’s a long time since we have seen each other. You’re looking remarkably well. Have you, too, been consulting Miss Pillico?” She took Bess’s arm in the friendliest manner, and walked away with her to the farther end of the garden.

IX

“Well, Lois!”

“Don’t come near me, or you will spoil everything! One word. Did that man make you another offer when you were at Windsor?”

“Yes.”

“And you refused him again?”

“Certainly!”

“And you still think Otto is worth having?”

“I can’t live without him!”

“Otto is yours.”

Half an hour afterwards, Mr. Fitzmark received a letter, marked Private:

“After such conduct as yours no young lady, in my sister’s position, could condescend to explain herself. I think it right, however, to inform you – merely to remove a false impression from your mind – that the gentleman who has excited your jealousy (and no wonder, for he is in every way your superior) has made her a proposal of marriage, and has, to my sincere regret, been refused. It is needless to add that you will not be received, if you venture to call again at my father’s house. – L. C.”

The despatch of this letter was followed by a bolder experiment still.

When the garden-party had come to an end, and the guests were at home again, Miss Pillico received Mrs. Crossmichael’s visiting card – with a line on it in pencil: “I should be glad to say two words, if quite convenient.” Mrs. Crossmichael had produced a favourable impression in the garden – the interview was immediately granted.

“You are naturally surprised to see me again, after I have already had the pleasure of meeting you. Events have happened – no! I had better not trouble you with the events, except on condition. The condition is, that you will kindly reply to a question which I must ask first.” So Salome’s sister opened fire on the enemy. The enemy only bowed.

“A lady possessed of your personal advantages, who follows your profession,” Mrs. Crossmichael proceeded, “excites admiration (especially among the men) for other qualities besides her medical ability—”

“I don’t desire such admiration,” Miss Pillico interposed; “and I never notice it.”

“Not even in the case of one of your most ardent admirers – Mr. Otto Fitzmark?”

“Certainly not!”

“Allow me to beg your pardon, Miss Pillico, for an intrusion which has, now, no excuse. I came here – without Mr. Fitzmark’s knowledge – to make a very painful communication (so far as our family is concerned), in which, as I foolishly imagined, a duty – a friendly duty – might be involved towards yourself. Pray accept my excuses. Good evening.”

“Stop, Mrs. Crossmichael! Did you say duty was involved?”

“I did, Miss Pillico.”

“An act of duty is too serious to be trifled with. Will it help you if we suppose that I have noticed the feeling of admiration to which you refer?”

“Thank you – it will help very much.”

“Pray go on.”

“I trust to your honour, Miss Pillico, to keep what I am about to say, a profound secret. Before Mr. Fitzmark had the honour of becoming acquainted with you, his attentions to my sister were a subject of general remark among our friends. He called this morning in a state of indescribable confusion and distress, to inform her that his sentiments had undergone a change; the attractions of some other lady, as I strongly suspect, being answerable for this result. I have merely to add (speaking from my own experience) that he is an exceedingly shy man. He is also – according to his own account of it – subject to some extraordinary delusion, which persuades him that he can never marry. My own idea is, that this is a mere excuse; a stupid falsehood invented to palliate his conduct to my sister. As I think, she is well out of it. I have no opinion of Mr. Fitzmark; and I should consider it my duty,” Mrs. Crossmichael proceeded, with an expression of undisguised malignity – “my bounden duty to warn any lady, in whom I was interested, against encouraging the addresses of such a false and fickle man. If you ask how you are interested in hearing this, I can only own that, like other foolish women, I act on impulse, and often regret it too late. Once more, good evening.”

Salome was waiting at home, eager to know how the interview had ended. Mrs. Crossmichael described it in these words:

“I have assumed the character, my dear, of your vindictive sister; eager to lower the man who has jilted you, in Sophia’s estimation. The trap is set – thanks to that charming girl, Sir John’s daughter. Tomorrow will show if Pillico walks into it.”

X

Tomorrow did show. Mrs. Crossmichael received a reply to her letter, from Mr. Fitzmark.

I entreat you to intercede for me. No words can tell how ashamed I am of my conduct, and how I regret the inexcusable jealousy which led to it. Salome – no! I dare not speak of her in that familiar way – Miss Salome is too good and too noble not to forgive a sincerely penitent man. I know how utterly unworthy of her I am; and I dare not hope to obtain more than my pardon. May she be happy! – is the only wish I can now presume to form.

One word more, relating to myself, before I close these lines.

I was foolish enough, when I made that ever-to-be-regretted visit, to hint at an obstacle to my entering the marriage state. It all originated in a mistaken view, taken by Miss Sophia Pillico, of the state of my heart. She called medically this morning, and applied the stethoscope as before: the result seemed to surprise her. She asked how many times I had taken my medicine, – I said, Twice. Digitalis, she thereupon remarked, was a wonderful remedy. She also said that she might, in her anxiety, have taken an exaggerated view of my case, and have alarmed me without reason. Her conduct, after this, was so extraordinary that I cannot pretend to describe it. She waited, after the examination was over, and seemed to expect me to say something more. I waited, on my side, for a word of explanation. She flew into a rage, and told me to provide myself with another doctor. What does it mean?

Being naturally interested in finding out whether there was anything the matter with me or not, I called on the resident medical man in this neighbourhood. He took great pains with me; and he admitted that I had an overburdened heart.

God knows that this is true enough! But the cause assigned makes me blush while I write. It seems that I eat too much – and my full stomach presses against my heart, “Live moderately, and take a long walk every day,” the doctor said; “and there isn’t an Office in London that won’t be glad to insure your life.”

Do me one last favour. Pray don’t let Miss Salome know about my stomach!

•   •   •

Private Note by the Editor – When Mrs. Crossmichael showed this letter to her sister, she said, “Now I have bowled Pillico out at last!” Quite a mistake. Sophia publicly alluded to her brief professional connection with Mr. Fitzmark, in these terms: “Other women view the approach of age with horror – I look to it myself with impatience and hope. At my present time of life, stupid male patients persist in falling in love with me. Mr. Fitzmark was a particularly offensive instance of this. No words can say what a relief it is to me to hear, that he is going to marry Miss Salome Skirton.”

The Spirit of the Times 23 Dec 1882

Reprinted in The Seaside Library Apr 1883

THE  COLLABORATIONS

THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS

CONTENTS

The First
Charles Dickens

The Second Poor Traveller
George Augustus Sala

The Third Poor Traveller
{Adelaide Anne Procter ?}

The Fourth Poor Traveller
Wilkie Collins

The Fifth Poor Traveller
George Augustus Sala

The Sixth Poor Traveller
Eliza Lynn

The Seventh Poor Traveller
Adelaide Anne Procter

The Road
Charles Dickens

Household Words
Christmas number 1854

THE FIRST

Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, being a Traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven. This word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door?

Richard Watts, Esq.
by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579,
founded this Charity
for Six poor Travellers,
who not being Rogues, or Proctors,
May receive gratis for one Night,
Lodging, Entertainment,
and Four-pence each.

It was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the good days in the year upon a Christmas Eve, that I stood reading this inscription over the quaint old door in question. I had been wandering about the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts, with the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship’s figure-head; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Verger his fee, than inquire the way to Watts’s Charity. The way being very short and very plain, I had come prosperously to the inscription and the quaint old door.

“Now,” said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, “I know I am not a Proctor; I wonder whether I am a Rogue!”

Upon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces which might have had smaller attraction for a moral Goliath than they had had for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the conclusion that I was not a Rogue. So, beginning to regard the establishment as in some sort my property, bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and share alike, by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I stepped backward into the road to survey my inheritance.

I found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with the quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door), choice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables. The silent High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red brick building, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in the old days of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans, and down to the times of King John, when the rugged castle – I will not undertake to say how many hundreds of years old then – was abandoned to the centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had picked its eyes out.

I was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. While I was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied at one of the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine. They said so plainly, “Do you wish to see the house?” that I answered aloud, “Yes, if you please.” And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my head, and went down two steps into the entry.

“This,” said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the right, “is where the Travellers sit by the fire, and cook what bits of suppers they buy with their fourpences.”

“Oh! Then they have no Entertainment?” said I. For, the inscription over the outer door was still running in my head, and I was mentally repeating in a kind of tune, “Lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each.”

“They have a fire provided for ’em,” returned the matron: a mighty civil person, not, as I could make out, overpaid: “and these cooking utensils. And this what’s painted on a board, is the rules for their behaviour. They have their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over the way – for I don’t admit ’em myself, they must get their tickets first – and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring, and another a pound of potatoes, or what not. Sometimes, two or three of ’em will club their fourpences together, and make a supper that way. But, not much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, when provisions is so dear.”

“True indeed,” I remarked. I had been looking about the room, admiring its snug fireside at the upper end, its glimpse of the street through the low mullioned window, and its beams overhead. “It is very comfortable,” said I.

“Ill-conwenient,” observed the matronly presence.

I liked to hear her say so; for, it showed a commendable anxiety to execute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts. But, the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested, quite enthusiastically, against her disparagement.

“Nay, ma’am,” said I, “I am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer. It has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest. It has a remarkably cosy fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street upon a winter night, is enough to warm all Rochester’s heart. And as to the convenience of the six Poor Travellers—”

“I don’t mean them,” returned the presence. “I speak of its being an ill-conwenience to myself and my daughter having no other room to sit in of a night.”

This was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding dimensions on the opposite side of the entry: so I stepped across to it, through the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was for?

“This,” returned the presence, “is the Board Room. Where the gentlemen meet when they come here.”

Let me see. I had counted from the street six upper windows besides these on the ground-story. Making a perplexed calculation in my mind, I rejoined, “Then the six Poor Travellers sleep upstairs?”

My new friend shook her head. “They sleep,” she answered, “in two little outer galleries at the back, where their beds has always been, ever since the Charity was founded. It being so very ill-conwenient to me as things is at present, the gentlemen are going to take off a bit of the back yard and make a slip of a room for ’em there, to sit in before they go to bed.”

“And then the six Poor Travellers,” said I, “will be entirely out of the house?”

“Entirely out of the house,” assented the presence, comfortably smoothing her hands. “Which is considered much better for all parties, and much more conwenient.”

I had been a little startled, in the cathedral, by the emphasis with which the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of his tomb; but, I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the High Street some stormy night, and make a disturbance here.

Howbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to the little galleries at the back. I found them, on a tiny scale, like the galleries in old inn yards; and they were very clean. While I was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand that the prescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming every night from year’s end to year’s end; and that the beds were always occupied. My questions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the Board Room so essential to the dignity of “the gentlemen,” where she showed me the printed accounts of the Charity hanging up by the window. From them, I gathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts for the maintenance of this foundation, was, at the period of his death, mere marshland; but that, in course of time, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very considerably increased in value. I found, too, that about a thirtieth part of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposes commemorated in the inscription over the door: the rest being handsomely laid out in Chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage, and other appendages of management, highly complimentary to the importance of the six Poor Travellers. In short, I made the not entirely new discovery that it may be said of an establishment like this, in dear Old England, as of the fat oyster in the American story, that it takes a good many men to swallow it whole.

“And pray, ma’am,” said I, sensible that the blankness of my face began to brighten as a thought occurred to me, “could one see those Travellers?”

Well! she returned dubiously; no! “Not tonight, for instance?” said I. Well! she returned more positively; no. Nobody ever asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them.

As I am not easily baulked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to the good lady that this was Christmas Eve; that Christmas comes but once a year – which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round, we shall make this earth a very different place; that I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been heard in the land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merry and wise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother, Orator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever. In the end, I prevailed, to my great joy. It was settled that at nine o’clock that night, a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef should smoke upon the board; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for once of Master Richard Watts, should preside as the Christmas-supper host of the six Poor Travellers.

I went back to my inn, to give the necessary directions for the Turkey and Roast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers. When the wind blew hard against the windows – it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully – I pictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various cold roads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. I painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in little heightening touches. I made them footsore; I made them weary; I made them carry packs and bundles; I made them stop by finger-posts and milestones, leaning on their bent sticks and looking wistfully at what was written there; I made them lose their way, and filled their five wits with apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death. I took up my hat and went out, climbed to the top of the Old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway: almost believing that I could descry some of my Travellers in the distance. After it fell dark, and the Cathedral bell was heard in the invisible steeple – quite a bower of frosty rime when I had last seen it – striking five, six, seven; I became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no dinner, and felt constrained to watch them still, in the red coals of my fire. They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their tickets, and were gone in. – There, my pleasure was dashed by the reflection that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut out.

After the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smell a delicious savour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoining bedroom, which looked down into the inn yard, just where the lights of the kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall. It was high time to make the Wassail now; therefore, I had up the materials (which, together with their proportions and combinations, I must decline to impart, as the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), and made a glorious jorum. Not in a bowl; for, a bowl anywhere but on a shelf, is a low superstition fraught with cooling and slopping; but, in a brown earthenware pitcher, tenderly suffocated when full, with a coarse cloth. It being now upon the stroke of nine, I set out for Watts’s Charity, carrying my brown beauty in my arms. I would trust Ben the waiter with untold gold; but, there are strings in the human heart which must never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in mine.

The Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had brought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of the fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a roaring blaze. Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the hearth inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice forests, and orange groves – I say, having stationed my beauty in a place of security and improvement, I introduced myself to my guests by shaking hands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome.

I found the party to be thus composed. Firstly, myself. Secondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling; who had a certain clean, agreeable smell of wood about him, from which I judged him to have something to do with shipbuilding. Thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark brown hair, and deep womanly-looking eyes. Fourthly, a shabby-genteel personage in a threadbare black suit, and apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look; the absent buttons on his waistcoat eked out with red tape; and a bundle of extraordinarily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket. Fifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried his pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an easy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and travelled all about the continent, mostly on foot, working as a journeyman, and seeing new countries – possibly (I thought) also smuggling a watch or so, now and then. Sixthly, a little widow, who had been very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and whose manner was remarkably timid, scared, and solitary. Seventhly and lastly, a Traveller of a kind familiar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete: a Book-Pedlar: who had a quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers with him, and who presently boasted that he could repeat more verses in an evening, than he could sell in a twelvemonth.

All these I have mentioned, in the order in which they sat at table. I presided, and the matronly presence faced me. We were not long in taking our places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following procession.

Myself with the pitcher.

Ben with Beer.

Inattentive Boy
with hot plates.

Inattentive Boy
with hot plates.

THE TURKEY.

Female carrying sauces
to be heated on the spot.

THE BEEF.

Man with Tray on his head, containing
Vegetables and Sundries.

Volunteer hostler from Hotel, grinning,
And rendering no assistance.

As we passed along the High-street, Comet-like, we left a long tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard, a wall-eyed young man connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle which Ben always carries in his pocket: whose instructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash into the kitchen, seize the hot plum-pudding and mince pies, and speed with them to Watts’s Charity: where they would be received (he was further instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be provided with brandy in a blue state of combustion.

All these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual manner. I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality of sauce and gravy; and my Travellers did wonderful justice to everything set before them. It made my heart rejoice, to observe how their wind-and-frost hardened faces, softened in the clatter of plates and knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat. While their hats and caps, and wrappers, hanging up; a few small bundles on the ground in a corner; and, in another corner, three or four old walking sticks, worn down at the end to mere fringe; linked this snug interior with the bleak outside in a golden chain.

When supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table, there was a general requisition to me, to “take the corner;” which suggested to me, comfortably enough, how much my friends here made of a fire – for when had I ever thought so highly of the corner, since the days when I connected it with Jack Horner? However, as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect, drew the table apart, and instructing my Travellers to open right and left on either side of me, and form round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and my chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table. He had already, in a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they had been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room; and he now rapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High Street, disappeared, and softly closed the door.

This was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood. I tapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host of merrymakers burst out of it, and sported off by the chimney – rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again. Meanwhile, by their sparkling light which threw our lamp into the shade, I filled the glasses, and gave my Travellers, Christmas! – Christmas Eve, my friends, when the Shepherds, who were Poor Travellers too in their way, heard the Angels sing, “On earth, peace. Goodwill towards men!”

I don’t know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take hands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any one of us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it. We then drank to the memory of the good Master Richard Watts. And I wish his Ghost may never have had worse usage under that roof, than it had from us!

It was the witching time for Story-telling. “Our whole life, Travellers,” said I, “is a story more or less intelligible – generally less; but, we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which is which. Shall we beguile the time by telling stories, in our order as we sit here?”

They all answered, Yes, provided I would begin. I had little to tell them, but I was bound by my own proposal. Therefore, after looking for a while at the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which I could have almost sworn I saw the effigy of Master Richard Watts less startled than usual; I fired away.

•   •   •

In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relative of mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham. I call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. He was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket. He sat by the fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed that will be occupied tonight by someone here.

My relative came down to Chatham, to enlist in a cavalry regiment, if a cavalry regiment would have him; if not, to take King George’s shilling from any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his hat. His object was to get shot; but, he thought he might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of walking.

My relative’s Christian name was Richard, but he was better known as Dick. He dropped his own surname on the road down, and took up that of Doubledick. He was passed as Richard Doubledick; age twenty-two; height, five foot ten; native place, Exmouth; which he had never been near in his life. There was no cavalry in Chatham when he limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty foot, so he enlisted into a regiment of the line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it.

You are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong and run wild. His heart was in the right place, but it was scaled up. He had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl whom he had loved better than she – or perhaps even he – believed; but, in an evil hour, he had given her cause to say to him, solemnly, “Richard, I will never marry any other man. I will live single for your sake, but Mary Marshall’s lips;” her name was Mary Marshall; “never address another word to you on earth. Go, Richard! Heaven forgive you!” This finished him. This brought him down to Chatham. This made him Private Richard Doubledick, with a determination to be shot.

There was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than Private Richard Doubledick. He associated with the dregs of every regiment, he was as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment. It became clear to the whole barracks, that Private Richard Doubledick would very soon be flogged.

Now, the Captain of Richard Doubledick’s company was a young gentleman not above five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way. They were bright, handsome, dark eyes – what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather steady than severe – but, they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could not stand. Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street, like any other officer. He was reproached and confused – troubled by the mere possibility of the captain’s looking at him. In his worst moments he would rather turn back and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes.

One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton’s quarters. In the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but, he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers’ quarters were: twisting and breaking in his hands as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture of the Black hole.

“Come in!” cried the Captain, when he knocked with his knuckles at the door. Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark bright eyes.

There was a silent pause. Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and choking himself.

“Doubledick,” said the Captain, “Do you know where you are going to?”

“To the Devil, sir?” faltered Doubledick.

“Yes,” returned the Captain. “And very fast.”

Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his mouth, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence.

“Doubledick,” said the Captain, “since I entered his Majesty’s service, a boy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of promise going that road; but, I have never been so pained to see a man determined to make the shameful journey, as I have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you.”

Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain’s breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.

“I am only a common soldier, sir,” said he. “It signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to.”

“You are a man,” returned the Captain with grave indignation, “of education and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you say, you have sunk lower than I had believed. How low that must be, I leave you to consider: knowing what I know of your disgrace, and seeing what I see.”

“I hope to get shot soon, sir,” said Private Richard Doubledick; “and then the regiment, and the world together, will be rid of me.”

The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over him. He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder.

“I would rather,” said the young Captain, “see this in you, Doubledick, than I would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a gift to my good mother. Have you a mother?”

“I am thankful to say she is dead, sir.”

“If your praises,” returned the Captain, “were sounded from mouth to mouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the whole country, you would wish she had lived, to say with pride and joy, ‘He is my son!’ ”

“Spare me, sir;” said Doubledick. “She would never have heard any good of me. She would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my mother. Love and compassion she might have had, and would have always had, I know; but not— Spare me, sir! I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy!” And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his imploring hand.

“My friend—” began the captain.

“God bless you, sir!” sobbed Private Richard Doubledick.

“You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged, a little longer, and you know what must happen. I know even better than you can imagine, that after that has happened, you are lost. No man who could shed those tears, could bear those marks.”

“I fully believe it, sir,” in a low, shivering voice, said Private Richard Doubledick.

“But a man in any station can do his duty,” said the young Captain, “and, in doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare, that he can earn no other man’s. A common soldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we live in, that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising witnesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole country? Turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try.”

“I will! I ask for only one witness, sir,” cried Richard, with a bursting heart.

“I understand you. I will be a watchful and a faithful one.”

I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick’s own lips, that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer’s hand, arose, and went out of the light of the dark bright eyes, an altered man.

In that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the French were in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not? Napoleon Bonaparte had likewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could read the signs of the great troubles that were coming on. In the very next year, when we formed an alliance with Austria against him, Captain Taunton’s regiment was on service in India. And there was not a finer non-commissioned officer in it – no, nor in the whole line – than Corporal Richard Doubledick.

In eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast of Egypt. Next year was the year of the proclamation of the short peace, and they were recalled. It had then become well known to thousands of men, that wherever Captain Taunton with the dark bright eyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the sun, and brave as Mars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that famous soldier, Sergeant Richard Doubledick.

Eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in India. That year saw such wonders done by a Sergeant-Major, who cut his way single-handed through a solid mass of men, recovered the colours of his regiment which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses’ hoofs and sabres – saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave Sergeant-Major, that he was specially made the bearer of the colours he had won; and Ensign Richard Doubledick had risen from the ranks.

Sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of men – for, the fame of following the old colours, shot through and through, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired all breasts – this regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war, up to the investment of Badajos in eighteen hundred and twelve. Again and again it had been cheered through the British ranks until the tears had sprung into men’s eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty British voice so exultant in their valour; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the legend, that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton with the dark bright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick who was devoted to him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits in the English army became wild to follow.

One day, at Badajos – not in the great storming, but in repelling a hot sally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, who had given way, the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face, against a party of French infantry who made a stand. There was an officer at their head, encouraging his men – a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of five and thirty – whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost momentarily, but saw well. He particularly noticed this officer waving his sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they fired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped.

It was over in ten minutes more, and Doubledick returned to the spot where he had laid the best friend man ever had, on a coat spread upon the wet clay. Major Taunton’s uniform was opened at the breast, and on his shirt were three little spots of blood.

“Dear Doubledick,” said he, “I am dying.”

“For the love of Heaven, no!” exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside him, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head. “Taunton! My preserver, my guardian angel, my witness! Dearest, truest, kindest of human beings! Taunton! For God’s sake!”

The bright dark eyes – so very, very dark now, in the pale face – smiled upon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago, laid itself fondly on his breast.

“Write to my mother. You will see Home again. Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, as it comforts me.”

He spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it fluttered in the wind. The Ensign understood him. He smiled again when he saw that, and gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as if for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived a soul.

No dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick, that melancholy day. He buried his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man. Beyond his duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life; one, to preserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton’s mother; the other, to encounter that French officer who had rallied the men under whose fire Taunton fell. A new legend now began to circulate among our troops; and it was, that when he and the French officer came face to face once more, there would be weeping in France.

The war went on – and through it went the exact picture of the French officer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other – until the Battle of Toulouse was fought. In the returns sent home, appeared these words: “Severely wounded, but not dangerously, Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.”

At Midsummertime in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven and thirty years of age, came home to England, invalided. He brought the hair with him, near his heart. Many a French officer had he seen, since that day; many a dreadful night, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved French officers lying disabled; but, the mental picture and the reality had never come together.

Though he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down to Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton’s mother lived. In the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind tonight, “he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”

It was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden-window, reading the Bible; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that very passage in it as I have heard him tell, he heard the words; “Young man, I say unto thee, arise!”

He had to pass the window; and the bright dark eyes of his debased time seemed to look at him. Her heart told her who he was; she came to the door, quickly, and fell upon his neck.

“He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and shame. O God, forever bless him! As He will, He will!”

“He will!” the lady answered. “I know he is in Heaven!” Then she piteously cried, “But, O, my darling boy, my darling boy!”

Never, from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chatham, had the Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, Ensign, or Lieutenant, breathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a word of the story of his life, into any ear, except his reclaimer’s. That previous scene in his existence was closed. He had firmly resolved that his expiation should be, to live unknown; to disturb no more the peace that had long grown over his old offences; to let it be revealed when he was dead, that he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and then, if they could forgive him and believe him – well, it would be time enough – time enough!

But, that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years, “Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, as it comforts me,” he related everything. It gradually seemed to him, as if in his maturity he had recovered a mother; it gradually seemed to her, as if in her bereavement she had found a son. During his stay in England, the quiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger, became the boundary of his home; when he was able to rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the garden, thinking was this indeed the first time he had ever turned his face towards the old colours, with a woman’s blessing!

He followed them – so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would scarcely hold together – to Quatre Bras, and Ligny. He stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist and drizzle of a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo. And down to that hour, the picture in his mind of the French officer had never been compared with the reality.

The famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and received its first check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall. But, it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature in the world of consciousness, as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.

Through pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, once roads, that were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy wagons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that could carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying and the dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recognisable for humanity; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of horses, which, newly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the wayside, never to resume their toilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that was in it, and yet alive; the form that had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose praises England rang, was conveyed to Brussels. There, it was tenderly laid down in hospital: and there it lay, week after week, through the long bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened and was gathered in.

Over and over again, the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; over and over again, the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of Waterloo; and all that time was a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Rejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out; brothers and fathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew their lots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day, the bells rang; so many times, the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lights sprang up at dusk; so many feet passed here and there upon the pavements; so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded; indifferent to all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statue on the tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.

Slowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused time and place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew, and of faces that had been familiar to his youth – dearest and kindest among them, Mary Marshall’s, with a solicitude upon it more like reality than anything he could discern – Lieutenant Richard Doubledick came back to life. To the beautiful life of a calm autumn-evening sunset. To the peaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open; a balcony beyond, in which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers; beyond again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its golden radiance on his bed.

It was so tranquil and so lovely, that he thought he had passed into another world. And he said in a faint voice, “Taunton, are you near me?”

A face bent over him. Not his; his mother’s.

“I came to nurse you. We have nursed you, many weeks. You were moved here, long ago. Do you remember nothing?”

“Nothing.”

The lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him.

“Where is the regiment? What has happened? Let me call you mother. What has happened, mother?”

“A great victory, dear. The war is over, and the regiment was the bravest in the field.”

His eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down his face. He was very weak: too weak to move his hand.

“Was it dark just now?” he asked presently.

“No.”

“It was only dark to me? Something passed away, like a black shadow. But, as it went, and the sun – O the blessed sun, how beautiful it is! – touched my face, I thought I saw a light white cloud pass out at the door. Was there nothing that went out?”

She shook her head, and, in a little while, he fell asleep: she still holding his hand, and soothing him.

From that time, he recovered. Slowly, for he had been desperately wounded in the head, and had been shot in the body; but, making some little advance every day. When he had gained sufficient strength to converse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Taunton always brought him back to his own history. Then, he recalled his preserver’s dying words, and thought, “it comforts her.”

One day, he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him. But, the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which she always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside where she sat at work, was held undrawn; and a woman’s voice spoke, which was not hers.

“Can you bear to see a stranger?” it said softly. “Will you like to see a stranger?”

“Stranger!” he repeated. The voice awoke old memories, before the days of Private Richard Doubledick.

“A stranger now, but not a stranger once,” it said in tones that thrilled him. “Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, my name—”

He cried out her name, “Mary!” and she held him in her arms, and his head lay on her bosom.

“I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard. These are not Mary Marshall’s lips that speak. I have another name.”

She was married.

“I have another name, Richard. Did you ever hear it?”

“Never!”

He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the smile upon it through her tears.

“Think again, Richard. Are you sure you never heard my altered name?”

“Never!”

“Don’t move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie here, while I tell my story. I loved a generous, noble man; loved him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully, devotedly; loved him with no hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualities – not even knowing that he was alive. He was a brave soldier. He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all his triumphs he had never forgotten me. He was wounded in a great battle. He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels. I came to watch and tend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else, he knew me. When he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to rest his head where yours rests now. When he lay at the point of death, he married me, that he might call me Wife before he died. And the name, my dear love, that I took on that forgotten night—”

“I know it now!” he sobbed. “The shadowy remembrance strengthens. It is come back. I thank Heaven that my mind is quite restored! My Mary, kiss me; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude. His parting words are fulfilled. I see Home again!”

Well! They were happy. It was a long recovery, but they were happy through it all. The snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three were first able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain Richard Doubledick.

But, even then, it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returning to England, to complete his recovery in the climate of Southern France. They found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of Avignon and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could desire; they lived there, together, six months; then returned to England. Mrs. Taunton growing old after three years – though not so old as that her bright dark eyes were dimmed – and remembering that her strength had been benefited by the change, resolved to go back for a year to those parts. So, she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her son in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the year’s end, by Captain Richard Doubledick.

She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to her. She went to the neighbourhood of Aix; and there, in their own château near the farmer’s house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a family belonging to that part of France. The intimacy began, in her often meeting among the vineyards a pretty child: a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary English lady’s stories of her poor son and the cruel wars. The family were as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well, that she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her residence abroad, under their roof. All this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal as it came about, from time to time; and, at last, enclosed a polite note from the head of the château, soliciting, on the occasion of his approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company of cet homme si justement célèbre, Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick.

Captain Doubledick; now a hardy handsome man in the full vigour of life, broader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever been before; dispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person. Travelling through all that extent of country after three years of Peace, he blessed the better days on which the world had fallen. The corn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden underfoot by men in mortal fight. The smoke rose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins. The carts were laden with the fair fruits of the earth, not with wounds and death. To him who had so often seen the terrible reverse, these things were beautiful indeed, and they brought him in a softened spirit to the old château near Aix, upon a deep blue evening.

It was a large château of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round towers, and extinguishers and a high leaden roof, and more windows than Aladdin’s Palace. The lattice blinds were all thrown open, after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors within. Then, there were immense outbuildings fallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, balustrades; tanks of water, too weak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron-railing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies, and to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. The entrance doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the day is past; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in.

He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the glare of a Southern day’s travel. Extending along the four sides of this hall, was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from the top. Still, no bell was to be seen.

“Faith,” said the Captain, halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots, “this is a ghostly beginning!”

He started back, and felt his face turn white. In the gallery, looking down at him, stood the French officer: the officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared with the original, at last – in every lineament how like it was!

He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps coming quickly down into the hall. He entered through an archway. There was a bright, sudden look upon his face. Much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment.

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick? Enchanted to receive him! A thousand apologies! The servants were all out in the air. There was a little fête among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fête day of my daughter, the little cherished and protected of Madame Taunton.

He was so gracious and so frank, that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick could not withhold his hand. “It is the hand of a brave Englishman,” said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke. “I could respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe; how much more as my friend! I, also, am a soldier.”

“He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I took of his,” thought Captain Richard Doubledick. “How shall I tell him!”

The French officer conducted his guest into a garden, and presented him to his wife: an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among the orange-trees on the broad steps, in making for his father’s legs. A multitude of children-visitors were dancing to sprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the château were dancing too. It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of Peace which had soothed the captain’s journey.

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms. They went upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks, and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness.

“You were at Waterloo,” said the French officer.

“I was,” said Captain Richard Doubledick. “And at Badajos.”

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him? At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer’s hospitality, were the uppermost thought in Captain Richard Doubledick’s mind.

He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary? “His mother above all,” the Captain thought. “How shall I tell her?”

“You will form a friendship with your host, I hope,” said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, “that will last for life. He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. If He had been spared,” she kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, “he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past, which made such a man his enemy.”

She left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.

“Spirit of my departed friend,” said he, “is it through thee, these better thoughts are rising in my mind! Is it thou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time! Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand! Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst – and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me, here on earth – and that he did no more!”

He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life: That neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any soul while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French officer’s glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries.

•   •   •

Here, I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller. But, if I had told it now, I could have added that the time has since come, when the son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer, friends as their fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause: with their respective nations, like long-divided brothers whom the better times have brought together, fast united.

THE SECOND POOR TRAVELLER

I am, by trade (said the man with his arm in a sling), a shipwright. I am recovering from an unlucky chop that one of my mates gave me with an adze. When I am all right again, I shall get taken on in Chatham Yard. I have nothing else in particular to tell of myself, so I’ll tell a bit of a story of a seaport town.

Acon-Virlaz the jeweller sat in his shop on the Common Hard of Belleriport smoking his evening pipe. Business was tolerably brisk in Belleriport just then. The great three-decker the Blunderbore (Admiral Pumpkinseed’s flagship) had just come in from the southern seas with the rest of the squadron, and had been paid off. The big screw line-of-battle ship Fantail, Captain Sir Heaver Cole, K.C.B., had got her blue-peter up for Kamschatka, and her crew had been paid advance wages. The Dundrum war-steamer was fresh coppering in the graving dock, and her men were enjoying a three weeks’ run ashore. The Barracouta, the Calabash, the Skullsmasher, and the Nosering had returned from the African station with lots of prize money from captured slavers. The Jollyport division of Royal Marines – who had plenty of money to spend, and spent it, too, – occupied the Marine barracks. The Ninety-eighth Plungers, together with the depot companies of the Fourteenth Royal Screamers, had marched in to relieve the Seventy-third Wrestlers. There was some thought of embodying, for garrison duty, in Belleriport the Seventh or West Swampshire Drabs regiment of Militia. Belleriport was full of sailors, soldiers, and marines. Seven gold-laced cocked hats could be observed on the door steps of the George Hotel at one time. Almost every lady’s bonnet in the High Street had a military or naval officer’s head looking under it. You could scarcely get into Miss Pyebord the pastry-cook’s shop for midshipmen. There were so many soldiers in the streets, that you were inclined to take the whole of the population of Belleriport for lobsters, and to imagine that half of them were boiled and the other half waiting to be. The Common Hard was as soft, as a feather-bed with sailors. Lieutenant Hook at the Rendezvous was busy all day enrolling A B’s, ordinaries, and stout lads. The Royal Grubbington victualling yard was turning out thousands of barrels of salt beef and pork and sea biscuits per diem. Huge guns were being hoisted on board ship; seaman-riggers, caulkers, carpenters, and shipwrights, were all some hundreds of degrees busier than bees; and sundry gentlemen in the dockyard, habited in simple suits of drub, marked with the broad arrow – with striped stockings and glazed hats, and after whose personal safety sentinels with fixed bayonets and warders in oilskin coats affectionately looked – were busy too, in their way: dragging about chain-cables, blocks and spars, and loads of timber, steadily but sulkily; and, in their close-shaven, beetle-browed countenances, evincing a silent but profound disgust.

Acon-Virlaz had not done so badly during Belleriport’s recent briskness. He was a jeweller; and sold watches, rings, chains, bracelets, snuffboxes, brooches, shirt-studs, sleeve-buttons, pencil-cases, and true lovers’ knots. But, his trade in jewels did not interfere with his also vending hammocks, telescopes, sou’-wester hats, lime-juice, maps, charts and logbooks, Guernsey shirts, clasp knives, pea-coats, preserved meats, razors, swinging lamps, sea-chests, dancing-pumps, eye-glasses, waterproof overalls, patent blacking, and silk pocket-handkerchiefs emblazoned with the flags of all nations. Nor did his dealings in these articles prevent him from driving a very tidy little business in the purchase of gold dust, elephants’ teeth, feathers and bandanas, from home-returned sailors; nor (so the censorious said) from deriving some pretty little profits from the cashing of seamen’s advance notes, and the discounting of the acceptances of the officers of her majesty’s army and navy; nor (so the downright libellous asserted) from doing a little in the wine line, and a little in the picture line, and a good deal, when occasion required it, in the crimp line.

Acon-Virlaz sat in his shop on the Common Hard of Belleriport smoking his evening pipe. It was in the back shop that Acon-Virlaz sat. Above his head, hung the hammocks, the pilot-trousers narrow at the knees and wide at the ankles, the swinging lamps, and the waterproof overalls. The front shop loomed dimly through a grove of pea-coats, sou’-wester hats, Guernsey shirts, and cans of preserved meat. One little gas jet in the back-shop – for the front gas was not yet lighted – flickered on the heterogeneous articles hanging and heaped up together all around. The gas just tipped with light the brass knobs of the drawers which ran round all the four sides of the shop, tier above tier, and held Moses knows how many more treasures of watch-making, tailoring, and outfitting. The gas, just defined by feebly-shining threads, the salient lines and angles of a great iron safe in one corner; and finally the gas just gleamed – twinkled furtively, like a magpie looking into a marrow bone – upon the heap of jewellery collected upon the great slate-covered counter in Acon-Virlaz’s back shop.

The counter was covered with slate; for, upon it Acon-Virlaz loved to chalk his calculations. It was ledger, day-book, and journal, all in one. The little curly-headed Jew boy who was clerk, shopman, messenger, and assistant-measurer in the tailoring department of the establishment, would as soon have thought of eating roast sucking-pig beneath Acon-Virlaz’s nose, as of wiping, dusting, or, indeed, touching the sacred slate counter without special permission and authority from Acon-Virlaz himself.

By the way, it was not by that name that the jeweller and outfitter was known in Belleriport. He went by a simpler, homelier, shorter appellation: Moses, Levy, Sheeny – what you will; it does not much matter which; for most of the Hebrew nation have an inner name as well as an inner and richer life.

Acon-Virlaz was a little, plump, round, black-eyed, red-lipped, blue-bearded man. Age had begun to discount his head, and had given him sixty per cent of grey hairs. A-top he was bald, and wore a little skull-cap. He had large fat hands, all creased and tumbled, as if his skin were too large for him; and, on one forefinger, he wore a great carnelian signet-ring, about which there were all sorts of legends. Miriam, his daughter, said— but what have I to do with Miriam, his daughter? She does not enter into this history at all.

The evening pipe that Acon-Virlaz was smoking was very mild and soothing. The blue haze went curling softly upwards, and seemed to describe pleasant figures of £ s. d. as it ascended. Through the grove, across the front shop, Acon-Virlaz could see little specks of gas from the lamps in the street; could hear Barney, his little clerk and shop-boy, softly whistling as he kept watch and ward upon the watches in the front window and the habiliments exposed for sale outside; could hear the sounds of a fiddle from the Admiral Nelson next door, where the men-of-warsmen were dancing; could, by a certain, pleasant, subtle smell from regions yet farther back, divine that Mrs. Virlaz (her father was a Bar-Galli, and worth hills of gold) was cooking something nice for supper.

From the pleasures of his pipe Acon-Virlaz turned to the pleasures of his jewellery. It lay there on the slate-covered counter, rich and rare. Big diamonds, rubies, opals, emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, topazes, turquoises, and pearls. By the jewels lay gold. Gold in massy chains, in mourning rings, in massy bracelets, in chased snuffboxes – in gold snuff too – that is in dingy, dull dust from the Guinea coast; in flakes and misshapen lumps from the mine; in toy-watches, in brave chronometers, in lockets, vinaigrettes, brooches, and such woman’s gear. The voice of the watches was dumb; the little flasks were scentless; but, how much beauty, life, strength, power, lay in these coloured baubles! Acon-Virlaz sighed.

Here, a little clock in the front shop, which nestled ordinarily in the midst of a wilderness of boots, and thought apparently a great deal more of itself than its size warranted, after a prodigious deal of running down, gasping, and clucking, struck nine. Acon-Virlaz laid down his pipe, and turning the gas a little higher, was about calling out to Mrs. Virlaz, that daughter of Bar-Galli (she was very stout, and fried fish in sky-blue satin), to know what she had got for supper, when a dark body became mistily apparent in the recesses of the grove of Guernsey shirts and sou’-westers, shutting out the view of the distant specks of gas in the street beyond. At the same time, a voice, that seemed to run upon a tramway, so smooth and sliding was it, said, three or four times over, “How is tonight with you, Mr. Virlaz, – how is it with you this beautiful night? Aha!”

The voice and the body belonged to a gentleman of Mr. Virlaz’s persuasion, who was stout and large, and very elastic in limb, and very voluble in delivery, in the which there was, I may remark, a tendency to reiteration, and an oily softness (inducing an idea that the tramway I mentioned had been sedulously greased), and a perceptible lisp. Mr. Virlaz’s friend rubbed his hands (likewise smooth and well-greased) continually. He was somewhat loosely jointed, which caused him to wag his head from side to side as he talked, after the fashion of an image; and his face would have been a great deal handsomer if his complexion had not been quite so white and pasty, and his eyes not quite so pink, and both together not quite so like a suet pudding with two raisins in it. Mr. Virlaz’s friend’s name was Mr. Ben-Daoud, and he came from Westhampton, where he discounted bills and sold clocks.

“Take a seat, Ben,” said the jeweller, when he had recognised his friend and shaken hands with him; “Mrs. V. will be down directly. All well at home? Take a pipe?”

“I will just sit down a little minute, and thank you, Mr. Virlaz,” Ben-Daoud answered volubly; “and all are well but little Zeeky, who has thrushes, and has swoollen, the dear child, much since yesterday; but beg Mrs. Virlaz not to disturb herself for me, – for I am not long here, and will not take a pipe, having a cold, and being about to go a long journey tomorrow. Aha!”

All this, Mr. Ben-Daoud said with the extreme volubility which I have noticed, and in the exact order in which his words are set down, but without any vocal punctuation. There was considerable doubt among the people as to Mr. Ben-Daoud’s nationality. Some said that he came from Poland; others, that he hailed from Frankfort-on-the-Maine; some inclined to the belief that Amsterdam, in Holland, was his natal place; some, that Gibraltar had given him birth, or the still more distant land of Tangier. At all events, of whatsoever nation he was, or if not of any, he was for all Jewry, and knew the time of the day remarkably well. He had been in the rabbit-skin line of business before he took to selling clocks, to which he added, when regiments were in garrison, at Westhampton, the art of discounting.

“Going on a journey, eh, Ben?” asked Acon-Virlaz. “Business?”

“Oh, business of course, Mr. Virlaz,” his friend replied. “Always business. I have some little moneys to look up, and some little purchases to make, and, indeed, humbly wish to turn a little penny; for, I have very many heavy calls to meet next month, – a little bill or two of mine you hold, by the way, among the rest, Mr. Virlaz.”

“True,” the jeweller said, rather nervously, and putting his hand on a great leathern portfolio in his breast pocket, in which he kept his acceptances; “and shall you be long gone, Mr. Daoud?”

This “Mr. Daoud,” following upon the former familiar “Ben,” was said without sternness, but spoke the creditor awakened to his rights. It seemed to say, “Smoke, drink, and be merry till your ‘accepted payable at such a date’ comes due; but pay then, or I’ll sell you up like death.”

Mr. Ben-Daoud seemed to have an inkling of this; for, he wagged his head, rubbed his hands, and answered, more volubly than ever, “Oh, as to that, Mr. Virlaz, dear sir, my journey is but of two days lasting. I shall be back the day after tomorrow, and with something noticeable in the way of diamonds. Aha!”

“Diamonds!” exclaimed Acon-Virlaz, glancing towards the drawer where his jewels were; for you may be sure he had swept them all away into safety before his friend had completed his entrance. “Diamonds! Where are you going for diamonds, Ben?”

“Why, to the great fair that is held tomorrow, Mr. Virlaz, as well you know.”

“Fair, Ben? Is there any fair tomorrow near Belleriport?”

“Why, bless my heart, Mr. Virlaz,” Ben-Daoud responded, holding up his fat hands; “can it be that you, so respectable and noticeable a man among our people, don’t know that tomorrow is the great jewel fair that is held once in every hundred years, at which diamonds, rubies, and all other pretty stones are sold cheap – cheap as dirt, my dear – a hundred thousand guineas-worth for sixpence, one may say. Your grandfather must have been there, and well he made his market, you may be sure. Aha! Good man!”

“I never heard of such a thing,” gasped Acon-Virlaz, perfectly amazed and bewildered. “And what do you call this fair?”

“Why, Sky Fair! As well you should know, dear sir.”

“Sky Fair?” repeated the jeweller.

“Sky Fair,” answered Ben-Daoud.

“But whereabouts is it?”

“Come here,” the voluble man said. He took hold of Acon-Virlaz by the wrist, and led him through the grove of pea-coats into the front shop; through the front shop into the open street; and then pointing upwards, he directed the gaze of the Jew to where, in the otherwise unillumined sky, there was shining one solitary star.

“Don’t it look pretty?” he asked, sinking his voice into a confidential whisper. “Don’t it look like a diamond, and glitter and twinkle as if some of our people the lapidaries in Amsterdam had cut it into faces. That’s where Sky Fair is, Mr. Virlaz. Aha!”

“And you are going there tomorrow?” Acon-Virlaz asked, glancing uneasily at his companion.

“Of course I am,” Ben-Daoud replied, “with my little bag of money to make my little purchases. And saving your presence, dear sir, I think you will be a great fool if you don’t come with me, and make some little purchases too. For, diamonds, Mr. Virlaz, are not so easily come by every day, as in Sky Fair; and a hundred years is a long time to wait before one can make another such bargain.”

“I’ll come, Ben,” the jeweller cried, enthusiastically. “I’ll come; and if ever I can do you any little obligation in the way of moneys, I will.” And he grasped the hand of Ben-Daoud, who sold clocks and discounted.

“Why, that’s right,” the other returned. “And I’ll come for you at eight o’clock tomorrow, punctually; so get your little bag of money and your nightcap and a comb ready.”

“But,” the jeweller asked, with one returning tinge of suspicion, “how are we to get there, Ben?”

“Oh,” replied Mr. Ben-Daoud, coolly, “we’ll have a shay.”

Sky Fair! – diamonds! – cheap bargains! Acon Virlaz could think of nothing else all the time of supper; which was something very nice indeed in the fish way, and into the cooking of which oil entered largely. He was so preoccupied, that Mrs. Virlaz, and Miriam his daughter, who had large eyes and a coral necklace (for weekdays), were fain to ask him the cause thereof; and he, like a good and tender husband and father as he was (and as most Hebrews, to their credit, are), told them of Ben-Daoud’s marvellous story, and of his intended journey.

The next morning, as the clock struck eight, the sound of wheels was heard before Acon-Virlaz’s door in the Common Hard of Belleriport, and a handful of gravel was playfully thrown against the first-floor window by the hands of Ben-Daoud of Westhampton.

But it needed no gravel, no noise of wheels, no striking of clocks, to awaken Acon-Virlaz. He had been up and dressed since six o’clock; and, leaving Mrs. Virlaz peacefully and soundly sleeping; and hastily swallowing some hot coffee prepared by Barney the lad (to whom he issued strict injunctions concerning the conduct of the warehouse during the day); he descended into the street, and was affectionately hailed by his fellow voyager to Sky Fair.

The seller of clocks sat in the “shay” of which he had spoken to Acon-Virlaz. It was a dusky little concern, very loose on its springs, and worn and rusty in its gear. As to the animal that drew it, Mr. Ben-Daoud mentioned by the way that it was a discount pony; having been taken as an equivalent for cash in numberless bills negotiated in the Westhampton garrison, and had probably been worth, in his time, considerably more than his weight in gold.

Said pony, if he was a rum ’un to look at – which, indeed, he was, being hairy where he should have been smooth, and having occasional bald places, as though he were in the habit of scratching himself with his hoofs – which hoofs, coupled with his whity-brown ankles, gave him the appearance of having indifferent bluchers and dirty white socks on – was a good ’un to go. So remarkably good was he in going, that he soon left behind, the high street of Belleriport, where the shop-boys were sleepily taking down the shutters; where housemaids were painfully elaborating the doorsteps with hearth-stones, to be soiled by the first visitor’s dirty boots (such is the way of the world); where the milkman was making his early morning calls, and the night policemen were going home from duty; and the third lieutenant of the Blunderbore – who had been ashore on leave, and was a little shaken about the eyes still – was hastening to catch the “beef-boat” to convey him to his ship. Next, the town itself did the pony leave behind: the outskirts, the outlying villages, the ruined stocks and deserted pound, the Port-Admiral’s villa: all these he passed, running as fast as a constable, or a bill, until he got at last into a broad white road, which Acon-Virlaz never remembered to have seen before; a road with a high hedge on either side, and to which there seemed to be no end.

Mr. Ben-Daoud drove the pony in first-rate style. His head and the animal’s wagged in concert; and the more he flourished his whip, the more the pony went; and both seemed to like it. The great white road sent up no dust. Its stones, if stones it had, never grated nor gave out a sound beneath the wheels of the “shay.” It was only very white and broad, and seemed to have no end.

Not always white, however; for, as they progressed, it turned in colour first milky-grey, then what schoolboys call, in connection with the fluid served out to them at breakfast time, sky-blue; then a deep, vivid, celestial blue. And the high hedge on either side melted by degrees into the same hue; and Acon-Virlaz began to feel curiously feathery about the body, and breezy about the lungs. He caught hold of the edge of the “shay,” as though he were afraid of falling over. He shut his eyes from time to time, as though he were dizzy. He began to fancy that he was in the sky.

“There is Sky Fair, Mr. Virlaz!” Ben-Daoud suddenly said, pointing a-head with his whip.

At that moment, doubtless through the superior attractions of Sky Fair, the dusky “shay” became of so little account to Acon-Virlaz as to disappear entirely from his sight and mind, though he had left his nightcap and comb (his little bag of money was safe in his side-pocket, trust him), on the cushion. At the same moment it must have occurred to the discount pony to put himself out at living in some very remote corner of creation, for, he vanished altogether too; and Acon-Virlaz almost fancied that he saw the beast’s collar fall fifty thousand fathoms five, true as a plumb-line, into space; and the reins, which but a moment before Ben-Daoud had held, flutter loosely away, like feathers.

He found himself treading upon a hard, loose, gritty surface, which, on looking down, appeared like diamond-dust.

“Which it is,” Mr. Ben-Daoud explained, when Acon-Virlaz timidly asked him. “Cheap as dirt here! Capital place to bring your cast-iron razors to be sharpened, Mr. Virlaz.”

The jeweller felt inclined for the moment, to resent this pleasantry as somewhat personal; for, to say truth, the razors in which he dealt were not of the primest steel.

There was a great light. The brightest sun-light that Acon-Virlaz had ever seen was but a poor farthing candle compared to this resplendency. There was a great gate through which they had to pass to the fair. The gate seemed to Acon-Virlaz as if all the jewellery and wrought gold in the world had been half-fused, half-welded together, into one monstrous arabesque or trellis-work. There was a little porter’s-lodge by the gate, and a cunning-looking little man by it, with a large bunch of keys at his girdle. The thing seemed impossible and ridiculous, yet Acon-Virlaz could not help fancying that he had seen the cunning little porter before, and, of all places in the world, in London, at the lock-up house in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, kept by Mr. Mephibosheth, to whose red-headed little turnkey, Benjy, he bore an extraordinary resemblance.

Who is to tell of the glories of Sky Fair? Who, indeed, unless he had a harp of gold strung with diamonds? Who is to tell of the long lines of dazzlingly white booths, hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions, of miles in extent, where jewels of surpassing size and purest water were sold by the peck, like peas; by the pound, like spice nuts; by the gallon, like table beer? Who is to tell of the swings, the round-abouts, the throwing of sticks, each stick surmounted by a diamond as big as an ostrich egg; the live armadillos with their jewelled scales; the scratchers, coruscating like meteors; the gingerbread kings and queens; the whole fun of the fair, one dazzling, blinding, radiating mass of gold and gems!

It was not Acon Virlaz who could tell much about these wondrous things in after days; for he was too occupied with his little bag of money, and his little fairings. Ben-Daoud had spoken the truth: diamonds were as cheap as dirt in Sky Fair. In an inconceivably short space of time, and by the expenditure of a few halfpence, the jeweller had laid in a stock of precious stones. But, he was not satisfied with pockets-full, bags-full, hats-full, of unset, uncut gems. There were heaps of jewelled trinkets, chains, bracelets, rings, piled up for sale. He hankered after these. He bought heaps of golden rings. He decorated his wrists and ankles with bracelets and bangles enough for a Bayadere. He might have been a dog, for the collars round his neck. He might have been an Ambrose Gwynnett hung in chains, for the profusion of those ornaments in gold, with which he loaded himself. And then he went in for solid services of plate, and might have been a butler or a philanthropist, for the piles of ewers, salvers, candelabra, and goblets which he accumulated in his hands, under his arms, on his head. More gold! more jewels! More – more—

Till a bell began to ring, – a loud, clanging, voiceful golden bell, carried by a shining bellman, and the clapper of which was one huge diamond. The thousands of people who, a moment before, had been purchasing jewels and gold, no sooner heard the bell than they began to scamper like mad towards the gate; and, at the same time, Acon-Virlaz heard the bellman making proclamation that Sky Fair would close in ten minutes time, and that every man, woman, or child found within the precincts of the fair, were it only for the thousandth part of the tithe of a moment after the clock had struck Twelve, would be turned into stone for a hundred years.

Till the men, women, and children from every nation under the sun (he had not observed them until now, so intent had he been on his purchases), came tearing past him; treading on his toes, bruising his ribs, jostling him, pushing him from side to side, screaming to him with curses to move on quicker, or to get out of the way. But, he could not move on quicker. His gold stuck to him. His jewels weighed him down. Invisible clogs seemed to attach themselves to his feet. He kept dropping his precious wares, and, for the life of him, could not refrain from stopping to pick them up; in doing which he dropped more.

Till Mr. Ben-Daoud passed him with a girdle of big diamonds, tied round his waist in a blue bird’s-eye handkerchief, like a professional pedestrian.

Till the great bell from ringing intermittent peals kept up one continuous clang. Till a clock above, like a Catherine wheel, which Acon-Virlaz had not before noticed, began to let off rockets of minutes, Roman candles of seconds. Till the bellman’s proclamation merged into one sustained roar of Oh yes! Oh yes! Till the red-headed gatekeeper, who was like Mr. Mephibosheth’s turnkey, gave himself up to an unceasing scream of “All out! All out!” whirling his keys above his head, so that they scattered sparks and flakes of fire all around.

Till fifty thousand other bells began to clang, and fifty million other voices to scream. Till all at once there was silence, and the clock began to strike slowly, sadly, One, two, three, four – to Twelve.

Acon-Virlaz was within a few feet of the gate when the fatal clock began to strike. By a desperate effort he cast aside the load of plate which impeded his movements. He tore off his diamond-laden coat; he cast his waistcoat to the winds, and plunged madly into the throng that blocked up the entrance.

To find himself too late. The great gates closed with a heavy shock, and Acon-Virlaz reeled away from them in the rebound, bruised, bleeding, and despairing. He was too late. Sky Fair was closed, and he was to be turned into stone for a hundred years.

The red-headed doorkeeper (who by the way squinted abominably) was leaning with his back to the gate, drumming with his keys on the bars.

“It’s a beautiful day to be indoors,” he said, consolingly. “It’s bitter cold outside.”

Acon-Virlaz shuddered. He felt his heart turning into stone within him. He fell on his knees before the red-headed doorkeeper; and with tears, sobs, groans, entreated him to open the gate. He offered him riches, he offered him the hand of Miriam his large-eyed daughter: all for one turn of the key in the lock of the gate of Sky Fair.

“Can’t be done,” the doorkeeper remarked, shaking his head. “Till Sky Fair opens again, you can’t be let out.”

Again and again did the jeweller entreat, until he at last appeared to make an impression on the red-headed janitor.

“Well, I’ll tell you what I can do for you, old gentleman,” he said: “I daren’t open the gate for my life; but there’s a window in my lodge; and if you choose to take your chance of jumping out of it (it is’nt far to fall) you can.”

Acon-Virlaz, uttering a confused medley of thanks, was about to rush into the lodge, when the gatekeeper laid his hand upon his arm.

“By the way, mister,” he said, “you may as well give me that big signet ring on your finger, as a token to remind you of all the fine things you promised me when I come your way.”

The jeweller hastily plucked off the desired trinket, and gave it to his red-headed deliverer. Then, he darted into the narrow, dark porter’s lodge, overturned a round table, on which was the doorkeeper’s dinner (it smelt very much like liver and bacon), and clambered up to a very tall, narrow window.

He leaned his hands on the sill, and thrusting his head out to see how far he had to jump, descried, immediately, beneath him the dusty shay, the discount pony, and Mr. Ben-Daoud with a lighted cigar in his mouth and the reins in his hand, just ready to start.

“Hold hard!” screamed Acon-Virlaz. “Hold hard! Ben, my dear friend, my old friend: hold hard, and take me in!”

Mr. Ben-Daoud’s reply was concise but conclusive:

“Go to Bermondsey,” he said, and whipped his pony.

The miserable man groaned aloud in despair; for the voice of the doorkeeper urged him to be quick about it, if he was going to jump; and he felt, not only his heart, but his limbs, becoming cold and stony.

Shutting his eyes and clenching his teeth, he jumped and fell, down, down into space. According to his own calculations, he must have fallen at least sixty thousand miles and for six months in succession; but, according to Mrs. Acon-Virlaz and Miriam his large-eyed daughter, he only fell from his armchair into the fireplace, striking his head against the tongs as he fell; having come home a little while before, with no such thing about him as his beautiful seal-ring; and being slightly the worse for liquor, not to say drunk.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE THIRD POOR TRAVELLER

You want my story, next? Ah, well!

Such marvels as you two have told

You must not think that I can tell;

For I am only twelve years old.

Ere long I hope I shall have been

On my first voyage, and wonders seen.

Some princess I may help to free

From pirates on a far-off sea;

Or, on some desert isle be left,

Of friends and shipmates all bereft.

For the first time I venture forth,

From our blue mountains of the north.

My kinsman kept the lodge that stood

Guarding the entrance near the wood,

By the stone gateway grey and old,

With quaint devices carved about,

And broken shields; while dragons bold

Glared on the common world without;

And the long trembling ivy spray

Half hid the centuries’ decay.

In solitude and silence grand

The castle towered above the land:

The castle of the Earl, whose name

(Wrapped in old bloody legends) came

Down through the times when Truth and Right

Bent down to armèd Pride and Might.

He owned the country far and near;

And, for some weeks in every year,

(When the brown leaves were falling fast

And the long, lingering autumn passed),

He would come down to hunt the deer,

With hound and horse in splendid pride.

The story lasts the livelong year,

The peasant’s winter evening fills,

When he is gone and they abide

In the lone quiet of their hills.

I longed, too, for the happy night,

When all with torches flaring bright

The crowding villagers would stand,

A patient, eager, waiting band,

Until the signal ran like flame

“They come!” and, slackening speed, they came.

Outriders first, in pomp and state,

Pranced on their horses thro’ the gate;

Then the four steeds as black as night,

All decked with trappings blue and white,

Drew thro’ the crowd that opened wide,

The Earl and Countess side by side.

The stern grave Earl, with formal smile

And glistening eyes and stately pride,

Could ne’er my childish gaze beguile

From the fair presence by his side.

The lady’s soft sad glance, her eyes

(Like stars that shone in summer skies),

Her pure white face so calmly bent,

With gentle greetings round her sent;

Her look, that always seemed to gaze

Where the blue past had closed again

Over some happy shipwrecked days,

With all their freight of love and pain.

She did not even seem to see

The little lord upon her knee.

And yet he was like angel fair,

With rosy cheeks and golden hair,

That fell on shoulders white as snow.

But the blue eyes that shone below

His clustering rings of auburn curls,

Were not his mother’s, but the Earl’s.

I feared the Earl, so cold and grim,

I never dared be seen by him.

When thro’ our gate he used to ride,

My kinsman Walter bade me hide;

He said he was so stern.

So, when the hunt came past our way,

I always hasten’d to obey,

Until I heard the bugles play

The notes of their return.

But she – my very heart-strings stir

Whene’er I speak or think of her—

The whole wide world could never see

A noble lady such as she,

So full of angel charity.

Strange things of her our neighbours told

In the long winter evenings cold,

Around the fire. They would draw near

And speak half-whispering, as in fear:

As if they thought the Earl could hear

Their treason ’gainst his name.

They thought the story that his pride

Had stooped to wed a low-born bride,

A stain upon his fame.

Some said ’twas false; there could not be

Such blot on his nobility:

But others vowed that they had heard

The actual story word for word,

From one who well my lady knew,

And had declared the story true.

In a far village, little known,

She dwelt – so ran the tale – alone.

A widowed bride, yet, oh! so bright,

Shone through the mist of grief, her charms;

They said it was the loveliest sight,—

She with her baby in her arms.

The Earl, one summer morning, rode

By the seashore where she abode;

Again he came, – that vision sweet

Drew him reluctant to her feet.

Fierce must the struggle in his heart

Have been, between his love and pride,

Until he chose that wondrous part,

To ask her to become his bride.

Yet, ere his noble name she bore,

He made her vow that nevermore

She would behold her child again,

But hide his name and hers from men.

The trembling promise duly spoken,

All links of the low past were broken,

And she arose to take her stand

Amid the nobles of the land.

Then all would wonder, – could it be

That one so lowly born as she,

Raised to such height of bliss, should seem

Still living in some weary dream?

’Tis true she bore with calmest grace

The honours of her lofty place,

Yet never smiled, in peace or joy,

Not even to greet her princely boy.

She heard, with face of white despair,

The cannon thunder through the air,

That she had given the Earl an heir.

Nay, even more (they whispered low,

As if they scarce durst fancy so),

That, through her lofty wedded life,

No word, no tone, betrayed the wife.

Her look seemed ever in the past;

Never to him it grew more sweet;

The self-same weary glance she cast

Upon the grey-hound at her feet,

As upon him, who bade her claim

The crowning honour of his name.

This gossip, if old Walter heard,

He checked it with a scornful word:

I never durst such tales repeat;

He was too serious and discreet

To speak of what his lord might do.

Besides, he loved my lady too:

And many a time, I recollect,

They were together in the wood;

He, with an air of grave respect,

And earnest look, uncovered stood.

And though their speech I never heard,

(Save now and then a louder word,)

I saw he spake as none but one

She loved and trusted, durst have done;

For oft I watched them in the shade

That the close forest branches made,

Till slanting golden sunbeams came

And smote the fir-trees into flame,

A radiant glory round her lit,

Then down her white robe seemed to flit,

Gilding the brown leaves on the ground,

And all the feathery ferns around.

While by some gloomy pine she leant

And he in earnest talk would stand,

I saw the tear-drops, as she bent,

Fall on the flowers in her hand.

Strange as it seemed and seems to be,

That one so sad, so cold as she,

Could love a little child like me;

Yet so it was. I never heard

Such tender words as she would say,

Or murmurs, sweeter than a word,

Would breathe upon me as I lay.

While I, in smiling joy, would rest,

For hours, my head upon her breast.

Our neighbours said that none could see

In me the common childish charms,

(So grave and still I used to be,)

And yet she held me in her arms,

In a fond clasp, so close, so tight,—

I often dream of it at night.

She bade me tell her all – no other,

My childish thoughts e’re cared to know;

For I – I never knew my mother;

I was an orphan long ago.

And I could all my fancies pour,

That gentle loving face before.

She liked to hear me tell her all;

How that day I had climbed the tree,

To make the largest fir-cones fall;

And how one day I hoped to be

A sailor on the deep blue sea—

She loved to hear it all!

Then wondrous things she used to tell,

Of the strange dreams that she had known.

I used to love to hear them well;

If only for her sweet low tone,

Sometimes so sad, although I know

That such things never could be true.

One day she told me such a tale

It made me grow all cold and pale,

The fearful thing she told!

Of a poor woman mad and wild

Who coined the life-blood of her child,

Who, tempted by a fiend, had sold

The heart out of her breast for gold.

But, when she saw me frightened seem,

She smiled, and said it was a dream.

How kind, how fair she was; how good

I cannot tell you. If I could

You, too, would love her. The mere thought

Of her great love for me has brought

Tears in my eyes: though far away,

It seems as it were yesterday.

And just as when I look on high

Through the blue silence of the sky,

Fresh stars shine out, and more and more,

Where I could see so few before.

So, the more steadily I gaze

Upon those far-off misty days,

Fresh words, fresh tones, fresh memories start

Before my eyes and in my heart.

I can remember how one day

(Talking in silly childish way)

I said how happy I should be

If I were like her son – as fair,

With just such bright blue eyes as he,

And such long locks of golden hair.

A dark smile on her pale face broke,

And in strange solemn words she spoke:

“My own, my darling one – no, no!

I love you, far, far better so.

I would not change the look you bear,

Or one wave of your dark brown hair.

The mere glance of your sunny eyes,

Deep in my deepest soul I prize

Above that baby fair!

Not one of all the Earl’s proud line

In beauty ever matched with thine.

And, ’tis by thy dark locks thou art

Bound even faster round my heart,

And made more wholly mine!”

And then she paused, and weeping said,

“You are like one who now is dead—

Who sleeps in a far distant grave.

O may God grant that you may be

As noble and as good as he,

As gentle and as brave!”

Then in my childish way I cried,

“The one you tell me of who died,

Was he as noble as the Earl?”

I see her red lips scornful curl,

I feel her hold my hand again

So tightly, that I shrank in pain—

I seem to hear her say,

“He whom I tell you of, who died,

He was so noble and so gay,

So generous and so brave,

That the proud Earl by his dear side

Would look a craven slave.”

She paused; then, with a quivering sigh,

She laid her hand upon my brow:

“Live like him, darling, and so die.

Remember that he tells you now,

True peace, real honour, and content,

In cheerful pious toil abide;

For gold and splendour are but sent

To curse our vanity and pride.”

One day some childish fever pain

Burnt in my veins and fired my brain.

Moaning, I turned from side to side;

And, sobbing in my bed, I cried,

Till night in calm and darkness crept

Around me, and at last I slept.

When suddenly I woke to see

The Lady bending over me.

The drops of cold November rain

Were falling from her long, damp hair;

Her anxious eyes were dim with pain;

Yet she looked wondrous fair.

Arrayed for some great feast she came,

With stones that shone and burnt like flame.

Wound round her neck, like some bright snake,

And set like stars within her hair,

They sparkled so, they seemed to make

A glory everywhere.

I felt her tears upon my face,

Her kisses on my eyes;

And a strange thought I could not trace

I felt within my heart arise;

And, half in feverish pain, I said:

“O if my mother were not dead!”

And Walter bade me sleep; but she

Said, “Is it not the same to thee

That I watch by thy bed?”

I answered her, “I love you, too;

But it can never be the same:

She was no Countess like to you,

Nor wore such sparkling stones of flame.”

O the wild look of fear and dread!

The cry she gave of bitter woe!

I often wonder what I said

To make her moan and shudder so.

Through the long night she tended me

With such sweet care and charity.

But I should weary you to tell

All that I know and love so well:

Yet one night more stands out alone

With a sad sweetness all its own.

The wind blew loud that dreary night.

Its wailing voice I well remember;

The stars shone out so large and bright

Upon the frosty fir-boughs white:

That dreary night of cold December.

I saw old Walter silent stand,

Watching the soft last flakes of snow

With looks I could not understand

Of strange perplexity and woe.

At last he turned and took my hand,

And said the Countess just had sent

To bid us come; for she would fain

See me once more, before she went

Away, – never to come again.

We came in silence thro’ the wood

(Our footfall was the only sound),

To where the great white castle stood,

With darkness shadowing it around.

Breathless, we trod with cautious care

Up the great echoing marble stair;

Trembling, by Walter’s hand I held,

Scared by the splendours I beheld:

Now thinking, Should the Earl appear!

Now looking up with giddy fear

To the dim vaulted roof, that spread

Its gloomy arches overhead.

Long corridors we softly past,

(My heart was beating loud and fast)

And reached the Lady’s room at last.

A strange faint odour seemed to weigh

Upon the dim and darkened air.

One shaded lamp, with softened ray,

Scarce showed the gloomy splendour there.

The dull red brands were hunting low:

And yet a fitful gleam of light,

Would now and then with sudden glow,

Start forth, then sink again in night.

I gazed around, yet half in fear,

Till Walter told me to draw near.

And in the strange and flickering light,

Towards the Lady’s bed I crept.

All folded round with snowy white,

She lay (one would have said she slept).

So still the look of that white face,

It seemed as it were carved in stone.

I paused before I dared to place

Within her cold white hand my own.

But, with a smile of sweet surprise,

She turned to me her dreamy eyes;

And slowly, as if life were pain,

She drew me in her arms to lie:

She strove to speak, and strove in vain;

Each breath was like a long-drawn sigh,

The throbs that seemed to shake her breast,

The trembling clasp, so loose, and weak,

At last grew calmer, and at rest;

And then she strove once more to speak:

“My God, I thank thee, that my pain

Of day by day and year by year,

Has not been suffered all in vain,

And I may die while he is near.

I will not fear but that Thy grace

Has swept away my sin and woe,

And sent this little angel face,

In my last hour to tell me so.”

(And here her voice grew faint and low)

“My child where’er thy life may go,

To know that thou art brave and true,

Will pierce the highest heavens through,

And even there my soul shall be

More joyful for this thought of thee.”

She folded her white hands, and stayed,

All cold and silently she lay:

I knelt beside the bed, and prayed

The prayer she used to make me say.

I said it many times, and then

She did not move, but seemed to be

In a deep sleep, nor stirred again.

No sound stirred in the silent room,

Or broke the dim and solemn gloom,

Save when the brands that burnt so low

With noisy fitful gleam of light,

Would spread around a sudden glow,

Then sink in silence and in night.

How long I stood I do not know:

At last poor Walter came, and said

(So sadly) that we now must go,

And whispered, she we loved was dead.

He bade me kiss her face once more,

Then led me sobbing to the door.

I scarcely knew what dying meant,

Yet a strange grief, before unknown,

Weighed on my spirit as we went

And left her lying all alone.

We went to the far North once more,

To seek the well-remembered home,

Where my poor kinsman dwelt before,

Whence now he was too old to roam;

And there six happy years we past,

Happy and peaceful till the last;

When poor old Walter died, and he

Blessed me and said I now might be

A sailor on the deep blue sea.

And so I go; and yet in spite

Of all the joys I long to know;

Though I look onward with delight,

With something of regret I go,

And young or old, on land or sea,

One guiding memory I shall take

Of what She prayed that I might be,

And what I will be for her sake!

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE FOURTH POOR TRAVELLER

Now, first of all, I should like to know what you mean by a story? You mean what other people do? And pray what is that? You know, but you can’t exactly tell. I thought so! In the course of a pretty long legal experience, I have never yet met with a party out of my late profession, who was capable of giving a correct definition of anything.

To judge by your looks, I suspect you are amused at my talking of any such thing ever having belonged to me as a profession. Ha! ha! Here I am, with my toes out of my boots, without a shirt to my back or a rap in my pocket, except the fourpence I get out of this charity (against the present administration of which I protest – but that’s not the point), and yet not two years ago I was an attorney in large practice in a bursting big country town. I had a house in the High Street. Such a giant of a house that you had to get up six steps to knock at the front door. I had a footman to drive tramps like me off all or any one of my six hearth-stoned steps, if they dared sit down on all or any one of my six hearth-stoned steps; – a footman who would give me into custody now if I tried to shake hands with him in the streets. I decline to answer your questions if you ask me any. How I got into trouble, and dropped down to where I am now, is my secret.

Now, I absolutely decline to tell you a story. But, though I won’t tell a story, I am ready to make a statement. A statement is a matter of fact; therefore the exact opposite of a story, which is a matter of fiction. What I am now going to tell you really happened to me.

I served my time – never mind in whose office; and I started in business for myself, in one of our English country towns – I decline stating which. I hadn’t a quarter of the capital I ought to have had to begin with; and my friends in the neighbourhood were poor and useless enough, with one exception. That exception was Mr. Frank Gatliffe, son of Mr. Gatliffe, member for the county, the richest man and the proudest for many a mile round about our parts. – Stop a bit! you man in the corner there; you needn’t perk up and look knowing. You won’t trace any particulars by the name of Gatliffe. I’m not bound to commit myself or anybody else by mentioning names. I have given you the first that came into my head.

Well! Mr. Frank was a staunch friend of mine, and ready to recommend me whenever he got the chance. I had given him a little timely help – for a consideration, of course – in borrowing money at a fair rate of interest: in fact, I had saved him from the Jews. The money was borrowed while Mr. Frank was at college. He came back from college, and stopped at home a little while: and then there got spread about all our neighbourhood, a report that he had fallen in love, as the saying is, with his young sister’s governess, and that his mind was made up to marry her. – What! you’re at it again, my man in the corner! You want to know her name, don’t you? What do you think of Smith?

Speaking as a lawyer, I consider Report, in a general way, to be a fool and a liar. But in this case report turned out to be something very different. Mr. Frank told me he was really in love, and said upon his honour (an absurd expression which young chaps of his age are always using) he was determined to marry Smith the governess – the sweet darling girl, as he called her; but I’m not sentimental, and I call her Smith the governess (with an eye, of course, to refreshing the memory of my friend in the corner). Mr. Frank’s father, being as proud as Lucifer, said “No” as to marrying the governess, when Mr. Frank wanted him to say “Yes.” He was a man of business, was old Gatliffe, and he took the proper business course. He sent the governess away with a first-rate character and a spanking present; and then he looked about him to get something for Mr. Frank to do. While he was looking about, Mr. Frank bolted to London after the governess, who had nobody alive belonging to her to go to but an aunt – her father’s sister. The aunt refuses to let Mr. Frank in without the squire’s permission. Mr. Frank writes to his father, and says he will marry the girl as soon as he is of age, or shoot himself. Up to town comes the squire, and his wife, and his daughter; and a lot of sentimentality, not in the slightest degree material to the present statement, takes place among them; and the upshot of it is that old Gatliffe is forced into withdrawing the word No, and substituting the word Yes.

I don’t believe he would ever have done it, though, but for one lucky peculiarity in the case. The governess’s father was a man of good family – pretty nigh as good as Gatliffe’s own. He had been in the army; had sold out; set up as a wine-merchant – failed – died: ditto his wife, as to the dying part of it. No relation, in fact, left for the squire to make inquiries about but the father’s sister; who had behaved, as old Gatliffe said, like a thoroughbred gentlewoman in shutting the door against Mr. Frank in the first instance. So, to cut the matter short, things were at last made up pleasant enough. The time was fixed for the wedding, and an announcement about it – Marriage in High Life and all that – put into the county paper. There was a regular biography, besides, of the governess’s father, so as to stop people from talking; a great flourish about his pedigree, and a long account of his services in the army; but not a word, mind ye, of his having turned wine-merchant afterwards. Oh, no – not a word about that! I knew it, though, for Mr. Frank told me. He hadn’t a bit of pride about him. He introduced me to his future wife one day when I met them out walking, and asked me if I did not think he was a lucky fellow. I don’t mind admitting that I did, and that I told him so. Ah! but she was one of my sort, was that governess. Stood, to the best of my recollection, five foot four. Good lissome figure, that looked as if it had never been boxed up in a pair of stays. Eyes that made me feel as if I was under a pretty stiff cross-examination the moment she looked at me. Fine red, fresh, kiss-and-come-again sort of lips. Cheeks and complexion— No, my man in the corner, you wouldn’t identify her by her cheeks and complexion, if I drew you a picture of them this very moment. She has had a family of children since the time I’m talking of; and her cheeks are a trifle fatter and her complexion is a shade or two redder now, than when I first met her out walking with Mr. Frank.

The marriage was to take place on a Wednesday. I decline mentioning the year or the month. I had started as an attorney on my own account – say six weeks, more or less, and was sitting alone in my office on the Monday morning before the wedding-day, trying to see my way clear before me and not succeeding particularly well, when Mr. Frank suddenly bursts in, as white as any ghost that ever was painted, and says he’s got the most dreadful case for me to advise on, and not an hour to lose in acting on my advice.

“Is this in the way of business, Mr. Frank?” says I, stopping him just as he was beginning to get sentimental. “Yes or no, Mr. Frank?” rapping my new office paper-knife on the table to pull him up short all the sooner.

“My dear fellow” – he was always familiar with me – “it’s in the way of business, certainly; but friendship—”

I was obliged to pull him up short again and regularly examine him as if he had been in the witness-box, or he would have kept me talking to no purpose half the day.

“Now, Mr. Frank,” said I, “I can’t have any sentimentality mixed up with business matters. You please to stop talking, and let me ask questions. Answer in the fewest words you can use. Nod when nodding will do instead of words.”

I fixed him with my eye for about three seconds, as he sat groaning and wriggling in his chair. When I’d done fixing him, I gave another rap with my paper-knife on to the table to startle him up a bit. Then I went on.

“From what you have been stating up to the present time,” says I, “I gather that you are in a scrape which is likely to interfere seriously with your marriage on Wednesday?” (He nodded, and I cut in again before he could say a word). “The scrape affects the young lady you are about to marry, and goes back to the period of a certain transaction in which her late father was engaged some years ago?” (He nods, and I cut in once more.) “There is a party who turned up after seeing the announcement of your marriage in the paper, who is cognisant of what he oughtn’t to know, and who is prepared to use his knowledge of the same, to the prejudice of the young lady and of your marriage, unless he receives a sum of money to quiet him? Very well. Now, first of all, Mr. Frank, state what you have been told by the young lady herself about the transaction of her late father. How did you first come to have any knowledge of it?”

“She was talking to me about her father one day, so tenderly and prettily, that she quite excited my interest about him,” begins Mr. Frank; “and I asked her, among other things, what had occasioned his death. She said she believed it was distress of mind in the first instance; and added that this distress was connected with a shocking secret, which she and her mother had kept from everybody, but which she could not keep from me, because she was determined to begin her married life by having no secrets from her husband.” Here Mr. Frank began to get sentimental again; and I pulled him up short once more with the paper knife.

“She told me,” Mr. Frank went on, “that the great mistake of her father’s life was his selling out of the army and taking to the wine trade. He had no talent for business; things went wrong with him from the first. His clerk, it was strongly suspected, cheated him—”

“Stop a bit,” says I, “What was that suspected clerk’s name?”

“Davager,” says he.

“Davager,” says I, making a note of it. “Go on, Mr. Frank.”

“His affairs got more and more entangled,” says Mr. Frank; “he was pressed for money in all directions; bankruptcy, and consequent dishonour (as he considered it) stared him in the face. His mind was so affected by his troubles that both his wife and daughter, towards the last, considered him to be hardly responsible for his own acts. In this state of desperation and misery, he—” Here Mr. Frank began to hesitate.

We have two ways in the law, of drawing evidence off nice and clear from an unwilling client or witness. We give him a fright or we treat him to a joke. I treated Mr. Frank to a joke.

“Ah!” says I. “I know what he did. He had a signature to write; and, by the most natural mistake in the world, he wrote another gentleman’s name instead of his own – eh?”

“It was to a bill,” says Mr. Frank, looking very crestfallen, instead of taking the joke. “His principal creditor wouldn’t wait till he could raise the money, or the greater part of it. But he was resolved, if he sold off everything, to get the amount and repay—”

“Of course!” says I. “Drop that. The forgery was discovered. When?”

“Before even the first attempt was made to negotiate the bill. He had done the whole thing in the most absurdly and innocently wrong way. The person whose name he had used was a staunch friend of his, and a relation of his wife’s: a good man as well as a rich one. He had influence with the chief creditor, and he used it nobly. He had a real affection for the unfortunate man’s wife, and he proved it generously.”

“Come to the point,” says I. “What did he do? In a business way, what did he do?”

“He put the false bill into the fire, drew a bill of his own to replace it, and then – only then – told my dear girl and her mother all that had happened. Can you imagine anything nobler?” asks Mr. Frank.

“Speaking in my professional capacity, I can’t imagine anything greener?” says I. “Where was the father? Off, I suppose?”

“Ill in bed,” said Mr. Frank, colouring. “But, he mustered strength enough to write a contrite and grateful letter the same day, promising to prove himself worthy of the noble moderation and forgiveness extended to him, by selling off everything he possessed to repay his money debt. He did sell off everything, down to some old family pictures that were heirlooms; down to the little plate he had; down to the very tables and chairs that furnished his drawing room. Every farthing of the debt was paid; and he was left to begin the world again, with the kindest promises of help from the generous man who had forgiven him. It was too late. His crime of one rash moment – atoned for though it had been – preyed upon his mind. He became possessed with the idea that he had lowered himself forever in the estimation of his wife and daughter, and—”

“He died,” I cut in. “Yes, yes, we know that. Let’s go back for a minute to the contrite and grateful letter that he wrote. My experience in the law, Mr. Frank, has convinced me that if everybody burnt everybody else’s letters, half the Courts of Justice in this country might shut up shop. Do you happen to know whether the letter we are now speaking of contained anything like an avowal or confession of the forgery?”

“Of course it did,” says he. “Could the writer express his contrition properly without making some such confession?”

“Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer,” says I. “But never mind that; I’m going to make a guess, – a desperate guess, mind. Should I be altogether in error,” says I, “if I thought that this letter had been stolen; and that the fingers of Mr. Davager, of suspicious commercial celebrity, might possibly be the fingers which took it?” says I.

“That is exactly what I tried to make you understand,” cried Mr. Frank.

“How did he communicate that interesting fact to you?”

“He has not ventured into my presence. The scoundrel actually had the audacity—”

“Aha!” says I. “The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr. Davager.”

“Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the shrubbery,” Mr. Frank goes on, “he had the assurance to approach her, and to say that he had been watching his opportunity of getting a private interview for days past. He then showed her – actually showed her – her unfortunate father’s letter; put into her hands another letter directed to me; bowed, and walked off; leaving her half dead with astonishment and terror!”

“It was much better for you that you were not,” says I. “Have you got that other letter?”

He handed it to me. It was so extremely humorous and short, that I remember every word of it at this distance of time. It began in this way:

To Francis Gatliffe, Esq., Jun.

Sir, – I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell. The price is a Five hundred pound note. The young lady to whom you are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of the nature of the letter, and the genuineness of the autograph. If you refuse to deal, I shall send a copy to the local paper, and shall wait on your highly respected father with the original curiosity, on the afternoon of Tuesday next. Having come down here on family business, I have put up at the family hotel – being to be heard of at the Gatliffe Arms.

Your very obedient servant,

Alfred Davager.

“A clever fellow, that,” says I, putting the letter into my private drawer.

“Clever!” cries Mr. Frank, “he ought to be horsewhipped within an inch of his life. I would have done it myself, but she made me promise, before she told me a word of the matter, to come straight to you.”

“That was one of the wisest promises you ever made,” says I. “We can’t afford to bully this fellow, whatever else we may do with him. Don’t think I am saying anything libellous against your excellent father’s character when I assert that if he saw the letter he would certainly insist on your marriage being put off, at the very least?”

“Feeling as my father does about my marriage, he would insist on its being dropped altogether, if he saw this letter,” says Mr. Frank, with a groan. “But even that is not the worst of it. The generous, noble girl herself says, that if the letter appears in the paper, with all the unanswerable comments this scoundrel would be sure to add to it, she would rather die than hold me to my engagement – even if my father would let me keep it.” He was a weak young fellow, and ridiculously fond of her. I brought him back to business with another rap of the paper-knife.

“Hold up, Mr. Frank,” says I. “I have a question or two more. Did you think of asking the young lady whether, to the best of her knowledge, this infernal letter was the only written evidence of the forgery now in existence?”

“Yes, I did think directly of asking her that,” says he; “and she told me she was quite certain that there was no written evidence of the forgery, except that one letter.”

“Will you give Mr. Davager his price for it?” says I.

“Yes,” says Mr. Frank, as quick as lightning.

“Mr. Frank,” says I, “you came here to get my help and advice in this extremely ticklish business, and you are ready, as I know, without asking, to remunerate me for all and any of my services at the usual professional rate. Now, I’ve made up my mind to act boldly – desperately, if you like – on the hit or miss – win-all-or-lose-all principle – in dealing with this matter. Here is my proposal. I’m going to try if I can’t do Mr. Davager out of his letter. If I don’t succeed before tomorrow afternoon, you hand him the money, and I charge you nothing for professional services. If I do succeed, I hand you the letter instead of Mr. Davager; and you give me the money, instead of giving it to him. It’s a precious risk for me, but I’m ready to run it. You must pay your five hundred any way. What do you say to my plan? Is it, Yes – Mr. Frank – or, No?”

“Hang your questions!” cries Mr. Frank, jumping up; “you know it’s Yes, ten thousand times over. Only you earn the money and—”

“And you will be too glad to give it to me. Very good. Now go home. Comfort the young lady – don’t let Mr. Davager so much as set eyes on you – keep quiet – leave everything to me – and feel as certain as you please that all the letters in the world can’t stop your being married on Wednesday.” With these words I hustled him off out of the office; for I wanted to be left alone to make my mind up about what I should do.

The first thing, of course, was to have a look at the enemy. I wrote to Mr. Davager, telling him that I was privately appointed to arrange the little business-matter between himself and “another party” (no names!) on friendly terms; and begging him to call on me at his earliest convenience. At the very beginning of the case, Mr. Davager bothered me. His answer was that it would not be convenient to him to call till between six and seven in the evening. In this way, you see, he contrived to make me lose several precious hours, at a time when minutes almost were of importance. I had nothing for it, but to be patient, and to give certain instructions, before Mr. Davager came, to my boy Tom.

There was never such a sharp boy of fourteen before, and there never will be again, as my boy, Tom. A spy to look after Mr. Davager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this kind; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest, stealthiest little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman’s steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman’s eyes. I settled it with the boy that he was not to show at all, when Mr. Davager came; and that he was to wait to hear me ring the bell, when Mr. Davager left. If I rang twice, he was to show the gentleman out. If I rang once, he was to keep out of the way and follow the gentleman wherever he went, till he got back to the inn. Those were the only preparations I could make to begin with; being obliged to wait, and let myself be guided by what turned up.

About a quarter to seven my gentleman came. In the profession of the law we get somehow quite remarkably mixed up with ugly people, blackguard people, and dirty people. But far away the ugliest and dirtiest blackguard I ever saw in my life was Mr. Alfred Davager. He had greasy white hair and a mottled face. He was low in the forehead, fat in the stomach, hoarse in the voice, and weak in the legs. Both his eyes were bloodshot, and one was fixed in his head. He smelt of spirits, and carried a toothpick in his mouth. “How are you? I’ve just done dinner,” says he – and he lights a cigar, sits down with his legs crossed, and winks at me.

I tried at first to take the measure of him in a wheedling, confidential way; but it was no good. I asked him in a facetious smiling manner, how he had got hold of the letter. He only told me in answer that he had been in the confidential employment of the writer of it, and that he had always been famous since infancy, for a sharp eye to his own interests. I paid him some compliments; but he was not to be flattered. I tried to make him lose his temper; but he kept it in spite of me. It ended in his driving me to my last resource – I made an attempt to frighten him.

“Before we say a word about the money,” I began, “let me put a case, Mr. Davager. The pull you have on Mr. Francis Gatliffe is, that you can hinder his marriage on Wednesday. Now, suppose I have got a magistrate’s warrant to apprehend you in my pocket? Suppose I have a constable to execute it in the next room? Suppose I bring you up tomorrow – the day before the marriage – charge you only generally with an attempt to extort money, and apply for a day’s remand to complete the case? Suppose, as a suspicious stranger, you can’t get bail in this town? Suppose—”

“Stop a bit,” says Mr. Davager; “Suppose I should not be the greenest fool that ever stood in shoes? Suppose I should not carry the letter about me? Suppose I should have given a certain envelope to a certain friend of mine in a certain place in this town? Suppose the letter should be inside that envelope, directed to old Gatliffe, side by side with a copy of the letter, directed to the editor of the local paper? Suppose my friend should be instructed to open the envelope, and take the letters to their right addressed, if I don’t appear to claim them from him this evening? In short, my dear sir, suppose you were born yesterday, and suppose I wasn’t?” – says Mr. Davager, and winks at me again.

He didn’t take me by surprise, for I never expected that he had the letter about him. I made a pretence of being very much taken aback, and of being quite ready to give in. We settled our business about delivering the letter and handing over the money, in no time. I was to draw out a document, which he was to sign. He knew the document was stuff and nonsense just as well as I did; and told me I was only proposing it to swell my client’s bill. Sharp as he was, he was wrong there. The document was not to be drawn out to gain money from Mr. Frank, but to gain time from Mr. Davager. It served me as an excuse to put off the payment of the five hundred pounds till three o’clock on the Tuesday afternoon. The Tuesday morning Mr. Davager said he should devote to his amusement, and asked me what sights were to be seen in the neighbourhood of the town. When I had told him, he pitched his toothpick into my grate – yawned – and went out.

I rang the bell once; waited till he had passed the window; and then looked after Tom. There was my jewel of a boy on the opposite side of the street, just setting his top going in the most playful manner possible. Mr. Davager walked away up the street, towards the marketplace. Tom whipped his top up the street towards the marketplace too.

In a quarter of an hour he came back, with all his evidence collected in a beautifully clear and compact state. Mr. Davager had walked to a public-house, just outside the town, in a lane leading to the high road. On a bench outside the public-house there sat a man smoking. He said “All right?” and gave a letter to Mr. Davager, who answered “All right,” and walked back to the inn. In the hall he ordered hot rum and water, cigars, slippers, and a fire to be lit in his room. After that, he went upstairs, and Tom came away.

I now saw my road clear before me – not very far on, but still clear. I had housed the letter, in all probability for that night, at the Gatliffe Arms. After tipping Tom, I gave him directions to play about the door of the inn, and refresh himself, when he was tired, at the tart-shop opposite – eating as much as he pleased, on the understanding that he crammed all the time with his eye on the window. If Mr. Davager went out, or Mr. Davager’s friend called on him, Tom was to let me know. He was also to take a little note from me to the head chambermaid – an old friend of mine – asking her to step over to my office, on a private matter of business, as soon as her work was done for that night. After settling these little matters, having half an hour to spare, I turned to and did myself a bloater at the office-fire, and had a drop of gin and water hot, and felt comparatively happy.

When the head chambermaid came, it turned out, as good luck would have it, that Mr. Davager had offended her. I no sooner mentioned him than she flew into a passion; and when I added, by way of clinching the matter, that I was retained to defend the interests of a very beautiful and deserving young lady (name not referred to, of course) against the most cruel underhand treachery on the part of Mr. Davager, the head chambermaid was ready to go any lengths that she could safely to serve my cause. In few words, I discovered that Boots was to call Mr. Davager at eight the next morning, and was to take his clothes downstairs to brush as usual. If Mr. D. had not emptied his own pockets overnight, we arranged that Boots was to forget to empty them for him, and was to bring the clothes downstairs just as he found them. If Mr. D.’s pockets were emptied, then, of course, it would be necessary to transfer the searching process to Mr. D.’s room. Under any circumstances, I was certain of the head chambermaid; and under any circumstances also, the head chambermaid was certain of Boots.

I waited till Tom came home, looking very puffy and bilious about the face; but as to his intellects, if anything, rather sharper than ever. His report was uncommonly short and pleasant. The inn was shutting up; Mr. Davager was going to bed in rather a drunken condition; Mr. Davager’s friend had never appeared. I sent Tom (properly instructed about keeping our man in view all the next morning) to his shake-down behind the office desk, where I heard him hiccupping half the night, as boys will, when over-excited and too full of tarts.

At half-past seven next morning, I slipped quietly into Boots’s pantry. Down came the clothes. No pockets in trousers. Waistcoat pockets empty. Coat pockets with something in them. First, handkerchief; secondly, bunch of keys; thirdly, cigar-case; fourthly, pocketbook. Of course I wasn’t such a fool as to expect to find the letter there; but I opened the pocketbook with a certain curiosity, notwithstanding.

Nothing in the two pockets of the book but some old advertisements cut out of newspapers, a lock of hair tied round with a dirty bit of ribbon, a circular letter about a loan society, and some copies of verses not likely to suit any company that was not of an extremely wicked description. On the leaves of the pocketbook, people’s addresses scrawled in pencil, and bets jotted down in red ink. On one leaf, by itself, this queer inscription: “Mem. 5 Along. 4 Across.” I understood everything but those words and figures; so of course I copied them out into my own book. Then I waited in the pantry, till Boots had brushed the clothes and had taken them upstairs. His report, when he came down was, that Mr. D. had asked if it was a fine morning. Being told that it was, he had ordered breakfast at nine, and a saddle-horse to be at the door at ten, to take him to Grimwith Abbey – one of the sights in our neighbourhood which I had told him of the evening before.

“I’ll be here, coming in by the back way at half-past ten,” says I to the head chambermaid. “To take the responsibility of making Mr. Davager’s bed off your hands for this morning only. I want to hire Sam for the morning. Put it down in the order-book that he’s to be brought round to my office at ten.”

Sam was a pony, and I’d made up my mind that it would be beneficial to Tom’s health, after the tarts, if he took a constitutional airing on a nice hard saddle in the direction of Grimwith Abbey.

“Anything else,” says the head chambermaid.

“Only one more favour,” says I. “Would my boy Tom be very much in the way if he came, from now till ten, to help with the boots and shoes, and stood at his work close by this window which looks out on the staircase?”

“Not a bit,” says the head chambermaid.

“Thank you,” says I; and stepped back to my office directly.

When I had sent Tom off to help with the boots and shoes, I reviewed the whole case exactly as it stood at that time. There were three things Mr. Davager might do with the letter. He might give it to his friend again before ten – in which case, Tom would most likely see the said friend on the stairs. He might take it to his friend, or to some other friend, after ten – in which case, Tom was ready to follow him on Sam the pony. And, lastly, he might leave it hidden somewhere in his room at the inn – in which case, I was all ready for him with a search-warrant of my own granting, under favour always of my friend the head chambermaid. So far I had my business arrangements all gathered up nice and compact in my own hands. Only two things bothered me: the terrible shortness of the time at my disposal, in case I failed in my first experiments for getting hold of the letter, and that queer inscription which I had copied out of the pocketbook.

“Mem. 5 Along. 4 Across.” It was the measurement, most likely, of something, and he was afraid of forgetting it; therefore, it was something important. Query – something about himself? Say “5” (inches) “along” – he doesn’t wear a wig. Say “5” (feet) “along” – it can’t be coat, waistcoat, trousers, or underclothing. Say “5” (yards) “along” – it can’t be anything about himself, unless he wears round his body the rope that he’s sure to be hanged with one of these days. Then it is not something about himself. What do I know of that is important to him besides? I know of nothing but the Letter. Can the memorandum be connected with that? Say, yes. What do “5 along” and “4 across” mean then? The measurement of something he carries about with him? – or the measurement of something in his room? I could get pretty satisfactorily to myself as far as that; but I could get no further.

Tom came back to the office, and reported him mounted for his ride. His friend had never appeared. I sent the boy off, with his proper instructions, on Sam’s back – wrote an encouraging letter to Mr. Frank to keep him quiet – then slipped into the inn by the back way a little before half-past ten. The head chambermaid gave me a signal when the landing was clear. I got into his room without a soul but her seeing me, and locked the door immediately. The case was to a certain extent, simplified now. Either Mr. Davager had ridden out with the letter about him, or he had left it in some safe hiding-place in his room. I suspected it to be in his room, for a reason that will a little astonish you – his trunk, his dressing-case, and all the drawers and cupboards were left open. I knew my customer, and I thought this extraordinary carelessness on his part rather suspicious.

Mr. Davager had taken one of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe Arms. Floor carpeted all over, walls beautifully papered, four-poster, and general furniture first-rate. I searched, to begin with, on the usual plan, examining everything in every possible way, and taking more than an hour about it. No discovery. Then I pulled out a carpenter’s rule which I had brought with me. Was there anything in the room which – either in inches, feet, or yards – answered to “5 along” and “4 across?” Nothing. I put the rule back in my pocket – measurement was no good evidently. Was there anything in the room that would count up to 5 one way and 4 another, seeing that nothing would measure up to it? I had got obstinately persuaded by this time that the letter must be in the room – principally because of the trouble I had had in looking after it. And persuading myself of that, I took it into my head next, just as obstinately, that “5 along” and “4 across” must be the right clue to find the letter by – principally because I hadn’t left myself, after all my searching and thinking, even so much as the vestige of another guide to go by. “5 along” – where could I count five along the room, in any part of it?

Not on the paper. The pattern there was pillars of trellis-work and flowers, enclosing a plain green ground – only four pillars along the wall and only two across. The furniture? There were not five chairs, or five separate pieces of any furniture in the room altogether. The fringes that hung from the cornice of the bed? Plenty of them, at any rate! Up I jumped on the counterpane, with my penknife in my hand. Every way that “5 along” and “4 across” could be reckoned on those unlucky fringes, I reckoned on them – probed with my penknife – scratched with my nails – crunched with my fingers. No use; not a sign of a letter; and the time was getting on – oh, Lord! how the time did get on in Mr. Davager’s room that morning.

I jumped down from the bed, so desperate at my ill-luck that I hardly cared whether anybody heard me or not. Quite a little cloud of dust rose at my feet as they thumped on the carpet. “Hallo!” thought I; “my friend the head chambermaid takes it easy here. Nice state for a carpet to be in, in one of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe Arms.” Carpet! I had been jumping up on the bed, and staring up at the walls, but I had never so much as given a glance down at the carpet. Think of me pretending to be a lawyer, and not knowing how to look low enough!

The carpet! It had been a stout article in its time; had evidently begun in a drawing-room; then descended to a coffee-room; then gone upstairs altogether to a bedroom. The ground was brown, and the pattern was bunches of leaves and roses speckled over the ground at regular distances. I reckoned up the bunches. Ten along the room – eight across it. When I had stepped out five one way and four the other, and was down on my knees on the centre bunch, as true as I sit on this bench, I could hear my own heart beating so loud that it quite frightened me.

I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and I felt all over it with the ends of my fingers; and nothing came of that. Then I scraped it over slowly and gently with my nails. My second fingernail stuck a little at one place. I parted the pile of the carpet over that place, and saw a thin slit, which had been hidden by the pile being smoothed over it – a slit about half an inch long, with a little end of brown thread, exactly the colour of the carpet-ground, sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the middle of it. Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I heard a footstep outside the door.

It was only the head chambermaid. “Havn’t you done yet?” she whispers.

“Give me two minutes,” says I; “and don’t let anybody come near the door – whatever you do, don’t let anybody startle me again by coming near the door.”

I took a little pull at the thread, and heard something rustle. I took a longer pull, and out came a piece of paper, rolled up tight like those candle-lighters that the ladies make. I unrolled it – and, by George! gentlemen all, there was the letter!

The original letter! – I knew it by the colour of the ink. The letter that was worth five hundred pound to me! It was all I could do to keep myself at first from throwing my hat into the air, and hooraying like mad. I had to take a chair and sit quiet in it for a minute or two, before I could cool myself down to my proper business level. I knew that I was safely down again when I found myself pondering how to let Mr. Davager know that he had been done by the innocent country attorney, after all.

It was not long before a nice little irritating plan occurred to me. I tore a blank leaf out of my pocketbook, wrote on it with my pencil “Change for a five hundred pound note,” folded up the paper, tied the thread to it, poked it back into the hiding-place, smoothed over the pile of the carpet, and – as everybody in this place guesses before I can tell them – bolted off to Mr. Frank. He, in his turn, bolted off to show the letter to the young lady, who first certified to its genuineness, then dropped it into the fire, and then took the initiative for the first time since her marriage engagement, by flinging her arms round his neck, kissing him with all her might, and going into hysterics in his arms. So at least Mr. Frank told me; but that’s not evidence. It is evidence, however, that I saw them married with my own eyes on the Wednesday; and that while they went off in a carriage and four to spend the honeymoon, I went off on my own legs to open a credit at the Town and County Bank with a five hundred pound note in my pocket.

As to Mr. Davager, I can tell you nothing about him, except what is derived from hearsay evidence, which is always unsatisfactory evidence, even in a lawyer’s mouth.

My boy, Tom, although twice kicked off by Sam the pony, never lost hold of the bridle, and kept his man in sight from first to last. He had nothing particular to report, except that on the way out to the Abbey Mr. Davager had stopped at the public-house, had spoken a word or two to his friend of the night before, and had handed him what looked like a bit of paper. This was no doubt a clue to the thread that held the letter, to be used in case of accidents. In every other respect Mr. D. had ridden out and ridden in like an ordinary sight-seer. Tom reported him to me as having dismounted at the hotel about two. At half-past, I locked my office door, nailed a card under the knocker with “not at home till tomorrow” written on it, and retired to a friend’s house a mile or so out of the town for the rest of the day.

Mr. Davager left the Gatliffe Arms that night, with his best clothes on his back, and with all the valuable contents of his dressing-case in his pockets. I am not in a condition to state whether he ever went through the form of asking for his bill or not; but I can positively testify that he never paid it, and that the effects left in his bedroom did not pay it either. When I add to these fragments of evidence, that he and I have never met (luckily for me), since I jockeyed him out of his bank note, I have about fulfilled my implied contract as maker of a statement, with the present company as hearers of a statement.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE FIFTH POOR TRAVELLER

Do you know – the journeyman watchmaker from Geneva began – do you know those long straight lines of French country, over which I have often walked? Do you know those rivers so long, so uniform in breadth, so dully grey in hue, that in despair at their regularity, you momentarily libel nature as being only a grand canal commissioner after all? Do you know the long funereal rows of poplars, or dreary parallelograms of osiers, that fringe those river banks; the long white roads, hedgeless, but, oh! so dismally ditchful; the long, low stone walls; the long farmhouses, without a spark of the robust, leafy, cheerful life of the English homesteads; the long fields, scarcely evergreen, but of an ashen tone, wearily furrowed, as though the earth had grown old and was beginning to show the crow’s feet; the long, interminable grey French landscape? The sky itself seems longer than it ought to be; and the clouds stretch away to goodness knows where in long low banks, as if the heavens had been ruled with a parallel. If a vehicle passes you it is only a woefully long diligence, lengthened yellow ugliness long drawn out, with a seemingly endless team of horses, and a long, stifling cloud of dust behind it: a driver for the wheelers with a whip seven times as long as it ought to be; and a postilion for the leaders with boots long enough for seven-leaguers. His oaths are long; the horses’ manes are long; their tails are so long that they are obliged to have them tied up with straw. The stages are long, the journey long, the fares long – the whole longitudinal carriage leaves a long melancholy jingle of bells behind it.

Yes: French scenery is very lengthy; so I settled in my mind at least, as I walked with long strides along the white French road. A longer me – my shadow – walked before me, bending its back and drooping its arms, and angularising its elongated legs like drowsy compasses. The shadow looked tired: I felt so. I had been oppressed by length all day. I had passed a long procession – some hundreds of boys in grey great coats and red trousers: soldiers. I had found their guns and bayonets too long, their coats disproportionately lengthy; the moustaches of their officers ridiculously elongated. There was no end of them – their rolling drums, baggage wagons, and led horses. I had passed a team of bullocks ploughing: they looked as long as the lane that hath no turning. A long man followed them smoking a long pipe. A wretched pig I saw, too – a long, lean, bristly, lanky-legged monstrosity, without even a curly tail, for his tail was long and pendent; a miserable pig, half-snouted greyhound, half-abashed weasel, whole hog, and an eyesore to me. I was a long way from home. I had the spleen. I wanted something short – not to drink, but a short break in the long landscape, a house, a knoll, a clump of trees – anything to relieve this long purgatory.

Whenever I feel inclined to take a more than ordinarily dismal view of things, I find it expedient to take a pipe of tobacco instead. As I wanted to rest, however, as well as smoke, I had to walk another long mile. When I descried a house, in front thereof was a huge felled tree, and on the tree I sat and lighted my pipe. The day was of no particular character whatever: neither wet nor dry, cold nor hot – neither springy, summery, autumnal, nor wintry.

The house I was sitting opposite to, might have been one of public entertainment (for it was a cabaret) if there had been any public in the neighbourhood to be entertained, which (myself excepted) I considered doubtful. It seemed to me as if Bacchus, roving about on the loose, had dropped a stray tub here on the solitary road, and no longer coming that way, the tub itself had gone to decay – had become unhooped mouldy, leaky. I declare that, saving a certain fanciful resemblance to the barrel on which the god of wine is generally supposed to take horse exercise, the house had no more shape than a lump of cheese that one might dig haphazard from a soft, double Gloucester. The windows were patches and the doorway had evidently been made subsequently to the erection of the building, and looked like an excrescence as it was. The top of the house had been pelted with mud, thatch, tiles, and slates, rather than roofed; and a top room jutted out laterally from one of the walls, supported beneath by crazy uprights, like a poor relation clinging to a genteel kinsman nearly as poor. The walls had been plastered once, but the plaster had peeled off in places, and mud and wattles peeped through like a beggar’s bare knee through his torn trousers. An anomalous wooden ruin, that might have been a barrel in the beginning, then a dog-kennel, then a dustbin, then a hen-coop, seemed fast approximating (eked out by some rotten palings and half a deal box) to a pigsty: perhaps my enemy the long pig with the pendent tail lived there when he was at home. A lively old birch-broom, senile but twiggy, thriving under a kindly manure of broken bottles and wood-ashes, was the only apology for trees, hedges, or vegetation generally, visible. If wood was deficient, however, there was plenty of water. Behind the house, where it had been apparently raining for some years, a highly respectable puddle, as far as mud and stagnation went, had formed, and, on the surface of it drifted a solitary, purposeless, soleless old shoe, and one dismal duck which no amount of green peas would have ever persuaded me to eat. There was a chimney to the house, but not in the proper place, of course: it came out of one of the walls, close to the impromptu pigsty, in the shape of a rusty, battered iron funnel. There had never been anything to speak of done in the way of painting to the house; only some erratic journeyman painter passing that way had tried his brushes in red, green, and yellow smudges on the wall; had commenced dead colouring one of the window sills; and had then given it up as a bad job. Some pretentious announcements relative to “Good wines and liquors;” and “Il y a un billard” there had been once above the door, but the rain had washed out some of the letters, and the smoke had obscured others, and the plaster had peeled off from beneath more; and some, perhaps, the writer had never finished; so the inscriptions were a mere wandering piece of idiotcy now. If anything were wanted to complete the general wretchedness of this house of dismal appearances it would have been found in the presence of a ghostly set of ninepins that Rip Van Winkle might have played with.

All these things were not calculated to inspire cheerfulness. I continued smoking, however, and thought that by and by I would enter the cabaret, and see if there were any live people there; which appeared unlikely.

All at once, there came out to me from the house a little man. It is not at all derogating from his manhood to state that he was also a little boy, of perhaps eight years old; but in look, in eye, in weird fur-cap, in pea-coat, blue canvas trousers, and sabots, he was at least thirty-seven years of age. He had a remarkable way, too, of stroking his chin with his hand, He looked at me long and fully, but without the slightest rudeness, or intrusive curiosity; then sitting by my side on the great felled tree he smoked a mental pipe (so it appeared to me) while I smoked a material one. Once, I think, he softly felt the texture of my coat; but I did not turn my head, and pretended not to notice.

We were getting on thus, very sociably together, without saying a word, when having finished my pipe I replaced it in my pouch, and began to remove a little of the superfluous dust from my boots. My pulverous appearance was the cue for the little man to address himself to speech.

“I see,” said he, gravely, “you are one of those poor travellers whom mamma tells us we are to take such care of. Attend, attend, I will do your affair for you in a moment.”

He trotted across to the cabaret, and after a lapse of two or three minutes returned with a tremendous bunch of bread, a cube of cheese – which smelt, as the Americans say, rather loud, but was excellently well-tasted – and an anomalous sort of vessel that was neither a jug, a mug, a cup, a glass, nor a pint-pot, but partook of the characteristics of all – full of Macon wine.

“This is Friday,” added the little man, “and meagre day, else should you be regaled with sausage – and of Lyons – of which we have as long as that;” saying which he extended his little arms to perhaps half a yard’s distance one from the other.

I did not care to inform the little man that I was of a persuasion that did not forbid the eating of sausages on Fridays. I ate the bread and cheese and drank the wine, all of which were very good and very palatable, very contentedly: the little man sitting by, the while, nursing one of his short legs, and talking to himself softly.

When I had finished I lighted another pipe, and went in for conversation with the little man. We soon exhausted the ordinary topics of conversation, such as the weather, the distance from the last town, and the distance to the next. I found that the little man’s forte was interrogatory, and let him have his swing that way.

“You come from a long way?” he asked.

“A long way,” I answered. “From beyond the Sous-prefecture, beyond Nantes, beyond Brest and L’Orient.”

“But from a town, always? You come from a town where there are a great many people, and where they make wheels!”

I answered that I came from a large town, and that I had no doubt, though I had no personal experience in the matter, that wheels were made there.

“And cannot you make wheels?”

I told him I was not a wheelwright; I only made the wheels of watches, which were not the wheels he meant.

“Because,” the little man went on to say, softly, and more to himself than to me, “mamma said he liked more to live in towns, where there were many people, and M. le Curé said that wherever wheels were made he could gain his bread.”

I could not make much of this statement, so I puffed away at my pipe, and listened.

“By the way,” my small but elderly companion remarked, “would you have any objection to my bringing my sister to you?”

The more I saw of so original a family the better, I thought; so I told him I should be delighted to see his sister.

He crossed over to the cabaret again, and almost immediately afterwards returned, leading a little maid.

She seemed about a year younger, or a year older than her brother. I could not tell which. It did not matter which. She was very fair, and her auburn locks were confined beneath a little prim blue cap. Mittens, a striped woollen shirt, a smart white chemisette, blue hose, and trim little sabots, all these had the little maid. She had a little chain and golden cross; a pair of scissors hanging by a string to her girdle, a black tabinet apron, and a little silver ring on the forefinger of her left hand. Her eyes were very blue, but they could not see my dusty boots, my pipe, and three days’ beard. They could not see the great felled tree, her brother in his pea-coat, the sky, the sun going down beyond the long straight banks of trees. They had never seen any of these things. The little maid was blind.

She had known all about me, however, as far as the boots, the pipe, the dust, the bread and cheese, my having come a long way, and not being a wheelwright went, long since. At least, she seemed quite au fait on general topics connected with my social standing, or rather sitting, on the tree: and taking a seat on one side of me: her brother, the little man, on the other, the two little children began to chatter most delightfully.

Mamma worked in the fields. In her own fields. She had three fields. Fields large as that (distance measured by little maid’s arms after the manner of her brother in reference to the sausage question). Papa made wheels. They loved him very much, but he beat mamma, and drank wine by cannons. When he was between two wines (that is, drunk), he knocked Lili’s head against the wall (Lili was the little man). When M. le Curé tried to bring him to a sense of the moral, he laughed at his nose. He was a farcer was Papa. He made beautiful wheels, and earned money like that (arm measurement again), except when he went weddingising (nocer), when he always came back between two wines, and between the two fell to the ground. Papa went away, a long time, a very long time ago. Before the white calf at the farm was born. Before André drew the bad number in the conscription, and went away to Africa. Before Lili had his grand malady (little man looked a hundred years old with the conscious experience of a grand malady. What was it? Elephantiasis, spasmodic neuralgia? Something wonderful, with a long name, I am sure). Papa sold the brown horse, and the great bed in oak, before he went away. He also briséd Mamma’s head with a bottle, previous to his departure. He was coming back someday. He was sure to come back. M. le Curé said no, and that he was a worth nothing, but mamma said, Yes, and cried; “though for my part,” concluded the little maid, when between herself and brother she had told me all this, “I think that poor papa never will come back, but he has gone away among those Bedouin Turks, who are so méchants, and that they have eaten him up.”

The little blind fairy made this statement with an air of such positive yet mild conviction, crossing her mites of hands in her lap as she did so, that for the moment I would have no more attempted to question the prevalence of cannibalism in Constantinople than to deny the existence of the setting sun.

While these odd little people were thus entertaining me, Heaven knows where my thoughts were wandering. This strange life they led. The mother away at work; the drunken wheelwright father a fugitive (he must have been an awful ruffian); and, strangest of all strange phases, that these two little ones should be left to keep a public-house! I thought of all these things, and then my thoughts came back to, and centred themselves in the weird little figure of the blind girl beside me. It was but a poor little blind girl in a blue petticoat and sabots; yet so exquisitely regular were the features, so golden the hair, so firm and smooth, and white – not marble, not wax, not ivory, yet partaking of all three the complexion, so symmetrical every line, and so gloriously harmonious the whole combination of lines, that the little maid might have been taken then and there as she sat, popped in a frame, with “Raffaelle pinxit,” in the corner, and purchased on the nail for five thousand guineas.

I could not help noticing from time to time, during our conversation, that the little man in the pea-coat turned aside to whisper somewhat mysteriously to his sister, and then looked at me more mysteriously still. He appeared to have something on his mind, and after a nod of apparent acquiescence on the part of the little blind girl, it soon came out what the something was.

“My sister and I,” said this small person, “hope that you will not be offended with us, but would you have any objection to show us your tongue?”

This was, emphatically, a startler. Could the little man be a physician as well as a publican? I did as he asked me; though I am afraid I looked very foolish, and shut my eyes as I thrust forth the member he desired to inspect. He appeared highly gratified with the sight of my tongue, communicating the results of his observation thereof to his sister, who clapped her hands, and seemed much pleased. Then he condescended to explain.

“You see,” said he, “that you told us you came from a distant country; that is well seen, for though you speak French like a little sheep, you do not speak it with the same tongue that we do.”

My experience of the court-martial scene in Black-eyed Susan, had taught me that it was possible to play the fiddle like an angel, but this was the first time I had ever heard of a grown man talking like a little sheep. I took it as a compliment, however (whether I was right or wrong in doing so is questionable), and waited to hear more.

“And my sister says that the reason why all strangers from far countries cannot speak as we do, is, because they have a dark line right down their tongues. Now you must have a line down your tongue, though I am not tall enough to see it!”

The creed of this valiant little fellow in respect to lines and tongues had evidently been built, long since, upon a rock of ages of loving faith in what his sister had told him. Besides, how do I know? I never saw my tongue except in a looking-glass, and that may have been false. My tongue may have five hundred lines crossing it at every imaginable angle, for aught I know.

So, we three, oddly assorted trio went chattering on, till the shadows warned me that twilight was fast approaching, and that I had two miles to walk to the town where I had appointed to sleep. Remembering then, that the little man had “done my affair for me,” in an early stage of our interview in the way of bread and cheese and wine, and not choosing to be really the poor traveller I seemed, I drew out a five-franc piece, and proffered payment.

Both the children refused the coin; and the little maid said gravely, “Mamma said that we were always to take care of poor travellers. What we have given you is pour l’amour de Dieu, – for God’s sake.”

I tried to force some trifle on them as a gift, but they would have none of my coin. Seeing then that I looked somewhat disappointed, the little man, like a profound diplomatist as he was, smoothed away the difficulty in a moment.

“If you like to go as far as you can see to the right, towards the town,” he said, “you will find a blind old woman, playing upon a flageolet, and sitting at a cake-stall by the way side. And if you like to buy us some gingerbread – for three sous she will give you – oh! like that!” For the last time in this history he extended his arms in sign of measurement.

I went as far as I could see, which was not far, and found the blind old woman playing on a flageolet, and not seeing at all. Of her, did I purchase gingerbread, with brave white almonds in it: following my own notions of measurement, I may hint, in respect to the number of sous-worth.

Bringing it back to the children, I took them up, and kissed them and bade them good-bye. Then I left them to the gingerbread and the desolate cabaret, until mamma should return from the fields, and that famous domestic institution, the “soupe,” of which frequent mention had already been made during our intercourse, should be ready.

I have never seen them since; I shall never see them again; but, if it ever be my lot to be no longer solitary, I pray that I may have a boy and girl, as wise, and good, and innocent as I am sure those little children were.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE SIXTH POOR TRAVELLER

…was the little widow. She had been sitting by herself in the darkest corner of the room all this time; her pale face often turned anxiously toward the door, and her hollow eyes watching restlessly, as if she expected someone to appear. She was very quiet, very grateful for any little kindness, very meek in the midst of her wildness. There was a strained expression in her eyes, and a certain excited air about her altogether, that was very near insanity; it seemed as if she had once been terrified by some sudden shock, to the verge of madness.

When her turn came to speak, she began in a low voice – her eyes still glancing to the door – and spoke as if to herself rather than to the rest of us; speaking low but rapidly – somewhat like a somnambule repeating a lesson:

•   •   •

They advised me not to marry him (she began). They told me he was wild – unprincipled – bad; but I did not care for what they said. I loved him and I disbelieved them. I never thought about his goodness – I only knew that he was beautiful and gifted beyond all that I had ever met with in our narrow society. I loved him, with no passing schoolgirl fancy, but with my whole heart – my whole soul. I had no life, no joy, no hope without him, and heaven would have been no heaven to me if he had not been there. I say all this, simply to show what a madness of devotion mine was.

My dear mother was very kind to me throughout. She had loved my father, I believe, almost to the same extent; so that she could sympathise with me even while discouraging. She told me that I was wrong and foolish, and that I should repent: but I kissed away the painful lines between her eyes, and made her smile when I tried to prove to her that love was better than prudence. So we married: not so much without the consent as against the wish of my family; and even that wish withheld in sorrow and in love. I remember all this now, and see the true proportions of everything; then, I was blinded by my passions, and understood nothing.

We went away to our pretty, bright home in one of the neighbourhoods of London, near a park. We lived there for many months – I in a state of intoxication rather than of earthly happiness, and he was happy, too, then, for I am sure he was innocent, and I know he loved me. Oh, dreams – dreams!

I did not know my husband’s profession. He was always busy and often absent; but he never told me what he did. There had been no settlements either, when I married. He said he had a conscientious scruple against them; that they were insulting to a man’s honour and degrading to any husband. This was one of the reasons why, at home, they did not wish me to marry him. But I was only glad to be able to show him how I trusted him, by meeting his wishes and refusing, on my own account, to accept the legal protection of settlements. It was such a pride to me to sacrifice all to him. Thus I knew nothing of his real life – his pursuits or his fortunes. I never asked him any questions, as much from indifference to everything but his love as from a wifely blindness of trust. When he came home at night, sometimes very gay, singing opera songs, and calling me his little Medora, as he used when in a good humour, I was gay too, and grateful. And when he came home moody and irritable – which he used to do, often, after we had been married about three months, once even threatening to strike me, with that fearful glare in his eyes I remember so well, and used to see so often afterwards – then I was patient and silent, and never attempted even to take his hand or kiss his forehead when he bade me be still and not interrupt him. He was my law, and his approbation the sunshine of my life; so that my very obedience was selfishness; for my only joy was to see him happy, and my only duty to obey him.

My sister came to visit us. My husband had seen very little of her before our marriage; for she had often been from home when he was with us, down at Hurst Farm – that was the name of my dear mother’s place – and I had always fancied they had not liked even the little they had seen of each other. Ellen was never loud or importunate in her opposition. I knew that she did not like the marriage, but she did not interfere. I remember quite well the only time she spoke openly to me on the subject how she flung herself at my knees, with a passion very rare in her, beseeching me to pause and reflect, as if I had sold myself to my ruin when I promised to be Harry’s wife. How she prayed! Poor Ellen! I can see her now, with her heavy, uncurled hair falling on her neck as she knelt half undressed, her large eyes full of agony and supplication, like a martyred saint praying. Poor Ellen! I thought her prejudiced then; and this unspoken injustice has lain like a heavy crime on my heart ever since: for I know that I judged her wrongfully, and that I was ungrateful for her love.

She came to see us. This was about a year and a half after I married. She was more beautiful than ever, but somewhat sterner, as well as sadder. She was tall, strong in person, and dignified in manner. There was a certain manly character in her beauty, as well as in her mind, that made one respect and fear her too a little. I do not mean that she was masculine, or hard, or coarse: she was a true woman in grace and gentleness; but she was braver than women in general. She had more self-reliance, was more resolute and steadfast, and infinitely less impulsive, and was more active and powerful in body.

My husband was very kind to her. He paid her great attention; and sometimes I half perceived that he liked her almost better than he liked me – he used to look at her so often: but with such a strange expression in his eyes! I never could quite make it out, whether it was love or hate. Certainly, after she came his manner changed towards me. I was not jealous. I did not suspect this change from any small feeling of wounded self-love, or from any envy of my sister; but I saw it – I felt it in my heart – yet without connecting it with Ellen in any way. I knew that he no longer loved me as he used to do, but I did not think he loved her; at least, not with the same kind of love. I used to be surprised at Ellen’s conduct to him. She was more than cold; she was passionately rude and unkind; not so much when I was there as when I was away. For I used to hear her voice speaking in those deep indignant tones that are worse to bear than the harshest scream of passion; and sometimes I used to hear hard words – he speaking at the first soft and pleadingly, often to end in a terrible burst of anger and imprecation. I could not understand why they quarrelled. There was a mystery between them that I did not know of; and I did not like to ask them, for I was afraid of them both – as much afraid of Ellen as of my husband – and I felt like a reed between them – as if I should have been crushed beneath any storm I might chance to wake up. So, I was silent – suffering alone, and bearing a cheerful face so far as I could.

Ellen wanted me to return home with her. Soon after she came, and soon after I heard the first dispute between them, she urged me to go back to Hurst Farm; at once, and for a long time. Weak as I am by nature, it has always been a marvel to me since, how strong I was where my love for my husband was concerned. It seemed impossible for me to yield to any pressure against him. I believe now that a very angel could not have turned me from him!

At last she said to me in a low voice: “Mary, this is madness! – it is almost sinful! Can you not see – can you not hear?” And then she stopped and would say no more, though I urged her to tell me what she meant. For this terrible mystery began to weigh on me painfully, and, for all that I trembled so much to fathom it, I had begun to feel that any truth would be better than such a life of dread. I seemed to be living among shadows; my very husband and sister not real, for their real lives were hidden from me. But I was too timid to insist on an explanation, and so things went on in their old way.

In one respect only, changing still more painfully, still more markedly; in my husband’s conduct to me. He was like another creature altogether to me now, he was so altered. He seldom spoke to me at all, and he never spoke kindly. All that I did annoyed him, all that I said irritated him; and once (the little widow covered her face with her hands and shuddered) he spurned me with his foot and cursed me, one night in our own room, when I knelt weeping before him, supplicating him for pity’s sake to tell me how I had offended him. But I said to myself that he was tired, annoyed, and that it was irritating to see a loving woman’s tears; and so I excused him, as oftentimes before, and went on loving him all the same – God forgive me for my idolatry!

Things had been very bad of late between Ellen and my husband. But the character of their discord was changed. Instead of reproaching, they watched each other incessantly. They put me in mind of fencers – my husband on the defensive.

“Mary,” said my sister to me suddenly, coming to the sofa where I was sitting embroidering my poor baby’s cap. “What does your Harry do in life? What is his profession?”

She fixed her eyes on me earnestly.

“I do not know, darling,” I answered, vaguely. “He has no profession that I know of.”

“But what fortune has he, then? Did he not tell you what his income was, and how obtained, when he married? To us, he said only that he had so much a year – a thousand a year; and he would say no more. But, has he not been more explicit with you?”

“No,” I answered, considering; for, indeed, I had never thought of this. I had trusted so blindly to him in everything that it would have seemed to me, a profound insult to have even asked of his affairs. “No, he never told me anything about his fortune, Ellen. He gives me money when I want it, and is always generous. He seems to have plenty; whenever it is asked for, he has it by him, and gives me even more than I require.”

Still her eyes kept looking at me in that strange manner. “And this is all you know?”

“Yes – all. What more should I wish to know? Is he not the husband, and has he not absolute right over everything! I have no business to interfere.” The words sound harsher now than they did then, for I spoke lovingly.

Ellen touched the little cap I held. “Does not this make you anxious?” she said. “Can you not fear as a mother, even while you love as a wife?”

“Fear, darling! Why? What should I fear, or whom? What is there, Ellen, on your heart?” I then added passionately. “Tell me at once; for I know that you have some terrible secret concealed from me; and I would rather know anything – whatever it may be – than live on, longer, in this kind of suspense and anguish! It is too much for me to bear, Ellen.”

She took my hands. “Have you strength?” she said, earnestly. “Could you really bear the truth?” Then seeing my distress, for I had fallen into a kind of hysterical fit – I was very delicate then – she shook her head in despair, and, letting my hands fall heavily on my lap, said in an under tone, “No, no! she is too weak – too childish!” Then she went upstairs abruptly; and I heard her walking about her own room for nearly an hour after, in long steady steps.

I have often thought that, had she told me then, and taken me to her heart – her strong, brave, noble heart – I could have derived courage from it, and could have borne the dreadful truth I was forced to know afterwards. But the strong are so impatient with us! They leave us too soon – their own strength revolts at our weakness; so we are often left, broken in this weakness, for want of a little patience and sympathy.

Harry came in, a short time after Ellen had left me. “What has she been saying?” he cried, passionately. His eyes were wild and bloodshot; his beautiful black hair flung all in disorder about his face.

“Dear Harry, she has said nothing about you,” I answered, trembling. “She only asked what was your profession, and how much we had a year. That was all.”

“Why did she ask this? What business was it of hers?” cried Harry, fiercely. “Tell me;” and he shook me roughly; “what did you answer her, little fool?”

“Oh, nothing;” and I began to cry: it was because he frightened me. “I said, what is true, that I knew nothing of your affairs, as indeed what concern is it of mine? I could say nothing more, Harry.”

“Better that than too much,” he muttered; and then he flung me harshly back on the sofa, saying, “Tears and folly and weakness! The same round – always the same! Why did I marry a mere pretty doll – a plaything – no wife!”

And then he seemed to think he had said too much: for he came to me and kissed me, and said that he loved me. But, for the first time in our married life his kisses did not soothe me, nor did I believe his assurances.

All that night I heard Ellen walk steadily and unresting through her room. She never slackened her pace, she never stopped, she never hurried; but, the same slow measured tread went on; the firm foot, yet light, falling as if to music, her very step the same mixture of manliness and womanhood as her character.

After this burst of passion Harry’s tenderness to me became unbounded; as if he wished to make up to me for some wrong. I need not say how soon I forgave him, nor how much I loved him again. All my love came back in one full boundless tide; and the current of my being set towards him again as before. If he had asked me for my life then, as his mere fancy, to destroy, I would have given it him. I would have lain down and died, if he had wished to see the flowers grow over my grave.

My husband and Ellen grew more estranged as his affection seemed to return to me. His manner to her was defying; hers to him contemptuous. I heard her call him villain once, in the garden below the windows; at which he laughed – his wicked laugh, and said “tell her, and see if she will believe you!”

I was sitting in the window, working. It was a cold damp day in the late autumn, when those chill fogs of November are just beginning; those fogs with the frost in them, that steal into one’s very heart. It was a day when a visible blight is in the air, when death is abroad everywhere, and suffering and crime. I was alone in the drawing-room. Ellen was upstairs, and my husband, as I believed, in the City. But I have remembered since, that I heard the hall-door softly opened, and a footstep steal quietly by the drawing room up the stairs. The evening was just beginning to close in – dull, grey, and ghostlike; the dying daylight melting into the long shadows that stalked like wandering ghosts about the fresh-made grave of nature. I sat working still, at some of those small garments about which I dreamed such fond dreams, and wove such large hopes of happiness; and as I sat, while the evening fell heavy about me, a mysterious shadow of evil passed over me, a dread presentiment, a consciousness of ill, that made me tremble, as if in ague – angry at myself though for my folly. But, it was reality. It was no hysterical sinking of the spirits that I felt; no mere nervousness or cowardice; it was something I had never known before; a knowledge, a presence, a power, a warning word, a spirit’s cry, that had swept by me as the fearful evil marched on to its conclusion.

I heard a faint scream upstairs. It was so faint I could scarcely distinguish it from a sudden rush of wind through an opening door, or the chirp of a mouse behind the wainscot. Presently, I heard the same sound again; and then a dull muffled noise overhead, as of someone walking heavily, or dragging a heavy weight across the floor. I sat petrified by fear. A nameless agony was upon me that deprived me of all power of action. I thought of Harry and I thought of Ellen, in an inextricable cypher of misery and agony; but I could not have defined a line in my own mind; I could not have explained what it was I feared. I only knew that it was sorrow that was to come, and sin. I listened, but all was still again; once only, I thought I heard a low moan, and once a muttering voice – which I know now to have been my husband’s, speaking passionately to himself.

And then his voice swept stormfully through the house, crying wildly, “Mary, Mary! Quick here! Your sister! Ellen!”

I ran upstairs. It seems to me now, that I almost flew. I found Ellen lying on the floor of her own room, just inside the door; her feet towards the door of my husband’s study, which was immediately opposite her room. She was fainting; at least I thought so then. We raised her up between us; my husband trembling more than I; and I unfastened her gown, and threw water on her face, and pushed back her hair; but she did not revive. I told Harry to go for a doctor. A horrid thought was stealing over me; but he lingered, as I fancied, unaccountably and cruelly, though I twice asked him to go. Then, I thought that perhaps he was too much overcome; so I went to him, and kissed him, and said, “She will soon be better, Harry,” cheerfully, to cheer him. But I felt in my heart that she was no more.

At last, after many urgent entreaties, and after the servants had come up, clustering in a frightened way round the bed – but he sent them away again immediately – he put on his hat, and went out, soon returning with a strange man; not our own doctor. This man was rude and coarse, and ordered me aside, as I stood bathing my sister’s face, and pulled her arm and hand roughly, to see how dead they fell, and stooped down close to her lips – I thought he touched them even – all in a violent and insolent way, that shocked me and bewildered me. My husband stood in the shadow, ghastly pale, but not interfering.

It was too true, what the strange man had said so coarsely. She was dead. Yes; the creature that an hour ago had been so full of life, so beautiful, so resolute, and young, was now a stiffening corpse, inanimate and dead, without life and without hope. Oh! that word had set my brain on fire! Dead! here, in my house, under my roof – dead so mysteriously, so strangely – why? How? It was a fearful dream, it was no truth that lay there. I was in a nightmare; I was not sane; and thinking how ghastly it all was, I fainted softly on the bed, no one knowing, till some time after, that I had fallen, and was not praying. When I recovered I was in my own room, alone. Crawling feebly to my sister’s door, I found that she had been washed and dressed, and was now laid out on her bed. It struck me that all had been done in strange haste; Harry telling me the servants had done it while I fainted. I knew afterwards that he had told them it was I, and that I would have no help. The mystery of it all was soon to be unravelled.

One thing I was decided on – to watch by my sister this night. It was in vain that my husband opposed me; in vain that he coaxed me by his caresses, or tried to terrify me with angry threats. Something of my sister’s nature seemed to have passed into me; and unless he had positively prevented me by force, no other means would have had any effect. He gave way to me at last – angrily – and the night came on and found me sitting by the bedside watching my dear sister.

How beautiful she looked! Her face, still with the gentle mark of sorrow on it that it had in life, looked so grand! She was so great, so pure; she was like a goddess sleeping; she was not like a mere woman of this earth. She did not seem to be dead; there was life about her yet, for there was still the look of power and of human sympathy that she used to have when alive. The soul was there still, and love, and knowledge.

By degrees a strange feeling of her living presence in the room came over me. Alone in the still midnight, with no sound, no person near me, it seemed as if I had leisure and power to pass into the world beyond the grave. I felt my sister near me; I felt the passing of her life about me, as when one sleeps, but still is conscious that another life is weaving in with ours. It seemed as if her breath fell warm on my face; as if her shadowy arms held me in their clasp; as if her eyes were looking through the darkness at me; as if I held her hands in mine, and her long hair floated round my forehead. And then, to shake off these fancies, and convince myself that she was really dead, I looked again and again at her lying there: a marble corpse, ice-cold with the lips set and rigid, and the death band beneath her chin. There she was, stiff in her white shroud, the snowy linen pressing so lightly on her; no life within, no warmth about her, and all my fancies were vain dreams. Then I buried my face in my hands, and wept as if my heart was breaking. And when I turned away my eyes from her, the presence came around me again. So long as I watched her, it was not there; I saw the corpse only; but when I shut this out from me, then it seemed as if a barrier had been removed, and that my sister floated near me again.

I had been praying, sitting thus in these alternate feelings of her spiritual presence and her bodily death, when, raising my head and looking towards the farther corner of the room, I saw, standing at some little distance, my sister Ellen. I saw her distinctly, as distinctly as you may see that red fire blaze. Sadly and lovingly her dark eyes looked at me, sadly her gentle lips smiled, and by look and gesture too she showed me that she wished to speak to me. Strange, I was not frightened. It was so natural to see her there, that for the moment I forgot that she was dead.

“Ellen!” I said, “what is it?”

The figure smiled. It came nearer. Oh! do not say it was fancy! I saw it advance; it came glidingly; I remembered afterwards that it did not walk – but it came forward – to the light, and stood not ten paces from me. It looked at me still, in the same sad gentle way, and somehow – I do not know whether with the hand or by the turning of the head – it showed me the throat, where were the distinct marks of two powerful hands. And then it pointed to its heart; and looking, I saw the broad stain of blood above it. And then I heard her voice – I swear I was not mad – I heard it, I say to you distinctly – whisper softly, “Mary!” and then it said, still more audibly, “Murdered!”

And then the figure vanished, and suddenly the whole room was vacant. That one dread word had sounded as if forced out by the pressure of some strong agony, – like a man revealing his life’s secret when dying. And when it had been spoken, or rather wailed forth, there was a sudden sweep and chilly rush through the air; and the life, the soul, the presence, fled. I was alone again with Death. The mission had been fulfilled; the warning had been given; and then my sister passed away, – for her work with earth was done.

Brave and calm as the strongest man that ever fought on a battlefield, I stood up beside my sister’s body. I unfastened her last dress, and threw it back from her chest and shoulders; I raised her head and took off the bandage from round her face; and then I saw deep black bruises on her throat, the marks of hands that had grappled her from behind, and that had strangled her. And then I looked further, and I saw a small wound below the left breast, about which hung two or three clots of blood, that had oozed up, despite all care and knowledge in her manner of murder. I knew then she had first been suffocated, to prevent her screams, and then stabbed where the wound would bleed inwardly, and show no sign to the mere bystander.

I covered her up carefully again. I laid the pillow smooth and straight, and laid the heavy head gently down. I drew the shroud close above the dreadful mark of murder. And then – still as calm and resolute as I had been ever since the revelation had come to me – I left the room, and passed into my husband’s study. It was on me to discover all the truth.

His writing table was locked. Where my strength came from, I know not; but, with a chisel that was lying on the table, I prized the drawer and broke the lock. I opened it. There was a long and slender dagger lying there, red with blood; a handful of woman’s hair rudely severed from the head, lay near it. It was my sister’s hair! – that wavy silken uncurled auburn hair that I had always loved and admired so much! And near to these again, were stamps, and dies, and moulds, and plates, and handwritings with facsimiles beneath, and bankers’ cheques, and a heap of leaden coin, and piles of incomplete banknotes; and all the evidences of a coiner’s and a forger’s trade, – the suspicion of which had caused those bitter quarrellings between poor Ellen and my husband – the knowledge of which had caused her death.

With these things I saw also a letter addressed to Ellen in my husband’s handwriting. It was an unfinished letter, as if it had displeased him, and he had made another copy. It began with these words – no fear that I should forget them; they are burnt into my brain – “I never really loved her, Ellen; she pleased me, only as a doll would please a child; and I married her from pity, not from love. You, Ellen, you alone could fill my heart; you alone are my fit helpmate. Fly with me Ellen—” Here, the letter was left unfinished; but it gave me enough to explain all the meaning of the first weeks of my sister’s stay here, and why she had called him villain, and why he had told her that she might tell me, and that I would not believe.

I saw it all now. I turned my head, to see my husband standing a few paces behind me. Good Heaven! I have often thought, was that man the same man I had loved so long and fondly?

The strength of horror, not of courage, upheld me. I knew he meant to kill me, but that did not alarm me; I only dreaded lest his hand should touch me. It was not death, it was he I shrank from. I believe if he had touched me then, I should have fallen dead at his feet. I stretched out my arms in horror, to thrust him back, uttering a piercing shriek; and while he made an effort to seize me, overreaching himself in the madness of his fury, I rushed by him, shrieking still, and so fled away into the darkness, where I lived, oh! for many many months!

When I woke again, I found that my poor baby had died, and that my husband had gone none knew where. But the fear of his return haunted me. I could get no rest day or night for dread of him; and I felt going mad with the one hard thought forever pitilessly pursuing me – that I should fall again into his hands. I put on widow’s weeds – for indeed am I too truly widowed! – and then I began wandering about; wandering in poverty and privation, expecting every moment to meet him face to face; wandering about, so that I may escape the more easily when the moment does come.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE SEVENTH POOR TRAVELLER

We were all yet looking at the Widow, after her frightened voice had died away, when the Book-Pedlar, apparently afraid of being forgotten, asked what did we think of his giving us a Legend to wind-up with? We all said (except the Lawyer, who wanted a description of the murderer to send to the Police Hue and Cry, and who was with great difficulty nudged to silence by the united efforts of the company) that we thought we should like it. So, the Book-Pedlar started off at score, thus:

•   •   •

Girt round with rugged mountains

The fair Lake Constance lies;

In her blue heart reflected,

Shine back the starry skies;

And watching each white cloudlet

Float silently and slow,

You think a piece of Heaven

Lies on our earth below!

Midnight is there: and silence

Enthroned in Heaven, looks down

Upon her own calm mirror,

Upon a sleeping town:

For Bregenz, that quaint city

Upon the Tyrol shore,

Has stood above Lake Constance,

A thousand years and more.

Her battlements and towers,

Upon their rocky steep,

Have cast their trembling shadow

For ages on the deep:

Mountain, and lake, and valley,

A sacred legend know,

Of how the town was saved, one night,

Three hundred years ago.

Far from her home and kindred,

A Tyrol maid had fled,

To serve in the Swiss valleys,

And toil for daily bread;

And every year that fleeted

So silently and fast,

Seemed to bear farther from her

The memory of the Past.

She served kind, gentle masters,

Nor asked for rest or change;

Her friends seemed no more new ones,

Their speech seemed no more strange;

And when she led her cattle

To pasture every day,

She ceased to look and wonder

On which side Bregenz lay.

She spoke no more of Bregenz,

With longing and with tears;

Her Tyrol home seemed faded

In a deep mist of years,

She heeded not the rumours

Of Austrian war and strife;

Each day she rose contented,

To the calm toils of life.

Yet, when her master’s children

Would clustering round her stand,

She sang them the old ballads

Of her own native land;

And when at morn and evening

She knelt before God’s throne,

The accents of her childhood

Rose to her lips alone.

And so she dwelt: the valley

More peaceful year by year;

Yet suddenly strange portents,

Of some great deed seemed near.

The golden corn was bending

Upon its fragile stalk,

While farmers, heedless of their fields,

Paced up and down in talk.

The men seemed stern and altered,

With looks cast on the ground;

With anxious faces, one by one,

The women gathered round;

All talk of flax, or spinning,

Or work, was put away;

The very children seemed afraid

To go alone to play.

One day, out in the meadow

With strangers from the town,

Some secret plan discussing,

The men walked up and down.

Yet, now and then seemed watching,

A strange uncertain gleam,

That looked like lances ’mid the trees,

That stood below the stream.

At eve they all assembled,

All care and doubt were fled;

With jovial laugh they feasted,

The board was nobly spread.

The elder of the village

Rose up, his glass in hand,

And cried, “We drink the downfall

Of an accursed land!

“The night is growing darker,

“Ere one more day is flown,

Bregenz, our foemen’s stronghold,

Bregenz shall be our own!”

The women shrank in terror

(Yet Pride, too, had her part),

But one poor Tyrol maiden

Felt death within her heart.

Before her, stood fair Bregenz;

Once more her towers arose;

What were the friends beside her?

Only her country’s foes!

The faces of her kinsfolk,

The days of childhood flown,

The echoes of her mountains,

Reclaimed her as their own!

Nothing she heard around her,

(Though shouts rang forth again,)

Gone were the green Swiss valleys,

The pasture, and the plain;

Before her eyes one vision,

And in her heart one cry,

That said, “Go forth, save Bregenz,

And then, if need be, die!”

With trembling haste and breathless,

With noiseless step, she sped;

Horses and weary cattle

Were standing in the shed,

She loosed the strong white charger,

That fed from out her hand;

She mounted, and she turned his head

Towards her native land.

Out – out into the darkness—

Faster, and still more fast;

The smooth grass flies behind her,

The chestnut wood is past;

She looks up; clouds are heavy:

Why is her steed so slow?

Scarcely the wind beside them,

Can pass them as they go.

“Faster!” she cries, “O faster!”

Eleven the church-bells chime;

“O God,” she cries, “help Bregenz,

And bring me there in time!”

But louder than bells’ ringing,

Or lowing of the kine,

Grows nearer in the midnight

The rushing of the Rhine.

She strives to pierce the blackness,

And looser throws the rein;

Her steed must breast the waters

That dash above his mane.

How gallantly, how nobly,

He struggles through the foam,

And see – in the far distance,

Shine out the lights of home!

Shall not the roaring waters

Their headlong gallop check?

The steed draws back in terror,

She leans above his neck

To watch the flowing darkness,

The bank is high and steep,

One pause – he staggers forward,

And plunges in the deep.

Up the steep bank he bears her,

And now, they rush again

Towards the heights of Bregenz,

That Tower above the plain.

They reach the gate of Bregenz,

Just as the midnight rings,

And out come serf and soldier

To meet the news she brings.

Bregenz is saved! Ere daylight

Her battlements are manned;

Defiance greets the army

That marches on the land.

And if to deeds heroic

Should endless fame be paid,

Bregenz does well to honour

The noble Tyrol maid.

Three hundred years are vanished,

And yet upon the hill

An old stone gateway rises,

To do her honour still.

And there, when Bregenz women

Sit spinning in the shade,

They see in quaint old carving

The Charger and the Maid.

And when, to guard old Bregenz,

By gateway, street, and tower,

The warder paces all night long,

And calls each passing hour;

“Nine,”  “ten,”  “eleven,” he cries aloud,

And then (O crown of Fame!)

When midnight pauses in the skies,

He calls the maiden’s name!

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE ROAD

The stories being all finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the Cathedral-bell struck Twelve. I did not take leave of my Travellers that night; for, it had come into my head to reappear in conjunction with some hot coffee, at seven in the morning.

As I passed along the High Street, I heard the Waits at a distance, and struck off to find them. They were playing near one of the old gates of the City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by the Minor-Canons. They had odd little porches over the doors, like sounding-boards over old pulpits; and I thought I should like to see one of the Minor-Canons come out upon his top step, and favour us with a little Christmas discourse about the poor scholars of Rochester: taking for his text the words of his Master, relative to the devouring of Widows’ houses.

The clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they generally are), of so vagabond a tendency, that I accompanied the Waits across an open green called the Vines, and assisted – in the French sense – at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish melodies, before I thought of my inn any more. However, I returned to it then, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, the wall-eyed young man, and two chambermaids, circling round the great deal table with the utmost animation.

I had a very bad night. It cannot have been owing to the turkey, or the beef – and the Wassail is out of the question – but, in every endeavour that I made to get to sleep, I failed most dismally. Now, I was at Badajos with a fiddle; now, haunted by the widow’s murdered sister. Now, I was riding on a little blind girl, to save my native town from sack and ruin. Now, I was expostulating with the dead mother of the unconscious little sailor-boy; now, dealing in diamonds in Sky Fair; now, for life or death, hiding mince-pies under bedroom carpets. For all this, I was never asleep; and, in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of Master Richard Watts perpetually embarrassed it.

In a word, I only got out of the worshipful Master Richard Watts’s way, by getting out of bed in the dark at six o’clock, and tumbling, as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose. The outer air was dull and cold enough in the street, when I came down there; and the one candle in our supper-room at Watts’s Charity looked as pale in the burning, as if it had had a bad night too. But, my Travellers had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of bread and butter which Ben had arranged like deals in a timber-yard, as kindly as I could desire.

While it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street together, and there shook hands. The widow took the little sailor towards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; the lawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without committing himself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by the cathedral and old castle for Maidstone; and the book-pedlar accompanied me over the bridge. As for me, I was going to walk, by Cobham Woods, as far upon my way to London as I fancied.

When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the main-road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and pursued my way alone. And now, the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoar-frost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all Nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday.

Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves, enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly buried, “in the sure and certain hope” which Christmas time inspired. What children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who had loved them! No garden that I passed, was out of unison with the day, for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that “she, supposing him to be the gardener,” had said, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” In time, the distant river with the ships, came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen mending their nets, who arose and followed him – of the teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from shore, by reason of the multitude – of a majestic figure walking on the water, in the loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground was eloquent of Christmas; for, did not the people lay their sick where the mere shadows of the men who had heard and seen him, might fall as they passed along?

Thus, Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath, and had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in Greenwich Park, and was being steam-rattled, through the mists now closing in once more, towards the lights of London. Brightly they shone, but not so brightly as my own fire and the brighter faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the day. And there I told of worthy Master Richard Watts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellers who were neither Rogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this, I have never seen one of them again.

•  THE END  •

THE HOLLY-TREE INN

CONTENTS

The Guest
Charles Dickens

The Ostler
Wilkie Collins

The Boots
Charles Dickens

The Landlord
William Howit

The Bar-Maid
Adelaide Procter

The Poor Pensioner
Holme Lee (Harriet Parr)

The Bill
Charles Dickens

Household Words
Christmas number 1855

THE GUEST

I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it. But, I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now.

I might greatly move the reader, by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character, a bashful man. But, I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.

That object is, to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast, I was once snowed up.

It happened in the memorable year when I parted forever from Angela Leath whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself, and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America – on my way to the Devil.

Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of then an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall; – I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could, with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.

The dead wintertime was in full dreariness when I left my chambers forever, at five o’clock in the morning. I had shaved by candlelight, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged, which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances.

How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting, to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip.

It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name), on the further borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farmhouse in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business – of which she should know all particulars by-and-by – took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days.

There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were stagecoaches: which I occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was, to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But, when one of our Temple watchmen who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed up in the night and made a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, Whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness? I was heartbroken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death.

When I got up to the Peacock – where I found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation – I asked, if there were an inside seat to spare? I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey.

It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, pale uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up, high into the rarefied air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and grey. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers’ yards. Outdoor work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside Inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike-houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike-people have children, and seem to like them), rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. I don’t know when the snow began to set in; but, I know that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, “That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard today.” Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick.

The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out as a lonely traveller does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking – particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus, Auld Lang Syne, without a moment’s intermission. They kept the time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves without being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up – which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long, we went on in this manner. Thus, we came round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.

I forget now, where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been; but, I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedgerows to guide us, we went crunching on, over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hillside. Still, the coachman and guard – who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them – made out the track with astonishing sagacity.

When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the Inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town’s end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us, was a snowy Saharah. One would have thought this enough; notwithstanding which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.

We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o’clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change.

They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as King Lear’s in a single minute: “What Inn is this?”

“The Holly-Tree, sir,” said he.

“Upon my word, I believe,” said I, apologetically to the guard and coachman, “that I must stop here.”

Now, the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the postboy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on? The coachman had already replied, “Yes, he’d take her through it” – meaning by Her, the coach – “if so be as George would stand by him.” George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So, the helpers were already getting the horses out.

My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval, even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for’ard by the mail tomorrow, whereas tonight he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze – ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree, upstairs.

I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose), engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me, roasting whole before an immense fire.

My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase, at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I stuck to my armchair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass – what I may call a wavy glass – above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anterior phrenological developments – and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms.

I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in themselves; therefore I am emboldened to mention, that when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail, my arrangements for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if needful, even four.

Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In oases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. What had I to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked, in my bitterness.

In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by labourers from the market-town. When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree, nobody could tell me.

It was now Christmas Eve. I should have had a dismal Christmas-time of it anywhere, and, consequently, that did not so much matter; still, being snowed up, was, like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it very much), than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shame-faced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them.

Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked what books there were in the house? The waiter brought me a Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-book terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle, and the Sentimental Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again; then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely through the jokes – in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but Stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen – not daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me – I could hear it growling – and began.

My first impressions of an Inn, dated from the Nursery; consequently, I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose speciality was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie), had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers underneath a trapdoor, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, “Too much pepper!” – which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another, of the same period, whose profession was, originally, housebreaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country Inn: which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would, on any consideration, take it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which, she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes or the Bleeding Nun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich – which my father was not; and immensely tall – which my father was not. It was always a point with this Ghoule to present my dearest relations and friends to my youthful mind, under circumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once, through a forest, on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there? She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, “Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!” Upon which, one of the dark men wrung the parrot’s neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but, he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in a corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing upstairs; one armed with a dagger, that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of an hour.

These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated – coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan’s complexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then, I remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller’s bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation, that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddlebags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it, as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the fair Imogene.

There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign – the Mitre – and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord’s youngest daughter to distraction – but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet.

“To be continued, tomorrow,” said I, when I took my candle to go to bed. But, my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting from a stagecoach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep, a curious experience I had really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes, as still living; sometimes, as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always, as being beautiful, placid, and happy; never in association with any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my fire, to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear lost one. But, in the letter that I wrote, I recorded the circumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked, touching the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice, in the deep stillness of the night, calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the dead; it being All Souls Eve.

To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances.

That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window, came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally-preserved Druid, I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off: who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the re-appearance on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that anyone who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said “I dare!” would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but, the bustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. This weird man at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleepwalker, or an enthusiast, or a robber; but, I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible precipitation.

That was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow, zig-zag street among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms: which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering – like rough packing-cases. Outside, there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn, had disappeared eight weeks before (it was wintertime), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said “Louis, where is Henri?” They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this Inn there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but, the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the livestock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on – six weeks – and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman who sat nursing her goître at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon, the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, “Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is the body!” I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal – the dullest animal in the stables – with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of sensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn’t be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this murderer sitting bound to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little marketplace. In that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade), swept round him like a gust of wind, or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was – not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle.

That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger’s hind legs and tail; while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks; and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc, Mount Blank – except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as “Blank;” observing at breakfast, “Blank looks pretty tall this morning;” or considerably doubting in the courtyard in the evening, whether there warn’t some go-ahead natures in our country, sir, that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start – now!

Once, I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort – an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal, to put the pie on the table. After some days, I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerful orchestra. Human prevision could not have foreseen the result – but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled.

The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. Here, I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn.

It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners’ Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honour of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor’s toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor’s part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse – though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But, the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chairmaker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches. Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a Clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper’s light during the eggs and bacon.

The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry me on until I was dug out. I might be a week here – weeks!

There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I once passed a night at, in a picturesque old town on the Welch border. In a large, double-bedded room of this Inn, there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt Laudanum; and that his mind always turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with anyone. This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it – bed, hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story), now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested “Poison,” the traveller started, and cried “Yes!” He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream.

This reminiscence brought the Welch Inns in general, before me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whiskey, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once, was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses: which horses were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout I was taken by quick association to the Anglers’ Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling, by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance: which I have generally found to be as effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science); and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the peerless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have converted Blue Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals, the pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke or even Windsor to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled labourers and wanderers bivouacing in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the rooms where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteen-pence a-week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for firewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway. What could I next see in my fire, so naturally, as the new railway-house of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business doing, beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall? Then, I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty appartement of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody’s mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next, to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser roadside Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your anteroom; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can’t; where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot. So, to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular staircases whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of Heaven; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths of ghostly bed-chambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. So, to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So, to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark’s Cathedral tolling midnight. Next, I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else’s getting up; and where, in the table d’hôte room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely drest in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows and the grape that grows and Rhine wine that beguiles and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are sodden down to the same flavor, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds a-piece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again, I stood in the barrooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again, I listened to my friend the General – whom I had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians – again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the resources of the establishment, as to gentlemen’s morning-room, sir; ladies’ morning-room, sir; gentlemen’s evening-room, sir; ladies’ evening-room, sir; ladies’ and gentlemen’s evening re-uniting-room, sir; music-room, sir; reading room, sir; over four-hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old incumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more doliarous, the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians, all; full-well knowing that whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people.

I had been going on lately, at a quick pace, to keep my solitude out of my mind; but, here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremity was I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery.

A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord’s table and the company I might find there, as to make acquaintance, under various pretences, with some of the inmates of the house, singly – with the object of getting from each, either a whole autobiography, or a passage or experience in one, with which I could cheat the tardy time: first of all by seeking out, then by listening to, then by remembering and writing down? Could I, I asked myself, so far overcome my retiring nature as to do this? I could. I would. I did.

The results of this conception I proceed to give, in the exact order in which I attained them. I began my plan of operations at once, and, by slow approaches and after overcoming many obstacles (all of my own making, I believe), reached the story of:

THE OSTLER

I find an old man, fast asleep, in one of the stalls of the stable. It is midday, and rather a strange time for an ostler to devote to sleep. Something curious, too, about the man’s face. A withered woebegone face. The eyebrows painfully contracted; the mouth fast set, and drawn down at the corners; the hollow cheeks sadly, and, as I cannot help fancying, prematurely wrinkled; the scanty, grizzled hair, telling weakly its own tale of some past sorrow or suffering. How fast he draws his breath, too, for a man asleep! He is talking in his sleep.

“Wake up!” I hear him say, in a quick whisper through his fast-clenched teeth. “Wake up there! Murder! O Lord help me! Lord help me, alone in this place!”

He stops, and sighs again – moves one lean arm slowly, till it rests over his throat – shudders a little, and turns on his straw – the arm leaves his throat – the hand stretches itself out, and clutches at the side towards which he has turned, as if he fancies himself to be grasping at the edge of something. Is he waking? No – there is the whisper again; he is still talking in his sleep.

“Light grey eyes,” he says now, “and a droop in the left eyelid. Yes! yes! – flaxen hair with a gold-yellow streak in it – all right, mother – fair, white arms with a down on them – little lady’s hand, with a reddish look under the fingernails – and the knife – always the cursed knife – first on one side, then on the other. Aha! you she-devil, where’s the knife? Never mind, mother – too late now. I’ve promised to marry, and marry I must. Murder! wake up there! for God’s sake, wake up!”

At the last words his voice rises, and he grows so restless on a sudden, that I draw back quietly to the door. I see him shudder on the straw – his withered face grows distorted – he throws up both his hands with a quick, hysterical gasp; they strike against the bottom of the manger under which he lies; the blow awakens him; I have just time to slip through the door, before his eyes are fairly open and his senses are his own again.

What I have seen and heard has so startled and shocked me, that I feel my heart beating fast, as I softly and quickly retrace my steps across the inn-yard. The discomposure that is going on within me, apparently shows itself in my face; for, as I get back to the covered way leading to the Inn stairs, the landlord, who is just coming out of the house to ring some bell in the yard, stops astonished, and asks what is the matter with me? I tell him what I have just seen.

“Aha!” says the landlord, with an air of relief. “I understand now. Poor old chap! He was only dreaming his old dream over again. There’s the queerest story – of a dreadful kind, too, mind you – connected with him and his dream, that ever was told.”

I entreat the landlord to tell me the story. After a little hesitation, he complies with my request.

•   •   •

Some years ago, there lived in the suburbs of a large seaport town, on the west coast of England, a man in humble circumstances, by name Isaac Scatchard. His means of subsistence were derived from any employment that he could get, as an ostler; and, occasionally, when times went well with him, from temporary engagements in service, as stable-helper in private houses. Though a faithful, steady, and honest man, he got on badly in his calling. His ill-luck was proverbial among his neighbours. He was always missing good opportunities, by no fault of his own; and always living longest in service with amiable people who were not punctual payers of wages. “Unlucky Isaac” was his nickname in his own neighbourhood – and no one could say that he did not richly deserve it.

With far more than one man’s fair share of adversity to endure, Isaac had but one consolation to support him – and that was of the dreariest and most negative kind. He had no wife and children to increase his anxieties and add to the bitterness of his various failures in life. It might have been from mere insensibility, or it might have been from generous unwillingness to involve another in his own unlucky destiny – but the fact undoubtedly was, that he arrived at the middle term of life without marrying; and, what is much more remarkable, without once exposing himself, from eighteen to eight and thirty, to the genial imputation of ever having had a sweetheart. When he was out of service, he lived alone with his widowed mother. Mrs. Scatchard was a woman above the average in her lowly station, as to capacities and manners. She had seen better days, as the phrase is; but she never referred to them in the presence of curious visitors; and, though perfectly polite to everyone who approached her, never cultivated any intimacies among her neighbours. She contrived to provide, hardly enough, for her simple wants, by doing rough work for the tailors; and always managed to keep a decent home for her son to return to, whenever his ill-luck drove him out helpless into the world.

One bleak autumn, when Isaac was getting on fast towards forty, and when he was, as usual, out of place, through no fault of his own, he set forth from his mother’s cottage on a long walk inland to a gentleman’s seat, where he had heard that a stable-helper was required. It wanted then but two days of his birthday; and Mrs. Scatchard, with her usual fondness, made him promise, before he started, that he would be back in time to keep that anniversary with her, in as festive a way as their poor means would allow. It was easy for him to comply with this request, even supposing he slept a night each way on the road. He was to start from home on Monday morning; and, whether he got the new place or not, he was to be back for his birthday dinner on Wednesday at two o’clock.

Arriving at his destination too late on the Monday night to make application for the stable-helper’s place, he slept at the village-inn, and, in good time on the Tuesday morning, presented himself at the gentleman’s house, to fill the vacant situation. Here, again, his ill-luck pursued him as inexorably as ever. The excellent written testimonials, as to character, which he was able to produce, availed him nothing; his long walk had been taken in vain – only the day before, the stable-helper’s place had been given to another man.

Isaac accepted this new disappointment resignedly, and as a matter of course. Naturally slow in capacity, he had the bluntness of sensibility and phlegmatic patience of disposition which frequently distinguish men with sluggishly-working mental powers. He thanked the gentleman’s steward, with his usual quiet civility, for granting him an interview, and took his departure with no appearance of unusual depression in his face or manner. Before starting on his homeward walk, he made some enquiries at the inn, and ascertained that he might save a few miles, on his return, by following a new road. Furnished with full instructions, several times repeated, as to the various turnings he was to take, he set forth for his homeward journey, and walked on all day with only one stoppage for bread and cheese. Just as it was getting towards dark, the rain came on and the wind began to rise; and he found himself, to make matters worse, in a part of the country with which he was entirely unacquainted, though he knew himself to be some fifteen miles from home. The first house he found to inquire at was a lonely roadside inn, standing on the outskirts of a thick wood. Solitary as the place looked, it was welcome to a lost man who was also hungry, thirsty, footsore, and wet. The landlord was a civil, respectable-looking man; and the price he asked for a bed was reasonable enough. Isaac, therefore, decided on stopping comfortably at the inn for that night.

He was constitutionally a temperate man. His supper simply consisted of two rashers of bacon, a slice of home-made bread, and a pint of ale. He did not go to bed immediately after this moderate meal, but sat up with the landlord talking about his bad prospects and his long run of ill-luck, and diverging from these topics to the subject of horseflesh and racing. Nothing was said either by himself, his host, or the few labourers who strayed into the taproom, which could, in the slightest degree, excite the very small and very dull imaginative faculty which Isaac Scatchard possessed.

At a little after eleven the house was closed. Isaac went round with the landlord and held the candle while the doors and lower-windows were being secured. He noticed with surprise the strength of the bolts, bars, and iron-sheathed shutters.

“You see, we are rather lonely here,” said the landlord. “We never have had any attempts made to break in yet, but it’s always as well to be on the safe side. When nobody is sleeping here, I am the only man in the house. My wife and daughter are timid, and the servant-girl takes after her missusses. Another glass of ale, before you turn in? – No! – Well, how such a sober man as you comes to be out of place is more than I can make out, for one. – Here’s where you’re to sleep. You’re our only lodger tonight, and I think you’ll say my missus has done her best to make you comfortable. You’re quite sure you won’t have another glass of ale? – Very well. Good night.”

It was half-past eleven by the clock in the passage as they went upstairs to the bedroom, the window of which looked on to the wood at the back of the house. Isaac locked the door, set his candle on the chest of drawers, and wearily got ready for bed. The bleak autumn wind was still blowing, and the solemn, monotonous, surging moan of it in the wood was dreary and awful to hear through the night-silence. Isaac felt strangely wakeful, and resolved, as he lay down in bed, to keep the candle a-light until he began to grow sleepy; for there was something unendurably depressing in the bare idea of lying awake in the darkness, listening to the dismal, ceaseless moaning of the wind in the wood.

Sleep stole on him before he was aware of it. His eyes closed, and he fell off insensibly to rest, without having so much as thought of extinguishing the candle.

The first sensation of which he was conscious after sinking into slumber, was a strange shivering that ran through him suddenly from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at the heart, such as he had never felt before. The shivering only disturbed his slumbers – the pain woke him instantly. In one moment he passed from a state of sleep to a state of wakefulness – his eyes wide open – his mental perceptions cleared on a sudden as if by a miracle.

The candle had burnt down nearly to the last morsel of tallow; but the top of the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the light in the little room was, for the moment, fair and full. Between the foot of his bed and the closed door there stood a woman with a knife in her hand, looking at him. He was stricken speechless with terror, but he did not lose the preternatural clearness of his faculties; and he never took his eyes off the woman. She said not one word as they stared each other in the face; but she began to move slowly towards the left-hand side of the bed.

His eyes followed her. She was a fair, fine woman, with yellowish flaxen hair, and light grey eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. He noticed those things and fixed them on his mind, before she was round at the side of the bed. Speechless, with no expression in her face, with no noise following her footfall, – she came closer and closer – stopped – and slowly raised the knife. He laid his right arm over his throat to save it; but, as he saw the knife coming down, threw his hand across the bed to the right side, and jerked his body over that way, just as the knife descended on the mattress within an inch of his shoulder.

His eyes fixed on her arm and hand, as she slowly drew the knife out of the bed. A white, well-shaped arm, with a pretty down lying lightly over the fair skin. A delicate, lady’s hand, with the crowning beauty of a pink flush under and round the fingernails.

She drew the knife out, and passed back again slowly to the foot of the bed; stopped there for a moment looking at him; then came on – still speechless, still with no expression on the blank, beautiful face, still with no sound following the stealthy footfalls – came on to the right side of the bed where he now lay. As she approached, she raised the knife again, and he drew himself away to the left side. She struck, as before, right into the mattress, with a deliberate, perpendicularly-downward action of the arm. This time his eyes wandered from her to the knife. It was like the large clasp knives which he had often seen labouring men use to cut their bread and bacon with. Her delicate little fingers did not conceal more than two thirds of the handle; he noticed that it was made of buckhorn, clean and shining as the blade was, and looking like new.

For the second time she drew the knife out, concealed it in the wide sleeve of her gown, then stopped by the bedside, watching him. For an instant he saw her standing in that position – then the wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket. The flame diminished to a little blue point, and the room grew dark. A moment, or less, if possible, passed so – and then the wick flamed up, smokily, for the last time. His eyes were still looking eagerly over the right-hand side of the bed when the final flash of light came, but they discerned nothing. The fair woman with the knife was gone.

The conviction that he was alone again, weakened the hold of the terror that had struck him dumb up to this time. The preternatural sharpness which the very intensity of his panic had mysteriously imparted to his faculties, left them suddenly. His brain grew confused – his heart beat wildly – his ears opened for the first time since the appearance of the woman, to a sense of the woeful, ceaseless moaning of the wind among the trees. With the dreadful conviction of the reality of what he had seen, still strong within him, he leapt out of bed, and screaming – “Murder! – Wake up, there, wake up!” – dashed headlong through the darkness to the door.

It was fast locked, exactly as he had left it on going to bed.

His cries on starting up, had alarmed the house. He heard the terrified, confused, exclamations of women; he saw the master of the house approaching along the passage, with his burning rush-candle in one hand and his gun in the other.

“What is it?” asked the landlord, breathlessly.

Isaac could only answer in a whisper: “A woman, with a knife in her hand,” he gasped out. “In my room – a fair, yellow-haired woman; she jobbed at me with the knife, twice over.”

The landlord’s pale cheeks grew paler. He looked at Isaac eagerly by the flickering light of his candle; and his face began to get red again – his voice altered, too, as well as his complexion.

“She seems to have missed you twice,” he said.

“I dodged the knife as it came down,” Isaac went on, in the same scared whisper. “It struck the bed each time.”

The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately. In less than a minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.

“The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! What do you mean by coming into a man’s place and frightening his family out of their wits about a dream?”

“I’ll leave your house,” said Isaac, faintly. “Better out on the road, in rain and dark, on my way home, than back again in that room after what I’ve seen in it. Lend me a light to get on my clothes by, and tell me what I’m to pay.”

“Pay!” cried the landlord, leading the way with his light sulkily into the bedroom. “You’ll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs. I wouldn’t have taken you in for all the money you’ve got about you, if I’d known your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand. Look at the bed. Where’s the cut of a knife in it? Look at the window – is the lock bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten myself) – is it broke in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

Isaac answered not a word. He huddled on his clothes; and then they went downstairs together.

“Nigh on twenty minutes past two!” said the landlord, as they passed the clock. “A nice time in the morning to frighten honest people out of their wits!”

Isaac paid his bill, and the landlord let him out at the front door, asking, with a grin of contempt, as he undid the strong fastenings, whether “the murdering woman got in that way?” They parted without a word on either side. The rain had ceased; but the night was dark, and the wind bleaker than ever. Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the uncertainty about his way home, matter to Isaac. If he had been turned out into a wilderness in a thunderstorm, it would have been a relief, after what he had suffered in the bedroom of the inn.

What was the fair woman with the knife? The creature of a dream, or that other creature from the unknown world called among men by the name of ghost? He could make nothing of the mystery – had made nothing of it, even when it was midday on Wednesday, and when he stood, at last, after many times missing his road, once more on the doorstep of home.

His mother came out eagerly to receive him. His face told her in a moment that something was wrong.

“I’ve lost the place; but that’s my luck. I dreamed an ill dream last night, mother – or, may be, I saw a ghost. Take it either way, it scared me out of my senses, and I’m not my own man again yet.”

“Isaac! your face frightens me. Come in to the fire. Come in, and tell mother all about it.”

He was as anxious to tell as she was to hear; for it had been his hope, all the way home, that his mother, with her quicker capacity and superior knowledge, might be able to throw some light on the mystery which he could not clear up for himself. His memory of the dream was still mechanically vivid, though his thoughts were entirely confused by it.

His mother’s face grew paler and paler as he went on. She never interrupted him by so much as a single word; but when he had done, she moved her chair close to his, put her arm round his neck, and said to him:

“Isaac, you dreamed your ill dream on this Wednesday morning. What time was it when you saw the fair woman with the knife in her hand?”

Isaac reflected on what the landlord had said when they passed by the clock on his leaving the inn – allowed as nearly as he could for the time that must have elapsed between the unlocking of his bedroom door and the paying of his bill just before going away, and answered:

“Somewhere about two o’clock in the morning.”

His mother suddenly quitted her hold of his neck, and struck her hands together with a gesture of despair.

“This Wednesday is your birthday Isaac; and two o’clock in the morning was the time when you were born!”

Isaac’s capacities were not quick enough to catch the infection of his mother’s superstitious dread. He was amazed and a little startled also, when she suddenly rose from her chair, opened her old writing-desk, took out pen and ink and paper, and then said to him:

“Your memory is but a poor one, Isaac, and now I’m an old woman, mine’s not much better. I want all about this dream of yours to be as well known to both of us, years hence, as it is now. Tell me over again all you told me a minute ago, when you spoke of what the woman with the knife looked like.”

Isaac obeyed, and marvelled much as he saw his mother carefully set down on paper the very words that he was saying. “Light grey eyes,” she wrote, as they came to the descriptive part, “with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down on them. Little lady’s hand, with a reddish look about the fingernails. Clasp knife with a buckhorn handle, that seemed as good as new.” To these particulars, Mrs. Scatchard added the year, month, day of the week, and time in the morning, when the woman of the dream appeared to her son. She then locked up the paper carefully in her writing-desk.

Neither on that day, nor on any day after, could her son induce her to return to the matter of the dream. She obstinately kept her thoughts about it to herself, and even refused to refer again to the paper in her writing-desk. Ere long, Isaac grew weary of attempting to make her break her resolute silence; and time, which sooner or later, wears out all things, gradually wore out the impression produced on him by the dream. He began by thinking of it carelessly, and he ended by not thinking of it at all. This result was the more easily brought about by the advent of some important changes for the better in his prospects, which commenced not long after his terrible night’s experience at the inn. He reaped at last the reward of his long and patient suffering under adversity, by getting an excellent place, keeping it for seven years, and leaving it, on the death of his master, not only with an excellent character, but also with a comfortable annuity bequeathed to him as a reward for saving his mistress’s life in a carriage accident. Thus it happened that Isaac Scatchard returned to his old mother, seven years after the time of the dream at the inn, with an annual sum of money at his disposal, sufficient to keep them both in ease and independence for the rest of their lives.

The mother, whose health had been bad of late years, profited so much by the care bestowed on her and by freedom from money anxieties, that when Isaac’s next birthday came round, she was able to sit up comfortably at table and dine with him.

On that day, as the evening drew on, Mrs. Scatchard discovered that a bottle of tonic medicine – which she was accustomed to take, and in which she had fancied that a dose or more was still left – happened to be empty. Isaac immediately volunteered to go to the chemist’s, and get it filled again. It was as rainy and bleak an autumn night as on the memorable past occasion when he lost his way and slept at the roadside inn.

On going into the chemist’s shop, he was passed hurriedly by a poorly-dressed woman coming out of it. The glimpse he had of her face struck him, and he looked back after her as she descended the doorsteps.

“You’re noticing that woman?” said the chemist’s apprentice behind the counter. “It’s my opinion there’s something wrong with her. She’s been asking for laudanum to put to a bad tooth. Master’s out for half an hour; and I told her I wasn’t allowed to sell poison to strangers in his absence. She laughed in a queer way, and said she would come back in half an hour. If she expects master to serve her, I think she’ll be disappointed. It’s a case of suicide, sir, if ever there was one yet.”

These words added immeasurably to the sudden interest in the woman which Isaac had felt at the first sight of her face. After he had got the medicine-bottle filled, he looked about anxiously for her, as soon as he was out in the street. She was walking slowly up and down on the opposite side of the road. With his heart, very much to his own surprise, beating fast, Isaac crossed over and spoke to her.

He asked if she was in any distress. She pointed to her torn shawl, her scanty dress, her crushed, dirty bonnet – then moved under a lamp so as to let the light fall on her stern, pale, but still most beautiful face.

“I look like a comfortable, happy woman – don’t I?” she said with a bitter laugh.

She spoke with a purity of intonation which Isaac had never heard before from other than ladies’ lips. Her slightest actions seemed to have the easy negligent grace of a thorough-bred woman. Her skin, for all its poverty-stricken paleness, was as delicate as if her life had been passed in the enjoyment of every social comfort that wealth can purchase. Even her small, finely-shaped hands, gloveless as they were, had not lost their whiteness.

Little by little, in answer to his question, the sad story of the woman came out. There is no need to relate it here; it is told over and over again in Police Reports and paragraphs about Attempted Suicides.

“My name is Rebecca Murdoch,” said the woman, as she ended. “I have ninepence left, and I thought of spending it at the chemist’s over the way in securing a passage to the other world. Whatever it is, it can’t be worse to me than this – so why should I stop here?”

Besides the natural compassion and sadness moved in his heart by what he heard, Isaac felt within him some mysterious influence at work all the time the woman was speaking, which utterly confused his ideas and almost deprived him of his powers of speech. All that he could say in answer to her last reckless words was, that he would prevent her from attempting her own life, if he followed her about all night to do it. His rough, trembling earnestness seemed to impress her.

“I won’t occasion you that trouble,” she answered, when he repeated his threat. “You have given me a fancy for living by speaking kindly to me. No need for the mockery of protestations and promises. You may believe me without them. Come to Fuller’s Meadow tomorrow at twelve, and you will find me alive, to answer for myself. No! – no money. My ninepence will do to get me as good a night’s lodging as I want.”

She nodded and left him. He made no attempt to follow – he felt no suspicion that she was deceiving him.

“It’s strange, but I can’t help believing her,” he said to himself – and walked away, bewildered, towards home.

On entering the house his mind was still so completely absorbed by its new subject of interest, that he took no notice of what his mother was doing when he came in with the bottle of medicine. She had opened her old writing-desk in his absence, and was now reading a paper attentively that lay inside it. On every birthday of Isaac’s since she had written down the particulars of his dream from his own lips, she had been accustomed to read that same paper, and ponder over it in private.

The next day he went to Fuller’s Meadow. He had done only right in believing her so implicitly – she was there, punctual to a minute, to answer for herself. The last-left faint defences in Isaac’s heart against the fascination which a word or look from her began inscrutably to exercise over him, sank down and vanished before her forever on that memorable morning.

When a man, previously insensible to the influence of women, forms an attachment in middle life, the instances are rare indeed, let the warning circumstances be what they may, in which he is found capable of freeing himself from the tyranny of the new ruling passion. The charm of being spoken to familiarly, fondly, and gratefully by a woman whose language and manners still retained enough of their early refinement to hint at the high social station that she had lost, would have been a dangerous luxury to a man of Isaac’s rank at the age of twenty. But it was far more than that – it was certain ruin to him – now that his heart was opening unworthily to a new influence, at that middle time of life when strong feelings of all kinds, once implanted, strike root most stubbornly in a man’s moral nature. A few more stolen interviews after that first morning in Fuller’s Meadow completed his infatuation. In less than a month from the time when he first met her, Isaac Scatchard had consented to give Rebecca Murdoch a new interest in existence, and a chance of recovering the character she had lost, by promising to make her his wife.

She had taken possession, not of his passions only, but of his faculties as well. All arrangements for the present and all plans for the future were of her devising. All the mind he had he put into her keeping. She directed him on every point; even instructing him how to break the news of his approaching marriage in the safest manner to his mother.

“If you tell her how you met me and who I am at first,” said the cunning woman, “she will move heaven and earth to prevent our marriage. Say I am the sister of one of your fellow-servants – ask her to see me before you go into any more particulars – and leave it to me to do the rest. I want to make her love me next best to you, Isaac, before she knows anything of who I really am.”

The motive of the deceit was sufficient to sanctify it to Isaac. The stratagem proposed relieved him of his one great anxiety, and quieted his uneasy conscience on the subject of his mother. Still, there was something wanting to perfect his happiness, something that he could not realise, something mysteriously untraceable, and yet, something that perpetually made itself felt; not when he was absent from Rebecca Murdoch, but, strange to say, when he was actually in her presence! She was kindness itself with him; she never made him feel his inferior capacities, and inferior manners, – she allowed the sweetest anxiety to please him in the smallest trifles; but, in spite of all these attractions, he never could feel quite at his ease with her. At their first meeting, there had mingled with his admiration when he looked in her face, a faint involuntary feeling of doubt whether that face was entirely strange to him. No after familiarity had the slightest effect on this inexplicable, wearisome uncertainty.

Concealing the truth as he had been directed, he announced his marriage engagement precipitately and confusedly to his mother, on the day when he contracted it. Poor Mrs. Scatchard showed her perfect confidence in her son by flinging her arms round his neck, and giving him joy of having found at last, in the sister of one of his fellow-servants, a woman to comfort and care for him after his mother was gone. She was all eagerness to see the woman of her son’s choice; and the next day was fixed for the introduction.

It was a bright sunny morning, and the little cottage parlour was full of light, as Mrs. Scatchard, happy and expectant, dressed for the occasion in her Sunday gown, sat waiting for her son and her future daughter-in-law. Punctual to the appointed time, Isaac hurriedly and nervously led his promised wife into the room. His mother rose to receive her – advanced a few steps, smiling – looked Rebecca full in the eyes – and suddenly stopped. Her face, which had been flushed the moment before, turned white in an instant – her eyes lost their expression of softness and kindness, and assumed a blank look of terror – her outstretched hands fell to her sides, and she staggered back a few steps with a low cry to her son.

“Isaac!” she whispered, clutching him fast by the arm, when he asked alarmedly if she was taken ill. “Isaac! Does that woman’s face remind you of nothing?”

Before he could answer; before he could look round to where Rebecca, astonished and angered by her reception, stood, at the lower end of the room; his mother pointed impatiently to her writing-desk, and gave him the key.

“Open it,” she said, in a quick, breathless whisper.

“What does this mean? Why am I treated as if I had no business here? Does your mother want to insult me?” asked Rebecca, angrily.

“Open it, and give me the paper in the left-hand drawer. Quick! quick, for Heaven’s sake!” said Mrs. Scatchard, shrinking further back in terror. Isaac gave her the paper. She looked it over eagerly for a moment – then followed Rebecca, who was now turning away haughtily to leave the room, and caught her by the shoulder – abruptly raised the long, loose sleeve of her gown, and glanced at her hand and arm. Something like fear began to steal over the angry expression of Rebecca’s face as she shook herself free from the old woman’s grasp. “Mad!” she said to herself; “and Isaac never told me.” With these few words she left the room.

Isaac was hastening after her when his mother turned and stopped his further progress. It wrung his heart to see the misery and terror in her face as she looked at him.

“Light grey eyes,” she said, in low, mournful, awe-struck tones, pointing towards the open door. “A droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair with a gold-yellow streak in it. White arms with a down on them. Little, lady’s hand, with a reddish look under the fingernails. The woman of the dream! – Oh, Heaven! Isaac, the woman of the dream!”

That faint cleaving doubt which he had never been able to shake off in Rebecca Murdoch’s presence, was fatally set at rest forever. He had seen her face, then, before – seven years before, on his birthday, in the bedroom of the lonely inn. “The woman of the dream!”

“Be warned, Oh, my son! be warned! Isaac! Isaac! let her go, and do you stop with me!”

Something darkened the parlour window, as those words were said. A sudden chill ran through him; and he glanced sidelong at the shadow. Rebecca Murdoch had come back. She was peering in curiously at them over the low window blind.

“I have promised to marry, mother,” he said, “and marry I must.”

The tears came into his eyes as he spoke, and dimmed his sight; but he could just discern the fatal face outside moving away again from the window.

His mother’s head sank lower.

“Are you faint?” he whispered.

“Broken-hearted, Isaac.”

He stooped down and kissed her. The shadow, as he did so, returned to the window; and the fatal face peered in curiously once more.

Three weeks after that day, Isaac and Rebecca were man and wife. All that was hopelessly dogged and stubborn in the man’s moral nature, seemed to have closed round his fatal passion, and to have fixed it unassailably in his heart.

After that first interview in the cottage parlour, no consideration would induce Mrs. Scatchard to see her son’s wife again, or even to talk of her when Isaac tried hard to plead her cause after their marriage. This course of conduct was not in any degree occasioned by a discovery of the degradation in which Rebecca had lived. There was no question of that between mother and son. There was no question of anything but the fearfully exact resemblance between the living breathing woman and the spectre woman of Isaac’s dream. Rebecca, on her side, neither felt nor expressed the slightest sorrow at the estrangement between herself and her mother-in-law. Isaac, for the sake of peace, had never contradicted her first idea that age and long illness had affected Mrs. Scatchard’s mind. He even allowed his wife to upbraid him for not having confessed this to her at the time of their marriage engagement, rather than risk anything by hinting at the truth. The sacrifice of his integrity before his one all-mastering delusion, seemed but a small thing, and cost his conscience but little, after the sacrifices he had already made.

The time of waking from his delusion – the cruel and the rueful time – was not far off. After some quiet months of married life, as the summer was ending, and the year was getting on towards the month of his birthday, Isaac found his wife altering towards him. She grew sullen and contemptuous – she formed acquaintances of the most dangerous kind, in defiance of his objections, his entreaties, and his commands, – and, worst of all, she learnt, ere long, after every fresh difference with her husband, to seek the deadly self-oblivion of drink. Little by little, after the first miserable discovery that his wife was keeping company with drunkards, the shocking certainty forced itself on Isaac that she had grown to be a drunkard herself.

He had been in a sadly desponding state for some time before the occurrence of these domestic calamities. His mother’s health, as he could but too plainly discern every time he went to see her at the cottage, was failing fast; and he upbraided himself in secret as the cause of the bodily and mental suffering she endured. When, to his remorse on his mother’s account, was added the shame and misery occasioned by the discovery of his wife’s degradation, he sank under the double trial – his face began to alter fast, and he looked what he was, a spirit-broken man. His mother, still struggling bravely against the illness that was hurrying her to the grave, was the first to notice the sad alteration in him, and the first to hear of his last bitterest trouble with his wife. She could only weep bitterly, on the day when he made his humiliating confession; but on the next occasion when he went to see her, she had taken a resolution, in reference to his domestic afflictions, which astonished, and even alarmed him. He found her dressed to go out, and on asking the reason, received this answer:

“I am not long for this world, Isaac,” said she; “and I shall not feel easy on my deathbed, unless I have done my best to the last, to make my son happy. I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and to go with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Give me your arm, Isaac; and let me do the last thing I can in this world to help my son before it is too late.”

He could not disobey her: and they walked together slowly towards his miserable home. It was only one o’clock in the afternoon when they reached the cottage where he lived. It was their dinner hour, and Rebecca was in the kitchen. He was thus able to take his mother quietly into the parlour, and then prepare his wife for the interview. She had fortunately drank but little at that early hour, and she was less sullen and capricious than usual. He returned to his mother, with his mind tolerably at ease. His wife soon followed him into the parlour, and the meeting between her and Mrs. Scatchard passed off better than he had ventured to anticipate: though he observed, with secret apprehension, that his mother, resolutely as she controlled herself in other respects, could not look his wife in the face when she spoke to her. It was a relief to him, therefore, when Rebecca began to lay the cloth.

She laid the cloth – brought in the bread-tray, and cut a slice from the loaf for her husband – then returned to the kitchen. At that moment, Isaac, still anxiously watching his mother, was startled by seeing the same ghastly change pass over her face, which had altered it so awfully on the morning when Rebecca and she first met. Before he could say a word she whispered with a look of horror:

“Take me back! – home, home, again, Isaac! Come with me, and never come back again.”

He was afraid to ask for an explanation, – he could only sign to her to be silent, and help her quickly to the door. As they passed the bread-tray on the table she stopped and pointed to it.

“Did you see what your wife cut your bread with?” she asked, in a low, still whisper.

“No, mother, – I was not noticing – what was it?”

“Look!”

He did look. A new clasp-knife, with a buckhorn handle lay with the loaf in the bread-tray. He stretched out his hand, shudderingly, to possess himself of it; but, at the same time, there was a noise in the kitchen, and his mother caught at his arm.

“The knife of the dream! – Isaac, I’m faint with fear – take me away! before she comes back!”

He was hardly able to support her – the visible, tangible reality of the knife struck him with a panic, and utterly destroyed any faint doubts that he might have entertained up to this time, in relation to the mysterious dream-warning of nearly eight years before. By a last desperate effort, he summoned self-possession enough to help his mother quietly out of the house, – so quietly, that the “dream-woman” (he thought of her by that name, now!) did not hear them departing, from the kitchen.

“Don’t go back, Isaac, – don’t go back!” implored Mrs. Scatchard, as he turned to go away, after seeing her safely seated again in her own room.

“I must get the knife,” he answered, under his breath. She tried to stop him again; but he hurried out without another word.

On his return, he found that his wife had discovered their secret departure from the house. She had been drinking, and was in a fury of passion. The dinner in the kitchen was flung under the grate; the cloth was off the parlour-table. Where was the knife? Unwisely, he asked for it. She was only too glad of the opportunity of irritating him, which the request afforded her. “He wanted the knife, did he? Could he give her a reason why? – No! – Then he should not have it, – not if he went down on his knees to ask for it.” Further recriminations elicited the fact that she had bought it a bargain – and that she considered it her own especial property. Isaac saw the uselessness of attempting to get the knife by fair means, and determined to search for it, later in the day, in secret. The search was unsuccessful. Night came on, and he left the house to walk about the streets. He was afraid now to sleep in the same room with her.

Three weeks passed. Still sullenly enraged with him, she would not give up the knife; and still that fear of sleeping in the same room with her, possessed him. He walked about at night, or dozed in the parlour, or sat watching by his mother’s bedside. Before the expiration of the first week in the new month his mother died. It wanted then but ten days’ of her son’s birthday. She had longed to live till that anniversary. Isaac was present at her death; and her last words in this world were addressed to him: “Don’t go back, my son, don’t go back!”

He was obliged to go back, if it were only to watch his wife. Exasperated to the last degree by his distrust of her, she had revengefully sought to add a sting to his grief, during the last days of his mother’s illness, by declaring that she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of all that he could do, or say, she held with wicked pertinacity to her word; and, on the day appointed for the burial, forced herself – inflamed and shameless with drink – into her husband’s presence, and declared that she would walk in the funeral procession to his mother’s grave.

This last worst outrage, accompanied by all that was most insulting in word and look, maddened him for the moment. He struck her. The instant the blow was dealt, he repented it. She crouched down, silent in a corner of the room, and eyed him steadily; it was a look that cooled his hot blood, and made him tremble. But there was no time now to think of a means of making atonement. Nothing remained, but to risk the worst till the funeral was over. There was but one way of making sure of her. He locked her into her bedroom.

When he came back some hours after, he found her sitting, very much altered in look and bearing, by the bedside, with a bundle on her lap. She rose, and faced him quietly, and spoke with a strange stillness in her voice, a strange repose in her eyes, a strange composure in her manner.

“No man has ever struck me twice,” she said, “and my husband shall have no second opportunity. Set the door open and let me go. From this day forth we see each other no more.”

Before he could answer she passed him, and left the room. He saw her walk away up the street.

Would she return? All that night he watched and waited; but no footstep came near the house. The next night, overpowered by fatigue, he lay down in bed, in his clothes, with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. His slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, passed, and nothing happened. He lay down on the seventh, still in his clothes, still with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning; but easier in his mind.

Easier in his mind, and in perfect health of body, when he fell off to sleep. But his rest was disturbed. He woke twice, without any sensation of uneasiness. But the third time it was that never-to-be-forgotten shivering of the night at the lonely inn, that dreadful sinking pain at the heart, which once more aroused him in an instant.

His eyes opened towards the left hand side of the bed, and there stood— The woman of the dream, again? – No! His wife; the living reality, with the dream-spectre’s face – in the dream-spectre’s attitude; the fair arm up – the knife clasped in the delicate, white hand.

He sprang upon her, almost at the instant of seeing her, and yet not quickly enough to prevent her from hiding the knife. Without a word from him – without a cry from her – he pinioned her in a chair. With one hand he felt up her sleeve – and, there, where the dream-woman had hidden the knife, she had hidden it, – the knife with the buckhorn handle, that looked like new.

In the despair of that fearful moment his brain was steady, his heart was calm. He looked at her fixedly, with the knife in his hand, and said these last words:

“You told me we should see each other no more, and you have come back. It is my turn, now, to go, and to go forever. I say that we shall see each other no more; and my word shall not be broken.”

He left her, and set forth into the night. There was a bleak wind abroad, and the smell of recent rain was in the air. The distant church-clocks chimed the quarter as he walked rapidly beyond the last houses in the suburb. He asked the first policeman he met, what hour that was, of which the quarter past had just struck.

The man referred sleepily to his watch, and answered: “Two o’clock.” Two in the morning. What day of the month was this day that had just begun? He reckoned it up from the date of his mother’s funeral. The fatal parallel was complete – it was his birthday!

Had he escaped the mortal peril which his dream foretold? or had he only received a second warning? As that ominous doubt forced itself on his mind, he stopped, reflected, and turned back again towards the city. He was still resolute to hold to his word, and never to let her see him more; but there was a thought now in his mind of having her watched and followed. The knife was in his possession – the world was before him; but a new distrust of her – a vague, unspeakable, superstitious dread – had overcome him.

“I must know where she goes, now she thinks I have left her,” he said to himself, as he stole back wearily to the precincts of his house.

It was still dark. He had left the candle burning in the bedchamber: but when he looked up at the window of the room now, there was no light in it. He crept cautiously to the house-door. On going away, he remembered to have closed it: on trying it now, he found it open.

He waited outside, never losing sight of the house, till daylight. Then he ventured indoors – listened, and heard nothing – looked into kitchen, scullery, parlour; and found nothing: went up, at last, into the bedroom – it was empty. A pick-lock lay on the floor, betraying how she had gained entrance in the night; and that was the only trace of her.

Whither had she gone? That no mortal tongue could tell him. The darkness had covered her flight; and when the day broke, no man could say where the light found her.

Before leaving the house and the town for ever, he gave instructions to a friend and neighbour to sell his furniture for anything that it would fetch, and apply the proceeds to employing the police to trace her. The directions were honestly followed, and the money was all spent; but the enquiries led to nothing. The pick-lock on the bedroom floor remained the one last useless trace of her.

•   •   •

At this point of the narrative the landlord paused, and looked towards the stable-door.

“So far,” he said, “I tell you what was told to me. The little that remains to be added lies within my own experience. Between two and three months after the events I have just been relating, Isaac Scatchard came to me, withered and old-looking before his time, just as you saw him today. He had his testimonials to character with him, and he asked for employment here. I gave him a trial, and liked him in spite of his queer habits. He is as sober, honest, and willing a man as there is in England. As for his restlessness at night, and his sleeping away his leisure time in the day, who can wonder at it after hearing his story? Besides, he never objects to being roused up, when he’s wanted, so there’s not much inconvenience to complain of, after all.”

“I suppose he is afraid of waking out of that dreadful dream in the dark?” said I.

“No,” returned the landlord. “The dream comes back to him so often, that he has got to bear with it by this time resignedly enough. It’s his wife keeps him waking at night, as he has often told me.”

“What! Has she never been heard of yet?”

“Never. Isaac himself has the one perpetual thought about her, that she is alive and looking for him. I believe he wouldn’t let himself drop off to sleep towards two in the morning for a king’s ransom. Two in the morning, he says, is the time when she will find him, one of these days. Two in the morning is the time all the year round, when he likes to be most certain that he has got that clasp-knife safe about him. He does not mind being alone, as long as he is awake, except on the night before his birthday, when he firmly believes himself to be in peril of his life. The birthday has only come round once since he has been here; and then he sat up, along with the night-porter. ‘She’s looking for me,’ he always says, when I speak to him on the one theme of his life; ‘she’s looking for me.’ He may be right. She may be looking for him. Who can tell?”

“Who can tell!” said I.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE BOOTS

Where had he been in his time? he repeated when I asked him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he been? Bless you, he had been everything you could mention a’most.

Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn’t seen, than what he had. Ah! A deal, it would.

What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn’t know. He couldn’t momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen – unless it was a Unicorn – and he see him once, at a Fair. But, supposing a young gentleman not eight year old, was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start? Certainly? Then, that was a start as he himself had had his blessed eyes on – and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in – and they was so little that he couldn’t get his hand into ’em.

Master Harry Walmers’s father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down away by Shooter’s Hill there, six or seven mile from Lunnon. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn’t spoil him, neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left but the name, and that: still he kept the command over the child, and the child was a child, and its to be wished more of ’em was!

How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being under-gardener. Of course he couldn’t be under-gardener, and be always about, in the summertime, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family. – Even supposing Master Harry hadn’t come to him one morning early, and said, “Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?” and then begun cutting it in print, all over the fence.

He couldn’t say he had taken particular notice of children before that; but, really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy! Bless your soul, he’d have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one and she had been frightened of him. One day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says – speaking up, “Cobbs,” he says, “I like you.”  “Do you, sir? I’m proud to hear it.”  “Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?”  “Don’t know, Master Harry, I am sure.”  “Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.”  “Indeed, sir? That’s very gratifying.”  “Gratifying, Cobbs? It’s better than millions of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah.”  “Certainly, sir.”  “You’re going away, ain’t you, Cobbs?”  “Yes, sir.”  “Would you like another situation, Cobbs?”  “Well, sir, I shouldn’t object, if it was a good ’un.”  “Then, Cobbs,” says he, “you shall be our Head Gardener when we are married.” And he tucks her, in her little sky blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away.

Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long bright curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with ’em, singing to please ’em. Sometimes, they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another’s necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince, and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king’s fair daughter. Sometimes, he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once, he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, “Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I’ll jump in head-foremost.” And Boots made no question he would have done it, if she hadn’t complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself – only he didn’t exactly know who with.

“Cobbs,” said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the flowers; “I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my grandmamma’s at York.”

“Are you indeed, sir? I hope you’ll have a pleasant time. I am going into Yorkshire myself, when I leave here.”

“Are you going to your grandmamma’s, Cobbs?”

“No, sir. I haven’t got such a thing.”

“Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?”

“No, sir.”

The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers, for a little while, and then said, “I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs – Norah’s going.”

“You’ll be all right then, sir,” says Cobbs, “with your beautiful sweetheart by your side.”

“Cobbs,” returned the boy, flushing. “I never let anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them.”

“It wasn’t a joke, sir,” says Cobbs with humility, “—wasn’t so meant.”

“I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you’re going to live with us. – Cobbs!”

“Sir.”

“What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?”

“I couldn’t so much as make a guess, sir.”

“A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.”

“Whew!” says Cobbs, “that’s a spanking sum of money, Master Harry.”

“A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that. Couldn’t a person, Cobbs?”

“I believe you, sir!”

“Cobbs,” said the boy, “I’ll tell you a secret. At Norah’s house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!”

“Such, sir,” says Cobbs, “is the depravity of human natur.”

The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with “Good-night, Cobbs. I’m going in.”

If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn’t rightly answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now, if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then and he wanted change. That’s what he wanted – change. Mr. Walmers, he said, to him when he give him notice of his intentions to leave, “Cobbs,” he says, “have you anythink to complain of? I make the inquiry, because if I find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can.”  “No, sir,” says Cobbs; “thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I’m a going to seek my fortun.”  “O, indeed, Cobbs?” he says; “I hope you may find it.” And Boots could assure me – which he did, touching his hair with his boot-jack, as a salute in the way of his present calling – that he hadn’t found it yet.

Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry he went down to the old lady’s at York, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so wrapt up in him. What does that Infant do – for Infant you may call him and be within the mark – but cut away from that old lady’s with his Norah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married!

Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several times since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor, “I don’t quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman’s words was, that they was to be brought here.” The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our Governor, “We’re to stop here tonight, please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two!” and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass.

Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was, when those two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into the Angel; – much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon. “Cobbs,” says the Governor, “if this is so, I must set off myself to York and quiet their friends’ minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon ’em, and humour ’em, till I come back. But, before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinions is correct.”  “Sir to you,” says Cobbs, “that shall be done directly.”

So, Boots goes upstairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on a e-normous sofa – immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him – a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them children looked.

“It’s Cobbs! It’s Cobbs!” cries Master Harry, and comes running to him and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t’other side and catching hold of his t’other hand, and they both jump for joy.

“I see you a getting out, sir,” says Cobbs. “I thought it was you. I thought I couldn’t be mistaken in your height and figure. What’s the object of your journey, sir? – Matrimonial?”

“We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,” returned the boy. “We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she’ll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.”

“Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,” says Cobbs, “for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?”

If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hairbrush – seemingly, a doll’s. The gentleman had got about half-a-dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it.

“What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?” says Cobbs.

“To go on,” replied the boy – which the courage of that boy was something wonderful! – “in the morning, and be married tomorrow.”

“Just so, sir,” says Cobbs. “Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you?”

When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, “O yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!”

“Well, sir,” says Cobbs. “If you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I’m acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior (myself driving, if you approved), to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty tomorrow, but even if you had to wait over tomorrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don’t signify; because I’m a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.”

Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him “Good Cobbs!” and “Dear Cobbs!” and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving ’em, that ever was born.

“Is there anything you want just at present, sir?” says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself.

“We should like some cakes after dinner,” answered Master Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, “and two apples – and jam. With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water. But, Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I.”

“It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,” says Cobbs; and away he went.

Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking, as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor, than have combined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn’t be, he went into the Governor’s plans, and the Governor set off for York in half-an-hour.

The way in which the women of that house – without exception – every one of ’em – married and single – took to that boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep ’em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the keyhole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit.

In the evening, Boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.

“Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, fatigued, sir?” says Cobbs.

“Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but, she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?”

“I ask your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs. “What was it you?—”

“I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them.”

Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross, “What should you think, sir,” says Cobbs, “of a chamber candlestick?” The gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up.

Boots couldn’t but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight), about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don’t mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on a lying like a Trojan, about the pony. He told ’em that it did so unfort’nately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn’t be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But, that he’d be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that tomorrow morning at eight o’clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots’s view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior was beginning to give in. She hadn’t had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn’t seem quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. But, nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father.

After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers – at least, he knows that many such was found in the fireplace, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell – it was surprising how that there boy did carry on – and said in a sprightly way, “Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?”

“Yes, sir,” says Cobbs. “There’s Love Lane.”

“Get out with you, Cobbs!” – that was that there boy’s expression – “you’re joking.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” says Cobbs, “there really is Love Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior.”

“Norah, dear,” said Master Harry, “this is curious. We really ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with Cobbs.”

Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to ’em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallerd him up; he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a-looking at him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took ’em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drownded himself in half a moment more, a-getting out a water-lily for her – but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to ’em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.

Boots don’t know – perhaps I do – but never mind, it don’t signify either way – why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself, to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep, as they done when they was awake. But, Lord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it’s always either Yesterday with you, or else Tomorrow, and never Today, that’s where it is!

Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to Boots: namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses Junior’s temper was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he “teased her so;” and when he says, “Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?” she tells him, “Yes; and I want to go home!”

A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up a little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the voice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master Harry he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated.

About eleven or twelve at night, comes back the Governor in a chaise, along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, “We are much indebted to you, ma’am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray ma’am, where is my boy?” Our missis says, “Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty!” Then, he says to Cobbs, “Ah Cobbs! I am glad to see you. I understood you was here!” And Cobbs says, “Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir.”

I may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but, Boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going upstairs. “I beg your pardon, sir,” says he, while unlocking the door; “I hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For, Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour.” And Boots signifies to me, that if the fine boy’s father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have “fetched him a crack,” and taken the consequences.

But, Mr. Walmers only says, “No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!” And, the door being opened, goes in.

Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. Then, he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder.

“Harry, my dear boy! Harry!”

Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs too. Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble.

“I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come home.”

“Yes, Pa.”

Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands at last, a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him, the quiet image of him.

“Please may I” – the spirit of that little creatur, and the way he kept his rising tears down! – “Please dear Pa – may I – kiss Norah, before I go?”

“You may, my child.”

So, he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom: where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior is fast asleep. There, the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, and gently draws it to him – a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them calls out “It’s a shame to part ’em!” But this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it.

Finally, Boots says, that’s all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry’s hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior that was never to be, (she married a Captain, long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In conclusion, Boots puts it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions; firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married, who are half as innocent of guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time and brought back separately.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE LANDLORD

Uriah Tattenhall is my elder brother by fifteen years. I am Sam Tattenhall.

My brother Uriah rang at his gate at his snug retreat of Trumpington Cottage, Peckham, near London, exactly at a quarter to six – his regular hour – when the omnibus from the city set him down at the end of the lane. It was December, but the weather was fine and frosty, and as it was within a few days of Christmas, his children – four in number – two boys, just come home from school, and two girls who came home from school every day – were all on the alert to receive him, with a world of schemes for the delectation of the coming holiday-time.

My brother Uriah was an especial family-man. He made himself the companion and playfellow of his children on all occasions that his devotion to his business in the city would admit of. His hearty, cheery voice was heard as he entered the hall, and while he was busy pulling-off his overcoat, and hanging up his hat: “Well, my boys, well George, well Miss Lucy, there. What are you all about? How’s the world used you since this morning? Where’s mamma? The kettle boiling, eh?” The running fire of hilarity that always animated him seemed to throw sunshine and a new life into the house, when he came in. The children this evening rushed out into the hall, and crowded round him with such a number of “I say, pa’s,” and “Do you know, pa?” and “Don’t tell him now, Mary, – let him guess. Oh! you’ll never guess, pa!” that he could only hurry them all into the sitting-room before him like a little flock of sheep, saying, “Well, well, you rogues, – well, well, – let us have some tea, and then all about it.”

The fire blazed bonnily, as it was wont, in the bright grate, and that and the candles made the room, with light and warmth, the very paradise of comfort. Mrs. Tattenhall, a handsome woman of five and thirty or so – she might be more, but she did not look it – was just in the act of pouring the water from a very bright little kettle into the equally bright silver teapot, and with a sunny, rosy, youthful, and yet matronly face, turned smilingly at his entrance, and said, “Well, my dear, is it not a very cold night?”

“Not in this room, certainly, my dear,” said my brother Uriah, “and with such a snuggery before one, who cares for cold outside.”

Mrs. Tattenhall gave him a brighter smile still, and the neat Harriet coming in with the toast, the whole family group was speedily seated round the tea-table, and the whole flood of anticipated pleasures and plans of the younger population let loose, and cordially entered into, and widened and improved by my brother Uriah. He promised them an early night at the very best pantomime, and they were to read all about all the pantomimes in the newspapers, and find out which was the best. He meant to take them to see all sorts of sights, and right offhand on Christmas Eve he was going to set up a Christmas-tree, and have Christkindchen, and all sorts of gifts under it for everybody. He had got it all ready done by a German who came often to his warehouse, and it was somewhere, not far off just now.

“Thank you, papa, – thank you a thousand times. Oh! what heaps of fun!” exclaimed the children, altogether.

“Why, really, my dear,” said Mrs. Tattenhall, delighted as the children, “what has come to you? You quite outdo yourself, good as you always are. You are quite magnificent in your projects.”

“To be sure,” said Uriah, taking hold of the hands of little Lucy, and dancing round the room with her. “To be sure; we may just as well be merry as sad; it will be all the same a hundred years hence.”

Presently the tea-table was cleared, and, as they drew round the fire, my brother Uriah pulled out a book, and said, “George, there’s a nice book – begin, and read it aloud: it will be a very pleasant book for these winter evenings before all the dissipation begins. It is Pringle’s Adventures in South Africa, and is almost as good as Robinson Crusoe. I knew Pringle well; a lame, little man, that you never would dream could sit on a horse, much less ride after lions and elephants in that style.”

“Lions and elephants!” all were silent, and George read on. He read till eight o’clock, their bedtime, and the whole group – parents and children – were equally delighted with it. As they closed the book – “Now,” said the father, “would it not be grand fun to live out there, and ride after the lions and elephants?”

“Ah! grand fun!” said the boys, but the mother and the girls shuddered at the lions. “Well, you could stay in the house, you know,” said Bob.

“Right, my fine fellow,” said the father, clapping him on the shoulder. “So now off to bed, and dream all about it.”

When the children were gone, my brother Uriah stretched out his feet on the fender and fell into a silence. When my brother’s silence had lasted some time his wife said, “Are you sleepy, my dear?”

“No; never was more wakeful,” said Uriah; “really, my dear, I never was less inclined to be sprightly: but it won’t do to dash the spirits of the children. Let them enjoy the Christmas as much as they can, they will never be young but once.”

“What is amiss?” asked Mrs. Tattenhall, with a quick apprehensive look. “Is there something amiss? Good gracious! you frighten me.”

“Why no, there is nothing exactly amiss; there is nothing new; but the fact is, I have just taken stock, and today finished casting all up, and struck the balance.”

“And is it bad? Is it less than you expected?” asked Mrs. Tattenhall, fixing her eyes seriously on her husband’s face.

“Bad? No, not bad, nor good. I’ll tell you what it is. You’ve heard of a toad in a mud wall. Well, that’s me. Twenty years ago, I went into business with exactly three thousand pounds, and here I have been trading, and fagging, and caring, and getting, and losing, business extending, and profits getting less and less, making large sales, and men breaking directly after, and so the upshot is, – twenty years trade, and the balance the same to a pound as that I began with. Three thousand I started with, and three thousand is precisely my capital at this moment.”

“Is that all?” said Mrs. Tattenhall, wonderfully relieved. “Be thankful, my dear Uriah, that you have three thousand pounds. You have your health wonderfully, we have all our health; we have children, as good and promising children as anybody is blest with, and a happy home, and live as well and comfortably as anyone need to do, or as I wish, I am sure. What do we want more?”

“What do we want more?” said Uriah, drawing up his legs suddenly, and clapping his hands in a positive sort of a way on his knees. “Why, I for one, want a great deal more. We’ve children, you say, and a home, and all that. Heaven be thanked, so we have! but I want our children to have a home after us. Three thousand pounds divided amongst four, leaves about seven hundred and fifty each. Is it worth while to fag a whole life, and leave them that and a like prospect? No,” continued Uriah, in a considering manner, and shaking his head. “No, I want something more; more for myself; more for them; more room, more scope, a wider horizon, and a more proportionate result of a whole human existence. And do you know Marin what I have come to as the best conclusion? To go out to Australia.”

“To go out to Australia!” said Mrs. Tattenhall, in astonishment. “My dear Uriah, you are joking. You mean no such thing.”

“But that is just what I do mean,” said Uriah, taking his wife’s hand affectionately; “I have thought of it long, and the toad-in-the-wall balance has determined me. And now what I ask of you is to look at it calmly and earnestly. You know the Smiths, the Browns, and the Robinsons have gone out. They report the climate delicious, and that wonders are doing. A new country, if it be a good country, is the place to grow and thrive in, without doubt. Look at the trees in a wood. They grow up and look very fine in the mass. The wood, you say, is a very fine wood; but when you have looked at the individual trees, they are crowded and spindled up. They cannot put out a single bough beyond a certain distance; if they attempt it, their presuming twigs are poked back again by sturdy neighbours all round, that are all struggling for light and space like them. Look then at the tree on the open plain, – how it spreads and hangs in grand amplitude its unobstructed boughs and foliage: a lordly object. Just so, this London. It is a vast, a glorious, a most imposing London, but thousands of its individuals in it are pressed and circumscribed to a few square yards and no more. Give me the open plain, – the new country, and then see if I do not put out a better head, and our children too.”

Mrs. Tattenhall, now she felt that her husband was in earnest, sat motionless and confounded. The shock had come too suddenly upon her. Her husband, it is true, had often told her that things did not move as he wished; that they seemed fixed, and stereotyped, and stagnant; but then, when are merchants satisfied? She never had entertained an idea but that they should go on to the end of the chapter as they had been going on ever since she was married. She was bound up heart and soul with her own country; she had her many friends and relations, with whom she lived on the most cordial terms; all her tastes, feelings, and ideas were English and metropolitan. At the very idea of quitting England, and for so new and so distant a country, she was seized with an indescribable consternation.

“My dear Maria!” said her husband; “mind, I don’t ask you to go at first. You and the children can remain here till I have been and seen what the place and prospects are like. My brother Sam will look after business – he will soon be at home in it – and if all is pleasant, why, you will come then, if not I won’t ask you. I’ll work out a good round sum myself if possible, or open up some connection that will mend matters here. What can I say more?”

“Nothing, dear Uriah, nothing. But those poor children—”

“Those poor children!” said Uriah. “Why my dear Maria, if you were to ask them whether they would like a voyage to Australia, to go and see those evergreen woods, and gallop about all amongst gay parrots, and great kangaroos, they would jump off their seats with joy. The spirits of the young are ever on the wing for adventure and new countries. It is the prompting of that Great Power which has constructed all this marvellous universe, and bade mankind multiply and replenish the earth. Don’t trouble yourself about them. You saw how they devoured the adventures at the Cape, and you’ll see how they will kindle up in a wonderful enthusiasm at the promise of a voyage to Australia. What are pantomimes to that?”

“Poor things!” said Mrs. Tattenhall. “They know nothing about the reality; all is fairyland and poetry to them.”

“The reality! the reality, Maria, will be all fairyland and poetry to them.”

Mrs. Tattenhall shook her head, and retired that night – not to sleep, but with a very sad heart to ruminate over this unexpected revelation. My brother’s words were realised at the first mention of the project to the children. After the first shock of surprise and doubt whether it were really meant, they became unboundedly delighted. The end of it was, that by the middle of February, my brother Uriah, having had a handsome offer for his business and stock, had wound up all his affairs; and Mrs. Tattenhall having concluded, like a good wife and mother, to go with the whole family, they bade farewell to England, Mrs. Tattenhall with many tears, Uriah serious and thoughtful, the children full of delight and wonder at everything in the ship.

They had a fine voyage, though with very few passengers, for the captain said there was a temporary damp on the Australian colonies. The order of the Government at home to raise the upset price of land to one pound per acre, had checked emigration, and as there had been a good deal of speculation in Melbourne in town allotments, things just now looked gloomy. This was in eighteen hundred and forty-three. “But it can’t last long,” said the Captain, “that silly order of raising the price of the land is so palpably absurd; while America is selling land so much nearer at a quarter of the price, that it must be repealed; and then all will be right again.”

It was the middle of May when our party arrived in Hobson’s Bay. It was very rainy, gloomy weather – the very opposite to all that the climate had been represented in the accounts sent home – but then it was the commencement of winter, the November of our season. Uriah got a boat, and sailed up the winding river to the town. The sail was through a flat tract of land densely overgrown with a mass of close, dark bushes, of some ten feet high, somewhat resembling our sloe-tree, the tea-tree of that country. On reaching the foot of the town, which stood on a range of low hills, Uriah and his companions stepped out into a most appalling slough of black mud, through which they waded till they reached the town, which was of no great extent, scattered over a considerable space, however, for the number of houses, and with great intervals of woodland, and of places where the trees had been felled, and where the stumps, a yard high, remained in unsightly nakedness.

Uriah walked on through a scene which, somehow in keeping with the weather, fell heavily on his spirits. There was nothing doing, or stirring; houses in various degrees of progress stood as they were. There were piles of timber, lime, shingles, posts, and rails, empty wagons and carts, but no people employed about them. On every hand he saw lots marked out for fencing or building upon, but there they remained all stationary.

“Is it Sunday?” Uriah asked himself. No, it was Tuesday. Then why all this stagnation; this solitude? In a lane, or rather deep track of mud and ruts, since known as Flinders’ Lane, but then without a name, and only just wide enough between the trees for a cart to pass, Uriah wading and plunging along, the rain meantime pouring, streaming, and drumming down on his umbrella, he came face to face with a large active man in a mackintosh cloak, and an oilskin hood over his head. Neither of them found it very convenient to step out of the middle mud track, because on each side of it rose a perfect bank of sludge raised by the wheels of drays, and stopping to have a look at each other, the strange man suddenly put out a huge red hand warm and wet, and exclaimed:

“What! Tattenhall! You here! In the name of all wonders what could bring you here at this moment?”

“What, Robinson! is that you?” cried Uriah. “Is this your climate? This your paradise?”

“Climate – paradise – be hanged!” said Robinson. “They’re well enough. If everything else were as well there would be nought to complain of. But tell me Uriah Tattenhall, with that comfortable Trumpington Cottage at Beckham, with that well-to-do warehouse in the Old Jewry, what could possess you to come here?”

“What should I come for, but to settle?” asked Uriah, somewhat chagrined at this salutation.

“To settle! ha, ha!” burst out Robinson. “Well, as for that, you could not come to a better place. It is a regular settler here. Everything and everybody are settled here out and out. This is a settlement, and no mistake; but it is like a many other settlements, the figures are all on the wrong side the ledger.”

“Good gracious!” said Uriah.

“Nay, it is neither good nor gracious,” replied Robinson. “Look round. What do you see? Ruin, desertion, dirt and the – devil!”

“Why, how is that?” asked Uriah. “I thought you, and Jones, and Brown, and all of you had made your fortunes.”

“So we had, or were just on the point of doing. We had purchased lots of land for building, and had sold it out again at five hundred per cent, when chop! down comes little Lord John with his pound an acre, and heigh, presto! everything goes topsy-turvy. Our purchasers are either in the bankruptcy court, or have vanished. By jingo! I could show you such lots, fine lots for houses and gardens, for shops and warehouses; ay, and shops and warehouses upon them too, as would astonish you.”

“Well, and what then?” asked Uriah.

“What then! why man don’t you comprehend. Emigration is stopped, broken off as short as a pipe-shank, not a soul is coming out to buy and live in all these houses – not a soul except an odd – excuse me, Tattenhall, I was going to say, except you and another fool or two. But where do you hang out? Look! there is my house,” pointing to a wooden erection near. “I’ll come and see you as soon as I know where you fix yourself.”

“But mind one thing,” cried Uriah, seizing him by the arm as he passed. “For heaven’s sake, don’t talk in this manner to my wife. It would kill her.”

“Oh no, mum’s the word! There’s no use frightening the women,” said Robinson. “No, confound it, I won’t croak anyhow. And, after all, bad as things are, why, they can’t remain so forever. Nothing ever does, that’s one comfort. They’ll mend sometime.”

“When?” said Uriah.

“Well,” said Robinson, pausing a little, “not before you and I meet again, so I may leave that answer to another opportunity;” and with a nod and very knowing look he stalked on.

“Odd fellow!” said my brother Uriah. “He is very jocose for a ruined man. What is one to think?” and he waded on. After making a considerable circuit, and actually losing himself in the wood somewhere about where the Reverend Mr. Morrison’s chapel now stands in Collins’ Street, he again came across Robinson who stood at the door of a considerable erection of wattle-and-dab, that is, a building of boughs wattled on stakes, and dabbed over with mud; then not uncommon in Melbourne, and still common enough in the bush. It stood on the hillside with a swift muddy torrent produced by the rains rushing down the valley below it, towards the river, as it has often done since it bore the name of Swanston Street.

“Here, Tattenhall! here is a pretty go!” shouted Robinson; “a fellow has cut with bag and baggage tonight who owes me four thousand pounds, and has left me a lot more houses and land. That’s the way every day. But look, here is a house ready for you. You can’t have a better, and you can pay me any trifle you like, something is better than nothing.”

He led Uriah in. The house was thoroughly and comfortably furnished; though, of course, very simply, with beds and everything. Uriah in less than a week, was safely established there, and had time to ramble about with his boys, and learn more fully the condition of the colony. It was melancholy beyond description. Wild, reckless speculation brought to a sudden close by the cessation of immigration, had gone like a hurricane over the place, and had left nothing but ruin and paralysis behind it. No words that Robinson had used, or that any man could use, could over-paint the real condition of prostration and of misery. Two hundred and eighty insolvencies in a population of ten thousand, told the tale of awful reality. Uriah was overwhelmed with consternation at the step he had taken. O! how pleasant seemed that Trumpington Cottage, Peckham, and that comfortable warehouse in the Old Jewry, as he viewed them from the Antipodes in the midst of rain and ruin.

What, however, was my brother Uriah’s astonishment to see Robinson stalk in the next day, his tall figure having to stoop at every door, and in his brusque, noisy way, go up to Mrs. Tattenhall, and shaking her hand as you would shake the handle of a pump, congratulate her on her arrival in the colony.

“A lucky hit, madam, a most lucky, scientific hit! Ah! trust Tattenhall for knowing what he is about.”

Mrs. Tattenhall stood with a singular expression of wonder and bewilderment on her countenance, for the condition of the place, and the condolings of several female neighbours who had dropped in in Uriah’s absence, had induced her to believe that they had made a fatal move of it.

“Why, sir,” said she, “what can you mean, for as I hear, the place is utterly ruined, and certainly it looks like it?”

“Ruined! to be sure it is, at least the people are, more’s the pity for me, and the like of me who have lost everything; but for Tattenhall who has everything to gain, and money to win it with, why it is the golden opportunity, the very thing! If he had watched at all the four corners of the world, and for a hundred years, he could not have dropped into such a chance. Ah! trust Tattenhall, make me believe he did not plan it.” Thrusting his knuckles into Uriah’s side, and laughing with a thunderclap of a laugh that seemed to come from lungs of leather.

“Why, look here now,” he continued, drawing a chair and seating himself on its front edge; “look here now, if you had come six months ago, you could have bought nothing except out of the fire. Town allotments, land, houses, bread, meat, sugar, everything ten times the natural price: and, now! cheap, dog cheap! of no value at all, you might have them for asking for; nay, I could go into a dozen deserted shops, and take any quantity for nothing. And property! why three thousand pounds cash would almost buy all the place – all the colony.”

“What is the use,” asked Mrs. Tattenhall, “of buying a ruined colony?”

“A ruined colony!” said Robinson, edging himself still more forward in his chair, and seeming actually to sit upon nothing, his huge figure and large ruddy face appearing still larger. “The colony, madam, is not ruined; never was ruined, never can be ruined. The people are ruined, a good lot of them; but the colony is a good and a grand colony. God made the colony, and let me tell you, madam,” looking very serious, “Providence is no speculator, up today, down tomorrow. What he does he does. Well, the people have ruined themselves; but it is out of their power to ruin the colony; no, nor the town. The town and the colony are sound as a bell, never were sounder, never had more stuff in them; never had so much. There is the land still, not a yard of it is gone; no great fellow has put that on his back and gone off with it. The land is there, and the houses, and the merchandise, and the flocks, and herds, and horses: and – what concerns you—”

He sat and looked at Mrs. Tattenhall, who stood there intently listening, and Uriah stood just behind her listening too, and all the children with their mouths open, gazing on the strange man.

“Well, what – what concerns us?” said Mrs. Tattenhall.

“To get a huge, almighty heap of something for nothing,” said the large man, stretching out his arms in a circular shape, as if he would enclose a whole globe, and in a low, slow, deep tone, calculated to sink deep into the imaginations of the listeners.

“If we did but know when things would mend;” said my brother Uriah, for the first time venturing to put in a word.

“When!” said Robinson starting up so suddenly that his head struck against a beam in the low one-storeyed house. “Confound these low places,” said he, turning fiery red, and rubbing his crown, “there will be better anon. When? say ye? Hark ye! this colony is – how old? Eight years! and in eight years what a town! what wealth! what buildings! what a power of sheep and cattle! The place is knocked down, won’t it get up again? Ay, and quickly! Here are a pair of sturdy legs,” he said, turning to Bob, who flushed up in surprise; “but, Mrs. Tattenhall, you did not teach him to walk without a few tumbles, eh? But he got up again, and how he stands now! what a sturdy young rogue it is! And what made him get up again? Because he was young and strong, and the colony is young and strong, madam. Eight years old! What shall I give you for a three thousand pounds purchase made now, three years hence? Just think of that,” said the tall man, “just turn that over a time or two,” nodding solemnly to my brother, and then to my sister-in-law, and then cautiously glancing at the menacing beam, and with a low duck diving out of the house.

“What a strange fellow!” said Uriah.

“But how true!” said Mrs. Tattenhall.

“How true! What true?” asked Uriah, astonished.

“Why,” said Mrs. Tattenhall, “what he says. It is truth, Uriah; we must buy as much as we can.”

“But,” said Uriah, “only the other day he said the clean contrary. He said everybody was ruined.”

“And he says so still,” added Mrs. Tattenhall, enthusiastically, “but not the colony. We must buy! We must buy, and wait. One day we shall reap a grand harvest.”

“Ah!” said Uriah; “so you let yourself, my dear Maria, be thus easily persuaded, because Robinson wants to sell, and thinks we have money?”

“Is it not common sense, however? Is it not the plainest sense?” asked Mrs. Tattenhall. “Do you think this colony is never to recover?”

“Never is a long while,” said Uriah. “But still—”

“Well, we will think it over, and see how the town lies; and where the chief points of it will be, probably, hereafter; and if this Mr. Robinson has any land in such places, I would buy of him, because he has given us the first idea of it.”

They thought and looked, and the end of it was, that very soon they had bought up land and houses, chiefly from Robinson, to the amount of two thousand pounds. Robinson fain would not have sold, but have mortgaged; and that fact was the most convincing proof that he was sincere in his expectations of a revival. Time went on. Things were more and more hopeless. Uriah, who had nothing else to do, set on and cultivated a garden. He had plenty of garden ground, and his boys helped him, and enjoyed it vastly. As the summer went on, and melons grew ripe, and there were plenty of green peas and vegetables, by the addition of meat, which was now only one penny a-pound, they could live almost for nothing; and Uriah thought they could wait and maintain themselves for years, if necessary. So, from time to time, one tale of urgent staring distress or another lured him on to take fresh bargains, till he saw himself almost penniless. Things still remained as dead as the very stones or the stumps around them. My brother Uriah began to feel very melancholy; and Mrs. Tattenhall, who had so strongly advised the wholesale purchase of property, looked very serious. Uriah often thought: “Ah! she would do it; but – Bless her! I will never say so, for she did it for the best.” But his boys and girls were growing apace, and made him think. “Bless me! In a few years they will be shooting up into men and women; and if this speculation should turn out all moonshine! – if the place should never revive!”

He sate one day on the stump of a tree on a high ground, looking over the bay. His mind was in the most gloomy, dejected condition. Everything looked dark and hopeless. No evidence of returning life around; no spring in the commercial world; and his good money gone; as he sate thus, his eyes fixed on the distance, his mind sunk in the lowering present, a man came up, and asked him to take his land off his hands: to take it, for Heaven’s sake, and save his starving family.

“Man!” said Uriah, with a face and a voice so savage that it made the suppliant start even in his misery, “I have no money! I want no land! I have too much land. You shall have it all for as much as will carry me back to England, and set me down a beggar there!”

The man shook his head. “If I had a single crown I would not ask you; but my wife is down of the fever, and my children are dying of dysentery. What shall I do? and my lots are the very best in the place.”

“I tell you!” said my brother Uriah, with a fierce growl, and an angry flash of the eye, “I have no money, and how can I buy?”

He glanced at the man in fury; but a face so full of patient suffering and of sickness – sickness of the heart, of the soul, and, as it were, of famine, met his gaze, that he stopped short, felt a pang of remorse for his anger, and, pointing to a number of bullocks grazing in the valley below, he said, in a softened tone, “Look there! The other day a man told me such a tale of horror – a sick family, and a gaol staring him in the face, that I gave him my last money – my carefully hoarded money, and of what use are those cattle to me? None whatever: You may have them for your land, if you like. I have nothing else.”

“I will have them,” said the man. “On a distant station I know where I could sell them, if I could only leave my family. But they have no flour, no tea, nothing but meat, meat, meat.”

“Leave them to me,” said Uriah, feeling the warm blood and the spirit of humanity beginning to circulate in his bosom at the sense of what was really suffering around him. “Leave them to me. I will care for them. Your wife and children shall have a doctor. I will find you some provisions for your journey, and if ever your land is worth anything, you shall have it again. This state of things makes monsters of us. It turns our blood into gall, our hearts into stones. We must resist it or we are ruined, indeed!”

“Nay,” said the man, “I won’t impose upon you. Take that piece of land in the valley there; it will one day be valuable.”

“That!” said Uriah, looking. “That! Why, that is a swamp! I will take that – I shall not hurt you there!” And he laughed outright, the first time for two years.

Years went on, and my brother Uriah lived on, but as it were in the valley of the shadow of death. It was a melancholy and dispiriting time. The buoyancy of his soul was gone. That jovial, sunny, ebullient spirit with which he used to come home from the city, in England, had fled, as a thing that had never been. He maintained himself chiefly out of his garden. His children were springing up into long, lanky lads and lasses. He educated them himself, as well as he could; and as for clothes! Not a navvy – not a beggar – in the streets of London, but could have stood a comparison with them, to their infinite disparagement. Ah! those good three thousand pounds! How will the balance stand in my brother Uriah’s books at the end of the next twenty years?

But anon there awoke a slight motion in the atmosphere of life. It was a mere flutter of the air, that died out again. Then again it revived – it strengthened – it blew like a breath of life over the whole landscape. Uriah looked around him from the very place where he had sat on the stump in despair. It was bright and sunny. He heard a sound of an axe and a hammer. He looked, and saw a house, that had stood a mere skeleton, once more in progress. There were people passing to and fro with a more active air. What is that? A cart of goods? A dray of building materials. There was life and motion again! The discovery of converting sheep and oxen into tallow had raised the value of stock. The shops and the merchants were once more in action. The man to whom he had sold the oxen came up smiling—

“Things mend, sir. We shall soon be all right. And that piece of land in the swamp, that you were so merry over, will you sell it? It lies near the wharves, and is wanted for warehouses.”

“Bravo!” cried Uriah, and they descended the hill together. Part of the land was sold; and soon substantial warehouses, of the native trapstone, were rising upon it. Uriah’s old attachment to a merchant’s life came over him. With the purchase-money he built a warehouse too. Labour was extremely low, and he built a large and commodious one.

Another year or two, and behold Uriah busy in his warehouse; his two boys clerking it gravely in the counting-house. Things grew rapidly better. Uriah and his family were once more handsomely clad, handsomely housed, and Uriah’s jolly humour was again in the ascendant. Every now and then Robinson came hurrying in, a very busy man indeed he was now, in the town council, and moreover, mayor; and saying, “Well, Mrs. Tattenhall, didn’t I say it, eh? Is not this boy of a colony on a fine sturdy pair of legs again? Not down? Not dead? Well, well, Tattenhall did me a kindness, then – by ready cash for my land – I don’t forget it; but I don’t know how I am to make him amends, unless I come and dine with him someday.” And he was off again.

Another year or two, and that wonderful crisis, the gold discovery, came. Then, what a sensation – what a stir – what a revolution! what running, and buying and bidding for land, for prime business situations! – what rolling in of people – capital – goods. Heaven and earth! – what a scene – what a place – what a people.

Ten years to a day from the last balance at the Old Jewry, Uriah Tattenhall balanced again, and his three thousand pounds was grown to seventy thousand pounds, and was still rolling up and on like a snowball.

There were George and Bob grown into really tall and handsome fellows. George was the able merchant, Bob had got a station out at the Dundenong-hills, and told wonderful stories of riding after kangaroos, and wild bulls, and shooting splendid lyre-birds – all of which came of reading Pringle’s Life in South Africa. There were Mary and Lucy, two handsome girls as any in the colony, and wonderfully attractive to a young Benson and a younger Robinson. Wonders were the next year to bring forth, and amongst them was to be a grand picnic at Bob’s station, at the Dundenong, in which they were to live out in real tents in the forest, and cook, and bake, and brew, and the ladies were to join in a bull-hunt, and shoot with revolvers, and nobody was to be hurt, or thrown, or anything to happen, but all sorts of merriment and wild-wood life.

And really my brother’s villa on the Yarra River is a very fine place. The house is an Italian villa built of real stone, ample, with large, airy rooms, a broad verandah, and all in the purest taste. It stands on a high bank above the valley, in which the Yarra winds, taking a sweep there, its course marked by a dense body of acacia trees. In the spring these trees are of resplendent gold, loading the air with their perfume. Now they were thick and dark in their foliage, casting their shade on the river deep between its banks. From the house the view presented this deep valley with this curving track of trees, and beyond slopes divided into little farms, with their little homesteads upon them, where Uriah had a number of tenants making their fortunes on some thirty or forty acres each, by hay at forty pounds a ton, and potatoes and onions at one shilling a pound, and all other produce in proportion.

On this side of the river you saw extensive gardens in the hollow blooming with roses and many tropical flowers, and along the hill sides on either hand vineyards and fruit orchards of the most vigorous vegetation, and loaded with young fruit. The party assembled at my brother Uriah’s house on that hospitable Christmas day, descended amid a native shrubbery, and Uriah thrust a walking-stick to its very handle into the rich black soil, and when his friends expressed their surprise, he told them that the soil there was fourteen feet deep, and would grow any quantity of produce for ages without manuring. Indeed, they passed through green corn of the most luxuriant character, and, crossing the bridge of a brook which there fell into the river, they found themselves under the acacias; by the river side there lay huge prostrate trunks of ancient gumtrees, the patriarchs of the forest, which had fallen and given place to the acacia, and now reminded the spectators that they were still in the land of primitive woods.

“Why, Tattenhall,” said Robinson, to my brother Uriah, “Trumpington Cottage, my dear fellow, would cut a poor figure after this. I’d ask any lord or gentleman to show me a fertiler or more desirable place in the tight little island. Bigger houses there may be, and are, but not to my mind more desirable. Do you know, very large houses always seem to me a sort of asylums for supernumerary servants – the master can only occupy a corner there – he cuts out quite small in the bulk. And as to fertility, this beats Battersea Fields and Fulham hollow. Those market-gardeners might plant and plant to all eternity, always taking out and never putting in, and if they could grow peaches, apricots, grapes, figs twice a year, and all that as fine in the open air as they do in hot-houses, and sell their bunches of parsley at sixpence a-piece, and water-melons – gathered from any gravel heap or dry open field – at five shillings a-piece, plentiful as pumpkins, wouldn’t they astonish themselves!

“But what makes you call this place Bowstead?” continued Robinson, breaking off a small wattle-bough to whisk the flies from his face. “Orr has named his Abbotsford – that’s because he’s a Scotchman; and we’ve got Cremorne Gardens, and Richmond, and Hawthorne, and all sorts of English names about here but Bowstead! I can’t make it out.”

“You can’t?” said Uriah, smiling; “don’t you see that the river curves in a bow here, and stead is a place?”

“O! that’s it,” said Robinson; “I fancied it was to remind you of Bow Bells.”

“There you have it,” said Bob, laughing. “Bow Bells! but, as there was a bow and no bells, my father put a stead to it, that’s instead of the bells, you know.”

“Bless me!” said Robinson: “now I should never have thought of that – how very clever!”

And he took the joke in such perfect simplicity, that all burst into a simultaneous laugh; for everyone else knew that it was so called in honour of Maria Bowstead, now the universally respected Mrs. Tattenhall.

The whole party were very merry, for they had good cause to be. Mr. and Mrs. Tattenhall, still in their prime, spread out, enlarged every way, in body and estate, rosy, handsomely dressed, saw around them nothing but prosperity. A paradise of their own, in which they saw their children already developed into that manly and feminine beauty so conspicuous in our kindred of the south; their children already taking root in the land and twining their branches amongst those of other opulent families, they felt the full truth of Robinson’s rude salutation, as he exclaimed, on coming to a fresh and more striking view of the house and grounds,—

“Ah! Tattenhall, Tattenhall!” giving him one of his jocose pokes in the side, “didn’t I say you knew very well what you were about when you came here, eh? Mrs. Tattenhall, ma’am? Who said it? Robinson, wasn’t it, eh?”

When they returned to the house, and had taken tea in a large tent on the lawn, and the young people had played a lively game of romps or bo-peep amongst the bushes of the shrubbery, with much laughter, the great drawing-room was lighted up, and very soon there was heard the sounds of violins and dancing feet. My brother Uriah and his wife were at that moment sitting under the verandah, enjoying the fresh evening air, the scent of tropical trees and flowers which stole silently through the twilight, and the clear, deep blue of the sky, where the magnificent constellations of Orion and the Scorpion were growing momentarily into their full nocturnal splendour. As the music broke out my brother Uriah affectionately pressed the hand of his wife, faithful and wise and encouraging through the times of their difficulty and depression, and saying “Thank God for all this!” the pressure was as affectionately and gratefully returned. Then my brother and his wife rose up, and passed into the blaze of light which surrounded the gay and youthful company within.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE BAR-MAID

She was a pretty, gentle girl – a farmer’s orphan daughter, and the landlord’s niece – whom I strongly suspected of being engaged to be married very shortly, to the writer of the letter that I saw her reading at least twenty times, when I passed the bar, and which I more than believe I saw her kiss one night. She told me a tale of that country which went so pleasantly to the music of her voice, that I ought rather to say it turned itself into verse, than was turned into verse by me.

A little past the village

The inn stood, low and white,

Green shady trees behind it,

And an orchard on the right,

Where over the green paling

The red-cheeked apples hung,

As if to watch how wearily

The sign-board creaked and swung.

The heavy-laden branches

Over the road hung low,

Reflecting fruit or blossom

In the wayside well below;

Where children, drawing water,

Looked up and paused to see,

Amid the apple branches,

A purple Judas Tree.

The road stretch’d winding onward

For many a weary mile—

So dusty footsore wanderers

Would pause and rest awhile;

And panting horses halted,

And travellers loved to tell

The quiet of the wayside inn,

The orchard, and the well.

Here Maurice dwelt; and often

The sunburnt boy would stand

Gazing upon the distance,

And shading with his hand

His eyes, while watching vainly

For travellers, who might need

His aid to loose the bridle,

And tend the weary steed.

And once (the boy remember’d

That morning many a day—

The dew lay on the hawthorn,

The bird sang on the spray)

A train of horsemen, nobler

Than he had seen before,

Up from the distance gallopp’d,

And paused before the door.

Upon a milk-white pony,

Fit for a faery queen,

Was the loveliest little damsel

His eyes had ever seen;

A servant-man was holding

The leading rein, to guide

The pony and its mistress

Who cantered by his side.

Her sunny ringlets round her

A golden cloud had made,

While her large hat was keeping

Her calm blue eyes in shade;

One hand held firm the silken reins

To keep her steed in check,

The other pulled his tangled mane,

Or stroked his glossy neck.

And as the boy brought water,

And loosed the rein, he heard

The sweetest voice, that thank’d him

In one low gentle word;

She turned her blue eyes from him,

Look’d up, and smiled to see

The hanging purple blossoms

Upon the Judas Tree.

And show’d it with a gesture,

Half pleading, half command,

Till he broke the fairest blossom,

And laid it in her hand;

And she tied it to her saddle

With a ribbon from her hair,

While her happy laugh rang gaily,

Like silver on the air.

But the champing steeds were rested—

The horsemen now spurr’d on,

And down the dusty highway

They vanish’d and were gone.

Years pass’d, and many a traveller

Paused at the old inn-door,

But the little milk-white pony

And the child return’d no more.

Years pass’d, the apple branches

A deeper shadow shed;

And many a time the Judas Tree,

Blossom and leaf lay dead;

When on the loitering western breeze

Came the bells’ merry sound,

And flowery arches rose, and flags

And banners waved around.

And Maurice stood expectant,

The bridal train would stay

Some moments at the inn-door,

The eager watchers say;

They come – the cloud of dust draws near—

’Mid all the state and pride,

He only sees the golden hair

And blue eyes of the bride.

The same, yet, ah! still fairer,

He knew the face once more

That bent above the pony’s neck

Years past at the inn-door:

Her shy and smiling eyes look’d round,

Unconscious of the place—

Unconscious of the eager gaze

He fix’d upon her face.

He pluck’d a blossom from the tree—

The Judas Tree – and cast

Its purple fragrance towards the bride,

A message from the Past.

The signal came, the horses plunged—

Once more she smiled around:

The purple blossom in the dust

Lay trampled on the ground.

Again the slow years fleeted,

Their passage only known

By the height the Passion-flower

Around the porch had grown;

And many a passing traveller

Paused at the old inn-door,

But the bride, so fair and blooming

Return’d there never more.

One winter morning, Maurice,

Watching the branches bare,

Rustling and waving dimly

In the grey and misty air,

Saw blazon’d on a carriage

Once more the well-known shield,

The azure fleurs-de-lis and stars

Upon a silver field.

He looked – was that pale woman,

So grave, so worn, so sad,

The child, once young and smiling,

The bride, once fair and glad?

What grief had dimm’d that glory

And brought that dark eclipse

Upon her blue eyes’ radiance,

And paled those trembling lips?

What memory of past sorrow,

What stab of present pain,

Brought that deep look of anguish,

That watch’d the dismal rain,

That watch’d (with the absent spirit

That looks, yet does not see)

The dead and leafless branches

Upon the Judas Tree.

The slow dark months crept onward

Upon their icy way,

’Till April broke in showers,

And Spring smiled forth in May,

Upon the apple-blossoms

The sun shone bright again,

When slowly up the highway

Came a long funeral train.

The bells toll’d slowly, sadly,

For a noble spirit fled;

Slowly, in pomp and honour,

They bore the quiet dead.

Upon a black-plumed charger

One rode, who held a shield,

Where azure fleurs-de-lis and stars

Shone on a silver field.

’Mid all that homage given

To a fluttering heart at rest,

Perhaps an honest sorrow

Dwelt only in one breast.

One by the inn-door standing

Watch’d with fast-dropping tears

The long procession passing,

And thought of bygone years.

The boyish, silent homage

To child and bride unknown,

The pitying tender sorrow

Kept in his heart alone,

Now laid upon the coffin

With a purple flower, might be

Told to the cold dead sleeper;

The rest could only see

A fragrant purple blossom

Pluck’d from a Judas Tree.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE POOR PENSIONER

I met her in the corridor, walking to and fro, and muttering to herself with a down-looking aspect, and a severe economy of dress, the season considered. I wondered how she came there, and was, to say the least of it, decidedly startled when she stopped directly opposite me, and, lifting a pair of blank, brown eyes to my face, said, in a stern voice:

“He was not guilty, my lord judge. God will right him yet. It will all come out someday. I can wait: yes, I can wait. I am more patient than death; I am more patient than injustice.”

I made a hasty and undignified retreat downstairs when she left the passage free, and, meeting the waiter, inquired who the woman was. The man touched his forehead significantly, and said that she was harmless (I was very glad to hear it); and that she lived on the broken victuals; and that his mistress always gave her a dinner on Christmas-day. While we were speaking together, she descended to where we stood, and repeated the exact formula of which she had made use before. She was a tall woman, strong-limbed, and thin to meagreness. She might be fifty, or perhaps fifty-five; her skin was withered, and tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather, and her uncovered hair was burnt to a rusty iron-grey. The waiter suggested to her to go to the kitchen fire; at which she broke into a scornful laugh, and reiterated, “I am more patient than death. I am more patient than injustice,” and then walked out at the open door into the snow.

“I don’t think she feels it, sir,” said the waiter, opening my door for me to enter.

I do not think she did. I watched her from my window. She took up a handful of the newly-fallen snow and thrust it into her bosom, then hugged it close, as if it were a living thing, that could be warmed by that eager clasp; I saw also, as she turned her dark face up towards the sky, that the angry scowl left it. I should imagine that all sensation in her was dead, except in one corner of her heart, to which had gathered the memory of some miserable wrong, whose acuteness would bide with her to the day of her death.

Her name, as I learnt on further inquiry, was Hester. She had been born and bred in the Yorkshire dales; her parents were of the yeoman class, and poor through improvidence rather than misfortune. As a girl, Hester was remarkable for her pride and her beauty, of which no more relics remained than are left of the summer rose-garden in drear and misty November. She received the scant education common to her condition half-a-century ago, and grew up a wild, wilful-tempered girl, impatient of all restraint, and eager for change and excitement. At sixteen she married, and very shortly afterwards her husband found it expedient to leave the dales, and to enlist in a regiment which was ordered on foreign service. Hester followed him to India, and led the life of camps for several years. During this interval her family lost sight of her completely; for, having parted in anger, no correspondence was kept up between them. This silence and separation lasted full nine years, during which time, Death dealt hardly with those left at home. Of all the large family of sons and daughters whom the old people had seen grow up to man’s and woman’s estate, not one survived. Their hearts began to soften towards the offending child, and they made efforts to learn if the regiment to which her husband belonged had returned to England. It had not.

One bleak and wintry night, while the solitary and bereaved couple were sitting by their silent hearth – it was a very lonely and retired spot where the house stood – a heavy step came up the little garden path. Neither of them stirred. They thought it was one of the farm-servants returning from the village, whither he had been sent on some errand. The curtains had not been closed over the window, and all the room, filled with the shine of a yuletide fire, was visible to the wayfarer without. The mother sat facing the window; lifting her slow, dull gaze from the white wood-ashes on the hearth, she looked across towards it, and uttered a low, frightened cry. She saw a dark face peering in at the glass, which wore the traits of her daughter Hester. She thought it was her wraith, and said so to the old man, who, taking a lantern, went out to see if anybody was lurking about. It was a very boisterous night: loud with wind, and black with clouds of sleety rain. At the threshold he stumbled over a dark form, which had crouched there for the slight shelter afforded by the porch. He lowered the lantern, and threw the light on the face of a woman.

“Dame! dame! It is our bairn: it is li’l Hester!”

The mother appeared, and, with a great, gasping cry, recognised her daughter.

They led her into the house, towards the glowing heat of the fire, and set her down by the hearth; for her limbs would scarcely support her. Hester wore a thin and ragged cloak, beneath the folds of which she had hidden her child from the storm. He had fallen asleep in her bosom; but as her mother removed the dripping garment from her shoulders, he woke up with a laugh of childish surprise and pleasure. He was a fine, well-grown boy, of from six to seven years old, and showed none of those signs of want and suffering which had graven premature age upon the wasted features and gaunt frame of his mother. It was some time before Hester recovered from her frozen exhaustion, and then her first and eager demand was for food for the child.

“O Heaven, pity me!” cried the old woman, who was weeping over the pair. “Hester and her lad starving, while there was to spare at home!”

She supplied their wants soon, and would have taken the boy; but Hester held him to her with a close and jealous grasp, chafing his limbs, warming his little hands in her bosom, and covering his hand with passionate kisses.

He fell asleep in her arms at last; and then she told her brief story. She was widowed; her husband had died in India from wound-fever, and she had been sent home to England; on her arrival there she found herself destitute, and had traversed the country on foot, subsisting by the casual charity of strangers. Thus much she said, and no more. She indulged in no details of her own exquisite sufferings; perhaps they were forgotten, when she ended by saying, “Thank the Lord, the lad is saved!”

Hester lived on at the farm with her parents; and, as the old man failed more and more daily, she took the vigorous management of it upon herself, and things throve with them. By degrees, her beauty was restored, and then she had repeated offers of marriage; for, the inheritance which would be hers at her father’s death was by no means despicable. But, she kept herself single, for the lad’s sake. Wilfred grew strong, handsome, and high-spirited – like his mother, indeed, with whom, much as they loved each other, he had many a fierce contention. He never could bear to be thwarted or checked by her, and often Hester, in the bitterness of her unbridled anger, would cry, “O Wilfred! it would have been better for thee and thy mother if we had died on the door-stone in the snow, that night we came home.”

Still, she had an intense pride in him; and always, after their quarrels, she allowed his extravagance to have freer scope, though that was what usually led to their disputes. As might have been expected, Wilfred, under such uncertain training, became reckless, wild, and domineering, though he preserved a certain rough generosity and frankness of character which redeemed his faults, and made him a favourite with the country folks, and a sort of king amongst his companions, whose superior in all rustic sports he was.

His grandfather died when he was nineteen; his grandmother, eighteen months later. Then Hester was sole mistress of the little farm. Wilfred soon began to urge his mother to sell the property and leave the dales, whose uneventful quiet fretted his restless disposition. This she absolutely refused to do; and was on one occasion so deeply irritated at his persistence as to say:

“I would sell the Ings to save your life, Wilfred, but for nothing less!”

There was at this time, living on a neighbouring farm, an old man of the name of Price, who had a grand-daughter to keep his house. She was called Nelly; and, besides being a small heiress, was a beauty, and something of a coquette. Nelly had a short, plump little figure; a complexion as soft and clear as a blush-rose, and auburn hair. Wilfred fell in love. He was a tall, hardy, self-willed, and proud young fellow; but in Nelly’s hands he was plastic as wax, and weak as water. She encouraged him, teased him, caressed him, mocked him, set him beside himself. She played off all her little witcheries and fascinations upon him; looked sweetly unconscious of their mischievous influence; and, when Wilfred stormed and raved, she laughed in his face. He wanted to marry her immediately; she had played with him long enough, he thought; and one evening when she had been soft and coy, rather than teasing, he put his fortune to the proof. She told him flatly she did not like him – wherein Nelly told anything but the truth, as perhaps better women have done under like circumstance.

Wilfred took her reply in earnest, and went away in a rage – mad, jealous, and burning with passionate disappointment. Hester hated Nelly, and gave her not a few hard words; for in her camp life, the mother had culled some epithets, more expressive than polite, which she used with vigorous truth when her wrath was excited. She kept her son’s wound raw and sore by frequent scornful allusions to his “Nelly Graceless,” and did her best to widen the breach between them with ample success.

Wilfred stayed away from the Prices for ten whole days.

This desertion did not suit the golden-headed but tinsel-hearted little coquette. She contrived to meet him in a shady wood-walk, where they had often loitered together. He was out with his dog and gun; very ill at ease in mind, for his handsome face looked sullen and dangerous, and he would not see her as she passed by. Mortified and angry, Nelly went home and cried herself ill. Wilfred heard she had caught a fever, and must needs go to ask. She met him at the garden gate, with a smile and a blush; whereat Wilfred was so glad, that he forgot to reproach her. There was, in consequence, a complete reconciliation, ratified by kisses and promises – light coin with beauty Nell, but real heart-gold with poor, infatuated Wilfred. Hester almost despised her son when she heard of it.

“She is only fooling thee, lad!” said she, indignantly. “Come a richer suitor to the door, she’ll throw thee over. She is only a light, false-hearted lass, not worth a whistle of thine.”

Therein Hester spake truth.

Nelly played with her lover as a cat plays with a mouse. Wilfred urged their marriage. She would one day, and the next day she would not. Then arose other difficulties. Hester did not want an interloper by her fireside, and would not give up the farm to her son; in fact, she was so jealous of his affection, that the thought of his marriage was hateful to her. Old Price said the young folks might settle with him, if they would; but Nelly liked the house at the Ings better, and thought Wilfred ought to take her there. When he explained that the property was his mother’s for her life, she immediately accused him of not loving her, and assumed a decided coldness and repulsiveness of manner. Wilfred, both hurt and angry, tried to give her up, but his bonds were not so easily escaped. If he stayed away from her two days, on the third he was sure to be at her side, either winning her with tender words, or reproaching her with bitter ones. Nelly must have found the game a pleasant one, for she kept it up a long time, undergoing herself as many changes of hue and form as a bubble blown up into the sunshine.

Frequently, during his lengthy visits at the Glebe Farm, Wilfred had encountered a man, Joseph Rigby by name, a dales-yeoman, and one of considerable wealth, but no education. This man was one of the last in the world to excite jealousy; but presently Wilfred was compelled to see that Nelly gave the coarse-mannered, middle-aged Rigby, more of her attentions than consorted with her position as his promised wife. He charged her with the fact. At first she denied it with blushes, and tears, and loud protestations; but at last confessed that Rigby had proposed to her – she did not dare to add that she had half-accepted him. They parted in mutual displeasure; and old Price said, as they agreed so badly, they had better break off the match, and Nelly should marry Joseph Rigby, who was well-to-do, and would know how to keep his wife in order. Wilfred went near her no more.

Presently, it was rumoured in the countryside that Nelly Price and Mr. Rigby were to be married after the October fairs. Hester sneered, prophesied that the rich yeoman would repent his bargain before Saint Mark’s, and rejoiced greatly at her son’s escape.

Meanwhile, Wilfred went about the farm and the house, silent, moody, and spiritless. He was quite changed, and, as his mother thought, for the better. Instead of associating with his former companions, he stayed much at home, and again renewed his entreaties that his mother would sell the Ings, and leave the dales altogether. He wanted to emigrate. He did not care where they went, so that they got away from that hateful place. Hester was as reluctant as ever to comply; but she modified her refusal – they would try a year longer: if he were still in the same mind at the end of that period – well, perhaps she would yield to his urgent wishes.

On the morning of the Leeford Fair he left home early, and returned towards dusk – so it was said by Hester. No other person saw him until noon next day. Joseph Rigby was found murdered, and thrown into a gully by the Leeford road, that night. There were traces of a violent struggle upon the road, and the body had been dragged some distance. It had been rifled of money and watch, but a broad engraved ring which Rigby wore on the fourth finger of his left hand, was not removed. He was known to have left the market-hall at Leeford with a considerable sum in gold upon his person, for his brother-in-law had remonstrated with him about carrying so much; but the doomed man made light of his warnings. The whole countryside was up, for the murder was a barbarous one. Suspicion fell at once on Hester’s son. His behaviour at Leeford had attracted observation. He had been seen to use angry gestures to Rigby, who had laughed at him, and had offered the young man his hand, as if wishing to be friends; the other had rejected it, and turned away, shaking his clenched fist. He had also been seen to mount his horse at the inn door, and ride off in the afternoon. Rigby started about an hour later, and alone. He was seen no more until his body was found in the ditch by some men going to their work in the morning.

When Wilfred was taken, he and his mother were sitting by the fireside together: she sewing; he reading. It was towards twilight, and he had not been over the threshold all day. He was very downcast and gloomy; irritable when spoken to, and short in his answers. His mother said to him that he was very strange, and added that she wished he would give over hankering after Nelly Graceless. He laughed painfully, and did not lift his eyes from his book. There was a loud knock at the door. Hester rose and opened it. Three men pushed their way into the house, the foremost asking if her son was at home.

“Yes; he is in there, by the fire. What do you want with him?”

“You must come with us, Mr. Wilfred – nay, it’s no use showing fight,” cried a burly, muscular fellow, laying his hand heavily on his shoulder; for Wilfred had turned deadly pale, and had attempted to shake off the man’s grasp.

“What is it for?” asked Hester, with her eyes on her son.

“God knows. – I don’t,” said he, quietly.

“Mr. Rigby was robbed and murdered last night, as he came home from Leeford Fair, and suspicion points at your lad, mistress,” said the man, who still held his hand on Wilfred’s shoulder.

Hester gave utterance to no frantic denials; she laughed, even.

“Why he was at home by this hour yesterday, in this very room, at his tea. Wasn’t he, Jessy?” said she, turning to the maid-servant; who, with a countenance of alarm, stood by the door.

The girl said “Yes;” then hesitated, and added that she didn’t see young master when she brought in tea.

“I was upstairs,” said Wilfred.

“You had better keep all that for another time and place; you must go with us now,” observed the man.

Wilfred made no resistance. His mother brought him his coat, and helped him to put it on.

“Say thou didn’t do it, Willy – only say so?” whispered she, fiercely.

“I didn’t mother: so help me, God!” was his fervent reply.

“You hear him!” cried Hester, turning to the men; “you hear him! He never lied in his days. He might have killed Rigby in a fair fight, or in hot blood; but he is not the lad to lie in wait at night, to murder his enemy and rob him! He is not a thief, this son of mine!”

The officers urged their departure. Wilfred was placed in the vehicle which had been brought for the purpose, and driven off.

“I’ll follow thee, Willy!” cried his mother. “Keep up thy heart; they can’t touch thee! Good-bye, my poor lad!”

They were out of hearing, and Hester turned back into the house, cursing Nelly Graceless in her heart.

Wilfred was committed to take his trial at the winter gaol-delivery on a charge of wilful murder. The evidence against him was overwhelming. Hester sold the Ings and collected all the money she could, that, if gold would buy his redemption, it might be done; for herself, she had a perfect faith in his innocence, and was confident of his acquittal, but few persons, if any, shared her feelings. The best legal advice had been retained for the accused, and the trial came on shortly before Christmas. Hester was the only witness for her son. The woman Jessy’s evidence damaged his cause considerably. She contradicted herself over and over again, and at last, flurried and confused, she burst into tears, crying out that she would say anything to get her young master off. There was nobody to speak with certainty as to the prisoner’s having been at home by a certain hour but his mother; he had put his horse into the stable himself, the groom being absent at the fair, and Jessy could not swear that he was in to tea; she believed not; only one cup was used.

Two witnesses, labourers on a farm near the Ings, swore to having seen and spoken to the prisoner after the hour stated; they said he was riding fast, and seemed agitated, but it was too dark to see his face. Nelly Price, also had her word against him; it was drawn from her reluctantly, in the midst of shamefaced tears and noisy sobs, but it quite overthrew the attempt to prove an alibi. She stated that she had watched until dark, in the garden, for Wilfred’s return from Leeford, and had not seen him go by. The prisoner never looked towards her, but murmured that he had gone home by the bridle-road and Low Lane to avoid passing the Glebe Farm. The former witnesses, on being recalled, said that it was on the highway, nearly a mile from the place where the lower road branched off, and nearer to the Ings, that they encountered the accused. These two decent men, being strictly cross-examined, never swerved from their first story an iota, and agreed in every particular. They were individuals of decent character; both had worked on the prisoner’s farm, and acknowledged him to be a liberal and kind master. Their evidence was not to be shaken. As a final and damning proof of guilt, the watch of which the murdered man had been robbed was produced; it had been found concealed under the thatch of an out-house at the Ings. At this point of the evidence the prisoner was observed to draw himself up and look round defiantly, – despair gave him a fictitious strength, perhaps, or, was it conscious innocence!

Wilfred spoke in his own defence, briefly, but strongly. His life, he said, was sworn away, but he was as guiltless of the crime laid to his charge as any of those gentlemen who sat in judgement upon him. His mother, who had remained in court all the time and had never spoken except when called upon for her evidence, had preserved a stoical calmness throughout. When he ceased to speak however, she cried out in a quivering voice:

“My lad, thy mother believes thee!”

Some friend would have led her out, but she refused to go. The jury gave their verdict of guilty without any recommendation to mercy, and the sentence of death was pronounced. Then it was that Hester rose on her feet and faltered that formula of words with which she had startled me in the corridor:

“He is not guilty, my lord judge. God will right him yet. It will all come out someday. I can wait; yes, I can wait. I am more patient than death. I am more patient than injustice.”

Wilfred died stubborn and unconfessing; on the scaffold, with his last breath, he persisted in asserting his innocence. His mother bade him farewell, and was carried to this inn, where she had stayed, raving in a frenzy-fit. For many months she was subject to restraint, but, recovering in some measure, she was at length set at liberty. Her mind was still distraught, however; she wandered back to the dales and to her old home, but the new owner had taken possession, and after enduring her intrusions for some time, he was compelled to apply for her removal.

After this, her money being lost or exhausted, she strayed about the country in a purposeless way; begging or doing day’s work in the field, until she strayed here again, and became the Pensioner of the Holly Tree. The poor demented creature is always treated kindly, but her son’s sentence has not yet been reversed in men’s judgement. Every morning during the time the judges are in the neighbouring Assize town she waits in one of the streets through which they must pass to reach the court; and as the gilt coach, the noisy trumpets, and the decrepit halberdiers, go by, she scowls at them from beneath her shaggy brows, and mutters her formula of defiance. She will die saying it: comforting her poor, worn, wounded heart with its smarting balm.

Will she find, when she comes before the Tribunal of Eternal Decrees that she has leaned thus long upon a broken reed, or will she find her son there, free from the guilt of blood?

The Great Judge only knows.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE BILL

I could scarcely believe, when I came to the last word of the foregoing recital and finished it off with a flourish, as I am apt to do when I make an end of any writing, that I had been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly on my hands, and the Holly-Tree, so bare at first, had borne so many berries for me, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table.

The road had been dug out of the snow, on the previous day, and the document in question was my Bill. It testified, emphatically, to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept, among the sheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights.

I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself finding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion of my task. I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, “at eight o’clock tomorrow evening.” It was eight o’clock tomorrow evening, when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travelling on, to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farmhouse where I had first seen Angela. What I had to do, was, to get across to Liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do it in.

I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends – almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness too – and was standing for half a minute at the Inn-door, watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but, all of us who were standing at the Inn-door, saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up, on either side of the track. The chambermaid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to the ostler: “Tom, this is a Gretna job!” The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard, bawling, “Next four out!” and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion.

I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was beloved; and, therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the Inn-door when the fugitives drove up. A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by Heaven, it was Edwin!

“Charley!” said he, recoiling. “Gracious powers, what do you do here?”

“Edwin,” said I, recoiling, “Gracious powers, what do you do here!” I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes.

He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to; and, shutting the door, said:

“Charley, forgive me!”

“Edwin!” I returned. “Was this well? When I loved her so dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so long!” I could say no more.

He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart.

I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him.

“My dear, dear Charley,” said he; “don’t think ill of me, I beseech you! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secrecy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But, I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake.”

He and his dear girl! It steeled me.

“You have observed it for my sake, sir?” said I, wondering how his frank face could face it out so.

“Yes! – and Angela’s,” said he.

I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring humming-top. “Explain yourself,” said I, holding on by one hand to an armchair.

“Dear old darling Charley!” returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, “consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should be able honourably to say, ‘He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.’ If Angela suspected it and showed me all the favour and support she could – God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife! – I couldn’t help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!”

Emmeline was Angela’s cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with her. Was her father’s ward. Had property.

“Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin?” said I, embracing him with the greatest affection.

“My good fellow!” said he, “Do you suppose I should be going to Gretna Green without her!”

I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape; but was warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note a-piece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt.

I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven – I mean Edwin’s and Emmeline’s, whose eldest girl is old enough now to wear white fur herself, and to look very like her mother in it – come to read these pages, of course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!

•  THE END  •

THE WRECK OF THE
GOLDEN MARY

CONTENTS

The Wreck
Charles Dickens

“John Steadiman’s Account”
Wilkie Collins

The Beguilement in the Boats
Rev. James White [“The Scotch Boy’s Story”], and probably the following: Adelaide Procter, Harriet Parr, Percy Fitzgerald

The Deliverance
Wilkie Collins

Household Words
Christmas number 1856

THE WRECK

I was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I have encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. Therefore, in the course of my life I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not an educated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things.

A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in the habit of holding forth about number one. That is not the case. Just as if I was to come into a room among strangers, and must either be introduced or introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passing these few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and what I am. I will add no more of the sort than that my name is William George Ravender, that I was born at Penrith half a year after my own father was drowned, and that I am on the second day of this present blessed Christmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six years of age.

When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was gold in California – which, as most people know, was before it was discovered in the British colony of Australia – I was in the West Indies, trading among the Islands. Being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently, gold in California was no business of mine.

But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing was as clear as your hand held up before you at noonday. There was Californian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths’ shops, and the very first time I went upon ‘Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like myself), with a Californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain. I handled it. It was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my life.

I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept shipshape by an old lady who was my mother’s maid before I was born. She is as handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world. She is as fond of me as if she had ever had an only son, and I was he. Well do I know wherever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without having said, “Merciful Lord! bless and preserve William George Ravender, and send him safe home, through Christ our Saviour!” I have thought of it in many a dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure.

In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship’s chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head on.

It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention, nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nor do I think that there has been any one of either of those names in that Liverpool House for years back. But, it is in reality the House itself that I refer to; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman never stepped.

“My dear Captain Ravender,” says he. “Of all the men on earth, I wanted to see you most. I was on my way to you.”

“Well!” says I. “That looks as if you were to see me, don’t it?” With that I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange, and when we got there, walked up and down at the back of it where the Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to me. He had a scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out cargo to the diggers and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring back gold. Into the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I have no right to enter. All I say of it is, that it was a very original one, a very fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyond doubt.

He imparted it to me as freely as if I had been a part of himself. After doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever was made to me, boy or man – or I believe to any other captain in the Merchant Navy – and he took this round turn to finish with:

“Ravender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast and country at present, is as special as the circumstances in which it is placed. Crews of vessels outward-bound, desert as soon as they make the land; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at enormous wages, with the express intention of murdering the captain and seizing the gold freight; no man can trust another, and the devil seems let loose. Now,” says he, “you know my opinion of you, and you know I am only expressing it, and with no singularity, when I tell you that you are almost the only man on whose integrity, discretion, and energy—” &c., &c. For, I don’t want to repeat what he said, though I was and am sensible of it.

Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for a voyage, still I had some doubts of this voyage. Of course I knew, without being told, that there were peculiar difficulties and dangers in it, a long way over and above those which attend all voyages. It must not be supposed that I was afraid to face them; but, in my opinion a man has no manly motive or sustainment in his own breast for facing dangers, unless he has well considered what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself, “None of these perils can now take me by surprise; I shall know what to do for the best in any of them; all the rest lies in the higher and greater hands to which I humbly commit myself.” On this principle I have so attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all the hazards I have ever been able to think of, in the ordinary way of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea, that I hope I should be prepared to do, in any of those cases, whatever could be done, to save the lives entrusted to my charge.

As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leave me to walk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine with him by-and-by at his club in Pall Mall. I accepted the invitation and I walked up and down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of a couple of hours; now and then looking up at the weathercock as I might have looked up aloft; and now and then taking a look into Cornhill, as I might have taken a look over the side.

All dinnertime, and all after dinnertime, we talked it over again. I gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same. I told him I had nearly decided, but not quite. “Well, well,” says he, “come down to Liverpool tomorrow with me, and see the Golden Mary.” I liked the name (her name was Mary, and she was golden, if golden stands for good), so I began to feel that it was almost done when I said I would go to Liverpool. On the next morning but one we were on board the Golden Mary. I might have known, from his asking me to come down and see her, what she was. I declare her to have been the completest and most exquisite Beauty that ever I set my eyes upon.

We had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the gangway to go ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand to my friend. “Touch upon it,” says I, “and touch heartily. I take command of this ship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get John Steadiman for my chief mate.”

John Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages. The first voyage John was third mate out to China, and came home second. The other three voyages he was my first officer. At this time of chartering the Golden Mary, he was aged thirty-two. A brisk, bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very neat figure and rather under the middle size, never out of the way and never in it, a face that pleased everybody and that all children took to, a habit of going about singing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect sailor.

We were in one of those Liverpool hackney-coaches in less than a minute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, looking for John. John had come home from Van Diemen’s Land barely a month before, and I had heard of him as taking a frisk in Liverpool. We asked after him, among many other places, at the two boarding-houses he was fondest of, and we found he had had a week’s spell at each of them; but, he had gone here and gone there, and had set off “to lay out on the main-to’-gallant-yard of the highest Welsh mountain” (so he had told the people of the house), and where he might be then, or when he might come back, nobody could tell us. But it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every face brightened the moment there was mention made of the name of Mr. Steadiman.

We were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had wore ship and put her head for my friends, when as we were jogging through the streets, I clap my eyes on John himself coming out of a toyshop! He was carrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty women to their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his life seen one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them on looking in at the toyshop while they were buying the child a cranky Noah’s Ark, very much down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies’ permission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with a lubberly idea of naval architecture.

We stood off and on until the ladies’ coachman began to give way, and then we hailed John. On his coming aboard of us, I told him, very gravely, what I had said to my friend. It struck him, as he said himself, amidships. He was quite shaken by it. “Captain Ravender,” were John Steadiman’s words, “such an opinion from you is true commendation, and I’ll sail round the world with you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and stand by you forever!” And now indeed I felt that it was done, and that the Golden Mary was afloat.

Grass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby. The riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight’s time, and we had begun taking in cargo. John was always aboard, seeing everything stowed with his own eyes; and whenever I went aboard myself early or late, whether he was below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, or overhauling his cabin, nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Roses of England, the Blue Belles of Scotland, and the female Shamrock of Ireland: of a certainty I heard John singing like a blackbird.

We had room for twenty passengers. Our sailing advertisement was no sooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times over. In entering our men, I and John (both together) picked them, and we entered none but good hands – as good as were to be found in that port. And so, in a good ship of the best build, well owned, well arranged, well officered, well manned, well found in all respects, we parted with our pilot at a quarter past four o’clock in the afternoon of the seventh of March, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, and stood with a fair wind out to sea.

It may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no leisure to be intimate with my passengers. The most of them were then in their berths seasick; however, in going among them, telling them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than I might have done at the cabin table.

Of my passengers, I need only particularise, just at present, a bright-eyed blooming young wife who was going out to join her husband in California, taking with her their only child, a little girl of three years old, whom he had never seen; a sedate young woman in black, some five years older (about thirty as I should say), who was going out to join a brother; and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk if his eyes had been better and not so red, who was always talking, morning, noon, and night, about the gold discovery. But, whether he was making the voyage, thinking his old arms could dig for gold, or whether his speculation was to buy it, or to barter for it, or to cheat for it, or to snatch it anyhow from other people, was his secret. He kept his secret.

These three and the child were the soonest well. The child was a most engaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me: though I am bound to admit that John Steadiman and I were borne on her pretty little books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, and I was mate. It was beautiful to watch her with John, and it was beautiful to watch John with her. Few would have thought it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and struck a Malay and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives down the cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay ill in his cot, off Saugar Point. But he was; and give him his back against a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a dozen of them. The name of the young mother was Mrs. Atherfield, the name of the young lady in black was Miss Coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman was Mr. Rarx.

As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her the name of the Golden Lucy. So, we had the Golden Lucy and the Golden Mary; and John kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing about the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship was alive somehow – a sister or companion, going to the same place as herself. She liked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, I have often stood by the man whose trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my feet, talking to the ship. Never had a child such a doll before, I suppose; but she made a doll of the Golden Mary, and used to dress her up by tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying-pins; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them from being blown away.

Of course I took charge of the two young women, and I called them “my dear,” and they never minded, knowing that whatever I said was said in a fatherly and protecting spirit. I gave them their places on each side of me at dinner, Mrs. Atherfield on my right and Miss Coleshaw on my left; and I directed the unmarried lady to serve out the breakfast, and the married lady to serve out the tea. Likewise I said to my black steward in their presence, “Tom Snow, these two ladies are equally the mistresses of this house, and do you obey their orders equally;” at which Tom laughed, and they all laughed.

Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time. Not but what he was on his best behaviour with us, as everybody was; for we had no bickering among us, for’ard or aft. I only mean to say, he was not the man one would have chosen for a messmate. If choice there had been, one might even have gone a few points out of one’s course, to say, “No! Not him!” But, there was one curious inconsistency in Mr. Rarx. That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the child. He looked, and I may add, he was, one of the last of men to care at all for a child, or to care much for any human creature. Still, he went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long on deck, out of his sight. He was always afraid of her falling overboard, or falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down upon her from the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting some hurt or other. He used to look at her and touch her, as if she was something precious to him. He was always solicitous about her not injuring her health, and constantly entreated her mother to be careful of it. This was so much the more curious, because the child did not like him, but used to shrink away from him, and would not even put out her hand to him without coaxing from others. I believe that every soul on board frequently noticed this, and not one of us understood it. However, it was such a plain fact, that John Steadiman said more than once when old Mr. Rarx was not within earshot, that if the Golden Mary felt a tenderness for the dear old gentleman she carried in her lap, she must be bitterly jealous of the Golden Lucy.

Before I go any further with this narrative, I will state that our ship was a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteen men, a second mate in addition to John, a carpenter, an armourer or smith, and two apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little fellow). We had three boats; the Longboat, capable of carrying twenty-five men; the Cutter, capable of carrying fifteen; and the Surf-boat, capable of carrying ten. I put down the capacity of these boats according to the numbers they were really meant to hold.

We had tastes of bad weather and headwinds, of course; but, on the whole we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixty days. I then began to enter two remarks in the ship’s Log and in my Journal; first, that there was an unusual and amazing quantity of ice; second, that the nights were most wonderfully dark, in spite of the ice.

For five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to alter the ship’s course so as to stand out of the way of this ice. I made what southing I could; but, all that time, we were beset by it. Mrs. Atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, “O! Captain Ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up!” I said to her, laughing, “I don’t wonder that it does, to your inexperienced eyes, my dear.” But I had never seen a twentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty much of her opinion.

However, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is to say, when we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman who had gone aloft, sang out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead. Before four p.m. a strong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open water at sunset. The breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind, and the Golden Mary being a very fast sailer, we went before the wind merrily, all night.

I had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been, until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and Time should be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison with what it was now. The darkness was so profound, that looking into it was painful and oppressive – like looking, without a ray of light, into a dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it could be, without touching them. I doubled the look-out, and John and I stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night. Yet I should no more have known that he was near me when he was silent, without putting out my arm and touching him, than I should if he had turned in and been fast asleep below. We were not so much looking out, all of us, as listening to the utmost, both with our eyes and ears.

Next day, I found that the mercury in the barometer, which had risen steadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady. I had had very good observations, with now and then the interruption of a day or so, since our departure. I got the sun at noon, and found that we were in Lat. 58 degrees S., Long. 60 degrees W., off New South Shetland; in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn. We were sixty-seven days out, that day. The ship’s reckoning was accurately worked and made up. The ship did her duty admirably, all on board were well, and all hands were as smart, efficient, and contented, as it was possible to be.

When the night came on again as dark as before, it was the eighth night I had been on deck. Nor had I taken more than a very little sleep in the daytime, my station being always near the helm, and often at it, while we were among the ice. Few but those who have tried it can imagine the difficulty and pain of only keeping the eyes open – physically open – under such circumstances, in such darkness. They get struck by the darkness, and blinded by the darkness. They make patterns in it, and they flash in it, as if they had gone out of your head to look at you. On the turn of midnight, John Steadiman, who was alert and fresh (for I had always made him turn in by day), said to me, “Captain Ravender, I entreat of you to go below. I am sure you can hardly stand, and your voice is getting weak, sir. Go below, and take a little rest. I’ll call you if a block chafes.” I said to John in answer, “Well, well, John! Let us wait till the turn of one o’clock, before we talk about that.” I had just had one of the ship’s lanterns held up, that I might see how the night went by my watch, and it was then twenty minutes after twelve.

At five minutes before one, John sang out to the boy to bring the lantern again, and when I told him once more what the time was, entreated and prayed of me to go below. “Captain Ravender,” says he, “all’s well; we can’t afford to have you laid up for a single hour; and I respectfully and earnestly beg of you to go below.” The end of it was, that I agreed to do so, on the understanding that if I failed to come up of my own accord within three hours, I was to be punctually called. Having settled that, I left John in charge. But I called him to me once afterwards, to ask him a question. I had been to look at the barometer, and had seen the mercury still perfectly steady, and had come up the companion again to take a last look about me – if I can use such a word in reference to such darkness – when I thought that the waves, as the Golden Mary parted them and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them; something that I fancied was a rather unusual reverberation. I was standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when I called John aft to me, and bade him listen. He did so with the greatest attention. Turning to me he then said, “Rely upon it, Captain Ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the novelty is only in the state of your sense of hearing.” I thought so too by that time, and I think so now, though I can never know for absolute certain in this world, whether it was or not.

When I left John Steadiman in charge, the ship was still going at a great rate through the water. The wind still blew right astern. Though she was making great way, she was under shortened sail, and had no more than she could easily carry. All was snug, and nothing complained. There was a pretty sea running, but not a very high sea neither, nor at all a confused one.

I turned in, as we seamen say, all standing. The meaning of that is, I did not pull my clothes off – no, not even so much as my coat: though I did my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled with the deck. There was a little swing-lamp alight in my cabin. I thought, as I looked at it before shutting my eyes, that I was so tired of darkness, and troubled by darkness, that I could have gone to sleep best in the midst of a million of flaming gas-lights. That was the last thought I had before I went off, except the prevailing thought that I should not be able to get to sleep at all.

I dreamed that I was back at Penrith again, and was trying to get round the church, which had altered its shape very much since I last saw it, and was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in a most singular manner. Why I wanted to get round the church I don’t know; but I was as anxious to do it as if my life depended on it. Indeed, I believe it did in the dream. For all that, I could not get round the church. I was still trying, when I came against it with a violent shock, and was flung out of my cot against the ship’s side. Shrieks and a terrific outcry struck me far harder than the bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of grinding and crashing, and a heavy rushing and breaking of water – sounds I understood too well – I made my way on deck. It was not an easy thing to do, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beating in a furious manner.

I could not see the men as I went forward, but I could hear that they were hauling in sail, in disorder. I had my trumpet in my hand, and, after directing and encouraging them in this till it was done, I hailed first John Steadiman, and then my second mate, Mr. William Rames. Both answered clearly and steadily. Now, I had practised them and all my crew, as I have ever made it a custom to practise all who sail with me, to take certain stations and wait my orders, in case of any unexpected crisis. When my voice was heard hailing, and their voices were heard answering, I was aware, through all the noises of the ship and sea, and all the crying of the passengers below, that there was a pause. “Are you ready, Rames?” – “Ay, ay, sir!” – “Then light up, for God’s sake!” In a moment he and another were burning blue-lights, and the ship and all on board seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a great black dome.

The light shone up so high that I could see the huge Iceberg upon which we had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, exactly like Penrith Church in my dream. At the same moment I could see the watch last relieved, crowding up and down on deck; I could see Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw thrown about on the top of the companion as they struggled to bring the child up from below; I could see that the masts were going with the shock and the beating of the ship; I could see the frightful breach stove in on the starboard side, half the length of the vessel, and the sheathing and timbers spirting up; I could see that the Cutter was disabled, in a wreck of broken fragments; and I could see every eye turned upon me. It is my belief that if there had been ten thousand eyes there, I should have seen them all, with their different looks. And all this in a moment. But you must consider what a moment.

I saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their appointed stations, like good men and true. If she had not righted, they could have done very little there or anywhere but die – not that it is little for a man to die at his post – I mean they could have done nothing to save the passengers and themselves. Happily, however, the violence of the shock with which we had so determinedly borne down direct on that fatal Iceberg, as if it had been our destination instead of our destruction, had so smashed and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant and righted. I did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling and going down; I could see and hear that. I gave Rames the word to lower the Longboat and the Surf-boat, and I myself told off the men for each duty. Not one hung back, or came before the other. I now whispered to John Steadiman, “John, I stand at the gangway here, to see every soul on board safe over the side. You shall have the next post of honour, and shall be the last but one to leave the ship. Bring up the passengers, and range them behind me; and put what provision and water you can got at, in the boats. Cast your eye for’ard, John, and you’ll see you have not a moment to lose.”

My noble fellows got the boats over the side as orderly as I ever saw boats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were launched, two or three of the nearest men in them as they held on, rising and falling with the swell, called out, looking up at me, “Captain Ravender, if anything goes wrong with us, and you are saved, remember we stood by you!” – “We’ll all stand by one another ashore, yet, please God, my lads!” says I. “Hold on bravely, and be tender with the women.”

The women were an example to us. They trembled very much, but they were quiet and perfectly collected. “Kiss me, Captain Ravender,” says Mrs. Atherfield, “and God in heaven bless you, you good man!”  “My dear,” says I, “those words are better for me than a lifeboat.” I held her child in my arms till she was in the boat, and then kissed the child and handed her safe down. I now said to the people in her, “You have got your freight, my lads, all but me, and I am not coming yet awhile. Pull away from the ship, and keep off!”

That was the Longboat. Old Mr. Rarx was one of her complement, and he was the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved since the ship struck. Others had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not very blamable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness. His incessant cry had been that he must not be separated from the child, that he couldn’t see the child, and that he and the child must go together. He had even tried to wrest the child out of my arms, that he might keep her in his. “Mr. Rarx,” said I to him when it came to that, “I have a loaded pistol in my pocket; and if you don’t stand out of the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, I shall shoot you through the heart, if you have got one.” Says he, “You won’t do murder, Captain Ravender!” “No, sir,” says I, “I won’t murder forty-four people to humour you, but I’ll shoot you to save them.” After that he was quiet, and stood shivering a little way off, until I named him to go over the side.

The Longboat being cast off, the Surf-boat was soon filled. There only remained aboard the Golden Mary, John Mullion the man who had kept on burning the blue-lights (and who had lighted every new one at every old one before it went out, as quietly as if he had been at an illumination); John Steadiman; and myself. I hurried those two into the Surf-boat, called to them to keep off, and waited with a grateful and relieved heart for the Longboat to come and take me in, if she could. I looked at my watch, and it showed me, by the blue-light, ten minutes past two. They lost no time. As soon as she was near enough, I swung myself into her, and called to the men, “With a will, lads! She’s reeling!” We were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down, when, by the blue-light which John Mullion still burnt in the bow of the Surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the bottom head-foremost. The child cried, weeping wildly, “O the dear Golden Mary! O look at her! Save her! Save the poor Golden Mary!” And then the light burnt out, and the black dome seemed to come down upon us.

I suppose if we had all stood a-top of a mountain, and seen the whole remainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly have felt more shocked and solitary than we did when we knew we were alone on the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us had been securely asleep within half an hour was gone forever. There was an awful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the man at the rudder, that I felt they were scarcely keeping her before the sea. I spoke out then, and said, “Let everyone here thank the Lord for our preservation!” All the voices answered (even the child’s), “We thank the Lord!” I then said the Lord’s Prayer, and all hands said it after me with a solemn murmuring. Then I gave the word “Cheerily, O men, Cheerily!” and I felt that they were handling the boat again as a boat ought to be handled.

The Surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where they were, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly alongside of her as we dared. I had always kept my boats with a coil or two of good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand. We made a shift, with much labour and trouble, to got near enough to one another to divide the blue-lights (they were no use after that night, for the seawater soon got at them), and to get a tow-rope out between us. All night long we kept together, sometimes obliged to cast off the rope, and sometimes getting it out again, and all of us wearying for the morning – which appeared so long in coming that old Mr. Rarx screamed out, in spite of his fears of me, “The world is drawing to an end, and the sun will never rise any more!”

When the day broke, I found that we were all huddled together in a miserable manner. We were deep in the water; being, as I found on mustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many. In the Surf-boat they were fourteen in number, being at least four too many. The first thing I did, was to get myself passed to the rudder – which I took from that time – and to get Mrs. Atherfield, her child, and Miss Coleshaw, passed on to sit next me. As to old Mr. Rarx, I put him in the bow, as far from us as I could. And I put some of the best men near us in order that if I should drop there might be a skilful hand ready to take the helm.

The sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was cloudy and wild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores they had, and to overhaul what we had. I had a compass in my pocket, a small telescope, a double-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a fire-box and matches. Most of my men had knives, and some had a little tobacco: some, a pipe as well. We had a mug among us, and an iron spoon. As to provisions, there were in my boat two bags of biscuit, one piece of raw beef, one piece of raw pork, a bag of coffee, roasted but not ground (thrown in, I imagine, by mistake, for something else), two small casks of water, and about half-a-gallon of rum in a keg. The Surf-boat, having rather more rum than we, and fewer to drink it, gave us, as I estimated, another quart into our keg. In return, we gave them three double handfuls of coffee, tied up in a piece of a handkerchief; they reported that they had aboard besides, a bag of biscuit, a piece of beef, a small cask of water, a small box of lemons, and a Dutch cheese. It took a long time to make these exchanges, and they were not made without risk to both parties; the sea running quite high enough to make our approaching near to one another very hazardous. In the bundle with the coffee, I conveyed to John Steadiman (who had a ship’s compass with him), a paper written in pencil, and torn from my pocketbook, containing the course I meant to steer, in the hope of making land, or being picked up by some vessel – I say in the hope, though I had little hope of either deliverance. I then sang out to him, so as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together, we would; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for theirs. We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw the men’s heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again.

These arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageously for all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a sorrowful feeling. I now said a few words to my fellow-voyagers on the subject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our eking it out in the most frugal manner. One and all replied that whatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to. We made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some twine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among us as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces. This was the allowance of solid food served out once a-day to each, from that time to the end; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one, when the weather was very fair, for breakfast. We had nothing else whatever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when we were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out as a dram. I know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is poison, but I also know that in this case, as in all similar cases I have ever read of – which are numerous – no words can express the comfort and support derived from it. Nor have I the least doubt that it saved the lives of far more than half our number. Having mentioned half a pint of water as our daily allowance, I ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and sometimes we had more; for much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas stretched for the purpose.

Thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempestuous part of the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with the waves. It is not my intention to relate (if I can avoid it) such circumstances appertaining to our doleful condition as have been better told in many other narratives of the kind than I can be expected to tell them. I will only note, in so many passing words, that day after day and night after night, we received the sea upon our backs to prevent it from swamping the boat; that one party was always kept baling, and that every hat and cap among us soon got worn out, though patched up fifty times, as the only vessels we had for that service; that another party lay down in the bottom of the boat, while a third rowed; and that we were soon all in boils and blisters and rags.

The other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of us that I used to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could ever come when the survivors in this boat of ours could be at all indifferent to the fortunes of the survivors in that. We got out a tow-rope whenever the weather permitted, but that did not often happen, and how we two parties kept within the same horizon, as we did, He, who mercifully permitted it to be so for our consolation, only knows. I never shall forget the looks with which, when the morning light came, we used to gaze about us over the stormy waters, for the other boat. We once parted company for seventy-two hours, and we believed them to have gone down, as they did us. The joy on both sides when we came within view of one another again, had something in a manner Divine in it; each was so forgetful of individual suffering, in tears of delight and sympathy for the people in the other boat.

I have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal part of my subject, as I call it, and the foregoing incident puts me in the right way. The patience and good disposition aboard of us, was wonderful. I was not surprised by it in the women; for all men born of women know what great qualities they will show when men will fail; but, I own I was a little surprised by it in some of the men. Among one-and-thirty people assembled at the best of times, there will usually, I should say, be two or three uncertain tempers. I knew that I had more than one rough temper with me among my own people, for I had chosen those for the Longboat that I might have them under my eye. But, they softened under their misery, and were as considerate of the ladies, and as compassionate of the child, as the best among us, or among men – they could not have been more so. I heard scarcely any complaining. The party lying down would moan a good deal in their sleep, and I would often notice a man – not always the same man, it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at one time or other – sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, as he looked mistily over the sea. When it happened to be long before I could catch his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismallest manner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave off. I almost always got the impression that he did not know what sound he had been making, but that he thought he had been humming a tune.

Our sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our sufferings from hunger. We managed to keep the child warm; but, I doubt if anyone else among us ever was warm for five minutes together; and the shivering, and the chattering of teeth, were sad to hear. The child cried a little at first for her lost playfellow, the Golden Mary; but hardly ever whimpered afterwards; and when the state of the weather made it possible, she used now and then to be held up in the arms of some of us, to look over the sea for John Steadiman’s boat. I see the golden hair and the innocent face now, between me and the driving clouds, like an angel going to fly away.

It had happened on the second day, towards night, that Mrs. Atherfield, in getting Little Lucy to sleep, sang her a song. She had a soft, melodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our people up and begged for another. She sang them another, and after it had fallen dark ended with the Evening Hymn. From that time, whenever anything could be heard above the sea and wind, and while she had any voice left, nothing would serve the people but that she should sing at sunset. She always did, and always ended with the Evening Hymn. We mostly took up the last line, and shed tears when it was done, but not miserably. We had a prayer night and morning, also, when the weather allowed of it.

Twelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, when old Mr. Rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to throw the gold overboard or it would sink us, and we should all be lost. For days past the child had been declining, and that was the great cause of his wildness. He had been over and over again shrieking out to me to give her all the remaining meat, to give her all the remaining rum, to save her at any cost, or we should all be ruined. At this time, she lay in her mother’s arms at my feet. One of her little hands was almost always creeping about her mother’s neck or chin. I had watched the wasting of the little hand, and I knew it was nearly over.

The old man’s cries were so discordant with the mother’s love and submission, that I called out to him in an angry voice, unless he held his peace on the instant, I would order him to be knocked on the head and thrown overboard. He was mute then, until the child died, very peacefully, an hour afterwards: which was known to all in the boat by the mother’s breaking out into lamentations for the first time since the wreck – for, she had great fortitude and constancy, though she was a little gentle woman. Old Mr. Rarx then became quite ungovernable, tearing what rags he had on him, raging in imprecations, and calling to me that if I had thrown the gold overboard (always the gold with him!) I might have saved the child. “And now,” says he, in a terrible voice, “we shall founder, and all go to the Devil, for our sins will sink us, when we have no innocent child to bear us up!” We so discovered with amazement, that this old wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty little creature dear to all of us, because of the influence he superstitiously hoped she might have in preserving him! Altogether it was too much for the smith or armourer, who was sitting next the old man, to bear. He took him by the throat and rolled him under the thwarts, where he lay still enough for hours afterwards.

All that thirteenth night, Miss Coleshaw, lying across my knees as I kept the helm, comforted and supported the poor mother. Her child, covered with a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap. It troubled me all night to think that there was no Prayer-Book among us, and that I could remember but very few of the exact words of the burial service. When I stood up at broad day, all knew what was going to be done, and I noticed that my poor fellows made the motion of uncovering their heads, though their heads had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many a weary hour. There was a long heavy swell on, but otherwise it was a fair morning, and there were broad fields of sunlight on the waves in the east. I said no more than this: “I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. He raised the daughter of Jairus the ruler, and said she was not dead but slept. He raised the widow’s son. He arose Himself, and was seen of many. He loved little children, saying, Suffer them to come unto Me and rebuke them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. In His name, my friends, and committed to His merciful goodness!” With those words I laid my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, and buried the Golden Lucy in the grave of the Golden Mary.

Having had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little child, I have omitted something from its exact place, which I will supply here. It will come quite as well here as anywhere else.

Foreseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, the time must come, and soon come, when we should have absolutely no morsel to eat, I had one momentous point often in my thoughts. Although I had, years before that, fully satisfied myself that the instances in which human beings in the last distress have fed upon each other, are exceedingly few, and have very seldom indeed (if ever) occurred when the people in distress, however dreadful their extremity, have been accustomed to moderate forbearance and restraint; I say, though I had long before quite satisfied my mind on this topic, I felt doubtful whether there might not have been in former cases some harm and danger from keeping it out of sight and pretending not to think of it. I felt doubtful whether some minds, growing weak with fasting and exposure and having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not magnify it until it got to have an awful attraction about it. This was not a new thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. However, it came over me stronger than it had ever done before – as it had reason for doing – in the boat, and on the fourth day I decided that I would bring out into the light that unformed fear which must have been more or less darkly in every brain among us. Therefore, as a means of beguiling the time and inspiring hope, I gave them the best summary in my power of Bligh’s voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, after the Mutiny of the Bounty, and of the wonderful preservation of that boat’s crew. They listened throughout with great interest, and I concluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the happiest circumstance in the whole narrative was, that Bligh, who was no delicate man either, had solemnly placed it on record therein that he was sure and certain that under no conceivable circumstances whatever would that emaciated party, who had gone through all the pains of famine, have preyed on one another. I cannot describe the visible relief which this spread through the boat, and how the tears stood in every eye. From that time I was as well convinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this phantom, at any rate, did not haunt us.

Now, it was a part of Bligh’s experience that when the people in his boat were most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearing a story told by one of their number. When I mentioned that, I saw that it struck the general attention as much as it did my own, for I had not thought of it until I came to it in my summary. This was on the day after Mrs. Atherfield first sang to us. I proposed that, whenever the weather would permit, we should have a story two hours after dinner (I always issued the allowance I have mentioned at one o’clock, and called it by that name), as well as our song at sunset. The proposal was received with a cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me; and I do not say too much when I say that those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours were expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all hands. Spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations did not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones. Music and Adventure, two of the great gifts of Providence to mankind, could charm us long after that was lost.

The wind was almost always against us after the second day; and for many days together we could not nearly hold our own. We had all varieties of bad weather. We had rain, hail, snow, wind, mist, thunder and lightning. Still the boats lived through the heavy seas, and still we perishing people rose and fell with the great waves.

Sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days, twenty-four nights and twenty-three days. So the time went on. Disheartening as I knew that our progress, or want of progress, must be, I never deceived them as to my calculations of it. In the first place, I felt that we were all too near eternity for deceit; in the second place, I knew that if I failed, or died, the man who followed me must have a knowledge of the true state of things to begin upon. When I told them at noon, what I reckoned we had made or lost, they generally received what I said in a tranquil and resigned manner, and always gratefully towards me. It was not unusual at any time of the day for someone to burst out weeping loudly without any new cause; and, when the burst was over, to calm down a little better than before. I had seen exactly the same thing in a house of mourning.

During the whole of this time, old Mr. Rarx had had his fits of calling out to me to throw the gold (always the gold!) overboard, and of heaping violent reproaches upon me for not having saved the child; but now, the food being all gone, and I having nothing left to serve out but a bit of coffee-berry now and then, he began to be too weak to do this, and consequently fell silent. Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw generally lay, each with an arm across one of my knees, and her head upon it. They never complained at all. Up to the time of her child’s death, Mrs. Atherfield had bound up her own beautiful hair every day; and I took particular notice that this was always before she sang her song at night, when everyone looked at her. But she never did it after the loss of her darling; and it would have been now all tangled with dirt and wet, but that Miss Coleshaw was careful of it long after she was herself, and would sometimes smooth it down with her weak thin hands.

We were past mustering a story now; but one day, at about this period, I reverted to the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning the Golden Lucy, and told them that nothing vanished from the eye of God, though much might pass away from the eyes of men. “We were all of us,” says I, “children once; and our baby feet have strolled in green woods ashore; and our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were singing. The children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge of our Creator. Those innocent creatures will appear with us before Him, and plead for us. What we were in the best time of our generous youth will arise and go with us too. The purest part of our lives will not desert us at the pass to which all of us here present are gliding. What we were then, will be as much in existence before Him, as what we are now.” They were no less comforted by this consideration, than I was myself; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said, “Captain Ravender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man, whom I dearly loved when he was honourable and good. Your words seem to have come out of my own poor heart.” She pressed my hand upon it, smiling.

Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. We were in no want of rain-water, but we had nothing else. And yet, even now, I never turned my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. O, what a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death, the shining of a face upon a face! I have heard it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. Never try it for that. It will break down like a straw.

I now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did not like. They caused me much disquiet. I often saw the Golden Lucy in the air above the boat. I often saw her I have spoken of before, sitting beside me. I saw the Golden Mary go down, as she really had gone down, twenty times in a day. And yet the sea was mostly, to my thinking, not sea neither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainous regions, the like of which have never been beheld. I felt it time to leave my last words regarding John Steadiman, in case any lips should last out to repeat them to any living ears. I said that John had told me (as he had on deck) that he had sung out “Breakers ahead!” the instant they were audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could be done. (His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.) I said that the circumstances were altogether without warning, and out of any course that could have been guarded against; that the same loss would have happened if I had been in charge; and that John was not to blame, but from first to last had done his duty nobly, like the man he was. I tried to write it down in my pocketbook, but could make no words, though I knew what the words were that I wanted to make. When it had come to that, her hands – though she was dead so long – laid me down gently in the bottom of the boat, and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to sleep.

•   •   •

All that follows, was written by John Steadiman, Chief Mate:

On the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the Golden Mary at sea, I, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stern-sheets of the Surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer – that is to say, with my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows of the boat, and my brains fast asleep and dreaming – when I was roused upon a sudden by our second mate, Mr. William Rames.

“Let me take a spell in your place,” says he. “And look you out for the Longboat astern. The last time she rose on the crest of a wave, I thought I made out a signal flying aboard her.”

We shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were both of us weak and dazed with wet, cold, and hunger. I waited some time, watching the heavy rollers astern, before the Longboat rose a-top of one of them at the same time with us. At last, she was heaved up for a moment well in view, and there, sure enough, was the signal flying aboard of her – a strip of rag of some sort, rigged to an oar, and hoisted in her bows.

“What does it mean?” says Rames to me in a quavering, trembling sort of voice. “Do they signal a sail in sight?”

“Hush, for God’s sake!” says I, clapping my hand over his mouth. “Don’t let the people hear you. They’ll all go mad together if we mislead them about that signal. Wait a bit, till I have another look at it.”

I held on by him, for he had set me all of a tremble with his notion of a sail in sight, and watched for the Longboat again. Up she rose on the top of another roller. I made out the signal clearly, that second time, and saw that it was rigged half-mast high.

“Rames,” says I, “it’s a signal of distress. Pass the word forward to keep her before the sea, and no more. We must get the Longboat within hailing distance of us, as soon as possible.”

I dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word – for the thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to Captain Ravender. I should consider myself unworthy to write another line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – and I must, therefore, confess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sank within me. This weakness on my part was produced in some degree, as I take it, by the exhausting effects of previous anxiety and grief.

Our provisions – if I may give that name to what we had left – were reduced to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull of coffee-berries. Besides these great distresses, caused by the death, the danger, and the suffering among my crew and passengers, I had had a little distress of my own to shake me still more, in the death of the child whom I had got to be very fond of on the voyage out – so fond that I was secretly a little jealous of her being taken in the Longboat instead of mine when the ship foundered. It used to be a great comfort to me, and I think to those with me also, after we had seen the last of the Golden Mary, to see the Golden Lucy, held up by the men in the Longboat, when the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they had to show. She looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost like a little white bird in the air. To miss her for the first time, when the weather lulled a little again, and we all looked out for our white bird and looked in vain, was a sore disappointment. To see the men’s heads bowed down and the captain’s hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the Longboat, a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of heartache to bear as ever I remember suffering in all my life. I only mention these things to show that if I did give way a little at first, under the dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without having been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or another than often fall to one man’s share.

I had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop of water, and had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared against the worst, when I heard the hail (Lord help the poor fellows, how weak it sounded!)—

“Surf-boat, ahoy!”

I looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune tossing abreast of us; not so near that we could make out the features of any of them, but near enough, with some exertion for people in our condition, to make their voices heard in the intervals when the wind was weakest.

I answered the hail, and waited a bit, and heard nothing, and then sung out the captain’s name. The voice that replied did not sound like his; the words that reached us were:

“Chief-mate wanted on board!”

Every man of my crew knew what that meant as well as I did. As second officer in command, there could be but one reason for wanting me on board the Longboat. A groan went all round us, and my men looked darkly in each other’s faces, and whispered under their breaths:

“The captain is dead!”

I commanded them to be silent, and not to make too sure of bad news, at such a pass as things had now come to with us. Then, hailing the Longboat, I signified that I was ready to go on board when the weather would let me – stopped a bit to draw a good long breath – and then called out as loud as I could the dreadful question:

“Is the captain dead?”

The black figures of three or four men in the after-part of the Longboat all stooped down together as my voice reached them. They were lost to view for about a minute; then appeared again – one man among them was held up on his feet by the rest, and he hailed back the blessed words (a very faint hope went a very long way with people in our desperate situation): “Not yet!”

The relief felt by me, and by all with me, when we knew that our captain, though unfitted for duty, was not lost to us, it is not in words – at least, not in such words as a man like me can command – to express. I did my best to cheer the men by telling them what a good sign it was that we were not as badly off yet as we had feared; and then communicated what instructions I had to give, to William Rames, who was to be left in command in my place when I took charge of the Longboat. After that, there was nothing to be done, but to wait for the chance of the wind dropping at sunset, and the sea going down afterwards, so as to enable our weak crews to lay the two boats alongside of each other, without undue risk – or, to put it plainer, without saddling ourselves with the necessity for any extraordinary exertion of strength or skill. Both the one and the other had now been starved out of us for days and days together.

At sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had been running high for so long a time past, took hours after that before it showed any signs of getting to rest. The moon was shining, the sky was wonderfully clear, and it could not have been, according to my calculations, far off midnight, when the long, slow, regular swell of the calming ocean fairly set in, and I took the responsibility of lessening the distance between the Longboat and ourselves.

It was, I dare say, a delusion of mine; but I thought I had never seen the moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either on sea or on land, as she shone that night while we were approaching our companions in misery. When there was not much more than a boat’s length between us, and the white light streamed cold and clear over all our faces, both crews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and stared over the gunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the first sight of each other.

“Any lives lost among you?” I asked, in the midst of that frightful silence.

The men in the Longboat huddled together like sheep at the sound of my voice.

“None yet, but the child, thanks be to God!” answered one among them.

And at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like the men in the Longboat. I was afraid to let the horror produced by our first meeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes that wet, cold, and famine had produced, last one moment longer than could be helped; so, without giving time for any more questions and answers, I commanded the men to lay the two boats close alongside of each other. When I rose up and committed the tiller to the hands of Rames, all my poor follows raised their white faces imploringly to mine. “Don’t leave us, sir,” they said, “don’t leave us.”  “I leave you,” says I, “under the command and the guidance of Mr. William Rames, as good a sailor as I am, and as trusty and kind a man as ever stepped. Do your duty by him, as you have done it by me; and remember to the last, that while there is life there is hope. God bless and help you all!” With those words I collected what strength I had left, and caught at two arms that were held out to me, and so got from the stern-sheets of one boat into the stern-sheets of the other.

“Mind where you step, sir,” whispered one of the men who had helped me into the Longboat. I looked down as he spoke. Three figures were huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on them in ragged streaks through the gaps between the men standing or sitting above them. The first face I made out was the face of Miss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide open and fixed on me. She seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the alternate parting and closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but I could not hear that she uttered a single word. On her shoulder rested the head of Mrs. Atherfield. The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy must, I think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost; for there was a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when I first saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the heavens. From her, I looked down a little, and there, with his head on her lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his cheek – there lay the Captain, to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time, we had never looked in vain, – there, worn out at last in our service, and for our sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company. I stole my hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart, and felt a little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touch could not detect even the faintest beating. The two men in the stern-sheets with me, noticing what I was doing – knowing I loved him like a brother – and seeing, I suppose, more distress in my face than I myself was conscious of its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst into a piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him. One of the two drew aside a jacket from his feet, and showed me that they were bare, except where a wet, ragged strip of stocking still clung to one of them. When the ship struck the Iceberg, he had run on deck leaving his shoes in his cabin. All through the voyage in the boat his feet had been unprotected; and not a soul had discovered it until he dropped! As long as he could keep his eyes open, the very look of them had cheered the men, and comforted and upheld the women. Not one living creature in the boat, with any sense about him, but had felt the good influence of that brave man in one way or another. Not one but had heard him, over and over again, give the credit to others which was due only to himself; praising this man for patience, and thanking that man for help, when the patience and the help had really and truly, as to the best part of both, come only from him. All this, and much more, I heard pouring confusedly from the men’s lips while they crouched down, sobbing and crying over their commander, and wrapping the jacket as warmly and tenderly as they could over is cold feet. It went to my heart to check them; but I knew that if this lamenting spirit spread any further, all chance of keeping alight any last sparks of hope and resolution among the boat’s company would be lost forever. Accordingly I sent them to their places, spoke a few encouraging words to the men forward, promising to serve out, when the morning came, as much as I dared, of any eatable thing left in the lockers; called to Rames, in my old boat, to keep as near us as he safely could; drew the garments and coverings of the two poor suffering women more closely about them; and, with a secret prayer to be directed for the best in bearing the awful responsibility now laid on my shoulders, took my Captain’s vacant place at the helm of the Longboat.

This, as well as I can tell it, is the full and true account of how I came to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of the Golden Mary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after the ship struck the Iceberg, and foundered at sea.

•   •   •

THE BEGUILEMENT
IN THE BOATS

I come from Ashbrooke. (It was the Armourer who spun this yarn.) Dear me! how many years back is that? Twenty years ago it must be now – long before I ever thought of going to sea – before I let rambling notions get into my head – when I used to walk up the street singing, and thinking of the time when I should come to have a forge of my own.

It was a pretty sight to look down Ashbrooke, especially on a fine summer’s day, when the sun was out. Why, I’ve been told painters would come from miles off, purposely to put it down on paper, and you’d see them at turnings of the road, and under trees working away like bees. And no wonder; for I have seen pictures enough in my day, but none to go near that. I’ve often wished I could handle a brush like some of those people – just enough, you know, to make a little picture of it for myself, to bring about with me, and hang up over my hammock. For that matter, I am looking at it this moment, standing, as it might be, at the corner of the road, looking down the slope. There was the old church, just here on the right, with a slanting roof running to the ground, almost. You might walk round it for a month and not see a bare stone, the moss grew so thick all over it. It was very pleasant of Sundays, standing by and seeing the village folk trooping out of the porch, and hearing the organ-music playing away inside! Then, going down the hill, a little further on, you met queer, old-fashioned houses, with great shingle roofs. Beyond that, again, was a puzzling bit of building, like the half of a church-window, standing up quite stiff by itself. They used to say there had once been an abbey or nunnery in these parts, full of clergymen and clergywomen, in the old papist times, of course; and there were little bits of it sticking up all over the place. Then more old houses (How the moss did grow, to be sure!), until you passed by the Joyful Heart Inn, where every traveller pulled up to refresh himself and his nag. Many is the pleasant hour I’ve spent in the Joyful Heart, sitting in the cool porch with the ivy hanging down overhead, or by the great fireplace in the sanded kitchen.

There was a sort of open place in front of the Joyful Heart, with a market-cross in the middle, and a spring where the young women used to come for water, and stand talking there, telling each other the news. The painters used to put them down too – spring and all; and I don’t wonder at their fancying them. For, when I was sitting that way in the porch, looking out at them, the red petticoats, and the queer jars, and the old cross, and the sun going down behind, made a kind of picture very pretty to look at. I’ve seen the same of it many a time in some of those places about the Spanish main, when the foreign women stood round about and carried their jars in the same fashion. Only there was no Joyful Heart. I always missed the Joyful Heart in such places. Neither was there the Great Forge just over the way, facing the Joyful Heart. I must put in a word here about the Forge, though I have been a long time coming round to the point.

I never saw such a forge as that – never! It must have been another bit of the old Abbey – the great gate, most likely, for it was nothing but a huge, wide, archway. Very handsomely worked, though, and covered with moss like the rest. There was a little stone hutch at the top, that looked like a belfry. The bell was gone long ago, of course, but the rings were there, and the stauncheons, all soundly made – good work as I could have turned out myself. Someone had run up a bit of building at the back, which kept out the wind and made all snug, and there you had as handsome a forge as I ever came across.

It was kept by a young man of the name of Whichelo – Will Whichelo. But he had another name besides that, and I think a better one. If you were to go asking through the village for one Will Whichelo, why, you would come back about as wise as you went; unless, indeed, you chanced upon the minister or the schoolmaster. No; but because he was always seen hard at his work, swinging his hammer with good-will, and stepping back at every stroke to get a better sweep – because he laid his whole soul to the business – the Ashbrooke folk christened him Ding Dong Will. He was always singing and at his work. Many a nice young woman of the village would have been glad if Ding Dong Will had looked her way. But he never took heed of any of them, or was more than civil and gentle with them.

“Look ye,” he would say, leaning on his great hammer, “are they the creatures for handling cold iron, or lifting the sledge? No, no!” and would take up his favourite stave of Hammer and anvil! hammer and anvil! lads, yoho!

I was but a youngster at that time, but had a great hankering after the iron business. I would be nothing else, I told my father, who wanted to send me up to London to learn accounts. I was always dropping down there, and would stay half the day, leaning against the arch and watching the forging. Coming along of a night, I used to get quite cheerful when I saw the blaze of the furnace, and the chinking of the iron was the finest music for me I ever heard – finer than the organ tunes even. Sometimes a dusty rider would come galloping in, and pull up sharp at the Forge; he had cast a shoe on the road, and Ding Dong Will would come out and take the horse’s measure. Then the village folk would get standing round, in twos and threes, all of them eyeing over the horse and the rider, too. Then he would get upon his nag once more, and the little crowd would open, and he ride away harder than he came, Ding Dong Will, with his hammer over his shoulder, looking after him till he got to the turn of the hill.

At last, my father came round and gave up making me a clerk – it would never have done – and Ding Dong Will, who had a liking for me, agreed to take me at the Forge. I soon got to use the big sledge fairly enough – nothing, of course, to Ding Dong Will; and so we worked away from morning till night, like two Jolly Millers. There was fine music at the Forge, when the two of us were at it.

Ding Dong Will never went to the Joyful Heart; he said he had no time to be idle; but I went pretty often – that is, when the day was done and work over – just to have a talk in the cool porch, and hear what company was in the house. For, Miss Arthur – Mary Arthur – she that used to sit in the parlour and manage the house, was never very stand-off to me. But she had a reason of her own for that, as you will see. She was niece to old Joe Fenton, the landlord, who brought her down from London to keep things going. In short, she was as good as mistress there. Folks said she kept her head a little high; but, to say truth, I never found her so. She had had her schooling up in London, and had learned manners with the best of them, so it was but nature she should be a stroke above the girls of the place. That was why they didn’t like her. About her looks? Ah! she was a beauty! Such hair – it went nigh down to her feet – and her eyes – why they shot fire like a pair of stars – and she had a way of shifting them back and forward, and taking your measure at every look, that made you feel quite uneasy. All the young fellows were by the ears about her, but she never heeded or encouraged them; unless it might be that she had a leaning to one – and that was to Ding Dong Will opposite. No one thought of such a thing, she kept it so close; but she might as well have had a leaning to a lump of cold iron.

The way I came to suspect it was this. The old Forge, as I said, was just fronting the Joyful Heart; and, every morning, as sure as I came down to work, I used to see her sitting in the bow-window, behind the white curtain, working with her needle. There she would be all the morning, for at that time there was nothing doing downstairs, and, every now and again, she would be taking a sly look over at the Forge where Ding Dong Will was swinging his great sledge, and trolling his Hammer and anvil! lads, yoho! He was well worth looking out at, was Ding Dong Will. I used to tell him, “Mary Arthur is making eyes at you yonder – have a care, Will.” And he would laugh loud, and say, “She may find better sport elsewhere. No sweethearts for me, lad. Hand the file. Sing Hammer and anvil, yoho!”

I never saw so insensible a fellow, never. But her liking slipped out in more ways than that. Whenever I went in, she was always taking notice of me, and asking about myself. How was I getting on at the Forge? Did I like the business? Did we do much? What kind was he, the other – he with the curious name? Then she would laugh, and show her white teeth.

At last, one Saturday evening I was sitting in the porch, looking at the children playing in the road, when I heard a step at the back, and there was Mary Arthur standing behind me. “Resting after the week?” she said.

“Yes, and a hard week we’ve had of it.”

“Nothing doing at the Forge now, I suppose,” says she. (He had gone down to the green with the young fellows to throw the bar.)

“No,” says I; “we’ve let the fire out, and will rest till Monday.”

She stayed silent for a minute, and then “Why does he – Whichelo I mean – keep shut up that way at home?” She was beating her hands impatiently together. “What does it all mean? What do you make of it?”

I stared, you may be sure, she spoke so sharply.

“Does he never go out and see the world – go to dances or merrymakings?”

“No,” said I; “never.”

“Well,” said she, “isn’t it odd; how do you account for it?”

“Well, it is odd,” I said.

“And he so young?”

All this while she was shifting her black eyes in a restless kind of way.

“You should try,” says she, “and get him to mix more with the others, for your own sake as well as his.”

I was going to tell her I was at him morning, noon, and night, when the bell rang, and she tripped off.

Ding Dong Will came into the Forge that night, fairly tired and done up. “Beat them as usual!” he said, as he flung himself down on the bench.

“I knew you would,” I said.

“But it was thirsty work: some drink, for Heaven’s sake!”

“There’s not a drop of malt in the house,” I said.

“Well, go over and fetch some.”

Said I, “Go yourself. I tell you what, there’s a nice girl there always talking of you; and, if you’ve anything of a man about you, you’ll go over and speak her softly, and show her you’re not what she takes you for. Now, there’s my mind for you, Ding Dong Will.”

“Stuff,” says he, laughing; “let her mind her own business, and leave me to my anvil. I’ll not go.”

“Ah! you’re afraid,” said I – “that’s it!”

“Afraid,” says he, starting up; “you know I’m not – you know I’m not. Here, I’ll go,” and made straight for the door. “Stop,” he said, turning round, “what did she say about taking me for a different sort of man?”

“No matter now,” said I. “When you come back.”

It should have been a five minutes’ job, that fetching the malt. But, would you believe it? he was close upon an hour about it. I knew well she had not been losing her time. When he came in, I began at once at him: “Ah, ah!” said I, “didn’t I tell you? I knew it!”

“Nonsense,” said he, with a foolish kind of laugh, “it was none of my fault. She kept me there with her talk, and I couldn’t get away.”

“O, poor Ding Dong Will,” I said, “You had better have stayed away, after all!”

“Folly!” says he, laughing more foolishly still; “you’ll see if she gets me there again. Enough about her. There!”

I saw he was uneasy in his mind, and so gave him no more trouble. But I needn’t have been so delicate with him at all, for next day it was quite the other way. He never gave me peace or rest, sounding me and picking out of me what she had said of him. The man was clean gone from that hour. It’s always the way with those kind of men: when they are touched, they run off like a bit of melted metal.

He got worse every day from that out. He was in and out of the Joyful Heart half his time, always on some excuse or other, and going lazily to his work, stopping every now and again to have a look at the white curtain over the way. It was a poor thing to see him – it was indeed; I was ashamed of him. At last he came to doing nothing at all, or next to nothing; and the great hammer was laid by in a corner.

Well, this went on, it might be for a month, and folks in the village began to talk and wink, and say, what would come next, now that Ding Dong Will was caught at last. I tried to keep things going as well as I could, but it was of very little use. The business fell off; and I never will forget the sinking feel I got when the riders began to go straight on through the village – past the old Forge – and pull up at a new place, lately opened, beyond the church! After all they only did what was natural, and went where they would be best attended to. By-and-by I saw a change coming on Ding Dong Will – a very odd change. With all his foolishness, he had been in great spirits – always laughing – without much meaning to be sure; but, still as I say, in great spirits. But now, I saw that he was turning quite another way, getting quite a down-hearted, moping kind of manner, I couldn’t well make out. He would come in of an evening – very rough and sulky – and sit down before the fire looking into the coals, and never open his mouth for hours at a time. Then he would get up and walk up and down, stamping and muttering – nothing very holy, you may be sure. I soon guessed – indeed, I heard as much in the village – that she was drawing off a bit – or else trying her play-acting upon him, for she was full of those kind of tricks. She was a very deep one, that Mary Arthur, and it was a pity she ever came into the place. She had a kind of up-and-down way of treating him – one time being all smiles and pleasantness, and next day like a lump of ice, – pretending not to see him when he came in. She made him know his place – rolling her black eyes back and forward in every direction but his; then he would come home raging and swearing. I often wondered what she could be at, or what was at the bottom of it all; and, I believe, I would never have come at the truth if I didn’t happen one day to run up against a handsome-looking gentleman in a fisherman’s hat, just at the door of the Joyful Heart. They told me, inside, it was young Mr. Temple, of Temple Court, – some ten miles off, – come down to stop there for the fishing.

There it was! That was the secret of all! He had been there nigh on a fortnight – had come, mind you, for two or three days’ fishing; but the sport was so good he really must stay a bit longer. Quite natural – and, you may say, quite proper! I’m thinking there was better sport going on in the parlour than ever he found in the river. Her head was nigh turned with it all, and I really believe she thought she was going to be Mistress of Temple Court before long – though how a young girl that had come down to London, and had seen a bit of life, should be so short-seeing, is more than I can fancy. She took the notion into her head – that was certain – and every soul in the place could see what she was at, except the poor blind creature at the Forge; but even he had his eyes opened at last, for people now began to talk and whisper, and hope all was right up at the Joyful Heart. I heard that the minister had gone once to speak with her; but came out very red and angry. No doubt she had bidden him mind his own concerns, and not meddle with her. As to old Joe Fenton’s looking after his niece, he might as well have been cut out of a block of wood.

One morning, just after breakfast, when he – Ding Dong Will – was sitting at the fire as usual, and not speaking a word, he turns round quite sharp upon me and says:

“What is that young Jack doing all this time? What do you say?”

“I’m sure I can’t tell,” I said, “unless it be fishing.”

“Fishing!” said he, stamping down the coals with his great shoe, “like enough! I’ve never heard much of the fish in these waters.”

“Still he does go out with a rod,” I said; “there’s nothing else here to amuse him, I suppose. But he goes on Monday.”

“Look me in the face,” says he, catching me by the wrist, “you don’t believe that he’s come only for that?”

“I can’t tell,” said I, “unless it is that he likes Mary Arthur’s company. She’s a nice girl!”

“Ah!” said he, “I’ve been thinking so some time back – the false, hollow jade! This was at the bottom of all her tricks! But I tell you what,” said he, snatching his hammer, “let him look out, and not come in my way – I give him warning—”

With this he got a bit of iron upon the anvil and beat away at it like a wild man. Then he flung it down into a corner and, taking his hat, walked out with great strides. I ran after him and took him by the arm, for I was in a desperate fright lest he should do something wicked. But he put me back quietly.

“See,” said he, “I give you a caution, don’t meddle with me. Mind—”

I didn’t try and stop him then, for he looked savage. But I followed a little behind. He made for the Joyful Heart; and, just as he came under the porch, with his head down, and never heeding where he was going to, he ran full up against somebody, who, without much more ado, gave him back his own, and flung him right against the wall.

“Now then, young Hercules!” said a gay kind of voice – I knew it for Mr. Temple’s, – “now then, look before you, will you! Keep the passage clear.”

I thought the other was going to run at him straight, but he stopped himself quickly.

“Who are you speaking to in that way?” said he, with a low kind of growl. “Is it your horse, or your dog, or your groom? Which? Are those manners?”

“Now, Bruin,” says the young man, “no words. Let me pass, – I’m in a hurry.”

“Who was it taught you,” says Ding Dong Will, with the same kind of growl, and not moving an inch, – “who taught you to call folk Bruins and Herculeses – eh? I declare,” says he, colouring up quite red, and trembling all over, “I’ve a mind to give you a lesson myself – I will, by—”

I think he was going to spring at him this time, but I heard steps on the sanded floor, and there was Mary Arthur standing before us. A fine creature she looked, too. She was in a tearing rage – and her eyes had more of the devilish look in them than I had ever seen before.

“For shame,” she said, to Will – “for shame! What do you come here for, with your low brawling ways. Who asks you to come? Who wants you? Take him away – home – anywhere out of this!”

It was a piteous sight to look at poor Ding Dong Will, staring stupidly at her, and breathing hard, as if there was a weight on his chest.

“Mr. Temple,” says she, turning to him quite changed, and with a gentle smile on her face, “can you forgive me for all this? That such a thing should have happened to you in our house! But it shall never occur again! Never – never!”

I could see he took her very easy, for he was looking out at something, and she had to say it twice over before he heard her.

“Sweet Mary,” said he, “don’t give yourself a moment’s uneasiness about me. Let things go as they like, so that you don’t put yourself out.” Here he gave a kind of yawn, and went over to the window.

She looked after him, biting her lip hard.

“Why don’t you take him away, as I told you?” she says at last. “What does he want here?”

I pitied him so much, to see him standing there so beaten down, that I could not help putting in my word.

“Well, I must say, Miss Mary, poor Ding Dong Will didn’t deserve this, – from you, of all people.”

“Hallo!” says Mr. Temple, coming back; “is this famous Ding Dong Will from over the way?”

“No other, sir,” says I.

“Here, Ding Dong Will,” says he, putting out his hand, “we mustn’t fall out. If I had known it was you, you should have had the passage all to yourself. You’re a fine fellow, Will, and I’ve often admired the way you swung the great hammer.”

She was biting her lips still harder than before, but said nothing.

“Stop,” said he, “I have a great idea. So this is Ding Dong Will! Whisper a minute, Mary.”

He did whisper something to her, and you never saw what a change it made in her. She turned all scarlet, and gave him such a wicked devilish look.

“This is some joke,” said she, at last.

“Not a bit of it,” says he, laughing; “not a bit of it. Ah! You see I know what goes on in the village!”

“I couldn’t believe that you mean such a thing!” says she, getting white again.

“Stuff!” said he, very impatiently. “I tell you, I am in earnest. Listen, Ding Dong Will. I must be off to London tomorrow, – the ladies there are dying to see me, so go I must. Now, I know there has been something on between you two, – don’t tell me, I know all about it. So now, friend Ding Dong, show yourself a man of spirit, and settle it sharp. And I promise you, I’ll come down myself to give the bride away, and start you both comfortably.”

It was well for him he was looking the other way, and didn’t see the infernal look she gave him out of those eyes of hers. I think if there had been a knife convenient, she would have plunged it into him at that minute. But she covered it all with a kind of forced laugh, and said she wasn’t quite ready to be disposed of so quickly, and then made some excuse to run upstairs. Mr. Temple then yawned again, and went over to the window, and wondered would it be a fine night, as he had to dine out. Neither of us spoke to him, for he was an unfeeling fellow with all his generous offers. So we left him there, and I brought back Ding Dong Will to the Forge again.

About four o’clock that same day (it was almost dark at that hour), when I was coming home from buying something in the village, I thought I saw him crossing over to the Joyful Heart; and as I passed the porch, I swear I saw the two of them (Mary Arthur and he) talking in the passage – there was no mistake about it – and she talking very eagerly. Presently, she drew him into the parlour, and shut the door. What could bring him there now, after the morning’s business? Well, I thought, he is a poor-spirited creature, after all – a true spaniel! He didn’t come in, I suppose for an hour after that, and then in a wild sort of humour, as if he had been drinking. But what do you think of his denying that he had been near the Joyful Heart at all, or that he had seen her? Denied it flat! And then, when I pressed him on it, and asked if I wasn’t to trust my own eyes, he began to show his teeth, and get savage. I was only a youngster then, and so had to put up with his humours; but I determined to leave him on the first convenient excuse. Dear! how that man was changed in a short time!

On this night he took a fancy that we should go to bed early. He was tired, he said, and wanted rest after the day’s trouble, and his heart was heavy. So I gave in to him at once, and we were soon snug in our little cots on each side of the hearth: we used to sleep of nights in a queer kind of place just off the forge, all vaulted over, with arches crossing one another and meeting, in a kind of carved bunch in the middle. This might have been the clergymen’s pantry, or wine vaults, may be, in the old times. Whatever use they had for it, it was a very snug place. I recollect there were all sorts of queer faces with horns and hoods, all carved out in the bunch; and I often lay awake at nights looking at them, and studying them, and thinking why they were grinning and winking at me in that way. I remember one creature that always aimed straight at you with his tail pointed, holding it like a gun.

It might have been about nine o’clock, or perhaps half-past eight, when we turned in. I know I heard the old church clock chiming pleasantly as we lay down. After watching the fire flashing up and down, and taking a look at the funny faces in the bunch overhead, I soon went sound asleep. I woke again, before the fire was out, and looking towards Will’s cot, saw that it was empty. A vague feeling of uneasiness mingled with my surprise at that discovery, and made me jump out of bed in a moment. I reflected for a little – felt more uneasy than ever – huddled on my clothes in a great hurry – and, without giving myself a moment’s time for any second thoughts, went out to see what had become of Ding Dong Will.

He was not in the neighbourhood of the Forge, so I followed a steep footpath in the wood behind which led straight to the water’s edge. I walked on a little, observing that the moon was out and the stars shining, and the sky of a fine frosty blue, until I came to an old tree that I knew well. I had hardly cast a first careless look at it, before I started back all in a fright, for I saw at my feet, stretched out among the leaves, a figure with a fisherman’s hat beside it. I knew it to be young Mr. Temple, lying there quite dead, with his face all over blood. I thought I should have sunk down upon the earth with grief and horror, and ran farther along the little pathway as fast as I could to a place where the trees opened a little, full in the moonlight. There, I saw Ding Dong Will standing quite still and motionless, with his hammer on his shoulder, and his face covered up in his hand.

He stayed a long time that way, without ever stirring, and then began to come up, very slowly, weeping, his eyes upon the ground. I felt as if I were fixed to that one spot, and waited till he met me full face to face. What a guilty start he gave! – I thought he would have dropped.

“O, Will, Will! what have you been doing? Some terrible thing!”

“I – I – I, nothing!” he said, staggering about, and hiding his face.

“What have you done with him – Mr. Temple?” I said, still holding him. He was trembling all over like a palsied man, and fell back against a tree with a deep groan. I saw how it was then – it was as good as written in his face. So I left him there – against the tree – and all the rest of that horrible night I wandered up and down along the roads and lanes: anything sooner than be under the same roof with him. At last morning came; and, as soon as the sun rose I stole back, and, looking through the window, found that he was gone. I never like to think of that night, though it is so far back.

By noon the next day the whole town was in a fever: people talking and whispering at corners. He had been missed; but they were on his track, for it was well known that he was away among the hills hiding. They dragged the river all day; and, on that night, the body of young Mr. Temple was found; his head beaten in with a hammer.

What end Will Whichelo came to, it would not be hard to guess. But Mary Arthur – she who drove him on to it, as everybody knew – she was let away, and went up to London, where she lived to do mischief enough. The old Forge was shut up, and fell into greater ruin. For many a long day no one ventured near that part of the river walk after dark.

•   •   •   •   •   •
•   •   •   •   •   •

It was the fifth evening towards twilight, when poor Dick began to sing – in my boat, the Surf-Boat. At first nobody took any notice of him, and indeed he seemed to be singing more to himself than to anyone else. I had never heard the tune before, neither have I heard it since, but it was beautiful. I don’t know how it might sound now, but then, in the twilight, darkness coming down on us fast, and, for aught we knew, death in the darkness, its simple words were full of meaning. The song was of a mother and child talking together of Heaven. I saw more than one gaunt face lifted up, and there was a great sob when it was done, as if everybody had held their breath to listen. Says Dick then, “That was my cousin Amy’s song, Mr. Steadiman.”

“Then it will be a favourite of yours, Dick;” I replied, hazarding a guess at the state of the case.

“Yes. I don’t know why I sing it. Perhaps she put it in my mind. Do you believe in those things, Mr. Steadiman?”

“In what things, Dick?” I wanted to draw him on to talk of himself, as he had no other story to tell.

“She’s dead, Captain; and it seemed a little while since as if I heard her voice, far away, as it might be in England, singing it again; and when she stopped, I took it up. It must be fancy, you know, it could not really be.” Before long the night fell, and when we could not see each other’s faces – except by the faint starlight – it seemed as if poor Dick’s heart opened, and as if he must tell us who and what he was.

•   •   •

Perhaps I ought to say how poor Dick came to be with us at all. About a week before we sailed, there came to Captain Ravender one morning at his inn, a man whom he had known intimately; when they two were young fellows. Said he, “Captain, there’s my nephew – poor Dick Tarrant – I want to ship him off to Australia, to California, or anywhere out of the way. He does nothing but get into mischief here, and bring disgrace on the family. Where are you bound for, next voyage?” Captain Ravender replied, California. “California is a long way off,” said Captain Ravender’s friend, “it will do as well as any place; he can dig for gold. The fact is, Dick has run through one fortune, and now a maiden-aunt, who considers the credit of the family, offers him three hundred pounds to leave England. He consents to go, and the best plan will be to put him under your charge, pay his passage and outfit, and leave the rest of the money in your hands to be given over to him when he lands at the diggings.”

Captain Ravender agreed to the proposal, and poor Dick, who had been left standing outside the door, was called in and introduced. I came in just at that point, and saw him. He was the wreck of what had been a fine-looking young man, ten years ago, dragged down now by reckless dissipation to reckless poverty. His clothing was very shabby, his countenance wild and haggard, his shock of brown hair, rusty with neglect, – not a promising subject to look at. His uncle told him the arrangements he had made with Captain Ravender, in which he apparently acquiesced without much caring, – “North or south, east or west,” said he, “it was all the same to him. If he had gone out to India, when he had a chance a dozen years before, he should have been a man or a mouse then.” That was the only remark he offered. And the thing was settled.

But when the time came to sail, poor Dick was not forthcoming. We sent up to his uncle’s house to know what was to be done, and, by-and-by, down he came with his nephew, who had almost given us the slip. Until we got into blue water Dick was prisoner rather than passenger. He did not take to his banishment kindly, or see, as his relatives did, that there was a chance before him of redeeming a wasted life and repairing a ruined constitution. He was a very good-humoured, easy-tempered fellow, and a great favourite aboard; and, till the time of the wreck, cheerful, except in the evening when he got to leaning over the ship’s-side, and singing all kinds of sentimental love-songs. I had told the men to keep an eye on him, and they did. I was afraid he might, in one of his black moods, try to make away with himself.

He was the younger of two brothers, sons of a yeoman or gentleman-farmer in Cheshire; both whose parents died when they were quite little things, leaving them, however, for their station, amply provided for. There was two hundred pounds a-year for their bringing-up, till they were eighteen, when the sum was to be doubled, and at one-and-twenty they were to get five thousand pounds a-piece to start them in the world. Old Miss Julian Tarrant took Tom, the elder, and my friend took poor Dick. Dick was a wild lad, idle at his book, hankering after play, but as kind-hearted and handsome a fellow as you could wish to see. Dick was generally better liked than Tom, who was steady as old Time. Both brothers were sent to the grammar-school of the town, near which they lived, and one of Dick’s discursive anecdotes related to the second master there, whom, he asserted, he should have had pleasure in soundly thrashing at that moment, in part payment of the severe punishment he had formerly inflicted on his idle pupil. When Dick was sixteen that tide in his affairs came, which, had he followed it out to India, would probably have led on to fortune. But Dick had an invincible tie to England. Precocious in everything, he was deeply in love with his cousin Amy, who was three years older than himself, and very beautiful; and Amy was very fond of him as of a younger brother.

Said poor Dick, with a quiver in his voice, as he was telling his story, “She was the only creature in the whole world that ever really cared whether I lived or died. I worshipped the very ground she walked on! Tom was a clever, shrewd fellow – made for getting on in the world, and never minding anybody but himself. Uncle Tarrant was as hard and rigid as a machine, and his wife was worse – there was nobody nice but Amy; she was an angel! When I got into scrapes, and spent more money than I ought, she set me right with my uncle, and later – when it was too late for any good, and the rest of them treated me like a dog – she never gave me either a cold look or a hard word. Bless her!”

For the sake of being near his cousin, Dick professed a wish to be a farmer like his cousin and father, which was quite agreeable to the family; and for three years more he stayed in his Uncle Tarrant’s house, very much beloved by all – though in his bitterness he said not – for his gaiety and light-heart were like a charm about him. If there was a fault, he had friends too many, for most of them were of a kind not likely to profit a young man.

Coming home one evening, about twilight, from a hunt which he had attended, the poor lad unexpectedly met the crisis of his fate. He told us this with an exactness of detail that made the scene he described like a bit of Dutch painting. I wish I could repeat it to you in his own words, but that is impossible; still I will be as exact as possible.

In Mr. Tarrant’s house there was a little parlour especially appropriated to Amy’s use. It had a low window with a cushioned seat, from which one long step took you into the garden. In this parlour Amy had her piano, her bookcase, her work-basket, her mother’s picture on the wall, and several of poor Dick’s sketches neatly framed. Dick liked this room better than any other in the house. When the difference betwixt Amy’s age and his seemed greater than it did now, it was here he used to come to be helped with his lessons; and later, when his red-hot youth was secretly wreathing all manner of tender fancies about her, that he used to sit at her feet reading to her out of some poetry-book, or singing while she worked, or, perhaps, sang, too. These pleasant early intimacies had never been discontinued, for, while Dick’s heart was wasting its first passion on his cousin, she was all the while thinking of somebody else. He was a boy to her in point of age still, and this particular day ended his blissful delusions.

Having put his pony in the stable, he made his way at once to Amy’s parlour, opening the door softly, for he liked to surprise her. Neither she nor the person with her heard him enter; they were too much occupied with themselves and each other to hear anything. Amy was standing in the window, and beside her, with his arm round her waist, was the straight-haired, pale-featured curate of the parish. It was a clear yellow twilight, and all about Amy’s head the lustre shone like a glory; her hands were down-dropt, and the busy fingers were plucking a rose to pieces, petal by petal, and scattering them on the carpet at her feet. She was as blushing herself as the poor rose, and seemed to listen willingly to the pleadings of her lover. Dick noticed the slight quivering of her lips and the humid glitter of her eyes when the low-spoken, tremulous words, meant only for one ear, met his, and he said he felt as if all the blood in his body were driven violently up to his brain by their sound.

The bird in its cage began trilling a loud song as it pecked at a spray of green which the evening wind blew against the wires through the open window, and under cover of its noise poor Dick stole out, leaving the young lovers alone in the blush of their acknowledged love. He went back to the stable, got his pony out, mounted it, and galloped away like mad to rejoin the companions he had left an hour before for Amy’s sake. It was not till after midnight that he came home, and then he was reeling drunk. His uncle Tarrant and Amy had sat up for him, and, being quarrelsome in his cups, he insulted the first, and would not speak to his cousin. Poor Dick thought to drown his sorrow, and this was the beginning of his downward course.

The individual whom Amy had chosen to endow with her love had nothing about him particular to approve except his profession. All his attributes, moral, mental, and personal, were negative rather than positive. Poor Dick described him only as Straight-haired, as if that epithet embodied all his qualities. He thought that Amy did not really love him, but was attracted by some imaginary sanctity and perfection with which her imagination invested him. It was very likely: from what we see every day we may be sure that many women have loved, not the man himself they have married, but an ideal which he personates very indifferently indeed to all eyes but theirs.

Dick could not, for many days, restrain the expression of his feelings. Coming one day suddenly on Amy in the garden where she was walking in maiden meditation, he stopped her and made her listen to his story, which he poured out with much exaggeration of epithet and manner. Amy was startled and distressed: she endeavoured in vain to stop his confession by appealing to his common sense of what was right.

“Dick, you know I am engaged to Henry Lister – you ought not to have spoken – let me go!” said she, for he had grasped her hands tightly in his.

“I ought not to have spoken, and I love you! O! cousin, you don’t know what love is if you say so. Amy, it will out! Amy, if I had come before the straight-haired parson, would you have listened to me then?”

A vivid blush flew into the girl’s face, but she would not say a word of encouragement; on that blush, however, poor Dick, whether rightly or wrongly, contrived to found a renewed hope. Amy kept his avowal to herself, knowing well that its discovery would entail a total separation from her cousin; and she had become so accustomed to his usefulness and gaiety in a house where everybody else was chilly and methodical, that she could not readily part with him. I incline to think myself that she did like Dick better than the straight-haired curate for many reasons, and Dick himself was persuaded of it. Her indecision had, as may be supposed, a very pernicious effect on his mind and conduct. One day he was in the seventh heaven of hope and contentment, and the next he was the most miserable dog alive: then he would go and forget his griefs in a convivial bout with his comrades, till at length his Uncle Tarrant turned him out of doors. Amy had tried her influence with him in vain.

“You are the cause of it, Amy, and nobody but you,” said Dick, passionately; “if you would give that straight-haired fellow warning, you should never have to complain of me again.”

But Amy, though she fretted a great deal, held to her engagement, and Dick went on from bad to worse.

It must have been very deplorable to behold the reckless way in which he dissipated his money as soon as he got it into his hands, ruining at once his prospects, his character, and his health. With a temperament that naturally inclined him to self-indulgence, the road to ruin was equally rapid and pleasant. When Amy married Henry Lister – which she did after an engagement of six months – Dick kept no bounds, and he irretrievably offended his family by intruding himself, uninvited, amongst the guests at the wedding. There was a painful scene in Amy’s parlour, where he went secretly, as he himself acknowledged, in the wild hope of inducing her to break off the engagement at the eleventh hour. She was dressed ready for church, and her mother was with her. That made no difference. Poor Dick went down on his knees, and cried, and kissed his cousin’s hands, and besought her to listen to him. And Amy fainted. She fainted a second time at the altar when Dick forced himself into her presence and forbade the marriage. He was so frantic, so out of himself, that he had to be removed by compulsory measures before the service could go on. Of course, after a scene like this, his uncle’s family kept no terms with him; he was forbidden ever to suffer his shadow to darken their door again – and so the poor, wild, crazed fellow went headlong to destruction. I doubt very much myself whether Amy was worth such a sacrifice; but he thought so. Life, he said, was unendurable without her, and he did not care how soon he ended it.

But this was not all. Amy died of consumption within a year of her marriage, and Dick asserted that she had been killed by bad usage. He went down to his uncle’s house where she lay, and asked to see her. The request was refused, and he forced his way by the window into the room at night, as was afterwards discovered by the disarrangement of the furniture, and stayed there crying over his dead love until dawn. At her funeral he joined the mourners, and showed more grief than any of them; but as the husband was turning away, he walked up to him and shook his clenched fist in his face, crying:

“You killed her, you straight-haired dog!”

It was supposed that if he had not been restrained by the bystanders, he might have done him a mischief. His family gave it out that he was mad. Perhaps he was.

Dice, drinking, and horse-racing now soon made an end of poor Dick’s five thousand pounds. He lost every shred of self-respect, and herded with the lowest of the low. There is no telling how a man’s troubles may turn him – love-disappointments especially; poor Dick’s turned him into a thorough scamp. He was a disgrace to the family, and a misery to himself, but there was this good left in him amidst his degrading excesses – the capability of regretting. He never enjoyed his vices or ceased to feel the horrible debasement of them. He was seen at races, prizefights, and fairs, in rags and tatters; he was known to have wanted bread, he was suspected of theft and poaching, and his brother Tom rescued him once out of the streets, where he was singing songs disguised as a lame soldier. Tom allowed him a guinea a week, but before he had been in receipt of it a month he made the annuity over to an acquaintance for ten pounds, to take him to Doncaster, and this friend always went with him to receive the money, lest he should lose it, so that Dick suffered extremities while he was supposed to be at least fed and clothed by his family. Ten years of reckless debauchery and poignant misery reduced him to the state in which his uncle Tarrant brought him to me; his aunt Julia who had brought Tom up offered to give him money if he would go out of the country and never come back again. How he went out of it, I have told already.

•   •   •

When he ceased speaking, I said to encourage him:

“You’ll do well yet, Dick, if you keep steady, and we make land or are picked up.”

“What can it be,” said Dick, without particularly answering, “that brings all these old things over my mind? There’s a child’s hymn I and Tom used to say at my mother’s knee when we were little ones keeps running through my thoughts. It’s the stars, maybe; there was a little window by my bed that I used to watch them at – a window in my room at home in Cheshire – and if I was ever afraid, as boys will be after reading a good ghost story, I would keep on saying it till I fell asleep.”

“That was a good mother of yours, Dick; could you say that hymn now, do you think? Some of us might like to hear it.”

“It’s as clear in my mind at this minute as if my mother was here listening to me,” said Dick, and he repeated:

“Hear my prayer, O! Heavenly Father,

Ere I lay me down to sleep;

Bid thy Angels, pure and holy,

Round my bed their vigil keep.

“My sins are heavy, but Thy mercy

Far outweighs them every one;

Down before Thy Cross I cast them,

Trusting in Thy help alone.

“Keep me through this night of peril

Underneath its boundless shade;

Take me to Thy rest, I pray Thee,

When my pilgrimage is made.

“None shall measure out Thy patience

By the span of human thought;

None shall bound the tender mercies

Which Thy Holy Son has bought.

“Pardon all my past transgressions,

Give me strength for days to come;

Guide and guard me with Thy blessing

Till Thy Angels bid me home.”

After awhile Dick drew his coat up over his head and lay down to sleep.

“Well, poor Dick!” thought I, “it is surely a blessed thing for you that—

“None shall measure out God’s patience,

By the span of human thought;

None shall bound the tender mercies

Which His Holy Son has bought.”

•   •   •   •   •   •
•   •   •   •   •   •

A quiet middle-aged gentleman passenger, in the Longboat, who was going to establish a Store out there, and had been our supercargo besides, told what follows.

She lay off Naarden – the good ship Brocken Spectre, I mean – far out in the roads; and I often thought, as I looked at her through the haze, what an ancient, ill-favoured hulk it was. I suppose I came down some three or four times that day, being in a lounging unsatisfied state of mind; and took delight in watching the high, old-fashioned poop, as it rocked all day long in that one spot. I likened it to a French roof of the olden time, it was garnished with so many little windows: and over all was the great lantern, which might have served conveniently for the vane or cupola seen upon such structures. For all that, it was not unpicturesque, and would have filled a corner in a Vandervelde picture harmoniously enough. She was to sail at three o’clock next morning, and I was to be the solitary cabin passenger.

As evening came on, it grew prematurely dark and cloudy; while the waves acquired that dull indigo tint so significant of ugly weather. Raw gusts came sweeping in towards the shore, searching me through and through. I must own to a sinking of the heart as I took note of these symptoms, for a leaning towards ocean in any of its moods had never been one of my failings; and it augured but poorly for the state of the elements next morning. “It will have spent itself during the night,” I muttered, doubtfully; and turned back to the inn to eat dinner with what comfort I might.

That place of entertainment stood by itself upon a bleak sandy hill. From its window I could see, afar off, three lights rising and falling together, just where the high poop and lantern had been performing the same ocean-dance in the daytime. I was sitting by the fire, listening ruefully to the wind, when news was brought to me that the Captain, Van Steen, had come ashore, and was waiting below to see me.

I found him walking up and down outside – a short, thickset man – as it were, built upon the lines of his own vessel.

“Well captain, you wished to see me,” I said.

“Look to this, my master,” he said, bluntly. “There’s a gale brewing yonder, and wild weather coming. So just see to this. If we’re not round the Helder Head by tomorrow night, we may have to beat round the Bay for days and days. So look to it, master, and come aboard while there is time.”

“I’m ready at any moment,” I said; “but how do you expect to get round now? The sea is high enough as it is.”

“No matter; the wind may be with us in the morning. We must clear the Head before tomorrow night. Why look you,” he added, sinking his voice, mysteriously, “I wouldn’t be off Helder tomorrow night – no, not for a sack of guilders!”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, don’t you know? It’s Christmas night – Jan Fagel’s night – Captain Jan’s!”

“Well?”

“He comes to Helder tomorrow night; he is seen in the Bay. But we are losing time, master,” said he, seizing my arm; “get your things ready – these lads will carry them to the boat.”

Three figures here advanced out of the shadow, and entered with me. I hastily paid the bill, and set forward with the captain for the shore, where the boat was waiting. My mails were got on board with all expedition, and we were soon far out upon the waters, making steadily for the three lights. It was not blowing very hard as yet; neither had the waves assumed the shape of what are known as white horses; but there was a heavy underground swell, and a peculiar swooping motion quite as disagreeable. Suddenly, I made out the great lantern just over head, shining dimly, as it were through a fog. We had glided under the shadow of a dark mass, wherein there were many more dim lights at long intervals – and all together seemed performing a wild dance to the music of dismal creaking of timbers, and rattling of chains. As we came under, a voice hailed us out of the darkness – as it seemed from the region of the lantern; and presently invisible hands cast us ropes, whereby, with infinite pains and labour, I was got on deck. I was then guided down steep ways into the cabin, the best place for me under the circumstances. As soon as the wind changed, the captain said, we would put out to sea.

By the light of a dull oil-lamp overhead, that never for a moment ceased swinging, I tried to make out what my new abode was like. It was of an ancient massive fashion, with a dark oak panelling all round, rubbed smooth in many places by wear of time and friction. All round were queer little nobs and projections, mounted in brass and silver, just like the butt-ends of pistols; while here and there were snug recesses that reminded me of canons’ stalls in a cathedral. The swinging lamp gave but a faint yellow light, that scarcely reached beyond the centre of the room; so that the oak-work all round cast little grotesque shadows, which had a very gloomy and depressing effect. There was a sort of oaken shelf at one end – handsomely wrought, no doubt but a failure as to sleeping capabilities. Into this I introduced myself without delay, and soon fell off into a profound slumber, for I was weary enough.

When I awoke again, I found there was a figure standing over me, who said he was Mr. Bode the mate, who wished to know, could he serve me in any way? Had we started yet? I asked. Yes, we had started – above an hour now – but she was not making much way. Would I get up – this was Christmas day. So it was; I had forgotten that. What a place to hold that inspiring festival in! Mr. Bode, who was inclined to be communicative, then added that it was blowing great guns: whereof I had abundant confirmation from my own physical sufferings, then just commencing. No, I would not – could not get up; and so, for the rest of that day, dragged on a miserable existence, many times wishing that the waters would rise and cover me. Late in the evening I fell into a kind of uneasy doze, which was balm of Gilead to the tempest-tost landsman.

When I awoke again, it was night once more; at least, there was the dull oil-lamp, swinging lazily as before. There was the same painful music – the same eternal creaking and straining, as of ship’s timbers in agony. What o’clock was it? Where were we now? Better make an effort, and go up, and see how we were getting on – it was so lonely down here. Come in!

Here the door was opened, and Mr. Bode the mate presented himself. It was a bad night, Mr. Bode said – a very bad night. – He had come to tell me we were off the Head at last. He thought I might care to know.

“I am glad to hear it,” I said faintly; “it will be something smoother in the open sea.”

He shook his head. “No open sea for us tonight; no, nor tomorrow night most likely.”

“What is all this mystery?” said I, now recollecting the captain’s strange allusions at the inn door. “What do you mean?”

“It is Jan Fagel’s night,” said he solemnly. “He comes into the bay tonight. An hour more of the wind, and we should have been clear. But we did what we could – a man can do no more than his best.”

“But who is Jan Fagel?”

“You never heard?”

“Never. Tell me about him.”

“Well,” said he, “I shan’t be wanted on deck for some time yet, so I may as well be here.” And Mr. Bode settled himself in one of the canons’ stalls, thus retiring into the shadow, and began the history of Jan Fagel and his vessel.

You have never heard of the famous brig Maelström, once on a time well known in these roads? No, – for you have not been much about here, I dare say; and it is only old sea-folk like myself that would care to talk to you of such things. But I can tell you this – there’s not a sailor along the coast that hasn’t the story, though it’s now – let me see – a good hundred years since she made her last cruise. Why, I recollect when I was a boy, the old hull lying on the sands, and breaking up with every tide – for she came to that end after all – the famous Maelström, Captain Jan Fagel, commander. I have been told there never was such a boat for foul weather, but that was when he was on board of her. He was a terrible man, was Captain Fagel, and would turn wild when a gale got up; and as the wind blew harder, so he grew wilder, until at last it seemed as if he had gone mad altogether. Why, there was one night my father used to tell of, when there was a great thunderstorm, and the sea was washing over the lighthouses – the most awful night he ever was out in – it was said that when the flashes came, Captain Jan had been seen dancing and skipping upon his deck. Many of his sailors told afterwards how they heard his mad shrieks above the roaring of the wind! Some said he had sold himself to the Evil One, which I think myself more than likely, for he cared neither for God nor man.

Well sir, Captain Fagel took first to the smuggling trade; and soon he and his famous brig became known all along the coast, from Hoek up to Helder – ay, and beyond that. But he was seen oftenest at the Head – as if he had a sort of liking for the place – and always came and went in a storm. So, that when the Zuyder was like a boiling cauldron, and the water running over the lighthouse galleries, old sailors would look up in the wind’s eye, and say “Captain Fagel’s running a cargo tonight.” At last it came to this, that whenever he was seen off Helder, he was thought to bring a storm with him. And then they would shake their heads, and say Captain Fagel was abroad that night. Soon he grew tired of this work – it was too quiet for him – so he turned Rover, and ran up the black flag. He still kept up his old fashion of bearing down in a gale; and many a poor disabled craft that was struggling hard to keep herself afloat, would see the black hull of the Maelström coming down upon her in the storm, and so would perish miserably upon the rocks. He was no true sailor, sir, that captain, but a low pirate; and he came to a pirate’s end. And this was the way he fell upon his lost cruise, just off Helder Head yonder.

There was a certain councillor of the town who had many times crossed him in his schemes, and had once been near taking him. Fagel hated him like poison, and swore he would have his revenge of him, one day. But the councillor did not fear him – not a bit of him, but even offered a reward to whoever would take or destroy Captain Fagel and his vessel. When the captain came to hear of this he fell to raving and foaming at the mouth, and then swore a great oath upon his own soul that he would be revenged of the councillor. And this was the way he went about it:

The councillor had a fair, young wife, Madame Elde, whom he had brought out of France some years before, and whom he loved exceedingly – foolishly, some said, for a man of his years. They and their little girl, lived together at a place called Loo, and no family could be happier. Jan Fagel knew the place well, and laid his devilish plans accordingly. So, as usual, on one of his wild, stormy nights, the brig was seen standing in to shore – for no good purpose, as everybody guessed. How he and his mad crew got to land was never accounted for – but this is certain – they broke into the house at Loo, and dragged Madame Elde and her child from their beds, and forced them down to their boats. The councillor was away in the city; but Captain Jan knew well enough how he loved his wife, and chose this way of torturing him. An old fisherman, who lived hard by the shore, said, that he woke up suddenly in the night, and heard their screams; but they were too many for him, or he would have gone out. He was an old man, and it was only natural. They then pulled away for the ship, he standing up, and screaming at the waves like a fiend incarnate, as he was. How the poor passengers ever got alive on board was a miracle – for the waves came dashing over the bows of the boat, where they were lying, at every stroke.

Now it fell out, that at this time, there was a British frigate cruising about these parts – for Captain Fagel had a short time before this, fired into an English vessel. The frigate was, therefore, keeping a sharp look-out for the brig, and had been looking into all the creeks and harbours along the coasts, when she was caught in this very storm – of Captain Fagel’s raising. Just as she was struggling round the Head, she came upon the Maelström, taking on board her boat’s crew.

“Let go all clear!” they heard him cry, even above the storm – and then they saw the dark hull swing round, and set off along shore, where it was hard for the frigate to follow. As for Jan Fagel, if ever Satan entered into a man in this life, he must have possessed him that night! They could hear him from the other vessel, as he shrieked with delight, and swore, and bounded along his deck, when other men could scarcely keep their feet. Why, sir, one time, he was seen on the edge of the taffrail – his eyes looking in the dark like two burning coals! No doubt he would have got away from them, after all – for there was no better mariner in those seas – when just as he was coming round a point, they heard a crash, and down came his topmast upon his deck. The sailors rushed to clear away the wreck.

“Bring up the woman,” he roared through his trumpet. “Bring up the woman and child, you sea imps!” Though his ship was in danger, he thought of the councillor. Some of them rushed down into the hold, and came up in a moment with Madame Elde and the little girl. She was quite scared and sank down upon the deck, as if she were insensible.

“A handsome creature, sir,” they said, even some of those savages felt for her. They heard her saying over and over again to herself:

“O, such a Christmas night! Such a Christmas night!”

He overheard her.

“Ah, ah! witch! you shall have a merry Christmas. Never fear. So should your husband – curse him – if we had him here.”

She started up with a scream when she heard him speaking. And then they saw her standing, with her long black hair blown back by the wind, and her arms out, as if she were praying. “Where shall Thy judgements find this man?”

“Here, witch! Look for me here on a stormy night – any night; next Christmas, if you like. Hi, lads! get a sail here, and send them over the side.”

Even those ruffians hung back, for it was too awful a night for them to add murder to their other sins. So, with many oaths, Captain Fagel went forward himself to seize the lady.

“He shall meet me before the Judgement seat,” said she, still praying.

“Cant away, sorceress! come back here of a stormy night, and I’ll meet you: I’m not afraid;” and he laughed long and loud.

Then he flung the wet sail round them, and with his own hands cast them into the sea. The storm came on fiercer than ever, and they thought that the ship’s timbers were going to part. But Jan Fagel strode about his deck, and gave his orders and she bore up well before the wind. It seemed that no harm could come to that ship when he was on board of her. As for the frigate, she had long since got away into the open sea. But the lady’s words were not to be in vain, for just as he was going one of his mad bounds along the poop, his foot caught in a coil of rope, and he went over with an unearthly scream into the black, swollen sea. All the crew ran to look out after him, but, strange to tell, without so much as thinking of casting him a rope. It seemed as if they had lost their sense for a time, and could only stand there looking into the waves that had swept him off. Just then, the wind went down a little, and they heard a voice high in the mainmast-top, as if someone were calling; and these words came to them very clear and distinct: “Yo, yo! Jan Fagel, yo!” Then all the crew at the vessel’s side, as if they had caught some of his own devilish spirit, could not keep themselves from giving out, in a great wild chorus, “Yo, yo! Jan Fagel, yo!” Once more the voice came from the mainmast-top, calling, “Yo, yo! Jan Fagel, yo!” and again the crew answered, louder than before, as if they were possessed. He was seen no more after that.

The memory of that night never left that wicked crew; and many of them, when dying quietly in their beds long after, started up with that cry, as though they were answering a call, and so passed away to their last account.

Every year, as sure as Christmas night comes round, Jan Fagel comes into the bay to keep his word with Madame Elde. And, any ship that is off the Head then, must wait and beat about until midnight; when he goes away.

•   •   •

“But they are wanting me on deck,” said Mr. Bode, looking at his watch. “I have stayed too long as it is.”

Mr. Bode hastily departed, leaving me to ponder over his wild legend. Ruminating upon it, and listening to the rushing of the water, close to my ear, I fell off again in a sleep, and began to dream; and, of course, dreamed of Captain Jan Fagel.

It was a wild and troubled sleep, that I had; and I am sure, if anyone had been standing near, they would have seen me starting and turning uneasily, as if in grievous trouble. First, I thought I was ashore again, in a sheltered haven, safely delivered from all this wretched tossing. And I recollect how inexpressibly delightful the feeling of repose was, after all these weary labours. By-and-by, I remarked low-roofed old-fashioned houses all about, seemingly of wood, with little galleries running round the windows. And I saw stately burghers walking, in dresses centuries old, and ladies with great round frills about their necks, and looking very stiff and majestic, sat and talked to the burghers. They were coming in and out of the queer houses, and some passed quite close to me, saluting me, as they did so, very graciously. One thing seemed very strange to me. They had all a curious dried look about their faces, and a sort of stony cast in their eyes, which I could not make out. Still they came and went, and I looked on and wondered. Suddenly I saw the little Dutch houses and the figures all quivering and getting indistinct, and gradually the picture faded away until it grew slowly into the shape of the cabin where I was now lying. There it was, all before me, with the canons’ stalls and the dull swinging lamp, and I myself leaning on one hand in the carved crib, and thinking what a weary voyage this was! How monotonous the rushing sound of the water! Then my dream went on, and it seemed to me that I took note of a canon’s stall in the centre, something larger and better-fashioned than the others – the dean’s, most likely, I concluded wisely, when he comes to service. And then on that hint, as it were, I seemed to travel away over the waters to ancient aisles, and tracery and soft ravishing music, and snowy figures seen afar off duskily amid clouds of incense. In time, too, all that faded away, and I was back again in the oak cabin, with the sickly yellow light suffusing everything, and a dark misty figure sitting right opposite. He caused me no surprise or astonishment, and I received him there as a matter of course, as people do in dreams. I had seen figures like him somewhere. In Rembrandt’s pictures, was it? Most likely; for there was the large broad hat, and the stiff white collar and tassels, and the dark jerkin; only there was a rusty, mouldering look about his garments that seemed very strange to me. He had an ancient sword, too, on which he leaned his arm; and so sat there motionless, looking on the ground. He sat that way I don’t know how long: I, as it seemed to me, studying him intently: when suddenly the rushing sound ceased, and there came a faint cry across the waters, as from afar off. It was the old cry: “Yo, yo! Jan Fagel, yo!” Then I saw the figure raise its head suddenly, and the yellow light fell upon his face – such a mournful, despairing face! – with the same stony gaze I had seen in the others. Again the fearful cry came – nearer, as it seemed; and I saw the figure rise up slowly and walk across the cabin to the door. As he passed me he turned his dead, lacklustre eyes full upon me, and looked at me for an instant. Never shall I forget that moment. It was as if a horrid weight was pressing on me. I felt such agony that I awoke with a start, and found myself sitting up and trembling all over. But at that instant; whether the dreamy influence had not wholly passed away, or whatever was the reason I don’t know; I can swear that, above the rushing sound of the waves and the whistling of the wind, I heard that ghostly chorus “Yo, yo! Jan Fagel, yo!” quite clear and distinct.

•   •   •   •   •   •
•   •   •   •   •   •

An old Seaman in the Surf-boat sang this ballad, as his story, to a curious sort of tuneful no-tune, which none of the rest could remember afterwards.

I have seen a fiercer tempest,

Known a louder whirlwind blow.

I was wreck’d off red Algiers,

Six-and-thirty years ago.

Young I was, – and yet old seamen

Were not strong or calm as I;

While life held such treasures for me,

I felt sure I could not die.

Life I struggled for – and saved it;

Life alone – and nothing more;

Bruised, half dead, alone and helpless,

I was cast upon the shore.

I fear’d the pitiless rocks of Ocean;

So the great sea rose – and then

Cast me from her friendly bosom,

On the pitiless hearts of men.

Gaunt and dreary ran the mountains

With black gorges up the land;

Up to where the lonely Desert

Spreads her burning dreary sand:

In the gorges of the mountains,

On the plain beside the sea,

Dwelt my stern and cruel masters,

The black Moors of Barbary.

Ten long years I toil’d among them,

Hopeless – as I used to say;

Now I know Hope burnt within me

Fiercer, stronger, day by day:

Those dim years of toil and sorrow

Like one long dark dream appear;

One long day of weary waiting;—

Then each day was like a year.

How I curst the land – my prison;

How I curst the serpent sea,—

And the Demon Fate, that shower’d

All her curses upon me:

I was mad, I think – God pardon

Words so terrible and wild—

This voyage would have been my last one,

For I left a wife and child.

Never did one tender vision

Fade away before my sight,

Never once through all my slavery,

Burning day or dreary night;

In my soul it lived, and kept me,

Now I feel, from black despair,

And my heart was not quite broken,

While they lived and blest me there.

When at night my task was over,

I would hasten to the shore;

(All was strange and foreign inland,

Nothing I had known before).

Strange look’d the bleak mountain passes,

Strange the red glare and black shade,

And the Oleanders, waving

To the sound the fountains made.

Then I gazed at the great Ocean,

Till she grew a friend again;

And because she knew old England,

I forgave her all my pain:

So the blue still sky above me,

With its white clouds’ fleecy fold,

And the glimmering stars (though brighter),

Look’d like home and days of old.

And a calm would fall upon me;

Worn perhaps with work and pain,

The wild hungry longing left me,

And I was myself again:

Looking at the silver waters,

Looking up at the far sky,

Dreams of home and all I left there

Floated sorrowfully by.

A fair face, but pale with sorrow,

With blue eyes, brimful of tears,

And the little red mouth, quivering

With a smile, to hide its fears;

Holding out her baby towards me,

From the sky she look’d on me;

So it was that I last saw her,

As the ship put out to sea.

Sometimes (and a pang would seize me

That the years were floating on)

I would strive to paint her, alter’d,

And the little baby gone:

She no longer young and girlish,

The child, standing by her knee,

And her face, more pale and sadden’d

With the weariness for me.

Then I saw, as night grow darker,

How she taught my child to pray,

Holding its small hands together,

For its father, far away;

And I felt her sorrow, weighing

Heavier on me than mine own;

Pitying her blighted spring-time,

And her joy so early flown.

Till upon my hands (now harden’d

With the rough harsh toil of years,)

Bitter drops of anguish, falling,

Woke me from my dream, to tears;

Woke me as a slave, an outcast,

Leagues from home, across the deep;

So – though you may call it childish—

So I sobb’d myself to sleep.

Well, the years sped on – my sorrow

Calmer, and yet stronger grown,

Was my shield against all suffering,

Poorer, meaner, than her own.

So my cruel master’s harshness

Fell upon me all in vain,

Yet the tale of what we suffer’d

Echo’d back from main to main.

You have heard in a far country

Of a self-devoted band,

Vow’d to rescue Christian captives

Pining in a foreign land.

And these gentle-hearted strangers

Year by year go forth from Rome,

In their hands the hard-earn’d ransom

To restore some exiles home.

I was freed: they broke the tidings

Gently to me; but indeed

Hour by hour sped on, I knew not

What the words meant – I was freed!

Better so, perhaps, while sorrow

(More akin to earthly things)

Only strains the sad heart’s fibres—

Joy, bright stranger, breaks the strings.

Yet at last it rush’d upon me,

And my heart beat full and fast;

What were now my years of waiting,

What was all the dreary past?

Nothing, to the impatient throbbing

I must bear across the sea:

Nothing to the eternal hours

Still between my home and me!

How the voyage pass’d, I know not;

Strange it was once more to stand,

With my countrymen around me,

And to clasp an English hand.

But, through all, my heart was dreaming

Of the first words I should hear,

In the gentle voice that echo’d,

Fresh as ever, on my ear.

Should I see her start of wonder,

And the sudden truth arise,

Flushing all her face and lightening

The dimm’d splendour of her eyes?

O! to watch the fear and doubting

Stir the silent depths of pain,

And the rush of joy – then melting

Into perfect peace again.

And the child! – but why remember

Foolish fancies that I thought?

Every tree and every hedgerow

From the well-known past I brought:

I would picture my dear cottage,

See the crackling wood-fire burn,

And the two beside it, seated

Watching, waiting, my return.

So, at last we reach’d the harbour.

I remember nothing more

Till I stood, my sick heart throbbing

With my hand upon the door.

There I paused – I heard her speaking;

Low, soft, murmuring words she said;

Then I first knew the dumb terror

I had had, lest she were dead.

It was evening in late autumn,

And the gusty wind blew chill;

Autumn leaves were falling round me,

And the red sun lit the hill.

Six and twenty years are vanish’d

Since then – I am old and grey—

But I never told to mortal

What I saw, until this day.

She was seated by the fire,

In her arms she held a child,

Whispering baby-words caressing,

And then, looking up, she smiled.

Smiled on him who stood beside her—

O! the bitter truth was told!

In her look of trusting fondness,

I had seen the look of old.

But she rose and turn’d towards me

(Cold and dumb I waited there),

With a shriek of fear and terror,

And a white face of despair.

He had been an ancient comrade—

Not a single word we said,

While we gazed upon each other,

He the living: I the dead!

I drew nearer, nearer to her,

And I took her trembling hand,

Looking on her white face, looking

That her heart might understand

All the love and all the pity

That my lips refused to say!

I thank God no thought save sorrow

Rose in our crush’d hearts that day.

Bitter tears that desolate moment,

Bitter, bitter tears we wept

We three broken hearts together,

While the baby smiled and slept.

Tears alone – no words were spoken,

Till he – till her husband said

That my boy (I had forgotten

The poor child), that he was dead.

Then at last I rose, and, turning,

Wrung his hand, but made no sign;

And I stoop’d and kiss’d her forehead

Once more, as if she were mine.

Nothing of farewell I utter’d,

Save in broken words to pray

That God in His great love would bless her—

Then in silence pass’d away.

Over the great restless ocean

For twenty and six years I roam;

All my comrades, old and weary,

Have gone back to die at home.

Home! yes, I shall reach a haven,

I, too, shall reach home and rest;

I shall find her waiting for me

With our baby on her breast.

•   •   •   •   •   •
•   •   •   •   •   •

While the foregoing story was being told, I had kept my eye fixed upon little Willy Lindsey, a young Scotch boy (one of the two apprentices), who had been recommended to Captain Ravender’s care by a friend in Glasgow; and very sad it was to see the expression of his face. All the early part of the voyage he had been a favourite in the ship. The ballads he sang, and the curious old stories he told, made him a popular visitor in the cabin, no less than among the people. Though only entered as apprentice seaman, Captain Ravender had kept him as much about him as he could; and I am bold to say, the lad’s affection for Captain Ravender was as sincere as if he had been one of his own blood. Even before the wreck, a change had taken place in his manner. He grew silent and thoughtful. Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw, who had been very kind to him, observed the alteration, and bantered him on the melancholy nature of the songs he sang to them, and the sad air with which he went about the duties of the vessel. I asked him if anything had occurred to make him dull; but he put me off with a laugh, and at last told me that he was thinking about his home; for, said he, a certain anniversary was coming soon; “and maybe I’ll tell you,” he added, “why the expectation of it makes me so sorrowful.”

He was a nice, delicate, almost feminine-looking boy, of sixteen or seventeen; the son of a small farmer in Ayrshire, as Captain Ravender’s Glasgow friend had told him, and, as usual with his countrymen, a capital hand at letters and accounts. He had brought with him a few books, chiefly of the wild and supernatural kind; and it seemed as if he had given way to his imagination more than was quite healthy, perhaps, for the other faculties of his mind. But we all set down his delight and belief in ghost stories and such like, to the superstition of his country, where the folks seem to make up for being the most matter-of-fact people in Europe in the affairs of this world, by being the wildest and most visionary inquirers into the affairs of the next. Willy had been useful to all departments on board. The steward had employed him at his ledger, Captain Ravender at his reckonings, and as to the passengers, they had made quite a friend and companion of the youth.

So I watched his looks, as I’ve said before, and I now beckoned Willy to come to my side, that I might keep him as warm as I could. At first he either did not perceive my signal, or was too apathetic or too deep sunk in his own thoughts to act upon it. But the carpenter, who sat next him, seeing my motion, helped him across the boat, and I put my arm round his shoulders.

“Bear up, Willy,” I said, “you’re young and strong, and, with the help of Heaven, we shall all live to see our friends again.”

The boy’s eye brightened with hope for a moment; then he shook his head and said:

“You’re very kind to say so, sir; but it canna be – at least for me.”

The night was now closing fast in, but there was still light enough to see his face. It was quite calm, and wore a sort of smile. Everybody listened to hear what the poor laddie said; and I whispered to him:

“You promised to tell me why you were depressed by the coming of an anniversary, Willy. When is it?”

“It’s tonight,” he said, with a solemn voice. “And O! how different this is from what it used to be! It’s the birthday o’ my sister Jean.”

“Come, tell us all about it,” I said. “Maybe, speaking it out openly will ease your mind. Here, rest on my shoulder. Now say on.”

We all tried to catch his words, and he began:

•   •   •

“It’s two years ago, this very day, since we had such a merry night of it in my father’s house at home. He was a farmer in a sma’ way up among the hills above the Doon; and had the lands on a good tack, and was thought a richer man than any of his neighbours. There was only Jean and me o’ the family; and I’m thinking nobody was ever so happy or well cared for as I was a’ the time I was young. For my mither would let me want for nothing, and took me on her knee and tauld me long histories o’ the Bruce and Wallace; and strange adventures with the warlocks; and sang me a’ Burns’ songs, forbye reading me the grand auld stories out o’ the Bible, about the death o’ Goliath and the meeting o’ King Saul and the Witch of Endor. Jean was a kind o’ mither to me, too; for she was five years older, and spoilt me as much as she could. She was so bonny, it was a pleasure to look at her; and she helpit in the dairy, and often milkt the cows hersel’; and in the winter nights sat by the side o’ the bleezy fire, and turned the reel or span, keepin’ time wi’ some lang ballad about cruel Ranken coming in and killing Lady Margaret; or the ship that sailed away to Norway wi’ Sir Patrick Spence, and sank wi’ all the crew. The schoolmaster came up, when he was able, to gi’e me lessons; and as the road was long, and the nights were sometimes dark, it soon grew into the common custom for him to come up ow’r the hills on Friday, when the school was skailt [dismissed, departed], and stay till the Monday morning. He was a young man that had been intended for a minister, but the college expenses had been too much, and he had settled down as the parish teacher at Shalloch; and we always called him Dominie Blair. All the week through, we looked for the Dominie’s coming. Jean and I used to go and meet him at the bend o’ the hill, where he came off from the high-road, and he began his lessons to me in botany the moment we turned towards home. I noticed that he aye required the specimens that grew at the side o’ the burns that ran down valleys a good way off; but I was very vain of my running, and used to rush down the gully and gather the flower or weed, and overtake the two before they had walked on a mile. So you see, sir, it was na long before it was known all over the country side that Dominie Blair was going to marry my sister Jean. Everybody thought it a capital match, for Jean had beauty and siller, and Mr. Blair was the cleverest man in the county, and had the promise of the mastership of a school in the East country, with ninety pounds a-year. Our house grew happier now than ever; and when Jean’s birthday came round, there was a gathering from far and near to do honour to the bonniest and kindest lass in all the parish. The minister himsel’ came up on his pony, and drank prosperity to the young folks at the door; and inside at night there was a supper for all the neighbours, and John Chalmers played on the fiddle, and a’ the rest of us sang songs, and danced and skirled like mad; and at last, when Jean’s health was drank, with many wishes for her happiness, up she gets and lays her arms round my auld mither’s neck, and bursts out into a great passion o’ tears; and when she recovered herself, she said she would never be so happy anywhere else, and that weel or ill, dead or alive – in the body or in the spirit – she would aye come back on that night, and look in on the hame where she had spent sae sunshiny a life. Some o’ them laughed at the wild affection she showed; and some took it seriously, and thought she had tied herself down by ow’r solemn a bargain; but in a wee while the mirth and frolicking gaed on as before, and all the company confessed it was the happiest evening they had ever spent in their lives. Do you ken Loch Luart, sir? – a wee bit water that stretches across between the Lureloch and the Breelen? Ah! the grand shadows that pass along it when you stand on the north side and look over to the hill. There’s a great blackness settled upon the face, as if the sun had died away from the heavens altogether, till when he comes round the corner o’ the mountain, a glorious procession o’ sunbeams and colours taks its course across the whole length o’ the water, and all the hill sides give out a kind o’ glow, and at last the loch seems all on fire, and you can scarcely look at it for the brightness. A small skiff was kept at the side, for it saved the shepherds miles o’ steep climbing to get from flock to flock, as it cut off two or three miles o’ the distance between our house and Shalloch. One Friday, soon after the merry meeting at Jean’s birthday, she set off as usual to meet Mr. Blair. How far she went, or where she met him, nobody could tell, for nothing was ever seen or heard o’ them from that day to this; only the skiff on Loch Luart was found keel up, and the prints o’ feet that answered to their size were seen on the wet bank. Nothing wad persuade my mother for many a day that she wasna coming back. When she heard a step at the door, she used to flush up with a great redness in her cheek, and run to let her in. Then when she saw it was a stranger, she left the door open and came back into the kitchen without sayin’ a word. My father spoke very little, but sometimes he seemed to forget that Jean was taken away, and called for her to come to him in a cheery voice, as he used to do; and then, wi’ a sudden shake o’ his head, he remembered that she was gone, and passed away to his work as if his heart was broken. And other things came on to disturb him now, for some bank, or railway, or something o’ the kind, where he had bought some shares, failed with a great crash, and he was called on to make up the loss; and he grew careless about everything that happened, and the horses and carts were seized for debt, and a’ the cows except two were taken away, and the place began to go to wrack and ruin; and at last Jean’s birthday cam’ round again. But we never spoke about it the whole day long, though none of the three thought of anything else. My father pretended to be busy in the field; my mother span – never letting the thread out o’ her hand; and as for me, I wandered about the hills from early morning, and only came back when the dark night began. All through the lengthening hours we sat and never spoke; but sometimes my father put a fresh supply of peats upon the fire, and stirred it up into a blaze, as if it pleased him to see the great sparkles flying up the chimney. At last my mother, all of a sudden, ceased her spinning, and said, ‘Hark! do you no’ hear somebody outside?’ And we listened without getting up from our seats. We heard a sound as if somebody was slipping by on tiptoe on the way to the Byre; and then we heard a low, wailing sound, as if the person was trying to restrain some great sorrow; and immediately we heard the same footstep, as if it were lost in snow, coming up to the house. My mither stood up wi’ her hand stretched out, and looked at the window. Outside the pane – where the rose-tree has grown sae thick it half hides the lower half – we heard a rustling, as if somebody was putting aside the leaves, and then, when a sudden flicker o’ the flame threw its light upon the casement, we saw the faint image o’ a bonny pale face – very sad to look on – wi’ lang tresses o’ yellow hair hanging straight down the cheeks, as if it was dripping wet, and heard low, plaintive sobs; but nothing that we could understand. My mither ran forward, as if to embrace the visitor, and cried, ‘Jean! Jean! O, let me speak to you, my bairn!’ But the flame suddenly died away in the grate, and we saw nothing mair. But we all knew now that Jean had been drowned in Loch Luart, and that she minded the promise she had made to come and see the auld house upon her birthday.”

•   •   •

Here the boy paused in his narrative for a moment, and I felt his breath coming and going very quick, as if his strength was getting rapidly exhausted.

“Rest a while, Willy,” I said, “and try, if you can, to sleep.”

But nothing could restrain him from finishing his tale.

“Na, na! I canna rest upon your arm, sir. I ha’e wark to do, and it maun be done this night – wae’s me! I didna think, last year at this time, that ever I wad be here.” He looked round with a shudder at the coiling waves that rose high at the side of the boat, and shut out the faint glimmer that still lingered on the horizon line.

•   •   •

“So Jean was drowned, ye see,” he continued; “and couldna put foot inside – for a’ they can do is to look in and see what’s doing at the auld fireside through the window. But even this was a comfort to my mither; and as I saw how glad it made her to have this assurance that she wasna forgotten, I made her the same promise that Jean had done on her birthday: ill or weel, happy or miserable, in the body or in the spirit – I wad find my way to the farmhouse, and gi’e her some sign that I loved her as I had always done. And now I ken what they’re doing as if I was at hame. They’re sitting sad and lonely in the silent kitchen. My father puts fresh peats upon the grate, and watches their flame as it leaps and crackles up the fireplace; and my mither – Ah!” – here he stretched forward as if to see some object before him more distinctly – “ah! she’s spinning, spinning as if to keep herself from thinking – and tears are running down her face; and I see the cheery fire, and the heather bed in the corner, and the round table in the middle, and the picture o’ Abraham and Isaac on the wall, and my fishing-rod hung up aboon the mantelpiece, and my herding-staff, and my old blue bonnet. But how cold it is, sir,” he went on, turning to me; “I felt a touch on my shoulder just now that made me creep as if the hand were ice; and I looked up and saw the same face we had noticed last year; and I feel the clammy fingers yet, and they go downward – downward, chilling me a’ the way till my blood seems frozen, and I canna speak. O, for anither look at the fire and the warm cosy room, and my father’s white head, and my puir auld mither’s een!”

So saying, he tried to rise, and seemed to be busy putting aside something that interfered with his view. “The rose-tree!” he said; “it’s thicker than ever, and I canna see clear!” At last he appeared to get near the object he sought; and, after altering his position, as if to gain a perfect sight, he said: “I see them a’ again. O, mither! turn your face this way, for ye see I’ve kept my word; and we’re both here. Jean’s beside me, and very cold – and we darena come in.” He watched for about a minute, still gazing intently, and then, with a joyous scream, he exclaimed: “She sees me, – she sees me! Did na ye hear her cry? O mither, mither! tak’ me to your arms, for I’m chilled wi’ the salt water, and naething will make me warm again.”

•   •   •   •   •   •
•   •   •   •   •   •

I tightened my hold of poor Willy as he spoke, for he gradually lost his power, and at last lay speechless with his head on my shoulder. I concealed from the rest the sad event that occurred in a few minutes, and kept the body hidden till the darkest part of the night, closely wrapped in my cloak.

•   •   •

THE DELIVERANCE

When the sun rose on the twenty-seventh day of our calamity, the first question that I secretly asked myself was, How many more mornings will the stoutest of us live to see? I had kept count, ever since we took to the boats, of the days of the week; and I knew that we had now arrived at another Thursday. Judging by my own sensations (and I believe I had as much strength left as the best man among us), I came to the conclusion that, unless the mercy of Providence interposed to effect our deliverance, not one of our company could hope to see another morning after the morning of Sunday.

Two discoveries that I made – after redeeming my promise overnight, to serve out with the morning whatever eatable thing I could find – helped to confirm me in my gloomy view of our future prospects. In the first place, when the few coffee-berries left, together with a small allowance of water, had been shared all round, I found on examining the lockers that not one grain of provision remained, fore or aft, in any part of the boat, and that our stock of fresh water was reduced to not much more than would fill a wine-bottle. In the second place, after the berries had been shared, and the water equally divided, I noticed that the sustenance thus administered produced no effect whatever, even of the most momentary kind, in raising the spirits of the passengers (excepting in one case) or in rallying the strength of the crew. The exception was Mr. Rarx. This tough and greedy old sinner seemed to wake up from the trance he had lain in so long, when the smell of the berries and water was under his nose. He swallowed his share with a gulp that many a younger and better man in the boat might have envied; and went maundering on to himself afterwards, as if he had got a new lease of life. He fancied now that he was digging a gold mine, all by himself, and going down bodily straight through the earth at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour. “Leave me alone,” says he, “leave me alone. The lower I go, the richer I get. Down I go! – down, down, down, down, till I burst out at the other end of the world in a shower of gold!” So he went on, kicking feebly with his heels from time to time against the bottom of the boat.

But, as for all the rest, it was a pitiful and dreadful sight to see of how little use their last shadow of a meal was to them. I myself attended, before anybody else was served, to the two poor women. Miss Coleshaw shook her head faintly, and pointed to her throat, when I offered her the few berries that fell to her share. I made a shift to crush them up fine and mix them with a little water, and got her to swallow that miserable drop of drink with the greatest difficulty. When it was down there came no change for the better over her face. Nor did she recover, for so much as a moment, the capacity to speak, even in a whisper. I next tried Mrs. Atherfield. It was hard to wake her out of the half-swooning, half-sleeping condition in which she lay, – and harder still to get her to open her lips when I put the tin-cup to them. When I had at last prevailed on her to swallow her allowance, she shut her eyes again, and fell back into her old position. I saw her lips moving; and, putting my ear close to them, caught some of the words she was murmuring to herself. She was still dreaming of The Golden Lucy. She and the child were walking somewhere by the banks of a lake, at the time when the buttercups are out. The Golden Lucy was gathering the buttercups, and making herself a watch-chain out of them, in imitation of the chain that her mother wore. They were carrying a little basket with them, and were going to dine together in a great hollow tree growing on the banks of the lake. To get this pretty picture painted on one’s mind as I got it, while listening to the poor mother’s broken words, and then to look up at the haggard faces of the men in the boat, and at the wild ocean rolling all round us, was such a change from fancy to reality as it has fallen, I hope, to few men’s lots to experience.

My next thought, when I had done my best for the women, was for the Captain. I was free to risk losing my own share of water, if I pleased, so I tried, before tasting it myself, to get a little between his lips; but his teeth were fast clenched, and I had neither strength nor skill to open them. The faint warmth still remained, thank God, over his heart – but, in all other respects he lay beneath us like a dead man. In covering him up again as comfortably as I could, I found a bit of paper crunched in one of his hands, and took it out. There was some writing on it, but not a word was readable. I supposed, poor fellow, that he had been trying to write some last instructions for me, just before he dropped at his post. If they had been ever so easy to read, they would have been of no use now. To follow instructions we must have had some power to shape the boat’s course in a given direction – and this, which we had been gradually losing for some days past, we had now lost altogether.

I had hoped that the serving out of the refreshment would have put a little modicum of strength into the arms of the men at the oars; but, as I have hinted, this hope turned out to be perfectly fruitless. Our last mockery of a meal, which had done nothing for the passengers, did nothing either for the crew – except to aggravate the pangs of hunger in the men who were still strong enough to feel them. While the weather held moderate, it was not of much consequence if one or two of the rowers kept dropping, in turn, into a kind of faint sleep over their oars. But if it came on to blow again (and we could expect nothing else in those seas and at that time of the year), how was I to steer, when the blades of the oars were out of the water ten times as often as they were in? The lives which we had undergone such suffering to preserve would have been lost in an instant by the swamping of the boat, if the wind had risen on the morning of Thursday, and had caught us trying to row any longer.

Feeling this, I resolved, while the weather held moderately fine, to hoist the best substitute for a sail that we could produce, and to drive before the wind, on the chance (the last we had to hope for) of a ship picking us up. We had only continued to use the oars up to this time, in order to keep the course which the Captain had pointed out as likeliest to bring us near the land. Sailing had been out of the question from the first, the masts and suits of sails belonging to each boat having been out of them at the time of the wreck, and having gone down with the ship. This was an accident which there was no need to deplore, for we were too crowded from the first to admit of handling the boats properly, under their regular press of sail, in anything like rough weather.

Having made up my mind on what it was necessary to do, I addressed the men, and told them that any notion of holding longer on our course with the oars was manifestly out of the question, and dangerous to all on board, as their own common sense might tell them, in the state to which the stoutest arms among us were now reduced. They looked round on each other as I said that, each man seeming to think his neighbour weaker than himself. I went on, and told them that we must take advantage of our present glimpse of moderate weather, and hoist the best sail we could set up, and drive before the wind, in the hope that it might please God to direct us in the way of some ship before it was too late. “Our only chance, my men,” I said, in conclusion, “is the chance of being picked up; and in these desolate seas one point of the compass is just as likely a point for our necessities as another. Half of you keep the boat before the sea, the other half bring out your knives, and do as I tell you.” The prospect of being relieved from the oars struck the wandering attention of the men directly; and they said, “Ay, ay, sir!” with something like a faint reflection of their former readiness, when the good ship was under their feet, and the mess-cans were filled with plenty of wholesome food.

Thanks to Captain Ravender’s forethought in providing both boats with a coil of rope, we had our lashings, and the means of making what rigging was wanted, ready to hand. One of the oars was made fast to the thwart, and well stayed fore and aft, for a mast. A large pilot coat that I wore was spread; enough of sail for us. The only difficulty that puzzled me was occasioned by the necessity of making a yard. The men tried to tear up one of the thwarts, but were not strong enough. My own knife had been broken in the attempt to split a bit of plank for them; and I was almost at my wit’s end, when I luckily thought of searching the Captain’s pockets for his knife. I found it – a fine large knife of Sheffield manufacture, with plenty of blades, and a small saw among them. With this we made a shift to saw off about a third of another oar; and then the difficulty was conquered; and we got my pilot-coat hoisted on our jury-mast, and rigged it as nigh as we could to the fashion of a lug-sail.

I had looked anxiously towards the Surf-boat, while we were rigging our mast, and observed, with a feeling of great relief, that the men in her – as soon as they discovered what we were about – were wise enough to follow our example. They got on faster than we did; being less put to it for room to turn round in. We set our sails as nearly as possible about the same time; and it was well for both boats that we finished our work when we did. At noon the wind began to rise again to a stiff breeze, which soon knocked up a heavy, tumbling sea. We drove before it in a direction North and by East, keeping wonderfully dry, considering all things. The mast stood well; and the sail, small as it was, did good service in steadying the boat and lifting her easily over the seas. I felt the cold after the loss of my coat, but not so badly as I had feared; for the two men who were with me in the stern sheets, sat as close as they could on either side of me, and helped with the warmth of their own bodies to keep the warmth in mine. Forward, I told off half-a-dozen of the most trustworthy of the men who could still muster strength enough to keep their eyes open, to set a watch, turn and turn about, on our frail rigging. The wind was steadily increasing, and if any accident happened to our mast, the chances were that the boat would broach-to, and that every one of us would go to the bottom.

So we drove on – all through that day – sometimes catching sight of the Surf-boat a little ahead of us – sometimes losing her altogether in the scud. How little and frail, how very different to the kind of boat that I had expected to see, she looked to my eyes now that I was out of her, and saw what she showed like on the waters for the first time! But to return to the Longboat. The watch on the rigging was relieved every two hours, and at the same regular periods all the brightest eyes left amongst us looked out for the smallest vestige of a sail in view, and looked in vain. Among the passengers, nothing happened in the way of a change – except that Miss Coleshaw seemed to grow fainter, and that Mrs. Atherfield got restless, as if she were waking out of her long dream about the Golden Lucy.

It got on towards sunset. The wind was rising to half a gale. The clouds which had been heavy all over the firmament since noon, were lifting to the westward, and leaving there, over the horizon line of the ocean, a long strip of clear pale greenish sky, overhung by a cloud-bank, whose ragged edges were tipped with burning crimson by the sun. I did not like the look of the night, and, keeping where I was, in the forward part of the boat, I helped the men to ease the strain off our mast, by lowering the yard a little and taking a pull on the sheet, so as to present to the wind a smaller surface even of our small sail. Noting the wild look of the weather, and the precautions we were taking against the chance of a gale rising in the night – and being, furthermore, as I believe, staggered in their minds by the death that had taken place among them – three of the passengers struggled up in the bottom of the boat, clasped their arms round me as if they were drowning men already, and hoarsely clamoured for a last drink of water, before the storm rose and sent us all to the bottom.

“Water you shall have,” I said, “when I think the time has come to serve it out. The time has not come yet.”

“Water, pray!” they all three groaned together. Two more passengers who were asleep, woke up, and joined the cry.

“Silence!” I said. “There are not two spoonsful of fresh water left for each man in the boat. I shall wait three hours more for the chance of rain before I serve that out. Silence, and drop back to your places!”

They let go of me, but clamoured weakly for water still; and, this time, the voices of some of the crew joined them. At this moment, to my great alarm (for I thought they were going mad and turning violent against me), I was seized round the neck by one of the men, who had been standing up, holding on by the mast, and looking out steadily to the westward.

I raised my right hand to free myself; but before I touched him, the sight of the man’s face close to mine made me drop my arm again. There was a speechless, breathless, frantic joy in it, that made all the blood in my veins stand still in a moment.

“Out with it!” I said. “Man alive, out with it, for God’s sake!”

His breath beat on my cheek in hot, quick, heavy gasps; but he could not utter a word. For a moment he let go of the mast (tightening his hold on me with the other arm) and pointed out westward – then slid heavily down on to the thwart behind us.

I looked westward, and saw that one of the two trustworthy men whom I had left at the helm was on his feet looking out westward, too. As the boat rose, I fixed my eyes on the strip of clear greenish sky in the west, and on the bright line of the sea just under it. The boat dipped again before I could see anything. I squeezed my eyelids together to get the water out of them, and when we rose again looked straight into the middle of the bright sea-line. My heart bounded as if it would choke me – my tongue felt like a cinder in my mouth – my knees gave way under me – I dropped down on to the thwart, and sobbed out, with a great effort, as if I had been dumb for weeks before, and had only that instant found my speech:

“A sail! a sail!”

The words were instantly echoed by the man in the stern sheets.

“Sail, ho!” he screeches out, turning round on us, and swinging his arms about his head like a madman.

This made three of our company who had seen the ship already, and that one fact was sufficient to remove all dread lest our eyes might have been deceiving us. The great fear now was, not that we were deluded, but that we might come to some serious harm through the excess of joy among the people; that is to say, among such of the people as still had the sense to feel and the strength to express what they felt. I must record in my own justification, after confessing that I lost command over myself altogether on the discovery of the sail, that I was the first who set the example of self-control. I was in a manner forced to this by the crew frantically entreating me to lay-to until we could make out what course the ship was steering – a proceeding which, with the sea then running, with the heavy lading of the boat, and with such feeble substitutes for mast and sail as we possessed, must have been attended with total destruction to us all. I tried to remind the men of this, but they were in such a transport – hugging each other round the neck, and crying and laughing all in a breath – that they were not fit to listen to reason. Accordingly, I myself went to the helm again, and chose the steadiest of my two men in the after part of the boat, as a guard over the sheet, with instructions to use force, if necessary, towards anyone who stretched out so much as a finger to it. The wind was rising every minute, and we had nothing for it but to scud, and be thankful to God’s mercy that we had sea-room to do it in.

“It will be dark in an hour’s time, sir,” says the man left along with me when I took the helm again. “We have no light to show. The ship will pass us in the night. Lay to, sir! For the love of Heaven, give us all a chance, and lay to!” says he, and goes down on his knees before me, wringing his hands.

“Lay to!” says I. “Lay to, under a coat! Lay to, in a boat like this, with the wind getting up to a gale! A seaman like you talk in that way! Who have I got along here with me? Sailors who know their craft, or a pack of long-shore lubbers, who ought to be turned adrift in a ferry-boat on a pond?” My heart was heavy enough, God knows, but I spoke out as loud as I could, in that light way, to try and shame the men back to their proper senses. I succeeded at least in restoring silence; and that was something in such a condition as ours.

My next anxiety was to know if the men in the Surf-Boat had sighted the sail to the westward. She was still driving a-head of us, and the first time I saw her rise on the waves, I made out a signal on board – a strip of cloth fastened to a boat-hook. I ordered the man by my side to return it with his jacket tied on to the end of an oar; being anxious to see whether his agitation had calmed down and left him fit for his duty again. He followed my directions steadily and when he had got his jacket on again, asked me to pardon him for losing his self-command in a quiet, altered voice.

I shook hands with him, and gave him the helm, in proof that my confidence was restored; then stood up and turned my face to the westward once again. I looked long into the belt of clear sky, which was narrowing already as the cloud-bank above sank over it. I looked with all my heart and soul and strength. It was only when my eyes could stand the strain on them no longer, that I gave in, and sat down again by the tiller. If I had not been supported by a firm trust in the mercy of Providence, which had preserved us thus far, I am afraid I should have abandoned myself at that trying time to downright hopeless, speechless despair.

It would not express much to any but seafaring readers if I mentioned the number of leagues off that I considered the ship to be. I shall give a better idea of the terrible distance there was between us, when I say that no landsman’s eye could have made her out at all, and that none of us sailors could have seen her but for the bright opening in the sky, which made even a speck on the waters visible to a mariner’s experienced sight all that weary way off. When I have said this, I have said enough to render it plain to every man’s understanding that it was a sheer impossibility to make out what course the ship was steering, seeing that we had no chance of keeping her in view at that closing time of day for more than another half-hour, at most. There she was, astern to leeward of us; and here were we, driving for our lives before the wind, with any means of kindling a light that we might have possessed on leaving our ship wetted through long ago – with no guns to fire as signals of distress in the darkness – and with no choice, if the wind shifted, but still to send in any direction in which it might please to drive us. Supposing, even at the beat, that the ship was steering on our course, and would overhaul us in the night, what chance had we of making our position known to her in the darkness? Truly, look at it anyhow we might from our poor mortal point of view, our prospect of deliverance seemed to be of the most utterly hopeless kind that it is possible to conceive.

The men felt this bitterly, as the cloud-bank dropped to the verge of the waters, and the sun set redly behind it. The moaning and lamenting among them was miserable to hear, when the last speck and phantom of the ship had vanished from view. Some few still swore they saw her when there was hardly a flicker of light left in the west, and only gave up looking out, and dropped down in the boat, at my express orders. I charged them all solemnly to set an example of courage to the passengers, and to trust the rest to the infinite wisdom and mercy of the Creator of us all. Some murmured, some fell to repeating scraps out of the Bible and Prayer-Book, some wandered again in their minds. This went on till the darkness gathered – then a great hush of silence fell drearily over passengers and crew; and the waves and the wind hissed and howled about us, as if we were tossing in the midst of them, a boat-load of corpses already!

Twice in the forepart of the night the clouds overhead parted for a little, and let the blessed moonlight down upon us. On the first of those occasions, I myself served out the last drops of fresh water we had left. The two women – poor suffering creatures! – were past drinking. Miss Coleshaw shivered a little when I moistened her lips with the water; and Mrs. Atherfield, when I did the same for her, drew her breath with a faint, fluttering sigh, which was just enough to show that she was not dead yet. The Captain still lay as he had lain ever since I got on board the boat. The others, both passengers and crew, managed for the most part to swallow their share of the water – the men being just sufficiently roused by it to get up on their knees, while the moonlight lasted, and look about wildly over the ocean for a chance of seeing the ship again. When the clouds gathered once more; they crouched back in their places with a long groan of despair. Hearing that, and dreading the effect of the pitchy darkness (to say nothing of the fierce wind and sea) on their sinking spirits, I resolved to combat their despondency, if it were still possible to contend against it, by giving them something to do. First telling them that no man could say at what time of the night the ship (in case she was steering our course) might forge ahead of us, or how near she might be when she passed, I recommended that all who had the strength should join their voices at regular intervals, and shout their loudest when the boat rose highest on the waves, on the chance of that cry of distress being borne by the wind within hearing of the watch on board the ship. It is unnecessary to say that I knew well how near it was to an absolute impossibility that this last feeble exertion on our parts could lead to any result. I only proposed it because I was driven to the end of my resources to keep up the faintest flicker of spirit among the men. They received my proposal with more warmth and readiness than I had ventured in their hopeless state, to expect from them. Up to the turn of midnight they resolutely raised their voices with me, at intervals of from five to ten minutes, whenever the boat was tossed highest on the waves. The wind seemed to whirl our weak cries savagely out of our mouths almost before we could utter them. I, sitting astern in the boat, only heard them, as it seemed, for something like an instant of time. But even that was enough to make me creep all over – the cry was so forlorn and fearful. Of all the dreadful sounds I had heard since the first striking of the ship, that shrill wail of despair – rising on the wave-tops, one moment; whirled away, the next, into the black night – was the most frightful that entered my ears. There are times, even now, when it seems to be ringing in them still.

Whether our first gleam of moonshine fell upon old Mr. Rarx, while he was sleeping, and helped to upset his weak brains altogether, is more than I can say. But, for some reason or other, before the clouds parted and let the light down on us for the second time, and while we were driving along awfully through the blackest of the night, he stirred in his place, and began rambling and raving again more vehemently than ever. To hear him now – that is to say, as well as I could hear him for the wind – he was still down in his gold-mine; but was laden so heavy with his precious metal that he could not get out, and was in mortal peril of being drowned by the water rising in the bottom of the shaft. So far, his maundering attracted my attention disagreeably, and did no more. But when he began – if I may say so – to take the name of the dear little dead child in vain, and to mix her up with himself and his miserly greed of gain, I got angry, and called to the men forward to give him a shake and make him hold his tongue. Whether any of them obeyed or not, I don’t know – Mr. Rarx went on raving louder than ever. The shrill wind was now hardly more shrill than he. He swore he saw the white frock of our poor little lost pet fluttering in the daylight, at the top of the mine, and he screamed out to her in a great fright that the gold was heavy, and the water rising fast, and that she must come down quick as lightning if she meant to be in time to help him. I called again angrily to the men to silence him; and just as I did so, the clouds began to part for the second time, and the white tip of the moon grew visible.

“There she is!” screeches Mr. Rarx; and I saw him by the fault light, scramble on his knees in the bottom of the boat, and wave a ragged old handkerchief up at the moon.

“Pull him down!” I called out. “Down with him; and tie his arms and legs!”

Of the men who could still move about, not one paid any attention to me. They were all upon their knees again, looking out in the strengthening moonlight for a sight of the ship.

“Quick, Golden Lucy!” screams Mr. Rarx, and creeps under the thwarts right forward into the bows of the boat. “Quick! my darling, my beauty, quick! The gold is heavy, and the water rises fast! Come down and save me, Golden Lucy! Let all the rest of the world drown, and save me! Me! me! me! me!”

He shouted these last words out at the top of his cracked, croaking voice, and got on his feet, as I conjectured (for the coat we had spread for a sail now hid him from me) in the bows of the boat. Not one of the crew so much as looked round at him, so eagerly were their eyes seeking for the ship. The man sitting by me was sunk in a deep sleep. If I had left the helm for a moment in that wind and sea, it would have been the death of every soul of us. I shouted desperately to the raving wretch to sit down. A screech that seemed to cut the very wind in two answered me. A huge wave tossed the boat’s head up wildly at the same moment. I looked aside to leeward as the wash of the great roller swept by us, gleaming of a lurid, bluish white in the moonbeams; I looked and saw, in one second of time, the face of Mr. Rarx rush past on the wave, with the foam seething in his hair and the moon shining in his eyes. Before I could draw my breath he was a hundred yards astern of us, and the night and the sea had swallowed him up and had hid his secret, which he had kept all the voyage, from our mortal curiosity, forever.

“He’s gone! he’s drowned!” I shouted to the men forward.

None of them took any notice; none of them left off looking out over the ocean for a sight of the ship. Nothing that I could say on the subject of our situation at that fearful time can, in my opinion, give such an idea of the extremity and the frightfulness of it, as the relation of this one fact. I leave it to speak by itself the sad and shocking truth, and pass on gladly to the telling of what happened next, at a later hour of the night.

After the clouds had shut out the moon again, the wind dropped a little and shifted a point or two, so as to shape our course nearer to the eastward. How the hours passed after that, till the dawn came, is more than I can tell. The nearer the time of daylight approached the more completely everything seemed to drop out of my mind, except the one thought of where the ship we had seen in the evening might be, when we looked for her with the morning light.

It came at last – that grey, quiet light which was to end all our uncertainty; which was to show us if we were saved, or to warn us if we were to prepare for death. With the first streak in the east, every one of the boat’s company, except the sleeping and the senseless, roused up and looked out in breathless silence upon the sea. Slowly and slowly the daylight strengthened, and the darkness rolled off farther and farther before it over the face of the waters. The first pale flush of the sun flew trembling along the paths of light broken through the grey wastes of the eastern clouds. We could look clearly – we could see far; and there, ahead of us – O! merciful, bountiful providence of God! – there was the ship!

I have honestly owned the truth, and confessed to the human infirmity under suffering of myself, my passengers, and my crew. I have earned, therefore, as I would fain hope, the right to record it to the credit of all, that the men, the moment they set eyes on the ship, poured out their whole hearts in humble thanksgiving to the Divine Mercy which had saved them from the very jaws of death. They did not wait for me to bid them do this; they did it of their own accord, in their own language, fervently, earnestly, with one will and one heart.

We had hardly made the ship out – a fine brigantine, hoisting English colours – before we observed that her crew suddenly hove her up in the wind. At first we were at a loss to understand this; but as we drew nearer, we discovered that she was getting the Surf-boat (which had kept ahead of us all through the night) alongside of her, under the lee bow. My men tried to cheer when they saw their companions in safety, but their weak cries died away in tears and sobbing.

In another half hour we, too, were alongside of the brigantine.

•   •   •

From this point, I recollect nothing very distinctly. I remember faintly many loud voices and eager faces; – I remember fresh strong willing fellows, with a colour in their cheeks, and a smartness in their movements that seemed quite preternatural to me at that time, hanging over us in the rigging of the brigantine, and dropping down from her sides into our boat; – I remember trying with my feeble hands to help them in the difficult and perilous task of getting the two poor women and the Captain on board; – I remember one dark hairy giant of a man swearing that it was enough to break his heart, and catching me in his arms like a child – and from that moment I remember nothing more with the slightest certainty for over a week of time.

When I came to my own senses again, in my cot on board the brigantine my first inquiries were naturally for my fellow-sufferers. Two – a passenger in the Longboat, and one of the crew of the Surf-boat – had sunk in spite of all the care that could be taken of them. The rest were likely, with time and attention, to recover. Of those who have been particularly mentioned in this narrative, Mrs. Atherfield had shown signs of rallying the soonest; Miss Coleshaw, who had held out longer against exhaustion, was now the slower to recover. Captain Ravender, though slowly mending, was still not able to speak or to move in his cot without help. The sacrifices for us all which this good man had so nobly undergone, not only in the boat, but before that, when he had deprived himself of his natural rest on the dark nights that preceded the wreck of the Golden Mary, had sadly undermined his natural strength of constitution. He, the heartiest of all, when we sailed from England, was now, through his unwearying devotion to his duty and to us, the last to recover, the longest to linger between life and death.

My next questions (when they helped me on deck to get my first blessed breath of fresh air) related to the vessel that had saved us. She was bound to the Columbia river – a long way to the northward of the port for which we had sailed in the Golden Mary. Most providentially for us, shortly after we had lost sight of the brigantine in the shades of the evening, she had been caught in a squall, and had sprung her foretopmast badly. This accident had obliged them to lay-to for some hours, while they did their best to secure the spar, and had warned them, when they continued on their course, to keep the ship under easy sail through the night. But for this circumstance we must, in all human probability, have been too far astern when the morning dawned, to have had the slightest chance of being discovered.

Excepting always some of the stoutest of our men, the next of the Longboat’s company who was helped on deck was Mrs. Atherfield. Poor soul! when she and I first looked at each other, I could see that her heart went back to the early days of our voyage, when the Golden Lucy and I used to have our game of hide-and-seek round the mast. She squeezed my hand as hard as she could with her wasted trembling fingers, and looked up piteously in my face, as if she would like to speak to little Lucy’s playfellow, but dared not trust herself – then turned away quickly and laid her head against the bulwark, and looked out upon the desolate sea that was nothing to her now but her darling’s grave. I was better pleased when I saw her later in the day, sitting by Captain Ravender’s cot; for she seemed to take comfort in nursing him. Miss Coleshaw soon afterwards got strong enough to relieve her at this duty; and, between them, they did the Captain such a world of good, both in body and spirit, that he also got strong enough before long to come on deck, and to thank me, in his old generous self-forgetful way, for having done my duty – the duty which I had learnt how to do by his example.

Hearing what our destination had been when we sailed from England, the captain of the brigantine (who had treated us with the most unremitting attention and kindness, and had been warmly seconded in his efforts for our good by all the people under his command) volunteered to go sufficiently out of his course to enable us to speak the first Californian coasting-vessel sailing in the direction of San Francisco. We were lucky in meeting with one of these sooner than we expected. Three days after parting from the kind captain of the brigantine, we, the surviving passengers and crew of the Golden Mary, touched the firm ground once more, on the shores of California.

We were hardly collected here before we were obliged to separate again. Captain Ravender, though he was hardly yet in good travelling trim, accompanied Mrs. Atherfield inland, to see her safe under her husband’s protection. Miss Coleshaw went with them, to stay with Mrs. Atherfield for a little while before she attempted to proceed with any matters of her own which had brought her to this part of the world. The rest of us, who were left behind with nothing particular to do until the Captain’s return, followed the passengers to the gold diggings. Some few of us had enough of the life there in a very short time. The rest seemed bitten by old Mr. Rarx’s mania for gold, and insisted on stopping behind when Rames and I proposed going back to the port. We two, and five of our steadiest seamen, were all the officers and crew left to meet the Captain on his return from the inland country.

He reported that he had left Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw safe and comfortable under Mr. Atherfield’s care. They sent affectionate messages to all of us, and especially (I am proud to say) to me. After hearing this good news, there seemed nothing better to do than to ship on board the first vessel bound for England. There were plenty in port, ready to sail, and only waiting for the men belonging to them who had deserted to the gold-diggings. We were all snapped up eagerly, and offered any rate we chose to set on our services, the moment we made known our readiness to ship for England – all, I ought to have said, except Captain Ravender, who went along with us in the capacity of passenger only.

Nothing of any moment occurred on the voyage back. The Captain and I got ashore at Gravesend safe and hearty, and went up to London as fast as the train could carry us, to report the calamity that had occurred to the owners of the Golden Mary. When that duty had been performed, Captain Ravender went back to his own house at Poplar, and I travelled to the West of England to report myself, to my old father and mother.

Here I might well end all these pages of writing; but I cannot refrain from adding a few more sentences, to tell the reader what I am sure he will be glad to hear. In the summertime of this present year eighteen hundred and fifty-six, I happened to be at New York, and having spare time on my hands, and spare cash in my pocket, I walked into one of the biggest and grandest of their Ordinaries there, to have my dinner. I had hardly sat down at table, before who should I see opposite but Mrs. Atherfield, as bright-eyed and pretty as ever, with a gentleman on her right hand, and on her left – another Golden Lucy! Her hair was a shade or two darker than the hair of my poor little pet of past sad times; but in all other respects the living child reminded me so strongly of the dead, that I quite started at the first sight of her. I could not tell, if I was to try, how happy we were after dinner, or how much we had to say to each other. I was introduced to Mrs. Atherfield’s husband, and heard from him, among other things, that Miss Coleshaw was married to her old sweetheart, who had fallen into misfortunes and errors, and whom she was determined to set right by giving him the great chance in life of getting a good wife. They were settled in America, like Mr. and Mrs. Atherfield – these last and the child being on their way, when I met them, to visit a friend living in the northern-most part of the States.

With the relation of this circumstance, and with my personal testimony to the good health and spirits of Captain Ravender the last time I saw him, ends all that I have to say in connection with the subject of the Wreck of the Golden Mary, and the Great Deliverance of her People at Sea.

•  THE END  •

Household Words
Christmas number 1856

THE LAZY TOUR
OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

With Charles Dickens

•  I  •

In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute, though, it must be acknowledged, not quite so highly esteemed in the City as she might be. This is the more remarkable, as there is nothing against the respectable lady in that quarter, but quite the contrary; her family having rendered eminent service to many famous citizens of London. It may be sufficient to name Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor under King Richard II., at the time of Wat Tyler’s insurrection, and Sir Richard Whittington: which latter distinguished man and magistrate was doubtless indebted to the lady’s family for the gift of his celebrated cat. There is also strong reason to suppose that they rang the Highgate bells for him with their own hands.

The misguided young men who thus shirked their duty to the mistress from whom they had received many favours, were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip, in any direction. They had no intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing, they wanted to know nothing, they wanted to learn nothing, they wanted to do nothing. They wanted only to be idle. They took to themselves (after HOGARTH), the names of Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild; but there was not a moral pin to choose between them, and they were both idle in the last degree.

Between Francis and Thomas, however, there was this difference of character: Goodchild was laboriously idle, and would take upon himself any amount of pains and labour to assure himself that he was idle; in short, had no better idea of idleness than that it was useless industry. Thomas Idle, on the other hand, was an idler of the unmixed Irish or Neapolitan type; a passive idler, a born-and-bred idler, a consistent idler, who practised what he would have preached if he had not been too idle to preach; a one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness.

The two idle apprentices found themselves, within a few hours of their escape, walking down into the North of England, that is to say, Thomas was lying in a meadow, looking at the railway trains as they passed over a distant viaduct – which was his idea of walking down into the North; while Francis was walking a mile due South against time – which was his idea of walking down into the North. In the meantime the day waned, and the milestones remained unconquered.

“Tom,” said Goodchild, “the sun is getting low. Up, and let us go forward!”

“Nay,” quoth Thomas Idle, “I have not done with Annie Laurie yet.” And he proceeded with that idle but popular ballad, to the effect that for the bonnie young person of that name he would “lay him doon and dee” – equivalent, in prose, to lay him down and die.

“What an ass that fellow was!” cried Goodchild, with the bitter emphasis of contempt.

“Which fellow?” asked Thomas Idle.

“The fellow in your song. Lay him doon and dee! Finely he’d show off before the girl by doing that. A sniveller! Why couldn’t he get up, and punch somebody’s head!”

“Whose?” asked Thomas Idle.

“Anybody’s. Everybody’s would be better than nobody’s! If I fell into that state of mind about a girl, do you think I’d lay me doon and dee? No, sir,” proceeded Goodchild, with a disparaging assumption of the Scottish accent, “I’d get me oop and peetch into somebody. Wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t have anything to do with her,” yawned Thomas Idle. “Why should I take the trouble?”

“It’s no trouble, Tom, to fall in love,” said Goodchild, shaking his head.

“It’s trouble enough to fall out of it, once you’re in it,” retorted Tom. “So I keep out of it altogether. It would be better for you, if you did the same.”

Mr. Goodchild, who is always in love with somebody, and not unfrequently with several objects at once, made no reply. He heaved a sigh of the kind which is termed by the lower orders “a bellowser,” and then, heaving Mr. Idle on his feet (who was not half so heavy as the sigh), urged him northward.

These two had sent their personal baggage on by train: only retaining each a knapsack. Idle now applied himself to constantly regretting the train, to tracking it through the intricacies of Bradshaw’s Guide, and finding out where it is now – and where now – and where now – and to asking what was the use of walking, when you could ride at such a pace as that. Was it to see the country? If that was the object, look at it out of the carriage windows. There was a great deal more of it to be seen there than here. Besides, who wanted to see the country? Nobody. And again, whoever did walk? Nobody. Fellows set off to walk, but they never did it. They came back and said they did, but they didn’t. Then why should he walk? He wouldn’t walk. He swore it by this milestone!

It was the fifth from London, so far had they penetrated into the North. Submitting to the powerful chain of argument, Goodchild proposed a return to the Metropolis, and a falling back upon Euston Square Terminus. Thomas assented with alacrity, and so they walked down into the North by the next morning’s express, and carried their knapsacks in the luggage-van.

It was like all other expresses, as every express is and must be. It bore through the harvest country a smell like a large washing-day, and a sharp issue of steam as from a huge brazen tea-urn. The greatest power in nature and art combined, it yet glided over dangerous heights in the sight of people looking up from fields and roads, as smoothly and un-really as a light miniature plaything. Now, the engine shrieked in hysterics of such intensity, that it seemed desirable that the men who had her in charge should hold her feet, slap her hands, and bring her to; now, burrowed into tunnels with a stubborn and undemonstrative energy so confusing that the train seemed to be flying back into leagues of darkness. Here, were station after station, swallowed up by the express without stopping; here, stations where it fired itself in like a volley of cannonballs, swooped away four country-people with nosegays, and three men of business with portmanteaus, and fired itself off again, bang, bang, bang! At long intervals were uncomfortable refreshment-rooms, made more uncomfortable by the scorn of Beauty towards Beast, the public (but to whom she never relented, as Beauty did in the story, towards the other Beast), and where sensitive stomachs were fed, with a contemptuous sharpness occasioning indigestion. Here, again, were stations with nothing going but a bell, and wonderful wooden razors set aloft on great posts, shaving the air. In these fields, the horses, sheep, and cattle were well used to the thundering meteor, and didn’t mind; in those, they were all set scampering together, and a herd of pigs scoured after them. The pastoral country darkened, became coaly, became smoky, became infernal, got better, got worse, improved again, grew rugged, turned romantic; was a wood, a stream, a chain of hills, a gorge, a moor, a cathedral town, a fortified place, a waste. Now, miserable black dwellings, a black canal, and sick black towers of chimneys; now, a trim garden, where the flowers were bright and fair; now, a wilderness of hideous altars all a-blaze; now, the water meadows with their fairy rings; now, the mangy patch of unlet building ground outside the stagnant town, with the larger ring where the Circus was last week. The temperature changed, the dialect changed, the people changed, faces got sharper, manner got shorter, eyes got shrewder and harder; yet all so quickly, that the spruce guard in the London uniform and silver lace, had not yet rumpled his shirt-collar, delivered half the dispatches in his shiny little pouch, or read his newspaper.

Carlisle! Idle and Goodchild had got to Carlisle. It looked congenially and delightfully idle. Something in the way of public amusement had happened last month, and something else was going to happen before Christmas; and, in the meantime there was a lecture on India for those who liked it – which Idle and Goodchild did not. Likewise, by those who liked them, there were impressions to be bought of all the vapid prints, going and gone, and of nearly all the vapid books. For those who wanted to put anything in missionary boxes, here were the boxes. For those who wanted the Reverend Mr. Podgers (artist’s proofs, thirty shillings), here was Mr. Podgers to any amount. Not less gracious and abundant, Mr. Codgers also of the vineyard, but opposed to Mr. Podgers, brotherly tooth and nail. Here, were guide-books to the neighbouring antiquities, and eke the Lake country, in several dry and husky sorts; here, many physically and morally impossible heads of both sexes, for young ladies to copy, in the exercise of the art of drawing; here, further, a large impression of MR. SPURGEON, solid as to the flesh, not to say even something gross. The working young men of Carlisle were drawn up, with their hands in their pockets, across the pavements, four and six abreast, and appeared (much to the satisfaction of Mr. Idle) to have nothing else to do. The working and growing young women of Carlisle, from the age of twelve upwards, promenaded the streets in the cool of the evening, and rallied the said young men. Sometimes the young men rallied the young women, as in the case of a group gathered round an accordion-player, from among whom a young man advanced behind a young woman for whom he appeared to have a tenderness, and hinted to her that he was there and playful, by giving her (he wore clogs) a kick.

On market morning, Carlisle woke up amazingly, and became (to the two Idle Apprentices) disagreeably and reproachfully busy. There were its cattle market, its sheep market, and its pig market down by the river, with raw-boned and shock-headed Rob Roys hiding their Lowland dresses beneath heavy plaids, prowling in and out among the animals, and flavouring the air with fumes of whiskey. There was its corn market down the main street, with hum of chaffering over open sacks. There was its general market in the street too, with heather brooms on which the purple flower still flourished, and heather baskets primitive and fresh to behold. With women trying on clogs and caps at open stalls, and “Bible stalls” adjoining. With “Doctor Mantle’s Dispensary for the cure of all Human Maladies and no charge for advice,” and with Doctor Mantle’s “Laboratory of Medical, Chemical, and Botanical Science” – both healing institutions established on one pair of trestles, one board, and one sun-blind. With the renowned phrenologist from London, begging to be favoured (at sixpence each) with the company of clients of both sexes, to whom, on examination of their heads, he would make revelations “enabling him or her to know themselves.” Through all these bargains and blessings, the recruiting-sergeant watchfully elbowed his way, a thread of War in the peaceful skein. Likewise on the walls were printed hints that the Oxford Blues might not be indisposed to hear of a few fine active young men; and that whereas the standard of that distinguished corps is full six feet, “growing lads of five feet eleven” need not absolutely despair of being accepted.

Scenting the morning air more pleasantly than the buried majesty of Denmark did, Messrs. Idle and Goodchild rode away from Carlisle at eight o’clock one forenoon, bound for the village of Hesket, Newmarket, some fourteen miles distant. Goodchild (who had already begun to doubt whether he was idle: as his way always is when he has nothing to do) had read of a certain black old Cumberland hill or mountain, called Carrock, or Carrock Fell; and had arrived at the conclusion that it would be the culminating triumph of Idleness to ascend the same. Thomas Idle, dwelling on the pains inseparable from that achievement, had expressed the strongest doubts of the expediency, and even of the sanity, of the enterprise; but Goodchild had carried his point, and they rode away.

Uphill and downhill, and twisting to the right, and twisting to the left, and with old Skiddaw (who has vaunted himself a great deal more than his merits deserve; but that is rather the way of the Lake country), dodging the apprentices in a picturesque and pleasant manner. Good, weather-proof, warm, pleasant houses, well white-limed, scantily dotting the road. Clean children coming out to look, carrying other clean children as big as themselves. Harvest still lying out and much rained upon; here and there, harvest still unreaped. Well-cultivated gardens attached to the cottages, with plenty of produce forced out of their hard soil. Lonely nooks, and wild; but people can be born, and married, and buried in such nooks, and can live and love, and be loved, there as elsewhere, thank God! (Mr. Goodchild’s remark.) By-and-by, the village. Black, coarse-stoned, rough-windowed houses; some with outer staircases, like Swiss houses; a sinuous and stony gutter winding uphill and round the corner, by way of street. All the children running out directly. Women pausing in washing, to peep from doorways and very little windows. Such were the observations of Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, as their conveyance stopped at the village shoemaker’s. Old Carrock gloomed down upon it all in a very ill-tempered state; and rain was beginning.

The village shoemaker declined to have anything to do with Carrock. No visitors went up Carrock. No visitors came there at all. Aa’ the world ganged awa’ yon. The driver appealed to the Innkeeper. The Innkeeper had two men working in the fields, and one of them should be called in, to go up Carrock as guide. Messrs. Idle and Goodchild, highly approving, entered the Innkeeper’s house, to drink whiskey and eat oatcake.

The Innkeeper was not idle enough – was not idle at all, which was a great fault in him – but was a fine specimen of a north-country man, or any kind of man. He had a ruddy cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an immense hand, a cheery, outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad look. He had a drawing-room, too, upstairs, which was worth a visit to the Cumberland Fells. (This was Mr. Francis Goodchild’s opinion, in which Mr. Thomas Idle did not concur.)

The ceiling of this drawing-room was so crossed and recrossed by beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre, in a corner, that it looked like a broken starfish. The room was comfortably and solidly furnished with good mahogany and horsehair. It had a snug fireside, and a couple of well-curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country behind the house. What it most developed was, an unexpected taste for little ornaments and knick-knacks, of which it contained a most surprising number. They were not very various, consisting in great part of waxen babies with their limbs more or less mutilated, appealing on one leg to the parental affections from under little cupping glasses; but, Uncle Tom was there, in crockery, receiving theological instructions from Miss Eva, who grew out of his side like a wen, in an exceedingly rough state of profile propagandism. Engravings of Mr. Hunt’s country boy, before and after his pie, were on the wall, divided by a highly-coloured nautical piece, the subject of which had all her colours (and more) flying, and was making great way through a sea of a regular pattern, like a lady’s collar. A benevolent, elderly gentleman of the last century, with a powdered head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife-box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David’s harp packed for travelling. Everything became a knick-knack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance from the fireplace, and said: “By your leave, not a kettle, but a bijou.” The Staffordshire-ware butter-dish with the cover on, got upon a little round occasional table in a window, with a worked top, and announced itself to the two chairs accidentally placed there, as an aid to polite conversation, a graceful trifle in china to be chatted over by callers, as they airily trifled away the visiting moments of a butterfly existence, in that rugged old village on the Cumberland Fells. The very footstool could not keep the floor, but got upon a sofa, and there-from proclaimed itself, in high relief of white and liver-coloured wool, a favourite spaniel coiled up for repose. Though, truly, in spite of its bright glass eyes, the spaniel was the least successful assumption in the collection: being perfectly flat, and dismally suggestive of a recent mistake in sitting down on the part of some corpulent member of the family.

There were books, too, in this room; books on the table, books on the chimney-piece, books in an open press in the corner. Fielding was there, and Smollett was there, and Steele and Addison were there, in dispersed volumes; and there were tales of those who go down to the sea in ships, for windy nights; and there was really a choice of good books for rainy days or fine. It was so very pleasant to see these things in such a lonesome by-place – so very agreeable to find these evidences of a taste, however homely, that went beyond the beautiful cleanliness and trimness of the house – so fanciful to imagine what a wonder a room must be to the little children born in the gloomy village – what grand impressions of it those of them who became wanderers over the earth would carry away; and how, at distant ends of the world, some old voyagers would die, cherishing the belief that the finest apartment known to men was once in the Hesket-Newmarket Inn, in rare old Cumberland – it was such a charmingly lazy pursuit to entertain these rambling thoughts over the choice oatcake and the genial whiskey, that Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never asked themselves how it came to pass that the men in the fields were never heard of more, how the stalwart landlord replaced them without explanation, how his dog-cart came to be waiting at the door, and how everything was arranged without the least arrangement for climbing to old Carrock’s shoulders, and standing on his head.

Without a word of inquiry, therefore, the Two Idle Apprentices drifted out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy, penetrating rain; got into the landlord’s light dog-cart, and rattled off through the village for the foot of Carrock. The journey at the outset was not remarkable. The Cumberland road went up and down like all other roads; the Cumberland curs burst out from backs of cottages and barked like other curs, and the Cumberland peasantry stared after the dog-cart amazedly, as long as it was in sight, like the rest of their race. The approach to the foot of the mountain resembled the approaches to the feet of most other mountains all over the world. The cultivation gradually ceased, the trees grew gradually rare, the road became gradually rougher, and the sides of the mountain looked gradually more and more lofty, and more and more difficult to get up. The dog-cart was left at a lonely farmhouse. The landlord borrowed a large umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the character of the most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the way to the ascent. Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top of the mountain, and, feeling apparently that he was now going to be very lazy indeed, shone all over wonderfully to the eye, under the influence of the contentment within and the moisture without. Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle did Despondency now hold her gloomy state. He kept it a secret; but he would have given a very handsome sum, when the ascent began, to have been back again at the inn. The sides of Carrock looked fearfully steep, and the top of Carrock was hidden in mist. The rain was falling faster and faster. The knees of Mr. Idle – always weak on walking excursions – shivered and shook with fear and damp. The wet was already penetrating through the young man’s outer coat to a brand-new shooting-jacket, for which he had reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving town; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody to push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front, nobody to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of the rain, the denseness of the mist, and the unutterable folly of climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the world, when there is level ground within reach to walk on instead. Was it for this that Thomas had left London? London, where there are nice short walks in level public gardens, with benches of repose set up at convenient distances for weary travellers – London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs for the pavement! No! it was not for the laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his native city, and travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel more disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave error in judgement than when he found himself standing in the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting to the top of it.

The honest landlord went first, the beaming Goodchild followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed places in the order of march; but the rearguard never altered his position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in the water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs, skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was always the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first the ascent was delusively easy, the sides of the mountain sloped gradually, and the material of which they were composed was a soft spongy turf, very tender and pleasant to walk upon. After a hundred yards or so, however, the verdant scene and the easy slope disappeared, and the rocks began. Not noble, massive rocks, standing upright, keeping a certain regularity in their positions, and possessing, now and then, flat tops to sit upon, but little irritating, comfortless rocks, littered about anyhow, by Nature; treacherous, disheartening rocks of all sorts of small shapes and small sizes, bruisers of tender toes and trippers-up of wavering feet. When these impediments were passed, heather and slough followed. Here the steepness of the ascent was slightly mitigated; and here the exploring party of three turned round to look at the view below them. The scene of the moorland and the fields was like a feeble water-colour drawing half sponged out. The mist was darkening, the rain was thickening, the trees were dotted about like spots of faint shadow, the division-lines which mapped out the fields were all getting blurred together, and the lonely farmhouse where the dog-cart had been left, loomed spectral in the grey light like the last human dwelling at the end of the habitable world. Was this a sight worth climbing to see? Surely – surely not!

Up again – for the top of Carrock is not reached yet. The landlord, just as good-tempered and obliging as he was at the bottom of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild brighter in the eyes and rosier in the face than ever; full of cheerful remarks and apt quotations; and walking with a springiness of step wonderful to behold. Mr. Idle, farther and farther in the rear, with the water squeaking in the toes of his boots, with his two-guinea shooting-jacket clinging damply to his aching sides, with his overcoat so full of rain, and standing out so pyramidically stiff, in consequence, from his shoulders downwards, that he felt as if he was walking in a gigantic extinguisher – the despairing spirit within him representing but too aptly the candle that had just been put out. Up and up and up again, till a ridge is reached and the outer edge of the mist on the summit of Carrock is darkly and drizzingly near. Is this the top? No, nothing like the top. It is an aggravating peculiarity of all mountains, that, although they have only one top when they are seen (as they ought always to be seen) from below, they turn out to have a perfect eruption of false tops whenever the traveller is sufficiently ill-advised to go out of his way for the purpose of ascending them. Carrock is but a trumpery little mountain of fifteen hundred feet, and it presumes to have false tops, and even precipices, as if it were Mont Blanc. No matter; Goodchild enjoys it, and will go on; and Idle, who is afraid of being left behind by himself, must follow. On entering the edge of the mist, the landlord stops, and says he hopes that it will not get any thicker. It is twenty years since he last ascended Carrock, and it is barely possible, if the mist increases, that the party may be lost on the mountain. Goodchild hears this dreadful intimation, and is not in the least impressed by it. He marches for the top that is never to be found, as if he was the Wandering Jew, bound to go on forever, in defiance of everything. The landlord faithfully accompanies him. The two, to the dim eye of Idle, far below, look in the exaggerative mist, like a pair of friendly giants, mounting the steps of some invisible castle together. Up and up, and then down a little, and then up, and then along a strip of level ground, and then up again. The wind, a wind unknown in the happy valley, blows keen and strong; the rain-mist gets impenetrable; a dreary little cairn of stones appears. The landlord adds one to the heap, first walking all round the cairn as if he were about to perform an incantation, then dropping the stone on to the top of the heap with the gesture of a magician adding an ingredient to a cauldron in full bubble. Goodchild sits down by the cairn as if it was his study-table at home; Idle, drenched and panting, stands up with his back to the wind, ascertains distinctly that this is the top at last, looks round with all the little curiosity that is left in him, and gets, in return, a magnificent view of – Nothing!

The effect of this sublime spectacle on the minds of the exploring party is a little injured by the nature of the direct conclusion to which the sight of it points – the said conclusion being that the mountain mist has actually gathered round them, as the landlord feared it would. It now becomes imperatively necessary to settle the exact situation of the farmhouse in the valley at which the dog-cart has been left, before the travellers attempt to descend. While the landlord is endeavouring to make this discovery in his own way, Mr. Goodchild plunges his hand under his wet coat, draws out a little red morocco-case, opens it, and displays to the view of his companions a neat pocket-compass. The north is found, the point at which the farmhouse is situated is settled, and the descent begins. After a little downward walking, Idle (behind as usual) sees his fellow-travellers turn aside sharply – tries to follow them – loses them in the mist – is shouted after, waited for, recovered – and then finds that a halt has been ordered, partly on his account, partly for the purpose of again consulting the compass.

The point in debate is settled as before between Goodchild and the landlord, and the expedition moves on, not down the mountain, but marching straight forward round the slope of it. The difficulty of following this new route is acutely felt by Thomas Idle. He finds the hardship of walking at all greatly increased by the fatigue of moving his feet straight forward along the side of a slope, when their natural tendency, at every step, is to turn off at a right angle, and go straight down the declivity. Let the reader imagine himself to be walking along the roof of a barn, instead of up or down it, and he will have an exact idea of the pedestrian difficulty in which the travellers had now involved themselves. In ten minutes more Idle was lost in the distance again, was shouted for, waited for, recovered as before; found Goodchild repeating his observation of the compass, and remonstrated warmly against the sideway route that his companions persisted in following. It appeared to the uninstructed mind of Thomas that when three men want to get to the bottom of a mountain, their business is to walk down it; and he put this view of the case, not only with emphasis, but even with some irritability. He was answered from the scientific eminence of the compass on which his companions were mounted, that there was a frightful chasm somewhere near the foot of Carrock, called The Black Arches, into which the travellers were sure to march in the mist, if they risked continuing the descent from the place where they had now halted. Idle received this answer with the silent respect which was due to the commanders of the expedition, and followed along the roof of the barn, or rather the side of the mountain, reflecting upon the assurance which he received on starting again, that the object of the party was only to gain “a certain point,” and, this haven attained, to continue the descent afterwards until the foot of Carrock was reached. Though quite unexceptionable as an abstract form of expression, the phrase “a certain point” has the disadvantage of sounding rather vaguely when it is pronounced on unknown ground, under a canopy of mist much thicker than a London fog. Nevertheless, after the compass, this phrase was all the clue the party had to hold by, and Idle clung to the extreme end of it as hopefully as he could.

More sideway walking, thicker and thicker mist, all sorts of points reached except the “certain point;” third loss of Idle, third shouts for him, third recovery of him, third consultation of compass. Mr. Goodchild draws it tenderly from his pocket, and prepares to adjust it on a stone. Something falls on the turf – it is the glass. Something else drops immediately after – it is the needle. The compass is broken, and the exploring party is lost!

It is the practice of the English portion of the human race to receive all great disasters in dead silence. Mr. Goodchild restored the useless compass to his pocket without saying a word, Mr. Idle looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at Mr. Idle. There was nothing for it now but to go on blindfold, and trust to the chapter of chances. Accordingly, the lost travellers moved forward, still walking round the slope of the mountain, still desperately resolved to avoid the Black Arches, and to succeed in reaching the “certain point.”

A quarter of an hour brought them to the brink of a ravine, at the bottom of which there flowed a muddy little stream. Here another halt was called, and another consultation took place. The landlord, still clinging pertinaciously to the idea of reaching the “point,” voted for crossing the ravine, and going on round the slope of the mountain. Mr. Goodchild, to the great relief of his fellow-traveller, took another view of the case, and backed Mr. Idle’s proposal to descend Carrock at once, at any hazard – the rather as the running stream was a sure guide to follow from the mountain to the valley. Accordingly, the party descended to the rugged and stony banks of the stream; and here again Thomas lost ground sadly, and fell far behind his travelling companions. Not much more than six weeks had elapsed since he had sprained one of his ankles, and he began to feel this same ankle getting rather weak when he found himself among the stones that were strewn about the running water. Goodchild and the landlord were getting farther and farther ahead of him. He saw them cross the stream and disappear round a projection on its banks. He heard them shout the moment after as a signal that they had halted and were waiting for him. Answering the shout, he mended his pace, crossed the stream where they had crossed it, and was within one step of the opposite bank, when his foot slipped on a wet stone, his weak ankle gave a twist outwards, a hot, rending, tearing pain ran through it at the same moment, and down fell the idlest of the Two Idle Apprentices, crippled in an instant.

The situation was now, in plain terms, one of absolute danger. There lay Mr. Idle writhing with pain, there was the mist as thick as ever, there was the landlord as completely lost as the strangers whom he was conducting, and there was the compass broken in Goodchild’s pocket. To leave the wretched Thomas on unknown ground was plainly impossible; and to get him to walk with a badly sprained ankle seemed equally out of the question. However, Goodchild (brought back by his cry for help) bandaged the ankle with a pocket-handkerchief, and assisted by the landlord, raised the crippled Apprentice to his legs, offered him a shoulder to lean on, and exhorted him for the sake of the whole party to try if he could walk. Thomas, assisted by the shoulder on one side, and a stick on the other, did try, with what pain and difficulty those only can imagine who have sprained an ankle and have had to tread on it afterwards. At a pace adapted to the feeble hobbling of a newly-lamed man, the lost party moved on, perfectly ignorant whether they were on the right side of the mountain or the wrong, and equally uncertain how long Idle would be able to contend with the pain in his ankle, before he gave in altogether and fell down again, unable to stir another step.

Slowly and more slowly, as the clog of crippled Thomas weighed heavily and more heavily on the march of the expedition, the lost travellers followed the windings of the stream, till they came to a faintly-marked cart-track, branching off nearly at right angles, to the left. After a little consultation it was resolved to follow this dim vestige of a road in the hope that it might lead to some farm or cottage, at which Idle could be left in safety. It was now getting on towards the afternoon, and it was fast becoming more than doubtful whether the party, delayed in their progress as they now were, might not be overtaken by the darkness before the right route was found, and be condemned to pass the night on the mountain, without bit or drop to comfort them, in their wet clothes.

The cart-track grew fainter and fainter, until it was washed out altogether by another little stream, dark, turbulent, and rapid. The landlord suggested, judging by the colour of the water, that it must be flowing from one of the lead mines in the neighbourhood of Carrock; and the travellers accordingly kept by the stream for a little while, in the hope of possibly wandering towards help in that way. After walking forward about two hundred yards, they came upon a mine indeed, but a mine, exhausted and abandoned; a dismal, ruinous place, with nothing but the wreck of its works and buildings left to speak for it. Here, there were a few sheep feeding. The landlord looked at them earnestly, thought he recognised the marks on them – then thought he did not – finally gave up the sheep in despair – and walked on just as ignorant of the whereabouts of the party as ever.

The march in the dark, literally as well as metaphorically in the dark, had now been continued for three-quarters of an hour from the time when the crippled Apprentice had met with his accident. Mr. Idle, with all the will to conquer the pain in his ankle, and to hobble on, found the power rapidly failing him, and felt that another ten minutes at most would find him at the end of his last physical resources. He had just made up his mind on this point, and was about to communicate the dismal result of his reflections to his companions, when the mist suddenly brightened, and begun to lift straight ahead. In another minute, the landlord, who was in advance, proclaimed that he saw a tree. Before long, other trees appeared – then a cottage – then a house beyond the cottage, and a familiar line of road rising behind it. Last of all, Carrock itself loomed darkly into view, far away to the right hand. The party had not only got down the mountain without knowing how, but had wandered away from it in the mist, without knowing why – away, far down on the very moor by which they had approached the base of Carrock that morning.

The happy lifting of the mist, and the still happier discovery that the travellers had groped their way, though by a very roundabout direction, to within a mile or so of the part of the valley in which the farmhouse was situated, restored Mr. Idle’s sinking spirits and reanimated his failing strength. While the landlord ran off to get the dog-cart, Thomas was assisted by Goodchild to the cottage which had been the first building seen when the darkness brightened, and was propped up against the garden wall, like an artist’s lay figure waiting to be forwarded, until the dog-cart should arrive from the farmhouse below. In due time – and a very long time it seemed to Mr. Idle – the rattle of wheels was heard, and the crippled Apprentice was lifted into the seat. As the dog-cart was driven back to the inn, the landlord related an anecdote which he had just heard at the farmhouse, of an unhappy man who had been lost, like his two guests and himself, on Carrock; who had passed the night there alone; who had been found the next morning, “scared and starved;” and who never went out afterwards, except on his way to the grave. Mr. Idle heard this sad story, and derived at least one useful impression from it. Bad as the pain in his ankle was, he contrived to bear it patiently, for he felt grateful that a worse accident had not befallen him in the wilds of Carrock.

•  II  •

The dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Innkeeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes everywhere, made the best of its way back to the little inn; the broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite sop, or the ruins of some enormous jorum of antediluvian toast-and-water. The trees dripped; the eaves of the scattered cottages dripped; the barren stone walls dividing the land, dripped; the yelping dogs dripped; carts and wagons under ill-roofed penthouses, dripped; melancholy cocks and hens perching on their shafts, or seeking shelter underneath them, dripped; Mr. Goodchild dripped; Thomas Idle dripped; the Innkeeper dripped; the mare dripped; the vast curtains of mist and cloud passed before the shadowy forms of the hills, streamed water as they were drawn across the landscape. Down such steep pitches that the mare seemed to be trotting on her head, and up such steep pitches that she seemed to have a supplementary leg in her tail, the dog-cart jolted and tilted back to the village. It was too wet for the women to look out, it was too wet even for the children to look out; all the doors and windows were closed, and the only sign of life or motion was in the rain-punctured puddles.

Whiskey and oil to Thomas Idle’s ankle, and whiskey without oil to Francis Goodchild’s stomach, produced an agreeable change in the systems of both; soothing Mr. Idle’s pain, which was sharp before, and sweetening Mr. Goodchild’s temper, which was sweet before. Portmanteaus being then opened and clothes changed, Mr. Goodchild, through having no change of outer garments but broadcloth and velvet, suddenly became a magnificent portent in the Innkeeper’s house, a shining frontispiece to the fashions for the month, and a frightful anomaly in the Cumberland village.

Greatly ashamed of his splendid appearance, the conscious Goodchild quenched it as much as possible, in the shadow of Thomas Idle’s ankle, and in a corner of the little covered carriage that started with them for Wigton – a most desirable carriage for any country, except for its having a flat roof and no sides; which caused the plumps of rain accumulating on the roof to play vigorous games of bagatelle into the interior all the way, and to score immensely. It was comfortable to see how the people coming back in open carts from Wigton market made no more of the rain than if it were sunshine; how the Wigton policeman taking a country walk of half-a-dozen miles (apparently for pleasure), in resplendent uniform, accepted saturation as his normal state; how clerks and schoolmasters in black, loitered along the road without umbrellas, getting varnished at every step; how the Cumberland girls, coming out to look after the Cumberland cows, shook the rain from their eyelashes and laughed it away; and how the rain continued to fall upon all, as it only does fall in hill countries.

Wigton market was over, and its bare booths were smoking with rain all down the street. Mr. Thomas Idle, melodramatically carried to the inn’s first floor, and laid upon three chairs (he should have had the sofa, if there had been one), Mr. Goodchild went to the window to take an observation of Wigton, and report what he saw to his disabled companion.

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “What do you see from the turret?”

“I see,” said Brother Francis, “what I hope and believe to be one of the most dismal places ever seen by eyes. I see the houses with their roofs of dull black, their stained fronts, and their dark-rimmed windows, looking as if they were all in mourning. As every little puff of wind comes down the street, I see a perfect train of rain let off along the wooden stalls in the marketplace and exploded against me. I see a very big gas lamp in the centre which I know, by a secret instinct, will not be lighted tonight. I see a pump, with a trivet underneath its spout whereon to stand the vessels that are brought to be filled with water. I see a man come to pump, and he pumps very hard, but no water follows, and he strolls empty away.”

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “what more do you see from the turret, besides the man and the pump, and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?”

“I see,” said Brother Francis, “one, two, three, four, five, linen-drapers’ shops in front of me. I see a linen-draper’s shop next door to the right – and there are five more linen-drapers’ shops down the corner to the left. Eleven homicidal linen-drapers’ shops within a short stone’s throw, each with its hands at the throats of all the rest! Over the small first-floor of one of these linen-drapers’ shops appears the wonderful inscription, BANK.”

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “what more do you see from the turret, besides the eleven homicidal linen-drapers’ shops, and the wonderful inscription, ‘Bank,’ – on the small first-floor, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?”

“I see,” said Brother Francis, “the depository for Christian Knowledge, and through the dark vapour I think I again make out Mr. Spurgeon looming heavily. Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her, printed in colours, I am sure I see. I see the Illustrated London News of several years ago, and I see a sweetmeat shop – which the proprietor calls a ‘Salt Warehouse’ – with one small female child in a cotton bonnet looking in on tiptoe, oblivious of rain. And I see a watchmaker’s with only three great pale watches of a dull metal hanging in his window, each in a separate pane.”

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “what more do you see of Wigton, besides these objects, and the man and the pump and the trivet and the houses all in mourning and the rain?”

“I see nothing more,” said Brother Francis, “and there is nothing more to see, except the curlpaper bill of the theatre, which was opened and shut last week (the manager’s family played all the parts), and the short, square, chinky omnibus that goes to the railway, and leads too rattling a life over the stones to hold together long. O yes! Now, I see two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards me.”

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “what do you make out from the turret, of the expression of the two men with their hands in their pockets and their backs towards you?”

“They are mysterious men,” said Brother Francis, “with inscrutable backs. They keep their backs towards me with persistency. If one turns an inch in any direction, the other turns an inch in the same direction, and no more. They turn very stiffly, on a very little pivot, in the middle of the marketplace. Their appearance is partly of a mining, partly of a ploughing, partly of a stable, character. They are looking at nothing – very hard. Their backs are slouched, and their legs are curved with much standing about. Their pockets are loose and dog’s-eared, on account of their hands being always in them. They stand to be rained upon, without any movement of impatience or dissatisfaction, and they keep so close together that an elbow of each jostles an elbow of the other, but they never speak. They spit at times, but speak not. I see it growing darker and darker, and still I see them, sole visible population of the place, standing to be rained upon with their backs towards me, and looking at nothing very hard.”

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “before you draw down the blind of the turret and come in to have your head scorched by the hot gas, see if you can, and impart to me, something of the expression of those two amazing men.”

“The murky shadows,” said Francis Goodchild, “are gathering fast; and the wings of evening, and the wings of coal, are folding over Wigton. Still, they look at nothing very hard, with their backs towards me. Ah! Now, they turn, and I see—”

“Brother Francis, brother Francis,” cried Thomas Idle, “tell me quickly what you see of the two men of Wigton!”

“I see,” said Francis Goodchild, “that they have no expression at all. And now the town goes to sleep, undazzled by the large unlighted lamp in the marketplace; and let no man wake it.”

At the close of the next day’s journey, Mr. Thomas Idle’s ankle became much swollen and inflamed. There are reasons which will presently explain themselves for not publicly indicating the exact direction in which that journey lay, or the place in which it ended. It was a long day’s shaking of Thomas Idle over the rough roads, and a long day’s getting out and going on before the horses, and fagging up hills, and scouring down hills, on the part of Mr. Goodchild, who in the fatigues of such labours congratulated himself on attaining a high point of idleness. It was at a little town, still in Cumberland, that they halted for the night – a very little town, with the purple and brown moor close upon its one street; a curious little ancient market-cross set up in the midst of it; and the town itself looking much as if it were a collection of great stones piled on end by the Druids long ago, which a few recluse people had since hollowed out for habitations.

“Is there a doctor here?” asked Mr. Goodchild, on his knee, of the motherly landlady of the little Inn: stopping in his examination of Mr. Idle’s ankle, with the aid of a candle.

“Ey, my word!” said the landlady, glancing doubtfully at the ankle for herself; “there’s Doctor Speddie.”

“Is he a good Doctor?”

“Ey!” said the landlady, “I ca’ him so. A’ cooms efther nae doctor that I ken. Mair nor which, a’s just THE doctor heer.”

“Do you think he is at home?”

Her reply was, “Gang awa’, Jock, and bring him.”

Jock, a white-headed boy, who, under pretence of stirring up some bay salt in a basin of water for the laving of this unfortunate ankle, had greatly enjoyed himself for the last ten minutes in splashing the carpet, set off promptly. A very few minutes had elapsed when he showed the Doctor in, by tumbling against the door before him and bursting it open with his head.

“Gently, Jock, gently,” said the Doctor as he advanced with a quiet step. “Gentlemen, a good evening. I am sorry that my presence is required here. A slight accident, I hope? A slip and a fall? Yes, yes, yes. Carrock, indeed? Hah! Does that pain you, sir? No doubt, it does. It is the great connecting ligament here, you see, that has been badly strained. Time and rest, sir! They are often the recipe in greater cases,” with a slight sigh, “and often the recipe in small. I can send a lotion to relieve you, but we must leave the cure to time and rest.”

This he said, holding Idle’s foot on his knee between his two hands, as he sat over against him. He had touched it tenderly and skilfully in explanation of what he said, and, when his careful examination was completed, softly returned it to its former horizontal position on a chair.

He spoke with a little irresolution whenever he began, but afterwards fluently. He was a tall, thin, large-boned, old gentleman, with an appearance at first sight of being hard-featured; but, at a second glance, the mild expression of his face and some particular touches of sweetness and patience about his mouth, corrected this impression and assigned his long professional rides, by day and night, in the bleak hill-weather, as the true cause of that appearance. He stooped very little, though past seventy and very grey. His dress was more like that of a clergyman than a country doctor, being a plain black suit, and a plain white neckerchief tied behind like a band. His black was the worse for wear, and there were darns in his coat, and his linen was a little frayed at the hems and edges. He might have been poor – it was likely enough in that out-of-the-way spot – or he might have been a little self-forgetful and eccentric. Anyone could have seen directly, that he had neither wife nor child at home. He had a scholarly air with him, and that kind of considerate humanity towards others which claimed a gentle consideration for himself. Mr. Goodchild made this study of him while he was examining the limb, and as he laid it down. Mr. Goodchild wishes to add that he considers it a very good likeness.

It came out in the course of a little conversation, that Doctor Speddie was acquainted with some friends of Thomas Idle’s, and had, when a young man, passed some years in Thomas Idle’s birthplace on the other side of England. Certain idle labours, the fruit of Mr. Goodchild’s apprenticeship, also happened to be well known to him. The lazy travellers were thus placed on a more intimate footing with the Doctor than the casual circumstances of the meeting would of themselves have established; and when Doctor Speddie rose to go home, remarking that he would send his assistant with the lotion, Francis Goodchild said that was unnecessary, for, by the Doctor’s leave, he would accompany him, and bring it back. (Having done nothing to fatigue himself for a full quarter of an hour, Francis began to fear that he was not in a state of idleness.)

Doctor Speddie politely assented to the proposition of Francis Goodchild, “as it would give him the pleasure of enjoying a few more minutes of Mr. Goodchild’s society than he could otherwise have hoped for,” and they went out together into the village street. The rain had nearly ceased, the clouds had broken before a cool wind from the north-east, and stars were shining from the peaceful heights beyond them.

Doctor Speddie’s house was the last house in the place. Beyond it, lay the moor, all dark and lonesome. The wind moaned in a low, dull, shivering manner round the little garden, like a houseless creature that knew the winter was coming. It was exceedingly wild and solitary. “Roses,” said the Doctor, when Goodchild touched some wet leaves overhanging the stone porch; “but they get cut to pieces.”

The Doctor opened the door with a key he carried, and led the way into a low but pretty ample hall with rooms on either side. The door of one of these stood open, and the Doctor entered it, with a word of welcome to his guest. It, too, was a low room, half surgery and half parlour, with shelves of books and bottles against the walls, which were of a very dark hue. There was a fire in the grate, the night being damp and chill. Leaning against the chimney-piece looking down into it, stood the Doctor’s Assistant.

A man of a most remarkable appearance. Much older than Mr. Goodchild had expected, for he was at least two-and-fifty; but, that was nothing. What was startling in him was his remarkable paleness. His large black eyes, his sunken cheeks, his long and heavy iron-grey hair, his wasted hands, and even the attenuation of his figure, were at first forgotten in his extraordinary pallor. There was no vestige of colour in the man. When he turned his face, Francis Goodchild started as if a stone figure had looked round at him.

“Mr. Lorn,” said the Doctor. “Mr. Goodchild.”

The Assistant, in a distraught way – as if he had forgotten something – as if he had forgotten everything, even to his own name and himself – acknowledged the visitor’s presence, and stepped further back into the shadow of the wall behind him. But, he was so pale that his face stood out in relief again the dark wall, and really could not be hidden so.

“Mr. Goodchild’s friend has met with accident, Lorn,” said Doctor Speddie. “We want the lotion for a bad sprain.”

A pause.

“My dear fellow, you are more than usually absent tonight. The lotion for a bad sprain.”

“Ah! yes! Directly.”

He was evidently relieved to turn away, and to take his white face and his wild eyes to a table in a recess among the bottles. But, though he stood there, compounding the lotion with his back towards them, Goodchild could not, for many moments, withdraw his gaze from the man. When he at length did so, he found the Doctor observing him, with some trouble in his face. “He is absent,” explained the Doctor, in a low voice. “Always absent. Very absent.”

“Is he ill?”

“No, not ill.”

“Unhappy?”

“I have my suspicions that he was,” assented the Doctor, “once.”

Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting glance at their subject, in which there was much of the expression with which an attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted son. Yet, that they were not father and son must have been plain to most eyes. The Assistant, on the other hand, turning presently to ask the Doctor some question, looked at him with a wan smile as if he were his whole reliance and sustainment in life.

It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy-chair, to try to lead the mind of Mr. Goodchild in the opposite easy-chair, away from what was before him. Let Mr. Goodchild do what he would to follow the Doctor, his eyes and thoughts reverted to the Assistant. The Doctor soon perceived it, and, after falling silent, and musing in a little perplexity, said:

“Lorn!”

“My dear Doctor.”

“Would you go to the Inn, and apply that lotion? You will show the best way of applying it, far better than Mr. Goodchild can.”

“With pleasure.”

The Assistant took his hat, and passed like a shadow to the door.

“Lorn!” said the Doctor, calling after him.

He returned.

“Mr. Goodchild will keep me company till you come home. Don’t hurry. Excuse my calling you back.”

“It is not,” said the Assistant, with his former smile, “the first time you have called me back, dear Doctor.” With those words he went away.

“Mr. Goodchild,” said Doctor Speddie, in a low voice, and with his former troubled expression of face, “I have seen that your attention has been concentrated on my friend.”

“He fascinates me. I must apologise to you, but he has quite bewildered and mastered me.”

“I find that a lonely existence and a long secret,” said the Doctor, drawing his chair a little nearer to Mr. Goodchild’s, “become in the course of time very heavy. I will tell you something. You may make what use you will of it, under fictitious names. I know I may trust you. I am the more inclined to confidence tonight, through having been unexpectedly led back, by the current of our conversation at the Inn, to scenes in my early life. Will you please to draw a little nearer?”

Mr. Goodchild drew a little nearer, and the Doctor went on thus: speaking, for the most part, in so cautious a voice, that the wind, though it was far from high, occasionally got the better of him.

•   •   •

When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many years than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur Holliday, happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster, exactly in the middle of a race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of the month of September. He was one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and open-mouthed young gentlemen, who possess the gift of familiarity in its highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the journey of life making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed property enough in one of the midland counties to make all the born squires in his neighbourhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son, possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great business after his father’s death; well supplied with money, and not too rigidly looked after, during his father’s lifetime. Report, or scandal, whichever you please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild in his youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not disposed to be violently indignant when he found that his son took after him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr. Holliday when he was getting on in years; and then he was as quiet and as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with.

Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to Doncaster, having decided all of a sudden, in his harebrained way, that he would go to the races. He did not reach the town till towards the close of the evening, and he went at once to see about his dinner and bed at the principal hotel. Dinner they were ready enough to give him; but as for a bed, they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race-week at Doncaster, it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not bespoken apartments, to pass the night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower sort of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time, sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep under. Rich as he was, Arthur’s chance of getting a night’s lodging (seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more than doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third hotel, and two of the inferior inns after that; and was met everywhere by the same form of answer. No accommodation for the night of any sort was left. All the bright golden sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at Doncaster in the race-week.

To a young fellow of Arthur’s temperament, the novelty of being turned away into the street, like a penniless vagabond, at every house where he asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light of a new and highly amusing piece of experience. He went on, with his carpetbag in his hand, applying for a bed at every place of entertainment for travellers that he could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts of the town. By this time, the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon was rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds were gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was soon going to rain.

The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young Holliday’s good spirits. He began to contemplate the houseless situation in which he was placed, from the serious rather than the humorous point of view; and he looked about him, for another public-house to inquire at, with something very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a lodging for the night. The suburban part of the town towards which he had now strayed was hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing of the houses as he passed them, except that they got progressively smaller and dirtier, the farther he went. Down the winding road before him shone the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint, lonely light that struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round him. He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him nothing in the shape of an Inn, to return to the central part of the town and to try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on, through the night, at one of the principal Hotels.

As he got near the lamp, he heard voices; and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing with a lean forefinger, to this inscription:

THE TWO ROBINS

Arthur turned into the court without hesitation, to see what The Two Robins could do for him. Four or five men were standing together round the door of the house which was at the bottom of the court, facing the entrance from the street. The men were all listening to one other man, better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience something, in a low voice, in which they were apparently very much interested.

On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house.

“No,” said the traveller with the knapsack, turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the passage. “No, Mr. landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but, I don’t mind confessing that I can’t quite stand that.”

It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at The Two Robins; and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it. The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other benighted traveller should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head.

“If you have got a bed to let,” he said, “and if that gentleman who has just gone out won’t pay your price for it, I will.”

The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur.

“Will you, sir?” he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way.

“Name your price,” said young Holliday, thinking that the landlord’s hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him. “Name your price, and I’ll give you the money at once if you like?”

“Are you game for five shillings?” inquired the landlord, rubbing his stubbly double chin, and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling above him.

Arthur nearly laughed in the man’s face; but thinking it prudent to control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously as he could. The sly landlord held out his hand, then suddenly drew it back again.

“You’re acting all fair and aboveboard by me,” he said: “and, before I take your money, I’ll do the same by you. Look here, this is how it stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for five shillings; but you can’t have more than a half-share of the room it stands in. Do you see what I mean, young gentleman?”

“Of course I do,” returned Arthur, a little irritably. “You mean that it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is occupied?”

The landlord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin harder than ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved back a step or two towards the door. The idea of sleeping in the same room with a total stranger, did not present an attractive prospect to him. He felt more than half inclined to drop his five shillings into his pocket, and to go out into the street once more.

“Is it yes, or no?” asked the landlord. “Settle it as quick as you can, because there’s lots of people wanting a bed at Doncaster tonight, besides you.”

Arthur looked towards the court, and heard the rain falling heavily in the street outside. He thought he would ask a question or two before he rashly decided on leaving the shelter of The Two Robins.

“What sort of a man is it who has got the other bed?” he inquired. “Is he a gentleman? I mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?”

“The quietest man I ever came across,” said the landlord, rubbing his fat hands stealthily one over the other. “As sober as a judge, and as regular as clock-work in his habits. It hasn’t struck nine, not ten minutes ago, and he’s in his bed already. I don’t know whether that comes up to your notion of a quiet man: it goes a long way ahead of mine, I can tell you.”

“Is he asleep, do you think?” asked Arthur.

“I know he’s asleep,” returned the landlord. “And what’s more, he’s gone off so fast, that I’ll warrant you don’t wake him. This way, sir,” said the landlord, speaking over young Holliday’s shoulder, as if he was addressing some new guest who was approaching the house.

“Here you are,” said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the stranger, whoever he might be. “I’ll take the bed.” And he handed the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket, and lighted the candle.

“Come up and see the room,” said the host of The Two Robins, leading the way to the staircase quite briskly, considering how fat he was.

They mounted to the second-floor of the house. The landlord half opened a door, fronting the landing, then stopped, and turned round to Arthur.

“It’s a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours,” he said. “You give me five shillings, I give you in return a clean, comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that you won’t be interfered with, or annoyed in any way, by the man who sleeps in the same room as you.” Saying those words, he looked hard, for a moment, in young Holliday’s face, and then led the way into the room.

It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would be. The two beds stood parallel with each other – a space of about six feet intervening between them. They were both of the same medium size, and both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round them. The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains were all drawn round this, except the half curtain at the bottom, on the side of the bed farthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced softly to draw the curtain – stopped half-way, and listened for a moment – then turned to the landlord.

“He’s a very quiet sleeper,” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said the landlord, “very quiet.”

Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at the man cautiously.

“How pale he is!” said Arthur.

“Yes,” returned the landlord, “pale enough, isn’t he?”

Arthur looked closer at the man. The bedclothes were drawn up to his chin, and they lay perfectly still over the region of his chest. Surprised and vaguely startled, as he noticed this, Arthur stooped down closer over the stranger; looked at his ashy, parted lips; listened breathlessly for an instant; looked again at the strangely still face, and the motionless lips and chest; and turned round suddenly on the landlord, with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the hollow cheeks of the man on the bed.

“Come here,” he whispered, under his breath. “Come here, for God’s sake! The man’s not asleep – he is dead!”

“You have found that out sooner than I thought you would,” said the landlord, composedly. “Yes, he’s dead, sure enough. He died at five o’clock today.”

“How did he die? Who is he?” asked Arthur, staggered, for a moment, by the audacious coolness of the answer.

“As to who is he,” rejoined the landlord, “I know no more about him than you do. There are his books and letters and things, all sealed up in that brown-paper parcel, for the Coroner’s inquest to open tomorrow or next day. He’s been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and stopping indoors, for the most part, as if he was ailing. My girl brought him up his tea at five today; and as he was pouring of it out, he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a compound of both, for anything I know. We could not bring him to – and I said he was dead. And the doctor couldn’t bring him to – and the doctor said he was dead. And there he is. And the Coroner’s inquest’s coming as soon as it can. And that’s as much as I know about it.”

Arthur held the candle close to the man’s lips. The flame still burnt straight up, as steadily as before. There was a moment of silence; and the rain pattered drearily through it against the panes of the window.

“If you haven’t got nothing more to say to me,” continued the landlord, “I suppose I may go. You don’t expect your five shillings back, do you? There’s the bed I promised you, clean and comfortable. There’s the man I warranted not to disturb you, quiet in this world forever. If you’re frightened to stop alone with him, that’s not my look out. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I’m not Yorkshire, myself, young gentleman; but I’ve lived long enough in these parts to have my wits sharpened; and I shouldn’t wonder if you found out the way to brighten up yours, next time you come amongst us.” With these words, the landlord turned towards the door, and laughed to himself softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness.

Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time sufficiently recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick that had been played on him, and at the insolent manner in which the landlord exulted in it.

“Don’t laugh,” he said sharply, “till you are quite sure you have got the laugh against me. You shan’t have the five shillings for nothing, my man. I’ll keep the bed.”

“Will you?” said the landlord. “Then I wish you a goodnight’s rest.” With that brief farewell, he went out, and shut the door after him.

A good night’s rest! The words had hardly been spoken, the door had hardly been closed, before Arthur half-repented the hasty words that had just escaped him. Though not naturally over-sensitive, and not wanting in courage of the moral as well as the physical sort, the presence of the dead man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his mind when he found himself alone in the room – alone, and bound by his own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An older man would have thought nothing of those words, and would have acted, without reference to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too young to treat the ridicule, even of his inferiors, with contempt – too young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own foolish boast, more than he feared the trial of watching out the long night in the same chamber with the dead.

“It is but a few hours,” he thought to himself, “and I can get away the first thing in the morning.”

He was looking towards the occupied bed as that idea passed through his mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the clothes by the dead man’s upturned feet again caught his eye. He advanced and drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it. “Poor fellow,” he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the man. “Ah, poor fellow!”

He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily against the glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the house; remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the court and the buildings over it.

While he was still standing at the window – for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it – while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house was astir the next morning?

Under any other circumstances, he would have gone down to the public-house parlour, would have called for his grog, and would have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the time in this manner was distasteful to him. The new situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer, and no trials to face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he treasured. Till this night, what share he had of the immortal inheritance that is divided amongst us all, had laid dormant within him. Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought.

He took a few turns up and down the room – then stopped. The noise made by his boots on the poorly carpeted floor, jarred on his ear. He hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and walking backwards and forwards noiselessly. All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The bare thought of lying down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on his mind of a dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man. Who was he? What was the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he would not have stopped at such a place as The Two Robins Inn – and weakened, probably, by long illness, or he could hardly have died in the manner in which the landlord had described. Poor, ill, lonely, – dead in a strange place; dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad story: truly, on the mere face of it, a very sad story.

While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had stopped insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot of the bed with the closed curtains. At first he looked at it absently; then he became conscious that his eyes were fixed on it; and then, a perverse desire took possession of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not to do, up to this time – to look at the dead man.

He stretched out his hand towards the curtains; but checked himself in the very act of undrawing them, turned his back sharply on the bed, and walked towards the chimney-piece, to see what things were placed on it, and to try if he could keep the dead man out of his mind in that way.

There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some mildewed remains of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse china ornaments of the commonest kind; and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and flyblown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all sorts of zig-zag directions, and in variously coloured inks. He took the card, and went away, to read it, to the table on which the candle was placed; sitting down, with his back resolutely turned to the curtained bed.

He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one corner of the card – then turned it round impatiently to look at another. Before he could begin reading the riddles printed here, the sound of the church-clock stopped him. Eleven. He had got through an hour of the time, in the room with the dead man.

Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make out the letters printed on it, in consequence of the dimness of the light which the landlord had left him – a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time, his mind had been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of the candle unsnuffed, till it had risen higher than the flame, and had burnt into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of the charred cotton fell off, from time to time, in little flakes. He took up the snuffers now, and trimmed the wick. The light brightened directly, and the room became less dismal.

Again he turned to the riddles; reading them doggedly and resolutely, now in one corner of the card, now in another. All his efforts, however, could not fix his attention on them. He pursued his occupation mechanically, deriving no sort of impression from what he was reading. It was as if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind and the gaily printed letters – a shadow that nothing could dispel. At last, he gave up the struggle, and threw the card from him impatiently, and took to walking softly up and down the room again.

The dead man, the dead man, the hidden dead man on the bed! There was the one persistent idea still haunting him. Hidden? Was it only the body being there, or was it the body being there, concealed, that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the window, with that doubt in him; once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking out into the black darkness.

Still the dead man! The darkness forced his mind back upon itself, and set his memory at work, reviving, with a painfully-vivid distinctness the momentary impression it had received from the first sight of the corpse. Before long the face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness, confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter, with the dreadful dull line of light between the imperfectly-closed eyelids broader than he had seen it – with the parted lips slowly dropping farther and farther away from each other – with the features growing larger and moving closer, till they seemed to fill the window and to silence the rain, and to shut out the night.

The sound of a voice, shouting below-stairs, woke him suddenly from the dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognised it as the voice of the landlord. “Shut up at twelve, Ben,” he heard it say. “I’m off to bed.”

He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead, reasoned with himself for a little while, and resolved to shake his mind free of the ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it, by forcing himself to confront, if it was only for a moment, the solemn reality. Without allowing himself an instant to hesitate, he parted the curtains at the foot of the bed, and looked through.

There was a sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change there! He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the curtains again – but that moment steadied him, calmed him, restored him – mind and body – to himself.

He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the room; persevering in it, this time, till the clock struck again. Twelve.

As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by the confused noise, downstairs, of the drinkers in the taproom leaving the house. The next sound, after an interval of silence, was caused by the barring of the door, and the closing of the shutters, at the back of the Inn. Then the silence followed again, and was disturbed no more.

He was alone now – absolutely, utterly, alone with the dead man, till the next morning.

The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the snuffers – but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and looked attentively at the candle – then back, over his shoulder, at the curtained bed – then again at the candle. It had been lighted, for the first time, to show him the way upstairs, and three parts of it, at least, were already consumed. In another hour it would be burnt out. In another hour – unless he called at once to the man who had shut up the Inn, for a fresh candle – he would be left in the dark.

Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered his room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule, and of exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost its influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the door, and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut up the Inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he closed them a hair’s breadth too low. In an instant the candle was out, and the room was plunged in pitch darkness.

The one impression which the absence of light immediately produced on his mind, was distrust of the curtained bed – distrust which shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was powerful enough in its very vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to make his heart beat fast, and to set him listening intently. No sound stirred in the room but the familiar sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper now than he had heard it yet.

Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed him, and kept him to his chair. He had put his carpetbag on the table, when he first entered the room; and he now took the key from his pocket, reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, and groped in it for his travelling writing-case, in which he knew that there was a small store of matches. When he had got one of the matches, he waited before he struck it on the coarse wooden table, and listened intently again, without knowing why. Still there was no sound in the room but the steady, ceaseless, rattling sound of the rain.

He lighted the candle again, without another moment of delay and, on the instant of its burning up, the first object in the room that his eyes sought for was the curtained bed.

Just before the light had been put out, he had looked in that direction, and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort, in the folds of the closely-drawn curtains.

When he looked at the bed, now, he saw, hanging over the side of it, a long white hand.

It lay perfectly motionless, midway on the side of the bed, where the curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot met. Nothing more was visible. The clinging curtains hid everything but the long white hand.

He stood looking at it unable to stir, unable to call out; feeling nothing, knowing nothing, every faculty he possessed gathered up and lost in the one seeing faculty. How long that first panic held him he never could tell afterwards. It might have been only for a moment; it might have been for many minutes together. How he got to the bed – whether he ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly – how he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look in, he never has remembered, and never will remember to his dying day. It is enough that he did go to the bed, and that he did look inside the curtains.

The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the clothes; his face was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids were wide open. Changed as to position, and as to one of the features, the face was, otherwise, fearfully and wonderfully unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead quiet were on it still

One glance showed Arthur this – one glance, before he flew breathlessly to the door, and alarmed the house.

The man whom the landlord called “Ben,” was the first to appear on the stairs. In three words, Arthur told him what had happened, and sent him for the nearest doctor.

I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his patients for him, during his absence in London; and I, for the time being, was the nearest doctor. They had sent for me from the Inn, when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon; but I was not at home, and medical assistance was sought for elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed. Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about “a dead man who had come to life again.” However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative medicine, and ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit.

My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth was almost, if not quite, equalled by my astonishment at finding myself face to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the bedroom. It was no time then for giving or seeking explanations. We just shook hands amazedly; and then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room, and hurried to the man on the bed.

The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot water in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these, with my medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render under my direction, I dragged the man, literally, out of the jaws of death. In less than an hour from the time when I had been called in, he was alive and talking in the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the Coroner’s inquest.

You will naturally ask me, what had been the matter with him; and I might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully sprinkled with, what the children call, hard words. I prefer telling you that, in this case, cause and effect could not be satisfactorily joined together by any theory whatever. There are mysteries in life, and the condition of it, which human science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to you, that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally speaking, groping haphazard in the dark. I know (from the testimony of the doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that the vital machinery, so far as its action is appreciable by our senses, had, in this case, unquestionably stopped; and I am equally certain (seeing that I recovered him) that the vital principle was not extinct. When I add, that he had suffered from a long and complicated illness, and that his whole nervous system was utterly deranged, I have told you all I really know of the physical condition of my dead-alive patient at The Two Robins Inn.

When he “came to,” as the phrase goes, he was a startling object to look at, with his colourless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked me about himself, when he could speak, made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise; and he told me that I was right.

He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been attached to a hospital. That he had lately returned to England, on his way to Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that he had been taken ill on the journey; and that he had stopped to rest and recover himself at Doncaster. He did not add a word about his name, or who he was: and, of course, I did not question him on the subject. All I inquired, when he ceased speaking, was what branch of the profession he intended to follow.

“Any branch,” he said, bitterly, “which will put bread into the mouth of a poor man.”

At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humoured way:-

“My dear fellow!” (everybody was “my dear fellow” with Arthur) “now you have come to life again, don’t begin by being down-hearted about your prospects. I’ll answer for it, I can help you to some capital thing in the medical line – or, if I can’t, I know my father can.”

The medical student looked at him steadily.

“Thank you,” he said, coldly. Then added, “May I ask who your father is?”

“He’s well enough known all about this part of the country,” replied Arthur. “He is a great manufacturer, and his name is Holliday.”

My hand was on the man’s wrist during this brief conversation. The instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I felt the pulse under my fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly with a bound, and beat afterwards, for a minute or two, at the fever rate.

“How did you come here?” asked the stranger, quickly, excitably, passionately almost.

Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his first taking the bed at the inn.

“I am indebted to Mr. Holliday’s son then for the help that has saved my life,” said the medical student, speaking to himself, with a singular sarcasm in his voice. “Come here!”

He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony, right hand.

“With all my heart,” said Arthur, taking the hand-cordially. “I may confess it now,” he continued, laughing. “Upon my honour, you almost frightened me out of my wits.”

The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes were fixed with a look of eager interest on Arthur’s face, and his long bony fingers kept tight hold of Arthur’s hand. Young Holliday, on his side, returned the gaze, amazed and puzzled by the medical student’s odd language and manners. The two faces were close together; I looked at them; and, to my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense of a likeness between them – not in features, or complexion, but solely in expression. It must have been a strong likeness, or I should certainly not have found it out, for I am naturally slow at detecting resemblances between faces.

“You have saved my life,” said the strange man, still looking hard in Arthur’s face, still holding tightly by his hand. “If you had been my own brother, you could not have done more for me than that.”

He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words “my own brother,” and a change passed over his face as he pronounced them, – a change that no language of mine is competent to describe.

“I hope I have not done being of service to you yet,” said Arthur. “I’ll speak to my father, as soon as I get home.”

“You seem to be fond and proud of your father,” said the medical student. “I suppose, in return, he is fond and proud of you?”

“Of course, he is!” answered Arthur, laughing. “Is there anything wonderful in that? Isn’t your father fond—”

The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday’s hand, and turned his face away.

“I beg your pardon,” said Arthur. “I hope I have not unintentionally pained you. I hope you have not lost your father.”

“I can’t well lose what I have never had,” retorted the medical student, with a harsh, mocking laugh.

“What you have never had!”

The strange man suddenly caught Arthur’s hand again, suddenly looked once more hard in his face.

“Yes,” he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh. “You have brought a poor devil back into the world, who has no business there. Do I astonish you? Well! I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men in my situation generally keep a secret. I have no name and no father. The merciful law of Society tells me I am Nobody’s Son! Ask your father if he will be my father too, and help me on in life with the family name.”

Arthur looked at me, more puzzled than ever. I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the man’s wrist. No! In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get light-headed. His pulse, by this time, had fallen back to a quiet, slow beat, and his skin was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or agitation about him.

Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and began talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking my advice about the future course of medical treatment to which he ought to subject himself. I said the matter required careful thinking over, and suggested that I should submit certain prescriptions to him the next morning. He told me to write them at once, as he would, most likely, be leaving Doncaster, in the morning, before I was up. It was quite useless to represent to him the folly and danger of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely and patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any reasons or any explanations, and repeated to me, that if I wished to give him a chance of seeing my prescription, I must write it at once. Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the loan of a travelling writing-case, which, he said, he had with him; and, bringing it to the bed, shook the notepaper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual careless way. With the paper, there fell out on the counterpane of the bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-colour drawing of a landscape.

The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it. His eye fell on some initials neatly written, in cypher, in one corner. He started and trembled; his pale face grew whiter than ever; his wild black eyes turned on Arthur, and looked through and through him.

“A pretty drawing,” he said in a remarkably quiet tone of voice.

“Ah! and done by such a pretty girl,” said Arthur. “Oh, such a pretty girl! I wish it was not a landscape – I wish it was a portrait of her!”

“You admire her very much?”

Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for answer.

“Love at first sight!” he said, putting the drawing away again. “But the course of it doesn’t run smooth. It’s the old story. She’s monopolised as usual. Trammelled by a rash engagement to some poor man who is never likely to get money enough to marry her. It was lucky I heard of it in time, or I should certainly have risked a declaration when she gave me that drawing. Here, doctor! Here is pen, ink, and paper all ready for you.”

“When she gave you that drawing? Gave it. Gave it.” He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed his eyes. A momentary distortion passed across his face, and I saw one of his hands clutch up the bedclothes and squeeze them hard. I thought he was going to be ill again, and begged that there might be no more talking. He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once more searchingly on Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly, “You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may die out of your way. Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well as her drawing, after all?”

Before young Holliday could answer, he turned to me, and said in a whisper, “Now for the prescription.” From that time, though he spoke to Arthur again, he never looked at him more.

When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved of it, and then astonished us both by abruptly wishing us good night. I offered to sit up with him, and he shook his head. Arthur offered to sit up with him, and he said, shortly, with his face turned away, “No.” I insisted on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way when he found I was determined, and said he would accept the services of the waiter at the Inn.

“Thank you, both,” he said, as we rose to go. “I have one last favour to ask – not of you, doctor, for I leave you to exercise your professional discretion – but of Mr. Holliday.” His eyes, while he spoke, still rested steadily on me, and never once turned towards Arthur. “I beg that Mr. Holliday will not mention to anyone – least of all to his father – the events that have occurred, and the words that have passed, in this room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory, as, but for him, I might have been buried in my grave. I cannot give my reasons for making this strange request. I can only implore him to grant it.”

His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on the pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the required pledge. I took young Holliday away with me, immediately afterwards, to the house of my friend; determining to go back to the Inn, and to see the medical student again before he had left in the morning.

I returned to the Inn at eight o’clock, purposely abstaining from waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night’s excitement on one of my friend’s sofas. A suspicion had occurred to me as soon as I was alone in my bedroom, which made me resolve that Holliday and the stranger whose life he had saved should not meet again, if I could prevent it. I have already alluded to certain reports, or scandals, which I knew of, relating to the early life of Arthur’s father. While I was thinking, in my bed, of what had passed at the Inn – of the change in the student’s pulse when he heard the name of Holliday; of the resemblance of expression that I had discovered between his face and Arthur’s; of the emphasis he had laid on those three words, “my own brother;” and of his incomprehensible acknowledgement of his own illegitimacy – while I was thinking of these things, the reports I have mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and linked themselves fast to the chain of my previous reflections. Something within me whispered, “It is best that those two young men should not meet again.” I felt it before I slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went, as I told you, alone to the Inn the next morning.

I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient again. He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him.

•   •   •

I have now told you everything that I know for certain, in relation to the man whom I brought back to life in the double-bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What I have next to add is matter for inference and surmise, and is not, strictly speaking, matter of fact.

I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out to be strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more than probable that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who had given him the water-colour drawing of the landscape. That marriage took place a little more than a year after the events occurred which I have just been relating. The young couple came to live in the neighbourhood in which I was then established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and was rather surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved with me, both before and after his marriage, on the subject of the young lady’s prior engagement. He only referred to it once, when we were alone, merely telling me, on that occasion, that his wife had done all that honour and duty required of her in the matter, and that the engagement had been broken off with the full approval of her parents. I never heard more from him than this. For three years he and his wife lived together happily. At the expiration of that time, the symptoms of a serious illness first declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her throughout. We had been great friends when she was well, and we became more attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many long and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when she suffered least. The result of one of these conversations I may briefly relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it that you please.

The interview to which I refer, occurred shortly before her death. I called one evening, as usual, and found her alone, with a look in her eyes which told me that she had been crying. She only informed me at first, that she had been depressed in spirits; but, by little and little, she became more communicative, and confessed to me that she had been looking over some old letters, which had been addressed to her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had been engaged to be married. I asked her how the engagement came to be broken off. She replied that it had not been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious way. The person to whom she was engaged – her first love, she called him – was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of their being married. He followed my profession, and went abroad to study. They had corresponded regularly, until the time when, as she believed, he had returned to England. From that period she heard no more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament; and she feared that she might have inadvertently done or said something that offended him. However that might be, he had never written to her again; and, after waiting a year, she had married Arthur. I asked when the first estrangement had begun, and found that the time at which she ceased to hear anything of her first lover exactly corresponded with the time at which I had been called in to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins Inn.

A fortnight after that conversation, she died. In course of time, Arthur married again. Of late years, he has lived principally in London, and I have seen little or nothing of him.

I have many years to pass over before I can approach to anything like a conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And even when that later period is reached, the little that I have to say will not occupy your attention for more than a few minutes. Between six and seven years ago, the gentleman to whom I introduced you in this room, came to me, with good professional recommendations, to fill the position of my assistant. We met, not like strangers, but like friends – the only difference between us being, that I was very much surprised to see him, and that he did not appear to be at all surprised to see me. If he was my son or my brother, I believe he could not be fonder of me than he is; but he has never volunteered any confidences since he has been here, on the subject of his past life. I saw something that was familiar to me in his face when we first met; and yet it was also something that suggested the idea of change. I had a notion once that my patient at the Inn might be a natural son of Mr. Holliday’s; I had another idea that he might also have been the man who was engaged to Arthur’s first wife; and I have a third idea, still clinging to me, that Mr. Lorn is the only man in England who could really enlighten me, if he chose, on both those doubtful points. His hair is not black, now, and his eyes are dimmer than the piercing eyes that I remember, but, for all that, he is very like the nameless medical student of my young days – very like him. And, sometimes, when I come home late at night, and find him asleep, and wake him, he looks, in coming to, wonderfully like the stranger at Doncaster, as he raised himself in the bed on that memorable night!

•   •   •

The Doctor paused. Mr. Goodchild, who had been following every word that fell from his lips up to this time, leaned forward eagerly to ask a question. Before he could say a word, the latch of the door was raised, without any warning sound of footsteps in the passage outside. A long, white, bony hand appeared through the opening, gently pushing the door, which was prevented from working freely on its hinges by a fold in the carpet under it.

“That hand! Look at that hand, Doctor!” said Mr. Goodchild, touching him.

At the same moment, the Doctor looked at Mr. Goodchild, and whispered to him, significantly:

“Hush! he has come back.”

•  III  •

The Cumberland Doctor’s mention of Doncaster Races, inspired Mr. Francis Goodchild with the idea of going down to Doncaster to see the races. Doncaster being a good way off, and quite out of the way of the Idle Apprentices (if anything could be out of their way, who had no way), it necessarily followed that Francis perceived Doncaster in the race-week to be, of all possible idleness, the particular idleness that would completely satisfy him.

Thomas, with an enforced idleness grafted on the natural and voluntary power of his disposition, was not of this mind; objecting that a man compelled to lie on his back on a floor, a sofa, a table, a line of chairs, or anything he could get to lie upon, was not in racing condition, and that he desired nothing better than to lie where he was, enjoying himself in looking at the flies on the ceiling. But, Francis Goodchild, who had been walking round his companion in a circuit of twelve miles for two days, and had begun to doubt whether it was reserved for him ever to be idle in his life, not only overpowered this objection, but even converted Thomas Idle to a scheme he formed (another idle inspiration), of conveying the said Thomas to the sea-coast, and putting his injured leg under a stream of salt-water.

Plunging into this happy conception headforemost, Mr. Goodchild immediately referred to the county-map, and ardently discovered that the most delicious piece of sea-coast to be found within the limits of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands, all summed up together, was Allonby on the coast of Cumberland. There was the coast of Scotland opposite to Allonby, said Mr. Goodchild with enthusiasm; there was a fine Scottish mountain on that Scottish coast; there were Scottish lights to be seen shining across the glorious Channel, and at Allonby itself there was every idle luxury (no doubt) that a watering-place could offer to the heart of idle man. Moreover, said Mr. Goodchild, with his finger on the map, this exquisite retreat was approached by a coach-road, from a railway-station called Aspatria – a name, in a manner, suggestive of the departed glories of Greece, associated with one of the most engaging and most famous of Greek women. On this point, Mr. Goodchild continued at intervals to breathe a vein of classic fancy and eloquence exceedingly irksome to Mr. Idle, until it appeared that the honest English pronunciation of that Cumberland country shortened Aspatria into “Spatter.” After this supplementary discovery, Mr. Goodchild said no more about it.

By way of Spatter, the crippled Idle was carried, hoisted, pushed, poked, and packed, into and out of carriages, into and out of beds, into and out of tavern resting-places, until he was brought at length within sniff of the sea. And now, behold the apprentices gallantly riding into Allonby in a one-horse fly, bent upon staying in that peaceful marine valley until the turbulent Doncaster time shall come round upon the wheel, in its turn among what are in sporting registers called the “Fixtures” for the month.

“Do you see Allonby!” asked Thomas Idle.

“I don’t see it yet,” said Francis, looking out of window.

“It must be there,” said Thomas Idle.

“I don’t see it,” returned Francis.

“It must be there,” repeated Thomas Idle, fretfully.

“Lord bless me!” exclaimed Francis, drawing in his head, “I suppose this is it!”

“A watering-place,” retorted Thomas Idle, with the pardonable sharpness of an invalid, “can’t be five gentlemen in straw hats, on a form on one side of a door, and four ladies in hats and falls, on a form on another side of a door, and three geese in a dirty little brook before them, and a boy’s legs hanging over a bridge (with a boy’s body I suppose on the other side of the parapet), and a donkey running away. What are you talking about?”

“Allonby, gentlemen,” said the most comfortable of landladies as she opened one door of the carriage; “Allonby, gentlemen,” said the most attentive of landlords, as he opened the other.

Thomas Idle yielded his arm to the ready Goodchild, and descended from the vehicle. Thomas, now just able to grope his way along, in a doubled-up condition, with the aid of two thick sticks, was no bad embodiment of Commodore Trunnion, or of one of those many gallant Admirals of the stage, who have all ample fortunes, gout, thick sticks, tempers, wards, and nephews. With this distinguished naval appearance upon him, Thomas made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-headed staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where he slowly deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either hand of him, looking exceedingly grim.

“Francis,” said Thomas Idle, “what do you think of this place?”

“I think,” returned Mr. Goodchild, in a glowing way, “it is everything we expected.”

“Hah!” said Thomas Idle.

“There is the sea,” cried Mr. Goodchild, pointing out of window; “and here,” pointing to the lunch on the table, “are shrimps. Let us—” here Mr. Goodchild looked out of window, as if in search of something, and looked in again, – “let us eat ’em.”

The shrimps eaten and the dinner ordered, Mr. Goodchild went out to survey the watering-place. As Chorus of the Drama, without whom Thomas could make nothing of the scenery, he by-and-by returned, to have the following report screwed out of him.

In brief, it was the most delightful place ever seen.

“But,” Thomas Idle asked, “where is it?”

“It’s what you may call generally up and down the beach, here and there,” said Mr. Goodchild, with a twist of his hand.

“Proceed,” said Thomas Idle.

It was, Mr. Goodchild went on to say, in cross-examination, what you might call a primitive place. Large? No, it was not large. Who ever expected it would be large? Shape? What a question to ask! No shape. What sort of a street? Why, no street. Shops? Yes, of course (quite indignant). How many? Who ever went into a place to count the shops? Ever so many. Six? Perhaps. A library? Why, of course (indignant again). Good collection of books? Most likely – couldn’t say – had seen nothing in it but a pair of scales. Any reading-room? Of course, there was a reading-room. Where? Where! why, over there. Where was over there? Why, there! Let Mr. Idle carry his eye to that bit of waste ground above high-water mark, where the rank grass and loose stones were most in a litter; and he would see a sort of long, ruinous brick loft, next door to a ruinous brick out-house, which loft had a ladder outside, to get up by. That was the reading-room, and if Mr. Idle didn’t like the idea of a weaver’s shuttle throbbing under a reading-room, that was his look out. He was not to dictate, Mr. Goodchild supposed (indignant again), to the company.

“By-the-by,” Thomas Idle observed; “the company?”

Well! (Mr. Goodchild went on to report) very nice company. Where were they? Why, there they were. Mr. Idle could see the tops of their hats, he supposed. What? Those nine straw hats again, five gentlemen’s and four ladies’? Yes, to be sure. Mr. Goodchild hoped the company were not to be expected to wear helmets, to please Mr. Idle.

Beginning to recover his temper at about this point, Mr. Goodchild voluntarily reported that if you wanted to be primitive, you could be primitive here, and that if you wanted to be idle, you could be idle here. In the course of some days, he added, that there were three fishing-boats, but no rigging, and that there were plenty of fishermen who never fished. That they got their living entirely by looking at the ocean. What nourishment they looked out of it to support their strength, he couldn’t say; but, he supposed it was some sort of Iodine. The place was full of their children, who were always upside down on the public buildings (two small bridges over the brook), and always hurting themselves or one another, so that their wailings made more continual noise in the air than could have been got in a busy place. The houses people lodged in, were nowhere in particular, and were in capital accordance with the beach; being all more or less cracked and damaged as its shells were, and all empty – as its shells were. Among them, was an edifice of destitute appearance, with a number of wall-eyed windows in it, looking desperately out to Scotland as if for help, which said it was a Bazaar (and it ought to know), and where you might buy anything you wanted – supposing what you wanted, was a little camp-stool or a child’s wheelbarrow. The brook crawled or stopped between the houses and the sea, and the donkey was always running away, and when he got into the brook he was pelted out with stones, which never hit him, and which always hit some of the children who were upside down on the public buildings, and made their lamentations louder. This donkey was the public excitement of Allonby, and was probably supported at the public expense.

The foregoing descriptions, delivered in separate items, on separate days of adventurous discovery, Mr. Goodchild severally wound up, by looking out of window, looking in again, and saying, “But there is the sea, and here are the shrimps – let us eat ’em.”

There were fine sunsets at Allonby when the low flat beach, with its pools of water and its dry patches, changed into long bars of silver and gold in various states of burnishing, and there were fine views – on fine days – of the Scottish coast. But, when it rained at Allonby, Allonby thrown back upon its ragged self, became a kind of place which the donkey seemed to have found out, and to have his highly sagacious reasons for wishing to bolt from. Thomas Idle observed, too, that Mr. Goodchild, with a noble show of disinterestedness, became every day more ready to walk to Maryport and back, for letters; and suspicions began to harbour in the mind of Thomas, that his friend deceived him, and that Maryport was a preferable place.

Therefore, Thomas said to Francis on a day when they had looked at the sea and eaten the shrimps, “My mind misgives me, Goodchild, that you go to Maryport, like the boy in the story-book, to ask it to be idle with you.”

“Judge, then,” returned Francis, adopting the style of the story-book, “with what success. I go to a region which is a bit of water-side Bristol, with a slice of Wapping, a seasoning of Wolverhampton, and a garnish of Portsmouth, and I say, ‘Will you come and be idle with me?’ And it answers, ‘No; for I am a great deal too vaporous, and a great deal too rusty, and a great deal too muddy, and a great deal too dirty altogether; and I have ships to load, and pitch and tar to boil, and iron to hammer, and steam to get up, and smoke to make, and stone to quarry, and fifty other disagreeable things to do, and I can’t be idle with you.’ Then I go into jagged uphill and downhill streets, where I am in the pastry-cook’s shop at one moment, and next moment in savage fastnesses of moor and morass, beyond the confines of civilisation, and I say to those murky and black-dusty streets, ‘Will you come and be idle with me?’ To which they reply, ‘No, we can’t, indeed, for we haven’t the spirits, and we are startled by the echo of your feet on the sharp pavement, and we have so many goods in our shop-windows which nobody wants, and we have so much to do for a limited public which never comes to us to be done for, that we are altogether out of sorts and can’t enjoy ourselves with anyone.’ So I go to the Post-office, and knock at the shutter, and I say to the Post-master, ‘Will you come and be idle with me?’ To which he rejoins, ‘No, I really can’t, for I live, as you may see, in such a very little Post-office, and pass my life behind such a very little shutter, that my hand, when I put it out, is as the hand of a giant crammed through the window of a dwarf’s house at a fair, and I am a mere Post-office anchorite in a cell much too small for him, and I can’t get out, and I can’t get in, and I have no space to be idle in, even if I would.’ So, the boy,” said Mr. Goodchild, concluding the tale, “comes back with the letters after all, and lives happy never afterwards.”

But it may, not unreasonably, be asked – while Francis Goodchild was wandering hither and thither, storing his mind with perpetual observation of men and things, and sincerely believing himself to be the laziest creature in existence all the time – how did Thomas Idle, crippled and confined to the house, contrive to get through the hours of the day?

Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through him. Where other men in his situation would have read books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his body. Where other men would have pondered anxiously over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed lazily of his past life. The one solitary thing he did, which most other people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence, as soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken him had all passed away. Remembering that the current of his life had hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream of laziness, occasionally troubled on the surface by a slight passing ripple of industry, his present ideas on the subject of self-reform, inclined him – not as the reader may be disposed to imagine, to project schemes for a new existence of enterprise and exertion – but, on the contrary, to resolve that he would never, if he could possibly help it, be active or industrious again, throughout the whole of his future career.

It is due to Mr. Idle to relate that his mind sauntered towards this peculiar conclusion on distinct and logically-producible grounds. After reviewing, quite at his ease, and with many needful intervals of repose, the generally-placid spectacle of his past existence, he arrived at the discovery that all the great disasters which had tried his patience and equanimity in early life, had been caused by his having allowed himself to be deluded into imitating some pernicious example of activity and industry that had been set him by others. The trials to which he here alludes were three in number, and may be thus reckoned up: First, the disaster of being an unpopular and a thrashed boy at school; secondly, the disaster of falling seriously ill; thirdly, the disaster of becoming acquainted with a great bore.

The first disaster occurred after Thomas had been an idle and a popular boy at school, for some happy years. One Christmas-time, he was stimulated by the evil example of a companion, whom he had always trusted and liked, to be untrue to himself, and to try for a prize at the ensuing half-yearly examination. He did try, and he got a prize – how, he did not distinctly know at the moment, and cannot remember now. No sooner, however, had the book – Moral Hints to the Young on the Value of Time – been placed in his hands, than the first troubles of his life began. The idle boys deserted him, as a traitor to their cause. The industrious boys avoided him, as a dangerous interloper; one of their number, who had always won the prize on previous occasions, expressing just resentment at the invasion of his privileges by calling Thomas into the playground, and then and there administering to him the first sound and genuine thrashing that he had ever received in his life. Unpopular from that moment, as a beaten boy, who belonged to no side and was rejected by all parties, young Idle soon lost caste with his masters, as he had previously lost caste with his schoolfellows. He had forfeited the comfortable reputation of being the one lazy member of the youthful community whom it was quite hopeless to punish. Never again did he hear the headmaster say reproachfully to an industrious boy who had committed a fault, “I might have expected this in Thomas Idle, but it is inexcusable, sir, in you, who know better.” Never more, after winning that fatal prize, did he escape the retributive imposition, or the avenging birch. From that time, the masters made him work, and the boys would not let him play. From that time his social position steadily declined, and his life at school became a perpetual burden to him.

So, again, with the second disaster. While Thomas was lazy, he was a model of health. His first attempt at active exertion and his first suffering from severe illness are connected together by the intimate relations of cause and effect. Shortly after leaving school, he accompanied a party of friends to a cricket-field, in his natural and appropriate character of spectator only. On the ground it was discovered that the players fell short of the required number, and facile Thomas was persuaded to assist in making up the complement. At a certain appointed time, he was roused from peaceful slumber in a dry ditch, and placed before three wickets with a bat in his hand. Opposite to him, behind three more wickets, stood one of his bosom friends, filling the situation (as he was informed) of bowler. No words can describe Mr. Idle’s horror and amazement, when he saw this young man – on ordinary occasions, the meekest and mildest of human beings – suddenly contract his eye-brows, compress his lips, assume the aspect of an infuriated savage, run back a few steps, then run forward, and, without the slightest previous provocation, hurl a detestably hard ball with all his might straight at Thomas’s legs. Stimulated to preternatural activity of body and sharpness of eye by the instinct of self-preservation, Mr. Idle contrived, by jumping deftly aside at the right moment, and by using his bat (ridiculously narrow as it was for the purpose) as a shield, to preserve his life and limbs from the dastardly attack that had been made on both, to leave the full force of the deadly missile to strike his wicket instead of his leg; and to end the innings, so far as his side was concerned, by being immediately bowled out. Grateful for his escape, he was about to return to the dry ditch, when he was peremptorily stopped, and told that the other side was “going in,” and that he was expected to “field.” His conception of the whole art and mystery of “fielding,” may be summed up in the three words of serious advice which he privately administered to himself on that trying occasion – avoid the ball. Fortified by this sound and salutary principle, he took his own course, impervious alike to ridicule and abuse. Whenever the ball came near him, he thought of his shins, and got out of the way immediately. “Catch it!”  “Stop it!”  “Pitch it up!” were cries that passed by him like the idle wind that he regarded not. He ducked under it, he jumped over it, he whisked himself away from it on either side. Never once, through the whole innings did he and the ball come together on anything approaching to intimate terms. The unnatural activity of body which was necessarily called forth for the accomplishment of this result threw Thomas Idle, for the first time in his life, into a perspiration. The perspiration, in consequence of his want of practice in the management of that particular result of bodily activity, was suddenly checked; the inevitable chill succeeded; and that, in its turn, was followed by a fever. For the first time since his birth, Mr. Idle found himself confined to his bed for many weeks together, wasted and worn by a long illness, of which his own disastrous muscular exertion had been the sole first cause.

The third occasion on which Thomas found reason to reproach himself bitterly for the mistake of having attempted to be industrious, was connected with his choice of a calling in life. Having no interest in the Church, he appropriately selected the next best profession for a lazy man in England – the Bar. Although the Benchers of the Inns of Court have lately abandoned their good old principles, and oblige their students to make some show of studying, in Mr. Idle’s time no such innovation as this existed. Young men who aspired to the honourable title of barrister were, very properly, not asked to learn anything of the law, but were merely required to eat a certain number of dinners at the table of their Hall, and to pay a certain sum of money; and were called to the Bar as soon as they could prove that they had sufficiently complied with these extremely sensible regulations. Never did Thomas move more harmoniously in concert with his elders and betters than when he was qualifying himself for admission among the barristers of his native country. Never did he feel more deeply what real laziness was in all the serene majesty of its nature, than on the memorable day when he was called to the Bar, after having carefully abstained from opening his law-books during his period of probation, except to fall asleep over them. How he could ever again have become industrious, even for the shortest period, after that great reward conferred upon his idleness, quite passes his comprehension. The kind Benchers did everything they could to show him the folly of exerting himself. They wrote out his probationary exercise for him, and never expected him even to take the trouble of reading it through when it was written. They invited him, with seven other choice spirits as lazy as himself, to come and be called to the Bar, while they were sitting over their wine and fruit after dinner. They put his oaths of allegiance, and his dreadful official denunciations of the Pope and the Pretender, so gently into his mouth, that he hardly knew how the words got there. They wheeled all their chairs softly round from the table, and sat surveying the young barristers with their backs to their bottles, rather than stand up, or adjourn to hear the exercises read. And when Mr. Idle and the seven unlabouring neophytes, ranged in order, as a class, with their backs considerately placed against a screen, had begun, in rotation, to read the exercises which they had not written, even then, each Bencher, true to the great lazy principle of the whole proceeding, stopped each neophyte before he had stammered through his first line, and bowed to him, and told him politely that he was a barrister from that moment. This was all the ceremony. It was followed by a social supper, and by the presentation, in accordance with ancient custom, of a pound of sweetmeats and a bottle of Madeira, offered in the way of needful refreshment, by each grateful neophyte to each beneficent Bencher. It may seem inconceivable that Thomas should ever have forgotten the great do-nothing principle instilled by such a ceremony as this; but it is, nevertheless, true, that certain designing students of industrious habits found him out, took advantage of his easy humour, persuaded him that it was discreditable to be a barrister and to know nothing whatever about the law, and lured him, by the force of their own evil example, into a conveyancer’s chambers, to make up for lost time, and to qualify himself for practice at the Bar. After a fortnight of self-delusion, the curtain fell from his eyes; he resumed his natural character, and shut up his books. But the retribution which had hitherto always followed his little casual errors of industry followed them still. He could get away from the conveyancer’s chambers, but he could not get away from one of the pupils, who had taken a fancy to him, – a tall, serious, raw-boned, hard-working, disputatious pupil, with ideas of his own about reforming the Law of Real Property, who has been the scourge of Mr. Idle’s existence ever since the fatal day when he fell into the mistake of attempting to study the law. Before that time his friends were all sociable idlers like himself. Since that time the burden of bearing with a hard-working young man has become part of his lot in life. Go where he will now, he can never feel certain that the raw-boned pupil is not affectionately waiting for him round a corner, to tell him a little more about the Law of Real Property. Suffer as he may under the infliction, he can never complain, for he must always remember, with unavailing regret, that he has his own thoughtless industry to thank for first exposing him to the great social calamity of knowing a bore.

These events of his past life, with the significant results that they brought about, pass drowsily through Thomas Idle’s memory, while he lies alone on the sofa at Allonby and elsewhere, dreaming away the time which his fellow-apprentice gets through so actively out of doors. Remembering the lesson of laziness which his past disasters teach, and bearing in mind also the fact that he is crippled in one leg because he exerted himself to go up a mountain, when he ought to have known that his proper course of conduct was to stop at the bottom of it, he holds now, and will for the future firmly continue to hold, by his new resolution never to be industrious again, on any pretence whatever, for the rest of his life. The physical results of his accident have been related in a previous chapter. The moral results now stand on record; and, with the enumeration of these, that part of the present narrative which is occupied by the Episode of The Sprained Ankle may now perhaps be considered, in all its aspects, as finished and complete.

“How do you propose that we get through this present afternoon and evening?” demanded Thomas Idle, after two or three hours of the foregoing reflections at Allonby.

Mr. Goodchild faltered, looked out of window, looked in again, and said, as he had so often said before, “There is the sea, and here are the shrimps; – let us eat ’em!”

But, the wise donkey was at that moment in the act of bolting: not with the irresolution of his previous efforts which had been wanting in sustained force of character, but with real vigour of purpose: shaking the dust off his mane and hind-feet at Allonby, and tearing away from it, as if he had nobly made up his mind that he never would be taken alive. At sight of this inspiring spectacle, which was visible from his sofa, Thomas Idle stretched his neck and dwelt upon it rapturously.

“Francis Goodchild,” he then said, turning to his companion with a solemn air, “this is a delightful little Inn, excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and the most attentive of landlords, but – the donkey’s right!”

The words, “There is the sea, and here are the—” again trembled on the lips of Goodchild, unaccompanied however by any sound.

“Let us instantly pack the portmanteaus,” said Thomas Idle, “pay the bill, and order a fly out, with instructions to the driver to follow the donkey!”

Mr. Goodchild, who had only wanted encouragement to disclose the real state of his feelings, and who had been pining beneath his weary secret, now burst into tears, and confessed that he thought another day in the place would be the death of him.

So, the two idle apprentices followed the donkey until the night was far advanced. Whether he was recaptured by the town-council, or is bolting at this hour through the United Kingdom, they know not. They hope he may be still bolting; if so, their best wishes are with him.

It entered Mr. Idle’s head, on the borders of Cumberland, that there could be no idler place to stay at, except by snatches of a few minutes each, than a railway station. “An intermediate station on a line – a junction – anything of that sort,” Thomas suggested. Mr. Goodchild approved of the idea as eccentric, and they journeyed on and on, until they came to such a station where there was an Inn.

“Here,” said Thomas, “we may be luxuriously lazy; other people will travel for us, as it were, and we shall laugh at their folly.”

It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors before mentioned shaved the air very often, and where the sharp electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition. All manner of cross-lines of rails came zig-zagging into it, like a Congress of iron vipers; and, a little way out of it, a pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going through the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer at a public-house bar. In one direction, confused perspectives of embankments and arches were to be seen from the platform; in the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two tracks and shot away under a bridge, and curved round a corner. Sidings were there, in which empty luggage-vans and cattle-boxes often butted against each other as if they couldn’t agree; and warehouses were there, in which great quantities of goods seemed to have taken the veil (of the consistency of tarpaulin), and to have retired from the world without any hope of getting back to it. Refreshment-rooms were there; one, for the hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives where their coke and water were ready, and of good quality, for they were dangerous to play tricks with; the other, for the hungry and thirsty human Locomotives, who might take what they could get, and whose chief consolation was provided in the form of three terrific urns or vases of white metal, containing nothing, each forming a breastwork for a defiant and apparently much-injured woman.

Established at this Station, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild resolved to enjoy it. But, its contrasts were very violent, and there was also an infection in it.

First, as to its contrasts. They were only two, but they were Lethargy and Madness. The Station was either totally unconscious, or wildly raving. By day, in its unconscious state, it looked as if no life could come to it, – as if it were all rust, dust, and ashes – as if the last train forever, had gone without issuing any Return-Tickets – as if the last Engine had uttered its last shriek and burst. One awkward shave of the air from the wooden razor, and everything changed. Tight office-doors flew open, panels yielded, books, newspapers, travelling-caps and wrappers broke out of brick walls, money chinked, conveyances oppressed by nightmares of luggage came careering into the yard, porters started up from secret places, ditto the much-injured women, the shining bell, who lived in a little tray on stilts by himself, flew into a man’s hand and clamoured violently. The pointsman aloft in the signal-box made the motions of drawing, with some difficulty, hogsheads of beer. Down Train! More bear! Up Train! More beer. Cross junction Train! More beer! Cattle Train! More beer. Goods Train! Simmering, whistling, trembling, rumbling, thundering. Trains on the whole confusion of intersecting rails, crossing one another, bumping one another, hissing one another, backing to go forward, tearing into distance to come close. People frantic. Exiles seeking restoration to their native carriages, and banished to remoter climes. More beer and more bell. Then, in a minute, the Station relapsed into stupor as the stoker of the Cattle Train, the last to depart, went gliding out of it, wiping the long nose of his oil-can with a dirty pocket-handkerchief.

By night, in its unconscious state, the Station was not so much as visible. Something in the air, like an enterprising chemist’s established in business on one of the boughs of Jack’s beanstalk, was all that could be discerned of it under the stars. In a moment it would break out, a constellation of gas. In another moment, twenty rival chemists, on twenty rival beanstalks, came into existence. Then, the Furies would be seen, waving their lurid torches up and down the confused perspectives of embankments and arches – would be heard, too, wailing and shrieking. Then, the Station would be full of palpitating trains, as in the day; with the heightening difference that they were not so clearly seen as in the day, whereas the Station walls, starting forward under the gas, like a hippopotamus’s eyes, dazzled the human locomotives with the sauce-bottle, the cheap music, the bedstead, the distorted range of buildings where the patent safes are made, the gentleman in the rain with the registered umbrella, the lady returning from the ball with the registered respirator, and all their other embellishments. And now, the human locomotives, creased as to their countenances and purblind as to their eyes, would swarm forth in a heap, addressing themselves to the mysterious urns and the much-injured women; while the iron locomotives, dripping fire and water, shed their steam about plentifully, making the dull oxen in their cages, with heads depressed, and foam hanging from their mouths as their red looks glanced fearfully at the surrounding terrors, seem as though they had been drinking at half-frozen waters and were hung with icicles. Through the same steam would be caught glimpses of their fellow-travellers, the sheep, getting their white kid faces together, away from the bars, and stuffing the interstices with trembling wool. Also, down among the wheels, of the man with the sledge-hammer, ringing the axles of the fast night-train; against whom the oxen have a misgiving that he is the man with the pole-axe who is to come by-and-by, and so the nearest of them try to get back, and get a purchase for a thrust at him through the bars. Suddenly, the bell would ring, the steam would stop with one hiss and a yell, the chemists on the beanstalks would be busy, the avenging Furies would bestir themselves, the fast night-train would melt from eye and ear, the other trains going their ways more slowly would be heard faintly rattling in the distance like old-fashioned watches running down, the sauce-bottle and cheap music retired from view, even the bedstead went to bed, and there was no such visible thing as the Station to vex the cool wind in its blowing, or perhaps the autumn lightning, as it found out the iron rails.

The infection of the Station was this: When it was in its raving state, the Apprentices found it impossible to be there, without labouring under the delusion that they were in a hurry. To Mr. Goodchild, whose ideas of idleness were so imperfect, this was no unpleasant hallucination, and accordingly that gentleman went through great exertions in yielding to it, and running up and down the platform, jostling everybody, under the impression that he had a highly important mission somewhere, and had not a moment to lose. But, to Thomas Idle, this contagion was so very unacceptable an incident of the situation, that he struck on the fourth day, and requested to be moved.

“This place fills me with a dreadful sensation,” said Thomas, “of having something to do. Remove me, Francis.”

“Where would you like to go next?” was the question of the ever-engaging Goodchild.

“I have heard there is a good old Inn at Lancaster, established in a fine old house: an Inn where they give you Bride-cake every day after dinner,” said Thomas Idle. “Let us eat Bride-cake without the trouble of being married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma.”

Mr. Goodchild, with a lover’s sigh, assented. They departed from the Station in a violent hurry (for which, it is unnecessary to observe, there was not the least occasion), and were delivered at the fine old house at Lancaster, on the same night.

It is Mr. Goodchild’s opinion, that if a visitor on his arrival at Lancaster could be accommodated with a pole which would push the opposite side of the street some yards farther off, it would be better for all parties. Protesting against being required to live in a trench, and obliged to speculate all day upon what the people can possibly be doing within a mysterious opposite window, which is a shop-window to look at, but not a shop-window in respect of its offering nothing for sale and declining to give any account whatever of itself, Mr. Goodchild concedes Lancaster to be a pleasant place. A place dropped in the midst of a charming landscape, a place with a fine ancient fragment of castle, a place of lovely walks, a place possessing staid old houses richly fitted with old Honduras mahogany, which has grown so dark with time that it seems to have got something of a retrospective mirror-quality into itself, and to show the visitor, in the depth of its grain, through all its polish, the hue of the wretched slaves who groaned long ago under old Lancaster merchants. And Mr. Goodchild adds that the stones of Lancaster do sometimes whisper, even yet, of rich men passed away – upon whose great prosperity some of these old doorways frowned sullen in the brightest weather – that their slave-gain turned to curses, as the Arabian Wizard’s money turned to leaves, and that no good ever came of it, even unto the third and fourth generations, until it was wasted and gone.

It was a gallant sight to behold, the Sunday procession of the Lancaster elders to Church – all in black, and looking fearfully like a funeral without the Body – under the escort of Three Beadles.

“Think,” said Francis, as he stood at the Inn window, admiring, “of being taken to the sacred edifice by three Beadles! I have, in my early time, been taken out of it by one Beadle; but, to be taken into it by three, O Thomas, is a distinction I shall never enjoy!”

•  IV  •

When Mr. Goodchild had looked out of the Lancaster Inn window for two hours on end, with great perseverance, he begun to entertain a misgiving that he was growing industrious. He therefore set himself next, to explore the country from the tops of all the steep hills in the neighbourhood.

He came back at dinnertime, red and glowing, to tell Thomas Idle what he had seen. Thomas, on his back reading, listened with great composure, and asked him whether he really had gone up those hills, and bothered himself with those views, and walked all those miles?

“Because I want to know,” added Thomas, “what you would say of it, if you were obliged to do it?”

“It would be different, then,” said Francis. “It would be work, then; now, it’s play.”

“Play!” replied Thomas Idle, utterly repudiating the reply. “Play! Here is a man goes systematically tearing himself to pieces, and putting himself through an incessant course of training, as if he were always under articles to fight a match for the champion’s belt, and he calls it Play! Play!” exclaimed Thomas Idle, scornfully contemplating his one boot in the air. “You can’t play. You don’t know what it is. You make work of everything.”

The bright Goodchild amiably smiled.

“So you do,” said Thomas. “I mean it. To me you are an absolutely terrible fellow. You do nothing like another man. Where another fellow would fall into a footbath of action or emotion, you fall into a mine. Where any other fellow would be a painted butterfly, you are a fiery dragon. Where another man would stake a sixpence, you stake your existence. If you were to go up in a balloon, you would make for Heaven; and if you were to dive into the depths of the earth, nothing short of the other place would content you. What a fellow you are, Francis!” The cheerful Goodchild laughed.

“It’s all very well to laugh, but I wonder you don’t feel it to be serious,” said Idle. “A man who can do nothing by halves appears to me to be a fearful man.”

“Tom, Tom,” returned Goodchild, “if I can do nothing by halves, and be nothing by halves, it’s pretty clear that you must take me as a whole, and make the best of me.”

With this philosophical rejoinder, the airy Goodchild clapped Mr. Idle on the shoulder in a final manner, and they sat down to dinner.

“By-the-by,” said Goodchild, “I have been over a lunatic asylum too, since I have been out.”

“He has been,” exclaimed Thomas Idle, casting up his eyes, “over a lunatic asylum! Not content with being as great an Ass as Captain Barclay in the pedestrian way, he makes a Lunacy Commissioner of himself – for nothing!”

“An immense place,” said Goodchild, “admirable offices, very good arrangements, very good attendants; altogether a remarkable place.”

“And what did you see there?” asked Mr. Idle, adapting Hamlet’s advice to the occasion, and assuming the virtue of interest, though he had it not.

“The usual thing,” said Francis Goodchild, with a sigh. “Long groves of blighted men-and-women-trees; interminable avenues of hopeless faces; numbers, without the slightest power of really combining for any earthly purpose; a society of human creatures who have nothing in common but that they have all lost the power of being humanly social with one another.”

“Take a glass of wine with me,” said Thomas Idle, “and let us be social.”

“In one gallery, Tom,” pursued Francis Goodchild, “which looked to me about the length of the Long Walk at Windsor, more or less—”

“Probably less,” observed Thomas Idle.

“In one gallery, which was otherwise clear of patients (for they were all out), there was a poor little dark-chinned, meagre man, with a perplexed brow and a pensive face, stooping low over the matting on the floor, and picking out with his thumb and forefinger the course of its fibres. The afternoon sun was slanting in at the large end-window, and there were cross patches of light and shade all down the vista, made by the unseen windows and the open doors of the little sleeping-cells on either side. In about the centre of the perspective, under an arch, regardless of the pleasant weather, regardless of the solitude, regardless of approaching footsteps, was the poor little dark-chinned, meagre man, poring over the matting. ‘What are you doing there?’ said my conductor, when we came to him. He looked up, and pointed to the matting. ‘I wouldn’t do that, I think,’ said my conductor, kindly; ‘if I were you, I would go and read, or I would lie down if I felt tired; but I wouldn’t do that.’ The patient considered a moment, and vacantly answered, ‘No, sir, I won’t; I’ll – I’ll go and read,’ and so he lamely shuffled away into one of the little rooms. I turned my head before we had gone many paces. He had already come out again, and was again poring over the matting, and tracking out its fibres with his thumb and forefinger. I stopped to look at him, and it came into my mind, that probably the course of those fibres as they plaited in and out, over and under, was the only course of things in the whole wide world that it was left to him to understand – that his darkening intellect had narrowed down to the small cleft of light which showed him, ‘This piece was twisted this way, went in here, passed under, came out there, was carried on away here to the right where I now put my finger on it, and in this progress of events, the thing was made and came to be here.’ Then, I wondered whether he looked into the matting, next, to see if it could show him anything of the process through which he came to be there, so strangely poring over it. Then, I thought how all of us, GOD help us! in our different ways are poring over our bits of matting, blindly enough, and what confusions and mysteries we make in the pattern. I had a sadder fellow-feeling with the little dark-chinned, meagre man, by that time, and I came away.”

Mr. Idle diverting the conversation to grouse, custards, and bride-cake, Mr. Goodchild followed in the same direction. The bride-cake was as bilious and indigestible as if a real Bride had cut it, and the dinner it completed was an admirable performance.

The house was a genuine old house of a very quaint description, teeming with old carvings, and beams, and panels, and having an excellent old staircase, with a gallery or upper staircase, cut off from it by a curious fence-work of old oak, or of the old Honduras Mahogany wood. It was, and is, and will be, for many a long year to come, a remarkably picturesque house; and a certain grave mystery lurking in the depth of the old mahogany panels, as if they were so many deep pools of dark water – such, indeed, as they had been much among when they were trees – gave it a very mysterious character after nightfall.

When Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle had first alighted at the door, and stepped into the sombre, handsome old hall, they had been received by half-a-dozen noiseless old men in black, all dressed exactly alike, who glided up the stairs with the obliging landlord and waiter – but without appearing to get into their way, or to mind whether they did or no – and who had filed off to the right and left on the old staircase, as the guests entered their sitting-room. It was then broad, bright day. But, Mr. Goodchild had said, when their door was shut, “Who on earth are those old men?” And afterwards, both on going out and coming in, he had noticed that there were no old men to be seen.

Neither, had the old men, or any one of the old men, reappeared since. The two friends had passed a night in the house, but had seen nothing more of the old men. Mr. Goodchild, in rambling about it, had looked along passages, and glanced in at doorways, but had encountered no old men; neither did it appear that any old men were, by any member of the establishment, missed or expected.

Another odd circumstance impressed itself on their attention. It was, that the door of their sitting-room was never left untouched for a quarter of an hour. It was opened with hesitation, opened with confidence, opened a little way, opened a good way, – always clapped-to again without a word of explanation. They were reading, they were writing, they were eating, they were drinking, they were talking, they were dozing; the door was always opened at an unexpected moment, and they looked towards it, and it was clapped-to again, and nobody was to be seen. When this had happened fifty times or so, Mr. Goodchild had said to his companion, jestingly: “I begin to think, Tom, there was something wrong with those six old men.”

Night had come again, and they had been writing for two or three hours: writing, in short, a portion of the lazy notes from which these lazy sheets are taken. They had left off writing, and glasses were on the table between them. The house was closed and quiet. Around the head of Thomas Idle, as he lay upon his sofa, hovered light wreaths of fragrant smoke. The temples of Francis Goodchild, as he leaned back in his chair, with his two hands clasped behind his head, and his legs crossed, were similarly decorated.

They had been discussing several idle subjects of speculation, not omitting the strange old men, and were still so occupied, when Mr. Goodchild abruptly changed his attitude to wind up his watch. They were just becoming drowsy enough to be stopped in their talk by any such slight check. Thomas Idle, who was speaking at the moment, paused and said, “How goes it?”

“One,” said Goodchild.

As if he had ordered One old man, and the order were promptly executed (truly, all orders were so, in that excellent hotel), the door opened, and One old man stood there.

He did not come in, but stood with the door in his hand.

“One of the six, Tom, at last!” said Mr. Goodchild, in a surprised whisper. – “Sir, your pleasure?”

“Sir, your pleasure?” said the One old man.

“I didn’t ring.”

“The bell did,” said the One old man.

He said BELL, in a deep, strong way, that would have expressed the church Bell.

“I had the pleasure, I believe, of seeing you, yesterday?” said Goodchild.

“I cannot undertake to say for certain,” was the grim reply of the One old man.

“I think you saw me? Did you not?”

“Saw you?” said the old man. “O yes, I saw you. But, I see many who never see me.”

A chilled, slow, earthy, fixed old man. A cadaverous old man of measured speech. An old man who seemed as unable to wink, as if his eyelids had been nailed to his forehead. An old man whose eyes – two spots of fire – had no more motion than if they had been connected with the back of his skull by screws driven through it, and riveted and bolted outside, among his grey hair.

The night had turned so cold, to Mr. Goodchild’s sensations, that he shivered. He remarked lightly, and half apologetically, “I think somebody is walking over my grave.”

“No,” said the weird old man, “there is no one there.”

Mr. Goodchild looked at Idle, but Idle lay with his head enwreathed in smoke.

“No one there?” said Goodchild.

“There is no one at your grave, I assure you,” said the old man.

He had come in and shut the door, and he now sat down. He did not bend himself to sit, as other people do, but seemed to sink bolt upright, as if in water, until the chair stopped him.

“My friend, Mr. Idle,” said Goodchild, extremely anxious to introduce a third person into the conversation.

“I am,” said the old man, without looking at him, “at Mr. Idle’s service.”

“If you are an old inhabitant of this place,” Francis Goodchild resumed.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you can decide a point my friend and I were in doubt upon, this morning. They hang condemned criminals at the Castle, I believe?”

“I believe so,” said the old man.

“Are their faces turned towards that noble prospect?”

“Your face is turned,” replied the old man, “to the Castle wall. When you are tied up, you see its stones expanding and contracting violently, and a similar expansion and contraction seem to take place in your own head and breast. Then, there is a rush of fire and an earthquake, and the Castle springs into the air, and you tumble down a precipice.”

His cravat appeared to trouble him. He put his hand to his throat, and moved his neck from side to side. He was an old man of a swollen character of face, and his nose was immoveably hitched up on one side, as if by a little hook inserted in that nostril. Mr. Goodchild felt exceedingly uncomfortable, and began to think the night was hot, and not cold.

“A strong description, sir,” he observed.

“A strong sensation,” the old man rejoined.

Again, Mr. Goodchild looked to Mr. Thomas Idle; but Thomas lay on his back with his face attentively turned towards the One old man, and made no sign. At this time Mr. Goodchild believed that he saw threads of fire stretch from the old man’s eyes to his own, and there attach themselves. (Mr. Goodchild writes the present account of his experience, and, with the utmost solemnity, protests that he had the strongest sensation upon him of being forced to look at the old man along those two fiery films, from that moment.)

“I must tell it to you,” said the old man, with a ghastly and a stony stare.

“What?” asked Francis Goodchild.

“You know where it took place. Yonder!”

Whether he pointed to the room above, or to the room below, or to any room in that old house, or to a room in some other old house in that old town, Mr. Goodchild was not, nor is, nor ever can be, sure. He was confused by the circumstance that the right forefinger of the One old man seemed to dip itself in one of the threads of fire, light itself, and make a fiery start in the air, as it pointed somewhere. Having pointed somewhere, it went out.

“You know she was a Bride,” said the old man.

“I know they still send up Bride-cake,” Mr. Goodchild faltered. “This is a very oppressive air.”

•   •   •

She was a Bride, said the old man. She was a fair, flaxen-haired, large-eyed girl, who had no character, no purpose. A weak, credulous, incapable, helpless nothing. Not like her mother. No, no. It was her father whose character she reflected.

Her mother had taken care to secure everything to herself, for her own life, when the father of this girl (a child at that time) died – of sheer helplessness; no other disorder – and then He renewed the acquaintance that had once subsisted between the mother and Him. He had been put aside for the flaxen-haired, large-eyed man (or nonentity) with Money. He could overlook that for Money. He wanted compensation in Money.

So, he returned to the side of that woman the mother, made love to her again, danced attendance on her, and submitted himself to her whims. She wreaked upon him every whim she had, or could invent. He bore it. And the more he bore, the more he wanted compensation in Money, and the more he was resolved to have it.

But, lo! Before he got it, she cheated him. In one of her imperious states, she froze, and never thawed again. She put her hands to her head one night, uttered a cry, stiffened, lay in that attitude certain hours, and died. And he had got no compensation from her in Money, yet. Blight and Murrain on her! Not a penny.

He had hated her throughout that second pursuit, and had longed for retaliation on her. He now counterfeited her signature to an instrument, leaving all she had to leave, to her daughter – ten years old then – to whom the property passed absolutely, and appointing himself the daughter’s Guardian. When He slid it under the pillow of the bed on which she lay, He bent down in the deaf ear of Death, and whispered: “Mistress Pride, I have determined a long time that, dead or alive, you must make me compensation in Money.”

So, now there were only two left. Which two were, He, and the fair flaxen-haired, large-eyed foolish daughter, who afterwards became the Bride.

He put her to school. In a secret, dark, oppressive, ancient house, he put her to school with a watchful and unscrupulous woman. “My worthy lady,” he said, “here is a mind to be formed; will you help me to form it?” She accepted the trust. For which she, too, wanted compensation in Money, and had it.

The girl was formed in the fear of him, and in the conviction, that there was no escape from him. She was taught, from the first, to regard him as her future husband – the man who must marry her – the destiny that overshadowed her – the appointed certainty that could never be evaded. The poor fool was soft white wax in their hands, and took the impression that they put upon her. It hardened with time. It became a part of herself. Inseparable from herself, and only to be torn away from her, by tearing life away from her.

Eleven years she had lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her, and they kept her close. He stopped the wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house-front, the moss to accumulate on the untrimmed fruit-trees in the red-walled garden, the weeds to overrun its green and yellow walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her sole resource.

Thus, by being from her childhood the one embodiment her life presented to her of power to coerce and power to relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendency over her weakness was secured. She was twenty-one years and twenty-one days old, when he brought her home to the gloomy house, his half-witted, frightened, and submissive Bride of three weeks.

He had dismissed the governess by that time – what he had left to do, he could best do alone – and they came back, upon a rain night, to the scene of her long preparation. She turned to him upon the threshold, as the rain was dripping from the porch, and said:

“O sir, it is the Death-watch ticking for me!”

“Well!” he answered. “And if it were?”

“O sir!” she returned to him, “look kindly on me, and be merciful to me! I beg your pardon. I will do anything you wish, if you will only forgive me!”

That had become the poor fool’s constant song: “I beg your pardon,” and “Forgive me!”

She was not worth hating; he felt nothing but contempt for her. But, she had long been in the way, and he had long been weary, and the work was near its end, and had to be worked out.

“You fool,” he said. “Go up the stairs!”

She obeyed very quickly, murmuring, “I will do anything you wish!” When he came into the Bride’s Chamber, having been a little retarded by the heavy fastenings of the great door (for they were alone in the house, and he had arranged that the people who attended on them should come and go in the day), he found her withdrawn to the furthest corner, and there standing pressed against the panelling as if she would have shrunk through it: her flaxen hair all wild about her face, and her large eyes staring at him in vague terror.

“What are you afraid of? Come and sit down by me.”

“I will do anything you wish. I beg your pardon, sir. Forgive me!” Her monotonous tune as usual.

“Ellen, here is a writing that you must write out tomorrow, in your own hand. You may as well be seen by others, busily engaged upon it. When you have written it all fairly, and corrected all mistakes, call in any two people there may be about the house, and sign your name to it before them. Then, put it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when I sit here again tomorrow night, give it to me.”

“I will do it all, with the greatest care. I will do anything you wish.”

“Don’t shake and tremble, then.”

“I will try my utmost not to do it – if you will only forgive me!”

Next day, she sat down at her desk, and did as she had been told. He often passed in and out of the room, to observe her, and always saw her slowly and laboriously writing: repeating to herself the words she copied, in appearance quite mechanically, and without caring or endeavouring to comprehend them, so that she did her task. He saw her follow the directions she had received, in all particulars; and at night, when they were alone again in the same Bride’s Chamber, and he drew his chair to the hearth, she timidly approached him from her distant seat, took the paper from her bosom, and gave it into his hand.

It secured all her possessions to him, in the event of her death. He put her before him, face to face, that he might look at her steadily; and he asked her, in so many plain words, neither fewer nor more, did she know that?

There were spots of ink upon the bosom of her white dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes look larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon the hand with which she stood before him, nervously plaiting and folding her white skirts.

He took her by the arm, and looked her, yet more closely and steadily, in the face. “Now, die! I have done with you.”

She shrunk, and uttered a low, suppressed cry.

“I am not going to kill you. I will not endanger my life for yours. Die!”

He sat before her in the gloomy Bride’s Chamber, day after day, night after night, looking the word at her when he did not utter it. As often as her large unmeaning eyes were raised from the hands in which she rocked her head, to the stern figure, sitting with crossed arms and knitted forehead, in the chair, they read in it, “Die!” When she dropped asleep in exhaustion, she was called back to shuddering consciousness, by the whisper, “Die!” When she fell upon her old entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered “Die!” When she had out-watched and out-suffered the long night, and the rising sun flamed into the sombre room, she heard it hailed with, “Another day and not dead? – Die!”

Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof from all mankind, and engaged alone in such a struggle without any respite, it came to this – that either he must die, or she. He knew it very well, and concentrated his strength against her feebleness. Hours upon hours he held her by the arm when her arm was black where he held it, and bade her Die!

It was done, upon a windy morning, before sunrise. He computed the time to be half-past four; but, his forgotten watch had run down, and he could not be sure. She had broken away from him in the night, with loud and sudden cries – the first of that kind to which she had given vent – and he had had to put his hands over her mouth. Since then, she had been quiet in the corner of the panelling where she had sunk down; and he had left her, and had gone back with his folded arms and his knitted forehead to his chair.

Paler in the pale light, more colourless than ever in the leaden dawn, he saw her coming, trailing herself along the floor towards him – a white wreck of hair, and dress, and wild eyes, pushing itself on by an irresolute and bending hand.

“O, forgive me! I will do anything. O, sir, pray tell me I may live!”

“Die!”

“Are you so resolved? Is there no hope for me?”

“Die!”

Her large eyes strained themselves with wonder and fear; wonder and fear changed to reproach; reproach to blank nothing. It was done. He was not at first so sure it was done, but that the morning sun was hanging jewels in her hair – he saw the diamond, emerald, and ruby, glittering among it in little points, as he stood looking down at her – when he lifted her and laid her on her bed.

She was soon laid in the ground. And now they were all gone, and he had compensated himself well.

He had a mind to travel. Not that he meant to waste his Money, for he was a pinching man and liked his Money dearly (liked nothing else, indeed), but, that he had grown tired of the desolate house and wished to turn his back upon it and have done with it. But, the house was worth Money, and Money must not be thrown away. He determined to sell it before he went. That it might look the less wretched and bring a better price, he hired some labourers to work in the overgrown garden; to cut out the dead wood, trim the ivy that drooped in heavy masses over the windows and gables, and clear the walks in which the weeds were growing mid-leg high.

He worked, himself, along with them. He worked later than they did, and, one evening at dusk, was left working alone, with his bill-hook in his hand. One autumn evening, when the Bride was five weeks dead.

“It grows too dark to work longer,” he said to himself, “I must give over for the night.”

He detested the house, and was loath to enter it. He looked at the dark porch waiting for him like a tomb, and felt that it was an accursed house. Near to the porch, and near to where he stood, was a tree whose branches waved before the old bay-window of the Bride’s Chamber, where it had been done. The tree swung suddenly, and made him start. It swung again, although the night was still. Looking up into it, he saw a figure among the branches.

It was the figure of a young man. The face looked down, as his looked up; the branches cracked and swayed; the figure rapidly descended, and slid upon its feet before him. A slender youth of about her age, with long light brown hair.

“What thief are you?” he said, seizing the youth by the collar.

The young man, in shaking himself free, swung him a blow with his arm across the face and throat. They closed, but the young man got from him and stepped back, crying, with great eagerness and horror, “Don’t touch me! I would as lieve be touched by the Devil!”

He stood still, with his bill-hook in his hand, looking at the young man. For, the young man’s look was the counterpart of her last look, and he had not expected ever to see that again.

“I am no thief. Even if I were, I would not have a coin of your wealth, if it would buy me the Indies. You murderer!”

“What!”

“I climbed it,” said the young man, pointing up into the tree, “for the first time, nigh four years ago. I climbed it, to look at her. I saw her. I spoke to her. I have climbed it, many a time, to watch and listen for her. I was a boy, hidden among its leaves, when from that bay-window she gave me this!”

He showed a tress of flaxen hair, tied with a mourning ribbon.

“Her life,” said the young man, “was a life of mourning. She gave me this, as a token of it, and a sign that she was dead to everyone but you. If I had been older, if I had seen her sooner, I might have saved her from you. But, she was fast in the web when I first climbed the tree, and what could I do then to break it!”

In saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and crying: weakly at first, then passionately.

“Murderer! I climbed the tree on the night when you brought her back. I heard her, from the tree, speak of the Death-watch at the door. I was three times in the tree while you were shut up with her, slowly killing her. I saw her, from the tree, lie dead upon her bed. I have watched you, from the tree, for proofs and traces of your guilt. The manner of it, is a mystery to me yet, but I will pursue you until you have rendered up your life to the hangman. You shall never, until then, be rid of me. I loved her! I can know no relenting towards you. Murderer, I loved her!”

The youth was bareheaded, his hat having fluttered away in his descent from the tree. He moved towards the gate. He had to pass – Him – to get to it. There was breadth for two old-fashioned carriages abreast; and the youth’s abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature of his face and limb of his body, and very hard to bear, had verge enough to keep itself at a distance in. He (by which I mean the other) had not stirred hand or foot, since he had stood still to look at the boy. He faced round, now, to follow him with his eyes. As the back of the bare light-brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch from his hand to it. He knew, before he threw the bill-hook, where it had alighted – I say, had alighted, and not, would alight; for, to his clear perception the thing was done before he did it. It cleft the head, and it remained there, and the boy lay on his face.

He buried the body in the night, at the foot of the tree. As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the ground near the tree, and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When the labourers came, there was nothing suspicious, and nothing suspected.

But, he had, in a moment, defeated all his precautions, and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted, and so successfully worked out. He had got rid of the Bride, and had acquired her fortune without endangering his life; but now, for a death by which he had gained nothing, he had evermore to live with a rope around his neck.

Beyond this, he was chained to the house of gloom and horror, which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced to live in it. He hired two old people, man and wife, for his servants; and dwelt in it, and dreaded it. His great difficulty, for a long time, was the garden. Whether he should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into its former state of neglect, what would be the least likely way of attracting attention to it?

He took the middle course of gardening, himself, in his evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving-man to help him; but, of never letting him work there alone. And he made himself an arbour over against the tree, where he could sit and see that it was safe.

As the seasons changed, and the tree changed, his mind perceived dangers that were always changing. In the leafy time, he perceived that the upper boughs were growing into the form of the young man – that they made the shape of him exactly, sitting in a forked branch swinging in the wind. In the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came down from the tree, forming tell-tale letters on the path, or that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a churchyard mound above the grave. In the winter, when the tree was bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the ghost of the blow the young man had given, and that they threatened him openly. In the spring, when the sap was mounting in the trunk, he asked himself, were the dried-up particles of blood mounting with it: to make out more obviously this year than last, the leaf-screened figure of the young man, swinging in the wind?

However, he turned his Money over and over, and still over. He was in the dark trade, the gold-dust trade, and most secret trades that yielded great returns. In ten years, he had turned his Money over, so many times, that the traders and shippers who had dealings with him, absolutely did not lie – for once – when they declared that he had increased his fortune, Twelve Hundred Per Cent.

He possessed his riches one hundred years ago, when people could be lost easily. He had heard who the youth was, from hearing of the search that was made after him; but, it died away, and the youth was forgotten.

The annual round of changes in the tree had been repeated ten times since the night of the burial at its foot, when there was a great thunderstorm over this place. It broke at midnight, and roared until morning. The first intelligence he heard from his old serving-man that morning, was, that the tree had been struck by Lightning.

It had been riven down the stem, in a very surprising manner, and the stem lay in two blighted shafts: one resting against the house, and one against a portion of the old red garden-wall in which its fall had made a gap. The fissure went down the tree to a little above the earth, and there stopped. There was great curiosity to see the tree, and, with most of his former fears revived, he sat in his arbour – grown quite an old man – watching the people who came to see it.

They quickly began to come, in such dangerous numbers, that he closed his garden-gate and refused to admit any more. But, there were certain men of science who travelled from a distance to examine the tree, and, in an evil hour, he let them in! – Blight and Murrain on them, let them in!

They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived! They offered money for it. They! Men of science, whom he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch of his pen! He showed them the garden-gate again, and locked and barred it.

But they were bent on doing what they wanted to do, and they bribed the old serving-man – a thankless wretch who regularly complained when he received his wages, of being underpaid – and they stole into the garden by night with their lanterns, picks, and shovels, and fell to at the tree. He was lying in a turret-room on the other side of the house (the Bride’s Chamber had been unoccupied ever since), but he soon dreamed of picks and shovels, and got up.

He came to an upper window on that side, whence he could see their lanterns, and them, and the loose earth in a heap which he had himself disturbed and put back, when it was last turned to the air. It was found! They had that minute lighted on it. They were all bending over it. One of them said, “The skull is fractured;” and another, “See here the bones;” and another, “See here the clothes;” and then the first struck in again, and said, “A rusty bill-hook!”

He became sensible, next day, that he was already put under a strict watch, and that he could go nowhere without being followed. Before a week was out, he was taken and laid in hold. The circumstances were gradually pieced together against him, with a desperate malignity, and an appalling ingenuity. But, see the justice of men, and how it was extended to him! He was further accused of having poisoned that girl in the Bride’s Chamber. He, who had carefully and expressly avoided imperilling a hair of his head for her, and who had seen her die of her own incapacity!

There was doubt for which of the two murders he should be first tried; but, the real one was chosen, and he was found Guilty, and cast for death. Bloodthirsty wretches! They would have made him Guilty of anything, so set they were upon having his life.

His money could do nothing to save him, and he was hanged. I am He, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to the wall, a hundred years ago!

•   •   •

At this terrific announcement, Mr. Goodchild tried to rise and cry out. But, the two fiery lines extending from the old man’s eyes to his own, kept him down, and he could not utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute, and he could hear the clock strike Two. No sooner had he heard the clock strike Two, than he saw before him Two old men!

TWO.

The eyes of each, connected with his eyes by two films of fire: each, exactly like the other: each, addressing him at precisely one and the same instant: each, gnashing the same teeth in the same head, with the same twitched nostril above them, and the same suffused expression around it. Two old men. Differing in nothing, equally distinct to the sight, the copy no fainter than the original, the second as real as the first.

“At what time,” said the Two old men, “did you arrive at the door below?”

“At Six.”

“And there were Six old men upon the stairs!”

Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration from his brow, or tried to do it, the Two old men proceeded in one voice, and in the singular number:

•   •   •

I had been anatomised, but had not yet had my skeleton put together and re-hung on an iron hook, when it began to be whispered that the Bride’s Chamber was haunted. It was haunted, and I was there.

We were there. She and I were there. I, in the chair upon the hearth; she, a white wreck again, trailing itself towards me on the floor. But, I was the speaker no more, and the one word that she said to me from midnight until dawn was, “Live!”

The youth was there, likewise. In the tree outside the window. Coming and going in the moonlight, as the tree bent and gave. He has, ever since, been there, peeping in at me in my torment; revealing to me by snatches, in the pale lights and slatey shadows where he comes and goes, bare-headed – a bill-hook, standing edgewise in his hair.

In the Bride’s Chamber, every night from midnight until dawn – one month in the year excepted, as I am going to tell you – he hides in the tree, and she comes towards me on the floor; always approaching; never coming nearer; always visible as if by moon-light, whether the moon shines or no; always saying, from midnight until dawn, her one word, “Live!”

But, in the month wherein I was forced out of this life – this present month of thirty days – the Bride’s Chamber is empty and quiet. Not so my old dungeon. Not so the rooms where I was restless and afraid, ten years. Both are fitfully haunted then. At One in the morning. I am what you saw me when the clock struck that hour – One old man. At Two in the morning, I am Two old men. At Three, I am Three. By Twelve at noon, I am Twelve old men, One for every hundred per cent. of old gain. Every one of the Twelve, with Twelve times my old power of suffering and agony. From that hour until Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men in anguish and fearful foreboding, wait for the coming of the executioner. At Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men turned off, swing invisible outside Lancaster Castle, with Twelve faces to the wall!

When the Bride’s Chamber was first haunted, it was known to me that this punishment would never cease, until I could make its nature, and my story, known to two living men together. I waited for the coming of two living men together into the Bride’s Chamber, years upon years. It was infused into my knowledge (of the means I am ignorant) that if two living men, with their eyes open, could be in the Bride’s Chamber at One in the morning, they would see me sitting in my chair.

At length, the whispers that the room was spiritually troubled, brought two men to try the adventure. I was scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight (I come there as if the Lightning blasted me into being), when I heard them ascending the stairs. Next, I saw them enter. One of them was a bold, gay, active man, in the prime of life, some five and forty years of age; the other, a dozen years younger. They brought provisions with them in a basket, and bottles. A young woman accompanied them, with wood and coals for the lighting of the fire. When she had lighted it, the bold, gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery outside the room, to see her safely down the staircase, and came back laughing.

He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the contents of the basket on the table before the fire – little recking of me, in my appointed station on the hearth, close to him – and filled the glasses, and ate and drank. His companion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as he: though he was the leader. When they had supped, they laid pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to smoke their pipes of foreign make.

They had travelled together, and had been much together, and had an abundance of subjects in common. In the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man made a reference to the leader’s being always ready for any adventure; that one, or any other. He replied in these words:

“Not quite so, Dick; if I am afraid of nothing else, I am afraid of myself.”

His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him, in what sense? How?

“Why, thus,” he returned. “Here is a Ghost to be disproved. Well! I cannot answer for what my fancy might do if I were alone here, or what tricks my senses might play with me if they had me to themselves. But, in company with another man, and especially with Dick, I would consent to outface all the Ghosts that were ever of in the universe.”

“I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much importance tonight,” said the other.

“Of so much,” rejoined the leader, more seriously than he had spoken yet, “that I would, for the reason I have given, on no account have undertaken to pass the night here alone.”

It was within a few minutes of One. The head of the younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and it drooped lower now.

“Keep awake, Dick!” said the leader, gaily. “The small hours are the worst.”

He tried, but his head drooped again.

“Dick!” urged the leader. “Keep awake!”

“I can’t,” he indistinctly muttered. “I don’t know what strange influence is stealing over me. I can’t.”

His companion looked at him with a sudden horror, and I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on the stroke of One, and I felt that the second watcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send him to sleep.

“Get up and walk, Dick!” cried the leader. “Try!”

It was in vain to go behind the slumberer’s chair and shake him. One o’clock sounded, and I was present to the elder man, and he stood transfixed before me.

To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story, without hope of benefit. To him alone, I was an awful phantom making a quite useless confession. I foresee it will ever be the same. The two living men together will never come to release me. When I appear, the senses of one of the two will be locked in sleep; he will neither see nor hear me; my communication will ever be made to a solitary listener, and will ever be unserviceable. Woe! Woe! Woe!

•   •   •

As the Two old men, with these words, wrung their hands, it shot into Mr. Goodchild’s mind that he was in the terrible situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr. Idle’s immoveability was explained by his having been charmed asleep at One o’clock. In the terror of this sudden discovery which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads, that he snapped them, after he had pulled them out to a great width. Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idle from the sofa and rushed downstairs with him.

•   •   •

“What are you about, Francis?” demanded Mr. Idle. “My bedroom is not down here. What the deuce are you carrying me at all for? I can walk with a stick now. I don’t want to be carried. Put me down.”

Mr. Goodchild put him down in the old hall, and looked about him wildly.

“What are you doing? Idiotically plunging at your own sex, and rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?” asked Mr. Idle, in a highly petulant state.

“The One old man!” cried Mr. Goodchild, distractedly, – “and the Two old men!”

Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than “The One old woman, I think you mean,” as he began hobbling his way back up the staircase, with the assistance of its broad balustrade.

“I assure you, Tom,” began Mr. Goodchild, attending at his side, “that since you fell asleep—”

“Come, I like that!” said Thomas Idle, “I haven’t closed an eye!”

With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the disgraceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of all mankind, Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The same peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being taxed with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable resentment. The settlement of the question of The One old man and The Two old men was thus presently complicated, and soon made quite impracticable. Mr. Idle said it was all Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of things seen and thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said how could that be, when he hadn’t been asleep, and what right could Mr. Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr. Idle said he had never been asleep, and never did go to sleep, and that Mr. Goodchild, as a general rule, was always asleep. They consequently parted for the rest of the night, at their bedroom doors, a little ruffled. Mr. Goodchild’s last words were, that he had had, in that real and tangible old sitting-room of that real and tangible old Inn (he supposed Mr. Idle denied its existence?), every sensation and experience, the present record of which is now within a line or two of completion; and that he would write it out and print it every word. Mr. Idle returned that he might if he liked – and he did like, and has now done it.

•  V  •

Two of the many passengers by a certain late Sunday evening train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild, yielded up their tickets at a little rotten platform (converted into artificial touchwood by smoke and ashes), deep in the manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire. A mysterious bosom it appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night, dashed through in the train to the music of the whirling wheels, the panting of the engine, and the part-singing of hundreds of third-class excursionists, whose vocal efforts “bobbed arayound” from sacred to profane, from hymns, to our transatlantic sisters the Yankee Gal and Mairy Anne, in a remarkable way. There seemed to have been some large vocal gathering near to every lonely station on the line. No town was visible, no village was visible, no light was visible; but, a multitude got out singing, and a multitude got in singing, and the second multitude took up the hymns, and adopted our transatlantic sisters, and sang of their own egregious wickedness, and of their bobbing arayound, and of how the ship it was ready and the wind it was fair, and they were bayound for the sea, Mairy Anne, until they in their turn became a getting-out multitude, and were replaced by another getting-in multitude, who did the same. And at every station, the getting-in multitude, with an artistic reference to the completeness of their chorus, incessantly cried, as with one voice while scuffling into the carriages, “We mun aa’ gang toogither!”

The singing and the multitudes had trailed off as the lonely places were left and the great towns were neared, and the way had lain as silently as a train’s way ever can, over the vague black streets of the great gulfs of towns, and among their branchless woods of vague black chimneys. These towns looked, in the cinderous wet, as though they had one and all been on fire and were just put out – a dreary and quenched panorama, many miles long.

Thus, Thomas and Francis got to Leeds; of which enterprising and important commercial centre it may be observed with delicacy, that you must either like it very much or not at all. Next day, the first of the Race-Week, they took train to Doncaster.

And instantly the character, both of travellers and of luggage, entirely changed, and no other business than race-business any longer existed on the face of the earth. The talk was all of horses and “John Scott.” Guards whispered behind their hands to station-masters, of horses and John Scott. Men in cut-away coats and speckled cravats fastened with peculiar pins, and with the large bones of their legs developed under tight trousers, so that they should look as much as possible like horses’ legs, paced up and down by twos at junction-stations, speaking low and moodily of horses and John Scott. The young clergyman in the black strait-waistcoat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, expounded in his peculiar pulpit-accent to the young and lovely Reverend Mrs. Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a few passages of rumour relative to “Oartheth, my love, and Mithter John Eth-COTT.” A bandy vagabond, with a head like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian stable-suit, attending on a horse-box and going about the platforms with a halter hanging round his neck like a Calais burgher of the ancient period much degenerated, was courted by the best society, by reason of what he had to hint, when not engaged in eating straw, concerning “t’harses and Joon Scott.” The engine-driver himself, as he applied one eye to his large stationary double-eye-glass on the engine, seemed to keep the other open, sideways, upon horses and John Scott.

Breaks and barriers at Doncaster Station to keep the crowd off; temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help the crowd on. Forty extra porters sent down for this present blessed Race-Week, and all of them making up their betting-books in the lamp-room or somewhere else, and none of them to come and touch the luggage. Travellers disgorged into an open space, a howling wilderness of idle men. All work but race-work at a stand-still; all men at a stand-still. “Ey my word! Deant ask noon o’ us to help wi’ t’luggage. Bock your opinion loike a mon. Coom! Dang it, coom, t’harses and Joon Scott!” In the midst of the idle men, all the fly horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts adjacent, rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying – apparently the result of their hearing of nothing but their own order and John Scott.

Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-Week. Poses Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up the Stable-Yard at seven and nine each evening, for the Race-Week. Grand Alliance Circus in the field beyond the bridge, for the Race-Week. Grand Exhibition of Aztec Lilliputians, important to all who want to be horrified cheap, for the Race-Week. Lodgings, grand and not grand, but all at grand prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the Grand Race-Week!

Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle and Goodchild repaired to the quarters they had secured beforehand, and Mr. Goodchild looked down from the window into the surging street.

“By Heaven, Tom!” cried he, after contemplating it, “I am in the Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all mad people under the charge of a body of designing keepers!”

All through the Race-Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested himself of this idea. Every day he looked out of window, with something of the dread of Lemuel Gulliver looking down at men after he returned home from the horse-country; and every day he saw the Lunatics, horse-mad, betting-mad, drunken-mad, vice-mad, and the designing Keepers always after them. The idea pervaded, like the second colour in shot-silk, the whole of Mr. Goodchild’s impressions. They were much as follows:

Monday, midday. Races not to begin until tomorrow, but all the mob-Lunatics out, crowding the pavements of the one main street of pretty and pleasant Doncaster, crowding the road, particularly crowding the outside of the Betting Rooms, whooping and shouting loudly after all passing vehicles. Frightened lunatic horses occasionally running away, with infinite clatter. All degrees of men, from peers to paupers, betting incessantly. Keepers very watchful, and taking all good chances. An awful family likeness among the Keepers, to Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell. With some knowledge of expression and some acquaintance with heads (thus writes Mr. Goodchild), I never have seen anywhere, so many repetitions of one class of countenance and one character of head (both evil) as in this street at this time. Cunning, covetousness, secrecy, cold calculation, hard callousness and dire insensibility, are the uniform Keeper characteristics. Mr. Palmer passes me five times in five minutes, and, so I go down the street, the back of Mr. Thurtell’s skull is always going on before me.

Monday evening. Town lighted up; more Lunatics out than ever; a complete choke and stoppage of the thoroughfare outside the Betting Rooms. Keepers, having dined, pervade the Betting Rooms, and sharply snap at the moneyed Lunatics. Some Keepers flushed with drink, and some not, but all close and calculating. A vague echoing roar of “t’harses” and “t’races” always rising in the air, until midnight, at about which period it dies away in occasional drunken songs and straggling yells. But, all night, some unmannerly drinking-house in the neighbourhood opens its mouth at intervals and spits out a man too drunk to be retained: who thereupon makes what uproarious protest may be left in him, and either falls asleep where he tumbles, or is carried off in custody.

Tuesday morning, at daybreak. A sudden rising, as it were out of the earth, of all the obscene creatures, who sell “correct cards of the races.” They may have been coiled in corners, or sleeping on doorsteps, and, having all passed the night under the same set of circumstances, may all want to circulate their blood at the same time; but, however that may be, they spring into existence all at once and together, as though a new Cadmus had sown a racehorse’s teeth. There is nobody up, to buy the cards; but, the cards are madly cried. There is no patronage to quarrel for; but, they madly quarrel and fight. Conspicuous among these hyaenas, as breakfast-time discloses, is a fearful creature in the general semblance of a man: shaken off his next-to-no legs by drink and devilry, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a great shock of hair like a horrible broom, and nothing on him but a ragged pair of trousers and a pink glazed-calico coat – made on him – so very tight that it is as evident that he could never take it off, as that he never does. This hideous apparition, inconceivably drunk, has a terrible power of making a gong-like imitation of the braying of an ass: which feat requires that he should lay his right jaw in his begrimed right paw, double himself up, and shake his bray out of himself, with much staggering on his next-to-no legs, and much twirling of his horrible broom, as if it were a mop. From the present minute, when he comes in sight holding up his cards to the windows, and hoarsely proposing purchase to My Lord, Your Excellency, Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honourable Worship – from the present minute until the Grand Race-Week is finished, at all hours of the morning, evening, day, and night, shall the town reverberate, at capricious intervals, to the brays of this frightful animal the Gong-donkey.

No very great racing today, so no very great amount of vehicles: though there is a good sprinkling, too: from farmers’ carts and gigs, to carriages with post-horses and to fours-in-hand, mostly coming by the road from York, and passing on straight through the main street to the Course. A walk in the wrong direction may be a better thing for Mr. Goodchild today than the Course, so he walks in the wrong direction. Everybody gone to the races. Only children in the street. Grand Alliance Circus deserted; not one Star-Rider left; omnibus which forms the Pay-Place, having on separate panels Pay here for the Boxes, Pay here for the Pit, Pay here for the Gallery, hove down in a corner and locked up; nobody near the tent but the man on his knees on the grass, who is making the paper balloons for the Star young gentlemen to jump through tonight. A pleasant road, pleasantly wooded. No labourers working in the fields; all gone “t’races.” The few late wenders of their way “t’races,” who are yet left driving on the road, stare in amazement at the recluse who is not going “t’races.” Roadside innkeeper has gone “t’races.” Turnpike-man has gone “t’races.” His thrifty wife, washing clothes at the toll-house door, is going “t’races” tomorrow. Perhaps there may be no one left to take the toll tomorrow; who knows? Though assuredly that would be neither turnpike-like nor Yorkshire-like. The very wind and dust seem to be hurrying “t’races,” as they briskly pass the only wayfarer on the road. In the distance, the Railway Engine, waiting at the town-end, shrieks despairingly. Nothing but the difficulty of getting off the Line, restrains that Engine from going “t’races,” too, it is very clear.

At night, more Lunatics out than last night – and more Keepers. The latter very active at the Betting Rooms, the street in front of which is now impassable. Mr. Palmer as before. Mr. Thurtell as before. Roar and uproar as before. Gradual subsidence as before. Unmannerly drinking-house expectorates as before. Drunken negro-melodists, Gong-donkey, and correct cards, in the night.

On Wednesday morning, the morning of the great St. Leger, it becomes apparent that there has been a great influx since yesterday, both of Lunatics and Keepers. The families of the tradesmen over the way are no longer within human ken; their places know them no more; ten, fifteen, and twenty guinea-lodgers fill them. At the pastry-cook’s second-floor window, a Keeper is brushing Mr. Thurtell’s hair – thinking it his own. In the wax-chandler’s attic, another Keeper is putting on Mr. Palmer’s braces. In the gunsmith’s nursery, a Lunatic is shaving himself. In the serious stationer’s best sitting-room, three Lunatics are taking a combination-breakfast, praising the (cook’s) devil, and drinking neat brandy in an atmosphere of last midnight’s cigars. No family sanctuary is free from our Angelic messengers – we put up at the Angel – who in the guise of extra waiters for the grand Race-Week, rattle in and out of the most secret chambers of everybody’s house, with dishes and tin covers, decanters, soda-water bottles, and glasses. An hour later. Down the street and up the street, as far as eyes can see and a good deal farther, there is a dense crowd; outside the Betting Rooms it is like a great struggle at a theatre door – in the days of theatres; or at the vestibule of the Spurgeon temple – in the days of Spurgeon. An hour later. Fusing into this crowd, and somehow getting through it, are all kinds of conveyances, and all kinds of foot-passengers; carts, with brick-makers and brick-makeresses jolting up and down on planks; drags, with the needful grooms behind, sitting cross-armed in the needful manner, and slanting themselves backward from the soles of their boots at the needful angle; postboys, in the shining hats and smart jackets of the olden time, when stokers were not; beautiful Yorkshire horses, gallantly driven by their own breeders and masters. Under every pole, and every shaft, and every horse, and every wheel as it would seem, the Gong-donkey – metallically braying, when not struggling for life, or whipped out of the way.

By one o’clock, all this stir has gone out of the streets, and there is no one left in them but Francis Goodchild. Francis Goodchild will not be left in them long; for, he too is on his way, “t’races.”

A most beautiful sight, Francis Goodchild finds “t’races” to be, when he has left fair Doncaster behind him, and comes out on the free course, with its agreeable prospect, its quaint Red House oddly changing and turning as Francis turns, its green grass, and fresh heath. A free course and an easy one, where Francis can roll smoothly where he will, and can choose between the start, or the coming-in, or the turn behind the brow of the hill, or any out-of-the-way point where he lists to see the throbbing horses straining every nerve, and making the sympathetic earth throb as they come by. Francis much delights to be, not in the Grand Stand, but where he can see it, rising against the sky with its vast tiers of little white dots of faces, and its last high rows and corners of people, looking like pins stuck into an enormous pincushion – not quite so symmetrically as his orderly eye could wish, when people change or go away. When the race is nearly run out, it is as good as the race to him to see the flutter among the pins, and the change in them from dark to light, as hats are taken off and waved. Not less full of interest, the loud anticipation of the winner’s name, the swelling, and the final, roar; then, the quick dropping of all the pins out of their places, the revelation of the shape of the bare pincushion, and the closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics and Keepers, in the rear of the three horses with bright-coloured riders, who have not yet quite subdued their gallop though the contest is over.

Mr. Goodchild would appear to have been by no means free from lunacy himself at “t’races,” though not of the prevalent kind. He is suspected by Mr. Idle to have fallen into a dreadful state concerning a pair of little lilac gloves and a little bonnet that he saw there. Mr. Idle asserts, that he did afterwards repeat at the Angel, with an appearance of being lunatically seized, some rhapsody to the following effect: “O little lilac gloves! And O winning little bonnet, making in conjunction with her golden hair quite a Glory in the sunlight round the pretty head, why anything in the world but you and me! Why may not this day’s running-of horses, to all the rest: of precious sands of life to me – be prolonged through an everlasting autumn-sunshine, without a sunset! Slave of the Lamp, or Ring, strike me yonder gallant equestrian Clerk of the Course, in the scarlet coat, motionless on the green grass for ages! Friendly Devil on Two Sticks, for ten times ten thousands years, keep Blink-Bonny jibbing at the post, and let us have no start! Arab drums, powerful of old to summon Genii in the desert, sound of yourselves and raise a troop for me in the desert of my heart, which shall so enchant this dusty barouche (with a conspicuous excise-plate, resembling the Collector’s doorplate at a turnpike), that I, within it, loving the little lilac gloves, the winning little bonnet, and the dear unknown-wearer with the golden hair, may wait by her side forever, to see a Great St. Leger that shall never be run!”

Thursday morning. After a tremendous night of crowding, shouting, drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Symptoms of yesterday’s gains in the way of drink, and of yesterday’s losses in the way of money, abundant. Money-losses very great. As usual, nobody seems to have won; but, large losses and many losers are unquestionable facts. Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general very low. Several of both kinds look in at the chemist’s while Mr. Goodchild is making a purchase there, to be “picked up.” One red-eyed Lunatic, flushed, faded, and disordered, enters hurriedly and cries savagely, “Hond us a gloss of sal volatile in wather, or soom dommed thing o’ thot sart!” Faces at the Betting Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails observable. Keepers likewise given this morning to standing about solitary, with their hands in their pockets, looking down at their boots as they fit them into cracks of the pavement, and then looking up whistling and walking away. Grand Alliance Circus out, in procession; buxom lady-member of Grand Alliance, in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look at, even in her paint under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics or Keepers. Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday, and jingles his bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were paying. Reaction also apparent at the Guildhall opposite, whence certain pickpockets come out handcuffed together, with that peculiar walk which is never seen under any other circumstances – a walk expressive of going to jail, game, but still of jails being in bad taste and arbitrary, and how would you like it if it was you instead of me, as it ought to be! Midday. Town filled as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as yesterday, but not so empty. In the evening, Angel ordinary where every Lunatic and Keeper has his modest daily meal of turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as yesterday, and not so noisy. At night, the theatre. More abstracted faces in it than one ever sees at public assemblies; such faces wearing an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the boys at school who were “going up next,” with their arithmetic or mathematics. These boys are, no doubt, going up tomorrow with their sums and figures. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell in the boxes O. P. Mr. Thurtell and Mr. Palmer in the boxes P. S. The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and Thurtell, in the boxes Centre. A most odious tendency observable in these distinguished gentlemen to put vile constructions on sufficiently innocent phrases in the play, and then to applaud them in a Satyr-like manner. Behind Mr. Goodchild, with a party of other Lunatics and one Keeper, the express incarnation of the thing called a “gent.” A gentleman born; a gent manufactured. A something with a scarf round its neck, and a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more depraved, more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe in any noble or good thing of any kind, than the stupidest Bosjesman. The thing is but a boy in years, and is addled with drink. To do its company justice, even its company is ashamed of it, as it drawls its slang criticisms on the representation, and inflames Mr. Goodchild with a burning ardour to fling it into the pit. Its remarks are so horrible, that Mr. Goodchild, for the moment, even doubts whether that is a wholesome Art, which sets women apart on a high floor before such a thing as this, though as good as its own sisters, or its own mother – whom Heaven forgive for bringing it into the world! But, the consideration that a low nature must make a low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials, or it could no more exist than any of us could without the sense of touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason: the rather, because the thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf, and slobbers itself asleep.

Friday Morning. Early fights. Gong-donkey, and correct cards. Again, a great set towards the races, though not so great a set as on Wednesday. Much packing going on too, upstairs at the gunsmith’s, the wax-chandler’s, and the serious stationer’s; for there will be a heavy drift of Lunatics and Keepers to London by the afternoon train. The course as pretty as ever; the great pincushion as like a pincushion, but not nearly so full of pins; whole rows of pins wanting. On the great event of the day, both Lunatics and Keepers become inspired with rage; and there is a violent scuffling, and a rushing at the losing jockey, and an emergence of the said jockey from a swaying and menacing crowd, protected by friends, and looking the worse for wear; which is a rough proceeding, though animating to see from a pleasant distance. After the great event, rills begin to flow from the pincushion towards the railroad; the rills swell into rivers; the rivers soon unite into a lake. The lake floats Mr. Goodchild into Doncaster, past the Itinerant personage in black, by the wayside telling him from the vantage ground of a legibly printed placard on a pole that for all these things the Lord will bring him to judgement. No turtle and venison ordinary this evening; that is all over. No Betting at the rooms; nothing there but the plants in pots, which have, all the week, been stood about the entry to give it an innocent appearance, and which have sorely sickened by this time.

Saturday. Mr. Idle wishes to know at breakfast, what were those dreadful groanings in his bedroom doorway in the night? Mr. Goodchild answers, Nightmare. Mr. Idle repels the calumny, and calls the waiter. The Angel is very sorry – had intended to explain; but you see, gentlemen, there was a gentleman dined downstairs with two more, and he had lost a deal of money, and he would drink a deal of wine, and in the night he “took the horrors,” and got up; and as his friends could do nothing with him he laid himself down and groaned at Mr. Idle’s door. “And he DID groan there,” Mr. Idle says; “and you will please to imagine me inside, ‘taking the horrors’ too!”

•   •   •

So far, the picture of Doncaster on the occasion of its great sporting anniversary, offers probably a general representation of the social condition of the town, in the past as well as in the present time. The sole local phenomenon of the current year, which may be considered as entirely unprecedented in its way, and which certainly claims, on that account, some slight share of notice, consists in the actual existence of one remarkable individual, who is sojourning in Doncaster, and who, neither directly nor indirectly, has anything at all to do, in any capacity whatever, with the racing amusements of the week. Ranging throughout the entire crowd that fills the town, and including the inhabitants as well as the visitors, nobody is to be found altogether disconnected with the business of the day, excepting this one unparalleled man. He does not bet on the races, like the sporting men. He does not assist the races, like the jockeys, starters, judges, and grooms. He does not look on at the races, like Mr. Goodchild and his fellow-spectators. He does not profit by the races, like the hotel-keepers and the tradespeople. He does not minister to the necessities of the races, like the booth-keepers, the postilions, the waiters, and the hawkers of Lists. He does not assist the attractions of the races, like the actors at the theatre, the riders at the circus, or the posturers at the Poses Plastiques. Absolutely and literally, he is the only individual in Doncaster who stands by the brink of the full-flowing race-stream, and is not swept away by it in common with all the rest of his species. Who is this modern hermit, this recluse of the St. Leger-week, this inscrutably ungregarious being, who lives apart from the amusements and activities of his fellow-creatures? Surely, there is little difficulty in guessing that clearest and easiest of all riddles. Who could he be, but Mr. Thomas Idle?

Thomas had suffered himself to be taken to Doncaster, just as he would have suffered himself to be taken to any other place in the habitable globe which would guarantee him the temporary possession of a comfortable sofa to rest his ankle on. Once established at the hotel, with his leg on one cushion and his back against another, he formally declined taking the slightest interest in any circumstance whatever connected with the races, or with the people who were assembled to see them. Francis Goodchild, anxious that the hours should pass by his crippled travelling-companion as lightly as possible, suggested that his sofa should be moved to the window, and that he should amuse himself by looking out at the moving panorama of humanity, which the view from it of the principal street presented. Thomas, however, steadily declined profiting by the suggestion.

“The farther I am from the window,” he said, “the better, Brother Francis, I shall be pleased. I have nothing in common with the one prevalent idea of all those people who are passing in the street. Why should I care to look at them?”

“I hope I have nothing in common with the prevalent idea of a great many of them, either,” answered Goodchild, thinking of the sporting gentlemen whom he had met in the course of his wanderings about Doncaster. “But, surely, among all the people who are walking by the house, at this very moment, you may find—”

“Not one living creature,” interposed Thomas, “who is not, in one way or another, interested in horses, and who is not, in a greater or less degree, an admirer of them. Now, I hold opinions in reference to these particular members of the quadruped creation, which may lay claim (as I believe) to the disastrous distinction of being unpartaken by any other human being, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of the earth. Taking the horse as an animal in the abstract, Francis, I cordially despise him from every point of view.”

“Thomas,” said Goodchild, “confinement to the house has begun to affect your biliary secretions. I shall go to the chemist’s and get you some physic.”

“I object,” continued Thomas, quietly possessing himself of his friend’s hat, which stood on a table near him, – “I object, first, to the personal appearance of the horse. I protest against the conventional idea of beauty, as attached to that animal. I think his nose too long, his forehead too low, and his legs (except in the case of the cart-horse) ridiculously thin by comparison with the size of his body. Again, considering how big an animal he is, I object to the contemptible delicacy of his constitution. Is he not the sickliest creature in creation? Does any child catch cold as easily as a horse? Does he not sprain his fetlock, for all his appearance of superior strength, as easily as I sprained my ankle! Furthermore, to take him from another point of view, what a helpless wretch he is! No fine lady requires more constant waiting-on than a horse. Other animals can make their own toilette: he must have a groom. You will tell me that this is because we want to make his coat artificially glossy. Glossy! Come home with me, and see my cat, – my clever cat, who can groom herself! Look at your own dog! see how the intelligent creature curry-combs himself with his own honest teeth! Then, again, what a fool the horse is, what a poor, nervous fool! He will start at a piece of white paper in the road as if it was a lion. His one idea, when he hears a noise that he is not accustomed to, is to run away from it. What do you say to those two common instances of the sense and courage of this absurdly over-praised animal? I might multiply them to two hundred, if I chose to exert my mind and waste my breath, which I never do. I prefer coming at once to my last charge against the horse, which is the most serious of all, because it affects his moral character. I accuse him boldly, in his capacity of servant to man, of slyness and treachery. I brand him publicly, no matter how mild he may look about the eyes, or how sleek he may be about the coat, as a systematic betrayer, whenever he can get the chance, of the confidence reposed in him. What do you mean by laughing and shaking your head at me?”

“Oh, Thomas, Thomas!” said Goodchild. “You had better give me my hat; you had better let me get you that physic.”

“I will let you get anything you like, including a composing draught for yourself,” said Thomas, irritably alluding to his fellow-apprentice’s inexhaustible activity, “if you will only sit quiet for five minutes longer, and hear me out. I say again the horse is a betrayer of the confidence reposed in him; and that opinion, let me add, is drawn from my own personal experience, and is not based on any fanciful theory whatever. You shall have two instances, two overwhelming instances. Let me start the first of these by asking, what is the distinguishing quality which the Shetland Pony has arrogated to himself, and is still perpetually trumpeting through the world by means of popular report and books on Natural History? I see the answer in your face: it is the quality of being Sure-Footed. He professes to have other virtues, such as hardiness and strength, which you may discover on trial; but the one thing which he insists on your believing, when you get on his back, is that he may be safely depended on not to tumble down with you. Very good. Some years ago, I was in Shetland with a party of friends. They insisted on taking me with them to the top of a precipice that overhung the sea. It was a great distance off, but they all determined to walk to it except me. I was wiser then than I was with you at Carrock, and I determined to be carried to the precipice. There was no carriage-road in the island, and nobody offered (in consequence, as I suppose, of the imperfectly-civilised state of the country) to bring me a sedan-chair, which is naturally what I should have liked best. A Shetland pony was produced instead. I remembered my Natural History, I recalled popular report, and I got on the little beast’s back, as any other man would have done in my position, placing implicit confidence in the sureness of his feet. And how did he repay that confidence? Brother Francis, carry your mind on from morning to noon. Picture to yourself a howling wilderness of grass and bog, bounded by low stony hills. Pick out one particular spot in that imaginary scene, and sketch me in it, with outstretched arms, curved back, and heels in the air, plunging headforemost into a black patch of water and mud. Place just behind me the legs, the body, and the head of a sure-footed Shetland pony, all stretched flat on the ground, and you will have produced an accurate representation of a very lamentable fact. And the moral device, Francis, of this picture will be to testify that when gentlemen put confidence in the legs of Shetland ponies, they will find to their cost that they are leaning on nothing but broken reeds. There is my first instance – and what have you got to say to that?”

“Nothing, but that I want my hat,” answered Goodchild, starting up and walking restlessly about the room.

“You shall have it in a minute,” rejoined Thomas. “My second instance” – (Goodchild groaned, and sat down again) – “My second instance is more appropriate to the present time and place, for it refers to a racehorse. Two years ago an excellent friend of mine, who was desirous of prevailing on me to take regular exercise, and who was well enough acquainted with the weakness of my legs to expect no very active compliance with his wishes on their part, offered to make me a present of one of his horses. Hearing that the animal in question had started in life on the turf, I declined accepting the gift with many thanks; adding, by way of explanation, that I looked on a racehorse as a kind of embodied hurricane, upon which no sane man of my character and habits could be expected to seat himself. My friend replied that, however appropriate my metaphor might be as applied to racehorses in general, it was singularly unsuitable as applied to the particular horse which he proposed to give me. From a foal upwards this remarkable animal had been the idlest and most sluggish of his race. Whatever capacities for speed he might possess he had kept so strictly to himself, that no amount of training had ever brought them out. He had been found hopelessly slow as a racer, and hopelessly lazy as a hunter, and was fit for nothing but a quiet, easy life of it with an old gentleman or an invalid. When I heard this account of the horse, I don’t mind confessing that my heart warmed to him. Visions of Thomas Idle ambling serenely on the back of a steed as lazy as himself, presenting to a restless world the soothing and composite spectacle of a kind of sluggardly Centaur, too peaceable in his habits to alarm anybody, swam attractively before my eyes. I went to look at the horse in the stable. Nice fellow! he was fast asleep with a kitten on his back. I saw him taken out for an airing by the groom. If he had had trousers on his legs I should not have known them from my own, so deliberately were they lifted up, so gently were they put down, so slowly did they get over the ground. From that moment I gratefully accepted my friend’s offer. I went home; the horse followed me – by a slow train. Oh, Francis, how devoutly I believed in that horse I how carefully I looked after all his little comforts! I had never gone the length of hiring a manservant to wait on myself; but I went to the expense of hiring one to wait upon him. If I thought a little of myself when I bought the softest saddle that could be had for money, I thought also of my horse. When the man at the shop afterwards offered me spurs and a whip, I turned from him with horror. When I sallied out for my first ride, I went purposely unarmed with the means of hurrying my steed. He proceeded at his own pace every step of the way; and when he stopped, at last, and blew out both his sides with a heavy sigh, and turned his sleepy head and looked behind him, I took him home again, as I might take home an artless child who said to me, ‘If you please, sir, I am tired.’ For a week this complete harmony between me and my horse lasted undisturbed. At the end of that time, when he had made quite sure of my friendly confidence in his laziness, when he had thoroughly acquainted himself with all the little weaknesses of my seat (and their name is Legion), the smouldering treachery and ingratitude of the equine nature blazed out in an instant. Without the slightest provocation from me, with nothing passing him at the time but a pony-chaise driven by an old lady, he started in one instant from a state of sluggish depression to a state of frantic high spirits. He kicked, he plunged, he shied, he pranced, he capered fearfully. I sat on him as long as I could, and when I could sit no longer, I fell off. No, Francis! this is not a circumstance to be laughed at, but to be wept over. What would be said of a Man who had requited my kindness in that way? Range over all the rest of the animal creation, and where will you find me an instance of treachery so black as this? The cow that kicks down the milking-pail may have some reason for it; she may think herself taxed too heavily to contribute to the dilution of human tea and the greasing of human bread. The tiger who springs out on me unawares has the excuse of being hungry at the time, to say nothing of the further justification of being a total stranger to me. The very flea who surprises me in my sleep may defend his act of assassination on the ground that I, in my turn, am always ready to murder him when I am awake. I defy the whole body of Natural Historians to move me, logically, off the ground that I have taken in regard to the horse. Receive back your hat, Brother Francis, and go to the chemist’s, if you please; for I have now done. Ask me to take anything you like, except an interest in the Doncaster races. Ask me to look at anything you like, except an assemblage of people all animated by feelings of a friendly and admiring nature towards the horse. You are a remarkably well-informed man, and you have heard of hermits. Look upon me as a member of that ancient fraternity, and you will sensibly add to the many obligations which Thomas Idle is proud to owe to Francis Goodchild.”

Here, fatigued by the effort of excessive talking, disputatious Thomas waved one hand languidly, laid his head back on the sofa-pillow, and calmly closed his eyes.

At a later period, Mr. Goodchild assailed his travelling companion boldly from the impregnable fortress of common sense. But Thomas, though tamed in body by drastic discipline, was still as mentally unapproachable as ever on the subject of his favourite delusion.

•   •   •

The view from the window after Saturday’s breakfast is altogether changed. The tradesmen’s families have all come back again. The serious stationer’s young woman of all work is shaking a duster out of the window of the combination breakfast-room; a child is playing with a doll, where Mr. Thurtell’s hair was brushed; a sanitary scrubbing is in progress on the spot where Mr. Palmer’s braces were put on. No signs of the Races are in the streets, but the tramps and the tumble-down-carts and trucks laden with drinking-forms and tables and remnants of booths, that are making their way out of the town as fast as they can. The Angel, which has been cleared for action all the week, already begins restoring every neat and comfortable article of furniture to its own neat and comfortable place. The Angel’s daughters (pleasanter angels Mr. Idle and Mr. Goodchild never saw, nor more quietly expert in their business, nor more superior to the common vice of being above it), have a little time to rest, and to air their cheerful faces among the flowers in the yard. It is market-day. The market looks unusually natural, comfortable, and wholesome; the market-people too. The town seems quite restored, when, hark! a metallic bray – The Gong-donkey!

The wretched animal has not cleared off with the rest, but is here, under the window. How much more inconceivably drunk now, how much more begrimed of paw, how much more tight of calico hide, how much more stained and daubed and dirty and dung-hilly, from his horrible broom to his tender toes, who shall say! He cannot even shake the bray out of himself now, without laying his cheek so near to the mud of the street, that he pitches over after delivering it. Now, prone in the mud, and now backing himself up against shop-windows, the owners of which come out in terror to remove him; now, in the drinking-shop, and now in the tobacconist’s, where he goes to buy tobacco, and makes his way into the parlour, and where he gets a cigar, which in half-a-minute he forgets to smoke; now dancing, now dozing, now cursing, and now complimenting My Lord, the Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honourable Worship, the Gong-donkey kicks up his heels, occasionally braying, until suddenly, he beholds the dearest friend he has in the world coming down the street.

The dearest friend the Gong-donkey has in the world, is a sort of Jackall, in a dull, mangy, black hide, of such small pieces that it looks as if it were made of blacking bottles turned inside out and cobbled together. The dearest friend in the world (inconceivably drunk too) advances at the Gong-donkey, with a hand on each thigh, in a series of humorous springs and stops, wagging his head as he comes. The Gong-donkey regarding him with attention and with the warmest affection, suddenly perceives that he is the greatest enemy he has in the world, and hits him hard in the countenance. The astonished Jackall closes with the Donkey, and they roll over and over in the mud, pummelling one another. A Police Inspector, supernaturally endowed with patience, who has long been looking on from the Guildhall-steps, says, to a myrmidon, “Lock ’em up! Bring ’em in!”

Appropriate finish to the Grand Race-Week. The Gong-donkey, captive and last trace of it, conveyed into limbo, where they cannot do better than keep him until next Race-Week. The Jackall is wanted too, and is much looked for, over the way and up and down. But, having had the good fortune to be undermost at the time of the capture, he has vanished into air.

On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Goodchild walks out and looks at the Course. It is quite deserted; heaps of broken crockery and bottles are raised to its memory; and correct cards and other fragments of paper are blowing about it, as the regulation little paper books, carried by the French soldiers in their breasts, were seen, soon after the battle was fought, blowing idly about the plains of Waterloo.

Where will these present idle leaves be blown by the idle winds, and where will the last of them be one day lost and forgotten? An idle question, and an idle thought.; and with it Mr. Idle fitly makes his bow, and Mr. Goodchild his, and thus ends the Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.

•  THE END  •

Household Words
Oct 1857

THE PERILS
OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS

AND THEIR TREASURE
IN WOMEN, CHILDREN,
SILVER, AND JEWELS

with Charles Dickens

CONTENTS

The Island of Silver-Store
Charles Dickens

The Prison in the Woods
Wilkie Collins

The Rafts on the River
Charles Dickens

Household Words
Christmas number 1857

I

THE ISLAND
OF SILVER-STORE

It was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and forty-four, that I, Gill Davis to command, His Mark, having then the honour to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a-leaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore.

My lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is no such christian-name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, that the name given to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &c., was Gilbert. She is certain to be right, but I never heard of it. I was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and I always understood my christian-name to be Gill. It is true that I was called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom betwixt Chatham and Maidstone, to frighten birds; but that had nothing to do with the Baptism wherein I was made, &c., and wherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I consider, must have been the Beadle. Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description.

My lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing exactly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me. That action on her part, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the rings on it— Well! I won’t! To be sure it will come in, in its own place. But it’s always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a-fondling children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and honour were up – there! I won’t! not at present! – Scratch it out.

She won’t scratch it out, and quite honourable; because we have made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out. I have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I am speaking my true and faithful account of those Adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word.

I say, there I was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop Christopher Columbus in the South American waters off the Mosquito shore: a subject of his Gracious Majesty King George of England, and a private in the Royal Marines.

In those climates, you don’t want to do much. I was doing nothing. I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) on the hillsides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his staff, that I ran away from him – which was what he wanted all along, I expect – to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge Bottom. I had been knocked about the world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along those bright blue South American waters. Looking after the shepherd, I may say. Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half-shut, as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the ship’s side, far away over the blue water, and go right down into the sky.

“It’s rising out of the water, steady,” a voice said close to me. I had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade.

“What’s rising out of the water, steady?” I asked my comrade.

“What?” says he. “The Island.”

“O! The Island!” says I, turning my eyes towards it. “True. I forgot the Island.”

“Forgot the port you’re going to? That’s odd, an’t it?”

“It is odd,” says I.

“And odd,” he said, slowly considering with himself, “an’t even. Is it, Gill?”

He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another. As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was satisfied. He was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of a way, one with the least to say for himself. I qualify it, because, besides being able to read and write like a Quarter-master, he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. That was, Duty. Upon my soul, I don’t believe, though I admire learning beyond everything, that he could have got a better idea out of all the books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the cleverest of scholars.

My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away West and North of the Mosquito coast. At Belize there had been great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more pirates than enough in those Caribbean Seas), and as they got the better of our English cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks and shallows, and taking the land when they were hotly pressed, the governor of Belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp look-out for them along shore. Now, there was an armed sloop came once a-year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with all manner of necessaries, to eat and to drink, and to wear, and to use in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks.

The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so called, was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver mine over on the mainland, in Honduras, and used this island as a safe and convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annually fetched away by the sloop. It was brought down from the mine to the coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly Indians and guarded by white men; from thence, it was conveyed over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country; from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed sloop once a-year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica it went, of course, all over the world.

How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four-and-twenty marines under command of a lieutenant – that officer’s name was Linderwood – had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-Store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chace [pursuit] of the Pirates. The island was considered a good post of observation against the pirates, both by land and sea; neither the pirate ship nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I was one. It included a corporal and a serjeant. Charker was corporal, and the serjeant’s name was Drooce. He was the most tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty’s service.

The night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with Charker. All the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and sky, in a few minutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to shine out together, and to look down at themselves in the sea, over one another’s shoulders, millions deep. Next morning, we cast anchor off the Island. There was a snug harbour within a little reef; there was a sandy beach; there were coconut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes of magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects that are usually seen in those parts, and I am not going to describe them, having something else to tell about.

Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. All the flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the people in the place came down to look at us. One of those Sambo fellows – they call those natives Sambos, when they are half-negro and half-Indian – had come off outside the reef, to pilot us in, and remained on board after we had let go our anchor. He was called Christian George King, and was fonder of all hands than anybody else was. Now, I confess, for myself, that on that first day, if I had been captain of the Christopher Columbus, instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should have kicked Christian George King – who was no more a Christian, than he was a King, or a George – over the side, without exactly knowing why, except that it was the right thing to do.

But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly pleasant humour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the Christopher Columbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver-Store. I had had a hard life, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too gay, to please me. “Here you are,” I thought to myself, “good scholars and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do what you like; and much you care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal Marines! Yet it’s hard, too, I think, that you should have all the half-pence, and I all the kicks; you all the smooth, and I all the rough; you all the oil, and I all the vinegar.” It was as envious a thing to think as might be, let alone its being nonsensical; but, I thought it. I took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English lady came aboard, I grunted to myself, “Ah! you have got a lover, I’ll be bound!” As if there was any new offence to me in that, if she had!

She was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and had come out there with her sister, who was married to one of the owners of the silver-mine, and who had three children with her. It was easy to see that she was the light and spirit of the Island. After I had got a good look at her, I grunted to myself again, in an even worse state of mind than before, “I’ll be damned, if I don’t hate him, whoever he is!”

My officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men of about my age, who had been delicate in the West India climate. I even took that, in bad part. I thought I was much fitter for the work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled into one. (It may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines I should have made, without the power of reading a written order. And as to any knowledge how to command the sloop – Lord! I should have sunk her in a quarter of an hour!)

However, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Charker, making my observations in a similar spirit.

It was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South American and partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot, accommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along. The huts of the Sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the anchorage. On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same staff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not guarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder magazine, “that’s where they keep the silver, you see;” and Charker had said to me, after thinking it over, “And silver an’t gold. Is it, Gill?” when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about, looked out of a door, or a window – at all events looked out, from under a bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted.

“Would you like to come in,” she said, “and see the place? It is rather a curious place.”

We thanked the young lady, and said we didn’t wish to be troublesome; but, she said it could be no trouble to an English soldier’s daughter, to show English soldiers how their countrymen and countrywomen fared, so far away from England; and consequently we saluted again, and went in. Then, as we stood in the shade, she showed us (being as affable as beautiful), how the different families lived in their separate houses, and how there was a general house for stores, and a general reading-room, and a general room for music and dancing, and a room for Church; and how there were other houses on the rising-ground called the Signal Hill, where they lived in the hotter weather.

“Your officer has been carried up there,” she said, “and my brother, too, for the better air. At present, our few residents are dispersed over both spots: deducting, that is to say, such of our number as are always going to, or coming from, or staying at, the Mine.”

(“He is among one of those parties,” I thought, “and I wish somebody would knock his head off.”)

“Some of our married ladies live here,” she said, “during at least half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children.”

“Many children here, ma’am?”

“Seventeen. There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like me.”

There were not eight like her – there was not one like her – in the world. She meant, single.

“Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees,” said the young lady, “form the little colony now on the Island. I don’t count the sailors, for they don’t belong to us. Nor the soldiers,” she gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, “for the same reason.”

“Nor the Sambos, ma’am,” said I.

“No.”

“Under your favour, and with your leave, ma’am,” said I, “are they trustworthy?”

“Perfectly! We are all very kind to them, and they are very grateful to us.”

“Indeed, ma’am? Now – Christian George King?—”

“Very much attached to us all. Would die for us.”

She was, as in my uneducated way I have observed very beautiful women almost always to be, so composed, that her composure gave great weight to what she said, and I believed it.

Then, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine, and was brought over from the mainland, and was stored there. The Christopher Columbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer yield than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver.

When we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing we were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, English born but West India bred, who served her as her maid. This young woman was the widow of a non-commissioned officer in a regiment of the line. She had got married and widowed at St. Vincent, with only a few months between the two events. She was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair of eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little turned-up nose. The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped your face if you accepted the invitation.

I couldn’t make out her name at first; for, when she gave it in answer to my inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn’t sound right. But, when we became better acquainted – which was while Charker and I were drinking sugar-cane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner – I found that her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott. Being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of, – I never saw a woman so like a toy in my life – she had got the plaything name of Belltott. In short, she had no other name on the island. Even Mr. Commissioner Pordage (and he was a grave one!) formally addressed her as Mrs. Belltott. But, I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Pordage presently.

The name of the captain of the sloop was Captain Maryon, and therefore it was no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott, that his sister, the beautiful unmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon. The novelty was, that her Christian name was Marion too. Marion Maryon. Many a time I have run off those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse. O many, and many, and many, a time!

We saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and then took our leaves, and went down to the beach. The weather was beautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the island, a picture; the sea, a picture; the sky, a picture. In that country there are two rainy seasons in the year. One sets in at about our English Midsummer; the other, about a fortnight after our English Michaelmas. It was the beginning of August at that time; the first of these rainy seasons was well over; and everything was in its most beautiful growth, and had its loveliest look upon it.

“They enjoy themselves here,” I says to Charker, turning surly again. “This is better than private-soldiering.”

We had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat’s-crew who were camped and hutted there; and we were approaching towards their quarters over the sand, when Christian George King comes up from the landing-place at a wolf’s-trot, crying, “Yup, So-Jeer!” – which was that Sambo Pilot’s barbarous way of saying, Hallo, Soldier! I have stated myself to be a man of no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices. I hope allowance may be made, I will now confess to one. It may be a right one or it may be a wrong one; but, I never did like Natives, except in the form of oysters.

So, when Christian George King, who was individually unpleasant to me besides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking “Yup, So-Jeer!” I had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right. I certainly should have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand.

“Yup, So-Jeer!” says he. “Bad job.”

“What do you mean?” says I.

“Yup, So-Jeer!” says he, “Ship leakee.”

“Ship leaky?” says I.

“Iss,” says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by a most violent hiccup – which is the way with those savages.

I cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the sloop, and saw the signal run up, “Come on board; hands wanted from the shore.” In no time some of the sloop’s liberty-men were already running down to the water’s edge, and the party of seamen, under orders against the Pirates, were putting off to the Columbus in two boats.

“Oh Christian George King sar berry sorry!” says that Sambo vagabond, then. “Christian George King cry, English fashion!” His English fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand. It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, “Double-quick, Harry!” and we got down to the water’s edge, and got on board the sloop.

By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbour, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the little colony would be destroyed by the seawater as it rose in her, there was great confusion. In the midst of it, Captain Maryon was heard hailing from the beach. He had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad; but, he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, myself, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if nothing was wrong with him.

A quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon resolved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and, that when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, and that the sloop must be hauled ashore, and careened, and the leak stopped. We were all mustered (the Pirate-Chace party volunteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will. Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest. He went at it with so much heartiness, to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion, almost as fast as the water rose in the ship. Which was fast enough, and faster.

Mr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red and black japanned box, like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other which some Sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the Island. Through having hold of this box, Mr. Pordage got his title of Commissioner. He was styled Consul, too, and spoke of himself as “Government.”

He was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him, of a very angry temper and a very yellow complexion. Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the same. Mr. Kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine – but everybody there was that, more or less – was sometimes called by Mr. Commissioner Pordage, his Vice-commissioner, and sometimes his Deputy-consul. Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten, merely as being “under Government.”

The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the preparations for careening the sloop, and, with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water-casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Maryon. The Captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two trees, that he might direct; and he raised his head, and answered for himself.

“Captain Maryon,” cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, “this is not official. This is not regular.”

“Sir,” says the Captain, “it hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. I am quite certain that hath been duly done.”

“Captain Maryon,” replies Mr. Commissioner Pordage, “there hath been no written correspondence. No documents have passed, no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. This is indecent. I call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or Government will take this up.”

“Sir,” says Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of his hammock; “between the chances of Government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former.”

“You do, sir?” cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage.

“I do, sir,” says Captain Maryon, lying down again.

“Then, Mr. Kitten,” says the Commissioner, “send up instantly for my Diplomatic coat.”

He was dressed in a linen suit at that moment; but, Mr. Kitten started off himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button.

“Now, Mr. Kitten,” says Pordage, “I instruct you, as Vice-commissioner, and Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Captain Maryon, of the sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on?”

“Mr. Pordage,” says Captain Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, “as I can hear what you say, I can answer it without troubling the gentleman. I should be sorry that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside-out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself.”

“Very good, Captain Maryon,” says Pordage, in a tremendous passion. “Very good, sir. Be the consequences on your own head! Mr. Kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it.”

When he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all our names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being lost.

Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher Columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water. While she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honour of the ship, and the ship’s company, and the other visitors. At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then upon the Island, without any exception. I took no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, and mostly very pretty – as they mostly are. There was one handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and grey hair, that I inquired about. I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning; and her married daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of Fanny Fisher. Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress; and her husband, just come back from the mine, exceeding proud of her. They were a good-looking set of people on the whole, but I didn’t like them. I was out of sorts; in conversation with Charker, I found fault with all of them. I said of Mrs. Venning, she was proud; of Mrs. Fisher, she was a delicate little baby-fool. What did I think of this one? Why, he was a fine gentleman. What did I say to that one? Why, she was a fine lady. What could you expect them to be (I asked Charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees bending over them, soft lamps lighting them, fireflies sparkling in among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out, delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and everyone dancing and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for a pleasant chorus.

“Fine gentlemen and fine ladies, Harry?” I says to Charker. “Yes, I think so! Dolls! Dolls! Not the sort of stuff for wear, that comes of poor private soldiering in the Royal Marines!”

However, I could not gainsay that they were very hospitable people, and that they treated us uncommonly well. Every man of us was at the entertainment, and Mrs. Belltott had more partners than she could dance with: though she danced all night, too. As to Jack (whether of the Christopher Columbus, or of the Pirate pursuit party, it made no difference), he danced with his brother Jack, danced with himself, danced with the moon, the stars, the trees, the prospect, anything. I didn’t greatly take to the chief-officer of that party, with his bright eyes, brown face, and easy figure. I didn’t much like his way when he first happened to come where we were, with Miss Maryon on his arm. “Oh, Captain Carton,” she says, “here are two friends of mine!” He says, “Indeed? These two Marines?” – meaning Charker and self. “Yes,” says she, “I showed these two friends of mine when they first came, all the wonders of Silver-Store.” He gave us a laughing look, and says he, “You are in luck, men. I would be dis-rated and go before the mast tomorrow, to be shown the way upward again by such a guide. You are in luck, men.” When we had saluted, and he and the young lady had waltzed away, I said, “You are a pretty fellow, too, to talk of luck. You may go to the Devil!”

Mr. Commissioner Pordage and Mrs. Commissioner, showed among the company on that occasion like the King and Queen of a much Greater Britain than Great Britain. Only two other circumstances in that jovial night made much separate impression on me. One was this. A man in our draft of marines, named Tom Packer, a wild unsteady young fellow, but the son of a respectable shipwright in Portsmouth Yard, and a good scholar who had been well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes me aside by the elbow, and says, swearing angrily:

“Gill Davis, I hope I may not be the death of Serjeant Drooce one day!”

Now, I knew Drooce always had borne particularly hard on this man, and I knew this man to be of a very hot temper; so, I said:

“Tut, nonsense! don’t talk so to me! If there’s a man in the corps who scorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom Packer are one.”

Tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he:

“I hope so, but I can’t answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what, Gill! Mark my words! It will go hard with Serjeant Drooce, if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. Let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for it’s all over with him, and he is on his Deathbed. Mark my words!”

I did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be taken down.

The other circumstance that I noticed at that ball, was, the gaiety and attachment of Christian George King. The innocent spirits that Sambo Pilot was in, and the impossibility he found himself under of showing all the little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he was of them, how devoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and death, for present, future, and everlasting, made a great impression on me. If ever a man, Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, I thought that morning when I did at last lie down to rest, it was that Sambo Pilot, Christian George King.

This may account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn’t get him out. He was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times. At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really was, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut; which was made of leaves, and had Charker’s hammock slung in it as well as mine.

“So-Jeer!” says he, in a sort of a low croak. “Yup!”

“Hallo!” says I, starting up. “What? You are there, are you?”

“Iss,” says he. “Christian George King got news.”

“What news has he got?”

“Pirates out!”

I was on my feet in a second. So was Charker. We were both aware that Captain Carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the main land for a secret signal, though, of course, it was not known to such as us what the signal was.

Christian George King had vanished before we touched the ground. But, the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something near it.

In a space among the trees behind the encampment of us visitors, naval and military, was a snugly-screened spot, where we kept the stores that were in use, and did our cookery. The word was passed to assemble here. It was very quickly given, and was given (so far as we were concerned) by Serjeant Drooce, who was as good in a soldier point of view, as he was bad in a tyrannical one. We were ordered to drop into this space, quietly, behind the trees, one by one. As we assembled here, the seamen assembled too. Within ten minutes, as I should estimate, we were all here, except the usual guard upon the beach. The beach (we could see it through the wood) looked as it always had done in the hottest time of the day. The guard were in the shadow of the sloop’s hull, and nothing was moving but the sea, and that moved very faintly. Work had always been knocked off at that hour, until the sun grew less fierce, and the sea-breeze rose; so that its being holiday with us, made no difference, just then, in the look of the place. But, I may mention that it was a holiday, and the first we had had since our hard work began. Last night’s ball had been given, on the leak’s being repaired, and the careening done. The worst of the work was over, and tomorrow we were to begin to get the sloop afloat again.

We marines were now drawn up here, under arms. The chace-party were drawn up separate. The men of the Columbus were drawn up separate. The officers stepped out into the midst of the three parties, and spoke so as all might hear. Captain Carton was the officer in command, and he had a spyglass in his hand. His coxswain stood by him with another spyglass, and with a slate on which he seemed to have been taking down signals.

“Now, men!” says Captain Carton; “I have to let you know, for your satisfaction: Firstly, that there are ten pirate-boats, strongly-manned and armed, lying hidden up a creek yonder on the coast, under the overhanging branches of the dense trees. Secondly, that they will certainly come out this night when the moon rises, on a pillaging and murdering expedition, of which some part of the main land is the object. Thirdly – don’t cheer, men! – that we will give chace, and, if we can get at them, rid the world of them, please God!”

Nobody spoke, that I heard, and nobody moved, that I saw. Yet there was a kind of ring, as if every man answered and approved with the best blood that was inside of him.

“Sir,” says Captain Maryon, “I beg to volunteer on this service, with my boats. My people volunteer, to the ship’s boys.”

“In His Majesty’s name and service,” the other answers, touching his hat, “I accept your aid with pleasure. Lieutenant Linderwood, how will you divide your men?”

I was ashamed – I give it out to be written down as large and plain as possible – I was heart and soul ashamed of my thoughts of those two sick officers, Captain Maryon and Lieutenant Linderwood, when I saw them, then and there. The spirit in those two gentlemen beat down their illness (and very ill I knew them to be) like Saint George beating down the Dragon. Pain and weakness, want of ease and want of rest, had no more place in their minds than fear itself. Meaning now to express for my lady to write down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this: “You two brave fellows that I have been so grudgeful of, I know that if you were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you would hardly say, ‘I did it!’ ”

It did me good. It really did me good.

But, to go back to where I broke off. Says Captain Carton to Lieutenant Linderwood, “Sir, how will you divide your men? There is not room for all; and a few men should, in any case, be left here.”

There was some debate about it. At last, it was resolved to leave eight Marines and four seamen on the Island, besides the sloop’s two boys. And because it was considered that the friendly Sambos would only want to be commanded in case of any danger (though none at all was apprehended there), the officers were in favour of leaving the two non-commissioned officers, Drooce and Charker. It was a heavy disappointment to them, just as my being one of the left was a heavy disappointment to me – then, but not soon afterwards. We men drew lots for it, and I drew “Island.” So did Tom Packer. So, of course, did four more of our rank and file.

When this was settled, verbal instructions were given to all hands to keep the intended expedition secret, in order that the women and children might not be alarmed, or the expedition put in a difficulty by more volunteers. The assembly was to be on that same spot, at sunset. Every man was to keep up an appearance, meanwhile, of occupying himself in his usual way. That is to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen, who were appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition, and to muffle the rollocks of the boats, and to make everything as trim and swift and silent as it could be made.

The Sambo Pilot had been present all the while, in case of his being wanted, and had said to the officer in command, five hundred times over if he had said it once, that Christian George King would stay with the So-Jeers, and take care of the booffer ladies and the booffer childs – booffer being that native’s expression for beautiful. He was now asked a few questions concerning the putting off of the boats, and in particular whether there was any way of embarking at the back of the Island: which Captain Carton would have half liked to do, and then have dropped round in its shadow and slanted across to the main. But, “No,” says Christian George King. “No, no, no! Told you so, ten time. No, no, no! All reef, all rock, all swim, all drown!” Striking out as he said it, like a swimmer gone mad, and turning over on his back on dry land, and spluttering himself to death, in a manner that made him quite an exhibition.

The sun went down, after appearing to be a long time about it, and the assembly was called. Every man answered to his name, of course, and was at his post. It was not yet black dark, and the roll was only just gone through, when up comes Mr. Commissioner Pordage with his Diplomatic coat on.

“Captain Carton,” says he, “Sir, what is this?”

“This, Mr. Commissioner,” (he was very short with him) “is an expedition against the Pirates. It is a secret expedition, so please to keep it a secret.”

“Sir,” says Commissioner Pordage, “I trust there is going to be no unnecessary cruelty committed?”

“Sir,” returns the officer, “I trust not.”

“That is not enough, sir,” cries Commissioner Pordage, getting wroth. “Captain Carton, I give you notice. Government requires you to treat the enemy with great delicacy, consideration, clemency, and forbearance.”

“Sir,” says Captain Carton, “I am an English Officer, commanding English Men, and I hope I am not likely to disappoint the Government’s just expectations. But, I presume you know that these villains under their black flag have despoiled our countrymen of their property, burnt their homes, barbarously murdered them and their little children, and worse than murdered their wives and daughters?”

“Perhaps I do, Captain Carton,” answers Pordage, waving his hand, with dignity; “perhaps I do not. It is not customary, sir, for Government to commit itself.”

“It matters very little, Mr. Pordage, whether or no. Believing that I hold my commission by the allowance of God, and not that I have received it direct from the Devil, I shall certainly use it, with all avoidance of unnecessary suffering and with all merciful swiftness of execution, to exterminate these people from the face of the earth. Let me recommend you to go home, sir, and to keep out of the night-air.”

Never another syllable did that officer say to the Commissioner, but turned away to his men. The Commissioner buttoned his Diplomatic coat to the chin, said, “Mr. Kitten, attend me!” gasped, half choked himself, and took himself off.

It now fell very dark, indeed. I have seldom, if ever, seen it darker, nor yet so dark. The moon was not due until one in the morning, and it was but a little after nine when our men lay down where they were mustered. It was pretended that they were to take a nap, but everybody knew that no nap was to be got under the circumstances. Though all were very quiet, there was a restlessness among the people; much what I have seen among the people on a racecourse, when the bell has rung for the saddling for a great race with large stakes on it.

At ten, they put off; only one boat putting off at a time; another following in five minutes; both then lying on their oars until another followed. Ahead of all, paddling his own outlandish little canoe without a sound, went the Sambo pilot, to take them safely outside the reef. No light was shown but once, and that was in the commanding officer’s own hand. I lighted the dark lantern for him, and he took it from me when he embarked. They had blue lights and such like with them, but kept themselves as dark as Murder.

The expedition got away with wonderful quietness, and Christian George King soon came back, dancing with joy.

“Yup, So-Jeer,” says he to myself in a very objectionable kind of convulsions, “Christian George King sar berry glad. Pirates all be blown a-pieces. Yup! Yup!”

My reply to that cannibal was, “However glad you may be, hold your noise, and don’t dance jigs and slap your knees about it, for I can’t abear to see you do it.”

I was on duty then; we twelve who were left, being divided into four watches of three each, three hours’ spell. I was relieved at twelve. A little before that time, I had challenged, and Miss Maryon and Mrs. Belltott had come in.

“Good Davis,” says Miss Maryon, “what is the matter? Where is my brother?”

I told her what was the matter, and where her brother was.

“O Heaven help him!” says she, clasping her hands and looking up – she was close in front of me, and she looked most lovely to be sure; “he is not sufficiently recovered, not strong enough, for such strife!”

“If you had seen him, miss,” I told her, “as I saw him when he volunteered, you would have known that his spirit is strong enough for any strife. It will bear his body, miss, to wherever duty calls him. It will always bear him to an honourable life, or a brave death.”

“Heaven bless you!” says she, touching my arm. “I know it. Heaven bless you!”

Mrs. Belltott surprised me by trembling and saying nothing. They were still standing looking towards the sea and listening, after the relief had come round. It continuing very dark, I asked to be allowed to take them back. Miss Maryon thanked me, and she put her arm in mine, and I did take them back. I have now got to make a confession that will appear singular. After I had left them, I laid myself down on my face on the beach, and cried, for the first time since I had frightened birds as a boy at Snorridge Bottom, to think what a poor, ignorant, low-placed, private soldier I was.

It was only for half a minute or so. A man can’t at all times be quite master of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so. Then I up and went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and fell asleep with wet eyelashes, and a sore, sore heart. Just as I had often done when I was a child, and had been worse used than usual.

I slept (as a child under those circumstances might) very sound, and yet very sore at heart all through my sleep. I was awoke by the words, “He is a determined man.” I had sprung out of my hammock, and had seized my firelock, and was standing on the ground, saying the words myself. “He is a determined man.” But, the curiosity of my state was, that I seemed to be repeating them after somebody, and to have been wonderfully startled by hearing them.

As soon as I came to myself, I went out of the hut, and away to where the guard was. Charker challenged: “Who goes there?”  “A friend.”  “Not Gill?” says he, as he shouldered his piece. “Gill,” says I. “Why, what the deuce do you do out of your hammock?” says he. “Too hot for sleep,” says I; “is all right?”  “Right!” says Charker, “yes, yes; all’s right enough here; what should be wrong here? It’s the boats that we want to know of. Except for fireflies twinkling about, and the lonesome splashes of great creatures as they drop into the water, there’s nothing going on here to ease a man’s mind from the boats.”

The moon was above the sea, and had risen, I should say, some half-an-hour. As Charker spoke, with his face towards the sea, I, looking landward, suddenly laid my right hand on his breast, and said, “Don’t move. Don’t turn. Don’t raise your voice! You never saw a Maltese face here?”

“No. What do you mean?” he asks, staring at me.

“Nor yet an English face, with one eye and a patch across the nose?”

“No. What ails you? What do you mean?”

I had seen both, looking at us round the stem of a coconut tree, where the moon struck them. I had seen that Sambo Pilot, with one hand laid on the stem of the tree, drawing them back into the heavy shadow. I had seen their naked cutlasses twinkle and shine, like bits of the moonshine in the water that had got blown ashore among the trees by the light wind. I had seen it all, in a moment. And I saw in a moment (as any man would), that the signalled move of the pirates on the mainland was a plot and a feint; that the leak had been made to disable the sloop; that the boats had been tempted away, to leave the Island unprotected; that the pirates had landed by some secreted way at the back; and that Christian George King was a double-dyed traitor, and a most infernal villain.

I considered, still all in one and the same moment, that Charker was a brave man, but not quick with his head; and that Serjeant Drooce, with a much better head, was close by. All I said to Charker was, “I am afraid we are betrayed. Turn your back full to the moonlight on the sea, and cover the stem of the coconut tree which will then be right before you, at the height of a man’s heart. Are you right?”

“I am right,” says Charker, turning instantly, and falling into the position with a nerve of iron; “and right a’nt left. Is it Gill?”

A few seconds brought me to Serjeant Drooce’s hut. He was fast asleep, and being a heavy sleeper, I had to lay my hand upon him to rouse him. The instant I touched him he came rolling out of his hammock, and upon me like a tiger. And a tiger he was, except that he knew what he was up to, in his utmost heat, as well as any man.

I had to struggle with him pretty hard to bring him to his senses, panting all the while (for he gave me a breather), “Serjeant, I am Gill Davis! Treachery! Pirates on the Island!”

The last words brought him round, and he took his hands off. “I have seen two of them within this minute,” said I. And so I told him what I had told Harry Charker.

His soldierly, though tyrannical, head was clear in an instant. He didn’t waste one word, even of surprise. “Order the guard,” says he, “to draw off quietly into the Fort.” (They called the enclosure I have before mentioned, the Fort, though it was not much of that.) “Then get you to the Fort as quick as you can, rouse up every soul there, and fasten the gate. I will bring in all those who are up at the Signal Hill. If we are surrounded before we can join you, you must make a sally and cut us out if you can. The word among our men is, ‘Women and children!’ ”

He burst away, like fire going before the wind over dry reeds. He roused up the seven men who were off duty, and had them bursting away with him, before they knew they were not asleep. I reported orders to Charker, and ran to the Fort, as I have never run at any other time in all my life: no, not even in a dream.

The gate was not fast, and had no good fastening: only a double wooden bar, a poor chain, and a bad lock. Those, I secured as well as they could be secured in a few seconds by one pair of hands, and so ran to that part of the building where Miss Maryon lived. I called to her loudly by her name until she answered. I then called loudly all the names I knew – Mrs. Macey (Miss Maryon’s married sister), Mr. Macey, Mrs. Venning, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, even Mr. and Mrs. Pordage. Then I called out, “All you gentlemen here, get up and defend the place! We are caught in a trap. Pirates have landed. We are attacked!”

At the terrible word “Pirates!” – for, those villains had done such deeds in those seas as never can be told in writing, and can scarcely be so much as thought of – cries and screams rose up from every part of the place. Quickly, lights moved about from window to window, and the cries moved about with them, and men, women and children came flying down into the square. I remarked to myself, even then, what a number of things I seemed to see at once. I noticed Mrs. Macey coming towards me, carrying all her three children together. I noticed Mr. Pordage, in the greatest terror, in vain trying to get on his Diplomatic coat; and Mr. Kitten respectfully tying his pocket-handkerchief over Mrs. Pordage’s nightcap. I noticed Mrs. Belltott run out screaming, and shrink upon the ground near me, and cover her face in her hands, and lie, all of a bundle, shivering. But, what I noticed with the greatest pleasure was, the determined eyes with which those men of the Mine that I had thought fine gentlemen, came round me with what arms they had: to the full as cool and resolute as I could be, for my life – aye, and for my soul, too, into the bargain!

The chief person being Mr. Macey, I told him how the three men of the guard would be at the gate directly, if they were not already there, and how Serjeant Drooce and the other seven were gone to bring in the outlying part of the people of Silver-store. I next urged him, for the love all who were dear to him, to trust no Sambo, and, above all, if he could get any good chance at Christian George King, not to lose it, but to put him out of the world. “I will follow your advice to the letter, Davis,” says he; “what next?” My answer was, “I think, sir, I would recommend you next, to order down such heavy furniture and lumber as can be moved, and make a barricade within the gate.”  “That’s good again,” says he; “will you see it done?”  “I’ll willingly help to do it,” says I, “unless or until my superior, Serjeant Drooce, gives me other orders.” He shook me by the hand, and having told off some of his companions to help me, bestirred himself to look to the arms and ammunition. A proper quick, brave, steady, ready gentleman!

One of their three little children was deaf and dumb. Miss Maryon had been from the first with all the children, soothing them, and dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought out of their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of play, so that some of them were now even laughing. I had been working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a pretty good breastwork within the gate. Drooce and the seven had come back, bringing in the people from the Signal Hill, and had worked along with us: but, I had not so much as spoken a word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, for we were both too busy. The breastwork was now finished, and I found Miss Maryon at my side, with a child in her arms. Her dark hair was fastened round her head with a band. She had a quantity of it, and it looked even richer and more precious, put up hastily out of her way, than I had seen it look when it was carefully arranged. She was very pale, but extraordinarily quiet and still.

“Dear good Davis,” said she, “I have been waiting to speak one word to you.”

I turned to her directly. If I had received a musket-ball in the heart, and she had stood there, I almost believe I should have turned to her before I dropped.

“This pretty little creature,” said she, kissing the child in her arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, “cannot hear what we say – can hear nothing. I trust you so much, and have such great confidence in you, that I want you to make me a promise.”

“What is it, Miss?”

“That if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being taken, you will kill me.”

“I shall not be alive to do it, Miss. I shall have died in your defence before it comes to that. They must step across my body, to lay a hand on you.”

“But, if you are alive, you brave soldier.” How she looked at me! “And if you cannot save me from the Pirates, living, you will save me, dead. Tell me so.”

Well! I told her I would do that, at the last, if all else failed. She took my hand – my rough, coarse hand – and put it to her lips. She put it to the child’s lips, and the child kissed it. I believe I had the strength of half a dozen men in me, from that moment, until the fight was over.

All this time, Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to make a Proclamation to the Pirates, to lay down their arms and go away; and everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling over him, while he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. Mrs. Pordage, too, had some curious ideas about the British respectability of her nightcap (which had as many frills to it, growing in layers one inside another, as if it was a white vegetable of the artichoke sort), and she wouldn’t take the nightcap off, and would be angry when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handing things about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as her husband did. But, as we were now forming for the defence of the place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best disposition we could. There was a pretty good store, in point of amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. There were, also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. Those were brought out. To my astonishment, little Mrs. Fisher that I had taken for a doll and a baby, was not only very active in that service, but volunteered to load the spare arms.

“For, I understand it well,” says she, cheerfully, without a shake in her voice.

“I am a soldier’s daughter and a sailor’s sister, and I understand it too,” says Miss Maryon, just in the same way.

Steady and busy behind where I stood, those two beautiful and delicate young women fell to handling the guns, hammering the flints, looking to the locks, and quietly directing others to pass up powder and bullets from hand to hand, as unflinching as the best of tried soldiers.

Serjeant Drooce had brought in word that the pirates were very strong in numbers – over a hundred, was his estimate – and that they were not, even then, all landed; for, he had seen them in a very good position on the further side of the Signal Hill, evidently waiting for the rest of their men to come up. In the present pause, the first we had had since the alarm, he was telling this over again to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macey suddenly cried out:

“The signal! Nobody has thought of the signal!”

We knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it. “What signal may you mean, sir?” says Serjeant Drooce, looking sharp at him.

“There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill. If it could be lighted – which never has been done yet – it would be a signal of distress to the mainland.”

Charker cries, directly: “Serjeant Drooce, dispatch me on that duty. Give me the two men who were on guard with me tonight, and I’ll light the fire, if it can be done.”

“And if it can’t, Corporal—” Mr. Macey strikes in.

“Look at these ladies and children, sir!” says Charker. “I’d sooner light myself, than not try any chance to save them.”

We gave him a Hurrah! – it burst from us, come of it what might – and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate, and crept away. I had no sooner come back to my place from being one of the party to handle the gate, than Miss Maryon said in a low voice behind me:

“Davis, will you look at this powder. This is not right?”

I turned my head. Christian George King again, and treachery again! Seawater had been conveyed into the magazine, and every grain of powder was spoiled!

“Stay a moment,” said Serjeant Drooce, when I had told him, without causing a movement in a muscle of his face: “look to your pouch, my lad. You Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound you!’ Look to your pouches, all you Marines.”

The same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, and the cartridges were all unserviceable. “Hum!” says the Serjeant, “Look to your loading, men. You are right so far?”

Yes; we were right so far.

“Well, my lads, and gentlemen all,” says the Serjeant, “this will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better.”

He treated himself to a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square-shouldered and broad-chested, in the light of the moon – which was now very bright – as cool as if he was waiting for a play to begin. He stood quiet, and we all stood quiet, for a matter of something like half-an-hour. I took notice from such whispered talk as there was, how little we that the silver did not belong to, thought about it, and how much the people that it did belong to, thought about it. At the end of the half-hour, it was reported from the gate that Charker and the two were falling back on us, pursued by about a dozen.

“Sally! Gate-party, under Gill Davis,” says the Sergeant, “and bring ’em in! Like men, now!”

We were not long about it, and we brought them in. “Don’t take me,” says Charker, holding me round the neck, and stumbling down at my feet when the gate was fast, “don’t take me near the ladies or the children, Gill. They had better not see Death, till it can’t be helped. They’ll see it soon enough.”

“Harry!” I answered, holding up his head. “Comrade!”

He was cut to pieces. The signal had been secured by the first pirate party that landed; his hair was all singed off, and his face was blackened with the running pitch from a torch.

He made no complaint of pain, or of anything. “Good bye, old chap,” was all he said, with a smile. “I’ve got my death. And Death a’nt life. Is it, Gill?”

Having helped to lay his poor body on one side, I went back to my post. Serjeant Drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a little lifted. I nodded. “Close up here, men, and gentlemen all!” said the Serjeant. “A place too many, in the line.”

The Pirates were so close upon us at this time, that the foremost of them were already before the gate. More and more came up with a great noise, and shouting loudly. When we believed from the sound that they were all there, we gave three English cheers. The poor little children joined, and were so fully convinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the noise, and were heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed.

Our disposition was this, beginning with the rear. Mrs. Venning, holding her daughter’s child in her arms, sat on the steps of the little square trench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging and directing those women and children as she might have done in the happiest and easiest time of her life. Then, there was an armed line, under Mr. Macey, across the width of the enclosure, facing that way and having their backs towards the gate, in order that they might watch the walls and prevent our being taken by surprise. Then, there was a space of eight or ten feet deep, in which the spare arms were, and in which Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gunpowder, worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old bayonets, and spear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets. Then, there was a second armed line, under Serjeant Drooce, also across the width of the enclosure, but facing to the gate. Then, came the breastwork we had made, with a zig-zag way through it for me and my little party to hold good in retreating, as long as we could, when we were driven from the gate. We all knew that it was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only hope was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their coming back.

I and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. From a spyhole, I could see the whole crowd of Pirates. There were Malays among them, Dutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, and Convict Englishmen from the West India Islands; among the last, him with the one eye and the patch across the nose. There were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards. The captain was a Portuguese; a little man with very large earrings under a very broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his shoulders. They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. I noticed a good many pistols, but not a gun of any kind among them. This gave me to understand that they had considered that a continued roll of musketry might perhaps have been heard on the mainland; also, that for the reason that fire would be seen from the mainland they would not set the Fort in flames and roast us alive; which was one of their favourite ways of carrying on. I looked about for Christian George King, and if I had seen him I am much mistaken if he would not have received my one round of ball-cartridge in his head. But, no Christian George King was visible.

A sort of a wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce-mad or fierce-drunk – but, they all seemed one or the other – came forward with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. After that, the Portuguese captain called out in shrill English. “I say you! English fools! Open the gate! Surrender!”

As we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which I didn’t understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English rascal with the patch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in English. It was only this. “Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. Take all the prisoners you can. If they don’t yield, kill the children to make them. Forward!” Then, they all came on at the gate, and, in another half minute were smashing and splitting it in.

We struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped many of them, too; but, their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they had been unarmed. I soon found Serjeant Drooce at my side, forming us six remaining marines in line – Tom Packer next to me – and ordering us to fall back three paces, and, as they broke in, to give them our one little volley at short distance. “Then,” says he, “receive them behind your breastwork on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of the cursed cockchafers through the body.”

We checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the breastwork. However, they broke over it like swarms of devils – they were, really and truly, more devils than men – and then it was hand to hand, indeed.

We clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those two ladies – always behind me – were steady and ready with the arms. I had a lot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that Miss Maryon’s own hand put in mine, should have got my end from them. But, was that all? No. I saw a heap of banded dark hair and a white dress come thrice between me and them, under my own raised right arm, which each time might have destroyed the wearer of the white dress; and each time one of the lot went down, struck dead.

Drooce was armed with a broad-sword, too, and did such things with it, that there was a cry, in half a dozen languages, of “Kill that serjeant!” as I knew, by the cry being raised in English, and taken up in other tongues. I had received a severe cut across the left arm a few moments before, and should have known nothing of it, except supposing that somebody had struck me a smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen myself covered with spouting blood, and, at the same instant of time, seen Miss Maryon tearing her dress, and binding it with Mrs. Fisher’s help round the wound. They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to stop and guard me for one minute, while I was bound, or I should bleed to death in trying to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, with a good sabre in his hand.

In that same moment – all things seem to happen in that same moment, at such a time – half-a-dozen had rushed howling at Serjeant Drooce. The Serjeant, stepping back against the wall, stopped one howl forever with such a terrible blow, and waited for the rest to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved face, that they stopped and looked at him.

“See him now!” cried Tom Packer. “Now, when I could cut him out! Gill! Did I tell you to mark my words?”

I implored Tom Packer in the Lord’s name, as well as I could in my faintness, to go to the Serjeant’s aid.

“I hate and detest him,” says Tom, moodily wavering. “Still, he is a brave man.” Then he calls out, “Serjeant Drooce, Serjeant Drooce! Tell me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry for it.”

The Serjeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, which would have been instant death to him, answers:

“No. I won’t.”

“Serjeant Drooce!” cries Tom, in a kind of an agony. “I have passed my word that I would never save you from Death, if I could, but would leave you to die. Tell me you have driven me too hard and are sorry for it, and that shall go for nothing.”

One of the group laid the Serjeant’s bald bare head open. The Serjeant laid him dead.

“I tell you,” says the Serjeant, breathing a little short, and waiting for the next attack. “No. I won’t. If you are not man enough to strike for a fellow-soldier because he wants help, and because of nothing else, I’ll go into the other world and look for a better man.”

Tom swept upon them, and cut him out. Tom and he fought their way through another knot of them, and sent them flying, and came over to where I was beginning again to feel, with inexpressible joy, that I had got a sword in my hand.

They had hardly come to us, when I heard, above all the other noises, a tremendous cry of women’s voices. I also saw Miss Maryon, with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two hands over Mrs. Fisher’s eyes. I looked towards the silver-house, and saw Mrs. Venning – standing upright on the top of the steps of the trench, with her grey hair and her dark eyes – hide her daughter’s child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a pirate with her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol.

The cry arose again, and there was a terrible and confusing rush of the women into the midst of the struggle. In another moment, something came tumbling down upon me that I thought was the wall. It was a heap of Sambos who had come over the wall; and of four men who clung to my legs like serpents, one who clung to my right leg was Christian George King.

“Yup, So-Jeer!” says he, “Christian George King sar berry glad So-Jeer a prisoner. Christian George King been waiting for So-Jeer sech long time. Yup, yup!”

What could I do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be tied hand and foot? So, I was tied hand and foot. It was all over now – boats not come back – all lost! When I was fast bound and was put up against the wall, the one-eyed English convict came up with the Portuguese Captain, to have a look at me.

“See!” says he, “Here’s the determined man! If you had slept sounder, last night, you’d have slept your soundest last night, my determined man.”

The Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool way, and, with the flat of his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree that he played with: first on the face, and then across the chest and the wounded arm. I looked him steady in the face without tumbling while he looked at me, I am happy to say; but, when they went away, I fell, and lay there.

The sun was up, when I was roused and told to come down to the beach and be embarked. I was full of aches and pains, and could not at first remember; but, I remembered quite soon enough. The killed were lying about all over the place, and the Pirates were burying their dead, and taking away their wounded on hastily-made litters, to the back of the Island. As for us prisoners, some of their boats had come round to the usual harbour, to carry us off. We looked a wretched few, I thought, when I got down there; still, it was another sign that we had fought well, and made the enemy suffer.

The Portuguese Captain had all the women already embarked in the boat he himself commanded, which was just putting off when I got down. Miss Maryon sat on one side of him, and gave me a moment’s look, as full of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as if it had been an hour long. On the other side of him was poor little Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. I was shoved into the same boat with Drooce and Packer, and the remainder of our party of marines: of whom we had lost two privates, besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We all made a melancholy passage, under the hot sun, over to the mainland. There, we landed in a solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand. Mr. and Mrs. Macey and their children were amongst us, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, Mr. Fisher, and Mrs. Belltott. We mustered only fourteen men, fifteen women, and seven children. Those were all that remained of the English who had lain down to sleep last night, unsuspecting and happy, on the Island of Silver-Store.

II

THE PRISON
IN THE WOODS

There we all stood, huddled up on the beach under the burning sun, with the pirates closing us in on every side – as forlorn a company of helpless men, women, and children as ever was gathered together out of any nation in the world. I kept my thoughts to myself; but I did not in my heart believe that any one of our lives was worth five minutes’ purchase.

The man on whose will our safety or our destruction depended was the Pirate Captain. All our eyes, by a kind of instinct, fixed themselves on him – excepting in the case of the poor children, who, too frightened to cry, stood hiding their faces against their mothers’ gowns. The ruler who held all the ruffians about us in subjection, was, judging by appearances, the very last man I should have picked out as likely to fill a place of power among any body of men, good or bad, under heaven. By nation, he was a Portuguese; and, by name, he was generally spoken of among his men as The Don. He was a little, active, weazen, monkey-faced man, dressed in the brightest colours and the finest-made clothes I ever saw. His three-cornered hat was smartly cocked on one side. His coat-skirts were stiffened and stuck out, like the skirts of the dandies in the Mall in London. When the dance was given at the Island, I saw no such lace on any lady’s dress there as I saw on his cravat and ruffles. Round his neck he wore a thick gold chain, with a diamond cross hanging from it. His lean, wiry, brown fingers were covered with rings. Over his shoulders, and falling down in front to below his waist, he wore a sort of sling of broad scarlet cloth, embroidered with beads and little feathers, and holding, at the lower part, four loaded pistols, two on a side, lying ready to either hand. His face was mere skin and bone, and one of his wrinkled cheeks had a blue scar running all across it, which drew up that part of his face, and showed his white shining teeth on that side of his mouth. An uglier, meaner, weaker, man-monkey to look at, I never saw; and yet there was not one of his crew, from his mate to his cabin-boy, who did not obey him as if he had been the greatest monarch in the world. As for the Sambos, including especially that evil-minded scoundrel, Christian George King, they never went near him without seeming to want to roll before him on the ground, for the sake of winning the honour of having one of his little dancing-master’s feet set on their black bullock bodies.

There this fellow stood, while we were looking at him, with his hands in his pockets, smoking a cigar. His mate (the one-eyed Englishman), stood by him; a big, hulking fellow he was, who might have eaten the Captain up, pistols and all, and looked about for more afterwards. The Don himself seemed, to an ignorant man like me, to have a gift of speaking in any tongue he liked. I can testify that his English rattled out of his crooked lips as fast as if it was natural to them; making allowance, of course, for his foreign way of clipping his words.

“Now, Captain,” says the big mate, running his eye over us as if we were a herd of cattle, “here they are. What’s to be done with them?”

“Are they all off the Island?” says the Pirate Captain.

“All or them that are alive,” says the mate.

“Good, and very good,” says the captain. “Now, Giant-Georgy, some paper, a pen, and a horn of ink.”

Those things were brought immediately.

“Something to write on,” says the Pirate Captain. “What? Ha! why not a broad nigger back?”

He pointed with the end of his cigar to one of the Sambos. The man was pulled forward, and set down on his knees with his shoulders rounded. The Pirate Captain laid the paper on them, and took a dip of ink – then suddenly turned up his snub-nose with a look of disgust, and, removing the paper again, took from his pocket a fine cambric handkerchief edged with lace, smelt at the scent on it, and afterwards laid it delicately over the Sambo’s shoulders.

“A table of black man’s back, with the sun on it, close under my nose – ah, Giant-Georgy, pah! pah!” says the Pirate Captain, putting the paper on the handkerchief, with another grimace expressive of great disgust.

He began to write immediately, waiting from time to time to consider a little with himself; and once stopping, apparently, to count our numbers as we stood before him. To think of that villain knowing how to write, and of my not being able to make so much as a decent pothook, if it had been to save my life!

When he had done, he signed to one of his men to take the scented handkerchief off the Sambo’s back, and told the sailor he might keep it for his trouble. Then, holding the written paper open in his hand, he came forward a step or two closer to us, and said, with a grin, and a mock bow, which made my fingers itch with wanting to be at him:

“I have the honour of addressing myself to the ladies. According to my reckoning they are fifteen ladies in all. Does any one of them belong to the chief officer of the sloop?”

There was a momentary silence.

“You don’t answer me,” says the Pirate Captain. “Now, I mean to be answered. Look here, women.” He drew one of his four pistols out of his gay scarlet sling, and walked up to Tom Packer, who happened to be standing nearest to him of the men prisoners. “This is a pistol, and it is loaded. I put the barrel to the head of this man with my right hand, and I take out my watch with my left. I wait five minutes for an answer. If I don’t get it in five minutes, I blow this man’s brains out. I wait five minutes again, and if I don’t get an answer, I blow the next man’s brains out. And so I go on, if you are obstinate, and your nerves are strong, till not one of your soldiers or your sailors is left. On my word of honour, as a gentleman-buccanier I promise you that. Ask my men if I ever broke my word.”

He rested the barrel of the pistol against Tom Packer’s head, and looked at his watch, as perfectly composed, in his catlike cruelty, as if he was waiting for the boiling of an egg.

“If you think it best not to answer him, ladies,” says Tom, “never mind me. It’s my trade to risk my life; and I shall lose it in a good cause.”

“A brave man,” said the Pirate Captain, lightly. “Well, ladies, are you going to sacrifice the brave man?”

“We are going to save him,” said Miss Maryon, “as he has striven to save us. I belong to the captain of the sloop. I am his sister.” She stopped, and whispered anxiously to Mrs. Macey, who was standing with her. “Don’t acknowledge yourself, as I have done – you have children.”

“Good!” said the Pirate Captain. “The answer is given, and the brains may stop in the brave man’s head.” He put his watch and pistol back, and took two or three quick puffs at his cigar to keep it alight – then handed the paper he had written on, and his pen full of ink, to Miss Maryon.

“Read that over,” he said, “and sign it for yourself, and the women and children with you.”

Saying those words, he turned round briskly on his heel, and began talking, in a whisper, to Giant Georgy, the big English mate. What he was talking about, of course, I could not hear; but I noticed that he motioned several times straight into the interior of the country.

“Davis,” said Miss Maryon, “look at this.”

She crossed before her sister, as she spoke, and held the paper which the Pirate Captain had given to her, under my eyes – my bound arms not allowing me to take it myself. Never to my dying day shall I forget the shame I felt, when I was obliged to acknowledge to Miss Maryon that I could not read a word of it!

“There are better men than me, ma’am,” I said, with a sinking heart, “who can read it, and advise you for the best.”

“None better,” she answered, quietly. “None, whose advice I would so willingly take. I have seen enough, to feel sure of that. Listen, Davis, while I read.”

Her pale face turned paler still, as she fixed her eyes on the paper. Lowering her voice to a whisper, so that the women and children near might not hear, she read me these lines:

To the Captains of English men-of-war, and to the commanders of vessels of other nations, cruising in the Caribbean Seas.

The precious metal and the jewels laid up in the English Island of Silver-Store, are in the possession of the Buccaniers, at sea.

The women and children of the Island of Silver-Store, to the number of Twenty-Two, are in the possession of the Buccaniers, on land.

They will be taken up the country, with fourteen men prisoners (whose lives the Buccaniers have private reasons of their own for preserving), to a place of confinement, which is unapproachable by strangers. They will be kept there until a certain day, previously agreed on between the Buccaniers at sea, and the Buccaniers on land.

If, by that time, no news from the party at sea, reaches the party on land, it will be taken for granted that the expedition which conveys away the silver and jewels has been met, engaged, and conquered by superior force; that the Treasure has been taken from its present owners; and that the Buccaniers guarding it, have been made prisoners, to be dealt with according to the law.

The absence of the expected news at the appointed time, being interpreted in this way, it will be the next object of the Buccaniers on land to take reprisals for the loss and the injury inflicted on their companions at sea. The lives of the women and children of the Island of Silver-Store are absolutely at their mercy; and those lives will pay the forfeit, if the Treasure is taken away, and if the men in possession of it come to harm.

This paper will be nailed to the lid of the largest chest taken from the Island. Any officer whom the chances of war may bring within reading distance of it, is warned to pause and consider, before his conduct signs the death-warrant of the women and children of an English colony.

Signed, under the Black Flag,

Pedro Mendez,

Commander of the Buccaniers, and Chief of the Guard over the English Prisoners.

The statement above written, in so far as it regards the situation we are now placed in, may be depended on as the truth.

Signed, on behalf of the imprisoned women and children of the Island of Silver-Store.

“Beneath this last line,” said Miss Maryon, pointing to it, “is a blank space, in which I am expected to sign my name.”

“And in five minutes’ time,” added the Pirate Captain, who had stolen close up to us, “or the same consequences will follow which I had the pleasure of explaining to you a few minutes ago.”

He again drew out his watch and pistol; but, this time, it was my head that he touched with the barrel.

“When Tom Packer spoke for himself, miss, a little while ago,” I said, “please to consider that he spoke for me.”

“Another brave man!” said the Pirate Captain, with his ape’s grin. “Am I to fire my pistol this time, or am I to put it back again as I did before?”

Miss Maryon did not seem to hear him. Her kind eyes rested for a moment on my face, and then looked up to the bright Heaven above us.

“Whether I sign, or whether I do not sign,” she said, “we are still in the hands of God, and the future which His wisdom has appointed will not the less surely come.”

With those words she placed the paper on my breast, signed it, and handed it back to the Pirate Captain.

“This is our secret, Davis,” she whispered. “Let us keep the dreadful knowledge of it to ourselves as long as we can.”

I have another singular confession to make – I hardly expect anybody to believe me when I mention the circumstance – but it is not the less the plain truth that, even in the midst of that frightful situation, I felt, for a few moments, a sensation of happiness while Miss Maryon’s hand was holding the paper on my breast, and while her lips were telling me that there was a secret between us which we were to keep together.

The Pirate Captain carried the signed paper at once to his mate.

“Go back to the Island,” he says, “and nail that with your own hands on the lid of the largest chest. There is no occasion to hurry the business of shipping the Treasure, because there is nobody on the Island to make signals that may draw attention to it from the sea. I have provided for that; and I have provided for the chance of your being outmanoeuvred afterwards, by English, or other cruisers. Here are your sailing orders” (he took them from his pocket while he spoke), “your directions for the disposal of the Treasure, and your appointment of the day and the place for communicating again with me and my prisoners. I have done my part – go you, now, and do yours.”

Hearing the clearness with which he gave his orders; knowing what the devilish scheme was that he had invented for preventing the recovery of the Treasure, even if our ships happened to meet and capture the pirates at sea; remembering what the look and the speech of him had been, when he put his pistol to my head and Tom Packer’s; I began to understand how it was that this little, weak, weazen, wicked spider had got the first place and kept it among the villains about him.

The mate moved off, with his orders, towards the sea. Before he got there, the Pirate Captain beckoned another of the crew to come to him; and spoke a few words in his own, or in some other foreign language. I guessed what they meant, when I saw thirty of the pirates told off together, and set in a circle all round us. The rest were marched away after the mate. In the same manner the Sambos were divided next. Ten, including Christian George King, were left with us; and the others were sent down to the canoes. When this had been done, the Pirate Captain looked at his watch; pointed to some trees, about a mile off which fringed the land as it rose from the beach; said to an American among the pirates round us, who seemed to hold the place of second mate, “In two hours from this time;” and then walked away briskly, with one of his men after him, to some baggage piled up below us on the beach.

We were marched off at once to the shady place under the trees, and allowed to sit down there, in the cool, with our guard in a ring round us. Feeling certain from what I saw, and from what I knew to be contained in the written paper signed by Miss Maryon, that we were on the point of undertaking a long journey up the country, I anxiously examined my fellow prisoners to see how fit they looked for encountering bodily hardship and fatigue: to say nothing of mental suspense and terror, over and above.

With all possible respect for an official gentleman, I must admit that Mr. Commissioner Pordage struck me as being, beyond any comparison, the most helpless individual in our unfortunate company. What with the fright he had suffered, the danger he had gone through, and the bewilderment of finding himself torn clean away from his safe Government moorings, his poor unfortunate brains seemed to be as completely discomposed as his Diplomatic coat. He was perfectly harmless and quiet, but also perfectly light-headed – as anybody could discover who looked at his dazed eyes or listened to his maundering talk. I tried him with a word or two about our miserable situation; thinking that, if any subject would get a trifle of sense out of him, it must surely be that.

“You will observe,” said Mr. Pordage, looking at the torn cuffs of his Diplomatic coat instead of at me, “that I cannot take cognisance of our situation. No memorandum of it has been drawn up; no report in connection with it has been presented to me. I cannot possibly recognise it until the necessary minutes and memorandums and reports have reached me through the proper channels. When our miserable situation presents itself to me, on paper, I shall bring it under the notice of Government; and Government, after a proper interval, will bring it back again under my notice; and then I shall have something to say about it. Not a minute before, – no, my man, not a minute before!”

Speaking of Mr. Pordage’s wanderings of mind, reminds me that it is necessary to say a word next, about the much more serious case of Serjeant Drooce. The cut on his head, acted on by the heat of the climate, had driven him, to all appearance, stark mad. Besides the danger to himself, if he broke out before the Pirates, there was the danger to the women and children, of trusting him among them – a misfortune which, in our captive condition, it was impossible to avoid. Most providentially, however (as I found on inquiry) Tom Packer, who had saved his life, had a power of controlling him, which none of the rest of us possessed. Some shattered recollection of the manner in which he had been preserved from death, seemed to be still left in a corner of his memory. Whenever he showed symptoms of breaking out, Tom looked at him, and repeated with his hand and arm the action of cutting out right and left which had been the means of his saving the sergeant. On seeing that, Drooce always huddled himself up close to Tom, and fell silent. We, – that is, Packer and I – arranged it together that he was always to keep near Drooce, whatever happened, and however far we might be marched before we reached the place of our imprisonment.

The rest of us men – meaning Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, two of my comrades of the Marines, and five of the sloop’s crew – were, making allowance for a little smarting in our wounds, in tolerable health, and not half so much broken in spirit by troubles, past, present, and to come, as some persons might be apt to imagine. As for the seamen, especially, no stranger who looked at their jolly brown faces would ever have imagined that they were prisoners, and in peril of their lives. They sat together, chewing their quids, and looking out good-humouredly at the sea, like a gang of liberty-men resting themselves on shore. “Take it easy, soldier,” says one of the six, seeing me looking at him. “And, if you can’t do that, take it as easy as you can.” I thought, at the time, that many a wiser man might have given no less sensible advice than this, though it was only offered by a boatswain’s mate.

A movement among the Pirates attracted my notice to the beach below us, and I saw their Captain approaching our halting-place, having changed his fine clothes for garments that were fit to travel in.

His coming back to us had the effect of producing unmistakable signs of preparation for a long journey. Shortly after he appeared, three Indians came up, leading three loaded mules; and these were followed, in a few minutes, by two of the Sambos, carrying between them a copper full of smoking meat and broth. After having been shared among the Pirates, this mess was set down before us, with some wooden bowls floating about in it, to dip out the food with. Seeing that we hesitated before touching it, the Pirate Captain recommended us not to be too mealy-mouthed, as that was meat from our own stores on the Island, and the last we were likely to taste for a long time to come. The sailors, without any more ado about it, professed their readiness to follow this advice, muttering among themselves that good meat was a good thing, though the devil himself had cooked it. The Pirate Captain then, observing that we were all ready to accept the food, ordered the bonds that confined the hands of us men to be loosened and cast off, so that we might help ourselves. After we had served the women and children, we fell to. It was a good meal – though I can’t say that I myself had much appetite for it. Jack, to use his own phrase, stowed away a double allowance. The jolly faces of the seamen lengthened a good deal, however, when they found there was nothing to drink afterwards but plain water. One of them, a fat man, named Short, went so far as to say that, in the turn things seemed to have taken, he should like to make his will before we started, as the stoppage of his grog and the stoppage of his life were two events that would occur uncommonly close together.

When we had done, we were all ordered to stand up. The Pirates approached me and the other men, to bind our arms again; but, the Captain stopped them.

“No,” says he. “I want them to get on at a good pace; and they will do that best with their arms free. Now, prisoners,” he continued, addressing us, “I don’t mean to have any lagging on the road. I have fed you up with good meat, and you have no excuse for not stepping out briskly – women, children, and all. You men are without weapons and without food, and you know nothing of the country you are going to travel through. If you are mad enough, in this helpless condition, to attempt escaping on the march, you will be shot, as sure as you all stand there, – and if the bullet misses, you will starve to death in forests that have no path and no end.”

Having addressed us in those words, he turned again to his men. I wondered then, as I had wondered once or twice already, what those private reasons might be, which he had mentioned in his written paper, for sparing the lives of his male prisoners. I hoped he would refer to them now – but I was disappointed.

“While the country allows it,” he went on, addressing his crew, “march in a square, and keep the prisoners inside. Whether it is man, woman, or child, shoot any one of them who tries to escape, on peril of being shot yourselves if you miss. Put the Indians and mules in front, and the Sambos next to them. Draw up the prisoners all together. Tell off seven men to march before them, and seven more for each side; and leave the other nine for the rear-guard. A fourth mule for me, when I get tired, and another Indian to carry my guitar.”

His guitar! To think of the murderous thief having a turn for strumming tunes, and wanting to cultivate it on such an expedition as ours! I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the guitar brought forward in a neat green case, with the piratical skull and cross-bones and the Pirate Captain’s initials painted on it in white.

“I can stand a good deal,” whispers Tom Packer to me, looking hard at the guitar; “but confound me, Davis, if it’s not a trifle too much to be taken prisoner by such a fellow as that!”

The Pirate Captain lights another cigar.

“March!” says he, with a screech like a cat, and a flourish with his sword, of the sort that a stage-player would give at the head of a mock army.

We all moved off, leaving the clump of trees to the right, going, we knew not whither, to unknown sufferings and an unknown fate. The land that lay before us was wild and open, without fences or habitations. Here and there, cattle wandered about over it, and a few stray Indians. Beyond, in the distance, as far as we could see, rose a prospect of mountains and forests. Above us, was the pitiless sun, in a sky that was too brightly blue to look at. Behind us, was the calm murmuring ocean, with the dear island home which the women and children had lost, rising in the distance like a little green garden on the bosom of the sea. After half-an-hour’s walking, we began to descend into the plain, and the last glimpse of the Island of Silver-Store disappeared from our view.

The order of march which we prisoners now maintained among ourselves, being the order which, with certain occasional variations, we observed for the next three days, I may as well give some description of it in this place, before I get occupied with other things, and forget it.

I myself, and the sailor I have mentioned under the name of Short, led the march. After us came Miss Maryon, and Mr. and Mrs. Macey. They were followed by two of my comrades of the Marines with Mrs. Pordage, Mrs. Belltott, and two of the strongest of the ladies to look after them. Mr. Fisher, the ship’s boy, and the three remaining men of the sloop’s crew, with the rest of the women and children came next; Tom Packer, taking care of Serjeant Drooce, brought up the rear. So long as we got on quickly enough, the pirates showed no disposition to interfere with our order of march; but, if there were any signs of lagging – and God knows it was hard enough work for a man to walk under that burning sun! – the villains threatened the weakest of our company with the points of their swords. The younger among the children gave out, as might have been expected, poor things, very early on the march. Short and I set the example of taking two of them up, pick-a-back, which was followed directly by the rest of the men. Two of Mrs. Macey’s three children fell to our share; the eldest, travelling behind us on his father’s back. Short hoisted the next in age, a girl, on his broad shoulders. I see him now as if it was yesterday, with the perspiration pouring down his fat face and bushy whiskers, rolling along as if he was on the deck of a ship, and making a sling of his neck-handkerchief, with his clever sailor’s fingers, to support the little girl on his back. “I expect you’ll marry me, my darling, when you grow up,” says he, in his oily, joking voice. And the poor child, in her innocence, laid her weary head down on his shoulder, and gravely and faithfully promised that she would.

A lighter weight fell to my share. I had the youngest of the children, the pretty little boy, already mentioned, who had been deaf and dumb from his birth. His mother’s voice trembled sadly, as she thanked me for taking him up, and tenderly put his little dress right while she walked behind me. “He is very little and light of his age,” says the poor lady, trying hard to speak steady. “He won’t give you much trouble, Davis – he has always been a very patient child from the first.” The boy’s little frail arms clasped themselves round my neck while she was speaking; and something or other seemed to stop in my throat the cheerful answer that I wanted to make. I walked on with what must have looked, I am afraid, like a gruff silence; the poor child humming softly on my back, in his unchanging, dumb way, till he hummed himself to sleep. Often and often, since that time, in dreams, I have felt those small arms round my neck again, and have heard that dumb murmuring song in my ear, dying away fainter and fainter, till nothing was left but the light breath rising and falling regularly on my cheek, telling me that my little fellow-prisoner had forgotten his troubles in sleep.

We marched, as well as I could guess, somewhere about seven miles that day – a short spell enough, judging by distance, but a terrible long one judging by heat. Our halting place was by the banks of a stream, across which, at a little distance, some wild pigs were swimming as we came up. Beyond us, was the same view of forests and mountains that I have already mentioned; and all round us, was a perfect wilderness of flowers. The shrubs, the bushes, the ground, all blazed again with magnificent colours, under the evening sun. When we were ordered to halt, wherever we set a child down, there that child had laps and laps full of flowers growing within reach of its hand. We sat on flowers, eat on flowers, slept at night on flowers – any chance handful of which would have been well worth a golden guinea among the gentlefolks in England. It was a sight not easily described, to see niggers, savages, and Pirates, hideous, filthy, and ferocious in the last degree to look at, squatting about grimly upon a natural carpet of beauty, of the sort that is painted in pictures with pretty fairies dancing on it.

The mules were unloaded, and left to roll among the flowers to their hearts’ content. A neat tent was set up for the Pirate Captain, at the door of which, after eating a good meal, he laid himself down in a languishing attitude, with a nosegay in the bosom of his waistcoat, and his guitar on his knees, and jingled away at the strings, singing foreign songs, with a shrill voice and with his nose conceitedly turned up in the air. I was obliged to caution Short and the sailors – or they would, to a dead certainty, have put all our lives in peril by openly laughing at him.

We had but a poor supper that night. The Pirates now kept the provisions they had brought from the Island, for their own use; and we had to share the miserable starvation diet of the country, with the Indians and the Sambos. This consisted of black beans fried, and of things they call Tortillas, meaning, in plain English, flat cakes made of crushed Indian corn, and baked on a clay griddle. Not only was this food insipid, but the dirty manner in which the Indians prepared it, was disgusting. However, complaint was useless; for we could see for ourselves that no other provision had been brought for the prisoners. I heard some grumbling among our men, and some little fretfulness among the children, which their mothers soon quieted. I myself was indifferent enough to the quality of the food; for I had noticed a circumstance, just before it was brought to us, which occupied my mind with more serious considerations. One of the mules was unloaded near us, and I observed among the baggage a large bundle of new axes, doubtless taken from some ship. After puzzling my brains for some time to know what they could be wanted for, I came to the conclusion that they were to be employed in cutting our way through, when we came to the forests. To think of the kind of travelling which these preparations promised – if the view I took of them was the right one – and then to look at the women and children, exhausted by the first day’s march, was sufficient to make any man uneasy. It weighed heavily enough on my mind, I know, when I woke up among the flowers, from time to time, that night.

Our sleeping arrangements, though we had not a single civilised comfort, were, thanks to the flowers, simple and easy enough. For the first time in their lives, the women and children laid down together, with the sky for a roof, and the kind earth for a bed. We men shook ourselves down, as well as we could, all round them; and the Pirates, relieving guard regularly, ranged themselves outside of all. In that tropical climate, and at that hot time, the night was only pleasantly cool. The bubbling of the stream, and, now and then, the course of the breeze through the flowers, was all we heard. During the hours of darkness, it occurred to me – and I have no doubt the same idea struck my comrades – that a body of determined men, making a dash for it, might now have stood a fair chance of escaping. We were still near enough to the seashore to be certain of not losing our way; and the plain was almost as smooth, for a good long run, as a natural racecourse. However, the mere act of dwelling on such a notion, was waste of time and thought, situated as we were with regard to the women and children. They were, so to speak, the hostages who insured our submission to captivity, or to any other hardship that might be inflicted on us; a result which I have no doubt the Pirate Captain had foreseen, when he made us all prisoners together on taking possession of the Island.

We were roused up at four in the morning, to travel on before the heat set in; our march under yesterday’s broiling sun having been only undertaken for the purpose of getting us away from the seashore, and from possible help in that quarter, without loss of time. We forded the stream, wading through it waist-deep: except the children, who crossed on our shoulders. An hour before noon, we halted under two immense wild cotton-trees, about half a mile from a little brook, which probably ran into the stream we had passed in the morning. Late in the afternoon we were on foot again, and encamped for the night at three deserted huts, built of mud and poles. There were the remains of an enclosure here, intended, as I thought, for cattle; and there was an old well, from which our supply of water was got. The greater part of the women were very tired and sorrowful that night; but Miss Maryon did wonders in cheering them up.

On the third morning, we began to skirt the edge of a mountain, carrying our store of water with us from the well. We men prisoners had our full share of the burden. What with that, what with the way being all uphill, and what with the necessity of helping on the weaker members of our company, that day’s march was the hardest I remember to have ever got through. Towards evening, after resting again in the middle of the day, we stopped for the night on the verge of the forest. A dim, lowering, awful sight it was, to look up at the mighty wall of trees, stretching in front, and on either side of us without a limit and without a break. Through the night, though there was no wind blowing over our encampment, we heard deep, moaning, rushing sounds rolling about, at intervals, in the great inner wilderness of leaves; and, now and then, those among us who slept, were startled up by distant crashes in the depths of the forest – the death-knells of falling trees. We kept fires alight, in case of wild animals stealing out on us in the darkness; and the flaring red light, and the thick, winding smoke, alternately showed and hid the forest-prospect in a strangely treacherous and ghostly way. The children shuddered with fear; even the Pirate Captain forgot, for the first time, to jingle his eternal guitar.

When we were mustered in the morning for the march, I fully expected to see the axes unpacked. To my surprise they were not disturbed. The Indians drew their long chopping-knives (called machetes in the language of that country); made for a place among the trees where I could see no signs of a path; and began cutting at the bushes and shrubs, and at the wild vines and creepers, twirling down together in all sorts of fantastic forms, from the lofty branches. After clearing a few dozen yards inwards they came out to us again, whooping and showing their wicked teeth, as they laid hold of the mules’ halters to lead them on. The Pirate Captain, before we moved after, took out a pocket compass, set it, pondered over it for some time, shrugged his shoulders, and screeched out “March,” as usual. We entered the forest, leaving behind us the last chance of escape, and the last hope of ever getting back to the regions of humanity and civilisation. By this time, we had walked inland, as nearly as I could estimate, about thirty miles.

The order of our march was now, of necessity, somewhat changed. We all followed each other in a long line, shut in, however, as before, in front and in rear, by the Indians, the Sambos, and the pirates. Though none of us could see a vestige of any path, it was clear that our guides knew where they were going; for, we were never stopped by any obstacles, except the shrubs and wild-vines which they could cut through with their chopping-knives. Sometimes, we marched under great branches which met like arches high over our heads. Sometimes, the boughs were so low that we had to stoop to pass under them. Sometimes, we wound in and out among mighty trunks of trees, with their gnarled roots twisting up far above the ground, and with creepers in full flower twining down in hundreds from their lofty branches. The size of the leaves and the countless multitude of the trees shut out the sun, and made a solemn dimness which it was awful and without hope to walk through. Hours would pass without our hearing a sound but the dreary rustle of our own feet over the leafy ground. At other times, whole troops of parrots, with feathers of all the colours of the rainbow, chattered and shrieked at us; and processions of monkeys, fifty or sixty at a time, followed our progress in the boughs overhead: passing through the thick leaves with a sound like the rush of a steady wind. Every now and then, the children were startled by lizard-like creatures, three feet long, running up the trunks of the trees as we passed by them; more than once, swarms of locusts tormented us, startled out of their hiding-places by the monkeys in the boughs. For five days we marched incessantly through this dismal forest-region, only catching a clear glimpse of the sky above us, on three occasions in all that time. The distance we walked each day seemed to be regulated by the positions of springs and streams in the forest, which the Indians knew of. Sometimes those springs and streams lay near together; and our day’s work was short. Sometimes they were far apart; and the march was long and weary. On all occasions, two of the Indians, followed by two of the Sambos, disappeared as soon as we encamped for the night; and returned, in a longer or shorter time, bringing water with them. Towards the latter part of the journey, weariness had so completely mastered the weakest among our company, that they ceased to take notice of anything. They walked without looking to the right or to the left, and they eat their wretched food and lay down to sleep with a silent despair that was shocking. Mr. Pordage left off maundering now, and Serjeant Drooce was so quiet and biddable, that Tom Packer had an easy time of it with him at last. Those among us who still talked, began to get a habit of dropping our voices to a whisper. Short’s jokes languished and dwindled; Miss Maryon’s voice, still kind and tender as ever, began to lose its clearness; and the poor children, when they got weary and cried, shed tears silently, like old people. It seemed as if the darkness and the hush of the endless forest had cast its shadow on our spirits, and had stolen drearily into our inmost hearts.

On the sixth day, we saw the blessed sunshine on the ground before us, once more. Prisoners as we were, there was a feeling of freedom on stepping into the light again, and on looking up, without interruption, into the clear blue Heaven, from which no human creature can keep any other human creature, when the time comes for rising to it. A turn in the path brought us out suddenly at an Indian village – a wretched place, made up of two rows of huts built with poles, the crevices between them stopped with mud, and the roofs thatched in the coarsest manner with palm-leaves. The savages squatted about, jumped to their feet in terror as we came in view; but, seeing the Indians at the head of our party, took heart, and began chattering and screeching, just like the parrots we had left in the forest. Our guides answered in their gibberish; some lean, half-wild dogs yelped and howled incessantly; and the Pirates discharged their muskets and loaded them again, to make sure that their powder had not got damp on the march. No want of muskets among them now! The noise and the light and the confusion, after the silence, darkness, and discipline that we had been used to for the last five days, so bewildered us all, that it was quite a relief to sit down on the ground and let the guard about us shut out our view on every side.

“Davis! Are we at the end of the march?” says Miss Maryon, touching my arm.

The other women looked anxiously at me, as she put the question. I got on my feet, and saw the Pirate Captain communicating with the Indians of the village. His hands were making signs in the fussy foreign way, all the time he was speaking. Sometimes, they pointed away to where the forest began again beyond us; and sometimes they went up both together to his mouth, as if he was wishful of getting a fresh supply of the necessaries of life.

My eyes next turned towards the mules. Nobody was employed in unpacking the baggage; nobody went near that bundle of axes which had weighed on my mind so much already, and the mystery of which still tormented me in secret. I came to the conclusion that we were not yet at the end of our journey; I communicated my opinion to Miss Maryon. She got up herself, with my help, and looked about her, and made the remark, very justly, that all the huts in the village would not suffice to hold us. At the same time, I pointed out to her that the mule which the Pirate Captain had ridden had been relieved of his saddle, and was being led away, at that moment, to a patch of grass behind one of the huts.

“That looks as if we were not going much farther on,” says I.

“Thank heaven if it be so, for the sake of the poor children!” says Miss Maryon. “Davis, suppose something happened which gave us a chance of escaping? Do you think we could ever find our way back to the sea?”

“Not a hope of getting back, miss. If the Pirates were to let us go this very instant, those pathless forests would keep us in prison forever.”

“Too true! Too true!” she said, and said no more.

In another half-hour we were roused up, and marched away from the village (as I had thought we should be) into the forest again. This time, though there was by no means so much cutting through the underwood needed as in our previous experience, we were accompanied by at least a dozen Indians, who seemed to me to be following us out of sheer idleness and curiosity. We had walked, as well as I could calculate, more than an hour, and I was trudging along with the little deaf-and-dumb boy on my back, as usual, thinking, not very hopefully, of our future prospects, when I was startled by a moan in my ear from the child. One of his arms was trembling round my neck, and the other pointed away towards my right hand. I looked in that direction – and there, as if it had started up out of the ground to dispute our passage through the forest, was a hideous monster carved in stone, twice my height at least. The thing loomed out of a ghostly white, against the dark curtain of trees all round it. Spots of rank moss stuck about over its great glaring stone-face; its stumpy hands were tucked up into its breast; its legs and feet were four times the size of any human limbs; its body and the flat space of spare stone which rose above its head, were all covered with mysterious devices – little grinning men’s faces, heads of crocodiles and apes, twisting knots and twirling knobs, strangely shaped leaves, winding lattice-work; legs, arms, fingers, toes, skulls, bones, and such like. The monstrous statue leaned over on one side, and was only kept from falling to the ground by the roots of a great tree which had wound themselves all round the lower half of it. Altogether, it was as horrible and ghastly an object to come upon suddenly, in the unknown depths of a great forest, as the mind (or, at all events, my mind) can conceive. When I say that the first meeting with the statue struck me speechless, nobody can wonder that the children actually screamed with terror at the sight of it.

“It’s only a great big doll, my darling,” says Short, at his wit’s end how to quiet the little girl on his back. “We’ll get a nice soft bit of wood soon, and show these nasty savages how to make a better one.”

While he was speaking, Miss Maryon was close behind me, soothing the deaf-and-dumb boy by signs which I could not understand.

“I have heard of these things, Davis,” she says. “They are idols, made by a lost race of people, who lived, no one can say how many hundred or how many thousand years ago. That hideous thing was carved and worshipped while the great tree that now supports it was yet a seed in the ground. We must get the children used to these stone monsters. I believe we are coming to many more of them. I believe we are close to the remains of one of those mysterious ruined cities which have long been supposed to exist in this part of the world.”

Before I could answer, the word of command from the rear drove us on again. In passing the idol, some of the Pirates fired their muskets at it. The echoes from the reports rang back on us with a sharp rattling sound. We pushed on a few paces, when the Indians a-head suddenly stopped, flourished their chopping-knives, and all screamed out together “El Palacio!” The Englishmen among the Pirates took up the cry, and, running forward through the trees on either side of us, roared out, “The Palace!” Other voices joined theirs in other tongues; and, for a minute or two, there was a general confusion of everybody, – the first that had occurred since we were marched away, prisoners, from the seashore.

I tightened my hold of the child on my back; took Miss Maryon closer to me, to save her from being roughly jostled by the men about us; and marched up as near to the front as the press and the trees would let me. Looking over the heads of the Indians, and between the trunks, I beheld a sight which I shall never forget; no, not to my dying day.

A wilderness of ruins spread out before me, overrun by a forest of trees. In every direction, look where I would, a frightful confusion of idols, pillars, blocks of stone, heavy walls, and flights of steps, met my eye; some, whole and upright; others, broken and scattered on the ground; and all, whatever their condition, overgrown and clasped about by roots, branches, and curling vines, that writhed round them like so many great snakes. Every here and there, strange buildings stood up, with walls on the tops of which three men might have marched abreast – buildings with their roofs burst off or tumbled in, and with the trees springing up from inside, and waving their restless shadows mournfully over the ruins. High in the midst of this desolation, towered a broad platform of rocky earth, scarped away on three sides, so as to make it unapproachable except by scaling ladders. On the fourth side, the flat of the platform was reached by a flight of stone steps, of such mighty size and strength that they might have been made for the use of a race of giants. They led to a huge building girded all round with a row of thick pillars, long enough and broad enough to cover the whole flat space of ground; solid enough, as to the walls, to stand forever; but broken in, at most places, as to the roof; and overshadowed by the trees that sprang up from inside, like the smaller houses already mentioned, below it. This was the dismal ruin which was called the Palace; and this was the Prison in the Woods which was to be the place of our captivity.

The screeching voice of the Pirate Captain restored order in our ranks, and sent the Indians forward with their chopping-knives to the steps of the Palace. We were directed to follow them across the ruins, and in and out among the trees. Out of every ugly crevice crack in the great stairs, there sprouted up flowers, long grasses, and beautiful large-leaved plants and bushes. When we had toiled to the top of the flight, we could look back from the height over the dark waving top of the forest behind us. More than a glimpse of the magnificent sight, however, was not allowed: we were ordered still to follow the Indians. They had already disappeared in the inside of the Palace; and we went in after them.

We found ourselves, first, under a square portico, supported upon immense flat slabs of stone, which were carved all over, at top and bottom, with death’s-heads set in the midst of circles of sculptured flowers. I guessed the length of the portico to be, at the very least, three hundred feet. In the inside wall of it, appeared four high gaping doorways; three of them were entirely choked up by fallen stones: so jammed together, and so girt about by roots and climbing plants, that no force short of a blast of gunpowder, could possibly have dislodged them. The fourth entrance had, at some former time, been kept just clear enough to allow of the passing of one man at once through the gap that had been made in the fallen stones. Through this, the only passage left into the Palace, or out of it, we followed the Indians into a great hall, nearly one half of which was still covered by the remains of the roof. In the unsheltered half: surrounded by broken stones and with a carved human head, five times the size of life, leaning against it: rose the straight, naked trunk of a beautiful tree, that shot up high above the ruins, and dropped its enormous branches from the very top of it, bending down towards us, in curves like plumes of immense green feathers. In this hall, which was big enough to hold double our number, we were ordered to make a halt, while the Pirate Captain, accompanied by three of his crew, followed the Indians through a doorway, leading off to the left hand, as we stood with our backs to the portico. In front of us, towards the right, was another doorway, through which we could see some of the Indians, cutting away with their knives, right and left, at the overspreading underwood. Even the noise of the hacking, and the hum and murmur of the people outside, who were unloading the mules, seemed to be sounds too faint and trifling to break the awful stillness of the ruins. To my ears, at least, the unearthly silence was deepened rather than broken by the few feeble sounds which tried to disturb it. The wailings of the poor children were stifled within them. The whispers of the women, and the heavy breathing of the over-laboured men, sank and sank gradually till they were heard no more. Looking back now, at the whole course of our troubles, I think I can safely say that nothing – not even the first discovery of the treachery on the Island – tried our courage and endurance like that interval of speechless waiting in the Palace, with the hush of the ruined city, and the dimness of the endless forest, all about us.

When we next saw the Pirate Captain, he appeared at the doorway to the right, just as the Pirates began to crowd in from the portico, with the baggage they had taken from the mules.

“There is the way for the Buccaniers,” squeaks the Pirate Captain, addressing the American mate, and pointing to the doorway on the left. “Three big rooms, that will hold you all, and that have more of the roof left on them than any of the others. The prisoners,” he continues, turning to us, and pointing to the doorway behind him, “will file in, that way, and will find two rooms for them, with the ceilings on the floor, and the trees in their places. I myself, because my soul is big, shall live alone in this grand hall. My bed shall be there in the sheltered corner; and I shall eat, and drink, and smoke, and sing, and enjoy myself, with one eye always on my prisoners, and the other eye always on my guard outside.”

Having delivered this piece of eloquence, he pointed with his sword to the prisoners’ doorway. We all passed through it quickly, glad to be out of the sight and hearing of him.

The two rooms set apart for us, communicated with each other. The inner one of the two had a second doorway, leading, as I supposed, further into the building, but so choked up by rubbish, as to be impassable, except by climbing, and that must have been skilful climbing too. Seeing that this accident cut off all easy means of approach to the room from the Pirates’ side, we determined, supposing nobody meddled with us, to establish the women and children here; and to take the room nearest to the Pirate Captain and his guard for ourselves.

The first thing to be done was to clear away the rubbish in the women’s room. The ceiling was, indeed, as the Pirate Captain had told us, all on the floor; and the growth of trees, shrubs, weeds, and flowers, springing up everywhere among the fragments of stone, was so prodigious in this part of the Palace, that, but for the walls with their barbarous sculptures all round, we should certainly have believed ourselves to be encamped in the forest, without a building near us. All the lighter parts of the rubbish in the women’s room we disposed of, cleverly, by piling it in the doorway on the Pirates’ side, so as to make any approach from that direction all but impossible, even by climbing. The heavy blocks of stone – and it took two men to lift some of them that were not the heaviest – we piled up in the middle of the floor. Having by this means cleared away plenty of space round the walls, we gathered up all the litter of young branches, bushes, and leaves which the Indians had chopped away; added to them as much as was required of the underwood still standing; and laid the whole smooth and even, to make beds. I noticed, while we were at this work, that the ship’s boy – whose name was Robert – was particularly helpful and considerate with the children, when it became necessary to quiet them and to get them to lie down. He was a rough boy to look at, and not very sharp; but, he managed better, and was more naturally tender-hearted with the little ones than any of the rest of us. This may seem a small thing to mention; but Robert’s attentive ways with the children, attached them to him; and that attachment, as will be hereafter shown, turned out to be of great benefit to us, at a very dangerous and very important time.

Our next piece of work was to clear our own room. It was close at the side of the Palace; and a break in the outward wall looked down over the sheer precipice on which the building stood. We stopped this up, breast high, in case of accidents, with the rubbish on the floor; we then made our beds, just as we had made the women’s beds already.

A little later, we heard the Pirate Captain in the hall, which he kept to himself for his big soul and his little body, giving orders to the American mate about the guard. On mustering the Pirates, it turned out that two of them, who had been wounded in the fight on the Island, were unfit for duty. Twenty-eight, therefore, remained. These, the Pirate Captain divided into companies of seven, who were to mount guard, in turn, for a spell of six hours each company; the relief coming round, as a matter of course, four times in the twenty-four hours. Of the guard of seven, two were stationed under the portico; one was placed as a look-out, on the top landing of the great flight of steps; and two were appointed to patrol the ground below, in front of the Palace. This left only two men to watch the three remaining sides of the building. So far as any risks of attack were concerned, the precipices at the back and sides of the Palace were a sufficient defence for it, if a good watch was kept on the weak side. But what the Pirate Captain dreaded was the chance of our escaping; and he would not trust the precipices to keep us, knowing we had sailors in our company, and suspecting that they might hit on some substitute for ropes, and lower themselves and their fellow-prisoners down from the back or the sides of the Palace, in the dark. Accordingly, the Pirate Captain settled it that two men out of each company should do double duty, after nightfall: the choice of them to be decided by casting dice. This gave four men to patrol round the sides and the back of the building: a sufficient number to keep a bright look-out. The Pirates murmured a little at the prospect of double duty; but, there was no remedy for it. The Indians, having a superstitious horror of remaining in the ruined city after dark, had bargained to be allowed to go back to their village, every afternoon. And, as for the Sambos, the Pirate Captain knew them better than the English had known them at Silver-Store, and would have nothing to do with them in any matter of importance.

The setting of the watch was completed without much delay. If any of us had felt the slightest hope of escaping, up to this time, the position of our prison and the number of sentinels appointed to guard it, would have been more than enough to extinguish that hope forever.

An hour before sunset, the Indians – whose only business at the palace was to supply us with food from the village, and to prepare the food for eating – made their last batch of Tortillas, and then left the ruins in a body, at the usual trot of those savages when they are travelling in a hurry.

When the sun had set, the darkness came down upon us, I might almost say, with a rush. Bats whizzed about, and the low warning hum of mosquitoes sounded close to our ears. Flying beetles, with lights in their heads, each light as bright as the light of a dozen glowworms, sparkled through the darkness, in a wonderful manner, all night long. When one of them settled on the walls, he lighted up the hideous sculptures for a yard all round him, at the very least. Outside, in the forest, the dreadful stillness seemed to be drawing its breath, from time to time, when the night-wind swept lightly through the million-million leaves. Sometimes, the surge of monkeys travelling through the boughs, burst out with a sound like waves on a sandy shore; sometimes, the noise of falling branches and trunks rang out suddenly with a crash, as if the great ruins about us were splitting into pieces; sometimes, when the silence was at its deepest – when even the tread of the watch outside had ceased – the quick rustle of a lizard or a snake, sounded treacherously close at our ears. It was long before the children in the women’s room were all quieted and hushed to sleep – longer still before we, their elders, could compose our spirits for the night. After all sounds died away among us, and when I thought that I was the only one still awake, I heard Miss Maryon’s voice saying, softly, “God help and deliver us!” A man in our room, moving on his bed of leaves, repeated the words after her; and the ship’s boy, Robert, half-asleep, half-awake, whispered to himself sleepily, “Amen!” After that, the silence returned upon us, and was broken no more. So the night passed – the first night in our Prison in the Woods.

With the morning, came the discovery of a new project of the Pirate Captain’s, for which none of us had been prepared.

Soon after sunrise, the Pirate Captain looked into our room, and ordered all the men in it out into the large hall, where he lived with his big soul and his little body. After eyeing us narrowly, he directed three of the sailors, myself, and two of my comrades, to step apart from the rest. When we had obeyed, the bundle of axes which had troubled my mind so much, was brought into the hall; and four men of the guard, then on duty, armed with muskets and pistols, were marched in afterwards. Six of the axes were chosen and put into our hands, the Pirate Captain pointing warningly, as we took them, to the men with firearms in the front of us. He and his mate, both armed to the teeth, then led the way out to the steps; we followed; the other four Pirates came after us. We were formed, down the steps, in single file; the Pirate Captain at the head; I myself next to him; a Pirate next to me; and so on to the end, in such order as to keep a man with a loaded musket between each one or two of us prisoners. I looked behind me as we started, and saw two of the Sambos – that Christian George King was one of them – following us. We marched round the back of the Palace, and over the ruins beyond it, till we came to a track through the forest, the first I had seen. After a quarter of an hour’s walking, I saw the sunlight, bright beyond the trees in front of us. In another minute or two, we stood under the clear sky, and beheld at our feet a broad river, running with a swift silent current, and overshadowed by the forest, rising as thick as ever on the bank that was opposite to us.

On the bank where we stood, the trees were young; some great tempest of past years having made havoc in this part of the forest, and torn away the old growth to make room for the new. The young trees grew up, mostly, straight and slender, – that is to say, slender for South America, the slightest of them being, certainly, as thick as my leg. After peeping and peering about at the timber, with the look of a man who owned it all, the Pirate Captain sat himself down cross-legged on the grass, and did us the honour to address us.

“Aha! you English, what do you think I have kept you alive for?” says he. “Because I am fond of you? Bah! Because I don’t like to kill you? Bah! What for, then? Because I want the use of your arms to work for me. See those trees!” He waved his hand backwards and forwards, over the whole prospect. “Cut them all down – lop off the branches – smooth them into poles – shape them into beams – chop them into planks. Camarado!” he went on, turning to the mate, “I mean to roof in the Palace again, and to lay new floors over the rubbish of stones. I will make the big house good and dry to live in, in the rainy weather – I will barricade the steps of it for defence against an army, – I will make it my strong castle of retreat for me and my men, and our treasure, and our prisoners, and all that we have, when the English cruisers of the devil get too many for us along the coast. To work, you six! Look at those four men of mine, – their muskets are loaded. Look at these two Sambos who will stop here to fetch help if they want it. Remember the women and children you have left at the Palace – and at your peril and at their peril, turn those axes in your hands from their proper work! You understand? You English fools?”

With those words he jumped to his feet, and ordered the niggers to remain and place themselves at the orders of our guard. Having given these last directions, and having taken his mate’s opinion as to whether three of the Buccaniers would not be enough; to watch the Palace in the day, when the six stoutest men of the prisoners were away from it, the Pirate Captain offered his little weazen arm to the American, and strutted back to his castle, on better terms with himself than ever.

As soon as he and the mate were gone, Christian George King tumbled himself down on the grass, and kicked up his ugly heels in convulsions of delight.

“Oh, golly, golly, golly!” says he. “You dam English do work, and Christian George King look on. Yup, Sojeer! whack at them tree!”

I paid no attention to the brute, being better occupied in noticing my next comrade, Short. I had remarked that all the while the Pirate Captain was speaking, he was looking hard at the river, as if the sight of a large sheet of water did his sailorly eyes good. When we began to use the axes, greatly to my astonishment, he buckled to at his work like a man who had his whole heart in it: chuckling to himself at every chop, and wagging his head as if he was in the forecastle again telling his best yarns.

“You seem to be in spirits, Short?” I says, setting to on a tree close by him.

“The river’s put a notion in my head,” says he. “Chop away, Gill, as hard as you can, or they may hear us talking.”

“What notion has the river put in your head?” I asked that man, following his directions.

“You don’t know where that river runs to, I suppose?” says Short. “No more don’t I. But, did it say anything particular to you, Gill, when you first set eyes on it? It said to me, as plain as words could speak, ‘I’m the road out of this. Come and try me!’ – Steady! Don’t stop to look at the water. Chop away, man, chop away.”

“The road out of this?” says I. “A road without any coaches, Short. I don’t see so much as the ruins of one old canoe lying about anywhere.”

Short chuckles again, and buries his axe in his tree.

“What are we cutting down these here trees for?” says he.

“Roofs and floors for the Pirate Captain’s castle,” says I.

“Rafts for ourselves!” says he, with another tremendous chop at the tree, which brought it to the ground – the first that had fallen.

His words struck through me as if I had been shot. For the first time since our imprisonment I now saw, clear as daylight, a chance of escape. Only a chance, to be sure; but, still a chance.

Although the guard stood several paces away from us, and could by no possibility hear a word that we said, through the noise of the axes, Short was too cautious to talk any more.

“Wait till night,” he said, lopping the branches off the tree. “Pass the word on in a whisper to the nearest of our men to work with a will; and say, with a wink of your eye, there’s a good reason for it.”

After we had been allowed to knock off for that day, the Pirates had no cause to complain of the work we had done; and they reported us to the Pirate Captain as obedient and industrious, so far. When we lay down at night, I took the next place on the leaves to Short. We waited till the rest were asleep, and till we heard the Pirate Captain snoring in the great hall, before we began to talk again about the river and the rafts. This is the amount of what Short whispered in my ear on that occasion:

He told me he had calculated that it would take two large rafts to bear all our company, and that timber enough to make such two rafts might be cut down by six men in ten days, or, at most, in a fortnight. As for the means of fastening the rafts – the lashings, he called them – the stout vines and creepers supplied them abundantly; and the timbers of both rafts might be connected together, in this way, firmly enough for river navigation, in about five hours. That was the very shortest time the job would take, done by the willing hands of men who knew that they were working for their lives, said Short.

These were the means of escape. How to turn them to account was the next question. Short could not answer it; and though I tried all that night, neither could I.

The difficulty was one which, I think, might have puzzled wiser heads than ours. How were six-and-thirty living souls (being the number of us prisoners, including the children) to be got out of the Palace safely, in the face of the guard that watched it? And, even if that was accomplished, when could we count on gaining five hours all to ourselves for the business of making the rafts? The compassing of either of these two designs, absolutely necessary as they both were to our escape, seemed to be nothing more or less than a rank impossibility. Towards morning, I got a wild notion into my head about letting ourselves down from the back of the Palace, in the dark, and taking our chance of being able to seize the sentinels at that part of the building, unawares, and gag them before they could give the alarm to the Pirates in front. But, Short, when I mentioned my plan to him, would not hear of it. He said that men by themselves – provided they had not got a madman, like Drooce, and a maundering old gentleman, like Mr. Pordage, among them – might, perhaps, run some such desperate risk as I proposed; but, that letting women and children, to say nothing of Drooce and Pordage, down a precipice in the dark, with makeshift ropes which might give way at a moment’s notice, was out of the question. It was impossible, on further reflection, not to see that Short’s view of the matter was the right one. I acknowledged as much, and then I put it to Short whether our wisest course would not be to let one or two of the sharpest of our fellow-prisoners into our secret, and see what they said. Short asked me which two I had in my mind when I made that proposal?

“Mr. Macey,” says I, “because he is naturally quick, and has improved his gifts by learning, and Miss Maryon—”

“How can a woman help us?” says Short, breaking in on me.

“A woman with a clear head and a high courage and a patient resolution – all of which Miss Maryon has got, above all the world – may do more to help us, in our present strait, than any man of our company,” says I.

“Well,” says Short, “I daresay you’re right. Speak to anybody you please, Gill; but, whatever you do, man, stick to it at the trees. Let’s get the timber down – that’s the first thing to be done, anyhow.”

Before we were mustered for work, I took an opportunity of privately mentioning to Miss Maryon and Mr. Macey what had passed between Short and me. They were both thunderstruck at the notion of the rafts. Miss Maryon, as I had expected, made lighter of the terrible difficulties in the way of carrying out our scheme than Mr. Macey did.

“We are left here to watch and think, all day,” she whispered – and I could almost hear the quick beating of her heart. “While you are making the best of your time among the trees, we will make the best of ours in the Palace. I can say no more, now – I can hardly speak at all for thinking of what you have told me. Bless you, bless you, for making me hope once more! Go now – we must not risk the consequences of being seen talking together. When you come back at night, look at me. If I close my eyes, it is a sign that nothing has been thought of yet. If I keep them open, take the first safe opportunity of speaking secretly to me or to Mr. Macey.”

She turned away; and I went back to my comrades. Half an hour afterwards, we were off for our second day’s work among the trees.

When we came back, I looked at Miss Maryon. She closed her eyes. So, nothing had been thought of, yet.

Six more days we worked at cutting down the trees, always meriting the same good character for industry from our Pirate-guard. Six more evenings I looked at Miss Maryon; and six times her closed eyes gave me the same disheartening answer. On the ninth day of our work, Short whispered to me, that if we plied our axes for three days longer, he considered we should have more than timber enough down, to make the rafts. He had thought of nothing, I had thought of nothing, Miss Maryon and Mr. Macey had thought of nothing. I was beginning to get low in spirits; but, Short was just as cool and easy as ever. “Chop away, Davis,” was all he said. “The river won’t run dry yet awhile. Chop away!”

We knocked off, earlier than usual that day, the Pirates having a feast in prospect, off a wild hog. It was still broad daylight (out of the forest) when we came back, and when I looked once more in Miss Maryon’s face.

I saw a flush in her cheeks; and her eyes met mine brightly. My heart beat quicker at the glance of them; for I saw that the time had come, and that the difficulty was conquered.

We waited till the light was fading, and the Pirates were in the midst of their feast. Then, she beckoned me into the inner room, and I sat down by her in the dimmest corner of it.

“You have thought of something, at last, Miss?”

“I have. But the merit of the thought is not all mine. Chance – no! Providence – suggested the design; and the instrument with which its merciful Wisdom has worked, is – a child.”

She stopped, and looked all round her anxiously, before she went on.

“This afternoon,” she says, “I was sitting against the trunk of that tree, thinking of what has been the subject of my thoughts ever since you spoke to me. My sister’s little girl was whiling away the tedious time, by asking Mr. Kitten to tell her the names of the different plants which are still left growing about the room. You know he is a learned man in such matters?”

I knew that; and have, I believe, formerly given that out, for my Lady to take in writing.

“I was too much occupied,” she went on, “to pay attention to them, till they came close to the tree against which I was sitting. Under it and about it, there grew a plant with very elegantly-shaped leaves, and with a kind of berry on it. The child showed it to Mr. Kitten; and saying, ‘Those berries look good to eat,’ stretched out her hand towards them. Mr. Kitten stopped her. ‘You must never touch that,’ he said. ‘Why not?’ the child asked. ‘Because if you eat much of it, it would poison you.’  ‘And if I only eat a little?’ said the child, laughing. ‘If you only eat a little,’ said Mr. Kitten, ‘it would throw you into a deep sleep – a sleep that none of us could wake you from, when it was time for breakfast – a sleep that would make your mama think you were dead.’ Those words were hardly spoken, when the thought that I have now to tell you of, flashed across my mind. But, before I say anything more, answer me one question. Am I right in supposing that our attempt at escape must be made in the night?”

“At night, certainly,” says I, “because we can be most sure, then, that the Pirates off guard are all in this building, and not likely to leave it.”

“I understand. Now, Davis, hear what I have observed of the habits of the men who keep us imprisoned in this place. The first change of guard at night, is at nine o’clock. At that time, seven men come in from watching, and nine men (the extra night-guard) go out to replace them; each party being on duty, as you know, for six hours. I have observed, at the nine o’clock change of guard, that the seven men who come off duty, and the nine who go on, have a supply of baked cakes of Indian corn, reserved expressly for their use. They divide the food between them; the Pirate Captain (who is always astir at the change of guard) generally taking a cake for himself, when the rest of the men take theirs. This makes altogether, seventeen men who partake of food especially reserved for them, at nine o’clock. So far you understand me?”

“Clearly, Miss.”

“The next thing I have noticed, is the manner in which that food is prepared. About two hours before sunset, the Pirate Captain walks out to smoke, after he has eaten the meal which he calls his dinner. In his absence from the hall, the Indians light their fire on the unsheltered side of it, and prepare the last batch of food before they leave us for the night. They knead up two separate masses of dough. The largest is the first which is separated into cakes and baked. That is taken for the use of us prisoners and of the men who are off duty all the night. The second and smaller piece of dough is then prepared for the nine o’clock change of guard. On that food – come nearer, Davis, I must say it in a whisper – on that food all our chances of escape now turn. If we can drug it unobserved, the Pirates who go off duty, the Pirates who go on duty, and the Captain, who is more to be feared than all the rest, will be as absolutely insensible to our leaving the Palace, as if they were every one of them dead men.”

I was unable to speak – I was unable even to fetch my breath at those words.

“I have taken Mr. Kitten, as a matter of necessity, into our confidence,” she said. “I have learnt from him a simple way of obtaining the juice of that plant which he forbade the child to eat. I have also made myself acquainted with the quantity which it is necessary to use for our purpose; and I have resolved that no hands but mine shall be charged with the work of kneading it into the dough.”

“Not, you, Miss, – not you. Let one of us – let me – run that risk.”

“You have work enough and risk enough already,” said Miss Maryon. “It is time that the women, for whom you have suffered and ventured so much, should take their share. Besides, the risk is not great, where the Indians only are concerned. They are idle and curious. I have seen, with my own eyes, that they are as easily tempted away from their occupation by any chance sight or chance noise as if they were children; and I have already arranged with Mr. Macey that he is to excite their curiosity by suddenly pulling down one of the loose stones in that doorway, when the right time comes. The Indians are certain to run in here to find out what is the matter. Mr. Macey will tell them that he has seen a snake, – they will hunt for the creature (as I have seen them hunt, over and over again, in this ruined place) – and while they are so engaged, the opportunity that I want, the two minutes to myself, which are all that I require, will be mine. Dread the Pirate Captain, Davis, for the slightest caprice of his may ruin all our hopes, – but never dread the Indians, and never doubt me.”

Nobody, who had looked in her face at that moment – or at any moment that ever I knew of – could have doubted her.

“There is one thing more,” she went on. “When is the attempt to be made?”

“In three days’ time,” I answered; “there will be timber enough down to make the rafts.”

“In three days’ time, then, let us decide the question of our freedom or our death.” She spoke those words with a firmness that amazed me. “Rest now,” she said. “Rest and hope.”

The third day was the hottest we had yet experienced; we were kept longer at work than usual; and when we had done, we left on the bank enough, and more than enough, of timber and poles, to make both the rafts.

The Indians had gone when we got back to the Palace, and the Pirate Captain was still smoking on the flight of steps. As we crossed the hall, I looked on one side and saw the Tortillas set up in a pile, waiting for the men who came in and went out at nine o’clock.

At the door which opened between our room and the women’s room, Miss Maryon was waiting for us.

“Is it done?” I asked in a whisper.

“It is done,” she answered.

It was, then, by Mr. Macey’s watch (which he had kept hidden about him throughout our imprisonment), seven o’clock. We had two hours to wait: hours of suspense, but hours of rest also for the overworked men who had been cutting the wood. Before I lay down, I looked into the inner room. The women were all sitting together; and I saw by the looks they cast on me that Miss Maryon had told them of what was coming with the night. The children were much as usual, playing quiet games among themselves. In the men’s room, I noticed that Mr. Macey had posted himself along with Tom Packer, close to Serjeant Drooce, and that Mr. Fisher seemed to be taking great pains to make himself agreeable to Mr. Pordage. I was glad to see that the two gentlemen of the company, who were quick-witted and experienced in most things, were already taking in hand the two unreasonable men.

The evening brought no coolness with it. The heat was so oppressive that we all panted under it. The stillness in the forest was awful. We could almost hear the falling of the leaves.

Half-past seven, eight, half-past eight, a quarter to nine – Nine. The tramp of feet came up the steps on one side, and the tramp of feet came into the hall, on the other. There was a confusion of voices, – then, the voice of the Pirate Captain, speaking in his own language, – then, the voice of the American mate, ordering out the guard, – then silence.

I crawled to the door of our room, and laid myself down behind it, where I could see a strip of the hall, being that part of it in which the way out was situated. Here, also, the Pirate Captain’s tent had been set up, about twelve or fourteen feet from the door. Two torches were burning before it. By their light, I saw the guard on duty file out, each man munching his Tortilla, and each man grumbling over it. At the same time, in the part of the hall which I could not see, I heard the men off duty grumbling also. The Pirate Captain, who had entered his tent the minute before, came out of it, and calling to the American mate, at the far end of the hall, asked sharply in English, what that murmuring meant.

“The men complain of the Tortillas,” the mate tells him. “They say, they are nastier than ever tonight.”

“Bring me one, and let me taste it,” said the Captain. I had often before heard people talk of their hearts being in their mouths, but I never really knew what the sensation was, till I heard that order given.

The Tortilla was brought to him. He nibbled a bit off it, spat the morsel out with disgust, and threw the rest of the cake away.

“Those Indian beasts have burnt the Tortillas,” he said, “and their dirty hides shall suffer for it tomorrow morning.” With those words, he whisked round on his heel, and went back into his tent.

Some of the men had crept up behind me, and, looking over my head, had seen what I saw. They passed the account of it in whispers to those who could not see; and they, in their turn, repeated it to the women. In five minutes everybody in the two rooms knew that the scheme had failed with the very man whose sleep it was most important to secure. I heard no stifled crying among the women or stifled cursing among the men. The despair of that time was too deep for tears, and too deep for words.

I myself could not take my eyes off the tent. In a little while he came out of it again, pulling and panting with the heat. He lighted a cigar at one of the torches, and laid himself down on his cloak just inside the doorway leading into the portico, so that all the air from outside might blow over him. Little as he was, he was big enough to lie right across the narrow way out.

He smoked and he smoked, slowly and more slowly, for, what seemed to me to be, hours, but for what, by the watch, was little more than ten minutes after all. Then, the cigar dropped out of his mouth – his hand sought for it, and sank lazily by his side – his head turned over a little towards the door – and he fell off: not into the drugged sleep that there was safety in, but into his light, natural sleep, which a touch on his body might have disturbed.

“Now’s the time to gag him,” says Short, creeping up close to me, and taking off his jacket and shoes.

“Steady,” says I. “Don’t let’s try that till we can try nothing else. There are men asleep near us who have not eaten the drugged cakes – the Pirate Captain is light and active – and if the gag slips on his mouth, we are all done for. I’ll go to his head, Short, with my jacket ready in my hands. When I’m there, do you lead the way with your mates, and step gently into the portico, over his body. Every minute of your time is precious on account of making the rafts. Leave the rest of the men to get the women and children over; and leave me to gag him if he stirs while we are getting out.”

“Shake hands on it, Davis,” says Short, getting to his feet. “A team of horses wouldn’t have dragged me out first, if you hadn’t said that about the rafts.”

“Wait a bit,” says I, “till I speak to Mr. Kitten.”

I crawled back into the room, taking care to keep out of the way of the stones in the middle of it, and asked Mr. Kitten how long it would be before the drugged cakes acted on the men outside who had eaten them? He said we ought to wait another quarter of an hour, to make quite sure. At the same time, Mr. Macey whispered in my ear to let him pass over the Pirate Captain’s body, alone with the dangerous man of our company – Serjeant Drooce. “I know how to deal with mad people,” says he. “I have persuaded the Sergeant that if he is quiet, and if he steps carefully, I can help him to escape from Tom Packer, whom he is beginning look on as his keeper. He has been as stealthy and quiet as a cat ever since – and I will answer for him till we get to the river side.”

What a relief it was to hear that! I was turning round to get back to Short, when a hand touched me lightly.

“I have heard you talking,” whispered Miss Maryon; “and I will prepare all in my room for the risk we must now run. Robert, the ship’s boy, whom the children are so fond of, shall help us to persuade them, once more, that we are going to play a game. If you can get one of the torches from the tent, and pass it in here, it may prevent some of us from stumbling. Don’t be afraid of the women and children, Davis. They shall not endanger the brave men who are saving them.”

I left her at once to get the torch. The Pirate Captain was still fast asleep as I stole on tiptoe, into the hall, and took it from the tent. When I returned, and gave it to Miss Maryon, her sister’s little deaf and dumb boy saw me, and, slipping between us, caught tight hold of one of my hands. Having been used to riding on my shoulders for so many days, he had taken a fancy to me; and, when I tried to put him away, he only clung the tighter, and began to murmur in his helpless dumb way. Slight as the noise was which the poor little fellow could make, we all dreaded it. His mother wrung her hands in despair when she heard him; and Mr. Fisher whispered to me for Heaven’s sake to quiet the child, and humour him at any cost. I immediately took him up in my arms, and went back to Short.

“Sling him on my back,” says I, “as you slung the little girl on your own the first day of the march. I want both my hands, and the child won’t be quiet away from me.”

Short did as I asked him in two minutes. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Macey passed the word on to me, that the quarter of an hour was up; that it was time to try the experiment with Drooce; and that it was necessary for us all to humour him by feigning sleep. We obeyed. Looking out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Macey take the mad Serjeant’s arm, point round to us all, and then lead him out. Holding tight by Mr. Macey, Drooce stepped as lightly as a woman, with as bright and wicked a look of cunning as ever I saw in any human eyes. They crossed the hall – Mr. Macey pointed to the Pirate Captain, and whispered, “Hush!” – the Serjeant imitated the action and repeated the word – then the two stepped over his body (Drooce cautiously raising his feet the highest), and disappeared through the portico. We waited to hear if there was any noise or confusion. Not a sound.

I got up, and Short handed me his jacket for the gag. The child, having been startled from his sleep by the light of the torch, when I brought it in, had fallen off again, already, on my shoulder. “Now for it,” says I, and stole out into the hall.

I stopped at the tent, went in, and took the first knife I could find there. With the weapon between my teeth, with the little innocent asleep on my shoulder, with the jacket held ready in both hands, I kneeled down on one knee at the Pirate Captain’s head, and fixed my eyes steadily on his ugly sleeping face.

The sailors came out first, with their shoes in their hands. No sound of footsteps from any one of them. No movement in the ugly face as they passed over it.

The women and children were ready next. Robert, the ship’s boy, lifted the children over: most of them holding their little hands over their mouths to keep from laughing – so well had Robert persuaded them that we were only playing a game. The women passed next, all as light as air; after them, in obedience to a sign from me, my comrades of the Marines, holding their shoes in their hands, as the sailors had done before them. So far, not a word had been spoken, not a mistake had been made – so far, not a change of any sort had passed over the Pirate Captain’s face.

There were left now in the hall, besides myself and the child on my back, only Mr. Fisher and Mr. Pordage. Mr. Pordage! Up to that moment, in the risk and excitement of the time, I had not once thought of him.

I was forced to think of him now, though; and with anything but a friendly feeling.

At the sight of the Pirate Captain, asleep across the way out, the unfortunate, mischievous old simpleton tossed up his head, and folded his arms, and was on the point of breaking out loud into a spoken document of some kind, when Mr. Fisher wisely and quickly clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Government despatches outside,” whispers Mr. Fisher, in an agony. “Secret service. Forty-nine reports from head-quarters, all waiting for you half a mile off. I’ll show you the way, sir. Don’t wake that man there, who is asleep: he must know nothing about it – he represents the Public.”

Mr. Pordage suddenly looked very knowing and hugely satisfied with himself. He followed Mr. Fisher to within a foot of the Pirate Captain’s body – then stopped short.

“How many reports?” he asked, very anxiously.

“Forty-nine,” said Mr. Fisher. “Come along, sir, – and step clean over the Public, whatever you do.”

Mr. Pordage instantly stepped over, as jauntily as if he was going to dance. At the moment of his crossing, a hanging rag of his cursed, useless, unfortunate, limp Diplomatic coat touched the Pirate Captain’s forehead, and woke him.

I drew back softly, with the child still asleep on my shoulder, into the black shadow of the wall behind me. At the instant when the Pirate Captain awoke, I had been looking at Mr. Pordage, and had consequently lost the chance of applying the gag to his mouth suddenly, at the right time.

On rousing up, he turned his face inwards, towards the prisoners’ room. If he had turned it outwards, he must to a dead certainty have seen the tail of Mr. Pordage’s coat, disappearing in the portico.

Though he was awake enough to move, he was not awake enough to have the full possession of his sharp senses. The drowsiness of his sleep still hung about him. He yawned, stretched himself, spat wearily, sat up, spat again, got on his legs, and stood up, within three feet of the shadow in which I was hiding behind him.

I forgot the knife in my teeth, – I declare solemnly, in the frightful suspense of that moment, I forgot it – and doubled my fist as if I was an unarmed man, with the purpose of stunning him by a blow on the head if he came any nearer. I suppose I waited, with my fist clenched, nearly a minute, while he waited, yawning and spitting. At the end of that time, he made for his tent, and I heard him (with what thankfulness no words can tell!) roll himself down, with another yawn, on his bed inside.

I waited – in the interest of us all – to make quite sure, before I left, that he was asleep again. In what I reckoned as about five minutes’ time, I heard him snoring, and felt free to take myself and my little sleeping comrade out of the prison, at last.

The drugged guards in the portico were sitting together, dead asleep, with their backs against the wall. The third man was lying flat, on the landing of the steps. Their arms and ammunition were gone: wisely taken by our men – to defend us, if we were meddled with before we escaped, and to kill food for us when we committed ourselves to the river.

At the bottom of the steps I was startled by seeing two women standing together. They were Mrs. Macey and Miss Maryon: the first, waiting to see her child safe; the second (God bless her for it!) waiting to see me safe.

In a quarter of an hour we were by the riverside, and saw the work bravely begun: the sailors and the marines under their orders, labouring at the rafts in the shallow water by the bank; Mr. Macey and Mr. Fisher rolling down fresh timber as it was wanted; the women cutting the vines, creepers, and withies for the lashings. We brought with us three more pair of hands to help; and all worked with such a will, that, in four hours and twenty minutes, by Mr. Macey’s watch, the rafts, though not finished as they ought to have been, were still strong enough to float us away.

Short, another seaman, and the ship’s boy, got aboard the first raft, carrying with them poles and spare timber. Miss Maryon, Mrs. Fisher and her husband, Mrs. Macey and her husband and three children, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, myself, and women and children besides, to make up eighteen, were the passengers on the leading raft. The second raft, under the guidance of the two other sailors, held Serjeant Drooce (gagged, for he now threatened to be noisy again), Tom Packer, the two marines, Mrs. Belltott, and the rest of the women and children. We all got on board silently and quickly, with a fine moonlight over our heads, and without accidents or delays of any kind.

It was a good half-hour before the time would come for the change of guard at the prison, when the lashings which tied us to the bank were cast off, and we floated away, a company of free people, on the current of an unknown river.

III

THE RAFTS
ON THE RIVER

We contrived to keep afloat all that night, and, the stream running strong with us, to glide a long way down the river. But, we found the night to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of the eddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in future we would bring to at sunset, and encamp on the shore. As we knew of no boats that the Pirates possessed, up at the Prison in the Woods, we settled always to encamp on the opposite side of the stream, so as to have the breadth of the river between our sleep and them. Our opinion was, that if they were acquainted with any near way by land to the mouth of this river, they would come up it in force, and re-take us or kill us, according as they could; but, that if that was not the case, and if the river ran by none of their secret stations, we might escape.

When I say we settled this or that, I do not mean that we planned anything with any confidence as to what might happen an hour hence. So much had happened in one night, and such great changes had been violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that we had got better used to uncertainty, in a little while, than I dare say most people do in the course of their lives.

The difficulties we soon got into, through the off-settings and point-currents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being drowned, alone – to say nothing of our being retaken – as broad and plain as the sun at noonday to all of us. But, we all worked hard at managing the rafts, under the direction of the seamen (of our own skill, I think we never could have prevented them from over-setting), and we also worked hard at making good the defects in their first hasty construction – which the water soon found out. While we humbly resigned ourselves to going down, if it was the will of Our Father that was in Heaven, we humbly made up our minds, that we would all do the best that was in us.

And so we held on, gliding with the stream. It drove us to this bank, and it drove us to that bank, and it turned us, and whirled us; but yet it carried us on. Sometimes much too slowly, sometimes much too fast, but yet it carried us on.

My little deaf and dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and that was the case with all the children. They caused very little trouble to anyone. They seemed, in my eyes, to get more like one another, not only in quiet manner, but in the face, too. The motion of the raft was usually so much the same, the scene was usually so much the same, the sound of the soft wash and ripple of the water was usually so much the same, that they were made drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one tune. Even on the grown people, who worked hard and felt anxiety, the same things produced something of the same effect. Every day was so like the other, that I soon lost count of the days, myself, and had to ask Miss Maryon, for instance, whether this was the third or fourth? Miss Maryon had a pocketbook and pencil, and she kept the log; that is to say, she entered up a clear little journal of the time, and of the distances our seamen thought we had made, each night.

So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. All day long, and every day, the water, and the woods, and sky; all day long, and every day, the constant watching of both sides of the river, and far a-head at every bold turn and sweep it made, for any signs of Pirate-boats, or Pirate-dwellings. So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. The days melting themselves together to that degree, that I could hardly believe my ears when I asked “How many, now, Miss?” and she answered, “Seven.”

To be sure, poor Mr. Pordage had, by about now, got his Diplomatic coat into such a state as never was seen. What with the mud of the river, what with the water of the river, what with the sun, and the dews, and the tearing boughs, and the thickets, it hung about him in discoloured shreds like a mop. The sun had touched him a bit. He had taken to always polishing one particular button, which just held on to his left wrist, and to always calling for stationery. I suppose that man called for pens, ink, and paper, tape, and sealing-wax, upwards of one thousand times in four and twenty hours. He had an idea that we should never get out of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal Memorandum; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, the more he ordered us not to touch them at our peril, and the more he sat and roared for stationery.

Mrs. Pordage, similarly, persisted in wearing her nightcap. I doubt if anyone but ourselves who had seen the progress of that article of dress, could by this time have told what it was meant for. It had got so limp and ragged that she couldn’t see out of her eyes for it. It was so dirty, that whether it was vegetable matter out of a swamp, or weeds out of the river, or an old porter’s-knot from England, I don’t think any new spectator could have said. Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion that it was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing as to propriety. And she really did carry herself over the other ladies who had no nightcaps, and who were forced to tie up their hair how they could, in a superior manner that was perfectly amazing.

I don’t know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed nightcap, on a log of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft. She would have rather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the picture-books that used to be in the shop windows in my boyhood, except for her stateliness. But, Lord bless my heart, the dignity with which she sat and moped, with her head in that bundle of tatters, was like nothing else in the world! She was not on speaking terms with more than three of the ladies. Some of them had, what she called, “taken precedence” of her – in getting into, or out of, that miserable little shelter! – and others had not called to pay their respects, or something of that kind. So, there she sat, in her own state and ceremony, while her husband sat on the same log of wood, ordering us one and all to let the raft go to the bottom, and to bring him stationery.

What with this noise on the part of Mr. Commissioner Pordage, and what with the cries of Serjeant Drooce on the raft astern (which were sometimes more than Tom Packer could silence), we often made our slow way down the river, anything but quietly. Yet, that it was of great importance that no ears should be able to hear us from the woods on the banks, could not be doubted. We were looked for, to a certainty, and we might be retaken at any moment. It was an anxious time; it was, indeed, indeed, an anxious time.

On the seventh night of our voyage on the rafts, we made fast, as usual, on the opposite side of the river to that from which we had started, in as dark a place as we could pick out. Our little encampment was soon made, and supper was eaten, and the children fell asleep. The watch was set, and everything made orderly for the night. Such a starlight night, with such blue in the sky, and such black in the places of heavy shade on the banks of the great stream!

Those two ladies, Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, had always kept near me since the night of the attack. Mr. Fisher, who was untiring in the work of our raft, had said to me:

“My dear little childless wife has grown so attached to you, Davis, and you are such a gentle fellow, as well as such a determined one;” our party had adopted that last expression from the one-eyed English pirate, and I repeat what Mr. Fisher said, only because he said it; “that it takes a load off my mind to leave her in your charge.”

I said to him: “Your lady is in far better charge than mine, sir, having Miss Maryon to take care of her; but, you may rely upon it, that I will guard them both – faithful and true.”

Says he: “I do rely upon it, Davis, and I heartily wish all the silver on our old Island was yours.”

That seventh starlight night, as I have said, we made our camp, and got our supper, and set our watch, and the children fell asleep. It was solemn and beautiful in those wild and solitary parts, to see them, every night before they lay down, kneeling under the bright sky, saying their little prayers at women’s laps. At that time we men all uncovered, and mostly kept at a distance. When the innocent creatures rose up, we murmured “Amen!” all together. For, though we had not heard what they said, we knew it must be good for us.

At that time, too, as was only natural, those poor mothers in our company whose children had been killed, shed many tears. I thought the sight seemed to console them while it made them cry; but, whether I was right or wrong in that, they wept very much. On this seventh night, Mrs. Fisher had cried for her lost darling until she cried herself asleep. She was lying on a little couch of leaves and such-like (I made the best little couch I could, for them every night), and Miss Maryon had covered her, and sat by her, holding her hand. The stars looked down upon them. As for me, I guarded them.

“Davis!” says Miss Maryon. (I am not going to say what a voice she had. I couldn’t if I tried.)

“I am here, Miss.”

“The river sounds as if it were swollen tonight.”

“We all think, Miss, that we are coming near the sea.”

“Do you believe, now, we shall escape?”

“I do now, Miss, really believe it.” I had always said I did; but, I had in my own mind been doubtful.

“How glad you will be, my good Davis, to see England again!”

I have another confession to make that will appear singular. When she said these words, something rose in my throat; and the stars I looked away at, seemed to break into sparkles that fell down my face and burnt it.

“England is not much to me, Miss, except as a name.”

“Oh! So true an Englishman should not say that! – Are you not well tonight, Davis?” Very kindly, and with a quick change.

“Quite well, Miss.”

“Are you sure? Your voice sounds altered in my hearing.”

“No, Miss, I am a stronger man than ever. But, England is nothing to me.”

Miss Maryon sat silent for so long a while, that I believed she had done speaking to me for one time. However, she had not; for by and by she said in a distinct, clear tone:

“No, good friend; you must not say, that England is nothing to you. It is to be much to you, yet – everything to you. You have to take back to England the good name you have earned here, and the gratitude and attachment and respect you have won here; and you have to make some good English girl very happy and proud, by marrying her; and I shall one day see her, I hope, and make her happier and prouder still, by telling her what noble services her husband’s were in South America, and what a noble friend he was to me there.”

Though she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she spoke them compassionately. I said nothing. It will appear to be another strange confession, that I paced to and fro, within call, all that night, a most unhappy man reproaching myself all the night long. “You are as ignorant as any man alive; you are as obscure as any man I alive; you are as poor as any man alive; you are no better than the mud under your foot.” That was the way in which I went on against myself until the morning.

With the day, came the day’s labour. What I should have done without the labour, I don’t know. We were afloat again at the usual hour, and were again making our way down the river. It was broader, and clearer of obstructions than it had been, and it seemed to flow faster. This was one of Drooce’s quiet days; Mr. Pordage, besides being sulky, had almost lost his voice; and we made good way, and with little noise.

There was always a seaman forward on the raft, keeping a bright look-out. Suddenly, in the full heat of the day, when the children were slumbering, and the very trees and reeds appeared to be slumbering, this man – it was Short – holds up his hand, and cries with great caution:

“Avast! Voices ahead!”

We held on against the stream as soon as we could bring her up, and the other raft followed suit. At first, Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, and myself, could hear nothing; though both the seamen aboard of us agreed that they could hear voices and oars. After a little pause, however, we united in thinking that we could hear the sound of voices, and the dip of oars. But, you can hear a long way in those countries, and there was a bend of the river before us, and nothing was to be seen except such waters and such banks as we were now in the eighth day (and might, for the matter of our feelings, have been in the eightieth), of having seen with anxious eyes.

It was soon decided to put a man ashore who should creep through the wood, see what was coming, and warn the rafts. The rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to get back into midstream, and to hold on along with the other, as well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him aboard again. I volunteered to be the man.

We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against the stream; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under which bank they would come. I was put ashore accordingly. The raft got off well, and I broke into the wood.

Steaming hot it was, and a tearing place to get through. So much the better for me, since it was something to contend against and do. I cut off the bend in the river, at a great saving of space, came to the water’s edge again, and hid myself, and waited. I could now hear the dip of the oars very distinctly; the voices had ceased.

The sound came on in a regular tune, and as I lay hidden, I fancied the tune so played to be, “Chris’en – George – King! Chris’en – George – King! Chris’en – George – King!” over and over again, always the same, with the pauses always at the same places. I had likewise time to make up my mind that if these were the Pirates, I could and would (barring my being shot), swim off to my raft, in spite of my wound, the moment I had given the alarm, and hold my old post by Miss Maryon.

“Chris’en – George – King! Chris’en – George – King! Chris’en – George – King!” coming up, now, very near.

I took a look at the branches about me, to see where a shower of bullets would be most likely to do me least hurt; and I took a look back at the track I had made in forcing my way in; and now I was wholly prepared and fully ready for them.

“Chris’en – George – King! Chris’en – George – King! Chris’en – George – King!” Here they were!

Who were they? The barbarous Pirates, scum of all nations, headed by such men as the hideous little Portuguese monkey, and the one-eyed English convict with the gash across his face, that ought to have gashed his wicked head off? The worst men in the world picked out from the worst, to do the crudest and most atrocious deeds that ever stained it? The howling, murdering, black-flag waving, mad, and drunken crowd of devils that had overcome us by numbers and by treachery? No. These were English men in English boats – good blue-jackets and red-coats – marines that I knew myself, and sailors that knew our seamen! At the helm of the first boat, Captain Carton, eager and steady. At the helm of the second boat, Captain Maryon, brave and bold. At the helm of the third boat, an old seaman, with determination carved into his watchful face, like the figure-head of a ship. Every man doubly and trebly armed from head to foot. Every man lying-to at his work, with a will that had all his heart and soul in it. Every man looking out for any trace of friend or enemy, and burning to be the first to do good, or avenge evil. Every man with his face on fire when he saw me, his countryman who had been taken prisoner, and hailed me with a cheer, as Captain Carton’s boat ran in and took me on board.

I reported, “All escaped, sir! All well, all safe, all here!”

God bless me – and God bless them – what a cheer! It turned me weak, as I was passed on from hand to hand to the stern of the boat: every hand patting me or grasping me in some way or other, in the moment of my going by.

“Hold up, my brave fellow,” says Captain Carton, clapping me on the shoulder like a friend, and giving me a flask. “Put your lips to that, and they’ll be red again. Now, boys, give way!”

The banks flew by us, as if the mightiest stream that ever ran was with us; and so it was, I am sure, meaning the stream of those men’s ardour and spirit. The banks flew by us, and we came in sight of the rafts – the banks flew by us, and we came alongside of the rafts – the banks stopped; and there was a tumult of laughing and crying and kissing and shaking of hands, and catching up of children and setting of them down again, and a wild hurry of thankfulness and joy that melted everyone and softened all hearts.

I had taken notice, in Captain Carton’s boat, that there was a curious and quite new sort of fitting on board. It was a kind of a little bower made of flowers, and it was set up behind the captain, and betwixt him and the rudder. Not only was this arbour, so to call it, neatly made of flowers, but it was ornamented in a singular way. Some of the men had taken the ribbons and buckles off their hats, and hung them among the flowers; others, had made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs, and hung them there; others, had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass and shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes, with the flowers; so that altogether it was a very bright and lively object in the sunshine. But, why there, or what for, I did not understand.

Now, as soon as the first bewilderment was over, Captain Carton gave the order to land for the present. But, this boat of his, with two hands left in her, immediately put off again when the men were out of her, and kept off, some yards from the shore. As she floated there, with the two hands gently backing water to keep her from going down the stream, this pretty little arbour attracted many eyes. None of the boat’s crew, however, had anything to say about it, except that it was the captain’s fancy.

The captain, with the women and children clustering round him, and the men of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening, stood telling how the Expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, had chased the light Pirate boats all that fatal night, and had still followed in their wake next day, and had never suspected until many hours too late that the great Pirate body had drawn off in the darkness when the chace began, and shot over to the Island. He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing the whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into shallows and went aground; but, not without having its revenge upon the two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overland, and sent to the bottom with all on board. He stood telling how the Expedition, fearing then that the case stood as it did, got afloat again, by great exertion, after the loss of four more tides, and returned to the Island, where they found the sloop scuttled and the treasure gone. He stood telling how my officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was left upon the Island, with as strong a force as could be got together hurriedly from the mainland, and how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed and had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of any tidings of us. He stood telling all this, with his face to the river; and, as he stood telling it, the little arbour of flowers floated in the sunshine before all the faces there.

Leaning on Captain Carton’s shoulder, between him and Miss Maryon, was Mrs. Fisher, her head drooping on her arm. She asked him, without raising it, when he had told so much, whether he had found her mother?

“Be comforted! She lies,” said the Captain, gently, “under the coconut trees on the beach.”

“And my child, Captain Carton, did you find my child, too? Does my darling rest with my mother?”

“No. Your pretty child sleeps,” said the Captain, “under a shade of flowers.”

His voice shook; but, there was something in it that struck all the hearers. At that moment, there sprung from the arbour in his boat, a little creature, clapping her hands and stretching out her arms, and crying, “Dear papa! Dear mamma! I am not killed. I am saved. I am coming to kiss you. Take me to them, take me to them, good, kind sailors!”

Nobody who saw that scene has ever forgotten it, I am sure, or ever will forget it. The child had kept quite still, where her brave grandmama had put her (first whispering in her ear, “Whatever happens to me, do not stir, my dear!”), and had remained quiet until the fort was deserted; she had then crept out of the trench, and gone into her mother’s house; and there, alone on the solitary Island, in her mother’s room, and asleep on her mother’s bed, the Captain had found her. Nothing could induce her to be parted from him after he took her up in his arms, and he had brought her away with him, and the men had made the bower for her. To see those men now, was a sight. The joy of the women was beautiful; the joy of those women who had lost their own children, was quite sacred and divine; but, the ecstasies of Captain Carton’s boat’s crew, when their pet was restored to her parents, were wonderful for the tenderness they showed in the midst of roughness. As the Captain stood with the child in his arms, and the child’s own little arms now clinging round his neck, now round her father’s, now round her mother’s, now round someone who pressed up to kiss her, the boat’s crew shook hands with one another, waved their hats over their heads, laughed, sang, cried, danced – and all among themselves, without wanting to interfere with anybody – in a manner never to be represented. At last, I saw the coxswain and another, two very hard-faced men with grizzled heads who had been the heartiest of the hearty all along, close with one another, get each of them the other’s head under his arm, and pummel away at it with his fist as hard as he could, in his excess of joy.

When we had well rested and refreshed ourselves – and very glad we were to have some of the heartening things to eat and drink that had come up in the boats – we recommenced our voyage down the river: rafts, and boats, and all. I said to myself, it was a very different kind of voyage now, from what it had been; and I fell into my proper place and station among my fellow-soldiers.

But, when we halted for the night, I found that Miss Maryon had spoken to Captain Carton concerning me. For, the Captain came straight up to me, and says he, “My brave fellow, you have been Miss Maryon’s bodyguard all along, and you shall remain so. Nobody shall supersede you in the distinction and pleasure of protecting that young lady.” I thanked his honour in the fittest words I could find, and that night I was placed on my old post of watching the place where she slept. More than once in the night, I saw Captain Carton come out into the air, and stroll about there, to see that all was well. I have now this other singular confession to make, that I saw him with a heavy heart. Yes; I saw him with a heavy, heavy heart.

In the daytime, I had the like post in Captain Carton’s boat. I had a special station of my own, behind Miss Maryon, and no hands but hers ever touched my wound. (It has been healed these many long years; but, no other hands have ever touched it.) Mr. Pordage was kept tolerably quiet now, with pen and ink, and began to pick up his senses a little. Seated in the second boat, he made documents with Mr. Kitten, pretty well all day; and he generally handed in a Protest about something whenever we stopped. The Captain, however, made so very light of these papers that it grew into a saying among the men, when one of them wanted a match for his pipe, “Hand us over a Protest, Jack!” As to Mrs. Pordage, she still wore the nightcap, and she now had cut all the ladies on account of her not having been formally and separately rescued by Captain Carton before anybody else. The end of Mr. Pordage, to bring to an end all I know about him, was, that he got great compliments at home for his conduct on these trying occasions, and that he died of yellow jaundice, a Governor and a K.C.B.

Serjeant Drooce had fallen from a high fever into a low one, Tom Packer – the only man who could have pulled the Serjeant through it – kept hospital a-board the old raft, and Mrs. Belltott, as brisk as ever again (but the spirit of that little woman, when things tried it, was not equal to appearances), was head-nurse under his directions. Before we got down to the Mosquito coast, the joke had been made by one of our men, that we should see her gazetted Mrs. Tom Packer, vice Belltott exchanged.

When we reached the coast, we got native boats as substitutes for the rafts; and we rowed along under the land; and in that beautiful climate, and upon that beautiful water, the blooming days were like enchantment. Ah! They were running away, faster than any sea or river, and there was no tide to bring them back. We were coming very near the settlement where the people of Silver-Store were to be left, and from which we Marines were under orders to return to Belize.

Captain Carton had, in the boat by him, a curious long-barreled Spanish gun, and he had said to Miss Maryon one day that it was the best of guns, and had turned his head to me, and said:

“Gill Davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a chance of showing how good she is.”

So, I had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, according to orders, and there it had lain at the Captain’s feet, convenient to the Captain’s hand.

The last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot day. We started very early; but, there was no cool air on the sea as the day got on, and by noon the heat was really hard to bear, considering that there were women and children to bear it. Now, we happened to open, just at that time, a very pleasant little cove or bay, where there was a deep shade from a great growth of trees. Now, the Captain, therefore, made the signal to the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while.

The men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but were ordered, for caution’s sake, not to stray, and to keep within view. The others rested on their oars, and dozed. Awnings had been made of one thing and another, in all the boats, and the passengers found it cooler to be under them in the shade, when there was room enough, than to be in the thick woods. So, the passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping. I kept my post behind Miss Maryon, and she was on Captain Carton’s right in the boat, and Mrs. Fisher sat on her right again. The Captain had Mrs. Fisher’s daughter on his knee. He and the two ladies were talking about the Pirates, and were talking softly: partly, because people do talk softly under such indolent circumstances, and partly because the little girl had gone off asleep.

I think I have before given it out for my Lady to write down, that Captain Carton had a fine bright eye of his own. All at once, he darted me a side look, as much as to say. “Steady – don’t take on – I see something!” – and gave the child into her mother’s arms. That eye of his was so easy to understand, that I obeyed it by not so much as looking either to the right or to the left out of a corner of my own, or changing my attitude the least trifle. The Captain went on talking in the same mild and easy way; but began – with his arms resting across his knees, and his head a little hanging forward, as if the heat were rather too much for him – began to play with the Spanish gun.

“They had laid their plans, you see,” says the Captain, taking up the Spanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the inlaying on the stock, “with a great deal of art; and the corrupt or blundering local authorities were so easily deceived;” he ran his left hand idly along the barrel, but I saw, with my breath held, that he covered the action of cocking the gun with his right – “so easily deceived, that they summoned us out to come into the trap. But my intention as to future operations—” In a flash the Spanish gun was at his bright eye, and he fired.

All started up; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the discharge; a cloud of bright-coloured birds flew out of the woods screaming; a handful of leaves were scattered in the place where the shot had struck; a crackling of branches was heard; and some lithe but heavy creature sprang into the air, and fell forward, head down, over the muddy bank.

“What is it?” cries Captain Maryon from his boat. All silent then, but the echoes rolling away.

“It is a Traitor and a Spy,” said Captain Carton, handing me the gun to load again. “And I think the other name of the animal is Christian George King!”

Shot through the heart. Some of the people ran round to the spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his face; but, his face itself would never stir any more to the end of time.

“Leave him hanging to that tree,” cried Captain Carton; his boat’s crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. “But first into this wood, every man in his place. And boats! Out of gunshot!”

It was a quick change, well meant and well made, though it ended in disappointment. No Pirates were there; no one but the Spy was found. It was supposed that the Pirates, unable to retake us, and expecting a great attack upon them, to be the consequence of our escape, had made from the ruins in the Forest, taken to their ship along with the Treasure, and left the Spy to pick up what intelligence he could. In the evening we went away, and he was left hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red sun making a kind of a dead sunset on his black face.

Next day, we gained the settlement on the Mosquito coast for which we were bound. Having stayed there to refresh, seven days, and having been much commended, and highly spoken of, and finely entertained, we Marines stood under orders to march from the Town-Gate (it was neither much of a town nor much of a gate), at five in the morning.

My officer had joined us before then. When we turned out at the gate, all the people were there; in the front of them all those who had been our fellow-prisoners, and all the seamen.

“Davis,” says Lieutenant Linderwood. “Stand out, my friend!”

I stood out from the ranks, and Miss Maryon and Captain Carton came up to me.

“Dear Davis,” says Miss Maryon, while the tears fell fast down her face, “your grateful friends, in most unwillingly taking leave of you, ask the favour that, while you bear away with you their affectionate remembrance which nothing can ever impair, you will also take this purse of money – far more valuable to you, we all know, for the deep attachment and thankfulness with which it is offered, than for its own contents, though we hope those may prove useful to you, too, in after life.”

I got out, in answer, that I thankfully accepted the attachment and affection, but not the money. Captain Carton looked at me very attentively, and stepped back, and moved away. I made him my bow as he stepped back, to thank him for being so delicate.

“No, miss,” said I, “I think it would break my heart to accept of money. But, if you could condescend to give to a man so ignorant and common as myself, any little thing you have worn – such as a bit of ribbon—”

She took a ring from her finger, and put it in my hand. And she rested her hand in mine, while she said these words:

“The brave gentlemen of old – but not one of them was braver, or had a nobler nature than you – took such gifts from ladies, and did all their good actions for the givers’ sakes. If you will do yours for mine, I shall think with pride that I continue to have some share in the life of a gallant and generous man.”

For the second time in my life, she kissed my hand. I made so bold, for the first time, as to kiss hers; and I tied the ring at my breast, and I fell back to my place.

Then, the horse-litter went out at the gate, with Serjeant Drooce in it; and the horse-litter went out at the gate with Mrs. Belltott in it; and Lieutenant Linderwood gave the word of command, “Quick march!” and, cheered and cried for, we went out of the gate too, marching along the level plain towards the serene blue sky as if we were marching straight to Heaven.

When I have added here that the Pirate scheme was blown to shivers, by the Pirate-ship which had the Treasure on board being so vigorously attacked by one of His Majesty’s cruisers, among the West India Keys, and being so swiftly boarded and carried, that nobody suspected anything about the scheme until three-fourths of the Pirates were killed, and the other fourth were in irons, and the Treasure was recovered; I come to the last singular confession I have got to make.

It is this. I well knew what an immense and hopeless distance there was between me and Miss Maryon; I well knew that I was no fitter company for her than I was for the angels; I well knew that she was as high above my reach as the sky over my head; and yet I loved her. What put it in my low heart to be so daring, or whether such a thing ever happened before or since, as that a man so uninstructed and obscure as myself got his unhappy thoughts lifted up to such a height, while knowing very well how presumptuous and impossible to be realised they were, I am unable to say; still, the suffering to me was just as great as if I had been a gentleman. I suffered agony – agony. I suffered hard, and I suffered long. I thought of her last words to me, however, and I never disgraced them. If it had not been for those dear words, I think I should have lost myself in despair and recklessness.

The ring will be found lying on my heart, of course, and will be laid with me wherever I am laid. I am getting on in years now, though I am able and hearty. I was recommended for promotion, and everything was done to reward me that could be done; but, my total want of all learning stood in my way, and I found myself so completely out of the road to it, that I could not conquer any learning, though I tried. I was long in the service, and I respected it, and was respected in it, and the service is dear to me at this present hour.

At this present hour, when I give this out to my Lady to be written down, all my old pain has softened away, and I am as happy as a man can be, at this present fine old country-house of Admiral Sir George Carton, Baronet. It was my Lady Carton who herself sought me out, over a great many miles of the wide world, and found me in Hospital wounded, and brought me here. It is my Lady Carton who writes down my words. My Lady was Miss Maryon. And now, that I conclude what I had to tell, I see my Lady’s honoured grey hair droop over her face, as she leans a little lower at her desk; and I fervently thank her for being so tender as I see she is, towards the past pain and trouble of her poor, old, faithful, humble soldier.

•  THE END  •

Household Words
Christmas number 1857

A HOUSE TO LET

CONTENTS

Over the Way
Wilkie Collins

The Manchester Marriage
Elizabeth Gaskell

Going into Society
Charles Dickens

Three Evenings in the House
Adelaide Anne Proctor

Trottle’s Report
Wilkie Collins

Let at Last
Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

All The Year Round
Christmas number 1858

OVER THE WAY

I had been living at Tunbridge Wells and nowhere else, going on for ten years, when my medical man – very clever in his profession, and the prettiest player I ever saw in my life of a hand at Long Whist, which was a noble and a princely game before Short was heard of – said to me, one day, as he sat feeling my pulse on the actual sofa which my poor dear sister Jane worked before her spine came on, and laid her on a board for fifteen months at a stretch – the most upright woman that ever lived – said to me, “What we want, ma’am, is a fillip.”

“Good gracious, goodness gracious, Doctor Towers!” says I, quite startled at the man, for he was so christened himself: “don’t talk as if you were alluding to people’s names; but say what you mean.”

“I mean, my dear ma’am, that we want a little change of air and scene.”

“Bless the man!” said I; “does he mean we or me!”

“I mean you, ma’am.”

“Then Lard forgive you, Doctor Towers,” I said; “why don’t you get into a habit of expressing yourself in a straightforward manner, like a loyal subject of our gracious Queen Victoria, and a member of the Church of England?”

Towers laughed, as he generally does when he has fidgeted me into any of my impatient ways – one of my states, as I call them – and then he began—

“Tone, ma’am, Tone, is all you require!” He appealed to Trottle, who just then came in with the coal-scuttle, looking, in his nice black suit, like an amiable man putting on coals from motives of benevolence.

Trottle (whom I always call my right hand) has been in my service two-and-thirty years. He entered my service, far away from England. He is the best of creatures, and the most respectable of men; but, opinionated.

“What you want, ma’am,” says Trottle, making up the fire in his quiet and skilful way, “is Tone.”

“Lard forgive you both!” says I, bursting out a-laughing; “I see you are in a conspiracy against me, so I suppose you must do what you like with me, and take me to London for a change.”

For some weeks Towers had hinted at London, and consequently I was prepared for him. When we had got to this point, we got on so expeditiously, that Trottle was packed off to London next day but one, to find some sort of place for me to lay my troublesome old head in.

Trottle came back to me at the Wells after two days’ absence, with accounts of a charming place that could be taken for six months certain, with liberty to renew on the same terms for another six, and which really did afford every accommodation that I wanted.

“Could you really find no fault at all in the rooms, Trottle?” I asked him.

“Not a single one, ma’am. They are exactly suitable to you. There is not a fault in them. There is but one fault outside of them.”

“And what’s that?”

“They are opposite a House to Let.”

“O!” I said, considering of it. “But is that such a very great objection?”

“I think it my duty to mention it, ma’am. It is a dull object to look at. Otherwise, I was so greatly pleased with the lodging that I should have closed with the terms at once, as I had your authority to do.”

Trottle thinking so highly of the place, in my interest, I wished not to disappoint him. Consequently I said:

“The empty House may let, perhaps.”

“O, dear no, ma’am,” said Trottle, shaking his head with decision; “it won’t let. It never does let, ma’am.”

“Mercy me! Why not?”

“Nobody knows, ma’am. All I have to mention is, ma’am, that the House won’t let!”

“How long has this unfortunate House been to let, in the name of Fortune?” said I.

“Ever so long,” said Trottle. “Years.”

“Is it in ruins?”

“It’s a good deal out of repair, ma’am, but it’s not in ruins.”

The long and the short of this business was, that next day I had a pair of post-horses put to my chariot – for, I never travel by railway: not that I have anything to say against railways, except that they came in when I was too old to take to them; and that they made ducks and drakes of a few turnpike-bonds I had – and so I went up myself, with Trottle in the rumble, to look at the inside of this same lodging, and at the outside of this same House.

As I say, I went and saw for myself. The lodging was perfect. That, I was sure it would be; because Trottle is the best judge of comfort I know. The empty house was an eyesore; and that I was sure it would be too, for the same reason. However, setting the one thing against the other, the good against the bad, the lodging very soon got the victory over the House. My lawyer, Mr. Squares, of Crown Office Row; Temple, drew up an agreement; which his young man jabbered over so dreadfully when he read it to me, that I didn’t understand one word of it except my own name; and hardly that, and I signed it, and the other party signed it, and, in three weeks’ time, I moved my old bones, bag and baggage, up to London.

For the first month or so, I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells. I made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal to take care of in the way of my schoolchildren and pensioners, and also of a new stove in the hall to air the house in my absence, which appeared to me calculated to blow up and burst; but, likewise because I suspect Trottle (though the steadiest of men, and a widower between sixty and seventy) to be what I call rather a Philanderer. I mean, that when any friend comes down to see me and brings a maid, Trottle is always remarkably ready to show that maid the Wells of an evening; and that I have more than once noticed the shadow of his arm, outside the room door nearly opposite my chair, encircling that maid’s waist on the landing, like a tablecloth brush.

Therefore, I thought it just as well, before any London Philandering took place, that I should have a little time to look round me, and to see what girls were in and about the place. So, nobody stayed with me in my new lodging at first after Trottle had established me there safe and sound, but Peggy Flobbins, my maid; a most affectionate and attached woman, who never was an object of Philandering since I have known her, and is not likely to begin to become so after nine-and-twenty years next March.

It was the fifth of November when I first breakfasted in my new rooms. The Guys were going about in the brown fog, like magnified monsters of insects in table-beer, and there was a Guy resting on the doorsteps of the House to Let. I put on my glasses, partly to see how the boys were pleased with what I sent them out by Peggy, and partly to make sure that she didn’t approach too near the ridiculous object, which of course was full of sky-rockets, and might go off into bangs at any moment. In this way it happened that the first time I ever looked at the House to Let, after I became its opposite neighbour, I had my glasses on. And this might not have happened once in fifty times, for my sight is uncommonly good for my time of life; and I wear glasses as little as I can, for fear of spoiling it.

I knew already that it was a ten-roomed house, very dirty, and much dilapidated; that the area-rails were rusty and peeling away, and that two or three of them were wanting, or half-wanting; that there were broken panes of glass in the windows, and blotches of mud on other panes, which the boys had thrown at them; that there was quite a collection of stones in the area, also proceeding from those Young Mischiefs; that there were games chalked on the pavement before the house, and likenesses of ghosts chalked on the street-door; that the windows were all darkened by rotting old blinds, or shutters, or both; that the bills “To Let,” had curled up, as if the damp air of the place had given them cramps; or had dropped down into corners, as if they were no more. I had seen all this on my first visit, and I had remarked to Trottle, that the lower part of the black board about terms was split away; that the rest had become illegible, and that the very stone of the doorsteps was broken across. Notwithstanding, I sat at my breakfast table on that Please to Remember the fifth of November morning, staring at the House through my glasses, as if I had never looked at it before.

All at once – in the first-floor window on my right – down in a low corner, at a hole in a blind or a shutter – I found that I was looking at a secret Eye. The reflection of my fire may have touched it and made it shine; but, I saw it shine and vanish.

The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me, sitting there in the glow of my fire – you can take which probability you prefer, without offence – but something struck through my frame, as if the sparkle of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight at me. It had such an effect upon me, that I could not remain by myself, and I rang for Flobbins, and invented some little jobs for her, to keep her in the room. After my breakfast was cleared away, I sat in the same place with my glasses on, moving my head, now so, and now so, trying whether, with the shining of my fire and the flaws in the windowless, I could reproduce any sparkle seeming to be up there, that was like the sparkle of an eye. But no; I could make nothing like it. I could make ripples and crooked lines in the front of the House to Let, and I could even twist one window up and loop it into another; but, I could make no eye, nor anything like an eye. So I convinced myself that I really had seen an eye.

Well, to be sure I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, and it troubled me and troubled me, until it was almost a torment. I don’t think I was previously inclined to concern my head much about the opposite House; but, after this eye, my head was full of the house; and I thought of little else than the house, and I watched the house, and I talked about the house, and I dreamed of the house. In all this, I fully believe now, there was a good Providence. But, you will judge for yourself about that, by-and-by.

My landlord was a butler, who had married a cook, and set up housekeeping. They had not kept house longer than a couple of years, and they knew no more about the House to Let than I did. Neither could I find out anything concerning it among the trades-people or otherwise; further than what Trottle had told me at first. It had been empty, some said six years, some said eight, some said ten. It never did let, they all agreed, and it never would let.

I soon felt convinced that I should work myself into one of my states about the House; and I soon did. I lived for a whole month in a flurry, that was always getting worse. Towers’s prescriptions, which I had brought to London with me, were of no more use than nothing. In the cold winter sunlight, in the thick winter fog, in the black winter rain, in the white winter snow, the House was equally on my mind. I have heard, as everybody else has, of a spirit’s haunting a house; but I have had my own personal experience of a house’s haunting a spirit; for that House haunted mine.

In all that month’s time, I never saw anyone go into the House nor come out of the House. I supposed that such a thing must take place sometimes, in the dead of the night, or the glimmer of the morning; but, I never saw it done. I got no relief from having my curtains drawn when it came on dark, and shutting out the House. The Eye then began to shine in my fire.

I am a single old woman. I should say at once, without being at all afraid of the name, I am an old maid; only that I am older than the phrase would express. The time was when I had my love-trouble, but, it is long and long ago. He was killed at sea (Dear Heaven rest his blessed head!) when I was twenty-five. I have all my life, since ever I can remember, been deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love for them, that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have fancied something must have gone wrong in my life – something must have been turned aside from its original intention I mean – or I should have been the proud and happy mother of many children, and a fond old grandmother this day. I have soon known better in the cheerfulness and contentment that God has blessed me with and given me abundant reason for; and yet I have had to dry my eyes even then, when I have thought of my dear, brave, hopeful, handsome, bright-eyed Charley, and the trust meant to cheer me with. Charley was my youngest brother, and he went to India. He married there, and sent his gentle little wife home to me to be confined, and she was to go back to him, and the baby was to be left with me, and I was to bring it up. It never belonged to this life. It took its silent place among the other incidents in my story that might have been, but never were. I had hardly time to whisper to her “Dead my own!” or she to answer, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust! O lay it on my breast and comfort Charley!” when she had gone to seek her baby at Our Saviour’s feet. I went to Charley, and I told him there was nothing left but me, poor me; and I lived with Charley, out there, several years. He was a man of fifty, when he fell asleep in my arms. His face had changed to be almost old and a little stern; but, it softened, and softened when I laid it down that I might cry and pray beside it; and, when I looked at it for the last time, it was my dear, untroubled, handsome, youthful Charley of long ago.

I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the House to Let brought back all these recollections, and that they had quite pierced my heart one evening, when Flobbins, opening the door, and looking very much as if she wanted to laugh but thought better of it, said:

“Mr. Jabez Jarber, ma’am!”

Upon which Mr. Jarber ambled in, in his usual absurd way, saying:

“Sophonisba!”

Which I am obliged to confess is my name. A pretty one and proper one enough when it was given to me: but, a good many years out of date now, and always sounding particularly high-flown and comical from his lips. So I said, sharply:

“Though it is Sophonisba, Jarber, you are not obliged to mention it, that I see.”

In reply to this observation, the ridiculous man put the tips of my five right-hand fingers to his lips, and said again, with an aggravating accent on the third syllable:

“SophonISba!”

I don’t burn lamps, because I can’t abide the smell of oil, and wax candles belonged to my day. I hope the convenient situation of one of my tall old candlesticks on the table at my elbow will be my excuse for saying, that if he did that again, I would chop his toes with it. (I am sorry to add that when I told him so, I knew his toes to be tender.) But, really, at my time of life and at Jarber’s, it is too much of a good thing. There is an orchestra still standing in the open air at the Wells, before which, in the presence of a throng of fine company, I have walked a minuet with Jarber. But, there is a house still standing, in which I have worn a pinafore, and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle, and toddling away from the door. And how should I look now, at my years, in a pinafore, or having a door for my dentist?

Besides, Jarber always was more or less an absurd man. He was sweetly dressed, and beautifully perfumed, and many girls of my day would have given their ears for him; though I am bound to add that he never cared a fig for them, or their advances either, and that he was very constant to me. For, he not only proposed to me before my love-happiness ended in sorrow, but afterwards too: not once, nor yet twice: nor will we say how many times. However many they were, or however few they were, the last time he paid me that compliment was immediately after he had presented me with a digestive dinner-pill stuck on the point of a pin. And I said on that occasion, laughing heartily, “Now, Jarber, if you don’t know that two people whose united ages would make about a hundred and fifty, have got to be old, I do; and I beg to swallow this nonsense in the form of this pill” (which I took on the spot), “and I request to, hear no more of it.”

After that, he conducted himself pretty well. He was always a little squeezed man, was Jarber, in little sprigged waistcoats; and he had always little legs and a little smile, and a little voice, and little round-about ways. As long as I can remember him he was always going little errands for people, and carrying little gossip. At this present time when he called me “Sophonisba!” he had a little old-fashioned lodging in that new neighbourhood of mine. I had not seen him for two or three years, but I had heard that he still went out with a little perspective-glass and stood on doorsteps in Saint James’s Street, to see the nobility go to Court; and went in his little cloak and goloshes outside Willis’s rooms to see them go to Almack’s; and caught the frightfullest colds, and got himself trodden upon by coachmen and linkmen, until he went home to his landlady a mass of bruises, and had to be nursed for a month.

Jarber took off his little fur-collared cloak, and sat down opposite me, with his little cane and hat in his hand.

“Let us have no more Sophonisbaing, if YOU please, Jarber,” I said. “Call me Sarah. How do you do? I hope you are pretty well.”

“Thank you. And you?” said Jarber.

“I am as well as an old woman can expect to be.”

Jarber was beginning:

“Say, not old, Sophon—” but I looked at the candlestick, and he left off; pretending not to have said anything.

“I am infirm, of course,” I said, “and so are you. Let us both be thankful it’s no worse.”

“Is it possible that you look worried?” said Jarber.

“It is very possible. I have no doubt it is the fact.”

“And what has worried my Soph-, soft-hearted friend,” said Jarber.

“Something not easy, I suppose, to comprehend. I am worried to death by a House to Let, over the way.”

Jarber went with his little tiptoe step to the window-curtains, peeped out, and looked round at me.

“Yes,” said I, in answer: “that house.”

After peeping out again, Jarber came back to his chair with a tender air, and asked: “How does it worry you, S-arah?”

“It is a mystery to me,” said I. “Of course every house IS a mystery, more or less; but, something that I don’t care to mention” (for truly the Eye was so slight a thing to mention that I was more than half ashamed of it), “has made that House so mysterious to me, and has so fixed it in my mind, that I have had no peace for a month. I foresee that I shall have no peace, either, until Trottle comes to me, next Monday.”

I might have mentioned before, that there is a lone-standing jealousy between Trottle and Jarber; and that there is never any love lost between those two.

“Trottle,” petulantly repeated Jarber, with a little flourish of his cane; “how is Trottle to restore the lost peace of Sarah?”

“He will exert himself to find out something about the House. I have fallen into that state about it, that I really must discover by some means or other, good or bad, fair or foul, how and why it is that that House remains To Let.”

“And why Trottle? Why not,” putting his little hat to his heart; “why not, Jarber?”

“To tell you the truth, I have never thought of Jarber in the matter. And now I do think of Jarber, through your having the kindness to suggest him – for which I am really and truly obliged to you – I don’t think he could do it.”

“Sarah!”

“I think it would be too much for you, Jarber.”

“Sarah!”

“There would be coming and going, and fetching and carrying, Jarber, and you might catch cold.”

“Sarah! What can be done by Trottle, can be done by me. I am on terms of acquaintance with every person of responsibility in this parish. I am intimate at the Circulating Library. I converse daily with the Assessed Taxes. I lodge with the Water Rate. I know the Medical Man. I lounge habitually at the House Agent’s. I dine with the Churchwardens. I move to the Guardians. Trottle! A person in the sphere of a domestic, and totally unknown to society!”

“Don’t be warm, Jarber. In mentioning Trottle, I have naturally relied on my Right-Hand, who would take any trouble to gratify even a whim of his old mistress’s. But, if you can find out anything to help to unravel the mystery of this House to Let, I shall be fully as much obliged to you as if there was never a Trottle in the land.”

Jarber rose and put on his little cloak. A couple of fierce brass lions held it tight round his little throat; but a couple of the mildest Hares might have done that, I am sure. “Sarah,” he said, “I go. Expect me on Monday evening, the Sixth, when perhaps you will give me a cup of tea; – may I ask for no Green? Adieu!”

This was on a Thursday, the second of December. When I reflected that Trottle would come back on Monday, too, I had My misgivings as to the difficulty of keeping the two powers from open warfare, and indeed I was more uneasy than I quite like to confess. However, the empty House swallowed up that thought next morning, as it swallowed up most other thoughts now, and the House quite preyed upon me all that day, and all the Saturday.

It was a very wet Sunday: raining and blowing from morning to night. When the bells rang for afternoon church, they seemed to ring in the commotion of the puddles as well as in the wind, and they sounded very loud and dismal indeed, and the street looked very dismal indeed, and the House looked dismallest of all.

I was reading my prayers near the light, and my fire was growing in the darkening windowless, when, looking up, as I prayed for the fatherless children and widows and all who were desolate and oppressed, – I saw the Eye again. It passed in a moment, as it had done before; but, this time, I was inwardly more convinced that I had seen it.

Well to be sure, I had a night that night! Whenever I closed my own eyes, it was to see eyes. Next morning, at an unreasonably, and I should have said (but for that railroad) an impossibly early hour, comes Trottle. As soon as he had told me all about the Wells, I told him all about the House. He listened with as great interest and attention as I could possibly wish, until I came to Jabez Jarber, when he cooled in an instant, and became opinionated.

“Now, Trottle,” I said, pretending not to notice, “when Mr. Jarber comes back this evening, we must all lay our heads together.”

“I should hardly think that would be wanted, ma’am; Mr. Jarber’s head is surely equal to anything.”

Being determined not to notice, I said again, that we must all lay our heads together.

“Whatever you order, ma’am, shall be obeyed. Still, it cannot be doubted, I should think, that Mr. Jarber’s head is equal, if not superior, to any pressure that can be brought to bear upon it.”

This was provoking; and his way, when he came in and out all through the day, of pretending not to see the House to Let, was more provoking still. However, being quite resolved not to notice, I gave no sign whatever that I did notice. But, when evening came, and he showed in Jarber, and, when Jarber wouldn’t be helped off with his cloak, and poked his cane into cane chair-backs and china ornaments and his own eye, in trying to unclasp his brazen lions of himself (which he couldn’t do, after all), I could have shaken them both.

As it was, I only shook the teapot, and made the tea. Jarber had brought from under his cloak, a roll of paper, with which he had triumphantly pointed over the way, like the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father appearing to the late Mr. Kemble, and which he had laid on the table.

“A discovery?” said I, pointing to it, when he was seated, and had got his teacup. – “Don’t go, Trottle.”

“The first of a series of discoveries,” answered Jarber. “Account of a former tenant, compiled from the Water Rate, and Medical Man.”

“Don’t go, Trottle,” I repeated. For, I saw him making imperceptibly to the door.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, I might be in Mr. Jarber’s way?”

Jarber looked that he decidedly thought he might be. I relieved myself with a good angry croak, and said – always determined not to notice:

“Have the goodness to sit down, if you please, Trottle. I wish you to hear this.”

Trottle bowed in the stiffest manner, and took the remotest chair he could find. Even that, he moved close to the draught from the keyhole of the door.

“Firstly,” Jarber began, after sipping his tea, “would my Sophon—”

“Begin again, Jarber,” said I.

“Would you be much surprised, if this House to Let should turn out to be the property of a relation of your own?”

“I should indeed be very much surprised.”

“Then it belongs to your first cousin (I learn, by the way, that he is ill at this time) George Forley.”

“Then that is a bad beginning. I cannot deny that George Forley stands in the relation of first cousin to me; but I hold no communication with him. George Forley has been a hard, bitter, stony father to a child now dead. George Forley was most implacable and unrelenting to one of his two daughters who made a poor marriage. George Forley brought all the weight of his band to bear as heavily against that crushed thing, as he brought it to bear lightly, favouringly, and advantageously upon her sister, who made a rich marriage. I hope that, with the measure George Forley meted, it may not be measured out to him again. I will give George Forley no worse wish.”

I was strong upon the subject, and I could not keep the tears out of my eyes; for, that young girl’s was a cruel story, and I had dropped many a tear over it before.

“The house being George Forley’s,” said I, “is almost enough to account for there being a Fate upon it, if Fate there is. Is there anything about George Forley in those sheets of paper?”

“Not a word.”

“I am glad to hear it. Please to read on. Trottle, why don’t you come nearer? Why do you sit mortifying yourself in those arctic regions? Come nearer.”

“Thank you, ma’am; I am quite near enough to Mr. Jarber.”

Jarber rounded his chair, to get his back full to my opinionated friend and servant, and, beginning to read, tossed the words at him over his (Jabez Jarber’s) own ear and shoulder.

He read what follows:

•   •   •

THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE

Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw came from Manchester to London and took the House To Let. He had been, what is called in Lancashire, a Salesman for a large manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and opening a warehouse in London; where Mr. Openshaw was now to superintend the business. He rather enjoyed the change of residence; having a kind of curiosity about London, which he had never yet been able to gratify in his brief visits to the metropolis. At the same time he had an odd, shrewd, contempt for the inhabitants; whom he had always pictured to himself as fine, lazy people; caring nothing but for fashion and aristocracy, and lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such places; ruining good English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalised him too; accustomed as he was to the early dinners of Manchester folk, and the consequently far longer evenings. Still, he was pleased to go to London; though he would not for the world have confessed it, even to himself, and always spoke of the step to his friends as one demanded of him by the interests of his employers, and sweetened to him by a considerable increase of salary. His salary indeed was so liberal that he might have been justified in taking a much larger House than this one, had he not thought himself bound to set an example to Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared for show. Inside, however, he furnished the House with an unusual degree of comfort, and, in the winter time, he insisted on keeping up as large fires as the grates would allow, in every room where the temperature was in the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense of hospitality was such, that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. Every servant in the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated; for their master scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced to comfort; while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed habits and individual ways in defiance of what any of his new neighbours might think.

His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided; she soft and yielding. They had two children or rather, I should say, she had two; for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs. Openshaw’s child by Frank Wilson her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep up what he called the true Saxon accent.

Mrs. Openshaw’s Christian-name was Alice, and her first husband had been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain in Liverpool: a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and a blooming complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to be very stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt, her own uncle’s second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came home from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and protective to her; secondly, attentive and thirdly, desperately in love with her, she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true she would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of behaviour; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle neither helped nor hindered the love affair though it was going on under his own eyes. Frank’s stepmother had such a variable temper, that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes of crossness, that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than anyone in the world except her uncle (who was at this time at sea) she went off one morning and was married to him; her only bridesmaid being the housemaid at her aunt’s. The consequence was, that Frank and his wife went into lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson refused to see them, and turned away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid; whom they accordingly took into their service. When Captain Wilson returned from his voyage, he was very cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening at their lodgings; smoking his pipe, and sipping his grog; but he told them that, for quietness’ sake, he could not ask them to his own house; for his wife was bitter against them. They were not very unhappy about this.

The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank’s vehement, passionate disposition; which led him to resent his wife’s shyness and want of demonstration as failures in conjugal duty. He was already tormenting himself, and her too, in a slighter degree, by apprehensions and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching absence at sea. At last he went to his father and urged him to insist upon Alice’s being once more received under his roof; the more especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself expressed it, “breaking up,” and unwilling to undergo the excitement of a scene; yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to his wife. And before Frank went to sea, he had the comfort of seeing his wife installed in her old little garret in his father’s house. To have placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs. Wilson’s powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however, was that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as housemaid had been filled up; and, even had it not, she had forfeited Mrs. Wilson’s good opinion forever. She comforted her young master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would have a household of their own; of which, in whatever service she might be in the meantime, she should be sure to form part. Almost the last action Frank Wilson did, before setting sail, was going with Alice to see Norah once more at her mother’s house. And then he went away.

Alice’s father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced. She was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him; and, although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was perhaps more of peace than there had been for years; for Mrs. Wilson had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the young creature, expecting her first confinement in her husband’s absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain to attend on Captain Wilson.

Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for the East Indies and China), his father died. Alice was always glad to remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less property than people had been led by his style of living to imagine; and, what money there was, was all settled upon his wife, and at her disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank was now first mate of his ship, and, in another voyage or two, would be captain. Meanwhile he had left her some hundreds (all his savings) in the bank.

It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter from the Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence of the ship’s arrival reached the office of the owners, and the Captain’s wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to her inquiry at the Shipping Office, they told her that the owners had given up Hope of ever hearing more of the Betsy-Jane, and had sent in their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he was gone forever, she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the dear friend, the sympathising protector, whom she should never see again, – first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself – her own sole possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless, and quiet – rather to the scandal of Mrs. Wilson; who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she saw; dwelling on his poor young widow’s desolate state, and the helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction, as if she liked the excitement of the sorrowful story.

So passed away the first days of Alice’s widowhood. By-and-by things subsided into their natural and tranquil course. But, as if this young creature was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to be ailing, pining and sickly. The child’s mysterious illness turned out to be some affection of the spine likely to affect health; but not to shorten life – at least so the doctors said. But the long dreary suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child, is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed what Alice suffered; no one but God knew.

And so it fell out, that when Mrs. Wilson, the elder, came to her one day in violent distress, occasioned by a very material diminution in the value the property that her husband had left her, – a diminution which made her income barely enough to support herself, much less Alice – the latter could hardly understand how anything which did not touch health or life could cause such grief; and she received the intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the little sick child was brought in, and the grandmother – who after all loved it well – began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious ears – saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, and to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after yearn but that now all chance of this had passed away – Alice’s heart was touched, and she drew near to Mrs. Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not unlike to that of, Ruth, entreated, that come what would, they might remain together. After much discussion in succeeding days, it was arranged that Mrs. Wilson should take a house in Manchester, furnishing it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the rest with Alice’s remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs. Wilson was herself a Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her native town. Some connections of her own at that time required lodgings, for which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook the active superintendence and superior work of the household. Norah, willing faithful Norah, offered to cook, scour, do anything in short, so that, she might but remain with them.

The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with them, and all went smoothly, – with the one sad exception of the little girl’s increasing deformity. How that mother loved that child, is not for words to tell!

Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one succeeded to them. After some months they had to remove to a smaller house; and Alice’s tender conscience was torn by the idea that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but ought to go out and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came like the sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart.

By-and-by, Mr. Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in life as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up through all the grades of employment in the place, fighting his way through the hard striving Manchester life with strong pushing energy of character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman; understanding markets, and the bearing of events, both near and distant, on trade: and yet, with such vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colours would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm strength if his logic. There was something of the Yankee in all this. Indeed his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee motto – “England flogs creation, and Manchester flogs England.” Such a man, as may be fancied, had had no time for falling in love, or any such nonsense. At the age when most young men go through their courting and matrimony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and was far too practical to think of having one. And now that he was in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women almost as incumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as little to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct, and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. “A pretty yea-nay kind of woman,” would have been his description of her, if he had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning, that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of character which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active energetic nature. But, when he found out the punctuality with which his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when he was called in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar fancy dictated, (for he was a man who had his theory about everything, based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly original) – then he began to think: not that Alice had any peculiar merit; but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings: his restlessness wore away, and he began to consider himself as almost settled for life in them.

Mr. Openshaw had been too busy, all his life, to be introspective. He did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature; and if he had become conscious of its abstract existence, he would have considered it as a manifestation of disease in some part of his nature. But he was decoyed into pity unawares; and pity led on to tenderness. That little helpless child – always carried about by one of the three busy women of the house, or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move; the great grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, giving to the small delicate face a look beyond its years; the soft plaintive voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a child – caught Mr. Openshaw’s attention in spite of himself. One day – he half scorned himself for doing so – he cut short his dinner-hour to go in search of some toy which should take the place of those eternal beads. I forget what he bought; but, when he gave the present (which he took care to do in a short abrupt manner, and when no one was by to see him) he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that came over that child’s face, and could not help all through that afternoon going over and over again the picture left on his memory, by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little girl’s face. When he returned home, he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room fire; and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was habitual in those model lodgings. When Alice had taken the last of his tea-things away – she had been silent as usual till then – she stood for an instant with the door in her hand. Mr. Openshaw looked as if he were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line; but was heartily wishing the woman would be gone, and not make any palaver of gratitude. But she only said:

“I am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very much,” and was gone, even before he could send her away with a “There, my good woman, that’s enough!”

For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child. He even hardened his heart into disregarding her sudden flush of colour, and little timid smile of recognition, when he saw her by chance. But, after all, this could not last forever; and, having a second time given way to tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy having thus entered his heart, in the guise of compassion to the child, soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the mother. He was aware of this change of feeling, despised himself for it, struggled with it nay, internally yielded to it and cherished it, long before he suffered the slightest expression of it, by word, action, or look, to escape him. He watched Alice’s docile obedient ways to her stepmother; the love which she had inspired in the rough Norah (roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years); but above all, he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her and her child. They spoke little to anyone else, or when anyone else was by; but, when alone together, they talked, and murmured, and cooed, and chattered so continually, that Mr. Openshaw first wondered what they could find to say to each other, and next became irritated because they were always so grave and silent with him. All this time, he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for the child. His thoughts ran, in a pertinacious way, upon the desolate life before her; and often he came back from his day’s work loaded with the very thing Alice had been longing for, but had not been able to procure. One time it was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along the streets, and many an evening that ensuing summer Mr. Openshaw drew her along himself, regardless of the remarks of his acquaintances. One day in autumn he put down his newspaper, as Alice came in with the breakfast, and said, in as indifferent a voice as he could assume:

“Mrs. Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put up our horses together?”

Alice stood still in perplexed wonder. What did he mean? He had resumed the reading of his newspaper, as if he did not expect any answer; so she found silence her safest course, and went on quietly arranging his breakfast without another word passing between them. Just as he was leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual, he turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen, where all the women breakfasted in the morning:

“You’ll think of what I said, Mrs. Frank” (this was her name with the lodgers), “and let me have your opinion upon it tonight.”

Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to think about it at all through the day; and, of course, the effort not to think made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah with his tea. But Mr. Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she was going out at the door, by pushing past her and calling out “Mrs. Frank!” in an impatient voice, at the top of the stairs.

Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to his words.

“Well, Mrs. Frank,” he said, “what answer? Don’t make it too long; for I have lots of office-work to get through tonight.”

“I hardly know what you meant, sir,” said truthful Alice.

“Well! I should have thought you might have guessed. You’re not new at this sort of work, and I am. However, I’ll make it plain this time. Will you have me to be thy wedded husband, and serve me, and love me, and honour me, and all that sort of thing? Because if you will, I will do as much by you, and be a father to your child – and that’s more than is put in the prayer-book. Now, I’m a man of my word; and what I say, I feel; and what I promise, I’ll do. Now, for your answer!”

Alice was silent. He began to make the tea, as if her reply was a matter of perfect indifference to him; but, as soon as that was done, he became impatient.

“Well?” said he.

“How long, sir, may I have to think over it?”

“Three minutes!” (looking at his watch). “You’ve had two already – that makes five. Be a sensible woman, say Yes, and sit down to tea with me, and we’ll talk it over together; for, after tea, I shall be busy; say No” (he hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same tone), “and I shan’t say another word about it, but pay up a year’s rent for my rooms tomorrow, and be off. Time’s up! Yes or no?”

“If you please, sir, – you have been so good to little Ailsie—”

“There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let us have our tea together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took for.”

And this was Alice Wilson’s second wooing.

Mr. Openshaw’s will was too strong, and his circumstances too good, for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs. Wilson in a comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of lodgers. The little that Alice said with regard to future plans was in Norah’s behalf.

“No,” said Mr. Openshaw. “Norah shall take care of the old lady as long as she lives; and, after that, she shall either come and live with us, or, if she likes it better, she shall have a provision for life – for your sake, missus. No one who has been good to you or the child shall go unrewarded. But even the little one will be better for some fresh stuff about her. Get her a bright, sensible girl as a nurse: one who won’t go rubbing her with calf’s-foot jelly as Norah does; wasting good stuff outside that ought to go in, but will follow doctors’ directions; which, as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah won’t; because they give the poor little wench pain. Now, I’m not above being nesh [? nesh = tender, compliant ?] for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would hold the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain, if it were to do her poor back good. Nay, nay, wench! keep your white looks for the time when it comes – I don’t say it ever will. But this I know, Norah will spare the child and cheat the doctor if she can. Now, I say, give the bairn a year or two’s chance, and then, when the pack of doctors have done their best – and, maybe, the old lady has gone – we’ll have Norah back, or do better for her.”

The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie. She was beyond their power. But her father (for so he insisted on being called, and also on Alice’s no longer retaining the appellation of Mama, but becoming henceforward Mother), by his healthy cheerfulness of manner, his clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of humour, added to his real strong love for the helpless little girl, infused a new element of brightness and confidence into her life; and, though her back remained the same, her general health was strengthened, and Alice – never going beyond a smile herself – had the pleasure of seeing her child taught to laugh.

As for Alice’s own life, it was happier than it had ever been. Mr. Openshaw required no demonstration, no expressions of affection from her. Indeed, these would rather have disgusted him. Alice could love deeply, but could not talk about it. The perpetual requirement of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence into absence of love, had been the great trial of her former married life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under the guidance of her husband’s strong sense, warm heart, and powerful will. Year by year their worldly prosperity increased. At Mrs. Wilson’s death, Norah came back to them, as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day. Norah and Mr. Openshaw were not on the most thoroughly cordial terms; neither of them fully recognising or appreciating the other’s best qualities.

This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now removed to London, and had come to occupy the House.

They had been there about a year, when Mr. Openshaw suddenly informed his wife that he had determined to heal long-standing feuds, and had asked his uncle and aunt Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and see London. Mrs. Openshaw had never seen this uncle and aunt of her husband’s. Years before she had married him, there had been a quarrel. All she knew was, that Mr. Chadwick was a small manufacturer in a country town in South Lancashire. She was extremely pleased that the breach was to be healed, and began making preparations to render their visit pleasant.

They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an event to them, that Mrs. Chadwick had made all new linen fresh for the occasion – from nightcaps downwards; and, as for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she might have been going into the wilds of Canada where never a shop is, so large was her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure for London, she had formally called to take leave of all her acquaintance; saying she should need all the intermediate time for packing up. It was like a second wedding in her imagination; and, to complete the resemblance which an entirely new wardrobe made between the two events, her husband brought her back from Manchester, on the last market-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and amethyst brooch, saying, “Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks knew a handsome thing when they saw it.”

For some time after Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick arrived at the Openshaws’, there was no opportunity for wearing this brooch; but at length they obtained an order to see Buckingham Palace, and the spirit of loyalty demanded that Mrs. Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting the abode of her sovereign. On her return, she hastily changed her dress; for Mr. Openshaw had planned that they should go to Richmond, drink tea and return by moonlight. Accordingly, about five o’clock, Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw and Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick set off.

The housemaid and cook sate below, Norah hardly knew where. She was always engrossed in the nursery, in tending her two children, and in sitting by the restless, excitable Ailsie till she fell asleep. By-and-by, the housemaid Bessy tapped gently at the door. Norah went to her, and they spoke in whispers.

“Nurse! there’s someone downstairs wants you.”

“Wants me! Who is it?”

“A gentleman—”

“A gentleman? Nonsense!”

“Well! a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rung at the front door bell, and has walked into the dining-room.”

“You should never have let him,” exclaimed Norah, “master and missus out—”

“I did not want him to come in; but when he heard you lived here, he walked past me, and sat down on the first chair, and said, ‘Tell her to come and speak to me.’ There is no gas lighted in the room, and supper is all set out.”

“He’ll be off with the spoons!” exclaimed Norah, putting the housemaid’s fear into words, and preparing to leave the room, first, however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly and calmly.

Downstairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. Before she entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle, and, with it in her hand, she went in, looking round her in the darkness for her visitor.

He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and he looked at each other; gradual recognition coming into their eyes.

“Norah?” at length he asked.

“Who are you?” asked Norah, with the sharp tones of alarm and incredulity. “I don’t know you:” trying, by futile words of disbelief, to do away with the terrible fact before her.

“Am I so changed?” he said, pathetically. “I daresay I am. But, Norah, tell me!” he breathed hard, “where is my wife? Is she – is she alive?”

He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her hand; but she backed away from him; looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed, good-looking fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a foreign-looking aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those eager, beautiful eyes – the very same that Norah had watched not half-an-hour ago, till sleep stole softly over them.

“Tell me, Norah – I can bear it – I have feared it so often. Is she dead—?” Norah still kept silence. “She is dead!” He hung on Norah’s words and looks, as if for confirmation or contradiction.

“What shall I do?” groaned Norah. “O, sir! why did you come? how did you find me out? where have you been? We thought you dead, we did, indeed!” She poured out words and questions to gain time, as if time would help her.

“Norah! answer me this question, straight, by yes or no – Is my wife dead?”

“No, she is not!” said Norah, slowly and heavily.

“O what a relief! Did she receive my letters? But perhaps you don’t know. Why did you leave her? Where is she? O Norah, tell me all quickly!”

“Mr. Frank!” said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment, and find him there – unable to consider what was best to be done or said-rushing at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state: “Mr. Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners said you had gone down, you and everyone else. We thought you were dead, if ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, helpless child! O, sir, you must guess it,” cried the poor creature at last, bursting out into a passionate fit of crying, “for indeed I cannot tell it. But it was no one’s fault. God help us all this night!”

Norah had sate down. She trembled too much to stand. He took her hands in his. He squeezed them hard, as if by physical pressure, the truth could be wrung out.

“Norah!” This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair. “She has married again!”

Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had fainted.

There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into Mr. Frank’s mouth, chafed his hands, and – when mere animal life returned, before the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts – she lifted him up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few crumbs of bread taken from the supper-table, soaked in brandy into his mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.

“Where is she? Tell me this instant.” He looked so wild, so mad, so desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth, and then she had been a coward. Now, her wits were sharpened by the sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity him afterwards; but now she must rather command and upbraid; for he must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity stood clear before her.

“She is not here; that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say exactly where she is” (which was true to the letter if not to the spirit). “Go away, and tell me where to find you tomorrow, and I will tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and then what would become of me with a strange man in the house?”

Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.

“I don’t care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man, he must feel for me poor shipwrecked sailor that I am – kept for years a prisoner amongst savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife and my home – dreaming of her by night, talking to her, though she could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who salved over her wickedness to her, as you do to me.”

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.

“If you will leave the house now, I will come to you tomorrow and tell you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping upstairs. O, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet – a little weakly girl – with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We have reared her up with such care: We watched her, for we thought for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her. And now you, come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father – Mr. Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do anything for her that I could. Her mother’s heart beats as hers beats; and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother languishes. If she dies – well, I don’t know: it is not everyone can lie down and die when they wish it. Come upstairs, Mr. Frank, and see your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away, in God’s name, just this one night – tomorrow, if need be, you can do anything – kill us all if you will, or show yourself – a great grand man, whom God will bless forever and ever. Come, Mr. Frank, the look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.”

She led him upstairs; at first almost helping his steps, till they came near the nursery door. She had almost forgotten the existence of little Edwin. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light fell upon the other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner of the room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie. The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she lay with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight nightgown. Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her eyes, looked wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it, even as she slept. The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes, into which the big tears came swelling up slowly, and dropped heavily down, as he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry with herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long lingering gaze lasted. She thought that she waited for full half-an-hour before Frank stirred. And then – instead of going away – he sank down on his knees by the bedside, and buried his face in the clothes. Little Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. She could afford no more time even for prayer in her extremity of fear; for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home. She took him forcibly by the arm; but, as he was going, his eye lighted on the other bed: he stopped. Intelligence came back into his face. His hands clenched.

“His child?” he asked.

“Her child,” replied Norah. “God watches over him,” said she instinctively; for Frank’s looks excited her fears, and she needed to remind herself of the Protector of the helpless.

“God has not watched over me,” he said, in despair; his thoughts apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted state. But Norah had no time for pity. Tomorrow she would be as compassionate as her heart prompted. At length she guided him downstairs and shut the outer door and bolted it – as if by bolts to keep out facts.

Then she went back into the dining-room and effaced all traces of his presence as far as she could. She went upstairs to the nursery and sate there, her head on her hand, thinking what was to come of all this misery. It seemed to her very long before they did return; yet it was hardly eleven o’clock. She so heard the loud, hearty Lancashire voices on the stairs; and, for the first time, she understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so lately gone forth in lonely despair.

It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs. Openshaw come in, calmly smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her children.

“Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?” she whispered to Norah.

“Yes.”

Her mother bent over her, looking at her slumbers with the soft eyes of love. How little she dreamed who had looked on her last! Then she went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance, but more of pride. She took off her things, to go down to supper. Norah saw her no more that night.

Beside the door into the passage, the sleeping-nursery opened out of Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw’s room, in order that they might have the children more immediately under their own eyes. Early the next summer morning Mrs. Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie’s startled call of “Mother! mother!” She sprang up, put on her dressing-gown, and went to her child. Ailsie was only half awake, and in a not uncommon state of terror.

“Who was he, mother? Tell me!”

“Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been dreaming love. Waken up quite. See, it is broad daylight.”

“Yes,” said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging to her mother, said, “but a man was here in the night, mother.”

“Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near you!”

“Yes, he did. He stood there. Just by Norah. A man with hair and a beard. And he knelt down and said his prayers. Norah knows he was here, mother” (half angrily, as Mrs. Openshaw shook her head in smiling incredulity).

“Well! we will ask Norah when she comes,” said Mrs. Openshaw, soothingly. “But we won’t talk any more about him now. It is not five o’clock; it is too early for you to get up. Shall I fetch you a book and read to you?”

“Don’t leave me, mother,” said the child, clinging to her. So Mrs. Openshaw sate on the bedside talking to Ailsie, and telling her of what they had done at Richmond the evening before, until the little girl’s eyes slowly closed and she once more fell asleep.

“What was the matter?” asked Mr. Openshaw, as his wife returned to bed. “Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some story of a man having been in the room to say his prayers, – a dream, I suppose.” And no more was said at the time.

Mrs. Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair when she got up about seven o’clock. But, by-and-by, she heard a sharp altercation going on in the nursery. Norah speaking angrily to Ailsie, a most unusual thing. Both Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw listened in astonishment.

“Hold your tongue, Ailsie I let me hear none of your dreams; never let me hear you tell that story again!” Ailsie began to cry.

Mr. Openshaw opened the door of communication before his wife could say a word.

“Norah, come here!”

The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she had been heard, but she was desperate.

“Don’t let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie again,” he said sternly, and shut the door.

Norah was infinitely relieved; for she had dreaded some questioning; and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, if cross-examination was let alone.

Downstairs they went, Mr. Openshaw carrying Ailsie; the sturdy Edwin coming step by step, right foot foremost, always holding his mother’s hand. Each child was placed in a chair by the breakfast-table, and then Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw stood together at the window, awaiting their visitors’ appearance and making plans for the day. There was a pause. Suddenly Mr. Openshaw turned to Ailsie, and said:

“What a little goosy somebody is with her dreams, waking up poor, tired mother in the middle of the night with a story of a man being in the room.”

“Father! I’m sure I saw him,” said Ailsie, half crying. “I don’t want to make Norah angry; but I was not asleep, for all she says I was. I had been asleep, – and I awakened up quite wide awake though I was so frightened. I kept my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain. A great brown man with a beard. He said his prayers. And then he looked at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, after they had whispered a bit together.”

“Now, my little woman must be reasonable,” said Mr. Openshaw, who was always patient with Ailsie. “There was no man in the house last night at all. No man comes into the house as you know, if you think; much less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are not the first person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really happened.”

“But, indeed it was not a dream!” said Ailsie, beginning to cry.

Just then Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick came down, looking grave and discomposed. All during breakfast time they were silent and uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and the children had been carried upstairs, Mr. Chadwick began in an evidently preconcerted manner to inquire if his nephew was certain that all his servants were honest; for, that Mrs. Chadwick had that morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had worn the day before. She remembered taking it off when she came home from Buckingham Palace. Mr. Openshaw’s face contracted into hard lines: grew like what it was before he had known his wife and her child. He rang the bell even before his uncle had done speaking. It was answered by the housemaid.

“Mary, was anyone here last night while we were away?”

“A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.”

“To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay?”

“I’m sure I can’t tell, sir. He came – perhaps about nine. I went up to tell Norah in the nursery, and she came down to speak to him. She let him out, sir. She will know who he was, and how long he stayed.”

She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not, so she went away.

A minute afterwards Openshaw made as though he were going out of the room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm:

“Do not speak to her before the children,” she said, in her low, quiet voice. “I will go up and question her.”

“No! I must speak to her. You must know,” said he, turning to his uncle and aunt, “my missus has an old servant, as faithful as ever woman was, I do believe, as far as love goes, – but, at the same time, who does not always speak truth, as even the missus must allow. Now, my notion is, that this Norah of ours has been come over by some good-for-nothin chap (for she’s at the time o’ life when they say women pray for husbands – ‘any, good Lord, any,’) and has let him into our house, and the chap has made off with your brooch, and m’appen many another thing beside. It’s only saying that Norah is soft-hearted, and does not stick at a white lie – that’s all, missus.”

It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face changed as he spoke to his wife; but he was the resolute man through all. She knew better than to oppose him; so she went upstairs, and told Norah her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would take care of the children in the meanwhile.

Norah rose to go without a word. Her thoughts were these:

“If they tear me to pieces they shall never know through me. He may come, – and then just Lord have mercy upon us all: for some of us are dead folk to a certainty. But he shall do it; not me.”

You may fancy, now, her look of determination as she faced her master alone in the dining-room; Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick having left the affair in their nephew’s hands, seeing that he took it up with such vehemence.

“Norah! Who was that man that came to my house last night?”

“Man, sir!” As if infinitely; surprised but it was only to gain time.

“Yes; the man whom Mary let in; whom she went upstairs to the nursery to tell you about; whom you came down to speak to; the same chap, I make no doubt, whom you took into the nursery to have your talk out with; whom Ailsie saw, and afterwards dreamed about; thinking, poor wench! she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I’ll be bound, was farther from his thoughts; who took Mrs. Chadwick’s brooch, value ten pounds. Now, Norah! Don’t go off! I am as sure as that my name’s Thomas Openshaw, that you knew nothing of this robbery. But I do think you’ve been imposed on, and that’s the truth. Some good-for-nothing chap has been making up to you, and you’ve been just like all other women, and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came last night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made use of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way down! Come, now, Norah: it’s no blame to you, only you must not be such a fool again. Tell us,” he continued, “what name he gave you, Norah? I’ll be bound it was not the right one; but it will be a clue for the police.”

Norah drew herself up. “You may ask that question, and taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw. You’ll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of theft and burglary; if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy you to prove, and deny), he’d be just as much above doing such a thing as you yourself, Mr. Openshaw, and more so, too; for I’m not at all sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or would be yours long, if every man had his own.” She meant, of course, his wife; but he understood her to refer to his property in goods and chattels.

“Now, my good woman,” said he, “I’ll just tell you truly, I never trusted you out and out; but my wife liked you, and I thought you had many a good point about you. If you once begin to sauce me, I’ll have the police to you, and get out the truth in a court of justice, if you’ll not tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now the best thing you can do is quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man comes to my house; asks for you; you take him upstairs, a valuable brooch is missing next day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are honest; but you refuse to tell us who the man is. Indeed you’ve told one lie already about him, saying no one was here last night. Now I just put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this, or a magistrate? A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my good woman.”

“There’s never the creature born that should get it out of me,” said Norah. “Not unless I choose to tell.”

“I’ve a great mind to see,” said Mr. Openshaw, growing angry at the defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again:

“Norah, for your missus’s sake I don’t want to go to extremities. Be a sensible woman, if you can. It’s no great disgrace, after all, to have been taken in. I ask you once more – as a friend – who was this man whom you let into my house last night?”

No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. Still no answer. Norah’s lips were set in determination not to speak.

“Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a policeman.”

“You will not,” said Norah, starting forwards. “You shall not, sir! No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know this: ever since I was four-and-twenty I have thought more of your wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl put upon in her uncle’s house, I have thought more of serving her than of serving myself! I have cared for her and her child, as nobody ever cared for me. I don’t cast blame on you, sir, but I say it’s ill giving up one’s life to anyone; for, at the end, they will turn round upon you, and forsake you. Why does not my missus come herself to suspect me? Maybe she is gone for the police? But I don’t stay here, either for police, or magistrate, or master. You’re an unlucky lot. I believe there’s a curse on you. I’ll leave you this very day. Yes! I leave that poor Ailsie, too. I will! No good will ever come to you!”

Mr. Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which was completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had left the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for the police to this old servant of his wife’s; for he had never for a moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended to compel her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was, consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the house the night before; but that she refused to tell who he was. At this moment his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had happened to Norah; for that she had put on her things in passionate haste, and had left the house.

“This looks suspicious,” said Mr. Chadwick. “It is not the way in which an honest person would have acted.”

Mr. Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But Mrs. Openshaw turned round on Mr. Chadwick with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw in her before.

“You don’t know Norah, uncle! She is gone because she is deeply hurt at being suspected. O, I wish I had seen her – that I had spoken to her myself. She would have told me anything.” Alice wrung her hands.

“I must confess,” continued Mr. Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower voice, “I can’t make you out. You used to be a word and a blow, and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for suspicion, you just do nought. Your missus is a very good woman, I grant; but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I suppose. If you don’t send for the police, I shall.”

“Very well,” replied Mr. Openshaw, surlily. “I can’t clear Norah. She won’t clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash my hands of it; for I am sure the woman herself is honest, and she’s lived a long time with my wife, and I don’t like her to come to shame.”

“But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will be a good thing.”

“Very well, very well! I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come, Alice, come up to the babies they’ll be in a sore way. I tell you, uncle!” he said, turning round once more to Mr. Chadwick, suddenly and sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice’s wan, tearful, anxious face; “I’ll have none sending for the police after all. I’ll buy my aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day; but I’ll not have Norah suspected, and my missus plagued. There’s for you.”

He and his wife left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly waited till he was out of hearing, and then aid to his wife; “For all Tom’s heroics, I’m just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need’st know nought about it.”

He went to the police-station, and made a statement of the case. He was gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah seemed to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance, was her lover. When Mr. Chadwick asked how they would find her out? they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible ways and means. He returned to his nephew’s house with a very comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a penitent face:

“O master, I’ve found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch! I’m very vexed, but I never dreamt but what it was lost!”

Her husband muttering something very like “Confound thee and thy brooch too! I wish I’d never given it thee,” snatched up his hat, and rushed back to the station; hoping to be in time to stop the police from searching for Norah. But a detective was already gone off on the errand.

Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done. Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie’s questions, showing that she had seen the Man, as the unconscious child called her father. Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than crazy as she ran upstairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl; leaving all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see the children again, for fear it should weaken her. She feared above everything Mr. Frank’s return to claim his wife. She could not tell what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to witness. The desire of escaping from the coming event was a stronger motive for her departure than her soreness about the suspicions directed against her; although this last had been the final goad to the course she took. She walked away almost at headlong speed; sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London altogether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She felt in her pocket for her purse, as she drew near the Euston Square station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still, and think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps. Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find out poor Mr. Frank. She had been hardly kind to him the night before, though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his telling her as she inquired for his address, almost as she had pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant from Euston Square. Thither she went: with what intention she hardly knew, but to assuage her conscience by telling him how much she pitied him. In her present state she felt herself unfit to counsel, or restrain, or assist, or do ought else but sympathise and weep. The people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only the day before; had gone out soon after his arrival, leaving his luggage in their care; but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit down, and await the gentleman’s return. The landlady – pretty secure in the deposit of luggage against any probable injury – showed her into a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly worn out, and fell asleep – a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber, which lasted for hours.

The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady to detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason beyond showing his authority (which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to report his proceedings. He could have taken her directly; but his object was, if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed the robbery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch; and consequently did not care to return.

Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in. Then up. Someone was at the door. It would be Mr. Frank; and she dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey hair, which had fallen over her eyes, and stood looking to see him. Instead, there came in Mr. Openshaw and a policeman.

“This is Norah Kennedy,” said Mr. Openshaw.

“O, sir,” said Norah, “I did not touch the brooch; indeed I did not. O, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly of;” and very sick and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr. Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay her on the sofa; and, at Mr. Openshaw’s desire, he went for some wine and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost as if dead with weariness and exhaustion.

“Norah!” said Mr. Openshaw, in his kindest voice, “the brooch is found. It was hanging to Mrs. Chadwick’s gown. I beg your pardon. Most truly I beg your pardon, for having troubled you about it. My wife is almost broken-hearted. Eat, Norah, – or, stay, first drink this glass of wine,” said he, lifting her head, pouring a little down her throat.

As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who she was waiting for. She suddenly pushed Mr. Openshaw away, saying, “O, sir, you must go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes back he will kill you.”

“Alas, Norah! I do not know who ‘he’ is. But someone is gone away who will never come back: someone who knew you, and whom I am afraid you cared for.”

“I don’t understand you, sir,” said Norah, her master’s kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr. Openshaw’s desire, and they two were alone.

“You know what I mean, when I say someone is gone who will never come back. I mean that he is dead!”

“Who?” said Norah, trembling all over.

“A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning, drowned.”

“Did he drown himself?” asked Norah, solemnly.

“God only knows,” replied Mr. Openshaw, in the same tone. “Your name and address at our house, were found in his pocket: that, and his purse, were the only things, that were found upon him. I am sorry to say it, my poor Norah; but you are required to go and identify him.”

“To what?” asked Norah.

“To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some reason may be discovered for the suicide – if suicide it was. I make no doubt he was the man who came to see you at our house last night. It is very sad, I know.” He made pauses between each little clause, in order to try and bring back her senses; which he feared were wandering – so wild and sad was her look.

“Master Openshaw,” said she, at last, “I’ve a dreadful secret to tell you – only you must never breathe it to anyone, and you and I must hide it away forever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see I cannot. Yon poor man – yes! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr. Frank, my mistress’s first husband!”

Mr. Openshaw sate down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, after a while, he signed to Norah to go on.

“He came to me the other night – when – God be thanked – you were all away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or alive. I was a brute, and thought more of our all coming home than of his sore trial: spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, and very content and happy: I all but turned him away: and now he lies dead and cold!”

“God forgive me!” said Mr. Openshaw.

“God forgive us all!” said Norah. “Yon poor man needs forgiveness perhaps less than anyone among us. He had been among the savages – shipwrecked – I know not what – and he had written letters which had never reached my poor missus.”

“He saw his child!”

“He saw her – yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts another start; for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here, as I more than half promised. My mind misgave me when I heard he had never come in. O, sir I it must be him!”

Mr. Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and then said to Norah:

“I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be unavoidably absent for a few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her your love, and will come home tomorrow. You must go with me to the Police Court; you must identify the body: I will pay high to keep name and details out of the papers.”

“But where are you going, sir?”

He did not answer her directly. Then he said:

“Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I have so injured, – unwittingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave, as if he were my only brother: and how he must have hated me! I cannot go home to my wife till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dreadful secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again, after these days are over. I know you will not, either.” He shook hands with her: and they never named the subject again, the one to the other.

Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice had been charged by her husband in his letter not to allude to the supposed theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly obedient to those whom she loved both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject, only treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for unjust suspicion.

Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr. Openshaw had been absent during his uncle and aunt’s visit, after he had once said that it was unavoidable. He came back, grave and quiet; and, from that time forth, was curiously changed. More thoughtful, and perhaps less active; quite as decided in conduct, but with new and different rules for the guidance of that conduct. Towards Alice he could hardly be more kind than he had always been; but he now seemed to look upon her as someone sacred and to be treated with reverence, as well as tenderness. He throve in business, and made a large fortune, one half of which was settled upon her.

•   •   •

Long years after these events, – a few months after her mother died, Ailsie and her “father” (as she always called Mr. Openshaw) drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, and she was carried to a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the carriage. There was a headstone, with F. W. and a date. That was all. Sitting by the grave, Mr. Openshaw told her the story; and for the sad fate of that poor father whom she had never seen, he shed the only tears she ever saw fall from his eyes.

•   •   •   •   •   •

“A most interesting story, all through,” I said, as Jarber folded up the first of his series of discoveries in triumph. “A story that goes straight to the heart – especially at the end. But” – I stopped, and looked at Trottle.

Trottle entered his protest directly in the shape of a cough.

“Well!” I said, beginning to lose my patience. “Don’t you see that I want you to speak, and that I don’t want you to cough?”

“Quite so, ma’am,” said Trottle, in a state of respectful obstinacy which would have upset the temper of a saint. “Relative, I presume, to this story, ma’am?”

“Yes, Yes!” said Jarber. “By all means let us hear what this good man has to say.”

“Well, sir,” answered Trottle, “I want to know why the House over the way doesn’t let, and I don’t exactly see how your story answers the question. That’s all I have to say, sir.”

I should have liked to contradict my opinionated servant, at that moment. But, excellent as the story was in itself, I felt that he had hit on the weak point, so far as Jarber’s particular purpose in reading it was concerned.

“And that is what you have to say, is it?” repeated Jarber. “I enter this room announcing that I have a series of discoveries, and you jump instantly to the conclusion that the first of the series exhausts my resources. Have I your permission, dear lady, to enlighten this obtuse person, if possible, by reading Number Two?”

“My work is behindhand, ma’am,” said Trottle, moving to the door, the moment I gave Jarber leave to go on.

“Stop where you are,” I said, in my most peremptory manner, “and give Mr. Jarber his fair opportunity of answering your objection now you have made it.

Trottle sat down with the look of a martyr, and Jarber began to read with his back turned on the enemy more decidedly than ever.

•   •   •

GOING INTO SOCIETY

At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the marsh lands near the river’s level, that lie about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner.

On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name was Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman – which lawfully christened Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion of such – mention it!

There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say why he left it?

Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a Dwarf.

Along of a Dwarf?

Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf.

Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman’s inclination and convenience to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars?

Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars.

It was a long time ago, to begin with; – afore lotteries and a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, “I’ll have you, if you’re to be had. If money’ll get you, I’ll have you.”

The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don’t know what they would have had. It was a lovely thing. First of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a British Planter, seized by two Boa Constrictors – not that we never had no child, nor no Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies – not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn’t have had ’em at a gift. Last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty couldn’t with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the House was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn’t a spark of daylight ever visible on that side. “MAGSMAN’S AMUSEMENTS,” fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlour winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability, – if threepence ain’t respectable, what is?

But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth the money. He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL BULGRADERIAN BRIGADE. Nobody couldn’t pronounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes.

He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he was made out to be, but where is your Dwarf as is? He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do.

The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby – though he knowed himself to be a nat’ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby’s spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He did allow himself to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from Norfolk; but that was an affair of the ’art; and when a man’s ’art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to a Indian, he ain’t master of his actions.

He was always in love, of course; every human nat’ral phenomenon is. And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to keep ’em the Curiosities they are.

One sing’ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have meant something, or it wouldn’t have been there. It was always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writing master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would have starved to death, afore he’d have gained a bit of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, because he had no property, nor hope of property, except his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and got up outside like a reg’lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: “Ladies and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.” When he said anything important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went to bed.

He had what I consider a fine mind – a poetic mind. His ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would screech out, “Toby, I feel my property coming – grind away! I’m counting my guineas by thousands, Toby – grind away! Toby, I shall be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and I’m swelling out into the Bank of England!” Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.

He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of it. What riled him most in the natur of his occupation was, that it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, “Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don’t signify to a low beast of a Indian; he an’t formed for Society. This don’t signify to a Spotted Baby; he an’t formed for Society. – I am.”

Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. He had a good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came round, besides having the run of his teeth – and he was a Woodpecker to eat – but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, bringing him in so many halfpence that he’d carry ’em for a week together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never had money. And it couldn’t be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him audible when he’s going through his War-Dance – it stands to reason you wouldn’t under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support that Indian in the lap of luxury.

Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door – for he couldn’t be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and the premises wouldn’t accommodate his legs – was snarlin, “Here’s a precious Public for you; why the Devil don’t they tumble up?” when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, and cries out, “If there’s any person here as has got a ticket, the Lottery’s just drawed, and the number as has come up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, forty-two!” I was givin the man to the Furies myself, for calling off the Public’s attention – for the Public will turn away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed ’em; and if you doubt it, get ’em together for any indiwidual purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see if the whole company an’t far more interested in takin particular notice of them two than of you – I say, I wasn’t best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn’t blessin him in my own mind, when I see Chops’s little bell fly out of winder at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, “Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me or I’m a dead man, for I’ve come into my property!”

Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops’s winnins. He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to offer to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further.

Arter he had been mad for a week – in a state of mind, in short, in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I believe he would have bust – but we kep the organ from him – Mr. Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort’nate in a commercial crisis, through paintin a old grey, ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it wasn’t:

“Normandy, I’m a goin into Society. Will you go with me?”

Says Normandy: “Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the ’ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?”

“Correct,” says Mr. Chops. “And you shall have a Princely allowance too.”

The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears:

“My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea,

And I do not ask for more,

But I’ll Go; – along with thee.”

They went into Society, in a shay and four greys with silk jackets. They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.

In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. Chops’s eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good for him. There was three of ’em (in company, I mean), and I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on a white Roman shirt, and a bishop’s mitre covered with leopard-skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show.

This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: “Gentlemen, this is a old friend of former days:” and Normandy looked at me through a eyeglass, and said, “Magsman, glad to see you!” – which I’ll take my oath he wasn’t. Mr. Chops, to git him convenient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form of George the Fourth’s in the canvass), but he hardly appeared to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two gentlemen ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day – gorgeous! – And as to Wine, they swam in all sorts.

I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it), and then mixed ’em all together (to say I had done it), and then tried two of ’em as half-and-half, and then t’other two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, “Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so ’ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave.” Mr. Chops replied, “If you’ll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me downstairs, I’ll see you out.” I said I couldn’t think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and I couldn’t help thinking as I carried him down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion.

When I set him on the doormat in the hall, he kep me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:

“I ain’t ’appy, Magsman.”

“What’s on your mind, Mr. Chops?”

“They don’t use me well. They an’t grateful to me. They puts me on the mantelpiece when I won’t have in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won’t give up my property.”

“Get rid of ’em, Mr. Chops.”

“I can’t. We’re in Society together, and what would Society say?”

“Come out of Society!” says I.

“I can’t. You don’t know what you’re talking about. When you have once gone into Society, you mustn’t come out of it.”

“Then if you’ll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops,” were my remark, shaking my head grave, “I think it’s a pity you ever went in.”

Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought were in him. Then, he says, “You’re a good fellow, but you don’t understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.” The last I see of him on that occasion was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They’d have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn’t be helped.

It warn’t long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr. Chops’s being presented at court. It was printed, “It will be recollected” – and I’ve noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed that it will be recollected, whenever it won’t – “that Mr. Chops is the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted so much attention.” Well, I says to myself, Such is Life! He has been and done it in earnest at last. He has astonished George the Fourth!

(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, and buckles correct.)

I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries – though not the honour of bein acquainted – and I run Magsman’s Amusements in it thirteen months – sometimes one thing, sometimes another, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy company, through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never drawed – except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. “Halloa!” I says to the young man, “what’s up!” He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, “I can’t imagine, Mr. Magsman” – which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.

The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. There was Mr. Chops!

“Magsman,” he says, “take me, on the old terms, and you’ve got me; if it’s done, say done!”

I was all of a maze, but I said, “Done, sir.”

“Done to your done, and double done!” says he. “Have you got a bit of supper in the house?”

Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we’d guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin-and-water; but he took ’em both and took ’em free; havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. I, all of a maze all the while.

It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.

“Magsman,” he says, “look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out.”

“O! You are out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?”

“Sold out!” says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words.

“My friend Magsman, I’ll impart to you a discovery I’ve made. It’s wallable; it’s cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you good in life – The secret of this matter is, that it ain’t so much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person.”

Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep look, and said, “You’re right there, Mr. Chops.”

“Magsman,” he says, twitchin me by the leg, “Society has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property.”

I felt that I went pale, and though nat’rally a bold speaker, I couldn’t hardly say, “Where’s Normandy?”

“Bolted. With the plate,” said Mr. Chops.

“And t’other one?” meaning him as formerly wore the bishop’s mitre.

“Bolted. With the jewels,” said Mr. Chops.

I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.

“Magsman,” he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got hoarser; “Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At the court of St. James’s, they was all a doing my old business – all a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. Elsewheres, they was most of ’em ringin their little bells out of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution!”

I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, and I felt for Mr. Chops.

“As to Fat Ladies,” he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the wall, “there’s lots of them in Society, and worse than the original. Hers was a outrage upon Taste – simply a outrage upon Taste – awakenin contempt – carryin its own punishment in the form of a Indian.” Here he giv himself another tremendious one. “But theirs, Magsman, theirs is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew ’em and a lot of ’andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies that don’t exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They’ll drill holes in your ’art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you’ve no more left to give, they’ll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies that you deserve to be!” Here he giv himself the most tremendious one of all, and dropped.

I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come:

“Magsman! The most material difference between the two states of existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;” he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success, – “the difference this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer the former, even if I wasn’t forced upon it. Give me out through the trumpet, in the hold way, tomorrow.”

Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got wiser every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it.

He took well, and pulled ’em in most excellent for nine weeks. At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed one evenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, a wish to have a little music.

“Mr. Chops,” I said (I never dropped the “Mr.” with him; the world might do it, but not me); “Mr. Chops, are you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?”

His answer was this: “Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive her and the Indian. And I am.”

It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but he sat like a lamb. I will be my belief to my dying day, that I see his Ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off.

“Toby,” he says, with a quiet smile, “the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.”

When we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much better Society than mine or Pall Mall’s. I giv Mr. Chops as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv it up, and took to the Wan again.

•   •   •   •   •   •

“I don’t triumph,” said Jarber, folding up the second manuscript, and looking hard at Trottle. “I don’t triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied now?”

“How can he be anything else?” I said, answering for Trottle, who sat obstinately silent. “This time, Jarber, you have not only read us a delightfully amusing story, but you have also answered the question about the House. Of course it stands empty now. Who would think of taking it after it had been turned into a caravan?” I looked at Trottle, as I said those last words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction.

“Let this excellent person speak,” said Jarber. “You were about to say, my good man?”

“I only wished to ask, sir,” said Trottle doggedly, “if you could kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that last story?”

“A date!” repeated Jarber. “What does the man want with dates!”

“I should be glad to know, with great respect,” persisted Trottle, “if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who lived in the House. It’s my opinion – if I may be excused for giving it – that he most decidedly was not.”

With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room.

There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound, in common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion. So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime, as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle’s objection.

He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgement, and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all. I suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions to him.

On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came, punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed, that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. I saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its emptiness was still to seek.

“What I have gone through,” said Jarber, “words are not eloquent enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have heard Number Three.”

Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much. Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. All the Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted the proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she might call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me.

Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping out in the evening, without leave, meant – Philandering.

Controlling myself on my visitor’s account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber.

•   •   •

THREE EVENINGS
IN THE HOUSE

NUMBER ONE

I

Yes, it look’d dark and dreary

That long and narrow street:

Only the sound of the rain,

And the tramp of passing feet,

The duller glow of the fire,

And gathering mists of night

To mark how slow and weary

The long day’s cheerless flight!

II.

Watching the sullen fire,

Hearing the dreary rain,

Drop after drop, run down

On the darkening windowpane;

Chill was the heart of Bertha,

Chill as that winter day,

For the star of her life had risen

Only to fade away.

III

The voice that had been so strong

To bid the snare depart,

The true and earnest will,

And the calm and steadfast heart,

Were now weigh’d down by sorrow,

Were quivering now with pain;

The clear path now seem’d clouded,

And all her grief in vain.

IV

Duty, Right, Truth, who promised

To help and save their own,

Seem’d spreading wide their pinions

To leave her there alone.

So, turning from the Present

To well-known days of yore,

She call’d on them to strengthen

And guard her soul once more.

V

She thought how in her girlhood

Her life was given away,

The solemn promise spoken

She kept so well today;

How to her brother Herbert

She had been help and guide,

And how his artist-nature

On her calm strength relied.

VI

How through life’s fret and turmoil

The passion and fire of art

In him was soothed and quicken’d

By her true sister heart;

How future hopes had always

Been for his sake alone;

And now, what strange new feeling

Possess’d her as its own?

VII

Her home; each flower that breathed there;

The wind’s sigh, soft and low;

Each trembling spray of ivy;

The river’s murmuring flow;

The shadow of the forest;

Sunset, or twilight dim;

Dear as they were, were dearer

By leaving them for him.

VIII

And each year as it found her

In the dull, feverish town,

Saw self still more forgotten,

And selfish care kept down

By the calm joy of evening

That brought him to her side,

To warn him with wise counsel,

Or praise with tender pride.

IX

Her heart, her life, her future,

Her genius, only meant

Another thing to give him,

And be therewith content.

Today, what words had stirr’d her,

Her soul could not forget?

What dream had fill’d her spirit

With strange and wild regret?

X

To leave him for another:

Could it indeed be so?

Could it have cost such anguish

To bid this vision go?

Was this her faith? Was Herbert

The second in her heart?

Did it need all this struggle

To bid a dream depart?

XI

And yet, within her spirit

A far-off land was seen;

A home, which might have held her;

A love, which might have been;

And Life: not the mere being

Of daily ebb and flow,

But Life itself had claim’d her,

And she had let it go!

XII

Within her heart there echo’d

Again the well-known tune

That promised this bright future,

And ask’d her for its own:

Then words of sorrow, broken

By half-reproachful pain;

And then a farewell, spoken

In words of cold disdain.

XIII

Where now was the stern purpose

That nerved her soul so long?

Whence came the words she utter’d,

So hard, so cold, so strong?

What right had she to banish

A hope that God had given?

Why must she choose earth’s portion,

And turn aside from Heaven?

XIV

Today! Was it this morning?

If this long, fearful strife

Was but the work of hours,

What would be years of life?

Why did a cruel Heaven

For such great suffering call?

And why – O, still more cruel!

Must her own words do all?

XV

Did she repent? O Sorrow!

Why do we linger still

To take thy loving message,

And do thy gentle will?

See, her tears fall more slowly;

The passionate murmurs cease,

And back upon her spirit

Flow strength, and love, and peace.

XVI

The fire burns more brightly,

The rain has passed away,

Herbert will see no shadow

Upon his home today;

Only that Bertha greets him

With doubly tender care,

Kissing a fonder blessing

Down on his golden hair.

NUMBER TWO

I

The studio is deserted,

Palette and brush laid by,

The sketch rests on the easel,

The paint is scarcely dry;

And Silence – who seems always

Within her depths to bear

The next sound that will utter—

Now holds a dumb despair.

II

So Bertha feels it: listening

With breathless, stony fear,

Waiting the dreadful summons

Each minute brings more near:

When the young life, now ebbing,

Shall fail, and pass away

Into that mighty shadow

Who shrouds the house today.

III

But why – when the sick chamber

Is on the upper floor—

Why dares not Bertha enter

Within the close-shut door?

If he – her all – her Brother,

Lies dying in that gloom,

What strange mysterious power

Has sent her from the room?

IV

It is not one week’s anguish

That can have changed her so;

Joy has not died here lately,

Struck down by one quick blow;

But cruel months have needed

Their long relentless chain,

To teach that shrinking manner

Of helpless, hopeless pain.

V

The struggle was scarce over

Last Christmas Eve had brought:

The fibres still were quivering

Of the one wounded thought,

When Herbert – who, unconscious,

Had guessed no inward strife—

Bade her, in pride and pleasure,

Welcome his fair young wife.

VI

Bade her rejoice, and smiling,

Although his eyes were dim,

Thank’d God he thus could pay her

The care she gave to him.

This fresh bright life would bring her

A new and joyous fate—

O Bertha, check the murmur

That cries, Too late! too late!

VII

Too late! Could she have known it

A few short weeks before,

That his life was completed,

And needing hers no more,

She might – O sad repining!

What “might have been,” forget;

“It was not,” should suffice us

To stifle vain regret.

VIII

He needed her no longer,

Each day it grew more plain;

First with a startled wonder,

Then with a wondering pain.

Love: why, his wife best gave it;

Comfort: durst Bertha speak?

Counsel: when quick resentment

Flush’d on the young wife’s cheek.

IX

No more long talks by firelight

Of childish times long past,

And dreams of future greatness

Which he must reach at last;

Dreams, where her purer instinct

With truth unerring told

Where was the worthless gilding,

And where refined gold.

X

Slowly, but surely ever,

Dora’s poor jealous pride,

Which she call’d love for Herbert,

Drove Bertha from his side;

And, spite of nervous effort

To share their alter’d life,

She felt a check to Herbert,

A burden to his wife.

XI

This was the least; for Bertha

Fear’d, dreaded, KNEW at length,

How much his nature owed her

Of truth, and power, and strength;

And watch’d the daily failing

Of all his nobler part:

Low aims, weak purpose, telling

In lower, weaker art.

XII

And now, when he is dying,

The last words she could hear

Must not be hers, but given

The bride of one short year.

The last care is another’s;

The last prayer must not be

The one they learnt together

Beside their mother’s knee.

XIII

Summon’d at last: she kisses

The clay-cold stiffening hand;

And, reading pleading efforts

To make her understand,

Answers, with solemn promise,

In clear but trembling tone,

To Dora’s life henceforward

She will devote her own.

XIV

Now all is over. Bertha

Dares not remain to weep,

But soothes the frightened Dora

Into a sobbing sleep.

The poor weak child will need her:

O, who can dare complain,

When God sends a new Duty

To comfort each new Pain!

NUMBER THREE

I

The House is all deserted

In the dim evening gloom,

Only one figure passes

Slowly from room to room;

And, pausing at each doorway,

Seems gathering up again

Within her heart the relics

Of bygone joy and pain.

II

There is an earnest longing

In those who onward gaze,

Looking with weary patience

Towards the coming days.

There is a deeper longing,

More sad, more strong, more keen:

Those know it who look backward,

And yearn for what has been.

III

At every hearth she pauses,

Touches each well-known chair;

Gazes from every window,

Lingers on every stair.

What have these months brought Bertha

Now one more year is past?

This Christmas Eve shall tell us,

The third one and the last.

IV

The wilful, wayward Dora,

In those first weeks of grief,

Could seek and find in Bertha

Strength, soothing, and relief.

And Bertha – last sad comfort

True woman-heart can take—

Had something still to suffer

And do for Herbert’s sake.

V

Spring, with her western breezes,

From Indian islands bore

To Bertha news that Leonard

Would seek his home once more.

What was it – joy, or sorrow?

What were they – hopes, or fears?

That flush’d her cheeks with crimson,

And fill’d her eyes with tears?

VI

He came. And who so kindly

Could ask and hear her tell

Herbert’s last hours; for Leonard

Had known and loved him well.

Daily he came; and Bertha,

Poor wear heart, at length,

Weigh’d down by other’s weakness,

Could rest upon his strength.

VII

Yet not the voice of Leonard

Could her true care beguile,

That turn’d to watch, rejoicing,

Dora’s reviving smile.

So, from that little household

The worst gloom pass’d away,

The one bright hour of evening

Lit up the livelong day.

VIII

Days passed. The golden summer

In sudden heat bore down

Its blue, bright, glowing sweetness

Upon the scorching town.

And sights and sounds of country

Came in the warm soft tune

Sung by the honey’d breezes

Borne on the wings of June.

IX

One twilight hour, but earlier

Than usual, Bertha thought

She knew the fresh sweet fragrance

Of flowers that Leonard brought;

Through open’d doors and windows

It stole up through the gloom,

And with appealing sweetness

Drew Bertha from her room.

X

Yes, he was there; and pausing

Just near the open’d door,

To check her heart’s quick beating,

She heard – and paused still more—

His low voice Dora’s answers—

His pleading – Yes, she knew

The tone – the words – the accents:

She once had heard them too.

XI

“Would Bertha blame her?” Leonard’s

Low, tender answer came:

“Bertha was far too noble

To think or dream of blame.”

“And was he sure he loved her?”

“Yes, with the one love given

Once in a lifetime only,

With one soul and one heaven!”

XII

Then came a plaintive murmur,—

“Dora had once been told

That he and Bertha—”  “Dearest,

Bertha is far too cold

To love; and I, my Dora,

If once I fancied so,

It was a brief delusion,

And over, – long ago.”

XIII

Between the Past and Present,

On that bleak moment’s height,

She stood. As some lost traveller

By a quick flash of light

Seeing a gulf before him,

With dizzy, sick despair,

Reels to clutch backward, but to find

A deeper chasm there.

XIV

The twilight grew still darker,

The fragrant flowers more sweet,

The stars shone out in heaven,

The lamps gleam’d down the street;

And hours pass’d in dreaming

Over their new-found fate,

Ere they could think of wondering

Why Bertha was so late.

XV

She came, and calmly listen’d;

In vain they strove to trace

If Herbert’s memory shadow’d

In grief upon her face.

No blame, no wonder show’d there,

No feeling could be told;

Her voice was not less steady,

Her manner not more cold.

XVI

They could not hear the anguish

That broke in words of pain

Through that calm summer midnight,—

“My Herbert – mine again!”

Yes, they have once been parted,

But this day shall restore

The long lost one: she claims him:

“My Herbert – mine once more!”

XVII

Now Christmas Eve returning,

Saw Bertha stand beside

The altar, greeting Dora,

Again a smiling bride;

And now the gloomy evening

Sees Bertha pale and worn,

Leaving the house forever,

To wander out forlorn.

XVIII

Forlorn – nay, not so. Anguish

Shall do its work at length;

Her soul, pass’d through the fire,

Shall gain still purer strength.

Somewhere there waits for Bertha

An earnest noble part;

And, meanwhile, God is with her,—

God, and her own true heart!

•   •   •   •   •   •

I could warmly and sincerely praise the little poem, when Jarber had done reading it; but I could not say that it tended in any degree towards clearing up the mystery of the empty House.

Whether it was the absence of the irritating influence of Trottle, or whether it was simply fatigue, I cannot say, but Jarber did not strike me, that evening, as being in his usual spirits. And though he declared that he was not in the least daunted by his want of success thus far, and that he was resolutely determined to make more discoveries, he spoke in a languid absent manner, and shortly afterwards took his leave at rather an early hour.

When Trottle came back, and when I indignantly taxed him with Philandering, he not only denied the imputation, but asserted that he had been employed on my service, and, in consideration of that, boldly asked for leave of absence for two days, and for a morning to himself afterwards, to complete the business, in which he solemnly declared that I was interested. In remembrance of his long and faithful service to me, I did violence to myself, and granted his request. And he, on his side, engaged to explain himself to my satisfaction, in a week’s time, on Monday evening the twentieth.

A day or two before, I sent to Jarber’s lodgings to ask him to drop in to tea. His landlady sent back an apology for him that made my hair stand on end. His feet were in hot water; his head was in a flannel petticoat; a green shade was over his eyes; the rheumatism was in his legs; and a mustard-poultice was on his chest. He was also a little feverish, and rather distracted in his mind about Manchester Marriages, a Dwarf, and Three Evenings, or Evening Parties – his landlady was not sure which – in an empty House, with the Water Rate unpaid.

Under these distressing circumstances, I was necessarily left alone with Trottle. His promised explanation began, like Jarber’s discoveries, with the reading of a written paper. The only difference was that Trottle introduced his manuscript under the name of a Report.

•   •   •

TROTTLE’S REPORT

The curious events related in these pages would, many of them, most likely never have happened, if a person named Trottle had not presumed, contrary to his usual custom, to think for himself.

The subject on which the person in question had ventured, for the first time in his life, to form an opinion purely and entirely his own, was one which had already excited the interest of his respected mistress in a very extraordinary degree. Or, to put it in plainer terms still, the subject was no other than the mystery of the empty House.

Feeling no sort of objection to set a success of his own, if possible, side by side with a failure of Mr. Jarber’s, Trottle made up his mind, one Monday evening, to try what he could do, on his own account, towards clearing up the mystery of the empty House. Carefully dismissing from his mind all nonsensical notions of former tenants and their histories, and keeping the one point in view steadily before him, he started to reach it in the shortest way, by walking straight up to the House, and bringing himself face to face with the first person in it who opened the door to him.

It was getting towards dark, on Monday evening, the thirteenth of the month, when Trottle first set foot on the steps of the House. When he knocked at the door, he knew nothing of the matter which he was about to investigate, except that the landlord was an elderly widower of good fortune, and that his name was Forley. A small beginning enough for a man to start from, certainly!

On dropping the knocker, his first proceeding was to look down cautiously out of the corner of his right eye, for any results which might show themselves at the kitchen-window. There appeared at it immediately the figure of a woman, who looked up inquisitively at the stranger on the steps, left the window in a hurry, and came back to it with an open letter in her hand, which she held up to the fading light. After looking over the letter hastily for a moment or so, the woman disappeared once more.

Trottle next heard footsteps shuffling and scraping along the bare hall of the house. On a sudden they ceased, and the sound of two voices – a shrill persuading voice and a gruff resisting voice – confusedly reached his ears. After a while, the voices left off speaking – a chain was undone, a bolt drawn back – the door opened – and Trottle stood face to face with two persons, a woman in advance, and a man behind her, leaning back flat against the wall.

“Wish you good evening, sir,” says the woman, in such a sudden way, and in such a cracked voice, that it was quite startling to hear her. “Chilly weather, ain’t it, sir? Please to walk in. You come from good Mr. Forley, don’t you, sir?”

“Don’t you, sir?” chimes in the man hoarsely, making a sort of gruff echo of himself, and chuckling after it, as if he thought he had made a joke.

If Trottle had said, “No,” the door would have been probably closed in his face. Therefore, he took circumstances as he found them, and boldly ran all the risk, whatever it might be, of saying, “Yes.”

“Quite right sir,” says the woman. “Good Mr. Forley’s letter told us his particular friend would be here to represent him, at dusk, on Monday the thirteenth – or, if not on Monday the thirteenth, then on Monday the twentieth, at the same time, without fail. And here you are on Monday the thirteenth, ain’t you, sir? Mr. Forley’s particular friend, and dressed all in black – quite right, sir! Please to step into the dining-room – it’s always kep scoured and clean against Mr. Forley comes here – and I’ll fetch a candle in half a minute. It gets so dark in the evenings, now, you hardly know where you are, do you, sir? And how is good Mr. Forley in his health? We trust he is better, Benjamin, don’t we? We are so sorry not to see him as usual, Benjamin, ain’t we? In half a minute, sir, if you don’t mind waiting, I’ll be back with the candle. Come along, Benjamin.”

“Come along, Benjamin,” chimes in the echo, and chuckles again as if he thought he had made another joke.

Left alone in the empty front-parlour, Trottle wondered what was coming next, as he heard the shuffling, scraping footsteps go slowly down the kitchen-stairs. The front-door had been carefully chained up and bolted behind him on his entrance; and there was not the least chance of his being able to open it to effect his escape, without betraying himself by making a noise.

Not being of the Jarber sort, luckily for himself, he took his situation quietly, as he found it, and turned his time, while alone, to account, by summing up in his own mind the few particulars which he had discovered thus far. He had found out, first, that Mr. Forley was in the habit of visiting the house regularly. Second, that Mr. Forley being prevented by illness from seeing the people put in charge as usual, had appointed a friend to represent him; and had written to say so. Third, that the friend had a choice of two Mondays, at a particular time in the evening, for doing his errand; and that Trottle had accidentally hit on this time, and on the first of the Mondays, for beginning his own investigations. Fourth, that the similarity between Trottle’s black dress, as servant out of livery, and the dress of the messenger (whoever he might be), had helped the error by which Trottle was profiting. So far, so good. But what was the messenger’s errand? and what chance was there that he might not come up and knock at the door himself, from minute to minute, on that very evening?

While Trottle was turning over this last consideration in his mind, he heard the shuffling footsteps come up the stairs again, with a flash of candlelight going before them. He waited for the woman’s coming in with some little anxiety; for the twilight had been too dim on his getting into the house to allow him to see either her face or the man’s face at all clearly.

The woman came in first, with the man she called Benjamin at her heels, and set the candle on the mantelpiece. Trottle takes leave to describe her as an offensively-cheerful old woman, awfully lean and wiry, and sharp all over, at eyes, nose, and chin – devilishly brisk, smiling, and restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short fidgety arms, and long hooked fingernails – an unnaturally lusty old woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and spoke with a smirk on her wicked old face – the sort of old woman (as Trottle thinks) who ought to have lived in the dark ages, and been ducked in a horse-pond, instead of flourishing in the nineteenth century, and taking charge of a Christian house.

“You’ll please to excuse my son, Benjamin, won’t you, sir?” says this witch without a broomstick, pointing to the man behind her, propped against the bare wall of the dining-room, exactly as he had been propped against the bare wall of the passage. “He’s got his inside dreadful bad again, has my son Benjamin. And he won’t go to bed, and he will follow me about the house, upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber, as the song says, you know. It’s his indisgestion, poor dear, that sours his temper and makes him so agravating – and indisgestion is a wearing thing to the best of us, ain’t it, sir?”

“Ain’t it, sir?” chimes in agravating Benjamin, winking at the candlelight like an owl at the sunshine.

Trottle examined the man curiously, while his horrid old mother was speaking of him. He found “My son Benjamin” to be little and lean, and buttoned-up slovenly in a frowsy old greatcoat that fell down to his ragged carpet-slippers. His eyes were very watery, his cheeks very pale, and his lips very red. His breathing was so uncommonly loud, that it sounded almost like a snore. His head rolled helplessly in the monstrous big collar of his greatcoat; and his limp, lazy hands pottered about the wall on either side of him, as if they were groping for a imaginary bottle. In plain English, the complaint of “My son Benjamin” was drunkenness, of the stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this conclusion easily enough, after a moment’s observation of the man, Trottle found himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer than was necessary on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the monstrous big coat collar, and looking at it with a curiosity that he could hardly account for at first. Was there something familiar to him in the man’s features? He turned away from them for an instant, and then turned back to him again. After that second look, the notion forced itself into his mind, that he had certainly seen a face somewhere, of which that sot’s face appeared like a kind of slovenly copy. “Where?” thinks he to himself, “where did I last see the man whom this agravating Benjamin, here, so very strongly reminds me of?”

It was no time, just then – with the cheerful old woman’s eye searching him all over, and the cheerful old woman’s tongue talking at him, nineteen to the dozen – for Trottle to be ransacking his memory for small matters that had got into wrong corners of it. He put by in his mind that very curious circumstance respecting Benjamin’s face, to be taken up again when a fit opportunity offered itself; and kept his wits about him in prime order for present necessities.

“You wouldn’t like to go down into the kitchen, would you?” says the witch without the broomstick, as familiar as if she had been Trottle’s mother, instead of Benjamin’s. “There’s a bit of fire in the grate, and the sink in the back kitchen don’t smell to matter much today, and it’s uncommon chilly up here when a person’s flesh don’t hardly cover a person’s bones. But you don’t look cold, sir, do you? And then, why, Lord bless my soul, our little bit of business is so very, very little, it’s hardly worth while to go downstairs about it, after all. Quite a game at business, ain’t it, sir? Give-and-take that’s what I call it – give-and-take!”

With that, her wicked old eyes settled hungrily on the region round about Trottle’s waistcoat-pocket, and she began to chuckle like her son, holding out one of her skinny hands, and tapping cheerfully in the palm with the knuckles of the other. Agravating Benjamin, seeing what she was about, roused up a little, chuckled and tapped in imitation of her, got an idea of his own into his muddled head all of a sudden, and bolted it out charitably for the benefit of Trottle.

“I say!” says Benjamin, settling himself against the wall and nodding his head viciously at his cheerful old mother. “I say! Look out. She’ll skin you!”

Assisted by these signs and warnings, Trottle found no difficulty in understanding that the business referred to was the giving and taking of money, and that he was expected to be the giver. It was at this stage of the proceedings that he first felt decidedly uncomfortable, and more than half inclined to wish he was on the street-side of the house-door again.

He was still cudgelling his brains for an excuse to save his pocket, when the silence was suddenly interrupted by a sound in the upper part of the house.

It was not at all loud – it was a quiet, still, scraping sound – so faint that it could hardly have reached the quickest ears, except in an empty house.

“Do you hear that, Benjamin?” says the old woman. “He’s at it again, even in the dark, ain’t he? P’raps you’d like to see him, sir!” says she, turning on Trottle, and poking her grinning face close to him. “Only name it; only say if you’d like to see him before we do our little bit of business – and I’ll show good Forley’s friend upstairs, just as if he was good Mr. Forley himself. My legs are all right, whatever Benjamin’s may be. I get younger and younger, and stronger and stronger, and jollier and jollier, every day – that’s what I do! Don’t mind the stairs on my account, sir, if you’d like to see him.”

“Him?” Trottle wondered whether “him” meant a man, or a boy, or a domestic animal of the male species. Whatever it meant, here was a chance of putting off that uncomfortable give-and-take-business, and, better still, a chance perhaps of finding out one of the secrets of the mysterious House. Trottle’s spirits began to rise again and he said “Yes,” directly, with the confidence of a man who knew all about it.

Benjamin’s mother took the candle at once, and lighted Trottle briskly to the stairs; and Benjamin himself tried to follow as usual. But getting up several flights of stairs, even helped by the bannisters, was more, with his particular complaint, than he seemed to feel himself inclined to venture on. He sat down obstinately on the lowest step, with his head against the wall, and the tails of his big greatcoat spreading out magnificently on the stairs behind him and above him, like a dirty imitation of a court lady’s train.

“Don’t sit there, dear,” says his affectionate mother, stopping to snuff the candle on the first landing.

“I shall sit here,” says Benjamin, agravating to the last, “till the milk comes in the morning.”

The cheerful old woman went on nimbly up the stairs to the first floor, and Trottle followed, with his eyes and ears wide open. He had seen nothing out of the common in the front-parlour, or up the staircase, so far. The House was dirty and dreary and close-smelling – but there was nothing about it to excite the least curiosity, except the faint scraping sound, which was now beginning to get a little clearer – though still not at all loud – as Trottle followed his leader up the stairs to the second floor.

Nothing on the second-floor landing, but cobwebs above and bits of broken plaster below, cracked off from the ceiling. Benjamin’s mother was not a bit out of breath, and looked all ready to go to the top of the monument if necessary. The faint scraping sound had got a little clearer still; but Trottle was no nearer to guessing what it might be, than when he first heard it in the parlour downstairs.

On the third, and last, floor, there were two doors; one, which was shut, leading into the front garret; and one, which was ajar, leading into the back garret. There was a loft in the ceiling above the landing; but the cobwebs all over it vouched sufficiently for its not having been opened for some little time. The scraping noise, plainer than ever here, sounded on the other side of the back garret door; and, to Trottle’s great relief, that was precisely the door which the cheerful old woman now pushed open.

Trottle followed her in; and, for once in his life, at any rate, was struck dumb with amazement, at the sight which the inside of the room revealed to him.

The garret was absolutely empty of everything in the shape of furniture. It must have been used at one time or other, by somebody engaged in a profession or a trade which required for the practice of it a great deal of light; for the one window in the room, which looked out on a wide open space at the back of the house, was three or four times as large, every way, as a garret-window usually is. Close under this window, kneeling on the bare boards with his face to the door, there appeared, of all the creatures in the world to see alone at such a place and at such a time, a mere mite of a child – a little, lonely, wizen, strangely-clad boy, who could not at the most, have been more than five years old. He had a greasy old blue shawl crossed over his breast, and rolled up, to keep the ends from the ground, into a great big lump on his back. A strip of something which looked like the remains of a woman’s flannel petticoat, showed itself under the shawl, and, below that again, a pair of rusty black stockings, worlds too large for him, covered his legs and his shoeless feet. A pair of old clumsy muffetees, which had worked themselves up on his little frail red arms to the elbows, and a big cotton nightcap that had dropped down to his very eyebrows, finished off the strange dress which the poor little man seemed not half big enough to fill out, and not near strong enough to walk about in.

But there was something to see even more extraordinary than the clothes the child was swaddled up in, and that was the game which he was playing at, all by himself; and which, moreover, explained in the most unexpected manner the faint scraping noise that had found its way downstairs, through the half-opened door, in the silence of the empty house.

It has been mentioned that the child was on his knees in the garret, when Trottle first saw him. He was not saying his prayers, and not crouching down in terror at being alone in the dark. He was, odd and unaccountable as it may appear, doing nothing more or less than playing at a charwoman’s or housemaid’s business of scouring the floor. Both his little hands had tight hold of a mangy old blacking-brush, with hardly any bristles left in it, which he was rubbing backwards and forwards on the boards, as gravely and steadily as if he had been at scouring-work for years, and had got a large family to keep by it. The coming-in of Trottle and the old woman did not startle or disturb him in the least. He just looked up for a minute at the candle, with a pair of very bright, sharp eyes, and then went on with his work again, as if nothing had happened. On one side of him was a battered pint saucepan without a handle, which was his make-believe pail; and on the other a morsel of slate-coloured cotton rag, which stood for his flannel to wipe up with. After scrubbing bravely for a minute or two, he took the bit of rag, and mopped up, and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe pail, as grave as any judge that ever sat on a Bench. By the time he thought he had got the floor pretty dry, he raised himself upright on his knees, and blew out a good long breath, and set his little red arms akimbo, and nodded at Trottle.

“There!” says the child, knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown. “Drat the dirt! I’ve cleaned up. Where’s my beer?”

Benjamin’s mother chuckled till Trottle thought she would have choked herself.

“Lord ha’ mercy on us!” says she, “just hear the imp. You would never think he was only five years old, would you, sir? Please to tell good Mr. Forley you saw him going on as nicely as ever, playing at being me scouring the parlour floor, and calling for my beer afterwards. That’s his regular game, morning, noon, and night – he’s never tired of it. Only look how snug we’ve been and dressed him. That’s my shawl a keepin his precious little body warm, and Benjamin’s nightcap a keepin his precious little head warm, and Benjamin’s stockings, drawed over his trousers, a keepin his precious little legs warm. He’s snug and happy if ever a imp was yet. ‘Where’s my beer!’ – say it again, little dear, say it again!”

If Trottle had seen the boy, with a light and a fire in the room, clothed like other children, and playing naturally with a top, or a box of soldiers, or a bouncing big India-rubber ball, he might have been as cheerful under the circumstances as Benjamin’s mother herself. But seeing the child reduced (as he could not help suspecting) for want of proper toys and proper child’s company, to take up with the mocking of an old woman at her scouring-work, for something to stand in the place of a game, Trottle, though not a family man, nevertheless felt the sight before him to be, in its way, one of the saddest and the most pitiable that he had ever witnessed.

“Why, my man,” says he, “you’re the boldest little chap in all England. You don’t seem a bit afraid of being up here all by yourself in the dark.”

“The big winder,” says the child, pointing up to it, “sees in the dark; and I see with the big winder.” He stops a bit, and gets up on his legs, and looks hard at Benjamin’s mother. “I’m a good ’un,” says he, “ain’t I? I save candle.”

Trottle wondered what else the forlorn little creature had been brought up to do without, besides candlelight; and risked putting a question as to whether he ever got a run in the open air to cheer him up a bit. O, yes, he had a run now and then, out of doors (to say nothing of his runs about the house), the lively little cricket – a run according to good Mr. Forley’s instructions, which were followed out carefully, as good Mr. Forley’s friend would be glad to hear, to the very letter.

As Trottle could only have made one reply to this, namely, that good Mr. Forley’s instructions were, in his opinion, the instructions of an infernal scamp; and as he felt that such an answer would naturally prove the deathblow to all further discoveries on his part, he gulped down his feelings before they got too many for him, and held his tongue, and looked round towards the window again to see what the forlorn little boy was going to amuse himself with next.

The child had gathered up his blacking-brush and bit of rag, and had put them into the old tin saucepan; and was now working his way, as well as his clothes would let him, with his make-believe pail hugged up in his arms, towards a door of communication which led from the back to the front garret.

“I say,” says he, looking round sharply over his shoulder, “what are you two stopping here for? I’m going to bed now – and so I tell you!”

With that, he opened the door, and walked into the front room. Seeing Trottle take a step or two to follow him, Benjamin’s mother opened her wicked old eyes in a state of great astonishment.

“Mercy on us!” says she, “haven’t you seen enough of him yet?”

“No,” says Trottle. “I should like to see him go to bed.”

Benjamin’s mother burst into such a fit of chuckling that the loose extinguisher in the candlestick clattered again with the shaking of her hand. To think of good Mr. Forley’s friend taking ten times more trouble about the imp than good Mr. Forley himself! Such a joke as that, Benjamin’s mother had not often met with in the course of her life, and she begged to be excused if she took the liberty of having a laugh at it.

Leaving her to laugh as much as she pleased, and coming to a pretty positive conclusion, after what he had just heard, that Mr. Forley’s interest in the child was not of the fondest possible kind, Trottle walked into the front room, and Benjamin’s mother, enjoying herself immensely, followed with the candle.

There were two pieces of furniture in the front garret. One, an old stool of the sort that is used to stand a cask of beer on; and the other a great big rickety straddling old truckle bedstead. In the middle of this bedstead, surrounded by a dim brown waste of sacking, was a kind of little island of poor bedding – an old bolster, with nearly all the feathers out of it, doubled in three for a pillow; a mere shred of patchwork counter-pane, and a blanket; and under that, and peeping out a little on either side beyond the loose clothes, two faded chair cushions of horsehair, laid along together for a sort of makeshift mattress. When Trottle got into the room, the lonely little boy had scrambled up on the bedstead with the help of the beer-stool, and was kneeling on the outer rim of sacking with the shred of counterpane in his hands, just making ready to tuck it in for himself under the chair cushions.

“I’ll tuck you up, my man,” says Trottle. “Jump into bed, and let me try.”

“I mean to tuck myself up,” says the poor forlorn child, “and I don’t mean to jump. I mean to crawl, I do – and so I tell you!”

With that, he set to work, tucking in the clothes tight all down the sides of the cushions, but leaving them open at the foot. Then, getting up on his knees, and looking hard at Trottle as much as to say, “What do you mean by offering to help such a handy little chap as me?” he began to untie the big shawl for himself, and did it, too, in less than half a minute. Then, doubling the shawl up loose over the foot of the bed, he says, “I say, look here,” and ducks under the clothes, head first, worming his way up and up softly, under the blanket and counterpane, till Trottle saw the top of the large nightcap slowly peep out on the bolster. This oversized headgear of the child’s had so shoved itself down in the course of his journey to the pillow, under the clothes, that when he got his face fairly out on the bolster, he was all nightcap down to his mouth. He soon freed himself, however, from this slight encumbrance by turning the ends of the cap up gravely to their old place over his eyebrows – looked at Trottle – said, “Snug, ain’t it? Good-bye!” – popped his face under the clothes again – and left nothing to be seen of him but the empty peak of the big nightcap standing up sturdily on end in the middle of the bolster.

“What a young limb it is, ain’t it?” says Benjamin’s mother, giving Trottle a cheerful dig with her elbow. “Come on! you won’t see no more of him tonight!”

“And so I tell you!” sings out a shrill, little voice under the bedclothes, chiming in with a playful finish to the old woman’s last words.

If Trottle had not been, by this time, positively resolved to follow the wicked secret which accident had mixed him up with, through all its turnings and windings, right on to the end, he would have probably snatched the boy up then and there, and carried him off from his garret prison, bedclothes and all. As it was, he put a strong check on himself, kept his eye on future possibilities, and allowed Benjamin’s mother to lead him downstairs again.

“Mind them top bannisters,” says she, as Trottle laid his hand on them. “They are as rotten as medlars every one of ’em.”

“When people come to see the premises,” says Trottle, trying to feel his way a little farther into the mystery of the House, “you don’t bring many of them up here, do you?”

“Bless your heart alive!” says she, “nobody ever comes now. The outside of the house is quite enough to warn them off. Mores the pity, as I say. It used to keep me in spirits, staggering ’em all, one after another, with the frightful high rent – specially the women, drat ’em. ‘What’s the rent of this house?’ – ‘Hundred and twenty pound a-year!’ – ‘Hundred and twenty? why, there ain’t a house in the street as lets for more than eighty!’ – Likely enough, ma’am; other landlords may lower their rents if they please; but this here landlord sticks to his rights, and means to have as much for his house as his father had before him!’ – ‘But the neighbourhood’s gone off since then!’ – ‘Hundred and twenty pound, ma’am.’ – ‘The landlord must be mad!’ – ‘Hundred and twenty pound, ma’am.’ – ‘Open the door you impertinent woman!’ Lord! what a happiness it was to see ’em bounce out, with that awful rent a-ringing in their ears all down the street!”

She stopped on the second-floor landing to treat herself to another chuckle, while Trottle privately posted up in his memory what he had just heard. “Two points made out,” he thought to himself: “the house is kept empty on purpose, and the way it’s done is to ask a rent that nobody will pay.”

“Ah, deary me!” says Benjamin’s mother, changing the subject on a sudden, and twisting back with a horrid, greedy quickness to those awkward money-matters which she had broached down in the parlour. “What we’ve done, one way and another for Mr. Forley, it isn’t in words to tell! That nice little bit of business of ours ought to be a bigger bit of business, considering the trouble we take, Benjamin and me, to make the imp upstairs as happy as the day is long. If good Mr. Forley would only please to think a little more of what a deal he owes to Benjamin and me—”

“That’s just it,” says Trottle, catching her up short in desperation, and seeing his way, by the help of those last words of hers, to slipping cleverly through her fingers. “What should you say, if I told you that Mr. Forley was nothing like so far from thinking about that little matter as you fancy? You would be disappointed, now, if I told you that I had come today without the money?” – (her lank old jaw fell, and her villainous old eyes glared, in a perfect state of panic, at that!) – “But what should you say, if I told you that Mr. Forley was only waiting for my report, to send me here next Monday, at dusk, with a bigger bit of business for us two to do together than ever you think for? What should you say to that?”

The old wretch came so near to Trottle, before she answered, and jammed him up confidentially so close into the corner of the landing, that his throat, in a manner, rose at her.

“Can you count it off, do you think, on more than that?” says she, holding up her four skinny fingers and her long crooked thumb, all of a tremble, right before his face.

“What do you say to two hands, instead of one?” says he, pushing past her, and getting downstairs as fast as he could.

What she said Trottle thinks it best not to report, seeing that the old hypocrite, getting next door to light-headed at the golden prospect before her, took such liberties with unearthly names and persons which ought never to have approached her lips, and rained down such an awful shower of blessings on Trottle’s head, that his hair almost stood on end to hear her. He went on downstairs as fast as his feet would carry him, till he was brought up all standing, as the sailors say, on the last flight, by agravating Benjamin, lying right across the stair, and fallen off, as might have been expected, into a heavy drunken sleep.

The sight of him instantly reminded Trottle of the curious half likeness which he had already detected between the face of Benjamin and the face of another man, whom he had seen at a past time in very different circumstances. He determined, before leaving the House, to have one more look at the wretched muddled creature; and accordingly shook him up smartly, and propped him against the staircase wall, before his mother could interfere.

“Leave him to me; I’ll freshen him up,” says Trottle to the old woman, looking hard in Benjamin’s face, while he spoke.

The fright and surprise of being suddenly woke up, seemed, for about a quarter of a minute, to sober the creature. When he first opened his eyes, there was a new look in them for a moment, which struck home to Trottle’s memory as quick and as clear as a flash of light. The old maudlin sleepy expression came back again in another instant, and blurred out all further signs and tokens of the past. But Trottle had seen enough in the moment before it came; and he troubled Benjamin’s face with no more inquiries.

“Next Monday, at dusk,” says he, cutting short some more of the old woman’s palaver about Benjamin’s indisgestion. “I’ve got no more time to spare, ma’am, tonight: please to let me out.”

With a few last blessings, a few last dutiful messages to good Mr. Forley, and a few last friendly hints not to forget next Monday at dusk, Trottle contrived to struggle through the sickening business of leave-taking; to get the door opened; and to find himself, to his own indescribable relief, once more on the outer side of the House To Let.

•   •   •

LET AT LAST

“There, ma’am!” said Trottle, folding up the manuscript from which he had been reading, and setting it down with a smart tap of triumph on the table. “May I venture to ask what you think of that plain statement, as a guess on my part (and not on Mr. Jarber’s) at the riddle of the empty House?”

For a minute or two I was unable to say a word. When I recovered a little, my first question referred to the poor forlorn little boy.

“Today is Monday the twentieth,” I said. “Surely you have not let a whole week go by without trying to find out something more?”

“Except at bedtime, and meals, ma’am,” answered Trottle, “I have not let an hour go by. Please to understand that I have only come to an end of what I have written, and not to an end of what I have done. I wrote down those first particulars, ma’am, because they are of great importance, and also because I was determined to come forward with my written documents, seeing that Mr. Jarber chose to come forward, in the first instance, with his. I am now ready to go on with the second part of my story as shortly and plainly as possible, by word of mouth. The first thing I must clear up, if you please, is the matter of Mr. Forley’s family affairs. I have heard you speak of them, ma’am, at various times; and I have understood that Mr. Forley had two children only by his deceased wife, both daughters. The eldest daughter married, to her father’s entire satisfaction, one Mr. Bayne, a rich man, holding a high government situation in Canada. She is now living there with her husband, and her only child, a little girl of eight or nine years old. Right so far, I think, ma’am?”

“Quite right,” I said.

“The second daughter,” Trottle went on, “and Mr. Forley’s favourite, set her father’s wishes and the opinions of the world at flat defiance, by running away with a man of low origin – a mate of a merchant-vessel, named Kirkland. Mr. Forley not only never forgave that marriage, but vowed that he would visit the scandal of it heavily in the future on husband and wife. Both escaped his vengeance, whatever he meant it to be. The husband was drowned on his first voyage after his marriage, and the wife died in child-bed. Right again, I believe, ma’am?”

“Again quite right.”

“Having got the family matter all right, we will now go back, ma’am, to me and my doings. Last Monday, I asked you for leave of absence for two days; I employed the time in clearing up the matter of Benjamin’s face. Last Saturday I was out of the way when you wanted me. I played truant, ma’am, on that occasion, in company with a friend of mine, who is managing clerk in a lawyer’s office; and we both spent the morning at Doctors’ Commons, over the last will and testament of Mr. Forley’s father. Leaving the will-business for a moment, please to follow me first, if you have no objection, into the ugly subject of Benjamin’s face. About six or seven years ago (thanks to your kindness) I had a week’s holiday with some friends of mine who live in the town of Pendlebury. One of those friends (the only one now left in the place) kept a chemist’s shop, and in that shop I was made acquainted with one of the two doctors in the town, named Barsham. This Barsham was a first-rate surgeon, and might have got to the top of his profession, if he had not been a first-rate blackguard. As it was, he both drank and gambled; nobody would have anything to do with him in Pendlebury; and, at the time when I was made known to him in the chemist’s shop, the other doctor, Mr. Dix, who was not to be compared with him for surgical skill, but who was a respectable man, had got all the practice; and Barsham and his old mother were living together in such a condition of utter poverty, that it was a marvel to everybody how they kept out of the parish workhouse.”

“Benjamin and Benjamin’s mother!”

“Exactly, ma’am. Last Thursday morning (thanks to your kindness, again) I went to Pendlebury to my friend the chemist, to ask a few questions about Barsham and his mother. I was told that they had both left the town about five years since. When I inquired into the circumstances, some strange particulars came out in the course of the chemist’s answer. You know I have no doubt, ma’am, that poor Mrs. Kirkland was confined while her husband was at sea, in lodgings at a village called Flatfield, and that she died and was buried there. But what you may not know is, that Flatfield is only three miles from Pendlebury; that the doctor who attended on Mrs. Kirkland was Barsham; that the nurse who took care of her was Barsham’s mother; and that the person who called them both in, was Mr. Forley. Whether his daughter wrote to him, or whether he heard of it in some other way, I don’t know; but he was with her (though he had sworn never to see her again when she married) a month or more before her confinement, and was backwards and forwards a good deal between Flatfield and Pendlebury. How he managed matters with the Barshams cannot at present be discovered; but it is a fact that he contrived to keep the drunken doctor sober, to everybody’s amazement. It is a fact that Barsham went to the poor woman with all his wits about him. It is a fact that he and his mother came back from Flatfield after Mrs. Kirkland’s death, packed up what few things they had, and left the town mysteriously by night. And, lastly, it is also a fact that the other doctor, Mr. Dix, was not called in to help, till a week after the birth and burial of the child, when the mother was sinking from exhaustion – exhaustion (to give the vagabond, Barsham, his due) not produced, in Mr. Dix’s opinion, by improper medical treatment, but by the bodily weakness of the poor woman herself—”

“Burial of the child?” I interrupted, trembling all over. “Trottle! you spoke that word ‘burial’ in a very strange way – you are fixing your eyes on me now with a very strange look—”

Trottle leaned over close to me, and pointed through the window to the empty house.

“The child’s death is registered, at Pendlebury,” he said, “on Barsham’s certificate, under the head of Male Infant, Still-Born. The child’s coffin lies in the mother’s grave, in Flatfield churchyard. The child himself – as surely as I live and breathe, is living and breathing now – a castaway and a prisoner in that villainous house!”

I sank back in my chair.

“It’s guess-work, so far, but it is borne in on my mind, for all that, as truth. Rouse yourself, ma’am, and think a little. The last I hear of Barsham, he is attending Mr. Forley’s disobedient daughter. The next I see of Barsham, he is in Mr. Forley’s house, trusted with a secret. He and his mother leave Pendlebury suddenly and suspiciously five years back; and he and his mother have got a child of five years old, hidden away in the house. Wait! please to wait – I have not done yet. The will left by Mr. Forley’s father, strengthens the suspicion. The friend I took with me to Doctors’ Commons, made himself master of the contents of that will; and when he had done so, I put these two questions to him. ‘Can Mr. Forley leave his money at his own discretion to anybody he pleases?’  ‘No,’ my friend says, ‘his father has left him with only a life interest in it.’  ‘Suppose one of Mr. Forley’s married daughters has a girl, and the other a boy, how would the money go?’  ‘It would all go,’ my friend says, ‘to the boy, and it would be charged with the payment of a certain annual income to his female cousin. After her death, it would go back to the male descendant, and to his heirs.’ Consider that, ma’am! The child of the daughter whom Mr. Forley hates, whose husband has been snatched away from his vengeance by death, takes his whole property in defiance of him; and the child of the daughter whom he loves, is left a pensioner on her low-born boy-cousin for life! There was good – too good reason – why that child of Mrs. Kirkland’s should be registered stillborn. And if, as I believe, the register is founded on a false certificate, there is better, still better reason, why the existence of the child should be hidden, and all trace of his parentage blotted out, in the garret of that empty house.”

He stopped, and pointed for the second time to the dim, dust-covered garret-windows opposite. As he did so, I was startled – a very slight matter sufficed to frighten me now – by a knock at the door of the room in which we were sitting.

My maid came in, with a letter in her hand. I took it from her. The mourning card, which was all the envelope enclosed, dropped from my hands.

George Forley was no more. He had departed this life three days since, on the evening of Friday.

“Did our last chance of discovering the truth,” I asked, “rest with him? Has it died with his death?”

“Courage, ma’am! I think not. Our chance rests on our power to make Barsham and his mother confess; and Mr. Forley’s death, by leaving them helpless, seems to put that power into our hands. With your permission, I will not wait till dusk today, as I at first intended, but will make sure of those two people at once. With a policeman in plain clothes to watch the house, in case they try to leave it; with this card to vouch for the fact of Mr. Forley’s death; and with a bold acknowledgement on my part of having got possession of their secret, and of being ready to use it against them in case of need, I think there is little doubt of bringing Barsham and his mother to terms. In case I find it impossible to get back here before dusk, please to sit near the window, ma’am, and watch the house, a little before they light the street-lamps. If you see the front-door open and close again, will you be good enough to put on your bonnet, and come across to me immediately? Mr. Forley’s death may, or may not, prevent his messenger from coming as arranged. But, if the person does come, it is of importance that you, as a relative of Mr. Forley’s should be present to see him, and to have that proper influence over him which I cannot pretend to exercise.”

The only words I could say to Trottle as he opened the door and left me, were words charging him to take care that no harm happened to the poor forlorn little boy.

Left alone, I drew my chair to the window; and looked out with a beating heart at the guilty house. I waited and waited through what appeared to me to be an endless time, until I heard the wheels of a cab stop at the end of the street. I looked in that direction, and saw Trottle get out of the cab alone, walk up to the house, and knock at the door. He was let in by Barsham’s mother. A minute or two later, a decently-dressed man sauntered past the house, looked up at it for a moment, and sauntered on to the corner of the street close by. Here he leant against the post, and lighted a cigar, and stopped there smoking in an idle way, but keeping his face always turned in the direction of the house-door.

I waited and waited still. I waited and waited, with my eyes riveted to the door of the house. At last I thought I saw it open in the dusk, and then felt sure I heard it shut again softly. Though I tried hard to compose myself, I trembled so that I was obliged to call for Peggy to help me on with my bonnet and cloak, and was forced to take her arm to lean on, in crossing the street.

Trottle opened the door to us, before we could knock. Peggy went back, and I went in. He had a lighted candle in his hand.

“It has happened, ma’am, as I thought it would,” he whispered, leading me into the bare, comfortless, empty parlour. “Barsham and his mother have consulted their own interests, and have come to terms. My guess-work is guess-work no longer. It is now what I felt it was – Truth!”

Something strange to me – something which women who are mothers must often know – trembled suddenly in my heart, and brought the warm tears of my youthful days thronging back into my eyes. I took my faithful old servant by the hand, and asked him to let me see Mrs. Kirkland’s child, for his mother’s sake.

“If you desire it, ma’am,” said Trottle, with a gentleness of manner that I had never noticed in him before. “But pray don’t think me wanting in duty and right feeling, if I beg you to try and wait a little. You are agitated already, and a first meeting with the child will not help to make you so calm, as you would wish to be, if Mr. Forley’s messenger comes. The little boy is safe upstairs. Pray think first of trying to compose yourself for a meeting with a stranger; and believe me you shall not leave the house afterwards without the child.”

I felt that Trottle was right, and sat down as patiently as I could in a chair he had thoughtfully placed ready for me. I was so horrified at the discovery of my own relation’s wickedness that when Trottle proposed to make me acquainted with the confession wrung from Barsham and his mother, I begged him to spare me all details, and only to tell me what was necessary about George Forley.

“All that can be said for Mr. Forley, ma’am, is, that he was just scrupulous enough to hide the child’s existence and blot out its parentage here, instead of consenting, at the first, to its death, or afterwards, when the boy grew up, to turning him adrift, absolutely helpless in the world. The fraud has been managed, ma’am, with the cunning of Satan himself. Mr. Forley had the hold over the Barshams, that they had helped him in his villainy, and that they were dependent on him for the bread they eat. He brought them up to London to keep them securely under his own eye. He put them into this empty house (taking it out of the agent’s hands previously, on pretence that he meant to manage the letting of it himself); and by keeping the house empty, made it the surest of all hiding places for the child. Here, Mr. Forley could come, whenever he pleased, to see that the poor lonely child was not absolutely starved; sure that his visits would only appear like looking after his own property. Here the child was to have been trained to believe himself Barsham’s child, till he should be old enough to be provided for in some situation, as low and as poor as Mr. Forley’s uneasy conscience would let him pick out. He may have thought of atonement on his deathbed; but not before – I am only too certain of it – not before!”

A low, double knock startled us.

“The messenger!” said Trottle, under his breath. He went out instantly to answer the knock; and returned, leading in a respectable-looking elderly man, dressed like Trottle, all in black, with a white cravat, but otherwise not at all resembling him.

“I am afraid I have made some mistake,” said the stranger.

Trottle, considerately taking the office of explanation into his own hands, assured the gentleman that there was no mistake; mentioned to him who I was; and asked him if he had not come on business connected with the late Mr. Forley. Looking greatly astonished, the gentleman answered, “Yes.” There was an awkward moment of silence, after that. The stranger seemed to be not only startled and amazed, but rather distrustful and fearful of committing himself as well. Noticing this, I thought it best to request Trottle to put an end to further embarrassment, by stating all particulars truthfully, as he had stated them to me; and I begged the gentleman to listen patiently for the late Mr. Forley’s sake. He bowed to me very respectfully, and said he was prepared to listen with the greatest interest.

It was evident to me – and, I could see, to Trottle also – that we were not dealing, to say the least, with a dishonest man.

“Before I offer any opinion on what I have heard,” he said, earnestly and anxiously, after Trottle had done, “I must be allowed, in justice to myself, to explain my own apparent connection with this very strange and very shocking business. I was the confidential legal adviser of the late Mr. Forley, and I am left his executor. Rather more than a fortnight back, when Mr. Forley was confined to his room by illness, he sent for me, and charged me to call and pay a certain sum of money here, to a man and woman whom I should find taking charge of the house. He said he had reasons for wishing the affair to be kept a secret. He begged me so to arrange my engagements that I could call at this place either on Monday last, or today, at dusk; and he mentioned that he would write to warn the people of my coming, without mentioning my name (Dalcott is my name), as he did not wish to expose me to any future importunities on the part of the man and woman. I need hardly tell you that this commission struck me as being a strange one; but, in my position with Mr. Forley, I had no resource but to accept it without asking questions, or to break off my long and friendly connection with my client. I chose the first alternative. Business prevented me from doing my errand on Monday last – and if I am here today, notwithstanding Mr. Forley’s unexpected death, it is emphatically because I understood nothing of the matter, on knocking at this door; and therefore felt myself bound, as executor, to clear it up. That, on my word of honour, is the whole truth, so far as I am personally concerned.”

“I feel quite sure of it, sir,” I answered.

“You mentioned Mr. Forley’s death, just now, as unexpected. May I inquire if you were present, and if he has left any last instructions?”

“Three hours before Mr. Forley’s death,” said Mr. Dalcott, “his medical attendant left him apparently in a fair way of recovery. The change for the worse took place so suddenly, and was accompanied by such severe suffering, to prevent him from communicating his last wishes to anyone. When I reached his house, he was insensible. I have since examined his papers. Not one of them refers to the present time or to the serious matter which now occupies us. In the absence of instructions I must act cautiously on what you have told me; but I will be rigidly fair and just at the same time. The first thing to be done,” he continued, addressing himself to Trottle, “is to hear what the man and woman, downstairs, have to say. If you can supply me with writing-materials, I will take their declarations separately on the spot, in your presence, and in the presence of the policeman who is watching the house. Tomorrow I will send copies of those declarations, accompanied by a full statement of the case, to Mr. and Mrs. Bayne in Canada (both of whom know me well as the late Mr. Forley’s legal adviser); and I will suspend all proceedings, on my part, until I hear from them, or from their solicitor in London. In the present posture of affairs this is all I can safely do.”

We could do no less than agree with him, and thank him for his frank and honest manner of meeting us. It was arranged that I should send over the writing-materials from my lodgings; and, to my unutterable joy and relief, it was also readily acknowledged that the poor little orphan boy could find no fitter refuge than my old arms were longing to offer him, and no safer protection for the night than my roof could give. Trottle hastened away upstairs, as actively as if he had been a young man, to fetch the child down.

And he brought him down to me without another moment of delay, and I went on my knees before the poor little Mite, and embraced him, and asked him if he would go with me to where I lived? He held me away for a moment, and his wan, shrewd little eyes looked sharp at me. Then he clung close to me all at once, and said:

“I’m a-going along with you, I am – and so I tell you!”

For inspiring the poor neglected child with this trust in my old self, I thanked Heaven, then, with all my heart and soul, and I thank it now!

I bundled the poor darling up in my own cloak, and I carried him in my own arms across the road. Peggy was lost in speechless amazement to behold me trudging out of breath upstairs, with a strange pair of poor little legs under my arm; but, she began to cry over the child the moment she saw him, like a sensible woman as she always was, and she still cried her eyes out over him in a comfortable manner, when he at last lay fast asleep, tucked up by my hands in Trottle’s bed.

“And Trottle, bless you, my dear man,” said I, kissing his hand, as he looked on: “the forlorn baby came to this refuge through you, and he will help you on your way to Heaven.”

Trottle answered that I was his dear mistress, and immediately went and put his head out at an open window on the landing, and looked into the back street for a quarter of an hour.

That very night, as I sat thinking of the poor child, and of another poor child who is never to be thought about enough at Christmas-time, the idea came into my mind which I have lived to execute, and in the realisation of which I am the happiest of women this day.

“The executor will sell that House, Trottle?” said I.

“Not a doubt of it, ma’am, if he can find a purchaser.”

“I’ll buy it.”

I have often seen Trottle pleased; but, I never saw him so perfectly enchanted as he was when I confided to him, which I did, then and there, the purpose that I had in view.

To make short of a long story – and what story would not be long, coming from the lips of an old woman like me, unless it was made short by main force! – I bought the House. Mrs. Bayne had her father’s blood in her; she evaded the opportunity of forgiving and generous reparation that was offered her, and disowned the child; but, I was prepared for that, and loved him all the more for having no one in the world to look to, but me.

I am getting into a flurry by being over-pleased, and I dare say I am as incoherent as need be. I bought the House, and I altered it from the basement to the roof, and I turned it into a Hospital for Sick Children.

Never mind by what degrees my little adopted boy came to the knowledge of all the sights and sounds in the streets, so familiar to other children and so strange to him; never mind by what degrees he came to be pretty, and childish, and winning, and companionable, and to have pictures and toys about him, and suitable playmates. As I write, I look across the road to my Hospital, and there is the darling (who has gone over to play) nodding at me out of one of the once lonely windows, with his dear chubby face backed up by Trottle’s waistcoat as he lifts my pet for “Grandma” to see.

Many an Eye I see in that House now, but it is never in solitude, never in neglect. Many an Eye I see in that House now, that is more and more radiant every day with the light of returning health. As my precious darling has changed beyond description for the brighter and the better, so do the not less precious darlings of poor women change in that House every day in the year. For which I humbly thank that Gracious Being whom the restorer of the Widow’s son and of the Ruler’s daughter, instructed all mankind to call their Father.

•  THE END  •

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

CONTENTS

The Mortals in the House
Charles Dickens

The Ghost in the Clock Room
Hesba Stretton

The Ghost in the Double Room
George Augustus Sala

The Ghost in the Picture Room
Adelaide Anne Procter

The Ghost in the Cupboard Room
Wilkie Collins

The Ghost in Master B.’s Room
Charles Dickens

The Ghost in the Garden Room
Elizabeth Gaskell

The Ghost in the Corner Room
Charles Dickens

All The Year Round
Christmas number 1859

THE MORTALS
IN THE HOUSE

Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a railway station: it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people – and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn morning.

The manner of my lighting on it was this.

I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop by the way, to look at the house. My health required a temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the usual discontented conviction on me that I hadn’t been to sleep at all; – upon which question, in the first imbecility of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by battle with the man who sat opposite me. That opposite man had had, through the night – as that opposite man always has – several legs too many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil and a pocketbook, and had been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became unbearable.

It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller and said:

“I beg your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in me?” For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty.

The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a lofty look of compassion for my insignificance:

“In you, sir? – B.”

“B, sir?” said I, growing warm.

“I have nothing to do with you, sir,” returned the gentleman; “pray let me listen – O.”

He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down.

At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication with the guard, is a serious position. The thought came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a Rapper: one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest respect, but whom I don’t believe in. I was going to ask him the question, when he took the bread out of my mouth.

“You will excuse me,” said the gentleman contemptuously, “if I am too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all about it. I have passed the night – as indeed I pass the whole of my time now – in spiritual intercourse.”

“Oh!” said I, somewhat snappishly.

“The conferences of the night began,” continued the gentleman, turning several leaves of his notebook, “with this message: ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners.’”

“Sound,” said I; “but, absolutely new?”

“New from spirits,” returned the gentleman.

I could only repeat my rather snappish “Oh!” and ask if I might be favoured with the last communication.

“‘A bird in the hand,’” said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, “‘is worth two in the Bosh.’”

“Truly I am of the same opinion,” said I; “but shouldn’t it be Bush?”

“It came to me, Bosh,” returned the gentleman.

The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. “My friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway carriage. How do you do? There are seventeen thousand four hundred and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like travelling.” Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific intelligence. “I am glad to see you, Amico. Come sta? Water will freeze when it is cold enough. Addio!” In the course of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop Butler had insisted on spelling his name, “Bubler,” for which offence against orthography and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots.

If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free air of Heaven.

By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they are sustained; the gentleman’s spiritual intercourse seemed to me as poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped to examine it attentively.

It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about the time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall, announcing that it was “to let on very reasonable terms, well furnished.” It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which had been extremely ill chosen.

It was easy to see that it was an avoided house – a house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire some half a mile off – a house that nobody would take. And the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted house.

No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summertime, I often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day’s work before breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep – in the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state, anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all tending – the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned occupation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour is the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the same association. Even a certain air that familiar household objects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover, I once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood beside my bed. His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched him. As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he did not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, as I thought – and there was no such thing.

For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly stateable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time. Any house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning; and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage than then.

I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his doorstep. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the house.

“Is it haunted?” I asked.

The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, “I say nothing.”

“Then it is haunted?”

“Well!” cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the appearance of desperation – “I wouldn’t sleep in it.”

“Why not?”

“If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to ring ’em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang ’em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why, then,” said the landlord, “I’d sleep in that house.”

“Is anything seen there?”

The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former appearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for “Ikey!”

The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair way – if it were not pruned – of covering his head and over-running his boots.

“This gentleman wants to know,” said the landlord, “if anything’s seen at the Poplars.”

“’Ooded woman with a howl,” said Ikey, in a state of great freshness.

“Do you mean a cry?”

“I mean a bird, sir.”

“A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me! Did you ever see her?”

“I seen the howl.”

“Never the woman?”

“Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together.”

“Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?”

“Lord bless you, sir! Lots.”

“Who?”

“Lord bless you, sir! Lots.”

“The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his shop?”

“Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn’t go a-nigh the place. No!” observed the young man, with considerable feeling; “he an’t overwise, an’t Perkins, but he an’t such a fool as that.”

(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins’s knowing better.)

“Who is – or who was – the hooded woman with the owl? Do you know?”

“Well!” said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he scratched his head with the other, “they say, in general, that she was murdered, and the howl he ’ooted the while.”

This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see, had been took with fits and held down in ’em, after seeing the hooded woman. Also, that a personage, dimly described as “a hold chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby, unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, ‘Why not? and even if so, mind your own business,’” had encountered the hooded woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by the landlord), Anywheres.

Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, between which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; and although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything of them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-traveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, I had lived in two haunted houses – both abroad. In one of these, an old Italian palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account, I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly: notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms, which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which I slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, and did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper in the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time to be suspected of that commercial venture! All this wise talk was perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life.

To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins’s brother-in-law (a whip and harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and by Ikey.

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man’s hands whenever it’s not turned to man’s account. The kitchens and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, Master B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most.

“Who was Master B.?” I asked. “Is it known what he did while the owl hooted?”

“Rang the bell,” said Ikey.

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to which their wires were conducted: as “Picture Room,”  “Double Room,”  “Clock Room,” and the like. Following Master B.’s bell to its source I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of himself.

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, but sparely. Some of the furniture – say, a third – was as old as the house; the rest was of various periods within the last half-century. I was referred to a corn-chandler in the marketplace of the county town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stable-man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attendant last enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence’s Union Female Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement.

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2 Tuppintock’s Gardens, Liggs’s Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery window, and rearing an oak.

We went, before dark, through all the natural – as opposed to supernatural – miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and descended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don’t know what it is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the last people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen “Eyes,” and was in hysterics.

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl had “seen Eyes” (no other explanation could ever be drawn from her), before nine, and by ten o’clock had had as much vinegar applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon.

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o’clock Master B.’s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled until the house resounded with his lamentations!

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don’t know; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.’s neck – in other words, breaking his bell short off – and silencing that young gentleman, as to my experience and belief, forever.

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had painted Master B.’s room and baulked the paper, and taken Master B.’s bell away and baulked the ringing, and if they could suppose that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no better behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits? – I say I would become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl’s suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us like a parochial petrifaction.

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with. Combined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those specimens, so that they didn’t fall, but hung upon her face and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the ’Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes regarding her silver watch.

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of hooded women. Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I myself have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. Try this in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own comfortable fireside, in the life of the night. You can fill any house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your nervous system.

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their noses in a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. If Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with.

It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for the moment in one’s own person, by a real owl, and then to show the owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells, and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and recesses. We changed servants, and it was no better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my sister: “Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we must give this up.”

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, “No, John, don’t give it up. Don’t be beaten, John. There is another way.”

“And what is that?” said I.

“John,” returned my sister, “if we are not to be driven out of this house, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into our own hands.”

“But, the servants,” said I.

“Have no servants,” said my sister, boldly.

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful. “We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and we know they are frightened and do infect one another,” said my sister.

“With the exception of Bottles,” I observed, in a meditative tone.

(The deaf stable-man. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.)

“To be sure, John,” assented my sister; “except Bottles. And what does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever given, or taken! None.”

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o’clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles’s way after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, and had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie.

“And so,” continued my sister, “I exempt Bottles. And considering, John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most reliable and willing – form a Society here for three months – wait upon ourselves and one another – live cheerfully and socially – and see what happens.”

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, and went into her plan with the greatest ardour.

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and mustered in the haunted house.

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun? On his saying, “Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her,” I begged the favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine.

“She’s a true one, sir,” said Ikey, after inspecting a double-barrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. “No mistake about her, sir.”

“Ikey,” said I, “don’t mention it; I have seen something in this house.”

“No, sir?” he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. “’Ooded lady, sir?”

“Don’t be frightened,” said I. “It was a figure rather like you.”

“Lord, sir?”

“Ikey!” said I, shaking hands with him warmly: I may say affectionately; “if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I see it again!”

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd Girl’s case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any question of this kind.

To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined by the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the floating rumours concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.: with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of these ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words. We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceive – which we considered pretty much the same thing – and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we would be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding was established, that anyone who heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that then present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break silence.

We were, in number and in character, as follows:

First – to get my sister and myself out of the way – there were we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I drew Master B.’s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a better man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been my wife, I never could have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine, usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be “fast” (another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before now, if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business earnestness, and “goes in” – to use an expression of Alfred’s – for Woman’s mission, Woman’s rights, Woman’s wrongs, and everything that is woman’s with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and ought not to be. “Most praise-worthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you!” I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of her at the Picture-Room door, “but don’t overdo it. And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don’t fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not all Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it.” However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, “slung his hammock,” as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. He is grey now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago – nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried, “You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!” That he is! And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal’s skin, you would be vaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him one “Nat Beaver,” an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. Mr. Beaver, with a thickset wooden face and figure, and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor: who came down, in an amateur capacity, “to go through with it,” as he said, and who plays whist better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end.

I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pastry-cook and confectioner. Starling and I were Cook’s Mate, turn and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook “pressed” Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of outdoor sport and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.

We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship’s lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me that he “was going aloft to the main truck,” to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be “hailing a ghost” presently, if it wasn’t done. So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to “overhaul” something mysterious in the garden.

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed anything. All we knew was, if anyone’s room were haunted, no one looked the worse for it. Christmas came, and we had noble Christmas fare (“all hands” had been pressed for the pudding), and Twelfth Night came, and our store of mincemeat was ample to hold out to the last day of our time, and our cake was quite a glorious sight. It was then, as we all sat round the table and the fire, that I recited the terms of our compact, and called, first, for …

THE GHOST
IN THE CLOCK ROOM

My cousin, John Herschel, turned rather red, and turned rather white, and said he could not deny that his room had been haunted. The Spirit of a woman had pervaded it. On being asked by several voices whether the Spirit had taken any terrible or ugly shape, my cousin drew his wife’s arm through his own, and said decidedly, “No.” To the question, had his wife been aware of the Spirit? he answered, “Yes.” Had it spoken? “Oh dear, yes!” As to the question, “What did it say?” he replied apologetically, that he could have wished his wife would have undertaken the answer, for she would have executed it much better than he. However, she had made him promise to be the mouthpiece of the Spirit, and was very anxious that he should withhold nothing; so, he would do his best, subject to her correction. “Suppose the Spirit,” added my cousin, as he finally prepared himself for beginning, “to be my wife here, sitting among us:”

•   •   •

I was an orphan from my infancy, with six elder half-sisters. A long and persistent course of training imposed upon me the yoke of a second and diverse nature, and I grew up as much the child of my eldest sister, Barbara, as I was the daughter of my deceased parents.

Barbara, in all her private plans, as in all her domestic decrees, inexorably decided that her sisters must be married; and, so powerful had been her single but inflexible will, that each of them had been advantageously settled, excepting myself, upon whom she built her highest hopes.

Most people know a character such as I had grown – a mindless, flirting girl, whose acknowledged vocation was the hunting and catching of an eligible match; rather pretty, lively, and just sentimental enough to make me a very pleasant companion for an idle hour or two, as I exacted and enjoyed the slight attentions an unemployed man is pleased to offer. There was scarcely a young man in the neighbourhood with whom I had not coquetted. I had served my seven years’ apprenticeship to my profession, and had passed my twenty-fifth birthday without having achieved my purpose, when Barbara’s patience was wearied, and she spoke to me with a decision and explicitness we had always avoided; for, on some subjects, it is better to have a silent understanding than an expressed opinion.

“Stella,” she said, solemnly, “you are now five-and-twenty, and every one of your sisters were in homes of their own before they were your age; yet none of them had your advantages or your talents. But I must tell you frankly your chances are on the wane, and, unless you exert yourself, our plans must fail. I have observed an error into which you have fallen, and which I have not mentioned before. Besides your very open and indiscriminate flirtations – which young men regard only as an amusing pastime – you have a way with you of rallying and laughing at anyone who begins to look really serious. Now your opportunity rests upon the moment when they begin to be earnest in their manner. Then you should seem confused and silenced; you ought to lose your vivacity, and half avoid them; seeming almost frightened and quite bewildered by the change. A little melancholy goes a deal further than the utmost cheerfulness; for, if a man believes you can live without him, he will not give you a second thought. I could name half a dozen most eligible settlements you have lost by laughing at the wrong minute. Mortify a man’s self-love, Stella, and you can never heal the wound.”

I paused for a minute or two before I answered; for the original suppressed nature that I had inherited from my unknown mother, was stirring unwonted feeling in my heart.

“Barbara,” I answered, with timidity, “among all the people I have known, I never saw one whom I could reverence and look up to; nor, (I am half ashamed to use the word,) whom I could love.”

“I do not wonder you are ashamed,” said Barbara, severely. “At your age, you cannot expect to fall in love like a girl of seventeen. But I tell you, definitely and distinctly, it is necessary that you should marry; and we had better work in concert now. So, if you will decide upon anyone, I will give you every assistance in my power, and, if you will only concentrate your wishes and abilities, you cannot fail. Propinquity is all you require, if you once make up your mind.”

“I do not like anyone I know,” I replied, moodily; “and I have no chance with those who have known me; so I decide upon besieging Martin Fraser.”

Barbara received this announcement with a snort of derisive anger.

The neighbourhood in which we lived was a populous iron district, where, though there were few families of ancient birth or high standing, there were many of our own station, forming a pleasant, hospitable, social class. Our residences were commodious modern houses, built at convenient distances from each other. Some of these, including our own, were the property of an infirm old man, who dwelt in his family mansion, the last of the many gabled, half-timbered, Elizabethan houses which had stood upon the undiscovered iron and coal fields. The last relics of the rural aristocracy of the district, Mr. Fraser and his son led a strictly recluse life, avoiding all communication with their neighbours, whose gaiety and hospitality they could not reciprocate. No one intruded upon their privacy, excepting for the most necessary business transactions. The elder man was almost bedridden, and the younger was said to be entirely absorbed in scientific pursuits. No wonder that Barbara laughed; but her ridicule only excited and confirmed my determination; and the very difficulty of the enterprise gave it the interest that all my other efforts had lacked. I argued obstinately with Barbara till I won her consent.

“You must write to old Mr. Fraser,” I said. “Do not mention the young one, and say your youngest sister is studying astronomy, and, as he possesses the only telescope in the country, you will be greatly indebted to him if he would let her see it.”

“There is one thing in your favour,” Barbara remarked, as she sat down to write; “the old gentleman was once engaged to your mother.”

Oh! I am humbled to think how shrewdly we managed our business, and extorted a kind invitation from Mr. Fraser to the “daughter of his old friend, Maria Horley.”

It was an evening in February when, accompanied only by an old servant – for Barbara was not included in the invitation – I first crossed the threshold of Martin Fraser’s home.

An air of profound peace pervaded the dwelling. I entered it with a vague, uneasy consciousness of unfitness and treachery. My attendant remained in the entrance hall, and, as I was conducted to the library, a feeling of shyness stole over me, which was prompting me to retreat; but, with the recollection that I was becomingly dressed, I regained my confidence, and advanced smilingly into the room. It was a low, oaken-panelled room, sombre, with massive antique furniture that threw deep and curious shadows around, in the flickering light of a fire, by which stood, instead of the recluse, Martin Fraser whom I expected to meet, a quaint, little child, dressed in the garb of a woman, and with a woman’s self-possession and ease of manner.

“I am very glad to see you. You are welcome,” she said, advancing to meet me, and extending her hand to lead me to a seat. She clasped my hand with a firm and peculiar grasp; a clasp of guidance and assistance, quite unlike the ordinary timidity or inertness of a child’s manner, and, placing me in a chair before the fire, she seated herself nearly opposite me.

I made a few embarrassed remarks, to which she replied, and then I noticed her furtively and in silence. A huge black retriever lay motionless at her feet, which rested upon him, covered with the folds of the long robe-like dress she wore. There was an expression of placidity, slightly pensive, upon her tiny features, heightened by a peculiar habit of closing the eyes, which is rarely seen in children, and always gives them a statuesque appearance. It seemed as though she had withdrawn herself into a solitary self-communing, of which there could be no expression either by words or looks. I grew afraid of the silent, weird-like creature, sitting without apparent breath or motion in the dancing firelight, and I was glad when the door opened, and the object of my pursuit entered. I looked at him inquisitively, for I had recovered from my sense of treachery, and it amused me to think how unconscious he was of our definite plans concerning him. Hitherto the young men I had met had a fear of being caught, greater than my desire to catch them, so our contest had been an open and equal one; but Martin Fraser knew nothing of the wiles of woman. I remembered, that my brown hair fell in curls round my face, and that my dark blue eyes were considered expressive, when I looked up to meet his gaze; but when he accosted me with an air of grave preoccupation and of courteous indifference that would not permit him to notice my personal charms, I trembled to think that all I knew of astronomy was what I had learned at school in Mangnall’s Questions.

The grave, austere man said at once:

“My father, Mr. Fraser, is altogether confined to his own rooms, but he desires the favour of a visit from you. Upon me devolves the honour of showing you what you require to view through the telescope, and, while I adjust it, will you oblige him by conversing with him for a few minutes? Lucy Fraser will accompany you.”

The child rose, and, taking my hand again in her firm hold, led me to the old man’s sitting-room.

“You are like your mother, child,” he said, after looking at me long; “you have her face and eyes; not a whit like your sister Barbara. How did you come by your out-of-the-way name, Stella?”

“My father named me after a favourite racer,” I answered, for the first time giving the simple derivation of my name.

“Just like him,” laughed the old man; “I remember the horse well. I knew your father as well as I do my son Martin. You have seen my son, young lady? Yes, I thought so; and this is my granddaughter, Lucy Fraser, the last chip of the old block; for my son is not a marrying man, and we have adopted her as our heir, and she is always to keep her name, and be the founder of another line of Frasers.”

The child stood with pensive, downcast eyes, as though already bowed down by her weight of cares and responsibilities; the old man chatted on, till the deep tones of an organ resounded through the house.

“My uncle is ready for us,” she said to me.

We paused at the library door, for I laid my hand restrainingly on Lucy Fraser’s shoulder, and stood listening to the wonderful music the organ poured forth. It was such as I had never heard before; roaring and swelling like the ceaseless surging of the sea; and, here and there, a single wailing note which seemed to pierce me with an inexpressible pain. When it had ended, I stood before Martin Fraser silent and subdued.

The telescope had been carried out to the end of the terrace, where the house could not intercept our view; and thither Lucy Fraser and I followed the astronomer. We stood upon the highest point of an imperceptibly rising tableland, the horizon of which was from twenty to forty miles distant. An infinite dome of sky was expanded above us, an ocean of firmament of which the dwellers among houses and mountains can have but little conception. The troops of glittering stars, the dark, shrouding night, the unaccustomed voices of my companions, deepened the awe that oppressed me, and, as I stood between them, I became as earnest and occupied as themselves. I forgot everything but the incomprehensible grandeur of the universe revealed to me, and the majestic sweep of the planets across the field of the telescope. What a freshness of awe and delight came over me! What floods of thought came, wave upon wave, across my mind! And how insignificant I felt before this wilderness of worlds!

I asked, with the humility of a child – for all affectation had been charmed away – if I might come again soon?

Martin Fraser met my uplifted eyes with a keen and penetrating look. I did not quail under it, for I was thinking only of the stars. As he looked, his mouth relaxed into a pleased and genial smile.

“We shall always be glad to see you,” he replied.

Barbara was sitting up for me when I returned, and was about to address me with some worldly speculative remark, when I interrupted her quickly. “Not one word, Barbara, not one question, or I never go near The Holmes again.”

I cannot dwell upon details. I went often to the house. Into the dull routine of Mr. Fraser’s and Lucy’s life, I came (I suppose) like a streak of sunshine, lighting up the cloud that had been creeping over them. To both, I brought wholesome excitement and merriment, and so I became dear and necessary to them. But over myself, there came a great and an almost incredible change. I had been frivolous, self-seeking, soulless; but the solemn study I had begun with other studies that came in its train, awoke me from my inanity, to a life of mental activity. I absolutely forgot my purpose; for I had at once perceived that Martin Fraser was as distant and as self-poised as the Polar Star. So I became to him merely a diligent and insatiable pupil, and he was to me only a grave and exacting master, to be propitiated by my most profound reverence. Each time I crossed the threshold of his quiet home, all the worldliness and coquetry of my nature fell from my soul like an unfit garment, and I entered as into a temple, simple, real, and worshipping.

The happy summer passed away, the autumn crept on, and for eight months I had visited the Frasers constantly, and had never, by word, or look, or tone, intentionally deceived them.

Lucy Fraser and I had long looked forward to an eclipse of the moon, which was visible early in October. I left my home alone in the twilight of that evening, my thoughts dwelling upon the coming pleasure, when, just as I drew near The Holmes, there overtook me one of the young men with whom I had flirted in former times.

“Good evening, Stella,” he exclaimed familiarly, “I have not seen you for a long time. Ah! you are pursuing other game I suppose; but are you not aiming rather too high this time? Well, you are in luck just now, for if Martin Fraser does not come forward, there is George Yorke, just come home from Australia with an immense fortune, and he is longing to remind you of some tender passages between you before he went out. He was showing us a lock of your hair after dinner at the Crown yesterday.”

I listened to this speech with no outward demonstration; but the reality and mortification of my degradation was gnawing me; and, hastening onward to my sanctuary, I sought the presence of my little Lucy Fraser.

“I have done wrong today,” she said. “I have been deceitful. I think I ought to tell you, that you may not think too well of me; but I want you to love me as much as ever. I have not told a story, but I have acted one.”

Lucy Fraser leaned her tiny brow upon her tiny fingers, and her eyes closed in silent self-reading.

“My uncle says,” she continued, looking up for a moment, and blushing like a woman, “that women are, perhaps, less truthful than men. Because they cannot do things by strength, they do them by cunning. They live falsely. They deceive their own selves. Sometimes women deceive for amusement. He has taught me some words which I shall understand better someday :

To thine own self be true,

And it will follow as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

I stood before the child abashed and speechless, listening with burning cheeks.

“Grandpapa showed me a verse in the Bible which is awful to me. Listen. ‘I find more bitter than death, the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her.’”

I hid my face in my hands though no eye was on me; for Lucy Fraser had veiled hers with their tremulous lids; and, as I stood confounded and self-accused, a hand was laid upon my arm, and Martin Fraser’s voice said,

“The eclipse, Stella!”

I started at this first utterance of my name, which he had never spoken before. I was completely unnerved, when I found that Lucy Fraser was not to accompany us on the terrace. As Martin Fraser stooped to see if the telescope were rightly adjusted for my use, I shrank from him.

“What is the meaning of this, Stella?” he exclaimed, as I burst into tears. “Shall I speak to you now, Stella?” he said, “while there is yet time, before you leave us. Does your heart cling to us as our hearts cling to you, till we dare not think of the void there will be in our home when you are gone? We did not live before we knew you. You are our health and our life. I have noted you as I never watched a woman before, and I find no fault in you, my pearl, my jewel, my star. Hitherto, woman and deceit have been inseparably conjoined in my mind; but your innocent heart is the home of truth. I know you have had no thought of this, and my vehemence alarms you; but tell me plainly if you can love me?”

He had taken me in his arms, and my head rested against his strongly throbbing heart. His sternness and austerity were gone, and he offered me the undiminished wealth of a love that had not been wasted in fickle likings. My success was perfect, and how gladly would I have remained there till my silence had grown eloquent! But Barbara rose to my memory, and Lucy Fraser’s words still tingled in my ears. The black shadow eating away the heart of the moon seemed to pause in its measured motion. All heaven looked down upon us through the solemn stars. The rustling leaves were hushed, and the scented autumn breeze ceased for a minute; a cloud of truth-compelling witnesses echoed the cry of my awakened conscience. I withdrew myself, sad and shame-stricken.

“Martin Fraser,” I said, “your words constrain me to be true. I am the falsest woman you ever met. I came here with the sole and definite intention of attracting you; and if you had ever gone out into our circle, you would have heard of me only as a flirt, a heartless coquette. I dare not bring falsehood to your fireside, and the bitterness of death to your heart. Do not speak to me now; have patience, and I will write to you!”

He would have detained me, but I sprang away, and, running swiftly down the avenue, I passed out of my Eden, with the sentence of perpetual banishment in my heart. The eclipse was at the full, and a horror of darkness and dismay engulfed me, as I stood shivering and sobbing under the restless poplars.

Barbara met me as I hastened to hide myself in my own room, and, with her cold glittering eyes fixed inquiringly on me, said,

“Well, what is the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” I answered, “only I am tired of astronomy, and I shall not go to The Holmes again. It is of no use.”

“I always said so,” she replied. “However, to bring matters to a crisis, I gave Mr. Fraser notice we should leave at Christmas. Then you are satisfied that it would be a waste of time to continue going there?”

“Quite,” I said, and passed on to my room, to learn, through the weary hours of that night, what desolation and hopelessness meant.

The next day I wrote to Martin Fraser, in every word sacred truth, excepting that, self-deceived, and with a false pride even in my utter humiliation, I told him I had not loved, and did not love him.

The first object upon which my eyes rested every joyless morning, were the tall poplar trees, waving round his house, and beckoning maddeningly to me. The last thing I saw at night was the steady light in his library, shining like a star among the laurels. But, him I could never see; for my letter had been too explicit to suggest a hope; and I could not, for shame, attempt to meet him in his walks. All that remained, for me was to return to my former life, if I could by any means feed my hungering and fainting soul with the husks that had once satisfied me.

George Yorke renewed his addresses to me, offering me wealth beyond our expectations. It was a sore temptation; for before me lay a monotonous and fretted life with Barbara, and a solitary, uncared for old age. Why could not I live as thousands of other women, who were not unhappy wives? But I remembered a passage I had read in one of Martin’s books: “It is not always our duty to marry; but it is always our duty to abide by right; not to purchase happiness by loss of honour; not to avoid unweddedness by untruthfulness;” and, setting my face steadily to meet the bleakness and bareness of my lot, I rejected the proposal.

Barbara was terribly exasperated; and very miserable we both were, until she accepted an invitation to spend the Christmas with one of her sisters, while I was left, with my old nurse, to superintend the moving of the furniture. I wished to linger in our old home till the last moment; and I was glad to be alone on Christmas day in the deserted house, that, in solitude, I might make my mental record of all its associations and remembrances, before the place knew me no more. So, on Christmas-eve, I wandered through the empty rooms, not more empty than my heart, which was being dismantled of its old memories and newer but deeper tendernesses, until I paused mechanically before the window, whence I had often looked across to The Holmes.

The air had been dense and murky all day, with thickly falling snow; but the storm was over, and the moonless sky bright with stars: while the glistening snow reflected light enough to show me where stood, like a dark mass against the sky, the house of Martin Fraser. His room was dark, as it had been for many nights before; but old Mr. Fraser’s window, which was nearer to our house, emitted a brilliant light across the white lawn. I was exhausted with over-work and over-excitement, and leaning there, pressing my heated cheeks against the frosty panes, I rehearsed to myself all the incidents of my intercourse with them; and there followed through my mind picture after picture, dream within dream, visions of the happiness that might have been mine.

As I stood thus, with tears stealing through the clasped hands that covered my eyes, my nurse came in to close the shutters. She started nervously when she saw me.

“I thought you were your mother,” she exclaimed. “I have seen her stand just so, hundreds of times.”

“Susan, how was it that my mother did not marry Mr. Fraser?”

“They were like other people – didn’t understand one another, much as they were in love,” she answered. “Mr. Fraser’s first marriage had been for money, and was not a happy one, so he had grown something stern. They quarrelled, and your mother was provoked to marry Mr. Gretton, your father. Well! Mr. Fraser became an old man all at once, and scarcely ever left his own house; so that she never saw him again, near as he lived: though I have often seen her, when your father was off to balls or races or public meetings, standing here just as you stood now. Only the last time you were in her arms, she was leaning against this window when I brought you in to say good night, and she whispered softly, looking up to Heaven, ‘I have tried to do my duty to my husband and to my little child!’”

“Nurse.” I said, “leave me; do not shut the window yet.” It was no longer a selfish emotion that possessed me. I had been murmuring that there was no sorrow like my sorrow; but my mother’s error had been graver, and her trials deeper than mine. The burden she had borne had weighed her down into an early grave; but it had not passed away from earth with her. It rested now, heavily augmented by her death, upon the heart of the aged man, who, doubtless, in the contemplative time, was reviewing the events of his past life, and this, chiefly, because it was the saddest of them all. I longed to see him once again to see him who had mourned my mother’s death more bitterly and lastingly than any other being, and I determined to steal secretly across the fields, and up the avenue, and, if his window were uncurtained as its brightness suggested, to look upon him once more in remembrance of my mother.

I hesitated upon our doorstep, as though my mother and myself were both concerned in some doubtful enterprise; but, with the hardihood of my nature, I drove away the scruple, and passed on into the frosty night.

Yes, the window was uncurtained. I could tell that at the avenue gate; and I should see him, whom my mother loved, lying alone and uncheered upon his couch, as he would lie now all his weary years through, till Lucy Fraser was old enough to be a daughter to him. And then I remembered a rumour that the old man’s grandchild was dying, which Susan had told me sorrowfully an hour or two ago; and, growing bewildered, I ran on swiftly until I stood before the window.

It was no longer an invalid’s room; the couch was gone and the sheltering screen, and Lucy’s little chair within it. Neither were there any appliances of modern luxury or wealth; no softness, nor colouring, nor gorgeousness: it was simply the library and workroom of a busy student, who was forgetful and negligent of comfort. Yet, such as it was, my heart recognised it as home. There Martin sat, deep, as was his wont, in complicated calculations, and frequent reference to the books that were strewn about.

Could it be possible that yonder absorbed man had once spoken passionately to me of love, and now he sat in light, and warmth, and indifference, almost within reach of my hand, while I, like an outcast, stood in cold, and darkness, and despair? Was there, then, no echo of my footstep lingering about the threshold, and no shadowy memory of my face coming between him and his studies? I had forfeited the right to sit beside him, reading the observations his pencil noted down, and chasing away the gloom that was deepening on his nature; and I had not the hope, which would have been really a hope and a consolation to me, that some other woman, more true and more worthy, would by-and-by own my forfeited right.

I heard a bell tinkle, and Martin rose and left the room. I wondered if I should have time to creep in, and steal but one scrap of paper which had been thrown aside carelessly; but, as I tremblingly held the handle of the glass door, he returned, bearing in his arms the emaciated form of little Lucy Fraser. He had wrapped her carefully in a large cloak, and now, as he wheeled a chair to the fire and placed her in it, every rigid lineament of his countenance was softened into tenderness. I stretched out my arms towards him with an intense yearning to be gathered again to his noble heart, and have this chill and darkness dissipated; I turned away, with this last tender image of him graven on my memory, to retrace my steps to my desolate home.

There was a sudden twittering in the ivy overhead, and a little bird, pushed out of its nest into the cold night air, came fluttering down, and flew against the lighted panes. In an instant, his dog, which had been uneasy at my vicinity before, stood baying at the window, and I had only time to escape and hide myself among the shrubs, when he opened it, and stepped out upon the terrace. The dog tracked down the path by which I had come, barking joyfully as he careered along the open fields; and, as Martin looked round, I cowered more closely into the deepest shadows. I knew he must find me; for my footmarks were plain upon the newly-fallen snow, and an extravagant sensation of shame and gladness overpowered me. I saw him lose the footprints once or twice, but at last he was upon the right trace, and, lifting the boughs beneath which I had hidden, he found me among the laurels. I was crouching, and he stooped down curiously.

“It is Stella,” I said, faintly.

“Stella?” he echoed.

He lifted me from the ground like a truant child, whom he had expected home every hour, carried me across the terrace into the library, and set me down in the light and warmth of his own hearth. One little kiss to the child, whose eyes beamed with a strange light upon us; and then, taking both my hands in his, he bent down and read my face. I met his gaze unshrinkingly, eye to eye. We sounded the depths of each other’s heart in that long, unwavering look. Never more could there be doubt or mistrust; never again deception or misconstruction, between us.

Our star had arisen, and full orbed, rounded into perfection, shed a soft and brilliant light upon the years to come. Chime after chime, like the marriage peal of our souls, came the sound of distant bells across the snow, and roused us from our reverie.

“I thought I had lost you altogether,” said Martin to me. “I believed you would come back to me, somehow, at some time; but this evening I heard that you were gone, and I was telling Lucy Fraser so, not long since. She has been pining to see you.”

Now, he suffered me to take the child upon my lap, and she nestled closely to me, with a weary sigh, resting her head upon my bosom. Just then, we heard the carol singers coming up the avenue, and Martin drew the curtains over the window, before which they stationed themselves to sing the legend of the miraculous star in the East.

When the singers ended and raised their cry of “We wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!” he went out into the porch to speak to them, and I hid my face in the child’s curls, and thanked God who had so changed me.

“But what is this, Martin?” I cried in terror, as I raised my head, on his return.

The child’s downcast eyes were closely sealed, and her little firm hand had grown lax and nerveless. Insensible and breathless, she lay in my arms like a withering flower.

“It is only fainting,” said Martin; “she has been drooping ever since you left us, Stella; and my only hope of her recovery rests in your loving care.”

All that night, I sat with the little child resting on my bosom; revived from her deathlike swoon, and sleeping calmly in my arms because she was already beginning to share in the life and joy and brightness of my heart. There was perfect silence and tranquillity enclosing us in a blissful oasis, interrupted only once by the entrance of my nurse, who had been found by Martin in a state of the utmost perplexity and alarm.

The happy Christmas morning dawned. I asked my nurse to arrange my hair in the style in which my mother used to wear hers. And when, after a long conversation with Susan, Mr. Fraser received me as his daughter with great emotion and affection, and oftener called me Maria than Stella, I was satisfied to be identified with my mother. Then, in the evening, sitting amongst them, a passion of trembling and weeping seized me, which could only be soothed by their fondest assurances. After which I sang them some old songs, with nothing in them but their simple melody; and Mr. Fraser talked freely of former years and of the times to come; and Lucy’s eyes almost laughed.

Then Martin took me home along the familiar path, which I had so often traversed alone and fearless; but the excess of gladness made me timid, and at every unusual sound I crept closer to him, with a sweet sense of being protected.

One sunny day in spring, with blithe Lucy and triumphant dictatress Barbara for my bridesmaids, I accepted, humbly and joyfully, the blessed lot of being Martin Fraser’s wife. And even in the scenes of the empty-headed folly of my girlhood, I thenceforth tried to be better, and to do my duty in love, gratitude, and devotion. Only, at first, Martin pretended not to believe that on that night I stole out to have a last glimpse, not of him, but of his father: I knowing nothing of the change that had transformed Mr. Fraser’s sitting-room into his own study.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE GHOST
IN THE DOUBLE ROOM

was the next Ghost on my list. I had noted the rooms down in the order in which they were drawn, and this was the order we were to follow. I invoked the Spectre of the Double Room, with the least possible delay, because we all observed John Herschel’s wife to be much affected, and we all refrained, as if by common consent, from glancing at one another. Alfred Starling, with the tact and good feeling which are never wanting in him, briskly responded to my call, and declared the Double Room to be haunted by the Ghost of the Ague.

“What is the Ghost of the Ague like?” asked everyone, when there had been a laugh.

“Like?” said Alfred. “Like the Ague.”

“What is the Ague like?” asked somebody.

“Don’t you know?” said Alfred. “I’ll tell you.”

•   •   •

We had both, Tilly – by which affectionate diminutive I mean my adored Matilda – and your humble servant, agreed that it was not only inexpedient, but in the highest degree contrary to the duty we owed to the community at large, to wait any longer. I had a hundred arguments to bring forward against the baleful effects of long engagements; and Tilly began to quote poetry of a morbid tendency. Our parents and guardians entertained different opinions. My uncle Bonsor wanted us to wait till the shares in the Caerlyon-upon-Usk Something or Other Company, in which undertaking I was vicariously interested, were at a premium – they have been at a hopeless discount for years. Tilly’s papa and mama called Tilly a girl and self a boy, when we were nothing whatsoever of the kind, and only the most ardent and faithful pair of young lovers that had existed since the time of Abelard and Heloise, or Florio and Biancafiore. As, however, our parents and guardians were not made of adamant or Roman cement, we were not permitted to add another couple to the catalogue of historically unfortunate lovers. Uncle Bonsor and Mr. and Mrs. Captain Standfast (my Tilly’s papa and mama) at last relented. Much was effected towards this desirable consummation by my arguments against celibacy, contained in eight pages foolscap, and of which I made copies in triplicate for the benefit of our hard-hearted relatives. More was done by Tilly threatening to poison herself. Most, however, was accomplished by our both making up our minds to tell a piece thereof to our parents and guardians, and telling them that if they did not acquiesce in our views, we would run away and get married at the very first opportunity. There was no just cause or impediment. We were young, healthy, and had plenty of money between us. Loads of money – as we thought then. As to personal appearance, Tilly was simply Lovely, and my whiskers had not been ill spoken of in the best society in Dover. So it was all arranged, and on the twenty-seventh of December, eighteen fifty dash, being the morrow of Boxing day, Alfred Starling, gent., was to be united in the holy bonds of matrimony to Matilda, only daughter of Captain Rockleigh Standfast, R.N., of Snargatestone Villa, Dover.

I had been left an orphan at a very early age, and the guardian of my moderate property (including the shares in the Caerlyon-upon-Usk Something or Other concern), and guardian of my person, was my uncle Bonsor. He sent me to Merchant Taylors’, and afterwards for a couple of years to college at Bonn, on the Rhine. He afterwards – to keep me out of mischief, I believe – paid a handsome premium for my entrance into the counting-house of Messrs. Baum, Brömm, and Boompjees, German merchants, of Finsbury Circus, under whose tutelage I did as little as I liked in the corresponding department, and was much envied by my brother salaried clerks. My uncle Bonsor resided chiefly at Dover, where he was making large sums of money by government contracts, whose objects apparently consisted in boring holes in the chalk and then filling them up again. My uncle was, perhaps, the most respectable man in Europe, and was well known in the city of London as “Responsible Bonsor.” He was one of those men who are confidently said to be “good for any amount.” He had a waistcoat – worn winter and summer – a waistcoat that wavered in hue between a sunny buff and a stony drab, which looked so ineffably respectable that I am certain if it had been presented at the pay-counter of any bank in Lombard street the clerks would have cashed it at once for any amount of notes or gold demanded. My uncle Bonsor entrenched himself behind this astonishing garment as behind a fortification, and fired guns of respectability at you. That waistcoat had carried resolutions, assuaged the ire of indignant shareholders, given stability to wavering schemes, and brought in thumping subscriptions for burnt-out Caffres and destitute Fijis. It was a safe waistcoat, and Bonsor was a safe man. He was mixed up with a good many companies; but whenever a projector or promoter came to him with a plan, my responsible uncle would confer with his waistcoat, and within five minutes would either tell the projector or promoter to walk out of his counting-house, or put his name down for a thousand pounds. And the scheme was made that Responsible Bonsor put his name down for.

It was arranged that I was to go down to Dover on Christmas-eve, staying at my uncle’s, and that we were to dine all together at Captain Standfast’s on Christmas day. Boxing day was to be devoted to bonnets on the part of my beloved, and to the signing and sealing of certain releases, deeds, covenants, and other documents connected with law and money, on the part of self, my uncle, and my prospective papa in-law, and on the twenty-seventh we were to be Married.

Of course my connection with Messrs. Baum, Brömm, and Boompjees was brought to an amicable termination. I gave the clerks a grand treat at a hostelry in Newgate street, and had the pleasure of receiving, at a somewhat late hour, and at least eighty-seven times, a unanimous choral assurance, not unaccompanied by hiccups, that I was a “jolly good fellow.” I was unwillingly compelled to defer my departure for Dover till the 8.30 p.m. express mail on Christmas eve, being engaged to a farewell dinner at four, at the mansion of our Mr. Max Boompjees, junior and dinner-giving partner in the firm, in Finsbury Circus. A capital dinner it was, and very merry. I left the gentlemen over their wine, and had just time to pop into a cab and catch the mail train at London Bridge.

You know how quickly time passes on a railway journey, when one has dined comfortably before starting. I seemed to have been telegraphed down to Dover, so rapidly were the eighty odd miles skimmed over. But it now becomes my duty to impart to you the knowledge of my Terrible Misfortune. In my youth, a little boy at a preparatory school near Ashford, I had experienced a touch of the dreadful disease of the Kentish marshes. How long this malady had lain concealed in my frame, and by what accident of time or temperature it became again evolved, I had no means of judging, but by the time the train arrived at Dover I was in the throes of acute Ague.

It was a horrible, persistent, regular shivering and shaking, a racking palsy, a violent tremor, accompanied, I am sure, by fever, for my temples throbbed, and I experienced an almost deafening, jarring, rattling noise in the head. My blood seemed all in revolt, and surging backwards and forwards in my veins, and my unhappy body swayed from side to side with the distempered current. On the platform I staggered to and fro; and the porter, of whose arm I caught hold to steady myself, seemed, lantern and all, by mere communicated violence, to be shaken and buffeted about as I was. I had always been an abstemious young man, and had not exceeded in the consumption of the hospitable junior partner’s rare old hock; besides, for all the noise in my head, I could think and talk – albeit my teeth chattered, and my tongue wagged in my mouth with aguish convulsions. I had never known before that railway porters were a hard-hearted race, but one tall man in velveteen grinned most impertinently as I was helped into a fly, and I am certain that his companion, a short, fat fellow, with a leer in his eye, thrust his tongue into his cheek as he heaped, at my desire, greatcoats and rugs over me, and bade the flyman drive to the Marine Parade, where my uncle resided. I had told everyone at the station about my attack of ague.

“He’s got his load,” I heard the tall porter exclaim, as we drove off. Of course he meant that the flyman had got all my luggage.

It was a dreadful five minutes’ ride to my uncle’s. The fit was so strong on me that my head and limbs kept bumping against opposite sides of the fly, and once came in contact with the windowless. And the noise in my head never ceased. I stumbled out, somehow, when the vehicle stopped, and, clinging to the knocker of the avuncular door, struck such a quivering peal of blows – I had previously scattered the cabman’s fare on the pavement in the attempt to place the money in his hand – that Jakes, my uncle’s confidential man, who opened the door, stared with astonishment.

“I’m very ill, Jakes,” I stammered, when I had staggered into the hall. “I’m down with that dreadful Ague again.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Jakes, with something like a grin on his countenance too. “Compts of the season, sir. Hadn’t you better go to bed, sir?”

Now the house was all lighted up, for there was to be a snapdragon party, and I knew that my Tilly and all the Standfasts were upstairs with my uncle and his waistcoat, and that they were to wait for my arrival before lighting the bowl. And, ill as I was, I burned to see my darling.

“No, Jakes,” I said, “I’ll try and bear up. You had better bring me a little cognac, and some very hot water, into the dining-room. It will do me good, and the fit may leave me.” What would you believe was the reply of this pampered domestic?

“Better not, sir,” he had the hardihood to observe. “Christmas time, sir. Plenty more like you. Better go to bed, sir. Think of your head in the morning, sir.”

“Fellow—” I began to retort, still violently trembling, when I saw my uncle Bonsor appear at the head of the staircase. There was a group of ladies and gentlemen in the background, and as well as I could see for shaking, there were the clear golden curls of my Tilly. But her face looked so scared and terrified.

“Alfred,” said my uncle, sternly, from behind his waistcoat, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Go to bed directly, sir!”

“Uncle!” I cried, with a desperate attempt to keep myself steady, “do you think I’m—”

Here I made an effort to ascend the staircase, but my foot caught either in the carpet or over one of the confounded brass rods, and, upon my word, I tumbled heels over heels into the hall. And yet, even as I lay recumbent, I shook worse than ever. I heard my uncle’s responsible voice ordering the servants to carry me to bed. And I was carried too; Jakes and a long-legged foot-page conveying my shaking body to my bedroom.

The night was brief and terrible as in an access of fever, and I lay shaking and chattering in the burning bed. In the morning, my uncle sent word to say that my ague was all nonsense, and that I was to come down to breakfast,

I went down, determined on remonstrance, but holding on by the banisters and quivering in every limb. O! for the tribulations of that wretched Christmas day. I was received with sneers, and advised to take very strong tea with a little cognac; yet soon afterwards my uncle shook hands with me, and said that it was only once a year, and that he supposed boys would be boys. Everybody wished me a merry Christmas; but I could only return the compliments of the season in a spasmodic stutter. I took a walk on the pier immediately after breakfast, but I nearly tumbled into the sea, and bumped against so many posts, that I had to be led home by a mariner in a yellow sou’-wester hat, who insisted that I should give him five shillings to drink my health. Then came a more appalling ordeal. I was to call at Snargatestone Villa to accompany my Tilly and the family to church. To my great relief, though I was shaking in every joint of my fingers and toes, nobody took any notice of my alarming complaint. I began to hope that it might be intermittent, and would pass off, but it wouldn’t, and rather increased in violence. My darling girl patted me on the head, and hoped that I was “a good boy, now;” but when I began, shiveringly, to explain my attack of ague, she only laughed. We went to church, and then my ague soon brought me into disgrace again. First I created terrible scandal by knocking up against the old pauper women in the free seats and nearly upsetting the beadle. Then I knocked the church services and hymn-books off the ledge of the pew. Then I kicked a hassock from beneath the very knees of my future mama-in-law. Then I trod – accidentally I declare – on the toes of Mary Seaton, my Tilly’s pretty cousin; whereupon she gave a little scream, and my beloved looked daggers at me; and as a climax, in the agony of that extraordinary horizontal shaking fit of mine, I burst the pew door open, and tumbled once more against the beadle, who in stern tones, and in the name of the churchwardens, desired me either to behave myself or to leave the church. I saw that it was no good contending against my complaint, so I did leave; but as I lurched out of the edifice I seemed to see the clergyman shaking in the reading-desk, and the clerk wagging to and fro beneath him; while the hatchments and tablets shook on the walls; and the organ in the gallery kept bumping now against the charity boys, now against the charity girls.

It wasn’t vertigo: the head swims round under that circumstance. It was clearly ague, and of the very worst description; the body shaking from right to left, and the blood surging in the ears with fever.

At dinnertime – my agonies had never ceased, but had not attracted notice – I began literally to put my foot into it again. First, handing Mrs. Van Plank of Sandwich down to the dining-room – my uncle Bonsor escorted Tilly – I entangled myself in the bugle ornaments which that wealthy but obese woman persisted in wearing; and we came down together with alarming results. I was undermost, shaking miserably, with Mrs. Van Plank’s large person pressing on my shirt-studs. When we were assisted to rise she would not be appeased. She would not join us at dinner. She ordered her fly and returned to Sandwich, and as the carriage drove away, Captain Standfast, R.N., looking at me as savagely as though he would have liked to have me up at the gangway and give me six dozen on the instant, said,

“There goes poor Tilly’s diamond bracelet. The old screw won’t give it her now. I saw the case on the cushion of the fly.”

Was it my fault! could I help my lamentable ague?

At dinner I went from bad to worse. Item: I spilt two ladlefuls of mock turtle soup over a new damask tablecloth. Item: I upset a glass of Madeira over Mary Seaton’s blue moire dress. Item: in a convulsive fit of shaking, I nearly stabbed Lieutenant Lamb, of the Fifty-fourth Regiment, stationed on the Heights, with a silver fork; and, finally, in a maniacal attempt to carve a turkey, I sent the entire body of that Christmas bird, with a garland of sausages clinging to it, full butt into the responsible waistcoat of my uncle Bonsor.

The peace was made somehow; I’m sure I don’t know in what manner, but half an hour afterwards we were all very pleasant and talkative over our dessert. When I say all, I of course except my unhappy self. There had been no solution of continuity in my shaking. Somebody, I think, proposed my health. In returning thanks, I hit the proposer a tremendous blow under the left eye with my elbow. Endeavouring to regain my equilibrium, I sent a full glass of claret into the embroidered cambric bosom of that unhappy Lieutenant Lamb. In desperation I caught hold of the tablecloth with both hands. I saw how it would be; the perfidious polished mahogany slid away from my grasp. I turned my foot frantically round the leg of the table nearest me, and with a great crash over went dining-table, cut-glass decanters, and dessert. Lieutenant Lamb was badly hit across the bridge of the nose with a pair of silver nut-crackers, and my uncle Bonsor’s head was crowned, in quite a classic manner, with filberts and hot-house grapes.

The bleak December sun rose next morning upon ruin and catastrophe. As well as I can collect my scattered reminiscences of that dismal time, my offences against decorum were once more condoned: not in consequence of my complaint (in which my relatives and friends persisted in disbelieving), but on the ground that it was “only once a year.” Lawyers came backwards and forwards to Snargatestone Villa during the forenoon. There was a great production of tin boxes, red tape, blue seals, foolscap paper, and parchment; and my uncle Bonsor was more responsible than ever. They brought me a paper to sign at last, whispering much among themselves as they did so; and I protest that I could see nothing but a large pool of white, jogging about in a field of green tablecloth, while on the paper an infinity of crabbed characters seemed racing up and down in a crazed and furious manner. I endeavoured to nerve myself to the task of signing, I bit my lips, I clenched my left hand, I tried to screw my wagging head on to my neck, I cramped my toes up in my boots, I held my breath; but was it my fault, when I clutched the pen and tried to write my name, that the abominable goose-quill began to dance, and skate, and leap, and plunge, and dig its nibs into the paper; that when, in despair, I seized the inkstand, to hold it nearer to the pen, I shook its sable contents, in horrid, horned, tasselled blots, all over a grave legal document? I finished my achievement by inflicting a large splash on my uncle’s sacred waistcoat, and hitting Captain Standfast under the third rib with the pen.

“That will do,” my papa-in-law cried, collaring me. “Leave the house, scoundrel!”

But I broke from his grasp, and fled to the drawing-room, knowing that my Tilly would be there with her bridesmaids and her bonnets.

“Tilly – my adored Matilda!” I cried.

“No further explanation is needed, sir,” broke in my beloved, in an inexorable tone. “I have seen and heard quite enough. Alfred Starling, I would sooner wed the meanest hind that gathers samphire on yon cliff than become the bride of a profligate and drunkard. Go, sir; repent if you can; be ashamed if you can. Henceforth we are strangers. Slave of self-indulgence, adieu forever!” And she swept out of the room, and I could hear her sobbing her pretty heart out in the boudoir beyond.

I was discarded and expelled forever from Snargatestone Villa; my uncle Bonsor repudiated me, and disinherited me from any share in his waistcoat; I hurled myself into the next train at the station, and shook all the way back to town. At about dusk on that dreadful Boxing day, I found myself wandering and jolting about the purlieus of Soho.

From Soho square – the south-west side, I think – branches a shabby, dingy little court, called Bateman’s buildings. I was standing shivering at the corner of this ill-favoured place, when I stumbled against a gentleman, who looked about seven-eighths soldier and one-eighth civilian.

He was a little, dapper, clean-limbed, young-looking old man, with a yellow face, and grey hair and whiskers. Soldiers, save in the cavalry, didn’t wear moustaches then. He wore a blue uniform coat, rather white at the seams, and a silver medal with a faded ribbon on his breast. He had a bunch of parti-coloured streamers in his undress cap; he carried a bamboo cane under his arm; on each sleeve he wore golden stripes, much tarnished; on his scarlet collar was embroidered a golden lion; and on his shoulders he had a pair of little, light, golden epaulettes, that very much resembled two sets of teeth from a dentist’s glass-case, covered with bullion.

“And how are you, my hearty?” said the military gentleman, cheerily.

I answered that I was the most miserable wretch in the world; upon which the military gentleman, slapping me on the back and calling me his gallant comrade, asked me to have a pint of beer, warmed with a little spice, and a dash of Old Tom in it, for the sake of Christmas.

“You’re a roving buck,” observed my new friend. “I’m a roving buck. You never happened to have a twin brother named Siph, did you?”

“No,” I answered, moodily.

“He was as like you as two peas,” continued the military gentleman, who had by this time taken my arm, and was leading me all shaking and clattering towards a mouldy little tavern, on whose door-jambs were displayed a couple of coloured cartoons, framed and glazed and much flyblown, and displaying, the one, the presentment of an officer in sky-blue uniform much belaced with silver, and the other a bombardier with an enormous shako ramming the charge into a cannon: the whole surmounted by a placard setting forth that smart young men were required for the Honourable East India Company’s infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and earnestly exhorting all smart young men, as aforesaid, to apply forthwith to Sergeant–Major Chutnee, who was always to be heard of at the bar of the “Highland Laddie,” or at the office in Bateman’s buildings.

“The last time I saw him,” went on the man with the yellow face and the grey whiskers, when he had tilted me into the “Highland Laddie,” pinned me, shaking, against the bar-counter, and ordered a pint of sophisticated beer, “he had left our service, and was a field-marshal in the army of the King of Oude. Many’s the time I’ve seen him with his cocked-hat and di’mond epulets riding on a white elephant, with five-and-twenty black fellows running after him to brush the flies away and draw the soda-water corks. Such brandy he’d have with it, and all through meeting me promiscuous in this very public.”

It is useless to prolong the narrative of my conversation with the military gentleman; suffice it to say, that within an hour I had taken the fatal shilling, and enlisted in the service of the Honourable East India Company. I was not a beggar. I possessed property, over which my uncle Bonsor had no control. I had not committed any crime; but I felt lost, ruined, and desperate, and I enlisted. For a wonder, when I was brought before a magistrate to be attested, and before a surgeon to be examined respecting my sanitary fitness for the service, my ague seemed entirely to have left me. I stood firm and upright in the witness-box, and under the measuring standard, and was only deterred by shame and anguish at the misconstruction put upon my conduct at Dover from negotiating for my discharge.

I had scarcely reached the East India recruiting depot at Brentwood, however, before the attacks of ague returned with redoubled severity. At first, on my stating that I had an ear for music, they began to train me for a bandsman, but I could not keep a wind instrument in my hands, and struck those that were played by my comrades from their grasp. Then, I was put into the awkward squad among the recruits, and the sergeants caned me; but I could never get beyond the preliminary drill of the goose-step, and I kept my own time, and not the squad’s, even then. The depot surgeons wouldn’t place the slightest credence in my ague, and the sergeant-major of my company reported that I was a skulking, “malingering” impostor. Among my comrades who despised, without pitying me, I got the nickname of “Young Shivery–Shakery.” And the most wonderful thing is, that, although I could have procured remittances at any time, the thought of purchasing my discharge never entered my poor, shaking, jarring head.

How they came to send such a trembling, infirm creature as a soldier to India, I can’t make out; but sent I was, by long sea, in a troop-ship, with seven or eight hundred more recruits. My military career in the East came to a very speedy and inglorious termination. We had scarcely arrived at Bombay when the battalion of the European regiment into which I was draughted was sent up-country to the banks of the Sutlej, where the Sikh war was then raging. It was the campaign of Aliwal and Sobraon, but it was very little that I saw of that glorious epoch in our military annals. In contemptuous reference to my nervous disorder, I was only permitted to form part of the baggage-guard, and one night, after perhaps ten days’ march, throughout which I had shaken most awfully, an attack was made on our rear for mere purposes of plunder by a few rascally budmashes or thieves. Nothing was easier than to put these paltry scoundrels to the rout. I had been brave enough as a lad and as a young man. I declare that on the present occasion I didn’t run away; but my unhappy disease got the mastery of me. I shook my musket out of my hands, my shako off my head, and my knapsack off my back, and my wretched legs shook and jolted me, as it seemed, over miles of arid country. There was some talk of shooting me afterwards, and some of flogging me; but corporal punishment did not exist in the Company’s army. They sent me to a vile place of incarceration called a “congee house,” where I was fed principally on rice-water, and at last I was conveyed to Bombay, tried by court-martial, sentenced, and publicly drummed out of my regiment as a coward. Yes, I, the son of a gentleman, and the possessor of a genteel private property, had the facings cut off my uniform, and, to the sound of the “Rogues’ March,” was dismissed from the service of the Honourable East India Company with ignominy and disgrace.

I can scarcely tell how I reached England again; whether a berth was given me, whether I paid for it, or whether I worked my passage home. I can only remember that the ship in which I was a passenger broke her back in Algoa Bay, close to the Cape, and became a total wreck. There was not the slightest danger; we were surrounded by large and small craft, and every soul on board was saved; but I shook so terribly and incessantly while the boats were leaving the vessel, that the whole ship’s company hooted and groaned at me when I was shoved over the side, and I was not allowed to go in the longboat, but was towed alone and aft in the dingy to shore.

I took passage in another ship, which did nothing but shake all the way from the Cape to Plymouth, and at last I reached England. I wrote innumerable letters to my friends and relatives, to Tilly and to my uncle Bonsor; but the only answer I received was a few formal lines from my uncle’s lawyer, telling me that my illegible scrawls had come to the hands of the persons for whom they were designed; but that no further notice could be taken of my communications. I was put into the possession of my property to the last penny, but it seems to me that I must have shaken it away either at dice or bagatelle, or ninepins or billiards. And I remember that I never made a stroke at the latter game without hitting my adversary with the cue in the chest, knocking down the marker, sending the balls scudding through the windows, disarranging the scores, and cutting holes in the cloth, for which I had to pay innumerable guineas to the proprietor of the rooms.

I remember one day going into a jeweller’s shop in Regent street to purchase a watch-key. I had only a silver one now, my gold repeater had been shaken away in some unaccountable manner. It was wintertime, and I wore an overcoat with long loose sleeves. While the shopkeeper was adjusting a key to my watch, my ague fit came upon me with demoniacal ferocity, and, to my horror and dismay, in catching hold of the counter to save myself, I tilted a trayful of diamond rings over. Some fell on the floor; but some, horror and anguish! fell into the sleeves of my overcoat. I shook so that I seemed to have shaken diamond rings into my hands, my pockets, my very boots. By some uncontrollable impulse I attempted flight, but was seized at the very shop door, and carried, shaking, to the police station.

I was taken before a magistrate, and committed, still shaking, in a van, to gaol. I shook for some time in a whitewashed cell, when I was brought up, shaking, to the Central Criminal Court, and placed, shaking, on my trial for an attempted robbery of fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of property. The evidence was clear against me. My counsel tried to plead something about “kleptomania,” but in vain. My uncle Bonsor, who had come expressly up from Dover, spoke strongly against my character. I was found guilty; yes, I, the most innocent and unfortunate young man breathing, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation! I can recall the awful scene vividly to memory now. The jury in a body were shaking their heads at me. So was the judge, so was my uncle Bonsor, so were the spectators in the gallery; and I was holding on by the spikes on the ledge of the dock, shaking from right to left like ten thousand million aspen-leaves. My skull was splitting, my brain was bursting, when—

I woke

I was lying in a very uncomfortable position in a first-class carriage of the Dover mail train; everything in the carriage was shaking; the oil was surging to and fro in the lamp; my companions were swaying to and fro, and the sticks and umbrellas were rattling in the network above. The train was “at speed,” and my frightful dream was simply due to the violent and unusual oscillation of the train. Then, sitting up, and rubbing my eyes, immensely relieved, but holding on by the compartments near me (so violently did the carriages shake from side to side), I began to remember what I had dreamed or heard of others’ dreams before; while at sea, or while somebody was knocking loudly at the door; and of the odd connections between unusual sound and motion on the thoughts of our innermost souls. And again with odd distinctness I remember that at one period of my distempered vision, namely, when I was attested and examined as a recruit, I had remained perfectly still and steady. This temporary freedom from ague I was fain to ascribe to the customary two or three minutes’ stoppage of the train at Tunbridge Wells. But, thank Heaven, all this was but a dream!

“Enough to shake one’s head off!” exclaimed the testy old lady opposite, alluding to the oscillation of the train, as the guard appeared at the window with a shout of “Do—ver!”

“Well, mum, it have bin a shaking most unusual all the way down,” replied that functionary. “Thought we should have bin off the line, more than once. Screws will be looked to tomorrow morning. ’Night, sir!” – this was to me: I knew the man well. “Merry Christmas and a happy new year! You’ll be wanting a fly to Snargatestone Villa, won’t you, sir? Now, por—ter!”

I did want that fly, and I had it. I paid the driver liberally, and did not scatter his money over the pavement. Mr. Jakes insisted upon my having something hot in the dining-room the moment I arrived. The weather was so “woundy cold’ he said. I joined the merry party upstairs, and was received by my Tilly with open arms, and by my uncle Bonsor with an open waistcoat. I partook in cheerful moderation of the snapdragon festivities of Christmas-eve. We all dined together on Christmas day, and I helped the soup and carved a turkey, beautifully; and on the morrow, Boxing day, was complimented by my uncle’s lawyer on my remarkably neat calligraphy, as displayed in the signatures to the necessary legal documents. On the twenty-seventh of December, eighteen forty-six, I was married to my darling Tilly, and was going to live happy ever afterwards, when

I woke again

– really did wake in bed in this Haunted House – and found that I had been very much shaken on the railway coming down, and that there was no marriage, no Tilly, no Mary Seaton, no Van Plank, no anything but myself and the Ghost of the Ague, and the two inner windows of the Double Room rattling like the ghosts of two departed watchmen who wanted spiritual assistance to carry me to the dead and gone old Watch-house.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE GHOST
IN THE PICTURE ROOM

Belinda, with a modest self-possession quite her own, promptly answered for this Spectre in a low, clear voice:

•   •   •

The lights extinguished; by the hearth I leant,

Half weary with a listless discontent.

The flickering giant shadows, gathering near.

Closed round me with a dim and silent fear;

All dull, all dark; save when the leaping flame,

Glancing, lit up The Picture’s ancient frame.

Above the hearth it hung. Perhaps the night,

My foolish tremors, or the gleaming light,

Lent Power to that Portrait dark and quaint—

A Portrait such as Rembrandt loved to paint—

The likeness of a Nun. I seemed to trace

A world of sorrow in the patient face,

In the thin hands folded across her breast—

Its own and the room’s shadow hid the rest.

I gazed and dreamed, and the dull embers stirred,

Till an old legend that I once had heard

Came back to me; linked to the mystic gloom

Of the dark Picture in the ghostly room.

In the far South, where clustering vines are hung;

Where first the old chivalric lays were sung;

Where earliest smiled that gracious child of France,

Angel and Knight and Fairy, called Romance,

I stood one day. The warm blue June was spread

Upon the earth; blue summer overhead,

Without a cloud to fleck its radiant glare,

Without a breath to stir its sultry air.

All still, all silent, save the sobbing rush

Of rippling waves, that lapsed in silver hush

Upon the beach; where, glittering towards the strand,

The purple Mediterranean kissed the land.

All still, all peaceful; when a convent chime

Broke on the midday silence for a time,

Then trembling into quiet, seemed to cease,

In deeper silence and more utter peace.

So as I turned to gaze, where gleaming white,

Half hid by shadowy trees from passers’ sight,

The convent lay, one who had dwelt for long

In that fair home of ancient tale and song,

Who knew the story of each cave and hill,

And every haunting fancy lingering still

Within the land, spake thus to me, and told

The convent’s treasured legend, quaint and old:

Long years ago, a dense and flowering wood,

Still more concealed where the white convent stood,

Borne on its perfumed wings the title came:

“Our Lady of the Hawthorns” is its name.

Then did that bell, which still rings out today

Bid all the country rise, or eat, or pray.

Before that convent shrine, the haughty knight

Passed the lone vigil of his perilous fight;

For humbler cottage strife, or village brawl,

The abbess listened, prayed, and settled all.

Young hearts that came, weighed down by love or wrong,

Left her kind presence comforted and strong.

Each passing pilgrim, and each beggar’s right

Was food, and rest, and shelter for the night.

But, more than this, the nuns could well impart

The deepest mysteries of the healing art;

Their store of herbs and simples was renowned,

And held in wondering faith for miles around.

Thus strife, love, sorrow, good and evil fate,

Found help and blessing at the convent gate.

Of all the nuns, no heart was half so light,

No eyelids veiling glances half as bright,

No step that glided with such noiseless feet,

No face that looked so tender or so sweet,

No voice that rose in choir so pure, so clear,

No heart to all the others half so dear

(So surely touched by others’ pain or woe,

Guessing the grief her young life could not know),

No soul in childlike faith so undefiled,

As Sister Angela’s, the “Convent Child.”

For thus they loved to call her. She had known

No home, no love, no kindred, save their own—

An orphan, to their tender nursing given,

Child, plaything, pupil, now the bride of Heaven.

And she it was who trimmed the lamp’s red light

That swung before the altar, day and night.

Her hands it was, whose patient skill could trace

The finest broidery, weave the costliest lace;

But most of all, her first and dearest care,

The office she would never miss or share,

Was every day to weave fresh garlands sweet,

To place before the shrine at Mary’s feet.

Nature is bounteous in that region fair,

For even winter has her blossoms there.

Thus Angela loved to count each feast the best,

By telling with what flowers the shrine was dressed.

In pomp supreme the countless Roses passed,

Battalion on battalion thronging fast,

Each with a different banner, flaming bright,

Damask, or striped, or crimson, pink, or white,

Until they bowed before the new-born queen,

And the pure virgin lily rose serene.

Though Angela always thought the Mother blest,

Must love the time of her own hawthorns best

Each evening through the year, with equal care,

She placed her flowers; then kneeling down in prayer,

As their faint perfume rose before the shrine,

So rose her thoughts, as pure and as divine.

She knelt until the shades grew dim without,

Till one by one the altar lights shone out,

Till one by one the nuns, like shadows dim,

Gathered around to chant their vesper hymn:

Her voice then led the music’s winged flight,

And “Ave, Maris Stella” filled the night.

But wherefore linger on those days of peace?

When storms draw near, then quiet hours must cease.

War, cruel war, defaced the land, and came

So near the convent with its breath of flame,

That, seeking shelter, frightened peasants fled,

Sobbing out tales of coming fear and dread.

Till after a fierce skirmish, down the road,

One night came straggling soldiers, with their load

Of wounded, dying comrades; and the band,

Half pleading, yet as if they could command,

Summoned the trembling sisters, craved their care,

Then rode away, and left the wounded there.

But soon compassion bade all fear depart,

And bidding every sister do her part,

Some prepare simples, healing salves, or bands,

The abbess chose the more experienced hands,

To dress the wounds needing most skilful care;

Yet even the youngest novice took her share,

And thus to Angela, whose ready will

And pity could not cover lack of skill,

The charge of a young wounded knight must fall,

A case which seemed least dangerous of them all.

Day after day she watched beside his bed,

And first in utter quiet the hours fled:

His feverish moans alone the silence stirred,

Or her soft voice, uttering some pious word.

At last the fever left him; day by day

The hours, no longer silent, passed away.

What could she speak of? First, to still his plaint,

She told him legends of the martyr’d saints;

Described the pangs, which, through God’s plenteous grace,

Had gained their souls so high and bright a place.

This pious artifice soon found success

Or so she fancied for he murmured less.

And so she told the pomp and grand array

In which the chapel shone on Easter Day,

Described the vestments, gold, and colours bright,

Counted how many tapers gave their light;

Then, in minute detail went on to say,

How the high altar looked on Christmas day:

The kings and shepherds, all in green and white,

And a large star of jewels gleaming bright.

Then told the sign by which they all had seen,

How even nature loved to greet her Queen,

For, when Our Lady’s last procession went

Down the long garden, every head was bent,

And rosary in hand each sister prayed;

As the long floating banners were displayed,

They struck the hawthorn boughs, and showers and showers

Of buds and blossoms strewed her way with flowers.

The knight unwearied listened; till at last,

He too described the glories of his past;

Tourney, and joust, and pageant bright and fair,

And all the lovely ladies who were there.

But half incredulous she heard. Could this

This be the world? this place of love and bliss!

Where, then, was hid tha strange and hideous charm,

That never failed to bring the gazer harm?

She crossed herself, yet asked, and listened still,

And still the knight described with all his skill,

The glorious world of joy, all joys above,

Transfigured in the golden mist of love.

Spread, spread your wings, ye angel guardians bright,

And shield these dazzling phantoms from her sight!

But no; days passed, matins and vespers rang,

And still the quiet nuns toiled, prayed, and sang,

And never guessed the fatal, coiling net

That every day drew near, and nearer yet.

Around their darling; for she went and came

About her duties, outwardly the same.

The same? ah, no! even when she knelt to pray,

Some charmed dream kept all her heart away.

So days went on, until the convent gate

Opened one night. Who durst go forth so late?

Across the moonlit grass, with stealthy tread,

Two silent, shrouded figures passed and fled.

And all was silent, save the moaning seas,

That sobbed and pleaded, and a wailing breeze

That sighed among the perfumed hawthorn trees.

What need to tell that dream so bright and brief,

Of joy unchequered by a dread of grief?

What need to tell how all such dreams must fade,

Before the slow foreboding, dreaded shade,

That floated nearer, until pomp and pride,

Pleasure and wealth, were summoned to her side,

To bid, at least, the noisy hours forget,

And clamour down the whispers of regret.

Still Angela strove to dream, and strove in vain;

Awakened once, she could not sleep again.

She saw, each day and hour, more worthless grown

The heart for which she cast away her own;

And her soul learnt, through bitterest inward strife,

The slight, frail love for which she wrecked her life;

The phantom for which all her hope was given,

The cold bleak earth for which she bartered heaven!

But all in vain; what chance remained? what heart

Would stoop to take so poor an outcast’s part?

Years fled, and she grew reckless more and more,

Until the humblest peasant closed his door,

And where she passed, fair dames, in scorn and pride,

Shuddered, and drew their rustling robes aside.

At last a yearning seemed to fill her soul,

A longing that was stronger than control:

Once more, just once again, to see the place

That knew her young and innocent; to retrace

The long and weary southern path; to gaze

Upon the haven of her childish days;

Once more beneath the convent roof to lie;

Once more to look upon her home – and die!

Weary and worn – her comrades, chill remorse

And black despair, yet a strange silent force

Within her heart, that drew her more and more—

Onward she crawled, and begged from door to door.

Weighed down with weary days, her failing strength

Grew less each hour, till one day’s dawn at length,

As its first rays flooded the world with light,

Showed the broad waters, glittering blue and bright,

And where, amid the leafy hawthorn wood,

Just as of old the low white convent stood.

Would any know her? Nay, no fear. Her face

Had lost all trace of youth, of joy, of grace,

Of the pure happy soul they used to know—

The novice Angela – so long ago.

She rang the convent bell. The well-known sound

Smote on her heart, and bowed her to the ground.

And she, who had not wept for long dry years,

Felt the strange rush of unaccustomed tears;

Terror and anguish seemed to check her breath,

And stop her heart – O God! could this be death?

Crouching against the iron gate, she laid

Her weary head against the bars, and prayed:

But nearer footsteps drew, then seemed to wait;

And then she heard the opening of the grate,

And saw the withered face, on which awoke

Pity and sorrow, as the portress spoke,

And asked the stranger’s bidding: “Take me in,”

She faltered, “Sister Monica, from sin,

And sorrow, and despair, that will not cease;

Oh take me in, and let me die in peace!”

With soothing words the sister bade her wait,

Until she brought the key to unbar the gate.

The beggar tried to thank her as she lay,

And heard the echoing footsteps die away.

But what soft voice was that which sounded near,

And stirred strange trouble in her heart to hear?

She raised her head; she saw – she seemed to know

A face, that came from long, long years ago:

Herself; yet not as when she fled away,

The young and blooming Novice, fair and gay,

But a grave woman, gentle and serene:

The outcast knew it – what she might have been.

But as she gazed and gazed, a radiance bright

Filled all the place with strange and sudden light;

The nun was there no longer, but instead,

A figure with a circle round its head,

A ring of glory; and a face, so meek,

So soft, so tender.… Angela strove to speak,

And stretched her hands out, crying, “Mary mild,

Mother of mercy, help me! – help your child!”

And Mary answered, “From thy bitter past,

Welcome, my child! oh, welcome home at last!

I filled thy place. Thy flight is known to none,

For all thy daily duties I have done;

Gathered thy flowers, and prayed, and sang, and slept;

Didst thou not know, poor child, thy place was kept?

Kind hearts are here; yet would the tenderest one

Have limits to its mercy: God has none.

And man’s forgiveness may be true and sweet,

But yet he stoops to give it. More complete

Is love that lays forgiveness at thy feet,

And pleads with thee to raise it. Only Heaven

Means crowned , not vanquished, when it says ‘Forgiven!’”

Back hurried Sister Monica; but where

Was the poor beggar she left lying there?

Gone; and she searched in vain, and sought the place

For that wan woman, with the piteous face:

But only Angela at the gateway stood,

Laden with hawthorn blossoms from the wood.

And never did a day pass by again,

But the old portress, with a sigh of pain,

Would sorrow for her loitering: with a prayer

That the poor beggar, in her wild despair,

Might not have come to any ill; and when

She ended, “God forgive her!” humbly then

Did Angela bow her head, and say “Amen!”

How pitiful her heart was! all could trace

Something that dimmed the brightness of her face

After that day, which none had seen before;

Not trouble – but a shadow – nothing more.

Years passed away. Then, one dark day of dread,

Saw all the sisters kneeling round a bed,

Where Angela lay dying; every breath

Struggling beneath the heavy hand of death.

But suddenly a flush lit up her cheek,

She raised her wan right hand, and strove to speak.

In sorrowing love they listened; not a sound

Or sigh disturbed the utter silence round;

The very taper’s flames were scarcely stirred,

In such hushed awe the sisters knelt and heard.

And thro’ that silence Angela told her life:

Her sin, her flight; the sorrow and the strife,

And the return; and then, clear, low, and calm,

“Praise God for me, my sisters;” and the psalm

Rang up to heaven, far, and clear, and wide,

Again and yet again, then sank and died;

While her white face had such a smile of peace,

They saw she never heard the music cease;

And weeping sisters laid her in her tomb,

Crowned with a wreath of perfumed hawthorn bloom.

And thus the legend ended. It may be

Something is hidden in the mystery,

Besides the lesson of God’s pardon, shown

Never enough believed, or asked, or known.

Have we not all, amid life’s petty strife,

Some pure ideal of a noble life

That once seemed possible? Did we not hear

The flutter of its wings, and feel it near,

And just within our reach? It was. And yet

We lost it in this daily jar and fret,

And now live idle in a vague regret;

But still our place is kept, and it will wait,

Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.

No star is ever lost we once have seen,

We always may be what we might have been.

Since good, tho’ only thought, has life and breath,

God’s life can always be redeemed from death;

And evil, in its nature, is decay,

And any hour can blot it all away;

The hopes that, lost, in some far distance seem.

May be the truer life, and this the dream.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE GHOST
IN THE CUPBOARD ROOM

Mr. Beaver, on being “spoke” (as his friend and ally, Jack Governor, called it), turned out of an imaginary hammock with the greatest promptitude, and went straight on duty. “As it’s Nat Beaver’s watch,” said he, “there shall be no skulking.” Jack looked at me, with an expectant and admiring turn of his eye on Mr. Beaver, full of complimentary implication. I noticed, by the way, that Jack, in a naval absence of mind with which he is greatly troubled at times, had his arm round my sister’s waist. Perhaps this complaint originates in an old nautical requirement of having something to hold on by.

These were the terms of Mr. Beaver’s revelation to us:

•   •   •

What I have got to put forward, will not take very long; and I shall beg leave to begin by going back to last night – just about the time when we all parted from one another to go to bed.

The members of this good company did a very necessary and customary thing, last night – they each took a bedroom candlestick, and lit the candle before they went upstairs. I wonder whether any one of them noticed that I left my candlestick untouched, and my candle unlighted; and went to bed, in a Haunted House, of all the places in the world, in the dark? I don’t think any one of them did.

That is, perhaps, rather curious to begin with. It is likewise curious, and just as true, that the bare sight of those candlesticks in the hands of this good company set me in a tremble, and made last night, a night’s bad dream instead of a night’s good sleep. The fact of the matter is – and I give you leave, ladies and gentlemen, to laugh at it as much as you please – that the ghost which haunted me last night, which has haunted me off and on for many years past, and which will go on haunting me till I am a ghost myself (and consequently spirit-proof in all respects), is, nothing more or less than – a bedroom candlestick.

Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle – put it which way you like – that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such-like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it – and I shall thank you all kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.

I am not a scholar myself; but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man, with anything under the sun, begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle – the frightening of me half out of my life, ladies and gentlemen; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess to you all, before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage, so far.

These are the particulars, as well as I can put them.

I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit for a mate’s berth at the age of twenty-five years.

It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain which, that I reached the before-mentioned age of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my memory not being very good for dates, names, numbers, places, and such-like. No fear, though, about the particulars I have undertaken to tell you of; I have got them all shipshape in my recollection; I can see them, at this moment, as clear as noonday in my own mind. But there is a mist over what went before, and, for the matter of that, a mist likewise over much that came after and it’s not very likely to lift, at my time of life, is it?

Well, in eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, when there was peace in our part of the world – and not before it was wanted, you will say – there was fighting, of a certain scampering, scrambling kind, going on in that old fighting ground, which we seafaring men know by the name of the Spanish Main. The possessions that belonged to the Spaniards in South America had broken into open mutiny and declared for themselves years before. There was plenty of bloodshed between the new government and the old; but the new had got the best of it, for the most part, under one General Bolivar – a famous man in his time, though he seems to have dropped out of people’s memories now. Englishmen and Irishmen with a turn for fighting, and nothing particular to do at home, joined the general as volunteers; and some of our merchants here found it a good venture to send supplies across the ocean to the popular side. There was risk enough, of course, in doing this; but where one speculation of the kind succeeded, it made up for two, at the least, that failed. And that’s the true principle of trade, wherever I have met with it, all the world over.

Among the Englishmen who were concerned in this Spanish–American business, I, your humble servant, happened, in a small way, to be one. I was then mate of a brig belonging to a certain firm in the City, which drove a sort of general trade, mostly in queer out-of-the-way places, as far from home as possible; and which freighted the brig, in the year I am speaking of, with a cargo of gunpowder for General Bolivar and his volunteers. Nobody knew anything about our instructions, when we sailed, except the captain; and he didn’t half seem to like them. I can’t rightly say how many barrels of powder we had on board, or how much each barrel held – I only know we had no other cargo. The name of the brig was The Good Intent – a queer name enough, you will tell me, for a vessel laden with gunpowder, and sent to help a revolution. And as far as this particular voyage was concerned, so it was. I meant that for a joke, ladies and gentlemen, and I’m sorry to find you don’t laugh at it.

The Good Intent was the craziest old tub of a vessel I ever went to sea in, and the worst found in all respects. She was two hundred and thirty, or two hundred and eighty tons burden, I forget which; and she had a crew of eight, all told – nothing like as many as we ought by rights to have had to work the brig. However, we were well and honestly paid our wages; and we had to set that against the chance of foundering at sea, and, on this occasion, likewise, the chance of being blown up into the bargain. In consideration of the nature of our cargo, we were harassed with new regulations which we didn’t at all like, relative to smoking our pipes and lighting our lanterns; and, as usual in such cases, the captain who made the regulations preached what he didn’t practise. Not a man of us was allowed to have a bit of lighted candle in his hand when he went below – except the skipper; and he used his light, when he turned in, or when he looked over his charts on the cabin table, just as usual. This light was a common kitchen candle or “dip,” of the sort that goes eight or ten to the pound; and it stood in an old battered flat candlestick, with all the japan worn and melted off, and all the tin showing through. It would have been more seamanlike and suitable in every respect if he had had a lamp or a lantern; but he stuck to his old candlestick; and that same old candlestick, ladies and gentlemen, was ever afterwards stuck to me. That’s another joke, if you like and I’m much obliged to Miss Belinda in the corner for being good enough to laugh at it.

Well (I said “well” before, but it’s a word that helps a man on, like), we sailed in the brig, and shaped our course, first, for the Virgin Islands, in the West Indies; and, after sighting them, we made for the Leeward Islands next; and then stood on due south, till the look-out at the masthead hailed the deck, and said he saw land. That land was the coast of South America. We had had a wonderful voyage so far. We had lost none of our spars or sails, and not a man of us had been harassed to death at the pumps. It wasn’t often The Good Intent made such a voyage as that, I can tell you.

I was sent aloft to make sure about the land, and I did make sure of it. When I reported the same to the skipper, he went below, and had a look at his letter of instructions and the chart. When he came on deck again, he altered our course a trifle to the eastward – I forget the point on the compass, but that don’t matter. What I do remember is, that it was dark before we closed in with the land. We kept the lead going, and hove the brig to in from four to five fathoms water, or it might be six – I can’t say for certain. I kept a sharp eye to the drift of the vessel, none of us knowing how the currents ran on that coast. We all wondered why the skipper didn’t anchor; but he said, No, he must first show a light at the foretop-mast-head, and wait for an answering light on shore. We did wait, and nothing of the sort appeared. It was starlight and calm. What little wind there was came in puffs off the land. I suppose we waited, drifting a little to the westward, as I made it out, best part of an hour before anything happened and then, instead of seeing the light on shore, we saw a boat coming towards us, rowed by two men only.

We hailed them, and they answered, “Friends!” and hailed us by our name. They came on board. One of them was an Irishman, and the other was a coffee-coloured native pilot, who jabbered a little English. The Irishman handed a note to our skipper, who showed it to me. It informed us that the part of the coast we were off then, was not over-safe for discharging our cargo, seeing that spies of the enemy (that is to say, of the old government) had been taken and shot in the neighbourhood the day before. We might trust the brig to the native pilot; and he had his instructions to take us to another part of the coast. The note was signed by the proper parties; so we let the Irishman go back alone in the boat, and allowed the pilot to exercise his lawful authority over the brig. He kept us stretching off from the land till noon the next day – his instructions, seemingly, ordering him to keep us well out of sight of the shore. We only altered our course, in the afternoon, so as to close in with the land again a little before midnight.

This same pilot was about as ill-looking a vagabond as ever I saw; a skinny, cowardly, quarrelsome mongrel, who swore at the men, in the vilest broken English, till they were every one of them ready to pitch him over! The skipper kept them quiet, and I kept them quiet, for the pilot being given us by our instructions, we were bound to make the best of him. Near nightfall, however, with the best will in the world to avoid it, I was unlucky enough to quarrel with him. He wanted to go below with his pipe, and I stopped him, of course, because it was contrary to orders. Upon that, he tried to hustle by me, and I put him away with my hand. I never meant to push him down; but, somehow, I did. He picked himself up as quick as lightning, and pulled out his knife. I snatched it out of his hand, slapped his murderous face for him, and threw his weapon overboard. He gave me one ugly look, and walked aft. I didn’t think much of the look then; but I remembered it a little too well afterwards.

We were close in with the land again, just as the wind failed us, between eleven and twelve that night; and dropped our anchor by the pilot’s directions. It was pitch dark, and a dead, airless calm. The skipper was on deck with two of our best men for watch. The rest were below, except the pilot, who coiled himself up, more like a snake than a man, on the forecastle. It was not my watch till four in the morning. But I didn’t like the look of the night, or the pilot, or the state of things generally, and I shook myself down on deck to get my nap there, and be ready for anything at a moment’s notice. The last I remember was the skipper whispering to me that he didn’t like the look of things either, and that he would go below and consult his instructions again. That is the last I remember, before the slow, heavy, regular roll of the old brig on the ground swell rocked me off to sleep.

I was woke, ladies and gentlemen, by a scuffle on the forecastle, and a gag in my mouth. There was a man on my breast and a man on my legs; and I was bound hand and foot in half a minute. The brig was in the hands of the Spaniards. They were swarming all over her. I heard six heavy splashes in the water, one after another – I saw the captain stabbed to the heart as he came running up the companion – and I heard a seventh splash in the water. Except myself, every soul of us on board had been murdered and thrown into the sea. Why I was left, I couldn’t think, till I saw the pilot stoop over me with a lantern, and look, to make sure of who I was. There was a devilish grin on his face, and he nodded his head at me, as much as to say, You were the man who hustled me down and slapped my face, and I mean to play the game of cat and mouse with you in return for it!

I could neither move nor speak; but I could see the Spaniards take off the main hatch and rig the purchases for getting up the cargo. A quarter of an hour afterwards, I heard the sweeps of a schooner, or other small vessel, in the water. The strange craft was laid alongside of us; and the Spaniards set to work to discharge our cargo into her. They all worked hard except the pilot; and he came, from time to time, with his lantern, to have another look at me, and to grin and nod always in the same devilish way. I am old enough now not to be ashamed of confessing the truth; and I don’t mind acknowledging that the pilot frightened me.

The fright, and the bonds, and the gag, and the not being able to stir hand or foot, had pretty nigh worn me out, by the time the Spaniards gave over work. This was just as the dawn broke. They had shifted good part of our cargo on board their vessel, but nothing like all of it; and they were sharp enough to be off with what they had got, before daylight. I need hardly say that I had made up my mind, by this time, to the worst I could think of. The pilot, it was clear enough, was one of the spies of the enemy, who had wormed himself into the confidence of our consignees without being suspected. He, or more likely his employers, had got knowledge enough of us to suspect what our cargo was; we had been anchored for the night in the safest berth for them to surprise us in; and we had paid the penalty of having a small crew, and consequently an insufficient watch. All this was clear enough but what did the pilot mean to do with me?

On the word of a man, it makes my flesh creep, now, only to tell you what he did with me.

After all the rest of them were out of the brig, except the pilot and two Spanish seamen, these last took me up, bound and gagged as I was, lowered me into the hold of the vessel, and laid me along on the floor; lashing me to it with ropes’ ends, so that I could just turn from one side to the other, but could not roll myself fairly over, so as to change my place. They then left me. Both of them were the worse for liquor; but the devil of a pilot was sober – mind that! – as sober as I am at the present moment.

I lay in the dark for a little while, with my heart thumping as if it was going to jump out of me. I lay about five minutes so, when the pilot came down into the hold, alone. He had the captain’s cursed flat candlestick and a carpenter’s awl in one hand, and a long thin twist of cotton yarn, well oiled, in the other. He put the candlestick, with a new “dip” lighted in it, down on the floor, about two feet from my face, and close against the side of the vessel. The light was feeble enough; but it was sufficient to show a dozen barrels of gunpowder or more, left all round me in the hold of the brig. I began to suspect what he was after, the moment I noticed the barrels. The horrors laid hold of me from head to foot; and the sweat poured off my face like water.

I saw him go, next, to one of the barrels of powder standing against the side of the vessel, in a line with the candle, and about three feet, or rather better, away from it. He bored a hole in the side of the barrel with his awl; and the horrid powder came trickling out, as black as hell, and dripped into the hollow of his hand, which he held to catch it. When he had got a good handful, he stopped up the hole by jamming one end of his oiled twist of cotton-yarn fast into it; and he then rubbed the powder into the whole length of the yarn, till he had blackened every hairsbreadth of it. The next thing he did – as true as I sit here, as true as the heaven above us all – the next thing he did was to carry the free end of his long, lean, black, frightful slow-match to the lighted candle alongside my face, and to tie it, in several folds, round the tallow dip, about a third of the distance down, measuring from the flame of the wick to the lip of the candlestick. He did that; he looked to see that my lashings were all safe; and then he put his face down close to mine; and whispered in my ear, “Blow up with the brig!”

He was on deck again the moment after; and he and the two others shoved the hatch on over me. At the farthest end from where I lay, they had not fitted it down quite true, and I saw a blink of daylight glimmering in when I looked in that direction. I heard the sweeps of the schooner fall into the water – splash! splash! fainter and fainter, as they swept the vessel out in the dead calm, to be ready for the wind in the offing. Fainter and fainter, splash! splash! for a quarter of an hour or more.

While those sounds were in my ears, my eyes were fixed on the candle. It had been freshly lit – if left to itself it would burn for between six and seven hours – the slow-match was twisted round it about a third of the way down and therefore the flame would be about two hours reaching it. There I lay, gagged, bound, lashed to the floor; seeing my own life burning down with the candle by my side – there I lay, alone on the sea, doomed to be blown to atoms, and to see that doom drawing on, nearer and nearer with every fresh second of time, through nigh on two hours to come; powerless to help myself and speechless to call for help to others. The wonder to me is that I didn’t cheat the flame, the slow-match, and the powder, and die of the horror of my situation before my first half-hour was out in the hold of the brig.

I can’t exactly say how long I kept the command of my senses after I had ceased to hear the splash of the schooner’s sweeps in the water. I can trace back everything I did and everything I thought, up to a certain point; but, once past that, I get all abroad, and lose myself in my memory now, much as I lost myself in my own feelings at the time.

The moment the hatch was covered over me, I began, as every other man would have begun in my place, with a frantic effort to free my hands. In the mad panic I was in, I cut my flesh with the lashings as if they had been knife-blades; but I never stirred them. There was less chance still of freeing my legs, or of tearing myself from the fastenings that held me to the floor. I gave in, when I was all but suffocated for want of breath. The gag, you will please to remember, was a terrible enemy to me; I could only breathe freely through my nose – and that is but a poor vent when a man is straining his strength as far as ever it will go.

I gave in, and lay quiet, and got my breath again; my eyes glaring and straining at the candle all the time. While I was staring at it, the notion struck me of trying to blow out the candle by pumping a long breath at it suddenly through my nostrils. It was too high above me, and too far away from me, to be reached in that fashion. I tried, and tried, and tried – and then I gave in again and lay quiet again; always with my eyes glaring at the candle and the candle glaring at me. The splash of the schooner’s sweeps was very faint by this time. I could only just hear them in the morning stillness. Splash! splash! – fainter and fainter – splash! splash!

Without exactly feeling my mind going, I began to feel it getting queer, as early as this. The snuff of the candle was growing taller and taller, and the length of tallow between the flame and the slow-match, which was the length of my life, was getting shorter and shorter. I calculated that I had rather less than an hour and a half to live. An hour and a half! Was there a chance, in that time, of a boat pulling off to the brig from, shore? Whether the land near which the vessel was anchored was in possession of our side, or in possession of the enemy’s side, I made it out that they must, sooner or later, send to hail the brig, merely because she was a stranger in those parts. The question for me was, how soon? The sun had not risen yet, as I could tell by looking through the chink in the hatch. There was no coast village near us, as we all knew, before the brig was seized, by seeing no lights on shore. There was no wind, as I could tell by listening, to bring any strange vessel near. If I had had six hours to live, there might have been a chance for me, reckoning from sunrise to noon. But with an hour and a half, which had dwindled to an hour and a quarter by this time – or, in other words, with the earliness of the morning, the uninhabited coast, and the dead calm all against me – there was not the ghost of a chance. As I felt that, I had another struggle – the last – with my bonds; and only cut myself the deeper for my pains.

I gave in once more, and lay quiet, and listened for the splash of the sweeps. Gone! Not a sound could I hear but the blowing of a fish, now and then, on the surface of the sea, and the creak of the brig’s crazy old spars, as she rolled gently from side to side with the little swell there was on the quiet water.

An hour and a quarter. The wick grew terribly, as the quarter slipped away; and the charred top of it began to thicken and spread out mushroom-shape. It would fall off soon. Would it fall off red-hot, and would the swing of the brig cant it over the side of the candle and let it down on the slow-match? If it would, I had about ten minutes to live instead of an hour. This discovery set my mind for a minute on a new tack altogether. I began to ponder with myself what sort of a death blowing-up might be. Painful? Well, it would be, surely, too sudden for that. Perhaps just one crash, inside me, or outside me, or both, and nothing more? Perhaps not even a crash; that and death and the scattering of this living body of mine into millions of fiery sparks, might all happen in the same instant? I couldn’t make it out; I couldn’t settle how it would be. The minute of calmness in my mind left it, before I had half done thinking; and I got all abroad again.

When I came back to my thoughts, or when they came back to me (I can’t say which), the wick was awfully tall, the flame was burning with a smoke above it, the charred top was broad and red, and heavily spreading out to its fall. My despair and horror at seeing it, took me in a new way, which was good and right, at any rate, for my poor soul. I tried to pray; in my own heart, you will understand, for the gag put all lip-praying out of my power. I tried, but the candle seemed to burn it up in me. I struggled hard to force my eyes from the slow, murdering flame, and to look up through the chink in the hatch at the blessed daylight. I tried once, tried twice; and gave it up. I tried next only to shut my eyes, and keep them shut – once – twice – and the second time I did it. “God bless old mother, and sister Lizzie; God keep them both, and forgive me.” That was all I had time to say, in my own heart, before my eyes opened again, in spite of me, and the flame of the candle flew into them, flew all over me, and burnt up the rest of my thoughts in an instant.

I couldn’t hear the fish blowing now; I couldn’t hear the creak of the spars; I couldn’t think; I couldn’t feel the sweat of my own death agony on my face – I could only look at the heavy, charred top of the wick. It swelled, tottered, bent over to one side, dropped red hot at the moment of its fall – black and harmless, even before the swing of the brig had canted it over into the bottom of the candlestick.

I caught myself laughing. Yes! laughing at the safe fall of the bit of wick. But for the gag I should have screamed with laughing. As it was, I shook with it inside me – shook till the blood was in my head, and I was all but suffocated for want of breath. I had just sense enough left to feel that my own horrid laughter, at that awful moment, was a sign of my brain going at last. I had just sense enough left to make another struggle before my mind broke loose like a frightened horse, and ran away with me.

One comforting look at the blink of daylight through the hatch was what I tried for once more. The fight to force my eyes from the candle and to get that one look at the daylight, was the hardest I had had yet; and I lost the fight. The flame had hold of my eyes as fast as the lashings had hold of my hands. I couldn’t look away from it. I couldn’t even shut my eyes, when I tried that next, for the second time. There was the wick, growing tall once more. There was the space of unburnt candle between the light and the slow match – shortened to an inch or less. How much life did that inch leave me? Three-quarters of an hour? Half an hour? Fifty minutes? Twenty minutes? Steady! an inch of tallow candle would burn longer than twenty minutes. An inch of tallow! the notion of a man’s body and soul being kept together by an inch of tallow! Wonderful! Why, the greatest king that sits on a throne can’t keep a man’s body and soul together; and here’s an inch of tallow that can do what the king can’t! There’s something to tell mother, when I get home, which will surprise her more than all the rest of my voyages put together. I laughed inwardly, again, at the thought of that; and shook and swelled and suffocated myself, till the light of the candle leaped in through my eyes, and licked up the laughter, and burnt it out of me, and made me all empty, and cold, and quiet once more.

Mother and Lizzie. I don’t know when they came back; but they did come back – not, as it seemed to me, into my mind this time; but right down bodily before me, in the hold of the brig.

Yes: sure enough, there was Lizzie, just as light-hearted as usual, laughing at me. Laughing! Well why not? Who is to blame Lizzie for thinking I’m lying on my back, drunk in the cellar, with the beer barrels all round me? Steady! she’s crying now – spinning round and round in a fiery mist, wringing her hands, screeching out for help – fainter and fainter, like the splash of the schooner’s sweeps. Gone! – burnt up in the fiery mist. Mist? fire? no: neither one nor the other. It’s mother makes the light – mother knitting, with ten flaming points at the ends of her fingers and thumbs, and slow-matches hanging in bunches all round her face instead of her own grey hair. Mother in her old armchair, and the pilot’s long skinny hands hanging over the back of the chair, dripping with gunpowder. No! no gunpowder, no chair, no mother – nothing but the pilot’s face, shining red hot, like a sun, in the fiery mist; turning upside down in the fiery mist; running backwards and forwards along the slow-match, in the fiery mist; spinning millions of miles in a minute, in the fiery mist – spinning itself smaller and smaller into one tiny point, and that point darting on a sudden straight into my head – and then, all fire and all mist – no hearing, no seeing, no thinking, no feeling – the brig, the sea, my own self, the whole world, all gone together!

After what I’ve just told you, I know nothing and remember nothing, till I woke up, as it seemed to me in a comfortable bed, with two rough and ready men like myself sitting on each side of my pillow, and a gentleman standing watching me at the foot of the bed. It was about seven in the morning. My sleep (or what seemed like my sleep to me) had lasted better than eight months – I was among my own countrymen in the island of Trinidad – the men at each side of my pillow were my keepers, turn and turn about and the gentleman standing at the foot of the bed was the doctor. What I said and did in those eight months, I never have known and never shall. I woke out of it, as if it had been one long sleep – that’s all I know.

It was another two months or more before the doctor thought it safe to answer the questions I asked him.

The brig had been anchored, just as I had supposed, off a part of the coast which was lonely enough to make the Spaniards pretty sure of no interruption, so long as they managed their murderous work quietly under cover of night. My life had not been saved from the shore, but from the sea. An American vessel, becalmed in the offing, had made out the brig as the sun rose; and the captain, having his time on his hands in consequence of the calm, and seeing a vessel anchored where no vessel had any reason to be, had manned one of his boats and sent his mate with it, to look a little closer into the matter, and bring back a report of what he saw. What he saw, when he and his men found the brig deserted and boarded her, was a gleam of candlelight through the chink in the hatchway. The flame was within about a thread’s breadth of the slow-match, when he lowered himself into the hold; and if he had not had the sense and coolness to cut the match in two with his knife, before he touched the candle, he and his men might have been blown up along with the brig, as well as me. The match caught and turned into sputtering red fire, in the very act of putting the candle out; and if the communication with the powder barrel had not been cut off, the Lord only knows what might have happened.

What became of the Spanish schooner and the pilot I have never heard from that day to this. As for the brig, the Yankees took her, as they took me, to Trinidad, and claimed their salvage, and got it, I hope, for their own sakes. I was landed just in the same state as when they rescued me from the brig, that is to say, clean out of my senses. But, please to remember it was a long time ago; and, take my word for it, I was discharged cured, as I have told you. Bless your hearts, I’m all right now, as you may see. I’m a little shaken by telling the story, ladies and gentlemen – a little shaken, that’s all.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE GHOST
IN MASTER B.’S ROOM

It being now my own turn, I “took the word,” as the French say, and went on:

•   •   •

When I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold. Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. Whether the initial letter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black, Brown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird. Whether he was a foundling, and had been baptised B. Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B. was short for Briton, or for Bull. Whether he could possibly have been kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own childhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch?

With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I also carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of the deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he couldn’t have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant Boyhood Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth, Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball?

So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B.

It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, the instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet.

For six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.’s room, when I began to perceive that things were going wrong.

The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing shaving at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and amazement, that I was shaving – not myself – I am fifty – but a boy. Apparently Master B.!

I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I looked again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room, and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and complete the operation in which I had been disturbed. Opening my eyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in the glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four or five and twenty. Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes, and made a strong effort to recover myself. Opening them again, I saw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been dead. Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in my life.

Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of curious thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was my preparation needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o’clock in the morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed with the skeleton of Master B.!

I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a plaintive voice saying, “Where am I? What is become of me?” and, looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B.

The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion: or rather, was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and-salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually taken a great deal too much medicine.

“Where am I?” said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. “And why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that Calomel given me?”

I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn’t tell him.

“Where is my little sister,” said the ghost, “and where my angelic little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?”

I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with. I represented to him that probably that boy never did, within human experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that I myself had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our having been together at “Old Doylance’s,” he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of belief in Doylance’s boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam with inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a proposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being abolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes.

The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. “Barber!” it apostrophised me when I had finished.

“Barber?” I repeated – for I am not of that profession.

“Condemned,” said the ghost, “to shave a constant change of customers – now, me – now, a young man – now, thyself as thou art – now, thy father – now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a skeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning—”

(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.)

“Barber! Pursue me!”

I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in Master B.’s room no longer.

Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told the exact truth – particularly as they were always assisted with leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. I asseverate that, during my occupation of Master B.’s room, I was taken by the ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a goat’s horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman), holding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and less decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to have more meaning.

Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance on a broomstick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very smell of the animal’s paint – especially when I brought it out, by making him warm – I am ready to swear to. I followed the ghost, afterwards, in a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which, the present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again ready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to previous generations to confirm or refute me.) I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey: at least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his stomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on ponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings, from fairs; in the first cab – another forgotten institution where the fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver.

Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to one experience from which you may judge of many.

I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I was conscious of something within me, which has been the same all through my life, and which I have always recognised under all its phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who had gone to bed in Master B.’s room. I had the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs, behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most astounding nature.

This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio.

The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet memories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of imitation. “O, yes! Let us,” said the other creature with a jump, “have a Seraglio.”

It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss Griffin. It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let us entrust it to Miss Bule.

We were ten in Miss Griffin’s establishment by Hampstead Ponds; eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I judge to have attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society. I opened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed that she should become the Favourite.

Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss Pipson? Miss Bule – who was understood to have vowed towards that young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and lock – Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson, disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common.

Now, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair Circassian.

“And what then?” Miss Bule pensively asked.

I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me veiled, and purchased as a slave.

[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in the State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier. He afterwards resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he yielded.]

“Shall I not be jealous?” Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes.

“Zobeide, no,” I replied; “you will ever be the favourite Sultana; the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours.”

Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the course of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good-natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house, and had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule’s hand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of the Blacks of the Hareem.

There were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution, as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed himself of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself before the Caliph; wouldn’t call him Commander of the Faithful; spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere “chap;” said he, the other creature, “wouldn’t play” – Play! – and was otherwise coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however, put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the daughters of men.

The smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun reposing from the cares of State – which were generally, as in most affairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the Faithful being a fearful boggler at a sum.

On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger (Miss Pipson’s pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment, was never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for. In the second place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of “Lork you pretties!” was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third place, when specially instructed to say “Bismillah!” he always said “Hallelujah!” This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation to an incongruous extent, and even once – it was on the occasion of the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses of gold, and cheap, too – embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom, softening many a hard day since!)

Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that she was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state, inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all things that could be learnt out of book) didn’t know, were the main-spring of the preservation of our secret. It was wonderfully kept, but was once upon the verge of self-betrayal. The danger and escape occurred upon a Sunday. We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous part of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head – as we were every Sunday – advertising the establishment in an unsecular sort of way – when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory happened to be read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, conscience whispered me, “Thou, too, Haroun!” The officiating minister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving him the appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, attended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand Vizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened as if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and State had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the centre aisle. But, so Westerly – if I may be allowed the expression as opposite to Eastern associations – was Miss Griffin’s sense of rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved.

I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to scratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of Camden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the half-yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the holidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier – who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the difficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies of the Hareem.

And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, and what she would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. I thought of the number of beds we made up at our house, of my father’s income, and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. The Seraglio and malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord’s unhappiness, did their utmost to augment it. They professed unbounded fidelity, and declared that they would live and die with him. Reduced to the utmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot. In my despair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon, and praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my country, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before me.

One day, we were out walking, two and two – on which occasion the Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the turnpike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the night – and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. An unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that the previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring princes and princesses to a ball and supper: with a special stipulation that they were “not to be fetched till twelve.” This wandering of the antelope’s fancy, led to the surprising arrival at Miss Griffin’s door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, of a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. At the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these ceremonies, the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front. Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used expressions: Firstly, “I believe you all of you knew of it;” Secondly, “Every one of you is as wicked as another;” Thirdly, “A pack of little wretches.”

Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I especially, with my Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was in a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of the law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the general purpose of making for Egypt.

The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded me when I was taken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning gentleness, This was very curious! Why had I run away when the gentleman looked at me?

If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have made no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none. Miss Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back to the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn’t help feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state.

When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed tears. “Bless you, my precious!” said that officer, turning to me; “your Pa’s took bitter bad!”

I asked, with a fluttered heart, “Is he very ill?”

“Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!” said the good Mesrour, kneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head to rest on, “your Pa’s dead!”

Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished; from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest of the daughters of men.

I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously looked upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called “The Trade,” that a brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song. So I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a dismal song it must have been to sing!

Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being enough; where everybody, large and small, was cruel; where the boys knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, “Going, going, gone!” I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been Haroun, or had had a Seraglio: for, I knew that if I mentioned my reverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself in the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer.

•   •   •

Ah me, ah me! No other ghost has haunted the boy’s room, my friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own childhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy belief. Many a time have I pursued the phantom: never with this man’s stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man’s hands of mine to touch it, never more to this man’s heart of mine to hold it in its purity. And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE GHOST
IN THE GARDEN ROOM

My friend and solicitor rubbed his bald forehead – which is quite Shakespearian – with his hand, after a manner he has when I consult him professionally, and took a very large pinch of snuff. “My bedroom,” said he, “has been haunted by the Ghost of a Judge.”

“Of a Judge?” said all the company.

“Of a Judge. In his wig and robes as he sits upon the Bench, at Assize-time. As I have lingered in the great white chair at the side of my fire, when we have all retired for the night to our respective rooms, I have seen and heard him. I never shall forget the description he gave me, and I never have forgotten it since I first heard it.”

“Then you have seen and heard him before, Mr. Undery?” said my sister.

“Often.”

“Consequently, he is not peculiar to this house?”

“By no means. He returns to me in many intervals of quiet leisure, and his story haunts me.”

We one and all called for the story, that it might haunt us likewise.

“It fell within the range of his judicial experience,” said my friend and solicitor, “and this was the Judge’s manner of summing it up.”

Those words did not apply, of course, to the great pinch of snuff that followed them, but to the words that followed the great pinch of snuff. They were these:

•   •   •

Not many years after the beginning of this century, a worthy couple of the name of Huntroyd occupied a small farm in the North Riding of Yorkshire. They had married late in life, although they were very young when they first began to “keep company” with each other. Nathan Huntroyd had been farm servant to Hester Rose’s father, and had made up to her at a time when her parents thought she might do better; and so, without much consultation of her feelings, they had dismissed Nathan in somewhat cavalier fashion. He had drifted far away from his former connections, when an uncle of his died, leaving Nathan – by this time upwards of forty years of age – enough money to stock a small farm, and yet have something over, to put in the bank against bad times. One of the consequences of this bequest was, that Nathan was looking out for a wife and housekeeper, in a kind of discreet and leisurely way, when one day he heard that his old love, Hester, was not married and flourishing, as he had always supposed her to be, but a poor maid-of-all-work, in the town of Ripon. For her father had had a succession of misfortunes, which had brought him in his old age to the workhouse; her mother was dead; her only brother struggling to bring up a large family; and Hester herself a hard-working, homely looking (at thirty-seven) servant. Nathan had a kind of growling satisfaction (which only lasted a minute or two, however) in hearing of these turns of fortune’s wheel. He did not make many intelligible remarks to his informant, and to no one else did he say a word. But, a few days afterwards, he presented himself, dressed in his Sunday best, at Mrs. Thompson’s back door in Ripon.

Hester stood there, in answer to the good sound knock his good sound oak stick made: she, with the light full upon her, he in shadow. For a moment there was silence. He was scanning the face and figure of his old love, for twenty years unseen. The comely beauty of youth had faded away entirely; she was, as I have said, homely looking, plain featured, but with a clean skin, and pleasant frank eyes. Her figure was no longer round, but tidily draped in a blue and white bed gown, tied round her waist by her white apron-strings, and her short red linsey petticoat showed her tidy feet and ankles. Her former lover fell into no ecstasies. He simply said to himself, “She’ll do”; and forthwith began upon his business.

“Hester, thou dost not mind me. I am Nathan, as thy father turned off at a minute’s notice, for thinking of thee for a wife, twenty year come Michaelmas next. I have not thought much upon matrimony since. But Uncle Ben has died leaving me a small matter in the bank; and I have taken Nab-End Farm, and put in a bit of stock, and shall want a missus to see after it. Wilt like to come? I’ll not mislead thee. It’s dairy, and it might have been arable. But arable takes more horses nor it suited me to buy, and I’d the offer of a tidy lot of kine. That’s all. If thou’ll have me, I’ll come for thee as soon as the hay is gotten in.”

Hester only said, “Come in, and sit thee down.”

He came in, and sat down. For a time, she took no more notice of him than of his stick, bustling about to get dinner ready for the family whom she served. He meanwhile watched her brisk sharp movements, and repeated to himself, “She’ll do!” After about twenty minutes of silence thus employed, he got up, saying—

“Well, Hester, I’m going. When shall I come back again?”

“Please thysel’, and thou’ll please me,” said Hester, in a tone that she tried to make light and indifferent; but he saw that her colour came and went, and that she trembled while she moved about. In another moment Hester was soundly kissed; but, when she looked round to scold the middle-aged farmer, he appeared so entirely composed that she hesitated. He said—

“I have pleased mysel’, and thee too, I hope. Is it a month’s wage, and a month’s warning? Today is the eighth. July eighth is our wedding day. I have no time to spend a-wooing before then, and wedding must na take long. Two days is enough to throw away, at our time o’ life.”

It was like a dream; but Hester resolved not to think more about it till her work was done. And when all was cleaned up for the evening, she went and gave her mistress warning, telling her all the history of her life in a very few words. That day month she was married from Mrs. Thompson’s house.

The issue of the marriage was one boy, Benjamin. A few years after his birth, Hester’s brother died at Leeds, leaving ten or twelve children. Hester sorrowed bitterly over this loss; and Nathan showed her much quiet sympathy, although he could not but remember that Jack Rose had added insult to the bitterness of his youth. He helped his wife to make ready to go by the wagon to Leeds. He made light of the household difficulties, which came thronging into her mind after all was fixed for her departure. He filled her purse, that she might have wherewithal to alleviate the immediate wants of her brother’s family. And, as she was leaving, he ran after the wagon. “Stop, stop!” he cried. “Hetty, if thou wilt – if it wunnot be too much for thee – bring back one of Jack’s wenches for company, like. We’ve enough and to spare; and a lass will make the house winsome, as a man may say.”

The wagon moved on; while Hester had such a silent swelling of gratitude in her heart, as was both thanks to her husband and thanksgiving to God.

And that was the way that little Bessy Rose came to be an inmate of the Nab-End Farm.

Virtue met with its own reward in this instance, and in a clear and tangible shape, too; which need not delude people in general into thinking that such is the usual nature of virtue’s rewards! Bessy grew up a bright affectionate, active girl; a daily comfort to her uncle and aunt. She was so much a darling in the household that they even thought her worthy of their only son Benjamin, who was perfection in their eyes. It is not often the case that two plain, homely people have a child of uncommon beauty; but it is so sometimes, and Benjamin Huntroyd was one of these exceptional cases. The hard-working, labour-and-care-marked farmer, and the mother, who could never have been more than tolerably comely in her best days, produced a boy who might have been an earl’s son for grace and beauty. Even the hunting squires of the neighbourhood reined up their horses to admire him, as he opened the gates for them. He had no shyness, he was so accustomed from his earliest years to admiration from strangers and adoration from his parents. As for Bessy Rose, he ruled imperiously over her heart from the time she first set eyes on him. And, as she grew older, she grew on in loving, persuading herself that what her uncle and aunt loved so dearly it was her duty to love dearest of all. At every unconscious symptom of the young girl’s love for her cousin, his parents smiled and winked: all was going on as they wished; no need to go far a-field for Benjamin’s wife. The household could go on as it was now; Nathan and Hester sinking into the rest of years, and relinquishing care and authority to those dear ones, who, in the process of time, might bring other dear ones to share their love.

But Benjamin took it all very coolly. He had been sent to a day school in the neighbouring town – a grammar school in the high state of neglect in which the majority of such schools were thirty years ago. Neither his father nor his mother knew much of learning. All they knew (and that directed their choice of a school) was that they could not, by any possibility, part with their darling to a boarding school; that some schooling he must have, and that Squire Pollard’s son went to Highminster Grammar School. Squire Pollard’s son, and many another son destined to make his parents’ hearts ache, went to this school. If it had not been so utterly a bad place of education, the simple farmer and his wife might have found it out sooner. But not only did the pupils there learn vice, they also learnt deceit. Benjamin was naturally too clever to remain a dunce; or else, if he had chosen so to be, there was nothing in Highminster Grammar School to hinder his being a dunce of the first water. But, to all appearance, he grew clever and gentleman-like. His father and mother were even proud of his airs and graces, when he came home for the holidays; taking them for proofs of his refinement, although the practical effect of such refinement was to make him express his contempt for his parents’ homely ways and simple ignorance. By the time he was eighteen, an articled clerk in an attorney’s office at Highminster, – for he had quite declined becoming a “mere clodhopper,” that is to say, a hard-working, honest farmer like his father – Bessy Rose was the only person who was dissatisfied with him. The little girl of fourteen instinctively felt there was something wrong about him. Alas! two years more, and the girl of sixteen worshipped his very shadow, and would not see that aught could be wrong with one so soft-spoken, so handsome, so kind as Cousin Benjamin. For Benjamin had discovered that the way to cajole his parents out of money for every indulgence he fancied, was to pretend to forward their innocent scheme, and make love to his pretty cousin, Bessy Rose. He cared just enough for her to make this work of necessity not disagreeable at the time he was performing it. But he found it tiresome to remember her little claims upon him, when she was no longer present. The letters he had promised her during his weekly absence at Highminster, the trifling commissions she had asked him to do for her, were all considered in the light of troubles; and, even when he was with her, he resented the inquiries she made as to his mode of passing his time, or what female acquaintances he had in Highminster.

When his apprenticeship was ended, nothing would serve him but that he must go up to London for a year or two. Poor Farmer Huntroyd was beginning to repent of his ambition of making his son Benjamin a gentleman. But it was too late to repine now. Both father and mother felt this; and, however sorrowful they might be, they were silent, neither demurring nor assenting to Benjamin’s proposition when first he made it. But Bessy, through her tears, noticed that both her uncle and aunt seemed unusually tired that night, and sat hand in hand on the fireside settle, idly gazing into the bright flame, as if they saw in it pictures of what they had once hoped their lives would have been. Bessy rattled about among the supper things, as she put them away after Benjamin’s departure, making more noise than usual – as if noise and bustle was what she needed to keep her from bursting out crying – and, having at one keen glance taken in the position and looks of Nathan and Hester, she avoided looking in that direction again, for fear the sight of their wistful faces should make her own tears overflow.

“Sit thee down, lass – sit thee down! Bring the creepie-stool to the fireside, and let’s have a bit of talk over the lad’s plans,” said Nathan, at last rousing himself to speak. Bessy came and sat down in front of the fire, and threw her apron over her face, as she rested her head on both hands. Nathan felt as if it was a chance which of the two women burst out crying first. So he thought he would speak, in hopes of keeping off the infection of tears.

“Didst ever hear of this mad plan afore, Bessy?”

“No, never!” Her voice came muffled and changed from under her apron. Hester felt as if the tone, both of question and answer, implied blame; and this she could not bear.

“We should ha’ looked to it when we bound him; for of necessity it would ha’ come to this. There’s examins, and catechizes, and I dunno what all for him to be put through in London. It’s not his fault.”

“Which on us said it were?” asked Nathan, rather put out. “Tho’, for that matter, a few weeks would carry him over the mire, and make him as good a lawyer as any judge among ’em. Oud Lawson the attorney told me that, in a talk I had wi’ him a bit sin. Na, na! it’s the lad’s own hankering after London that makes him want for to stay there for a year, let alone two.”

Nathan shook his head.

“And if it be his own hankering,” said Bessy, putting down her apron, her face all flame, and her eyes swollen up, “I dunnot see harm in it. Lads aren’t like lasses, to be teed to their own fireside like th’ crook yonder. It’s fitting for a young man to go abroad and see the world, afore he settles down.”

Hester’s hand sought Bessy’s; and the two women sat in sympathetic defiance of any blame that should be thrown on the beloved absent. Nathan only said—

“Nay, wench, dunnot wax up so; whatten’s done’s done; and worse, it’s my doing. I mun needs make my bairn a gentleman; and we mun pay for it.”

“Dear Uncle! he wunna spend much, I’ll answer for it; and I’ll scrimp and save i’ the house, to make it good.”

“Wench!” said Nathan Solemnly, “it were not paying in cash I were speaking on: it were paying in heart’s care, and heaviness of soul. Lunnon is a place where the devil keeps court as well as King George; and my poor chap has more nor once welly fallen into his clutches here. I dunno what he’ll do, when he gets close within sniff of him.”

“Don’t let him go, father!” said Hester, for the first time taking this view. Hitherto she had only thought of her own grief at parting with him. “Father, if you think so, keep him here, safe under your own eye!”

“Nay!” said Nathan, “he’s past time o’ life for that. Why, there’s not one on us knows where he is at this present time, and he not gone out of our sight an hour. He’s too big to be put back i’ th’ go-cart, mother, or to keep within doors, with the chair turned bottom upwards.”

“I wish he were a wee bairn lying in my arms again! It were a sore day when I weaned him; and I think life’s been gettin’ sorer and sorer at every turn he’s ta’en towards manhood.”

“Coom, lass; that’s noan the way to be talking. Be thankful to Marcy that thou’st getten a man for thy son as stands five foot eleven in’s stockings, and ne’er a sick piece about him. We wunnot grudge him his fling, will we, Bess, my wench? He’ll be coming back in a year, or, may be, a bit more, and be a’ for settling in a quiet town like, wi’ a wife that’s noan so fur fra’ me at this very minute. An’ we oud folk, as we get into years, must gi’ up farm, and tak a bit on a house near Lawyer Benjamin.”

And so the good Nathan, his own heart heavy enough, tried to soothe his womenkind. But, of the three, his eyes were longest in closing, his apprehensions the deepest founded.

“I misdoubt me I ha’na done well by th’ lad. I misdoubt me sore,” was the thought that kept him awake till day began to dawn. “Summat’s wrong about him, or folk would na look me wi’ such piteous-like een, when they speak on him. I can see th’ meaning of it, tho’ I’m too proud to let on. And Lawson, too, he holds his tongue more nor he should do, when I ax him how my lad’s getting on, and whatten sort of a lawyer he’ll mak. God be marciful to Hester an’ me, if th’ lad’s gone away! God be marciful! But, may be, it’s this lying waking a’ the night through, that maks me so fearfu’. Why, when I were his age, I daur be bound I should ha’ spent money fast enoof, i’ I could ha’ come by it. But I had to arn it; that maks a great differ’. Well! It were hard to thwart th’ child of our old age, and we waitin’ so long for to have ’un!”

Next morning, Nathan rode Moggy, the cart-horse, into Highminster to see Mr. Lawson. Anybody who saw him ride out of his own yard would have been struck with the change in him which was visible when he returned: a change greater than a day’s unusual exercise should have made in a man of his years. He scarcely held the reins at all. One jerk of Moggy’s head would have plucked them out of his hands. His head was bent forward, his eyes looking on some unseen thing, with long, unwinking gaze. But, as he drew near home on his return, he made an effort to recover himself.

“No need fretting them,” he said; “lads will be lads. But I didna think he had it in him to be so thowtless, young as he is. Well, well! he’ll, may be, get more wisdom i’ Lunnon. Anyways, it’s best to cut him off fra such evil lads as Will Hawker, and suchlike. It’s they as have led my boy astray. He were a good chap till he knowed them – a good chap till he knowed them.”

But he put all his cares in the background, when he came into the house-place, where both Bessy and his wife met him at the door, and both would fain lend a hand to take off his greatcoat.

“Theer, wenches, theer! ye might let a man alone for to get out on ’s clothes! Why, I might ha’ struck thee, lass.” And he went on talking, trying to keep them off for a time from the subject that all had at heart. But there was no putting them off forever; and, by dint of repeated questioning on his wife’s part, more was got out than he had ever meant to tell – enough to grieve both his hearers sorely: and yet the brave old man still kept the worst in his own breast.

The next day, Benjamin came home for a week or two, before making his great start to London. His father kept him at a distance, and was solemn and quiet in his manner to the young man. Bessy, who had shown anger enough at first, and had uttered many a sharp speech, began to relent, and then to feel hurt and displeased that her uncle should persevere so long in his cold, reserved manner – and Benjamin just going to leave them! Her aunt went, tremblingly busy, about the clothes-presses and drawers, as if afraid of letting herself think either of the past or the future; only once or twice, coming behind her son, she suddenly stopped over his sitting figure, and kissed his cheek, and stroked his hair. Bessy remembered afterwards – long years afterwards – how he had tossed his head away with nervous irritability on one of these occasions, and had muttered – her aunt did not hear it, but Bessy did—

“Can’t you leave a man alone?”

Towards Bessy herself he was pretty gracious. No other words express his manner… it was not warm, nor tender, nor cousinly, but there was an assumption of underbred politeness towards her as a young, pretty woman; which politeness was neglected in his authoritative or grumbling manner towards his mother, or his sullen silence before his father. He once or twice ventured on a compliment to Bessy on her personal appearance. She stood still, and looked at him with astonishment.

“Have my eyes changed sin’ last thou saw’st them,” she asked, “that thou must be telling me about ’em i’ that fashion? I’d rayther by a deal see thee helping thy mother, when she’s dropped her knitting needle and canna see i’ th’ dusk for to pick it up.”

But Bessy thought of his pretty speech about her eyes, long after he had forgotten making it, and when he would have been puzzled to tell the colour of them. Many a day, after he was gone, did she look earnestly in the little oblong looking glass, which hung up against the wall of her little sleeping chamber, but which she used to take down in order to examine the eyes he had praised, murmuring to herself, “Pretty, soft grey eyes! Pretty, soft grey eyes!” until she would hang up the glass again, with a sudden laugh and a rosy blush.

In the days when he had gone away to the vague distance and vaguer place – the city called London – Bessy tried to forget all that had gone against her feeling of the affection and duty that a son owed to his parents; and she had many things to forget of this kind that would keep surging up into her mind. For instance, she wished that he had not objected to the homespun, homemade shirts which his mother and she had had such pleasure in getting ready for him. He might not know, it was true – and so her love urged – how carefully and evenly the thread had been spun: how, not content with bleaching the yarn in the sunniest meadow, the linen, on its return from the weaver’s, had been spread out afresh on the sweet summer grass, and watered carefully, night after night, when there was no dew to perform the kindly office. He did not know – for no one but Bessy herself did – how many false or large stitches, made large and false by her aunt’s failing eyes (who yet liked to do the choicest part of the stitching all by herself), Bessy had unpicked at night in her own room, and with dainty fingers had re-stitched; sewing eagerly in the dead of night. All this he did not know; or he could never have complained of the coarse texture, the old-fashioned make of these shirts, and urged on his mother to give him part of her little store of egg and butter money, in order to buy newer fashioned linen in Highminster.

When once that little precious store of his mother’s was discovered, it was well for Bessy’s peace of mind that she did not know how loosely her aunt counted up the coins, mistaking guineas for shillings, or just the other way, so that the amount was seldom the same in the old black spoutless teapot. Yet this son, this hope, this love, had still a strange power of fascination over the household. The evening before he left, he sat between his parents, a hand in theirs on either side, and Bessy on the old creepie-stool, her head lying on her aunt’s knee, and looking up at him from time to time, as if to learn his face off by heart; till his glances, meeting hers, made her drop her eyes, and only sigh.

He stopped up late that night with his father, long after the women had gone to bed. But not to sleep; for I will answer for it the grey-haired mother never slept a wink till the late dawn of the autumn day; and Bessy heard her uncle come upstairs with heavy, deliberate footsteps, and go to the old stocking which served him for bank, and count out the golden guineas; once he stopped, but again he went on afresh, as if resolved to crown his gift with liberality. Another long pause – in which she could but indistinctly hear continued words, it might have been advice, it might be a prayer, for it was in her uncle’s voice – and then father and son came up to bed. Bessy’s room was but parted from her cousin’s by a thin wooden partition; and the last sound she distinctly heard, before her eyes, tired out with crying, closed themselves in sleep, was the guineas clinking down upon each other at regular intervals, as if Benjamin were playing at pitch and toss with his father’s present.

After he was gone, Bessy wished he had asked her to walk part of the way with him into Highminster. She was all ready, her things laid out on the bed; but she could not accompany him without invitation.

The little household tried to close over the gap as best they might. They seemed to set themselves to their daily work with unusual vigour; but somehow, when evening came there had been little done. Heavy hearts never make light work, and there was no telling how much care and anxiety each had had to bear in secret in the field, at the wheel, or in the dairy. Formerly, he was looked for every Saturday – looked for, though he might not come; or, if he came, there were things to be spoken about that made his visit anything but a pleasure: still, he might come, and all things might go right; and then what sunshine, what gladness to those humble people! But now he was away, and dreary winter was come on; old folks’ sight fails, and the evenings were long and sad, in spite of all Bessy could do or say. And he did not write so often as he might – so each one thought; though each one would have been ready to defend him from either of the others who had expressed such a thought aloud. “Surely,” said Bessy to herself, when the first primroses peeped out in a sheltered and sunny hedge-bank, and she gathered them as she passed home from afternoon church – “surely, there never will be such a dreary, miserable winter again as this has been.” There had been a great change in Nathan and Hester Huntroyd during this last year. The spring before, when Benjamin was yet the subject of more hopes than fears, his father and mother looked what I may call an elderly middle-aged couple: people who had a good deal of hearty work in them yet. Now – it was not his absence alone that caused the change – they looked frail and old, as if each day’s natural trouble was a burden more than they could bear. For Nathan had heard sad reports about his only child, and had told them solemnly to his wife – as things too bad to be believed, and yet, “God help us if he is indeed such a lad as this!” Their eyes were become too dry and hollow for many tears; they sat together, hand in hand; and shivered, and sighed, and did not speak many words, or dare to look at each other: and then Hester had said—

“We mauna tell th’ lass. Young folks’ hearts break wi’ a little, and she’d be apt to fancy it were true.” Here the old woman’s voice broke into a kind of piping cry; but she struggled, and her next words were all right. “We mauna tell her: he’s bound to be fond on her, and, may be, if she thinks well on him, and loves him, it will bring him straight!”

“God grant it!” said Nathan.

“God shall grant it!” said Hester, passionately moaning out her words; and then repeating them, alas! with a vain repetition.

“It’s a bad place for lying, is Highminster,” said she at length, as if impatient of the silence. “I never knowed such a place for getting up stories. But Bessy knows nought on ’em and nother you nor me belie’es ’em, that’s one blessing.”

But, if they did not in their hearts believe them, how came they to look so sad and worn, beyond what mere age could make them?

Then came round another year, another winter, yet more miserable than the last. This year, with the primroses, came Benjamin; a bad, hard, flippant young man, with yet enough of specious manners and handsome countenance to make his appearance striking at first to those to whom the aspect of a London fast young man of the lowest order is strange and new. Just at first, as he sauntered in with a swagger and an air of indifference, which was partly assumed, partly real, his old parents felt a simple kind of awe of him, as if he were not their son, but a real gentleman; but they had too much fine instinct in their homely natures not to know, after a very few minutes had passed, that this was not a true prince.

“Whatten ever does he mean,” said Hester to her niece, as soon as they were alone, “by a’ them maks and wearlocks? And he minces his words, as if his tongue were clipped short, or split like a magpie’s. Hech! London is as bad as a hot day i’ August for spoiling good flesh; for he were a good-looking lad when he went up; and now, look at him, with his skin gone into lines and flourishes, just like the first page on a copybook.”

“I think he looks a good deal better, aunt, for them new-fashioned whiskers!” said Bessy, blushing still at the remembrance of the kiss he had given her on first seeing her – a pledge, she thought, poor girl, that, in spite of his long silence in letter writing, he still looked upon her as his troth-plight wife. There were things about him which none of them liked, although they never spoke of them; yet there was also something to gratify them in the way in which he remained quiet at Nab-End, instead of seeking variety, as he had formerly done, by constantly stealing off to the neighbouring town. His father had paid all the debts that he knew of, soon after Benjamin had gone up to London; so there were no duns that his parents knew of to alarm him, and keep him at home. And he went out in the morning with the old man, his father, and lounged by his side, as Nathan went round his fields, with busy yet infirm gait; having heart, as he would have expressed it, in all that was going on, because at length his son seemed to take an interest in the farming affairs, and stood patiently by his side, while he compared his own small galloways with the great shorthorns looming over his neighbour’s hedge.

“It’s a slovenly way, thou seest, that of selling th’ milk; folk don’t care whether its good or not, so that they get their pint measure of stuff that’s watered afore it leaves th’ beast, instead o’ honest cheating by the help o’ th’ pump. But look at Bessy’s butter, what skill it shows! part her own manner o’ making, and part good choice o’ cattle. It’s a pleasure to see her basket, a’ packed ready to go to market; and it’s noan o’ a pleasure for to see the buckets fu’ of their blue starch-water as yon beasts give. I’m thinking they crossed th’ breed wi’ a pump not long sin’. Hech! but our Bessy’s a clever canny wench! I sometimes think thou’lt be for gie’ing up th’ law, and taking to th’ oud trade, when thou wedst wi’ her!” This was intended to be a skilful way of ascertaining whether there was any ground for the old farmer’s wish and prayer, that Benjamin might give up the law and return to the primitive occupation of his father. Nathan dared to hope it now, since his son had never made much by his profession, owing, as he had said, to his want of a connection; and the farm, and the stock, and the clean wife, too, were ready to his hand; and Nathan could safely rely on himself never, in his most unguarded moments, to reproach his son with the hardly-earned hundreds that had been spent on his education. So the old man listened with painful interest to the answer which his son was evidently struggling to make, coughing a little and blowing his nose before he spoke.

“Well, you see, father, law is a precarious livelihood; a man, as I may express myself, has no chance in the profession unless he is known – known to the judges, and tip-top barristers, and that sort of thing. Now, you see, my mother and you have no acquaintance that you may call exactly in that line. But luckily I have met with a man, a friend, as I may say, who is really a first-rate fellow, knowing everybody, from the Lord Chancellor downwards; and he has offered me a share in his business – a partnership, in short—” He hesitated a little.

“I’m sure that’s uncommon kind of the gentleman,” said Nathan. “I should like for to thank him mysen; for it’s not many as would pick up a young chap out o’ th’ dirt, as it were, and say ‘Here’s hauf my good fortune for you, sir, and your very good health!’ Most on ’em when they’re gettin’ a bit o’ luck, run off wi’ it to keep it a’ to themselves, and gobble it down in a corner. What may be his name? for I should like to know it.”

“You don’t quite apprehend me, father. A great deal of what you’ve said is true to the letter. People don’t like to share their good luck, as you say.”

“The more credit to them as does,” broke in Nathan.

“Ay, but, you see, even such a fine fellow as my friend Cavendish does not like to give away half his good practice for nothing. He expects an equivalent.”

“An equivalent?” said Nathan; his voice had dropped down an octave. “And what may that be? There’s always some meaning in grand words, I take it; though I am not book-larned enough to find it out.”

“Why, in this case, the equivalent he demands for taking me into partnership, and afterwards relinquishing the whole business to me, is three hundred pounds down.”

Benjamin looked sideways from under his eyebrows, to see how his father took the proposition. His father struck his stick deep down in the ground; and, leaning one hand upon it, faced round at him.

“Then thy fine friend may go and be hanged. Three hunder’ pounds! I’ll be darned an’ danged too, if I know where to get ’em, if I’d be making a fool o’ thee an’ mysen too.”

He was out of breath by this time. His son took his father’s first words in dogged silence; it was but the burst of surprise he had led himself to expect, and did not daunt him for long.

“I should think, sir—”

“‘Sir’ – whatten for dost thou ‘sir’ me? Is them your manners? I’m plain Nathan Huntroyd, who never took on to be a gentleman; but I have paid my way up to this time, which I shannot do much longer, if I’m to have a son coming an’ asking me for three hundred pound, just meet same as if I were a cow, and had nothing to do but let down my milk to the first person as strokes me.”

“Well, father,” said Benjamin, with an affectation of frankness; “then there’s nothing for me but to do as I have often planned before – go and emigrate.”

“And what?” said his father, looking sharply and steadily at him.

“Emigrate. Go to America, or India, or some colony where there would be an opening for a young man of spirit.”

Benjamin had reserved this proposition for his trump card, expecting by means of it to carry all before him. But, to his surprise, his father plucked his stick out of the hole he had made when he so vehemently thrust it into the ground, and walked on four or five steps in advance; there he stood still again, and there was a dead silence for a few minutes.

“It ’ud, may be, be the best thing thou couldst do,” the father began. Benjamin set his teeth hard to keep in curses. It was well for poor Nathan he did not look round then, and see the look his son gave him. “But it would come hard-like upon us, upon Hester and me; for, whether thou’rt a good ’un or not, thou’rt our flesh and blood, our only bairn; and, if thou’rt not all as a man could wish, it’s, may be, been the fault on our pride i’ the – It ’ud kill the missus, if he went off to Amerikay, and Bess, too, the lass as thinks so much on him!” The speech, originally addressed to his son, had wandered off into a monologue – as keenly listened to by Benjamin, however, as if it had all been spoken to him. After a pause of consideration, his father turned round: “Yon man – I wunnot call him a friend o’ yourn, to think of asking you for such a mint o’ money – is not th’ only one, I’ll be bound, as could give ye a start i’ the law? Other folks ’ud, may be, do it for less?”

“Not one of ’em; to give me equal advantages,” said Benjamin, thinking he perceived signs of relenting.

“Well, then, thou may’st tell him that it’s nother he nor thee as ’ll see th’ sight o’ three hundred pound o’ my money. I’ll not deny as I’ve a bit laid up again’ a rainy day; it’s not so much as thatten, though; and a part on it is for Bessy, as has been like a daughter to us.”

“But Bessy is to be your real daughter someday, when I’ve a home to take her to,” said Benjamin; for he played very fast and loose, even in his own mind, with his engagement with Bessy. Present with her, when she was looking her brightest and best, he behaved to her as if they were engaged lovers; absent from her, he looked upon her rather as a good wedge, to be driven into his parents’ favour on his behalf Now, however, he was not exactly untrue in speaking as if he meant to make her his wife; for the thought was in his mind, though he made use of it to work upon his father.

“It will be a dree day for us, then,” said the old man. “But God’ll have us in His keeping, and’ll, may-happen, be taking more care on us i’ heaven by that time than Bess, good lass as she is, has had on us at Nab-End. Her heart is set on thee, too. But, lad, I ha’na gotten the three hunder; I keeps my cash i’ th’ stocking, thou know’st, till it reaches fifty pound, and then I takes it to Ripon Bank. Now the last scratch they’n gi’en me made it just two-hunder, and I ha’na but on to fifteen pound yet i’ the stockin’, and I meant one hunder’ an’ the red cow’s calf to be for Bess, she’s ta’en such pleasure-like i’ rearing it.”

Benjamin gave a sharp glance at his father, to see if he was telling the truth; and, that a suspicion of the old man, his father, had entered into the son’s head, tells enough of his own character.

“I canna do it, I canna do it, for sure; although I shall like to think as I had helped on the wedding. There’s the black heifer to be sold yet, and she’ll fetch a matter of ten pound; but a deal on’t will be needed for seed corn, for the arable did but bad last year, and I thought I would try – I’ll tell thee what, lad! I’ll make it as though Bess lent thee her hunder’, only thou must give her a writ of hand for it; and thou shalt have a’ the money i’ Ripon Bank, and see if the lawyer wunnot let thee have a share of what he offered thee at three hunder’ for two. I dunnot mean for to wrong him; but thou must get a fair share for the money. At times, I think thou’rt done by folk; now I wadna have you cheat a bairn of a brass farthing; same time, I wadna have thee so soft as to be cheated.”

To explain this, it should be told that some of the bills, which Benjamin had received money from his father to pay, had been altered so as to cover other and less creditable expenses which the young man had incurred; and the simple old farmer, who had still much faith left in him for his boy, was acute enough to perceive that he had paid above the usual price for the articles he had purchased.

After some hesitation, Benjamin agreed to receive the two hundred, and promised to employ it to the best advantage in setting himself up in business. He had, nevertheless, a strange hankering after the additional fifteen pounds that was left to accumulate in the stocking. It was his, he thought, as heir to his father; and he soon lost some of his usual complaisance for Bessy that evening, as he dwelt on the idea that there was money being laid by for her, and grudged it to her even in imagination. He thought more of this fifteen pounds that he was not to have than of all the hardly earned and humbly saved two hundred that he was to come into possession of.

Meanwhile, Nathan was in unusual spirits that evening. He was so generous and affectionate at heart, that he had an unconscious satisfaction in having helped two people on the road to happiness by the sacrifice of the greater part of his property. The very fact of having trusted his son so largely seemed to make Benjamin more worthy of trust in his father’s estimation. The sole idea he tried to banish was, that, if all came to pass as he hoped, both Benjamin and Bessy would be settled far away from Nab-End; but then he had a childlike reliance that “God would take care of him and his missus, somehow or anodder. It wur o’ no use looking too far ahead.”

Bessy had to hear many unintelligible jokes from her uncle that night, for he made no doubt that Benjamin had told her all that had passed, whereas the truth was, his son had said never a word to his cousin on the subject.

When the old couple were in bed, Nathan told his wife of the promise he had made to his son, and the plan in life which the advance of the two hundred was to promote. Poor Hester was a little startled at the sudden change in the destination of the sum, which she had long thought of with secret pride as “money i’ th’ bank.” But she was willing enough to part with it, if necessary, for Benjamin. Only, how such a sum could be necessary, was the puzzle. But even the perplexity was jostled out of her mind by the overwhelming idea, not only of “our Ben” settling in London, but of Bessy going there too as his wife. This great trouble swallowed up all care about money, and Hester shivered and sighed all the night through with distress. In the morning, as Bessy was kneading the bread, her aunt, who had been sitting by the fire in an unusual manner, for one of her active habits, said—

“I reckon we maun go to th’ shop for our bread; an’ that’s a thing I never thought to come to so long as I lived.”

Bessy looked up from her kneading, surprised.

“I’m sure, I’m noan going to eat their nasty stuff. What for do ye want to get baker’s bread, aunt? This dough will rise as high as a kite in a south wind.”

“I’m not up to kneading as I could do once; it welly breaks my back; and, when thou’rt off in London, I reckon we maun buy our bread, first time in my life.”

“I’m not a-goin to London,” said Bessy, kneading away with fresh resolution, and growing very red, either with the idea or the exertion.

“But our Ben is going partner wi’ a great London lawyer; and thou know’st he’ll not tarry long but what he’ll fetch thee.”

“Now, aunt,” said Bessy, stripping her arms of the dough, but still not looking up, “if that’s all, don’t fret yourself. Ben will have twenty minds in his head, afore he settles, eyther in business or in wedlock. I sometimes wonder,” she said, with increasing vehemence, “why I go on thinking on him; for I dunnot think he thinks on me, when I’m out o’ sight. I’ve a month’s mind to try and forget him this time, when he leaves us – that I have!”

“For shame, wench! and he to be planning and purposing, all for thy sake! It wur only yesterday as he wur talking to thy uncle, and mapping it out so clever; only, thou seest, wench, it’ll be dree work for us when both thee and him is gone.”

The old woman began to cry the kind of tearless cry of the aged. Bessy hastened to comfort her; and the two talked, and grieved, and hoped, and planned for the days that now were to be, till they ended, the one in being consoled, the other in being secretly happy.

Nathan and his son came back from Highminster that evening, with their business transacted in the round about way which was most satisfactory to the old man. If he had thought it necessary to take half as much pains in ascertaining the truth of the plausible details by which his son bore out the story of the offered partnership, as he did in trying to get his money conveyed to London in the most secure manner, it would have been well for him. But he knew nothing of all this, and acted in the way which satisfied his anxiety best. He came home tired, but content; not in such high spirits as on the night before, but as easy in his mind as he could be on the eve of his son’s departure. Bessy, pleasantly agitated by her aunt’s tale of the morning of her cousin’s true love for her (“what ardently we wish we long believe”) and the plan which was to end in their marriage – end to her, the woman, at least – looked almost pretty in her bright, blushing comeliness, and more than once, as she moved about from kitchen to dairy, Benjamin pulled her towards him, and gave her a kiss. To all such proceedings the old couple were wilfully blind; and, as night drew on, everyone became sadder and quieter, thinking of the parting that was to be on the morrow. As the hours slipped away, Bessy too became subdued; and, by and by, her simple cunning was exerted to get Benjamin to sit down next his mother, whose very heart was yearning after him, as Bessy saw. When once her child was placed by her side, and she had got possession of his hand, the old woman kept stroking it, and murmuring long unused words of endearment, such as she had spoken to him while he was yet a little child. But all this was wearisome to him. As long as he might play with, and plague, and caress Bessy, he had not been sleepy; but now he yawned loudly. Bessy could have boxed his cars for not curbing this gaping; at any rate, he need not have done it so openly – so almost ostentatiously. His mother was more pitiful.

“Thou’rt tired, my lad!” said she, putting her hand fondly on his shoulder; but it fell off, as he stood up suddenly, and said—

“Yes, deuced tired! I’m off to bed.” And with a rough, careless kiss all round, even to Bessy, as if he was “deuced tired” of playing the lover, he was gone; leaving the three to gather up their thoughts slowly, and follow him upstairs.

He seemed almost impatient at them for rising betimes to see him off the next morning, and made no more of a goodbye than some such speech as this: “Well, good folk, when next I see you, I hope you’ll have merrier faces than you have today. Why, you might be going to a funeral; it’s enough to scare a man from the place; you look quite ugly to what you did last night, Bess.”

He was gone; and they turned into the house, and settled to the long day’s work without many words about their loss. They had no time for unnecessary talking, indeed; for much had been left undone, during his short visit, that ought to have been done, and they had now to work double tides. Hard work was their comfort for many a long day.

For some time Benjamin’s letters, if not frequent, were full of exultant accounts of his well-doing. It is true that the details of his prosperity were somewhat vague; but the fact was broadly and unmistakenly stated. Then came longer pauses; shorter letters, altered in tone. About a year after he had left them, Nathan received a letter which bewildered and irritated him exceedingly. Something had gone wrong – what, Benjamin did not say – but the letter ended with a request that was almost a demand, for the remainder of his father’s savings, whether in the stocking or in the bank. Now, the year had not been prosperous with Nathan; there had been an epidemic among cattle, and he had suffered along with his neighbours; and, moreover, the price of cows, when he had bought some to repair his wasted stock, was higher than he had ever remembered it before. The fifteen pounds in the stocking, which Benjamin left, had diminished to little more than three; and to have that required of him in so peremptory a manner! Before Nathan imparted the contents of this letter to anyone (Bessy and her aunt had gone to market in a neighbour’s cart that day), he got pen and ink and paper, and wrote back an ill-spelt, but very explicit and stern negative. Benjamin had had his portion; and if he could not make it do, so much the worse for him; his father had no more to give him. That was the substance of the letter.

The letter was written, directed, and sealed, and given to the country postman, returning to Highminster after his day’s distribution and collection of letters, before Hester and Bessy came back from market. It had been a pleasant day of neighbourly meeting and sociable gossip; prices had been high, and they were in good spirits – only agreeably tired, and full of small pieces of news. It was some time before they found out how flatly all their talk fell on the ears of the stay-at-home listener. But, when they saw that his depression was caused by something beyond their powers of accounting for by any little every day cause, they urged him to tell them what was the matter. His anger had not gone off. It had rather increased by dwelling upon it, and he spoke it out in good, resolute terms; and, long ere he had ended, the two women were as sad, if not as angry, as himself. Indeed, it was many days before either feeling wore away in the minds of those who entertained them. Bessy was the soonest comforted, because she found a vent for her sorrow in action: action that was half as a kind of compensation for many a sharp word that she had spoken, when her cousin had done anything to displease her on his last visit, and half because she believed that he never could have written such a letter to his father, unless his want of money had been very pressing and real; though how he could ever have wanted money so soon, after such a heap of it had been given to him, was more than she could justly say. Bessy got out all her savings of little presents of sixpences and shillings, ever since she had been a child – of all the money she had gained for the eggs of two hens, called her own; she put the whole together, and it was above two pounds – two pounds five and seven-pence, to speak accurately – and, leaving out the penny as a nest egg for her future savings, she made up the rest in a little parcel, and sent it, with a note, to Benjamin’s address in London:

From a well-wisher.

Dr. Benjamin, – Unkle has lost 2 cows and a vast of monney. He is a good deal Angored, but more Troubled. So no more at present. Hopeing this will finding you well As it leaves us. Tho’ lost to Site, To Memory Dear. Repayment not kneeded.

Your effectonet cousin,

Elizabeth Rose

When this packet was once fairly sent off, Bessy began to sing again over her work. She never expected the mere form of acknowledgement; indeed, she had such faith in the carrier (who took parcels to York, whence they were forwarded to London by coach), that she felt sure he would go on purpose to London to deliver anything entrusted to him, if he had not full confidence in the person, persons, coach and horses, to whom he committed it. Therefore she was not anxious that she did not hear of its arrival. “Giving a thing to a man as one knows,” said she to herself, “is a vast different to poking a thing through a hole into a box, th’ inside of which one has never clapped eyes on; and yet letters get safe, some ways or another.” (The belief in the infallibility of the post was destined to a shock before long.) But she had a secret yearning for Benjamin’s thanks, and some of the old words of love that she had been without so long. Nay, she even thought – when, day after day, week after week, passed by without a line – that he might be winding up his affairs in that weary, wasteful London, and coming back to Nab-End to thank her in person.

One day – her aunt was upstairs, inspecting the summer’s make of cheeses, her uncle out in the fields – the postman brought a letter into the kitchen to Bessy. A country postman, even now, is not much pressed for time; and in those days there were but few letters to distribute, and they were only sent out from Highminster once a week into the district in which Nab-End was situated; and, on those occasions, the letter carrier usually paid morning calls on the various people for whom he had letters. So, half standing by the dresser, half sitting on it, he began to rummage out his bag.

“It’s a queer-like thing I’ve got for Nathan this time. I am afraid it will bear ill news in it; for there’s ‘Dead Letter Office’ stamped on the top of it.”

“Lord save us!” said Bessy, and sat down on the nearest chair, as white as a sheet. In an instant, however, she was up; and, snatching the ominous letter out of the man’s hands, she pushed him before her out of the house, and said, “Be off wi’ thee, afore aunt comes down”; and ran past him as hard as she could, till she reached the field where she expected to find her uncle.

“Uncle,” said she, breathiess, “what is it? Oh, uncle, speak! Is he dead?”

Nathan’s hands trembled, and his eyes dazzled, “Take it,” he said, “and tell me what it is.”

“It’s a letter – it’s from you to Benjamin, it is – and there’s words written on it, ‘Not known at the address given;’ so they’ve sent it back to the writer – that’s you, uncle. Oh, it gave me such a start, with them nasty words written outside!”

Nathan had taken the letter back into his own hands, and was turning it over, while he strove to understand what the quick-witted Bessy had picked up at a glance. But he arrived at a different conclusion.

“He’s dead!” said he. “The lad is dead, and he never knowed how as I were sorry I wrote to ’un so sharp. My lad! my lad!” Nathan sat down on the ground where he stood, and covered his face with his old, withered hands. The letter returned to him was one which he had written, with infinite pains and at various times, to tell his child, in kinder words and at greater length than he had done before, the reasons why he could not send him the money demanded. And now Benjamin was dead; nay, the old man immediately jumped to the conclusion that his child had been starved to death, without money, in a wild, wide, strange place. All he could say at first was—

“My heart, Bess – my heart is broken!” And he put his hand to his side, still keeping his shut eyes covered with the other, as though he never wished to see the light of day again. Bessy was down by his side in an instant, holding him in her arms, chafing and kissing him.

“It’s noan so bad, uncle; he’s not dead; the letter does not say that, dunnot think it. He’s flitted from that lodging, and the lazy tykes dunna know where to find him; and so they just send y’ back th’ letter, instead of trying fra’ house to house, as Mark Benson would. I’ve always heerd tell on south country folk for laziness. He’s noan dead, uncle; he’s just flitted; and he’ll let us know afore long where he’s gotten to. May be, it’s a cheaper place; for that lawyer has cheated him, ye reck’lect, and he’ll be trying to live for as little as he can, that’s all, uncle. Dunnot take on so; for it doesna say he’s dead.”

By this time Bessy was crying with agitation, although she firmly believed in her own view of the case, and had felt the opening of the ill-favoured letter as a great relief. Presently she began to urge, both with word and action, upon her uncle, that he should sit no longer on the damp grass, She pulled him up; for he was very stiff, and, as he said, “all shaken to dithers.” She made him walk about, repeating over and over again her solution of the case, always in the same words, beginning again and again, “He’s noan dead; it’s just been a flitting,” and so on. Nathan shook his head, and tried to be convinced; but it was a steady belief in his own heart for all that. He looked so deathly ill on his return home with Bessy (for she would not let him go on with his day’s work), that his wife made sure he had taken cold; and he, weary and indifferent to life, was glad to subside into bed and the rest from exertion which his real bodily illness gave him. Neither Bessy nor he spoke of the letter again, even to each other, for many days; and she found means to stop Mark Benson’s tongue and satisfy his kindly curiously, by giving him the rosy side of her own view of the case.

Nathan got up again, an older man in looks and constitution by ten years for that week of bed. His wife gave him many a scolding on his imprudence for sitting down in the wet field, if ever so tired. But now she, too, was beginning to be uneasy at Benjamin’s long continued silence. She could not write herself; but she urged her husband many a time to send a letter to ask for news of her lad. He said nothing in reply for some time; at length, he told her he would write next Sunday afternoon. Sunday was his general day for writing, and this Sunday he meant to go to church for the first time since his illness. On Saturday he was very persistent, against his wife’s wishes (backed by Bessy as hard as she could), in resolving to go into Highminster to market. The change would do him good, he said. But he came home tired, and a little mysterious in his ways. When he went to the shippon the last thing at night, he asked Bessy to go with him, and hold the lantern, while he looked at an ailing cow; and, when they were fairly out of the earshot of the house, he pulled a little shop-parcel from his pocket and said—

“Thou’lt put that on ma Sunday hat, wilt’ou, lass? It’ll be a bit on a comfort to me; for I know my lad’s dead and gone, though I dunna speak on it, for fear o’ grieving th’ old woman and ye.”

“I’ll put it on, uncle, if – But he’s noan dead.” (Bessy was sobbing.)

“I know – I know, lass. I dunnot wish other folk to hold my opinion; but Id like to wear a bit o’ crape out o’ respect to my boy. It ’ud have done me good for to have ordered a black coat; but she’d see if I had na’ on my wedding coat, Sundays, for a’ she’s losing her eyesight, poor old wench! But she’ll ne’er take notice o’ a bit o’ crape. Thou’lt put it on all canny and tidy.”

So Nathan went to church with a strip of crape, as narrow as Bessy durst venture to make it, round his hat. Such is the contradictoriness of human nature that, though he was most anxious his wife should not hear of his conviction that their son was dead, he was half hurt that none of his neighbours noticed his sign of mourning so far as to ask him for whom he wore it.

But after a while, when they never heard a word from or about Benjamin, the household wonder as to what had become of him grew so painful and strong, that Nathan no longer kept the idea to himself. Poor Hester, however, rejected it with her whole will, heart, and soul. She could not and would not believe – nothing should make her believe – that her only child Benjamin had died without some sign of love or farewell to her. No arguments could shake her in this. She believed that, if all natural means of communication between her and him had been cut off at the last supreme moment – if death had come upon him in an instant, sudden and unexpected – her intense love would have been supernaturally made conscious of the blank. Nathan at times tried to feel glad that she should still hope to see the lad again; but at other moments he wanted her sympathy in his grief, his self-reproach, his weary wonder as to how and what they had done wrong in the treatment of their son, that he had been such a care and sorrow to his parents. Bessy was convinced, first by her aunt, and then by her uncle – honestly convinced – on both sides of the argument, and so, for the time, able to sympathise with each. But she lost her youth in a very few months; she looked set and middle-aged, long before she ought to have done, and rarely smiled and never sang again.

All sorts of new arrangements were required by the blow which told so miserably upon the energies of all the household at Nab-End. Nathan could no longer go about and direct his two men, taking a good turn of work himself at busy times. Hester lost her interest in the dairy; for which, indeed, her increasing loss of sight unfitted her. Bessy would either do fieldwork, or attend to the cows and the shippon, or churn, or make cheese; she did all well, no longer merrily, but with something of stern cleverness. But she was not sorry when her uncle, one evening, told her aunt and her that a neighbouring farmer, Job Kirkby, had made him an offer to take so much of his land off his hands as would leave him only pasture enough for two cows, and no arable to attend to; while Farmer Kirkby did not wish to interfere with anything in the house, only would be glad to use some of the outbuilding for his fattening cattle.

“We can do wi’ Hawky and Daisy; it’ll leave us eight or ten pound o’ butter to take to market i’ summer time, and keep us fra’ thinking too much, which is what I’m dreading on as I get into years.”

“Ay,” said his wife. “Thou’ll not have to go so far a-field, if it’s only the Aster-Toft as is on thy hands. And Bess will have to gie up her pride i’ cheese, and tak’ to making cream-butter. I’d allays a fancy for trying at cream-butter; but th’ whey had to be used; else, where I come fra’, they’d never ha’ looked near whey-butter.”

When Hester was left alone with Bessy, she said, in allusion to this change of plan—

“I’m thankful to the Lord that it is as it is; for I were allays afeared Nathan would have to gie up the house and farm altogether, and then the lad would na know where to find us when he came back fra’ Merikay. He’s gone there for to make his fortune, I’ll be bound. Keep up thy heart, lass, he’ll be home some day; and have sown his wild oats. Eh! but thatten’s a pretty story i’ the Gospel about the Prodigal, who’d to eat the pigs’ vittles at one time, but ended i’ clover in his father’s house. And I’m sure our Nathan ’ll be ready to forgive him, and love him, and make much of him – may be, a deal more nor me, who never gave in to ’s death. It’ll be liken to a resurrection to our Nathan.”

Farmer Kirkby, then, took by far the greater part of the land belonging to Nab-End Farm; and the work about the rest, and about the two remaining cows, was easily done by three pairs of willing hands, with a little occasional assistance. The Kirkby family were pleasant enough to have to deal with. There was a son, a stiff, grave bachelor, who was very particular and methodical about his work, and rarely spoke to anyone. But Nathan took it into his head that John Kirkby was looking after Bessy, and was a good deal troubled in his mind in consequence; for it was the first time he had to face the effects of his belief in his son’s death; and he discovered, to his own surprise, that he had not that implicit faith which would make it easy for him to look upon Bessy as the wife of another man than the one to whom she had been betrothed in her youth. As, however, John Kirkby seemed in no hurry to make his intentions (if indeed he had any) clear to Bessy, it was only now and then that his jealousy on behalf of his lost son seized upon Nathan.

But people, old, and in deep hopeless sorrow, grow irritable at times, however they may repent and struggle against their irritability. There were days when Bessy had to bear a good deal from her uncle; but she loved him so dearly and respected him so much, that, high as her temper was to all other people, she never returned him a rough or impatient word. And she had a reward in the conviction of his deep, true affection for her, and her aunt’s entire and most sweet dependence upon her.

One day, however – it was near the end of November – Bessy had had a good deal to bear, that seemed more than usually unreasonable, on the part of her uncle. The truth was, that one of Kirkby’s cows was ill, and John Kirkby was a good deal about in the farmyard; Bessy was interested about the animal, and had helped in preparing a mash over their own fire, that had to be given warm to the sick creature. If John had been out of the way, there would have been no one more anxious about the affair than Nathan: both because he was naturally kind-hearted and neighbourly, and also because he was rather proud of his reputation for knowledge in the diseases of cattle. But because John was about, and Bessy helping a little in what had to be done, Nathan would do nothing, and chose to assume that “nothing to think on ailed th’ beast; but lads and lasses were allays fain to be feared on something.” Now John was upwards of forty, and Bessy nearly eight-and-twenty; so the terms lads and lasses did not exactly apply to their case.

When Bessy brought the milk in from their own cows, towards half-past five o’clock, Nathan bade her make the doors, and not be running out i’ the dark and cold about other folks’ business; and, though Bessy was a little surprised and a good deal annoyed at his tone, she sat down to her supper without making a remonstrance. It had long been Nathan’s custom to look out the last thing at night, to see “what mak’ o’ weather it wur”; and when, towards half-past eight, he got his stick and went out – two or three steps from the door, which opened into the house-place where they were sitting – Hester put her hand on her niece’s shoulder and said—

“He’s gotten a touch o’ rheumatics, as twinges him and makes him speak so sharp. I didna like to ask thee afore him, but how’s yon poor beast?”

“Very ailing, belike. John Kirkby wur off for th’ cow doctor when I cam in. I reckon they’ll have to stop up wi’t a’ night.”

Since their sorrows, her uncle had taken to reading a chapter in the Bible aloud, the last thing at night. He could not read fluently, and often hesitated long over a word, which he miscalled at length; but the very fact of opening the book seemed to soothe those old bereaved parents; for it made them feel quiet and safe in the presence of God, and took them out of the cares and troubles of this world into that futurity which, however dim and vague, was to their faithful hearts as a sure and certain rest. This little quiet time – Nathan sitting with his horn spectacles, the tallow candle between him and the Bible throwing a strong light on his reverent, earnest face; Hester sitting on the other side of the fire, her head bowed in attentive listening; now and then shaking it, and moaning a little, but when a promise came, or any good tidings of great joy, saying “Amen” with fervour; Bessy by her aunt, perhaps her mind a little wandering to some household cares, or it might be on thoughts of those who were absent – this little quiet pause, I say, was grateful and soothing to this household, as a lullaby to a tired child. But this night, Bessy, sitting opposite to the long, low window, only shaded by a few geraniums that grew in the sill, and to the door alongside that window through which her uncle had passed not a quarter of an hour before, saw the wooden latch of the door gently and almost noiselessly lifted up, as if someone were trying it from the outside.

She was startled, and watched again, intently; but it was perfectly still now. She thought it must have been that it had not fallen into its proper place, when her uncle had come in and locked the door. It was just enough to make her uncomfortable, no more; and she almost persuaded herself it must have been fancy. Before going upstairs, however, she went to the window, to look out into the darkness; but all was still. Nothing to be seen; nothing to be heard. So the three went quietly upstairs to bed.

The house was little better than a cottage. The front door opened on a house-place, over which was the old couple’s bedroom. To the left, as you entered this pleasant house-place, and at close right angles with the entrance, was a door that led into the small parlour, which was Hester’s and Bessy’s pride, although not half as comfortable as the house-place, and never on any occasion used as a sitting room. There were shells and bunches of honesty in the fireplace; the best chest of drawers, and a company set of gaudy coloured china, and a bright common carpet on the floor; but all failed to give it the aspect of the homely comfort and delicate cleanliness of the house-place. Over this parlour was the bedroom which Benjamin had slept in when a boy, when at home. It was kept, still, in a kind of readiness for him. The bed was yet there, in which none had slept since he had last done, eight or nine years ago; and every now and then a warming pan was taken quietly and silently up by his old mother, and the bed thoroughly aired. But this she did in her husband’s absence, and without saying a word to anyone; nor did Bessy offer to help her, though her eyes often filled with tears, as she saw her aunt still going through the hopeless service. But the room had become a receptacle for all unused things; and there was always a corner of it appropriated to the winter’s store of apples. To the left of the house-place, as you stood facing the fire, on the side opposite to the window and outer door, were two other doors; the one on the right led into a kind of back kitchen, and had a lean-to roof, and a door opening on to the farmyard and back premises; the left-hand door gave on the stairs, underneath which was a closet, in which various household treasures were kept; and beyond that was the dairy, over which Bessy slept, her little chamber window opening just above the sloping roof of the back-kitchen. There were neither blinds nor shutters to any of the windows, either upstairs or down; the house was built of stone; and there was heavy framework of the same material around the little casement windows, and the long, low window of the house-place was divided by what, in grander dwellings, would be called mullions.

By nine o’clock this night of which I am speaking, all had gone upstairs to bed; it was even later than usual, for the burning of candles was regarded so much in the light of an extravagance, that the household kept early hours even for country folk. But, somehow, this evening, Bessy could not sleep; although in general she was in deep slumber five minutes after her head touched the pillow. Her thoughts ran on the chances for John Kirkby’s cow, and a little fear lest the disorder might be epidemic and spread to their own cattle. Across all these homely cares came a vivid, uncomfortable recollection of the way in which the door latch went up and down, without any sufficient agency to account for it. She felt more sure now than she had done downstairs, that it was a real movement, and no effect of her imagination. She wished that it had not happened just when her uncle was reading, that she might at once have gone quick to the door, and convinced herself of the cause. As it was, her thoughts ran uneasily on the supernatural; and thence to Benjamin, her dear cousin and playfellow, her early lover. She had long given him up as lost forever to her, if not actually dead; but this very giving him up forever involved a free, full forgiveness of all his wrongs to her. She thought tenderly of him, as of one who might have been led astray in his later years, but who existed rather in her recollection as the innocent child, the spirited lad, the handsome, dashing young man. If John Kirkby’s quiet attentions had ever betrayed his wishes to Bessy – if indeed he ever had any wishes on the subject – her first feeling would have been to compare his weather-beaten, middle-aged face and figure with the face and figure she remembered well, but never more expected to see in this life. So thinking, she became very restless, and weary of bed, and, after long tossing and turning, ending in a belief that she should never get to sleep at all that night, she went off soundly and suddenly.

As suddenly she was wide awake, sitting up in bed, listening to some noise that must have awakened her, but which was not repeated for some time. Surely it was in her uncle’s room – her uncle was up; but, for a minute or two, there was no further sound. Then she heard him open his door, and go downstairs, with hurried, stumbling steps. She now thought that her aunt must be ill, and hastily sprang out of bed, and was putting on her petticoat with hurried, trembling hands, and had just opened her chamber door, when she heard the front door undone, and a scuffle, as of the feet of several people, and many rude, passionate words, spoken hoarsely below the breath. Quick as thought, she understood it all – the house was lonely – her uncle had the reputation of being well-to-do – they had pretended to be belated, and had asked their way or something. What a blessing that John Kirkby’s cow was sick, for there were several men watching with him! She went back, opened her window, squeezed herself out, slid down the lean-to roof, and ran barefoot and breathless to the shippon—

“John, John, for the love of God, come quick; there’s robbers in the house, and uncle and aunt ’ll be murdered!” she whispered, in terrified accents, through the closed and barred shippon door. In a moment it was undone, and John and the cow-doctor stood there, ready to act, if they but understood her rightly. Again she repeated her words, with broken, half unintelligible explanations of what she as yet did not rightly understand.

“Front door is open, say’st thou?” said John, arming himself with a pitchfork, while the cow-doctor took some other implement. “Then I reckon we’d best make for that way o’ getting into th’ house, and catch ’em all in a trap.”

“Run! run!” was all Bessy could say, taking hold of John Kirkby’s arm, and pulling him along with her. Swiftly did the three run to the house round the corner, and in at the open front door. The men carried the horn lantern they had been using in the shippon; and, by the sudden oblong light that it threw, Bessy saw the principal object of her anxiety, her uncle, lying stunned and helpless on the kitchen floor. Her first thought was for him; for she had no idea that her aunt was in any immediate danger, although she heard the noise of feet, and fierce, subdued voices upstairs.

“Make th’ door behind us, lass. We’ll not let ’em escape!” said brave John Kirkby, dauntless in a good cause, though he knew not how many there might be above. The cow-doctor fastened and locked the door, saying, “There!” in a defiant tone, as he put the key in his pocket. It was to be a struggle for life or death, or, at any rate, for effectual capture or desperate escape. Bessy kneeled down by her uncle, who did not speak or give any sign of consciousness. Bessy raised his head by drawing a pillow off the settle, and putting it under him; she longed to go for water into the back kitchen, but the sound of a violent struggle, and of heavy blows, and of low, hard curses spoken through closed teeth, and muttered passion, as though breath were too much needed for action to be wasted in speech, kept her still and quiet by her uncle’s side in the kitchen, where the darkness might almost be felt, so thick and deep was it. Once – in a pause of her own heart’s beating – a sudden terror came over her; she perceived, in that strange way in which the presence of a living creature forces itself on our consciousness in the darkest room, that someone was near her, keeping as still as she. It was not the poor old man’s breathing that she heard, nor the radiation of his presence that she felt; someone else was in the kitchen; another robber, perhaps, left to guard the old man, with murderous intent if his consciousness returned. Now Bessy was fully aware that self-preservation would keep her terrible companion quiet, as there was no motive for his betraying himself stronger than the desire of escape; any effort for which he, the unseen witness, must know would be rendered abortive by the fact of the door being locked.

Yet, with the knowledge that he was there, close to her still, silent as the grave – with fearful, it might be deadly, unspoken thoughts in his heart – possibly even with keener and stronger sight than hers, as longer accustomed to the darkness, able to discern her figure and posture, and glaring at her like some wild beast – Bessy could not fail to shrink from the vision that her fancy presented! And still the struggle went on upstairs; feet slipping, blows sounding, and the wrench of intentioned aims, the strong gasps for breath, as the wrestlers paused for an instant. In one of these pauses, Bessy felt conscious of a creeping movement close to her, which ceased when the noise of the strife above died away, and was resumed when it again began. She was aware of it by some subtle vibration of the air, rather than by touch or sound. She was sure that he who had been close to her one minute as she knelt, was, the next, passing stealthily towards the inner door which led to the staircase. She thought he was going to join and strengthen his accomplices, and, with a great cry, she sprang after him; but just as she came to the doorway, through which some dim portion of light from the upper chambers came, she saw one man thrown downstairs, with such violence that he fell almost at her very feet, while the dark, creeping figure glided suddenly away to the left, and as suddenly entered the closet beneath the stairs. Bessy had no time to wonder as to his purpose in so doing, whether he had at first designed to aid his accomplices in their desperate fight or not. He was an enemy, a robber, that was all she knew, and she sprang to the door of the closet, and in a trice had locked it on the outside. And then she stood frightened, panting in that dark corner, sick with terror lest the man who lay before her was either John Kirkby or the cow-doctor. If it were either of those friendly two, what would become of the other – of her uncle, her aunt, herself? But, in a very few minutes, this wonder was ended; her two defenders came slowly and heavily down the stairs, dragging with them a man, fierce, sullen, despairing – disabled with terrible blows, which had made his face one bloody, swollen mass. As for that, neither John nor the cow-doctor was much more presentable. One of them bore the lantern in his teeth; for all their strength was taken up by the weight of the fellow they were bearing.

“Take care,” said Bessy, from her corner; “there’s a chap just beneath your feet. I dunno know if he’s dead or alive; and uncle lies on the floor just beyond.”

They stood still on the stairs for a moment. just then the robber they had thrown downstairs stirred and moaned.

“Bessy,” said John, “run off to th’ stable and fetch ropes and gearing for us to bind ’em; and we’ll rid the house on ’em, and thou can’st go see after th’ oud folks, who need it sadly.”

Bessy was back in a very few minutes. When she came in, there was more light in the house-place, for someone had stirred up the raked fire.

“That felly makes as though his leg were broken,” said John, nodding towards the man still lying on the ground. Bessy felt almost sorry for him as they handled him – not over-gently – and bound him, only half-conscious, as hardly and tightly as they had done his fierce, surly companion. She even felt sorry for his evident agony, as they turned him over and over, that she ran to get him a cup of water to moisten his lips.

“I’m loth to leave yo’ with him alone,” said John, “though I’m thinking his leg is broken for sartain, and he can’t stir, even if he comes to hissel, to do yo’ any harm. But we’ll just take off this chap, and mak sure of him, and then one on us ’ll come back to yo’, and we can, may be, find a gate or so for yo’ to get shut on him o’ th’ house. This felly’s made safe enough, I’ll be bound,” said he, looking at the burglar, who stood, bloody and black, with fell hatred on his sullen face. His eye caught Bessy’s, as hers fell on him with dread so evident that it made him smile; and the look and the smile prevented the words from being spoken which were on Bessy’s lips.

She dared not tell, before him, that an able-bodied accomplice still remained in the house; lest, somehow, the door which kept him a prisoner should be broken open and the fight renewed. So she only said to John, as he was leaving the house—

“Thou’ll not be long away, for I’m afeared of being left wi’ this man.”

“He’ll noan do thee harm,” said John.

“No! but I’m feared lest he should die. And there’s uncle and aunt. Come back soon, John!”

“Ay, ay!” said he, half-pleased; “I’ll be back, never fear me.”

So Bessy shut the door after them, but did not lock it, for fear of mischances in the house, and went once more to her uncle, whose breathing, by this time, was easier than when she had first returned into the house-place with John and the doctor. By the light of the fire, too, she could now see that he had received a blow on the head, which was probably the occasion of his stupor. Round this wound, which was bleeding pretty freely, Bessy put cloths dipped in cold water; and then, leaving him for a time, she lighted a candle, and was about to go upstairs to her aunt, when, just as she was passing the bound and disabled robber, she heard her name softly, urgently called—

“Bessy, Bessy!” At first the voice sounded so close that she thought it must be the unconscious wretch at her feet. But, once again, that voice thrilled through her-

“Bessy, Bessy! for God’s sake, let me out!”

She went to the stair-closet door, and tried to speak, but could not, her heart beat so terribly. Again, close to her ear—

“Bessy, Bessy! they’ll be back directly; let me out, I say! For God’s sake, let me out!” And he began to kick violently against the panels.

“Hush! hush!” she said, sick with a terrible dread, yet with a will strongly resisting her conviction. “Who are you?” But she knew – knew quite well.

“Benjamin.” An oath. “Let me out, I say, and I’ll be off, and out of England by tomorrow night, never to come back, and you’ll have all my father’s money.”

“D’ye think I care for that?” said Bessy vehemently, feeling with trembling hands for the lock; “I wish there was noan such a thing as money i’ the world, afore yo’d come to this. There, yo’re free, and I charge yo’ never to let me see your face again. I’d ne’er ha’ let yo’ loose but for fear o’ breaking their hearts, if yo’ ha’na killed him already.” But, before she had ended her speech, he was gone – off into the black darkness, leaving the door open wide. With a new terror in her mind, Bessy shut it afresh – shut it and bolted it this time. Then she sat down on the first chair, and relieved her soul by giving a great and exceeding bitter cry. But she knew it was no time for giving way; and, lifting herself up with as much effort as if each of her limbs was a heavy weight, she went into the back kitchen, and took a drink of cold water. To her surprise, she heard her uncle’s voice saying feebly—

“Carry me up, and lay me by her.”

But Bessy could not carry him; she could only help his faint exertions to walk upstairs; and, by the time he was there, sitting panting on the first chair she could find, John Kirkby and Atkinson returned. John came up now to her aid. Her aunt lay across the bed in a fainting fit, and her uncle sat in so utterly broken-down a state that Bessy feared immediate death for both. But John cheered her up, and lifted the old man into his bed again; and, while Bessy tried to compose poor Hester’s limbs into a position of rest, John went down to hunt about for the little store of gin which was always kept in a corner cupboard against emergencies.

“They’ve had a sore fright,” said he, shaking his head, as he poured a little gin and hot water into their mouths with a teaspoon, while Bessy chafed their cold feet; “and it and the cold have been welly too much for ’em, poor old folk!”

He looked tenderly at them, and Bessy blessed him in her heart for that look.

“I maun be off. I sent Atkinson up to th’ farm for to bring down Bob, and Jack came wi’ him back to th’ shippon, for to look after t’other man. He began blackguarding us all round, so Bob and Jack were gagging him wi’ bridles when I left.”

“Ne’er give heed to what he says,” cried poor Bessy, a new panic besetting her. “Folks o’ his sort are allays for dragging other folk into their mischief. I’m right glad he were well gagged.”

“Well! but what I were saying were this: Atkinson and me will take t’other chap, who seems quiet enough, to th’ shippon, and it’ll be one piece o’ work for to mind them and the cow; and I’ll saddle t’ old bay mare and ride for constables and doctor fra’ Highminster. I’ll bring Dr. Preston up to see Nathan and Hester first; and then, I reckon, th’ broken legged chap down below must have his turn for all as he’s met wi’ his misfortunes in a wrong line o’ life.”

“Ay!” said Bessy. “We maun ha’ the doctor sure enough, for look at them how they lie – like two stone statues on a church monument, so sad and solemn!”

“There’s a look o’ sense come back into their faces though, sin’ they supped that gin and water. I’d keep on a-bathing his head and giving them a sup on’t fra’ time to time, if I was you, Bessy.”

Bessy followed him downstairs, and lighted the men out of the house. She dared not light them carrying their burden even, until they passed round the corner of the house; so strong was her fearful conviction that Benjamin was lurking near, seeking again to enter. She rushed back into the kitchen, bolted and barred the door, and pushed the end of the dresser against it, shutting her eyes as she passed the uncurtained window, for fear of catching a glimpse of a white face pressed against the glass, and gazing at her. The poor old couple lay quiet and speechless, although Hester’s position had slightly altered: she had turned a little on her side towards her husband, and had laid one shrivelled arm around his neck. But he was just as Bessy had left him, with the wet cloths around his head, his eyes not wanting in a certain intelligence, but solemn, and unconscious to all that was passing around as the eyes of death.

His wife spoke a little from time to time – said a word of thanks, perhaps, or so; but he, never. All the rest of that terrible night, Bessy tended the poor old couple with constant care, her own heart so stunned and bruised in its feelings that she went about her pious duties almost like one in a dream. The November morning was long in coming; nor did she perceive any change, either for the worse or the better, before the doctor came, about eight o’clock. John Kirkby brought him; and was full of the capture of the two burglars.

As far as Bessy could make out, the participation of that unnatural Third was unknown. It was a relief, almost sickening in the revulsion it gave her from her terrible fear, which now she felt had haunted and held possession of her all night long, and had, in fact, paralysed her from thinking. Now she felt and thought with acute and feverish vividness, owing, no doubt, in part, to the sleepless night she had passed. She felt almost sure that her uncle (possibly her aunt, too) had recognised Benjamin; but there was a faint chance that they had not done so, and wild horses should never tear the secret from her, nor should any inadvertent word betray the fact that there had been a third person concerned. As to Nathan, he had never uttered a word. It was her aunt’s silence that made Bessy fear lest Hester knew, somehow, that her son was concerned.

The doctor examined them both closely; looked hard at the wound on Nathan’s head; asked questions which Hester answered shortly and unwillingly, and Nathan not at all – shutting his eyes, as if even the sight of a stranger was pain to him. Bessy replied, in their stead, to all that she could answer respecting their state, and followed the doctor downstairs with a beating heart. When they came into the house-place, they found John had opened the outer door to let in some fresh air, had brushed the hearth and made up the fire, and put the chairs and table in their right places. He reddened a little, as Bessy’s eye fell upon his swollen and battered face, but tried to smile it off in a dry kind of way—

“Yo’ see, I’m an ould bachelor, and I just thought as I’d redd up things a bit. How dun yo’ find ’em, doctor?”

“Well, the poor old couple have had a terrible shock. I shall send them some soothing medicine to bring down the pulse, and a lotion for the old man’s head. It is very well it bled so much; there might have been a good deal of inflammation.” And so he went on, giving directions to Bessy for keeping them quietly in bed through the day. From these directions she gathered that they were not, as she had feared all night long, near to death. The doctor expected them to recover, though they would require care. She almost wished it had been otherwise, and that they, and she too, might have just lain down to their rest in the churchyard – so cruel did life seem to her; so dreadful the recollection of that subdued voice of the hidden robber smiting her with recognition.

All this time, John was getting things ready for breakfast, with something of the handiness of a woman. Bessy half resented his officiousness in pressing Dr. Preston to have a cup of tea, she did so want him to be gone and leave her alone with her thoughts. She did not know that all was done for love of her; that the hard-featured, short-spoken John was thinking all the time how ill and miserable she looked, and trying with tender artifices to make it incumbent upon her sense of hospitality to share Dr. Preston’s meal.

“I’ve seen as the cows is milked,” said he, “yourn and all; and Atkinson’s brought ours round fine. Whatten a marcy it were as she were sick this very night! Yon two chaps ’ud ha’ made short work on’t, if yo’ hadna fetched us in; and, as it were, we had a sore tussle. One on ’em ’ll bear the marks on’t to his dying day, wunnot he, doctor?”

“He’ll barely have his leg well enough to stand his trial at York Assizes; they’re coming off in a fortnight from now.”

“Ay, and that reminds me, Bessy, yo’ll have to go witness before Justice Royds. Constables bade me tell yo’ and gie yo’ this summons. Dunnot be feared: it will not be a long job, though I’m not saying as it’ll be a pleasant one. Yo’ll have to answer questions as to how, and all about it; and Jane” (his sister) “will come and stop wi’ th’ oud folks; and I’ll drive yo’ in the shandry.”

No one knew why Bessy’s colour blanched, and her eye clouded. No one knew how she apprehended lest she should have to say that Benjamin had been of the gang; if indeed, in some way, the law had not followed on his heels quick enough to catch him.

But that trial was spared her; she was warned by John to answer questions, and say no more than was necessary, for fear of making her story less clear; and, as she was known, by character at least, to justice Royds and his clerk, they made the examination as little formidable as possible.

When all was over, and John was driving her back again, he expressed his rejoicing that there would be evidence enough to convict the men, without summoning Nathan and Hester to identify them. Bessy was so tired that she hardly understood what an escape it was; how far greater than even her companion understood.

Jane Kirkby stayed with her for a week or more, and was an unspeakable comfort. Otherwise she sometimes thought she should have gone mad, with the face of her uncle always reminding her, in its stony expression of agony, of that fearful night. Her aunt was softer in her sorrow, as became one of her faithful and pious nature; but it was easy to see how her heart bled inwardly. She recovered her strength sooner than her husband; but, as she recovered, the doctor perceived the rapid approach of total blindness. Every day, nay, every hour of the day, that Bessy dared, without fear of exciting their suspicions of her knowledge, she told them, as she had anxiously told them at first, that only two men, and those perfect strangers, had been discovered as being concerned in the burglary. Her uncle would never have asked a question about it, even if she had withheld all information respecting the affair; but she noticed the quick, watching, waiting glance of his eye, whenever she returned from any person or place where she might have been supposed to gain intelligence if Benjamin were suspected or caught: and she hastened to relieve the old man’s anxiety, by always telling all that she had heard; thankful that, as the days passed on, the danger she sickened to think of grew less and less.

Day by day, Bessy had ground for thinking that her aunt knew more than she had apprehended at first. There was something so very humble and touching in Hester’s blind way of feeling about for her husband – stern, woebegone Nathan – and mutely striving to console him in the deep agony of which Bessy learnt, from this loving, piteous manner, that her aunt was conscious. Her aunt’s face looked blankly up into his, tears slowly running down from her sightless eyes; while from time to time, when she thought herself unheard by any save him, she would repeat such texts as she had heard at church in happier days, and which she thought, in her true, simple piety, might tend to console him. Yet, day by day, her aunt grew more and more sad.

Three or four days before assize time, two summonses to attend the trial at York were sent to the old people. Neither Bessy, nor John, nor Jane, could understand this: for their own notices had come long before, and they had been told that their evidence would be enough to convict.

But, alas! the fact was, that the lawyer employed to defend the prisoners had heard from them that there was a third person engaged, and had heard who that third person was; and it was this advocate’s business to diminish, if possible, the guilt of his clients, by proving that they were but tools in the hands of one who had, from his superior knowledge of the premises and the daily customs of the inhabitants, been the originator and planner of the whole affair. To do this, it was necessary to have the evidence of the parents, who, as the prisoners had said, must have recognised the voice of the young man, their son. For no one knew that Bessy, too, could have borne witness to his having been present; and, as it was supposed that Benjamin had escaped out of England, there was no exact betrayal of him on the part of his accomplices.

Wondering, bewildered, and weary, the old couple reached York, in company with John and Bessy, on the eve of the day of the trial. Nathan was still so self-contained that Bessy could never guess what had been passing in his mind. He was almost passive under his old wife’s trembling caresses. He seemed hardly conscious of them, so rigid was his demeanour.

She, Bessy feared at times, was becoming childish; for she had evidently so great and anxious a love for her husband, that her memory seemed going in her endeavours to melt the stoniness of his aspect and manners; she appeared occasionally to have forgotten why he was so changed, in her piteous little attempts to bring him back to his former self

“They’ll, for sure, never torture them, when they see what old folks they are!” cried Bessy, on the morning of the trial, a dim fear looming over her mind. “They’ll never be so cruel, for sure?”

But “for sure” it was so. The barrister looked up at the judge, almost apologetically, as he saw how hoary-headed and woeful an old man was put into the witness box, when the defence came on, and Nathan Huntroyd was called on for his evidence.

“It is necessary, on behalf of my clients, my lord, that I should pursue a course which, for all other reasons, I deplore.”

“Go on!” said the judge. “What is right and legal must be done.” But, an old man himself, he covered his quivering mouth with his hand as Nathan, with grey, unmoved face, and solemn, hollow eyes, placing his two hands on each side of the witness box, prepared to give his answers to questions, the nature of which he was beginning to foresee, but would not shrink from replying to truthfully; “the very stones” (as he said to himself, with a kind of dulled sense of the Eternal justice) “rise up against such a sinner.”

“Your name is Nathan Huntroyd, I believe?”

“It is.”

“You live at Nab-End Farm?”

“I do.”

“Do you remember the night of November the twelfth?”

“Yes.”

“You were awakened that night by some noise, I believe. What was it?”

The old man’s eyes fixed themselves upon his questioner with the look of a creature brought to bay. That look the barrister never forgets. It will haunt him till his dying day.

“It was a throwing up of stones against our window.”

“Did you hear it at first?”

“No.”

“What awakened you, then?”

“She did.”

“And then you both heard the stones. Did you hear anything else?”

A long pause. Then a low, clear “Yes.”

“What?”

“Our Benjamin asking us for to let him in. She said as it were him, leastways.”

“And you thought it was him, did you not?”

“I told her” (this rime in a louder voice) “for to get to sleep, and not be thinking that every drunken chap as passed by were our Benjamin, for that he were dead and gone.”

“And she?”

“She said as though she’d heerd our Benjamin, afore she were welly awake, axing for to be let in. But I bade her ne’er heed her dreams, but turn on her other side and get to sleep again.”

“And did she?”

A long pause – judge, jury, bar, audience, all held their breath. At length Nathan said—

“No!”

“What did you do then? (My lord, I am compelled to ask these painful questions.)”

“I saw she wadna be quiet: she had allays thought he would come back to us, like the Prodigal i’ th’ Gospels.” (His voice choked a little; but he tried to make it steady, succeeded, and went on.) “She said, if I wadna get up, she would; and just then I heerd a voice. I’m not quite mysel’, gentlemen – I’ve been ill and i’ bed, an’ it makes me trembling-like. Someone said, ‘Father, mother, I’m here, starving i’ the cold – wunnot yo’ get up and let me in?’”

“And that voice was—?”

“It were like our Benjamin’s. I see whatten yo’re driving at, sir, and I’ll tell yo’ truth, though it kills me to speak it. I dunnot say it were our Benjamin as spoke, mind yo’ – I only say it were like—”

“That’s all I want, my good fellow. And on the strength of that entreaty, spoken in your son’s voice, you went down and opened the door to these two prisoners at the bar, and to a third man?”

Nathan nodded assent, and even that counsel was too merciful to force him to put more into words.

“Call Hester Huntroyd.”

An old woman, with a face of which the eyes were evidently blind, with a sweet, gentle, careworn face, came into the witness box, and meekly curtseyed to the presence of those whom she had been taught to respect – a presence she could not see.

There was something in her humble, blind aspect, as she stood waiting to have something done to her – what her poor troubled mind hardly knew – that touched all who saw her, inexpressibly. Again the counsel apologised, but the judge could not reply in words; his face was quivering all over, and the jury looked uneasily at the prisoner’s counsel. That gentleman saw that he might go too far, and send their sympathies off on the other side; but one or two questions he must ask. So, hastily recapitulating much that he had learned from Nathan, he said, “You believed it was your son’s voice asking to be let in?”

“Ay! Our Benjamin came home, I’m sure; choose where he is gone.”

She turned her head about, as if listening for the voice of her child, in the hushed silence of the court.

“Yes; he came home that night – and your husband went down to let him in?”

“Well! I believe he did. There was a great noise of folk downstair.”

“And you heard your son Benjamin’s voice among the others?”

“Is it to do him harm, sir?” asked she, her face growing more intelligent and intent on the business in hand.

“That is not my object in questioning you. I believe he has left England; so nothing you can say will do him any harm. You heard your son’s voice, I say?”

“Yes, sir. For sure I did.”

“And some men came upstairs into your room? What did they say?”

“They axed where Nathan kept his stocking.”

“And you – did you tell them?”

“No, sir, for I knew Nathan would not like me to.”

“What did you do then?”

A shade of reluctance came over her face, as if she began to perceive causes and consequences.

“I just screamed on Bessy – that’s my niece, sir.”

“And you heard someone shout out from the bottom of the stairs?”

She looked piteously at him, but did not answer.

“Gentlemen of the jury, I wish to call your particular attention to this fact: she acknowledges she heard someone shout – some third person, you observe – shout out to the two above. What did he say? That is the last question I shall trouble you with. What did the third person, left behind, downstairs, say?”

Her face worked – her mouth opened two or three times as if to speak – she stretched out her arms imploringly; but no word came, and she fell back into the arms of those nearest to her. Nathan forced himself forward into the witness box—

“My Lord judge, a woman bore ye, as I reckon; it’s a cruel shame to serve a mother so. It wur my son, my only child, as called out for us t’ open door, and who shouted out for to hold th’ oud woman’s throat if she did na stop her noise, when who’d fain ha’ cried for her niece to help. And now yo’ve truth, and a’ th’ truth, and I’ll leave yo’ to th’ judgement o’ God for th’ way yo’ve getten at it.”

Before night the mother was stricken with paralysis, and lay on her deathbed. But the broken-hearted go Home, to be comforted of God.

•   •   •   •   •   •

THE GHOST
IN THE CORNER ROOM

I had observed Mr. Governor growing fidgety as his turn – his “spell,” he called it – approached, and he now surprised us all, by rising with a serious countenance, and requesting permission to “come aft” and have speech with me, before he spun his yarn. His great popularity led to a gracious concession of this indulgence, and we went out together into the hall.

“Old shipmate,” said Mr. Governor to me; “ever since I have been aboard of this old hulk, I have been haunted, day and night.”

“By what, Jack?”

Mr. Governor, clapping his hand on my shoulder and keeping it there, said:

“By something in the likeness of a Woman.”

“All! Your old affliction. You’ll never get over that, Jack, if you live to be a hundred.”

“No, don’t talk so, because I am very serious. All night long, I have been haunted by one figure. All day, the same figure has so bewildered me in the kitchen, that I wonder I haven’t poisoned the whole ship’s company. Now, there’s no fancy here. Would you like to see the figure?”

“I should like to see it very much.”

“Then here it is!” said Jack. Thereupon, he presented my sister, who had stolen out quietly, after us.

“Oh, indeed?” said I. “Then, I suppose, Patty, my dear, I have no occasion to ask whether you have been haunted?”

“Constantly, Joe,” she replied.

The effect of our going back again, all three together, and of my presenting my sister as the Ghost from the Corner Room, and Jack as the Ghost from my Sister’s Room, was triumphant – the crowning hit of the night. Mr. Beaver was so particularly delighted, that he by-and-by declared “a very little would make him dance a hornpipe.” Mr. Governor immediately supplied the very little, by offering to make it a double hornpipe; and there ensued such toe-and-heeling, and buckle-covering, and double-shuffling, and heel-sliding, and execution of all sorts of slippery manoeuvres with vibratory legs, as none of us ever saw before, or will ever see again. When we had all laughed and applauded till we were faint, Starling, not to be outdone, favoured us with a more modern saltatory entertainment in the Lancashire clog manner – to the best of my belief, the longest dance ever performed: in which the sound of his feet became a Locomotive going through cuttings, tunnels, and open country, and became a vast number of other things we should never have suspected, unless he had kindly told us what they were.

It was resolved before we separated that night, that our three months’ period in the Haunted House should be wound up with the marriage of my sister and Mr. Governor. Belinda was nominated bridesmaid, and Stirling was engaged for bridegroom’s man.

In a word, we lived our term out, most happily, and were never for a moment haunted by anything more disagreeable than our own imaginations and remembrances. My cousin’s wife, in her great love for her husband and in her gratitude to him for the change her love had wrought in her, had told us, through his lips, her own story; and I am sure there was not one of us who did not like her the better for it, and respect her the more.

So, at last, before the shortest month in the year was quite out, we all walked forth one morning to the church with the spire, as if nothing uncommon were going to happen; and there Jack and my sister were married, as sensibly as could be. It occurs to me to mention that I observed Belinda and Alfred Starling to be rather sentimental and low, on the occasion, and that they are since engaged to be married in the same church. I regard it as an excellent thing for both, and a kind of union very wholesome for the times in which we live. He wants a little poetry, and she wants a little prose, and the marriage of the two things is the happiest marriage I know for all mankind.

Finally, I derived this Christmas Greeting from the Haunted House, which I affectionately address with all my heart to all my readers: Let us use the great virtue, Faith, but not abuse it; and let us put it to its best use, by having faith in the great Christmas book of the New Testament, and in one another.

•  THE END  •

A MESSAGE
FROM THE SEA

CONTENTS

The Village
Charles Dickens

The Money
Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens

The Club-Night
Possibly: Charles Collins, Henry F. Chorley, Amelia Edwards, Harriet Parr

The Seafaring Man
Wilkie Collins

The Restitution
Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens

All The Year Round
Christmas number 1860

I

THE VILLAGE

“And a mighty sing’lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!” said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it.

Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a level yard in it. From the sea-beach to the cliff-top two irregular rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by the staves between, some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. The old pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as one of the appendages of its infancy, flourished here intact. Strings of pack-horses and pack-donkeys toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders, bearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo as was unshipping at the pier from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or three little coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended laden, or descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village chimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above others. No two houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. The sides of the ladders were musical with water, running clear and bright. The staves were musical with the clattering feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fishermen urging them up, mingled with the voices of the fishermen’s wives and their many children. The pier was musical with the wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. The rough, sea-bleached boulders of which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders of the shore, were brown with drying nets. The red-brown cliffs, richly wooded to their extremest verge, had their softened and beautiful forms reflected in the bluest water, under the clear North Devonshire sky of a November day without a cloud. The village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage, from the houses lying on the pier to the topmost round of the topmost ladder, that one might have fancied it was out a bird’s-nesting, and was (as indeed it was) a wonderful climber. And mentioning birds, the place was not without some music from them too; for the rook was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull with his flapping wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin was hopping among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the breakwater, fearless in the faith of his ancestors, and the Children in the Wood.

Thus it came to pass that Captain Jorgan, sitting balancing himself on the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when they are pleased – and as he always did when he was pleased – and said,—

“A mighty sing’lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in all the days of my life!”

Captain Jorgan had not been through the village, but had come down to the pier by a winding side-road, to have a preliminary look at it from the level of his own natural element. He had seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. He was an American born, was Captain Jorgan, – a New-Englander, – but he was a citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best qualities of most of its best countries.

For Captain Jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat and blue trousers, without holding converse with everybody within speaking distance, was a sheer impossibility. So the captain fell to talking with the fishermen, and to asking them knowing questions about the fishery, and the tides, and the currents, and the race of water off that point yonder, and what you kept in your eye, and got into a line with what else when you ran into the little harbour; and other nautical profundities. Among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who exactly hit his fancy, – a young fisherman of two or three and twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, dark curling hair, and bright, modest eyes under his Sou’wester hat, and with a frank, but simple and retiring manner, which the captain found uncommonly taking. “I’d bet a thousand dollars,” said the captain to himself, “that your father was an honest man!”

“Might you be married now?” asked the captain, when he had had some talk with this new acquaintance.

“Not yet.”

“Going to be?” said the captain.

“I hope so.”

The captain’s keen glance followed the slightest possible turn of the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the Sou’wester hat. The captain then slapped both his legs, and said to himself,—

“Never knew such a good thing in all my life! There’s his sweetheart looking over the wall!”

There was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little platform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia; and she certainly dig not look as if the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape made it any the less sunny and hopeful for her.

Captain Jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that hearty good-nature which is quite exultant in the innocent happiness of other people, had undoubted himself, and was going to start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower ladders of stones, a man whom he hailed as “Tom Pettifer, Ho!” Tom Pettifer, Ho, responded with alacrity, and in speedy course descended on the pier.

“Afraid of a sunstroke in England in November, Tom, that you wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, here?” said the captain, eyeing it.

“It’s as well to be on the safe side, sir,” replied Tom.

“Safe side!” repeated the captain, laughing. “You’d guard against a sunstroke, with that old hat, in an Ice Pack. Wa’al! What have you made out at the Post-office?”

“It is the Post-office, sir.”

“What’s the Post-office?” said the captain.

“The name, sir. The name keeps the Post-office.”

“A coincidence!” said the captain. “A lucky bit! Show me where it is. Good-bye, shipmates, for the present! I shall come and have another look at you, afore I leave, this afternoon.”

This was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisherman; so all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisherman. “He’s a sailor!” said one to another, as they looked after the captain moving away. That he was; and so outspeaking was the sailor in him, that although his dress had nothing nautical about it, with the single exception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of Wellington boots, and surmounted by a tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious, weather-beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have established the captain’s calling. Whereas Mr. Pettifer – a man of a certain plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent – looked no more like a seaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked like a sea-serpent.

The two climbed high up the village, – which had the most arbitrary turns and twists in it, so that the cobbler’s house came dead across the ladder, and to have held a reasonable course, you must have gone through his house, and through him too, as he sat at his work between two little windows, – with one eye microscopically on the geological formation of that part of Devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open sea, – the two climbed high up the village, and stopped before a quaint little house, on which was painted, “MRS. RAYBROCK, DRAPER;” and also “POST-OFFICE.” Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to it was gained by a little plank-bridge.

“Here’s the name,” said Captain Jorgan, “sure enough. You can come in if you like, Tom.”

The captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, about six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a purblind little window of a single pane of glass, peeping out of an abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking at its brightness.

“How do you do, ma’am?” said the captain. “I am very glad to see you. I have come a long way to see you.”

“Have you, sir? Then I am sure I am very glad to see you, though I don’t know you from Adam.”

Thus a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, sparkling and dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity. “Ah! but you are a sailor, sir,” she added, almost immediately, and with a slight movement of her hands, that was not very unlike wringing them; “then you are heartily welcome.”

“Thank’ee, ma’am,” said the captain, “I don’t know what it is, I am sure; that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. Yes, ma’am, I am in that way of life.”

“And the other gentleman, too,” said Mrs. Raybrock.

“Well now, ma’am,” said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the other gentleman, “you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea, – if that makes him a sailor. This is my steward, ma’am, Tom Pettifer; he’s been a’most all trades you could name, in the course of his life, – would have bought all your chairs and tables once, if you had wished to sell ’em, – but now he’s my steward. My name’s Jorgan, and I’m a ship-owner, and I sail my own and my partners’ ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year. According to custom I am called Captain Jorgan, but I am no more a captain, bless your heart, than you are.”

“Perhaps you’ll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair?” said Mrs. Raybrock.

“Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself, ma’am. After you.”

Thus replying, and enjoining Tom to give an eye to the shop, Captain Jorgan followed Mrs. Raybrock into the little, low back-room, – decorated with divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and punch-bowls, – which was at once the private sitting-room of the Raybrock family and the inner cabinet of the post-office of the village of Steepways.

“Now, ma’am,” said the captain, “it don’t signify a cent to you where I was born, except—” But here the shadow of someone entering fell upon the captain’s figure, and he broke off to double himself up, slap both his legs, and ejaculate, “Never knew such a thing in all my life! Here he is again! How are you?”

These words referred to the young fellow who had so taken Captain Jorgan’s fancy down at the pier. To make it all quite complete he came in accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain had detected looking over the wall. A prettier sweetheart the sun could not have shone upon that shining day. As she stood before the captain, with her rosy lips just parted in surprise, her brown eyes a little wider open than was usual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent (and possibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment totally eclipsed by the Sou’wester hat), she looked so charming, that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs again. She was very simply dressed, with no other ornament than an autumnal flower in her bosom. She wore neither hat nor bonnet, but merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely back over the head, to keep the sun off, – according to a fashion that may be sometimes seen in the more genial parts of England as well as of Italy, and which is probably the first fashion of head-dress that came into the world when grasses and leaves went out.

“In my country,” said the captain, rising to give her his chair, and dexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young fisherman must necessarily establish himself, – “in my country we should call Devonshire beauty first-rate!”

Whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained or feigned; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation in plainness as in mincing nicety. All that the captain said and did was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his knowing eye, “I see how it is, and nothing could be better,” he had established a delicate confidence on that subject with the family.

“I was saying to your worthy mother,” said the captain to the young man, after again introducing himself by name and occupation, – “I was saying to your mother (and you’re very like her) that it didn’t signify where I was born, except that I was raised on question-asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their mothers, ‘Neow, how old may you be, and wa’at air you a goin’ to name me?’ – which is a fact.” Here he slapped his leg. “Such being the case, I may be excused for asking you if your name’s Alfred?”

“Yes, sir, my name is Alfred,” returned the young man.

“I am not a conjurer,” pursued the captain, “and don’t think me so, or I shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don’t think, if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that I am asking questions for question-asking’s sake, for I am not. Somebody belonging to you went to sea?”

“My elder brother, Hugh,” returned the young man. He said it in an altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, who raised her hands hurriedly, and put them together across her black gown, and looked eagerly at the visitor.

“No! For God’s sake, don’t think that!” said the captain, in a solemn way; “I bring no good tidings of him.”

There was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire and put her hand between it and her eyes. The young fisherman slightly motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a little garden, engaged in needlework, with a young child sleeping on her bosom. The silence continued until the captain asked of Alfred—

“How long is it since it happened?”

“He shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago.”

“Ship struck upon some reef or rock, as I take it,” said the captain, “and all hands lost?”

“Yes.”

“Wa’al!” said the captain, after a shorter silence, “Here I sit who may come to the same end, like enough. He holds the seas in the hollow of His hand. We must all strike somewhere and go down. Our comfort, then, for ourselves and one another is to have done our duty. I’d wager your brother did his!”

“He did!” answered the young fisherman. “If ever man strove faithfully on all occasions to do his duty, my brother did. My brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man. We were the sons of only a small tradesman in this county, sir; yet our father was as watchful of his good name as if he had been a king.”

“A precious sight more so, I hope – bearing in mind the general run of that class of crittur,” said the captain. “But I interrupt.”

“My brother considered that our father left the good name to us, to keep clear and true.”

“Your brother considered right,” said the captain; “and you couldn’t take care of a better legacy. But again I interrupt.”

“No; for I have nothing more to say. We know that Hugh lived well for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the good name. And now it has come into my keeping. And that’s all.”

“Well spoken!” cried the captain. “Well spoken, young man! Concerning the manner of your brother’s death,” – by this time the captain had released the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad, brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke aside, – “concerning the manner of your brother’s death, it may be that I have some information to give you; though it may not be, for I am far from sure. Can we have a little talk alone?”

The young man rose; but not before the captain’s quick eye had noticed that, on the pretty sweetheart’s turning to the window to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to her the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant smile. So the captain said, being on his legs—

“What might she be making now?”

“What is Margaret making, Kitty?” asked the young fisherman, – with one of his arms apparently mislaid somewhere.

As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up as far as he could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg—

“In my country we should call it wedding-clothes. Fact! We should, I do assure you.”

But it seemed to strike the captain in another light too; for his laugh was not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone, —

“And it’s very pretty, my dear, to see her – poor young thing, with her fatherless child upon her bosom – giving up her thoughts to your home and your happiness. It’s very pretty, my dear, and it’s very good. May your marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too. May the blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good name, long after I have done ploughing the great salt field that is never sown!”

Kitty answered very earnestly, “O! Thank you, sir, with all my heart!” And, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by implication to the young fisherman, too, as the latter held the parlour-door open for the captain to pass out.

•   •   •

II

THE MONEY

“The stairs are very narrow, sir,” said Alfred Raybrock to Captain Jorgan.

“Like my cabin-stairs,” returned the captain, “on many a voyage.”

“And they are rather inconvenient for the head.”

“If my head can’t take care of itself by this time, after all the knocking about the world it has had,” replied the captain, as unconcernedly as if he had no connection with it, “it’s not worth looking after.”

Thus they came into the young fisherman’s bedroom, which was as perfectly neat and clean as the shop and parlour below; though it was but a little place, with a sliding window, and a phrenological ceiling expressive of all the peculiarities of the house-roof. Here the captain sat down on the foot of the bed, and glancing at a dreadful libel on Kitty which ornamented the wall, – the production of some wandering limner, whom the captain secretly admired as having studied portraiture from the figure-heads of ships, – motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the other side of the small round table. That done, the captain put his hand in the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out of it a strong square case-bottle, – not a large bottle, but such as may be seen in any ordinary ship’s medicine-chest. Setting this bottle on the table without removing his hand from it, Captain Jorgan then spake as follows:

“In my last voyage homeward-bound,” said the captain, “and that’s the voyage off of which I now come straight, I encountered such weather off the Horn as is not very often met with, even there. I have rounded that stormy Cape pretty often, and I believe I first beat about there in the identical storms that blew the Devil’s horns and tail off, and led to the horns being worked up into tooth-picks for the plantation overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you travel down South, or away West, fur enough) picking their teeth with ’em, while the whips, made of the tail, flog hard. In this last voyage, homeward-bound for Liverpool from South America, I say to you, my young friend, it blew. Whole measures! No half measures, nor making believe to blow; it blew! Now I warn’t blown clean out of the water into the sky, – though I expected to be even that, – but I was blown clean out of my course; and when at last it fell calm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current set one way, day and night, night and day, and I drifted – drifted – drifted – out of all the ordinary tracks and courses of ships, and drifted yet, and yet drifted. It behooves a man who takes charge of fellow-critturs’ lives, never to rest from making himself master of his calling. I never did rest, and consequently I knew pretty well (‘specially looking over the side in the dead calm of that strong current) what dangers to expect, and what precautions to take against ’em. In short, we were driving head on to an island. There was no island in the chart, and, therefore, you may say it was ill-manners in the island to be there; I don’t dispute its bad breeding, but there it was. Thanks be to Heaven, I was as ready for the island as the island was ready for me. I made it out myself from the masthead, and I got enough way upon her in good time to keep her off. I ordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and went in that boat myself to explore the island. There was a reef outside it, and, floating in a corner of the smooth water within the reef, was a heap of seaweed, and entangled in that seaweed was this bottle.”

Here the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, that the young fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it; and then replaced his band and went on:

“If ever you come – or even if ever you don’t come – to a desert place, use you your eyes and your spyglass well; for the smallest thing you see may prove of use to you; and may have some information or some warning in it. That’s the principle on which I came to see this bottle. I picked up the bottle and ran the boat alongside the island, and made fast and went ashore armed, with a part of my boat’s crew. We found that every scrap of vegetation on the island (I give it you as my opinion, but scant and scrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire. As we were making our way, cautiously and toilsomely, over the pulverised embers, one of my people sank into the earth breast-high. He turned pale, and ‘Haul me out smart, shipmates,’ says he, ‘for my feet are among bones.’ We soon got him on his legs again, and then we dug up the spot, and we found that the man was right, and that his feet had been among bones. More than that, they were human bones; though whether the remains of one man, or of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what with a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, I can’t undertake to say. We examined the whole island and made out nothing else, save and except that, from its opposite side, I sighted a considerable tract of land, which land I was able to identify, and according to the bearings of which (not to trouble you with my log) I took a fresh departure. When I got aboard again I opened the bottle, which was oilskin-covered as you see, and glass-stoppered as you see. Inside of it,” pursued the captain, suiting his action to his words, “I found this little crumpled, folded paper, just as you see. Outside of it was written, as you see, these words: ‘Whoever finds this, is solemnly entreated by the dead to convey it unread to Alfred Raybrock, Steepways, North Devon, England.’ A sacred charge,” said the captain, concluding his narrative, “and, Alfred Raybrock, there it is!”

“This is my poor brother’s writing!”

“I suppose so,” said Captain Jorgan. “I’ll take a look out of this little window while you read it.”

“Pray no, sir! I should be hurt. My brother couldn’t know it would fall into such hands as yours.”

The captain sat down again on the foot of the bed, and the young man opened the folded paper with a trembling hand, and spread it on the table. The ragged paper, evidently creased and torn both before and after being written on, was much blotted and stained, and the ink had faded and run, and many words were wanting. What the captain and the young fisherman made out together, after much re-reading and much humouring of the folds of the paper, is given on the next page.

The young fisherman had become more and more agitated, as the writing had become clearer to him. He now left it lying before the captain, over whose shoulder he had been reading it, and dropping into his former seat, leaned forward on the table and laid his face in his hands.

“What, man,” urged the captain, “don’t give in! Be up and doing like a man!”

“It is selfish, I know, – but doing what, doing what?” cried the young fisherman, in complete despair, and stamping his sea-boot on the ground.

“Doing what?” returned the captain. “Something! I’d go down to the little breakwater below yonder, and take a wrench at one of the salt-rusted iron rings there, and either wrench it up by the roots or wrench my teeth out of my head, sooner than I’d do nothing. Nothing!” ejaculated the captain. “Any fool or fainting heart can do that, and nothing can come of nothing, – which was pretended to be found out, I believe, by one of them Latin critters,” said the captain with the deepest disdain; “as if Adam hadn’t found it out, afore ever he so much as named the beasts!”

Yet the captain saw, in spite of his bold words, that there was some greater reason than he yet understood for the young man’s distress. And he eyed him with a sympathising curiosity.

“Come, come!” continued the captain, “Speak out. What is it, boy!”

“You have seen how beautiful she is, sir,” said the young man, looking up for the moment, with a flushed face and rumpled hair.

“Did any man ever say she warn’t beautiful?” retorted the captain. “If so, go and lick him.”

The young man laughed fretfully in spite of himself, and said—

“It’s not that, it’s not that.”

“Wa’al, then, what is it?” said the captain in a more soothing tone.

The young fisherman mournfully composed himself to tell the captain what it was, and began: “We were to have been married next Monday week—”

“Were to have been!” interrupted Captain Jorgan. “And are to be? Hey?”

Young Raybrock shook his head, and traced out with his forefinger the words, “poor father’s five hundred pounds,” in the written paper.

“Go along,” said the captain. “Five hundred pounds? Yes?”

“That sum of money,” pursued the young fisherman, entering with the greatest earnestness on his demonstration, while the captain eyed him with equal earnestness, “was all my late father possessed. When he died, he owed no man more than he left means to pay, but he had been able to lay by only five hundred pounds.”

“Five hundred pounds,” repeated the captain. “Yes?”

“In his lifetime, years before, he had expressly laid the money aside to leave to my mother, – like to settle upon her, if I make myself understood.”

“Yes?”

“He had risked it once – my father put down in writing at that time, respecting the money – and was resolved never to risk it again.”

“Not a spectator,” said the captain. “My country wouldn’t have suited him. Yes?”

“My mother has never touched the money till now. And now it was to have been laid out, this very next week, in buying me a handsome share in our neighbouring fishery here, to settle me in life with Kitty.”

The captain’s face fell, and he passed and re-passed his sun-browned right hand over his thin hair, in a discomfited manner.

“Kitty’s father has no more than enough to live on, even in the sparing way in which we live about here. He is a kind of bailiff or steward of manor rights here, and they are not much, and it is but a poor little office. He was better off once, and Kitty must never marry to mere drudgery and hard living.”

The captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the young fisherman.

“I am as certain that my father had no knowledge that anyone was wronged as to this money, or that any restitution ought to be made, as I am certain that the sun now shines. But, after this solemn warning from my brother’s grave in the sea, that the money is Stolen Money,” said Young Raybrock, forcing himself to the utterance of the words, “can I doubt it? Can I touch it?”

“About not doubting, I ain’t so sure,” observed the captain; “but about not touching – no – I don’t think you can.”

“See then,” said Young Raybrock, “why I am so grieved. Think of Kitty. Think what I have got to tell her!”

His heart quite failed him again when he had come round to that, and he once more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor. But not for long; he soon began again, in a quietly resolute tone.

“However! Enough of that! You spoke some brave words to me just now, Captain Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain. I have got to do something. What I have got to do, before all other things, is to trace out the meaning of this paper, for the sake of the Good Name that has no one else to put it right. And still for the sake of the Good Name, and my father’s memory, not a word of this writing must be breathed to my mother, or to Kitty, or to any human creature. You agree in this?”

“I don’t know what they’ll think of us below,” said the captain, “but for certain I can’t oppose it. Now, as to tracing. How will you do?”

They both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again carefully puzzled out the whole of the writing.

“I make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, ‘Inquire among the old men living there, for’ – someone. Most like, you’ll go to this village named here?” said the captain, musing, with his finger on the name.

“Yes! And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and – to be sure! – comes from Lanrean.”

“Does he?” said the captain quietly. “As I ain’t acquainted with him, who may he be?”

“Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty’s father.”

“Ay, ay!” cried the captain. “Now you speak! Tregarthen knows this village of Lanrean, then?”

“Beyond all doubt he does. I have often heard him mention it, as being his native place. He knows it well.”

“Stop half a moment,” said the captain. “We want a name here. You could ask Tregarthen (or if you couldn’t I could) what names of old men he remembers in his time in those diggings? Hey?”

“I can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now.”

“Take me with you,” said the captain, rising in a solid way that had a most comfortable reliability in it, “and just a word more first. I have knocked about harder than you, and have got along further than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship’s instruments. I’ll keep you company on this expedition. Now you don’t live by talking any more than I do. Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that’s a speech on both sides.”

Captain Jorgan took command of the expedition with that hearty shake. He at once refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced it in the bottle, put the stopper in, put the oilskin over the stopper, confided the whole to Young Raybrock’s keeping, and led the way downstairs.

But it was harder navigation below-stairs than above. The instant they set foot in the parlour the quick, womanly eye detected that there was something wrong. Kitty exclaimed, frightened, as she ran to her lover’s side, “Alfred! What’s the matter?” Mrs. Raybrock cried out to the captain, “Gracious! what have you done to my son to change him like this all in a minute?” And the young widow – who was there with her work upon her arm – was at first so agitated that she frightened the little girl she held in her hand, who hid her face in her mother’s skirts and screamed. The captain, conscious of being held responsible for this domestic change, contemplated it with quite a guilty expression of countenance, and looked to the young fisherman to come to his rescue.

“Kitty, darling,” said Young Raybrock, “Kitty, dearest love, I must go away to Lanrean, and I don’t know where else or how much further, this very day. Worse than that – our marriage, Kitty, must be put off, and I don’t know for how long.”

Kitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and in anger, and pushed him from her with her hand.

“Put off?” cried Mrs. Raybrock. “The marriage put off? And you going to Lanrean! Why, in the name of the dear Lord?”

“Mother dear, I can’t say why; I must not say why. It would be dishonourable and undutiful to say why.”

“Dishonourable and undutiful?” returned the dame. “And is there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy’s breaking the heart of his own plighted love, and his mother’s heart too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger? Why did you ever come here?” she apostrophised the innocent captain. “Who wanted you? Where did you come from? Why couldn’t you rest in your own bad place, wherever it is, instead of disturbing the peace of quiet unoffending folk like us?”

“And what,” sobbed the poor little Kitty, “have I ever done to you, you hard and cruel captain, that you should come and serve me so?”

And then they both began to weep most pitifully, while the captain could only look from the one to the other, and lay hold of himself by the coat collar.

“Margaret,” said the poor young fisherman, on his knees at Kitty’s feet, while Kitty kept both her hands before her tearful face, to shut out the traitor from her view, – but kept her fingers wide asunder and looked at him all the time, – “Margaret, you have suffered so much, so uncomplainingly, and are always so careful and considerate! Do take my part, for poor Hugh’s sake!”

The quiet Margaret was not appealed to in vain. “I will, Alfred,” she returned, “and I do. I wish this gentleman had never come near us;” whereupon the captain laid hold of himself the tighter; “but I take your part for all that. I am sure you have some strong reason and some sufficient reason for what you do, strange as it is, and even for not saying why you do it, strange as that is. And, Kitty darling, you are bound to think so more than anyone, for true love believes everything, and bears everything, and trusts everything. And, mother dear, you are bound to think so too, for you know you have been blest with good sons, whose word was always as good as their oath, and who were brought up in as true a sense of honour as any gentleman in this land. And I am sure you have no more call, mother, to doubt your living son than to doubt your dead son; and for the sake of the dear dead, I stand up for the dear living.”

“Wa’al now,” the captain struck in, with enthusiasm, “this I say, That whether your opinions flatter me or not, you are a young woman of sense, and spirit, and feeling; and I’d sooner have you by my side in the hour of danger, than a good half of the men I’ve ever fallen in with – or fallen out with, ayther.”

Margaret did not return the captain’s compliment, or appear fully to reciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the consolation of Kitty, and of Kitty’s mother-in-law that was to have been next Monday week, and soon restored the parlour to a quiet condition.

“Kitty, my darling,” said the young fisherman, “I must go to your father to entreat him still to trust me in spite of this wretched change and mystery, and to ask him for some directions concerning Lanrean. Will you come home? Will you come with me, Kitty?”

Kitty answered not a word, but rose sobbing, with the end of her simple head-dress at her eyes. Captain Jorgan followed the lovers out, quite sheepishly, pausing in the shop to give an instruction to Mr. Pettifer.

“Here, Tom!” said the captain, in a low voice. “Here’s something in your line. Here’s an old lady poorly and low in her spirits. Cheer her up a bit, Tom. Cheer ’em all up.”

Mr. Pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately assumed his steward face, and went with his quiet, helpful, steward step into the parlour, where the captain had the great satisfaction of seeing him, through the glass door, take the child in his arms (who offered no objection), and bend over Mrs. Raybrock, administering soft words of consolation.

“Though what he finds to say, unless he’s telling her that ’t’ll soon be over, or that most people is so at first, or that it’ll do her good afterward, I cannot imaginate!” was the captain’s reflection as he followed the lovers.

He had not far to follow them, since it was but a short descent down the stony ways to the cottage of Kitty’s father. But short as the distance was, it was long enough to enable the captain to observe that he was fast becoming the village Ogre; for there was not a woman standing working at her door, or a fisherman coming up or going down, who saw Young Raybrock unhappy and little Kitty in tears, but he or she instantly darted a suspicious and indignant glance at the captain, as the foreigner who must somehow be responsible for this unusual spectacle. Consequently, when they came into Tregarthen’s little garden, – which formed the platform from which the captain had seen Kitty peeping over the wall, – the captain brought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while Kitty hurried to hide her tears in her own room, and Alfred spoke with her father, who was working in the garden. He was a rather infirm man, but could scarcely be called old yet, with an agreeable face and a promising air of making the best of things. The conversation began on his side with great cheerfulness and good humour, but soon became distrustful, and soon angry. That was the captain’s cue for striking both into the conversation and the garden.

“Morning, sir!” said Captain Jorgan. “How do you do?”

“The gentleman I am going away with,” said the young fisherman to Tregarthen.

“O!” returned Kitty’s father, surveying the unfortunate captain with a look of extreme disfavour. “I confess that I can’t say I am glad to see you.”

“No,” said the captain, “and, to admit the truth, that seems to be the general opinion in these parts. But don’t be hasty; you may think better of me by-and-by.”

“I hope so,” observed Tregarthen.

“Wa’al, I hope so,” observed the captain, quite at his ease; “more than that, I believe so, – though you don’t. Now, Mr. Tregarthen, you don’t want to exchange words of mistrust with me; and if you did, you couldn’t, because I wouldn’t. You and I are old enough to know better than to judge against experience from surfaces and appearances; and if you haven’t lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgements, you are a lucky man.”

The other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, “Sir, I have lived to feel it deeply.”

“Wa’al,” said the captain, mollified, “then I’ve made a good cast without knowing it. Now, Tregarthen, there stands the lover of your only child, and here stand I who know his secret. I warrant it a righteous secret, and none of his making, though bound to be of his keeping. I want to help him out with it, and tewwards that end we ask you to favour us with the names of two or three old residents in the village of Lanrean. As I am taking out my pocketbook and pencil to put the names down, I may as well observe to you that this, wrote atop of the first page here, is my name and address: ‘Silas Jonas Jorgan, Salem, Massachusetts, United States.’ If ever you take it in your head to run over any morning, I shall be glad to welcome you. Now, what may be the spelling of these said names?”

“There was an elderly man,” said Tregarthen, “named David Polreath. He may be dead.”

“Wa’al,” said the captain, cheerfully, “if Polreath’s dead and buried, and can be made of any service to us, Polreath won’t object to our digging of him up. Polreath’s down, anyhow.”

“There was another named Penrewen. I don’t know his Christian name.”

“Never mind his Chris’en name,” said the captain; “Penrewen, for short.”

“There was another named John Tredgear.”

“And a pleasant-sounding name, too,” said the captain; “John Tredgear’s booked.”

“I can recall no other except old Parvis.”

“One of old Parvis’s fam’ly I reckon,” said the captain, “kept a dry-goods store in New York city, and realised a handsome competency by burning his house to ashes. Same name, anyhow. David Polreath, Unchris’en Penrewen, John Tredgear, and old Arson Parvis.”

“I cannot recall any others at the moment.”

“Thank’ee,” said the captain. “And so, Tregarthen, hoping for your good opinion yet, and likewise for the fair Devonshire Flower’s, your daughter’s, I give you my hand, sir, and wish you good day.”

Young Raybrock accompanied him disconsolately; for there was no Kitty at the window when he looked up, no Kitty in the garden when he shut the gate, no Kitty gazing after them along the stony ways when they begin to climb back.

“Now I tell you what,” said the captain. “Not being at present calculated to promote harmony in your family, I won’t come in. You go and get your dinner at home, and I’ll get mine at the little hotel. Let our hour of meeting be two o’clock, and you’ll find me smoking a cigar in the sun afore the hotel door. Tell Tom Pettifer, my steward, to consider himself on duty, and to look after your people till we come back; you’ll find he’ll have made himself useful to ’em already, and will be quite acceptable.”

All was done as Captain Jorgan directed. Punctually at two o’clock the young fisherman appeared with his knapsack at his back; and punctually at two o’clock the captain jerked away the last feather-end of his cigar.

“Let me carry your baggage, Captain Jorgan; I can easily take it with mine.”

“Thank’ee,” said the captain. “I’ll carry it myself. It’s only a comb.”

They climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees and fern on the summit of the hill above, to take breath, and to look down at the beautiful sea. Suddenly the captain gave his leg a resounding slap, and cried, “Never knew such a right thing in all my life!” – and ran away.

The cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain was little Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to him to beguile the time with another cigar. He lighted it, and smoked it out, and still he was out of sight and waiting. He stole within sight at last, and saw the lovers, with their arms entwined and their bent heads touching, moving slowly among the trees. It was the golden time of the afternoon then, and the captain said to himself, “Golden sun, golden sea, golden sails, golden leaves, golden love, golden youth, – a golden state of things altogether!”

Nevertheless the captain found it necessary to hail his young companion before going out of sight again. In a few moments more he came up and they began their journey.

“That still young woman with the fatherless child,” said Captain Jorgan, as they fell into step, “didn’t throw her words away; but good honest words are never thrown away. And now that I am conveying you off from that tender little thing that loves, and relies, and hopes, I feel just as if I was the snarling crittur in the picters, with the tight legs, the long nose, and the feather in his cap, the tips of whose moustaches get up nearer to his eyes the wickeder he gets.”

The young fisherman knew nothing of Mephistopheles; but he smiled when the captain stopped to double himself up and slap his leg, and they went along in right good-fellowship.

•   •   •

III

THE CLUB-NIGHT

A Cornish Moor, when the east wind drives over it, is as cold and rugged a scene as a traveller is likely to find in a year’s travel. A Cornish Moor in the dark, is as black a solitude as the traveller is likely to wish himself well out of, in the course of a life’s wanderings. A Cornish Moor in a night fog, is a wilderness where the traveller needs to know his way well, or the chances are very strong that his life and his wanderings will soon perplex him no more.

Captain Jorgan and the young fisherman had faced the cast and the south-cast winds, from the first rising of the sun after their departure from the village of Steepways. Thrice, had the sun risen, and still all day long had the sharp wind blown at them like some malevolent spirit bent on forcing them back. But, Captain Jorgan was too familiar with all the winds that blow, and too much accustomed to circumvent their slightest weaknesses and get the better of them in the long run, to be beaten by any member of the airy family. Taking the year round, it was his opinion that it mattered little what wind blew, or how hard it blew; so, he was as indifferent to the wind on this occasion as a man could be who frequently observed “that it freshened him up,” and who regarded it in the light of an old acquaintance. One might have supposed from his way, that there was even a kind of fraternal understanding between Captain Jorgan and the wind, as between two professed fighters often opposed to one another. The young fisherman, for his part, was accustomed within his narrower limits to hold hard weather cheap, and had his anxious object before him; so, the wind went by him too, little heeded, and went upon its way to kiss Kitty.

Their varied course had lain by the side of the sea where the brown rocks cleft it into fountains of spray, and inland where once barren moors were reclaimed and cultivated, and by lonely villages of poor-enough cabins with mud walls, and by a town or two with an old church and a marketplace. But, always travelling through a sparely inhabited country and over a broad expanse, they had come at last upon the true Cornish Moor within reach of Lanrean. None but gaunt spectres of miners passed them here, with metallic masks of faces, ghastly with dust of copper and tin; anon, solitary works on remote hilltops, and bare machinery of torturing wheels and cogs and chains, writhing up hillsides, were the few scattered hints of human presence in. the landscape; during long intervals, the bitter wind, howling and tearing at them like a fierce wild monster, had them all to itself.

“A sing’lar thing it is,” said the captain, looking round at the brown desert of rank grass and poor moss, “how like this airth is, to the men that live upon it! Here’s a spot of country rich with hidden metals, and it puts on the worst rags of clothes possible, and crouches and shivers and makes believe to be so poor that it can’t so much as afford a feed for a beast. Just like a human miser, ain’t it?”

“But they find the miser out,” returned the young fisherman, pointing to where the earth by the watercourses and along the valleys was turned up, for miles, in trying for metal.

“Ay, they find him out,” said the captain; “but he makes a struggle of it even then, and holds back all he can. He’s a ’cute ’un.”

The gloom of evening was already gathering on the dreary scene, and they were, at the shortest and best, a dozen miles from their destination. But, the captain, in his long-skirted blue coat and his boots and his hat and his square shirt-collar, and without any extra defence against the weather, walked coolly along with his hands in his pockets: as if he lived underground somewhere hard by, and had just come up to show his friend the road.

“I’d have liked to have had a look at this place, too,” said the captain, “when there was a monstrous sweep of water rolling over it, dragging the powerful great stones along and piling ’em atop of one another, and depositing the foundations for all manner of superstitions. Bless you! the old priests, smart mechanical critturs as they were, never piled up many of these stones. Water’s the lever that moved ’em. When you see ’em thick and blunt tewwards one point of the compass, and fined away thin tewwards the opposite point, you may be as good as moral sure that the name of the ancient Druid that fixed ’em was Water.”

The captain referred to some great blocks of stone presenting this characteristic, which were wonderfully balanced and heaped on one another, on a desolate hill. Looking back at these, as they stood out against the lurid glare of the west, just then expiring, they were not unlike enormous antediluvian birds, that had perched there on crags and peaks, and had been petrified there.

“But it’s an interesting country,” said the captain, “—fact! It’s old in the annals of that said old Arch Druid, Water, and it’s old in the annals of the said old parson-critturs too. It’s a mighty interesting thing to set your boot (as I did this day) on a rough honeycombed old stone, with just nothing you can name but weather visible upon it: which the scholars that go about with hammers, chipping pieces off the universal airth, find to be an inscription, entreating prayers for the soul of some for-ages-bust-up crittur of a governor that overtaxed a people never heard of.” Here the captain stopped to slap his leg. “It’s a mighty interesting thing to come upon a score or two of stones set up on end in a desert, some short, some tall, some leaning here, some leaning there, and to know that they were pop’larly supposed – and may be still – to be a group of Cornish men that got changed into that geological formation for playing a game upon a Sunday. They wouldn’t have it in my country, I reckon, even if they could get it – but it’s very interesting.”

In this, the captain, though it amused him, was quite sincere. Quite as sincere as when he added, after looking well about him: “That fog-bank coming up as the sun goes down, will spread, and we shall have to feel our way into Lanrean full as much as see it.”

All the way along, the young fisherman had spoken at times to the captain, of his interrupted hopes, and of the family good name, and of the restitution that must be made, and of the cherished plans of his heart so near attainment, which must be set aside for it. In his simple faith and honour, he seemed incapable of entertaining the idea that it was within the bounds of possibility to evade the doing of what their inquiries should establish to be right. This was very agreeable to Captain Jorgan, and won his genuine admiration. Wherefore, he now turned the discourse back into that channel, and encouraged his companion to talk of Kitty, and to calculate how many years it would take, without a share in the fishery, to establish a home for her, and to relieve his honest heart by dwelling on its anxieties.

Meanwhile, it fell very dark, and the fog became dense, though the wind howled at them and bit them as savagely as ever. The captain had carefully taken the bearings of Lanrean from the map, and carried his pocket compass with him; the young fisherman, too, possessed that kind of cultivated instinct for shaping a course, which is often found among men of such pursuits. But, although they held a true course in the main, and corrected it when they lost the road by the aid of the compass and a light obtained with great difficulty in the roomy depths of the captain’s hat, they could not help losing the road often. On such occasions they would become involved in the difficult ground of the spongy moor, and, after making a laborious loop, would emerge upon the road at some point they had passed before they left it, and thus would have a good deal of work to do twice over. But the young fisherman was not easily lost, and the captain (and his comb) would probably have turned up, with perfect coolness and self-possession, at any appointed spot on the surface of this globe. Consequently, they were no more than retarded in their progress to Lanrean, and arrived in that small place at nine o’clock. By that time, the captain’s hat had fallen back over his ears and rested on the nape of his neck; but he still had his hands in his pockets, and showed no other sign of dilapidation.

They had almost run against a low stone house with red-curtained windows, before they knew they had hit upon the little hotel, the King Arthur’s Arms. They could just descry through the mist, on the opposite side of the narrow road, other low stone buildings which were its outhouses and stables; and somewhere overhead, its invisible sign was being wrathfully swung by the wind.

“Now, wait a bit,” said the captain. “They might be full here, or they might offer us cold quarters. Consequently, the policy is to take an observation, and, when we’ve found the warmest room, walk right slap into it.”

The warmest room was evidently that from which fire and candle streamed reddest and brightest, and from which the sound of voices engaged in some discussion came out into the night. Captain Jorgan having established the bearings of this room, merely said to his young friend, “Follow me!” and was in it, before King Arthur’s Arms had any notion that they enfolded a stranger.

“Order, order, order!” cried several voices, as the captain with his hat under his arm, stood within the door he had opened.

“Gentlemen,” said the captain, advancing, “I am much beholden to you for the opportunity you give me of addressing you; but will not detain you with any lengthened observations. I have the honour to be a cousin of yours on the Uncle Sam side; this young friend of mine is a nearer relation of yours on the Devonshire side; we are both pretty nigh used up, and much in want of supper. I thank you for your welcome, and I am proud to take you by the hand, sir, and I hope I see you well.”

These last words were addressed to a jolly looking chairman with a wooden hammer near him: which, but for the captain’s friendly grasp, he would have taken up, and hammered the table with.

“How do you do, sir?” said the captain, shaking this chairman’s hand with the greatest heartiness, while his new friend ineffectually eyed his hammer of office; “when you come to my country, I shall be proud to return your welcome, sir, and that of this good company.”

The captain now took his seat near the fire, and invited his companion to do the like – whom he congratulated aloud, on their having “fallen on their feet.”

The company, who might be about a dozen in number, were at a loss what to make of, or do with, the captain. But, one little old man in long flapping shirt collars: who, with only his face and them visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, looked like a superannuated Cherubim: said sharply,

“This is a Club.”

“This is a Club,” the captain repeated to his young friend. “Wa’al now, that’s curious! Didn’t I say, coming along, if we could only light upon a Club?”

The captain’s doubling himself up and slapping his leg, finished the chairman. He had been softening towards the captain from the first, and he melted. “Gentlemen King Arthurs,” said he, rising, “though it is not the custom to admit strangers, still, as we have broken the rule once tonight, I will exert my authority and break it again. And while the supper of these travellers is cooking;” here his eye fell on the landlord, who discreetly took the hint and withdrew to see about it; “I will recall you to the subject of the seafaring man.”

“D’ye hear!” said the captain, aside to the young fisherman; “that’s in our way. Who’s the seafaring man, I wonder?”

“I see several old men here,” returned the young fisherman, eagerly, for his thoughts were always on his object. “Perhaps one or more of the old men whose names you wrote down in your book, may be here.”

“Perhaps,” said the captain; “I’ve got my eye on ’em. But don’t force it. Try if it won’t come nat’ral.”

Thus the two, behind their hands, while they sat warming them at the fire. Simultaneously, the Club beginning to be at its ease again, and resuming the discussion of the seafaring man, the captain winked to his fellow-traveller to let him attend to it.

As it was a kind of conversation not altogether unprecedented in such assemblages, where most of those who spoke at all, spoke all at once, and where half of those could put no beginning to what they had to say, and the other half could put no end, the tendency of the debate was discursive, and not very intelligible. All the captain had made out, down to the time when the separate little table laid for two was covered with a smoking broiled fowl and rashers of bacon, reduced itself to these heads. That, a seafaring man had arrived at The King Arthur’s Arms, benighted, an hour or so earlier in the evening. That, the Gentlemen King Arthurs had admitted him, though all unknown, into the sanctuary of their Club. That, they had invited him to make his footing good by telling a story. That, he had, after some pressing, begun a story of adventure and shipwreck: at an interesting point of which he suddenly broke off, and positively refused to finish. That, he had thereupon taken up a candlestick, and gone to bed, and was now the sole occupant of a double-bedded room upstairs. The question raised on these premises, appeared to be, whether the seafaring man was not in a state of contumacy and contempt, and ought not to be formally voted and declared in that condition. This deliberation involved the difficulty (suggested by the more jocose and irreverent of the Gentlemen King Arthurs) that it might make no sort of difference to the seafaring man whether he was so voted and declared, or not.

Captain Jorgan and the young fisherman ate their supper and drank their beer and their knives and forks had ceased to rattle and their glasses had ceased to clink, and still the discussion showed no symptoms of coming to any conclusion. But, when they had left their little supper-table and had returned to their seats by the fire, the Chairman hammered himself into attention, and thus outspake.

“Gentlemen King Arthurs; when the night is so bad without, harmony should prevail within. When the moor is so windy, cold, and bleak, this room should be cheerful, convivial, and entertaining. Gentlemen, at present it is neither the one, nor yet the other, nor yet the other. Gentlemen King Arthurs, I recall you to yourselves. Gentlemen King Arthurs, what are you? You are inhabitants – old inhabitants – of the noble village of Lanrean. You are in council assembled. You are a monthly Club through all the winter months, and they are many. It is your perroud perrivilege, on a new member’s entrance, or on a member’s birthday, to call upon that member to make good his footing by relating to you some transaction or adventure in his life, or in the life of a relation, or in the life of a friend, and then to depute me as your representative to spin a teetotum [a spinning top] to pass it round. Gentlemen King Arthurs, your perroud perrivileges shall not suffer in my keeping. N-no! Therefore, as the member whose birthday the present occasion has the honour to be, has gratified you; and as the seafaring man overhead has not gratified you; I start you fresh, by spinning the teetotum attached to my office, and calling on the gentleman it falls to, to speak up when his name is declared.”

The captain and his young friend looked hard at the teetotum as it whirled rapidly, and harder still when it gradually became intoxicated and began to stagger about the table in an ill-conducted and disorderly manner. Finally, it came into collision with a candlestick and leaped against the pipe of the old gentleman with the flapping shirt collars. Thereupon, the chairman struck the table once with his hammer and said:

“Mr. Parvis!”

“D’ye hear that?” whispered the captain, greatly excited, to the young fisherman. “I’d have laid you a thousand dollars a good half-hour ago, that that old cherubim in the clouds was Arson Parvis!”

The respectable personage in question, after turning up one eye to assist his memory – at which time, he bore a very striking resemblance indeed to the conventional representations of his race as executed in oil by various ancient masters – commenced a narrative, of which the interest centred in a waistcoat. It appeared that the waistcoat was a yellow waistcoat with a green stripe, white sleeves, and a plain brass button. It also appeared that the waistcoat was made to order, by Nicholas Pendold of Penzance, who was thrown off the top of a four-horse coach coming down the hill on the Plymouth road, and, pitching on his head where he was not sensitive, lived two-and-thirty years afterwards, and considered himself the better for the accident – roused up, as it might be. It further appeared that the waistcoat belonged to Mr. Parvis’s father, and had once attended him, in company with a pair of gaiters, to the annual feast of miners at St. Just: where the extraordinary circumstance which ever afterwards rendered it a waistcoat famous in story had occurred. But, the celebrity of the waistcoat was not thoroughly accounted for by Mr. Parvis, and had to be to some extent taken on trust by the company, in consequence of that gentleman’s entirely forgetting all about the extraordinary circumstance that had handed it down to fame. Indeed, he was even unable, on a gentle cross-examination instituted for the assistance of his memory, to inform the Gentlemen King Arthurs whether it was a circumstance of a natural or supernatural character. Having thus responded to the teetotum, Mr. Parvis, after looking out from his clouds as if he would like to see the man who would beat that, subsided into himself.

The fraternity were plunged into a blank condition by Mr. Parvis’s success, and the chairman was about to try another spin, when young Raybrock – whom Captain Jorgan had with difficulty restrained – rose, and said might he ask Mr. Parvis a question

The Gentlemen King Arthurs holding, with loud cries of “Order!” that he might not, he asked the question as soon as he could possibly make himself heard.

Did the forgotten circumstance relate in any way to money? To a sum of money, such as five hundred pounds? To money supposed by its possessor to be honestly come by, but in reality ill-gotten and stolen?

A general surprise seized upon the club when this remarkable inquiry was preferred; which would have become resentment but for the captain’s interposition.

“Strange as it sounds,” said he, “and suspicious as it sounds, I pledge myself, gentlemen, that my young friend here has a manly stand-up Cornish reason for his words. Also, I pledge myself that they are inoffensive words. He and I are searching for information on a subject which those words generally describe. Such information we may get from the honestest and best of men – may get, or not get, here or anywhere about here. I hope the Honourable Mr. Arson – I ask his pardon – Parvis – will not object to quiet my young friend’s mind by saying Yes or No.”

After some time, the obtuse Mr. Parvis was with great trouble and difficulty induced to roar out “No!” For which concession the captain rose and thanked him.

“Now, listen to the next,” whispered the captain to the young fisherman. “There may be more in him than in the other crittur. Don’t interrupt him. Hear him out.”

The chairman with all due formality spun the teetotum, and it reeled into the brandy-and-water of a strong brown man of sixty or so: John Tredgear: the manager of a neighbouring mine. He immediately began as follows, with a plain businesslike air that gradually warmed as he proceeded.

•   •   •

It happened that at one period of my life the path of my destiny (not a tin path then) lay along the highways and byways of France, and that I had occasion to make frequent stoppages at common French roadside cabarets – that kind of tavern which has a very bad name in French books and French plays. I had engaged myself in an undertaking which rendered such journeys necessary. A very old friend of mine had recently established himself at Paris in a wholesale commercial enterprise, into the nature of which it is not necessary for our present purpose to enter. He had proposed to me a certain share in the undertaking, and one of the duties of my post was to involve occasional journeys among the smaller towns and villages of France, with the view of establishing agencies and opening connections. My friend had applied to me to undertake this function, rather than to a native, feeling that he could trust me better than a stranger. He knew also that, in consequence of my having been half my life at school in France, my knowledge of the language would be sufficient for every purpose that could be required.

I accepted my friend’s proposal, and entered with such energy as I could command upon my new mode of life. Sometimes, my journeyings from place to place were accomplished by means of the railroad, or other public conveyance; but there were other occasions, and these last I liked the best, when it was necessary I should go to out-of-the-way places, and by such cross-roads as rendered it more convenient for me to travel with a carriage and horse of my own. My carriage was a kind of phaeton without a coach-box, with a leather hood that would put up and down; and there was plenty of room at the back, for such specimens or samples of goods as it was necessary that I should carry with me. For my horse – it was absolutely indispensable that it should be an animal of some value, as no horse but a very good one would be capable of performing the long courses day after day which my mode of travelling rendered necessary. He cost me two thousand francs, and was anything but dear at the price.

Many were the journeys we performed together over the broad acres of beautiful France. Many were the hotels, many the auberges [inns], many the bad dinners, many the damp beds, and many the fleas which I encountered en route. Many were the dull old fortified towns over whose drawbridges I rolled; many the still more dull old towns without fortifications and without drawbridges, at which my avocations made it necessary for me to halt.

I don’t know how it was that on the morning when I was to start from the town of Doulaise, with the intention of sleeping at Francy-le-Grand, I was an hour later in commencing my journey than I ought to have been. I have said I don’t know how it was, but this is scarcely true. I do know how it was. It was because on that morning, to use a popular expression, everything went wrong. So, it was an hour later than it ought to have been, gentlemen, when I drew up the sheepskin lining of my carriage apron over my legs, and establishing my little dog comfortably on the seat beside me, set off on my journey. In all my expeditions I was accompanied by a favourite terrier of mine, which I had brought with me from England. I never travelled without her, and found her a companion.

It was a miserable day in the month of October. A perfectly grey sky, with white gleams about the horizon, gave unmistakable evidence that the small drizzle which was falling would continue for four-and-twenty hours at least. It was cold and cheerless weather, and on the deserted road I was pursuing, there was scarcely a human being (unless it was an occasional cantonnier, or road-mender) to break the solitude. A deserted way indeed, with poplars on each side of it, which had turned yellow in the autumn, and had shed their leaves in abundance all across the road, so that my mare’s footsteps had quite a muffled sound as she trampled them under her hoofs. Widely-extending flats spread out on either side till the view was lost in an inconceivably melancholy scene, and the road itself was so perfectly straight, that you could see something like ten miles of it diminishing to a point in front of you, while a similar view was visible through the little window at the back of the carriage.

In the hurry of the morning’s departure I had omitted to inquire, as I generally did in travelling an unknown road, at what village it would be best for me to stop, about noon, to bait [eat], and what was the name of the most respectable house of public entertainment in my way; so that when I arrived between twelve and one o’clock at a certain place where four roads met; and when at one of the corners formed by their union I saw a great bare-looking inn, with the sign of the Tête Noire swinging in front; I had nothing for it but to put up there, without knowing anything of the character of the house.

The look of the place did not please me. It was a great bare uninhabited-looking house, which seemed much larger than was necessary, and presented a black and dirty appearance, which, considering the distance from any town, it was difficult to account for. All the doors and all the windows were shut; there was no sign of any living creature about the place; and niched into the wall above the principal entrance was a grim and ghastly-looking life-size figure of a Saint. For a moment I hesitated whether I should turn into the open gates of the stable-yard, or go further in search of some more attractive halting-place. But my mare was tired, I was more than half way on my road, and this would be the best division of the journey. Besides, Gentlemen; why not put up here? If I was only going to stop at such places of entertainment as completely satisfied me, externally as well as internally, I had better give up travelling altogether.

There were no more signs of life in the interior of the yard, than were presented by the external aspect of the house, as it fronted the road. Everything seemed shut up. All the stables and outhouses were characterised by closed doors, without so much as a straw clinging to their thresholds to indicate that these buildings were sometimes put to a practical use. I saw no manure strewed about the place, and no living creature: no pigs, no ducks, no fowls. It was perfectly still and quiet, and, as it was one of those days when a fine small rain descends quite straight, without a breath of air to drive it one way or other, the silence was complete and distressing. I gave a loud shout, and began undoing the harness while my summons was taking effect.

The first person whom the sound of my voice appeared to have reached, was a small but precocious boy: who opened a door in the back of the house, and, descending the flight of steps which led to it, approached to aid me in my task. I was just undoing the final buckle on my side of the harness, when, happening to turn round, I discovered, standing close behind me, a personage who had approached so quietly that it would have been a confusing thing to find him so near even if there had been nothing in his appearance which was calculated to startle one. He was the most ill-looking man, Gentlemen, that it was ever my fortune to behold. Nearer fifty than any other age I could give him, his dry spare nature had kept him as light and active as a restless boy. An absence of flesh, however, was not the only want I felt to exist in the personal appearance of the landlord of the Tête Noire. There was a much more serious defect in him than this. A want of any hint of mercy, or conscience, or any accessible approach to the better side (if there was a better side) of the man’s nature. When first I looked at his eyes, as he stood behind me in the open court, and as they rapidly glanced over the comely points of my horse, and thence to the packages inside my carriage and the portmanteau strapped on in front of it – at that time, the colour of his eyes appeared to me to be of an almost orange tinge; but when, a minute afterwards, we stood together in the dark stable, I noted that a kind of blue phosphorescence gleamed upon their surface, veiling their real hue, and imparting to them a tigerish lustre. The moment when I remarked this, by-the-by, was when the organs I have been describing were fixed upon the very large gold ring which I had not ceased to wear when I adopted my adventurous life, and which you may see upon my finger now. There were two other things about this man that struck me. These were, a bald red projecting lump of flesh at the back of his head, and a deep scar, which a scrap of frowzy whisker on his cheek wholly declined to conceal.

“A nasty day for a journey of pleasure,” said the landlord, looking at me with a satirical smile.

“Perhaps it is not a journey of pleasure,” I answered, dryly.

“We have few such travellers on the road now,” said the evil-faced man. “The railroads make the country a desert, and the roads are as wild as they were three hundred years ago.”

“They are well enough,” I answered, carelessly, “‘for those who are obliged to travel by them. Nobody else, I should think, would be likely to make use of them.”

“Will you come into the house?” said the landlord, abruptly, looking me full in the face.

I never felt a stronger repugnance than I entertained towards the idea of entering this man’s doors. Yet what other course was open to me. My mare was already half through the first installment of her oats, so there was no more excuse for remaining in the stable. To take a walk in the drenching rain was out of the question, and to remain sitting in my calèche would have been a worse indication of suspicion and mistrust. Besides, I had had nothing since the morning’s coffee, and I wanted something to eat and drink. There was nothing to be done, then, but to accept my ill-looking friend’s offer. He led the way up the flight of steps which gave access to the interior of the building.

The room in which I found myself on passing through the door at the top of these steps, was one of those rooms which an excess of light not only fails to enliven, but seems even to invest with an additional degree of gloom. There is sometimes this character about light, and I have seen before now, a workhouse ward, and a barren schoolroom, which have owed a good share of their melancholy to an immoderate amount of cold grey daylight. This room, then, into which I was shown, was one of those which, on a wet day, seemed several degrees lighter than the open air. Of course it could not be really lighter than the thing that lit it, but it seemed so. It also appeared larger than the whole outdoor world; and this, certainly, could not be either, but seemed so. Vast as it was, there appeared through two glass-doors in one of the walls another apartment of similar dimensions. It was not a square room, nor an oblong room, but was smaller at one end than at the other: a phenomenon which, as you have very likely observed, Gentlemen, has always an unpleasant effect. The billiard-table, which stood in the middle of the apartment, though really of the usual size, looked quite a trifling piece of furniture; and as to the other tables, which were planted sparingly here and there for purposes of refreshment, they were quite lost in the immensity of space about them. A cupboard, a rack of billiard cues, a marking-board, and a print of the murder of the Archbishop of Paris in a black frame, alone broke the uniformity of wall. The ceiling, as far as one could judge of anything at that altitude, appeared to be traversed by an enormous beam with rings fastened into it adapted for suicidal purposes, and splashed with the whitewash with which the ceiling itself and the walls had just been decorated. Even my little terrier, whom I had been obliged to take up in my arms on account of the disposition she had manifested to fly at the shins of our detested landlord, looked round the room with a gaze of horror as I set her down, and trembled and shivered as if she would come out of her skin.

“And so you don’t like him, Nelly, and your little beads of eyes, that look, up at me from under that hairy penthouse, with nothing but love in them, are all a-blaze with fury when they are turned upon his sinister face? And how did he get that scar, Nelly? Did he get it when he slaughtered his last traveller? And what do you think of his eyes, Nelly? And what do you think of the back of his head, my dog? What do you think he’s about now, eh? What mischief do you think he’s hatching? Don’t you wish you were sitting by my side in the calèche, and that we were out on the free road again?”

To all these questions and remarks, my little companion responded very intelligibly by faint thumpings of the ground with her tail, and by certain flutterings of her ears, which, from long habits of intercourse, I understood very well to mean that whatever my opinion might be, she coincided in it.

I had ordered an omelette and some wine when I first entered the house, and, as I now sat waiting for it, I observed that my landlord would every now and then leave what he was about in the other room – where I concluded that he was engaged preparing my meal – and would come and peer at me furtively through the glass-doors which connected the room I was in, with that in which he was. Once, too, I heard him go out, and I felt sure that he had retired to the stables, to examine more minutely the value of my horse and carriage.

I took it into my head that my landlord was a desperate rogue; that his business was not sufficient to support him; that he had remarked that I was in possession of a very valuable horse, a carriage which would fetch something, and a quantity of luggage in which there were probably articles of price. I had other things of worth about my person, including a sum of money, without which I could not be travelling about, as he saw me, from place to place.

While my mind was amusing itself with these cheerful reflections, a little girl, of about twelve years old, entered the room through the glass-doors, and, after honouring me with a long stare, went to the cupboard at the other end of the apartment, and, opening it with a bunch of keys which she brought with her in her hand, took out a small white paper packet, about four inches square, and retired with it by the way by which she had entered; still staring at me so diligently that, from want of proper attention to where she was going, she got (I am happy to state) a severe bump against the door as she passed through it. She was a horrid little girl this, with eyes that in shirking the necessity of looking straight at anybody or anything, had got at last to look only at her nose – finding it, probably, as bad a nose as could be met with, and therefore a congenial companion. She had, moreover, frizzy and fluey hair, was excessively dirty, and had a slow crab-like way of going along without looking at what she was about, which was very noisome and detestable.

It was not long before this young lady reappeared, bearing in her hand a plate containing the omelette, which she placed upon the table without going through the previous form of laying a cloth. She next cut an immense piece of bread from a loaf shaped like a ring, and, having clapped this also down upon the dirtiest part of the table, and having further favoured me with a wiped knife and fork, disappeared once more. She disappeared to fetch the wine. When this had been brought, and some water, the preparations for my feast were considered complete, and I was left to enjoy it alone.

I must not omit to mention that the horrid waiting-maid appeared to excite as strong an antipathy in the breast of my little dog as that which my landlord himself had stirred up; and, I am happy to say, that as the child left the room I was obliged to interfere, to prevent Nelly from harassing her retreating calves.

Gentlemen, an experienced traveller soon learns that he must eat to support nature: closing his eyes, nose, and ears to all suggestions. I set to work, then, at the omelette with energy, and at the tough sour bread with good will, and had swallowed half a tumbler of wine and water, when a thought suddenly occurred to me which caused me to set the glass down upon the table. I had no sooner done this, than I raised it again to my lips, took a fresh sip, rolled the liquid about in my mouth two or three times, and spat it out upon the floor. But I uttered, as I did so, in an audible tone, the monosyllable “Pooh!”

“Pooh! Nelly,” I said, looking down at my dog, who was watching me intensely with her head on one side “pooh! Nelly,” I repeated, “what frantic and inconceivable nonsense!”

And what was it that I thus stigmatised? What was it that had given me pause in the middle of my draught? What thought was it that caused me to set down my glass with half its contents remaining in it? It was a suspicion, driven straight and swift as an arrow into the innermost recesses of my soul, that the wine I had just been drinking, and which, contrary to my custom, I had mingled with water, was drugged!

There are some thoughts which, like noxious insects, come buzzing back into one’s mind as often as we repulse them. We confute them in argument, prove them illogical, leave them not a leg to stand upon, and yet there they are the next moment as brisk as bees, and stronger on their pins than ever. It was just such a thought as this with which I had now to deal. It was well to say “Pooh!” it was well to remind myself that this was the nineteenth century, that I was not acting a part in a French melodrama, that such things as I was thinking of were only known in romances; it was well to argue that to set a respectable man down as a murderer, because he had peculiar coloured eyes and a scar upon his cheek; were ridiculous things to do. There seemed to be two separate parties within me: one possessed of great powers of argument and a cool judgement: the other, an irrational or opposition party, whose chief force consisted in a system of dogged assertion, which all the arguments of the rational party were insufficient to put down.

It was not long before an additional force was imparted to the tactics of the irrational party, by certain symptoms which began to develop themselves in my internal organisation, and which seemed favourable to the view of the case I was so anxious to refute. In spite of all my efforts to the contrary, I could not help feeling that some very remarkable sensations were slowly and gradually stealing over me. First of all, I began to find that I was a little at fault in my system of calculating distances: so that when I took up any object and attempted to replace it on the table, I either brought it into contact with that article of furniture with a crash, in consequence of conceiving it to be lower than it was; or else, imagining that the table was several inches nearer to the ceiling than was the case, I abandoned whatever I held in my hand sooner than I should, and found that I was confiding it to space. Then, again, my head felt light upon my shoulders, there was a slight tingling in my hands, and a sense that they, as well as my feet (which were very cold), were swelling to gigantic size, and were also surrounded with numerous rapidly revolving wheels of a light structure, like Catherine-wheels previous to ignition. It also appeared to me that when I spoke to my dog, my voice had a curious sound, and my words were very imperfectly articulated.

It would happen, too, that when I looked towards the glass-doors, my landlord was there, peering at me through the muslin curtains: or the horrid little girl would enter, with no obvious intention, and having loitered for a little time about the room, would leave it again. At length the landlord himself came in, and coolly walking up to the table at which I was seated, glanced at the hardly tasted wine before me.

“It would appear that the wine of the country is not to your taste,” he said.

“It is good enough,” I answered, as carelessly as I could; the words sounding to me as if they were uttered inside the cupola of St. Paul’s, and were conveyed by iron tubes to the place I occupied.

I was in a strange state – perfectly conscious, but imperfectly able to control my thoughts, my words, my actions. I believe my landlord stood staring down at me as I sat staring up at him, and watching the Catherine-wheels as they revolved round his eyes and nose and chin Gentlemen, they seemed absolutely to fizz when they got to the scar on his cheek.

At this time a noisy party entered the main room of the auberge, which I have described as being visible through the glass-doors, and the landlord had to leave me for a time, to go and attend to them. I think I must have fallen into a slight and strongly-resisted doze, and that when I started out of it, it was in consequence of the violent barking of my terrier. The landlord was in the room; he was just unlocking the cupboard from which the little girl had taken the paper parcel. He took out just such another paper parcel, and returned again through the doors. As he did so, I remember stupidly wondering what had become of the little girl. Presently his evil face appeared again at the door.

“I am going to prepare the coffee,” said the landlord; “perhaps monsieur will like it better than the wine.”

As the man disappeared, I started suddenly and violently upon my feet. I could deceive myself no longer. My thoughts were like lightning. “The wine having been taken in so small a quantity and so profusely mixed with water, has done its work (as this man can see) but imperfectly. The coffee will finish that work. He is now preparing it. The cupboard, the little parcel there can be no doubt. I will leave this place while I yet can. Now or never; if those men whose voices I hear in the other room leave the house it will be too late. With so many witnesses, no attempt can be made to prevent my departure. I will not sleep – I will act – I will force my muscles to their work, and get away from this place.”

Gentlemen; in compensation for a set of nerves of distressing sensitiveness, I have received from nature a remarkable power of controlling my nerves for a time. I staggered to the door, closing it after me more violently than I had intended, and descended – the fresh air making me feel very giddy – into the yard.

As I went down the steps, I saw the truculent little girl of whom I have already spoken entering the yard, followed by a blacksmith, carrying a hammer and some other implements of his trade. Catching sight of me, the little girl spoke quickly to the blacksmith, and in an instant they both changed their course, which was directed towards the stable, and entered an outhouse on the other side of the yard. The thought entered my head that this man had been sent for to drive a nail into my horse’s foot, so that in the event of the drugged wine failing I might still be unable to proceed. This horrible idea added new force to my exertions. I seized the shafts of my carriage and commenced dragging it out of the yard and round to the front of the house: feeling that if it was once in the highway, there would be less possibility of offering any impediment to my starting. I am conscious of having fallen twice to the ground, in my struggles to get the carriage out of the yard. Next, I hastened to the stable. My mare was still harnessed, with the exception of the headstall. I managed to get the bit into her mouth, and dragged her to the place where I had left the carriage. After I know not how many efforts to place the docile beast in the shafts – for I was as incapable of calculating distances as a drunken man – I recollect, but how I know not, securing the assistance of the boy I had seen. I was making a final effort to fasten the trace to its little pin, when a voice behind me said:

“Are you going away without drinking your coffee?”

I turned round and saw my landlord standing close beside me. He was watching my bungling efforts to secure the harness, but he made no movement to assist me.

“I do not want any coffee,” I answered.

“No coffee, and no wine! It would appear that the gentleman is not a great drinker. You have not given your horse much of a rest,” he added, presently.

“I am in haste. What have I to pay r”

“You will take something else,” said the landlord; “a glass of brandy before starting in the wet?”

“No, nothing more. What have I to pay?”

“You will at least come in for an instant, and warm your feet at the stove.”

“No. Tell me at once how much I am to pay.”

Baffled in all his efforts to get me again into the house, my detested landlord had nothing for it but to answer my demand.

“Four litres of oats,” he muttered, “a half-truss of hay, breakfast, wine, coffee” – he emphasised the last two words with a malignant grin – “seven francs fifty centimes.”

My mare was by this time somehow or other buckled into the shafts, and now I had to get out my purse to pay this demand. My hands were cold, my head was giddy, my sight was dim, and, as I brought out my purse (which was a porte-monnaie [purse], opening with a hinge), I managed while paying the bill to turn the purse over and to drop some gold pieces.

“Gold!” cried the boy who had been helping me to harness the horse: speaking as if by an irresistible impulse.

The landlord made a sudden dart at it, but instantly checked himself.

“People want plenty of gold,” he said, “when they make a journey of pleasure.”

I felt myself getting worse. I could not pick up the gold pieces as they lay on the ground. I fell on my knees, and my head bowed forward. I could not hit the place where a coin lay; I could see it but I could not guide my fingers to it. Still I did not yield. I got some of the money up, and the stable-boy, who was very officious in assisting me, gave me one or two pieces – to this day, I don’t know how many he kept. I cast a hasty glance around, and, seeing no more gold on the ground, raised myself by a desperate effort and scrambled to my place in the carriage. I shook the reins instinctively, and the mare began to move.

The well-trained beast was beginning to trot away as cleverly as usual, when a thought suddenly flashed into my brain, as will sometimes happen when we are just going to sleep – a thought which woke me up like a pistol-shot, and caused me to spring forward and gather up the reins so violently as almost to bring the mare back upon her haunches.

“My dog, my dear little Nelly!” I had left her behind!

To abandon my little favourite was a thing that never entered my head. “No, I must return. I must go back to the horrible place I have just escaped from. He has seen my gold, too, now,” I said to myself, as I turned my horse’s head with many clumsy efforts; “the men who were drinking in the auberge are gone; and, what is worse than all, I feel more under the influence of the drugs I have swallowed.”

As I approached the auberge once more, I remember noticing that its walls looked blacker than ever, that the rain was falling more heavily, that the landlord and the stable-boy were on the steps of the inn, evidently on the look-out for me. One thing more I noticed – on the road a small speck, as of some vehicle nearing the place.

“I have come back for my dog,” said I.

“I know nothing of your dog.”

“It is false! I left her shut up in the inner room.”

“Go there and find her, then,” retorted the man, throwing off all disguise.

“I will,” was my answer.

I knew it was a trap to get me into the house; I knew I was lost if I entered it; but I did not care. I descended from the carriage, I clambered up the steps with the aid of the banisters, I heard the barking of my little Nelly as I passed through the outer room and approached the glass-doors, steadying myself as I went by the articles of furniture in the room. I burst the doors open, and my favourite bounded into my arms.

And now I felt that it was too late. As I approached the door that opened to the road, I saw my carriage being led round to the back of the house, and the form of the landlord appeared in the doorway blocking up the passage, made an effort to push past him, but it was useless. My little Nelly fell out of my arms on the steps outside; the landlord slammed the door heavily; and I fell, without sense or knowledge, at his feet.

•   •   •

It was dark, Gentlemen – dark and very cold. The little patch of sky I was looking up at, had in it a marvellous number of stars, which would have looked bright but for a blazing planet which seemed to eclipse, in the absence of the moon, all the other luminaries round about it. To lie thus, was in spite of the cold, quite a luxurious sensation. As I turned my head to ease it a little (for it seemed to have been in this position some time), I felt stiff and weak. At this moment, too, I feel a stirring close beside me, and first a cold nose touching my hand, and then a hot tongue licking it. As to my other sensations, I was aware of a gentle rumbling sound, and I could feel that I was being carried slowly along, and that every now and then there was a slight jolt: one of which, perhaps, more marked than the rest, might be the cause of my being awake at all.

Presently, other matters began to dawn upon my mind through the medium of my senses. I could see the regular movement of a horse’s ears walking in front of me; surely I saw, too, part of the figure of a man – a pair of sturdy shoulders, the hood of a coat, and a head with a wide-awake hat upon it. I could hear the occasional sounds of encouragement which seemed to emanate from this figure, and which were addressed to the horse. I could hear the tinkling of bells upon the animal’s neck. Surely, too, I heard a rumbling sound behind us, and the tread of a horse’s feet – just as if there were another vehicle following close upon us. Was there anything more? Yes, in the distance I was able to detect the twinkling of a light or two, as if a town were not far off.

Now, Gentlemen, as I lay and observed all these things, there was such a languor shed over my spirits, such a sense of utter but not unpleasant weakness, that I hardly cared to ask myself what it all meant, or to inquire where I was, or how I came there. A conviction that all was well with me, lay like an anodyne upon my heart, and it was only slowly and gradually that any curiosity as to how I came to be so, developed itself in my brain. I dare say we had been jogging along for a quarter of an hour during which I had been perfectly conscious, before I struggled up into a sitting posture, and recognised the hooded back of the man at the horse’s head.

“Dufay?”

The man with the hooded coat who was walking by the side of the horse, suddenly cried out “Whoa!” in a sturdy voice; then ran to the back of the carriage and cried out “Whoa!” again; and then we came to a stand-still. In another moment he had mounted on the step of the carriage and had taken me cordially by the hand.

“What,” he said, “awake at last? Thank Heaven! I had almost begun to despair of you.”

“My dear friend, what does all this mean? Where am I? Where did you come from? This is not my calèche, that is not my horse.”

“Both are safe behind,” said Dufay, heartily; “and having told you so much, I will not utter another word till you are safe and warm at the Lion d’Or. See! There are the lights of the town. Now, not another word.” And pulling the horsecloth under which I was lying, more closely over me, my friend dismounted from the step; started the vehicle with the customary cry of “Allons donc!” and a crack of the whip; and we were soon once more in motion.

Castaing Dufay was a man into whose company circumstances had thrown me very often, and with whom I had become intimate from choice. Of the numerous class to which he belonged, those men whose sturdy vehicles and sturdier horses are to be seen standing in the yards and stables of all the inns in provincial France – the class of the commis-voyageurs, or French commercial travellers – Castaing Dufay was more than a favourable specimen. I was very fond of him. In the course of our intimacy, I had been fortunate enough to have the opportunity of being useful to him in matters of some importance. I think, Gentlemen, we like those we have served, quite as well as they like us.

The town lights were, indeed, close by, and it was not long before we turned into the yard of the Lion d’Or and found ourselves in the midst of warmth and brightness, and surrounded by faces which, after the dangers I had passed through, looked perfectly angelic.

I had no idea, till I attempted to move, how weak and dazed I was. I was too far gone for dinner. A bed and a fire were the only things I coveted, and I was soon in possession of both.

I was no sooner snugly ensconced with my head on the pillow, watching the crackling logs as they sparkled – my little Nelly lying outside the counterpane – than my friend seated himself beside me and volunteered to relieve my curiosity as to the circumstances of my escape from the Tête Noire. It was now my turn to refuse to listen; as it had been his before, to refuse to speak.

“Not one word,” I said, “till you have had a good dinner, after which you will come up and sit beside me, and tell me all I am longing to know. And stay – you will do one thing more for me, I know; when you come up you will bring a plateful of bones for Nelly; she will not leave me tonight, I swear, to save herself from starving.”

“She deserves some dinner,” said Dufay, as he left the room, “for I think it is through her instrumentality that you are alive at this moment.”

The bliss in which I lay after Dufay had left the room, is known only to those who have passed through some great danger, or who, at least, are newly relieved from some condition of severe and protracted suffering. It was a state of perfect repose and happiness.

When my friend came back, he brought: not only a plate of fowl-bones for Nelly, but a basin of soup for me. When I had finished lapping it up, and while Nelly was still crunching the bones, Dufay spoke as follows:

“I said just now that it was to your little dog you owe the preservation of your life, and I must now tell you how it was. You remember that you left Doulaise this morning—”

“It seems a week ago,” I interrupted.

– “This morning,” continued Dufay. “Well! You were hardly out of the inn-yard before I drove into it, having made a small stage before breakfast. I heard where you were gone, and, as I was going that way too, I determined to give my horse a rest of a couple of hours, while I breakfasted and transacted some business in the town, and then to set off after you. ‘Have you any idea,’ I said, as I left the inn at Doulaise, ‘whether monsieur meant to stop en route, and if so, where?’ The garçon did not know. ‘Let me see,’ I said, ‘the Tête Noire at Mauconseil would be a likely place, wouldn’t it?’  ‘No,’ said the boy; ‘the house does not enjoy a good character, and no one from here ever stops there.’  ‘Well,’ said I, thinking no more of what he said, ‘I shall be sure to find him. I will inquire after him as I go along.’

“The afternoon was getting on, when I came within sight of the inn of the Tête Noire. As you know, I am a little near-sighted, but I saw, as I drew near the auberge, that a conveyance of some kind was being taken round to the yard at the back of the house. This circumstance, however, I should have paid no attention to, had not my attention been suddenly caught by the violent barking of a dog, which seemed to be trying to gain admittance at the closed door of the inn. At a second glance I knew the dog to be yours. Pulling up my horse, I got down and ascended the steps of the auberge. One sniff at my shins was enough to convince Nelly that a friend was at hand, and her excitement as I approached the door was frantic.

“On my entering the house I did not at first see you, but on looking in the direction towards which your dog had hastened as soon as the door was opened, I saw a dark wooden staircase, which led out of one corner of the apartment I was standing in. I saw also, that you, my friend, were being dragged up the stairs in the arms of a very ill-looking man, assisted by (if possible) a still more ill-looking little girl, who had charge of your legs. At sight of me, the man deposited you upon the stairs, and advanced to meet me.

“‘What are you doing with that gentleman?’ I asked.

“‘He is unwell,’ replied the ill-looking man, ‘and I am helping him upstairs to bed.’

“‘That gentleman is a friend of mine. What is the meaning of his being in this state?’

“‘How should I know?’ was the answer; ‘I am not the guardian of the gentleman’s health.’

“‘Well, then, I am,’ said I, approaching the place where you were lying; ‘and I prescribe, to begin with, that he shall leave this place at once.’

“I must own,” continued Dufay, “that you were looking horribly ill, and, as I bent over, and felt your hardly fluttering pulse, I felt for a moment doubtful whether it was safe to move you. However, I determined to risk it.

“‘Will you help me,’ I said, ‘to move this gentleman to his carriage?’

“‘No,’ replied the ruffian, ‘he is not fit to travel. Besides, what right have you over him?’

“‘The right of being his friend.’

“‘How do I know that?’

“‘Because I tell you so. See, his dog knows me.’

“‘And suppose I decline to accept that as evidence, and refuse to let this gentleman leave my house in his present state of health?’

“‘You dare not do it.’

“‘Why?’

“‘Because,’ I answered, slowly, ‘I should go to the Gendarmerie in the village, and mention under what suspicious circumstances I found my friend here, and because your house has not the best of characters.’

“The man was silent for a moment, as if a little baffled. He seemed, however, determined to try once more.

“‘And suppose I close my doors, and decline to let either of you go; what is to prevent me?’

“‘In the first place,’ I answered, ‘I will effectually prevent your detaining me single-handed. If you have assistance near, I am expected tonight at Francy, and if I do not arrive there, I shall soon be sought out. It was known that I left Doulaise this morning, and most people are aware that there is an auberge on the road which does not bear the best of reputations, and that its name is La Tête Noire. Now, will you help me?’

“‘No,’ replied the savage. ‘I will have nothing to do with the affair.’

“It was not an easy task to drag you without assistance from the place where you were lying, out into the open air, down the steps, and to put you into my conveyance which was standing outside; but I managed to do it. The next thing I had to accomplish, was the feat of driving two carriages and two horses single-handed. I could see only one way of managing this. I led my own horse round to the gate of the stable-yard, where I could keep my eye upon him, while I went in search of your ‘horse and carriage, which I had, to get right without assistance. It was done at last. I fastened your horse’s head by a halter, to the back of my carriage, and then leading my own beast by the bridle, I managed to start the procession. And so (though only at a foot pace) we turned our backs upon the Tête Noire. And now you know everything.”

“I feel, Castaing, as if I should never be able to think of this adventure, or to speak of it again. It wears, somehow or other, such a ghastly aspect, that I sicken at the mere memory of it.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Dufay, cheerily; “you will live to tell it as a stirring tale some winter night, take my word for it.”

Gentlemen, the prediction is verified. May the teetotum fall next time with more judgement!

•   •   •

“Wa’al, now!” said Captain Jorgan, rising, with his hand upon the sleeve of his fellow-traveller to keep him down; “I congratulate you, sir, upon that adventer; unpleasant at the time, but pleasant to look back upon; as many adventers in many lives are. Mr. Tredgear, you had a feeling for your money on that occasion, and it went hard on being Stolen Money. It was not a sum of five hundred pound, perhaps?”

“I wish it had been half as much,” was the reply.

“Thank you, sir. Might I ask the question of you that has been already put? About this place of Lanrean, did you ever hear of any circumstances whatever, that might seem to have a bearing – anyhow – on that question?”

“Never.”

“Thank you again for a straightfor’ard answer,” said the captain, apologetically. “You see, we have been referred to Lanrean to make inquiries, and happening in among the inhabitants present, we use the opportunity. In my country, we always do use opportunities.”

“And you turn them to good account, I believe, and prosper?”

“It’s a fact, sir,” said the captain, “that we get along. Yes, we get along, sir. But I stop the teetotum.”

It was twirled again, and fell to David Polreath; an iron-grey man; “as old as the hills,” the captain whispered to young Raybrock, “and as hard as nails. – And I admire,” added the captain, glancing about, “whether Unchrisen Penrewen is here, and which is he!”

David Polreath stroked down the long iron-grey hair that fell massively upon the shoulders of his large-buttoned coat, and spake thus:

•   •   •

The question was, Did he throw himself over the cliff of set purpose, or did he lose his way in the dusk and fall over accidentally, or was he pushed over by some person or persons unknown?

His body was found nearly fifty yards below the fall, caught in the low branches of the trees that overhang the water at the foot of the track down the cliff. It was shockingly bruised and disfigured, so much so as to be hardly recognisable; but for his clothing, and the name on his linen, I doubt whether anybody could have identified him except myself. There was, however, no suspicion of foul play; the signs of rough usage might all have been caused by the body having been driven about amongst the stones that encumber the bed of the river a long way below the fall.

When I speak of the fall, I speak of the Ashenfall, by Ashendell village, within an hour’s drive of this house. This, Gentlemen, is for the information of strangers.

He had been seen by many persons about the village during the day; I myself had seen him so up the hill past the parsonage towards the church: which I rather wondered at, considering who was buried there, and how, and why. I will even confess that I watched him; and he went – as I expected he would, since he had the heart to go near the place at all – round to the back of the church where Honor Livingston’s grave is; and there he stayed, sitting by himself on the low wall for an hour or more. Sometimes, he turned to look across the valley – many a time and oft I had seen him there before, with Honor beside him, watching, while he sketched the beautiful landscape – and sometimes he had his back to it, and his head down, as if he were watching her grave. Not that there is anything pleasant or comforting to read there, as on the graves of good Christian people who have died in their beds; for, being a suicide, when they buried her on the north side of the church it was at dusk, and without any service, and, of course, no stone was allowed to be put up over it. Our clergyman has talked of having the mound levelled and turfed over, and I wish he would; it always hurts me when I go up to Sunday service, to see that ragged grave lying in the shadow of the wall, for I remember the pretty little lass ever since she could run alone; and though she was passionate, her heart was as good as gold. She had been religiously brought up, and I am quite sure in my own mind, let the coroner’s inquest have said what it would, that she was out of herself, and Bedlam-mad when she did it.

The verdict on him was “accidental death,” and he had a regular funeral – priest, bell, clerk, and sexton, complete; and there he lies, only a stone’s throw from Honor, with a ton or two of granite over him, and an inscription, setting forth what a great man he was in his day, and what mighty engineering works he did at home and abroad, and how he sleeps now in the hope of a joyful resurrection with the just made perfect. These present strangers can read it for themselves; many strangers go up to look at it. His grave is as famous as the Ashenfall itself, and I have known folks come away with tears in their eyes after reading the flourishing inscription: believing it all like gospel, and saying how sad that so distinguished a man should have been cut off in the prime of his days. But I don’t believe it. He was never any more than plain James Lawrence to me – a young fellow who, as a lad, had paddled barelegged over the stones of the river as a guide across for visitors; who had been taken a fancy to by one of them, and decently educated; who had made the most of his luck, and done a clever thing or two in engineering; who had come back amongst us in all his glory, to dazzle most people’s eyes, and break little Honor Livingston’s heart. The one good thing I know of him was, that he pensioned his poor old mother; but he did not often come near her, and never after Honor Livingston was dead – no, not even in her last illness. It was a marvel to everybody what brought him over here, when we saw him the day before he was found dead; but it was his fate, and he couldn’t keep away. That is my view of it. About his death, and the manner of it, all Lanrean had its speculation, and said its say; but I held my peace. I had my opinion, however, and I keep it. I have never seen reason to change it; but, on the contrary, I can show you evidence to establish it. I do not believe he either threw himself over the cliff, or fell over, or was pushed over; no, I believe he was drawn over drawn over by something below. When you have heard the notes he made in a little book that was found amongst his things after he was dead, you will know what I mean. His cousin gave that book to me, knowing I am curious after odd stories of the neighbourhood; and what I am going to read, is written in his hand. I know his hand well, and certify to it.

PASSAGES FROM
JAMES LAWRENCE’S JOURNAL.

London,
August 11, 1829.

Honor Livingston has kept her word with me. I saw her last night as plainly as I now see this pen I am writing with, and the ink-bottle I have just dipped it into. I saw her standing betwixt the two lights, looking at me, exactly as she looked the last time saw her alive. I was neither asleep, nor dreaming-awake. I had only drunk a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, and was as much my own man as ever I was in my life. It is all nonsense to talk about fancy and optical delusions, in this case; I saw her with my eyes as distinctly as I ever saw her alive in the body. The hall clock had just struck eight, and it was growing dusk: exactly the time of evening, as I well remember, when she came creeping round by the cottage wall, and saw me through the open window, gathering up my books and making ready to go away from Ashendell. She was the last thought to have come into my mind at that moment, for I was just on the point of lighting my cigar and going out for a stroll, before turning in at the Daltons to chat with Anne. All at once, there she was, Honor herself! I could have sworn it, had I not seen them put her underground just a twelve-month ago. I could not take my eyes off her; and there she stood, as nearly as I can tell, a minute – but it may have been an hour – and then the place she had filled was empty. I was so much bewildered, and out of myself as it were, that for a while I could neither think of anything, nor hear anything, but the mad heavy throbbing of my own pulses. I cannot say that I was scared exactly; for the time I was completely rapt away; the first actual sensation I had was of my own heart thumping in my breast like a sledge-hammer.

But I can call her up now and analyse her – a wan, vague, misty outline, with Honor’s own eyes full upon me. I can almost fancy I hear her asking again, “Is it true you’re going, James? You’re not really going, James?”

Now, I am not the man to be frightened by a shadow, though that shadow be Honor Livingston, whom they say I as good as murdered. I always had a turn for investigating riddles, spiritual, physiological, and otherwise; and I shall follow this mystery up, and note whether she comes back to me year by year, as she promised. I have never kept a diary of personal matters before, not being one who cares to see spectres of himself, at remote periods of his life, talking to him again of his adventures and misadventures out of yellow old pages that had better never have been written; but this is a marked event worth commemorating, and a well-authenticated ghost-story to me who never believed in ghosts before.

It was a rather spiteful threat of Honor – “I’ll haunt you till you come to the Ashenfall, where I’m going now!” I might have stopped her, but it never entered my mind what she meant, until it was done. I did not expect she would make a tragedy of a little love story; she did not look like that sort of thing. She was no ghost, bless her! in the flesh, but as round, rosy, dimpled a little creature as one would wish to see; and what could possess her to throw herself over the fall, Heaven only knows. – Bah! Yes, I know; I need tell no lies here, I need not do any false swearing to myself – the poor little creature loved me, and I wanted her to love me, and I petted and plagued her into loving me, because I was idle, and I had the opportunity; and then I had nothing better to tell her than that I was only in jest – I could not marry her, for I was engaged to another woman. She would not believe it. That sounded, to her, more like jest than the other. And she did not believe it until she saw me making ready to go; and then, all in a moment, I suppose, madness seized her, and she neither knew where she went, nor what she did.

I fancy I can see her now, coming tripping down the fields leading her little brother by the hand, and I fancy I can see the saucy laugh she gave me over her shoulder as I asked her if she had any ripe cherries to sell. She looked the very mischief with those pretty eyes, and I was taken rather aback when she said, “I know you, Jemmy Lawrence.” That was the beginning of it. Little Honor and her mother lived next door to mine, and she had not forgotten me though I had been full seven years away. I did not know her, the gipsy, but I must needs go in and see her that evening; and so we went on until I asked her if she remembered when we went to dame-school together and when she promised to be my little wife? If she remembered! Of course she did, every word of it, and more; and she was so pretty, and the lanes in the summer were so pleasant, that sometimes my fancy did play Anne Dalton false, and I believed I should like Honor better; and I said more than I meant, and she took it all in the grand serious manner.

I was not much to blame. I would not have injured her for the world; she was as good a little soul as ever lived. Love and jealousy, as passions, seem to find their strongholds under thatch. If Phillis, the milkmaid, is disappointed, she drowns herself in the mill-pool; if Lady Clara gets a cross of the heart, she indites a lachrymose sonnet, and marries a gouty peer. If Colin’s sweetheart smiles on Lubin, Colin loads his gun and shoots them both; if Sir Harry’s fair flouts him, he whistles her down the wind, and goes a-wooing elsewhere. Had little Honor been a fine lady, she would be living still. Oh, the pretty demure lips, and the shy glances and rosy blushes! When I saw Anne Dalton today I could not help comparing her frigid gentility with poor Honor. Anne loves herself better than she will ever love any man alive. But then I know she is the kind of wife to help a man up in the world, and that is the kind of wife for me.

Honor Livingston lying on her little bed, and her blind mother feeling her cold dead face! I wish I had never seen it. I would have given the world to keep away, but something compelled me to go in and look at her; and I did feel then, as it I had killed her. Last night she was a shadowy essence of this drowned Ophelia and of her living self. She was like, yet unlike; but I knew it was Honor; and I suppose, if she has her will, wherever her restless spirit may be condemned to bide between whiles – on the tenth of August she will always come back to me, and haunt me until I go to her.

Hastings,
August 11, 1830.

Again! I had forgotten the day – forgotten everything about that wretched business of poor Honor Livingston, when last night I saw her.

Anne and I were sitting together out in the verandah, talking of all sorts of commonplace things – our neighbours’ affairs, money, this, that, and the other – the sea was looking beautiful, and I was on the point of proposing a row by moonlight, when Anne said, “How lovely the evenings are, James, in this place. Look at the sky over the down, how clear it is!” Turning my head, I saw Honor standing on the grass only a few paces off, her shadowy shape quite distinct against the reds and purples of the clouds.

Anne clutched my hand with a sudden cry, for she was looking at my face all the time, and asked me, passionately, what I saw. With that, Honor was gone, and, passing my hand over my eyes, I put my wife off with an excuse about a spasm at my heart. And, indeed, it was no lie to say so, for this visitation gave me a terrible shock.

Anne insisted on my seeing the doctor. “It must be something dreadful, if not dangerous, that could make you look in that way; you had an awful face, James, for a moment.”

I begged her not to talk about it, assured her that it was a thing of very rare recurrence with me, and that there was no cure for it. But this did not pacify her, and this morning no peace could be had until Dr. Hutchinson was sent for and she had given the old gentleman her own account of me. He said he would talk to me by-and-by. And when he got me by myself, I cannot tell how it was, but he absolutely contrived to worm the facts out of me, and I was fool enough to let him do it. He looked at me very oddly, with a sort of suspicious scrutiny in his eye; but I understood him, and said, laughing, “No, doctor, no, there is nothing wrong here,” tapping my forehead as I spoke.

“I should say not, except this fancy for seeing ghosts,” replied he, dryly. But I perceived, all the time he was with me, that I was the object of a furtive and carefully dissembled observation, which was excessively trying. I could with difficulty keep my temper under it, and I believe he saw the struggle.

I fancy he wanted to have some talk with Anne by herself; but I prevented that, by never losing sight of him until he was safely off the premises. If he proposed a private interview while I was out alone, I prevented that, too, by immediately ordering Anne to pack up our traps, and coming back to town that very day. I have not been well since. I feel out of spirits, bored, worried, sick of everything. If the feeling does not leave me, in spite of all Anne may say, I shall take that offer to go to South America, and start by the next packet. I should like to see Dr. Hutchinson’s face when he calls at our lodgings to visit his patient, and finds the bird flown.

London,
August 20, 1830.

This wretched state of things does not cease. One day I feel in full, firm, clear possession of my soul; and the next, perhaps, I am hurried to and fro with the most tormenting fancies. I see shadows of Honor wherever I turn, and she is no longer motionless as before, but beckons me with her hand, until I tremble in every limb. My heart is sick almost to death. For three days now, I have had no rest. I cannot sleep at nights for hideous dreams; and Anne watches me stealthily, I see, and never remains alone with me longer than she can help. I can perceive that she is afraid of me, and that she suspects something, without exactly knowing what. Today she must needs suggest my seeing a doctor here, and when I replied that I was going to South America, she told me I was not fit for it, in such a contemptuous tone of provocation that I lifted my hand and struck her. Then she quailed, and while shrinking under my eyes, she said, “James, your conduct is that of a madman!” Since then, I know she sits with me in silent terror, longing to escape and find someone to listen to her grievances. But I shall keep strict ward that she does nothing of the kind. I will not have my foes of my own household, and no spying relatives shall come between us to put asunder those whom God has joined together.

Acapulco,
March 17, 1831.

It is six months since I wrote the above. In the interval I have been miserably ill, grievously tormented both in mind and body; but now that I have got safely away from them all, with the Atlantic between myself and my wicked wife, whose conduct towards me I will never forgive, I can collect my powers of mind, and bend them again to my work. Burton came out in the same ship with me to engage in the same enterprise. After a few days’ rest we intend setting out on our journey to the mining districts, where we are to act. My head feels perfectly light and clear, all my impressions are distinct and vivid again, and I can get through a hard day’s close study without inconvenience. There was nothing but my miserable liver to blame, and when that was set right, all my imaginary phantoms disappeared. Umpleby said it had been coming on gradually for months, and that there was nothing at all extraordinary in my delusions; my diseased state was one always so attended more or less. And Anne, in her cowardly malignity, would have consigned me for life to a lunatic asylum! It was Umpleby who saved me, and I have put his name down in my will for a handsome remembrance. As for Anne, she has chosen to return to her family, and they may keep her; she will never see my face again, of my free will, as long as I live.

The picturesqueness of this place is not noteworthy in any high degree. The harbour is enclosed by a chain of mountains, and has two entrances formed by the island of Roquetta; the castle of St. Diego commands the town and the bay, standing on a spur of the hills. Burton has been to and fro on his rambles ever since we landed; but I find the heat too great for much exertion, and when we begin our journey into the interior I shall have need of all my forces; therefore, better husband them now.

Mexico,
April 24, 1831.

We are better off here than we anticipated. Burton has found an old fellow-pupil engaged as engineering tutor in the School of Mines, and there are civilised amusements which we neither of us had any hope of finding. The city is full of ancient relics, and Burton is on foot exploring, day by day. I prefer the living interests of this strange place, and sometimes early in the morning I betake myself to the marketplace, and watch the Indians dress their stalls. No matter what they sell, they decorate their shops with fresh herbs and flowers until they are sheltered under a bower of verdure. They display their fruit in open basketwork, laying the pears and raisins below, and covering them above with odorous flowers. An artist might make a pretty picture here, when the Indians arrive at sunrise in their boats loaded with the produce of their floating gardens. Next week, Burton, his friend, and I, are to set out for the mines of Moran and Real del Monte. I should have preferred to delay our journey a while longer for reasons of my own, but Burton presses, and feels we have already delayed longer than enough.

Moran,
July 4, 1831.

I am sick of this place, but our business here is now on the verge of completion, and in a few days we start on our expedition to the mines of Guanamato. The director, Burton, and myself, are all of opinion that immense advantages are to be gained by improving the working of the mines, which is, at present, in a very defective condition. There is great mortality amongst the Indians, who are the beasts of burden of the mines; they carry on their backs, loads of metal of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty pounds at a time, ascending and descending thousands of steps, in files which contain old men of seventy, and mere children. I have not been very well here, having had some return of old symptoms, but under proper treatment they dispersed; however, I shall be thankful to be on the move again.

Pascuaro,
August 11, 1831.

Can any man evade his thoughts, impalpable curses sitting on his heart, mocking like fiends? I cannot evade mine. All yesterday I was haunted by a terrible anxiety and dread. At every turn, at every moment, I expected to see Honor Livingston appear before me, but I did not see her. The day and the night passed, and I was freed from that great horror – how great I had not realised until its hour had gone and left no trace. This morning I am myself again; my spirits revive; I have escaped my enemy, and have proved that it was, indeed, but a subtle emanation of my own diseased body and mind.

But these thoughts, these troublesome persistent thoughts, how combat them? Burton, very observant of me at all times, was yesterday watchful as an inquisitor; he said he hoped I was not going to have the frightful fever which is prevailing here, but I know he meant something else. I have not a doubt now, that Anne and all that confederacy warned him before we set sail, to beware of me, for I had been mad; that is the cursed lie they set abroad. Mad! All the world’s mad, or on the way to it!

But if Honor had come back to me yesterday, we might have gone and have looked down together into hell, through the ovens of Jorulla. The missionaries cursed this frightful place, generations since; and it is accursed, if ever land was. Nothing more awful than this desolate burning waste, which the seas could not quench. When I remember it, and all I underwent yesterday, the confusion and horror return upon me again, and my brain swerves like the brain of a drunken man. I will write no more – sufficient to record that the appointed time came and went, and Honor Livingston did not keep her word with me.

New Orleans,
February, 1832.

I left Burton still in Mexico, and came here alone. His care and considerateness were more than I could put up with, and after two or three ineffectual remonstrances, we came to a violent rupture, and I determined to throw up my engagement, rather than carry it out in conjunction with such a man. There was no avoiding the quarrel. Was I to be tutored day by day, and the wine-bottle removed out of my reach? He dared to tell me that when I was cool, clear – myself, in short – there was no man my master in our profession; but that when I had drunk freely I was unmanageable as a lunatic! A lie, of course; but unscrupulous persecutors are difficult to circumvent. Anne’s malice pursues me even here. When I was out yesterday, my footsteps were dogged pertinaciously wherever I went, and perhaps an account of my doings will precede me home; but if they do, I defy them all to do their worst.

Ashendell,
August 9, 1839.

This old book turned up today, amongst some traps that have lain by in London all the years that I have spent, first in Spain and afterwards in Russia. What fool’s-talk it is; but I suppose it was true at the time. I know I was in a wretched condition while I was in Mexico and in the States, but I have been sane enough and sound enough ever since the illness I had at Baltimore. To prove how little hold on me my ancient horrors have retained, I find myself at Ashendell in the very season of the year when. Honor Livingston destroyed herself – tomorrow is the anniversary of her death. So I take my enemy by the throat, and crush him! These fantastical maladies will not stand against a determined will. At Moscow, at Cherson, at Archangel, the tenth of August has come and gone, unmarked. Honor failed of her threat everywhere except at Lisbon. I saw her there twice, just before we sailed. I saw her, when we were off that coast where we so nearly escaped wreck, rising and falling upon the waves. I saw her in London, that day I appointed to see Anne. But I know what it means: it means that I must put myself in Umpleby’s hands for a few weeks, and that the shadows will forthwith vanish. Shadows they are, out of my own brain, and they take the shape of Honor because I have let her become a fixed idea in my mind. Yet it is very strange that the last time she appeared to me, I heard her speak. I fancied she said that it was Almost time; and then louder, “I’ll haunt you, James, until you come to the Ashenfall, where I am going now!” And with that she vanished. Fancy plays strange tricks with us, and makes cowards of us almost as cleverly as conscience.

August 10.

I have had a very unpleasant impression on me all day. I wish I had resisted Linchley’s persuasions more steadily. I ought never to have come down here again. The excitement of its miserable recollections is too much for me. The man at the inn called me by my name this morning, and said he recollected me – looking up towards the church as he spoke. Damn him! All day I seem to have been acting against my will. What should possess me to go there, this afternoon? Round about among the graves, until I came to the grassy hillock on the north side of the church, where they buried Honor that night, without a prayer. I sat down on the low wall, and looked across to the hills beyond the river, listening to the monotonous sing-song of the fall. I would give all I possess today, to be able to tread back or to un-tread a score of the years of my life. It seems such a blank; of all I planned and schemed, how little have I accomplished! Watching by Honor’s grave, I fell to thinking of her. What had either of us done that we should be so wretched? Is it part and parcel of the great injustice of life, that some must suffer so signally while others escape? The coarse grass is never cut at the north side of the church, nettles and brambles grow about the grave. Honor was mad, poor soul; they might have given her a prayer for rest, if they were forbidden to believe she died in hope. I prayed for her today – more need, perhaps, to pray for myself – and then there came a crazed whirl in my brain, and I set off to find Linchley. As I came down near the water, the fall sounded very tumultuous; it was sultry hot, and I should have liked to turn down by the river, but I said, “No, it is the tenth of August! If I am to meet Honor Livingston today, I’ll not meet her by Ashenfall!” So I came home to our lodgings, to find that Linchley had gone over to Warfe, and had left a message that he should not return until tomorrow. I have the night before me alone; it is not like an English night at all; it is like the nights I remember at Cadiz, which always heralded a tremendous storm. And I think we shall have a storm here, too, before the morning.

•   •   •

Those were the last words James Lawrence ever wrote, Gentlemen. Further than this, no man can speak of his death; it is plain to me that one of his mad fits was coming on before he left Lisbon; that it grew and increased until he came here; and that here it reached its climax and urged him to his death. I believe in the ghosts James Lawrence saw, as I believe in the haunting power of any great misdeed that has driven a fellow-creature into deadly sin.

•   •   •

When David Polreath had finished, the chairman gave the teetotum such a swift and sudden twirl, to be beforehand with any interruption, that it twirled among all the glasses and into all corners of the table, and finally, flew off the table and lodged in Captain Jorgan’s waistcoat.

“A kind of a judgement!” said the captain, taking it out. “What’s to be done now? I know no story, except Down Easters, and they didn’t happen to myself, or any one of my acquaintance, and you couldn’t enjoy ’em without going out of your minds first. And perhaps the company ain’t prepared to do that?”

The chairman interposed by rising and declaring it to be his perroud perrivilege to stop preliminary observations.

“Wa’al,” said the captain, “I defer to the President – which ain’t at all what they do in my country, where they lay into him, head, limbs, and body.” Here he slapped his leg. “But I beg to ask a preliminary question. Colonel Polreath has read from a diary. Might I read from a pipe-light?”

The chairman requested explanation.

“The history of the pipe-light,” said the captain, “is just this: that it’s verses, and was made on the voyage home by a passenger I brought over. And he was a quiet crittur of a middle-aged man with a pleasant countenance. And he wrote it on the head of a cask. And he was a most etarnal time about it tew. And he blotted it as if he had wrote it in a continual squall of ink. And then he took an indigestion, and I physicked him for want of a better doctor. And then to show his liking for me he copied it out fair, and gave it to me for a pipe-light. And it ain’t been lighted yet, and that’s a fact.”

“Let it be read,” said the chairman.

“With thanks to Colonel Polreath for setting the example,” pursued the captain, “and with apologies to the Honourable A. Parvis and the whole of the present company for this passenger’s having expressed his mind in verses – which he may have done along of bein’ seasick, and he was very – the pipe-light, unrolled, comes to this:

•   •   •

We sit by the fire so wide and red,

With the dance of the young within,

Who have yet small learning of cold and dread,

And of sorrow no more than of sin;

Nor dream of a night on a sleepless bed

Of waves, with their terrible wrecks o’erspread.

We sit round the hearth as red as gold,

And the legends beloved we tell,

How battles were won by the nobles bold, i

Where hamlets of villains fell:

And we praise our God, while we cut the bread,

And share the wine round, for our heroes dead.

And we talk of the Kings, those strong proud men,

Who ravaged, confessed, and died;

And of churls who rabbled them oft and again,

Perchance with a kindred pride

Though the Kings built churches to pierce the sky,

And the rabbling churls in the cross-road lie.

Yet ’twixt the despot and slave half-free,

Old Truth may have message clear;

Since the hard black yew, and the lithe young tree,

Belong to an age – and a year,

And though distant in might and in leaf they be,

In right of the woods, they are near.

And old Truth’s message, perchance, may be:

“Believe in thy kind, whate’er the degree,

Be it King on his throne, or serf on his knee,

While Our Lord showers light, in his bounty free,

On the rock and the vale – on the sand and the sea.”

They are singing within, with their voices dear,

To the tunes which are dear as well;

And we sit and dream while the words we hear,

Having tale of our own to tell

Of a far midnight on the terrible sea,

Which comes back on the tune of their blithe old glee.

As old as the hills, and as old as the sky,

As the King on his throne, as the serf on his knee,

A song wherein rich can with poor agree,

With its chorus to make them laugh or cry

Which the young are singing, with no thought nigh,

Of a night on a terrible sea:

“I care for nobody; no, not I,

Since nobody cares for me.”

The storm had its will. There was wreck – there was flight

O’er an ocean of Alps, through, the pitch-black night,

When a good ship sank, and a few got free,

To cope in their boat with the terrible sea.

And when the day broke, there was blood on the sea,

From the wild hot eye of the sun outshed,

For the heaven was a-flame as with fire from Hell,

And a scorching calm on the waters fell,

As if Ruin had won, and with fiendish glee,

Sailed forth in his galley to number the dead.

And they rowed their boat o’er the terrible sea,

As mute as a crew made of ghosts might be:

For the best in his heart had not manhood to say,

That the land was five hundred miles away.

A day and a week There was bread for one man;

The water was dry. And on this, the few

Who were rowing their boat o’er the terrible sea,

To murmur, to curse, and to crave began.

And how ’twas agreed on, no one knew,

But the feeble and famished and scorched by the sun,

With his pitiless eye, drew lots to agree,

What their hideous morrow of meat must be.

O then were the faces frightful to read,

Of ravening hope, and of cowardly pride

That lies to the last, its sharp terror to hide;

And a stillness as though ’twere some game of the Dead,

While they waited the number their lot to decide

There were nine in that boat on the terrible sea,

And he who drew NINE, was the victim to be.

You may think what a ghastly shiver there ran,

From mate to his mate, as the doom began.

Six had a wife with a wild rose cheek;

Two a brave boy, not a year yet old;

Eight his last sister, lame and weak,

Who quivered with palsy more than with cold.

You may think what a breath the respited drew,

And how wildly still, sat the rest of the crew;

How the voice as it called spoke hoarser and slower;

The number it next dared to speak was FOUR.

’Twas the rude black man, who had handled an oar

The best on that terrible sea of the few.

And ugly and grim in the sunshine glare

Were his thick parched lips, and his dull small eyes,

And the tangled fleece of his rusty hair

’Ere the next of the breathless the death-lot drew,

His shout like a sword pierced the silence through.

“Let the play end, with your Number Four.

What need to draw? Live along, you few

Who have hopes to save and have wives to cry

O’er the cradles of children free!

What matter if folk without home should die,

And be eaten by land or sea?

I care for nobody; no, not I,

Since nobody cares for me!”

And with that, a knife and a heart struck through

And the warm red blood, and the cold black clay,

And the famine withdrawn from among the few,

By their horrible meal for another day!

So the eight, thus fed, came at last to land,

And the tale of their shipmate told,

As of water found in the burning sand,

Which braves not the thirsty, cold.

But the love of the listener, safe and free,

Goes forth to that slave on that terrible sea.

For, fancies from hearth and from home will stray,

Though within are the dance and the song;

And a grave tale told, if the tune be gay,

Says little to scare the young.

While they sing, with their voices clear as can be,

Having called, once more, for the blithe old glee

“I care for nobody, no, not I,

Since nobody cares for me.”

But the careless tune, it saith to the old,

Who sit by the hearth as red as gold,

When they think of their tale of the terrible sea:

“Believe in thy kind, whatever the degree,

Be it King on his throne, or serf on his knee,

While Our Lord showers good from his bounty free,

Over storm, over calm, over land, over sea.”

•   •   •

Mr. Parvis had so greatly disquieted the minds of the Gentlemen King Arthurs for some minutes, by snoring with strong symptoms of apoplexy – which, in a mild form, was his normal state of health – that it was now deemed expedient to wake him and entreat him to allow himself to be escorted home. Mr. Parvis’s reply to this friendly suggestion could not be placed on record without the aid of several dashes, and is therefore omitted. It was conceived in a spirit of the profoundest irritation, and executed with vehemence, contempt, scorn, and disgust. There was nothing for it, but to let the excellent gentleman alone, and he fell without loss of time into a defiant slumber.

The teetotum being twirled again, so buzzed and bowed in the direction of the young fisherman, that Captain Jorgan advised him to be bright and prepare for the worst. But, it started off at a tangent, late in its career, and fell before a well-looking bearded man (one who made working drawings for machinery, the captain was informed by his next neighbour), who promptly took it up like a challenger’s glove.

“Oswald Penrewen!” said the chairman.

“Here’s Unchris’en at last!” the captain whispered Alfred Raybrock. “Unchris’en goes ahead, right smart; don’t he?”

He did, without one introductory word.

•   •   •

Mine is my brother’s Ghost Story. It happened to my brother about thirty years ago, while he was wandering, sketch-book in hand, among the High Alps, picking up subjects for an illustrated work on Switzerland. Having entered the Oberland by the Brunig Pass, and filled his portfolio with what he used to call “bits” from the neighbourhood of Meyringen, he went over the Great Scheideck to Grindlewald, where he arrived one dusky September evening, about three-quarters of an hour after sunset. There had been a fair that day, and the place was crowded. In the best inn there was not an inch of space to spare – there were only two inns at Grindlewald, thirty years ago – so my brother went to one at the end of the covered bridge next the church, and there, with some difficulty, obtained the promise of a pile of rugs and a mattress, in a room which was already occupied by three other travellers.

The Adler was a primitive hostelry, half farm, half inn, with great rambling galleries outside, and a huge general room, like a barn. At the upper end of this room stood long stoves, like metal counters, laden with steaming-pans, and glowing underneath like furnaces. At the lower end, smoking, supping, and chatting, were congregated some thirty or forty guests, chiefly mountaineers, char drivers, and guides. Among these my brother took his seat, and was served, like the rest, with a bowl of soup, a platter of beef, a flagon of country wine, and a loaf made of Indian corn. Presently, a huge St. Bernard dog came and laid his nose upon my brother’s arm. In the meantime he fell into conversation with two Italian youths, bronzed and dark-eyed, near whom he happened to be seated. They were Florentines. Their names, they told him, were Stefano and Battisto. They had been travelling for some months on commission, selling cameos, mosaics, sulphur casts, and the like – pretty Italian trifles – and were now on their way to Interlaken and Geneva. Weary of the cold North, they longed, like children, for the moment which should take them back to their own blue hills and grey-green olives; to their workshop on the Ponte Vecchio, and their home down by the Arno.

It was quite a relief to my brother, on going up to bed, to find that these youths were to be two of his fellow-lodgers. The third was already there, and sound asleep, with his face to the wall. They scarcely looked at this third. They were all tired, and all anxious to rise at daybreak, having agreed to walk together over the Wengern Alp as far as Lauterbrunnen. So, my brother and the two youths exchanged a brief good night, and, before many minutes, were all as far away in the land of dreams as their unknown companion.

My brother slept profoundly so profoundly that, being roused in the morning by a clamour of merry voices, he sat up dreamily in his rugs, and wondered where he was.

“Good day, signer,” cried Battisto. “Here is a fellow-traveller going the same way as our. selves.”

“Christien Baumann, native of Kandersteg, musical-box maker by trade, stands five feet eleven in his shoes, and is at monsieur’s service to command,” said the sleeper of the night before.

He was as fine a young fellow as one would wish to see. Light, and strong, and well proportioned, with curling brown hair, and bright, honest eyes that seemed to dance at every word he uttered.

“Good morning,” said my brother. “You were asleep last night when we came up.”

“Asleep! I should think so, after being all day in the fair, and walking from Meyringen the evening before. What a capital fair it was!”

“Capital, indeed,” said Battisto. “We sold cameos and mosaics yesterday, for nearly fifty francs.”

“Oh, you sell cameos and mosaics, you two! Show me your cameos, and I will show you my musical boxes. I have such pretty ones, with coloured views of Geneva and Chillon on the lids, playing two, four, six, and even eight tunes. Bah! I will give you a concert!”

And with this he unstrapped his pack, displayed his little boxes on the table, and wound them up, one after the other, to the delight of the Italians.

“I helped to make them myself, every one,” said he, proudly. “Is it not pretty music? I sometimes set one of them when I go to bed at night, and fall asleep listening to it. I am sure, then, to have pleasant dreams! But let us see your cameos. Perhaps I may buy one for Marie, if they are not too dear. Marie is my sweetheart, and we are to be married next week.”

“Next week!” exclaimed Stefano. “That is very soon. Battisto has a sweetheart also, up at Impruneta; but they will have to wait a long time before they can buy the ring.”

Battisto blushed like a girl.

“Hush, brother!” said he. “Show the cameos to Christien, and give your tongue a holiday!”

But Christien was not so to be put off.

“What is her name?” said he. “Tush! Battisto, you must tell me her name! Is she pretty? Is she dark, or fair? Do you often see her when you are at home? Is she very fond of you? Is she as fond of you as Marie is of me?”

“Nay, how should I know that?” asked the soberer Battisto. “She loves me, and I love her – that is all.”

“And her name?”

“Margherita.”

“A charming name! And she is herself as pretty as her name, I’ll engage. Did you say she was fair?”

“I said nothing about it one way or the other,” said Battisto, unlocking a green box clamped with iron, and taking out tray after tray of his pretty wares. “There! Those pictures all inlaid in little bits are Roman mosaics – these flowers on a black ground are Florentine. The ground is of hard dark stone, and the flowers are made of thin slices of jasper, onyx, carnelian, and so forth. Those forget-me-nots, for instance, are bits of turquoise, and that poppy is cut from a piece of coral.”

“I like the Roman ones best,” said Christien. “What place is this with all the arches?”

“This is the Coliseum, and the one next to it is St. Peter’s. But we Florentines care little for the Roman work. It is not half so fine or so valuable as ours. The Romans make their mosaics of composition.”

“Composition or no, I like the little landscapes best,” said Christian. “There is a lovely one, with a pointed building, and a tree, and mountains at the back. How I should like that one for Marie!”

“You may have it for eight francs,” replied Battisto; “we sold two of them yesterday for ten each. It represents the tomb of Caius Cestius, near Rome.”

“A tomb!” echoed Christien, considerably dismayed. “Diable! That would be a dismal present to one’s bride.”

“She would never guess that it was a tomb, if you did not tell her,” suggested Stefano.

Christien shook his head.

“That would be next door to deceiving her,” said he.

“Nay,” interposed my brother, “the owner of that tomb has been dead these eighteen or nineteen hundred years. One almost forgets that he was ever buried in it.”

“Eighteen or nineteen hundred years? Then he was a heathen?”

“Undoubtedly, if by that you mean that he lived before Christ.”

Christien’s face lighted up immediately.

“Oh, that settles the question,” said he, pulling out his little canvas purse, and paying his money down at once. “A heathen’s tomb is as good as no tomb at all. I’ll have it made into a brooch for her, at Interlaken. Tell me, Battisto, what shall you take home to Italy for your Margherita?”

Battisto, laughed, and chinked his eight francs. “That depends on trade,” said he; “if we make good profits between this and Christmas, I may take her a Swiss muslin from Berne; but we have already been away seven months, and we have hardly made a hundred francs over and above our expenses.”

And with this, the talk turned upon general matters, the Florentines locked away their treasures, Christien restrapped his pack, and my brother and all went down together, and breakfasted in the open air outside the inn.

It was a magnificent morning: cloudless and sunny, with a cool breeze that rustled in the vine upon the porch, and flecked the table with shifting shadows of green leaves. All around and about them stood the great mountains, with their blue-white glaciers bristling down to the verge of the pastures, and the pine-woods creeping darkly up their sides. To the left, the Wetterhorn; to the right, the Eigher; straight before them, dazzling and imperishable, like an obelisk of frosted silver, the Schreckhorn, or Peak of Terror. Breakfast over, they bade farewell to their hostess, and, mountain-staff in hand, took the path to the Wengern Alp. Half in light, half in shadow, lay the quiet valley, dotted over with farms, and traversed by a torrent that rushed, milk-white, from its prison in the glacier. The three lads walked briskly in advance, their voices chiming together every now and then in chorus of laughter. Somehow my brother felt sad. He lingered behind, and, plucking a little red flower from the bank, watched it hurry away with the torrent, like a life on the stream of time. Why was his heart so heavy, and why were their hearts so light?

As the day went on, my brother’s melancholy, and the mirth of the young men, seemed to increase. Full of youth and hope, they talked of the joyous future, and built up pleasant castles in the air. Battisto, grown more communicative, admitted that to marry Margherita, and become a master mosaicist, would fulfil the dearest dream of his life. Stefano, not being in love, preferred to travel. Christien, who seemed to be the most prosperous, declared that it was his darling ambition to rent a farm in his native Kander Valley, and lead the patriarchal life of his fathers. As for the musical-box trade, he said, one should live in Geneva to make it answer; and, for his part, he loved the pine-forests and the snow-peaks, better than all the towns in Europe. Marie, too, had been born among the mountains, and it would break her heart, if she thought she were to live in Geneva all her life, and never see the Kander Thai again. Chatting thus, the morning wore on to noon, and the party rested awhile in the shade of a clump of gigantic firs festooned with trailing banners of grey-green moss.

Here they ate their lunch, to the silvery music of one of Christien’s little boxes, and by-and-by heard the sullen echo of an avalanche far away on the shoulder of the Jungfrau.

Then they went on again in the burning afternoon, to heights where the Alp-rose fails from the sterile steep, and the brown lichen grows more and more scantily among the stones. Here, only the bleached and barren skeletons of a forest of dead pines varied the desolate monotony; and high on the summit of the pass, stood a little solitary inn, between them and the sky.

At this inn they rested again, and drank to the health of Christien and his bride, in a jug of country wine. He was in uncontrollable spirits, and shook hands with them all, over and over again.

“By nightfall tomorrow,” said he, “I shall hold her once more in my arms! It is now nearly two years since I came home to see her, at the end of my apprenticeship. Now I am foreman, with a salary of thirty francs a week, and well able to marry.”

“Thirty francs a week!” echoed Battisto. “Corpo di Bacco! that is a little fortune.”

Christien’s face beamed. “Yes,” said he, “we shall be very happy; and, by-and-by who knows? we may end our days in the Kander Thai, and bring up our children to succeed us. Ah! If Marie knew that I should be there tomorrow night, how delighted she would be!”

“How so, Christien?” said my brother. “Does she not expect you?”

“Not a bit of it. She has no idea that I can be there till the day after tomorrow nor could I, if I took the road all round by Unterseen and Friitigen. I mean to sleep tonight at Lauterbrunnen, and tomorrow morning shall strike across the Tschlingel glacier to Kandersteg. If I rise a little before daybreak, I shall be at home by sunset.”

At this moment the path took a sudden turn, and began to descend in sight of an immense perspective of very distant valleys. Christien flung his cap into the air, and uttered a great shout.

“Look!” said he, stretching out his arms as if to embrace all the dear familiar scene: “O! Look! There are the hills and woods of Interlaken, and here, below the precipices on which we stand, lies Lauterbrunnen! God be praised, who has made our native land so beautiful!”

The Italians smiled at each other, thinking their own Arno valley far more fair; but my brother’s heart warmed to the boy, and echoed his thanksgiving in that spirit which accepts all beauty as a birthright and an inheritance. And now their course lay across an immense plateau, all rich with cornfields and meadows, and studded with substantial homesteads built of old brown wood, with huge sheltering eaves, and strings of Indian corn hanging like golden ingots along the carven balconies. Blue whortleberries grew beside the footway, and now and then they came upon a wild gentian, or a star-shaped immortelle. Then the path became a mere zigzag on the face of the precipice, and in less than half an hour they reached the lowest level of the valley. The glowing afternoon had not yet faded from the uppermost pines, when they were all dining together in the parlour of a little inn looking to the Jungfrau. In the evening my brother wrote letters, while the three lads strolled about the village. At nine o’clock they bade each other good night, and went to their several rooms.

Weary as he was, my brother found it impossible to sleep. The same unaccountable melancholy still possessed him, and when at last he dropped into an uneasy slumber, it was but to start over and over again from frightful dreams, faint with a nameless terror. Towards morning, he fell into a profound sleep, and never woke until the day was fast advancing towards noon. He then found, to his regret, that Christien had long since gone. He had risen before daybreak, breakfasted by candlelight, and started off in the grey dawn – “as merry,” said the host, “as a fiddler at a fair.”

Stefano and Battisto were still waiting to see my brother, being charged by Christien with a friendly farewell message to him, and an invitation to the wedding. They, too, were asked, and meant to go; so, my brother agreed to meet them at Interlaken on the following Tuesday, whence they might walk to Kandersteg by easy stages, reaching their destination on the Thursday morning, in time to go to church with the bridal party. My brother then bought some of the little Florentine cameos, wished the two boys every good fortune, and watched them down the road till he could see them no longer.

Left now to himself, he wandered out with his sketch-book, and spent the day in the upper valley; at sunset, he dined alone in his chamber, by the light of a single lamp. This meal despatched, he drew nearer to the fire, took out a pocket edition of Goethe’s Essays on Art, and promised himself some hours of pleasant reading. (Ah, how well I know that very book, in its faded cover, and how often I have heard him describe that lonely evening!) The night had by this time set in cold and wet. The damp logs spluttered on the hearth, and a wailing wind swept down the valley, bearing the rain in sudden gusts against the panes. My brother soon found that to read was impossible. His attention wandered incessantly. He read the same sentence over and over again, unconscious of its meaning, and fell into long trains of thought leading far into the dim past.

Thus the hours went by, and at eleven o’clock he heard the doors closing below, and the household retiring to rest. He determined to yield no longer to this dreaming apathy. He threw on fresh logs, trimmed the lamp, and took several turns about the room. Then he opened the casement, and suffered the rain to beat against his face, and the wind to ruffle his hair, as it ruffled the acacia leaves in the garden below. Some minutes passed thus, and when, at length, he closed the window and came back into the room, his face and hair and all the front of his shirt were thoroughly saturated. To unstrap his knapsack and take out a dry shirt was, of course, his first impulse to drop the garment, listen eagerly, and start to his feet, breathless and bewildered, was the next.

For, borne fitfully upon the outer breeze, now sweeping past the window, now dying in the distance, he heard a well-remembered strain of melody, subtle and silvery as the “sweet airs” of Prospero’s isle, and proceeding unmistakably, from the musical-box which had, the day before, accompanied the lunch under the fir-trees of the Wengern Alp!

Had Christien come back, and was it thus that he announced his return? If so, where was he? Under the window? Outside in the corridor? Sheltering in the porch, and waiting for admittance? My brother threw open the casement again, and called him by his name.

“Christien! Is that you?”

All without was intensely silent. He could hear the last gust of wind and rain moaning farther and farther away upon its wild course ‘ down the valley, and the pine trees shivering, like living things.

“Christien!” he said again, and his own voice seemed to echo strangely on his car. “Speak! Is it you?”

Still no one answered. He leaned out into the dark night; but could see nothing – not even the outline of the porch below. He began to think that his imagination had deceived him, when suddenly the strain burst forth again; this time, apparently in his own chamber.

As he turned, expecting to find Christien at his elbow, the sounds broke off abruptly, and a sensation of intensest cold seized him in every limb – not the mere chill of nervous terror, not the mere physical result of exposure to wind and rain, but a deadly freezing of every vein, a paralysis of every nerve, an appalling consciousness that in a few moments more the lungs must cease to play, and the heart to beat! Powerless to speak or stir, he closed his eyes, and believed that he was dying.

This strange faintness lasted but a few seconds. Gradually the vital warmth returned, and, with it, strength to close the window, and stagger to a chair. As he did so, he found the breast of his shirt all stiff and frozen, and the rain clinging in solid icicles upon his hair.

He looked at his watch. It had stopped at twenty minutes before twelve. He took his thermometer from the chimney-piece, and found the mercury at sixty-eight. Heavenly powers! How were these things possible in a temperature of sixty-eight degrees, and with a large fire blazing on the hearth?

He poured out half a tumbler of cognac, and drank it at a draught. Going to bed was out of the question. He felt that he dared not sleep that he scarcely dared to think. All he could do, was, to change his linen, pile on more logs, wrap himself in his blankets, and sit all night in an easy-chair before the fire.

My brother had not long sat thus, however, before the warmth, and probably the nervous reaction, drew him off to sleep. In the morning he found himself lying on the bed, without being able to remember in the least how or when he reached it.

It was again a glorious day. The rain and wind were gone, and the Silverhorn at the end of the valley lifted its head into an unclouded sky. Looking out upon the sunshine, he almost doubted the events of the night, and, but for the evidence of his watch, which still pointed to twenty minutes before twelve, would have been disposed to treat the whole matter as a dream. As it was, he attributed more than half his terrors to the prompting of an over-active and over-wearied brain. Tor all this, he still felt depressed and uneasy, and so very unwilling to pass another night at Lauterbrunnen, that he made up his mind to proceed that morning to Interlaken. While he was yet loitering over his breakfast, and considering whether he should walk the seven miles of road, or hire a vehicle, a char came rapidly up to the inn door, and a young man jumped out.

“Why, Battisto!” exclaimed my brother, in astonishment, as he came into the room; “what brings you here today? Where is Stefano?”

“I have left him at Interlaken, signor,” replied the Italian.

Something there was in his voice, something in his face, both strange and startling.

“What is the matter?” asked my brother, breathlessly. “He is not ill? No accident has happened?”

Battisto shook his head, glanced furtively up and down the passage, and closed the door.

“Stefano is well, signor; but but a circumstance has occurred a circumstance so strange! – Signor, do you believe in spirits?”

“In spirits, Battisto?”

“Ay, signor; for if ever the spirit of any man, dead or living, appealed to human ears, the spirit of Christien came to me last night, at twenty minutes before twelve o’clock.”

“At twenty minutes before twelve o’clock!” repeated my brother.

“I was in bed, signor, and Stefano was sleeping in the same room. I had gone up quite warm, and had fallen asleep, full of pleasant thoughts. By-and-by, although I had plenty of bedclothes, and a rug over me as well, I woke, frozen with cold and scarcely able to breathe. I tried to call to Stefano; but I had no power to utter the slightest sound. I thought my last moment was come. All at once, I heard a sound under the window – a sound which I knew to be Christien’s musical box; and it played as it played when we lunched under the fir-trees, except that it was more wild and strange and melancholy and most solemn to hear – awful to hear! Then, signor, it grew fainter and fainter – and then it seemed to float past upon the wind, and die away. When it ceased, my frozen blood grew warm again, and I cried out to Stefano. When I told him what had happened, he declared I had been only dreaming. I made him strike a light, that I might look at my watch. It pointed to twenty minutes before twelve, and had stopped there; and stranger still Stefano’s watch had done the very same. Now tell me, signor, do you believe that there is any meaning in this, or do you think, as Stefano persists in thinking, that it was all a dream?”

“What is your own conclusion, Battisto?”

“My conclusion, signor, is that some harm has happened to poor Christien on the glacier, and that his spirit came to me last night.”

“Battisto, he shall have help if living, or rescue for his poor corpse if dead; for I, too, believe that all is not well.”

And with this, my brother told him briefly what had occurred to himself in the night; despatched messengers for the three best guides in Lauterbrunnen; and prepared ropes, ice-hatchets, alpenstocks, and all such matters necessary for a glacier expedition. Hasten as he would, however, it was nearly midday before the party started.

Arriving in about half an hour at a place called Stechelberg, they left the char, in which they Lad travelled so far, at a châlet, and ascended a steep path in full view of the Breithorn glacier, which rose up to the left, like a battlemented wall of solid ice. The way now lay for some time among pastures and pine-forests. Then they came to a little colony of châlets, called Steinberg, where they filled their water-bottles, got their ropes in readiness, and prepared for the Tschlingel glacier. A few minutes more, and they were on the ice.

At this point, the guides called a halt, and consulted together. One was for striking across the lower glacier towards the left, and reaching the upper glacier by the rocks which bound it on the south. The other two preferred the north, or right side; and this my brother finally took. The sun was now pouring down with almost tropical intensity, and the surface of the ice, which was broken into long treacherous fissures, smooth as glass and blue as the summer sky, was both difficult and dangerous. Silently and cautiously, they went, tied together at intervals of about three yards each: with two guides in front, and the third bringing up the rear. Turning presently to the right, they found themselves at the foot of a steep rock, some forty feet in height, up which they must climb to reach the upper glacier. The only way in which Battisto or my brother could hope to do this, was by the help of a rope steadied from below and above. Two of the guides accordingly clambered up the face of the crag by notches in the surface, and one remained below. The rope was then let down, and my brother prepared to go first. As he planted his foot in the first notch, a smothered cry from Battisto arrested him.

“Santa Maria! Signor! Look yonder!”

My brother looked, and there (he ever afterwards declared), as surely as there is a heaven above us all, he saw Christien Baumann standing in the full sunlight, not a hundred yards distant! Almost in the same moment that my brother recognised him, he was gone. He neither faded, nor sank down, nor moved away; but was simply gone, as if he had never been. Pale as death, Battisto fell upon his knees, and covered his face I with his hands. My brother, awe-stricken and speechless, leaned against the rock, and felt that the object of his journey was but too fatally accomplished. As for the guides, they could not conceive what had happened.

“Did you see nothing?” asked my brother and Battisto, both together.

But the men had seen nothing, and the one who had remained below, said, “What should I see but the ice and the sun?”

To this my brother made no other reply than by announcing his intention to have a certain crevasse, from which he had not once removed his eyes since he saw the figure standing on the brink, thoroughly explored before he went a step farther; whereupon the two men came down from the top of the crag, resumed the ropes, and followed my brother, incredulously. At the narrow end of the fissure, he paused, and drove his alpenstock firmly into the ice. It was an unusually long crevasse – at first a mere crack, but widening gradually as it went, and reaching down to unknown depths of dark deep blue, fringed with long pendent icicles, like diamond stalactites. Before they had followed the course of this crevasse for more than ten minutes, the youngest of the guides uttered a hasty exclamation.

“I see something!” cried he. “Something dark, wedged in the teeth of the crevasse, a great way down!”

They all saw it: a mere indistinguishable mass, almost closed over by the ice-walls at their feet. My brother offered a hundred francs to the man who would go down and bring it up. They all hesitated.

“We don’t know what it is,” said one.

“Perhaps it is only a dead chamois,” suggested another.

Their apathy enraged him.

“It is no chamois,” he said, angrily. “It is the body of Christien Baumann, native of Kandersteg. And, by Heaven, if you are all too cowardly to make the attempt, I will go down myself!”

The youngest guide threw off his hat and coat, tied a rope about his waist, and took a hatchet in his hand.

“I will go, monsieur,” said he; and without another word, suffered himself to be lowered in. My brother turned away. A sickening anxiety came upon him, and presently he heard the dull echo of the hatchet far down in the ice. Then there was a call for another rope, and then the men all drew aside in silence, and my brother saw the youngest guide standing once more beside the chasm, flushed and trembling, with the body of Christien lying at his feet.

Poor Christien! They made a rough bier with their ropes and alpenstocks, and carried him, with great difficulty, back to Steinberg. There, they got additional help as far as Stechelberg, where they laid him in the char, and so brought him on to Lauterbrunnen. The next day, my brother made it his sad business to precede the body to Kandersteg, and prepare his friends for its arrival. To this day, though all these things happened thirty years ago, he cannot bear to recall Marie’s despair, or all the mourning that he innocently brought upon that peaceful valley. Poor Marie has been dead this many a year; and when my brother last passed through the Kander Thai on his way to the Ghemmi, he saw her grave, beside the grave of Christien Baumanu, in the village burial-ground.

This is my brother’s Ghost Story.

•   •   •

The chairman now announced that the clock declared the teetotum spun out, and that the meeting was dissolved. Yet even then, the young fisherman could not refrain from once more asking his question. This occasioned the Gentlemen King Arthurs, as they got on their hats and great coats, evidently to regard him as a young fisherman who was touched in his head, and some of them even cherished the idea that the captain was his keeper.

As no man dared to awake the mighty Parvis, it was resolved that a heavy member of the society should fall against him as it were by accident, and immediately withdraw to a safe distance. The experiment was so happily accomplished, that Mr. Parvis started to his feet on the best terms with himself, as a light sleeper whose wits never left him, and who could always be broad awake on occasion. Quite an airy jocundity sat upon this respectable man in consequence. And he rallied the briskest member of the fraternity on being “a sleepy-head,” with an amount of humour previously supposed to be quite incompatible with his responsible circumstances in life.

Gradually, the society departed into the cold night, and the captain and his young companion were left alone. The captain had so refreshed himself by shaking hands with everybody to an amazing extent, that he was in no hurry to go to bed.

“Tomorrow morning,” said the captain, “we must find out the lawyer and the clergyman here; they are the people to consult on our business. And I’ll be up and out early, and asking questions of everybody I see; thereby propagating at least one of the Institutions of my native country.”

As the captain was slapping his leg, the landlord appeared with two small candlesticks.

“Your room,” said he, “is at the top of the house. An excellent bed, but you’ll hear the wind.”

“I’ve heerd it afore,” replied the captain. “Come and make a passage with me, and you shall hear it.”

“It’s considered to blow, here,” said the landlord.

“Weather gets its young strength here,” replied the captain; “goes into training for the Atlantic Ocean. Yours are little winds just beginning to feel their way and crawl. Make a voyage with me, and I’ll show you a grown-up one out on business. But you haven’t told my friend where he lies.”

“It’s the room at the head of the stairs, before you take the second staircase through the wall,” returned the landlord. “You can’t mistake it. It’s a double-bedded room, because there’s no other.”

“The room where the seafaring man is?” said the captain.

“The room where the seafaring man is.”

“I hope he mayn’t finish telling his story in his sleep,” remarked the captain. “Shall I turn into the room where the seafaring man is, Alfred?”

“No, Captain Jorgan, why should you? There would be little fear of his waking me, even if he told his whole story out.”

“He’s in the bed nearest the door,” said the landlord. “I’ve been in to look at him, once, aud he’s sound enough. Good night, gentlemen.”

The captain immediately shook hands with the landlord in quite an enthusiastic manner, and having performed that national ceremony, us if he had had no opportunity of performing it for a long time, accompanied his young friend upstairs.

“Something tells me,” said the captain as they went, “that Miss Kitty Tregarthen’s marriage ain’t put off for long, and that we shall light on what we want.”

“I hope so. When, do you think?”

“Wa’al, I couldn’t just say when, but soon. Here’s your room,” said the captain, softly opening the door and looking in; “and here’s the berth of the seafaring man. I wonder what like he is. He breathes deep; don’t he?”

“Sleeping like a child, to judge from the sound,” said the young fisherman.

“Dreaming of home, maybe,” returned the captain. “Can’t see him. Sleeps a deal more wholesomely than Arson Parvis, but a’most as sound; don’t he? Good night, fellow-traveller.”

“Good night, Captain Jorgan, and many, many thanks!”

“I’ll wait till I arn ’em, boy, afore I take ’em,” returned the captain, clapping him cheerfully on the back. “Pleasant dreams of – you know who!”

When the young fisherman had closed the door, the captain waited a moment or two, listening for any stir on the part of the unknown seafaring man. But, none being audible, the captain pursued the way to his own chamber.

•   •   •

IV

THE SEAFARING MAN

Who was the Seafaring Man? And what might he have to say for himself? He answers those questions in his own words:

I begin by mentioning what happened on my journey, northwards, from Falmouth in Cornwall, to Steepways in Devonshire. I have no occasion to say (being here) that it brought me last night to Lanrean. I had business in hand which was part very serious, and part (as I hoped) very joyful – and this business, you will please to remember, was the cause of my journey.

After landing at Falmouth, I travelled on foot; because of the expense of riding, and because I had anxieties heavy on my mind, and walking was the best way I knew of to lighten them. The first two days of my journey the weather was fine and soft, the wind being mostly light airs from south, and south and by west. On the third day, I took a wrong turning, and had to fetch a long circuit to get right again. Towards evening, while I was still on the road, the wind shifted; and a sea-fog came rolling in on the land. I went on through, what I ask leave to call, the white darkness; keeping the sound of the sea on my left hand for a guide, and feeling those anxieties of mine before mentioned, pulling heavier and heavier at my mind, as the fog thickened and the wet trickled down my face.

It was still early in the evening, when I heard a dog bark, away in the distance, on the right-hand side of me. Following the sound as well as I could, and shouting to the dog, from time to time, to set him barking again, I stumbled up at last against the back of a house; and, hearing voices inside, groped my way round to the door, and knocked on it smartly with the flat of my hand.

The door was opened by a slip-slop young hussy in a torn gown; and the first inquiries I made of her discovered to me that the house was an inn.

Before I could ask more questions, the landlord opened the parlour door of the inn and came out. A clamour of voices, and a fine comforting smell of fire and grog and tobacco, came out, also, along with him.

“The taproom fire’s out,” says the landlord. “You don’t think you would dry more comfortable, like, if you went to bed?” says he, looking hard at me.

“No,” says I, looking hard at him; “I don’t.”

Before more words were spoken, a jolly voice hailed us from inside the parlour.

“What’s the matter, landlord?” says the jolly voice. “Who is it?”

“A seafaring man, by the looks of him,” says the landlord, turning round from me, and speaking into the parlour.

“Let’s have the seafaring man in,” says the voice. “Let’s vote him free of the Club, for this night only.”

A lot of other voices thereupon said, “Hear! hear!” in a solemn manner, as if it was church service. After which there was a hammering, as if it was a trunk-maker’s shop. After which the landlord took me by the arm; gave me a push into the parlour; and there I was, free of the Club.

The change from the fog outside to the warm room and the shining candles so completely dazed me, that I stood blinking at the company more like an owl than a man. Upon which the company again said, “Hear! hear!” Upon which I returned for answer, “Hear! Hear!” – considering those words to mean, in the Club’s language, something similar to “How-d’ye-do.” The landlord then took me to a round table by the fire, where I got my supper, together with the information that my bedroom, when I wanted it, was number four, upstairs.

I noticed before I fell to with my knife and fork that the room was full, and that the chairman at the top of the table was the man with the jolly voice, and was seemingly amusing the company by telling them a story. I paid more attention to my supper than to what he was saying; and all I can now report of it is, that his story-telling and my eating and drinking both came to an end together.

“Now,” says the chairman, “I have told my story to start you all. Who comes next?” He took up a teetotum, and gave it a spin on the table. When it toppled over, it fell opposite me; upon which the chairman said, “It’s your turn next. Order! order! I call on the seafaring man to tell the second story!” He finished the words off with a knock of his hammer; and the Club (having nothing else to say, as I suppose) tried back, and once again sang out altogether, “Hear! hear!”

“I hope you will please to let me off,” I said to the chairman, “for the reason that I have got no story to tell.”

“No story to tell!” says he. “A sailor without a story! Who ever heard of such a thing? Nobody!”

“Nobody,” says the Club, bursting out altogether at last with a new word, by way of a change.

I can’t say I quite relished the chairman’s talking of me as if I was before the mast. A man likes his true quality to be known, when he is publicly spoken to among a party of strangers. I made my true quality known to the chairman and company, in these words:

“All men who follow the sea, gentlemen, are sailors,” I said. “But there’s degrees aboard ship as well as ashore. My rating, if you please, is the rating of a second mate.”

“Ay, ay, surely?” says the chairman. “Where did you leave your ship?”

“At the bottom of the sea,” I made answer – which was, I am sorry to say, only too true.

“What! you’ve been wrecked?” says he. “Tell us all about it. A shipwreck-story is just the sort of story we like. Silence there all down the table! – silence for the second mate!”

The Club, upon this, instead of keeping silence, broke out vehemently with another new word, and said, “Chair!” After which every man suddenly held his peace, and looked at me.

I did a very foolish thing. Without stopping to take counsel with myself, I started off at score, and did just what the chairman had bidden me. If they had waited the whole night long for it, I should never have told them the story they wanted from me at first, having all my life been a wretched bad hand at such matters – for the reason, as I take it, that a story is bound to be something which is not true. But when I found the company willing, on a sudden, to put up with nothing better than the account of my shipwreck (which is not a story at all), the unexpected luck of being let off with only telling the truth about myself, was too much of a temptation for me – so I up and told it.

I got on well enough with the storm, and the striking of the vessel, and the strange chance, afterwards, which proved to be the saving of my life – the assembly all listening (to my great surprise) as if they had never heard anything of the sort before. But, when the necessity came next for going further than this, and for telling them what had happened to me after the saving of my life – or, to put it plainer, for telling them what place I was cast away on, and what company I was cast away in – the words died straight off on my lips. For this reason – namely – that those particulars of my statement made up just that part of it which I couldn’t and durstn’t, let out to strangers – no, not if every man among them had offered me a hundred pounds apiece, on the spot, to do it!

“Go on!” says the chairman. “What happened next? How did you get on shore?”

Feeling what a fool I had been to run myself headlong into a scrape, for want of thinking before I spoke, I now cast about discreetly in my mind for the best means of finishing offhand without letting out a word to the company concerning those particulars before mentioned. I was some little time before seeing my way to this; keeping the chairman and company, all the while, waiting for an answer. The Club, losing patience in consequence, got from staring hard at me to drumming with their feet and then to calling out lustily, “Go on! go on! Chair! Order!” – and such like. In the midst of this childish hubbub, I saw my way to what I considered to be rather a neat finish – and got on my legs to ease them all off with it handsomely.

“Hear! hear!” says the Club. “He’s going on again at last.”

“Gentlemen!” I made answer; “with your permission I will now conclude by wishing you all good night.” Saying which words, I gave them a friendly nod, to make things pleasant – and walked straight to the door. It’s hardly to be believed – though nevertheless quite true – that these curious men all howled and groaned at me directly, as if I had done them some grievous injury. Thinking I would try to pacify them with their own favourite catchword, I said, “Hear! hear!” as civilly as might be, whereupon, they all returned for answer, “Oh! oh!” I never belonged to a club of any kind, myself; and, after what I saw of that Club, I don’t care if I never do.

•   •   •

My bedroom, when I found my way up to it, was large and airy enough, but not over-clean. There were two beds in it, not over-clean either. Both being empty, I had my choice. One was near the window, and one near the door. I thought the bed near the door looked a trifle the sweetest of the two; and took it.

After falling asleep, it was the grey of the morning before I woke. When I had fairly opened my eyes and shook up my memory into telling me where I was, I made two discoveries. First, that the room was a deal colder in the new morning, than it had been overnight. Second, that the other bed near the window had got someone sleeping in it. Not that I could see the man from where I lay; but I heard his breathing, plain enough. He must have come up into the room, of course, after I had fallen asleep – and he had tumbled himself quietly into bed without disturbing me. There was nothing wonderful in that; and nothing wonderful in the landlord letting the empty bed if he could find a customer for it. I turned, and tried to go to sleep again; but I was out of sorts – out of sorts so badly, that even the breathing of the man in the other bed fretted and worried me. After tumbling and tossing for a quarter of an hour or more, I got up for a change; and walked softly in my stockings, to the window, to look at the morning.

The heavens were brightening into daylight, and the mists were blowing off, past the window, like puffs of smoke. When I got even with the second bed, I stopped to look at the man in it. He lay, sound asleep, turned towards the window; and the end of the counterpane was drawn up over the lower half of his face. Something struck me, on a sudden, in his hair, and his forehead; and, though not an inquisitive man by nature, I stretched out my hand to the end of the counterpane, in spite of myself.

I uncovered his face softly; and there, in the morning light, I saw my brother, Alfred Raybrock.

What I ought to have done, or what other men might have done in my place, I don’t know. What I really did, was to drop back a step – to steady myself, with my hand, on the sill of the window – and to stand so, looking at him. Three years ago, I had said good-bye to my wife, to my little child, to my old mother, and to brother Alfred here, asleep under my eyes. For all those three years, no news from me had reached them – and the underwriters, as I knew, must have long since reported that the ship I sailed in was lost, and that all hands on board had perished. My heart was heavy when I thought of my kindred at home, and of the weary time they must have waited and sorrowed before they gave me up for dead. Twice I reached out my hand, to wake Alfred, and to ask him about my wife and my child; and twice I drew it back again, in fear of what might happen if he saw me, standing by his bed-head in the grey morning, like Hugh Raybrock risen up from the grave.

I drew my hand back the second time, and waited a minute. In that minute he woke. I had not moved, or spoken a word, or touched him – I had only looked at him longingly. If such things could be, I should say it was my looking that woke him. His eyes, when they opened under mine, passed on a sudden from fast asleep to broad awake. They first settled on my face with a startled look – which passed directly. He lifted himself on his elbow, and opened his lips to speak, but never said a word. His eyes strained and strained into mine; and his face turned all over of a ghastly white. “Alfred!” I said, “don’t you know me?” There seemed to be a deadly terror pent up in him, and I thought my voice might set it free. I took fast hold of him by the hands, and spoke again. “Alfred!” I said—

Oh, sirs! where can a man like me find words to tell all that was said and all that was thought between us two brothers? Please to pardon my not saying more of it than I say here. We sat down together, side by side. The poor lad burst out crying – and got vent that way. I kept my hold of his hands, and waited a bit before I spoke to him again. I think I was worst off, now, of the two – no tears came to help me – I haven’t got my brother’s quickness, any way; and my troubles have roughened and hardened me, outside. But, God knows, I felt it keenly; all the more keenly, maybe, because I was slow to show it.

After a little, I put the questions to him which I had been longing to ask, from the time when I first saw his face on the pillow. Had they all given me up at home, for dead (I asked)? Yes; after long, long hoping, one by one they had given me up – my wife (God bless her!) last of all. I meant to ask next if my wife was alive and well; but, try as I might, I could only say “Margaret?” – and look hard in my brother’s face. He knew what I meant. Yes (he said), she was living; she was at home; she was in her widow’s weeds – poor soul! her widow’s weeds! I got on better with my next question about the child. Was it born alive? Yes. Boy or girl? Girl. And living now; and much grown? Living, surely, and grown – poor little thing, what a question to ask! – grown of course, in three years! And mother? Well, mother was a trifle fallen away, and more silent within herself than she used to be – fretting at times; fretting (like my wife) on nights when the sea rose, and the windows shook and shivered in the wind. Thereupon, my brother and I waited a bit again – I with my questions, and he with his answers – and while we waited, I thanked God, inwardly, with all my heart and soul, for bringing me back, living, to wife and kindred, while wife and kindred were living too.

My brother dried the tears off his face; and looked at me a little. Then he turned aside suddenly, as if he remembered something; and stole his hand in a hurry, under the pillow of his bed. Nothing came out from below the pillow but his black neck-handkerchief, which he now unfolded slowly, looking at me, all the while, with something strange in his face that I couldn’t make out.

“What are you doing?” I asked him. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

Instead of making answer, he took a crumpled morsel of paper out of his neck-handkerchief, opened it carefully, and held it to the light to let me see what it was. Lord in Heaven! – my own writing – the morsel of paper I had committed, long, long since, to the mercy of the deep. Thousands and thousands of miles away, I had trusted that Message to the waters – and here it was now, in my brother’s hands! A chilly fear came over me at the seeing it again. Scrap of paper as it was, it looked to my eyes like the ghost of my own past self, gone home before me invisibly over the great wastes of the sea.

My brother pointed down solemnly to the writing.

“Hugh,” he said, “were you in your right mind when you wrote those words?”

“Tell me first,” I made answer, “how and when the Message came to you. I can’t quiet myself fit to talk till I know that.”

He told me how the paper had come to hand – also, how his good friend, the captain, having promised to help him, was then under the same roof with our two selves. But there he stopped. It was not till later in the day that I heard of what had happened (through this dreadful doubt about the money) in the matter of his sweetheart and his marriage.

The knowledge that the Message had reached him by mortal means – on the word of a seaman, I half doubted it when I first set eyes on the paper! – eased me in my mind; and I now did my best to quiet Alfred, in my turn. I told him that I was in my right senses, though sorely troubled, when my hand had written those words. Also, that where the writing was rubbed out, I could tell him for his necessary guidance and mine, what once stood in the empty places. Also, that I knew no more what the real truth might be than he did, till inquiry was made, and the slander on father’s good name was dragged boldly into daylight to show itself for what it was worth. Lastly, that all the voyage home, there was one hope and one determination uppermost in my mind – the hope, that I might get safe to England, and find my wife and kindred alive to take me back among them again – the determination, that I would put the doubt about father’s five hundred pounds to the proof, if ever my feet touched English land once more.

“Come out with me now, Alfred,” I said, after winding up as above; “and let me tell you in the quiet of the morning how that Message came to be written and committed to the sea.”

We went downstairs softly, and let ourselves out without disturbing anyone. The sun was just rising when we left the village and took our way slowly over the cliffs. As soon as the sea began to open on us, I returned to that true story of mine which I had left but half told, the night before – and, this time, I went through with it to the end.

•   •   •

I shipped, as you may remember (were my first words to Alfred), in a second mate’s berth, on board the Peruvian, nine hundred tons’ burden. We carried an assorted cargo, and we were bound, round the Horn to Truxillo and Guayaquil, on the western coast of South America. From this last port – namely, Guayaquil – we were to go back to Truxillo, and there to take in another cargo for the return voyage. Those were all the instructions communicated to me when I signed articles with the owners, in London city, three years ago.

After we had been, I think, a week at sea, I heard from the first mate – who had himself heard it from the captain – that the supercargo we were taking with us, on the outward voyage, was to be left at Truxillo, and that another supercargo (also connected with our firm, and latterly employed by them as their foreign agent) was to ship with us at that port, for the voyage home. His name on the captain’s instructions was, Mr. Lawrence Clissold. None of us had ever set eyes on him to our knowledge, and none of us knew more about him than what I have told you here.

We had a wonderful voyage out – especially round the Horn. I never before saw such fair weather in that infernal latitude, and I never expect to see the like again. We followed our instructions to the letter; discharging our cargo in fine condition, and returning to Truxillo to load again as directed. At this place, I was so unfortunate as to be seized with the fever of the country, which laid me on my back, while we were in harbour; and which only let me return to my duty after we had been ten days at sea, on the voyage home again. For this reason, the first morning when I was able to get on deck, was also the first time of my setting eyes on our new supercargo, Mr. Lawrence Clissold.

I found him to be a long, lean, wiry man, with some complaint in his eyes which forced him to wear spectacles of blue glass. His age appeared to be fifty-six of thereabouts; but he might well have been more. There was not above a handful of grey hair, altogether, on his bald head – and, as for the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth, if he could have had a pound apiece in his pocket for every one of them, he might have retired from business from that time forth. Judging by certain signs in his face, and by a suspicious morning tremble in his hands, I set him down, in my own mind (right enough, as it afterwards turned out), for a drinker. In one word, I didn’t like the looks of the new supercargo – and, oh the first day when I got on deck, I found that he had reasons of his own for paying me back in my own coin, and not liking my looks, either.

“I’ve been asking the captain about you,” were his first words to me in return for my civilly wishing him good morning. “Your name’s Raybrock, I hear. Are you any relation to the late Hugh Raybrock, of Barnstaple, Devonshire?”

“Rather a near relation,” I made answer. “I am the late Hugh Raybrock’s eldest son.”

There was no telling how his eyes looked, because they were hidden by his blue spectacles – but I saw him wince at the mouth, when I gave him that reply.

“Your father ended by failing in business, didn’t he?” was the next question the supercargo put to me.

“Who told you he failed?” I asked, sharply enough.

“Oh! I heard it,” says Mr. Lawrence Clissold, both looking and speaking as if he was glad to have heard it, and he hoped it was true.

“Whoever told you my father failed in business, told you a lie,” I said. “His business fell off towards the last years of his life – I don’t deny it. But every creditor he had was honestly paid at his death, without so much as touching the provision left for his widow and children. Please to mention that, next time you hear it reported that my father failed in business.”

Mr. Clissold grinned to himself – and I lost my temper.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said to him, “I don’t like your laughing to yourself, when I ask you to do justice to my father’s memory – and, what is more, I didn’t like the way you mentioned that report of his failing in business, just now. You looked as if you hoped it was true.”

“Perhaps I did,” says Mr. Clissold, coolly. “Shall I tell you why? When I was a young man, I was unlucky enough to owe your father some money. He was a merciless creditor; and he threatened me with a prison if the debt remained unpaid on the day when it was due. I have never forgotten that circumstance; and I should certainly not have been sorry if your father’s creditors had given him a lesson in forbearance, by treating him as harshly as he once treated me.”

“My father had a right to ask for his own,” I broke out. “If you owed him the money and didn’t pay it—”

“I never told you I didn’t pay it,” says Mr. Clissold, as coolly as ever.

“Well, if you did pay it,” I put in, “then you didn’t go to prison – and you have no cause of complaint now. My father wronged nobody; and I won’t believe he ever wronged you. He was a just man in all his dealings; and whoever tells me to the contrary—!”

“That will do,” says Mr. Clissold, backing away to the cabin stairs. “You seem to have not quite got over your fever yet. I’ll leave you to air yourself in the sea-breezes, Mr. Second Mate; and I’ll receive your excuses when you are cool enough to make them.”

“It is a son’s business to defend his father’s character,” I answered; “and, cool or hot, I’ll leave the ship sooner than ask your pardon for doing my duty!”

“You will leave the ship,” says the supercargo, quietly going down into the cabin. “You will leave at the next port, if I have any interest with the captain.”

That was how Mr. Clissold and I scraped acquaintance on the first day when we met together! And as we began, so we went on to the end. But, though he persecuted me in almost every other way, he did not anger me again about father’s affairs: he seemed to have dropped talking of them at once and for ever. On my side I nevertheless bore in mind what he had said to me, and determined, if I got home safe, to go to the lawyer at Barnstaple who keeps father’s old books and letters for us, and see what information they might give on the subject of Mr. Lawrence Clissold. I, myself, had never heard his name mentioned at home – father (as you know, Alfred) being always close about business-matters, and mother never troubling him with idle questions about his affairs. But it was likely enough that he and Mr. Clissold might have been concerned in money-matters, in past years, and that Mr. Clissold might have tried to cheat him, and failed. I rather hoped it might prove to be so – for the truth is, the supercargo provoked me past all endurance; and I hated him as heartily as he hated me.

All this while the ship was making such a speedy voyage down the coast, that we began to think we were carrying back with us the fine weather we had brought out. But, on nearing Cape Horn, the signs and tokens appeared which told us that our run of luck was at an end. Down went the barometer, lower and lower; and up got the wind, in the northerly quarter, higher and higher. This happened towards nightfall – and at daybreak next day, we found ourselves forced to lay-to. It blew all that day and all that night; towards noon the next day, it lulled a little, and we made sail again. But at sunset, the heavens grew blacker than ever; and the wind returned upon us with double and treble fury. The Peruvian was a fine stout roomy ship, but the unhandiest vessel at laying-to I ever sailed in. After taking tons of water on board and losing our best boat, we had nothing left for it but to turn tail, and scud for our lives. For the next three days and nights we ran before the wind. The gale moderated more than once in that time; but there was such a sea on, that we durstn’t heave the ship to. From the beginning of the gale none of us officers had a chance of taking any observations. We only knew that the wind was driving us as hard as we could go in a southerly direction, and that we were by this time hundreds of miles out of the ordinary course of ships in doubling the Cape.

On the third night – or rather, I should say, early on the fourth morning – I went below, dead beat, to get a little rest, leaving the vessel in charge of the captain and the first mate. The night was then pitch-black – it was raining, hailing, and sleeting, all at once – and the Peruvian was wallowing in the frightful seas, as if she meant to roll the masts out of her. I tumbled into bed the instant my wet oilskins were off my back, and slept as only a man can who lays himself down dead beat.

I was woke – how long afterwards I don’t know – by being pitched clean out of my berth on to the cabin floor; and, at the same moment, I heard the crash of the ship’s timbers, forward, which told me it was all over with us.

Though bruised and shaken by my fall, I was on deck directly. Before I had taken two steps forward, the Peruvian forged ahead on the send of the sea, swung round a little, and struck heavily at the bows for the second time. The shrouds of the foremast cracked one after another, like pistol-shots; and the mast went overboard. I next felt our people go tearing past me, in the black darkness, to the lee-side of the vessel; and I knew that, in their last extremity, they were taking to the boats. I say I felt them go past me, because the roaring of the sea and the howling of the wind deafened me, on deck, as completely as the darkness blinded me. I myself no more believed the boats would live in the sea, than I believed the ship would hold together on the reef – but, as the rest were running the risk, I made up my mind to run it with them.

But before I followed the crew to leeward, I went below again for a minute – not to save money or clothes, for, with death staring me in the face, neither were of any account, now – but to get my little writing-case which mother had given me at parting. A curl of Margaret’s hair was in the pocket inside it, with all the letters she had sent me when I had been away on other voyages. If I saved anything I was resolved to save this – and if I died, I would die with it about me.

My locket was jammed with the wrenching of the ship, and had to be broken open. I was, maybe, longer over this job than I myself supposed. At any rate, when I got on deck again with my case in my breast, it was useless calling, and useless groping about. The largest of the two boats, when I felt for it, was gone; and every soul on board was beyond a doubt gone with her.

Before I had time to think, I was thrown off my feet, by another sea coming on board, and a great heave of the vessel, which drove her farther over the reef, and canted the after-part of her up like the roof of a house. In that position the stern stuck, wedged fast into the rocks beneath, while the fore-part of the ship was all to pieces and down under water. If the after-part kept the place it was now jammed in, till daylight, there might be a chance – but if the sea wrenched it out from between the rocks, there was an end of me. After straining my eyes to discover if there was land beyond the reef, and seeing nothing but the flash of the breakers, like white fire in the darkness, I crawled below again to the shelter of the cabin stairs, and waited for death or daylight.

As the morning hours wore on, the weather moderated again; and the after-part of the vessel, though shaken often, was not shaken out of its place. A little before dawn, the winds and the waves, though fierce enough still, allowed me, at last, to hear something besides themselves. What did I hear, crouched up in my dark corner, was a heavy thumping and grinding, every now and then, against the side of the ship to windward. Day broke soon afterwards; and, when I climbed to the deck, I clawed my way up to windward first, to see what the noise was caused by.

My first look over the bulwark showed me that it was caused by the boat which my unfortunate brother-officers and the crew had launched and gone away in when the ship struck. The boat was bottom upwards, thumping against the ship’s side on the lift of the sea. I wanted no second look at it to tell me that every mother’s son of them was drowned.

The main and mizzen masts still stood. I got into the mizzen rigging, to look out next to leeward – and there, in the blessed daylight, I saw a low, green, rocky little island, lying away beyond the reef, barely a mile distant from the ship! My life began to look of some small value to me again, when I saw land. I got higher up in the rigging to note how the current set, and where there might be a passage through the reef. The ship had driven over the rocks through the worst of the surf, and the sea between myself and the island, though angry and broken in places, was not too high for a lost man like me to venture on – provided I could launch the last, and smallest, boat still left in the vessel. I noted carefully the likeliest-looking channel for trying the experiment, and then got down on deck again to see what I could do, first of all, with the boat.

At the moment when my feet touched the deck, I heard a dull knocking and banging just under them, in the region of the cabin. When the sound first reached my ears, I got such a shock of surprise that I could neither move nor speak. It had never yet crossed my mind that a single soul was left in the vessel beside myself – but now, there was something in the knocking noise which started the hope in me that I was not alone. I shook myself up, and got down below directly.

The noise came from inside one of the sleeping berths, on the far side of the main cabin; the door of which was jammed, no doubt, just as my locker had been jammed, by the wrenching of the ship. ‘Who’s there?’ I called out. A faint, muffled kind of voice answered something through the air-grating in the upper part of the door. I got up on the overthrown cabin furniture; and, looking in through the trelliswork of the grating, found myself face to face with the blue spectacles of Mr. Lawrence Clissold, looking out!

God forgive me for thinking it – but there was not a man in the vessel I wouldn’t sooner have found alive in her than Mr. Clissold! Of all that ship’s company, we two, who were least friendly together, were the only two saved.

I had a better chance of breaking out the jammed door from the main cabin, than he had from the berth inside; and in less than five minutes he was set free. I had smelt spirits already through the air-grating – and now, when he and I stood face to face, I saw what the smell meant. There was an open case of spirits by the bedside – two of the bottles out of it were lying broken on the floor – and Mr. Clissold was drunk.

“What’s the matter with the ship?” says he, looking fierce, and speaking thick.

“You shall see for yourself,” says I. With which words I took hold of him, and pulled him after me up the cabin stairs. I reckoned on the sight that would meet him, when he first looked over the deck, to sober his drunken brains – and I reckoned right: he fell on his knees, stock still and speechless as if he was turned to stone.

I lashed him up safe to the cabin rail, and left it to the air to bring him round. He had, likely enough, been drinking in the sleeping berth for days together – for none of us, as I now remembered, had seen him since the gale set in – and even if he had had sense enough to try to get out, or to call for help, when the ship struck, he would not have made himself heard in the noise and confusion of that awful time. But for the lull in the weather, I should not have heard him myself, when he attempted to get free in the morning. Enemy of mine as he was, he had a pair of arms – and he was worth untold gold, in my situation, for that reason. With the help I could make him give me, there was no doubt now about launching the boat. In half an hour I had the means ready for trying the experiment; and Mr. Clissold was sober enough to see that his life depended on his doing what I told him.

The sky looked angry still – there was no opening anywhere – and the clouds were slowly banking up again to windward. The supercargo knew what I meant when I pointed that way, and worked with a will when I gave him the word. I had previously stowed away in the boat such stores of meat, biscuit, and fresh water as I could readily lay hands on; together with a compass, a lantern, a few candles, and some boxes of matches in my pocket, to kindle light and fire with. At the last moment, I thought of a gun and some powder and shot. The powder and shot I found, and an old flint pocket-pistol in the captain’s cabin – with which, for fear of wasting precious time, I was forced to be content. The pistol lay on the top of the medicine-chest – and I took that also, finding it handy, and not knowing but what it might be of use. Having made these preparations, we launched the boat, over down the steep of the deck, into the water over the forward part of the ship which was sunk. I took the oars ordering Mr. Clissold to sit still in the stern-sheets – and pulled for the island.

It was neck or nothing with us more than once, before we were two hundred yards from the ship. Luckily, the supercargo was used to boats; and muddled as he still was, he had sense enough to sit quiet. We found our way into the smooth channel which I had noted from the mizzen rigging – after which, it was easy enough to get ashore.

We landed on a little sandy creek. From the time of our leaving the ship, the supercargo had not spoken a word to me, nor I to him. I now told him to lend a hand in getting the stores out of the boat, and in helping me to carry them to the first sheltered place we could find in shore on the island. He shook himself up with a sulky look at me, and did as I had bidden him. We found a little dip or dell in the ground, after getting up the low sides of the island, which was sheltered to windward – and here I left him to stow away the stores, while I walked farther on, to survey the place.

According to the hasty judgement I formed at the time, the island was not a mile across, and not much more than three miles round. I noted nothing in the way of food but a few wild roots and vegetables, growing in ragged patches amidst the thick scrub which covered the place. There was not a tree on it anywhere; nor any living creatures; nor any signs of fresh water that I could see. Standing on the highest ground, I looked about anxiously for other islands that might be inhabited; there were none visible – at least none in the hazy state of the heavens that morning. When I fairly discovered what a desert the place was; when I remembered how far it lay out of the track of ships; and when I thought of the small store of provisions which we had brought with us, the doubt lest we might only have changed the chance of death by drowning for the chance of death by starvation was so strong in me, that I determined to go back to the boat, with the desperate notion of making another trip to the vessel for water and food. I say desperate, because the clouds to windward were banking up blacker and higher every minute, the wind was freshening already, and there was every sign of the storm coming on again wilder and fiercer than ever.

Mr. Clissold, when I passed him on my way back to the beach, had got the stores pretty tidy, covered with the tarpaulin which I had thrown over them in the bottom of the boat. Just as I looked down at him in the hollow I saw him take a bottle of spirits out of the pocket of his pilot-coat. He must have stowed the bottle away there, as I suppose, while I was breaking open the door of his berth. “You’ll be drowned, and I shall have double allowance to live upon here,” was all he said to me, when he heard I was going back to the ship. “Yes! and die, in your turn, when you’ve got through it,” says I, going away to the boat. It’s shocking to think of now – but we couldn’t be civil to each other, even on the first day when we were wrecked together!

Having previously stripped to my trousers, in case of accident, I now pulled out. On getting from the channel into the broken water again, I looked over my shoulder to windward, and saw that I was too late. It was coming! – the ship was hidden already in the horrible haze of it. I got the boat’s head round to pull back – and I did pull back, just inside the opening in the reef which made the mouth of the channel – when the storm came down on me like death and judgement. The boat filled in an instant; and I was tossed head over heels into the water. The sea, which burst into raging surf upon the rocks on either side, rushed in one great roller up the deep channel between them, and took me with it. If the undertow, afterwards, had lasted for half a minute, I should have been carried into the white water, and lost. But a second roller followed the first, almost on the instant, and swept me right up on the beach. I had just strength enough to dig my arms and legs well into the wet sand; and though I was taken back with the backward shift of it, I was not taken into deep water again. Before the third roller came, I was out of its reach, and was down in a sort of swoon, on the dry sand.

When I got back to the hollow, in shore, where I had left my clothes under shelter with the stores, I found Mr. Clissold snugly crouched up, in the driest place, with the tarpaulin to cover him. “Oh!” says he, in a state of great surprise, “you’re not drowned?”  “No,” says I; “you won’t get your double allowance, after all.”  “How much shall I get?” says he, rousing up and looking anxious. “Your fair half share of what is here,” I answered him. “And how long will that last me?” says he. “The food, if you have sense enough to eke it out with what you may find in this miserable place, barely three weeks,” says I; “and the water (if you ever drink any) about a fortnight.” At hearing that, he took the bottle out of his pocket again, and put it to his lips. “I’m cold to the bones,” says I, frowning at him for a drop. “And I’m warm to the marrow,” says he, chuckling, and handing me the bottle empty. I pitched it away at once – or the temptation to break it over his head might have been too much for me – I pitched it away, and looked into the medicine-chest, to see if there was a drop of peppermint, or anything comforting of that sort, inside. Only three physic bottles were left in it, all three being neatly tied over with oilskin. One of them held a strong white liquor, smelling like hartshorn. The other two were filled with stuff in powder, having the names in printed gibberish, pasted outside. On looking a little closer, I found, under some broken divisions of the chest, a small flask covered with wicker-work. ‘Ginger-Brandy’ was written with pen and ink on the wicker-work, and the flask was full! I think that blessed discovery saved me from shivering myself to pieces. After a pull at the flask, which made a new man of me, I put it away in my inside breast-pocket; Mr. Clissold watching me with greedy eyes, but saying nothing.

All this while, the rain was rushing, the wind roaring, and the sea crashing, as if Noah’s Flood had come again. I sat close against the supercargo, because he was in the driest place; and pulled my fair share of the tarpaulin away from him, whether he liked it or not. He by no means liked it; being in that sort of half-drunken, half-sober state (after finishing his bottle), in which a man’s temper is most easily upset by trifles. The upset of his temper showed itself in the way of small aggravations – of which I took no notice, till he suddenly bethought himself of angering me by going back again to that dispute about father, which had bred ill-blood between us, on the day when we first saw each other. If he had been a younger man, I am afraid I should have stopped him by a punch on his head. As it was, considering his age and the shame of this quarrelling betwixt us when we were both cast away together, I only warned him that I might punch his head, if he went on. It did just as well – and I’m glad now to think that it did.

We were huddled so close together, that when he coiled himself up to sleep (with a growl), and when he did go to sleep (with a grunt), he growled and grunted into my ear. His rest, like the rest of all the regular drunkards I have ever met with, was broken. He ground his teeth, and talked in his sleep. Among the words he mumbled to himself, I heard as plain as could be father’s name. This vexed, but did not surprise me, seeing that he had been talking of father before he dropped off. But when I made out next among his mutterings and mumblings, the words “five hundred pound,” spoken over and over again, with father’s name, now before, now after, now mixed in along with them, I got curious, and listened for more. My listening (and serve me right, you will say) came to nothing: he certainly talked on, but I couldn’t make out a word more that he said.

When he woke up, I told him plainly he had been talking in his sleep – and mightily taken aback he looked when he first heard it. “What about?” says he. I made answer, “My father, and five hundred pound; and how do you come to couple them together, I should like to know?”

“I couldn’t have coupled them,” says he, in a great hurry – “what do I know about it? I don’t believe a man like your father ever had such a sum of money as that, in all his life.”  “Don’t you?” says I, feeling the aggravation of him, in spite of myself; “I can just tell you my father had such a sum when he was no older a man than I am – and saved it – and left it for a provision, in his will, to my mother, who has got it now – and, I say again, how came a stranger like you to be talking of it in your sleep?” At hearing this, he went about on the other tack directly. “Was that all your father left, after his debts were paid?” says he. “Are you very curious to know?” says I. He took no notice – he only persisted with his question. “Was it just five hundred pound, no more and no less?” says he. “Suppose it was,” says I; “what then?”  “Oh, nothing?” says he, and turns sharp round from me, and chuckles to himself. “You’re drunk!” says I. “Yes,” says he; “that’s it – stick to that – I’m drunk” – and he chuckles again. Try as I might, and threaten as I might, not another word on the matter of the five hundred pound could I get from him. I bore it well in mind, though, for all that – it being one of my slow ways, not easily to forget anything that has once surprised me, and not to give up returning to it over and over again, as time and occasion may serve for the purpose.

The hours wore on, and the storm raged on. We had our half rations of food, when hunger took us (I being much the hungrier of the two); and slept, and grumbled, and quarrelled the weary time out somehow. Towards dusk the wind lessened; and, when I got up, out of the hollow to look out, there was a faint watery break in the western heavens. At times, through the watches of the long night, the stars showed in patches for a little while, through the rents that opened and closed by fits in the black sky. When I fell asleep towards the dawning, the wind had fallen to a moan, though the sea, slower to go down, sounded as loud as ever. From what I could make of the weather, the storm had, by that time, as good as blown itself out.

I had been wise enough (knowing who was near me) to lay myself down, whenever I slept, on the side of me which was next to the flask of ginger-brandy, stowed away in my breastpocket. When I woke at sunrise, it was the supercargo’s hand that roused me up, trying to steal my flask while I was asleep. I rolled him over headlong among the stores – out of which I had the humanity to pull him again, with my own hands.

“I’ll tell you what,” says I, “if us two keep company any longer, we shan’t get on smoothly together. You’re the oldest man – and you stop here, where we know there is shelter. We will divide the stores fairly, and I’ll go and shift for myself at the other end of the island. Do you agree to that?”

“Yes,” says he; “and the sooner the better.”

I left him for a minute, and went away to look out on the reef that had wrecked us. The splinters of the Peruvian, scattered broadcast over the beach, or tossing up and down darkly, far out in the white surf, were all that remained to tell of the ship. I don’t deny that my heart sank, when I looked at the place where she struck, and saw nothing before me but sea and sky.

But what was the use of standing and looking? It was a deal better to rouse myself by doing something. I returned to Mr. Clissold – and then and there divided the stores into two equal parts, including everything down to the matches in my pocket. Of these parts I gave him first choice. I also left him the whole of the tarpaulin to himself – keeping in my own possession the medicine-chest, and the pistol; which last I loaded with powder and shot, in case any sea-birds might fly within reach. When the division was made, and when I had moved my part out of his way and out of his sight, I thought it uncivil to bear malice any longer, now that we had agreed to separate. We were cast away on a desert island, and we had death, as well as I could see, within about three weeks’ hail of us – but that was no reason for not making things reasonably pleasant as long as we could. I was some time (in consequence of my natural slowness where matters of seafaring duty don’t happen to be concerned) before I came to this conclusion. When I did come to it, I acted on it.

“Shake hands, before parting,” I said, suiting the action to the word.

“No!” says he; “I don’t like you.”

“Please yourself,” says I – and so we parted.

Turning my back on the west, which was his territory according to agreement, I walked away towards the south-east, where the sides of the island rose highest. Here I found a sort of half rift, half cavern, in the rocky banks, which looked as likely a place as any other – and to this refuge I moved my share of the stores. I thatched it over as well as I could with scrub, and heaped up some loose stones at the mouth of it. At home in England, I should have been ashamed to put my dog in such a place – but when a man believes his days to be numbered, he is not over-particular about his lodgings, and I was not over-particular about mine.

When my work was done, the heavens were fair, the sun was shining, and it was long past noon. I went up again to the high ground, to see what I could make out in the new clearness of the air. North, east, and west there was nothing but sea and sky – but, south, I now saw land. It was high, and looked to be a matter of seven or eight miles off. Island, or not, it must have been of a good size for me to see it as I did. Known or not known to mariners, it was certainly big enough to have living creatures on it – animals or men, or both. If I had not lost the boat in my second attempt to reach the vessel, we might have easily got to it. But situated as we were now, with no wood to make a boat of but the scattered splinters from the ship, and with no tools to use even that much, there might just as well have been no land in sight at all, so far as we were concerned. The poor hope of a ship coming our road, was still the only hope left. To give us all the little chance we might get that way, I now looked about on the beach for the longest morsel of a wrecked spar that I could find; planted it on the high ground; and rigged up to it the one shirt I had on my back for a signal. While coming and going on this job, I noted with great joy that rain water enough lay in the hollows of the rocks above the sea line, to save our small store of fresh water for a week at least. Thinking it only fair to the supercargo to let him know what I had found out, I went to his territories, after setting up the morsel of a spar, and discreetly shouted my news down to him without showing myself. “Keep to your own side!” was all the thanks I got for this piece of civility. I went back to my own side immediately, and crawled into my little cavern, quite content to be alone. On that first night, strange as it seems now, I once or twice nearly caught myself feeling happy at the thought of being rid of Mr. Lawrence Clissold.

According to my calculations – which were made by tying a fresh knot every morning in a piece of marline – we two men were just a week, each on his own side of the island, without seeing or communicating, anyhow, with one another. The first half of the week, I had enough to do with cudgelling my brains for a means of helping ourselves, to keep my mind steady.

I thought first of picking up all the longest bits of spars that had been cast ashore, lashing them together with ropes twisted out of the long grass on the island, and trusting to raft-navigation to get to that high land away in the south. But when I looked among the spars, there were not half a dozen of them left whole enough for the purpose. And even if there had been more, the short allowance of food would not have given me time sufficient, or strength sufficient, to gather the grass, to twist it into ropes, and to lash a raft together big enough and strong enough for us two men. There was nothing to be done, but to give up this notion – and I gave it up. The next chance I thought of was to keep a fire burning on the shore every night, with the wood of the wreck, in case vessels at sea might notice it, on one side – or the people of the high land in the south (if the distance was not too great) might notice it, on the other. There was sense in this notion, and it could be turned to account the moment the wood was dry enough to burn. The wood got dry enough before the week was out. Whether it was the end of the stormy season in those latitudes, or whether it was only the shifting of the wind to the west, I don’t know – but now, day after day, the heavens were clear and the sun shone scorching hot. The scrub on the island (which was of no great account) dried up – but the fresh water in the hollows of the rocks (which was, on the other hand, a serious business) dried up too. Troubles seldom come alone; and on the day when I made this discovery, I also found out that I had calculated wrong about the food. Eke it out as I might with scurvy grass and roots, there would not be above eight days more of it left when the first week was past – and, as for the fresh water, half a pint a day, unless more rain fell, would leave me at the end of my store, as nearly as I could guess, about the same time.

This was a bad look-out – but I don’t think the prospect of it upset me in my mind, so much as the having nothing to do. Except for the gathering of the wood, and the lighting of the signal-fire, every night, I had no work at all, towards the end of the week, to keep me steady. I checked myself in thinking much about home, for fear of losing heart, and not holding out to the last, as became a man. For the same reasons I likewise kept my mind from raising hopes of help in me which were not likely to come true. What else was there to think about? Nothing but the man on the other side of the island – and be hanged to him!

I thought about those words I heard him say in his sleep; I thought about how he was getting on by himself; how he liked nothing but water to drink, and little enough of that; how he was eking out his food; whether he slept much or not; whether he saw the smoke from my fire at night, or not; whether he held up better or worse than I did; whether he would be glad to see me, if I went to him to make it up; whether he or I would die first; whether if it was me, he would do for me, what I would have done for him – namely, bury him, with the last strength I had left. All these things, and lots more, kept coming and going in my mind, till I could stand it no longer. On the morning of the eighth day, I roused up to go to his territories, feeling it would do me good to see him and hear him, even if we quarrelled again the instant we set eyes on each other.

I climbed up to the grassy ground – and, when I got there, what should I see but the supercargo himself, coming to my territories, and wandering up and down in the scrub through not knowing where to find them!

It almost knocked me over, when we met, the man was changed so. He looked eighty years old; the little flesh he had on his miserable face hung baggy; his blue spectacles had dropped down on his nose, and his eyes showed over them wild and red-rimmed; his lips were black, his legs staggered under him. He came up to me with his eyes all of a glare, and put both his hands on my breast, just over the pocket in which I kept that flask of ginger-brandy which he had tried to steal from me.

“Have you got any of it left?” says he, in a whisper.

“About two mouthfuls,” says I.

“Give us one of them, for God’s sake,” says he.

Giving him one of those mouthfuls was just about equal to giving him a day of my life. In the case of a man I liked, I would not have thought twice about giving it. In the case of Mr. Clissold, I did think twice. I would have been a better Christian, if I could – but just then, I couldn’t.

He thought I was going to say, No. His eyes got cunning directly. He reached his hands to my shoulders, and whispered these words in my ear:

“I’ll tell you what I know about the five hundred pound, if you’ll give me a drop.”

I determined to give it to him, and pulled out the flask. I took his hand, and poured the drop into the hollow of it, and held it for a moment.

“Tell me first,” I said, “and drink afterwards.”

He looked all round him, as if he thought there were people on the island to hear us. “Hush!” he said; “let’s whisper about it.” The next question and answer that passed between us, was louder than before on my side, and softer than ever on his. This was the question:

“What do you know about the five hundred pound?”

And this was the answer:

“It’s Stolen Money!”

My hand dropped away from his, as if he had shot me. He instantly fastened on the drop of liquor in the hollow of his hand, like a hungry wild beast on a bone, and then looked up for more. Something in my face (God knows what) seemed suddenly to frighten him out of his life. Before I could stir a step, or get a word out, down he dropped on his knees, whining and whimpering in the high grass at my feet.

“Don’t kill me!” says he; “I’m dying – I’ll think of my poor soul. I’ll repent while there’s time—”

Beginning in that way, he maundered awfully, grovelling down in the grass; asking me every other minute for “a drop more, and a drop more;” and talking as if he thought we were both in England. Out of his wanderings, his beseechings for another drop, and his miserable beggar’s-petitions for his “poor soul,” I gathered together these words – the same which I wrote down on the morsel of paper, and of which nine parts out of ten are now rubbed off!

The first I made out – though not the first he said – was that someone, whom he spoke of as “the old man,” was alive; and “Lanrean” was the place he lived in. I was to go there, and ask, among the old men, for “Tregarthen—”

(At the mention by me of the name of Tregarthen, my brother, to my great surprise, stopped me with a start; made me say the name over more than once; and then, for the first time, told me of the trouble about his sweetheart and his marriage. We waited a little to talk that matter over; after which, I went on again with my story, in these words:)

Well, as I made out from Clissold’s wanderings, I was to go to Lanrean, to ask among the old men for Tregarthen, and to say to Tregarthen, “Clissold was the man. Clissold bore no malice: Clissold repented like a Christian, for the sake of his poor soul.” No! I was to say something else to Tregarthen. I was to say, “Look among the books; look at the leaf you know of, and see for yourself it’s not the right leaf to be there.” No! I was to say, “The right leaf is hidden, not burnt. Clissold had time for everything else, but no time to burn that leaf. Tregarthen came in when he had got the candle lit to burn it. There was just time to let it drop from under his hand into the great crack in the desk, and then he was ordered abroad by the House, and there was no chance of doing more.” No! I was to say none of these things to Tregarthen. Only this, instead: “Look in Clissold’s Desk – and, if you blame anybody, blame miser Raybrock for driving him to it.” And, oh, another drop – for the Lord’s sake, give him another drop!

So he went on, over and over again, till I found voice enough to speak, and stop him.

“Get up, and go!” I said to the miserable wretch. “Get back to your own side of the island, or I may do you a mischief, in spite of my own self.”

“Give me the other drop, and I will” – was all the answer I could get from him.

I threw him the flask. He pounced upon it with a howl. I turned my back – for I could look at him no longer – and climbed down again to my cavern on the beach.

I sat down alone on the sand, and tried to quiet myself fit to think about what I had heard. That father could ever have wilfully done anything unbecoming his character as an honest man, was what I wouldn’t believe, in the first place. And that the wretched brute I had just parted from was in his right senses, was what I wouldn’t believe, in the second place. What I had myself seen of drinkers, at sea and ashore, helped me to understand the condition into which he had fallen. I knew that when a man who has been a drunkard for years, is suddenly cut off his drink, he drops to pieces like, body and mind, for the want of it. I had also heard ship-doctors talk, by some name of their own, of a drink-madness, which we ignorant men call the Horrors. And I made it out, easy enough, that I had seen the supercargo in the first of these conditions; and that if we both lived long enough without help coming to us, I might soon see him in the second. But when I tried to get farther, and settle how much of what I had heard was wanderings and how much truth, and what it meant if any of it was truth, my slowness got in my way again; and where a quicker man might have made up his mind in an hour or two, I was all day, in sore distress, making up mine. The upshot of what I settled with myself was, in two words, this: Having mother’s writing-case handy about me, I determined first to set down for my own self’s reminder, all that I had heard. Second, to clear the matter up if ever I got back to England alive; and, if wrong had been done to that old man, or to anybody else, in father’s name (without father’s knowledge), to make restoration for his sake.

All that day I neither saw nor heard more of the supercargo. I passed a miserable night of it, after writing my memorandum, fighting with my loneliness and my own thoughts. The remembrance of those words in father’s will, saying that the five hundred pound was money which he had once run a risk with, kept putting into my mind suspicions I was ashamed of. When daylight came, I almost felt as if I was going to have the Horrors too, and got up to walk them off, if possible, in the morning air.

I kept on the northern side of the island, walking backwards and forwards for an hour or more. Then I returned to my cavern; and the first thing I saw, on getting near it, was other footsteps than mine marked on the sand. I suspected at once that the supercargo had been lurking about watching me, instead of going back to his own side; and that, in my absence, he had been at his thieving tricks again.

The stores were what I looked at first. The food he had not touched; but the water he had either drunk or wasted – there was not half a pint of it left. The medicine-chest was open, and the bottle with the hartshorn was gone. When I looked next for the pistol, which I had loaded with powder and shot for the chance of bird-shooting that never came, the pistol was gone too. After making this last discovery, there was but one thing to be done – namely – to find out where he was, and to take the pistol away from him.

I set off to search first on the western side. It was a beautiful clear, calm, sunshiny morning; and as I crossed the island, looking out on my left hand and my right, I stopped on a sudden, with my heart in my mouth, as the saying is. Something caught my eye, far out at sea, in the north-west. I looked again – and there, as true as the heavens above me, I saw a ship, with the sunlight on her topsails, hull down, on the water-line in the offing!

All thought of the errand I was bent on, went out of my mind in an instant. I ran as fast as my weak legs would carry me to the northern beach: gathered up the broken wood which was still lying there plentifully, and, with the help of the dry scrub, lit the largest fire I had made yet. This was the only signal it was in my power to make that there were men on the island. The fire, in the bright daylight, would never be visible to the ship; but the smoke curling up from it, in the clear sky, might be seen, if they had a look-out at the masthead.

While I was still feeding the fire, and so wrapped up in doing it, that I had neither eyes nor ears for anything else, I heard the supercargo’s voice on a sudden at my back. He had stolen on me along the sand. When I faced him, he was swinging his arms about in the air, and saying to himself over and over again, “I see the ship! I see the ship!”

After a little, he came close up to me. By the look of him, he had been drinking the hartshorn, and it had strung him up a bit, body and mind, for the time. He kept his right hand behind him, as if he was hiding something. I suspected that “something” to be the pistol I was in search of.

“Will the ship come here?” says he.

“Yes, if they see the smoke,” says I, keeping my eye on him.

He waited a bit, frowning suspiciously, and looking hard at me all the time.

“What did I say to you yesterday?” he asked.

“What I have got written down here,” I made answer, smacking my hand over the writing-case in my breast-pocket; “and what I mean to put to the proof, if the ship sees us and we get back to England.”

He whipped his right hand round from behind him, like lightning; and snapped the pistol at me. It missed fire. I wrenched it from him in a moment, and was just within one hair’s breadth of knocking him on the head with the butt-end, afterwards. I lifted my hand – then thought better, and dropped it again.

“No,” says I, fixing my eyes on him steadily; “I’ll wait till the ship finds us.”

He slunk away from me; and, as he slunk, looked hard into the fire. He stopped a minute so, thinking to himself – then he looked back at me again, with some mad mischief in him, that twinkled through his blue spectacles, and grinned on his dry black lips.

“The ship shall never find you,” he said. With which words, he turned himself about towards his own side of the island, and left me.

He only meant that saying to be a threat – but, bird of ill-omen that he was, it turned out as good as a prophecy! All my hard work with the fire proved work in vain; all hope was quenched in me, long before the embers I had set light to were burnt out. Whether the smoke was seen or not from the vessel, is more than I can tell. I only know that she filled away on the other tack, not ten minutes after the supercargo left me. In less than an hour’s time the last glimpse of the bright topsails had vanished out of view.

I went back to my cavern – which was now likelier than ever to be my grave as well. In that hot climate, with all the moisture on the island dried up, with not quite so much as a tumbler-full of fresh water left, with my strength wasted by living on half rations of food – two days more at most would see me out. It was hard enough for a man at my age, with all that I had left at home to make life precious, to die such a death as was now before me. It was harder still to have the sting of death sharpened – as I felt it, then – by what had just happened between the supercargo and myself. There was no hope, now, that his wanderings, the day before, had more falsehood than truth in them. The secret he had let out was plainly true enough and serious enough to have scared him into attempting my life, rather than let me keep possession of it, when there was a chance of the ship rescuing us. That secret had father’s good name mixed up with it – and here was I, instead of clearing the villainous darkness from off of it, carrying it with me, black as ever, into my grave.

It was out of the horror I felt at doing that, and out of the yearning of my heart towards you, Alfred, when I thought of it, that the notion came to comfort me of writing the Message at the top of the paper, and of committing it in the bottle to the sea. Drowning men, they say, catch at straws – and the straw of comfort I caught at was the one chance in ten thousand that the Message might float till it was picked up, and that it might reach you. My mind might, or might not, have been failing me, by this time – but it is true, either way, that I did feel comforted when I had emptied one of the two bottles left in the medicine-chest, had put the paper inside, had tied the stopper carefully over with the oilskin, and had laid the whole by in my pocket, ready, when I felt my time coming, to drop into the sea. I was rid of the secret, I thought to myself; and, if it pleased God, I was rid of it, Alfred, to you.

The day waned; and the sun set, all cloudless and golden, in a dead calm. There was not a ripple anywhere on the long oily heaving of the sea. Before night came I strengthened myself with a better meal than usual, as to food – for where was the use of keeping meat and biscuit when I had not water enough to last along with them? When the stars came out and the moon rose, I gathered the wood together and lit the signal-fire, according to custom, on the beach outside my cavern. I had no hope from it – but the fire was company to me: the looking into it quieted my thoughts, and the crackling of it was a relief in the silence. I don’t know why it was, but the breathless stillness of that night had something awful in it, and went near to frightening me.

The moon got high in the heavens, and the light of her lay all in a flood on the sand before me, on the rocks that jutted out from it, and on the calm sea beyond. I was thinking of Margaret – wondering if the moon was shining on our little bay at Steepways, and if she was looking at it too – when I saw a man’s shadow steal over the white of the sand. He was lurking near me again! In a minute, he came into view. The moonshine glinted on his blue spectacles, and glimmered on his bald head. He stopped as he passed by the rocks and looked about for a loose stone: he found a large one, and came straight with it on tiptoe, up to the fire. I showed myself to him on a sudden, in the red of the flame, with the pistol in my hand. He dropped the stone, and shrank back, at the sight of it. When he was close to the sea, he stopped, and screamed out at me, “The ship’s coming! The ship’s coming! The ship shall never find you!” That notion of the ship, and that other notion of killing me before help came to us, seemed never to have left him. When he turned, and went back by the way he had come, he was still shouting out those same words. For a quarter of an hour or more, I heard him, till the silence swallowed up his ravings, and led me back again to my thoughts of home.

Those thoughts kept with me, till the moon was on the wane. It was darker now, and stiller than ever. I had not fed the signal-fire for half an hour or more, and had roused myself up, at the mouth of the cavern, to do it, when I saw the dying gleams of moonshine over the sea on either side of me change colour, and turn red. Black shadows, as from low-flying clouds, swept after each other over the deepening redness. The air grew hot – a sound came nearer and nearer, from above me and behind me, like the rush of wind and the roar of water, both together, and both far off. I ran out on to the sand and looked back. The island was on fire!

On fire at the point of it opposite to me – on fire in one great sheet of flame that stretched right across the island, and bore down on me steadily before the light westerly wind which was blowing at the time. Only one hand could have kindled that terrible flame – the hand of the lost wretch who had left me, with the mad threat on his lips and the murderous notion of burning me out of my refuge, working in his crazy brain. On his side of the island (where the fire had begun), the dry grass and scrub grew all round the little hollow in the earth which I had left to him for his place of refuge. If he had had a thousand lives to lose, he would have lost that thousand already!

Having nothing to feed on but the dry scrub, the flame swept forward with such a frightful swiftness, that I had barely time, after mastering my own scattered senses, to turn back into the cavern to get my last drink of water and my last mouthful of food, before I heard the fiery scorch crackling over the thatched-roof which my own hands had raised. I ran across the beach to the spur of rock which jutted out into the sea, and there crouched down on the farthest edge I could reach to. There was nothing for the fire to lay hold of between me and the top of the island-bank. I was far enough away to be out of the lick of the flames, and low enough down to get air under the sweep of the smoke. You may well wonder why, with death by starvation threatening me close at hand, I should have schemed and struggled as I did, to save myself from a quicker death by suffocation in the smoke. I can only answer to that, that I wonder too – but so it was.

The flames ate their way to the edge of the bank, and lapped over it as if they longed to lick me up. The heat scorched nearer than I had thought, and the smoke poured lower and thicker. I lay down sick and weak on the rock, with my face close over the calm cool water. When I ventured to lift myself up again, the top of the island was of a ruby red, the smoke rose slowly in little streams, and the air above was quivering with the heat. While I looked at it, I felt a kind of surging and singing in my head, and a deadly faintness and coldness crept all over me. I took the bottle that held the Message from my pocket, and dropped it into the sea – then crawled a little way back over the rocks, and fell forward on them before I could get as far as the sand. The last I remember was trying to say my prayers – losing the words – losing my sight – losing the sense of where I was – losing everything.

The day was breaking again, when I was roused up by feeling rough hands on me. Naked savages – some on the rocks, some in the water, some in two long canoes – were clamouring and crowding about on all sides. They bound me, and took me off at once to one of the canoes. The other kept company – and both were paddled back to that high land which I had seen in the south. Death had passed me by once more – and Captivity had come in its place.

•   •   •

The story of my life among the savages, having no concern with the matter now in hand, may be passed by here in few words. They had seen the fire on the island; and paddling over to reconnoitre, had found me. Not one of them had ever set eyes on a white man before. I was taken away to be shown about among them for a curiosity. When they were tired of showing me, they spared my life, finding my knowledge and general handiness as a civilised man useful to them in various ways. I lost all count of time in my captivity – and can only guess now that it lasted more than one year and less than two. I made two attempts to escape, each time in a canoe, and was baulked in both. Nobody at home in England would ever, as I believe, have seen me again, if an outward-bound vessel had not touched at the little desert island for fresh water. Finding none there, she came on to the territory of the savages (which was an island too). When they took me on board, I looked little better than a savage myself, and I could hardly talk my own language. By the help of the kindness shown to me, I was right again by the time we spoke the first ship homeward-bound. To that vessel I was transferred; and, in her, I worked my passage back to Falmouth.

•   •   •

V

THE RESTITUTION

Captain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of Lanrean under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to the King Arthur’s Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble, when he beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him, accompanied by a stranger. A glance at this stranger assured the captain that he could be no other than the Seafaring Man; and the captain was about to hail him as a fellow-craftsman, when the two stood still and silent before the captain, and the captain stood still, silent, and wondering before them.

“Why, what’s this?” cried the captain, when at last he broke the silence. “You two are alike. You two are much alike. What’s this?”

Not a word was answered on the other side, until after the seafaring brother had got hold of the captain’s right hand, and the fisherman brother had got hold of the captain’s left hand; and if ever the captain had had his fill of hand-shaking, from his birth to that hour, he had it then. And presently up and spoke the two brothers, one at a time, two at a time, two dozen at a time for the bewilderment into which they plunged the captain, until he gradually had Hugh Raybrock’s deliverance made clear to him, and also unravelled the fact that the person referred to in the half-obliterated paper was Tregarthen himself.

“Formerly, dear Captain Jorgan,” said Alfred, “of Lanrean, you recollect? Kitty and her father came to live at Steepways after Hugh shipped on his last voyage.”

“Ay, ay!” cried the captain, fetching a breath. “Now you have me in tow. Then your brother here don’t know his sister-in-law that is to be so much as by name?”

“Never saw her; never heard of her!”

“Ay, ay, ay!” cried the captain. “Why then we every one go back together – paper, writer, and all – and take Tregarthen into the secret we kept from him?”

“Surely,” said Alfred, “we can’t help it now. We must go through with our duty.”

“Not a doubt,” returned the captain. “Give me an arm apiece, and let us set this shipshape.”

So walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, while the neglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the brothers settled their course of action.

It was that they should all proceed by the quickest means they could secure to Barnstaple, and there look over the father’s books and papers in the lawyer’s keeping; as Hugh had proposed to himself to do if ever he reached home. That, enlightened or unenlightened, they should then return to Steepways and go straight to Mr. Tregarthen, and tell him all they knew, and see what came of it, and act accordingly. Lastly, that when they got there they should enter the village with all precautions against Hugh’s being recognised by any chance; and that to the captain should be consigned the task of preparing his wife and mother for his restoration to this life.

“For you see,” quoth Captain Jorgan, touching the last head, “it requires caution any way, great joys being as dangerous as great griefs, if not more dangerous, as being more uncommon (and therefore less provided against) in this round world of ours. And besides, I should like to free my name with the ladies, and take you home again at your brightest and luckiest; so don’t let’s throw away a chance of success.”

The captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind interest and foresight.

“And now stop!” said the captain, coming to a standstill, and looking from one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of wrinkles about each eye; “you are of opinion,” to the elder, “that you are ra’ather slow?”

“I assure you I am very slow,” said the honest Hugh.

“Wa’al,” replied the captain, “I assure you that to the best of my belief I am ra’ather smart. Now a slow man ain’t good at quick business, is he?”

That was clear to both.

“You,” said the captain, turning to the younger brother, “are a little in love; ain’t you?”

“Not a little, Captain Jorgan.”

“Much or little, you’re sort preoccupied; ain’t you?”

It was impossible to be denied.

“And a sort preoccupied man ain’t good at quick business, is he?” said the captain.

Equally clear on all sides.

“Now,” said the captain, “I ain’t in love myself, and I’ve made many a smart run across the ocean, and I should like to carry on and go ahead with this affair of yours, and make a run slick through it. Shall I try? Will you hand it over to me?”

They were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily.

“Good,” said the captain, taking out his watch. “This is half-past eight a.m., Friday morning. I’ll jot that down, and we’ll compute how many hours we’ve been out when we run into your mother’s post-office. There! The entry’s made, and now we go ahead.”

They went ahead so well that before the Barnstaple lawyer’s office was open next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on the step of the door, waiting for the clerk to come down the street with his key and open it. But instead of the clerk there came the master, with whom the captain fraternised on the spot to an extent that utterly confounded him.

As he personally knew both Hugh and Alfred, there was no difficulty in obtaining immediate access to such of the father’s papers as were in his keeping. These were chiefly old letters and cash accounts; from which the captain, with a shrewdness and despatch that left the lawyer far behind, established with perfect clearness, by noon, the following particulars:

That one Lawrence Clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a time when he was a thriving young tradesman in the town of Barnstaple, the sum of five hundred pounds. That he had borrowed it on the written statement that it was to be laid out in furtherance of a speculation which he expected would raise him to independence; he being, at the time of writing that letter, no more than a clerk in the house of Dringworth Brothers, America Square, London. That the money was borrowed for a stipulated period; but that, when the term was out, the aforesaid speculation failed, and Clissold was without means of repayment. That, hereupon, he had written to his creditor, in no very persuasive terms, vaguely requesting further time. That the creditor had refused this concession, declaring that he could not afford delay. That Clissold then paid the debt, accompanying the remittance of the money with an angry letter describing it as having been advanced by a relative to save him from ruin. That, in acknowledging the receipt, Raybrock had cautioned Clissold to seek to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so risk money again.

Before the lawyer the captain said never a word in reference to these discoveries. But when the papers had been put back in their box, and he and his two companions were well out of the office, his right leg suffered for it, and he said,—

“So far this run’s begun with a fair wind and a prosperous; for don’t you see that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his father maintained by the slow member of the Raybrock family?”

Whether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now. Not that the captain gave them much time to contemplate the state of things at their ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise again, and bore them off to Steepways. Although the afternoon was but just beginning to decline when they reached it, and it was broad day-light, still they had no difficulty, by dint of muffing the returned sailor up, and ascending the village rather than descending it, in reaching Tregarthen’s cottage unobserved. Kitty was not visible, and they surprised Tregarthen sitting writing in the small bay-window of his little room.

“Sir,” said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen and all, “I’m glad to see you, sir. How do you do, sir? I told you you’d think better of me by-and-by, and I congratulate you on going to do it.”

Here the captain’s eye fell on Tom Pettifer Ho, engaged in preparing some cookery at the fire.

“That critter,” said the captain, smiting his leg, “is a born steward, and never ought to have been in any other way of life. Stop where you are, Tom, and make yourself useful. Now, Tregarthen, I’m going to try a chair.”

Accordingly the captain drew one close to him, and went on:

“This loving member of the Raybrock family you know, sir. This slow member of the same family you don’t know, sir. Wa’al, these two are brothers, – fact! Hugh’s come to life again, and here he stands. Now see here, my friend! You don’t want to be told that he was cast away, but you do want to be told (for there’s a purpose in it) that he was cast away with another man. That man by name was Lawrence Clissold.”

At the mention of this name Tregarthen started and changed colour. “What’s the matter?” said the captain.

“He was a fellow-clerk of mine thirty – five-and-thirty – years ago.”

“True,” said the captain, immediately catching at the clew: “Dringworth Brothers, America Square, London City.”

The other started again, nodded, and said, “That was the house.”

“Now,” pursued the captain, “between those two men cast away there arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound.”

Again Tregarthen started, changing colour. Again the captain said, “What’s the matter?”

As Tregarthen only answered, “Please to go on,” the captain recounted, very tersely and plainly, the nature of Clissold’s wanderings on the barren island, as he had condensed them in his mind from the seafaring man. Tregarthen became greatly agitated during this recital, and at length exclaimed—

“Clissold was the man who ruined me! I have suspected it for many a long year, and now I know it.”

“And how,” said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to Tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder, – “how may you know it?”

“When we were fellow-clerks,” replied Tregarthen, “in that London house, it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an account of the sums received that day by the firm, and afterward paid into the bankers’. One memorable day, – a Wednesday, the black day of my life, – among the sums I so entered was one of five hundred pounds.”

“I begin to make it out,” said the captain. “Yes?”

“It was one of Clissold’s duties to copy from this entry a memorandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the bankers’ paid in there. It was my duty to hand the money to Clissold; it was Clissold’s to hand it to the clerk, with that memorandum of his writing. On that Wednesday I entered a sum of five hundred pounds received. I handed that sum, as I handed the other sums in the day’s entry, to Clissold. I was absolutely certain of it at the time; I have been absolutely certain of it ever since. A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the house to have been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold’s memorandum, and from the entries in my book. Clissold, being questioned, stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter, and emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested by ‘Tregarthen’s book.’ My book was examined, and the entry of five hundred pounds was not there.”

“How not there,” said the captain, “when you made it yourself?”

Tregarthen continued:

“I was then questioned. Had I made the entry? Certainly I had. The house produced my book, and it was not there. I could not deny my book; I could not deny my writing. I knew there must be forgery by someone; but the writing was wonderfully like mine, and I could impeach no one if the house could not. I was required to pay the money back. I did so; and I left the house, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain there, – even if I could have done so, – with a dark shadow of suspicion always on me. I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained there, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post here.”

“I well remember,” said the captain, “that I told you that if you had no experience of ill judgements on deceiving appearances, you were a lucky man. You went hurt at that, and I see why. I’m sorry.”

“Thus it is,” said Tregarthen. “Of my own innocence I have of course been sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. Of Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty; but they have never been confirmed until now. For my daughter’s sake and for my own I have carried this subject in my own heart, as the only secret of my life, and have long believed that it would die with me.”

“Wa’al, my good sir,” said the captain cordially, “the present question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not dying. Now, here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock and the slow. Here they stand, agreed on one point, on which I’d back ’em round the world, and right across it from north to south, and then again from east to west, and through it, from your deepest Cornish mine to China. It is, that they will never use this same so-often-mentioned sum of money, and that restitution of it must be made to you. These two, the loving member and the slow, for the sake of the right and of their father’s memory, will have it ready for you tomorrow. Take it, and ease their minds and mine, and end a most unfortunate transaction.”

Tregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to each of the young men, but positively and finally answered No. He said, they trusted to his word, and he was glad of it, and at rest in his mind; but there was no proof, and the money must remain as it was. All were very earnest over this; and earnestness in men, when they are right and true, is so impressive, that Mr. Pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite moved.

“And so,” said the captain, “so we come – as that lawyer-crittur over yonder where we were this morning might – to mere proof; do we? We must have it; must we? How? From this Clissold’s wanderings, and from what you say, it ain’t hard to make out that there was a neat forgery of your writing committed by the too smart rowdy that was grease and ashes when I made his acquaintance, and a substitution of a forged leaf in your book for a real and torn leaf torn out. Now was that real and true leaf then and there destroyed? No, – for says he, in his drunken way, he slipped it into a crack in his own desk, because you came into the office before there was time to burn it, and could never get back to it arterwards. Wait a bit. Where is that desk now? Do you consider it likely to be in America Square, London City?”

Tregarthen shook his head.

“The house has not, for years, transacted business in that place. I have heard of it, and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way altered. Things alter so fast in these times.”

“You think so,” returned the captain, with compassion; “but you should come over and see me afore you talk about that. Wa’al, now. This desk, this paper, – this paper, this desk,” said the captain, ruminating and walking about, and looking, in his uneasy abstraction, into Mr. Pettifer’s hat on a table, among other things. “This desk, this paper, – this paper, this desk,” the captain continued, musing and roaming about the room, “I’d give—”

However, he gave nothing, but took up his steward’s hat instead, and stood looking into it, as if he had just come into church. After that he roamed again, and again said, “This desk, belonging to this house of Dringworth Brothers, America Square, London City—”

Mr. Pettifer, still strangely moved, and now more moved than before, cut the captain off as he backed across the room, and bespake him thus:

“Captain Jorgan, I have been wishful to engage your attention, but I couldn’t do it. I am unwilling to interrupt Captain Jorgan, but I must do it. I knew something about that house.”

The captain stood stock-still and looked at him, – with his (Mr. Pettifer’s) hat under his arm.

“You’re aware,” pursued his steward, “that I was once in the broking business, Captain Jorgan?”

“I was aware,” said the captain, “that you had failed in that calling, and in half the businesses going, Tom.”

“Not quite so, Captain Jorgan; but I failed in the broking business. I was partners with my brother, sir. There was a sale of old office furniture at Dringworth Brothers’ when the house was moved from America Square, and me and my brother made what we call in the trade a Deal there, sir. And I’ll make bold to say, sir, that the only thing I ever had from my brother, or from any relation, – for my relations have mostly taken property from me instead of giving me any, – was an old desk we bought at that same sale, with a crack in it. My brother wouldn’t have given me even that, when we broke partnership, if it had been worth anything.”

“Where is that desk now?” said the captain.

“Well, Captain Jorgan,” replied the steward, “I couldn’t say for certain where it is now; but when I saw it last, – which was last time we were outward bound, – it was at a very nice lady’s at Wapping, along with a little chest of mine which was detained for a small matter of a bill owing.”

The captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward which was rendered by the other three persons present, went to Church again, in respect of the steward’s hat. And a most especially agitated and memorable face the captain produced from it, after a short pause.

“Now, Tom,” said the captain, “I spoke to you, when we first came here, respecting your constitutional weakness on the subject of sunstroke.”

“You did, sir.”

“Will my slow friend,” said the captain, “lend me his arm, or I shall sink right back’ards into this blessed steward’s cookery? Now, Tom,” pursued the captain, when the required assistance was given, “on your oath as a steward, didn’t you take that desk to pieces to make a better one of it, and put it together fresh, – or something of the kind?”

“On my oath I did, sir,” replied the steward.

“And by the blessing of Heaven, my friends, one and all,” cried the captain, radiant with joy, – “of the Heaven that put it into this Tom Pettifer’s head to take so much care of his head against the bright sun, – he lined his hat with the original leaf in Tregarthen’s writing, – and here it is!”

With that the captain, to the utter destruction of Mr. Pettifer’s favourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still legible, and gave both his legs such tremendous slaps that they were heard far off in the bay, and never accounted for.

“A quarter past five p.m.,” said the captain, pulling out his watch, “and that’s thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a pritty run!”

How they were all overpowered with delight and triumph; how the money was restored, then and there, to Tregarthen; how Tregarthen, then and there, gave it all to his daughter; how the captain undertook to go to Dringworth Brothers and re-establish the reputation of their forgotten old clerk; how Kitty came in, and was nearly torn to pieces, and the marriage was reappointed, needs not to be told. Nor how she and the young fisherman went home to the post-office to prepare the way for the captain’s coming, by declaring him to be the mightiest of men, who had made all their fortunes, – and then dutifully withdrew together, in order that he might have the domestic coast entirely to himself. How he availed himself of it is all that remains to tell.

Deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he raised the latch of the post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock and the young widow sat, and said—

“May I come in?”

“Sure you may, Captain Jorgan!” replied the old lady. “And good reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not been too well used in it by some who ought to have known better. I ask your pardon.”

“No you don’t, ma’am,” said the captain, “for I won’t let you. Wa’al, to be sure!”

By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them.

“Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life! There! I tell you! I could a’most have cut my own connection. Like the dealer in my country, away West, who when he had let himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, ‘Now I tell you what! I’ll never speak to you again.’ And he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication table into their language, – which is a fact that can be proved. If you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see if he’ll have the face to contradict it.”

He took the child from her mother’s lap and set it on his knee.

“Not a bit afraid of me now, you see. Knows I am fond of small people. I have a child, and she’s a girl, and I sing to her sometimes.”

“What do you sing?” asked Margaret.

“Not a long song, my dear.

Silas Jorgan

Played the organ;

That’s about all. And sometimes I tell her stories, – stories of sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was abandoned.” Here the captain musingly went back to his song—

“Silas Jorgan

Played the organ;

repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child on his knee. For he felt that Margaret had stopped working.

“Yes,” said the captain, still looking at the fire, “I make up stories and tell ’em to that child. Stories of shipwreck on desert islands, and long delay in getting back to civilised lauds. It is to stories the like of that, mostly, that

Silas Jorgan

Played the organ;

There was no light in the room but the light of the fire; for the shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out from among the foliage when the night departed. The captain felt that Margaret’s eyes were upon him, and thought it discreetest to keep his own eyes on the fire.

“Yes; I make ’em up,” said the captain. “I make up stories of brothers brought together by the good providence of God, – of sons brought back to mothers, husbands brought back to wives, fathers raised from the deep, for little children like herself.”

Margaret’s touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look round now. Next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast, and she was on her knees before him, – supporting the mother, who was also kneeling.

“What’s the matter?” said the captain. “What’s the matter?

Silas Jorgan

Played the—”

Their looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not finish the song, short as it was.

“Mistress Margaret, you have borne ill fortune well. Could you bear good fortune equally well, if it was to come?”

“I hope so. I thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so!”

“Wa’al, my dear,” said the captain, “p’rhaps it has come. He’s – don’t be frightened – shall I say the word—”

“Alive?”

“Yes!”

The thanks they fervently addressed to Heaven were again too much for the captain, who openly took out his handkerchief and dried his eyes.

“He’s no further off,” resumed the captain, “than my country. Indeed, he’s no further off than his own native country. To tell you the truth, he’s no further off than Falmouth. Indeed, I doubt if he’s quite so fur. Indeed, if you was sure you could bear it nicely, and I was to do no more than whistle for him—”

The captain’s trust was discharged. A rush came, and they were all together again.

This was a fine opportunity for Tom Pettifer to appear with a tumbler of cold water, and he presently appeared with it, and administered it to the ladies; at the same time soothing them, and composing their dresses, exactly as if they had been passengers crossing the Channel. The extent to which the captain slapped his legs, when Mr. Pettifer acquitted himself of this act of stewardship, could have been thoroughly appreciated by no one but himself; inasmuch as he must have slapped them black and blue, and they must have smarted tremendously.

He couldn’t stay for the wedding, having a few appointments to keep at the irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles. So next morning all the village cheered him up to the level ground above, and there he shook hands with a complete Census of its population, and invited the whole, without exception, to come and stay several months with him at Salem, Mass., U.S. And there as he stood on the spot where he had seen that little golden picture of love and parting, and from which he could that morning contemplate another golden picture with a vista of golden years in it, little Kitty put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on both his bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face upon his storm-beaten breast, in sight of all, – ashamed to have called such a noble captain names. And there the captain waved his hat over his head three final times; and there he was last seen, going away accompanied by Tom Pettifer Ho, and carrying his hands in his pockets. And there, before that ground was softened with the fallen leaves of three more summers, a rosy little boy took his first unsteady run to a fair young mother’s breast, and the name of that infant fisherman was Jorgan Raybrock.

•  THE END  •

TOM TIDDLER’S GROUND

CONTENTS

Picking Up Soot and Cinders
Charles Dickens

Picking Up Evening Shadows
Charles Collins, brother of Wilkie

Picking Up Terrible Company
Amelia B. Edwards

Picking Up Waifs at Sea
Wilkie Collins

Picking Up a Pocket-book
John Berwick Harwood

Picking Up Miss Kimmeens
Charles Dickens

Picking Up the Tinker
Charles Dickens

All The Year Round
Christmas number 1861

I

PICKING UP
SOOT AND CINDERS

“And why Tom Tiddler’s ground?” said the Traveller.

“Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and such-like,” returned the Landlord, “and of course they pick ’em up. And this being done on his own land (which it is his own land, you observe, and were his family’s before him), why it is but regarding the halfpence as gold and silver, and turning the ownership of the property a bit round your finger, and there you have the name of the children’s game complete. And it’s appropriate too,” said the Landlord, with his favourite action of stooping a little, to look across the table out of window at vacancy, under the window-blind which was half drawn down. “Leastwise it has been so considered by many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in the present humble parlour.”

The Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present humble parlour, and the Landlord’s shot was fired obliquely at him.

“And you call him a Hermit?” said the Traveller.

“They call him such,” returned the Landlord, evading personal responsibility; “he is in general so considered.”

“What is a Hermit?” asked the Traveller.

“What is it?” repeated the Landlord, drawing his hand across his chin.

“Yes, what is it?”

The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view of vacancy under the window-blind, and – with an asphyxiated appearance on him as one unaccustomed to definition – made no answer.

“I’ll tell you what I suppose it to be,” said the Traveller. “An abominably dirty thing.”

“Mr. Mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied,” said the Landlord.

“Intolerably conceited.”

“Mr. Mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say,” replied the Landlord, as another concession.

“A slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human mature,” said the Traveller; “and for the sake of God’s working world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put the thing on the treadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it; whether on a pillar, or in a hole; whether on Tom Tiddler’s ground, or the Pope of Rome’s ground, or a Hindoo fakeer’s ground, or any other ground.”

“I don’t know about putting Mr. Mopes on the treadmill,” said the Landlord, shaking his head very seriously. “There ain’t a doubt but what he has got landed property.”

“How far may it be to this said Tom Tiddler’s ground?” asked the Traveller.

“Put it at five mile,” returned the Landlord.

“Well! When I have done my breakfast,” said the Traveller, “I’ll go there. I came over here this morning, to find it out and see it.”

“Many does,” observed the Landlord.

The conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote year of grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of a green English county. No matter what county. Enough that you may hunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass-grown Roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a square mile of richly cultivated land there, and hold Arcadian talk with a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, who will tell you (if you want to know) how pastoral housekeeping is done on nine shillings a week.

Mr. Traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of the Peal of Bells village alehouse, with the dew and dust of an early walk upon his shoes – an early walk by road and meadow and coppice, that had sprinkled him bountifully with little blades of grass, and scraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and old, and with other such fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth of summer. The window through which the landlord had concentrated his gaze upon vacancy was shaded, because the morning sun was hot and bright on the village street. The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up Nothing as carefully as if it were the Mint, or the Bank of England) had called in the Doctor’s house so suddenly, that his brass doorplate and three stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the doctor himself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his patients. The village residences seemed to have gone to law with a similar absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lath-and-plaster cabins clung in confusion about the Attorney’s red-brick house, which, with glaring doorsteps and a most terrific scraper, seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. They were as various as labourers – high-shouldered, wry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee’d, rheumatic, crazy. Some of the small tradesmen’s houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the same into crops. This would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of the few boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of the street, the bareness of the obsolete Inn and Inn Yard, with the ominous inscription “Excise Office” not yet faded out from the gateway, as indicating the very last thing that poverty could get rid of. This would also account for the determined abandonment of the village by one stray dog, fast lessening in the perspective where the white posts and the pond were, and would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he was going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself into manure, and become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel.

Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate score, walked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thence directed by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards the ruined hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit.

For, Mr. Mopes, by suffering everything about him to go to ruin, and by dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping himself in soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great renown in all that countryside – far greater renown than he could ever have won for himself, if his career had been that of any ordinary Christian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and skewered and sooted and greased himself, into the London papers. And it was curious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for a new direction at this farmhouse or at that cottage as he went along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted on the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of home-brewed marvel and romance surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly heightened. He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jealousy and was doing penance; he had made a vow under the influence of grief; he had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident; he had made a vow under the influence of religion; he had made a vow under the influence of drink; he had made a vow under the influence of disappointment; he had never made any vow, but “had got led into it” by the possession of a mighty and most awful secret; he was enormously rich, he was stupendously charitable, he was profoundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could do all kinds of wonders. Some said he went out every night, and was met by terrified wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never went out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had positive information that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and would never expire but with himself. Even, as to the easy facts of how old he was, or how long he had held verminous occupation of his blanket and skewer, no consistent information was to be got, from those who must know if they would. He was represented as being all the ages between five-and-twenty and sixty, and as having been a hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty, – though twenty, on the whole, appeared the favourite term.

“Well, well!” said Mr. Traveller. “At any rate, let us see what a real live Hermit looks like.”

So, Mr. Traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to Tom Tiddler’s Ground.

It was a nook in a rustic byroad, which the genius of Mopes had laid waste as completely, as if he had been born an Emperor and a Conqueror. Its centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently substantial, all the windowless of which had been long ago abolished by the surprising genius of Mopes, and all the windows of which were barred across with rough-split logs of trees nailed over them on the outside. A rickyard, hip-high in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained outbuildings from which the thatch had lightly fluttered away, on all the winds of all the seasons of the year, and from which the planks and beams had heavily dropped and rotted. The frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of summer, had warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board retained the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted from its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. In this homestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perishing fragments of certain ricks: which had gradually mildewed and collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or dirty sponge. Tom Tiddler’s ground could even show its ruined water; for, there was a slimy pond into which a tree or two had fallen – one soppy trunk and branches lay across it then – which in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposition, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting, regarded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful place without seeming polluted by that low office.

Mr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler’s ground, and his glance at last encountered a dusky Tinker lying among the weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. A rough walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on a small wallet. He met Mr. Traveller’s eye without lifting up his head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his back) to get a better view of him.

“Good day!” said Mr. Traveller.

“Same to you, if you like it,” returned the Tinker.

“Don’t you like it? It’s a very fine day.”

“I ain’t partickler in weather,” returned the Tinker, with a yawn.

Mr. Traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking down at him. “This is a curious place,” said Mr. Traveller.

“Ay, I suppose so!” returned the Tinker. “Tom Tiddler’s ground, they call this.”

“Are you well acquainted with it?”

“Never saw it afore today,” said the Tinker, with another yawn, “and don’t care if I never see it again. There was a man here just now, told me what it was called. If you want to see Tom himself, you must go in at that gate.” He faintly indicated with his chin a little mean ruin of a wooden gate at the side of the house.

“Have you seen Tom?”

“No, and I ain’t partickler to see him. I can see a dirty man anywhere.”

“He does not live in the house, then?” said Mr. Traveller, casting his eyes upon the house anew.

“The man said,” returned the Tinker, rather irritably, – “him as was here just now, ‘this what you’re a laying on, mate, is Tom Tiddler’s ground. And if you want to see Tom,’ he says, ‘you must go in at that gate.’ The man come out at that gate himself, and he ought to know.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Traveller.

“Though, perhaps,” exclaimed the Tinker, so struck by the brightness of his own idea, that it had the electric effect upon him of causing him to lift up his head an inch or so, “perhaps he was a liar! He told some rum ’uns – him as was here just now, did about this place of Tom’s. He says – him as was here just now – ‘When Tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds was left, all made, like as if somebody was a-going to sleep in every bed. And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you’d see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. And a heaving and a heaving with what?’ he says. ‘Why, with the rats under ’em.’”

“I wish I had seen that man,” Mr. Traveller remarked.

“You’d have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him,” growled the Tinker; “for he was a long-winded one.”

Not without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the Tinker gloomily closed his eyes. Mr. Traveller, deeming the Tinker a short-winded one, from whom no further breath of information was to be derived, betook himself to the gate.

Swung upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in which there was nothing to be seen but an outhouse attached to the ruined building, with a barred window in it. As there were traces of many recent footsteps under this window, and as it was a low window, and unglazed, Mr. Traveller made bold to peep within the bars. And there to be sure he had a real live Hermit before him, and could judge how the real dead Hermits used to look.

He was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front of a rusty fireplace. There was nothing else in the dark little kitchen, or scullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, but a table with a litter of old bottles on it. A rat made a clatter among these bottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live Hermit on his way to his hole, or the man in his hole would not have been so easily discernible. Tickled in the face by the rat’s tail, the owner of Tom Tiddler’s ground opened his eyes, saw Mr. Traveller, started up, and sprang to the window.

“Humph!” thought Mr. Traveller, retiring a pace or two from the bars. “A compound of Newgate, Bedlam, a Debtors’ Prison in the worst time, a chimney-sweep, a mudlark, and the Noble Savage! A nice old family, the Hermit family. Hah!”

Mr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing else), with the matted hair and the staring eyes. Further, Mr. Traveller thought, as the eye surveyed him with a very obvious curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, “Vanity, vanity, vanity! Verily, all is vanity!”

“What is your name, sir, and where do you come from?” asked Mr. Mopes the Hermit – with an air of authority, but in the ordinary human speech of one who has been to school.

Mr. Traveller answered the inquiries.

“Did you come here, sir, to see me?”

“I did. I heard of you, and I came to see you. – I know you like to be seen.” Mr. Traveller coolly threw the last words in, as a matter of course, to forestall an affectation of resentment or objection that he saw rising beneath the grease and grime of the face. They had their effect.

“So,” said the Hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping the bars by which he had previously held, and seating himself behind them on the ledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet crouched up, “you know I like to be seen?”

Mr. Traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, observing a billet of wood in a corner, brought it near the window. Deliberately seating himself upon it, he answered, “Just so.”

Each looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains to get the measure of the other.

“Then you have come to ask me why I lead this life,” said the Hermit, frowning in a stormy manner. “I never tell that to any human being. I will not be asked that.”

“Certainly you will not be asked that by me,” said Mr. Traveller, “for I have not the slightest desire to know.”

“You are an uncouth man,” said Mr. Mopes the Hermit.

“You are another,” said Mr. Traveller.

The Hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his visitors with the novelty of his filth and his blanket and skewer, glared at his present visitor in some discomfiture and surprise: as if he had taken aim at him with a sure gun, and his piece had missed fire.

“Why do you come here at all?” he asked, after a pause.

“Upon my life,” said Mr. Traveller, “I was made to ask myself that very question only a few minutes ago – by a Tinker too.”

As he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the Hermit glanced in that direction likewise.

“Yes. He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside,” said Mr, Traveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, “and he won’t come in; for he says – and really very reasonably – ‘What should I come in for? I can see a dirty man anywhere.’”

“You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. Go!” said the Hermit, in an imperious and angry tone.

“Come, come!” returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed. “This is a little too much. You are not going to call yourself clean? Look at your legs. And as to these being your premises: they are in far too disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything else.”

The Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast himself on his bed of soot and cinders.

“I am not going,” said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him; “you won’t get rid of me in that way. You had better come and talk.”

“I won’t talk,” said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards the window.

“Then I will,” said Mr. Traveller. “Why should you take it ill that I have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly indecent life? When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took it.”

After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to the barred window.

“What? You are not gone?” he said, affecting to have supposed that he was.

“Nor going,” Mr. Traveller replied: “I design to pass this summer day here.”

“How dare you come, sir, upon my promises—” the Hermit was returning, when his visitor interrupted him.

“Really, you know, you must not talk about your premises. I cannot allow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of premises.”

“How dare you,” said the Hermit, shaking his bars, “come in at my gate, to taunt me with being in a diseased state?”

“Why, Lord bless my soul,” returned the other, very composedly, “you have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? Do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape yourself anywhere – with anything – and then tell me you are in a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance—”

“A Nuisance?” repeated the Hermit, fiercely.

“What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your audience is a Nuisance. You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles around, by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short,” said Mr. Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, “you are a Nuisance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know that there can be such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very long after its time.”

“Will you go away? I have a gun in here,” said the Hermit.

“Pooh!”

“I have!”

“Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not? And as to going away, didn’t I say I am not going away? You have made me forget where I was. I now remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a Nuisance. Moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness.”

“Weakness?” echoed the Hermit.

“Weakness,” said Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably settled final air.

“I weak, you fool?” cried the Hermit, “I, who have held to my purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years?”

“The more the years, the weaker you,” returned Mr. Traveller. “Though the years are not so many as folks say, and as you willingly take credit for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can see enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man.”

“Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?” said the Hermit.

“I suppose it is very like it,” answered Mr. Traveller.

“Do I converse like a lunatic?”

“One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of being one, whether or no. Either the clean and decorously clad man, or the dirty and indecorously clad man. I don’t say which.”

“Why, you self-sufficient bear,” said the Hermit, “not a day passes but I am justified in my purpose by the conversations I hold here; not a day passes but I am shown, by everything I hear and see here, how right and strong I am in holding my purpose.”

Mr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket pipe and began to fill it. “Now, that a man,” he said, appealing to the summer sky as he did so, “that a man – even behind bars, in a blanket and skewer – should tell me that he can see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablest drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature – not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case; or who can teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure, – is something wonderful! I repeat,” said Mr. Traveller, beginning to smoke, “the unreasoning hardihood of it is something wonderful – even in a man with the dirt upon him an inch or two thick – behind bars – in a blanket and skewer!”

The Hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot and cinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, and again looked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharpness: “I don’t like tobacco.”

“I don’t like dirt,” rejoined Mr. Traveller; “tobacco is an excellent disinfectant. We shall both be the better for my pipe. It is my intention to sit here through this summer day, until that blessed summer sun sinks low in the west, and to show you what a poor creature you are, through the lips of every chance wayfarer who may come in at your gate.”

“What do you mean?” inquired the Hermit, with a furious air.

“I mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here am I; I mean that I know it to be a moral impossibility that any person can stray in at that gate from any point of the compass, with any sort of experience, gained at first hand, or derived from another, that can confute me and justify you.”

“You are an arrogant and boastful hero,” said the Hermit. “You think yourself profoundly wise.”

“Bah!” returned Mr. Traveller, quietly smoking. “There is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another.”

“You have companions outside,” said the Hermit. “I am not to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence in the people who may enter.”

“A depraved distrust,” returned the visitor, compassionately raising his eyebrows, “of course belongs to your state, I can’t help that.”

“Do you mean to tell me you have no confederates?”

“I mean to tell you nothing but what I have told you. What I have told you is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence.”

“Which is,” sneered the Hermit, “according to you—”

“Which is,” returned the other, “according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and re-act on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner. Come!” apostrophising the gate. “Open Sesame! Show his eyes and grieve his heart! I don’t care who comes, for I know what must come of it!”

With that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards the gate; and Mr. Mopes, the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window-ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously.

•   •   •

II

PICKING UP
EVENING SHADOWS

The first person to appear at the gate, was a gentleman who looked in accidentally, and who carried a sketch-book under his arm. From the amazement and alarm expressed in his look and manner, it was plain that the Hermit’s fame had not reached him. As soon as he could speak, he mentioned apologetically that he had been struck, as a stranger in that part of the country, by the picturesquely-ruinous appearance of the yard and out-houses, and that he had looked in at the gate, with the idea of finding nothing more remarkable than the materials for a sketch of still-life.

After revealing the mystery of the Hermit to this bewildered stranger, Mr. Traveller explained that any narrative-contributions towards the enlivening of Mr. Mopes and the morning, drawn from the personal experience of visitors at the gate, would be highly appreciated in that mouldy locality. At first, the visitor thus addressed hesitated; not so much, as it afterwards appeared, from want of means to answer the call made upon him, as from want of resources in his own memory to use on the spur of the moment. Pondering on Mr. Traveller’s request, he entered rather absently into conversation with the Hermit.

“I never knew any good to come yet,” said this gentleman, “of a man shutting himself up in the way you’re doing. I know the temptation to it myself, have experienced it myself, and yielded to it myself; but I never knew any good – stop, though,” he added, correcting himself as a scrupulous man does, who will not accept the help of the smallest false statement to aid his dearest theory, “I do remember one good thing which came, in some degree, of a man’s leading a solitary life.”

The Hermit hugged his bars in triumph. Mr. Traveller, nothing discouraged, requested the stranger to mention the circumstance.

“You shall hear it,” was the answer. “But, before I begin, I must tell you that the period of my tale dates some years back into the past, that at the time of which I shall speak I had newly experienced a considerable reverse of fortune, and that, fancying my friends would make me feel the loss if I remained among them, I had determined to shut myself up away from them, and lead an entirely solitary life till I could in some degree retrieve my losses.”

•   •   •

It is a tale, this that I am about to tell, of good deeds revealed, of good instincts roused, of a good work done, and a good result attained, and all through Evening Shadows.

I have often thought what tell-tell things shadows are. I mean the shadows that one who stands outside sees in the windows of a lighted-up room or building; the shadows thrown on a blind by figures interposing between it and the lamplight. I have noticed these in churches during divine service, when I, wandering about outside, have looked up at the windows and seen the shades of a pair of lovers reading out of the same hymn-book; of children evidently chattering and grinning together; and sometimes a shadow which bobbing forward from time to time in a jerking fashion, then catching itself, still with a jerk, then remaining preternaturally erect and still, and then beginning to bob again, has suggested to me that the fourth head of a sermon in eight compartments was being developed, and that the shadow before me was that of one who was taking refuge from oratory in sleep.

Among the number of the shadows which my memory retains, there are some that lie upon it with no dark and shuddering chill; some that were cast by objects in themselves so pure and noble that the shade itself seemed only a subdued brightness, and the light that cast it – a glory.

My story begins at the time, some years ago, when, as a single man, I was living in a narrow and rather crowded street in one of the old parts of London – one of those streets where very decent houses are mixed with much poorer ones – and in one of the best and cleanest of which I occupied two rooms; a bedroom and a sitting-room. Having at that time, as I have now, a great dread of noise while at work, I made use of the back room as my studio, sleeping in the front of the house, which was quiet at night but not in the daytime, by reason of the day traffic. My painting-room, then, was on the second floor, and at the back of the house, and as there was a street running at an acute angle to that in which I lived,” and joining it only a few yards higher up, it will easily be understood that the backs of the houses in this slanting thoroughfare, which was called appropriately enough, Cross-street, were in tolerably close proximity to my painting-room window. I have been thus exact in describing the topography of my place of abode, because then you will be better able to understand how it happened that my attention was directed to the circumstances which I am about to detail.

You will be able to understand how it was that, sitting, especially during the short days, as the dusk was beginning to fall, looking meditatively out of window and thinking of my work, my attention would often be drawn, almost without my knowledge, to some of the windows in the slanting street which I have described, and how I found myself not unfrequently speculating about some of the inhabitants of the rooms which were separated from that in which I was sitting, by so small a space.

There was one window more than all the rest which, for some reason or other, used especially to occupy my thoughts. It was a window exactly level with my own, and exactly opposite to it. During the daytime, though the blind was always drawn up as high as it could be, I could see but little of the room, but what I could make out only showed me that it was a very poor place indeed. Long habits of a speculative use of my eyes, if I may so express myself, have perhaps given me a tendency to attach much importance to the external aspects of things as indicative of what goes on within. Be that as it may, I possess that tendency, and possess it very strongly on the subject of windows. I think that the windows of a house give one a great idea of the dispositions, the habits, and the tempers of the occupants. Who has not felt, in passing by a house whose well-cleaned windows are filled with flowers, where the solid white and green of the Arum, and the delicate shades of colour in the rows of blossoming hyacinths, stand out in pleasant freshness against the dark background formed by the interior of the room – who has not felt that the inhabitant of a house whose windows are thus decorated, are in a calmer and happier condition than their next-door neighbours, where the yellow blind hangs crookedly across the dirty window, and the wire screen beneath has got a bulging ragged hole in it?

Holding, then, the theory which I have ventured thus to put forward, it will be readily believed that I augured the better of the occupants of the room opposite, from the fact that I could see through the lower panes of the window the leaves and branches of a great big fuchsia spread out fan-wise on a wooden frame. Other little contrivances and adornments there were about this poor casement, which, though of the cheapest and most twopenny order of decorative art, showed yet some love of the gentler side of things, and a wish to put a good face on poverty.

But it is, as I have already said, towards dusk and in the evening that my attention has been oftenest fixed on the window which I have been describing. It is then that, the room being lighted up, the shadows of things and persons within it are thrown upon the blind with a clearness and distinctness which those who have never observed such matters would hardly credit. The shadows tell me, then, that the room is tenanted by a husband and wife both young, I am certain. The man, as I gather from his position, and what I take to be the shadow of a tissue-paper screen behind which he stoops over his labour, is a poor drudging engraver for whom the days are not long enough, sitting cramped up at his patient toil through many hours of the night. As I watch him, he will rise and stretch back his head to relieve the muscles of his neck, and then I see that the shadow thrown on the blind is that of a young figure, spare but well made. The light shows me also that he wears a beard; it is a very strong light indeed, and this makes me more sure than ever that he is an engraver. The shadow of his wife is there beside him – almost always. How she watches over and tends him, how she hangs over his chair, or kneeled beside him! I had never, at the time I speak of, seen her, but I could not help fancying that she was pretty and good enough to light up a darker room than that in which she lives, and to make her husband’s life of toil – if he can keep it up – not only bearable but delightful.

If he can keep it up – but can he? His shadow is all that I have seen of him, but it looks like the shadow of one in delicate health. I never miss him from his place at night, and I can see the edge of his blind by which he works, at his window all day. “If he sits drudging there,” thought I, “he will surely, as is the case in all excess, defeat his own object and end in being disabled altogether.”

It was not long before I began to fear that what I had apprehended had taken place. There came a day when the blind was not drawn up to let in the light on the engraver’s work, but remained drawn down the whole day. It would be difficult to express how anxiously I longed for the evening, and the shadows which should tell me more.

That evening the light was burning in the room as usual, but the straight-edge of the engraver’s blind was not seen cutting against it. There was the shadow of but one person, it was that of a woman, and as the figure which cast it moved so quietly about, I could make out that she was pouring out drugs and mixing the different compounds wanted in a sickroom by the light of the lamp. Sometimes she would pause in these occupations and look towards one end of the room, where I concluded the bed was placed; and sometimes I could even imagine, but this must have been pure fancy, that, looking still in the same direction, her lips would move at times, and that she was speaking. I could even see her tasting the food she was mixing, with her head a little on one side; altering and tasting it often before she carried it across the room to where, I felt sure, the sick man lay. So much will shadows tell.

From my front window I can see a long way up and down the street, even to that corner where the early breakfast depot is found every morning – a poor stall enough, and driving a poor business, I should have thought; a business, however, in which I am so deeply interested that my first morning act is to go to the window and see if the poor old proprietor has got a customer – nay, once I put on a pilot-coat and a wideawake hat to appear in character, and purchased a cup of his coffee, which was a sound coffee enough, though a little gritty, and perhaps a thought weak. Enough of that. I can see to the coffee-stall one way, and nearly as far the other, and at the back I command a bit of a court, two mewses and a half, and, by great dislocation of neck, a little scrap of Brewer-street, Golden-square. Now in all these regions which are continually under my eye, I have noticed one constantly pervading presence, one figure which comes upon the scene without fail every day in the year and at all conceivable hours. It is the figure of a tallish gentleman of about five-and-thirty, who stoops a little, has a very round back, wears spectacles, is always dressed in a buttoned black frock-coat, is always in a hurry, always expected anxiously at the houses he visits, and always followed to the door, on coming out again, by some who question him eagerly as he leaves them, and who seem to seek for comfort in his most inscrutable face. Of course I have not watched this gentleman’s proceedings long, without coming to the conclusion that it is Mr. Cordial, the parish doctor, whose surgery in Great Pulteney-street I am so often in the habit of passing.

If there had been any previous doubt on my mind as to the state of things in the house opposite, it would at once have been put to flight when, on the day succeeding that evening on which I had watched the engraver’s wife in her capacity of nurse, I caught a dark glimpse of this gentleman’s head (rather a bald head for so young a man) at the window of the room opposite, which he had come to, to prepare some mixture or other.

“Now here,” I thought to myself, “is a pretty business. This is just what I feared. Here is this poor fellow laid up, unable to work, and probably not only ill in body, but harassed in mind by the consciousness that as long as he is ill, there can be no money coming in to supply the daily expenses which, however poorly they live, he and his wife must of necessity incur.”

I thought over this matter, and turned it all sorts of ways, as people who are unlucky enough, or unwise enough, to live alone do turn and twist things, and was so haunted by the thought of what was going on in the room opposite, that in the course of the afternoon I was obliged to go out and take a long walk, in order to fill up the time that must necessarily intervene before the lamp would be lit, and the shadows thrown upon the blind. When I got back from that walk I was in such hot haste for such silent news as I might reasonably hope to gain, that I did not even stay to light my candle, but felt my way as well as I could across the room, and stationed myself at the window.

At first I thought that there were no shadows at all on the white glaring blind, except those of the poor bits of curtain and of the spread-out fuchsia before mentioned, but by-and-by, noticing a small and continually moving shadow mixed up with that of the curtain, and observing that it rose and fell regularly and quickly, I presently connected it with another mass of shade a little above it, and arrived at the conclusion that this last was thrown by a woman’s head, and by the moving shadow by her hand, as it rose and fell in the action of working with the needle. It was not long before I found out that my hypothesis was well grounded; for a little while the shadow of the hand was still and that of the head was raised, as if the person whose silhouette lay thus upon the blind was in the act of listening – and then it rose, and I saw the well-known figure of the engraver’s wife pass the light, and knew that she had moved towards that quarter of the room in which I had made up my mind that the bed with the sick man in it was placed.

During the greater part of that evening, as I watched, and my occupations were frequently interrupted that I might do so, I made out no shadow but that which I have just mentioned. But, at about nine o’clock, I saw another shadow pass before the blind, and as it was that of a man, I had for a moment the hope that it was cast by the invalid. It was only for a moment, another glance showed me that this person wore no beard, and that there was greater bulk of figure than would have been cast by the poor engraver. I soon concluded that it was the doctor; and if I had any doubt on this subject it was removed when I presently observed the workman-like angle of elbow made by the shadow as it stood before the light, pouring something into what I suppose, from its size, must have been a teacup.

Twice a day, then. He was ill enough for the doctor to come to him twice a day.

My determination was taken as I made that reflection. I had got wrought up to a great state of interest and suspense about this case which I could hardly explain to myself. I felt a strange longing to know more of it, and I came to the resolution – it was like what might have been expected of a man half-cracked with living alone – that I would go out then and there, waylay the doctor as he came away from his patient, and ask him all about it.

I had lost some time in reflection, and when I looked hastily across before leaving my room I did not see any shadows on the blind, yet it was reasonable to suppose that I might still catch the doctor in the street; so out T rushed. Sure enough there was the doctor just coming out of No. 4, Cross-street. How lucky I was to be in time!

I found the parish medical authority not very communicative or prone to take a very romantic view of sickness and suffering. He was a good sort of man enough, no doubt, but dry and matter-of-fact. He had seen so much of sickness and misery that he was used to it. He answered all my questions, however, politely, though seeming a good deal surprised at them.

“He had just been visiting a sick man in that house, had he not?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, “he had. Bad case of low fever.”

“Second floor – a married couple?” was my next inquiry.

Again an answer in the affirmative.

“Was it a case of great distress?”

“Yes, of very great distress.”

“They have nothing to live upon but what the husband makes by his labour?” I asked.

“Nothing,” was the answer.

“And he is laid up and unable to work.”

“That is the state of the case,” replied the doctor.

“Ah! I thought so,” said I. “Would you be kind enough, Doctor Cordial,” I continued, “to take charge of this small sum” (it was a very small one) “for the benefit of these poor people – on no account mentioning how you came by it.”

The doctor promised that he would, and I was just going to leave him, when I thought I would ask the poor fellow’s name.

“His name is Adams,” said the doctor, and so we parted.

I now felt quite a sense of proprietorship in looking at my poor shadows opposite, and watched them more eagerly than ever. There was one action of the shadow, now unfortunately the only action to watch, which used to puzzle me not a little. The sick man’s wife used at times to stand before the light, and, as it appeared to me, used to hold some article of clothing, or other piece of drapery, and examine it closely; sometimes I fancied that I could make the object out to be a shirt, or a coat, at another time a pair of trousers. After this she would disappear, and I always noticed that the lamp would then be turned down till its light was very low, and would remain so for a considerable period. I could not understand this at the time, though I did afterwards. She was testing the condition of different articles of clothing before taking them to the pawnbroker’s.

And now I began to discover one of the bad results of my solitary life. Though I had given Doctor Cordial a small sum to go towards helping these poor people, it was quite impossible, in my straitened circumstances, that I could spare more. If I had resolutely kept my friends about me, there would have been somebody or other to whom I could apply in behalf of my poor shadows, while now it was impossible to do so. Even when the idea entered my mind of trying to revive some former friendships with this view, the fear that anyone so applied to might imagine I wanted the help for myself, at once deterred me.

Whilst I was engaged in turning all these things over in my mind, there came across it the memory of one individual to whom I really felt as if I should not mind applying in this difficulty.

This was a certain Mr. Pycroft, a copper-plate printer, with whom I had formerly had dealings. He was an old man, and it so happened that at one time in my life I had been in a position to do him a service, and had done it. There was something about his age, his position, and our former relations, which made me feel, less shy of approaching him than I should have felt with anyone else. He was a fat, jolly-looking old boy, and was, as far as I had had opportunities of judging, as good natured as he looked.

There was, however, one circumstance connected with his history which seemed to show him in a less amiable light, and the remembrance of which made me for a time hesitate about applying to him. I remembered to have heard that some short time ago lie had acted with great severity towards his eldest son, who, hiving contracted a marriage against his father’s wishes, had been deprived of his share in the business, which he had formerly enjoyed, and left to make a living as well as he could by his own exertions. The fact is, that the old man had had a darling project of marrying his eldest son to a young girl whose father was a business connection of his own. The old copper-plate printer was not only thwarted in this, but was further outraged by bis son’s choice having fallen in a direction particularly distasteful to him for private reasons. I suspected also from what I had heard, that the conduct of the eldest son, which had been represented to his father as being violent and rebellious in no ordinary degree, had been made the worst of by the younger brother, who not only stepped into the lion’s share of the business on his brother’s removal, but himself contracted the marriage which his brother had declined. I could not help thinking when I heard the circumstances of the case that this younger son had had a great deal to do in poisoning the old man’s mind with regard to his elder Brother’s conduct.
At all events, old Mr. Pycroft was the only person I could think of just now as likely to help my unfortunate shadows, and to him I determined to apply, but in a roundabout way. It occurred to me that if I could enlist his sympathy in the fate of these poor people, just as my own had been awakened, by means of the shadows, it would be a far better plan than any other.

It so happened that I had often promised my old acquaintance to show him a collection which I had of Rembrandt etchings, and it occurred to me that now was the time when these might come into play with great effect. So, making an excuse in relation to the matter of business which had formerly brought us together, I called on my old acquaintance, and, in the course of conversation, invited him, naming an evening, to come to my lodgings, and examine these curiosities, intimating that we would moisten that pleasing labour with a glass of brandy-and-water. Punctual to the time named Mr. Pycroft arrived, and we got through the first hour very comfortably, though I could not help feeling rather anxious about the success of my scheme.

After examining the etchings, Mr. Pycroft, over the second glass, began to rally me about living in such a labyrinth of streets, asking me if I did not find it dreadfully confined at the back.

“By-the-by,” I said and here I must own that I was guilty of some small amount of deception, for I spoke as if the matter in hand were of no sort of importance – “by-the-by, Mr. Pycroft, you wouldn’t imagine how much recreation I derive from observing my neighbours in that very cross street which you find comes too near my windows.”

“If you was to come out of this kind of solitary life,” replied Mr. P., “you would have other things to amuse yourself with besides the goings on of a parcel of people whom you know nothing about.”

“Now here, for instance,” I went on, unmindful of the interruption, as I drew aside my own curtain and pointed out the window of the room occupied by my poor young couple “here is a window which has revealed to me all sorts of interesting matter – enough to make a story out of almost, I can tell you.”

“What, this window opposite? But do you mean to say, Mr. B., that you think it right to look into people’s rooms like that?”

“I have scrupulously abstained from doing so,” was my answer, “and have made all my observations with the blind down, as you sec it now.”

“With the blind down? But how could you make any observations with the blind down?”

“By means of the shadows of the occupants of the apartment,” was my answer.

“Shadows?” cried Mr. Pycroft, obviously incredulous. “You don’t mean to tell me that you could make out what was going on in that room by means of the shadows on the blind?”

“Something of what goes on,” I replied, “at any rate. Enough to interest me in the fortunes of those to whom the room belongs.”

“Well, really Mr. B.! If I had it on any other testimony than your own I should have thought it simply impossible.”

“Would you like to look for yourself?” I said. “I dare say something will take place behind the blind before long, which will give you an opportunity of testing the accuracy of what I have said.”

“Well, without doubting that at all,” replied my guest, “I really think I should.”

Mr. Pycroft was sitting near the window, but my reading-lamp upon the table made the room rather too light for our observations. So I pushed the table away to the other end of the room, turned down the wick of the lamp, and lowered the shade over it as well.

“Well,” said Mr. Pycroft, “I see nothing at present but a white blind with a light behind it.”

The shadow of the little wife’s head was there iu the comer by the curtain, and the shadow of the hand rose and fell as usual; but Mr. Pycroft had not such a practised eye as I had for detecting such matters. I pointed these out to my friend.

“I do see something bobbing up and down,” he said, “now you mention it. But I should never have found it out without your help. Stop! there’s a shadow now covering nearly the whole blind. What’s that?”

“I suspect that it is the shadow of the same person,” was my answer. “She will probably go nearer the window and farther from the light presently, and then you will see.”

In a minute or two the shadow appeared again, and this time not so large.

“I can make it out now,” said my friend, “quite easily; it is the shadow of a woman. I can see the line of the waist and of the skirts of the dress.”

“Can you make out the face at all?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” answered Mr. P. “It is turned sideways, looking to the left there. She’s gone now,” be added in a moment.

In a few minutes her shadow was thrown again upon the blind.

“What’s she about now?” asked Mr. Pycroft.

“Nay, you shall tell me,” I answered.

“Well, she seems to have some small object in her hand which she is shaking.”

“And now?” I asked again.

“I can’t make out, her elbow seems raised – both hands are raised. No, I can’t make out at all.”

“I think she is pouring something out,” said I.

“So she is, no doubt,” answered my guest, who was evidently becoming much interested. “Stay,” he continued, after a moment’s pause, and looking at me quite anxiously as he spoke – “shaking, pouring – ‘to be well shaken before taken’ – why, it must be medicine.”

“I suspect it is medicine,” was my answer.

“Is there someone ill, then?” asked Mr. Pycroft.

“Yes,” I replied, “her husband.”

“And did the shadow tell you that, too?”

“Yes, the shadow of her husband used to appear on the blind as often as hers, now I never see it. Exactly coincident with the disappearance of the husband’s shadow has been the arrival of another shadow, which has been that of the parish doctor.”

“And pray,” asked Mr. Pycroft with the air of one whose credulity had been really too much tasked at last, “may I ask how you knew it to be the doctor’s shadow?”

“Doctor Cordial has the roundest back you ever saw in your life,” was my answer.

“Well, this is really very curious,” ejaculated the old copper-plate printer, who was now evidently powerfully interested.

As we continued to look, the light was suddenly removed, and the room was left in darkness.

“What do you suppose has happened now?” inquired my companion.

“I suppose,” was my answer, “that she has left the room for a short time. We shall see more presently, no doubt;” and almost as I spoke the light reappeared, and another shadow was in the room besides that of the little wife.

“The doctor?” asked Mr. Pycroft.

“There,” I cried, triumphantly, “you see how much may be discovered by shadows. You are expert already.”

“He has a round back, certainly,” said the old copper-plate printer.

The round-backed shadow now faded off softly in the direction towards which the profile of the little wife was turned so often. The white blind remained for some minutes shadowless.

“I suppose he is examining his patient now,” said Mr. Pycroft; “here he is again,” he added in another minute. The doctor, however, stood so near the light this time and so completely with his back towards us, that we were unable to determine what he was doing. This was, naturally, often the case with the shadows. Much as one was able to make out, there was, of course, infinitely more, an explanation of which it was impossible even to guess at.

In a short time the round-backed shadow was joined by that of the sick man’s wife, and then the two stood for some time in conversation; at least it was reasonable to suppose so.

“Giving her directions, I shouldn’t wonder,” said the copper-plate printer.

“Most likely,” I answered.

“I wonder if he’s very bad,” said my companion. After this there was a pause. The two shadows continued standing by the table. At last, we both thought that the doctor’s shadow appeared to give something to the shade of the engraver’s wife, and immediately after, the light was removed as it had been before: it had been probably taken out on to the landing in order that the doctor might see his way downstairs.

“And so they’re very poor,” said Mr. Pycroft, as if talking to himself.

“They had nothing but what the husband could earn,” I answered, “and he is wholly incapable of working, and will remain so probably for weeks to come.”

The light had now reappeared in the room. The shadow of the little wife seemed to linger by the table after setting it down. Her figure was motionless for a considerable time, and then we noted that the head fell forward, and that the face was buried in the hands as if in ail agony of silent grief.

We neither of us spoke, and at the same moment I dropped the curtain of my own window which had before been fastened back, for I felt that this was sorrow with which a spectator had no right to intermeddle.

Soon afterwards my old friend rose to go, and we spoke not another word on the matter. Just before I retired to rest, however, I looked out once more. The shadow of the little wife’s head was in its usual place, and the shadow of her hand rose and fell as usual. She was at work again.

The next day, by an early post, I received a letter from Mr. Pycroft. He had been thinking a great deal, lie said, of what he had seen the night before, and enclosed a little money, which he asked me to see applied to the benefit of the young couple in whose fortunes I had interested myself. He also begged me from time to time to let him have tidings of what “the shadows” were about.

I handed the money over to Dr. Cordial, asking him to apply it as might seem best to his judgement, but making no mention of who it came from. I asked him also to let me have news as frequently as possible of the condition of his patient. These I transmitted pretty nearly as often as I received them to the old copper-plate printer.

For some days there was not much to report, nor did the shadow’s tell me anything different from what they had before revealed. The poor engraver’s shadow was still wanting, and that of his little wife was either stationary in the corner, when she did what she could to earn a little money with her needle, or else was seen flitting about the room in attendance on her sick husband. At length there came a time when the fever reached its crisis, and when it was clear, according to the doctor’s report, that the sufferer must sink under it or recover. To make my story as short as possible, I will not dwell on the details of this period of suspense. The one quality of youth, possessed by the patient, enabled his constitution to rally, and after this crisis in his disorder he began to mend.

And now a long convalescence followed, and a time arrived when one evening the shadow of a wasted figure moved slowly past the light, and I could guess as I watched it, and observed that it was accompanied by the well-known shadow of the little wife, that the sick man was moving from his bed to a chair by the fire.

Of course I made this advance known to my friend, the copper-plate printer, and kept him well acquainted with all the particulars of the gradual improvement in our invalid’s health, even to the period when it was so far reestablished that he was able at last to sit up for a certain number of hours every day at his engraving table, and work once more for his wife’s support.

“They are very grateful,” I said, when I made this announcement to my old acquaintance, “to the unknown friend who has assisted them from time to time throughout their trouble.”

“Oh no, nonsense, nonsense; it’s nothing, nothing at all – nothing at all,” ejaculated the old fellow, trying to get away from the subject.

“And they are very anxious,” I continued, resolutely, “to thank him personally, if he would but reveal himself and give them the opportunity.”

“No, no, not for the world,” was the answer; “oh dear no, impossible. Here, here’s a little trifle extra just to set them going you know, because he mustn’t work too much at first.”

“And you won’t let them sec you?” I asked again.

“No, no, no, on no account,” said the old boy. “I’ll tell you what, though,” he continued in a moment, “I should like to see them – see them as I did before – the shadows you know,” he added. “I’ll come and have a glass of brandy-and-water with you some evening, and have a look at the shadows again.”

I was obliged to be satisfied with this, and making an engagement with my old friend for an early day, i left him, and went home.

The evening came, and with it an unusual amount of stir and bustle in the quiet room opposite. The figure of the little wife was continually flitting backwards and forwards in front of the light, as if she were engaged in smartening up the poor apartment. Hanging in the very middle of the window, and so close to the thin white blind that I could see it distinctly, there was a birdcage with a bird in it; and it was owing to the presence of this object that I had been chiefly able to form some idea of what my two friends opposite were like. When either of them approached the birdcage, as would sometimes happen, to give a chirp of encouragement to, its occupant, I could see the profile of the person who did so, as distinctly as one used to trace the silhouettes of the old black portraits which itinerant artists were wont to cut out at fairs. Except at such times as this, when the engraver or his wife stood thus near the window and far from the light, I could distinguish little but a shapeless mass; and when either of them approached the candle nearly, their shadows became so gigantic that the whole space of the window – an unusually large one – was completely darkened, even by one figure. I must repeat what I have said before, that the opportunities were very rare when I could make out what the shadows were about, and that in all cases^n which I could detect such processes of mixing drinks, pouring out of medicines, and the like, it was owing to the fact that some necessary object connected with the proceeding was placed on some article of furniture which stood in or near the window.

Punctual to the appointed time, my old friend, the copper-plate printer, made his appearance, and his first question after the usual greeting had been exchanged, was:

“Well – how are the shadows?”

I placed his chair in the old position, and we both sat down.

The bustle and movement to which I have adverted as going on in the room opposite, were still noticeable, and I had little doubt that the apartment was being “cleaned up;” an impression to which additional force was soon given by the dawning on the scene of a thin, straight shadow, which I took to be a broomstick, and which was now brought into active service.

I must not omit to mention, that at the moment of a certain pause iii the career of the broom, the figure of the poor engraver was thrown with great distinctness on the blind. He had come to the window to stick some object, probably a piece of groundsel, between the wires of the birdcage.

When this happened, I noticed a great change come over the countenance of my guest. He raised himself in his chair, and looking eagerly forward, said, in quite a strange tone of voice:

“What did you say was the name of these people?”

“Adams,” was my answer.

“Adams – you are quite sure?”

“Quite,” I replied. By this time the shadow had vanished again, but I remarked that for a considerable time Mr. Pycroft seemed absent and uncomfortable, and we had talked of many matters foreign to the subject I had at heart, before he again returned to the shadows.

“They seem quiet enough now,” said Mr. Py croft at last.

“I dare say,” I answered, “that the cleaning of the room is over, and that they have sat down to a bit of supper.”

“Do you think so?” asked the old copper-plate printer.

“I dare say they have some little luxury, furnished by your liberality.”

“Do you really think so?” said the old boy, who had a great idea of comfort. “What do you think they’ve got? I wish the shadows would show us that!”

I darted at once at the opening which I saw here.

“The shadows will not show it,” I said; “but why not go across and see it in substance? It would make their supper all the sweeter to them, I am sure.”

The old gentleman had just finished a tumbler of hot grog. He was in high good humour, and as I finished speaking his eyes began to twinkle, and a latent smile developed itself about the corners of his mouth.

“It wouldn’t be bad fun, would it?” he said.

I wanted nothing more, and in another minute I had him on his legs, and we were on our way to No. 4.

A little girl was on the doorstep with a pot of beer in her hand, and we had no sooner stopped before the house than she made known a want incidental to the lives of maidens who stand only three feet two inches in their stockings:

“Please, sir, will you ring the second bell from the top?”

“Second floor?” I said, as I complied; “that’s where Mr. and Mrs. Adams live, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir, and he’s my father,” said the young lady, who evidently looked upon the couple alluded to as one flesh. I thought it odd I had never seen this child’s shadow on the blind.

“Well, I want to see him, then,” I replied, “and so does this gentleman.”

“Oh, but you can’t, though,” said the little girl, who, by the way, appeared to be a precocious shrew – “for father’s at supper, and there’s a fowl, and father’s been ill, and you can’t disturb him just as he’s a little better – so that you can’t.”

“You just hold your tongue, miss, will you?” said a voice at this juncture, “and let me talk to the gentleman.”

I looked up and saw that the door had been opened by a tall gaunt-looking woman, with a large nose.

“Who did you please to want, sir?” she asked in a whining tone, which I disliked very much.

I told her briefly who we were, and the object of our visit.

“Oh, what a joyful surprise!” said the gaunt woman, whining as before in a manner infinitely offensive to me. “Get along upstairs, Lizzy,” she continued, addressing the child, “and tell your father that the kind gentleman as assisted him in his illness is coming to see him; I’m his wife, kind gentlemen” – (this the shadow that I had interested myself in!) – “I’m his poor wife that nussed him through his illness, and – take care of the stairs, kind gentlemen – and this is the room, gentlemen; and here’s a joyful surprise, James; the gentlemen that’s been so kind all the time you’ve been ill; and be pleased to take a seat, gentlemen, and honour our poor room by sitting down in it.”

I was thunderstruck. A little common-looking man was sitting at the table on which a smoking fowl, a bit of bacon, and some potatoes had been placed. He bore the evident marks of recent illness, and rose with some effort at our entry. He resumed his seat, however, as I and my companion sat down. I took a chair, as I should have taken anything that was offered me in sheer surprise and bewilderment. I looked once more at the man’s wife. What, was that the substance of the neat little shadow which I knew so well – that great gaunt sloping creature? Were shadows so deceptive as this? Would anybody tell me that my opposite neighbour could have had such a nose as I now saw, and that it would not have stood out in bold relief and left its mark upon my memory every time she approached the window?

The husband, too. That was not my poor engraver. He was an inoffensive man enough, as he sat there full of clumsy expressions of gratitude to my companion for the assistance accorded to him during his recent attack of fever. He was a harmless little man, no doubt. Not quite such a heavy blow as his wife; but still, he was not my engraver.

All this time, even while her husband was speaking, the gaunt woman kept up an undercurrent of gratitude of the slimiest description, to which the old gentleman answered not a word, for he seemed as little prepared for the real Mr. and Mrs. Adams by what he had seen of their shadows as I was. In short, beyond a few words of inquiry as to the state of the invalid’s health, which I had managed to utter on first coming into the room, we had neither of us spoken a word.

Suddenly the tremendous idea entered my mind that there must be some mistake. I had been staring some time at the little girl whom we originally met on the doorstep, and who, to do her justice, returned the compliment with interest, when it struck me that her head came considerably above the windowsill, and that consequently, it was a most extraordinary thing that its shadow had never caught my attention. My eyes having in the course of this comparison of the young lady with the windowsill been directed towards this last part of the room, I next observed that there was no birdcage hanging in the window.

“Halloa!” I ejaculated, “you’ve taken down the birdcage.”

“Birdcage, sir?” whined the gaunt woman, deferentially.

“We ain’t got no birdcage,” burst out the small child of the doorstep, “nor never haven’t had none nor yet no bird neither.”

“Will you hold your tongue, miss?” interposed her mother.

There was an awkward pause. I looked again about the room, I looked at the woman, I looked at her husband he had no beard, I now observed. I had, however, presence of mind enough not to ask after that missing appendage as I had done after the birdcage. I determined to make assurance doubly sure, and walking towards the window and pulling aside the blind, observed, as an excuse for looking out:

“I am afraid you must be a good deal choked up at the back with houses. Isn’t that rather unwholesome?”

A voluble answer on the subject of confined lodgings, their advantages and disadvantages, followed, but I did not hear it. I was looking for my own window in the house opposite. I had left the lamp alight and the blind half drawn up. The window before me, exactly in front of that which I was looking from, was fastened up and secured with shutters. Stretching my neck, and glancing in a slanting direction towards the next of the opposite houses, I saw that the second-floor window was illuminated, and that the blind was half lowered.

“Your supper is getting cold,” I said, coming back to the table, and exchanging a glance of meaning with my companion; “my friend and I only wished to come in and see how you were enjoying yourselves, and so now we will leave you to do better justice to the fowl than you could if we remained here.”

So saying, and resisting all entreaties to stay and take a share of the good things, I made for the door, and was soon on the staircase, followed closely by Mr. Pycroft, who, speechless as long as we remained in the room, did nothing now but repeat, “Wrong people, eh? – been feeding the wrong people, haven’t we?” in a loud and perfectly audible whisper. The gaunt woman was, however, too loquacious herself to hear what was said, and during the time that she lighted us down the stairs, never ceased whining out her gratitude for a single moment.

When we got into the street I turned round and looked my companion in the face.

“It is some comfort, at any rate,” I said, “to think that you have been assisting people who were really in need of help, but it is evident that every penny of your bounty has gone to the family we have just left.”

“And how do you account for the mistake?” asked my old friend.

“I can only conclude,” was my answer, “that by a curious coincidence there have been two second-floor lodgers ill in two houses next door to each other; that after my seeing Dr. Cordial at the window opposite to mine, he had gone from the one house to the other; that he had had time to pay a short visit to the invalid we have just left; and that then I had met him coming away, as I thought, from attending on our poor shadows, but in reality from the deserving personage whose supper has been supplied by your benevolence.”

“And the shadows?” gasped Mr. Pycroft, utterly aghast.

“Have, through my unfortunate mistake, not received a single shilling,” was my answer.

Mr. Pycroft stared at me for some time in petrified amazement.

“We can never leave the thing like this,” he said, at last. “Do you think you could be sure of the house this time?”

“I can understand your feeling some mistrust about it,” I said, “but I own that I feel none myself. This is the house beyond a doubt.” I looked up as I spoke at No. 5.

“Then let’s bring the matter to a conclusion at once,” said the old copper-plate printer, stoutly; and with that we actually rang at the second bell handle on the left hand doorpost.

After the proper amount of delay the door was opened by a slatternly woman.

“Second-floor back?” said I, in a mellifluous voice.

“Front,” replied the slatternly woman, in rather an injured tone; “you should have rung the bell on the right doorpost.”

I begged pardon with all humility, and the slatternly woman relented a little.

“The two-pair-back’s at home, I know,” she said, “and if you’re coming up I may as well light you.”

We availed ourselves of this offer, and, in a few seconds, we were on the second-floor landing. The slatternly woman pointed out the door at which we were to knock, and opening her own, and letting out in so doing a blast of onions that almost made my eyes water, she disappeared into the refreshing vapour, and shut herself in with it.

My curiosity was now powerfully piqued, and I felt as if some great stake hinged upon the opening of the door at which we stood and knocked.

A clear, cheerful voice called to us to enter, and in another moment we stood inside the room.

Two people, a man and a woman, occupied the apartment. One of them, the man, was at first hidden from view, but in the other, as she rose upon our entrance, I recognised at once the shadow with which I was so familiar.

The room was a great contrast to that which we had just left, which was tolerably well provided with furniture. This room was utterly bare, looking as if all available objects had been removed, as probably they had, to be turned into money. A mattress and some bedding were on the floor at one end of the room. The table, and a couple of old chairs, were the only articles of furniture I could see. The engraver’s lamp was Ob the table, and the materials for a very poor meal which the two had evidently just been cooking – a very little scrap of bacon and. some boiled rice. The birdcage was hanging in the window, if I had wanted any confirmation of my conviction that I had found my shadows at last.

Of course, all these things were taken in by me at a single glance, it being necessary that I should at once account for my visit and that of my friend. I had begun to do so in a few hurried words, when my attention was suddenly arrested by an exclamation from Mr. Pycroft, who had followed me. The second occupant of the room, whom we had at first seen but imperfectly, bad now risen to his feet, and stood with the light full upon him, straining his eyes into the shade where my companion stood behind me. I turned hastily round, and met the stern gaze of my old friend.

“If this is a trick, Mr. Broadhead,” he said, speaking very thick, and with choking utterance, “I can tell you that it does you little credit.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, in utter bewilderment.

“I mean that if this has all been a planned thing to bring about a reconciliation between me and my son—”

“Your son?” I gasped.

“I can only say,” continued Mr. Pycroft, “that it shall meet with the success it deserves.”

He turned as he spoke and made for the door, but I was beforehand with him.

“Stay, Mr. Pycroft!” I cried. “If you choose to retain this feeling of animosity, which so ill becomes you, you must, but you shall not go away with a false impression of this matter as far as I am concerned in it. I swear to you that your suspicions of me are false, that when we came to this room I had no more idea of who were its occupants than you had, and that I never knew your son was living in this abject misery; though, if I had, I would certainly have done my best to rouse you to a feeling of what, under such circumstances, you owe to one who bears your name.”

Mr. Pycroft had glanced once searchingly towards me when I denied his imputation of having been concerned in a plot to trick him into a reconciliation, and now his eyes were directed towards the place where his son stood before him.

He was a fine manly-looking fellow, and as he stood there holding his wife’s hand in his, and with the refining influence of recent illness showing on his worn but handsome face, I could not help feeling that surely this picture must complete the work which the shadows had so well begun.

“Look at them!” I said – “look at this room – look at that meal! Can you see such wretchedness and not be moved? If your son has displeased you, has he not suffered? If he has disobeyed, he has paid the penalty.”

I looked in my companion’s face, and I thought that I saw some shadow of compunction working there.

“Do not,” I said, “let the sympathy which you bestowed upon the shadows be wanting for the realities which cast them.”

The little wife at this moment left her husband’s side, and, advancing to where we stood, laid her hand timidly on that of my old friend. I looked at him once more, and then, beckoning the poor engraver to his father’s side, I passed quietly from the room, where I felt that my presence was no longer needed.

—  —  —  —

About an hour afterwards I was sitting disconsolately in my room, reflecting on the loneliness of my own position, and rather envying my opposite neighbours, when I heard my own name shouted in a cheery voice from without.

I looked in the old direction, and saw my friend Mr. Pycroft standing at his son’s open window.

“We want you to come over,” said the old gentleman, “and spend what is left of the evening with us.”

I assented gladly, and was just drawing in my head, when I heard myself called once more by name.

“And I say,” said Mr. Pycroft, in a stage whisper, “as we are rather short of liquor here, perhaps you wouldn’t mind bringing a bottle of brandy in your pocket; and if you happen to have such a thing as a lemon—”

In a few minutes I was sitting one of a comfortable party in the room opposite.

“Do you know what is one of the first things we intend to do now,” said the little wife, smiling as she looked at me.

“I have not the least idea,” was my answer.

“Why, we are going to nail up the thickest curtain we can get, in order to prevent our opposite neighbour from seeing what we are about whenever our lamp happens to be alight.”

“You need not be afraid,” I said; “and you may save yourself the trouble of putting up the curtain, for the opposite neighbour hopes henceforth to see so much of his new friends in their Substance, that he is not likely to trouble himself much more about – their Shadows.”

•   •   •   •   •   •

III

PICKING UP
TERRIBLE COMPANY

While the artist was still engaged in telling his story, another visitor had come in at the gate, and had politely remained in the background, so as not to interrupt the proceedings. When the story was over, he came forward, and presented himself (in excellent English) as a Frenchman on a visit to this country. In the course of an eventful life, opportunities had occurred to him of learning our language, on the Continent, and necessity had obliged him to turn them to good account. Many years had passed, since that time, and had allowed him no earlier chance of visiting England than the chance of which he had now availed himself. He was staying with some friends in the neighbourhood – the Hermit had been mentioned to him – and here he was, on the ground of Thomas Tiddler, to deposit his homage at the feet of that illustrious landed proprietor.

Was the French visitor surprised? Not the least in the world. His face showed deep marks of former care and trouble – perhaps he was past feeling surprised at anything? By no means. If he had seen Mr. Mopes on French ground, he would have been petrified on the spot. But Mr. Mopes on English ground was only a new development of the dismal national character. Given British spleen, as the cause – followed British suicide, as the effect. Quick suicide (of which the works of his literary countrymen had already informed him) by throwing yourself into the water. Slow suicide (of which his own eyes now informed him) by burying yourself among soot and cinders, in a barred kitchen. Curious either way – but nothing to surprise a well-read Frenchman.

Leaving our national character to assert itself to better advantage, when time had given this gentleman better opportunities of studying it, Mr. Traveller politely requested him to follow the relation of the artist’s experience with an experience of his own. After a moment’s grave consideration, the Frenchman said that his early life had been marked by perils and sufferings of no ordinary kind. He had no objection to relate one of his adventures – but he warned his audience beforehand that they must expect to be a little startled; and he begged that they would suspend their opinions of himself and his conduct, until they had heard him to the end.

After those prefatory words, he began as follows:

•   •   •

I am a Frenchman by birth, and my name is François Thierry. I need not weary you with my early history. Enough, that I committed a political offence – that I was sent to the galleys for it – that I am an exile for it to this day. The brand was not abolished in my time. If I chose, I could show you the fiery letters on my shoulder.

I was arrested, tried, and sentenced, in Paris. I went out of the court with my condemnation ringing in my ears. The rumbling wheels of the prison-van repeated it all the way from Paris to Bicetre that evening, and all the next day, and the next, and the next, along the weary road from Bicetre to Toulon. When I look back upon that time, I think I must have been stupefied by the unexpected severity of my sentence; for I remember nothing of the journey, nor of the places where we stopped – nothing but the eternal repetition of “travaux forcés – travaux forcés – travaux forcés – à perpétuité,” over and over, and over again. Late in the afternoon of the third day, the van stopped, the door was thrown open, and I was conducted across a stone yard, through a stone corridor, into a huge stone hall, dimly lighted from above. Here I was interrogated by a military superintendent, and entered by name in a ponderous ledger bound and clasped with iron, like a book in letters.

“Number Two Hundred and Seven,” said the superintendent. “Green.”

They took me into an adjoining room, searched, stripped, and plunged me into a cold bath. When I came out of the bath, I put on the livery of the galleys – a coarse canvas shirt, trousers of tawny serge, a red serge blouse, and heavy shoes clamped with iron. Last of all, a green woollen cap. On each leg of the trousers, and on the breast and back of the blouse, were printed the fatal letters “T. F.” On a brass label in the front of the cap, were engraved the figures “207.” From that moment I lost my individuality. I was no longer François Thierry. I was Number Two Hundred and Seven. The superintendent stood by and looked on.

“Come, be quick,” said he, twirling his long moustache between his thumb and forefinger. “It grows late, and you must be married before supper.”

“Married!” I repeated.

The superintendent laughed, and lighted a cigar, and his laugh was echoed by the guards and jailers.

Down another stone corridor, across another yard, into another gloomy hall, the very counterpart of the last, but filled with squalid figures, noisy with the clank of fetters, and pierced at each end with a circular opening, through which a cannon’s mouth showed grimly.

“Bring Number Two Hundred and Six,” said the superintendent, “and call the priest.”

Number Two Hundred and Six came from a farther corner of the hall, dragging a heavy chain, and along with him a blacksmith, bare-armed and leather-aproned.

“Lie down,” said the blacksmith, with an insulting spurn of the foot.

I lay down. A heavy iron ring attached to a chain of eighteen links was then fitted to my ankle, and riveted with a single stroke of the hammer. A second ring next received the disengaged ends of my companion’s chain and mine, and was secured in the same manner. The echo of each blow resounded through the vaulted roof like a hollow laugh.

“Good,” said the superintendent, drawing a small red book from his pocket. “Number Two Hundred and Seven, attend to the prison code. If you attempt to escape without succeeding, you will be bastinadoed. If you succeed in getting beyond the port, and are then taken, you will receive three years of double-chaining. As soon as you are missed, three cannon shots will be fired, and alarm flags will be hoisted on every bastion. Signals will be telegraphed to the maritime guards, and to the police of the ten neighbouring districts. A price will be set upon your head. Placards will be posted upon the gates of Toulon, and sent to every town throughout the empire. It will be lawful to fire upon you, if you cannot be captured alive.”

Having read this with grim complacency, the superintendent resumed his cigar, replaced the book iu his pocket, and walked away.

All was over now – all the incredulous wonder, the dreamy dullness, the smouldering hope, of the past three days. I was a felon, and (slavery in slavery!) chained to a fellow-felon. I looked up, and found his eyes upon me. He was a swart, heavy-browed sullen-jawed man of about forty; not much taller than myself, but of immensely powerful build.

“So,” said he, “you’re for life, are you? So am I.”

“How do you know I am for life?” I asked, wearily.

“By that.” And he touched my cap roughly with the back of his hand. “Green, for life. Red, for a term of years. What are you in for?”

“I conspired against the government.”

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

“Devil’s mass! Then you’re a gentleman-convict, I suppose! Pity you’ve not a berth to yourselves we poor forçats [convicts] hate such fine company.”

“Are there many political prisoners?” I asked, after a moment’s pause.

“None, in this department.”

Then, as if detecting my unspoken thought, “I am no innocent,” he added with an oath. “This is the fourth time I have been here. Did you ever hear of Gasparo?”

“Gasparo the forger?”

He nodded.

“Who escaped three or four months since, and—”

“And flung the sentinel over the ramparts, just as he was going to give the alarm. I’m the man.”

I had heard of him, as a man who, early in his career, had been sentenced to a long solitary imprisonment in a gloomy cell, and who had come forth from his solitude hardened into an absolute wild beast. I shuddered, and, as I shuddered, found his evil eye taking vindictive note of me. From that moment he hated me. From that moment I loathed him.

A bell rang, and a detachment of convicts came in from labour. They were immediately searched by the guard, and chained up, two and two, to a sloping wooden platform that reached all down the centre of the hall. Our afternoon meal was then served out, consisting of a mess of beans, an allowance of bread and ship-biscuit, and a measure of thin wine. I drank the wine; but I could eat nothing. Gasparo took what he chose from my untouched allowance, and those who were nearest, scrambled for the rest. The supper over, a shrill whistle echoed down the hall, each man took his narrow mattress from under the platform which made our common bedstead, rolled himself in a piece of seaweed matting, and lay down for the night. In less than five minutes, all was profoundly silent. Now and then I heard the blacksmith going round with his hammer, testing the gratings, and trying the locks, in all the corridors. Now and then, the guard stalked past with his musket on his shoulder. Sometimes, a convict moaned, or shook his fetters in his sleep. Thus the weary hours went by. My companion slept heavily, and even I lost consciousness at last.

I was sentenced to hard labour. At Toulon the hard labour is of various kinds: such as quarrying, mining, pumping in the docks, lading and unlading vessels, transporting ammunition, and so forth. Gasparo and I were employed with about two hundred other convicts in a quarry a little beyond the port. Day after day, week after week, from seven in the morning until seven at night, the rocks echoed with our blows. At every blow, our chains rang and rebounded on the stony soil. In that fierce climate, terrible tempests and tropical droughts succeed each other throughout the summer and autumn. Often and often, after toiling for hours under a burning sky, have I gone back to prison and to my pallet, drenched to the skin. Thus the last days of the dreary spring ebbed slowly past; and then the more dreary summer, and then the autumn-time, came round.

My fellow-convict was a Piedmontese. He had been a burglar, a forger, an incendiary. In his last escape, he had committed manslaughter. Heaven alone knows how my sufferings were multiplied by that abhorred companionship – how I shrank from the touch of his hand – how I sickened, if his breath came over me as we lay side by side at night. I strove to disguise my loathing; but in vain. He knew it as well as I knew it, and he revenged himself upon me by every means that a vindictive nature could devise. That he should tyrannise over me was not wonderful; for his physical strength was gigantic, and he was looked upon as an authorised despot throughout the port; but simple tyranny was the least part of what I had to endure. I had been fastidiously nurtured; he purposely and continually offended my sense of delicacy. I was unaccustomed to bodily labour; he imposed on me the largest share of our daily work. When I needed rest, he would insist on walking. When my limbs were cramped, he would lie down obstinately, and refuse to stir. He delighted to sing blasphemous songs, and relate hideous stories of what he had thought and resolved on in his solitude. He would even twist the chain in such wise that it should gall me at every step. I was at that time just twenty-two years of age, and had been sickly from boyhood. To retaliate, or to defend myself, would have been alike impossible. To complain to the superintendent, would only have been to provoke my tyrant to greater cruelty.

There came a day, at length, when his hatred seemed to abate. He allowed me to rest when our hour of repose came round. He abstained from singing the songs I abhorred, and fell into long fits of abstraction. The next morning, shortly after we had begun work, he drew near enough to speak to me in a whisper.

“François, have you a mind to escape?”

I felt the blood rush to my face. I clasped my hands. I could not speak.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“To the death.”

“Listen, then. Tomorrow, a renowned marshal will visit the port. He will inspect the docks, the prisons, the quarries. There will be plenty of cannonading from the forts and the shipping, and if two convicts escape, a volley more or less will attract no attention round about Toulon. Do you understand?”

“You mean that no one will recognise the signals?”

“Not even the sentries at the town-gates – not even the guards in the next quarry. Devil’s mass! What can be easier than to strike off each other’s fetters with the pickaxe when the superintendent is not looking, and the salutes are firing? Will you venture t”

“With my life!’”

“A bargain. Shake hands on it.”

I had never touched his hand in fellowship before, and I felt as if my own were bloodstained by the contact. I knew by the sullen fire in his glance, that he interpreted my faltering touch aright.

We were roused an hour earlier than usual the following morning, and went through a general inspection in the prison-yard. Before going to work, we were served with a double allowance of wine. At one o’clock, we heard the first far-off salutes from the ships of war in the harbour. The sound ran through me like a galvanic shock. One by one, the forts took up the signal. It was repeated by the gun-boats closer to shore. Discharge followed discharge, all along the batteries on both sides of the port, and the air grew thick with smoke.

“As the first shot is fired yonder,” whispered Gasparo, pointing to the barracks behind the prison, “strike at the first link of my chain, close to the ankle.”

A rapid suspicion flashed across me.

“If I do, how can I be sure that you will free me afterwards? No, Gasparo; you must deal the first blow.”

“As you please,” he replied, with a laugh and an imprecation.

At the same instant, came a flash from the battlements of the barrack close by, and then a thunderous reverberation, multiplied again and again by the rocks around. As the roar burst over our heads, I saw him strike, and felt the fetters fall. Scarcely had the echo of the first gun died away, when the second was fired. It was now Gasparo’s turn to be free. I struck; but less skilfully, and had twice to repeat the blow before breaking the stubborn link. We then went on, apparently, with our work, standing somewhat close together, with the chain huddled up between us. No one had observed us, and no one, at first sight, could have detected what we had done. At the third shot, a party of officers and gentlemen made their appearance at the bend of the road leading up to the quarry. In an instant, every head was turned in their direction; every felon paused in his work; every guard presented arms. At that moment we flung away our caps and pickaxes, scaled the rugged bit of cliff on which we had been toiling, dropped into the ravine below, and made for the mountain passes that lead into the valley. Encumbered still with the iron anklets to which our chains had been fastened, we could not run very swiftly. To add to our difficulties, the road was uneven, strewn with flints and blocks of fallen granite, and tortuous as the windings of a snake. Suddenly, on turning a sharp angle of projecting cliff, we came upon a little guardhouse and a couple of sentries. To retreat was impossible. The soldiers were within a few yards of us. They presented their pieces, and called to us to surrender. Gasparo turned upon me like a wolf at bay.

“Curse you!” said he, dealing me a tremendous blow, “stay and be taken! I have always hated you!”

I fell, as if struck down by a sledge hammer, and, as I fell, saw him dash one soldier to the ground, dart past the other, heard a shot, and then … all became dark, and I know no more.

When I next opened my eyes, I found myself lying on the floor of a small unfurnished room, dimly lighted by a tiny window close against the ceiling. It seemed as if weeks had gone by, since I lost consciousness. I had scarcely strength to rise, and, having risen, kept my feet with difficulty. Where my head had lain, the floor was wet with blood. Giddy and perplexed, I leaned against the wall, and tried to think.

In the first place, where was I? Evidently in no part of the prison from which I had escaped. There, all was solid stone and iron grating; here, was only whitewashed lath and plaster. I must be in a chamber of the little guardhouse: probably in an upper chamber. Where, then, were the soldiers? Where was Gasparo? Had I strength to clamber up to that window, and if so, in what direction did that window look out? I stole to the door, and found it locked. I listened, breathlessly, but could hear no sound either below or above. Creeping back again, I saw that the little window was at least four feet above my head. The smooth plaster offered no projections by which I could raise myself, and there was not even a fireplace in the room from which I could have wrenched a bar to dig out holes in the wall for my feet and hands. Stay! There was my leathern belt, and on the belt, the iron hook which used to sustain my chain when I was not at work. I tore off the hook, picked away the lath and plaster in three or four places, climbed up, opened the window, and gazed out eagerly.

Before me, at a distance of not more than thirty-five or forty feet, rose the rugged cliff under whose shelter the guardhouse was built; at my feet, lay a little kitchen-garden, divided from the base of the rock by a muddy ditch which seemed to run through the ravine; to the right and left, as well as I could judge, lay the rocky path along which our course had been directed. My decision was taken at once. To stay was certain capture; to venture, at all hazards, would make matters no worse. Again I listened, and again all was quiet. I drew myself through the little casement, dropped as gently as I could upon the moist earth, and, crouching against the wall, asked myself what I should do next. To climb the cliff would be to offer myself as a target to the first soldier who saw me. To venture along the ravine would be, perhaps, to encounter Gasparo and his captors face to face. Besides, it was getting dusk, and, under cover of the night, if I could only conceal myself till then, I might yet escape. But where was that concealment to be found? Heaven be thanked for the thought! There was the ditch.

Only two windows looked out upon the garden from the back of the guardhouse. From one of those windows I had just now let myself down, and the other was partly shuttered up. I did not dare, however, openly to cross the garden. I dropped upon my face, and crawled in the furrows between the rows of vegetables, until I came to the ditch. Here, the water rose nearly to my waist, but the banks on either side were considerably higher, and, by stooping, I found that I could walk without bringing my head to the level of the road. I thus followed the course of the ditch for some two or three hundred yards in the direction of Toulon, thinking that my pursuers would be less likely to suspect me of doubling back towards prison, than of pushing forward towards the country. Half lying, half crouching under the rank grasses that fringed the bank above, I then watched the gathering shadows.

By-and-by I heard the evening gun, and a moment after, something like a distant sound of voices. Hark! was that a shout? Unable to endure the agony of suspense, I lifted my head, and peeped cautiously out. There were lights moving in the windows of the guardhouse – there were dark figures in the garden – there were hasty tramplings of feet upon the road above! Presently a light flashed over the water only a few yards from my hiding-place! I slid gently down at full length, and suffered the foul ooze to close noiselessly over me. Lying thus, I held my breath till the very beatings of my heart seemed to suffocate me, and the veins in my temples were almost bursting. I could bear it no longer – I rose to the surface – I breathed again – I looked – I listened. All was darkness and silence. My pursuers were gone by!

I suffered an hour to go by, too, before I ventured to move again. By that time it was intensely dark, and had begun to rain heavily. The water in the ditch became a brawling torrent, through which I waded, unheard, past the very windows of the guardhouse.

After toiling through the water for a mile or more, I ventured out upon the road again: and so, with the rain and wind beating in my face, and the scattered boulders tripping me up continually, I made my way through the whole length of the winding pass, and came out upon the more open country about midnight. With no other guide than the wind, which was blowing from the north-east, and without even a star to help me, I then struck off to the right, following what seemed to be a rough byroad, lying through a valley. By-and-by the rain abated, and I discerned the dark outlines of a chain of hills extending all along to the left of the road. These, I concluded, must be the Maures. All was well, so far. I had taken the right direction, and was on the way to Italy.

Excepting to sit down now and then for a few minutes by the wayside, I never paused in my flight the whole night through. Fatigue and want of food prevented me, it is true, from walking very fast; but the love of liberty was strong within me, and, by keeping steadily on, I succeeded in placing about eighteen miles between myself and Toulon. At five o’clock, just as the day began to dawn, I heard a peal of chimes, and found that I was approaching a large town. In order to avoid this town, I was forced to turn back for some distance, and take to the heights.

The sun had now risen, and I dared go no farther; so, having pulled some turnips in a field as I went along, I took refuge in a little lonely copse in a hollow among the hills, and there lay all day in safety. When night again closed in, I resumed my journey, keeping always among the mountains, and coming now and then on grand glimpses of moonlit bays, and tranquil islands lying off the shore; now and then, on pastoral hamlets nestled up among the palmy heights; or on promontories overgrown with the cactus and the aloe.

I rested all the second day in a ruined shed at the bottom of a deserted sand-pit, and, in the evening, feeling that I could no longer sustain life without some fitting nourishment, made my way down towards a tiny fishing village on the coast below. It was quite dark, by the time I reached the level ground. I walked boldly past the cottages of the fishermen, meeting only an old woman and a little child on the way, and knocked at the curé’s door. He opened it himself. I told my story in half a dozen words. The good man believed and pitied me. He gave me food and wine, an old handkerchief to wrap about my head, an old coat to replace my convict’s jacket, and two or three francs to help me on my way. I parted from him with tears.

I walked all that night again, and all the next, keeping somewhat close upon the coast, and hiding among the cliffs during the daytime. On the fifth morning, having left Antibes behind me during the night’s march, I came to the banks of the Var; crossed the torrent about hall a mile below the wooden bridge; plunged into the pine-woods on the Sardinian side of the frontier; and lay down to rest on Italian ground at last!

How, though comparatively safe, I still pursued my journey by the least frequented ways – how I bought a file at the first hamlet to which I came, and freed myself from the iron anklet – how, having lurked about Nice till my hair and beard had grown, I begged my way on to Genoa – how, at Genoa, I hung about the port, earning a scanty livelihood by any chance work that I could get, and so struggled, somehow, through the inclement winter – how, towards the early spring, I worked my passage on board a small trader from Genoa to Piumicino, touching at all the ports along the coast and how, coming slowly up the Tiber in a barge laden with oil and wine, I landed one evening in March on the Ripetta quay, in Rome; how all these things happened, and what physical hardships I endured in the meanwhile, I have no time here to relate in detail. My object had been to get to Rome, and that object was at last attained. In so large a city, and at so great a distance from the scene of my imprisonment, I was personally safe. I might hope to turn my talents and education to account. I might even find friends among the strangers who would flock thither to the Easter festivals. .Full of hope, therefore, I sought a humble lodging in the neighbourhood of the quay, gave up a day or two to the enjoyment of my liberty and of the sights of Rome, and then set myself to find some regular employment.

Regular employment, or, indeed, employment of any kind, was not, however, so easily to be obtained. It was a season of distress. The previous harvest had been a failure, and the winter unusually severe. There had also been disturbances in Naples, and the travellers this spring were fewer by some thousands than the ordinary average. So dull a carnival had not been known for years. The artists had sold no paintings, and the sculptors no statues. The cameo-cutters and mosaicists were starving. The tradesmen, the hotel-keepers, the professional ciceroni, were all complaining bitterly. Day by day, my hopes faded and my prospects darkened. Day by day, the few scudi I had scraped together on the passage melted away. I had thought to obtain a clerkship, or a secretaryship, or a situation in some public library. Before three weeks were over, I would gladly have swept a studio.

At length there came a day when I saw nothing before me but starvation; when my last bajocco was expended; when my padrone (or landlord) shut the door in my face, and I knew not where to turn for a meal or a shelter. All that afternoon, I wandered hopelessly about the streets. It was Good Friday, of all days in the year. The churches were hung with black; the bells were tolling; the thoroughfares were crowded with people in mourning. I went into the little church of Santa Martina. They were chanting a miserere, probably with no great skill, but with a pathos that seemed to open up all the sources of my despair.

Outcast that I was, I slept that night under a dark arch near the theatre of Marcellus. The morning dawned upon a glorious day, and I crept out, shivering, into the sunshine. Lying crouched against a bit of warm wall, I caught myself wondering more than once how long it would be worth while to endure the agonies of hunger, and whether the brown waters of the Tiber were deep enough to drown a man. It seemed hard to die so young. My future might have been so pleasant, so honourable. The rough life that I had been leading of late, too, had strengthened me in every way, physically and mentally. I had grown taller. My muscles were more developed. I was twice as active, as energetic, as resolute, as I had been a year before. And of what use were these things to me? I must die, and they could only serve to make me die the harder.

I got up and wandered about the streets, as I had wandered the day before. Once I asked for alms, and was repulsed. I followed mechanically in the stream of carriages and foot passengers, and found myself, by-and-by, in the midst of the crowd that ebbs and flows continually about Saint Peter’s during Easter week. Stupefied and weary, I turned aside into the vestibule of the Sagrestia, and cowered down in the shelter of a doorway. Two gentlemen were reading a printed paper wafered against a pillar close by.

“Good Heavens!” said one to the other, “that a man should risk his neck for a few pauls!”

“Ay, and with the knowledge that out of eighty workmen, six or eight are dashed to pieces every time,” added his companion.

“Shocking! Why, that is an average of ten per cent!”

“No less. It is a desperate service.”

“But a fine sight,” said the first speaker, philosophically; and with this they walked away.

I sprang to my feet, and read the placard with avidity. It was headed “Illumination of Saint Peter’s,” and announced that, eighty workmen being required for the lighting of the dome and cupola, and three hundred for the cornices, pillars, colonnade, and so forth, the amministratore was empowered, etc. etc. In conclusion, it stated that every workman employed on the dome and cupola should receive in payment, a dinner and twenty-four pauls, the wages of the rest being less than a third of that sum.

A desperate service, it was true; but I was a desperate man. After all, I could but die, and I might as well die after a good dinner as from starvation. I went at once to the amministratore, was entered in his list, received a couple of pauls as earnest of the contract, and engaged to present myself punctually at eleven o’clock on the following morning. That evening I supped at a street stall, and, for a few bajocchi, obtained leave to sleep on some straw, in a loft over a stable at the back of the Via del Arco.

At eleven o’clock on the morning of Easter Sunday, April the sixteenth, I found myself, accordingly, ill the midst of a crowd of poor fellows, most of whom, I dare say, were as wretched as myself, waiting at the door of the administrator’s office. The piazza in front of the cathedral was like a moving mosaic of life and colour. The sun was shining, the fountains were playing, the flags were flying over Saint Angelo. It was a glorious sight; but I saw it for only a few moments. As the clocks struck the hour, the folding-doors were thrown open, and we passed, in a crowd, into a hall, where two long tables were laid for our accommodation. A couple of sentinels stood at the door; an usher marshalled us, standing, round the tables; and a priest read grace.

As he began to read, a strange sensation came upon me. I felt impelled to look across to the opposite table, and there … yes, by Heaven! there I saw Gasparo.

He was looking full at me, but his eyes dropped on meeting mine. I saw him turn lividly white. The recollection of all he had made me suffer, and of the dastardly blow that he had dealt me on the day of our flight, overpowered for the moment even my surprise at seeing him in this place. Oh that I might live to meet him yet, under the free sky, where no priest was praying, and no guards were by!

The grace over, we sat down, and fell to. Not even anger had power to blunt the edge of my appetite just then. I ate like a famishing wolf, and so did most of the others. We were allowed no wine, and the doors were locked upon us, that we might not procure any elsewhere. It was a wise regulation, considering the task we had to perform; but it made us none the less noisy. Under certain circumstances, danger intoxicates like wine; and on this Easter Sunday, we eighty sanpietrini, any one of whom might have his brains dashed about the leads before supper-time, ate, talked, jested, and laughed, with a wild gaiety that had in it something appalling.

The dinner lasted long, and when no one seemed disposed to eat more, the tables were cleared. Most of the men threw themselves on the floor and benches, and went to sleep; Gasparo among the number. Seeing this, I could refrain no longer. I went over, and stirred him roughly with my foot.

“Gasparo! You know me?”

He looked up, sullenly.

“Devil’s mass! I thought you were at Toulon.”

“It is not your fault that I am not at Toulon! Listen to me. If you and I survive this night, you shall answer to me for your treachery!”

He glared at me from under his deep brows, and, without replying, turned over on his face again, as if to sleep.

“Ecco un maladetto!” (There’s an accursed fellow!), said one of the others, with a significant shrug, as I came away.

“Do you know anything of him?” I asked, eagerly.

“Cospetto! I know nothing of him; but that solitude is said to have made him a Wolf.”

I could learn no more, so I also stretched myself upon the floor, as far as possible from my enemy, and fell profoundly asleep,

At seven, the guards roused those who still slept, and served each man with a small mug of thin wine. We were then formed into a double file, marched round by the back of the cathedral, and conducted up an inclined plane to the roof below the dome. From this point, a long series of staircases and winding passages carried us up between the double walls of the dome; and, at different stages in the ascent, a certain number of us were detached and posted ready for work. I was detached about half way up, and I saw Gasparo going higher still. When we were all posted, the superintendents came round and gave us our instructions. At a given signal, every man was to pass out through the loophole or window before which he was placed, and seat himself astride upon a narrow shelf of wood hanging to a strong rope just below. This rope came through the window, was wound round a roller, and secured from within. At the next signal, a lighted torch would be put into his right hand, and he was to grasp the rope firmly with his left. At the third signal, the rope was to be unwound from within by an assistant placed there for the purpose, he was to be allowed to slide rapidly down, over the curve of the dome, and, while thus sliding, was to apply his torch to every lamp he passed in his downward progress.

Having received these instructions, we waited, each man at his window, until the first signal should be given.

It was fast getting dark, and the silver illumination had been lighted since seven. All the great ribs of the dome, as far as I could see; all the cornices and friezes of the façade below; all the columns and parapets of the great colonnade surrounding the piazza four hundred feet below, were traced out in lines of paper lanterns, the light from which, subdued by the paper, gleamed with a silvery fire which had a magical and wondrous look. Between and among these lanternoni, were placed, at different intervals all over the cathedral on the side facing the piazza, iron cups called padelle, ready filled with tallow and turpentine. To light those on the dome and cupola, was the perilous task of the sanpietrini; when they were all lighted, the golden illumination would be effected.

A few moments of intense suspense elapsed. At every second the evening grew darker, the lanternoni burned brighter, the surging hum of thousands in the piazza and streets below, rose louder to our ears. I felt the quickening breath of the assistant at my shoulder – I could almost hear the beating of my heart. Suddenly, like the passing of an electric current, the first signal flew from lip to lip. I got out, and crossed my legs firmly round the board – with the second signal, I seized the blazing torch – with the third, I felt myself launched, and, lighting every cup as I glided past, saw all the mountainous dome above and below me spring into lines of leaping flame. The clock was now striking eight, and when the last stroke sounded, the whole cathedral was glowing in outlines of fire. A roar, like the roar of a great ocean, rose up from the multitude below, and seemed to shake the very dome against which I was clinging. I could even see the light upon the gazing faces, the crowd upon the bridge of St. Angelo, and the boats swarming along the Tiber.

Having dropped safely to the full length of my rope, and lighted my allotted share of lamps, I was now sitting in secure enjoyment of this amazing scene. All at once, I felt the rope vibrate. I looked up, saw a man clinging by one hand to the iron rod supporting the padelle, and with the other.… Merciful Heaven! It was the Piedmontese firing the rope above me with his torch!

I had no time for thought – I acted upon instinct. It was done in one fearful moment. I clambered up like a cat, dashed my torch full in the solitary felon’s face, and grasped the rope an inch or two above the spot where it was burning! Blinded and baffled, he uttered a terrible cry, and dropped like a stone. Through all the roar of the living ocean below, I could hear the dull crash with which he came down upon the leaded roof resounding through all the years that have gone by since that night, I hear it now!

—  —  —  —

I had scarcely drawn breath, when I found myself being hauled up. The assistance came not a moment too soon, for I was sick and giddy with horror, and fainted as soon as I was safe in the corridor. The next day I waited on the amministratore, and told him all that had happened. My statement was corroborated by the vacant rope from which Gasparo had descended, and the burnt fragment by which I had been drawn up. The amministratore repeated my story to a prelate high in office; and while none, even of the sanpietrini, suspected that my enemy had come by his death in any unusual manner, the truth was whispered from palace to palace until it reached the Vatican. I received much sympathy, and such pecuniary assistance as enabled me to confront the future without fear. Since that time my fortunes have been various, and I have lived in many countries.

•   •   •   •   •   •

IV

PICKING UP
WAIFS AT SEA

OR, THE FATAL CRADLE

Some little time elapsed, after the French gentleman’s narrative was over, before any more visitors made their appearance. At last, there sauntered in slowly a light-haired melancholy man; very tall, very stout; miserably dressed in cast-off garments; carrying a carpenter’s basket, and looking as if he never expected any such windfall of luck as a chance of using the tools inside it. Surveying Mr. Traveller with watery light-blue eyes, this dismal individual explained (in better language than might have been expected from his personal appearance) that he was in search of work; and that, finding none, he had come in to stare at Mr. Mopes for want of anything better to do. His name was Heavysides; his present address was the Peal of Bells down in the village; if Mr. Traveller had the means of putting a job in his hands, he would be thankful for the same; if not, he would ask leave to sit down and rest himself agreeably by looking at Mr. Mopes.

Leave being granted, he sat down, and stared to his heart’s content. He was not astonished, as the artist had been; he was not complacently impenetrable to surprise, like the Frenchman he was simply curious to know why the Hermit had shut himself up. “When he first skewered that blanket round him, what had he got to complain of?” asked Heavysides. “Whatever his grievance is, I could match it, I think.”

“Could you?” said Mr. Traveller. “By all means let us hear it.”

There has never yet been discovered a man with a grievance, who objected to mention it. The carpenter was no exception to this general human rule. He entered on his grievance, without a moment’s hesitation, in these words:

•   •   •

I shall consider it in the light of a personal favour, at starting, if you will compose your spirits to hear a pathetic story, and if you will kindly picture me in your own mind as a baby five minutes old.

My story begins thirty-one years ago, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and starts with the great mistake of my first appearance in this world, at sea, on board the merchant ship Adventure, Captain Gillop, five hundred tons burden, coppered, and carrying an experienced surgeon.

In presenting myself to you (which I am now about to do) at that eventful period of my life when I was from five to ten minutes old, and in withdrawing myself again from your notice (so as not to trouble you with more than a short story) before the time when I cut my first tooth, I need not hesitate to admit that I speak on hearsay knowledge only. It is knowledge, however, that may be relied on, for all that. My information comes from Captain Gillop, commander of the Adventure (who sent it to me in the form of a letter); from Mr. Jolly, experienced surgeon of the Adventure (who wrote it for me – most unfeelingly, as I think – in the shape of a humorous narrative); and from Mrs. Drabble, stewardess of the Adventure (who told it me by word of mouth). Those three persons were, in various degrees, spectators – I may say astonished spectators – of the events which I have now to relate.

The Adventure, at the time I speak of, was bound out from London to Australia. I suppose you know without my telling you that thirty years ago was long before the time of the gold-finding and the famous clipper ships. Building in the new colony and sheep-farming far up inland were the two main employments of those days, and the passengers on board our vessel were consequently builders or sheep-farmers, almost to a man.

A ship of five hundred tons, well loaded with cargo, doesn’t offer first-rate accommodation to a large number of passengers. Not that the gentlefolk in the cabin had any great reason to complain. There the passage-money, which was a good round sum, kept them what you call select. One or two berths in this part of the ship were even empty and going a-begging, in consequence of there being only four cabin passengers. These are their names and descriptions:

Mr. Sims, a middle-aged man, going out on a building speculation; Mr. Purling, a weakly young gentleman, sent on a long sea-voyage, for the benefit of his health; and Mr. and Mrs. Smallchild, a young married couple, with a little independence, which Mr. Smallchild proposed to make a large one by sheep-farming.

This gentleman was reported to the captain as being very good company when on shore. But the sea altered him to a certain extent. When Mr. Smallchild was not sick, he was eating and drinking; and when he was not eating and drinking, he was fast asleep. He was perfectly patient and good-humoured, and wonderfully nimble at running into his cabin when the qualms took him on a sudden; but, as for his being good company, nobody heard him say ten words together all through the voyage. And no wonder. A man can’t talk in the qualms; a man can’t talk while he is eating and drinking; and a man can’t talk when he is asleep. And that was Mr. Smallchild’s life. As for Mrs. Smallchild, she kept her cabin from first to last. But you will hear more of her presently.

These four cabin passengers, as I have already remarked, were well enough off for their accommodation. But the miserable people in the steerage – a poor place at the best of times on board the Adventure – were all huddled together, men and women and children, higgledy-piggledy, like sheep in a pen, except that they hadn’t got the same quantity of fine fresh air to blow over them. They were artisans and farm-labourers, who couldn’t make it out in the Old Country. I have no information either of their exact numbers or of their names. It doesn’t matter; there was only one family among them which need be mentioned particularly – namely, the family of the Heavysides. To wit, Simon Heavysides, intelligent, and well-educated, a carpenter by trade; Susan Heavysides, his wife; and seven little Heavysides, their unfortunate offspring. My father and mother and brothers and sisters, did I understand you to say? Don’t be in a hurry! I recommend you to wait a little before you make quite sure of that circumstance.

Though I myself had not, perhaps, strictly speaking, come on board when the vessel left London, my ill luck, as I firmly believe, had shipped in the Adventure to wait for me – and decided the nature of the voyage accordingly.

Never was such a miserable time known. Stormy weather came down on us from all points of the compass, with intervals of light, baffling winds or dead calms. By the time the Adventure had been three months out, Captain Gillop’s naturally sweet temper began to get soured. I leave you to say whether it was likely to be much improved by a piece of news which reached him from the region of the cabin on the morning of the ninety-first day. It had fallen to a dead calm again; and the ship was rolling about helpless, with her head all round the compass, when Mr. Jolly (from whose facetious narrative I repeat all conversations exactly as they passed) came on deck to the captain, and addressed him in these words:

“I have got some news that will rather surprise you,” said Mr. Jolly, smiling and rubbing his hands. (Although the experienced surgeon has not shown much sympathy for my troubles, I won’t deny that his disposition was as good as his name. To this day no amount of bad weather or hard work can upset Mr. Jolly’s temper.)

“If it’s news of a fair wind coming,” grumbled the captain, “that would surprise me on board this ship, I can promise you!”

“It’s not exactly a wind coming,” said Mr. Jolly. “It’s another cabin passenger.”

The captain looked round at the empty sea, with the land thousands of miles away, and with not a ship in sight – turned sharply on the experienced surgeon – eyed him hard – changed colour suddenly – and asked what he meant.

“I mean there’s a fifth cabin passenger coming on board,” persisted Mr. Jolly, grinning from ear to ear – “introduced by Mrs. Smallchild – likely to join us, I should say, toward evening – size, nothing to speak of – sex, not known at present – manners and customs, probably squally.”

“Do you really mean it?” asked the captain, backing away, and turning paler and paler.

“Yes, I do,” answered Mr. Jolly, nodding hard at him.

“Then I’ll tell you what,” cried Captain Gillop, suddenly flying into a violent passion, “I won’t have it! the infernal weather has worried me out of my life and soul already – and I won’t have it! Put it off, Jolly – tell her there isn’t room enough for that sort of thing on board my vessel. What does she mean by taking us all in in this way? Shameful! Shameful!”

“No! no!” remonstrated Mr. Jolly. “Don’t look at it in that light. It’s her first child, poor thing. How should she know? Give her a little more experience, and I dare say—”

“Where’s her husband?” broke in the captain, with a threatening look. “I’ll speak my mind to her husband, at any rate.”

Mr. Jolly consulted his watch before he answered.

“Half-past eleven,” he said. “Let me consider a little. It’s Mr. Smallchild’s regular time just now for squaring accounts with the sea. He’ll have done in a quarter of an hour. In five minutes more he’ll be fast asleep. At one o’clock he’ll eat a hearty lunch, and go to sleep again. At half-past two he’ll square accounts as before – and so on till night. You’ll make nothing out of Mr. Smallchild, captain. Extraordinary man – wastes tissue, and repairs it again perpetually, in the most astonishing manner. If we are another month at sea, I believe we shall bring him into port totally comatose. – Halloo! What do you want?”

The steward’s mate had approached the quarter-deck while the doctor was speaking. Was it a curious coincidence? This man also was grinning from ear to ear, exactly like Mr. Jolly.

“You’re wanted in the steerage, sir,” said the steward’s mate to the doctor. “A woman taken bad, name of Heavysides.”

“Nonsense!” cried Mr. Jolly “Ha, ha, ha! You don’t mean – eh?”

“That’s it, sir, sure enough,” said the steward’s mate, in the most positive manner.

Captain Gillop looked all around him in silent desperation; lost his sea-legs for the first time these twenty years; staggered back till he was brought up all standing by the side of his own vessel; dashed his fist on the bulwark, and found language to express himself in, at the same moment.

“This ship is bewitched,” said the captain, wildly. “Stop!” he called out, recovering himself a little as the doctor bustled away to the steerage. “Stop! If it’s true, Jolly, send her husband here aft to me. Damme, I’ll have it out with one of the husbands!” said the captain, shaking his fist viciously at the empty air.

Ten minutes passed; and then there came staggering toward the captain, tottering this way and that with the rolling of the becalmed vessel, a long, lean, melancholy, light-haired man, with a Roman nose, a watery blue eye, and a complexion profusely spotted with large brown freckles. This was Simon Heavysides, the intelligent carpenter, with the wife and the family of seven small children on board.

“Oh! you’re the man, are you?” said the captain.

The ship lurched heavily; and Simon Heavysides staggered away with a run to the opposite side of the deck, as if he preferred going straight overboard into the sea to answering the captain’s question.

“You’re the man – are you?” repeated the captain, following him, seizing him by the collar, and pinning him up fiercely against the bulwark. “It’s your wife – is it? You infernal rascal! what do you mean by turning my ship into a lying-in hospital? You have committed an act of mutiny; or, if it isn’t mutiny, it’s next door to it. I’ve put a man in irons for less! I’ve more than half a mind to put you in irons! Hold up, you slippery lubber! What do you mean by bringing passengers I don’t bargain for on board my vessel? What have you got to say for yourself, before I clap the irons on you?”

“Nothing, sir,” answered Simon Heavysides, accepting the captain’s strong language without a word of protest. “As for the punishment you mentioned just now, sir,” continued Simon, “I wish to say – having seven children more than I know how to provide for, and an eighth coming to make things worse – I respectfully wish to say, sir, that my mind is in irons already; and I don’t know as it will make much difference if you put my body in irons along with it.”

The captain mechanically let go of the carpenter’s collar; the mild despair of the man melted him in spite of himself.

“Why did you come to sea? Why didn’t you wait ashore till it was all over?” asked the captain, as sternly as he could.

“It’s no use waiting, sir,” remarked Simon. “In our line of life, as soon as it’s over it begins again. There’s no end to it that I can see,” said the miserable carpenter, after a moment’s meek consideration – “except the grave.”

“Who’s talking about the grave?” cried Mr. Jolly, coming up at that moment. “It’s births we’ve got to do with on board this vessel – not burials. Captain Gillop, this woman, Mrs. Heavysides, can’t be left in your crowded steerage in her present condition. She must be moved off into one of the empty berths – and the sooner the better, I can tell you!”

The captain began to look savage again. A steerage passenger in one of his “staterooms” was a nautical anomaly subversive of all discipline. He eyed the carpenter once more, as if he was mentally measuring him for a set of irons.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” Simon remarked, politely – “very sorry that any inadvertence of mine or Mrs. Heavysides—”

“Take your long carcass and your long tongue forward!” thundered the captain. “When talking will mend matters, I’ll send for you again. Give your own orders, Jolly,” he went on, resignedly, as Simon staggered off. “Turn the ship into a nursery as soon as you like!”

Five minutes later – so expeditious was Mr. Jolly – Mrs. Heavysides appeared horizontally on deck, shrouded in blankets and supported by three men. When this interesting procession passed the captain, he shrank aside from it with as vivid an appearance of horror as if a wild bull was being carried by him instead of a British matron.

The sleeping-berths below opened on either side out of the main cabin. On the left-hand side (looking toward the ship’s bowsprit) was Mrs. Smallchild. On the right-hand side, opposite to her, the doctor established Mrs. Heavysides. A partition of canvas was next run up, entirely across the main cabin. The smaller of the two temporary rooms thus made lay nearest the stairs leading on deck, and was left free to the public. The larger was kept sacred to the doctor and his mysteries. When an old clothes-basket, emptied, cleaned, and comfortably lined with blankets (to serve for a makeshift cradle), had been in due course of time carried into the inner cabin, and had been placed midway between the two sleeping-berths, so as to be easily producible when wanted, the outward and visible preparations of Mr. Jolly were complete; the male passengers had all taken refuge on deck; and the doctor and the stewardess were left in undisturbed possession of the lower regions.

While it was still early in the afternoon the weather changed for the better. For once in a way, the wind came from a fair quarter, and the Adventure bowled along pleasantly before it almost on an even keel. Captain Gillop mixed with the little group of male passengers on the quarter-deck, restored to his sweetest temper; and set them his customary example, after dinner, of smoking a cigar.

“If this fine weather lasts, gentlemen,” he said, “we shall make out very well with our meals up here, and we shall have our two small extra cabin passengers christened on dry land in a week’s time, if their mothers approve of it. How do you feel in your mind, sir, about your good lady?”

Mr. Smallchild (to whom the inquiry was addressed) had his points of external personal resemblance to Simon Heavysides. He was neither so tall nor so lean, certainly – but he, too, had a Roman nose, and light hair, and watery blue eyes. With careful reference to his peculiar habits at sea, he had been placed conveniently close to the bulwark, and had been raised on a heap of old sails and cushions, so that he could easily get his head over the ship’s side when occasion required. The food and drink which assisted in “restoring his tissue,” when he was not asleep and not “squaring accounts with the sea,” lay close to his hand. It was then a little after three o’clock; and the snore with which Mr. Smallchild answered the captain’s inquiry showed that he had got round again, with the regularity of clock-work, to the period of the day when he recruited himself with sleep.

“What an insensible blockhead that man is!” said Mr. Sims, the middle-aged passenger, looking across the deck contemptuously at Mr. Smallchild.

“If the sea had the same effect on you that it has on him,” retorted the invalid passenger, Mr. Purling, “you would just be as insensible yourself.”

Mr. Purling (who was a man of sentiment) disagreed with Mr. Sims (who was a man of business) on every conceivable subject, all through the voyage. Before, however, they could continue the dispute about Mr. Smallchild, the doctor surprised them by appearing from the cabin.

“Any news from below, Jolly?” asked the captain, anxiously.

“None whatever,” answered the doctor. “I’ve come to idle the afternoon away up here, along with the rest of you.”

As events turned out, Mr. Jolly idled away an hour and a half exactly. At the end of that time Mrs. Drabble, the stewardess, appeared with a face of mystery, and whispered, nervously, to the doctor,

“Please to step below directly, sir.”

“Which of them is it?” asked Mr. Jolly.

“Both of them,” answered Mrs. Drabble, emphatically.

The doctor looked grave; the stewardess looked frightened. The two immediately disappeared together.

“I suppose, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop, addressing Mr. Purling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, who had just joined the party – “I suppose it’s only fit and proper, in the turn things have taken, to shake up Mr. Smallchild? And I don’t doubt but what we ought to have the other husband handy, as a sort of polite attention under the circumstances. Pass the word forward there, for Simon Heavysides. Mr. Smallchild, sir! rouse up! Here’s your good lady – Hang me, gentlemen, if I know exactly how to put it to him.”

“Yes. Thank you,” said Mr. Smallchild, opening his eyes drowsily. “Biscuit and cold bacon, as usual – when I’m ready. I’m not ready yet. Thank you. Good-afternoon.” Mr. Smallchild closed his eyes again, and became, in the doctor’s phrase, “totally comatose.”

Before Captain Gillop could hit on any new plan for rousing this imperturbable passenger, Simon Heavysides once more approached the quarter-deck.

“I spoke a little sharp to you, just now, my man,” said the captain, “being worried in my mind by what’s going on on board this vessel. But I’ll make it up to you, never fear. Here’s your wife in what they call an interesting situation. It’s only right you should be within easy hail of her. I look upon you, Heavysides, as a steerage passenger in difficulties; and I freely give you leave to stop here along with us till it’s all over.”

“You are very good, sir,” said Simon, “and I am indeed thankful to you and to these gentlemen. But please to remember, I have seven children already in the steerage – and there’s nobody left to mind ’em but me. My wife has got over it uncommonly well, sir, on seven previous occasions – and I don’t doubt but what she’ll conduct herself in a similar manner on the eighth. It will be a satisfaction to her mind, Captain Gillop and gentlemen, if she knows I’m out of the way, and minding the children. For which reason, I respectfully take my leave.” With those words Simon made his bow, and returned to his family.

“Well, gentlemen, these two husbands take it easy enough, at any rate!” said the captain. “One of them is used to it, to be sure; and the other is—”

Here a banging of cabin doors below, and a hurrying of footsteps, startled the speaker and his audience into momentary silence and attention.

“Ease her with the helm, Williamson!” said Captain Gillop, addressing the man who was steering the vessel. “In my opinion, gentlemen, the less the ship pitches the better, in the turn things are taking now.”

The afternoon wore on into evening, and evening into night.

Mr. Smallchild performed the daily ceremonies of his nautical existence as punctually as usual. He was aroused to a sense of Mrs. Smallchild’s situation when he took his biscuit and bacon; lost the sense again when the time came round for “squaring his accounts;” recovered it in the interval which ensued before he went to sleep; lost it again, as a matter of course, when his eyes closed once more – and so on through the evening and early night. Simon Heavysides received messages occasionally (through the captain’s care), telling him to keep his mind easy; returned messages mentioning that his mind was easy, and that the children were pretty quiet, but never approached the deck in his own person. Mr. Jolly now and then showed himself; said “All right – no news;” took a little light refreshment, and disappeared again as cheerful as ever. The fair breeze still held; the captain’s temper remained unruffled; the man at the helm eased the vessel, from time to time, with the most anxious consideration. Ten o’clock came; the moon rose and shone superbly; the nightly grog made its appearance on the quarter-deck; the captain gave the passengers the benefit of his company; and still nothing happened. Twenty minutes more of suspense slowly succeeded each other – and then, at last, Mr. Jolly was seen suddenly to ascend the cabin stairs.

To the amazement of the little group on the quarter-deck, the doctor held Mrs. Drabble, the stewardess, fast by the arm, and, without taking the slightest notice of the captain or the passengers, placed her on the nearest seat he could find. As he did this his face became visible in the moonlight, and displayed to the startled spectators an expression of blank consternation.

“Compose yourself, Mrs. Drabble,” said the doctor, in tones of unmistakable alarm. “Keep quiet, and let the air blow over you. Collect yourself, ma’am – for Heaven’s sake, collect yourself!”

Mrs. Drabble made no answer. She beat her hands vacantly on her knees, and stared straight before her, like a woman panic-stricken.

“What’s wrong?” asked the captain, setting down his glass of grog in dismay. “Anything amiss with those two unfortunate women?”

“Nothing,” said the doctor. “Both doing admirably well.”

“Anything queer with their babies?” continued the captain. “Are there more than you bargained for, Jolly? Twins, for instance?”

“No! no!” replied Mr. Jolly, impatiently. “A baby apiece – both boys – both in first-rate condition. Judge for yourselves,” added the doctor, as the two new cabin passengers tried their lungs below for the first time, and found that they answered their purpose in the most satisfactory manner.

“What the devil’s amiss, then, with you and Mrs. Drabble?” persisted the captain, beginning to lose his temper again.

“Mrs. Drabble and I are two innocent people, and we have got into the most dreadful scrape that ever you heard of!” was Mr. Jolly’s startling answer.

The captain, followed by Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims, approached the doctor with looks of horror. Even the man at the wheel stretched himself over it as far as he could to hear what was coming next. The only uninterested person present was Mr. Smallchild. His time had come round for going to sleep again, and he was snoring peacefully, with his biscuit and bacon close beside him.

“Let’s hear the worst of it at once, Jolly,” said the captain, a little impatiently.

The doctor paid no heed to his request. His whole attention was absorbed by Mrs. Drabble. “Are you better now, ma’am?” he asked, anxiously.

“No better in my mind,” answered Mrs. Drabble, beginning to beat her knees again. “Worse, if anything.”

“Listen to me,” said Mr. Jolly, coaxingly. “I’ll put the whole case over again to you, in a few plain questions. You’ll find it all come back to your memory, if you only follow me attentively, and if you take time to think and collect yourself before you attempt to answer.”

Mrs. Drabble bowed her head in speechless submission – and listened. Everybody else on the quarter-deck listened, except the impenetrable Mr. Smallchild.

“Now, ma’am!” said the doctor. “Our troubles began in Mrs. Heavysides’s cabin, which is situated on the starboard side of the ship?”

“They did, sir,” replied Mrs. Drabble.

“Good! We went backward and forward, an infinite number of times, between Mrs. Heavysides (starboard) and Mrs. Smallchild (larboard) – but we found that Mrs. Heavysides, having got the start, kept it – and when I called out, ‘Mrs. Drabble! here’s a chopping boy for you; come and take him!’ – I called out starboard, didn’t I?”

“Starboard, sir – I’ll take my oath of it,” said Mrs. Drabble.

“Good again! ‘Here’s a chopping boy,’ I said. ‘Take him, ma’am, and make him comfortable in the cradle.’ And you took him, and made him comfortable in the cradle, accordingly? Now where was the cradle?”

“In the main cabin, sir,” replied Mrs. Drabble.

“Just so! In the main cabin, because we hadn’t got room for it in either of the sleeping cabins. You put the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) in the clothes-basket cradle in the main cabin. Good once more. How was the cradle placed?”

“Crosswise to the ship, sir,” said Mrs. Drabble.

“Crosswise to the ship? That is to say, with one side longwise toward the stern of the vessel, and one side longwise toward the bows. Bear that in mind – and now follow me a little further. No! no! don’t say you can’t, and your head’s in a whirl. My next question will steady it. Carry your mind on half an hour, Mrs. Drabble. At the end of half an hour you heard my voice again; and my voice called out, ‘Mrs. Drabble! here’s another chopping boy for you; come and take him!’ – and you came and took him larboard, didn’t you?”

“Larboard, sir, I don’t deny it,” answered Mrs. Drabble.

“Better and better! ‘Here is another chopping boy,’ I said. ‘Take him, ma’am, and make him comfortable in the cradle, along with number one.’ And you took the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild), and made him comfortable in the cradle along with the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides), accordingly! Now what happened after that?”

“Don’t ask me, sir!” exclaimed Mrs.. Drabble, losing her self-control, and wringing her hands desperately.

“Steady, ma’am! I’ll put it to you as plain as print. Steady! and listen to me. Just as you had made the larboard baby comfortable I had occasion to send you into the starboard (or Heavysides) cabin to fetch something which I wanted in the larboard (or Smallchild) cabin; I kept you there a little while along with me; I left you and went into the Heavysides cabin, and called to you to bring me something I wanted out of the Smallchild cabin, but before you got half-way across the main cabin I said, ‘No; stop where you are, and I’ll come to you;’ immediately after which Mrs. Smallchild alarmed you, and you came across to me of your own accord; and thereupon I stopped you in the main cabin, and said, Mrs. Drabble, your mind’s getting confused; sit down and collect your scattered intellects;’ and you sat down and tried to collect them—”

(“And couldn’t, sir,” interposed Mrs. Drabble, parenthetically. “Oh, my head! my head!”)

– “And tried to collect your scattered intellects, and couldn’t?” continued the doctor. “And the consequence was, when I came out from the Smallchild cabin to see how you were getting on, I found you with the clothes-basket cradle hoisted up on the cabin table, staring down at the babies inside, with your mouth dropped open, and both your hands twisted in your hair? And when I said, ‘Anything wrong with either of those two fine boys, Mrs. Drabble?’ you caught me by the coat collar, and whispered in my right ear these words, ‘Lord save us and help us, Mr. Jolly, I’ve confused the two babies in my mind, and I don’t know which is which!’”

“And I don’t know now!” cried Mrs. Drabble, hysterically. “Oh, my head! my head! I don’t know now!”

“Captain Gillop and gentlemen,” said Mr. Jolly, wheeling round and addressing his audience with the composure of sheer despair, “that is the Scrape – and, if you ever heard of a worse one, I’ll trouble you to compose this miserable woman by mentioning it immediately.”

Captain Gillop looked at Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims. Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims looked at Captain Gillop. They were all three thunderstruck – and no wonder.

“Can’t you throw any light on it, Jolly?” inquired the captain, who was the first to recover himself.

“If you knew what I have had to do below you wouldn’t ask me such a question as that,” replied the doctor. “Remember that I have had the lives of two women and two children to answer for – remember that I have been cramped up in two small sleeping-cabins, with hardly room to turn round in, and just light enough from two miserable little lamps to see my hand before me; remember the professional difficulties of the situation, the ship rolling about under me all the while, and the stewardess to compose into the bargain; bear all that in mind, will you, and then tell me how much spare time I had on my hands for comparing two boys together inch by inch – two boys born at night, within half an hour of each other, on board a ship at sea. Ha, ha! I only wonder the mothers and the boys and the doctor are all five of them alive to tell the story!”

“No marks on one or other of them that happened to catch your eye?” asked Mr. Sims.

“They must have been strongish marks to catch my eye in the light I had to work by, and in the professional difficulties I had to grapple with,” said the doctor. “I saw they were both straight, well formed children – and that’s all I saw.”

“Are their infant features sufficiently developed to indicate a family likeness?” inquired Mr. Purling. “Should you say they took after their fathers or their mothers?”

“Both of them have light eyes, and light hair – such as it is,” replied Mr. Jolly, doggedly. “Judge for yourself.”

“Mr. Smallchild has light eyes and light hair,” remarked Mr. Sims.

“And Simon Heavysides has light eyes and light hair,” rejoined Mr. Purling.

“I should recommend waking Mr. Smallchild, and sending for Heavysides, and letting the two fathers toss up for it,” suggested Mr. Sims.

“The parental feeling is not to be trifled with in that heartless manner,” retorted Mr. Purling. “I should recommend trying the Voice of Nature.”

“What may that be, sir?” inquired Captain Gillop, with great curiosity.

“The maternal instinct,” replied Mr. Purling. “The mother’s intuitive knowledge of her own child.”

“Ay, ay!” said the captain. “Well thought of. What do you say, Jolly, to the Voice of Nature?”

The doctor held up his hand impatiently. He was engaged in resuming the effort to rouse Mrs. Drabble’s memory by a system of amateur cross-examination, with the unsatisfactory result of confusing her more helplessly than ever.

Could she put the cradle back, in her own mind, into its original position? No. Could she remember whether she laid the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) on the side of the cradle nearest the stern of the ship, or nearest the bows? No. Could she remember any better about the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild)? No. Why did she move the cradle on to the cabin table, and so bewilder herself additionally, when she was puzzled already? Because it came over her, on a sudden, that she had forgotten, in the dreadful confusion of the time, which was which; and of course she wanted to look closer at them, and see; and she couldn’t see; and to her dying day she should never forgive herself; and let them throw her overboard, for a miserable wretch, if they liked – and so on, till the persevering doctor was wearied out at last, and gave up Mrs. Drabble, and gave up, with her, the whole case.

“I see nothing for it but the Voice of Nature,” said the captain, holding fast to Mr. Purling’s idea. “Try it, Jolly – you can but try it.”

“Something must be done,” said the doctor. “I can’t leave the women alone any longer, and the moment I get below they will both ask for their babies. Wait here till you’re fit to be seen, Mrs. Drabble, and then follow me. Voice of Nature!” added Mr. Jolly, contemptuously, as he descended the cabin stairs. “Oh yes, I’ll try it – much good the Voice of Nature will do us, gentlemen. You shall judge for yourselves.”

Favoured by the night, Mr. Jolly cunningly turned down the dim lamps in the sleeping-cabins to a mere glimmer, on the pretext that the light was bad for his patients’ eyes. He then took up the first of the two unlucky babies that came to hand, marked the clothes in which it was wrapped with a blot of ink, and carried it in to Mrs. Smallchild, choosing her cabin merely because he happened to be nearest to it. The second baby (distinguished by having no mark) was taken by Mrs. Drabble to Mrs. Heavysides. For a certain time the two mothers and the two babies were left together. They were then separated again by medical order; and were afterward re-united, with the difference that the marked baby went on this occasion to Mrs. Heavysides, and the unmarked baby to Mrs. Smallchild – the result, in the obscurity of the sleeping-cabins, proving to be that one baby did just as well as the other, and that the Voice of Nature was (as Mr. Jolly had predicted) totally incompetent to settle the existing difficulty.

“While night serves us, Captain Gillop, we shall do very well,” said the doctor, after he had duly reported the failure of Mr. Purling’s suggested experiment. “But when morning comes, and daylight shows the difference between the children, we must be prepared with a course of some kind. If the two mothers below get the slightest suspicion of the case as it stands, the nervous shock of the discovery may do dreadful mischief. They must be kept deceived, in the interests of their own health. We must choose a baby for each of them when tomorrow comes, and then hold to the choice, till the mothers are well and up again. The question is, who’s to take the responsibility? I don’t usually stick at trifles – but I candidly admit that I’m afraid of it.”

“I decline meddling in the matter, on the ground that I am a perfect stranger,” said Mr. Sims.

“And I object to interfere, from precisely similar motives,” added Mr. Purling, agreeing for the first time with a proposition that emanated from his natural enemy all through the voyage.

“Wait a minute, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop. “I’ve got this difficult matter, as I think, in its right bearings. We must make a clean breast of it to the husbands, and let them take the responsibility.”

“I believe they won’t accept it,” observed Mr. Sims.

“And I believe they will,” asserted Mr. Purling, relapsing into his old habits.

“If they won’t,” said the captain, firmly, “I’m master on board this ship – and, as sure as my name is Thomas Gillop, I’ll take the responsibility!”

This courageous declaration settled all difficulties for the time being and a council was held to decide on future proceedings. It was resolved to remain passive until the next morning, on the last faint chance that a few hours’ sleep might compose Mrs. Drabble’s bewildered memory. The babies were to be moved into the main cabin before the daylight grew bright – or, in other words, before Mrs. Smallchild or Mrs. Heavysides could identify the infant who had passed the night with her. The doctor and the captain were to be assisted by Mr. Purling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, in the capacity of witnesses; and the assembly so constituted was to meet, in consideration of the emergency of the case, at six o’clock in the morning, punctually. At six o’clock, accordingly, with the weather fine, and the wind still fair, the proceedings began. For the last time Mr. Jolly cross-examined Mrs. Drabble, assisted by the captain, and supervised by the witnesses. Nothing whatever was elicited from the unfortunate stewardess. The doctor pronounced her confusion to be chronic, and the captain and the witnesses unanimously agreed with him.

The next experiment tried was the revelation of the true state of the case to the husbands.

Mr. Smallchild happened, on this occasion, to be “squaring his accounts” for the morning; and the first articulate words which escaped him in reply to the disclosure were, “Devilled biscuit and anchovy paste.” Further perseverance merely elicited an impatient request that they would “pitch him overboard at once, and the two babies along with him.” Serious remonstrance was tried next, with no better effect. “Settle it how you like,” said Mr. Smallchild, faintly. “Do you leave it to me, sir, as commander of this vessel?” asked Captain Gillop. (No answer.) “Nod your head, sir, if you can’t speak.” Mr. Smallchild nodded his head roundwise on his pillow – and fell asleep. “Does that count for leave to me to act?” asked Captain Gillop of the witnesses. And the witnesses answered, decidedly, Yes.

The ceremony was then repeated with Simon Heavysides, who responded, as became so intelligent a man, with a proposal of his own for solving the difficulty.

“Captain Gillop and gentlemen,” said the carpenter, with fluent and melancholy politeness, “I should wish to consider Mr. Smallchild before myself in this matter. I am quite willing to part with my baby (whichever he is); and I respectfully propose that Mr. Smallchild should take both the children, and so make quite sure that he has really got possession of his own son.”

The only immediate objection to this ingenious proposition was started by the doctor, who sarcastically inquired of Simon, “what he thought Mrs. Heavysides would say to it?” The carpenter confessed that this consideration had escaped him, and that Mrs. Heavysides was only too likely to be an irremovable obstacle in the way of the proposed arrangement. The witnesses all thought so too; and Heavysides and his idea were dismissed together after Simon had first gratefully expressed his entire readiness to leave it all to the captain.

“Very well, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop. “As commander on board, I reckon next after the husbands in the matter of responsibility. I have considered this difficulty in all its bearings, and I’m prepared to deal with it. The Voice of Nature (which you proposed, Mr. Purling) has been found to fail. The tossing up for it (which you proposed, Mr. Sims) doesn’t square altogether with my notions of what’s right in a very serious business. No, sir! I’ve got my own plan; and I’m now about to try it. Follow me below, gentlemen, to the steward’s pantry.”

The witnesses looked round on one another in the profoundest astonishment – and followed.

“Pickerel,” said the captain, addressing the steward, “bring out the scales.”

The scales were of the ordinary kitchen sort, with a tin tray on one side to hold the commodity to be weighed, and a stout iron slab on the other to support the weights. Pickerel placed these scales upon a neat little pantry table, fitted on the ball-and-socket principle, so as to save the breaking of crockery by swinging with the motion of the ship.

“Put a clean duster in the tray,” said the captain. “Doctor,” he continued, when this had been done, “shut the doors of the sleeping-berths (for fear of the women hearing anything), and oblige me by bringing those two babies in here.”

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Drabble, who had been peeping guiltily into the pantry – “oh, don’t hurt the little dears! If anybody suffers, let it be me!”

“Hold your tongue, if you please, ma’am,” said the captain. “And keep the secret of these proceedings, if you wish to keep your place. If the ladies ask for their children, say they will have them in ten minutes’ time.”

The doctor came in, and set down the clothes-basket cradle on the pantry floor. Captain Gillop immediately put on his spectacles, and closely examined the two unconscious innocents who lay beneath him.

“Six of one and half a dozen of the other,” said the captain. “I don’t see any difference between them. Wait a bit, though! Yes, I do. One’s a bald baby. Very good. We’ll begin with that one. Doctor, strip the bald baby, and put him in the scales.”

The bald baby protested – in his own language – but in vain. In two minutes he was flat on his back in the tin tray, with the clean duster under him to take the chill off.

“Weigh him accurately, Pickerel,” continued the captain. “Weigh him, if necessary, to an eighth of an ounce. Gentlemen! watch this proceeding closely; it’s a very important one.”

While the steward was weighing and the witnesses were watching, Captain Gillop asked his first mate for the logbook of the ship, and for pen and ink.

“How much, Pickerel?” asked the captain, opening the book.

“Seven pounds one ounce and a quarter,” answered the steward.

“Right, gentlemen?” pursued the captain.

“Quite right,” said the witnesses.

“Bald child – distinguished as Number One – weight, seven pounds one ounce and a quarter (avoirdupois),” repeated the captain, writing down the entry in the logbook. “Very good. We’ll put the bald baby back now, doctor, and try the hairy one next.”

The hairy one protested – also in his own language – and also in vain.

“How much, Pickerel?” asked the captain.

“Six pounds fourteen ounces and three-quarters,” replied the steward.

“Right, gentlemen?” inquired the captain.

“Quite right,” answered the witnesses.

“Hairy child – distinguished as Number Two – weight, six pounds fourteen ounces and three-quarters (avoirdupois),” repeated and wrote the captain. “Much obliged to you, Jolly – that will do. When you have got the other baby back in the cradle, tell Mrs. Drabble neither of them must be taken out of it till further orders; and then be so good as to join me and these gentlemen on deck. If anything of a discussion rises up among us, we won’t run the risk of being heard in the sleeping-berths.” With these words Captain Gillop led the way on deck, and the first mate followed with the logbook and the pen and ink.

“Now, gentlemen,” began the captain, when the doctor had joined the assembly, “my first mate will open these proceedings by reading from the log a statement which I have written myself, respecting this business, from beginning to end. If you find it all equally correct with the statement of what the two children weigh, I’ll trouble you to sign it, in your quality of witnesses, on the spot.”

The first mate read the narrative, and the witnesses signed it, as perfectly correct. Captain Gillop then cleared his throat, and addressed his expectant audience in these words:

“You’ll all agree with me, gentlemen, that justice is justice, and that like must to like. Here’s my ship of five hundred tons, fitted with her spars accordingly. Say she’s a schooner of a hundred and fifty tons, the veriest landsman among you, in that case, wouldn’t put such masts as these into her. Say, on the other hand, she’s an Indiaman of a thousand tons, would our spars (excellent good sticks as they are, gentlemen) be suitable for a vessel of that capacity? Certainly not. A schooner’s spars to a schooner, and a ship’s spars to a ship, in fit and fair proportion.”

Here the captain paused, to let the opening of his speech sink well into the minds of the audience. The audience encouraged him with the parliamentary cry of “Hear! hear!” The captain went on:

“In the serious difficulty which now besets us, gentlemen, I take my stand on the principle which I have just stated to you. My decision is as follows Let us give the heaviest of the two babies to the heaviest of the two women; and let the lightest then fall, as a matter of course, to the other. In a week’s time, if this weather holds, we shall all (please God) be in port; and if there’s a better way out of this mess than my way, the parsons and lawyers ashore may find it, and welcome.”

With those words the captain closed his oration; and the assembled council immediately sanctioned the proposal submitted to them with all the unanimity of men who had no idea of their own to set up in opposition.

Mr. Jolly was next requested (as the only available authority) to settle the question of weight between Mrs. Smallchild and Mrs. Heavysides, and decided it, without a moment’s hesitation, in favour of the carpenter’s wife, on the indisputable ground that she was the tallest and stoutest woman of the two. Thereupon the bald baby, “distinguished as Number One,” was taken into Mrs. Heavysides’ cabin; and the hairy baby, “distinguished as Number Two,” was accorded to Mrs. Smallchild; the Voice of Nature, neither in the one case nor in the other, raising the slightest objection to the captain’s principle of distribution. Before seven o’clock Mr. Jolly reported that the mothers and sons, larboard and starboard, were as happy and comfortable as any four people on board ship could possibly wish to be; and the captain thereupon dismissed the council with these parting remarks:

“We’ll get the studding-sails on the ship now, gentlemen, and make the best of our way to port. Breakfast, Pickerel, in half an hour, and plenty of it! I doubt if that unfortunate Mrs. Drabble has heard the last of this business yet. We must all lend a hand, gentlemen, and pull her through if we can. In other respects the job’s over, so far as we are concerned; and the parsons and lawyers must settle it ashore.”

•   •   •

The parsons and the lawyers did nothing of the sort, for the plain reason that nothing was to be done. In ten days the ship was in port, and the news was broken to the two mothers. Each one of the two adored her baby, after ten day’s experience of it – and each one of the two was in Mrs. Drabble’s condition of not knowing which was which.

Every test was tried. First, the test by the doctor, who only repeated what he had told the captain. Secondly, the test by personal resemblance; which failed in consequence of the light hair, blue eyes, and Roman noses shared in common by the fathers, and the light hair, blue eyes, and no noses worth mentioning shared in common by the children. Thirdly, the test of Mrs. Drabble, which began and ended in fierce talking on one side and floods of tears on the other. Fourthly, the test by legal decision, which broke down through the total absence of any instructions for the law to act on. Fifthly, and lastly, the test by appeal to the husbands, which fell to the ground in consequence of the husbands knowing nothing about the matter in hand. The captain’s barbarous test by weight remained the test still – and here am I, a man of the lower order, without a penny to bless myself with, in consequence.

Yes! I was the bald baby of that memorable period. My excess in weight settled my destiny in life. The fathers and mothers on either side kept the babies according to the captain’s principle of distribution, in despair of knowing what else to do. Mr. Smallchild, who was sharp enough when not seasick, made his fortune. Simon Heavysides persisted in increasing his family, and died in the work-house.

Judge for yourself (as Mr. Jolly might say) how the two boys born at sea have fared in later life. I, the bald baby, have seen nothing of the hairy baby for years past. He may be short, like Mr. Smallchild but I happen to know that he is wonderfully like Heavysides, deceased, in the face. I may be tall like the carpenter but I have the Smallchild eyes, hair, and expression, notwithstanding. Make what you can of that! You will find it come in the end to the same thing. Smallchild, junior, prospers in the world, because he weighed six pounds, fourteen ounces, and three-quarters. Heavysides, junior, fails in the world, because he weighed seven pounds, one ounce, and a quarter. There is the end of it, anyhow; and, if Mr. Hermit’s outer crust will only let him, I recommend him to blush for his own grievance, whatever it is. As for Mr. Traveller, if he happens to have any loose silver about him, I’m not above taking it and so I leave you, gentlemen, to settle the argument between you.

•   •   •   •   •   •

V

PICKING UP
A POCKET-BOOK

Several people came in at the gate, not only when the last speaker had withdrawn, but at various times throughout the day, from whom nothing could be extracted by the utmost ingenuity of Mr. Traveller, save what their calling was (when they had any), whence they came, and whither they were going. But, as those who had nothing to tell, clearly could tell nothing in justification of Mr. Mopes the Hermit, Mr. Traveller was almost as well satisfied with them as with any of the rest. Some of the many visitors came of a set purpose, attracted by curiosity; some, by chance, looking in to explore so desolate a place; many had often been there before, and came for drink and halfpence. These regular clients were all of the professed vagrant order; “and, as I observed to you,” Mr. Traveller invariably remarked with coolness when they were gone, “are part of the Nuisance.”

When anyone approached, either purposely or accidentally, to whom the figure in the blanket was new, Mr. Traveller, acting as a self-constituted showman, did the honours of the place: referring to the Hermit as “our friend in there,” and asking the visitor, without further explanation lest, his own impartiality should be called in question – if he could favour our friend in there with any little experience of the living and moving world? It was in answer to this inquiry, that a sunburnt gentleman of middle age, with fine bright eyes, and a remarkable air of determination and self-possession (he had come over from the assize-town, he said, to see the sight in the soot and cinders), spake thus:

•   •   •

Office-hours were over, and we were all taking down our straw-hats from the pegs on which they dangled; ledgers were clasped, papers put away, desks locked, and the work of the day was at an end, when the white-haired cashier came sidling towards me. “Mr. Walford, sir, would you stay a moment? Would you step this way? The firm wish to speak to you.”

Good old Job Wiginton always described his employers, collectively, as “the firm.” They were sacred beings in his eyes, were Spalding and Hausermann, and he had served them for a quarter of a century, with exemplary fidelity and respect. Job Wiginton, like myself, and like the senior partner in that great mercantile house, was an Englishman born and bred. He had kept the books of Spalding and Hausermann for twenty years at Philadelphia, and had cheerfully followed them to California, when they decided on settling in San Francisco City, five years before. The younger clerks, French or American for the most part, were rather disposed to make a butt of the simple honest old cashier; but he and I had been very good friends during the four years of my employment, and I always entertained a sincere respect for the old man’s sterling good qualities. Now, however, for a reason I will presently explain, I was considerably taken aback by the communication which Mr. Wiginton made in his own formal way.

“The firm wish to see me?” I stammered, with a tell-tale colour rising in my face. Old Job nodded assent, coughed, and carefully wiped his gold-rimmed spectacles. I had noticed, in spite of my own confusion, that the cashier was dejected and nervous; his voice was husky, his hand trembled as he rubbed the dim glasses, and there was an unwonted moisture in his round blue eyes. As I followed Job into the inner parlour, where the merchants usually sat during business hours, I marvelled much what this wholly unexpected summons might portend. I had formerly been on terms of great and cordial intimacy with my employers; but for the last three months, my intercourse, with the senior partner in especial, had been strictly confined to business matters and dry routine. It was not that I had done anything to forfeit the good opinion of the firm. My employers had still the same confidence in me, the same regard for me, as heretofore; but there was an end, if not of friendship, at least of cordiality.

This partial estrangement dated from the day when, with Emma Spalding smiling through tears and blushes at my side, I had ventured to tell the rich merchant that I loved his only daughter, and that my love was returned. It is an old, old story. We were two young persons of the same country and creed, alike in tastes and education, and in other respects, wealth excepted, not so ill matched; and we were together on a foreign shore, among strange people. We had been suffered to associate familiarly together, to read poetry, sing duets, and so forth; for Emma had no mother to watch against the approach of poverty-stricken suitors, and Mr. Spalding was a proud man, and not given to suspicion. Hence we glided – as millions of couples have done before, and will again – down the smooth rose-strewn path that leads from friendship to love.

I am sure of one thing: it was not my employer’s wealth, or the idea of Emma’s probable expectations from her father – who had but two children, a son and a daughter, between whom to divide the accumulations of a life spent in honourable toil – which allured me. But the time came when soft words and fond looks had to give place to an avowal of attachment. I spoke out to Emma, without premeditation; and, once across the Rubicon, other considerations, undreamed of as yet, came to beset me, mockingly. What would Mr. Spalding think of me? Surely, he could form but one judgement of the poor clerk, with no property beyond his pitiful savings, who had dared to entangle the affections of his master’s daughter? My course was clear. I must tell him the truth, at whatever cost to myself.

I did so. The disclosure was hurried on by some slight unforeseen circumstance, as my proposal had been, but I was at least candid in my avowals. To do Mr. Spalding justice, he rejected my suit in as gentle and courteous a fashion as the harsh operation would admit of But, cut to the heart, I withdrew from his presence, very very wretched, and had for many days afterwards, serious thoughts of excluding myself from observation, becoming a solitary man, and leading a gloomy and moody life. Better thoughts, however, lying deeper within me, admonished me of the utter worthlessness of a purposeless existence, and of the utter contemptibility of the soul that can sink into it. And thus it fell out that I ceased to visit my employer as a private friend, and yet remained in his employ.

Was I mean-spirited for staying on thus? I cannot pretend to decide so nice a point, but I know that it was a great stimulant to me to have obtained a moral victory over myself, and some relief to the disappointment of my dearest hopes that I was still allowed to breathe the same air as Emma Spalding, to catch a glimpse of her sweet saddened face, were it but on the way to church, though for three weary months we never interchanged a word.

So I was not a little surprised when Job Wiginton summoned me to the presence of “the firm.” My heart beat quickly as the old cashier turned the handle of the door. What could Mr. Spalding want of me? I had kept the promise he had wrung from me; I had abstained from any intrusion, any unlicensed correspondence. Surely, surely he could not send for me merely to say that a rejected suitor was ineligible even as a servant, and that our connection must cease?

In the larger of the two adjacent rooms, a room hung in Spanish fashion with stamped and gilded leather, and heavily furnished with dark mahogany from Honduras, I found the firm. Mr. Spalding, a tall thin grey-headed gentleman, was pacing up and down the apartment in great agitation. Mr. Hausermann, a German, as his name implies, sat before a table covered with papers, ejaculating guttural exclamations of wonder from time to time, and with a look of hopeless perplexity in his fat pink face. The cashier entered along with me, and closed the door.

“Ach, mein Himmel!” muttered the junior partner: a hale, portly man, but of a flabby nature, morally and physically, compared with the energetic chief of the house: “ach! we were petter to have never peen porn, than live to see this!”

Job Wigintongave a groan of sincere sympathy. I quickly perceived that something had gone wrong, and as quickly did I see that this mysterious something had no direct reference to my audacity in winning the heart of Emma Spalding. What was amiss? There is one grisly ghost that always haunts the imagination of the more intelligent subordinates of a commercial firm – Bankruptcy. But the house had been such a prudent house, so steady and well ballasted, had glided so demurely along in safe old-world groove, that it was rather ridiculed in consequence by the mushroom firms that daily arose or collapsed around us. But I had little time to think, for Mr. Spalding stopped in his walk, came abruptly up to me, and took me by both hands. “George Walford,” said the old merchant, with more emotion in his voice and features than he had ever shown before, “I have not been kind to you lately. You were a good friend to me – before – before—” and here he reddened somewhat, and ceased speaking.

I glanced towards Mr. Hausermann, but he looked so fat and helpless as he sat in his armchair, murmuring phrases in his native tongue, that I saw no explanation was to be looked for in that quarter. So I told Mr. Spalding, in as firm a tone as possible, that our mutual esteem had, I hoped, survived our intimacy, and that I still felt myself a faithful friend to him and his, and would gladly prove myself one.

“I thought so – I thought so,” said the merchant, looking pleased for a moment; “you are a good lad, George, and that’s why I come to you for help in my sore need, hard and harsh as you may have thought me the other day when – Never mind!”

“I was first to say it,” exclaimed Mr. Hausermann. “‘Let us call Shorge Walford,’ say I. ‘He has got ver goot prains; ver goot young man.’”

A quarter of a century spent among Anglo-Saxons had never taught Mr. Hausermann the English language in its purity. Indeed, his life, out of office hours, was spent entirely with Teutons like himself, who swarm all over America, and with whom he could enjoy German conversation, Rhine wine, and the black coffee of the fatherland. I should never get to the end of the interview if I described it verbatim, chronicling the broken sentences and vague talk of the junior partner, and the comments of Job Wiginton. The confidential cashier sympathised with the distress of his employers as a faithful dog might have done, and was about as likely to suggest a practical remedy. Mr. Wiginton was worthy of all trust; he was as close as wax and as honest as the day, but he was a mere machine for the casting up of sums, the balancing of books, and locking of safes. Mr. Hausermann was not much cleverer than the cashier; he was an admirable arithmetician, could detect an error of a halfpenny in a problem involving billions, and his penmanship was magnificent. But, with these attainments, he owed his present position in commerce, not to his abilities, but to the florins he had inherited, and to the talent and keenness of his English partner. It was from the chief of the house himself that I heard the following tale:

Mr. Spalding, as I have said, had but two children, Emma, and her brother Adolphus; his wife had died on the voyage from Philadelphia, and his affection centred in his boy and girl. Unluckily, Adolphus did not turn out well, was wild and extravagant, and squandered his liberal allowance among horse jockeys and gamblers. Mr. Spalding, strict with all the world besides, was rather lax and indulgent where his son was concerned. The young man was very good-looking and of pleasing address; he had been the darling of his dead mother; and the father was very patient and forbearing with him, for her sake. The youth went from bad to worse, got deeper into debt and evil company, seldom came home, and seriously impaired his health by a long course of excesses.

All this I knew, for Adolphus was a clerk in the house, nominally at least, though he hardly ever occupied his stool in the office. But what I did not know was, that Adolphus Spalding, in his eagerness to settle a number of so-called debts of honour, had been led to rob his father. He had forged the signatures of Spalding and Hausermann to a cheque for thirty thousand dollars, payable at sight, and purporting to be drawn by the merchants on their bankers in New York. More than this: he had abstracted from his father’s desk a Russia-leather pocketbook, containing bills and securities to a great amount, and this he had placed in the hands of the same vile associate who had undertaken to present the cheque at the counter of the New York bank.

“The scoundrel is gone northward already. He started last Tuesday, by the way of Panama, along with the mail,” said Mr. Spalding. “You know the man, I dare say, for he was very notorious in the town – Joram Heckler.”

“Dr. Joram Heckler!” I exclaimed, as I recalled to mind the dark clever lace of the young man alluded to: a plausible, well-mannered person, who had been sub-editor of a San Francisco newspaper.

“Yes, Doctor, or Colonel, Heckler,” responded Mr. Spalding, with a bitter smile, “for it appears that he has assumed a military title on the journey back to the north. He possessed great influence over the mind of my misguided son; he was the tempter in this accursed robbery; and I doubt not that he intends to appropriate the entire spoil to himself.”

I now asked Mr. Spalding, as delicately as I could, how he had obtained his information.

It appeared that Adolphus, whose feeble frame, exhausted by hard living, was ill fitted to sustain the fierce excitement of the felonious act he had committed, had sickened of a fever, immediately after the departure of his accomplice.

“The wretched boy lies on his bed upstairs, quivering betwixt life and death,” said the father, with a faltering voice, “and in his delirium he has betrayed his guilt. His sister, who has watched at his bedside like an angel as she is, dear girl, she was frightened at his ravings of self-accusation. She called me, and with my own ears I heard the son I was so proud of – my petted boy – tell how he had cheated and plundered me.”

The old merchant staggered to a chair, and I saw the tears trickle between the fingers with which he tried to hide the workings of his wrinkled face.

After a time he grew more calm. Then he developed his plan, in which broke out his habitual decision and force of character. Before all things, the honour of the house must be saved. The value of the money at slake (though a large sum) was trifling, compared to the disgrace, the loss of credit, the blot upon the name of Spalding. Yes, at any cost, the young man’s shameful act must be hidden in darkness. The cheque must not. be presented, the bills must not be negotiated. But how to prevent the tempter from realising the benefits of his ill-gotten booty? He was off – he was speeding towards New York by the quick Panama route; in a few weeks he would be there. No pursuit seemed possible. The delay till the start of the next mail would be fatal. I remembered the Pony Express, the swift overland mail whereby we Calil’ornian residents can most rapidly communicate with the civilised world, and I suggested this resource.

Mr. Spalding shook his head. “No, that would never do; I might send a despatch, no doubt, to stop the payment of the cheque. I might perhaps procure Heckler’s arrest on his arrival in New York, but thence would spring inquiry, doubt, suspicion, and the whole black affair would creep into the journals before a week was out. No. I have but one hope, one chance: I must send a trustworthy person – I am too old to go myself – a trustworthy person to hasten to New York by the perilous route across the Rocky Mountains, and he must arrive before Heckler, and must get the papers from him by violence or stratagem. George Walford, you are the man I have selected.”

“I, sir?”

I was stupefied. Before my fancy rose, like a panorama, the long route, then but lately explored, that traversed the enormous continent from sea to sea: a route teeming with dangers. All I had ever heard or read of prairie travel, of famine, fire, the assaults of wild beasts, and of human foes more pitiless still, crowded on my memory at once. I thought of the vast distance, of the almost herculean fatigues to be undergone, of the icy barrier which the Rocky Mountains stretched across the track, as if to bar the progress of presumptuous man; and though I am no fainter of heart than my neighbours, I dare say my countenance expressed dismay and repugnance. Indeed, I am sure it did, for Mr. Hausermann groaned, and said, “Donner! what shall we to now?”

“Walford,” said Mr. Spalding, “I don’t wish to dissemble with you. I am asking you to incur the certainty of very great fatigue, hardship, and danger. I am asking you to risk life itself to save the honour of the house and that of my own family. I do not make such a request without proposing a proportionate reward. There, hear me out! I don’t offer you money for such a service. Come back successful, and you shall be a partner in the house of Spalding and Hausermann; and if you and Emma are still of the same mind three months hence—”

I trembled with joy as I interrupted my employer. “I’ll go, sir, gladly and most willingly.”

“That’s a prave poy. I knew he would!” ejaculated the German; and the cashier rubbed his hands joyfully.

“When can you be ready to start?” asked Mr. Spalding.

“Directly. In half an hour, if you please.”

“An hour will do,” said Mr. Spalding, with a smile at my eagerness. “Bodesson shall be at the door by that time, with his carriage and his best horses. You must save your strength as much as you can for the prairie. You have a six-shooter, I know. Get ready what requisites for the journey will go into small compass. You shall have an ample supply of money – spend it freely, lavishly, and don’t spare horseflesh or gold upon the way. I would give half my fortune to place you speedily on the pavement of New York. You are an ambassador with full powers, George, and your own wit and courage must carry you through. Now, you had better prepare for the road.”

I lingered.

“Anything more to say?” asked the merchant, good humouredly.

“If I could speak for a moment – just an instant – to Miss Spalding?”

“She is at her brother’s bedside,” replied the old man, hurriedly. “But – yes, you are right. You shall see her before you start.”

I seemed to make but one step to the house where I lodged. I spent ten minutes in hastily arranging my belongings and it is wonderful how much a man can condense into ten minutes when he is under the influence of strong excitement charged my revolver, packed a few things in a small bag, and ran back like a greyhound. Mr. Spalding gave me some fuller instructions, and handed to me a heavy parcel of gold and silver, as well as a bundle of banknotes. I was to keep the bank-paper until I reached the civilised world; in the desert, my only hope would be to bribe in specie the half-tamed wanderers of the west.

Mr. Spalding was still talking when Bodesson, one of the principal liverymen of San Francisco, drove his spanking pair of Spanish horses up to the door. Then the merchant went upstairs, and returned with his daughter. Dear Emma! she was pale, and thinner than of old, but her eyes were bright and loving, and her words, full of hope and constancy, gave me fresh courage, and a resolve to do or die. Our parting was very brief. A few hurried whispers – a hasty renewal of the old vows and troth-plight – and for a moment I caught her in my arms and kissed her cheek, and in the next I was gone. I sat by Bodesson’s side; the whip cracked; off flew the foaming horses along the street; and I looked back and waved a farewell in answer to Mr. Spalding’s waving hand and Emma’s handkerchief. Then we turned the corner, and darted along the road.

Bodesson was well paid, and he kept the mettled horses at their work over many a mile of ground. I seemed to start cheerfully, and under good auspices. My heart was full of hope. The gay French Creole by my side was a merry companion; he sang Canadian songs, whistled, chirruped to the bounding bays, and chattered incessantly.

“Monsieur was going to the prairies! Ah, très bien! The prairies were ver intéressantes, ver moch so. But monsieur must take care when he got there – must not stir from the protection of ze dragoons, or les sauvages, ze ferocious Indians, would carry off monsieur’s cheveux – what you call scalp!”

So the Frenchman prattled on. He believed I was going to Salt Lake City on business, and never doubted that I should voyage with a caravan under escort of the States dragoons. What would he have said had he known that I was to traverse that land of danger and hunger alone?

My journey to the eastern border of California was not remarkable enough to justify me in dwelling here on its details. Spending money freely, I was able to proceed almost entirely in wheeled carriages more or less rude, and I contrived to push along over sorry roads at a respectable pace. I slept in the vehicles during the dark hours, snatching a broken slumber as best I could, in the midst of jolting and swaying. Sometimes even a bribe could not induce my Mexican or American drivers to risk the perils of a stony road at night, and then I recruited my strength by rest, but was always ready to start at cock-crow. I knew well what was before me, and that all the fatigue I endured was child’s play to what was in store. I had been on the prairies before those, at least, which lie east of the Rocky Mountains.

Mr. Spalding was well aware that I was a good horseman, expert in the use of firearms, and of a robust constitution. These are not the common attributes of a clerk, but I had not been bred to the desk. My father had been esteemed rich, till at his death, in embarrassed circumstances, I had been left to battle with poverty as I might; I had kept hunters at Oxford, and had been passionately fond of field sports. I had kept up the habit of taking brisk exercise, and now I was about to find the benefit of trained muscles and robust health. I did not disguise from myself that I was embarking on an enterprise full of risks. I might starve in the desert, whitened as it was by the bones of many an emigrant. I might perish miserably in one of those fires that rush like flaming serpents through the boundless sea of grass. And if my scalp did not blacken in the smoke of some Indian wigwam, fever or sheer fatigue might make an end of my life and hopes at once. Or, I might reach New York too late. It was gall and wormwood to me to think that Joram Heckler was pressing on towards the north with all the speed of a fast steamer. The very thought made me bound and stamp my foot on the floor of the rude mail-cart, as if I could quicken my progress by such a gesture. How I prayed that contrary winds might delay the packet on its passage from Aspinwall to the Empire City!

I reached Carson City, on the border of the desert, and there I made a brief halt that I might prepare for the coming effort. I was perfectly well aware that the most dangerous and difficult part of the road was that lying between California and the Mormon settlements. Once beyond the Utah territory, I might well hope to escape the arrows and tomahawk of the savage. I found Carson full of returning emigrants, diggers going back with their pelf to the Atlantic states, Mormon converts, and traders who had emptied their wagons in Californian markets. These good folks were all waiting for the regular escort of national dragoons, under whose guard they were to travel, t was impossible for me to move so slowly, and I accordingly bought a bag of sun-dried beef, another of parched corn, some blankets, and such matters, and a powerful horse handsomely accoutred with a bridle and saddle of Mexican make. I bought the latter from an American dealer, who was mightily tickled at the idea of my making my way alone over the prairies.

“I give you credit for your grit, sartainly, mister,” said he: “it is good, and no mistake; but I guess you’d better sleep upon the idea a few times more. Them Indian scalpers will lift your ha’r, sure as hogs yield bacon. Won’t you believe me? Come along, then, and ax another man’s opinion!” And he dragged me towards a sort of tavern, the porch of which was crowded by men and women, French, Spanish, German, Yankee, and mulatto, all of whom were gathered round a lathy dark-haired young fellow in a trim half-military dress, that would have passed for that of a policeman but for the red flannel shirt and Mexican sombrero he wore. This man had keen mobile features, and was hardened by constant work and weather into little more than muscle and bone; he wore spurred boots and thick “savers,” and was cracking a whip as he gaily chatted with the crowd, who laughed at his wit in a way that proved him a prime favourite. He was, in fact, one of the salaried riders of the “Pony Express,” ready to start with the bag of despatches, the instant the courier from San Francisco should arrive with it.

“Yes, colonel; yes, gals,” I heard him say; “I’m downright sorry to leave, but duty is duty, ain’t it? If the Indians don’t rub me out—”

“Rub you out, Shem? Catch a raccoon asleep!—” cried one of the rider’s admiring friends.

“Waal!” said Shem, with a modest voice, but a boastful twinkle in his restless eye, “the varmints have tried a time or two, but they’ve found Shem Grindrod rather a tough nut to crack, they have. When a chap’s Kentucky bred, real right down hard hickory, ’taint so easy to lift his ha’r as – Service to ye, stranger!”

For his eye had lighted on me.

“Shem,” cried the horse-dealer, “here’s a gentleman wants to cross the parara, all alone, on hossback, Broadway fashion. What do you say to that?”

There was a general laugh. Shem took off his hat with mock respect.

“Whoop!” he cried. “If that ain’t clear grit in the down-easter dandy! You’ll see snakes, mister, I reckon. There’s no accommodation for gen-teel persons, and you’ll jest get your hoss stole, or chawed up by the wolves, and you’ll lose yourself and die for want of a dinner, if you don’t fall in with the Injuns – and if you do, Jehoshaphat!”

All this would have been provoking to some men, but I knew the American character too well to be out of temper. Shem evidently took me for a presumptuous townsman, plunging wantonly into the lion’s mouth, and was good naturedly discouraging my rashness. With some trouble, I drew him apart, and commenced a private conversation. I told him that I was bound for the eastern states, that my business was imperative, but that if he could help me I would pay him most liberally for the aid rendered, for I had formed a crude idea that if I could procure the privilege of using the relays of spare horses kept at the different stations on the route, for the use of the mailbag riders, I might accomplish the most awkward part of the journey with great rapidity. Shem, however, though not ill natured, dashed my hopes to the ground. Such a concession would be “agin all rule.” The servants of the Express Company “daren’t do it.” It was not to be thought of. I must wait for the caravan.

I did not wait for the caravan, but set forth that very day. The people gave me a half ironical cheer as I rode out of the straggling street of Carson, but I saw the Yankee dealer shake his head and screw up the corners of his mouth, as if he considered me little better than a suicide.

There was no use in letting the grass grow under my feet, so I pushed briskly ahead. I was riding a powerful horse, one of those bred in Kentucky or Tennessee, and which will sell for a high price on the western border of prairieland. To find the way in broad daylight was easy. There was a broad track made by the passage of countless wagons and beasts of burden. I had a compass, but I really did not need it. I covered many a weary league of ground in the course of that day’s ride, Here and there, among the forked streamlets which were feeders of the Carson, I came to farms where I easily procured corn for my horse and food for myself. I had come to two resolutions: one, to economise my little store of jerked beef as much as possible; the other, to refuse all hospitable proffers of whisky, being convinced that on water only could such trying work as that before me be accomplished. I kept on, with brief pauses, through the day, and held to the track as long as the moonlight served me, urging on my flagging steed to the very limits of his strength. Then, in the dark, I dismounted, took off saddle and bridle, hobbled my horse, and tethered him so that he had ample space to graze. Then, I lay down, wrapped in my blankets, pillowed my head upon my saddle, and fell asleep with my weapons by my side.

I awoke with a start, in the pitch dark night, and could not well remember where I was. My horse was uneasy, and his abrupt motions had disturbed me. I heard a rustling in the long grass, a scratching, a pawing of light feet amongst the herbage, and a whining sound as of hungry dogs whimpering for food. Dogs? There were no dogs there. Wolves! And my horse, on whose security my life might depend, was trembling and bathed in perspiration. I had kindled no fire, apprehensive lest the light should attract some band of prowling savages; and now the coyotes were gathering around us like flies about honey. For myself, I felt no fear: the wolf of America is very different from the “grey beast” of German forests or Pyrenean snows. But my poor nag was in danger, and his very tremors were adding perilously to the exhaustion of the long and hurried ride.

I rose, and began groping about for brushwood. Luckily I was still in a well-watered region, where shrubs and undergrowth abounded, and where the gigantic cottonwood trees reared their majestic forms beside the streamlets. I soon came upon a clump of brush, and cutting with my sharp and heavy knife as much as I could carry in both arms, I returned with it, and cleared a little space of the grass, which was long enough to be dangerous in the event of its catching fire. I then took out my tin box of lucifers, struck alight, and kindled a fire: though not very easily, for the heavy dew stood in great glistening beads on grass and shrub, and the moistened wood emitted many a cloud of pungent and dark smoke, before I could coax the sullen embers to burst forth in the required blaze. All this time, I had to give an occasional halloo, rattling a tin cup against the barrel of my revolver, for the purpose of intimidating the wolves; while it was necessary to pat and soothe by voice and hand the poor horse itself, which was tugging at the tethering-rope in a way that threatened to break it every instant.

At last, to my great joy, the fire leaped up, red and cheery, its bright beams illumined a little radiant patch of prairie, and, hovering in the shadows on the edge of this illuminated spot, I saw the slinking coyotes, the smallest and most timid, but also the most cunning, variety of the wolf of America. Presently I flung a firebrand among the pack, and they vanished into the darkness, but for half an hour I could hear their howls of disappointment, growing fainter and fainter, as the distance increased. My horse was quieter after the disappearance of the wolves, and in about an hour L ventured to return to my blankets and my repose, after piling a fresh heap of brush on the steadily glowing fire.

Not very long afterwards, a feeling of intense cold awoke me by slow degrees. I opened my eyes. The fire was low; its embers glowed crimson, fading gradually into blackness. Overhead was the dim sky, the vast host of stars having the peculiar pale and sickly hue which heralds the dawn. It was very cold. There was a rushing sound in the air, and the grass of the prairie was tossed to and fro in wild confusion; a strong wind was blowing – the norther. This was the first blast of the chilly north wind that annually sets in at the close of the unhealthy season in the south. It had a piercing and glacial effect, coming, as it did, from the Polar ice-fields, and across the Rocky Mountain range; but I gladly hailed it, for I remembered that it would be dead against the mail steamer that was breasting the waters of the Mexican Gulf with Joram Heckler and his plunder on board. I might beat him yet!

But the wind increased in force; it was blowing like a hurricane, and I shivered in spite of my warm poncho and blankets. My horse had lain down, and was trembling with cold. I was obliged to spare him a blanket; he was a “States” horse, swifter, but not so hardy and useful for prairie travel as the mustangs of the plains. The wind did not diminish as the sun rose, red and angry, and a new cause of alarm began to haunt me. I had heard of travellers utterly weatherbound for days among the prairies, on account of the fury of the resistless wind. And time was so valuable to me! I felt sick at heart as the chilly hours of early morning crept on, and almost despaired of success. I was benumbed and stiff; the dew had been turned to icicles by the sudden cold; and now every waving blade of grass seemed crested with a diamond, glittering and flashing in the level sunshine.

By nine o’clock the wind began to abate; it slackened very gradually, and at half-past ten I considered that I might resume my journey. My breakfast was not a luxurious one; a mouthful of beef and parched maize, swallowed in the intervals of saddling my horse and rolling up my blankets. Then, I drew up the iron peg to which the halter was attached, rolled up the halter, lasso fashion, at my saddle bow, and mounted. I was less awkward in the everyday routine of prairie life than might be supposed. Years ago, before I entered Spalding and Hausermann’s employ, I had spent some weeks in a frontier fort, as the guest of the officers of a United States Ranger regiment. I had accompanied my hosts on several hunts and scouting expeditions against hostile Indians, and had found some amusement in picketing my steed, lighting camp fires, and so forth: little dreaming that my whole earthly happiness would ever depend on my proficiency in such arts. As the sun rose in the pale blue sky, nature assumed a more cheerful appearance; the icicles and hoar-frost melted, and the air became merely bracing and agreeable, as the bitter cold passed away. On we went, following the plain trail of the wagon trains, up and down the gently rolling slopes of the undulating prairie.

I noticed with some dismay that my horse was no longer the mettled creature that had pranced so gaily out of Carson the day before. At first he certainly answered my voice and the pressure of my knee, by stepping out gallantly; but after a while he began to flag, bore heavily on the bit, and required a frequent touch of the spur. It was clear I had taxed his powers too severely on the previous day. He was going weakly under me, in a spiritless way that spoke volumes. What was I to do? I had plenty of money, but money cannot prove a talisman in the wilderness. There was not a farm between the place where I stood and the Great Salt Lake itself. My only chance in procuring a remount, lay in meeting someone who would sell me a steed, and this was far from a certainty.

I was chewing the cud of bitter reflections when I heard the light tramp of a galloping horse behind me. Quickly I turned my head, and saw a booted rider dashing gaily along over the swells of the prairie; his trim coat, half opened, showed a red flannel shirt; and his Mexican sombrero was bound with a cord of tarnished gold. He had a revolving carbine pistol at his saddle-bow, and at his side hung from his shoulder-belt his leathern despatch-bag. It was my acquaintance of yesterday – Shem Grindrod.

“Mornin’, stranger!” he called out, cheerily; “I didn’t skear you, yesterday, it seems, by my yarns about Injuns. ’Twas Gospel truth, for all that. Camped out, I reckon? Your hoss does look a little the wuss for wear, mister, though. You’ve pushed him a goodish stretch, you have.”

We rode on for some distance side by side. My poor horse was inspired to do his best by the presence of the other horse, and together we sped over the country: my steed trotting, Shem’s mustang galloping, for Spanish-American horses have but one pace when urged beyond a walk. Shem was much more kind and even polite in his manner than on the previous day. He told me, bluntly, that he respected a fellow that proved himself a man, but that what he hated worse than copperhead snakes was a Broadway dandy giving himself adventurous airs. My horsemanship had won Shem’s esteem, and he sympathised heartily with me when he saw that I was really bent on crossing the desert at any risk.

“Your hoss is a good bit of stuff, mister,” said he, “but I’m afraid he’s pretty nigh used up for one while. [Now you listen to me. The best thing you can do, is to buy a mustang fust chance you get. There’ll be hunters passing south, and p’raps they’ll trade. When you get right out among the plains, you stick to the trail well, and if a grass fire blinds it, you take your compass and bear up for east by north. Keep that pistol of yourn ready, and if you do see Injuns, keep cool. Don’t waste a shot. Every round bit of lead is worth a life on the parara. Good-bye, wish you luck.”

Shem headed his horse for one of the Express stations, a little lonely blockhouse, with a stockaded yard, which was garrisoned by a few of his comrades, and where a relay of fresh horses was kept. I looked wistfully at the blockhouse and the well-stocked corral, and then turned away with my tired steed to resume my weary travel. I knew that early in the afternoon I should reach another station of the same kind, and there I meant to apply for refreshment and shelter, in case my horse should knock up altogether. Before I had gone a mile, I saw my friend Shem, on a fresh steed, scouring the plain. He waved his hand, and gave me a cheer of recognition, and I looked alter him enviously as he flew like an arrow up the slope, and vanished in the distance. By good luck, however, I almost instantly encountered a party of white men, the first travellers I had seen. These turned out to be three trappers returning from Oregon, with a fair stock of peltry loaded on two mules. They were all well mounted on “Indian ponies,” and one of them led by a lariat a powerful and shapely mustang, whose bright eye and wide nostrils matched well with his wiry limbs. He had been captured on the plains, not two months before, one of a wild herd; but he was sufficiently broken in to be useful in prairie fashion. I struck a bargain with the trapper, by which my exhausted but more valuable quadruped was bartered for the half-wild mustang; the trapper also receiving four gold eagles. The arrangement was mutually satisfactory, and as the tall Kentuckian helped me to shift my saddle and bridle to the spotted nag I had just acquired, I saw his eyes twinkle with self-congratulation.

“One word of advice, colonel,” said the trapper, as I placed the gold in his hard brown hand; “keep your eyes skinned as you go along, and don’t let the cussed Redskins double up on you. There’s Indian sign about, there is. I saw the print of a moccasin, down yonder by the spring, where the Indians never come for any good, mister. You mind – Utahs ain’t to be trusted, and Shoshonies are worse. As for Rapshoes, Heaven help you, colonel, if they ketch you alone! There’s Indians about. I smell ’em.”

“I wish you’d got a good rifle on your shoulder, mister,” said another, as I mounted; “six shooters is very handy tools, but nothing sickens the Indians like a good five-foot bit of holler iron, that air true.”

I took leave of these good fellows, who wished me a safe journey in the heartiest way, though evidently disbelieving in the likelihood that a “greenhorn” could carry his property and scalp safe across the desert. The mustang was fresh, and darted along at that untiring though not very speedy gallop which animals of that hardy race can maintain for a very considerable time. We made capital progress: the country grew drier, and the grass shorter, and the swampy bottoms and trickling brooks were fewer. I met with no adventure, except that my new purchase put his foot into an outlying burrow, as we skirted a “village” of prairie dogs, and gave us both a roll on the turf; but we were unhurt, and I had luckily kept my grasp of the bridle, or I should have lost my horse. Once I thought I saw something hovering on the edge of the horizon, but whether savages, buffaloes, or wild horses, I could not determine.

After riding several miles I came to a place where the trail dipped suddenly into a low tract of alluvial earth, intersected by a stream of some magnitude, and shaded by a belt of lofty cottonwood trees. I traced here the fresh footprints of a horse which must just have passed, for the bruised grass had but partially risen around the edges. “Crack, bang!” went the sharp report of firearms ringing from the thicket below, and with the reports mingled the horrid war-whoop of the savage. Grasping my pistol, I dashed in among the trees, and beheld poor Shem Grindrod, bleeding, reeling in his saddle, and beset by a party of six or seven Indians, mounted, and in their hideous panoply of war. Shem had been pierced by three arrows: he was fainting with loss of blood; but he fronted the savages boldly, and one Indian lay at his feet, rolling in the agonies of death. My arrival changed the current of the fight; two rounds from my revolver, the second of which laid low a muscular barbarian, smeared with yellow ochre, who was pressing on Shem with an up-lifted tomahawk, sufficed for their discomfiture. Probably they took me for the advanced guard of a party of whites. At any rate, they fled at speed across the plain.

I was just in time to break Shem’s fall, as the poor fellow dropped from his saddle, feebly murmuring, “Thank ye, mister. You’ve saved my scalp, anyway, if ’twas just too late to save—”

His voice was hushed here, and he fainted in my arms.

There was a metal flask of whisky dangling at the mailbag rider’s saddle-bow, along with his blanket and haversack; I hastily unscrewed the stopper, and contrived to force a few drops into the mouth of the wounded man. Then, I tore my cravat into strips, and with it and my handkerchief tried to bind up the hurts Shem had received, after vainly attempting to withdraw the barbed arrows. Two of the injuries were mere flesh wounds, more painful than dangerous; but the third was of a serious character: the shaft was imbedded in Shem’s side, though the hemorrhage was trifling in appearance when compared with the abundant flow of blood from the other injuries. In about a couple of minutes Shem revived sufficiently to look up. I was touched by the gratitude his eyes expressed. Probably, poor lad, he had received but a scanty share of kindness in his scrambling life.

“Do you suffer much pain from the arrow wounds?” I asked. “Take a drop more of the whisky; it will give you strength, and if I can once help you to proceed as far as the blockhouse—”

“’Tain’t no manner of use, stranger, my duty to ye, all the same,” replied the rider, after swallowing a small quantity of spirits. “I’ve got my finish at last. A chap that’s fit in the border fights ever since he could squint along a gun, don’t need no doctor to tell him when he’s got goss, he don’t.”

I could not disguise from myself that Shem was right. His face showed a ghastly change; it was ashen white, pinched, and thin; while the lips twitched, and the eyes had acquired that peculiar eager glance, and restless craving brightness, which we never notice except in those over whom death hovers. But I tried to cheer the poor fellow; succeeded in staunching the blood that flowed from his arm, trans-pierced by two of the iron-tipped reeds; and begged him to keep up his hope and courage.

“’Tain’t worth wasting words upon, mister,” gasped Shem; “I knowed I’d my call; onst I felt the cold and the rankling pain that follered the smart of that cussed arrow in my ribs. I’m jest bleeding to death, inwardly, I am, and all the surgeon chaps in the States couldn’t help me, no, nor yet the cleverest bonesetter in the pararas. But you cheated the curs out of my scalp, stranger. They had a hanker to get this child’s ha’r, they had, to dance round in their darned village, them Shoshonies. My! How the squaws will jeer and mock ’em when they go back empty-fisted, and leavin’ two of the pack behind ’em, too!” And Shem, with death in his face and at his heart, actually laughed. He had to catch painfully at his breath before he spoke again. “Stranger, it’s an ill wind blows nobody any good. You hark to me. What I couldn’t give you, nouther for dollars nor axin’, you’ll get now. Go on to the station; take this here mailbag along; give it ’em, and tell ’em the rights of what’s chanced. They’ll turn out fast enough, I’ll warrant, and they’ll put me under the turf afore the wolves pick my bones. And another rider must go on with the bag. And tell ’em ’twere my dyin’ wish, they’d give you a fresh hoss at each block, and so let you go with the rider, and push ahead. The Co. won’t be riled at the breach of rules – seein’ you saved the bag, let alone my scalp, and—”

He broke down here. I was quite melted at the unselfish thoughtfulness of this poor dying creature, this untaught, half-wild frontiers-man, who could care for my speedy journey while his own vital breath was trembling on his livid lips. I gave him a third sup of whisky, begging him to let me know if I could communicate his last wishes to any distant friend or relation?

“There’s a gal that lives to Hampton Town,” said Shem, almost in a whisper, “the darter of a dealer that trades in mules, she be; and Ruth and I Oh, ’tis a pity the wedding day were put off, cause the Co. gives pensions to wives, but none to sweethearts, and Ruth’s father met with misfortins in trade, and she’d ha’ been glad of a few dollars a year, poor thing!”

I asked his sweetheart’s name, for, as I assured him, I felt certain that the house of Spalding and Hausermann would befriend her for his sake, if through the service I had rendered Shem I were really enabled to do my errand with a success otherwise unattainable.

“Ruth Moss,” said Shem, in his weak voice; “that’s her surname and given name. She’s a good girl, pretty and good, is Ruth, and only too tender a flower for a rough borderman like me; goes to chapel reg’lar, and writes like a print book.”

He then begged that I would send to Ruth a certain knot of ribbon which he had received from her as a keepsake, or merely snatched in a lover’s whim, I do not know which; at any rate, I found it carefully wrapped in deerskin, in the bosom of his dress, but ah! with a deep dark stain of blood marring the gay blue of the silk. The arrow had passed nearly through that humble love-token. Shem further prayed me, that as I passed by the Round Pond Station, between Port Bridge and Red Creek, I would tell his old father, Amos Grindrod, that he, Shem, had “died like a man.”

“The old man’ll be cut up, I’m afraid,” murmured Shem, whose eyes were getting dim; “but he’ll be glad to know my ha’r warn’t lifted. Tell him I were wiped out by the band of Mad Buffalo, the Shoshonie. ’Twar Mad Buffalo hisself that sent the arrow through me, just as I kivered him with the carbine. The skunk! Many a noggin of drink I’ve given him when he come tradin’ to the fort. But there war a grudge atween him and me, and he’s ped it; but let him mind how he ever comes within range of old Amos Grindrod’s rifle!”

Shem was anxious to know whether the Indian I had shot was quite dead, and what painted device his half-naked body bore. His own glazing eyes could not distinguish; but when I described the yellow ochre barred with white, he said it must be the “Little Owl,” one of Mad Buffalo’s best warriors. The other Indian was of slighter make, and daubed with black and vermilion. Both were stone dead. Shem asked me, half timidly, if I would be so good as repeat “a bit of Scripture.” He had not been much of a chapel-goer, but Ruth had “got religion,” and his mother, too, had been “a Christian woman,” as he quaintly observed. I knelt beside him and held up his head as I uttered aloud the words of a brief and simple prayer, such as little children are taught to lisp with their innocent lips; and once or twice I heard the husky tones of the dying man repeat I he words. But, there was a strong shiver through his frame, and poor Shem Grindrod was dead before the prayer was prayed out.

About an hour later, I rode up to the station, mounted on my own horse, and leading Shem’s by the bridle.

“Halloa! pull up, pull up, or I’ll plug ye, sure as my name’s Bradshaw!” shouted a stern voice through a loophole of the lonely blockhouse. And I saw the long clouded barrel of a frontier rifle pointing in my direction. I halted, of course.

“That’s one of our hosses,” cried a second voice; “the critter’s stole it, I reckon. What is he?”

“I am a friend,” I called out; “a traveller from California. Let me come in, and I will explain all.”

The garrison held a short but animated debate. One man avowed his belief in the truth of my story, another broadly hinted that I might turn out a “renegade” or “white Indian,” that I merely wanted to open the doors of the fortress to my ferocious allies, ambushed somewhere hard by, and that it would be as well to shoot me, as a provisional act of prudence. But the majority carries the day in America; and, luckily for me, the majority decreed my admission. Loud was the surprise, and sincere the sorrow, with which the little garrison received the news of their comrade’s murder. Three of the men caught up such rude tools as they possessed, and, slinging their rifles, prepared to take the “back trail” to the spot where the unfortunate young man’s body lay, and where his remains would be hastily laid in earth, after the custom of the frontiers. Another hurried, with all the instinct of discipline, to saddle a horse for the purpose of carrying forward the mailbag which poor Shem had resigned only with his life; This rider was the most affected of the group, by the melancholy tidings I had brought. He would have preferred to be one of those who were to lay his old associate beneath the prairie turf, but this could not be. He was “next for duty,” he said, simply, with tears standing in his hardy eyes. So, he hurried to equip himself and steed for the perilous road.
I now ventured, rather timidly and awkwardly, to prefer my request for the accommodation of fresh relays of horses along the rest of the route, speaking as modestly as I could of my own preservation of the despatches. The men looked puzzled as they scrutinised me and weighed my demand. One of them, he who had taken me for a renegade white in the Indian interest, gave me a piercing glance, and gruffly said, “How do we know he ain’t been bamfoozling us with a pack of lies? He may have murdered Shem, ye see, jest to get a remount, and—”

“You jest shut up!” thundered, in tones of deep indignation, the rider who was to carry on the mails. “You oughter to be ashamed of that tongue o’ yourn, Jethro Summers. Here’s a gentleman, and what’s more, an honest chap, has fit by poor Shem’s side, has saved his scalp from them Shoshonies, and brought on the bag for us, and you’re to insult him with your mean talk. See! his hoss is fresh, and he’s brought in Shem’s hoss; and you to go telling him he’d murder a white Christian to get a lift. It’s a burnin’ shame, Jeth Summers!”

“’Tis, ’tis!” exclaimed the other two men. “Did ye ever know a darned renegade look a chap in the face, bold and honest, like the colonel, there? He’s a good chap, is mister; and if ever he wants a friend in a rough-and-tumble fight, we’re his men, sure as minks can swim.”

The trio shook hands with me with genuine warmth. Now, when the iron was hot, was the time to strike. I therefore made an energetic appeal to them to supply me with horses, assuring them that my whole prospects and happiness, as well as those of others, depended on my speed. They listened with interest; but when I concluded with the words, “Shem Grindrod wished it; he bade me ask it of you, as he lay dying,” the game was won. To be sure, the one ill-conditioned member of the community grumbled out something about “soft sawder, breach of rules, cunning Yankees, and dismissal.” But the tall rider cut him short, by affirming with an oath, that “if the Co. chose to ride nasty on such a point, after the stranger’s services, why the Co. was a mean scamp, and he wouldn’t serve ’em, for one.” I did not at first exactly comprehend this frequently-recurring phrase of the “Co.,” and was disposed to regard it as the name of some over-looker, or superintendent, but afterwards discovered that this monosyllabic impersonation meant the Express Company.

“Look sharp, mister. You shall have a mount, but there’s time lost a’ready, and we shall have to ride whip and spur. Come and pick a nag out of the corral. There’s a brindled mustang your saddle will fit like his skin. The roan’s best, but his back’s rubbed raw. Ask Jonas to give you some beef and biscuit: we shan’t pass many hot-els, that air positive. Charge that revolver o’ yourn, colonel; I see two bullets a-missing. Have a horn of whisky – old Monongahela? No! Do be spry with the saddle, you Jeth – a man should help in a case like this. Easy, mister, with the bridle – the mustang bites – so! We’ll take care of your nag, and you’ll find him as sleek as a slug, if you come back our way. Good-bye, boys!”

So saying, the impatient rider finished his preparations, sprang to his saddle, waved his repeating carbine over his head, and set off at furious speed. I followed as rapidly as I could, shouting a farewell to those left behind, who were on the point of starting for the place where poor Shem was lying beside the corpses of his copper-hued foes, stiff and stark.

The brindled mustang was fat and lazy, compared with the nimble cream-coloured pony on which my guide was mounted. It took all my exertions to overtake ’Demus Blake, whose name was probably Aristodemus, though thus curtailed by usage. We rode at a tremendous pace.

“Larrup your beast, colonel,” cried the rider, “we’re woeful behind. Don’t be stingy with the spur-iron, for that brindle does allays shirk when he can. Mind – ’ware the sappy ground, where you see them clubby mosses! Jordan! they’d take a hoss up to the girths, and there you’d stop, like a tree’d coon. Push on, sir. Rattle him across them riv’lets: not that a parara hoss can jump like the critters from the U-nited States.”

It struck me that ’Demus Blake was bawling and flogging in this excited way, for no other purpose than to quiet his own nerves, and drown care. I was confirmed in this view by the fact that, after six or seven miles had been swallowed up by the rapid career of our foam-flecked steeds, the rider reined his horse into a steady hand-gallop.

“There, mister,” said he, “we’ll go quiet now. I feels kiender easier under my left ribs. Tell’ee, colonel, little as you think it, to look at such as me, I was as near making the biggest baby of myself – there, I was! Poor boy Shem! I knowed him, sir, oncommon well, and oncommon long. We played about together, when we were as high as a ramrod, in Pequottie village, nigh to Utica, in old Kentuck. And when old Amos and my daddy, Jonathan Blake, calculated to move west, they chose the same location. Sad news for old Amos – a white-haired old chap now, but pretty tough, too. He’s at Brown’s Hole – no, at Round Pond – trading for peltry. I wouldn’t care to have the tellin’ on him.”

The rider was silent for a good while after this. He did not speak again till I paid a merited tribute to Shem’s courage. I had found him, I said, fronting seven Indians like a stag at bay. The frontiers-man’s eye glittered proudly:

“A brave boy, sir. I was with him, first fight that is, Shem’s first, cause I’m two year an older man. ’Twarn’t hereaway. South of Fremont’s Pass it wur, and bloody Blackfoot Indians war the inimy, three to one, on’y they’d no firearms. ’Twarn’t child’s play that day, mister!” The backwoodsman expanded his broad chest, while his nostrils dilated, and his lips tightened, as he recalled the arduous struggle long past.

He was a much stronger man than Shem, of a spirit less gay and lightsome, but not without a certain amount of rude practical poetry in his disposition. He knew Shem’s sweetheart: a very nice-looking girl, of rather a quiet, subdued, and pious nature. “Not too common on the border, nouther, where even gals mostly has a spice of the wildcat, but, mebbe, that pleased Shem.”

Of the distress in store for old Amos Grindrod: a hunter, once renowned for his prowess and skill, whether in warfare or the chase: Blake spoke feelingly and with deep conviction.

“’Twill shorten the old man’s days, sir, but it’s lucky the old woman’s not alive to hear it: she was that tender of Shem, if his finger ached she’d flutter like a robbed hen. Good old soul she was, Mrs. Grind rod, and nursed my old mother when she took the fever in that murderin’ swamp.”

Honest ’Demus had too much innate good-breeding to be inquisitive as to the purport of my unusual journey. In this respect, as in some others, he far surpassed in tact and politeness many an accomplished citizen in varnished boots and satin vest. But he offered me some well-meant advice.

“Take it coolly,” said lie, “and don’t flurry yourself, colonel. You’ve got more colour in your cheeks than need be, and your hand was as hot, when I shook it, as a bit of deer-meat toastin’ over the fire. I don’t know as you ain’t right, shirking the whisky, though ’tis food and comfort to such as me. But a smart touch of fever would tie you by the leg, stranger, so don’t fret overly, and sleep all you can. As for Injuns, they’ll hardly trouble two white men, when there’s nouthin’ to be got but a kipple of nags that can be bought for a cast of the lasso, or lariat. The emigrant trains is different, for the Red devils scent plunder in the wagons, and only the dragoons skear ’em. ’Twar spite med the Mad Buffalo fall on Shem Grindrod. Shem give him a coat o’ tar and turkey feathers one night, at Bridger’s Port, when the Injun got so drunk with whisky some rascal sold him, he lay like a hog on the ground. They never forgive, them Injuns. Shoshonies have no pity, compared to the savages east of the Rocky Mountains. Keep a look out for outlying war parties, mister, when you get to the mountain parks. Crows will take hoss and clothes; Blackfeet allays hanker arter ha’r!”

I took my guide’s well-meant advice, and endeavoured to get through the journey as phlegmatically as might be. I snatched every opportunity of repose, if only for a few minutes, while the reeking saddles were being shifted to the backs of fresh horses; and it is wonderful how much refreshment I at times derived from a nap so brief as not much to exceed the traditional “forty winks.” More than once, my companion said to me, “Colonel, you’re about dropping with sleep. Shut your eyes, if you like, and give me your reins. I’ll guide both hosses, and you can’t hardly roll out of that cradle o’ yourn.” And, indeed, the deep Mexican saddle of demi-pique cut, which I had luckily provided on starting, was admirably adapted, with its lofty pommel and cantel, to the use of a dozing equestrian. Curious spells of slumber those were, when my head would nod like that of a porcelain mandarin, and my eyelids droop as if weighted with lead, and when, after a few minutes, I would start up, broad awake, as my mustang stumbled over broken ground.
Once – it was while ’Demus Blake was still with me – I had a long and most delicious period of slumber, uninterrupted by jerks or concussions; and when I awoke, quite a new man, and revived to an extent at which I now wonder, I found myself supported by the strong patient arm of my conductor, who had been galloping by my side for miles, managing both bridles with his disengaged hand. “I thought it would fresh you up, colonel!” said the brave fellow.

Not all my mentors throughout that phantom ride across prairieland were as frank as Blake, nor as merry as Shem. But the mailbag riders turned out goodfellows in all main points, and lean safely say that. I found but two or three surly or ill-natured persons among all those who garrisoned the blockhouses: while fortunately it fell to my lot on no occasion to be accompanied by one of these. In the prairie, as in the world at large, I found good-feeling the rule, cynicism or malice the exception, though I am bound to say that the ill-conditioned individuals made twice as much noise and stir as their more amiable mates. The first start had been difficult, but at each succeeding station I received my remount without much delay or parley. The “privilege of the post” was conceded to me, while I was always welcome to a share of the rations in each little community.

On the whole, I found the men cheerful in their strange isolation. They were liberally paid and not ill-fed, and they looked forward to a pension in the event of becoming crippled by some Indian hatchet-stroke or arrow-shot. Planted in the wilderness, with the prospect of being presently encompassed by deep drifts of snow, over whose frozen surface the wolves would come to howl and scratch at their doors, like dogs seeking admittance, they were in fair spirits and undismayed. Their habitual talk was of the wild adventures that formed the everyday life of that frontier of Christendom; of Indian stratagems and cruelty, of panthers and “grizzlies,” pronghorns and buffaloes. Several of them had consorted familiarly with the painted tribes of the desert, and spoke sundry Indian dialects as fluently as their mother tongue. I found these hardy men kind hosts enough; they would hush their talk, not to disturb me as I lay down on a heap of skins and blankets, to sleep, while the guide saddled the horses; and they soon ceased to ridicule my apparently capricious refusal of whisky. “Mebbe the colonel’s right!” (Colonel is the Western title of courtesy), they would say in their blunt politeness. Once I found the inmates of a station, built on swampy ground, quite helpless and prostrate with fever. The fever had abated when the healthy norther began to blow, but the poor fellows were cramped with pains, and very feeble, and only one of the party could crawl about to cook and feed the fire.

I had need to fix my mind on the reward of success, on the distant goal glittering far ahead, for it was no light task that I had undertaken. The thought of Emma nerved me, and I felt an Englishman’s dogged resolve to win, to fight on, and to break sooner than bend. But the fatigues of that journey surpassed all my conceptions. By day and night, under a glaring sun or through the frost and cutting northerly winds, on we pressed, fording streams, threading the way through marshes, stumbling among the burrows of prairie dogs, or dashing across boundless plains. I almost learned to hate the long terraces of turf, the illimitable sweeps of dark green surface, the blue horizons, the swells of gently sloping earth, smooth enough for the passage of wheeled carriages. On we went, till the long grass, mixed with flowers and wild tufts of the flax-cotton, gave place to a shorter and crisper herbage, the true “buffalo grass” that the bisons love; or till water became scarce, and the sage plant replaced the blossomed shrubs of the west, and the springs were brackish, and here and there our horses’ hoofs went cranching over a white stretch of desert, strewn with crystals of salt that glittered in the sun. We saw little of Indians, and of game still less. The latter, my guides told me, had been chiefly scared away, by the constant passage of emigrants. As for the savages, we sometimes saw the plumed heads, the tapering lances, and the fluttering robes, of a troop of wild horsemen, against the crimson sky of evening; but they offered us no molestation, and the riders said they were Utahs on the look-out for “buffler droves” returning from the south. Of the fatigue of that interminable ride, the aching joints, the stiffened sinews, the pains that racked my overstrained muscles, I can give no just idea. Still less can I convey any sense of the continual strain upon the intellect and the perceptive faculties, or how my brain grew as weary as my limbs.

I shall never forget the evening of my arrival in Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah territory, and New Jerusalem of the Mormons. I had been encouraged by the guides, to look upon this town in the deserts as a turning-point in the journey, beyond which I should be in less peril from Indians, and after which a comparatively short ride would carry me to more civilised regions. But, to my surprise, I found the inmates of the station at Salt Lake City quite as lonely as, and more suspicious and moody than, in the far-off posts among the prairies. They were Gentiles in the midst of a fanatic population, wholly swayed by the hierarchy of that strange creed whose standard had been set up in the lawless wastes of the west. Nor was it long before I heard the cause of their dark looks and low spirits.

“Where’s Josh Hudson?” asked the rider who had come with me, when the first greetings had been exchanged.

“Who knows?” answered the man addressed; “I don’t. Seth said he went to the town, while I were in the corral with the hosses. If so, all I can say is, he never come back.”

“When was that, Seth?” asked the newly-arrived rider.

“Two days agone,” answered Seth, as he scraped the surface of a half-exhausted quid of tobacco with his long sharp bowie-knife, “jest afore sundown.”

“He’s not desarted. Josh was too honourable to make tracks, that way,” said the rider, confidently.

“Desarted! Not he. But that’s what’ll have to be put in the report – leastways, missin’,” said Seth.

The rider looked Seth in the face, and drew his forefinger, with a meaning look, slowly across his own throat. Seth nodded.

“Least said, safest,” said Seth, looking dubiously at me.

“Colonel’s safe. You may speak afore him, same as myself, boys!” cried the mailbag rider, who had come with me; “do ye mean them bloodthirsty Mormons—?”

“Whist, Jem! Whew! You’ll get all our throats cut,” cried the oldest man, starting up in great alarm; “there may be one of the brutes within earshot.” He looked through the window, and opened the door, to satisfy himself that no eavesdroppers were near.

“I forgot,” apologised Jem; “but about Josh Hudson?”

“I’m afeard,” answered Seth, in a voice dropped almost to a whisper, “that he’s gone for good. Josh was troubled about his sister, Nell Hudson, that jined the Mormons last winter, up in Illinoy, and was coaxed off, and is here, somewhere.”

“Ah,” said the listener, “I heerd as much.”

“It’s my belief,” continued Seth, “that Josh got on this station a purpose to seek the gal out, and get her to go home to the old folks and the Church she were bred in. Mormons won’t stand that.”

“Ah!” said the guide Jem again.

“So, in short, Seth and me some think, we do,” said the oldest of the group, “that Josh has been at his scoutin’ onst too often, and met ‘shanpip.’”

“Shanpip!” I repeated; “what is that?”

The man eyed me curiously. “Never heerd of ‘Shanpip brethren,’ then, harn’t ye, mister? So much the best for you. P’raps you’ve heerd tell of Danites?”

I had heard, vaguely and obscurely, of that spiritual police of Mormondom, of those fierce zealots who obey their Prophet blindly.

“Then you have reason to fear that your comrade is—”

“Is lyin’ under the salt mud of one o’ them briny pools nigh to hand,” interrupted the man, “and not alone, nouther. Theer’s been a many missin’, that never went back to settlements nor on to Californey. And theer they’ll lie hid, I reckon, till the Day of Judgement, when Great Salt Lake shall give up its dead, like the rest of the airth and waters.”

I asked if an appeal could not be made to the Mormon elders themselves?

“’Twouldn’t answer, colonel. Suppose I goes tomorrow to Brigham’s own house, or Kimball’s, or any of their big men – elders, or angels, or high priests, or what not – and asks after Josh Hudson. Brigham’s very mealy-mouthed, afraid the man’s run away; what could be expected from a benighted Gentile, and that; gives his own account of it in preachment next Sabbath. P’raps one of ’em gives me a glass of wine or a julep, and mebbe it disagrees with me, and I die of it. You may stare, but didn’t the States treasurer die that way, arter takin’ refreshment at Angel Badger’s house? And a pretty angel he be. P’raps I don’t drink under a Mormon roof, and then, mebbe, I walk home late, and lose my way, or some other accident happens me – true as death, mister, on’y last week, as I passed Big Lick, I saw a dead woman’s face looking up at me, all white and still, at bottom of the salt pool.”

Thus far the elder man had spoken, but now Seth, who had evinced great uneasiness, jumped up with an oath, and cautiously opened the door. No one was listening.

“Tell’ee what,” said Seth, “we’d best keep this discoorse close, till we’re outside the territory. They’re that sharp, Mormons, blessed if I don’t think they’re all ear. And if they get’s a notion what we’re sayin’, the colonel won’t never see New York, and I shan’t never happen home to Montgomery agin. Indian Walker and his pesky Utalis mostly got a knack of tomahawking them as Mormons don’t much like. And mebbe we’d meet other Indians, with blankets and red paint on their faces, jest like the real Utahs, and pretty sharp knives in their belts.”

“Seth’s right,” said my former guide; “we don’t want to set up any chaps to paint Injun on our account, as Angel Brown and Young Harris and the Danites did, when Martha Styles and Rachel Willis chose to go home to Illinoy so, colonel, you get a snooze, and Seth, you needn’t hurry about saddlin’ – we’ve rode awful quick.”

I was not sorry when day-dawn found me, after a hard gallop by moonlight, approaching the confines of the Mormon territory. The rest of the journey was unmarked by adventure. Hardships there were, but no great perils. We traversed a route on which the bleached bones of many horses and mules lay white and ghastly, and on which many a low turfen mound marked the last resting-place of an emigrant, or his wife or child, never to reach the Promised Land of Hope.

But provisions were more plentiful now, and water more regularly stored and easy of access, than when the expelled Mormons made their famous march across the desert, marking the untrodden route with graves. We narrowly escaped being smothered in the snow, in passing the outlet in the Rocky Mountains, and this was our last semblance of peril.

Previous to this, it had been my sad duty to tell old Amos Grindrod, whom I found at tho Round Pond Station, of his son’s death, and to commit to his care the bit of ensanguined ribbon that was to be returned to poor Shem’s sweetheart. The old man tried to bear the tidings with the stoicism of those Indians among whom he had passed much of his life, and expressed great pleasure at hearing that Shem had “died like a Kentucky man, clear grit,” and that I had come up in time to save is scalp. But in a few minutes, nature conquered. The old man’s bronzed features worked and twitched, and tears trickled from his aged eyes, as he sobbed out, “Shem! dear boy Shem! ’Twas I that oughter be dead, not he.”

At last the weary ride was over: we had passed outlying farms guarded by a strong stockade, then the farms grew thicker and the stockades were dispensed with, and at last the roofs of a village, called by courtesy a town, came in view. Gladly did I dismount, gladly did I shake the hard hand of the last rider of the Express Company! Leaving that honest fellow puzzling over the cabalistic flourishes of a ten-dollar note I presented to him, I hired a pair-horse wagon of light build, and set off at once. The wagon bore me on until I exchanged it for a coach, the coach did me the same good office until I heard the snort of the steam-horse, and took my ticket by railway. How delicious, how snug and luxurious was such a mode of travel, after so much hard saddlework! Corduroy roads seemed smooth, and American railroads not in the least addicted to cause the trains to jerk or rock. The gliding motion was charming, and I made amends for lost time, by sleeping in a manner which provoked more than one fellow-traveller, eager to know my business and station in life.

I had already telegraphed to New York briefly thus:

“Has the Californian mail, via Panama, arrived?”

Briefer still was the answer:

“No.”

That was right, so far. My toil was not yet purposeless. I might hope to be in New York before Dr., or Colonel, Joram Heckler. The victory, to be sure, was not yet won. The valuable papers remained in the scoundrel’s keeping. But my presence in New York would be unsuspected by him, and any overt act on my part would have the effect of a surprise. I was too exhausted, to devote myself to spinning air-drawn schemes for outwitting the intriguer. I should have need of all my faculties when the tug of war began, and I must sleep now. Sleep I did, over miles and miles, over leagues and leagues, of the iron way: resting obstinately, and being as passive as possible.

“Massa get out? Dis New York, sare.”

Someone was shaking me by the arm: someone else held a lantern to my face. A black man and a white. The conductor, and a negro porter.

“I’m going to the Metropolitan Hotel. I want a hack: no luggage. Has the Californian mail arrived?”

“Yes, it has,” said a news-vendor, who stood by, with aheap of journals under his arm; “got all the news here. Herald, Tribune, Times. Which will you have?”

I bought one of the papers, and glanced at the list of arrivals via Panama. So much gold dust, so much bullion, distinguished European traveller, postmaster-general, Signora Cantatini, Colonels Thorn, Heckler, etc. The driver of the hack-carriage was an Irishman, as usual, and, luckily, not a new arrival. He readily conducted me (at that late hour all other stores and shops were closed) to the emporium of a Jew dealer in ready-made clothes, who was willing to turn a cent even at irregular time. I purchased a new suit, linen, a portmanteau, and so forth, and shaved off my stubbly beard with razors supplied by the Jew, and before the Jew’s private looking-glass. My driver drove quite a trim, ordinary-looking gentleman to the Metropolitan Hotel, instead of the shaggy flannel-shirted Californian who had first engaged him.

Before I engaged a room, I civilly asked the bookkeeper to let me look at the addresses of guests: I was expecting my brother, I said, from Albany. I took good care to say nothing of Heckler or California, and the bookkeeper had no suspicion that my voyages had commenced at any more remote spot than Philadelphia or Baltimore. Yes – Heckler’s name was down.

I had guessed he would put up at the Metropolitan, for I had heard him mention the house approvingly in conversation. I hung about the bar and the staircases until I happened to hear that he had gone to bed. Then, I withdrew to think over my own plan of operations. I own I was puzzled. I tossed and tumbled uneasily on my pillow. While hurrying onward it had appeared as if I had but to arrive in time, and the difficulty was at an end; but now, what was I to do? The battle had yet to be fought. What should I do? In the morning, no doubt, Heckler would repair to the bank, to present the forged cheque, if not to get the bills discounted. I must stop him. But how? Should I go to the police, and return with the police myrmidons? Not to be thought of! Scandal, exposure, must follow such a step; nay, in the eyes of the law, Heckler might seem an innocent man, and I a false accuser. I next thought of confronting him boldly, and forcing from him, with a pistol at his head, if need be, the property of the firm. But this was too Quixotic a proceeding to be adopted in a first-rate hotel in New York. I was at my wits’ end.

Heavens! What a smell of burning, and how stifling and thick the air! Smoke! The house is on fire. Up I sprang, and flung on my clothes in hot haste. “It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good.” I thought of Joram Heckler as I rang my bell to alarm the people.

“Fire! fire!” The awful cry broke upon the ears of the sleepers, like the trump of doom. Dark clouds of volleying smoke poured along the corridors, flecked here and there by thin ribbons of flame that licked the walls and floors like the tongues of fiery serpents. Shrieks were heard; doors were burst open; men, women, children, rushed out, half-dressed and screaming. There was panic terror and wild confusion. The fire gained ground, the smoke was blindingly thick, and all fled before it – all but myself. I steadily groped my way towards Joram Heckler’s room. I knew the number, and where to find it. I knew that I risked my life, but the stake was worth winning at such a risk. I was very nearly suffocated as I pushed on, holding by the wall, into the thickest of the smoke. Some man, half-dressed, and winged by fear, came rushing by with extended arms, and nearly overturned me. He uttered a savage oath; the red glare of the fire fell on his face; it was Joram Heckler.

He did not recognise me, but dashed on, only mindful of his danger. Had he the papers with him? I thought not. I hoped not. That was his room then, the door of which was ajar, and into which the smoke was rolling. Not the smoke alone; I saw a thin red tongue of fire creeping in over the floor, beside the wainscot. I dashed in. My eyes smarted with the smoke, and I gasped for breath, but smoke and fire could not turn me now. Heckler’s clothes and dressing-case were as he had laid them; the latter was open: no papers! His valise, too, lay open: no papers! I struck my forehead despairingly. He had them about him then! I was risking life idly. Emma was lost to me! The smoke choked me: the intolerably hot fire had gained the bed: valance and curtains were flaring high in a tall yellow pillar of flame. The subtle tongues of flame almost touched my feet. I must fly, if I would not perish. Outside, I heard the noise of the engines and the cheers of the mob, and then the dash of water, as prodigious efforts were made to extinguish the fire.

I was staggering away, when I saw, peeping from under the bolster of the bed, a Russia-leather pocketbook. The rascal had forgotten it in his blind terror. The blazing curtains fell in fragments upon me, and my hands were a good deal scorched, but I rescued the precious prize. I tore it open. Yes, cheque and bills, all were there! Thrusting it into my breast-pocket, I left the room, and struggled as I best could down the passage. Dash after dash of water, flung from hand-buckets, had partially subdued the flames, and the firemen were gaining the victory. Half smothered, singed, blackened, but with a proudly beating heart, I forced my way down the heated and crowded staircase – reached the outer air, and fainted.

I have little more to tell. I am a partner in the firm: Emma is my wife; her brother recovered from his illness, and is now, in another land, an altered and penitent man. The house of Spalding, Hausermann, and Co. (I am Co.) have granted a pension to the poor girl who was to have been the bride of the luckless Shem Grindrod. Of Heckler we heard no more.

•   •   •   •   •   •

VI

PICKING UP
MISS KIMMEENS

The day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, and, with the brilliant golden light that streamed from the declining sun and touched the very bars of the sooty creature’s den, there passed in a little child; a little girl with beautiful bright hair. She wore a plain straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and tripped towards Mr. Traveller as if she were pleased to see him and were going to repose some childish confidence in him, when she caught sight of the figure behind the bars, and started back in terror.

“Don’t be alarmed, darling!” said Mr. Traveller, taking her by the hand.

“Oh, but I don’t like it!” urged the shrinking child; “it’s dreadful.”

“Well! I don’t like it either,” said Mr. Traveller.

“Who has put it there?” asked the little girl. “Does it bite?”

“No, – only barks. But can’t you make up your mind to see it, my dear?” For she was covering her eyes.

“O no no no!” returned the child. “I cannot bear to look at it!”

Mr. Traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as much as to ask him how he liked that instance of his success, and then took the child out at the still open gate, and stood talking to her for some half an hour in the mellow sunlight. At length he returned, encouraging her as she held his arm with both her hands; and laying his protecting hand upon her head and smoothing her pretty hair, he addressed his friend behind the bars as follows:

•   •   •

Miss Pupford’s establishment for six young ladies of tender years, is an establishment of a compact nature, an establishment in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss Pupford, Miss Pupford’s assistant with the Parisian accent, Miss Pupford’s cook, and Miss Pupford’s housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford calls the educational and domestic staff of her Lilliputian College.

Miss Pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex; it necessarily follows that she possesses a sweet temper, and would own to the possession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite reconcilable with her duty to parents. Deeming it not in the bond, Miss Pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can – which (God bless her!) is not very far.

Miss Pupford’s assistant with the Parisian accent, may be regarded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed with a Parisian, and was never out of England – except once in the pleasure-boat Lively, in the foreign waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate at high water. Even under those geographically favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the French language in its utmost politeness and purity, Miss Pupford’s assistant did not fully profit by the opportunity; for the pleasure-boat, Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that occasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the boat pickling in brine – as if she were being salted down for the use of the Navy – undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, corporeal distress, and clear-starching derangement.

When Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not known to men, or pupils. But, it was long ago. A belief would have established itself among pupils that the two once went to school together, were it not for the difficulty and audacity of imagining Miss Pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and without a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose. Indeed, whenever Miss Pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology of the misguided heathens (always carefully excluding Cupid from recognition), and tells how Minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, from the brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to hint, “So I myself came into the world, completely up in Pinnock, Mangnall, Tables, and the use of the Globes.”

Howbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford’s assistant are old old friends. And it is thought by pupils that, after pupils are gone to bed, they even call one another by their christian names in the quiet little parlour. For, once upon a time on a thunderous afternoon, when Miss Pupford fainted away without notice, Miss Pupford’s assistant (never heard, before or since, to address her otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to her, crying out, “My dearest Euphemia!” And Euphemia is Miss Pupford’s christian name on the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the College-hall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some German text that is waddling downhill after them out of a cottage, are scuttling away to hide their profiles in two immense beanstalks growing out of flowerpots.

Also, there is a notion latent among pupils, that Miss Pupford was once in love, and that the beloved object still moves upon this ball. Also, that he is a public character, and a personage of vast consequence. Also, that Miss Pupford’s assistant knows all about it. For, sometimes of an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been reading the paper through her little gold eyeglass (it is necessary to read it on the spot, as the boy calls for it, with ill-conditioned punctuality, in an hour), she has become agitated, and has said to her assistant “G!” Then Miss Pupford’s assistant has gone to Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford has pointed out, with her eyeglass, G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford’s assistant has read about G, and has shown sympathy. So stimulated has the pupil-mind been in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that once, under temporary circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one fearless pupil did actually obtain possession of the paper, and range all over it in search of G, who had been discovered therein by Miss Pupford not ten minutes before. But no G could be identified, except one capital offender who had been executed in a state of great hardihood, and it was not to be supposed that Miss Pupford could ever have loved him. Besides, he couldn’t be always being executed. Besides, he got into the paper again, alive, within a month.

On the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind that G is a short chubby old gentleman, with little black sealing-wax boots up to his knees, whom a sharply observant pupil, Miss Linx, when she once went to Tunbridge Wells with Miss Pupford for the holidays, reported on her return (privately and confidentially) to have seen come capering up to Miss Pupford on the Promenade, and to have detected in the act of squeezing Miss Pupford’s hand, and to have heard pronounce the words, “Cruel Euphemia, ever thine!” – or something like that. Miss Linx hazarded a guess that he might be House of Commons, or Money Market, or Court Circular, or Fashionable Movements; which would account for his getting into the paper so often. But, it was fatally objected by the pupil-mind, that none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G.

There are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly comprehended by the pupil-mind, when Miss Pupford imparts with mystery to her assistant that there is special excitement in the morning paper. These occasions are, when Miss Pupford finds an old pupil coming out under the head of Births, or Marriages. Affectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss Pupford’s meek little eyes when this is the case; and the pupil-mind, perceiving that its order has distinguished itself – though the fact is never mentioned by Miss Pupford – becomes elevated, and feels that it likewise is reserved for greatness.

Miss Pupford’s assistant with the Parisian accent has a little more bone than Miss Pupford, but is of the same trim orderly diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and imitation of Miss Pupford, has grown like her. Being entirely devoted to Miss Pupford, and having a pretty talent for pencil-drawing, she once made a portrait of that lady: which was so instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was done on stone at five shillings. Surely the softest and milkiest stone that ever was quarried, received that likeness of Miss Pupford! The lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being represented in a state of dejection at an open window, ruminating over a bowl of gold fish, the pupil-mind has settled that the bowl was presented by G, and that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of soul, and that Miss Pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion when he was behind his time.

The approach of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular interest for the pupil-mind, by reason of its knowing that Miss Pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil. As it was impossible to conceal the fact – so extensive were the dressmaking preparations – Miss Pupford openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford went on with her preparations: and meanwhile no pupil ever went upstairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss Pupford’s bedroom (when Miss Pupford wasn’t there), and bringing back some surprising intelligence concerning the bonnet.

The extensive preparations being completed on the day before the holidays, an unanimous entreaty was preferred to Miss Pupford by the pupil-mind – finding expression through Miss Pupford’s assistant – that she would deign to appear in all her splendour. Miss Pupford consenting, presented a lovely spectacle. And although the oldest pupil was barely thirteen, every one of the six became in two minutes perfect in the shape, cut, colour, price, and quality, of every article Miss Pupford wore.

Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular), and so went home. Miss Kitty Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far away. A self-helpful steady little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens: a dimpled child too, and a loving.

So, the great marriage-day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. But not Miss Pupford only went away; for Miss Pupford’s assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit to an aged uncle – though surely the venerable gentleman couldn’t live in the gallery of the church where the marriage was to be, thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens – and yet Miss Pupford’s assistant had let out that she was going there. Where the cook was going, didn’t appear, but she generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that she was bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform some pious office that rendered new ribbons necessary to her best bonnet, and also sandals to her shoes.

“So you see,” said the housemaid, when they were all gone, “there’s nobody left in the house but you and me, Miss Kimmeens.”

“Nobody else,” said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a little sadly. “Nobody!”

“And you wouldn’t like your Bella to go too; would you, Miss Kimmeens?” said the housemaid. (She being Bella.)

“N-no,” answered little Miss Kimmeens.

“Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes it or not; ain’t she, Miss Kimmeens?”

“Don’t you like it?” inquired Kitty.

“Why, you’re such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of your Bella to make objections. Yet my brother-in-law has been took unexpected bad by this morning’s post. And your poor Bella is much attached to him, letting alone her favourite sister, Miss Kimmeens.”

“Is he very ill?” asked little Kitty.

“Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens,” returned the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes. “It was but his inside, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it mounted he wouldn’t answer.” Here the housemaid was so overcome that Kitty administered the only comfort she had ready: which was a kiss.

“If it hadn’t been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens,” said the housemaid, “your Bella would have asked her to stay with you. For Cook is sweet company, Miss Kimmeens, much more so than your own poor Bella.”

“But you are very nice, Bella.”

“Your Bella could wish to be so, Miss Kimmeens,” returned the housemaid, “but she knows full well that it do not lay in her power this day.”

With which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on one side.

“If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook,” she pursued, in a contemplative and abstracted manner, “it might have been so easy done! I could have got to my brother-in-law’s, and had the best part of the day there, and got back, long before our ladies come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them need never have known it. Not that Miss Pupford would at all object, but that it might put her out, being tender-hearted. Hows’ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens,” said the housemaid, rousing herself, “is forced to stay with you, and you’re a precious love, if not a liberty.”

“Bella,” said little Kitty, after a short silence.

“Call your own poor Bella, your Bella, dear,” the housemaid besought her.

“My Bella, then.”

“Bless your considerate heart!” said the housemaid.

“If you would not mind leaving me, I should not mind being left. I am not afraid to stay in the house alone. And you need not be uneasy on my account, for I would be very careful to do no harm.”

“O! As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty,” exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, “your Bella could trust you anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head in this house (me and Cook says), but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would think your Bella unkind.”

“But if you are my Bella, you must go,” returned the child.

“Must I?” said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alacrity. “What must be, must be, Miss Kimmeens. Your own poor Bella acts according, though unwilling. But go or stay, your own poor Bella loves you, Miss Kimmeens.”

It was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes Miss Kimmeens’s own poor Bella – so much improved in point of spirits as to have grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brother-in-law – went her way, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly prepared for some festive occasion. Such are the changes of this fleeting world, and so short-sighted are we poor mortals!

When the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed to Miss Kimmeens to be a very heavy house door, shutting her up in a wilderness of a house. But, Miss Kimmeens being, as before stated, of a self-reliant and methodical character, presently began to parcel out the long summer-day before her.

And first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure that nobody with a greatcoat on and a carving-knife in it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. Not that she had ever before been troubled by the image of anybody armed with a greatcoat and a carving-knife, but that it seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the bang of the great street-door, reverberating through the solitary house. So, little Miss Kimmeens looked under the five empty beds of the five departed pupils, and looked, under her own bed, and looked under Miss Pupford’s bed, and looked under Miss Pupford’s assistants bed. And when she had done this, and was making the tour of the cupboards, the disagreeable thought came into her young head, What a very alarming thing it would be to find somebody with a mask on, like Guy Fawkes, hiding bolt upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive! However, Miss Kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any such uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little manner to needlework, and began stitching away at a great rate.

The silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more so because of the odd inconsistency that the more silent it was, the more noises there were. The noise of her own needle and thread as she stitched, was infinitely louder in her ears than the stitching of all the six pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss Pupford’s assistant, all stitching away at once on a highly emulative afternoon. Then, the schoolroom clock conducted itself in a way in which it had never conducted itself before – fell lame, somehow, and yet persisted in running on as hard and as loud as it could: the consequence of which behaviour was, that it staggered among the minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and knocked them about in all directions without appearing to get on with its regular work. Perhaps this alarmed the stairs; but be that as it might, they began to creak in a most unusual manner, and then the furniture began to crack, and then poor little Miss Kimmeens, not liking the furtive aspect of things in general, began to sing as she stitched. But, it was not her own voice that she heard – it was somebody else making believe to be Kitty, and singing excessively flat, without any heart – so as that would never mend matters, she left off again.

By-and-by the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss Kitty Kimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its box, and gave it up. Then the question arose about reading. But no; the book that was so delightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when they rose from the page, had not more heart in it than her own singing now. The book went to its shelf as the needlework had gone to its box, and, since something must be done – thought the child, “I’ll go put my room to rights.”

She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the little friend’s bedstead? But she did. There was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. A chair with a menacing frown was horribly out of temper in a corner; a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from between the windows. It was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking-glass, for the reflection said, “What? Is that you all alone there? How you stare!” And the background was all a great void stare as well.

The day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her head, until it was time to eat. There were good provisions in the pantry, but their right flavour and relish had evaporated with the five pupils, and Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford’s assistant, and the cook and housemaid. Where was the use of laying the cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and smaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger? The very Grace came out wrong, for who were “we” who were going to receive and be thankful? So, Miss Kimmeens was not thankful, and found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly style – gobbling it up, in short, rather after the manner of the lower animals, not to particularise the pigs.

But, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out in the naturally loving and cheery little creature as the solitary day wore on. She began to brood and be suspicious. She discovered that she was full of wrongs and injuries. All the people she knew, got tainted by her lonely thoughts and turned bad.

It was all very well for Papa, a widower in India, to send her home to be educated, and to pay a handsome round sum every year for her to Miss Pupford, and to write charming letters to his darling little daughter; but what did he care for her being left by herself, when he was (as no doubt he always was) enjoying himself in company from morning till night? Perhaps he only sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way. It looked like it – looked like it today, that is, for she had never dreamed of such a thing before.

And this old pupil who was being married. It was unsupportably conceited and selfish in the old pupil to be married. She was very vain, and very glad to show off; but it was highly probable that she wasn’t pretty; and even if she were pretty (which Miss Kimmeens now totally denied), she had no business to be married; and, even if marriage were conceded, she had no business to ask Miss Pupford to her wedding. As to Miss Pupford, she was too old to go to any wedding. She ought to know that. She had much better attend to her business. She had thought she looked nice in the morning, but she didn’t look nice. She was a stupid old thing. G was another stupid old thing. Miss Pupford’s assistant was another. They were all stupid old things together.

More than that: it began to be obvious that this was a plot. They had said to one another, “Never mind Kitty; you get off, and I’ll get off; and we’ll leave Kitty to look after herself. Who cares for her?” To be sure they were right in that question; for who did care for her, a poor little lonely thing against whom they all planned and plotted? Nobody, nobody! Here Kitty sobbed.

At all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved her five companions in return with a child’s tenderest and most ingenuous attachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly colours, and appeared for the first time under a sullen cloud. There they were, all at their homes that day, being made much of, being taken out, being spoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing for her. It was like their artful selfishness always to tell her when they came back, under pretence of confidence and friendship, all those details about where they had been, and what they had done and seen, and how often they had said, “O! If we had only darling little Kitty here!” Here indeed! I dare say! When they came back after the holidays, they were used to being received by Kitty, and to saying that coming to Kitty was like coming to another home. Very well then, why did they go away? If the meant it, why did they go away? Let them answer that. But they didn’t mean it, and couldn’t answer that, and they didn’t tell the truth, and people who didn’t tell the truth were hateful. When they came back next time, they should be received in a new manner; they should be avoided and shunned.

And there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was used, and how much better she was than the people who were not alone, the wedding breakfast was going on: no question of it! With a nasty great bride-cake, and with those ridiculous orange-flowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, and those heartless bridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the table! They thought they were enjoying themselves, but it would come home to them one day to have thought so. They would all be dead in a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. It was a religious comfort to know that.

It was such a comfort to know it, that little Miss Kitty Kimmeens suddenly sprang from the chair in which she had been musing in a corner, and cried out, “O those envious thoughts are not mine, O this wicked creature isn’t me! Help me, somebody! I go wrong, alone by my weak self! Help me, anybody!”

•   •   •

“—Miss Kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir,” said Mr. Traveller, presenting her at the barred window, and smoothing her shining hair, “but I apprehend there was some tincture of philosophy in her words, and in the prompt action with which she followed them. That action was, to emerge from her unnatural solitude, and look abroad for wholesome sympathy, to bestow and to receive. Her footsteps strayed to this gate, bringing her here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you. The child came out, sir. If you have the wisdom to learn from a child (but I doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition would seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the child, and come out too – from that very demoralising hutch of yours.”

VII

PICKING UP
THE TINKER

It was now sunset. The Hermit had betaken himself to his bed of cinders half an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and skewer with his back to the window, took not the smallest heed of the appeal addressed to him.

All that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a tinkling accompaniment performed by the Tinker, who had got to work upon some villager’s pot or kettle, and was working briskly outside. This music still continuing, seemed to put it into Mr. Traveller’s mind to have another word or two with the Tinker. So, holding Miss Kimmeens (with whom he was now on the most friendly terms) by the hand, he went out at the gate to where the Tinker was seated at his work on the patch of grass on the opposite side of the road, with his wallet of tools open before him, and his little fire smoking.

“I am glad to see you employed,” said Mr. Traveller.

“I am glad to be employed,” returned the Tinker, looking up as he put the finishing touches to his job. “But why are you glad?”

“I thought you were a lazy fellow when I saw you this morning.”

“I was only disgusted,” said the Tinker.

“Do you mean with the fine weather?”

“With the fine weather?” repeated the Tinker, staring.

“You told me you were not particular as to weather, and I thought—”

“Ha, ha! How should such as me get on, if we was particular as to weather? We must take it as it comes, and make the best of it. There’s something good in all weathers. If it don’t happen to be good for my work today, it’s good for some other man’s today, and will come round to me tomorrow. We must all live.”

“Pray shake hands,” said Mr. Traveller.

“Take care, sir,” was the Tinker’s caution, as he reached up his hand in surprise; “the black comes off.”

“I am glad of it,” said Mr. Traveller. “I have been for several hours among other black that does not come off.”

“You are speaking of Tom in there?”

“Yes.”

“Well now,” said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job: which was finished. “Ain’t it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give his mind to it?”

“If he could give his mind to it,” returned the other, smiling, “the probability is that he wouldn’t be a pig.”

“There you clench the nail,” returned the Tinker. “Then what’s to be said for Tom?”

“Truly, very little.”

“Truly nothing you mean, sir,” said the Tinker, as he put away his tools.

“A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning. I infer that he was the cause of your disgust?”

“Why, look’ee here, sir,” said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and wiping his face on the corner of his black apron energetically; “I leave you to judge! – I ask you! – Last night I has a job that needs to be done in the night, and I works all night. Well, there’s nothing in that. But this morning I comes along this road here, looking for a sunny and soft spot to sleep in, and I sees this desolation and ruination. I’ve lived myself in desolation and ruination; I knows many a fellow-creetur that’s forced to live life long in desolation and ruination; and I sits me down and takes pity on it, as I casts my eyes about. Then comes up the long-winded one as I told you of, from that gate, and spins himself out like a silkworm concerning the Donkey (if my Donkey at home will excuse me) as has made it all – made it of his own choice! And tells me, if you please, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and grimy – maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot of thousands and thousands! Why, then I say it’s a unbearable and nonsensical piece of inconsistency, and I’m disgusted. I’m ashamed and disgusted!”

“I wish you would come and look at him,” said Mr. Traveller, clapping the Tinker on the shoulder.

“Not I, sir,” he rejoined. “I ain’t a going to flatter him up by looking at him!”

“But he is asleep.”

“Are you sure he is asleep?” asked the Tinker, with an unwilling air, as he shouldered his wallet.

“Sure.”

“Then I’ll look at him for a quarter of a minute,” said the Tinker, “since you so much wish it; but not a moment longer.”

They all three went back across the road; and, through the barred window, by the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate – which the child held open for its admission – he could be pretty clearly discerned lying on his bed.

“You see him?” asked Mr. Traveller.

“Yes,” returned the Tinker, “and he’s worse than I thought him.”

Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done since morning; and asked the Tinker what he thought of that?

“I think,” returned the Tinker, as he turned from the window, “that you’ve wasted a day on him.”

“I think so too; though not, I hope, upon myself. Do you happen to be going anywhere near the Peal of Bells?”

“That’s my direct way, sir,” said the Tinker.

“I invite you to supper there. And as I learn from this young lady that she goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direction, we will drop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep her company at her garden gate until her own Bella comes home.”

So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very amicably in the sweet-scented evening; and the moral with which the Tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that metal that rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and couldn’t rot too soon, considering how much true metal rotted from over-use and hard service.

•  THE END  •

NO THOROUGHFARE

with Charles Dickens

CONTENTS

The Overture
Act I
The Curtain Rises
Enter the Housekeeper
The Housekeeper Speaks
New Characters on the Scene
Exit Wilding
Act II
Vendale Makes Love
Vendale Makes Mischief
Act III
In the Valley
On the Mountain
Act IV
The Clock-Lock
Obenreizer’s Victory
The Curtain Falls

All The Year Round
Christmas number 1867

THE OVERTURE

Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul’s, ten at night. All the lesser London churches strain their metallic throats. Some, flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral; some, tardily begin three, four, half a dozen, strokes behind it; all are in sufficiently near accord, to leave a resonance in the air, as if the winged father who devours his children, had made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city.

What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear, that lags so far behind tonight as to strike into the vibration alone? This is the clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children. Time was, when the Foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate. Time is, when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as by favour from the mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them and claim to them for evermore.

The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and down near the postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children has need to be well shod tonight.

She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, and often pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards the gate. As above her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in her mind between two vistas of reflection or experience. As her footprints crossing and recrossing one another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have involved itself in an intricate and unravellable tangle.

The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, and a young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young woman.

Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following close behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and touches her. Then the young woman stops and looks round, startled.

“You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head, you would not speak. Why do you follow me like a silent ghost?”

“It was not,” returned the lady, in a low voice, “that I would not speak, but that I could not when I tried.”

“What do you want of me? I have never done you any harm?”

“Never.”

“Do I know you?”

“No.”

“Then what can you want of me?”

“Here are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor little present, and I will tell you.”

Into the young woman’s face, which is honest and comely, comes a flush as she replies: “There is neither grown person nor child in all the large establishment that I belong to, who hasn’t a good word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I be so well thought of, if I was to be bought?”

“I do not mean to buy you; I mean only to reward you very slightly.”

Sally firmly, but not ungently, closes and puts back the offering hand. “If there is anything I can do for you, ma’am, that I will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you think that I will do it for money. What is it you want?”

“You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital; I saw you leave tonight and last night.”

“Yes, I am. I am Sally.”

“There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me believe that very young children would take readily to you.”

“God bless ’em! So they do.”

The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse’s. A face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with sorrow.

“I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your care. I have a prayer to make to you.”

Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside the veil, Sally – whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spontaneity – replaces it, and begins to cry.

“You will listen to my prayer?” the lady urges. “You will not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as I am?”

“O dear, dear, dear!” cries Sally. “What shall I say, or can say! Don’t talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the Good Father of All, and not to nurses and such. And there! I am only to hold my place for half a year longer, till another young woman can be trained up to it. I am going to be married. I shouldn’t have been out last night, and I shouldn’t have been out tonight, but that my Dick (he is the young man I am going to be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to watch him. Don’t take on so, don’t take on so!”

“O good Sally, dear Sally,” moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. “As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for God’s sake hear my distracted petition!”

“Deary, deary, deary Me!” cries Sally, her desperation culminating in the pronoun, “what am I ever to do? And there! See how you turn my own words back upon me. I tell you I am going to be married, on purpose to make it clearer to you that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn’t help you if I would, Poor Thing, and you make it seem to my own self as if I was cruel in going to be married and not helping you. It ain’t kind. Now, is it kind, Poor Thing?”

“Sally! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words.”

“There! This is worse and worse,” cries Sally, “supposing that I understand what two words you mean.”

“You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor baby? I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place. He has been christened in the chapel, and registered by some surname in the book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they called him?”

Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the byway into which they have strayed – an empty street without a thoroughfare giving on the dark gardens of the Hospital – the lady would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally prevents her.

“Don’t! Don’t! You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your two hands in mine. Now, promise. You will never ask me anything more than the two words?”

“Never! Never!”

“You will never put them to a bad use, if I say them?”

“Never! Never!”

“Walter Wilding.”

The lady lays her face upon the nurse’s breast, draws her close in her embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, “Kiss him for me!” and is gone.

•   •   •

Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great clock of Saint Paul’s, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of the Hospital for Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral today. Service in the chapel is over, and the Foundling children are at dinner.

There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it strikes, are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth’s pictures. The girls’ refectory (including that of the younger children) is the principal attraction. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables; the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them; comments in whispers on face such a number from such a window are not unfrequent; many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally points where personal attractions are. The monotony of the long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so slight.

A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company. It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before. She has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy manner. At length she comes to the refectory of the boys. They are so much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at the doorway.

But just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an elderly female attendant: some order of matron or housekeeper. To whom the lady addresses natural questions: As, how many boys? At what age are they usually put out in life? Do they often take a fancy to the sea? So, lower and lower in tone until the lady puts the question: “Which is Walter Wilding?”

Attendant’s head shaken. Against the rules.

“You know which is Walter Wilding?”

So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady’s eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction they should betray her.

“I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma’am, to tell names to visitors.”

“But you can show me without telling me.”

The lady’s hand moves quietly to the attendant’s hand. Pause and silence.

“I am going to pass round the tables,” says the lady’s interlocutor, without seeming to address her. “Follow me with your eyes. The boy that I stop at and speak to, will not matter to you. But the boy that I touch, will be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to me, and move a little away.”

Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and looks about her. After a few moments, the attendant, in a staid official way, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand. She goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Very slightly glancing in the lady’s direction, she stops, bends forward, and speaks. The boy whom she addresses, lifts his head and replies. Good humouredly and easily, as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. That the action may be well noted, she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return, and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She completes her tour of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the opposite end of the long room.

Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Other people have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and, stopping at the touched boy, asks how old he is?

“I am twelve, ma’am,” he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers.

“Are you well and happy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“May you take these sweetmeats from my hand?”

“If you please to give them to me.”

In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy’s face with her forehead and with her hair. Then, lowering her veil again, she passes on, and passes out without looking back.

ACT I

THE CURTAIN RISES

In a courtyard in the City of London, which was No Thoroughfare either for vehicles or foot-passengers; a courtyard diverging from a steep, a slippery, and a winding street connecting Tower Street with the Middlesex shore of the Thames; stood the place of business of Wilding & Co., Wine Merchants. Probably as a jocose acknowledgement of the obstructive character of this main approach, the point nearest to its base at which one could take the river (if so inodorously minded) bore the appellation Break-Neck-Stairs. The courtyard itself had likewise been descriptively entitled in old time, Cripple Corner.

Years before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, people had left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen had ceased to ply there. The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break-Neck glories. Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal barge would bump itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish; but at most times the only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the conveyance of casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from the cellars of Wilding & Co., Wine Merchants. Even that commerce was but occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, and wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor.

Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill (approaching it from the low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was Cripple Corner. There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple Corner. All Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants. Their cellars burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it. It really had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the City, and had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support, like the sounding-board over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long narrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to render it symmetrically ugly. It had also, on its roof, a cupola with a bell in it.

“When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say ‘this hat covers the owner of this property and of the business which is transacted on this property,’ I consider, Mr. Bintrey, that, without being boastful, he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. I don’t know how it may appear to you, but so it appears to me.”

Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own counting-house; taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and hanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of nature.

An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for so young a man, though of a good stature. With crispy curling brown hair, and amiable bright blue eyes. An extremely communicative man: a man with whom loquacity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment and gratitude. Mr. Bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man, with twinkling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly but intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, or heart.

“Yes,” said Mr. Bintrey. “Yes. Ha, ha!”

A decanter, two wineglasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on the desk.

“You like this forty-five year old port-wine?” said Mr. Wilding.

“Like it?” repeated Mr. Bintrey. “Rather, sir!”

“It’s from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin,” said Mr. Wilding.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Bintrey. “It’s most excellent.”

He laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine.

“And now,” said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of affairs, “I think we have got everything straight, Mr. Bintrey.”

“Everything straight,” said Bintrey.

“A partner secured—”

“Partner secured,” said Bintrey.

“A housekeeper advertised for—”

“Housekeeper advertised for,” said Bintrey, “‘apply personally at Cripple Corner, Great Tower Street, from ten to twelve’ – tomorrow, by the bye.”

“My late dear mother’s affairs wound up—”

“Wound up,” said Bintrey.

“And all charges paid.”

“And all charges paid,” said Bintrey, with a chuckle: probably occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had been paid without a haggle.

“The mention of my late dear mother,” Mr. Wilding continued, his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, “unmans me still, Mr. Bintrey. You know how I loved her; you (her lawyer) know how she loved me. The utmost love of mother and child was cherished between us, and we never experienced one moment’s division or unhappiness from the time when she took me under her care. Thirteen years in all! Thirteen years under my late dear mother’s care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight of them her confidentially acknowledged son! You know the story, Mr. Bintrey, who but you, sir!” Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried his eyes, without attempt at concealment, during these remarks.

Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his mouth: “I know the story.”

“My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey,” pursued the wine-merchant, “had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered. But on that subject my late dear mother’s lips were forever sealed. By whom deceived, or under what circumstances, Heaven only knows. My late dear mother never betrayed her betrayer.”

“She had made up her mind,” said Mr. Bintrey, again turning his wine on his palate, “and she could hold her peace.” An amused twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added – “A devilish deal better than you ever will!”

“‘Honour,’” said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the Commandments, “‘thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land.’ When I was in the Foundling, Mr. Bintrey, I was at such a loss how to do it, that I apprehended my days would be short in the land. But I afterwards came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly. And I honour and revere her memory. For seven happy years, Mr. Bintrey,” pursued Wilding, still with the same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears, “did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this business, Pebbleson Nephew. Her affectionate forethought likewise apprenticed me to the Vintners’ Company, and made me in time a free Vintner, and – and – everything else that the best of mothers could desire. When I came of age, she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me; it was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted in Wilding and Co.; it was she who left me everything she possessed, but the mourning ring you wear. And yet, Mr. Bintrey,” with a fresh burst of honest affection, “she is no more. It is little over half a year since she came into the Corner to read on that doorpost with her own eyes, WILDING AND CO., WINE MERCHANTS. And yet she is no more!”

“Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding,” observed Bintrey. “At some time or other we must all be no more.” He placed the forty-five year old port-wine in the universal condition, with a relishing sigh.

“So now, Mr. Bintrey,” pursued Wilding, putting away his pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, “now that I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom my heart was mysteriously turned by Nature when she first spoke to me, a strange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I can at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Foundling, and that I, who never knew a father of my own, wish to be a father to all in my employment. Therefore,” continued Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, “therefore, I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, Cripple Corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt employer and employed! So that I may live in it on the spot where my money is made! So that I may daily sit at the head of the table at which the people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of the same beer! So that the people in my employment may lodge under the same roof with me! So that we may one and all – I beg your pardon, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has suddenly come on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the pump.”

Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr. Bintrey lost not a moment in leading him forth into the courtyard. It was easily done; for the counting-house in which they talked together opened on to it, at one side of the dwelling-house. There the attorney pumped with a will, obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and face with both hands, and took a hearty drink. After these remedies, he declared himself much better.

“Don’t let your good feelings excite you,” said Bintrey, as they returned to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack-towel behind an inner door.

“No, no. I won’t,” he returned, looking out of the towel. “I won’t. I have not been confused, have I?”

“Not at all. Perfectly clear.”

“Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?”

“Well, you left off – but I wouldn’t excite myself, if I was you, by taking it up again just yet.”

“I’ll take care. I’ll take care. The singing in my head came on at where, Mr. Bintrey?”

“At roast, and boiled, and beer,” answered the lawyer, – “prompting lodging under the same roof – and one and all—”

“Ah! And one and all singing in the head together—”

“Do you know, I really would not let my good feelings excite me, if I was you,” hinted the lawyer again, anxiously. “Try some more pump.”

“No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintrey. And one and all forming a kind of family! You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not used in my childhood to that sort of individual existence which most individuals have led, more or less, in their childhood. After that time I became absorbed in my late dear mother. Having lost her, I find that I am more fit for being one of a body than one by myself one. To be that, and at the same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to me, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. I don’t know how it may appear to you, Mr. Bintrey, but so it appears to me.”

“It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you,” returned Bintrey. “Consequently, how it may appear to me is of very small importance.”

“It appears to me,” said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, “hopeful, useful, delightful!”

“Do you know,” hinted the lawyer again, “I really would not ex—”

“I am not going to. Then there’s Handel.”

“There’s who?” asked Bintrey.

“Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shouldn’t we learn them together?”

“Who learn them together?” asked the lawyer, rather shortly.

“Employer and employed.”

“Ay, ay,” returned Bintrey, mollified; as if he had half expected the answer to be, Lawyer and client. “That’s another thing.”

“Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey! The same thing. A part of the bond among us. We will form a Choir in some quiet church near the Corner here, and, having sung together of a Sunday with a relish, we will come home and take an early dinner together with a relish. The object that I have at heart now is, to get this system well in action without delay, so that my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his partnership.”

“All good be with it!” exclaimed Bintrey, rising. “May it prosper! Is Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, and Mendelssohn?”

“I hope so.”

“I wish them all well out of it,” returned Bintrey, with much heartiness. “Good-bye, sir.”

They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with his knuckles for leave) entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co., Wine Merchants, and erst Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponderous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of doormat and rhinoceros-hide.

“Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master Wilding,” said he.

“Yes, Joey?”

“Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding – and I never did speak and I never do speak for no one else – I don’t want no boarding nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to board me and to lodge me, take me. I can peck as well as most men. Where I peck ain’t so high a object with me as What I peck. Nor even so high a object with me as How Much I peck. Is all to live in the house, Young Master Wilding? The two other cellarmen, the three porters, the two ’prentices, and the odd men?”

“Yes. I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey.”

“Ah!” said Joey. “I hope they may be.”

“They? Rather say we, Joey.”

Joey Ladle shook his held. “Don’t look to me to make we on it, Young Master Wilding, not at my time of life and under the circumstances which has formed my disposition. I have said to Pebbleson Nephew many a time, when they have said to me, ‘Put a livelier face upon it, Joey’ – I have said to them, ‘Gentlemen, it is all wery well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put a lively face upon it; but,’ I says, ‘I have been accustomed to take my wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took that way, it acts different. It acts depressing. It’s one thing, gentlemen,’ I says to Pebbleson Nephew, ‘to charge your glasses in a dining-room with a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every One, and it’s another thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark cellar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the difference betwixt bubbles and wapours,’ I tells Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. I’ve been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business. What’s the consequence? I’m as muddled a man as lives – you won’t find a muddleder man than me – nor yet you won’t find my equal in molloncolly. Sing of Filling the bumper fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O’er the brow of care, Smooths away a wrinkle? Yes. P’raps so. But try filling yourself through the pores, underground, when you don’t want to it!”

“I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that you might join a singing-class in the house.”

“Me, sir? No, no, Young Master Wilding, you won’t catch Joey Ladle muddling the Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all that I am capable of proving myself, out of my cellars; but that you’re welcome to, if you think it is worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises.”

“I do, Joey.”

“Say no more, sir. The Business’s word is my law. And you’re a going to take Young Master George Vendale partner into the old Business?”

“I am, Joey.”

“More changes, you see! But don’t change the name of the Firm again. Don’t do it, Young Master Wilding. It was bad luck enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better by far have left it Pebbleson Nephew that good luck always stuck to. You should never change luck when it’s good, sir.”

“At all events, I have no intention of changing the name of the House again, Joey.”

“Glad to hear it, and wish you good-day, Young Master Wilding. But you had better by half,” muttered Joey Ladle inaudibly, as he closed the door and shook his head, “have let the name alone from the first. You had better by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it.”

ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER

The wine merchant sat in his dining-room next morning, to receive the personal applicants for the vacant post in his establishment. It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the panels ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood; with an oaken floor, a well-worn Turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furniture, all of which had seen service and polish under Pebbleson Nephew. The great sideboard had assisted at many business-dinners given by Pebbleson Nephew to their connection, on the principle of throwing sprats overboard to catch whales; and Pebbleson Nephew’s comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole front of the large fireplace, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen of Pebbleson Nephew’s wine. But the little rubicund old bachelor with a pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard (and who could easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and decidedly not Nephew), had retired into another sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had grown as cold as he. So, the golden and black griffins that supported the candelabra, with black balls in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the Missionary line of inquiry, whether they had not earned emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and brothers.

Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of the walls.

“My mother at five-and-twenty,” said Mr. Wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the portrait’s face, “I hang up here, in order that visitors may admire my mother in the bloom of her youth and beauty. My mother at fifty I hang in the seclusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance sacred to me. O! It’s you, Jarvis!”

These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door, and now looked in.

“Yes, sir. I merely wished to mention that it’s gone ten, sir, and that there are several females in the Counting-house.”

“Dear me!” said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his complexion and whitening in the white, “are there several? So many as several? I had better begin before there are more. I’ll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival.”

Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind a great inkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task with considerable trepidation.

He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. There were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual species of much too sympathetic women. There were buccaneering widows who came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas under their arms, as if each umbrella were he, and each griper had got him. There were towering maiden ladies who had seen better days, and who came armed with clerical testimonials to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with his keys. There were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him. There were professional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put him through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves to catechism. There were languid invalids, to whom salary was not so much an object as the comforts of a private hospital. There were sensitive creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored with glasses of cold water. There were some respondents who came two together, a highly promising one and a wholly unpromising one: of whom the promising one answered all questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the unpromising one, who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent injury.

At last, when the good wine-merchant’s simple heart was failing him, there entered an applicant quite different from all the rest. A woman, perhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face remarkable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for its quiet expression of equability of temper. Nothing in her dress could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her manner could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing could have been in better unison with both, than her voice when she answered the question: “What name shall I have the pleasure of noting down?” with the words, “My name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs. Goldstraw. My husband has been dead many years, and we had no family.”

Half-a-dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the purpose from anyone else. The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. Wilding’s ear as he made his note, that he was rather long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs. Goldstraw’s glance had naturally gone round the room, and now returned to him from the chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank readiness to be questioned, and to answer straight.

“You will excuse my asking you a few questions?” said the modest wine-merchant.

“O, surely, sir. Or I should have no business here.”

“Have you filled the station of housekeeper before?”

“Only once. I have lived with the same widow lady for twelve years. Ever since I lost my husband. She was an invalid, and is lately dead: which is the occasion of my now wearing black.”

“I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials?” said Mr. Wilding.

“I hope I may say, the very best. I thought it would save trouble, sir, if I wrote down the name and address of her representatives, and brought it with me.” Laying a card on the table.

“You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw,” said Wilding, taking the card beside him, “of a manner and tone of voice that I was once acquainted with. Not of an individual – I feel sure of that, though I cannot recall what it is I have in my mind – but of a general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind and pleasant one.”

She smiled, as she rejoined: “At least, I am very glad of that, sir.”

“Yes,” said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last phrase, with a momentary glance at his future housekeeper, “it was a kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten dream. I don’t know how it may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it appears to me.”

Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light, for she quietly assented to the proposition. Mr. Wilding then offered to put himself at once in communication with the gentlemen named upon the card: a firm of proctors in Doctors’ Commons. To this, Mrs. Goldstraw thankfully assented. Doctors’ Commons not being far off, Mr. Wilding suggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw’s looking in again, say in three hours’ time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. Wilding’s inquiries being eminently satisfactory, Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to come tomorrow and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Corner.

THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS

On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to enter on her domestic duties.

Having settled herself in her own room, without troubling the servants, and without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced herself as waiting to be favoured with any instructions which her master might wish to give her. The wine-merchant received Mrs. Goldstraw in the dining-room, in which he had seen her on the previous day; and, the usual preliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two sat down to take counsel together on the affairs of the house.

“About the meals, sir?” said Mrs. Goldstraw. “Have I a large, or a small, number to provide for?”

“If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine,” replied Mr. Wilding, “you will have a large number to provide for. I am a lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw; and I hope to live with all the persons in my employment as if they were members of my family. Until that time comes, you will only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately, to provide for. What my partner’s habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that you may depend upon to an ounce.”

“About breakfast, sir?” asked Mrs. Goldstraw. “Is there anything particular—?”

She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly away from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece. If she had been a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview.

“Eight o’clock is my breakfast-hour,” he resumed. “It is one of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs.” Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him, still a little divided between her master’s chimney-piece and her master. “I take tea,” Mr. Wilding went on; “and I am perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain time after it is made. If my tea stands too long—”

He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview.

“If your tea stands too long, sir—?” said the housekeeper, politely taking up her master’s lost thread.

“If my tea stands too long,” repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his mind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper’s face. “If my tea – Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw! what is the manner and tone of voice that you remind me of? It strikes me even more strongly today, than it did when I saw you yesterday. What can it be?”

“What can it be?” repeated Mrs. Goldstraw.

She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her inquiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the portrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked.

“My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty.”

Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady.

Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once more to recover that lost recollection, associated so closely, and yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper’s voice and manner.

“Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with me or my breakfast,” he said. “May I inquire if you have ever occupied any other situation than the situation of housekeeper?”

“O yes, sir. I began life as one of the nurses at the Foundling.”

“Why, that’s it!” cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his chair. “By heaven! Their manner is the manner you remind me of!”

In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed colour, checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent.

“What is the matter?” asked Mr. Wilding.

“Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir?”

“Certainly. I am not ashamed to own it.”

“Under the name you now bear?”

“Under the name of Walter Wilding.”

“And the lady—?” Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short with a look at the portrait which was now unmistakably a look of alarm.

“You mean my mother,” interrupted Mr. Wilding.

“Your – mother,” repeated the housekeeper, a little constrainedly, “removed you from the Foundling? At what age, sir?”

“At between eleven and twelve years old. It’s quite a romantic adventure, Mrs. Goldstraw.”

He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all that had followed in his innocently communicative way. “My poor mother could never have discovered me,” he added, “if she had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her. The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was ‘Walter Wilding’ as she went round the dinner-tables – and so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Foundling doors.”

At those words Mrs. Goldstraw’s hand, resting on the table, dropped helplessly into her lap. She sat, looking at her new master, with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that expressed an unutterable dismay.

“What does this mean?” asked the wine-merchant. “Stop!” he cried. “Is there something else in the past time which I ought to associate with you? I remember my mother telling me of another person at the Foundling, to whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude. When she first parted with me, as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name that had been given to me in the institution. You were that nurse?”

“God forgive me, sir – I was that nurse!”

“God forgive you?”

“We had better get back, sir (if I may make so bold as to say so), to my duties in the house,” said Mrs. Goldstraw. “Your breakfast-hour is eight. Do you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?”

The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey had noticed in his client’s face began to appear there once more. Mr. Wilding put his hand to his head, and mastered some momentary confusion in that quarter, before he spoke again.

“Mrs. Goldstraw,” he said, “you are concealing something from me!”

The housekeeper obstinately repeated, “Please to favour me, sir, by saying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the day?”

“I don’t know what I do in the middle of the day. I can’t enter into my household affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which she always spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You are not doing me a service by your silence. You are agitating me, you are alarming me, you are bringing on the singing in my head.”

His hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face deepened by a shade or two.

“It’s hard, sir, on just entering your service,” said the housekeeper, “to say what may cost me the loss of your good will. Please to remember, end how it may, that I only speak because you have insisted on my speaking, and because I see that I am alarming you by my silence. When I told the poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by which her infant was christened in the Foundling, I allowed myself to forget my duty, and dreadful consequences, I am afraid, have followed from it. I’ll tell you the truth, as plainly as I can. A few months from the time when I had informed the lady of her baby’s name, there came to our institution in the country another lady (a stranger), whose object was to adopt one of our children. She brought the needful permission with her, and after looking at a great many of the children, without being able to make up her mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the babies – a boy – under my care. Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir! It’s no use disguising it any longer. The child the stranger took away was the child of that lady whose portrait hangs there!”

Mr. Wilding started to his feet. “Impossible!” he cried out, vehemently. “What are you talking about? What absurd story are you telling me now? There’s her portrait! Haven’t I told you so already? The portrait of my mother!”

“When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, in after years,” said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, “she was the victim, and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake.”

He dropped back into his chair. “The room goes round with me,” he said. “My head! my head!” The housekeeper rose in alarm, and opened the windows. Before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden burst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared to threaten his life. He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out. He raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man.

“Mistake?” he said, wildly repeating her last word. “How do I know you are not mistaken yourself?”

“There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you why, when you are better fit to hear it.”

“Now! now!”

The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope that she might be wrong. A few words more would end it, and those few words she determined to speak.

“I have told you,” she said, “that the child of the lady whose portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger. I am as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will. Please to carry your mind on, now, to about three months after that time. I was then at the Foundling, in London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the country. There was a question that day about naming an infant – a boy – who had just been received. We generally named them out of the Directory. On this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital happened to be looking over the Register. He noticed that the name of the baby who had been adopted (‘Walter Wilding’) was scratched out – for the reason, of course, that the child had been removed for good from our care. ‘Here’s a name to let,’ he said. ‘Give it to the new foundling who has been received today.’ The name was given, and the child was christened. You, sir, were that child.”

The wine-merchant’s head dropped on his breast. “I was that child!” he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind. “I was that child!”

“Not very long after you had been received into the Institution, sir,” pursued Mrs. Goldstraw, “I left my situation there, to be married. If you will remember that, and if you can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened. Between eleven and twelve years passed before the lady, whom you have believed to be your mother, returned to the Foundling, to find her son, and to remove him to her own home. The lady only knew that her infant had been called ‘Walter Wilding.’ The matron who took pity on her, could but point out the only ‘Walter Wilding’ known in the Institution. I, who might have set the matter right, was far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to it. There was nothing – there was really nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking place. I feel for you – I do indeed, sir! You must think – and with reason – that it was in an evil hour that I came here (innocently enough, I’m sure), to apply for your housekeeper’s place. I feel as if I was to blame – I feel as if I ought to have had more self-command. If I had only been able to keep my face from showing you what that portrait and what your own words put into my mind, you need never, to your dying day, have known what you know now.”

Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred honesty of the man rose in protest against the housekeeper’s last words. His mind seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on it.

“Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you could?” he exclaimed.

“I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked,” said Mrs. Goldstraw. “And I know it is better for me that I should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. But is it better for you? What use can it serve now—?”

“What use? Why, good Lord! if your story is true—”

“Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had not been true?”

“I beg your pardon,” said the wine-merchant. “You must make allowance for me. This dreadful discovery is something I can’t realise even yet. We loved each other so dearly – I felt so fondly that I was her son. She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms – she died blessing me as only a mother could have blessed me. And now, after all these years, to be told she was not my mother! O me, O me! I don’t know what I am saying!” he cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, and died out. “It was not this dreadful grief – it was something else that I had it in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes. You surprised me – you wounded me just now. You talked as if you would have hidden this from me, if you could. Don’t talk in that way again. It would have been a crime to have hidden it. You mean well, I know. I don’t want to distress you – you are a kind-hearted woman. But you don’t remember what my position is. She left me all that I possess, in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I am not her son. I have taken the place, I have innocently got the inheritance of another man. He must be found! How do I know he is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat? He must be found! My only hope of bearing up against the shock that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which she would have approved. You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me yet. Who was the stranger who adopted the child? You must have heard the lady’s name?”

“I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her, or heard of her, since.”

“Did she say nothing when she took the child away? Search your memory. She must have said something.”

“Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a miserably bad season, that year; and many of the children were suffering from it. When she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laughing, ‘Don’t be alarmed about his health. He will be brought up in a better climate than this – I am going to take him to Switzerland.’”

“To Switzerland? What part of Switzerland?”

“She didn’t say, sir.”

“Only that faint clue!” said Mr. Wilding. “And a quarter of a century has passed since the child was taken away! What am I to do?”

“I hope you won’t take offence at my freedom, sir,” said Mrs. Goldstraw; “but why should you distress yourself about what is to be done? He may not be alive now, for anything you know. And, if he is alive, it’s not likely he can be in any distress. The, lady who adopted him was a bred and born lady – it was easy to see that. And she must have satisfied them at the Foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would never have let her take him away. If I was in your place, sir – please to excuse my saying so – I should comfort myself with remembering that I had loved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there – truly loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her son. All she gave to you, she gave for the sake of that love. It never altered while she lived; and it won’t alter, I’m sure, as long as you live. How can you have a better right, sir, to keep what you have got than that?”

Mr. Wilding’s immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his housekeeper’s point of view at a glance.

“You don’t understand me,” he said. “It’s because I loved her that I feel it a duty – a sacred duty – to do justice to her son. If he is a living man, I must find him: for my own sake, as well as for his. I shall break down under this dreadful trial, unless I employ myself – actively, instantly employ myself – in doing what my conscience tells me ought to be done. I must speak to my lawyer; I must set my lawyer at work before I sleep tonight.” He approached a tube in the wall of the room, and called down through it to the office below. “Leave me for a little, Mrs. Goldstraw,” he resumed; “I shall be more composed, I shall be better able to speak to you later in the day. We shall get on well – I hope we shall get on well together – in spite of what has happened. It isn’t your fault; I know it isn’t your fault. There! there! shake hands; and – and do the best you can in the house – I can’t talk about it now.”

The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it; and Mr. Jarvis appeared.

“Send for Mr. Bintrey,” said the wine-merchant. “Say I want to see him directly.”

The clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order, by announcing “Mr. Vendale,” and showing in the new partner in the firm of Wilding and Co.

“Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale,” said Wilding. “I have a word to say to Jarvis. Send for Mr. Bintrey,” he repeated – “send at once.”

Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room.

“From our correspondents at Neuchâtel, I think, sir. The letter has got the Swiss postmark.”

NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE

The words, “The Swiss Postmark,” following so soon upon the housekeeper’s reference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding’s agitation to such a remarkable height, that his new partner could not decently make a pretence of letting it pass unnoticed.

“Wilding,” he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of mind: “what is the matter?”

“My good George Vendale,” returned the wine-merchant, giving his hand with an appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to get over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation: “my good George Vendale, so much is the matter, that I shall never be myself again. It is impossible that I can ever be myself again. For, in fact, I am not myself.”

The new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of about his own age, with a quick determined eye and an impulsive manner, retorted with natural astonishment: “Not yourself?”

“Not what I supposed myself to be,” said Wilding.

“What, in the name of wonder, did you suppose yourself to be that you are not?” was the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful frankness, inviting confidence from a more reticent man. “I may ask without impertinence, now that we are partners.”

“There again!” cried Wilding, leaning back in his chair, with a lost look at the other. “Partners! I had no right to come into this business. It was never meant for me. My mother never meant it should be mine. I mean, his mother meant it should be his – if I mean anything – or if I am anybody.”

“Come, come,” urged his partner, after a moment’s pause, and taking possession of him with that calm confidence which inspires a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one. “Whatever has gone wrong, has gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am very sure. I was not in this counting-house with you, under the old régime, for three years, to doubt you, Wilding. We were not younger men than we are, together, for that. Let me begin our partnership by being a serviceable partner, and setting right whatever is wrong. Has that letter anything to do with it?”

“Hah!” said Wilding, with his hand to his temple. “There again! My head! I was forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss postmark.”

“At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened, so it is not very likely to have much to do with the matter,” said Vendale, with comforting composure. “Is it for you, or for us?”

“For us,” said Wilding.

“Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our way?”

“Thank you, thank you.”

“The letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the house at Neuchâtel. ‘Dear Sir. We are in receipt of yours of the 28th ult., informing us that you have taken your Mr. Vendale into partnership, whereon we beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations. Permit us to embrace the occasion of specially commanding to you M. Jules Obenreizer.’ Impossible!”

Wilding looked up in quick apprehension, and cried, “Eh?”

“Impossible sort of name,” returned his partner, slightly – “Obenreizer. ‘ – Of specially commanding to you M. Jules Obenreizer, of Soho Square, London (north side), henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M. Obenreizer’s) native country, Switzerland.’ To be sure! pooh pooh, what have I been thinking of! I remember now; ‘when travelling with his niece.’”

“With his—?” Vendale had so slurred the last word, that Wilding had not heard it.

“When travelling with his Niece. Obenreizer’s Niece,” said Vendale, in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner. “Niece of Obenreizer. (I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a little with them, and lost them for two years; met them again, my Swiss tour before last, and have lost them ever since.) Obenreizer. Niece of Obenreizer. To be sure! Possible sort of name, after all! ‘M. Obenreizer is in possession of our absolute confidence, and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits.’ Duly signed by the House, ‘Defresnier et Cie.’ Very well. I undertake to see M. Obenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way. That clears the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now, my dear Wilding, tell me what I can clear out of your way, and I’ll find a way to clear it.”

More than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of, the honest wine-merchant wrung his partner’s hand, and, beginning his tale by pathetically declaring himself an Impostor, told it.

“It was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending for Bintrey when I came in?” said his partner, after reflecting.

“It was.”

“He has experience and a shrewd head; I shall be anxious to know his opinion. It is bold and hazardous in me to give you mine before I know his, but I am not good at holding back. Plainly, then, I do not see these circumstances as you see them. I do not see your position as you see it. As to your being an Impostor, my dear Wilding, that is simply absurd, because no man can be that without being a consenting party to an imposition. Clearly you never were so. As to your enrichment by the lady who believed you to be her son, and whom you were forced to believe, on her showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did not arise out of the personal relations between you. You gradually became much attached to her; she gradually became much attached to you. It was on you, personally you, as I see the case, that she conferred these worldly advantages; it was from her, personally her, that you took them.”

“She supposed me,” objected Wilding, shaking his head, “to have a natural claim upon her, which I had not.”

“I must admit that,” replied his partner, “to be true. But if she had made the discovery that you have made, six months before she died, do you think it would have cancelled the years you were together, and the tenderness that each of you had conceived for the other, each on increasing knowledge of the other?”

“What I think,” said Wilding, simply but stoutly holding to the bare fact, “can no more change the truth than it can bring down the sky. The truth is that I stand possessed of what was meant for another man.”

“He may be dead,” said Vendale.

“He may be alive,” said Wilding. “And if he is alive, have I not – innocently, I grant you innocently – robbed him of enough? Have I not robbed him of all the happy time that I enjoyed in his stead? Have I not robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when that dear lady,” stretching his hand towards the picture, “told me she was my mother? Have I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on me? Have I not even robbed him of all the devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to her? Therefore it is that I ask myself, George Vendale, and I ask you, where is he? What has become of him?”

“Who can tell!”

“I must try to find out who can tell. I must institute inquiries. I must never desist from prosecuting inquiries. I will live upon the interest of my share – I ought to say his share – in this business, and will lay up the rest for him. When I find him, I may perhaps throw myself upon his generosity; but I will yield up all to him. I will, I swear. As I loved and honoured her,” said Wilding, reverently kissing his hand towards the picture, and then covering his eyes with it. “As I loved and honoured her, and have a world of reasons to be grateful to her!” And so broke down again.

His partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and stood beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder. “Walter, I knew you before today to be an upright man, with a pure conscience and a fine heart. It is very fortunate for me that I have the privilege to travel on in life so near to so trustworthy a man. I am thankful for it. Use me as your right hand, and rely upon me to the death. Don’t think the worse of me if I protest to you that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused, you may call it an unreasonable, one. I feel far more pity for the lady and for you, because you did not stand in your supposed relations, than I can feel for the unknown man (if he ever became a man), because he was unconsciously displaced. You have done well in sending for Mr. Bintrey. What I think will be a part of his advice, I know is the whole of mine. Do not move a step in this serious matter precipitately. The secret must be kept among us with great strictness, for to part with it lightly would be to invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host of knaves, to let loose a flood of perjury and plotting. I have no more to say now, Walter, than to remind you that you sold me a share in your business, expressly to save yourself from more work than your present health is fit for, and that I bought it expressly to do work, and mean to do it.”

With these words, and a parting grip of his partner’s shoulder that gave them the best emphasis they could have had, George Vendale betook himself presently to the counting-house, and presently afterwards to the address of M. Jules Obenreizer.

As he turned into Soho Square, and directed his steps towards its north side, a deepened colour shot across his sun-browned face, which Wilding, if he had been a better observer, or had been less occupied with his own trouble, might have noticed when his partner read aloud a certain passage in their Swiss correspondent’s letter, which he had not read so distinctly as the rest.

A curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small flat London district of Soho. Swiss watchmakers, Swiss silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds, draw close together there. Swiss professors of music, painting, and languages; Swiss artificers in steady work; Swiss couriers, and other Swiss servants chronically out of place; industrious Swiss laundresses and clear-starchers; mysteriously existing Swiss of both sexes; Swiss creditable and Swiss discreditable; Swiss to be trusted by all means, and Swiss to be trusted by no means; these diverse Swiss particles are attracted to a centre in the district of Soho. Shabby Swiss eating-houses, coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, Swiss drinks and dishes, Swiss service for Sundays, and Swiss schools for weekdays, are all to be found there. Even the native-born English taverns drive a sort of broken-English trade; announcing in their windows Swiss whets and drams, and sheltering in their bars Swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on most nights in the year.

When the new partner in Wilding and Co. rang the bell of a door bearing the blunt inscription OBENREIZER on a brass plate – the inner door of a substantial house, whose ground story was devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks – he passed at once into domestic Switzerland. A white-tiled stove for wintertime filled the fireplace of the room into which he was shown, the room’s bare floor was laid together in a neat pattern of several ordinary woods, the room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrubbing; and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the velvet chimney-board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers, contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole effect, a Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes.

Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock. The visitor had not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, in very good English, very slightly clipped: “How do you do? So glad!”

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Not at all! Sit, please.”

Releasing his visitor’s two arms, which he had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, with a smile: “You are well? So glad!” and touching his elbows again.

“I don’t know,” said Vendale, after exchange of salutations, “whether you may yet have heard of me from your House at Neuchâtel?”

“Ah, yes!”

“In connection with Wilding and Co.?”

“Ah, surely!”

“Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one of the Firm of Wilding and Co., to pay the Firm’s respects?”

“Not at all! What did I always observe when we were on the mountains? We call them vast; but the world is so little. So little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. There are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re-cross. So very little is the world, that one cannot get rid of a person. Not,” touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile, “that one would desire to get rid of you.”

“I hope not, M. Obenreizer.”

“Please call me, in your country, Mr. I call myself so, for I love your country. If I could be English! But I am born. And you? Though descended from so fine a family, you have had the condescension to come into trade? Stop though. Wines? Is it trade in England or profession? Not fine art?”

“Mr. Obenreizer,” returned Vendale, somewhat out of countenance, “I was but a silly young fellow, just of age, when I first had the pleasure of travelling with you, and when you and I and Mademoiselle your niece – who is well?”

“Thank you. Who is well.”

“ – Shared some slight glacier dangers together. If, with a boy’s vanity, I rather vaunted my family, I hope I did so as a kind of introduction of myself. It was very weak, and in very bad taste; but perhaps you know our English proverb, ‘Live and Learn.’”

“You make too much of it,” returned the Swiss. “And what the devil! After all, yours was a fine family.”

George Vendale’s laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined: “Well! I was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in the first flush of coming into what my father and mother left me. So I hope it may have been, after all, more youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness.”

“All openness of speech and heart! No boastfulness!” cried Obenreizer. “You tax yourself too heavily. You tax yourself, my faith! as if you was your Government taxing you! Besides, it commenced with me. I remember, that evening in the boat upon the lake, floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys, the crags and pine woods, which were my earliest remembrance, I drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. Of our poor hut, by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers; of the cow-shed where I slept with the cow; of my idiot half-brother always sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg; of my half-sister always spinning, and resting her enormous goître on a great stone; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, I, the only child of my father’s second marriage – if it even was a marriage. What more natural than for you to compare notes with me, and say, ‘We are as one by age; at that same time I sat upon my mother’s lap in my father’s carriage, rolling through the rich English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty kept far from me. Such is my earliest remembrance as opposed to yours!’”

Mr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark complexion, through whose swarthy skin no red glow ever shone. When colour would have come into another cheek, a hardly discernible beat would come into his, as if the machinery for bringing up the ardent blood were there, but the machinery were dry. He was robustly made, well proportioned, and had handsome features. Many would have perceived that some surface change in him would have set them more at their ease with him, without being able to define what change. If his lips could have been made much thicker, and his neck much thinner, they would have found their want supplied.

But the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain nameless film would come over his eyes – apparently by the action of his own will – which would impenetrably veil, not only from those tellers of tales, but from his face at large, every expression save one of attention. It by no means followed that his attention should be wholly given to the person with whom he spoke, or even wholly bestowed on present sounds and objects. Rather, it was a comprehensive watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind, and everything that he knew to be, or suspected to be, in the minds of other men.

At this stage of the conversation, Mr. Obenreizer’s film came over him.

“The object of my present visit,” said Vendale, “is, I need hardly say, to assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and Co., and of the goodness of your credit with us, and of our desire to be of service to you. We hope shortly to offer you our hospitality. Things are not quite in train with us yet, for my partner, Mr. Wilding, is reorganising the domestic part of our establishment, and is interrupted by some private affairs. You don’t know Mr. Wilding, I believe?”

Mr. Obenreizer did not.

“You must come together soon. He will be glad to have made your acquaintance, and I think I may predict that you will be glad to have made his. You have not been long established in London, I suppose, Mr. Obenreizer?”

“It is only now that I have undertaken this agency.”

“Mademoiselle your niece – is – not married?”

“Not married.”

George Vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens of her.

“She has been in London?”

“She is in London.”

“When, and where, might I have the honour of recalling myself to her remembrance?”

Mr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor’s elbows as before, said lightly: “Come upstairs.”

Fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he had sought was coming upon him after all, George Vendale followed upstairs. In a room over the chamber he had just quitted – a room also Swiss-appointed – a young lady sat near one of three windows, working at an embroidery-frame; and an older lady sat with her face turned close to another white-tiled stove (though it was summer, and the stove was not lighted), cleaning gloves. The young lady wore an unusual quantity of fair bright hair, very prettily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the average English type, and so her face might have been a shade – or say a light – rounder than the average English face, and her figure slightly rounder than the figure of the average English girl at nineteen. A remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in her quiet attitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her dimpled face and bright grey eyes, seemed fraught with mountain air. Switzerland too, though the general fashion of her dress was English, peeped out of the fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in the curious clocked red stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. As to the elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass ledge of the stove, supporting a lap-full of gloves while she cleaned one stretched on her left hand, she was a true Swiss impersonation of another kind; from the breadth of her cushion-like back, and the ponderosity of her respectable legs (if the word be admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly round her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to goître; or, higher still, to her great copper-coloured gold earrings; or, higher still, to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire.

“Miss Marguerite,” said Obenreizer to the young lady, “do you recollect this gentleman?”

“I think,” she answered, rising from her seat, surprised and a little confused: “it is Mr. Vendale?”

“I think it is,” said Obenreizer, dryly. “Permit me, Mr. Vendale. Madame Dor.”

The elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on her left hand, like a glover’s sign, half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder, and wholly plumped down again and rubbed away.

“Madame Dor,” said Obenreizer, smiling, “is so kind as to keep me free from stain or tear. Madame Dor humours my weakness for being always neat, and devotes her time to removing every one of my specks and spots.”

Madame Dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her eyes closely scrutinizing its palm, discovered a tough spot in Mr. Obenreizer at that instant, and rubbed hard at him. George Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked), and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, and became filmy.

“He was saying downstairs, Miss Obenreizer,” observed Vendale, “that the world is so small a place, that people cannot escape one another. I have found it much too large for me since I saw you last.”

“Have you travelled so far, then?” she inquired.

“Not so far, for I have only gone back to Switzerland each year; but I could have wished – and indeed I have wished very often – that the little world did not afford such opportunities for long escapes as it does. If it had been less, I might have found my follow-travellers sooner, you know.”

The pretty Marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced in the direction of Madame Dor.

“You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Perhaps you may lose us again.”

“I trust not. The curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you, encourages me to hope not.”

“What is that coincidence, sir, if you please?” A dainty little native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly captivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. A caution seemed to be conveyed in it, rapid flash though it was; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor from that time forth.

“It is that I happen to have become a partner in a House of business in London, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day to be expressly recommended: and that, too, by another house of business in Switzerland, in which (as it turns out) we both have a commercial interest. He has not told you?”

“Ah!” cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless. “No. I had not told Miss Marguerite. The world is so small and so monotonous that a surprise is worth having in such a little jog-trot place. It is as he tells you, Miss Marguerite. He, of so fine a family, and so proudly bred, has condescended to trade. To trade! Like us poor peasants who have risen from ditches!”

A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes.

“Why, it is good for trade!” pursued Obenreizer, enthusiastically. “It ennobles trade! It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, that any low people – for example, we poor peasants – may take to it and climb by it. See you, my dear Vendale!” He spoke with great energy. “The father of Miss Marguerite, my eldest half-brother, more than two times your age or mine, if living now, wandered without shoes, almost without rags, from that wretched Pass – wandered – wandered – got to be fed with the mules and dogs at an Inn in the main valley far away – got to be Boy there – got to be Ostler – got to be Waiter – got to be Cook – got to be Landlord. As Landlord, he took me (could he take the idiot beggar his brother, or the spinning monstrosity his sister?) to put as pupil to the famous watchmaker, his neighbour and friend. His wife dies when Miss Marguerite is born. What is his will, and what are his words to me, when he dies, she being between girl and woman? ‘All for Marguerite, except so much by the year for you. You are young, but I make her your ward, for you were of the obscurest and the poorest peasantry, and so was I, and so was her mother; we were abject peasants all, and you will remember it.’ The thing is equally true of most of my countrymen, now in trade in this your London quarter of Soho. Peasants once; low-born drudging Swiss Peasants. Then how good and great for trade:” here, from having been warm, he became playfully jubilant, and touched the young wine-merchant’s elbows again with his light embrace: “to be exalted by gentlemen.”

“I do not think so,” said Marguerite, with a flushed cheek, and a look away from the visitor, that was almost defiant. “I think it is as much exalted by us peasants.”

“Fie, fie, Miss Marguerite,” said Obenreizer. “You speak in proud England.”

“I speak in proud earnest,” she answered, quietly resuming her work, “and I am not English, but a Swiss peasant’s daughter.”

There was a dismissal of the subject in her words, which Vendale could not contend against. He only said in an earnest manner, “I most heartily agree with you, Miss Obenreizer, and I have already said so, as Mr. Obenreizer will bear witness,” which he by no means did, “in this house.”

Now, Vendale’s eyes were quick eyes, and sharply watching Madame Dor by times, noted something in the broad back view of that lady. There was considerable pantomimic expression in her glove-cleaning. It had been very softly done when he spoke with Marguerite, or it had altogether stopped, like the action of a listener. When Obenreizer’s peasant-speech came to an end, she rubbed most vigorously, as if applauding it. And once or twice, as the glove (which she always held before her a little above her face) turned in the air, or as this finger went down, or that went up, he even fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to Obenreizer: whose back was certainly never turned upon it, though he did not seem at all to heed it.

Vendale observed too, that in Marguerite’s dismissal of the subject twice forced upon him to his misrepresentation, there was an indignant treatment of her guardian which she tried to cheek: as though she would have flamed out against him, but for the influence of fear. He also observed – though this was not much – that he never advanced within the distance of her at which he first placed himself: as though there were limits fixed between them. Neither had he ever spoken of her without the prefix “Miss,” though whenever he uttered it, it was with the faintest trace of an air of mockery. And now it occurred to Vendale for the first time that something curious in the man, which he had never before been able to define, was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery that eluded touch or analysis. He felt convinced that Marguerite was in some sort a prisoner as to her freewill – though she held her own against those two combined, by the force of her character, which was nevertheless inadequate to her release. To feel convinced of this, was not to feel less disposed to love her than he had always been. In a word, he was desperately in love with her, and thoroughly determined to pursue the opportunity which had opened at last.

For the present, he merely touched upon the pleasure that Wilding and Co. would soon have in entreating Miss Obenreizer to honour their establishment with her presence – a curious old place, though a bachelor house withal – and so did not protract his visit beyond such a visit’s ordinary length. Going downstairs, conducted by his host, he found the Obenreizer counting-house at the back of the entrance-hall, and several shabby men in outlandish garments hanging about, whom Obenreizer put aside that he might pass, with a few words in patois.

“Countrymen,” he explained, as he attended Vendale to the door. “Poor compatriots. Grateful and attached, like dogs! Good-bye. To meet again. So glad!”

Two more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into the street.

Sweet Marguerite at her frame, and Madame Dor’s broad back at her telegraph, floated before him to Cripple Corner. On his arrival there, Wilding was closeted with Bintrey. The cellar doors happening to be open, Vendale lighted a candle in a cleft stick, and went down for a cellarous stroll. Graceful Marguerite floated before him faithfully, but Madame Dor’s broad back remained outside.

The vaults were very spacious, and very old. There had been a stone crypt down there, when bygones were not bygones; some said, part of a monkish refectory; some said, of a chapel; some said, of a Pagan temple. It was all one now. Let who would make what he liked of a crumbled pillar and a broken arch or so. Old Time had made what he liked of it, and was quite indifferent to contradiction.

The close air, the musty smell, and the thunderous rumbling in the streets above, as being, out of the routine of ordinary life, went well enough with the picture of pretty Marguerite holding her own against those two. So Vendale went on until, at a turning in the vaults, he saw a light like the light he carried.

“O! You are here, are you, Joey?”

“Oughtn’t it rather to go, ‘O! You’re here, are you, Master George?’ For it’s my business to be here. But it ain’t yourn.”

“Don’t grumble, Joey.”

“O! I don’t grumble,” returned the Cellarman. “If anything grumbles, it’s what I’ve took in through the pores; it ain’t me. Have a care as something in you don’t begin a grumbling, Master George. Stop here long enough for the wapours to work, and they’ll be at it.”

His present occupation consisted of poking his head into the bins, making measurements and mental calculations, and entering them in a rhinoceros-hide-looking notebook, like a piece of himself.

“They’ll be at it,” he resumed, laying the wooden rod that he measured with across two casks, entering his last calculation, and straightening his back, “trust ’em! And so you’ve regularly come into the business, Master George?”

“Regularly. I hope you don’t object, Joey?”

“I don’t, bless you. But Wapours objects that you’re too young. You’re both on you too young.”

“We shall got over that objection day by day, Joey.”

“Ay, Master George; but I shall day by day get over the objection that I’m too old, and so I shan’t be capable of seeing much improvement in you.”

The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he grunted forth a laugh and delivered it again, grunting forth another laugh after the second edition of “improvement in you.”

“But what’s no laughing matter, Master George,” he resumed, straightening his back once more, “is, that young Master Wilding has gone and changed the luck. Mark my words. He has changed the luck, and he’ll find it out. I ain’t been down here all my life for nothing! I know by what I notices down here, when it’s a-going to rain, when it’s a-going to hold up, when it’s a-going to blow, when it’s a-going to be calm. I know, by what I notices down here, when the luck’s changed, quite as well.”

“Has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divination?” asked Vendale, holding his light towards a gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus, pendent from the arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect. “We are famous for this growth in this vault, aren’t we?”

“We are Master George,” replied Joey Ladle, moving a step or two away, “and if you’ll be advised by me, you’ll let it alone.”

Taking up the rod just now laid across the two casks, and faintly moving the languid fungus with it, Vendale asked, “Ay, indeed? Why so?”

“Why, not so much because it rises from the casks of wine, and may leave you to judge what sort of stuff a Cellarman takes into himself when he walks in the same all the days of his life, nor yet so much because at a stage of its growth it’s maggots, and you’ll fetch ’em down upon you,” returned Joey Ladle, still keeping away, “as for another reason, Master George.”

“What other reason?”

“(I wouldn’t keep on touchin’ it, if I was you, sir.) I’ll tell you if you’ll come out of the place. First, take a look at its colour, Master George.”

“I am doing so.”

“Done, sir. Now, come out of the place.”

He moved away with his light, and Vendale followed with his. When Vendale came up with him, and they were going back together, Vendale, eyeing him as they walked through the arches, said: “Well, Joey? The colour.”

“Is it like clotted blood, Master George?”

“Like enough, perhaps.”

“More than enough, I think,” muttered Joey Ladle, shaking his head solemnly.

“Well, say it is like; say it is exactly like. What then?”

“Master George, they do say—”

“Who?”

“How should I know who?” rejoined the Cellarman, apparently much exasperated by the unreasonable nature of the question. “Them! Them as says pretty well everything, you know. How should I know who They are, if you don’t?”

“True. Go on.”

“They do say that the man that gets by any accident a piece of that dark growth right upon his breast, will, for sure and certain, die by murder.”

As Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the Cellarman’s eyes, which he had fastened on his light while dreamily saying those words, he suddenly became conscious of being struck upon his own breast by a heavy hand. Instantly following with his eyes the action of the hand that struck him – which was his companion’s – he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web or clot of the fungus even then floating to the ground.

For a moment he turned upon the Cellarman almost as scared a look as the Cellarman turned upon him. But in another moment they had reached the daylight at the foot of the cellar-steps, and before he cheerfully sprang up them, he blew out his candle and the superstition together.

EXIT WILDING

On the morning of the next day, Wilding went out alone, after leaving a message with his clerk. “If Mr. Vendale should ask for me,” he said, “or if Mr. Bintrey should call, tell them I am gone to the Foundling.” All that his partner had said to him, all that his lawyer, following on the same side, could urge, had left him persisting unshaken in his own point of view. To find the lost man, whose place he had usurped, was now the paramount interest of his life, and to inquire at the Foundling was plainly to take the first step in the direction of discovery. To the Foundling, accordingly, the wine-merchant now went.

The once familiar aspect of the building was altered to him, as the look of the portrait over the chimney-piece was altered to him. His one dearest association with the place which had sheltered his childhood had been broken away from it forever. A strange reluctance possessed him, when he stated his business at the door. His heart ached as he sat alone in the waiting-room while the Treasurer of the institution was being sent for to see him. When the interview began, it was only by a painful effort that he could compose himself sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand.

The Treasurer listened with a face which promised all needful attention, and promised nothing more.

“We are obliged to be cautious,” he said, when it came to his turn to speak, “about all inquiries which are made by strangers.”

“You can hardly consider me a stranger,” answered Wilding, simply. “I was one of your poor lost children here, in the bygone time.”

The Treasurer politely rejoined that this circumstance inspired him with a special interest in his visitor. But he pressed, nevertheless for that visitor’s motive in making his inquiry. Without further preface, Wilding told him his motive, suppressing nothing. The Treasurer rose, and led the way into the room in which the registers of the institution were kept. “All the information which our books can give is heartily at your service,” he said. “After the time that has elapsed, I am afraid it is the only information we have to offer you.”

The books were consulted, and the entry was found expressed as follows:

“3d March, 1836. Adopted, and removed from the Foundling Hospital, a male infant, named Walter Wilding. Name and condition of the person adopting the child – Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, widow. Address – Lime-Tree Lodge, Groombridge Wells. References – the Reverend John Harker, Groombridge Wells; and Messrs. Giles, Jeremie, and Giles, bankers, Lombard Street.”

“Is that all?” asked the wine-merchant. “Had you no after-communication with Mrs. Miller?”

“None – or some reference to it must have appeared in this book.”

“May I take a copy of the entry?”

“Certainly! You are a little agitated. Let me make a copy for you.”

“My only chance, I suppose,” said Wilding, looking sadly at the copy, “is to inquire at Mrs. Miller’s residence, and to try if her references can help me?”

“That is the only chance I see at present,” answered the Treasurer. “I heartily wish I could have been of some further assistance to you.”

With those farewell words to comfort him Wilding set forth on the journey of investigation which began from the Foundling doors. The first stage to make for, was plainly the house of business of the bankers in Lombard Street. Two of the partners in the firm were inaccessible to chance-visitors when he asked for them. The third, after raising certain inevitable difficulties, consented to let a clerk examine the ledger marked with the initial letter “M.” The account of Mrs. Miller, widow, of Groombridge Wells, was found. Two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across it; and at the bottom of the page there appeared this note: “Account closed, September 30th, 1837.”

So the first stage of the journey was reached – and so it ended in No Thoroughfare! After sending a note to Cripple Corner to inform his partner that his absence might be prolonged for some hours, Wilding took his place in the train, and started for the second stage on the journey – Mrs. Miller’s residence at Groombridge Wells.

Mothers and children travelled with him; mothers and children met each other at the station; mothers and children were in the shops when he entered them to inquire for Lime-Tree Lodge. Everywhere, the nearest and dearest of human relations showed itself happily in the happy light of day. Everywhere, he was reminded of the treasured delusion from which he had been awakened so cruelly – of the lost memory which had passed from him like a reflection from a glass.

Inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such place as Lime-Tree Lodge. Passing a house-agent’s office, he went in wearily, and put the question for the last time. The house-agent pointed across the street to a dreary mansion of many windows, which might have been a manufactory, but which was an hotel. “That’s where Lime-Tree Lodge stood, sir,” said the man, “ten years ago.”

The second stage reached, and No Thoroughfare again!

But one chance was left. The clerical reference, Mr. Harker, still remained to be found. Customers coming in at the moment to occupy the house-agent’s attention, Wilding went down the street, and entering a bookseller’s shop, asked if he could be informed of the Reverend John Harker’s present address.

The bookseller looked unaffectedly shocked and astonished, and made no answer.

Wilding repeated his question.

The bookseller took up from his counter a prim little volume in a binding of sober grey. He handed it to his visitor, open at the title-page. Wilding read:

“The martyrdom of the Reverend John Harker in New Zealand. Related by a former member of his flock.”

Wilding put the book down on the counter. “I beg your pardon,” he said thinking a little, perhaps, of his own present martyrdom while he spoke. The silent bookseller acknowledged the apology by a bow. Wilding went out.

Third and last stage, and No Thoroughfare for the third and last time.

There was nothing more to be done; there was absolutely no choice but to go back to London, defeated at all points. From time to time on the return journey, the wine-merchant looked at his copy of the entry in the Foundling Register. There is one among the many forms of despair – perhaps the most pitiable of all – which persists in disguising itself as Hope. Wilding checked himself in the act of throwing the useless morsel of paper out of the carriage window. “It may lead to something yet,” he thought. “While I live, I won’t part with it. When I die, my executors shall find it sealed up with my will.”

Now, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant on a new track of thought, without diverting his mind from its engrossing subject. He must make his will immediately.

The application of the phrase No Thoroughfare to the case had originated with Mr. Bintrey. In their first long conference following the discovery, that sagacious personage had a hundred times repeated, with an obstructive shake of the head, “No Thoroughfare, Sir, No Thoroughfare. My belief is that there is no way out of this at this time of day, and my advice is, make yourself comfortable where you are.”

In the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of the forty-five year old port-wine had been produced for the wetting of Mr. Bintrey’s legal whistle; but the more clearly he saw his way through the wine, the more emphatically he did not see his way through the case; repeating as often as he set his glass down empty. “Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare. Rest and be thankful.”

It is certain that the honest wine-merchant’s anxiety to make a will originated in profound conscientiousness; though it is possible (and quite consistent with his rectitude) that he may unconsciously have derived some feeling of relief from the prospect of delegating his own difficulty to two other men who were to come after him. Be that as it may, he pursued his new track of thought with great ardour, and lost no time in begging George Vendale and Mr. Bintrey to meet him in Cripple Corner and share his confidence.

“Being all three assembled with closed doors,” said Mr. Bintrey, addressing the new partner on the occasion, “I wish to observe, before our friend (and my client) entrusts us with his further views, that I have endorsed what I understand from him to have been your advice, Mr. Vendale, and what would be the advice of every sensible man. I have told him that he positively must keep his secret. I have spoken with Mrs. Goldstraw, both in his presence and in his absence; and if anybody is to be trusted (which is a very large IF), I think she is to be trusted to that extent. I have pointed out to our friend (and my client), that to set on foot random inquiries would not only be to raise the Devil, in the likeness of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to waste the estate. Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend (and my client) does not desire to waste the estate, but, on the contrary, desires to husband it for what he considers – but I can’t say I do – the rightful owner, if such rightful owner should ever be found. I am very much mistaken if he ever will be, but never mind that. Mr. Wilding and I are, at least, agreed that the estate is not to be wasted. Now, I have yielded to Mr. Wilding’s desire to keep an advertisement at intervals flowing through the newspapers, cautiously inviting any person who may know anything about that adopted infant, taken from the Foundling Hospital, to come to my office; and I have pledged myself that such advertisement shall regularly appear. I have gathered from our friend (and my client) that I meet you here today to take his instructions, not to give him advice. I am prepared to receive his instructions, and to respect his wishes; but you will please observe that this does not imply my approval of either as a matter of professional opinion.”

Thus Mr. Bintrey; talking quite is much at Wilding as to Vendale. And yet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so amused by his client’s Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity.

“Nothing,” observed Wilding, “can be clearer. I only wish my head were as clear as yours, Mr. Bintrey.”

“If you feel that singing in it coming on,” hinted the lawyer, with an alarmed glance, “put it off. – I mean the interview.”

“Not at all, I thank you,” said Wilding. “What was I going to—”

“Don’t excite yourself, Mr. Wilding,” urged the lawyer.

“No; I wasn’t going to,” said the wine-merchant. “Mr. Bintrey and George Vendale, would you have any hesitation or objection to become my joint trustees and executors, or can you at once consent?”

“I consent,” replied George Vendale, readily.

“I consent,” said Bintrey, not so readily.

“Thank you both. Mr. Bintrey, my instructions for my last will and testament are short and plain. Perhaps you will now have the goodness to take them down. I leave the whole of my real and personal estate, without any exception or reservation whatsoever, to you two, my joint trustees and executors, in trust to pay over the whole to the true Walter Wilding, if he shall be found and identified within two years after the day of my death. Failing that, in trust to you two to pay over the whole as a benefaction and legacy to the Foundling Hospital.”

“Those are all your instructions, are they, Mr. Wilding?” demanded Bintrey, after a blank silence, during which nobody had looked at anybody.

“The whole.”

“And as to those instructions, you have absolutely made up your mind, Mr. Wilding?”

“Absolutely, decidedly, finally.”

“It only remains,” said the lawyer, with one shrug of his shoulders, “to get them into technical and binding form, and to execute and attest. Now, does that press? Is there any hurry about it? You are not going to die yet, sir.”

“Mr. Bintrey,” answered Wilding, gravely, “when I am going to die is within other knowledge than yours or mine. I shall be glad to have this matter off my mind, if you please.”

“We are lawyer and client again,” rejoined Bintrey, who, for the nonce, had become almost sympathetic. “If this day week – here, at the same hour – will suit Mr. Vendale and yourself, I will enter in my Diary that I attend you accordingly.”

The appointment was made, and in due sequence, kept. The will was formally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was carried off by Mr. Bintrey for safe storage among the papers of his clients, ranged in their respective iron boxes, with their respective owners’ names outside, on iron tiers in his consulting-room, as if that legal sanctuary were a condensed Family Vault of Clients.

With more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of interest, Wilding then set about completing his patriarchal establishment, being much assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw but by Vendale too: who, perhaps, had in his mind the giving of an Obenreizer dinner as soon as possible. Anyhow, the establishment being reported in sound working order, the Obenreizers, Guardian and Ward, were asked to dinner, and Madame Dor was included in the invitation. If Vendale had been over head and ears in love before – a phrase not to be taken as implying the faintest doubt about it – this dinner plunged him down in love ten thousand fathoms deep. Yet, for the life of him, he could not get one word alone with charming Marguerite. So surely as a blessed moment seemed to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at Vendale’s elbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would appear before his eyes. That speechless matron was never seen in a front view, from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure – except at dinner. And from the instant of her retirement to the drawing-room, after a hearty participation in that meal, she turned her face to the wall again.

Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours, Marguerite was to be seen, Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite was to be occasionally touched. When they made the round of the old dark cellars, Vendale led her by the hand; when she sang to him in the lighted room at night, Vendale, standing by her, held her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered against them every drop of the forty-five year old, though it had been forty-five times forty-five years old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five pounds per dozen. And still, when she was gone, and a great gap of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he tormented himself by wondering, Did she think that he admired her! Did she think that he adored her! Did she suspect that she had won him, heart and soul! Did she care to think at all about it! And so, Did she and Didn’t she, up and down the gamut, and above the line and below the line, dear, dear! Poor restless heart of humanity! To think that the men who were mummies thousands of years ago, did the same, and ever found the secret how to be quiet after it!

“What do you think, George,” Wilding asked him next day, “of Mr. Obenreizer? (I won’t ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)”

“I don’t know,” said Vendale, “and I never did know, what to think of him.”

“He is well informed and clever,” said Wilding.

“Certainly clever.”

“A good musician.” (He had played very well, and sung very well, overnight.)

“Unquestionably a good musician.”

“And talks well.”

“Yes,” said George Vendale, ruminating, “and talks well. Do you know, Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that he doesn’t keep silence well!”

“How do you mean? He is not obtrusively talkative.”

“No, and I don’t mean that. But when he is silent, you can hardly help vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. Take people whom you know and like. Take anyone you know and like.”

“Soon done, my good fellow,” said Wilding. “I take you.”

“I didn’t bargain for that, or foresee it,” returned Vendale, laughing. “However, take me. Reflect for a moment. Is your approving knowledge of my interesting face mainly founded (however various the momentary expressions it may include) on my face when I am silent?”

“I think it is,” said Wilding.

“I think so too. Now, you see, when Obenreizer speaks – in other words, when he is allowed to explain himself away – he comes out right enough; but when he has not the opportunity of explaining himself away, he comes out rather wrong. Therefore it is, that I say he does not keep silence well. And passing hastily in review such faces as I know, and don’t trust, I am inclined to think, now I give my mind to it, that none of them keep silence well.”

This proposition in Physiognomy being new to Wilding, he was at first slow to admit it, until asking himself the question whether Mrs. Goldstraw kept silence well, and remembering that her face in repose decidedly invited trustfulness, he was as glad as men usually are to believe what they desire to believe.

But, as he was very slow to regain his spirits or his health, his partner, as another means of setting him up – and perhaps also with contingent Obenreizer views – reminded him of those musical schemes of his in connection with his family, and how a singing-class was to be formed in the house, and a Choir in a neighbouring church. The class was established speedily, and, two or three of the people having already some musical knowledge, and singing tolerably, the Choir soon followed. The latter was led, and chiefly taught, by Wilding himself: who had hopes of converting his dependents into so many Foundlings, in respect of their capacity to sing sacred choruses.

Now, the Obenreizers being skilled musicians, it was easily brought to pass that they should be asked to join these musical unions. Guardian and Ward consenting, or Guardian consenting for both, it was necessarily brought to pass that Vendale’s life became a life of absolute thraldom and enchantment. For, in the mouldy Christopher-Wren church on Sundays, with its dearly beloved brethren assembled and met together, five-and-twenty strong, was not that Her voice that shot like light into the darkest places, thrilling the walls and pillars as though they were pieces of his heart! What time, too, Madame Dor in a corner of the high pew, turning her back upon everybody and everything, could not fail to be Ritualistically right at some moment of the service; like the man whom the doctors recommended to get drunk once a month, and who, that he might not overlook it, got drunk every day.

But, even those seraphic Sundays were surpassed by the Wednesday concerts established for the patriarchal family. At those concerts she would sit down to the piano and sing them, in her own tongue, songs of her own land, songs calling from the mountain-tops to Vendale, “Rise above the grovelling level country; come far away from the crowd; pursue me as I mount higher; higher, higher, melting into the azure distance; rise to my supremest height of all, and love me here!” Then would the pretty bodice, the clocked stocking, and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the broad forehead and the bright eyes, fraught with the spring of a very chamois, until the strain was over.

Not even over Vendale himself did these songs of hers cast a more potent spell than over Joey Ladle in his different way. Steadily refusing to muddle the harmony by taking any share in it, and evincing the supremest contempt for scales and such-like rudiments of music – which, indeed, seldom captivate mere listeners – Joey did at first give up the whole business for a bad job, and the whole of the performers for a set of howling Dervishes. But, descrying traces of unmuddled harmony in a part-song one day, he gave his two under cellarmen faint hopes of getting on towards something in course of time. An anthem of Handel’s led to further encouragement from him: though he objected that that great musician must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much, for to go and say the same thing so many times over; which, took it in how you might, he considered a certain sign of your having took it in somehow. On a third occasion, the public appearance of Mr. Jarvis with a flute, and of an odd man with a violin, and the performance of a duet by the two, did so astonish him that, solely of his own impulse and motion, he became inspired with the words, “Ann Koar!” repeatedly pronouncing them as if calling in a familiar manner for some lady who had distinguished herself in the orchestra. But this was his final testimony to the merits of his mates, for, the instrumental duet being performed at the first Wednesday concert, and being presently followed by the voice of Marguerite Obenreizer, he sat with his mouth wide open, entranced, until she had finished; when, rising in his place with much solemnity, and prefacing what he was about to say with a bow that specially included Mr. Wilding in it, he delivered himself of the gratifying sentiment: “Arter that, ye may all on ye get to bed!” And ever afterwards declined to render homage in any other words to the musical powers of the family.

Thus began a separate personal acquaintance between Marguerite Obenreizer and Joey Ladle. She laughed so heartily at his compliment, and yet was so abashed by it, that Joey made bold to say to her, after the concert was over, he hoped he wasn’t so muddled in his head as to have took a liberty? She made him a gracious reply, and Joey ducked in return.

“You’ll change the luck time about, Miss,” said Joey, ducking again. “It’s such as you in the place that can bring round the luck of the place.”

“Can I? Round the luck?” she answered, in her pretty English, and with a pretty wonder. “I fear I do not understand. I am so stupid.”

“Young Master Wilding, Miss,” Joey explained confidentially, though not much to her enlightenment, “changed the luck, afore he took in young Master George. So I say, and so they’ll find. Lord! Only come into the place and sing over the luck a few times, Miss, and it won’t be able to help itself!”

With this, and with a whole brood of ducks, Joey backed out of the presence. But Joey being a privileged person, and even an involuntary conquest being pleasant to youth and beauty, Marguerite merrily looked out for him next time.

“Where is my Mr. Joey, please?” she asked Vendale.

So Joey was produced, and shaken hands with, and that became an Institution.

Another Institution arose in this wise. Joey was a little hard of hearing. He himself said it was “Wapours,” and perhaps it might have been; but whatever the cause of the effect, there the effect was, upon him. On this first occasion he had been seen to sidle along the wall, with his left hand to his left ear, until he had sidled himself into a seat pretty near the singer, in which place and position he had remained, until addressing to his friends the amateurs the compliment before mentioned. It was observed on the following Wednesday that Joey’s action as a Pecking Machine was impaired at dinner, and it was rumoured about the table that this was explainable by his high-strung expectations of Miss Obenreizer’s singing, and his fears of not getting a place where he could hear every note and syllable. The rumour reaching Wilding’s ears, he in his good nature called Joey to the front at night before Marguerite began. Thus the Institution came into being that on succeeding nights, Marguerite, running her hands over the keys before singing, always said to Vendale, “Where is my Mr. Joey, please?” and that Vendale always brought him forth, and stationed him near by. That he should then, when all eyes were upon him, express in his face the utmost contempt for the exertions of his friends and confidence in Marguerite alone, whom he would stand contemplating, not unlike the rhinocerous out of the spelling-book, tamed and on his hind legs, was a part of the Institution. Also that when he remained after the singing in his most ecstatic state, some bold spirit from the back should say, “What do you think of it, Joey?” and he should be goaded to reply, as having that instant conceived the retort, “Arter that ye may all on ye get to bed!” These were other parts of the Institution.

But, the simple pleasures and small jests of Cripple Corner were not destined to have a long life. Underlying them from the first was a serious matter, which every member of the patriarchal family knew of, but which, by tacit agreement, all forbore to speak of. Mr. Wilding’s health was in a bad way.

He might have overcome the shock he had sustained in the one great affection of his life, or he might have overcome his consciousness of being in the enjoyment of another man’s property; but the two together were too much for him. A man haunted by twin ghosts, he became deeply depressed. The inseparable spectres sat at the board with him, ate from his platter, drank from his cup, and stood by his bedside at night. When he recalled his supposed mother’s love, he felt as though he had stolen it. When he rallied a little under the respect and attachment of his dependants, he felt as though he were even fraudulent in making them happy, for that should have been the unknown man’s duty and gratification.

Gradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his body stooped, his step lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from the ground. He knew he could not help the deplorable mistake that had been made, but he knew he could not mend it; for the days and weeks went by, and no one claimed his name or his possessions. And now there began to creep over him a cloudy consciousness of often-recurring confusion in his head. He would unaccountably lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day and night. Once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head of the dinner-table, and was blank until daybreak. Another time, it stopped as he was beating time to their singing, and went on again when he and his partner were walking in the courtyard by the light of the moon, half the night later. He asked Vendale (always full of consideration, work, and help) how this was? Vendale only replied, “You have not been quite well; that’s all.” He looked for explanation into the faces of his people. But they would put it off with “Glad to see you looking so much better, sir;” or “Hope you’re doing nicely now, sir;” in which was no information at all.

At length, when the partnership was but five months old, Walter Wilding took to his bed, and his housekeeper became his nurse.

“Lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you Sally, Mrs. Goldstraw?” said the poor wine-merchant.

“It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name, and I like it better.”

“Thank you, Sally. I think, Sally, I must of late have been subject to fits. Is that so, Sally? Don’t mind telling me now.”

“It has happened, sir.”

“Ah! That is the explanation!” he quietly remarked. “Mr. Obenreizer, Sally, talks of the world being so small that it is not strange how often the same people come together, and come together at various places, and in various stages of life. But it does seem strange, Sally, that I should, as I may say, come round to the Foundling to die.”

He extended his hand to her, and she gently took it.

“You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding.”

“So Mr. Bintrey said, but I think he was wrong. The old child-feeling is coming back upon me, Sally. The old hush and rest, as I used to fall asleep.”

After an interval he said, in a placid voice, “Please kiss me, Nurse,” and, it was evident, believed himself to be lying in the old Dormitory.

As she had been used to bend over the fatherless and motherless children, Sally bent over the fatherless and motherless man, and put her lips to his forehead, murmuring:

“God bless you!”

“God bless you!” he replied, in the same tone.

After another interval, he opened his eyes in his own character, and said: “Don’t move me, Sally, because of what I am going to say; I lie quite easily. I think my time is come, I don’t know how it may appear to you, Sally, but—”

Insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes; he emerged from it once more.

“ – I don’t know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so it appears to me.”

When he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite sentence, his time came, and he died.

ACT II

VENDALE MAKES LOVE

The summer and the autumn passed. Christmas and the New Year were at hand.

As executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the dead, Vendale and Bintrey had held more than one anxious consultation on the subject of Wilding’s will. The lawyer had declared, from the first, that it was simply impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all. The only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man, had been made already by Wilding himself; with this result, that time and death together had not left a trace of him discoverable. To advertise for the claimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention particulars – a course of proceeding which would invite half the impostors in England to present themselves in the character of the true Walter Wilding. “If we find a chance of tracing the lost man, we will take it. If we don’t, let us meet for another consultation on the first anniversary of Wilding’s death.” So Bintrey advised. And so, with the most earnest desire to fulfil his dead friend’s wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest for the present.

Turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the future, Vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect. Months on months had passed since his first visit to Soho Square – and through all that time, the one language in which he had told Marguerite that he loved her was the language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities, by the language of the hand.

What was the obstacle in his way? The one immovable obstacle which had been in his way from the first. No matter how fairly the opportunities looked, Vendale’s efforts to speak with Marguerite alone ended invariably in one and the same result. Under the most accidental circumstances, in the most innocent manner possible, Obenreizer was always in the way.

With the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance of spending an evening with Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a chance of speaking privately to her as well. A cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on New Year’s Day, to a little family dinner in Soho Square. “We shall be only four,” the note said. “We shall be only two,” Vendale determined, “before the evening is out!”

New Year’s Day, among the English, is associated with the giving and receiving of dinners, and with nothing more. New Year’s Day, among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and receiving of presents. It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a foreign custom. In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making the attempt. His one difficulty was to decide what his New Year’s gift to Marguerite should be. The defensive pride of the peasant’s daughter – morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social position and his – would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on a rich offering. A gift, which a poor man’s purse might purchase, was the one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the giver’s sake. Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filigree-work of Genoa – the simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the jeweller’s shop.

He slipped his gift into Marguerite’s hand as she held it out to welcome him on the day of the dinner.

“This is your first New Year’s Day in England,” he said. “Will you let me help to make it like a New Year’s Day at home?”

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller’s box, uncertain what it might contain. Opening the box, and discovering the studiously simple form under which Vendale’s little keepsake offered itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her face turned on him brightly, with a look which said, “I own you have pleased and flattered me.” Never had she been so charming, in Vendale’s eyes, as she was at that moment. Her winter dress – a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of swans-down – heightened, by all the force of contrast, the dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion. It was only when she turned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she wore, put his New Year’s gift in its place, that Vendale’s attention wandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of other persons in the room. He now became conscious that the hands of Obenreizer were affectionately in possession of his elbows. He now heard the voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his attention to Marguerite, with the faintest possible ring of mockery in its tone. (“Such a simple present, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!”) He now discovered, for the first time, that there was one other guest, and but one, besides himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend. The friend’s face was mouldy, and the friend’s figure was fat. His age was suggestive of the autumnal period of human life. In the course of the evening he developed two extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles.

Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither was there any visible place reserved for her when they sat down to table. Obenreizer explained that it was “the good Dor’s simple habit to dine always in the middle of the day. She would make her excuses later in the evening.” Vendale wondered whether the good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic employment from cleaning Obenreizer’s gloves to cooking Obenreizer’s dinner. This at least was certain – the dishes served were, one and all, as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary art of England. The dinner was unobtrusively perfect. As for the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy. Sometimes he said “Good!” when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he said “Ah!” when a bottle went out empty – and there his contributions to the gaiety of the evening ended.

Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed by private anxieties of their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the speechless friend. The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going rested on Obenreizer’s shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it. He opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of England. When other topics ran dry, he returned to this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as copiously as ever. Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to have been born an Englishman. Out of England there was no such institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a beautiful woman. His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted for her attractions on the theory that English blood must have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry. Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people! Look at their cities! What magnificence in their public buildings! What admirable order and propriety in their streets! Admire their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man’s honour, to an injury to a man’s nose! You have ruined my daughter – pounds, shillings, and pence! You have knocked me down with a blow in my face – pounds, shillings, and pence! Where was the material prosperity of such a country as that to stop? Obenreizer, projecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of it. Obenreizer’s enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast. Here is our modest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the admirer of England conforming to national customs, and making a speech! A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to your national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to your Hearths, to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to all your other institutions! In one word – to England! Heep-heep-heep! hooray!

Obenreizer’s voice had barely chanted the last note of the English cheer, the speechless friend had barely drained the last drop out of his glass, when the festive proceedings were interrupted by a modest tap at the door. A woman-servant came in, and approached her master with a little note in her hand. Obenreizer opened the note with a frown; and, after reading it with an expression of genuine annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot and friend. Vendale’s spirits rose as he watched these proceedings. Had he found an ally in the annoying little note? Was the long-looked-for chance actually coming at last?

“I am afraid there is no help for it?” said Obenreizer, addressing his fellow-countryman. “I am afraid we must go.”

The speechless friend handed back the letter, shrugged his heavy shoulders, and poured himself out a last glass of wine. His fat fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the bottle. They pressed it with a little amatory squeeze at parting. His globular eyes looked dimly, as through an intervening haze, at Vendale and Marguerite. His heavy articulation laboured, and brought forth a whole sentence at a birth. “I think,” he said, “I should have liked a little more wine.” His breath failed him after that effort; he gasped, and walked to the door.

Obenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with an appearance of the deepest distress.

“I am so shocked, so confused, so distressed,” he began. “A misfortune has happened to one of my compatriots. He is alone, he is ignorant of your language – I and my good friend, here, have no choice but to go and help him. What can I say in my excuse? How can I describe my affliction at depriving myself in this way of the honour of your company?”

He paused, evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his hat and retire. Discerning his opportunity at last, Vendale determined to do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer dexterously, with Obenreizer’s own weapons.

“Pray don’t distress yourself,” he said. “I’ll wait here with the greatest pleasure till you come back.”

Marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away to her embroidery-frame in a corner by the window. The film showed itself in Obenreizer’s eyes, and the smile came something sourly to Obenreizer’s lips. To have told Vendale that there was no reasonable prospect of his coming back in good time, would have been to risk offending a man whose favourable opinion was of solid commercial importance to him. Accepting his defeat with the best possible grace, he declared himself to be equally honoured and delighted by Vendale’s proposal. “So frank, so friendly, so English!” He bustled about, apparently looking for something he wanted, disappeared for a moment through the folding-doors communicating with the next room, came back with his hat and coat, and protesting that he would return at the earliest possible moment, embraced Vendale’s elbows, and vanished from the scene in company with the speechless friend.

Vendale turned to the corner by the window, in which Marguerite had placed herself with her work. There, as if she had dropped from the ceiling, or come up through the floor – there, in the old attitude, with her face to the stove – sat an Obstacle that had not been foreseen, in the person of Madame Dor! She half got up, half looked over her broad shoulder at Vendale, and plumped down again. Was she at work? Yes. Cleaning Obenreizer’s gloves, as before? No; darning Obenreizer’s stockings.

The case was now desperate. Two serious considerations presented themselves to Vendale. Was it possible to put Madame Dor into the stove? The stove wouldn’t hold her. Was it possible to treat Madame Dor, not as a living woman, but as an article of furniture? Could the mind be brought to contemplate this respectable matron purely in the light of a chest of drawers, with a black gauze head-dress accidentally left on the top of it? Yes, the mind could be brought to do that. With a comparatively trifling effort, Vendale’s mind did it. As he took his place on the old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery, a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid furniture is not easy to move, and that it has this advantage in consequence – there is no fear of upsetting it.

Unusually silent and unusually constrained – with the bright colour fast fading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing her fingers – the pretty Marguerite bent over her embroidery, and worked as if her life depended on it. Hardly less agitated himself, Vendale felt the importance of leading her very gently to the avowal which he was eager to make – to the other sweeter avowal still, which he was longing to hear. A woman’s love is never to be taken by storm; it yields insensibly to a system of gradual approach. It ventures by the roundabout way, and listens to the low voice. Vendale led her memory back to their past meetings when they were travelling together in Switzerland. They revived the impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy bygone time. Little by little, Marguerite’s constraint vanished. She smiled, she was interested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle with her needle, she made false stitches in her work. Their voices sank lower and lower; their faces bent nearer and nearer to each other as they spoke. And Madame Dor? Madame Dor behaved like an angel. She never looked round; she never said a word; she went on with Obenreizer’s stockings. Pulling each stocking up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from time to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments – delicate and indescribable moments – when Madame Dor appeared to be sitting upside down, and contemplating one of her own respectable legs, elevated in the air. As the minutes wore on, these elevations followed each other at longer and longer intervals. Now and again, the black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself. A little heap of stockings slid softly from Madame Dor’s lap, and remained unnoticed on the floor. A prodigious ball of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily under the table. The black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered itself no more. A composite sound, partly as of the purring of an immense cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the hushed voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals through the room. Nature and Madame Dor had combined together in Vendale’s interests. The best of women was asleep.

Marguerite rose to stop – not the snoring – let us say, the audible repose of Madame Dor. Vendale laid his hand on her arm, and pressed her back gently into her chair.

“Don’t disturb her,” he whispered. “I have been waiting to tell you a secret. Let me tell it now.”

Marguerite resumed her seat. She tried to resume her needle. It was useless; her eyes failed her; her hand failed her; she could find nothing.

“We have been talking,” said Vendale, “of the happy time when we first met, and first travelled together. I have a confession to make. I have been concealing something. When we spoke of my first visit to Switzerland, I told you of all the impressions I had brought back with me to England – except one. Can you guess what that one is?”

Her eyes looked steadfastly at the embroidery, and her face turned a little away from him. Signs of disturbance began to appear in her neat velvet bodice, round the region of the brooch. She made no reply. Vendale pressed the question without mercy.

“Can you guess what the one Swiss impression is which I have not told you yet?”

Her face turned back towards him, and a faint smile trembled on her lips.

“An impression of the mountains, perhaps?” she said slyly.

“No; a much more precious impression than that.”

“Of the lakes?”

“No. The lakes have not grown dearer and dearer in remembrance to me every day. The lakes are not associated with my happiness in the present, and my hopes in the future. Marguerite! all that makes life worth having hangs, for me, on a word from your lips. Marguerite! I love you!”

Her head drooped as he took her hand. He drew her to him, and looked at her. The tears escaped from her downcast eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks.

“O, Mr. Vendale,” she said sadly, “it would have been kinder to have kept your secret. Have you forgotten the distance between us? It can never, never be!”

“There can be but one distance between us, Marguerite – a distance of your making. My love, my darling, there is no higher rank in goodness, there is no higher rank in beauty, than yours! Come! whisper the one little word which tells me you will be my wife!”

She sighed bitterly. “Think of your family,” she murmured; “and think of mine!”

Vendale drew her a little nearer to him.

“If you dwell on such an obstacle as that,” he said, “I shall think but one thought – I shall think I have offended you.”

She started, and looked up. “O, no!” she exclaimed innocently. The instant the words passed her lips, she saw the construction that might be placed on them. Her confession had escaped her in spite of herself. A lovely flush of colour overspread her face. She made a momentary effort to disengage herself from her lover’s embrace. She looked up at him entreatingly. She tried to speak. The words died on her lips in the kiss that Vendale pressed on them. “Let me go, Mr. Vendale!” she said faintly.

“Call me George.”

She laid her head on his bosom. All her heart went out to him at last. “George!” she whispered.

“Say you love me!”

Her arms twined themselves gently round his neck. Her lips, timidly touching his cheek, murmured the delicious words – “I love you!”

In the moment of silence that followed, the sound of the opening and closing of the house-door came clear to them through the wintry stillness of the street.

Marguerite started to her feet.

“Let me go!” she said. “He has come back!”

She hurried from the room, and touched Madame Dor’s shoulder in passing. Madame Dor woke up with a loud snort, looked first over one shoulder and then over the other, peered down into her lap, and discovered neither stockings, worsted, nor darning-needle in it. At the same moment, footsteps became audible ascending the stairs. “Mon Dieu!” said Madame Dor, addressing herself to the stove, and trembling violently. Vendale picked up the stockings and the ball, and huddled them all back in a heap over her shoulder. “Mon Dieu!” said Madame Dor, for the second time, as the avalanche of worsted poured into her capacious lap.

The door opened, and Obenreizer came in. His first glance round the room showed him that Marguerite was absent.

“What!” he exclaimed, “my niece is away? My niece is not here to entertain you in my absence? This is unpardonable. I shall bring her back instantly.”

Vendale stopped him.

“I beg you will not disturb Miss Obenreizer,” he said. “You have returned, I see, without your friend?”

“My friend remains, and consoles our afflicted compatriot. A heart-rending scene, Mr. Vendale! The household gods at the pawnbroker’s – the family immersed in tears. We all embraced in silence. My admirable friend alone possessed his composure. He sent out, on the spot, for a bottle of wine.”

“Can I say a word to you in private, Mr. Obenreizer?”

“Assuredly.” He turned to Madame Dor. “My good creature, you are sinking for want of repose. Mr. Vendale will excuse you.”

Madame Dor rose, and set forth sideways on her journey from the stove to bed. She dropped a stocking. Vendale picked it up for her, and opened one of the folding-doors. She advanced a step, and dropped three more stockings. Vendale stooping to recover them as before, Obenreizer interfered with profuse apologies, and with a warning look at Madame Dor. Madame Dor acknowledged the look by dropping the whole of the stockings in a heap, and then shuffling away panic-stricken from the scene of disaster. Obenreizer swept up the complete collection fiercely in both hands. “Go!” he cried, giving his prodigious handful a preparatory swing in the air. Madame Dor said, “Mon Dieu,” and vanished into the next room, pursued by a shower of stockings.

“What must you think, Mr. Vendale,” said Obenreizer, closing the door, “of this deplorable intrusion of domestic details? For myself, I blush at it. We are beginning the New Year as badly as possible; everything has gone wrong tonight. Be seated, pray – and say, what may I offer you? Shall we pay our best respects to another of your noble English institutions? It is my study to be, what you call, jolly. I propose a grog.”

Vendale declined the grog with all needful respect for that noble institution.

“I wish to speak to you on a subject in which I am deeply interested,” he said. “You must have observed, Mr. Obenreizer, that I have, from the first, felt no ordinary admiration for your charming niece?”

“You are very good. In my niece’s name, I thank you.”

“Perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, that my admiration for Miss Obenreizer has grown into a tenderer and deeper feeling—?”

“Shall we say friendship, Mr. Vendale?”

“Say love – and we shall be nearer to the truth.”

Obenreizer started out of his chair. The faintly discernible beat, which was his nearest approach to a change of colour, showed itself suddenly in his cheeks.

“You are Miss Obenreizer’s guardian,” pursued Vendale. “I ask you to confer upon me the greatest of all favours – I ask you to give me her hand in marriage.”

Obenreizer dropped back into his chair. “Mr. Vendale,” he said, “you petrify me.”

“I will wait,” rejoined Vendale, “until you have recovered yourself.”

“One word before I recover myself. You have said nothing about this to my niece?”

“I have opened my whole heart to your niece. And I have reason to hope—”

“What!” interposed Obenreizer. “You have made a proposal to my niece, without first asking for my authority to pay your addresses to her?” He struck his hand on the table, and lost his hold over himself for the first time in Vendale’s experience of him. “Sir!” he exclaimed, indignantly, “what sort of conduct is this? As a man of honour, speaking to a man of honour, how can you justify it?”

“I can only justify it as one of our English institutions,” said Vendale quietly. “You admire our English institutions. I can’t honestly tell you, Mr. Obenreizer, that I regret what I have done. I can only assure you that I have not acted in the matter with any intentional disrespect towards yourself. This said, may I ask you to tell me plainly what objection you see to favouring my suit?”

“I see this immense objection,” answered Obenreizer, “that my niece and you are not on a social equality together. My niece is the daughter of a poor peasant; and you are the son of a gentleman. You do us an honour,” he added, lowering himself again gradually to his customary polite level, “which deserves, and has, our most grateful acknowledgements. But the inequality is too glaring; the sacrifice is too great. You English are a proud people, Mr. Vendale. I have observed enough of this country to see that such a marriage as you propose would be a scandal here. Not a hand would be held out to your peasant-wife; and all your best friends would desert you.”

“One moment,” said Vendale, interposing on his side. “I may claim, without any great arrogance, to know more of my country people in general, and of my own friends in particular, than you do. In the estimation of everybody whose opinion is worth having, my wife herself would be the one sufficient justification of my marriage. If I did not feel certain – observe, I say certain – that I am offering her a position which she can accept without so much as the shadow of a humiliation – I would never (cost me what it might) have asked her to be my wife. Is there any other obstacle that you see? Have you any personal objection to me?”

Obenreizer spread out both his hands in courteous protest. “Personal objection!” he exclaimed. “Dear sir, the bare question is painful to me.”

“We are both men of business,” pursued Vendale, “and you naturally expect me to satisfy you that I have the means of supporting a wife. I can explain my pecuniary position in two words. I inherit from my parents a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. In half of that sum I have only a life-interest, to which, if I die, leaving a widow, my widow succeeds. If I die, leaving children, the money itself is divided among them, as they come of age. The other half of my fortune is at my own disposal, and is invested in the wine-business. I see my way to greatly improving that business. As it stands at present, I cannot state my return from my capital embarked at more than twelve hundred a year. Add the yearly value of my life-interest – and the total reaches a present annual income of fifteen hundred pounds. I have the fairest prospect of soon making it more. In the meantime, do you object to me on pecuniary grounds?”

Driven back to his last entrenchment, Obenreizer rose, and took a turn backwards and forwards in the room. For the moment, he was plainly at a loss what to say or do next.

“Before I answer that last question,” he said, after a little close consideration with himself, “I beg leave to revert for a moment to Miss Marguerite. You said something just now which seemed to imply that she returns the sentiment with which you are pleased to regard her?”

“I have the inestimable happiness,” said Vendale, “of knowing that she loves me.”

Obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his eyes, and the faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again in his cheeks.

“If you will excuse me for a few minutes,” he said, with ceremonious politeness, “I should like to have the opportunity of speaking to my niece.” With those words, he bowed, and quitted the room.

Left by himself, Vendale’s thoughts (as a necessary result of the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration of Obenreizer’s motives. He had put obstacles in the way of the courtship; he was now putting obstacles in the way of the marriage – a marriage offering advantages which even his ingenuity could not dispute. On the face of it, his conduct was incomprehensible. What did it mean?

Seeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question – and remembering that Obenreizer was a man of about his own age; also, that Marguerite was, strictly speaking, his half-niece only – Vendale asked himself, with a lover’s ready jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear, as well as a guardian to conciliate. The thought just crossed his mind, and no more. The sense of Marguerite’s kiss still lingering on his cheek reminded him gently that even the jealousy of a moment was now a treason to her.

On reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive of another kind might suggest the true explanation of Obenreizer’s conduct. Marguerite’s grace and beauty were precious ornaments in that little household. They gave it a special social attraction and a special social importance. They armed Obenreizer with a certain influence in reserve, which he could always depend upon to make his house attractive, and which he might always bring more or less to bear on the forwarding of his own private ends. Was he the sort of man to resign such advantages as were here implied, without obtaining the fullest possible compensation for the loss? A connection by marriage with Vendale offered him solid advantages, beyond all doubt. But there were hundreds of men in London with far greater power and far wider influence than Vendale possessed. Was it possible that this man’s ambition secretly looked higher than the highest prospects that could be offered to him by the alliance now proposed for his niece? As the question passed through Vendale’s mind, the man himself reappeared – to answer it, or not to answer it, as the event might prove.

A marked change was visible in Obenreizer when he resumed his place. His manner was less assured, and there were plain traces about his mouth of recent agitation which had not been successfully composed. Had he said something, referring either to Vendale or to himself, which had raised Marguerite’s spirit, and which had placed him, for the first time, face to face with a resolute assertion of his niece’s will? It might or might not be. This only was certain – he looked like a man who had met with a repulse.

“I have spoken to my niece,” he began. “I find, Mr. Vendale, that even your influence has not entirely blinded her to the social objections to your proposal.”

“May I ask,” returned Vendale, “if that is the only result of your interview with Miss Obenreizer?”

A momentary flash leapt out through the Obenreizer film.

“You are master of the situation,” he answered, in a tone of sardonic submission. “If you insist on my admitting it, I do admit it in those words. My niece’s will and mine used to be one, Mr. Vendale. You have come between us, and her will is now yours. In my country, we know when we are beaten, and we submit with our best grace. I submit, with my best grace, on certain conditions. Let us revert to the statement of your pecuniary position. I have an objection to you, my dear sir – a most amazing, a most audacious objection, from a man in my position to a man in yours.”

“What is it?”

“You have honoured me by making a proposal for my niece’s hand. For the present (with best thanks and respects), I beg to decline it.”

“Why?”

“Because you are not rich enough.”

The objection, as the speaker had foreseen, took Vendale completely by surprise. For the moment he was speechless.

“Your income is fifteen hundred a year,” pursued Obenreizer. “In my miserable country I should fall on my knees before your income, and say, ‘What a princely fortune!’ In wealthy England, I sit as I am, and say, ‘A modest independence, dear sir; nothing more. Enough, perhaps, for a wife in your own rank of life who has no social prejudices to conquer. Not more than half enough for a wife who is a meanly born foreigner, and who has all your social prejudices against her.’ Sir! if my niece is ever to marry you, she will have what you call uphill work of it in taking her place at starting. Yes, yes; this is not your view, but it remains, immovably remains, my view for all that. For my niece’s sake, I claim that this uphill work shall be made as smooth as possible. Whatever material advantages she can have to help her, ought, in common justice, to be hers. Now, tell me, Mr. Vendale, on your fifteen hundred a year can your wife have a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in? I see the answer in your face – your face says, No. Very good. Tell me one more thing, and I have done. Take the mass of your educated, accomplished, and lovely countrywomen, is it, or is it not, the fact that a lady who has a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in, is a lady who has gained four steps, in female estimation, at starting? Yes? or No?”

“Come to the point,” said Vendale. “You view this question as a question of terms. What are your terms?”

“The lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can provide your wife with those four steps at starting. Double your present income – the most rigid economy cannot do it in England on less. You said just now that you expected greatly to increase the value of your business. To work – and increase it! I am a good devil after all! On the day when you satisfy me, by plain proofs, that your income has risen to three thousand a year, ask me for my niece’s hand, and it is yours.”

“May I inquire if you have mentioned this arrangement to Miss Obenreizer?”

“Certainly. She has a last little morsel of regard still left for me, Mr. Vendale, which is not yours yet; and she accepts my terms. In other words, she submits to be guided by her guardian’s regard for her welfare, and by her guardian’s superior knowledge of the world.” He threw himself back in his chair, in firm reliance on his position, and in full possession of his excellent temper.

Any open assertion of his own interests, in the situation in which Vendale was now placed, seemed to be (for the present at least) hopeless. He found himself literally left with no ground to stand on. Whether Obenreizer’s objections were the genuine product of Obenreizer’s own view of the case, or whether he was simply delaying the marriage in the hope of ultimately breaking it off altogether – in either of these events, any present resistance on Vendale’s part would be equally useless. There was no help for it but to yield, making the best terms that he could on his own side.

“I protest against the conditions you impose on me,” he began.

“Naturally,” said Obenreizer; “I dare say I should protest, myself, in your place.”

“Say, however,” pursued Vendale, “that I accept your terms. In that case, I must be permitted to make two stipulations on my part. In the first place, I shall expect to be allowed to see your niece.”

“Aha! to see my niece? and to make her in as great a hurry to be married as you are yourself? Suppose I say, No? you would see her perhaps without my permission?”

“Decidedly!”

“How delightfully frank! How exquisitely English! You shall see her, Mr. Vendale, on certain days, which we will appoint together. What next?”

“Your objection to my income,” proceeded Vendale, “has taken me completely by surprise. I wish to be assured against any repetition of that surprise. Your present views of my qualification for marriage require me to have an income of three thousand a year. Can I be certain, in the future, as your experience of England enlarges, that your estimate will rise no higher?”

“In plain English,” said Obenreizer, “you doubt my word?”

“Do you purpose to take my word for it when I inform you that I have doubled my income?” asked Vendale. “If my memory does not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute since, for plain proofs?”

“Well played, Mr. Vendale! You combine the foreign quickness with the English solidity. Accept my best congratulations. Accept, also, my written guarantee.”

He rose; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table, wrote a few lines, and presented them to Vendale with a low bow. The engagement was perfectly explicit, and was signed and dated with scrupulous care.

“Are you satisfied with your guarantee?”

“I am satisfied.”

“Charmed to hear it, I am sure. We have had our little skirmish – we have really been wonderfully clever on both sides. For the present our affairs are settled. I bear no malice. You bear no malice. Come, Mr. Vendale, a good English shake hands.”

Vendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by Obenreizer’s sudden transitions from one humour to another.

“When may I expect to see Miss Obenreizer again?” he asked, as he rose to go.

“Honour me with a visit tomorrow,” said Obenreizer, “and we will settle it then. Do have a grog before you go! No? Well! well! we will reserve the grog till you have your three thousand a year, and are ready to be married. Aha! When will that be?”

“I made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities of my business,” said Vendale. “If that estimate is correct, I shall double my present income—”

“And be married!” added Obenreizer.

“And be married,” repeated Vendale, “within a year from this time. Good-night.”

VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF

When Vendale entered his office the next morning, the dull commercial routine at Cripple Corner met him with a new face. Marguerite had an interest in it now! The whole machinery which Wilding’s death had set in motion, to realise the value of the business – the balancing of ledgers, the estimating of debts, the taking of stock, and the rest of it – was now transformed into machinery which indicated the chances for and against a speedy marriage. After looking over results, as presented by his accountant, and checking additions and subtractions, as rendered by the clerks, Vendale turned his attention to the stock-taking department next, and sent a message to the cellars, desiring to see the report.

The Cellarman’s appearance, the moment he put his head in at the door of his master’s private room, suggested that something very extraordinary must have happened that morning. There was an approach to alacrity in Joey Ladle’s movements! There was something which actually simulated cheerfulness in Joey Ladle’s face

“What’s the matter?” asked Vendale. “Anything wrong?”

“I should wish to mention one thing,” answered Joey. “Young Mr. Vendale, I have never set myself up for a prophet.”

“Who ever said you did?”

“No prophet, as far as I’ve heard I tell of that profession,” proceeded Joey, “ever lived principally underground. No prophet, whatever else he might take in at the pores, ever took in wine from morning to night, for a number of years together. When I said to young Master Wilding, respecting his changing the name of the firm, that one of these days he might find he’d changed the luck of the firm – did I put myself forward as a prophet? No, I didn’t. Has what I said to him come true? Yes, it has. In the time of Pebbleson Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing was ever known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these doors. There’s a mistake been made now. Please to remark that it happened before Miss Margaret came here. For which reason it don’t go against what I’ve said respecting Miss Margaret singing round the luck. Read that, sir,” concluded Joey, pointing attention to a special passage in the report, with a forefinger which appeared to be in process of taking in through the pores nothing more remarkable than dirt. “It’s foreign to my nature to crow over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind of solemn duty to ask you to read that.”

Vendale read as follows: “Note, respecting the Swiss champagne. An irregularity has been discovered in the last consignment received from the firm of Defresnier and Co.” Vendale stopped, and referred to a memorandum-book by his side. “That was in Mr. Wilding’s time,” he said. “The vintage was a particularly good one, and he took the whole of it. The Swiss champagne has done very well, hasn’t it?”

“I don’t say it’s done badly,” answered the Cellarman. “It may have got sick in our customers’ bins, or it may have bust in our customers’ hands. But I don’t say it’s done badly with us.”

Vendale resumed the reading of the note: “We find the number of the cases to be quite correct by the books. But six of them, which present a slight difference from the rest in the brand, have been opened, and have been found to contain a red wine instead of champagne. The similarity in the brands, we suppose, caused a mistake to be made in sending the consignment from Neuchâtel. The error has not been found to extend beyond six cases.”

“Is that all!” exclaimed Vendale, tossing the note away from him.

Joey Ladle’s eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily.

“I’m glad to see you take it easy, sir,” he said. “Whatever happens, it will be always a comfort to you to remember that you took it easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads to another. A man drops a bit of orange-peel on the pavement by mistake, and another man treads on it by mistake, and there’s a job at the hospital, and a party crippled for life. I’m glad you take it easy, sir. In Pebbleson Nephew’s time we shouldn’t have taken it easy till we had seen the end of it. Without desiring to crow over the house, young Mr. Vendale, I wish you well through it. No offence, sir,” said the Cellarman, opening the door to go out, and looking in again ominously before he shut it. “I’m muddled and molloncolly, I grant you. But I’m an old servant of Pebbleson Nephew, and I wish you well through them six cases of red wine.”

Left by himself, Vendale laughed, and took up his pen. “I may as well send a line to Defresnier and Company,” he thought, “before I forget it.” He wrote at once in these terms:

Dear Sirs. We are taking stock, and a trifling mistake has been discovered in the last consignment of champagne sent by your house to ours. Six of the cases contain red wine – which we hereby return to you. The matter can easily be set right, either by your sending us six cases of the champagne, if they can be produced, or, if not, by your crediting us with the value of six cases on the amount last paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm to yours. Your faithful servants,

WILDING AND CO.

This letter despatched to the post, the subject dropped at once out of Vendale’s mind. He had other and far more interesting matters to think of. Later in the day he paid the visit to Obenreizer which had been agreed on between them. Certain evenings in the week were set apart which he was privileged to spend with Marguerite – always, however, in the presence of a third person. On this stipulation Obenreizer politely but positively insisted. The one concession he made was to give Vendale his choice of who the third person should be. Confiding in past experience, his choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent woman who mended Obenreizer’s stockings. On hearing of the responsibility entrusted to her, Madame Dor’s intellectual nature burst suddenly into a new stage of development. She waited till Obenreizer’s eye was off her – and then she looked at Vendale, and dimly winked.

The time passed – the happy evenings with Marguerite came and went. It was the tenth morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss firm, when the answer appeared, on his desk, with the other letters of the day:

Dear Sirs. We beg to offer our excuses for the little mistake which has happened. At the same time, we regret to add that the statement of our error, with which you have favoured us, has led to a very unexpected discovery. The affair is a most serious one for you and for us. The particulars are as follows:

Having no more champagne of the vintage last sent to you, we made arrangements to credit your firm to the value of six cases, as suggested by yourself. On taking this step, certain forms observed in our mode of doing business necessitated a reference to our bankers’ book, as well as to our ledger. The result is a moral certainty that no such remittance as you mention can have reached our house, and a literal certainty that no such remittance has been paid to our account at the bank.

It is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, to trouble you with details. The money has unquestionably been stolen in the course of its transit from you to us. Certain peculiarities which we observe, relating to the manner in which the fraud has been perpetrated, lead us to conclude that the thief may have calculated on being able to pay the missing sum to our bankers, before an inevitable discovery followed the annual striking of our balance. This would not have happened, in the usual course, for another three months. During that period, but for your letter, we might have remained perfectly unconscious of the robbery that has been committed.

We mention this last circumstance, as it may help to show you that we have to do, in this case, with no ordinary thief. Thus far we have not even a suspicion of who that thief is. But we believe you will assist us in making some advance towards discovery, by examining the receipt (forged, of course) which has no doubt purported to come to you from our house. Be pleased to look and see whether it is a receipt entirely in manuscript, or whether it is a numbered and printed form which merely requires the filling in of the amount. The settlement of this apparently trivial question is, we assure you, a matter of vital importance. Anxiously awaiting your reply, we remain, with high esteem and consideration,

DEFRESNIER & CIE.

Vendale had the letter on his desk, and waited a moment to steady his mind under the shock that had fallen on it. At the time of all others when it was most important to him to increase the value of his business, that business was threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. He thought of Marguerite, as he took the key from his pocket and opened the iron chamber in the wall in which the books and papers of the firm were kept.

He was still in the chamber, searching for the forged receipt, when he was startled by a voice speaking close behind him.

“A thousand pardons,” said the voice; “I am afraid I disturb you.”

He turned, and found himself face to face with Marguerite’s guardian.

“I have called,” pursued Obenreizer, “to know if I can be of any use. Business of my own takes me away for some days to Manchester and Liverpool. Can I combine any business of yours with it? I am entirely at your disposal, in the character of commercial traveller for the firm of Wilding and Co.”

“Excuse me for one moment,” said Vendale; “I will speak to you directly.” He turned round again, and continued his search among the papers. “You come at a time when friendly offers are more than usually precious to me,” he resumed. “I have had very bad news this morning from Neuchâtel.”

“Bad news,” exclaimed Obenreizer. “From Defresnier and Company?”

“Yes. A remittance we sent to them has been stolen. I am threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. What’s that?”

Turning sharply, and looking into the room for the second time, Vendale discovered his envelope case overthrown on the floor, and Obenreizer on his knees picking up the contents.

“All my awkwardness,” said Obenreizer. “This dreadful news of yours startled me; I stepped back—” He became too deeply interested in collecting the scattered envelopes to finish the sentence.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Vendale. “The clerk will pick the things up.”

“This dreadful news!” repeated Obenreizer, persisting in collecting the envelopes. “This dreadful news!”

“If you will read the letter,” said Vendale, “you will find I have exaggerated nothing. There it is, open on my desk.”

He resumed his search, and in a moment more discovered the forged receipt. It was on the numbered and printed form, described by the Swiss firm. Vendale made a memorandum of the number and the date. Having replaced the receipt and locked up the iron chamber, he had leisure to notice Obenreizer, reading the letter in the recess of a window at the far end of the room.

“Come to the fire,” said Vendale. “You look perished with the cold out there. I will ring for some more coals.”

Obenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the desk. “Marguerite will be as sorry to hear of this as I am,” he said, kindly. “What do you mean to do?”

“I am in the hands of Defresnier and Company,” answered Vendale. “In my total ignorance of the circumstances, I can only do what they recommend. The receipt which I have just found, turns out to be the numbered and printed form. They seem to attach some special importance to its discovery. You have had experience, when you were in the Swiss house, of their way of doing business. Can you guess what object they have in view?”

Obenreizer offered a suggestion.

“Suppose I examine the receipt?” he said.

“Are you ill?” asked Vendale, startled by the change in his face, which now showed itself plainly for the first time. “Pray go to the fire. You seem to be shivering – I hope you are not going to be ill?”

“Not I!” said Obenreizer. “Perhaps I have caught cold. Your English climate might have spared an admirer of your English institutions. Let me look at the receipt.”

Vendale opened the iron chamber. Obenreizer took a chair, and drew it close to the fire. He held both hands over the flames. “Let me look at the receipt,” he repeated, eagerly, as Vendale reappeared with the paper in his hand. At the same moment a porter entered the room with a fresh supply of coals. Vendale told him to make a good fire. The man obeyed the order with a disastrous alacrity. As he stepped forward and raised the scuttle, his foot caught in a fold of the rug, and he discharged his entire cargo of coals into the grate. The result was an instant smothering of the flame, and the production of a stream of yellow smoke, without a visible morsel of fire to account for it.

“Imbecile!” whispered Obenreizer to himself, with a look at the man which the man remembered for many a long day afterwards.

“Will you come into the clerks’ room?” asked Vendale. “They have a stove there.”

“No, no. No matter.”

Vendale handed him the receipt. Obenreizer’s interest in examining it appeared to have been quenched as suddenly and as effectually as the fire itself. He just glanced over the document, and said, “No; I don’t understand it! I am sorry to be of no use.”

“I will write to Neuchâtel by tonight’s post,” said Vendale, putting away the receipt for the second time. “We must wait, and see what comes of it.”

“By tonight’s post,” repeated Obenreizer. “Let me see. You will get the answer in eight or nine days’ time. I shall be back before that. If I can be of any service, as commercial traveller, perhaps you will let me know between this and then. You will send me written instructions? My best thanks. I shall be most anxious for your answer from Neuchâtel. Who knows? It may be a mistake, my dear friend, after all. Courage! courage! courage!” He had entered the room with no appearance of being pressed for time. He now snatched up his hat, and took his leave with the air of a man who had not another moment to lose.

Left by himself, Vendale took a turn thoughtfully in the room.

His previous impression of Obenreizer was shaken by what he had heard and seen at the interview which had just taken place. He was disposed, for the first time, to doubt whether, in this case, he had not been a little hasty and hard in his judgement on another man. Obenreizer’s surprise and regret, on hearing the news from Neuchâtel, bore the plainest marks of being honestly felt – not politely assumed for the occasion. With troubles of his own to encounter, suffering, to all appearance, from the first insidious attack of a serious illness, he had looked and spoken like a man who really deplored the disaster that had fallen on his friend. Hitherto Vendale had tried vainly to alter his first opinion of Marguerite’s guardian, for Marguerite’s sake. All the generous instincts in his nature now combined together and shook the evidence which had seemed unanswerable up to this time. “Who knows?” he thought. “I may have read that man’s face wrongly, after all.”

The time passed – the happy evenings with Marguerite came and went. It was again the tenth morning since Vendale had written to the Swiss firm; and again the answer appeared on his desk with the other letters of the day:

Dear Sir. My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has been called away, by urgent business, to Milan. In his absence (and with his full concurrence and authority), I now write to you again on the subject of the missing five hundred pounds.

Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon one of our numbered and printed forms has caused inexpressible surprise and distress to my partner and to myself. At the time when your remittance was stolen, but three keys were in existence opening the strongbox in which our receipt-forms are invariably kept. My partner had one key; I had the other. The third was in the possession of a gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of trust in our house. We should as soon have thought of suspecting one of ourselves as of suspecting this person. Suspicion now points at him, nevertheless. I cannot prevail on myself to inform you who the person is, so long as there is the shadow of a chance that he may come innocently out of the inquiry which must now be instituted. Forgive my silence; the motive of it is good.

The form our investigation must now take is simple enough. The handwriting of your receipt must be compared, by competent persons whom we have at our disposal, with certain specimens of handwriting in our possession. I cannot send you the specimens for business reasons, which, when you hear them, you are sure to approve. I must beg you to send me the receipt to Neuchâtel – and, in making this request, I must accompany it by a word of necessary warning.

If the person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves to be the person who has committed this forger and theft, I have reason to fear that circumstances may have already put him on his guard. The only evidence against him is the evidence in your hands, and he will move heaven and earth to obtain and destroy it. I strongly urge you not to trust the receipt to the post. Send it to me, without loss of time, by a private hand, and choose nobody for your messenger but a person long established in your own employment, accustomed to travelling, capable of speaking French; a man of courage, a man of honesty, and, above all things, a man who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him on the route. Tell no one – absolutely no one – but your messenger of the turn this matter has now taken. The safe transit of the receipt may depend on your interpreting literally the advice which I give you at the end of this letter.

I have only to add that every possible saving of time is now of the last importance. More than one of our receipt-forms is missing – and it is impossible to say what new frauds may not be committed if we fail to lay our hands on the thief.

Your faithful servant

Rolland,

(Signing for Defresnier and Cie.)

Who was the suspected man? In Vendale’s position, it seemed useless to inquire.

Who was to be sent to Neuchâtel with the receipt? Men of courage and men of honesty were to be had at Cripple Corner for the asking. But where was the man who was accustomed to foreign travelling, who could speak the French language, and who could be really relied on to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him on his route? There was but one man at hand who combined all those requisites in his own person, and that man was Vendale himself.

It was a sacrifice to leave his business; it was a greater sacrifice to leave Marguerite. But a matter of five hundred pounds was involved in the pending inquiry; and a literal interpretation of M. Rolland’s advice was insisted on in terms which there was no trifling with. The more Vendale thought of it, the more plainly the necessity faced him, and said, “Go!”

As he locked up the letter with the receipt, the association of ideas reminded him of Obenreizer. A guess at the identity of the suspected man looked more possible now. Obenreizer might know.

The thought had barely passed through his mind, when the door opened, and Obenreizer entered the room.

“They told me at Soho Square you were expected back last night,” said Vendale, greeting him. “Have you done well in the country? Are you better?”

A thousand thanks. Obenreizer had done admirably well; Obenreizer was infinitely better. And now, what news? Any letter from Neuchâtel?

“A very strange letter,” answered Vendale. “The matter has taken a new turn, and the letter insists – without excepting anybody – on my keeping our next proceedings a profound secret.”

“Without excepting anybody?” repeated Obenreizer. As he said the words, he walked away again, thoughtfully, to the window at the other end of the room, looked out for a moment, and suddenly came back to Vendale. “Surely they must have forgotten?” he resumed, “or they would have excepted me?”

“It is Monsieur Rolland who writes,” said Vendale. “And, as you say, he must certainly have forgotten. That view of the matter quite escaped me. I was just wishing I had you to consult, when you came into the room. And here I am tried by a formal prohibition, which cannot possibly have been intended to include you. How very annoying!”

Obenreizer’s filmy eyes fixed on Vendale attentively.

“Perhaps it is more than annoying!” he said. “I came this morning not only to hear the news, but to offer myself as messenger, negotiator – what you will. Would you believe it? I have letters which oblige me to go to Switzerland immediately. Messages, documents, anything – I could have taken them all to Defresnier and Rolland for you.”

“You are the very man I wanted,” returned Vendale. “I had decided, most unwillingly, on going to Neuchâtel myself, not five minutes since, because I could find no one here capable of taking my place. Let me look at the letter again.”

He opened the strong room to get at the letter. Obenreizer, after first glancing round him to make sure that they were alone, followed a step or two and waited, measuring Vendale with his eye. Vendale was the tallest man, and unmistakably the strongest man also of the two. Obenreizer turned away, and warmed himself at the fire.

Meanwhile, Vendale read the last paragraph in the letter for the third time. There was the plain warning – there was the closing sentence, which insisted on a literal interpretation of it. The hand, which was leading Vendale in the dark, led him on that condition only. A large sum was at stake: a terrible suspicion remained to be verified. If he acted on his own responsibility, and if anything happened to defeat the object in view, who would be blamed? As a man of business, Vendale had but one course to follow. He locked the letter up again.

“It is most annoying,” he said to Obenreizer – “it is a piece of forgetfulness on Monsieur Rolland’s part which puts me to serious inconvenience, and places me in an absurdly false position towards you. What am I to do? I am acting in a very serious matter, and acting entirely in the dark. I have no choice but to be guided, not by the spirit, but by the letter of my instructions. You understand me, I am sure? You know, if I had not been fettered in this way, how gladly I should have accepted your services?”

“Say no more!” returned Obenreizer. “In your place I should have done the same. My good friend, I take no offence. I thank you for your compliment. We shall be travelling companions, at any rate,” added Obenreizer. “You go, as I go, at once?”

“At once. I must speak to Marguerite first, of course!”

“Surely! surely! Speak to her this evening. Come, and pick me up on the way to the station. We go together by the mail train tonight?”

“By the mail train tonight.”

•   •   •

It was later than Vendale had anticipated when he drove up to the house in Soho Square. Business difficulties, occasioned by his sudden departure, had presented themselves by dozens. A cruelly large share of the time which he had hoped to devote to Marguerite had been claimed by duties at his office which it was impossible to neglect.

To his surprise and delight, she was alone in the drawing-room when he entered it.

“We have only a few minutes, George,” she said. “But Madame Dor has been good to me – and we can have those few minutes alone.” She threw her arms round his neck, and whispered eagerly, “Have you done anything to offend Mr. Obenreizer?”

“I!” exclaimed Vendale, in amazement.

“Hush!” she said, “I want to whisper it. You know the little photograph I have got of you. This afternoon it happened to be on the chimney-piece. He took it up and looked at it – and I saw his face in the glass. I know you have offended him! He is merciless; he is revengeful; he is as secret as the grave. Don’t go with him, George – don’t go with him!”

“My own love,” returned Vendale, “you are letting your fancy frighten you! Obenreizer and I were never better friends than we are at this moment.”

Before a word more could be said, the sudden movement of some ponderous body shook the floor of the next room. The shock was followed by the appearance of Madame Dor. “Obenreizer” exclaimed this excellent person in a whisper, and plumped down instantly in her regular place by the stove.

Obenreizer came in with a courier’s big strapped over his shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked, addressing Vendale. “Can I take anything for you? You have no travelling-bag. I have got one. Here is the compartment for papers, open at your service.”

“Thank you,” said Vendale. “I have only one paper of importance with me; and that paper I am bound to take charge of myself. Here it is,” he added, touching the breast-pocket of his coat, “and here it must remain till we get to Neuchâtel.”

As he said those words, Marguerite’s hand caught his, and pressed it significantly. She was looking towards Obenreizer. Before Vendale could look, in his turn, Obenreizer had wheeled round, and was taking leave of Madame Dor.

“Adieu, my charming niece!” he said, turning to Marguerite next. “En route, my friend, for Neuchâtel!” He tapped Vendale lightly over the breast-pocket of his coat and led the way to the door.

Vendale’s last look was for Marguerite. Marguerite’s last words to him were, “Don’t go!”

ACT III

IN THE VALLEY

It was about the middle of the month of February when Vendale and Obenreizer set forth on their expedition. The winter being a hard one, the time was bad for travellers. So bad was it that these two travellers, coming to Strasbourg, found its great inns almost empty. And even the few people they did encounter in that city, who had started from England or from Paris on business journeys towards the interior of Switzerland, were turning back.

Many of the railroads in Switzerland that tourists pass easily enough now, were almost or quite impracticable then. Some were not begun; more were not completed. On such as were open, there were still large gaps of old road where communication in the winter season was often stopped; on others, there were weak points where the new work was not safe, either under conditions of severe frost, or of rapid thaw. The running of trains on this last class was not to be counted on in the worst time of the year, was contingent upon weather, or was wholly abandoned through the months considered the most dangerous.

At Strasbourg there were more travellers’ stories afloat, respecting the difficulties of the way further on, than there were travellers to relate them. Many of these tales were as wild as usual; but the more modestly marvellous did derive some colour from the circumstance that people were indisputably turning back. However, as the road to Basle was open, Vendale’s resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed. Obenreizer’s resolution was necessarily Vendale’s, seeing that he stood at bay thus desperately: He must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that Vendale carried about him, even if he destroyed Vendale with it.

The state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers towards the other was this. Obenreizer, encircled by impending ruin through Vendale’s quickness of action, and seeing the circle narrowed every hour by Vendale’s energy, hated him with the animosity of a fierce cunning lower animal. He had always had instinctive movements in his breast against him; perhaps, because of that old sore of gentleman and peasant; perhaps, because of the openness of his nature, perhaps, because of his better looks; perhaps, because of his success with Marguerite; perhaps, on all those grounds, the two last not the least. And now he saw in him, besides, the hunter who was tracking him down. Vendale, on the other hand, always contending generously against his first vague mistrust, now felt bound to contend against it more than ever: reminding himself, “He is Marguerite’s guardian. We are on perfectly friendly terms; he is my companion of his own proposal, and can have no interested motive in sharing this undesirable journey.” To which pleas in behalf of Obenreizer, chance added one consideration more, when they came to Basle after a journey of more than twice the average duration.

They had had a late dinner, and were alone in an inn room there, overhanging the Rhine: at that place rapid and deep, swollen and loud. Vendale lounged upon a couch, and Obenreizer walked to and fro: now, stopping at the window, looking at the crooked reflection of the town lights in the dark water (and peradventure thinking, “If I could fling him into it!”); now, resuming his walk with his eyes upon the floor.

“Where shall I rob him, if I can? Where shall I murder him, if I must?” So, as he paced the room, ran the river, ran the river, ran the river.

The burden seemed to him, at last, to be growing so plain, that he stopped; thinking it as well to suggest another burden to his companion.

“The Rhine sounds tonight,” he said with a smile, “like the old waterfall at home. That waterfall which my mother showed to travellers (I told you of it once). The sound of it changed with the weather, as does the sound of all falling waters and flowing waters. When I was pupil of the watchmaker, I remembered it as sometimes saying to me for whole days, ‘Who are you, my little wretch? Who are you, my little wretch?’ I remembered it as saying, other times, when its sound was hollow, and storm was coming up the Pass: ‘Boom, boom, boom. Beat him, beat him, beat him.’ Like my mother enraged – if she was my mother.”

“If she was?” said Vendale, gradually changing his attitude to a sitting one. “If she was? Why do you say ‘if’?”

“What do I know?” replied the other negligently, throwing up his hands and letting them fall as they would. “What would you have? I am so obscurely born, that how can I say? I was very young, and all the rest of the family were men and women, and my so-called parents were old. Anything is possible of a case like that.”

“Did you ever doubt—”

“I told you once, I doubt the marriage of those two,” he replied, throwing up his hands again, as if he were throwing the unprofitable subject away. “But here I am in Creation. I come of no fine family. What does it matter?”

“At least you are Swiss,” said Vendale, after following him with his eyes to and fro.

“How do I know?” he retorted abruptly, and stopping to look back over his shoulder. “I say to you, at least you are English. How do you know?”

“By what I have been told from infancy.”

“Ah! I know of myself that way.”

“And,” added Vendale, pursuing the thought that he could not drive back, “by my earliest recollections.”

“I also. I know of myself that way – if that way satisfies.”

“Does it not satisfy you?”

“It must. There is nothing like ‘it must’ in this little world. It must. Two short words those, but stronger than long proof or reasoning.”

“You and poor Wilding were born in the same year. You were nearly of an age,” said Vendale, again thoughtfully looking after him as he resumed his pacing up and down.

“Yes. Very nearly.”

Could Obenreizer be the missing man? In the unknown associations of things, was there a subtler meaning than he himself thought, in that theory so often on his lips about the smallness of the world? Had the Swiss letter presenting him followed so close on Mrs. Goldstraw’s revelation concerning the infant who had been taken away to Switzerland, because he was that infant grown a man? In a world where so many depths lie unsounded, it might be. The chances, or the laws – call them either – that had wrought out the revival of Vendale’s own acquaintance with Obenreizer, and had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought them here together this present winter night, were hardly less curious; while read by such a light, they were seen to cohere towards the furtherance of a continuous and an intelligible purpose.

Vendale’s awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes musingly followed Obenreizer pacing up and down the room, the river ever running to the tune: “Where shall I rob him, if I can? Where shall I murder him, if I must?” The secret of his dead friend was in no hazard from Vendale’s lips; but just as his friend had died of its weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel the burden of the trust, and the obligation to follow any clue, however obscure. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be the real Wilding? No. Argue down his mistrust as he might, he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late guileless, outspoken childlike partner. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be rich? No. He had more power than enough over Marguerite as it was, and wealth might invest him with more. Would he like this man to be Marguerite’s Guardian, and yet proved to stand in no degree of relationship towards her, however disconnected and distant? No. But these were not considerations to come between him and fidelity to the dead. Let him see to it that they passed him with no other notice than the knowledge that they had passed him, and left him bent on the discharge of a solemn duty. And he did see to it, so soon that he followed his companion with ungrudging eyes, while he still paced the room; that companion, whom he supposed to be moodily reflecting on his own birth, and not on another man’s – least of all what man’s – violent Death.

The road in advance from Basle to Neuchâtel was better than had been represented. The latest weather had done it good. Drivers, both of horses and mules, had come in that evening after dark, and had reported nothing more difficult to be overcome than trials of patience, harness, wheels, axles, and whipcord. A bargain was soon struck for a carriage and horses, to take them on in the morning, and to start before daylight.

“Do you lock your door at night when travelling?” asked Obenreizer, standing warming his hands by the wood fire in Vendale’s chamber, before going to his own.

“Not I. I sleep too soundly.”

“You are so sound a sleeper?” he retorted, with an admiring look. “What a blessing!”

“Anything but a blessing to the rest of the house,” rejoined Vendale, “if I had to be knocked up in the morning from the outside of my bedroom door.”

“I, too,” said Obenreizer, “leave open my room. But let me advise you, as a Swiss who knows: always, when you travel in my country, put your papers – and, of course, your money – under your pillow. Always the same place.”

“You are not complimentary to your countrymen,” laughed Vendale.

“My countrymen,” said Obenreizer, with that light touch of his friend’s elbows by way of Good-Night and benediction, “I suppose are like the majority of men. And the majority of men will take what they can get. Adieu! At four in the morning.”

“Adieu! At four.”

Left to himself, Vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled over them the white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to compose his thoughts. But they still ran high on their latest theme, and the running of the river tended to agitate rather than to quiet them. As he sat thinking, what little disposition he had had to sleep departed. He felt it hopeless to lie down yet, and sat dressed by the fire. Marguerite, Wilding, Obenreizer, the business he was then upon, and a thousand hopes and doubts that had nothing to do with it, occupied his mind at once. Everything seemed to have power over him but slumber. The departed disposition to sleep kept far away.

He had sat for a long time thinking, on the hearth, when his candle burned down and its light went out. It was of little moment; there was light enough in the fire. He changed his attitude, and, leaning his arm on the chair-back, and his chin upon that hand, sat thinking still.

But he sat between the fire and the bed, and, as the fire flickered in the play of air from the fast-flowing river, his enlarged shadow fluttered on the white wall by the bedside. His attitude gave it an air, half of mourning and half of bending over the bed imploring. His eyes were observant of it, when he became troubled by the disagreeable fancy that it was like Wilding’s shadow, and not his own.

A slight change of place would cause it to disappear. He made the change, and the apparition of his disturbed fancy vanished. He now sat in the shade of a little nook beside the fire, and the door of the room was before him.

It had a long cumbrous iron latch. He saw the latch slowly and softly rise. The door opened a very little, and came to again, as though only the air had moved it. But he saw that the latch was out of the hasp.

The door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide enough to admit someone. It afterwards remained still for a while, as though cautiously held open on the other side. The figure of a man then entered, with its face turned towards the bed, and stood quiet just within the door. Until it said, in a low half-whisper, at the same time taking one stop forward: “Vendale!”

“What now?” he answered, springing from his seat; “who is it?”

It was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as Vendale came upon him from that unexpected direction. “Not in bed?” he said, catching him by both shoulders with an instinctive tendency to a struggle. “Then something is wrong!”

“What do you mean?” said Vendale, releasing himself.

“First tell me; you are not ill?”

“Ill? No.”

“I have had a bad dream about you. How is it that I see you up and dressed?”

“My good fellow, I may as well ask you how it is that I see you up and undressed?”

“I have told you why. I have had a bad dream about you. I tried to rest after it, but it was impossible. I could not make up my mind to stay where I was without knowing you were safe; and yet I could not make up my mind to come in here. I have been minutes hesitating at the door. It is so easy to laugh at a dream that you have not dreamed. Where is your candle?”

“Burnt out.”

“I have a whole one in my room. Shall I fetch it?”

“Do so.”

His room was very near, and he was absent for but a few seconds. Coming back with the candle in his hand, he kneeled down on the hearth and lighted it. As he blew with his breath a charred billet into flame for the purpose, Vendale, looking down at him, saw that his lips were white and not easy of control.

“Yes!” said Obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the table, “it was a bad dream. Only look at me!”

His feet were bare; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back at the throat, and its sleeves were rolled above the elbows; his only other garment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers, reaching to the ankles, fitted him close and tight. A certain lithe and savage appearance was on his figure, and his eyes were very bright.

“If there had been a wrestle with a robber, as I dreamed,” said Obenreizer, “you see, I was stripped for it.”

“And armed too,” said Vendale, glancing at his girdle.

“A traveller’s dagger, that I always carry on the road,” he answered carelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with his left hand, and putting it back again. “Do you carry no such thing?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“No pistols?” said Obenreizer, glancing at the table, and from it to the untouched pillow.

“Nothing of the sort.”

“You Englishmen are so confident! You wish to sleep?”

“I have wished to sleep this long time, but I can’t do it.”

“I neither, after the bad dream. My fire has gone the way of your candle. May I come and sit by yours? Two o’clock! It will so soon be four, that it is not worth the trouble to go to bed again.”

“I shall not take the trouble to go to bed at all, now,” said Vendale; “sit here and keep me company, and welcome.”

Going back to his room to arrange his dress, Obenreizer soon returned in a loose cloak and slippers, and they sat down on opposite sides of the hearth. In the interval Vendale had replenished the fire from the wood-basket in his room, and Obenreizer had put upon the table a flask and cup from his.

“Common cabaret brandy, I am afraid,” he said, pouring out; “bought upon the road, and not like yours from Cripple Corner. But yours is exhausted; so much the worse. A cold night, a cold time of night, a cold country, and a cold house. This may be better than nothing; try it.”

Vendale took the cup, and did so.

“How do you find it?”

“It has a coarse after-flavour,” said Vendale, giving back the cup with a slight shudder, “and I don’t like it.”

“You are right,” said Obenreizer, tasting, and smacking his lips; “it has a coarse after-flavour, and I don’t like it. Booh! It burns, though!” He had flung what remained in the cup upon the fire.

Each of them leaned an elbow on the table, reclined his head upon his hand, and sat looking at the flaring logs. Obenreizer remained watchful and still; but Vendale, after certain nervous twitches and starts, in one of which he rose to his feet and looked wildly about him, fell into the strangest confusion of dreams. He carried his papers in a leather case or pocketbook, in an inner breast-pocket of his buttoned travelling-coat; and whatever he dreamed of, in the lethargy that got possession of him, something importunate in those papers called him out of that dream, though he could not wake from it. He was berated on the steppes of Russia (some shadowy person gave that name to the place) with Marguerite; and yet the sensation of a hand at his breast, softly feeling the outline of the packet-book as he lay asleep before the fire, was present to him. He was shipwrecked in an open boat at sea, and having lost his clothes, had no other covering than an old sail; and yet a creeping hand, tracing outside all the other pockets of the dress he actually wore, for papers, and finding none answer its touch, warned him to rouse himself. He was in the ancient vault at Cripple Corner, to which was transferred the very bed substantial and present in that very room at Basle; and Wilding (not dead, as he had supposed, and yet he did not wonder much) shook him, and whispered, “Look at that man! Don’t you see he has risen, and is turning the pillow? Why should he turn the pillow, if not to seek those papers that are in your breast? Awake!” And yet he slept, and wandered off into other dreams.

Watchful and still, with his elbow on the table, and his head upon that hand, his companion at length said: “Vendale! We are called. Past Four!” Then, opening his eyes, he saw, turned sideways on him, the filmy face of Obenreizer.

“You have been in a heavy sleep,” he said. “The fatigue of constant travelling and the cold!”

“I am broad awake now,” cried Vendale, springing up, but with an unsteady footing. “Haven’t you slept at all?”

“I may have dozed, but I seem to have been patiently looking at the fire. Whether or no, we must wash, and breakfast, and turn out. Past four, Vendale; past four!”

It was said in a tone to rouse him, for already he was half asleep again. In his preparation for the day, too, and at his breakfast, he was often virtually asleep while in mechanical action. It was not until the cold dark day was closing in, that he had any distincter impressions of the ride than jingling bells, bitter weather, slipping horses, frowning hillsides, bleak woods, and a stoppage at some wayside house of entertainment, where they had passed through a cow-house to reach the travellers’ room above. He had been conscious of little more, except of Obenreizer sitting thoughtful at his side all day, and eyeing him much.

But when he shook off his stupor, Obenreizer was not at his side. The carriage was stopping to bait at another wayside house; and a line of long narrow carts, laden with casks of wine, and drawn by horses with a quantity of blue collar and head-gear, were baiting too. These came from the direction in which the travellers were going, and Obenreizer (not thoughtful now, but cheerful and alert) was talking with the foremost driver. As Vendale stretched his limbs, circulated his blood, and cleared off the lees of his lethargy, with a sharp run to and fro in the bracing air, the line of carts moved on: the drivers all saluting Obenreizer as they passed him.

“Who are those?” asked Vendale.

“They are our carriers – Defresnier and Company’s,” replied Obenreizer. “Those are our casks of wine.” He was singing to himself, and lighting a cigar.

“I have been drearily dull company today,” said Vendale. “I don’t know what has been the matter with me.”

“You had no sleep last night; and a kind of brain-congestion frequently comes, at first, of such cold,” said Obenreizer. “I have seen it often. After all, we shall have our journey for nothing, it seems.”

“How for nothing?”

“The House is at Milan. You know, we are a Wine House at Neuchâtel, and a Silk House at Milan? Well, Silk happening to press of a sudden, more than Wine, Defresnier was summoned to Milan. Rolland, the other partner, has been taken ill since his departure, and the doctors will allow him to see no one. A letter awaits you at Neuchâtel to tell you so. I have it from our chief carrier whom you saw me talking with. He was surprised to see me, and said he had that word for you if he met you. What do you do? Go back?”

“Go on,” said Vendale.

“On?”

“On? Yes. Across the Alps, and down to Milan.”

Obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at Vendale, and then smoked heavily, looked up the road, looked down the road, looked down at the stones in the road at his feet.

“I have a very serious matter in charge,” said Vendale; “more of these missing forms may be turned to as bad account, or worse: I am urged to lose no time in helping the House to take the thief; and nothing shall turn me back.”

“No?” cried Obenreizer, taking out his cigar to smile, and giving his hand to his fellow-traveller. “Then nothing shall turn me back. Ho, driver! Despatch. Quick there! Let us push on!”

They travelled through the night. There had been snow, and there was a partial thaw, and they mostly travelled at a foot-pace, and always with many stoppages to breathe the splashed and floundering horses. After an hour’s broad daylight, they drew rein at the inn-door at Neuchâtel, having been some eight-and-twenty hours in conquering some eighty English miles.

When they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they went together to the house of business of Defresnier and Company. There they found the letter which the wine-carrier had described, enclosing the tests and comparisons of handwriting essential to the discovery of the Forger. Vendale’s determination to press forward, without resting, being already taken, the only question to delay them was by what Pass could they cross the Alps? Respecting the state of the two Passes of the St. Gotthard and the Simplon, the guides and mule-drivers differed greatly; and both passes were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers from having the benefit of any recent experience of either. Besides which, they well knew that a fall of snow might altogether change the described conditions in a single hour, even if they were correctly stated. But, on the whole, the Simplon appearing to be the hopefuller route, Vendale decided to take it. Obenreizer bore little or no part in the discussion, and scarcely spoke.

To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level margin of the lake to Vevay, so into the winding valley between the spurs of the mountains, and into the valley of the Rhone. The sound of the carriage-wheels, as they rattled on, through the day, through the night, became as the wheels of a great clock, recording the hours. No change of weather varied the journey, after it had hardened into a sullen frost. In a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the Alpine ranges; and they saw enough of snow on nearer and much lower hilltops and hillsides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of lake, torrent, and waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and dirty. But no snow fell, nor was there any snowdrift on the road. The stalking along the valley of more or less of white mist, changing on their hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety between them and the gloomy sky. And still by day, and still by night, the wheels. And still they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, to the burden, altered from the burden of the Rhine: “The time is gone for robbing him alive, and I must murder him.”

They came, at length, to the poor little town of Brieg, at the foot of the Simplon. They came there after dark, but yet could see how dwarfed men’s works and men became with the immense mountains towering over them. Here they must lie for the night; and here was warmth of fire, and lamp, and dinner, and wine, and after-conference resounding, with guides and drivers. No human creature had come across the Pass for four days. The snow above the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage, and not hard enough for sledge. There was snow in the sky. There had been snow in the sky for days past, and the marvel was that it had not fallen, and the certainty was that it must fall. No vehicle could cross. The journey might be tried on mules, or it might be tried on foot; but the best guides must be paid danger-price in either case, and that, too, whether they succeeded in taking the two travellers across, or turned for safety and brought them back.

In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part whatever. He sat silently smoking by the fire until the room was cleared and Vendale referred to him.

“Bah! I am weary of these poor devils and their trade,” he said, in reply. “Always the same story. It is the story of their trade today, as it was the story of their trade when I was a ragged boy. What do you and I want? We want a knapsack each, and a mountain-staff each. We want no guide; we should guide him; he would not guide us. We leave our portmanteaus here, and we cross together. We have been on the mountains together before now, and I am mountain-born, and I know this Pass – Pass! – rather High Road! – by heart. We will leave these poor devils, in pity, to trade with others; but they must not delay us to make a pretence of earning money. Which is all they mean.”

Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the knot: active, adventurous, bent on getting forward, and therefore very susceptible to the last hint: readily assented. Within two hours, they had purchased what they wanted for the expedition, had packed their knapsacks, and lay down to sleep.

At break of day, they found half the town collected in the narrow street to see them depart. The people talked together in groups; the guides and drivers whispered apart, and looked up at the sky; no one wished them a good journey.

As they began the ascent, a gleam of run shone from the otherwise unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the town to silver.

“A good omen!” said Vendale (though it died out while he spoke). “Perhaps our example will open the Pass on this side.”

“No; we shall not be followed,” returned Obenreizer, looking up at the sky and back at the valley. “We shall be alone up yonder.”

ON THE MOUNTAIN

The road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew lighter and easier to breathe as the two ascended. But the settled gloom remained as it had remained for days back. Nature seemed to have come to a pause. The sense of hearing, no less than the sense of sight, was troubled by having to wait so long for the change, whatever it might be, that impended. The silence was as palpable and heavy as the lowering clouds – or rather cloud, for there seemed to be but one in all the sky, and that one covering the whole of it.

Although the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect was not obscured. Down in the valley of the Rhone behind them, the stream could be traced through all its many windings, oppressively sombre and solemn in its one leaden hue, a colourless waste. Far and high above them, glaciers and suspended avalanches overhung the spots where they must pass, by-and-by; deep and dark below them on their right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent; tremendous mountains arose in every vista. The gigantic landscape, uncheered by a touch of changing light or a solitary ray of sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of two lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their way for miles and hours among a legion of silent and motionless men – mere men like themselves – all looking at them with fixed and frowning front. But how much more, when the legion is of Nature’s mightiest works, and the frown may turn to fury in an instant!

As they ascended, the road became gradually more rugged and difficult. But the spirits of Vendale rose as they mounted higher, leaving so much more of the road behind them conquered. Obenreizer spoke little, and held on with a determined purpose. Both, in respect of agility and endurance, were well qualified for the expedition. Whatever the born mountaineer read in the weather-tokens that was illegible to the other, he kept to himself.

“Shall we get across today?” asked Vendale.

“No,” replied the other. “You see how much deeper the snow lies here than it lay half a league lower. The higher we mount the deeper the snow will lie. Walking is half wading even now. And the days are so short! If we get as high as the fifth Refuge, and lie tonight at the Hospice, we shall do well.”

“Is there no danger of the weather rising in the night,” asked Vendale, anxiously, “and snowing us up?”

“There is danger enough about us,” said Obenreizer, with a cautious glance onward and upward, “to render silence our best policy. You have heard of the Bridge of the Ganther?”

“I have crossed it once.”

“In the summer?”

“Yes; in the travelling season.”

“Yes; but it is another thing at this season;” with a sneer, as though he were out of temper. “This is not a time of year, or a state of things, on an Alpine Pass, that you gentlemen holiday-travellers know much about.”

“You are my Guide,” said Vendale, good humouredly. “I trust to you.”

“I am your Guide,” said Obenreizer, “and I will guide you to your journey’s end. There is the Bridge before us.”

They had made a turn into a desolate and dismal ravine, where the snow lay deep below them, deep above them, deep on every side. While speaking, Obenreizer stood pointing at the Bridge, and observing Vendale’s face, with a very singular expression on his own.

“If I, as Guide, had sent you over there, in advance, and encouraged you to give a shout or two, you might have brought down upon yourself tons and tons and tons of snow, that would not only have struck you dead, but buried you deep, at a blow.”

“No doubt,” said Vendale.

“No doubt. But that is not what I have to do, as Guide. So pass silently. Or, going as we go, our indiscretion might else crush and bury me. Let us get on!”

There was a great accumulation of snow on the Bridge; and such enormous accumulations of snow overhung them from protecting masses of rock, that they might have been making their way through a stormy sky of white clouds. Using his staff skilfully, sounding as he went, and looking upward, with bent shoulders, as it were to resist the mere idea of a fall from above, Obenreizer softly led. Vendale closely followed. They were yet in the midst of their dangerous way, when there came a mighty rush, followed by a sound as of thunder. Obenreizer clapped his hand on Vendale’s mouth and pointed to the track behind them. Its aspect had been wholly changed in a moment. An avalanche had swept over it, and plunged into the torrent at the bottom of the gulf below.

Their appearance at the solitary Inn not far beyond this terrible Bridge, elicited many expressions of astonishment from the people shut up in the house. “We stay but to rest,” said Obenreizer, shaking the snow from his dress at the fire. “This gentleman has very pressing occasion to get across; tell them, Vendale.”

“Assuredly, I have very pressing occasion. I must cross.”

“You hear, all of you. My friend has very pressing occasion to get across, and we want no advice and no help. I am as good a guide, my fellow-countrymen, as any of you. Now, give us to eat and drink.”

In exactly the same way, and in nearly the same words, when it was coming on dark and they had struggled through the greatly increased difficulties of the road, and had at last reached their destination for the night, Obenreizer said to the astonished people of the Hospice, gathering about them at the fire, while they were yet in the act of getting their wet shoes off, and shaking the snow from their clothes:

“It is well to understand one another, friends all. This gentleman—”

“ – Has,” said Vendale, readily taking him up with a smile, “very pressing occasion to get across. Must cross.”

“You hear? – has very pressing occasion to get across, must cross. We want no advice and no help. I am mountain-born, and act as Guide. Do not worry us by talking about it, but let us have supper, and wine, and bed.”

All through the intense cold of the night, the same awful stillness. Again at sunrise, no sunny tinge to gild or redden the snow. The same interminable waste of deathly white; the same immovable air; the same monotonous gloom in the sky.

“Travellers!” a friendly voice called to them from the door, after they were afoot, knapsack on back and staff in hand, as yesterday; “recollect! There are five places of shelter, near together, on the dangerous road before you; and there is the wooden cross, and there is the next Hospice. Do not stray from the track. If the Tourmente comes on, take shelter instantly!”

“The trade of these poor devils!” said Obenreizer to his friend, with a contemptuous backward wave of his hand towards the voice. “How they stick to their trade! You Englishmen say we Swiss are mercenary. Truly, it does look like it.”

They had divided between the two knapsacks such refreshments as they had been able to obtain that morning, and as they deemed it prudent to take. Obenreizer carried the wine as his share of the burden; Vendale, the bread and meat and cheese, and the flask of brandy.

They had for some time laboured upward and onward through the snow – which was now above their knees in the track, and of unknown depth elsewhere – and they were still labouring upward and onward through the most frightful part of that tremendous desolation, when snow begin to fall. At first, but a few flakes descended slowly and steadily. After a little while the fall grew much denser, and suddenly it began without apparent cause to whirl itself into spiral shapes. Instantly ensuing upon this last change, an icy blast came roaring at them, and every sound and force imprisoned until now was let loose.

One of the dismal galleries through which the road is carried at that perilous point, a cave eked out by arches of great strength, was near at hand. They struggled into it, and the storm raged wildly. The noise of the wind, the noise of the water, the thundering down of displaced masses of rock and snow, the awful voices with which not only that gorge but every gorge in the whole monstrous range seemed to be suddenly endowed, the darkness as of night, the violent revolving of the snow which beat and broke it into spray and blinded them, the madness of everything around insatiate for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious violence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling sounds for silence: these were things, on the edge of a deep abyss, to chill the blood, though the fierce wind, made actually solid by ice and snow, had failed to chill it.

Obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery without ceasing, signed to Vendale to help him unbuckle his knapsack. They could see each other, but could not have heard each other speak. Vendale complying, Obenreizer produced his bottle of wine, and poured some out, motioning Vendale to take that for warmth’s sake, and not brandy. Vendale again complying, Obenreizer seemed to drink after him, and the two walked backwards and forwards side by side; both well knowing that to rest or sleep would be to die.

The snow came driving heavily into the gallery by the upper end at which they would pass out of it, if they ever passed out; for greater dangers lay on the road behind them than before. The snow soon began to choke the arch. An hour more, and it lay so high as to block out half the returning daylight. But it froze hard now, as it fell, and could be clambered through or over. The violence of the mountain storm was gradually yielding to steady snowfall. The wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly; and when it paused, the snow fell in heavy flakes.

They might have been two hours in their frightful prison, when Obenreizer, now crunching into the mound, now creeping over it with his head bowed down and his body touching the top of the arch, made his way out. Vendale followed close upon him, but followed without clear motive or calculation. For the lethargy of Basle was creeping over him again, and mastering his senses.

How far he had followed out of the gallery, or with what obstacles he had since contended, he knew not. He became roused to the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow. He became roused to the remembrance of what his assailant carried in a girdle. He felt for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled again, struck at him again, cast him off, and stood face to face with him.

“I promised to guide you to your journey’s end,” said Obenreizer, “and I have kept my promise. The journey of your life ends here. Nothing can prolong it. You are sleeping as you stand.”

“You are a villain. What have you done to me?”

“You are a fool. I have drugged you. You are doubly a fool, for I drugged you once before upon the journey, to try you. You are trebly a fool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a few moments I shall take those proofs against the thief and forger from your insensible body.”

The entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but its fatal hold upon him was so sure that, even while he heard those words, he stupidly wondered which of them had been wounded, and whose blood it was that he saw sprinkled on the snow.

“What have I done to you,” he asked, heavily and thickly, “that you should be – so base – a murderer?”

“Done to me? You would have destroyed me, but that you have come to your journey’s end. Your cursed activity interposed between me, and the time I had counted on in which I might have replaced the money. Done to me? You have come in my way – not once, not twice, but again and again and again. Did I try to shake you off in the beginning, or no? You were not to be shaken off. Therefore you die here.”

Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall; failing to touch it, tried to stagger on without its aid. All in vain, all in vain! He stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the brink of the deep chasm.

Stupefied, dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil before his eyes, his sense of hearing deadened, he made such a vigorous rally that, supporting himself on his hands, he saw his enemy standing calmly over him, and heard him speak. “You call me murderer,” said Obenreizer, with a grim laugh. “The name matters very little. But at least I have set my life against yours, for I am surrounded by dangers, and may never make my way out of this place. The Tourmente is rising again. The snow is on the whirl. I must have the papers now. Every moment has my life in it.”

“Stop!” cried Vendale, in a terrible voice, staggering up with a last flash of fire breaking out of him, and clutching the thievish hands at his breast, in both of his. “Stop! Stand away from me! God bless my Marguerite! Happily she will never know how I died. Stand off from me, and let me look at your murderous face. Let it remind me – of something – left to say.”

The sight of him fighting so hard for his senses, and the doubt whether he might not for the instant be possessed by the strength of a dozen men, kept his opponent still. Wildly glaring at him, Vendale faltered out the broken words:

“It shall not be – the trust – of the dead – betrayed by me – reputed parents – misinherited fortune – see to it!”

As his head dropped on his breast, and he stumbled on the brink of the chasm as before, the thievish hands went once more, quick and busy, to his breast. He made a convulsive attempt to cry “No!” desperately rolled himself over into the gulf; and sank away from his enemy’s touch, like a phantom in a dreadful dream.

•   •   •

The mountain storm raged again, and passed again. The awful mountain-voices died away, the moon rose, and the soft and silent snow fell.

Two men and two large dogs came out at the door of the Hospice. The men looked carefully around them, and up at the sky. The dogs rolled in the snow, and took it into their mouths, and cast it up with their paws.

One of the men said to the other: “We may venture now. We may find them in one of the five Refuges.” Each fastened on his back a basket; each took in his hand a strong spiked pole; each girded under his arms a looped end of a stout rope, so that they were tied together.

Suddenly the dogs desisted from their gambols in the snow, stood looking down the ascent, put their noses up, put their noses down, became greatly excited, and broke into a deep loud bay together.

The two men looked in the faces of the two dogs. The two dogs looked, with at least equal intelligence, in the faces of the two men.

“Au secours, then! Help! To the rescue!” cried the two men. The two dogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark, bounded away.

“Two more mad ones!” said the men, stricken motionless, and looking away in the moonlight. “Is it possible in such weather! And one of them a woman!”

Each of the dogs had the corner of a woman’s dress in its mouth, and drew her along. She fondled their heads as she came up, and she came up through the snow with an accustomed tread. Not so the large man with her, who was spent and winded.

“Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! I am of your country. We seek two gentlemen crossing the Pass, who should have reached the Hospice this evening.”

“They have reached it, ma’amselle.”

“Thank Heaven! O thank Heaven!”

“But, unhappily, they have gone on again. We are setting forth to seek them even now. We had to wait until the Tourmente passed. It has been fearful up here.”

“Dear guides, dear friends of travellers! Let me go with you. Let me go with you for the love of GOD! One of those gentlemen is to be my husband. I love him, O, so dearly. O so dearly! You see I am not faint, you see I am not tired. I am born a peasant girl. I will show you that I know well how to fasten myself to your ropes. I will do it with my own hands. I will swear to be brave and good. But let me go with you, let me go with you! If any mischance should have befallen him, my love would find him, when nothing else could. On my knees, dear friends of travellers! By the love your dear mothers had for your fathers!”

The good rough fellows were moved. “After all,” they murmured to one another, “she speaks but the truth. She knows the ways of the mountains. See how marvellously she has come here. But as to Monsieur there, ma’amselle?”

“Dear Mr. Joey,” said Marguerite, addressing him in his own tongue, “you will remain at the house, and wait for me; will you not?”

“If I know’d which o’ you two recommended it,” growled Joey Ladle, eyeing the two men with great indignation, “I’d fight you for sixpence, and give you half-a-crown towards your expenses. No, Miss. I’ll stick by you as long as there’s any sticking left in me, and I’ll die for you when I can’t do better.”

The state of the moon rendering it highly important that no time should be lost, and the dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, the two men quickly took their resolution. The rope that yoked them together was exchanged for a longer one; the party were secured, Marguerite second, and the Cellarman last; and they set out for the Refuges. The actual distance of those places was nothing: the whole five, and the next Hospice to boot, being within two miles; but the ghastly way was whitened out and sheeted over.

They made no miss in reaching the Gallery where the two had taken shelter. The second storm of wind and snow had so wildly swept over it since, that their tracks were gone. But the dogs went to and fro with their noses down, and were confident. The party stopping, however, at the further arch, where the second storm had been especially furious, and where the drift was deep, the dogs became troubled, and went about and about, in quest of a lost purpose.

The great abyss being known to lie on the right, they wandered too much to the left, and had to regain the way with infinite labour through a deep field of snow. The leader of the line had stopped it, and was taking note of the landmarks, when one of the dogs fell to tearing up the snow a little before them. Advancing and stooping to look at it, thinking that someone might be overwhelmed there, they saw that it was stained, and that the stain was red.

The other dog was now seen to look over the brink of the gulf, with his fore legs straightened out, lest he should fall into it, and to tremble in every limb. Then the dog who had found the stained snow joined him, and then they ran to and fro, distressed and whining. Finally, they both stopped on the brink together, and setting up their heads, howled dolefully.

“There is someone lying below,” said Marguerite.

“I think so,” said the foremost man. “Stand well inward, the two last, and let us look over.”

The last man kindled two torches from his basket, and handed them forward. The leader taking one, and Marguerite the other, they looked down; now shading the torches, now moving them to the right or left, now raising them, now depressing them, as moonlight far below contended with black shadows. A piercing cry from Marguerite broke a long silence.

“My God! On a projecting point, where a wall of ice stretches forward over the torrent, I see a human form!”

“Where, ma’amselle, where?”

“See, there! On the shelf of ice below the dogs!”

The leader, with a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they were all silent. But they were not all inactive, for Marguerite, with swift and skilful fingers, had detached both herself and him from the rope in a few seconds.

“Show me the baskets. These two are the only ropes?”

“The only ropes here, ma’amselle; but at the Hospice—”

“If he is alive – I know it is my lover – he will be dead before you can return. Dear Guides! Blessed friends of travellers! Look at me. Watch my hands. If they falter or go wrong, make me your prisoner by force. If they are steady and go right, help me to save him!”

She girded herself with a cord under the breast and arms, she formed it into a kind of jacket, she drew it into knots, she laid its end side by side with the end of the other cord, she twisted and twined the two together, she knotted them together, she set her foot upon the knots, she strained them, she held them for the two men to strain at.

“She is inspired,” they said to one another.

“By the Almighty’s mercy!” she exclaimed. “You both know that I am by far the lightest here. Give me the brandy and the wine, and lower me down to him. Then go for assistance and a stronger rope. You see that when it is lowered to me – look at this about me now – I can make it fast and safe to his body. Alive or dead, I will bring him up, or die with him. I love him passionately. Can I say more?”

They turned to her companion, but he was lying senseless on the snow.

“Lower me down to him,” she said, taking two little kegs they had brought, and hanging them about her, “or I will dash myself to pieces! I am a peasant, and I know no giddiness or fear; and this is nothing to me, and I passionately love him. Lower me down!”

“Ma’amselle, ma’amselle, he must be dying or dead.”

“Dying or dead, my husband’s head shall lie upon my breast, or I will dash myself to pieces.”

They yielded, overborne. With such precautions as their skill and the circumstances admitted, they let her slip from the summit, guiding herself down the precipitous icy wall with her hand, and they lowered down, and lowered down, and lowered down, until the cry came up: “Enough!”

“Is it really he, and is he dead?” they called down, looking over.

The cry came up: “He is insensible; but his heart beats. It beats against mine.”

“How does he lie?”

The cry came up: “Upon a ledge of ice. It has thawed beneath him, and it will thaw beneath me. Hasten. If we die, I am content.”

One of the two men hurried off with the dogs at such topmost speed as he could make; the other set up the lighted torches in the snow, and applied himself to recovering the Englishman. Much snow-chafing and some brandy got him on his legs, but delirious and quite unconscious where he was.

The watch remained upon the brink, and his cry went down continually: “Courage! They will soon be here. How goes it?” And the cry came up: “His heart still beats against mine. I warm him in my arms. I have cast off the rope, for the ice melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him; but I am not afraid.”

The moon went down behind the mountain tops, and all the abyss lay in darkness. The cry went down: “How goes it?” The cry came up: “We are sinking lower, but his heart still beats against mine.”

At length the eager barking of the dogs, and a flare of light upon the snow, proclaimed that help was coming on. Twenty or thirty men, lamps, torches, litters, ropes, blankets, wood to kindle a great fire, restoratives and stimulants, came in fast. The dogs ran from one man to another, and from this thing to that, and ran to the edge of the abyss, dumbly entreating Speed, speed, speed!

The cry went down: “Thanks to God, all is ready. How goes it?”

The cry came up: “We are sinking still, and we are deadly cold. His heart no longer beats against mine. Let no one come down, to add to our weight. Lower the rope only.”

The fire was kindled high, a great glare of torches lighted the sides of the precipice, lamps were lowered, a strong rope was lowered. She could be seen passing it round him, and making it secure.

The cry came up into a deathly silence: “Raise! Softly!” They could see her diminished figure shrink, as he was swung into the air.

They gave no shout when some of them laid him on a litter, and others lowered another strong rope. The cry again came up into a deathly silence: “Raise! Softly!” But when they caught her at the brink, then they shouted, then they wept, then they gave thanks to Heaven, then they kissed her feet, then they kissed her dress, then the dogs caressed her, licked her icy hands, and with their honest faces warmed her frozen bosom!

She broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter, with both her loving hands upon the heart that stood still.

ACT IV

THE CLOCK-LOCK

The pleasant scene was Neuchâtel; the pleasant month was April; the pleasant place was a notary’s office; the pleasant person in it was the notary: a rosy, hearty, handsome old man, chief notary of Neuchâtel, known far and wide in the canton as Maître Voigt. Professionally and personally, the notary was a popular citizen. His innumerable kindnesses and his innumerable oddities had for years made him one of the recognised public characters of the pleasant Swiss town. His long brown frock-coat and his black skull-cap, were among the institutions of the place: and he carried a snuffbox which, in point of size, was popularly believed to be without a parallel in Europe.

There was another person in the notary’s office, not so pleasant as the notary. This was Obenreizer.

An oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and one that would never have answered in England. It stood in a neat back yard, fenced off from a pretty flower-garden. Goats browsed in the doorway, and a cow was within half-a-dozen feet of keeping company with the clerk. Maître Voigt’s room was a bright and varnished little room, with panelled walls, like a toy-chamber. According to the seasons of the year, roses, sunflowers, hollyhocks, peeped in at the windows. Maître Voigt’s bees hummed through the office all the summer, in at this window and out at that, taking it frequently in their day’s work, as if honey were to be made from Maître Voigt’s sweet disposition. A large musical box on the chimney-piece often trilled away at the Overture to Fra Diavolo, or a Selection from William Tell, with a chirruping liveliness that had to be stopped by force on the entrance of a client, and irrepressibly broke out again the moment his back was turned.

“Courage, courage, my good fellow!” said Maître Voigt, patting Obenreizer on the knee, in a fatherly and comforting way. “You will begin a new life tomorrow morning in my office here.”

Obenreizer – dressed in mourning, and subdued in manner – lifted his hand, with a white handkerchief in it, to the region of his heart. “The gratitude is here,” he said. “But the words to express it are not here.”

“Ta-ta-ta! Don’t talk to me about gratitude!” said Maître Voigt. “I hate to see a man oppressed. I see you oppressed, and I hold out my hand to you by instinct. Besides, I am not too old yet, to remember my young days. Your father sent me my first client. (It was on a question of half an acre of vineyard that seldom bore any grapes.) Do I owe nothing to your father’s son? I owe him a debt of friendly obligation, and I pay it to you. That’s rather neatly expressed, I think,” added Maître Voigt, in high good humour with himself. “Permit me to reward my own merit with a pinch of snuff!”

Obenreizer dropped his eyes to the ground, as though he were not even worthy to see the notary take snuff.

“Do me one last favour, sir,” he said, when he raised his eyes. “Do not act on impulse. Thus far, you have only a general knowledge of my position. Hear the case for and against me, in its details, before you take me into your office. Let my claim on your benevolence be recognised by your sound reason as well as by your excellent heart. In that case, I may hold up my head against the bitterest of my enemies, and build myself a new reputation on the ruins of the character I have lost.”

“As you will,” said Maître Voigt. “You speak well, my son. You will be a fine lawyer one of these days.”

“The details are not many,” pursued Obenreizer. “My troubles begin with the accidental death of my late travelling companion, my lost dear friend Mr. Vendale.”

“Mr. Vendale,” repeated the notary. “Just so. I have heard and read of the name, several times within these two months. The name of the unfortunate English gentleman who was killed on the Simplon. When you got that scar upon your cheek and neck.”

“ – From my own knife,” said Obenreizer, touching what must have been an ugly gash at the time of its infliction.

“From your own knife,” assented the notary, “and in trying to save him. Good, good, good. That was very good. Vendale. Yes. I have several times, lately, thought it droll that I should once have had a client of that name.”

“But the world, sir,” returned Obenreizer, “is so small!” Nevertheless he made a mental note that the notary had once had a client of that name.

“As I was saying, sir, the death of that dear travelling comrade begins my troubles. What follows? I save myself. I go down to Milan. I am received with coldness by Defresnier and Company. Shortly afterwards, I am discharged by Defresnier and Company. Why? They give no reason why. I ask, do they assail my honour? No answer. I ask, what is the imputation against me? No answer. I ask, where are their proofs against me? No answer. I ask, what am I to think? The reply is, ‘M. Obenreizer is free to think what he will. What M. Obenreizer thinks, is of no importance to Defresnier and Company.’ And that is all.”

“Perfectly. That is all,” asserted the notary, taking a large pinch of snuff.

“But is that enough, sir?”

“That is not enough,” said Maître Voigt. “The House of Defresnier are my fellow townsmen – much respected, much esteemed – but the House of Defresnier must not silently destroy a man’s character. You can rebut assertion. But how can you rebut silence?”

“Your sense of justice, my dear patron,” answered Obenreizer, “states in a word the cruelty of the case. Does it stop there? No. For, what follows upon that?”

“True, my poor boy,” said the notary, with a comforting nod or two; “your ward rebels upon that.”

“Rebels is too soft a word,” retorted Obenreizer. “My ward revolts from me with horror. My ward defies me. My ward withdraws herself from my authority, and takes shelter (Madame Dor with her) in the house of that English lawyer, Mr. Bintrey, who replies to your summons to her to submit herself to my authority, that she will not do so.”

“ – And who afterwards writes,” said the notary, moving his large snuffbox to look among the papers underneath it for the letter, “that he is coming to confer with me.”

“Indeed?” replied Obenreizer, rather checked. “Well, sir. Have I no legal rights?”

“Assuredly, my poor boy,” returned the notary. “All but felons have their legal rights.”

“And who calls me felon?” said Obenreizer, fiercely.

“No one. Be calm under your wrongs. If the House of Defresnier would call you felon, indeed, we should know how to deal with them.”

While saying these words, he had handed Bintrey’s very short letter to Obenreizer, who now read it and gave it back.

“In saying,” observed Obenreizer, with recovered composure, “that he is coming to confer with you, this English lawyer means that he is coming to deny my authority over my ward.”

“You think so?”

“I am sure of it. I know him. He is obstinate and contentious. You will tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is unassailable, until my ward is of age?”

“Absolutely unassailable.”

“I will enforce it. I will make her submit herself to it. For,” said Obenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of grateful submission, “I owe it to you, sir; to you, who have so confidingly taken an injured man under your protection, and into your employment.”

“Make your mind easy,” said Maître Voigt. “No more of this now, and no thanks! Be here tomorrow morning, before the other clerk comes – between seven and eight. You will find me in this room; and I will myself initiate you in your work. Go away! go away! I have letters to write. I won’t hear a word more.”

Dismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with the favourable impression he had left on the old man’s mind, Obenreizer was at leisure to revert to the mental note he had made that Maître Voigt once had a client whose name was Vendale.

“I ought to know England well enough by this time;” so his meditations ran, as he sat on a bench in the yard; “and it is not a name I ever encountered there, except—” he looked involuntarily over his shoulder – “as his name. Is the world so small that I cannot get away from him, even now when he is dead? He confessed at the last that he had betrayed the trust of the dead, and misinherited a fortune. And I was to see to it. And I was to stand off, that my face might remind him of it. Why my face, unless it concerned me? I am sure of his words, for they have been in my ears ever since. Can there be anything bearing on them, in the keeping of this old idiot? Anything to repair my fortunes, and blacken his memory? He dwelt upon my earliest remembrances, that night at Basle. Why, unless he had a purpose in it?”

Maître Voigt’s two largest he-goats were butting at him to butt him out of the place, as if for that disrespectful mention of their master. So he got up and left the place. But he walked alone for a long time on the border of the lake, with his head drooped in deep thought.

Between seven and eight next morning, he presented himself again at the office. He found the notary ready for him, at work on some papers which had come in on the previous evening. In a few clear words, Maître Voigt explained the routine of the office, and the duties Obenreizer would be expected to perform. It still wanted five minutes to eight, when the preliminary instructions were declared to be complete.

“I will show you over the house and the offices,” said Maître Voigt, “but I must put away these papers first. They come from the municipal authorities, and they must be taken special care of.”

Obenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding out the repository in which his employer’s private papers were kept.

“Can’t I save you the trouble, sir?” he asked. “Can’t I put those documents away under your directions?”

Maître Voigt laughed softly to himself; closed the portfolio in which the papers had been sent to him; handed it to Obenreizer.

“Suppose you try,” he said. “All my papers of importance are kept yonder.”

He pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly studded with nails, at the lower end of the room. Approaching the door, with the portfolio, Obenreizer discovered, to his astonishment, that there were no means whatever of opening it from the outside. There was no handle, no bolt, no key, and (climax of passive obstruction!) no keyhole.

“There is a second door to this room?” said Obenreizer, appealing to the notary.

“No,” said Maître Voigt. “Guess again.”

“There is a window?”

“Nothing of the sort. The window has been bricked up. The only way in, is the way by that door. Do you give it up?” cried Maître Voigt, in high triumph. “Listen, my good fellow, and tell me if you hear nothing inside?”

Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the door.

“I know!” he exclaimed. “I heard of this when I was apprenticed here at the watchmaker’s. Perrin Brothers have finished their famous clock-lock at last – and you have got it?”

“Bravo!” said Maître Voigt. “The clock-lock it is! There, my son! There you have one more of what the good people of this town call, ‘Daddy Voigt’s follies.’ With all my heart! Let those laugh who win. No thief can steal my keys. No burglar can pick my lock. No power on earth, short of a battering-ram or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my little sentinel inside – my worthy friend who goes ‘Tick, Tick,’ as I tell him – says, ‘Open!’ The big door obeys the little Tick, Tick, and the little Tick, Tick, obeys me. That!” cried Daddy Voigt, snapping his fingers, “for all the thieves in Christendom!”

“May I see it in action?” asked Obenreizer. “Pardon my curiosity, dear sir! You know that I was once a tolerable worker in the clock trade.”

“Certainly you shall see it in action,” said Maître Voigt. “What is the time now? One minute to eight. Watch, and in one minute you will see the door open of itself.”

In one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if invisible hands had set it free, the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed a dark chamber beyond. On three sides, shelves filled the walls, from floor to ceiling. Arranged on the shelves, were rows upon rows of boxes made in the pretty inlaid woodwork of Switzerland, and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for the most part in fanciful coloured letters) the names of the notary’s clients.

Maître Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room.

“You shall see the clock,” he said proudly. “I possess the greatest curiosity in Europe. It is only a privileged few whose eyes can look at it. I give the privilege to your good father’s son – you shall be one of the favoured few who enter the room with me. See! here it is, on the right-hand wall at the side of the door.”

“An ordinary clock,” exclaimed Obenreizer. “No! Not an ordinary clock. It has only one hand.”

“Aha!” said Maître Voigt. “Not an ordinary clock, my friend. No, no. That one hand goes round the dial. As I put it, so it regulates the hour at which the door shall open. See! The hand points to eight. At eight the door opened, as you saw for yourself.”

“Does it open more than once in the four-and-twenty hours?” asked Obenreizer.

“More than once?” repeated the notary, with great scorn. “You don’t know my good friend, Tick-Tick! He will open the door as often as I ask him. All he wants is his directions, and he gets them here. Look below the dial. Here is a half-circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a hand (called the regulator) that travels round it, just as my hand chooses. Notice, if you please, that there are figures to guide me on the half-circle of steel. Figure I. means: Open once in the four-and-twenty hours. Figure II. means: Open twice; and so on to the end. I set the regulator every morning, after I have read my letters, and when I know what my day’s work is to be. Would you like to see me set it now? What is today? Wednesday. Good! This is the day of our rifle-club; there is little business to do; I grant a half-holiday. No work here today, after three o’clock. Let us first put away this portfolio of municipal papers. There! No need to trouble Tick-Tick to open the door until eight tomorrow. Good! I leave the dial-hand at eight; I put back the regulator to I.; I close the door; and closed the door remains, past all opening by anybody, till tomorrow morning at eight.”

Obenreizer’s quickness instantly saw the means by which he might make the clock-lock betray its master’s confidence, and place its master’s papers at his disposal.

“Stop, sir!” he cried, at the moment when the notary was closing the door. “Don’t I see something moving among the boxes – on the floor there?”

(Maître Voigt turned his back for a moment to look. In that moment, Obenreizer’s ready hand put the regulator on, from the figure “I.” to the figure “II.” Unless the notary looked again at the half-circle of steel, the door would open at eight that evening, as well as at eight next morning, and nobody but Obenreizer would know it.)

“There is nothing!” said Maître Voigt. “Your troubles have shaken your nerves, my son. Some shadow thrown by my taper; or some poor little beetle, who lives among the old lawyer’s secrets, running away from the light. Hark! I hear your fellow-clerk in the office. To work! to work! and build today the first step that leads to your new fortunes!”

He good-humouredly pushed Obenreizer out before him; extinguished the taper, with a last fond glance at his clock which passed harmlessly over the regulator beneath; and closed the oaken door.

At three, the office was shut up. The notary and everybody in the notary’s employment, with one exception, went to see the rifle-shooting. Obenreizer had pleaded that he was not in spirits for a public festival. Nobody knew what had become of him. It was believed that he had slipped away for a solitary walk.

The house and offices had been closed but a few minutes, when the door of a shining wardrobe in the notary’s shining room opened, and Obenreizer stopped out. He walked to a window, unclosed the shutters, satisfied himself that he could escape unseen by way of the garden, turned back into the room, and took his place in the notary’s easy-chair. He was locked up in the house, and there were five hours to wait before eight o’clock came.

He wore his way through the five hours: sometimes reading the books and newspapers that lay on the table: sometimes thinking: sometimes walking to and fro. Sunset came on. He closed the window-shutters before he kindled a light. The candle lighted, and the time drawing nearer and nearer, he sat, watch in hand, with his eyes on the oaken door.

At eight, smoothly and softly and silently the door opened.

One after another, he read the names on the outer rows of boxes. No such name as Vendale! He removed the outer row, and looked at the row behind. These were older boxes, and shabbier boxes. The four first that he examined, were inscribed with French and German names. The fifth bore a name which was almost illegible. He brought it out into the room, and examined it closely. There, covered thickly with time-stains and dust, was the name: “Vendale.”

The key hung to the box by a string. He unlocked the box, took out four loose papers that were in it, spread them open on the table, and began to read them. He had not so occupied a minute, when his face fell from its expression of eagerness and avidity, to one of haggard astonishment and disappointment. But, after a little consideration, he copied the papers. He then replaced the papers, replaced the box, closed the door, extinguished the candle, and stole away.

As his murderous and thievish footfall passed out of the garden, the steps of the notary and someone accompanying him stopped at the front door of the house. The lamps were lighted in the little street, and the notary had his door-key in his hand.

“Pray do not pass my house, Mr. Bintrey,” he said. “Do me the honour to come in. It is one of our town half-holidays – our Tir – but my people will be back directly. It is droll that you should ask your way to the Hotel of me. Let us eat and drink before you go there.”

“Thank you; not tonight,” said Bintrey. “Shall I come to you at ten tomorrow?”

“I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity of redressing the wrongs of my injured client,” returned the good notary.

“Yes,” retorted Bintrey; “your injured client is all very well – but – a word in your ear.”

He whispered to the notary and walked off. When the notary’s housekeeper came home, she found him standing at his door motionless, with the key still in his hand, and the door unopened.

OBENREIZER’S VICTORY

The scene shifts again – to the foot of the Simplon, on the Swiss side.

In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at Brieg, Mr. Bintrey and Maître Voigt sat together at a professional council of two. Mr. Bintrey was searching in his despatch-box. Maître Voigt was looking towards a closed door, painted brown to imitate mahogany, and communicating with an inner room.

“Isn’t it time he was here?” asked the notary, shifting his position, and glancing at a second door at the other end of the room, painted yellow to imitate deal.

“He is here,” answered Bintrey, after listening for a moment.

The yellow door was opened by a waiter, and Obenreizer walked in.

After greeting Maître Voigt with a cordiality which appeared to cause the notary no little embarrassment, Obenreizer bowed with grave and distant politeness to Bintrey. “For what reason have I been brought from Neuchâtel to the foot of the mountain?” he inquired, taking the seat which the English lawyer had indicated to him.

“You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview is over,” returned Bintrey. “For the present, permit me to suggest proceeding at once to business. There has been a correspondence, Mr. Obenreizer, between you and your niece. I am here to represent your niece.”

“In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infraction of the law.”

“Admirably put!” said Bintrey. “If all the people I have to deal with were only like you, what an easy profession mine would be! I am here to represent an infraction of the law – that is your point of view. I am here to make a compromise between you and your niece – that is my point of view.”

“There must be two parties to a compromise,” rejoined Obenreizer. “I decline, in this case, to be one of them. The law gives me authority to control my niece’s actions, until she comes of age. She is not yet of age; and I claim my authority.”

At this point Maître attempted to speak. Bintrey silenced him with a compassionate indulgence of tone and manner, as if he was silencing a favourite child.

“No, my worthy friend, not a word. Don’t excite yourself unnecessarily; leave it to me.” He turned, and addressed himself again to Obenreizer. “I can think of nothing comparable to you, Mr. Obenreizer, but granite – and even that wears out in course of time. In the interests of peace and quietness – for the sake of your own dignity – relax a little. If you will only delegate your authority to another person whom I know of, that person may be trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night or day!”

“You are wasting your time and mine,” returned Obenreizer. “If my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one week from this day, I invoke the law. If you resist the law, I take her by force.”

He rose to his feet as he said the last word. Maître Voigt looked round again towards the brown door which led into the inner room.

“Have some pity on the poor girl,” pleaded Bintrey. “Remember how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death! Will nothing move you?”

“Nothing.”

Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maître Voigt. Maître Voigt’s hand, resting on the table, began to tremble. Maître Voigt’s eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, on the brown door. Obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked that way too.

“There is somebody listening in there!” he exclaimed, with a sharp backward glance at Bintrey.

“There are two people listening,” answered Bintrey.

“Who are they?”

“You shall see.”

With this answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next words – the two common words which are on everybody’s lips, at every hour of the day: “Come in!”

The brown door opened. Supported on Marguerite’s arm – his sunburnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and clung over his breast – Vendale stood before the murderer, a man risen from the dead.

In the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a caged bird in the courtyard outside was the one sound stirring in the room. Maître Voigt touched Bintrey, and pointed to Obenreizer. “Look at him!” said the notary, in a whisper.

The shock had paralysed every movement in the villain’s body, but the movement of the blood. His face was like the face of a corpse. The one vestige of colour left in it was a livid purple streak which marked the course of the scar where his victim had wounded him on the cheek and neck. Speechless, breathless, motionless alike in eye and limb, it seemed as if, at the sight of Vendale, the death to which he had doomed Vendale had struck him where he stood.

“Somebody ought to speak to him,” said Maître Voigt. “Shall I?”

Even at that moment Bintrey persisted in silencing the notary, and in keeping the lead in the proceedings to himself. Checking Maître Voigt by a gesture, he dismissed Marguerite and Vendale in these words: “The object of your appearance here is answered,” he said. “If you will withdraw for the present, it may help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself.”

It did help him. As the two passed through the door and closed it behind them, he drew a deep breath of relief. He looked round him for the chair from which he had risen, and dropped into it.

“Give him time!” pleaded Maître Voigt.

“No,” said Bintrey. “I don’t know what use he may make of it if I do.” He turned once more to Obenreizer, and went on. “I owe it to myself,” he said – “I don’t admit, mind, that I owe it to you – to account for my appearance in these proceedings, and to state what has been done under my advice, and on my sole responsibility. Can you listen to me?”

“I can listen to you.”

“Recall the time when you started for Switzerland with Mr. Vendale,” Bintrey begin. “You had not left England four-and-twenty hours before your niece committed an act of imprudence which not even your penetration could foresee. She followed her promised husband on his journey, without asking anybody’s advice or permission, and without any better companion to protect her than a Cellarman in Mr. Vendale’s employment.”

“Why did she follow me on the journey? and how came the Cellarman to be the person who accompanied her?”

“She followed you on the journey,” answered Bintrey, “because she suspected there had been some serious collision between you and Mr. Vendale, which had been kept secret from her; and because she rightly believed you to be capable of serving your interests, or of satisfying your enmity, at the price of a crime. As for the Cellarman, he was one, among the other people in Mr. Vendale’s establishment, to whom she had applied (the moment your back was turned) to know if anything had happened between their master and you. The Cellarman alone had something to tell her. A senseless superstition, and a common accident which had happened to his master, in his master’s cellar, had connected Mr. Vendale in this man’s mind with the idea of danger by murder. Your niece surprised him into a confession, which aggravated tenfold the terrors that possessed her. Aroused to a sense of the mischief he had done, the man, of his own accord, made the one atonement in his power. ‘If my master is in danger, miss,’ he said, ‘it’s my duty to follow him, too; and it’s more than my duty to take care of you.’ The two set forth together – and, for once, a superstition has had its use. It decided your niece on taking the journey; and it led the way to saving a man’s life. Do you understand me, so far?”

“I understand you, so far.”

“My first knowledge of the crime that you had committed,” pursued Bintrey, “came to me in the form of a letter from your niece. All you need know is that her love and her courage recovered the body of your victim, and aided the after-efforts which brought him back to life. While he lay helpless at Brieg, under her care, she wrote to me to come out to him. Before starting, I informed Madame Dor that I knew Miss Obenreizer to be safe, and knew where she was. Madame Dor informed me, in return, that a letter had come for your niece, which she knew to be in your handwriting. I took possession of it, and arranged for the forwarding of any other letters which might follow. Arrived at Brieg, I found Mr. Vendale out of danger, and at once devoted myself to hastening the day of reckoning with you. Defresnier and Company turned you off on suspicion; acting on information privately supplied by me. Having stripped you of your false character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your authority over your niece. To reach this end, I not only had no scruple in digging the pitfall under your feet in the dark – I felt a certain professional pleasure in fighting you with your own weapons. By my advice the truth has been carefully concealed from you up to this day. By my advice the trap into which you have walked was set for you (you know why, now, as well as I do) in this place. There was but one certain way of shaking the devilish self-control which has hitherto made you a formidable man. That way has been tried, and (look at me as you may) that way has succeeded. The last thing that remains to be done,” concluded Bintrey, producing two little slips of manuscript from his despatch-box, “is to set your niece free. You have attempted murder, and you have committed forgery and theft. We have the evidence ready against you in both cases. If you are convicted as a felon, you know as well as I do what becomes of your authority over your niece. Personally, I should have preferred taking that way out of it. But considerations are pressed on me which I am not able to resist, and this interview must end, as I have told you already, in a compromise. Sign those lines, resigning all authority over Miss Obenreizer, and pledging yourself never to be seen in England or in Switzerland again; and I will sign an indemnity which secures you against further proceedings on our part.”

Obenreizer took the pen in silence, and signed his niece’s release. On receiving the indemnity in return, he rose, but made no movement to leave the room. He stood looking at Maître Voigt with a strange smile gathering at his lips, and a strange light flashing in his filmy eyes.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Bintrey.

Obenreizer pointed to the brown door. “Call them back,” he answered. “I have something to say in their presence before I go.”

“Say it in my presence,” retorted Bintrey. “I decline to call them back.”

Obenreizer turned to Maître Voigt. “Do you remember telling me that you once had an English client named Vendale?” he asked.

“Well,” answered the notary. “And what of that?”

“Maître Voigt, your clock-lock has betrayed you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have read the letters and certificates in your client’s box. I have taken copies of them. I have got the copies here. Is there, or is there not, a reason for calling them back?”

For a moment the notary looked to and fro, between Obenreizer and Bintrey, in helpless astonishment. Recovering himself, he drew his brother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly spoke a few words close at his ear. The face of Bintrey – after first faithfully reflecting the astonishment on the face of Maître Voigt – suddenly altered its expression. He sprang, with the activity of a young man, to the door of the inner room, entered it, remained inside for a minute, and returned followed by Marguerite and Vendale. “Now, Mr. Obenreizer,” said Bintrey, “the last move in the game is yours. Play it.”

“Before I resign my position as that young lady’s guardian,” said Obenreizer, “I have a secret to reveal in which she is interested. In making my disclosure, I am not claiming her attention for a narrative which she, or any other person present, is expected to take on trust. I am possessed of written proofs, copies of originals, the authenticity of which Maître Voigt himself can attest. Bear that in mind, and permit me to refer you, at starting, to a date long past – the month of February, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six.”

“Mark the date, Mr. Vendale,” said Bintrey.

“My first proof,” said Obenreizer, taking a paper from his pocketbook. “Copy of a letter, written by an English lady (married) to her sister, a widow. The name of the person writing the letter I shall keep suppressed until I have done. The name of the person to whom the letter is written I am willing to reveal. It is addressed to ‘Mrs. Jane Anne Miller, of Groombridge Wells, England.’”

Vendale started, and opened his lips to speak. Bintrey instantly stopped him, as he had stopped Maître Voigt. “No,” said the pertinacious lawyer. “Leave it to me.”

Obenreizer went on:

“It is needless to trouble you with the first half of the letter,” he said. “I can give the substance of it in two words. The writer’s position at the time is this. She has been long living in Switzerland with her husband – obliged to live there for the sake of her husband’s health. They are about to move to a new residence on the Lake of Neuchâtel in a week, and they will be ready to receive Mrs. Miller as visitor in a fortnight from that time. This said, the writer next enters into an important domestic detail. She has been childless for years – she and her husband have now no hope of children; they are lonely; they want an interest in life; they have decided on adopting a child. Here the important part of the letter begins; and here, therefore, I read it to you word for word.”

He folded back the first page of the letter and read as follows.

……Will you help us, my dear sister, to realise our new project? As English people, we wish to adopt an English child. This may be done, I believe, at the Foundling: my husband’s lawyers in London will tell you how. I leave the choice to you, with only these conditions attached to it – that the child is to be an infant under a year old, and is to be a boy. Will you pardon the trouble I am giving you, for my sake; and will you bring our adopted child to us, with your own children, when you come to Neuchâtel?

I must add a word as to my husband’s wishes in this matter. He is resolved to spare the child whom we make our own any future mortification and loss of self-respect which might be caused by a discovery of his true origin. He will bear my husband’s name, and he will be brought up in the belief that he is really our son. His inheritance of what we have to leave will be secured to him – not only according to the laws of England in such cases, but according to the laws of Switzerland also; for we have lived so long in this country, that there is a doubt whether we may not be considered as I domiciled, in Switzerland. The one precaution left to take is to prevent any after-discovery at the Foundling. Now, our name is a very uncommon one; and if we appear on the Register of the Institution as the persons adopting the child, there is just a chance that something might result from it. Your name, my dear, is the name of thousands of other people; and if you will consent to appear on the Register, there need be no fear of any discoveries in that quarter. We are moving, by the doctor’s orders, to a part of Switzerland in which our circumstances are quite unknown; and you, as I understand, are about to engage a new nurse for the journey when you come to see us. Under these circumstances, the child may appear as my child, brought back to me under my sister’s care. The only servant we take with us from our old home is my own maid, who can be safely trusted. As for the lawyers in England and in Switzerland, it is their profession to keep secrets – and we may feel quite easy in that direction. So there you have our harmless little conspiracy! Write by return of post, my love, and tell me you will join it.…

“Do you still conceal the name of the writer of that letter?” asked Vendale.

“I keep the name of the writer till the last,” answered Obenreizer, “and I proceed to my second proof – a mere slip of paper this time, as you see. Memorandum given to the Swiss lawyer, who drew the documents referred to in the letter I have just read, expressed as follows: ‘Adopted from the Foundling Hospital of England, 3d March, 1836, a male infant, called, in the Institution, Walter Wilding. Person appearing on the register, as adopting the child, Mrs. Jane Anne Miller, widow, acting in this matter for her married sister, domiciled in Switzerland.’ Patience!” resumed Obenreizer, as Vendale, breaking loose from Bintrey, started to his feet. “I shall not keep the name concealed much longer. Two more little slips of paper, and I have done. Third proof! Certificate of Doctor Ganz, still living in practice at Neuchâtel, dated July, 1838. The doctor certifies (you shall read it for yourselves directly), first, that he attended the adopted child in its infant maladies; second, that, three months before the date of the certificate, the gentleman adopting the child as his son died; third, that on the date of the certificate, his widow and her maid, taking the adopted child with them, left Neuchâtel on their return to England. One more link now added to this, and my chain of evidence is complete. The maid remained with her mistress till her mistress’s death, only a few years since. The maid can swear to the identity of the adopted infant, from his childhood to his youth – from his youth to his manhood, as he is now. There is her address in England – and there, Mr. Vendale, is the fourth, and final proof!”

“Why do you address yourself to me?” said Vendale, as Obenreizer threw the written address on the table.

Obenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy of triumph.

“Because you are the man! If my niece marries you, she marries a bastard, brought up by public charity. If my niece marries you, she marries an impostor, without name or lineage, disguised in the character of a gentleman of rank and family.”

“Bravo!” cried Bintrey. “Admirably put, Mr. Obenreizer! It only wants one word more to complete it. She marries – thanks entirely to your exertions – a man who inherits a handsome fortune, and a man whose origin will make him prouder than ever of his peasant-wife. George Vendale, as brother-executors, let us congratulate each other! Our dear dead friend’s last wish on earth is accomplished. We have found the lost Walter Wilding. As Mr. Obenreizer said just now – you are the man!”

The words passed by Vendale unheeded. For the moment he was conscious of but one sensation; he heard but one voice. Marguerite’s hand was clasping his. Marguerite’s voice was whispering to him:

“I never loved you, George, as I love you now!”

THE CURTAIN FALLS

May-day. There is merrymaking in Cripple Corner, the chimneys smoke, the patriarchal dining-hall is hung with garlands, and Mrs. Goldstraw, the respected housekeeper, is very busy. For, on this bright morning the young master of Cripple Corner is married to its young mistress, far away: to wit, in the little town of Brieg, in Switzerland, lying at the foot of the Simplon Pass where she saved his life.

The bells ring gaily in the little town of Brieg, and flags are stretched across the street, and rifle shots are heard, and sounding music from brass instruments. Streamer-decorated casks of wine have been rolled out under a gay awning in the public way before the Inn, and there will be free feasting and revelry. What with bells and banners, draperies hanging from windows, explosion of gunpowder, and reverberation of brass music, the little town of Brieg is all in a flutter, like the hearts of its simple people.

It was a stormy night last night, and the mountains are covered with snow. But the sun is bright today, the sweet air is fresh, the tin spires of the little town of Brieg are burnished silver, and the Alps are ranges of far-off white cloud in a deep blue sky.

The primitive people of the little town of Brieg have built a greenwood arch across the street, under which the newly married pair shall pass in triumph from the church. It is inscribed, on that side, “HONOUR AND LOVE TO MARGUERITE VENDALE!” for the people are proud of her to enthusiasm. This greeting of the bride under her new name is affectionately meant as a surprise, and therefore the arrangement has been made that she, unconscious why, shall be taken to the church by a tortuous back way. A scheme not difficult to carry into execution in the crooked little town of Brieg.

So, all things are in readiness, and they are to go and come on foot. Assembled in the Inn’s best chamber, festively adorned, are the bride and bridegroom, the Neuchâtel notary, the London lawyer, Madame Dor, and a certain large mysterious Englishman, popularly known as Monsieur Zhoé-Ladelle. And behold Madame Dor, arrayed in a spotless pair of gloves of her own, with no hand in the air, but both hands clasped round the neck of the bride; to embrace whom Madame Dor has turned her broad back on the company, consistent to the last.

“Forgive me, my beautiful,” pleads Madame Dor, “for that I ever was his she-cat!”

“She-cat, Madame Dor?”

“Engaged to sit watching my so charming mouse,” are the explanatory words of Madame Dor, delivered with a penitential sob.

“Why, you were our best friend! George, dearest, tell Madame Dor. Was she not our best friend?”

“Undoubtedly, darling. What should we have done without her?”

“You are both so generous,” cries Madame Dor, accepting consolation, and immediately relapsing. “But I commenced as a she-cat.”

“Ah! But like the cat in the fairy-story, good Madame Dor,” says Vendale, saluting her cheek, “you were a true woman. And, being a true woman, the sympathy of your heart was with true love.”

“I don’t wish to deprive Madame Dor of her share in the embraces that are going on,” Mr. Bintrey puts in, watch in hand, “and I don’t presume to offer any objection to your having got yourselves mixed together, in the corner there, like the three Graces. I merely remark that I think it’s time we were moving. What are your sentiments on that subject, Mr. Ladle?”

“Clear, sir,” replies Joey, with a gracious grin. “I’m clearer altogether, sir, for having lived so many weeks upon the surface. I never was half so long upon the surface afore, and it’s done me a power of good. At Cripple Corner, I was too much below it. Atop of the Simpleton, I was a deal too high above it. I’ve found the medium here, sir. And if ever I take it in convivial, in all the rest of my days, I mean to do it this day, to the toast of ‘Bless ’em both.’”

“I, too!” says Bintrey. “And now, Monsieur Voigt, let you and me be two men of Marseilles, and allons, marchons, arm-in-arm!”

They go down to the door, where others are waiting for them, and they go quietly to the church, and the happy marriage takes place. While the ceremony is yet in progress, the notary is called out. When it is finished, he has returned, is standing behind Vendale, and touches him on the shoulder.

“Go to the side door, one moment, Monsieur Vendale. Alone. Leave Madame to me.”

At the side door of the church, are the same two men from the Hospice. They are snow-stained and travel-worn. They wish him joy, and then each lays his broad hand upon Vendale’s breast, and one says in a low voice, while the other steadfastly regards him:

“It is here, Monsieur. Your litter. The very same.”

“My litter is here? Why?”

“Hush! For the sake of Madame. Your companion of that day—”

“What of him?”

The man looks at his comrade, and his comrade takes him up. Each keeps his hand laid earnestly on Vendale’s breast.

“He had been living at the first Refuge, monsieur, for some days. The weather was now good, now bad.”

“Yes?”

“He arrived at our Hospice the day before yesterday, and, having refreshed himself with sleep on the floor before the fire, wrapped in his cloak, was resolute to go on, before dark, to the next Hospice. He had a great fear of that part of the way, and thought it would be worse tomorrow.”

“Yes?”

“He went on alone. He had passed the gallery when an avalanche – like that which fell behind you near the Bridge of the Ganther—”

“Killed him?”

“We dug him out, suffocated and broken all to pieces! But, monsieur, as to Madame. We have brought him here on the litter, to be buried. We must ascend the street outside. Madame must not see. It would be an accursed thing to bring the litter through the arch across the street, until Madame has passed through. As you descend, we who accompany the litter will set it down on the stones of the street the second to the right, and will stand before it. But do not let Madame turn her head towards the street the second to the right. There is no time to lose. Madame will be alarmed by your absence. Adieu!”

Vendale returns to his bride, and draws her hand through his unmaimed arm. A pretty procession awaits them at the main door of the church. They take their station in it, and descend the street amidst the ringing of the bells, the firing of the guns, the waving of the flags, the playing of the music, the shouts, the smiles, and tears, of the excited town. Heads are uncovered as she passes, hands are kissed to her, all the people bless her. “Heaven’s benediction on the dear girl! See where she goes in her youth and beauty; she who so nobly saved his life!”

Near the corner of the street the second to the right, he speaks to her, and calls her attention to the windows on the opposite side. The corner well passed, he says: “Do not look round, my darling, for a reason that I have,” and turns his head. Then, looking back along the street, he sees the litter and its bearers passing up alone under the arch, as he and she and their marriage train go down towards the shining valley.

•  THE END  •

ESSAYS

MY MISCELLANIES

CONTENTS

… Dedication
… Preface
Sketches of Character
Talk-stoppers
A Shockingly Rude Article
Mrs. Badgery
The Bachelor Bedroom
Pray Employ Major Namby
My Spinsters
Social Grievances
A Journey in Search of Nothing
A Petition to the Novel-Writers
Give Us Room!
Save Me From My Friends
Mrs. Bullwinkle
Nooks and Corners of History
A Queen’s Revenge
The Great (Forgotten) Invasion
A Remarkable Revolution
Fragments of Personal Experience
Laid Up in Lodgings
My Black Mirror
Curiosities of Literature
The Unknown Public
Portrait of an Author
Cases Worth Looking At
Memoirs of an Adopted Son
The Poisoned Meal
The Cauldron of Oil
Literature and Art
Douglas Jerrold
Dramatic Grub Street
To Think, or Be Thought For
A Last Essay
Bold Words by a Bachelor

DEDICATION

Affectionately Inscribed

TO

HENRY BULLAR,

(of the western circuit).

PREFACE

The various papers of which the following collection is composed were most of them written some years since, and were all originally published – with many more, which I have not thought it desirable to reprint – in Household Words and in the earlier volumes of All the Year Round. They were fortunate enough to be received with favour by the reader, at the period of their first appearance, and were thought worthy in many instances of being largely quoted from in other journals. After careful selection and revision, they are now collected in book form; having been so arranged, in contrast with each other, as to present specimens of all the shorter compositions which I have contributed in past years to periodical literature.

My object in writing most of these papers – especially those collected under the general heads of “Sketches of Character” and “Social Grievances” – was to present what I had observed and what I had thought, in the lightest and the least pretentious form; to address the public (if I could) with something of the ease of letter-writing, and something of the familiarity of friendly talk. The literary Pulpit appeared to me at that time – as it appears to me still – to be rather overcrowded with the Preachers of Lay Sermons. Views of life and society to set us thinking penitently in some cases, or doubting contemptuously in others, were, I thought, quite plentiful enough already. More freshness and novelty of appeal to the much-lectured and much-enduring reader seemed to lie in views which might put us on easier terms with ourselves and with others; and which might encourage us to laugh good-humouredly over some of the lighter eccentricities of character, and some of the more palpable absurdities of custom – without any unfair perversion of truth, or any needless descent to the lower regions of vulgarity and caricature. With that idea, all the lighter contributions to these Miscellanies were originally written; and with that idea they are now again dismissed from my desk, to win what approval they may from new readers.

•   •   •

The preceding lines were written as a Preface to the first publication of these Miscellanies in book form. In the present edition I have, as I hope, altered for the better the original arrangement of the various Essays, Narratives, and Sketches of which the work is composed.

W. C.

HARLEY-STREET, LONDON,
July, 1875

SKETCHES OF CHARACTER

TALK-STOPPERS

We hear a great deal of lamentation nowadays, proceeding mostly from elderly people, on the decline of the Art of Conversation among us. Old ladies and gentlemen with vivid recollections of the charms of society fifty years ago, are constantly asking each other why the great talkers of their youthful days have found no successors in this inferior present time. Where – they inquire mournfully – where are the illustrious men and women gifted with a capacity for perpetual outpouring from the tongue, who used to keep enraptured audiences deluged in a flow of eloquent monologue for hours together? Where are the solo-talkers, in this degenerate age of nothing but choral conversation?

The solo-talkers have vanished. Nothing but the tradition of them remains, imperfectly preserved in books for the benefit of an ungrateful posterity, which reviles their surviving contemporaries, and would perhaps even have reviled the illustrious creatures themselves as Bores. If they could rise from the dead, and wag their unresting tongues among us now, would they win their reputations anew, just as easily as ever? Would they even get listeners? Would they be actually allowed to talk? I venture to say, decidedly not. They would surely be interrupted and contradicted; they would have their nearest neighbours at the dinner-table talking across them; they would find impatient people opposite, dropping things noisily, and ostentatiously picking them up; they would hear confidential whispering, and perpetual fidgeting in distant corners, before they had got through their first half dozen of eloquent opening sentences. Nothing appears to me so wonderful as that none of these interruptions (if we are to believe report) should ever have occurred in the good old times of the great talkers. I read long biographies of that large class of illustrious individuals whose fame is confined to the select circle of their own acquaintance, and I find that they were to a man, whatever other differences may have existed between them, all delightful talkers. I am informed that they held forth entrancingly for hours together, at all times and seasons, and that I, the gentle, constant, and patient reader, am one of the most unfortunate and pitiable of human beings in never having enjoyed the luxury of hearing them; but, strangely enough, I am never told whether they were occasionally interrupted or not in the course of their outpourings. I am left to infer that their friends sat under them just as a congregation sits under a pulpit; and I ask myself amazedly (remembering what society is at the present day), whether human nature can have changed altogether since that time. Either the reports in the biographies are one-sided and imperfect, or the race of people whom I frequently meet with now – and whom I venture to call talk-stoppers, because their business in life seems to be the obstructing, confusing, and interrupting of all conversation – must be the peculiar and portentous growth of our own degenerate era.

Perplexed by this dilemma, when I am reading in long biographies about great talkers, I do not find myself lamenting, like my seniors, that they have left no successors in our day, or doubting irreverently, like my juniors, whether the famous performers of conversational solos were really as well worth hearing as eulogistic report would fain have us believe. The one invariable question that I put to myself under these circumstances runs thus: Could the great talkers, if they had lived in my time, have talked at all? And the answer I receive is: In the vast majority of cases, certainly not.

Let me not unnecessarily mention names, but let me ask, for example, if some such famous talker as, say – the Great Glib – could have discoursed uninterruptedly for five minutes together in the presence of my friend Colonel Hopkirk?

The colonel goes a great deal into society; he is the kindest and gentlest of men; but he unconsciously stops, or confuses conversation everywhere, solely in consequence of his own sociable horror of ever differing in opinion with anybody. If A should begin by declaring black to be black, Colonel Hopkirk would be sure to agree with him before he had half done. If B followed, and declared black to be white, the colonel would be on his side of the question before he had argued it out; and, if C peaceably endeavoured to calm the dispute with a truism, and trusted that every one would at least admit that black and white in combination made grey, my ever-compliant friend would pat him on the shoulder approvingly all the while he was talking; would declare that C’s conclusion was, after all, the common sense of the question; and would set A and B furiously disputing which of them he agreed or disagreed with now, and whether on the great Black, White and Gray question, Colonel Hopkirk could really be said to have any opinion at all.

How could the Great Glib hold forth in the company of such a man as this? Let us suppose that delightful talker, with a few of his admirers (including, of course, the writer of his biography), and Colonel Hopkirk, to be all seated at the same table; and let us say that one of the admirers is anxious to get the mellifluous Glib to discourse on capital punishment for the benefit of the company. The admirer begins, of course, on the approved method of stating the objections to capital punishment, and starts the subject in this manner: “I was dining out, the other day, Mr. Glib, where capital punishment turned up as a topic of conversation—”

“Ah!” says Colonel Hopkirk, “a dreadful necessity – yes, yes, yes, I see – a dreadful necessity – eh?”

“And the arguments for its abolition,” continues the admirer, without noticing the interruption, “were really handled with great dexterity by one of the gentlemen present, who started, of course, with the assertion that it is unlawful, under any circumstances, to take away life—”

“Unlawful, of course!” cries the colonel. “Very well put. Yes, yes – unlawful – to be sure – so it is – unlawful, as you say.”

“Unlawful, sir?” begins the Great Glib, severely. “Have I lived to this time of day, to hear that it is unlawful to protect the lives of the community by the only certain means – ?”

“No, no – oh dear me, no!” says the compliant Hopkirk, with the most unblushing readiness. “Protect their lives, of course – as you say, protect their lives by the only certain means – yes, yes, I quite agree with you.”

“Allow me, colonel,” says another admirer, anxious to assist in starting the great talker, “allow me to remind our friend, before he takes this question in hand, that it is an argument of the abolitionists that perpetual imprisonment would answer the purpose of protecting society—”

The colonel is so delighted with this last argument that he bounds on his chair, and rubs his hands in triumph. “My dear sir!” he cries, before the last speaker can say another word, “you have hit it – you have, indeed! Perpetual imprisonment – that’s the thing – ah, yes, yes, yes, to be sure – perpetual imprisonment – the very thing, my dear sir – the very thing!”

“Excuse me,” says a third admirer, “but I think Mr. Glib was about to speak. You were saying, sir – ?”

“The whole question of capital punishment,” begins the delightful talker, leaning back luxuriously in his chair, “lies in a nutshell.” (“Very true,” from the colonel.) “I murder one of you – say Hopkirk here.” (“Ha! ha! ha!” loudly from the colonel, who thinks himself bound to laugh at a joke when he is only wanted to listen to an illustration.) “I murder Hopkirk. What is the first object of all the rest of you, who represent the community at large?” (“To have you hanged,” from the colonel. “Ah, yes, to be sure! to have you hanged. Quite right! quite right!”) “Is it to make me a reformed character, to teach me a trade, to wash my bloodstains off me delicately, and set me up again in society, looking as clean as the best of you? No!” (“No!” from the compliant colonel.) “Your object is clearly to prevent me from murdering any more of you. And how are you to do that most completely and certainly? Can you accomplish your object by perpetual imprisonment?” (“Ah! I thought we should all agree about it at last,” cries the colonel, cheerfully. “Yes, yes – nothing else for it but perpetual imprisonment, as you say.”) “By perpetual imprisonment? But men have broken out of prison.” (“So they have,” from the colonel.) “Men have killed their jailers; and there you have the commission of that very second murder that you wanted to prevent.” (“Quite right,” from the compliant Talk-Stopper. “A second murder – dreadful! dreadful!”) “Imprisonment is not your certain protective remedy, then, evidently. What is?”

“Hanging!!!” cries the colonel, with another bound in his chair, and a voice that can no longer be talked down. “Hanging, to be sure! I quite agree with you. Just what I said from the first. You have hit it, my dear sir. Hanging, as you say – hanging, by all manner of means!”

Has anybody, ever met Colonel Hopkirk in society? And does anybody think that the Great Glib could possibly have held forth in the company of that persistently-compliant gentleman, as he is alleged, by his admiring biographer, to have held forth in the peculiar society of his own time? The thing is clearly impossible. Let us leave Glib, congratulating him on having died when the Hopkirks of these latter days were as yet hardly weaned; let us leave him, and ascertain how some other great talker might have got on in the society of some other modern obstructer of the flow of eloquent conversation.

I have just been reading the Life, Letters, Labours, Opinions, and Table-Talk of the matchless Mr. Oily; edited – as to the Life, by his mother-in-law; as to the Letters, by his granddaughter’s husband; and as to the Labours, Opinions, and Table-Talk, by three of his intimate friends, who dined with him every other Sunday throughout the whole of his long and distinguished life. It is a very pretty book in a great many volumes, with pleasing anecdotes – not only of the eminent man himself, but of all his family connections as well. His shortest notes are preserved, and the shortest notes of others to him. “My dear O., how is your poor head? Yours, P.” “My dear P., hotter than ever. Yours, O.” And so on. Portraits of Oily, in infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age active, and old age infirm, concluding with a post-mortem mask, abound in the book – so do facsimiles of his handwriting, showing the curious modifications which it underwent when he occasionally exchanged a quill for a steel pen. But it will be more to my present purpose to announce for the benefit of unfortunate people who have not yet read the Memoirs, that Oily was, as a matter of course, a delightful and incessant talker. He poured out words, and his audience imbibed the same perpetually three times a week from tea-time to past midnight. Women especially levered in his conversation. They hung, so to speak, palpitating on his lips. All this is told me in the Memoirs at great length, and in several places; but not a word occurs anywhere tending to show that Oily ever met with the slightest interruption on any one of the thousand occasions when he held forth. In relation to him, as in relation to the Great Glib, I seem bound to infer that he was never staggered by an unexpected question, never affronted by a black sheep among the flock, in the shape of an inattentive listener, never silenced by some careless man capable of unconsciously cutting him short and starting another topic before he had half done with his own particular subject. I am bound to believe all this – and yet, when I look about me at society as it is constituted now, I could fill a room, at a day’s notice, with people who would shut up the mouth of Oily before it had been open five minutes, quite as a matter of course, and without the remotest suspicion that they were misbehaving themselves in the slightest degree. “What” (I ask myself), to“ take only one example, and that from the fair sex – what would have become of Oily’s delightful and incessant talk, if he had known my friend Mrs. Marblemug, and had taken her down to dinner in his enviable capacity of distinguished man?”

Mrs. Marblemug has one subject of conversation – her own vices. On all other topics she is sarcastically indifferent and scornfully mute. General conversation she consequently never indulges in; but the person who sits next to her is sure to be interrupted as soon as he attracts her attention by talking to her, by receiving a confession of her vices – not made repentantly, or confusedly, or jocularly – but slowly declaimed with an ostentatious cynicism, with a hard eye, a hard voice, a hard – no, an adamantine – manner. In early youth, Mrs. Marblemug discovered that her business in life was to be eccentric and disagreeable, and she is one of the women of England who fulfills her mission.

I fancy I see the ever-flowing Oily sitting next to this lady at dinner, and innocently trying to make her hang on his lips like the rest of his tea-table harem. His conversation is reported by his affectionate biographers as having been for the most part of the sweetly pastoral sort. I find that he drove that much-enduring subject, Nature, in his conversational car of triumph, longer and harder than most men. I see him, in my mind’s eye, starting in his insinuating way from some parsley garnish round a dish of lobsters – confessing, in his rich, full, and yet low voice (vide Memoirs) that garnish delights him, because his favourite colour is green – and so getting easily on to the fields, the great subject . from which he always got his largest conversational crop. I imagine his tongue to be, as it were, cutting its first preliminary capers on the grass for the benefit of Mrs. Marblemug; and I hear that calmly-brazen lady throw him flat on his back by the utterance of some such words as these:

“Mr. Oily, I ought to have told you, perhaps, that I hate the fields. I think Nature in general something eminently disagreeable – the country, in short, quite odious. If you ask me why, I can’t tell you. I know I’m wrong; but hating Nature is one of my vices.”

Mr. Oily eloquently remonstrates. Mrs. Marblemug only says, “Yes, very likely – but, you see, it’s one of my vices.” Mr. Oily tries a dexterous compliment. Mrs. Marblemug only answers, “Don’t! I see through that. It’s wrong in me to see through compliments, being a woman, I know. But I can’t help seeing through them, and saying I do. That’s another of my vices.” Mr. Oily shifts the subject to Literature, and thence, gently but surely, to his own books – his second great topic after the fields. Mrs. Marblemug lets him go on, because she has something to finish on her plate – then lays down her knife and fork – looks at him with a kind of wondering indifference, and breaks into his next sentence thus:

“I’m afraid I don’t seem quite so much interested as I know I ought to be,” she says; “but I should have told you, perhaps, when we first sat down, that I have given up reading.”

“Given up reading?” exclaims Mr. Oily, thunderstruck by the monstrous confession. “You mean only the trash that has come into vogue lately; the morbid, unhealthy—”

“No, not at all,” rejoins Mrs. Marblemug. “If I read anything, it would be morbid literature. My taste is unhealthy. That’s another of my vices.”

“My dear madam, you amaze – you alarm me – you do, indeed!” cries Mr. Oily, waving his hand in graceful deprecation and polite horror.

“Don’t!” says Mrs. Marblemug; “you’ll knock down some of the wineglasses, and hurt yourself. You had better keep your hand quiet – you had, indeed. No; I have given up reading, because all books do me harm – the best – the healthiest. Your books even, I suppose, I ought to say; but I can’t, because I see through compliments, and despise my own, of course, as much as other people’s! Suppose, we say, I don’t read, because books do me harm – and leave it there. The thing is not worth pursuing. You think it is? Well, then, books do me harm, because they increase my tendency to be envious (one of my worst vices). The better the book is, the more I hate the man for being clever enough to write it – so much cleverer than me, you know, who couldn’t write it at all. I believe you call that Envy. Whatever it is, it has been one of my vices from a child. No, no wine – a little water. I think wine nasty, that’s another of my vices – or, no, perhaps, that is only one of my misfortunes. Thank you. I wish I could talk to you about books; but I really can’t read them – they make me so envious.”

Perhaps Oily (who, as I infer from certain passages in his Memoirs, could be a sufficiently dogged and resolute man on occasions when his dignity was in danger) still valiantly declines to submit and be silent, and, shifting his ground, endeavours to draw Mrs. Marblemug out by asking her questions. The new effort, however, avails him nothing. Do what he will, he is always met and worsted by the lady in the same quiet, easy, indifferent way; and, sooner or later, even his distinguished mouth is muzzled by Mrs. Marblemug, like the mouths of all the degenerate talkers of my own time whom I have ever seen in contact with her. Are Mr. Oily’s biographers not to be depended on, or can it really be the fact that, in the course of all his long conversational career, that illustrious man never once met with a check in the shape of a Mrs. Marblemug? I have no tender prepossession in favour of the lady; but when I reflect on the character of Mr. Oily, as exhibited in his Memoirs, I am almost inclined to regret that he and Mrs. Marblemug never met. In relation to some people, I involuntarily regard . her as a dose of strong moral physic; and I really think she might have done my distinguished countryman some permanent good.

To take another instance, there is the case of the once brilliant social luminary, Mr. Endless – extinguished, unfortunately for the new generation, about the time when we were most of us only little boys and girls.

What a talker this sparkling creature must have been, if one may judge by that racy anonymous publication (racy was, I think, the word chiefly used in reviewing the book by the critics of the period), “Evenings with Endless, by A Constant Listener!” “I could hardly believe,” I remember the Listener writes, “that the world was the same after Endless had flashed out of this mortal scene. It was morning while he lived – it was twilight, or worse, when he died. I was very intimate with him. Often has the hand that writes these trembling lines smacked that familiar back – often have those thrilling and matchless accents syllabled the fond diminutive of my Christian name. It was not so much that his talk was ceaseless (though that is something), as that it moved incessantly over all topics from heaven to earth. His variety of subject was the most amazing part of this amazing man. His fertility of allusion to topics of the past and present alike, was truly inexhaustible. He hopped, he skipped, he fluttered, he swooped from theme to theme. The butterfly in the garden, the bee in the flowerbed, the changes of the kaleidoscope, the sun and shower of an April morning, are but faint emblems of him.” With much more to the same eloquent purpose; but not a word from the first page to the last to hint even that Endless was ever brought to a full stop, on any single occasion, by any one of the hundreds of enchanted listeners before whom he figured in his wonderful performances with the tongue from morning to night.

And yet there must surely have been Talk-Stoppers in the world, in the time of the brilliant Endless – talk-stoppers, in all probability, possessing characteristics similar to those now displayed in society by my exasperating connection by marriage, Mr. Spoke Wheeler.

It is impossible to say what the consequences might have been if my relative and Mr. Endless had ever come together. Mr. Spoke Wheeler is one of those men – a large class, as it appears to me – who will talk, and who have nothing whatever in the way of a subject of their own to talk about. His constant practice is to lie silently in ambush for subjects started by other people; to take them forthwith from their rightful owners; turn them coolly to his own uses, and then cunningly wait again for the next topic, belonging to somebody else, that passes within his reach. It is useless to give up, and leave him to take the lead – he invariably gives up, too, and declines the honour. It is useless to start once more, seeing him apparently silenced – he becomes talkative again the moment you offer him the chance of seizing on your new subject – disposes of it without the slightest fancy, taste, or novelty of handling, in a moment – then relapses into utter speechlessness as soon as he has silenced the rest of the company by taking their topic away from them. Wherever he goes, he commits this social atrocity with the most perfect innocence and the most provoking good-humour, for he firmly believes in himself as one of the most entertaining men who ever crossed a drawing-room or caroused at a dinner-table.

Imagine Mr. Spoke Wheeler getting an invitation to one of those brilliant suppers which assisted in making the evenings of the sparkling Endless so attractive to his friends and admirers. See him sitting modestly at the table with every appearance in his face and manner of being the most persistent and reliable of listeners. Endless takes the measure of his man, as he too confidently believes, in one bright glance – thinks to himself, Here is a new worshipper to astonish; here is the conveniently dense and taciturn human pedestal on which I can stand to let off my fireworks – plunges his knife and fork, gaily hospitable, into the dish before him (let us say a turkey and truffles, for Endless is a gastronome as well as a wit), and starts off with one of those “fertile allusions” for which he was so famous.

“I never carve turkey without thinking of what Madame de Pompadour said to Louis the Fifteenth,” Endless begins, in his most offhand manner. “I refer to the time when the superb Frenchwoman first came to court, and the star of the fair Chateauroux waned before her. Who remembers what the Pompadour said when the king insisted on carving the turkey?”

Before the company can beg Endless, as usual, to remember for them, Mr. Spoke Wheeler starts into life and seizes the subject.

“What a vicious state of society it was in the time of Madame De Pompadour!” he says, with moral severity. “Who can wonder that it led to the French Revolution?”

Endless feels that his first effort for the evening is nipped in the bud, and that the new guest is not to be depended on as a listener. He, however, waits politely, and every one else waits politely to hear something more about the French Revolution. Mr. Spoke Wheeler has not another word to say. He has snatched his subject – has exhausted it – and is now waiting, with an expectant smile on his face, to lay hands on another. Disastrous silence reigns, until Mr. Endless, as host and wit, launches a new topic in despair.

“Don’t forget the salad, gentlemen,” he exclaims. “The emblem, as I always fancy, of human life. The sharp vinegar corrected by the soft oil, just as the misfortune of one day is compensated by the luck of another. Heigh-ho! let moralists lecture as they will, what a true gambler’s existence ours is, by the very nature of it! Love, fame, wealth, are the stakes we all play for; the world is the table; Death keeps the house, and Destiny shuffles the cards. According to my definition, gentlemen, man is a gambling animal, and woman—” Endless pauses for a moment, and lifts the glass to his lips to give himself a bacchanalian air before he amazes the company with a torrent of eloquence on the subject of woman. Unhappy man! in that one moment Mr. Spoke Wheeler seizes on his host’s brilliant gambling metaphor, and runs away with it as his own property immediately.

“The worst of gambling,” he says, with a look of ominous wisdom, “is, that when once a man takes to it, he can never be got to give it up again. It always ends in ruin. I know a man whose son is in the Fleet, and whose daughter is a maid of all work at a lodging-house. The poor devil himself once had twenty thousand pounds, and he now picks up a living by writing begging-letters. All through gambling. Degrading vice, certainly; ruins a man’s temper and health, too, as well as his property. Ah! a very degrading vice – very much so, indeed!”

“I am afraid, my dear sir, you have novices,” says Endless, getting angry and sarcastic as a fresh pause follows this undeniable commonplace. “The bottle stands with you. Do you abjure even that most amiable of human failings – the cheerful glass? Ha!” exclaims Endless, seeing that his guest is going to speak again, and vainly imagining that he can cut him short this time, “Ha! what a debt we owe to the first man who discovered the true use of the grape! How drunk he must have got in making his immortal preliminary experiments! How often his wife must have begged him to consider his health and his respectability, and give up all further investigations! How he must have shocked his family with perpetual hiccoughs, and puzzled the medical men of the period with incurable morning headaches! To the health of that marvellous, that magnificent, that inestimable human being, the first toper in the world! The patriarchal Bacchus quaffing in his antediluvian vineyard! What a picture, gentlemen; what a subject for our artists! Scumble, my dear friend,” continues Endless, breathlessly, feeling that Mr. Spoke Wheeler has got his topic again, and anxious to secure assistance in preventing that persistent gentleman from making any use of the stolen property – “Scumble, your pencil alone is worthy of the subject. Tell us, my prince of painters, how would you treat it?”

The prince of painters has his mouth full of turkey, and looks more puzzled than flattered by this complimentary appeal. He hesitates, and Mr. Spoke Wheeler darts into the conversation on the subject of drunkenness forthwith.

“I’ll tell you what,” says the Talk-Stopper, “we may all joke about drunkenness as much as we please – I’m no saint, and I like a joke as well as anybody – but it’s a deuced serious thing for all that. Seven-tenths of the crime in this country is owing to drunkenness; and of all the incurable diseases that baffle the doctors, delirium tremens is (next to hydrophobia) one of the worst. I like a cheerful glass myself – and this is uncommonly good wine we are drinking now – but there’s more than you think for to be said on the temperance side of the question; there is, indeed!”

Will even the most indiscriminate of the surviving admirers of Endless, and of the great talkers generally, venture to assert that he, or they, could have shown off with the slightest approach to success in the company of Mr. Spoke Wheeler, or of Mrs. Marblemug, or of Colonel Hopkirk, or of any of the other dozens on dozens of notorious talk-stoppers whose characters I refrain from troubling the reader with? Surely not! Surely I have quoted examples enough to prove the correctness of my theory, that the days when the eminent professors of the Art of Conversation could be sure of perpetually attentive audiences, have gone by. Instead of mourning over the loss of the great talkers, we ought to feel relieved (if we have any real regard for them, which I sometimes doubt) by their timely departure from the scene. Between the members of the modern generation who would not have listened to them, the members who could not have listened to them, and the members who would have confused, interrupted, and cut them short, what extremities of compulsory silence they must have undergone if they had lasted until our time! Our case may be lamentable enough in not having heard them; but how much worse would theirs be if they came back to the world now, and tried to show us how they won their reputations!

Household Words 25 Oct 1856

A SHOCKINGLY RUDE ARTICLE

[Communicated by
a Charming Woman.]

Before I begin to write, I know that this will be an unpopular composition in certain select quarters. I mean to proceed with it, however, in spite of that conviction, because when I have got something on my mind I must positively speak. Is it necessary after that to confess that I am a woman? If it is, I make the confession – to my sorrow. I would much rather be a man. I hope nobody will be misled, by my beginning in this way, into thinking that I am an advocate of the rights of women. Ridiculous creatures! they have too many rights already; and if they don’t hold their chattering tongues, one of these days the poor dear, deluded men will find them out.

The poor dear men! Mentioning them reminds me of what I have got to say. I have been staying at the seaside, and reading an immense quantity of novels and periodicals, and all that sort of thing, lately; and my idea is, that the men writers (the only writers worth reading) are in the habit of using each other very unfairly in books and articles, and so on. Look where I may, I find, for instance, that the large proportion of the bad characters in their otherwise very charming stories are always men. As if women were not a great deal worse! Then, again, most of the amusing fools in their books are, strangely and unaccountably, of their own sex, in spite of its being perfectly apparent that the vast majority of that sort of character is to be found in ours. On the other hand, while they make out their own half of humanity (as I have distinctly proved) a great deal too bad, they go to the contrary extreme the other way, and make out our half a great deal too good. What in the world do they mean by representing us as so much better, and so much prettier, than we really are? Upon my word, when I see what angels the dear, nice, good men make of their heroines, and when I think of myself, and of the whole circle of my female friends besides, I feel quite disgusted – I do, indeed.

I should very much like to go into the whole of this subject at once, and speak my sentiments on it at the fullest length. But I will spare the reader, and try to be satisfied with going into a part of the subject instead; for, considering that I am a woman, and making immense allowances for me on that account, I am really not altogether unreasonable. Give me a page or two, and I will show in one particular, and, what is more, from real life, how absurdly partial the men writers are to our sex, and how scandalously unjust they are to their own.

Bores. – What I propose is, that we take for our present example characters of Bores alone. If we were only to read men’s novels, articles, and so forth, I don’t hesitate to say we should assume that all the Bores in the human creation were of the male sex. It is generally, if not always, a man, in men’s books, who tells the long-winded story, and turns up at the wrong time, and makes himself altogether odious and intolerable to every body he comes in contact with, without being in the least aware of it himself. How very unjust, and, I must be allowed to add, how extremely untrue! Women are quite as bad, or worse. Do, good gentlemen, look about you impartially, for once in a way, and own the truth. Good gracious! is not society full of Lady-Bores? Why not give them a turn when you write next?

Two instances: I will quote only two instances out of hundreds I could produce from my own acquaintance. Only two; because, as I said before, I am reasonable about not taking up room. I can put things into a very small space when I write, as well as when I travel. I should like the literary gentleman who kindly prints this (I would not allow a woman to print it for any sum of money that could be offered me) to see how very little luggage I travel with. At any rate, he shall see how little room I can cheerfully put up with in these pages.

My first Lady-Bore – see how quickly I get to the matter in hand, without wasting so much as a single line in prefatory phrases! – my first Lady-Bore is Miss Sticker. I don’t in the least mind mentioning her name, because I know, if she got the chance, she would do just the same by me. It is of no use disguising the fact, so I may as well confess at once that Miss Sticker is a fright. Far be it from me to give pain where the thing can by any means be avoided; but if I were to say that Miss Sticker would ever see forty again, I should be guilty of an unwarrantable deception on the public. I have the strongest imaginable objection to mentioning the word petticoats; but if that is the only possible description of Miss Sticker’s figure which conveys a true notion of its nature and composition, what am I to do? Perhaps I had better give up describing the poor thing’s personal appearance. I shall get into deeper and deeper difficulties if I attempt to go on. The very last time I was in her company, we were strolling about Regent Street, with my sister’s husband for escort. As we passed a hairdresser’s shop, the dear, simple man looked in, and asked me what those long tails of hair were for that he saw hanging up in the windows. Miss Sticker, poor soul, was on his arm, and heard him put the question. I thought I should have dropped.

This is, I believe, what you call a digression. I shall let it stop in, however, because it will probably explain to the judicious reader why I carefully avoid the subject – the meagre subject, an ill-natured person might say – of Miss Sticker’s hair. Suppose I pass on to what is more importantly connected with the object of these pages – suppose I describe Miss Sticker’s character next.

Some extremely sensible man has observed somewhere that a Bore is a person with one idea. Exactly so. Miss Sticker is a person with one idea. Unhappily for society, her notion is that she is bound by the laws of politeness to join in every conversation which happens to be proceeding within the range of her ears. She has no ideas, no information, no flow of language, no tact, no power of saying the right word at the right time, even by chance. And yet she will converse, as she calls it. “A gentlewoman, my dear, becomes a mere cipher in society unless she can converse.” That is her way of putting it; and I deeply regret to add, she is one of the few people who preach what they practice. Her course of proceeding is, first, to check the conversation by making a remark which has no kind of relation to the topic under discussion. She next stops it altogether by being suddenly at a loss for some particular word which nobody can suggest. At last the word is given up, another subject is started in despair, and the company become warmly interested in it. Just at that moment Miss Sticker finds the lost word, screams it out triumphantly in the middle of the talk, and so scatters the second subject to the winds, exactly as she has already scattered the first.

The last time I called at my aunt’s – I merely mention this by way of example – I found Miss Sticker there, and three delightful men. One was a clergyman of the dear old purple-faced Port-wine school; the other two would have looked military, if one of them had not been an engineer, and the other an editor of a newspaper. We should have had some delightful conversation if the Lady-Bore had not been present. In some way, I really forget how, we got to talking about giving credit and paying debts; and the dear old clergyman, with his twinkling eyes and his jolly voice, treated us to a professional anecdote on the subject.

“Talking about that,” he began, “I married a man the other day for the third time. Man in my parish. Capital cricketer when he was young enough to run. ‘What’s your fee?’ says he. – ‘Licensed marriage?’ says I; ‘guinea, of course.’ ‘I’ve got to bring you your tithes in three weeks, sir,’ says he; ‘give me tick till then.’ – ‘All right,’ says I, and married him. In three weeks he comes and pays his tithes like a man. ‘Now, sir,’ says he, ‘about this marriage-fee, sir? I do hope you’ll kindly let me off at half-price, for I have married a bitter bad ’un this time. I’ve got a half-guinea about me, sir, if you’ll only please to take it. She isn’t worth a farthing more – on the word of a man, she isn’t, sir!’ I looked hard in his face, and saw two scratches on it, and took the half-guinea, more out of pity than anything else. Lesson to me, however. Never marry a man on credit again as long as I live. Cash on all future occasions – cash down, or no marriage.”

While he was speaking, I had my eye on Miss Sticker. Thanks to the luncheon which was on the table, she was physically incapable of “conversing” while our reverend friend was telling his humorous little anecdote. Just as he had done, and just as the editor of the newspaper was taking up the subject, she finished her chicken and turned round from the table.

“Cash down, my dear sir, as you say,” continued the editor. “You exactly describe our great principle of action in the Press. Some of the most extraordinary and amusing things happen with subscribers to newspapers—”

“Ah, the Press!” burst in Miss Sticker, beginning to converse. ““What a wonderful engine! and how grateful we ought to feel when we get the paper so regularly every morning at breakfast. The only question is – at least many people think so – I mean with regard to the Press, the only question is whether it ought to be—”

Here Miss Sticker lost the next word, and all the company had to look for it.

“With regard to the Press, the only question is, whether it ought to be – Oh, dear, dear, dear me!” cried Miss Sticker, lifting both her hands in despair, “what is the word?”

“Cheaper?” suggested our reverend friend. “Hang it, ma’am! it can hardly be that, when it is down to a penny already.”

“Oh no; not cheaper,” said Miss Sticker.

“More independent!” inquired the editor. “If you mean that, I defy anybody to find more fearless exposures of corruption—”

“No, no!” cried Miss Sticker, in an agony of polite confusion. “I didn’t mean that. More independent wasn’t the word.”

“Better printed?” suggested the engineer.

“On better paper?” added my aunt.

“It can’t be done – if you refer to the cheap press – it can’t be done for the money,” interposed the editor, irritably.

“Oh, but that’s not it!” continued Miss Sticker, wringing her bony fingers, with horrid black mittens on them, “I didn’t mean to say better printed or better paper. It was one word I meant, not two. With regard to the Press,” pursued Miss Sticker, repeating her own ridiculous words carefully, as an aid to memory, “the only question is whether it ought to be – Bless my heart, how extraordinary! Well, well, never mind; I’m quite shocked, and ashamed of myself. Pray go on talking, and don’t notice me.”

It was all very well to say, Go on talking; but the editor’s amusing story about subscribers to newspapers had been by this time fatally interrupted. As usual, Miss Sticker had stopped us in full flow. The engineer considerately broke the silence by starting another subject.

“Here are some wedding-cards on your table,” he said to my aunt, “which I am very glad to see there. The bridegroom is an old friend of mine. His wife is really a beauty. You know how he first became acquainted with her? No? It was quite an adventure, I assure you. One evening he was on the Brighton Railway; last down train. A lovely girl in the carriage; our friend Dilberry immensely struck with her. Got her to talk after a long time, with great difficulty. Within half an hour of Brighton, the lovely girl smiles and says, to our friend, ‘Shall we be very long now, sir, before we get to Gravesend?’ Case of confusion at that dreadful London Bridge terminus. Dilberry explained that she would be at Brighton in half an hour, upon which the lovely girl instantly and properly burst into tears. ‘Oh, what shall I do! Oh, what will my friends think!’ Second flood of tears. ‘Suppose you telegraph?’ says Dilberry, soothingly. ‘Oh, but I don’t know how!’ says the lovely girl. Out comes Dilberry’s pocket-book. Sly dog! he saw his way now to finding out who her friends were. ‘Pray let me write the necessary message for you,’ says Dilberry. ‘Who shall I direct to at Gravesend?’ – ‘My father and mother are staying there with some friends,’ says the lovely girl. ‘I came up with a day-ticket, and I saw a crowd of people, when I came back to the station, all going one way, and I was hurried and frightened, and nobody told me, and it was late in the evening, and the bell was ringing, and, oh heavens! what will become of me!’ Third burst of tears. ‘We will telegraph to your father,’ says Dilberry. ‘Pray don’t distress yourself. Only tell me who your father is.’ – ‘Thank you a thousand times,’ says the lovely girl, ‘my father is – ’”

“ANONYMOUS!” shouts Miss Sticker, producing her lost word with a perfect burst of triumph. “How glad I am I remember it at last! Bless me!” exclaims the Lady-Bore, quite unconscious that she has brought the engineer’s story to an abrupt conclusion, by giving his distressed damsel an anonymous father; “bless me! what are you all laughing at? I only meant to say that the question with regard to the Press was, whether it ought to be anonymous. What in the world is there to laugh at in that? I really don’t see the joke.”

And this woman escapes scot-free, while comparatively innocent men are held up to ridicule, in novel after novel, by dozens at a time! When will the deluded male writers see my sex in its true colours, and describe it accordingly? When will Miss Sticker take her proper place in the literature of England?

~ My second Lady-Bore is that hateful creature, Mrs. Tincklepaw. Where, over the whole interesting surface of male humanity (including cannibals) – where is the man to be found whom it would not be scandalous to mention in the same breath with Mrs. Tincklepaw? The great delight of this shocking woman’s life is to squabble with her husband (poor man, he has my warmest sympathy and best good wishes), and then to bring the quarrel away from home with her, and to let it off again at society in general, in a series of short, spiteful hints. Mrs. Tincklepaw is the exact opposite of Miss Sticker. She is a very little woman; she is (and more shame for her, considering how she acts) young enough to be Miss Sticker’s daughter; and she has a kind of snappish tact in worrying innocent people, under every possible turn of circumstances, which distinguishes her (disgracefully) from the poor feeble-minded Maid-Bore, to whom the reader has been already introduced. Here are some examples – all taken, be it observed, from my own personal observation of the manner in which Mrs. Tincklepaw contrives to persecute her harmless fellow-creatures wherever she happens to meet with them:

Let us say I am out walking, and I happen to meet Mr. and Mrs. Tincklepaw. (By-the-by, she never lets her husband out of her sight – he is too necessary to the execution of her schemes of petty torment. And such a noble creature, to be used for so base a purpose! He stands six feet two, and is additionally distinguished by a glorious and majestic stoutness, which has no sort of connection with the comparatively comic element of fat. His nature, considering what a wife he has got, is inexcusably meek and patient. Instead of answering her, he strokes his magnificent flaxen whiskers, and looks up resignedly at the sky. I sometimes fancy that he stands top high to hear what his dwarf of a wife says. For his sake, poor man, I hope this view of the matter may be the true one.)

I am afraid I have contrived to lose myself in a long parenthesis. Where was I? Oh! out walking, and happening to meet with Mr. and Mrs. Tincklepaw. She has had a quarrel with her husband at home, and this is how she contrives to let me know it.

“Delightful weather, dear, is it not?” I say, as we shake hands.

“Charming, indeed,” says Mrs. Tincklepaw. “Do you know, love, I am so glad you made that remark to me, and not to Mr. Tincklepaw?”

“Really?” I ask. “Pray tell me why?”

“Because,” answers the malicious creature, “if you had said it was a fine day to Mr. Tincklepaw, I should have been so afraid of his frowning at you directly, and saying, ‘Stuff! talk of something worth listening to, if you talk at all!’ What a love of a bonnet you have got on! and how Mr. Tincklepaw would have liked to be staying in your house when you were getting ready today to go out. He would have waited for you so patiently, dear. He would never have stamped in the passage; and no such words as, ‘Deuce take the woman! is she going to keep me here all day?’ would by any possibility have escaped his lips. Don’t, love! don’t look at the shops, while Mr. Tincklepaw is with us. He might say, ‘Oh, bother! you’re always wanting to buy something!’ I shouldn’t like that to happen. Should you, dear?”

Once more. Say I meet Mr. and Mrs. Tincklepaw at a dinner-party, given in honour of a bride and bridegroom. From the instant when she enters the house, Mrs. Tincklepaw never has her eye off the young couple. She looks at them with an expression of heartbroken curiosity. Whenever they happen to speak to each other, she instantly suspends any conversation in which she is engaged, and listens to them with a mournful eagerness. When the ladies retire, she gets the bride into a corner, appropriates her to herself for the rest of the evening, and persecutes the wretched young woman in this manner:

“May I ask, is this your first dinner since you came back?”

“Oh, no! we have been in town for some weeks.”

“Indeed? I should really have thought, now, that this was your first dinner.”

“Should you? I can’t imagine why.”

“How very odd, when the reason is as plain as possible! Why, I noticed you all dinnertime, eating and drinking what you liked, without looking at your husband for orders. I saw nothing rebellious in your face when you eat all these nice sweet things at dessert. Dear! dear! don’t you understand? Do you really mean to say that your husband has not begun yet? Did he not say, as you drove here today, ‘Now, mind, I’m not going to have another night’s rest broken, because you always choose to make yourself ill with stuffing creams and sweets, and all that sort of thing?’ No!!! Mercy on me, what an odd man he must be! Perhaps he waits till he gets home again? Oh, come, come; you don’t mean to tell me that he doesn’t storm at you frightfully for having every one of your glasses filled with wine, and then never touching a drop of it, but asking for cold water instead, at the very elbow of the master of the house? If he says, ‘Cursed perversity, and want of proper tact’ once, I know he says it a dozen times. And as for treading on your dress in the hall, and then bullying you before the servant for not holding it up out of his way, it’s too common a thing to be mentioned – isn’t it? Did you notice Mr. Tincklepaw particularly? Ah, you did, and you thought he looked good-natured? No! no! don’t say any more; don’t say you know better than to trust to appearances. Please do take leave of all common sense and experience, and pray trust to appearances, without thinking of their invariable deceitfulness, this once. Do, dear, to oblige me.”

I might fill pages with similar examples of the manners and conversation of this intolerable Lady-Bore. I might add other equally aggravating characters, to her character and to Miss Sticker’s, without extending my researches an inch beyond the circle of my own acquaintance. But I am true to my unfeminine resolution to write as briefly as if I were a man; and I feel that I have said enough already, to show that I can prove my case. When a woman like me can produce, without the least hesitation, or the slightest difficulty, two such instances of Lady-Bores as I have just exhibited, the additional number which she might pick out of her list, after a little mature reflection, may be logically inferred by all impartial readers.

In the mean time, let me hope I have succeeded sufficiently well in my present purpose to induce our next great satirist to pause before he, too, attacks his harmless fellow-men, and to make him turn his withering glance in the direction of our sex. Let all rising young gentlemen who are racking their brains in search of originality take the timely hint which I have given them in these pages. Let us have a new fictitious literature, in which not only the Bores shall be women, but the villains too. Look at Shakspeare – do, pray, look at Shakspeare. Who is most in fault, in that shocking business of the murder of King Duncan? Lady Macbeth, to be sure! Look at King Lear, with a small family of only three daughters, and two of the three wretches; and even the third an aggravating girl, who can’t be commonly civil to her own father in the first act, out of sheer contradiction, because her elder sisters happen to have been civil before her. Look at Desdemona, who falls in love with a horrid, copper-coloured foreigner, and then, like a fool, instead of managing him, aggravates him into smothering her. Ah! Shakspeare was a great man, and knew our sex, and was not afraid to show he knew it. What a blessing it would be if some of his literary brethren in modern times could muster courage enough to follow his example!

I have fifty different things to say, but I shall bring myself to a conclusion by only mentioning one of them. If it would at all contribute toward forwarding the literary reform that I advocate, to make a present of the characters of Miss Sticker and Mrs. Tincklepaw to modern writers of fiction, I shall be delighted to abandon all right of proprietorship in those two odious women. At the same time, I think it fair to explain that, when I speak of modern writers, I mean gentlemen writers only. I wish to say nothing uncivil to the ladies who compose books, whose effusions may, by the rule of contraries, be exceedingly agreeable to male readers; but I positively forbid them to lay hands upon my two characters. I am charmed to be of use to the men, in a literary point of view, but I decline altogether to mix myself up with the women. There need be no fear of offending them by printing this candid expression of my intentions. Depend on it, they will all declare, on their sides, that they would much rather have nothing to do with me.

Household Words 28 Aug 1858

MRS. BADGERY

[Drawn from Life.
By a Gentleman
with No Sensibilities.]

Is there any law in England which will protect me from Mrs. Badgery?

I am a bachelor, and Mrs. Badgery is a widow. Don’t suppose she wants to marry me! She wants nothing of the sort. She has not attempted to marry me; she would not think of marrying me, even if I asked her. Understand, if you please, at the outset, that my grievance in relation to this widow lady is a grievance of an entirely new kind.

Let me begin again. I am a bachelor of a certain age. I have a large circle of acquaintance; but I solemnly declare that the late Mr. Badgery was never numbered on the list of my friends. I never heard of him in my life; I never knew that he had left a relict; I never sat eyes on Mrs. Badgery until one fatal morning when I went to see if the fixtures were all right in my new house.

My new house is in the suburbs of London. I looked at it, liked it, took it. Three times I visited it before I sent my furniture in. Once with a friend, once with a surveyor, once by myself, to throw a sharp eye, as I have already intimated, over the fixtures. The third visit marked the fatal occasion on which I first saw Mrs. Badgery. A deep interest attaches to this event, and I shall go into details in describing it.

I rang at the bell of the garden door. The old woman appointed to keep the house answered it. I directly saw something strange and confused in her face and manner. Some men would have pondered a little and questioned her. I am by nature impetuous and a rusher at conclusions. “Drunk,” I said to myself, and walked on into the house perfectly satisfied.

I looked into the front parlour. Grate all right, curtain-pole all right, gas chandelier all right. I looked into the back parlour – ditto, ditto, ditto, as we men of business say. I mounted the stairs. Blind on back window right? Yes; blind on back window right. I opened the door of the front drawing-room – and there, sitting in the middle of the bare floor, was a large woman on a little camp-stool! She was dressed in the deepest mourning; her face was hidden by the thickest crape veil I ever saw; and she was groaning softly to herself in the desolate solitude of my new unfurnished house.

What did I do? Do! I bounced back into the landing as if I had been shot, uttering the national exclamation of terror and astonishment, “Hullo!” (And here I particularly beg, in parenthesis, that the printer will follow my spelling of the word, and not put Hillo or Halloo instead, both of which are senseless compromises which represent no sound that ever yet issued from an Englishman’s lips.) I said, “Hullo!” and then I turned round fiercely upon the old woman who kept the house, and said “Hullo!” again.

She understood the irresistible appeal that I had made to her feelings, and courtesied, and looked toward the drawing-room, and humbly hoped that I was not startled or put out. I asked who the crape-covered woman on the camp-stool was, and what she wanted there. Before the old woman could answer, the soft groaning in the drawing-room ceased, and a muffled voice, speaking from behind the crape veil, addressed me reproachfully, and said:

“I am the widow of the late Mr. Badgery.” What do you think I said in answer? Exactly the words which I flatter myself any other sensible man in my situation would have said. And what words were they? These two: “Oh, indeed?”

“Mr. Badgery and myself were the last tenants who inhabited this house,” continued the muffled voice. “Mr. Badgery died here.” The voice ceased, and the soft groans began again.

It was perhaps not necessary to answer this; but I did answer it. How? In two words again: “Did he?”

“Our house has been long empty,” resumed the voice, choked by sobs. “Our establishment has been broken up. Being left in reduced circumstances, I now live in a cottage near; but it is not home to me. This is home. However long I live, wherever I go, whatever changes may happen to this beloved house, nothing can ever prevent me from looking on it as my home. I came here, sir, with Mr. Badgery after our honeymoon. All the brief happiness of my life was once contained within these four walls. Every dear remembrance that I fondly cherish is shut up in these sacred rooms.”

Again the voice ceased, and again the soft groans echoed round my empty walls, and oozed out past me down my uncarpeted staircase.

I reflected. Mrs. Badgery’s brief happiness and dear remembrances were not included in the list of fixtures. Why could she not take them away with her? Why should she leave them littered about in the way of my furniture? I was just thinking how I could put this view of the case strongly to Mrs. Badgery, when she suddenly left off groaning and addressed me once more.

“While this house has been empty,” she said, “I have been in the habit of looking in from time to time, and renewing my tender associations with the place. I have lived, as it were, in the sacred memories of Mr. Badgery and of the past, which these dear, these priceless rooms call up, dismantled and dusty as they are at the present moment. It has been my practice to give a remuneration to the attendant for any slight trouble that I might occasion—”

“Only sixpence, sir,” whispered the old woman, close at my ear.

“And to ask nothing in return,” continued Mrs. Badgery, “but the permission to bring my camp-stool with me, and to meditate on Mr. Badgery in the empty rooms, with every one of which some happy thought, or eloquent word, or tender action of his, is everlastingly associated. I came here on my usual errand today. I am discovered, I presume, by the new proprietor of the house – discovered, I am quite ready to admit, as an intruder. I am willing to go, if you wish it after hearing my explanation. My heart is full, sir; I am quite incapable of contending with you. You would hardly think it, but I am sitting on the spot once occupied by our ottoman. I am looking toward the window in which my flower-stand once stood. In this very place Mr. Badgery first sat down and clasped me to his heart, when we came back from our honeymoon trip. ‘Matilda,’ he said, ‘your drawing-room has been expensively papered, carpeted, and furnished for a month; but it has only been adorned, love, since you entered it.’ If you have no sympathy, sir, for such remembrances as these; if you see nothing pitiable in my position, taken in connection with my presence here; if you cannot enter into my feelings, and thoroughly understand that this is not a house, but a Shrine – you have only to say so, and I am quite willing to go.”

She spoke with the air of a martyr – a martyr to my insensibility. If she had been the proprietor and I had been the intruder, she could not have been more mournfully magnanimous.

All this time, too, she never raised her veil – she never has raised it, in my presence, from that time to this. I have no idea whether she is young or old, dark or fair, handsome or ugly: my impression is, that she is in every respect a finished and perfect Gorgon; but I have no basis of fact on which I can support that horrible idea. A moving mass of crape and a muffled voice – that, if you drive me to it, is all I know, in a personal point of view, of Mrs. Badgery.

“Ever since my irreparable loss, this has been the shrine of my pilgrimage, and the altar of my worship,” proceeded the voice. “One man may call himself a landlord, and say that he will let it; another man may call himself a tenant, and say that he will take it. I don’t blame either of those two men; I don’t wish to intrude on either of those two men; I only tell them that this is my home; that my heart is still in possession, and that no mortal laws, landlords, or tenants can ever turn it out. If you don’t understand this, sir; if the holiest feelings that do honour to our common nature have no particular sanctity in your estimation, pray do not scruple to say so; pray tell me to go.”

“I don’t wish to do anything uncivil, ma’am,” said I. “But I am a single man, and I am not sentimental,” (Mrs. Badgery groaned.) “Nobody told me I was coming into a Shrine when I took this house; nobody warned me, when I first went over it, that there was a Heart in possession. I regret to have disturbed your meditations, and I am sorry to hear that Mr. Badgery is dead. That is all I have to say about it; and now, with your kind permission, I will do myself the honour of wishing you good-morning, and will go upstairs to look after the fixtures on the second floor.”

Could I have given a gentler hint than this? Could I have spoken more compassionately to a woman whom I sincerely believe to be old and ugly? Where is the man to be found who can lay his hand on his heart and honestly say that he ever really pitied the sorrows of a Gorgon? Search through the whole surface of the globe, and you will discover human phenomena of all sorts; but you will not find that man.

To resume. I made her a bow, and left her on the camp-stool in the middle of the drawing-room floor, exactly as I had found her. I ascended to the second floor, walked into the back room first, and inspected the grate. It appeared to be a little out of repair, so I stooped down to look at it closer. While I was kneeling over the bars, I was violently startled by the fall of one large drop of Warm Water, from a great height, exactly in the middle of a bald place, which has been widening a great deal of late years on the top of my head. I turned on my knees, and looked round. Heaven and earth! the crape-covered woman had followed me upstairs – the source from which the drop of warm water had fallen was Mrs. Badgery’s eye!

“I wish you could contrive not to cry over the top of my head, ma’am,” I remarked. My patience was becoming exhausted, and I spoke with considerable asperity. The curly-headed youth of the present age may not be able to sympathize with my feelings on this occasion; but my bald brethren know as well as I do that the most unpardonable of all liberties is a liberty taken with the unguarded top of the human head.

Mrs. Badgery did not seem to hear me. When she had dropped the tear, she was standing exactly over me, looking down at the grate; and she never stirred an inch after I had spoken. “Don’t cry over my head, ma’am,” I repeated, more irritably than before.

“This was his dressing-room,” said Mrs. Badgery, indulging in muffled soliloquy. “He was singularly particular about his shaving-water. He always liked to have it in a little tin pot, and he invariably desired that it might be placed on this hob.” She groaned again, and tapped one side of the grate with the leg of her camp-stool.

If I had been a woman, or if Mrs. Badgery had been a man, I should now have proceeded to extremities, and should have vindicated my right to my own house by an appeal to physical force. Under existing circumstances, all that I could do was to express my indignation by a glance. The glance produced not the slightest result – and no wonder. Who can look at a woman with any effect through a crape veil?

I retreated into the second-floor front room, and instantly shut the door after me. The next moment I heard the rustling of the crape garments outside, and the muffled voice of Mrs. Badgery poured lamentably through the keyhole. “Do you mean to make that your bedroom?” asked the voice on the other side of the door. “Oh, don’t, don’t make that your bedroom! I am going away directly – but, oh pray, pray let that one room be sacred! Don’t sleep there! If you can possibly help it, don’t sleep there!”

I opened the window, and looked up and down the road. If I had seen a policeman within hail I should certainly have called him in. No such person was visible. I shut the window again, and warned Mrs. Badgery, through the door, in my sternest tones, not to interfere with my domestic arrangements. “I mean to have my own iron bedstead put up here,” I said. “And what is more, I mean to sleep here. And what is more, I mean to snore here!” Severe, I think, that last sentence? It completely crushed Mrs. Badgery for the moment. I heard the crape garments rustling away from the door; I heard the muffled groans going slowly and solemnly down the stairs again.

In due course of time I also descended to the ground-floor. Had Mrs. Badgery really left the premises? I looked into the front parlour – empty. Back parlour – empty. Any other room on the ground-floor? Yes; a long room at the end of the passage. The door was closed. I opened it cautiously, and peeped in. A faint scream, and a smack of two distractedly clasped hands saluted my appearance. There she was, again on the camp-stool, again sitting exactly in the middle of the floor.

“Don’t, don’t look in, in that way!” cried Mrs. Badgery, wringing her hands. “I could bear it in any other room, but I can’t bear it in this. Every Monday morning I looked out the things for the wash in this room. He was difficult to please about his linen; the washerwoman never put starch enough into his collars to satisfy him. Oh, how often and often has he popped his head in here, as you popped yours just now; and said, in his amusing way, ‘More starch!’ Oh, how droll he always was – how very, very droll in this dear little back room!”

I said nothing. The situation had now got beyond words. I stood with the door in my hand, looking down the passage toward the garden, and waiting doggedly for Mrs. Badgery to go out. My plan succeeded. She rose, sighed, shut up the camp-stool, stalked along the passage, paused on the hall mat, said to herself, “Sweet, sweet spot!” descended the steps, groaned along the gravel-walk, and disappeared from view at last through the garden door.

“Let her in again at your peril!” said I to the woman, who kept the house. She courtesied and trembled. I left the premises, satisfied with my own conduct under very trying circumstances; delusively convinced also that I had done with Mrs. Badgery.

The next day I sent in the furniture. The most unprotected object on the face of this earth is a house when the furniture is going in. The doors must be kept open; and employ as many servants as you may, nobody can be depended on as a domestic sentry so long as the van is at the gate. The confusion of “moving in” demoralizes the steadiest disposition, and there is no such thing as a properly guarded post from the top of the house to the bottom. How the invasion was managed, how the surprise was effected, I know not; but it is certainly the fact that, when my furniture went in, the inevitable Mrs. Badgery went in along with it, I have some very choice engravings, after the old masters; and I was first awakened to a consciousness of Mrs. Badgery’s presence in the house while I was hanging up my proof impression of Titian’s Venus over the front-parlour fireplace. “Not there!” cried the muffled voice, imploringly, “His portrait used to hang there. Oh, what a print – what a dreadful, dreadful print to put where his dear portrait used to be!” I turned round in a fury. There she was, still muffled up in crape, still carrying her abominable camp-stool. Before I could say a word in remonstrance, six men in green baize aprons staggered in with my sideboard, and Mrs. Badgery suddenly disappeared. Had they trampled her under foot or crushed her in the doorway? Though not an inhuman man by nature, I asked myself those questions quite composedly. No very long time elapsed before they were practically answered in the negative by the re-appearance of Mrs. Badgery herself, in a perfectly unruffled condition of chronic grief. In the course of the day I had my toes trodden on, I was knocked about by my own furniture, the six men in baize aprons dropped all sorts of small articles over me in going up and down stairs; but Mrs. Badgery escaped unscathed. Every time I thought she had been turned out of the house she proved, on the contrary, to be groaning close behind me. She wept over Mr. Badgery’s memory in every room, perfectly undisturbed to the last by the chaotic confusion of moving in. I am not sure, but I think she brought a tin box of sandwiches with her, and celebrated a tearful picnic of her own in the groves of my front garden. I say I am not sure of this; but I am positively certain that I never entirely got rid of her all day; and I know to my cost that she insisted on making me as well acquainted with Mr. Badgery’s favourite notions and habits as I am with my own. It may interest the reader if I report that my taste in carpets is not equal to Mr. Badgery’s; that my ideas on the subject of servants’ wages are not so generous as Mr. Badgery’s; and that I ignorantly persisted in placing a sofa in the position which Mr. Badgery, in his time, considered to be particularly fitted for an armchair. I could go nowhere, look nowhere, do nothing, say nothing, all that day, without bringing the widowed incubus in the crape garments down upon me immediately. I tried civil remonstrances, I tried rude speeches, I tried sulky silence – nothing had the least effect on her. The memory of Mr. Badgery was the shield of proof with which she warded off my fiercest attacks. Not till the last article of furniture had been moved in did I lose sight of her; and even then she had not really left the house. One of my six men in green baize aprons routed her out of the back-garden area, where she was telling my servants, with floods of tears, of Mr. Badgery’s virtuous strictness with his housemaid in the matter of followers. My admirable man in green baize courageously saw her out, and shut the garden door after her. I gave him half a crown on the spot; and if anything happens to him, I am ready to make the future prosperity of his fatherless family my own peculiar care.

The next day was Sunday, and I attended morning service at my new parish church.

A popular preacher had been announced, and the building was crowded. I advanced a little way up the nave, and looked to my right, and saw no room. Before I could look to my left, I felt a hand laid persuasively on my arm. I turned round – and there was Mrs. Badgery, with her pew door open, solemnly beckoning me in. The crowd had closed up behind me; the eyes of a dozen members of the congregation, at least, were fixed on me. I had no choice but to save appearances, and accept the dreadful invitation. There was a vacant place next to the door of the pew. I tried to drop into it, but Mrs. Badgery stopped me. “His seat,” she whispered, and signed to me to place myself on the other side of her. It is unnecessary to say that I had to climb over a hassock, and that I knocked down all Mrs. Badgery’s devotional books before I succeeded in passing between her and the front of the pew. She cried uninterruptedly through the service; composed herself when it was over; and began to tell me what Mr. Badgery’s opinions had been on points of abstract theology. Fortunately there was great confusion and crowding at the door of the church; and I escaped, at the hazard of my life, by running round the back of the carriages. I passed the interval between the services alone in the fields, being deterred from going home by the fear that Mrs. Badgery might have got there before me.

Monday came. I positively ordered my servants to let no lady in deep mourning pass inside the garden door without first consulting me. After that, feeling tolerably secure, I occupied myself in arranging my books and prints.

I had not pursued this employment much more than an hour, when one of the servants burst excitably into the room, and informed me that a lady in deep mourning had been taken faint just outside my door, and had requested leave to come in and sit down for a few moments. I ran down the garden path to bolt the door, and arrived just in time to see it violently pushed open by an officious and sympathising crowd. They drew away on either side as they saw me. There she was, leaning on the grocer’s shoulder, with the butcher’s boy in attendance, carrying her camp-stool! Leaving my servants to do what they liked with her, I ran back and locked myself up in my bedroom. When she evacuated the premises some hours afterward, I received a message of apology, informing me that this particular Monday was the sad anniversary of her wedding-day, and that she had been taken faint, in consequence, at the sight of her lost husband’s house.

Tuesday forenoon passed away happily, without any new invasion. After lunch I thought I would go out and take a walk. My garden door has a sort of peep-hole in it, covered with a wire grating. As I got close to this grating, I thought I saw something mysteriously dark on the outer side of it. I bent my head down to look through, and instantly found myself face to face with the crape veil. “Sweet, sweet spot!” said the muffled voice, speaking straight into my eyes through the grating. The usual groans followed, and the name of Mr. Badgery was plaintively pronounced before I could recover myself sufficiently to retreat to the house.

Wednesday is the day on which I am writing this narrative. It is not twelve o’clock yet, and there is every probability that some new form of sentimental persecution is in store for me before the evening. Thus far, these lines contain a perfectly true statement of Mrs. Badgery’s conduct toward me since I entered on the possession of my house and her shrine. What am I to do – that is the point I wish to insist on – what am I to do? How am I to get away from the memory of Mr. Badgery, and the unappeasable grief of his disconsolate widow? Any other species of invasion it is possible to resist; but how is a man placed in my unhappy and unparalleled circumstances to defend himself? I can’t keep a dog ready to fly at Mrs. Badgery. I can’t charge her at a police court with being oppressively fond of the house in which her husband died. I can’t set man-traps for a woman, or prosecute a weeping widow as a trespasser and a nuisance. I am helplessly involved in the unrelaxing folds of Mrs. Badgery’s crape veil. Surely there was no exaggeration in my language when I said that I was a sufferer under a perfectly new grievance! Can anybody advise me? Has anybody had even the remotest experience of the peculiar form of persecution which I am now enduring? If nobody has, is there any legal gentleman in the United Kingdom who can answer the all-important question which appears at the head of this narrative? I began by asking that question because it was uppermost in my mind. It is uppermost in my mind still, and I therefore beg leave to conclude appropriately by asking it again:

Is there any law in England which will protect me from Mrs. Badgery?

Household Words 26 Sep 1857

THE BACHELOR BEDROOM

The great merit of this subject is that it starts itself.

The Bachelor Bedroom is familiar to everybody who owns a country house, and to everybody who has stayed in a country house. It is the one especial sleeping apartment, in all civilized residences used for the reception of company which preserves a character of its own. Married people and young ladies may be shifted about from bedroom to bedroom as their own caprice or the domestic convenience of the host may suggest. But the bachelor guest, when he has once had his room set apart for him, contrives to dedicate it to the perpetual occupation of single men from that moment. Who else is to have the room afterward, when the very atmosphere of it is altered by tobacco-smoke? Who can venture to throw it open to nervous spinsters, or respectable married couples, when the footman is certain, from mere force of habit, to make his appearance at the door with contraband bottles and glasses, after the rest of the family have retired for the night? Where, even if these difficulties could be got over, is any second sleeping apartment to be found, in any house of ordinary construction, isolated enough to secure the soberly reposing portion of the guests from being disturbed by the regular midnight party which the bachelor persists in giving in his bedroom? Dining-rooms and breakfast-rooms may change places; double-bedded rooms and single-bedded rooms may shift their respective characters backward and forward amicably among each other – but the Bachelor Bedroom remains immovably in its own place; sticks immutably to its own bad character; stands out victoriously whether the house is full or whether the house is empty, the one hospitable institution that no repentant afterthoughts of host or hostess can ever hope to suppress.

Such a social phenomenon as this, taken with its surrounding circumstances, deserves more notice than it has yet obtained. The bachelor has been profusely served up on all sorts of literary tables; but the presentation of him has been hitherto remarkable for a singularly monotonous flavour of matrimonial sauce. We have heard of his loneliness, and its remedy; of his solitary position in illness, and its remedy; of the miserable neglect of his linen, and its remedy. But what have we heard of him in connection with his remarkable bedroom at those periods of his existence when he, like the rest of the world, is a visitor at his friend’s country house? Who has presented him, in his relation to married society, under those peculiar circumstances of his life, when he is away from his solitary chambers, and is thrown straight into the sacred centre of that home circle from which his ordinary habits are so universally supposed to exclude him? Here, surely, is a new aspect of the bachelor still left to be presented; and here is a new subject for worn-out readers of the nineteenth century, whose fountain of literary novelty has become exhausted at the source.

Let me sketch the history – in anticipation of a large and serious work which I intend to produce, one of these days, on the same subject – of the Bachelor Bedroom, in a certain comfortable country house, whose hospitable doors fly open to me with the beginning of summer, and close no more until the autumn is ended. I must beg permission to treat this interesting topic from the purely human point of view. In other words, I propose describing, not the Bedroom itself, but the succession of remarkable bachelors who have passed through it in my time.

The hospitable country-seat to which I refer is Coolcup House, the residence of that enterprising gentleman-farmer and respected chairman of Quarter Sessions, Sir John Giles. Sir John’s Bachelor Bedroom has been wisely fitted up on the ground-floor. It is the one solitary sleeping apartment in that part of the house. Fidgety bachelors can jump out on to the lawn at night, through the bow-window, without troubling anybody to unlock the front door; and can communicate with the presiding genius of the cellar by merely crossing the hall. For the rest, the room is delightfully airy and spacious, and fitted up with all possible luxury. It started in life, under Sir John’s careful auspices, the perfection of neatness and tidiness. But the Bachelors have corrupted it long since. However carefully the servants may clean and alter and arrange it, the room loses its respectability again, and gets slovenly and unpresentable the moment their backs are turned. Sir John himself, the tidiest man in existence, has given up all hope of reforming it. He peeps in occasionally, and sighs and shakes his head, and puts a chair in its place, and straightens a print on the wall, and looks about him at the general litter and confusion, and gives it up and goes out again. He is a rigid man and a resolute in the matter of order, and has his way all over the rest of the house – but the Bachelor Bedroom is too much for him. The first bachelor who inhabited the room when I began to be a guest at Coolcup House, was Mr. Bigg.

Mr. Bigg is, in the strictest sense of the word, what you call a fine man. He stands over six feet, is rather more than stout enough for his height, holds his head up nobly, and dresses in a style of mingled gaiety and grandeur which impresses everybody. The morning shirts of Mr. Bigg are of so large a pattern that nobody but his haberdasher knows what that pattern really is. You see a bit of it on one side of his collar which looks square, and a bit of it on the other side which looks round. It goes up his arm on one of his wristbands, and down his arm on the other. Men who have seen his shirts off (if such a statement may be permitted), and scattered loosely, to Sir John’s horror, over all the chairs in the Bedroom, have been questioned, and have not been found able to state that their eyes ever followed out the patterns of any one of them fairly to the end. In the matter of beautiful and expensive clothing for the neck, Mr. Bigg is simply inexhaustible. Every morning he appears at breakfast in a fresh scarf, and taps his egg magnificently with a daily blaze of new colour glowing on his capacious chest, to charm the eyes of the young ladies who sit opposite to him. All the other component parts of Mr. Bigg’s costume are of an equally grand and attractive kind, and are set off by Mr. Bigg’s enviable figure to equal advantage. Outside the Bachelor Bedroom, he is altogether an irreproachable character in the article of dress. Outside the Bachelor Bedroom, he is essentially a man of the world, who can be depended on to perform any part allotted to him in any society assembled at Coolcup House; who has lived among all ranks and sorts of people; who has filled a public situation with great breadth and dignity, and has sat at table with crowned heads, and played his part there with distinction; who can talk of these experiences, and of others akin to them, with curious fluency and ease, and can shift about to other subjects, and pass the bottle, and carve, and draw out modest people, and take all other social responsibilities on his own shoulders complacently, at the largest and dreariest county dinner-party that Sir John, to his own great discomfiture, can be obliged to give. Such is Mr. Bigg in the society of the house, when the door of the Bachelor Bedroom has closed behind him. But what is Mr. Bigg, when he has courteously wished the ladies good-night, when he has secretly summoned the footman with the surreptitious tray, and when he has deluded the unprincipled married men of the party into having half an hour’s cozy chat with him before they go upstairs? Another being – a being unknown to the ladies, and unsuspected by the respectable guests. Inside the Bedroom, the outward aspect of Mr. Bigg changes as if by magic; and a kind of gorgeous slovenliness pervades him from top to toe. Buttons which have rigidly restrained him within distinct physical boundaries, slip exhausted out of their buttonholes; and the figure of Mr. Bigg suddenly expands and asserts itself for the first time as a protuberant fact. His neckcloth flies on to the nearest chair, his rigid shirt-collar yawns open, his wiry under-whiskers ooze multitudinously into view, his coat, waistcoat, and braces drop off his shoulders. If the two young ladies who sleep in the room above, and who most unreasonably complain of the ceaseless nocturnal croaking and growling of voices in the Bachelor Bedroom, could look down through the ceiling now, they would not know Mr. Bigg again, and would suspect that a dissipated artisan had intruded himself into Sir John’s house.

In the same way, the company who have sat in Mr. Bigg’s neighbourhood at the dinner-table at seven o’clock, would find it impossible to recognise his conversation at midnight. Outside the Bachelor Bedroom, if his talk has shown him to be anything at all, it has shown him to be the exact reverse of an enthusiast. Inside the Bachelor Bedroom, after all due attention has been paid to the cigar-box and the footman’s tray, it becomes unaccountably manifest to everybody that Mr. Bigg is, after all, a fanatical character, a man possessed of one fixed idea. Then, and then only, does he mysteriously confide to his fellow-revellers that he is the one remarkable man in Great Britain who has discovered the real authorship of Junius’s Letters. In the general society of the house, nobody ever hears him refer to the subject; nobody ever suspects that he takes more than the most ordinary interest in literary matters. In the select society of the Bedroom, inspired by the surreptitious tray and the midnight secrecy, wrapped in clouds of tobacco-smoke, and freed from the restraint of his own magnificent garments, the truth flies out of Mr. Bigg, and the authorship of Junius’s Letters becomes the one dreary subject which this otherwise variously gifted man persists in dilating on for hours together. But for the Bachelor Bedroom, nobody alive would ever have discovered that the true key to unlock Mr. Bigg’s character is Junius. If the subject is referred to the next day by his companions of the night, he declines to notice it; but, once in the Bedroom again, he takes it up briskly, as if the attempted reference to it had been made but the moment before. The last time I saw him was in the Bachelor Bedroom. It was three o’clock in the morning; two tumblers were broken; half a lemon was in a soap-dish, and the soap itself was on the chimney-piece; restless married rakes, who were desperately afraid of waking up their wives when they left us, were walking to and fro absently, and crunching knobs of loaf-sugar under foot at every step; Mr. Bigg was standing, with his fourth cigar in his mouth, before the fire; one of his hands was in the tumbled bosom of his shirt, the other was grasping mine, while he pathetically appointed me his literary executor, and generously bequeathed to me his great discovery of the authorship of Junius’s Letters. Upon the whole, Mr. Bigg is the most incorrigible bachelor on record in the annals of the Bedroom; he has consumed more candles, ordered more footman’s trays, seen more early daylight, and produced more pale faces among and the gentlemen at breakfast-time than any other single visitor at Coolcup House.

•   •   •

The next bachelor in the order of succession, and the completest contrast conceivable to Mr. Bigg, is Mr. Jeremy.

Mr. Jeremy is, perhaps, the most miserable-looking little man that ever tottered under the form of humanity. Wear what clothes he may, he invariably looks shabby in them. He is the victim of perpetual accidents and perpetual ill health; and the Bachelor Bedroom, when he inhabits it, is turned into a doctor’s shop, and bristles all over with bottles and pills. Mr. Jeremy’s personal tribute to the hospitalities of Coolcup House is always paid in the same singularly unsatisfactory manner to his host. On one day in the week, he gorges himself gaily with food and drink, and soars into the seventh heaven of convivial beatitude. On the other six, he is invariably ill in consequence, is reduced to the utmost rigours of starvation and physic, sinks into the lowest depths of depression, and takes the bitterest imaginable views of human life. Hardly a single accident has happened at Coolcup House in which he has not been personally and chiefly concerned; hardly a single malady can occur to the human frame the ravages of which he has not practically exemplified in his own person under Sir John’s roof. If any one guest, in the fruit season, terrifies the rest by writhing under the internal penalties in such cases made and provided by the laws of Nature, it is Mr. Jeremy. If any one tumbles upstairs, or downstairs, or off a horse, or out of a dog-cart, it is Mr. Jeremy. If you want a case of sprained ankle, a case of suppressed gout, a case of complicated earache, toothache, headache, and sore throat, all in one, a case of liver, a case of chest, a case of nerves, or a case of low fever, go to Coolcup House while Mr. Jeremy is staying there, and he will supply you, on demand, at the shortest notice and to any extent. It is conjectured by the intimate friends of this extremely wretched bachelor, that he has but two sources of consolation to draw on, as a set-off against his innumerable troubles. The first is the luxury of twisting his nose on one side, and stopping up his air passages and Eustachian tubes with inconceivably large quantities of strong snuff. The second is the oleaginous gratification of incessantly anointing his miserable little beard and moustache with cheap-bear’s grease, which always turns rancid on the premises before he has half done with it. When Mr. Jeremy gives a party in the Bachelor Bedroom, his guests have the unexpected pleasure of seeing him take his physic, and hearing him describe his maladies and recount his accidents. In other respects, the moral influence of the Bedroom over the characters of those who occupy it, which exhibits Mr. Bigg in the unexpected literary aspect of a commentator on Junius, is found to tempt Mr. Jeremy into betraying a horrible triumph and interest in the maladies of others, of which nobody would suspect him in the general society of the house.

“I noticed you, after dinner today,” says this invalid bachelor, on such occasions, to any one of the Bedroom guests who may be rash enough to complain of the slightest uneasiness in his presence; “I saw the corners of your mouth get green, and the whites of your eyes look yellow. You have got a pain here,” says Mr. Jeremy, gaily indicating the place to which he refers on his own shattered frame, with an appearance of extreme relish – “a pain here, and a sensation like having a cannonball inside you, there. You will be parched with thirst and racked with fidgets all tonight; and tomorrow morning you will get up with a splitting headache, and a dark-brown tongue, and another cannonball in your inside. My dear fellow, I’m a veteran at this sort of thing; and I know exactly the state you will be in next week, and the week after, and when you will have to try the seaside, and how many pounds’ weight you will lose to a dead certainty, before you can expect to get over this attack. Suppose we look under his ribs, on the right side of him?” continues Mr. Jeremy, addressing himself confidentially to the company in general. “I lay anybody five to one we find an alarming lump under the skin. And that lump will be his liver!”

Thus, while Mr. Bigg always astonishes the Bedroom guests on the subject of Junius, Mr. Jeremy always alarms them on the subject of themselves. Mr. Smart, the next, and third bachelor, placed in a similar situation, displays himself under a more agreeable aspect, and makes the society that surrounds him, for the night at least, supremely happy.

•   •   •

On the first day of his arrival at Coolcup House Mr. Smart deceived us all. When he was first presented to us, we were deeply impressed by the serene solemnity of this gentleman’s voice, look, manner, and costume. He was as carefully dressed as Mr. Bigg himself, but on totally different principles. Mr. Smart was fearfully and wonderfully gentlemanly in his avoidance of anything approaching to bright colour on any part of his body. Quakerish drabs and greys clothed him in the morning. Dismal black, unrelieved by an atom of jewellery, undisturbed even by so much as a flower in his buttonhole, encased him grimly in the evening. He moved about the room and the garden with a ghostly and solemn stalk. When the ladies got brilliant in their conversation, he smiled upon them with a deferential modesty and polite Grandisonian admiration that froze the blood of “us youth” in our veins. When he spoke, it was like reading a passage from an elegant moral writer – the words were so beautifully arranged, the sentences were turned so musically, the sentiment conveyed was so delightfully well regulated, so virtuously appropriate to nothing in particular. At such times he always spoke in a slow, deep, and gentle drawl, with a thrillingly clear, emphasis on every individual syllable. His speech sounded occasionally like a kind of highly-bred foreign English, spoken by a distinguished stranger who had mastered the language to such an extent that he had got beyond the natives altogether. We watched enviously all day for any signs of human infirmity in this surprising individual. The men detected him in nothing. Even the sharper eyes of the women only discovered that he was addicted to looking at himself affectionately in every glass in the house, when he thought that nobody was noticing him. At dinnertime we all pinned our faith on Sir John’s excellent wine, and waited anxiously for its legitimate effect on the superb and icy stranger. Nothing came of it; Mr. Smart was as carefully guarded with the bottle as he was with the English language. All through the evening he behaved himself so dreadfully well that we quite began to hate him. When the company parted for the night, and when Mr. Smart (who was just mortal enough to be a bachelor) invited us to a cigar in the Bedroom, his highly-bred foreign English was still in full perfection; his drawl had reached its elocutionary climax of rich and gentle slowness: and his Grandisonian smile was more exasperatingly settled and composed than ever.

The Bedroom door closed on us. We took off our coats, tore open our waistcoats, rushed in a body on the new bachelor’s cigar-box, and summoned the evil genius of the footman’s tray.

At the first round of the tumblers, the false Mr. Smart began to disappear, and the true Mr. Smart approached, as it were, from a visionary distance, and took his place among us. He chuckled – Grandison chuckled – within the hearing of every man in the room! We were surprised at that; but what were our sensations when, in less than ten minutes afterward, the highly-bred English and the gentle drawl mysteriously disappeared, and there came bursting out upon us, from the ambush of Mr. Smart’s previous elocution, the jolliest, broadest, and richest Irish brogue we had ever heard in our lives! The mystery was explained now. Mr. Smart had a coat of the smoothest English varnish laid over him, for highly-bred county society, which nothing mortal could peel off but bachelor company and whisky-and-water. He slipped out of his close-fitting English envelope, in the loose atmosphere of the Bachelor Bedroom, as glibly as a tightly-laced young lady slips out of her stays when the admiring eyes of the world are off her waist for the night. Never was man so changed as Mr. Smart was now. His moral sentiments melted like the sugar in his grog; his grammar disappeared with his white cravat. Wild and lavish generosity suddenly became the leading characteristic of this once reticent man. We tried all sorts of subjects, and were obliged to drop every one of them, because Mr. Smart would promise to make us a present of whatever we talked about. The family mansion in Ireland contained everything that this world can supply; and Mr. Smart was resolved to dissipate that priceless store in gifts distributed to the much-esteemed company. He promised me a schooner-yacht, and made a memorandum of the exact tonnage in his pocketbook. He promised my neighbour, on one side, a horse, and, on the other, a unique autograph letter of Shakespeare’s. We had all three been talking respectively of sailing, hunting, and the British drama; and we now held our tongues for fear of getting new presents if we tried new subjects. Other members of the festive assembly took up the ball of conversation, and were prostrated forthwith by showers of presents for their pains. When we all parted in the dewy morning, we left Mr. Smart with dishevelled hair, checking off his voluminous memoranda of gifts with an unsteady pencil, and piteously entreating us, in the richest Irish-English, to correct him instantly if we detected the slightest omission anywhere.

The next morning, at breakfast, we rather wondered which nation our friend would turn out to belong to. He set all doubts at rest the moment he opened the door, by entering the room with the old majestic stalk; saluting the ladies with, the serene Grandison smile; trusting we had all rested well during the night, in a succession of elegantly turned sentences; and enunciating the highly-bred English with the imperturbably gentle drawl which we all imagined, the night before, that we had lost forever. He stayed more than a fortnight at Coolcup House; and, in all that time, nobody ever knew the true Mr. Smart except the guests in the Bachelor Bedroom.

•   •   •

The fourth Bachelor on the list deserves especial consideration and attention. In the first place, because he presents himself to the reader in the character of a distinguished foreigner. In the second place, because he contrived, in the most amiable manner imaginable, to upset all the established arrangements of Coolcup House – inside the Bachelor Bedroom, as well as outside it – from the moment when he entered its doors, to the moment when he left them behind him on his auspicious return to his native country. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a rare, probably a unique, species of bachelor; and Mr. Bigg, Mr. Jeremy, and Mr. Smart have no claim whatever to stand in the faintest light of comparison with him.

When I mention that the distinguished guest now introduced to notice is Herr von Muffe, it will be unnecessary for me to add that I refer to the distinguished German poet, whose far-famed Songs Without Sense have aided so immeasurably in thickening the lyric obscurities of his country’s harp. On his arrival in London, Herr von Muffe forwarded his letter of introduction to Sir John by post, and immediately received, in return, the usual hospitable invitation to Coolcup House.

The eminent poet arrived barely in time to dress for dinner; and made his first appearance in our circle while we were waiting in the drawing-room, for the welcome signal of the bell. He waddled in among us softly and suddenly, in the form of a very short, puffy, florid, roundabout old gentleman, with flowing grey hair and a pair of huge circular spectacles. The extreme shabbiness and dinginess of his costume was so singularly set off by the quantity of foreign orders of merit which he wore all over the upper part of it, that a sarcastic literary gentleman among the guests defined him to me, in a whisper, as a compound of “decorations and dirt.” Sir John advanced to greet his distinguished guest, with friendly right hand extended as usual. Herr von Muffe, without saying a word, took the hand carefully in both his own, and expressed affectionate recognition of English hospitality, by transferring it forthwith to that vacant space between his shirt and his waistcoat which extended over the region of the heart. Sir John turned scarlet, and tried vainly to extricate his hand from the poet’s too affectionate bosom. The dinner-bell rang, but Herr von Muffe still held fast. The principal lady in the company half rose, and looked perplexedly at her host – Sir John made another and a desperate effort to escape – failed again – and was marched into the dining-room, in full view of his servants and his guests, with his hand sentimentally imprisoned in his foreign visitor’s waistcoat.

After this romantic beginning, Herr von Muffe rather surprised us by showing that he was decidedly the reverse of a sentimentalist in the matter of eating and drinking.

Neither dish nor bottle passed the poet, without paying heavy tribute, all through the repast. He mixed his liquors, especially, with the most sovereign contempt for all sanitary considerations; drinking Champagne and beer, the sweetest Constantia and the tawniest port, all together, with every appearance of the extremest relish. Conversation with Herr von Muffe, both at dinner, and all through the evening, was found to be next to impossible, in consequence of his knowing all languages (his own included) equally incorrectly. His German was pronounced to be a dialect never heard before; his French was inscrutable; his English was a philological riddle which all of us guessed at and none of us found out. He talked, in spite of these difficulties, incessantly; and, seeing that he shed tears several times in the course of the evening, the ladies assumed that his topics were mostly of a pathetic nature, while the coarser men compared notes with each other, and all agreed that the distinguished guest was drunk. When the time came for retiring, we had to invite ourselves into the Bachelor Bedroom; Herr von Muffe having no suspicion of our customary midnight orgies, and apparently feeling no desire to entertain us, until we informed him of the institution of the footman’s tray – when he became hospitable on a sudden, and unreasonably fond of his gay young English friends.

While we were settling ourselves in our places round the bed, a member of the company kicked over one of the poet’s capacious Wellington boots. To the astonishment of every one, there instantly ensued a tinkling of coin, and some sovereigns and shillings rolled surprisingly out on the floor from the innermost recesses of the boot. On receiving his money back, Herr von Muffe informed us, without the slightest appearance of embarrassment, that he had not had time before dinner, to take more than his watch, rings, and decorations out of his boots. Seeing us all stare at this incomprehensible explanation, our distinguished friend kindly endeavoured to enlighten us further by a long personal statement in his own polyglot language. From what we could understand of this narrative (which was not much), we gathered that Herr von Muffe had started at noon that day, as a total stranger in our metropolis, to reach the London Bridge station in a cab; and that the driver had taken him as usual across Waterloo Bridge. On going through the Borough, the narrow streets, miserable houses, and squalid population had struck the lively imagination of Herr von Muffe, and had started in his mind a horrible suspicion that the cabman was driving him into a low neighbourhood, with the object of murdering a helpless foreign fare in perfect security, for the sake of the valuables he carried on his person. Chilled to the very marrow of his bones by this idea, the poet raised the ends of his trousers stealthily in the cab, slipped his watch, rings, orders, and money into the legs of his Wellington boots, arrived at the station quaking with mortal terror, and screamed “Help!” at the top of his voice, when the railway policeman opened the cab door. The immediate starting of the train had left him no time to alter the singular travelling arrangements he had made in the Borough; and he arrived at Coolcup House, the only individual who had ever yet entered that mansion with his property in his boots.

Amusing as it was in itself, this anecdote failed a little in its effect on us at the time, in consequence of the stifling atmosphere in which we were condemned to hear it.

Although it was then the sultry middle of summer, and we were all smoking, Herr von Muffe insisted on keeping the windows of the Bachelor Bedroom fast closed, because it was one of his peculiarities to distrust the cooling effect of the night air. We were more than half inclined to go, under these circumstances; and we were altogether determined to remove, when the tray came in, and when we found our German friend madly mixing his liquors again by pouring gin and sherry together into the same tumbler. We warned him, with a shuddering prevision of consequences, that he was mistaking gin for water; and he blandly assured us in return that he was doing nothing of the kind. “It is good for My—” said Herr von Muffe, supplying his ignorance of the word stomach by laying his chubby forefinger on the organ in question, with a sentimental smile. “It is bad for Our—” retorted the wag of the party, imitating the poet’s action, and turning quickly to the door. We all followed him – and, for the first time in the annals of Coolcup House, the Bachelor Bedroom was emptied of company before midnight.

Early the next morning, one of Sir John’s younger sons burst into my room in a state of violent excitement.

“I say, what’s to be done with Muffe?” inquired the young gentleman, with wildly staring eyes.

“Open his windows, and fetch the doctor,” I answered, inspired by the recollections of the past night.

“Doctor!” cried the boy; “the doctor won’t do – it’s the barber.”

“Barber?” I repeated.

“He’s been asking me to shave him!” roared my young friend, with vehement comic indignation. “He rang his bell, and asked for ‘the Son of the House’ – and they made me go; and there he was, grinning in the big armchair, with his mangy little shaving-brush in his hand, and a towel over his shoulder. ‘Good-morning, my dear. Can you shave My – ’ says he, and taps his quivering old double chin with his infernal shaving-brush. Curse his impudence! What’s to be done with him?”

I arranged to explain to Herr von Muffe, at the first convenient opportunity, that it was not the custom in England, whatever it might be in Germany, for “the Son of the House” to shave his father’s guests; and undertook, at the same time, to direct the poet to the residence of the village barber. When the German guest joined us at breakfast, his unshaven chin, and the external results of his mixed potations and his seclusion from fresh air, by no means tended to improve his personal appearance. In plain words, he looked the picture of dyspeptic wretchedness.

“I am afraid, sir, you are hardly so well this morning as we could all wish!” said Sir John, kindly.

Herr von Muffe looked at his host affectionately, surveyed the company all round the table, smiled faintly, laid the chubby forefinger once more on the organ whose name he did not know, and answered with the most enchanting innocence and simplicity:

“I am so sick!”

There was no harm – upon my word, there was no harm in Herr von Muffe. On the contrary, there was a great deal of good nature and genuine simplicity in his composition. But he was a man naturally destitute of all power of adapting himself to new persons and new circumstances; and he became amiably insupportable, in consequence, to everybody in the house throughout the whole term of his visit. He could not join one of us in any country diversions. He hung about the house and garden in a weak, pottering, aimless manner, always turning up at the wrong moment, and always attaching himself to the wrong person. He was dexterous in a perfectly childish way at cutting out little figures of shepherds and shepherdesses in paper; and he was perpetually presenting these frail tributes of admiration to the ladies, who always tore them up and threw them away in secret the moment his back was turned. When he was not occupied with his paper figures, he was out in the garden, gathering countless little nosegays, and sentimentally presenting them to everybody; not to the ladies only, but to lusty agricultural gentlemen as well, who accepted them with blank amazement; and to schoolboys, home for the holidays, who took them, bursting with internal laughter at the “mollycoddle” gentleman from foreign parts. As for poor Sir John, he suffered more than any of us; for Herr von Muffe was always trying to kiss him. In short, with the best intentions in the world, this unhappy foreign bachelor wearied out the patience of everybody in the house; and, to our shame be it said, we celebrated his departure, when he left us at last, by a festival meeting in the Bachelor Bedroom, in honour of the welcome absence of Herr von Muffe.

I cannot say in what spirit my fellow-revellers have reflected on our behaviour since that time; but I know, for my own part, that I now look back at my personal share in our proceedings with rather an uneasy conscience. I am afraid we were all of us a little hard on Herr von Muffe; and I hereby desire to offer him my own individual tribute of tardy atonement, by leaving him to figure as the last and crowning type of the Bachelor species presented in these pages. If he has produced anything approaching to a pleasing effect on the reader’s mind, that effect shall not be weakened by the appearance of any more single men, native or foreign. Let the door of the Bachelor Bedroom close with our final glimpse of the German guest; and permit the present chronicler to lay down the pen when it has traced penitently, for the last time, the name of Herr von Muffe.

All The Year Round 6 Aug 1859

PRAY EMPLOY MAJOR NAMBY

[A Privileged Communication
from a Lady in Distress.]

I have such an extremely difficult subject to write about, that I really don’t know how to begin. The fact is, I am a single lady – single, you will please to understand, entirely because I have refused many excellent offers. Pray don’t imagine from this that I am old, Some women’s offers come at long intervals, and other women’s offers come close together. Mine came remarkably close together – so, of course, I cannot possibly be old. Not that I presume to describe myself as absolutely young either; so much depends on people’s points of view. I have heard female children of the ages of eighteen or nineteen called young ladies. This seems to me to be ridiculous – and I have held that opinion, without once wavering from it, for more than ten years past. It is, after all, a question of feeling; and, shall I confess it? I feel so young!

Dear, dear me! this is dreadfully egotistical; and, besides, it is not in the least what I want. May I be kindly permitted to begin again?

Is there any chance of our going to, war with somebody before long? This is such a dreadful question for a lady to put, that I feel called upon to apologize and explain myself. I don’t rejoice in bloodshed – I don’t, indeed. The smell of gunpowder is horrible to me; and the going off of the smallest imaginable gun invariably makes me scream. But if on some future occasion we – of course, I mean the Government – find it quite impossible to avoid plunging into the horrors of war – then, what I want to know is whether my next door neighbour, Major Namby, will be taken from his home by the Horse Guards, and presented with his fit post of command in the English army? It will come out sooner or later; so there is no harm in my acknowledging at once that it would add immeasurably to my comfort and happiness if the major were ordered off on any service which would take him away from his own house.

I am really very sorry, but I must leave off beginning already, and go back again to the part before the beginning (if there is such a thing) in order to explain the nature of my objection to Major Namby, and why it would be such a great relief to me (supposing we are unfortunate enough to plunge into the horrors of war), if he happened to be one of the first officers called out for the service of his Queen and country.

•   •   •

I live in the suburbs, and I have bought my house. The major lives in the suburbs, next door to me, and he has bought his house. I don’t object to this, of course. I merely mention it to make things straight.

Major Namby has been twice married. His first wife – dear, dear! how can I express it? Shall I say, with vulgar abruptness, that his first wife had a family? And must I descend into particulars, and add that they are four in number, and that two of them are twins? Well, the words are written; and if they will do over again for the same purpose, I beg to repeat them in reference to the second Mrs. Namby (still alive), who has also had a family, and is – no, I really cannot say, is likely to go on having one. There are certain limits in a case of this kind, and I think I have reached them. Permit me simply to state that the second Mrs. Namby has three children at present. These, with the first Mrs. Namby’s four, make a total of seven. The seven are composed of five girls and two boys. And the first Mrs. Namby’s family all have one particular kind of constitution, and the second Mrs. Namby’s family all have another particular kind of constitution. Let me explain once more that I merely mention these little matters, and that I don’t object to them.

Now pray be patient; I am coming fast to the point – I am, indeed. But please let me say a little word or two about Major Namby himself.

In the first place, I have looked out his name in the Army List, and I cannot find that he was ever engaged in battle anywhere. He appears to have entered the army, most unfortunately for his own renown, just after, instead of just before, the battle of Waterloo. He has been at all sorts of foreign stations, at the very time, in each case, when there was no military work to do – except once at some West Indian island, where he seems to have assisted in putting down a few poor unfortunate negroes who tried to get up a riot. This is the only active service that he has ever performed; so I suppose it is all owing to his being well off, and to those dreadful abuses of ours, that he has been made a major for not having done a major’s work. So far as looks go, however, he is military enough in appearance to take the command of the British army at five minutes’ notice. He is very tall and upright, and carries a martial cane, and wears short martial whiskers, and has an awfully loud martial voice. His face is very pink, and his eyes are extremely round and staring, and he has that singularly disagreeable-looking roll of fat red flesh at the back of his neck, between the bottom of his short grey hair and the top of his stiff black stock which seems to be peculiar to all hearty old officers who are remarkably well to do in the world. He is certainly not more than sixty years of age; and, if a lady may presume to judge of such a thing, I should say decidedly that he had an immense amount of undeveloped energy still left in him at the service of the Horse Guards.

This undeveloped energy – and here, at length, I come to the point – not having any employment in the right direction, has run wild in the wrong direction, and has driven the major to devote the whole of his otherwise idle time to his domestic affairs. He manages his children instead of his regiment, and establishes discipline in the servants’ hall instead of in the barrack-yard. Have I any right to object to this? None whatever, I readily admit. I may hear (most unwillingly) that Major Namby has upset the house by going into the kitchen and objecting to the smartness of the servants’ caps; but as I am not, thank Heaven, one of those unfortunate servants, I am not called on to express my opinion of such unmanly meddling, much as I scorn it. I may be informed (entirely against my own will) that Mrs. Namby’s husband has dared to regulate, not only the size and substance, but even the number, of certain lower and inner articles of Mrs. Namby’s dress, which no earthly consideration will induce me particularly to describe; but as I do not (I thank Heaven again) occupy the degraded position of the major’s wife, I am not justified in expressing my indignation at domestic prying and pettifogging, though I feel it all over me, at this very moment, from head to foot. What Major Namby does and says inside his own house is his business, and not mine. But what he does and says outside his own house, on the gravel-walk of his front garden – under my own eyes and close to my own ears, as I sit at work at the window – is as much my affair as the major’s, and more; for it is I who suffer by it.

Pardon me a momentary pause for relief, a momentary thrill of self-congratulation. I have got to my destination at last – I have taken the right literary turning at the end of the preceding paragraph; and the fair high-road of plain narrative now spreads engagingly before me.

My complaint against Major Namby is, in plain terms, that he transacts the whole of his domestic business in his front garden. Whether it arises from natural weakness of memory, from total want of a sense of propriety, or from a condition of mind which is closely allied to madness of the eccentric sort, I cannot say – but the major certainly does sometimes partially, and sometimes entirely, forget his private family matters, and the necessary directions connected with them, while he is inside the house; and does habitually remember them, and repair all omissions, by bawling through his windows, at the top of his voice, as soon as he gets outside the house. It never seems to occur to him that he might advantageously return indoors, and there mention what he has forgotten in a private and proper way. The instant the lost idea strikes him – which it invariably does, either in his front garden or in the roadway outside his house – he roars for his wife, either from the gravel-walk or over the low wall; and (if I may use so strong an expression) empties his mind to her in public, without appearing to care whose ears he wearies, whose delicacy he shocks, or whose ridicule he invites. If the man is not mad, his own small family fusses have taken such complete possession of all his senses, that he is quite incapable of noticing anything else, and perfectly impenetrable to the opinions of his neighbours. Let me show that the grievance of which I complain is no slight one, by giving a few examples of the general persecution that I suffer, and the occasional shocks that are administered to my delicacy, at the coarse hands of Major Namby.

We will say it is a fine warm morning. I am sitting in my front room, with the window open, absorbed over a deeply interesting book. I hear the door of the next house bang; I look up, and see the major descending the steps into his front garden.

He walks – no, he marches – half-way down the front garden path, with his head high in the air, and his chest stuck out, and his military cane fiercely flourished in his right hand. Suddenly he stops, stamps with one foot, knocks up the hinder part of the brim of his extremely curly hat with his left hand, and begins to scratch at that singularly disagreeable-looking roll of fat red flesh in the back of his neck (which scratching, I may observe, in parenthesis, is always a sure sign, in the case of this horrid man, that a lost domestic idea has suddenly come back to him). He waits a moment in the ridiculous position just described, then wheels round on his heel, looks up at the first-floor window, and instead of going back into the house to mention what he has forgotten, bawls out fiercely from the middle of the walk:

“Matilda!”

I hear his wife’s voice – a shockingly shrill one; but what can you expect of a woman who has been seen over and over again in a slatternly striped wrapper as late as two o’clock in the afternoon? – I hear his wife’s voice answer from inside the house:

“Yes, dear.”

“I said it was a south wind.”

“Yes, dear.”

“It isn’t a south wind.”

“Lor’, dear!”

“It’s south-east. I won’t have Georgina taken out today.” (Georgina is one of the first Mrs. Namby’s family, and they are all weak in the chest.) “Where’s nurse?”

“Here, sir!”

“Nurse, I won’t have Jack allowed to run. Whenever that boy perspires, he catches cold. Hang up his hoop. If he cries, take him into my dressing-room and show him the birch rod. Matilda!”

“Yes, dear.”

“What the devil do they mean by daubing all that grease over Mary’s hair? It’s beastly to see it – do you hear? – beastly! Where’s Pamby?” (Pamby is the unfortunate work-woman who makes and mends the family linen.)

“Here, sir.”

“Pamby, what are you about now?”

No answer. Pamby, or somebody else, giggles faintly. The major flourishes his cane in a fury.

“Why the devil don’t you answer me? I give you three seconds to answer me, or leave the house. One – two – three. Pamby! what are you about now?”

“If you please, sir, I’m doing something—”

“What?”

“Something particular for baby, sir.”

“Drop it directly, whatever it is. Matilda! how many pair of trousers has Katie got?”

“Only three, dear.”

“Pamby!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shorten all Miss Katie’s trousers directly, including the pair she’s got on. I’ve said, over and over again, that I won’t have those frills of hers any lower down than her knees. Don’t let me see them at the middle of her shins again. Nurse!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind the crossings. Don’t let the children sit down if they’re hot. Don’t let them speak to other children. Don’t let them get playing with strange dogs. Don’t let them mess their things. And, above all, don’t bring Master Jack back in a perspiration. Is there anything more, before I go out?”

“No, sir.”

“Matilda! Is there anything more?”

“No, dear.”

“Pamby! Is there anything more?”

“No, sir.”

Here the domestic colloquy ends, for the time being. Will any sensitive person – especially a person of my own sex – please to imagine what I must suffer, as a delicate single lady, at having all these family details obtruded on my attention, whether I like it or not, in the major’s rasping martial voice, and in the shrill answering screams of the women inside? It is bad enough to be submitted to this sort of persecution when one is alone; but it is far worse to be also exposed to it – as I am constantly – in the presence of visitors, whose conversation is necessarily interrupted, whose ears are necessarily shocked, whose very stay in my house is necessarily shortened, by Major Namby’s unendurably public way of managing his private concerns.

Only the other day, my old, dear, and most valued friend, Lady Malkinshaw, was sitting with me, and was entering at great length into the interesting story of her second daughter’s unhappy marriage-engagement, and of the dignified manner in which the family ultimately broke it off. For a quarter of an hour or so our interview continued to be delightfully uninterrupted. At the end of that time, however, just as Lady Malkinshaw, with the tears in her eyes, was beginning to describe the effect of her daughter’s dreadful disappointment on the poor dear girl’s mind and looks, I heard the door of the major’s house bang as usual; and, looking out of the window in despair, saw the major himself strut half-way down the walk, stop, scratch violently at his roll of red flesh, wheel round so as to face the house, consider a little, pull his tablets out of his waistcoat-pocket, shake his head over them, and then look up at the front windows, preparatory to bawling as usual at the degraded female members of his household. Lady Malkinshaw, quite ignorant of what was coming, happened at the same moment to be proceeding with her pathetic story in these terms:

“I do assure you my poor dear girl behaved throughout with the heroism of a martyr. When I had told her of the vile wretch’s behaviour, breaking it to her as gently as I possibly could; and when she had a little recovered, I said to her—”

(“Matilda!”)

The major’s rasping voice sounded louder than ever as he bawled out that dreadful name, just at the wrong moment. Lady Malkinshaw started as if she had been shot. I put down the window in despair; but the glass was no protection to our ears – Major Namby can roar through a brick wall. I apologized – I declared solemnly that my next-door neighbour was mad – I entreated Lady Malkinshaw to take no notice, and to go on. That sweet woman immediately complied. I burn with indignation when I think of what followed. Every word from the Namby’s garden (which I distinguish below by parentheses) came, very slightly muffled by the window, straight into my room, and mixed itself up with her ladyship’s story in this inexpressibly ridiculous and impertinent manner:

“Well,” my kind and valued friend proceeded, “as I was telling you, when the first natural burst of sorrow was over, I said to her—”

“Yes, dear Lady Malkinshaw?” I murmured, encouragingly.

“I said to her—”

(“By jingo, I’ve forgotten something! Matilda! when I made my memorandum of errands, how many had I to do?”)

“‘My dearest, darling child,’ I said—”

(“Pamby! how many errands did your mistress give me to do?”)

“I said, ‘My dearest, darling child – ’”

(“Nurse! how many errands did your mistress give me to do?”)

“‘My own love,’ I said—”

(“Pooh! pooh! I tell you, I had four errands to do, and I’ve only got three of ’em written down. Check me off, all of you – I’m going to read my errands.”)

“‘Your own proper pride, love,’ I said, ‘will suggest to you – ’”

(“Gray powder for baby.”)

– “‘the necessity of making up your mind, my angel, to – ’”

(“Row the plumber for infamous condition of back-kitchen sink.”)

– “‘to return all the wretch’s letters, and – ’”

(“Speak to the haberdasher about patching Jack’s shirts.”)

– “‘all his letters and presents, darling. You need only make them up into a parcel, and write inside – ’”

(“Matilda! is that all?”)

– “‘and write inside – ’”

(“Pamby! is that all?”)

– “‘and write inside – ’”

(“Nurse! is that all?”)

– “‘I have my mother’s sanction for making one last request to you. It is this – ’”

(“What have the children got for dinner today?”)

– “‘it is this: Return me my letters, as I have returned yours. You will find inside – ’”

(“A shoulder of mutton and onion sauce? And a devilish good dinner, too.”)

The coarse wretch roared out those last shocking words cheerfully, at the top of his voice. Hitherto Lady Malkinshaw had preserved her temper with the patience of an angel; but she began – and who can wonder? – to lose it at last.

“It is really impossible, my dear,” she said, rising from her chair, “to continue any conversation while that very intolerable person persists in talking to his family from his front garden. No! I really cannot go on – I cannot, indeed,”

Just as I was apologising to my sweet friend for the second time, I observed, to my great relief (having my eye still on the window), that the odious major had apparently come to the end of his domestic business for that morning, and had made up his mind at last to relieve us of his presence. I distinctly saw him put his tablets back in his pocket, wheel round again on his heel, and march straight to the garden gate. I waited until he had his hand on the lock to open it, and then, when I felt that we were quite safe, I informed dear Lady Malkinshaw that my detestable neighbour had at last taken himself off, and, throwing open the window again to get a little air, begged and entreated her to oblige me by resuming her charming narrative.

“Where was I?” inquired my distinguished friend.

“You were telling me what you recommended your poor darling to write inside her enclosure,” I answered.

“Ah, yes – so I was. Well, my dear, she controlled herself by an admirable effort, and wrote exactly what I told her. You will excuse a mother’s partiality, I am sure; but I think I never saw her look so lovely – so mournfully lovely, I should say – as when she was writing those last lines to the man who had so basely trifled with her. The tears came into my eyes as I looked at her sweet pale cheeks; and I thought to myself—”

(“Nurse, which of the children was sick, last time, after eating onion sauce?”)

He had come back again – the monster had come back again, from the very threshold of the garden gate – to shout that unwarrantably atrocious question in at his nursery window!

Lady Malkinshaw bounced off her chair at the first note of his horrible voice, and changed toward me instantly – as if it had been my fault – in the most alarming and unexpected manner. Her ladyship’s face became awfully red; her ladyship’s head trembled excessively; her ladyship’s eyes looked straight into mine with an indescribable fierceness.

“Why am I thus insulted?” inquired Lady Malkinshaw, with a slow and dignified sternness which froze the blood in my veins. “What do you mean by it?” continued her ladyship, with a sudden rapidity of utterance that quite took my breath away.

Before I could remonstrate with my friend for visiting her natural irritation on poor innocent me; before I could declare that I had seen the major actually open his garden gate to go away, the provoking brute’s voice burst in on us again.

“Ha! yes,” we heard him growl to himself, in a kind of shameless domestic soliloquy. “Yes, yes, yes – Sophy was sick, to be sure. Curious. All Mrs. Namby’s stepchildren have weak chests and strong stomachs. All Mrs. Namby’s own children have weak stomachs and strong chests. I have a strong stomach and a strong chest. Pamby!”

“I consider this,” continued Lady Malkinshaw, literally glaring at me, in the fullness of her indiscriminate exasperation – “I consider this to be unwarrantable and unladylike. I beg to know—”

“Where’s Bill?” burst in the major, from below, before her ladyship could add another word. “Matilda! Nurse! Pamby! where’s Bill? I didn’t bid Bill good-bye – hold him up at the window, one of you!”

“My dear Lady Malkinshaw,” I remonstrated, “why blame me? What have I done?”

“Done!” repeated her ladyship. “Done!!! – all that is most unfriendly, most unwarrantable, most unlady-like—”

“Ha, ha, ha-a-a-a!” roared the major, shouting her ladyship down, and stamping about the garden in fits of fond, paternal laughter. “Bill, my boy, how are you? There’s a young Turk for you! Pull up his frock – I want to see his jolly legs—”

Lady Malkinshaw screamed, and rushed to the door. I sank into a chair, and clasped my hands in despair.

“Ha, ha, ha-a-a-a! What calves the dog’s got! Pamby, look at his calves. Aha! bless his heart, his legs are the model of his father’s! The Namby build, Matilda – the Namby build, every inch of him. Kick again, Bill – kick out, like mad. I say, ma’am! I beg your pardon, ma’am—”

Ma’am? I ran to the window. Was the major, actually daring to address Lady Malkinshaw, as she passed, indignantly, on her way out, down my front garden? He was! The odious monster was pointing out his – his, what shall I say? – his undraped offspring to the notice of my outraged visitor.

“Look at him, ma’am. If you’re a judge of children, look at him. There’s a two-year-older for you! Ha, ha, ha-a-a-a! Show the lady your legs, Bill – kick out for the lady, you dog, kick out!”“

•   •   •

I can write no more: I have done great violence to myself in writing so much. Further specimens of the daily outrages inflicted on me by my next-door neighbour (though I could add them by dozens) could do but little more to illustrate the intolerable nature of the grievance of which I complain. Although Lady Malkinshaw’s naturally fine sense of justice suffered me to call and remonstrate the day after she left my house; although we are now faster friends than ever, how can I expect her ladyship to visit me again, after the reiterated insults to which she was exposed on the last occasion of her esteemed presence under my roof? How can I ask my niece – a young person who has been most carefully brought up – to come and stay with me, when I know that she will be taken into the major’s closest domestic confidence on the first morning of her arrival, whether she likes it or not? Of all the dreary prospects stretching before all the single ladies in the world, mine seems the most hopeless. My neighbours can’t help me, and I can’t help myself, The law of the land contains no provision against the habitual management of a wife and family in a front garden. Private remonstrance, addressed to a man so densely impenetrable to a sense of propriety as the major, would only expose me to ridicule and perhaps to insult. I can’t leave my house, for it exactly suits me, and I have bought it. The major can’t leave his house, for it exactly suits him, and he has bought it. There is actually no remedy possible but the forcible removal of my military neighbour from his home; and there is but one power in the country which is strong enough to accomplish that removal – the Horse Guards, infuriated by the horrors of war .

All The Year Round 4 Jun 1859

MY SPINSTERS

[Introduced by
an Innocent Old Man.]

My young bachelor friends, suspend your ordinary avocations for a few minutes and listen to me. I am a benevolent old gentleman, residing in a small country town, possessing a comfortable property, a devoted housekeeper, and some charming domestic animals. I have no wife, no children, no poor relations, no cares, and nothing to do. I am a nice, harmless, idle old man; and I want to have a word with you in confidence, my worthy young bachelor friends.

I have a mania. Is it saving money? No. Good living? No. Music? Smoking? Angling? Pottery? Pictures? No, no, no – nothing of the selfish sort. My mania is as amiable as myself: it contemplates nothing less than the future happiness of all the single ladies of my acquaintance. I call them My Spinsters; and the one industrious object of my idle existence is to help them to a matrimonial settlement in life. In my own youth I missed the chance of getting a wife, as I have always firmly believed, for want of meeting with a tender-hearted old gentleman like myself to help me to the necessary spinster.

It is possibly this reflection which originally led to the formation of the benevolent mania that now possesses me. Perhaps sheer idleness, a gallant turn of mind, and living in a small country town, have had something to do with it also. You see I shirk nothing. I do not attempt any deception as to the motive which induces me to call you together. I appear before you in the character of an amateur matrimonial agent having a few choice spinsters to dispose of; and I can wait patiently, my brisk young bachelor friends, until I find that you are ready to make me a bid.

Shall we proceed at once to business? Shall we try some soft and sentimental spinsters to begin with? I am anxious to avoid mistakes at the outset, and I think softness and sentiment are perhaps the safest attractions to start upon. Let us begin with the six unmarried sisters of my friend Mr. Bettifer.

I became acquainted, gentlemen, with Mr. Bettifer in our local reading-rooms, immediately after he came to settle in my neighbourhood. He was then a very young man, in delicate health, with a tendency to melancholy and a turn for metaphysics. I profited by his invitation as soon as he was kind enough to ask me to call on him; and I found that he lived with his six sisters, under the following agreeable circumstances.

On the morning of my visit I was shown into a very long room, with a piano at one end of it and an easel at another. Mr. Bettifer was alone at his writing-desk when I came in. I apologized for interrupting him, but he very politely assured me that my presence acted as an inestimable relief to his mind, which had been stretched – to use his own strong language – on the metaphysical rack all the morning. He gave his forehead a violent rub as he mentioned this circumstance, and we sat down and looked seriously at one another in silence. Though not at all a bashful old man, I began, nevertheless, to feel a little confused at this period of the interview.

“I know no question so embarrassing,” began Mr. Bettifer, by way of starting the talk pleasantly, “as the question on which I have been engaged this morning – I refer to the subject of our own Personality. Here am I, and there are you – let us say two Personalities. Are we a permanent, or are we a transient thing? There is the problem, my dear sir, which I have been vainly trying to solve since breakfast-time. Can you (metaphysically speaking) be one and the same person, for example, for two moments together, any more than two successive moments can be one and the same moment? – My sister Kitty.”

The door opened as my host propounded this alarming dilemma, and a tall young lady glided serenely into the room. I rose and bowed. The tall young lady sank softly into a chair opposite me. Mr. Bettifer went on:

“You may tell me that our substance is constantly changing. I grant you that; but do you get me out of the difficulty? Not the least in the world. For it is not substance, but – My sister Maria.”

The door opened again. A second tall young lady glided in, and sank into a chair by her sister’s side. Mr. Bettifer went on:

“As I was about to remark, it is not substance, but consciousness, which constitutes Personality. Now, what is the nature of consciousness? – My sisters Emily and Jane.”

The door opened for the third time, and two tall young ladies glided in, and sank into two chairs by the sides of their two sisters. Mr. Bettifer went on:

“The nature of consciousness I take to be that it cannot be the same in any two moments, nor, consequently, the personality constituted by it. Do you grant me that?”

Lost in metaphysical bewilderment, I granted it directly. Just as I said yes, the door opened again; a fifth tall young lady glided in, and assisted in lengthening the charming row formed by her sisters. Mr. Bettifer murmured indicatively, “My sister Elizabeth,” and made a note of what I had granted him on the manuscript by his side.

“What lovely weather,” I remarked, to change the conversation.

“Beautiful!” answered five melodious voices.

The door opened again.

“Beautiful, indeed!” said a sixth melodious voice.

“My sister Harriet,” said Mr. Bettifer, finishing his note of my metaphysical admission.

They all sat in one fascinating row. It was like being at a party. I felt uncomfortable in my coloured trousers – more uncomfortable still, when Mr. Bettifer’s sixth sister begged that she might not interrupt our previous conversation.

“We are so fond of metaphysical subjects,” said Miss Elizabeth.

“Except that we think them rather exhausting for dear Alfred,” said Miss Jane.

“Dear Alfred!” repeated the Misses Emily, Maria and Kitty, in mellifluous chorus.

Not having a heart of stone, I was so profoundly touched that I would have tried to resume the subject. But Mr. Bettifer waved his hand impatiently, and declared that my admission had increased the difficulties of the original question until they had become quite insuperable. I had, it appeared, innocently driven him to the conclusion that our present self was not our yesterday’s self, but another self mistaken for it, which, in its turn, had no connection with the self of tomorrow. As this certainly sounded rather unsatisfactory, I agreed with Mr. Bettifer that we had exhausted that particular view of the subject, and that we had better defer starting another until a future opportunity. An embarrassing pause followed our renunciation of metaphysics for the day. Miss Elizabeth broke the silence by asking me if I was fond of pictures; and before I could say Yes, Miss Harriet followed her by asking me if I was fond of music. “Will you show your picture, dear?” said Miss Elizabeth to Miss Harriet.

“Will you sing, dear?” said Miss Harriet to Miss Elizabeth.

“Do, dear!” said the Misses Jane and Emily to Miss Elizabeth.

“Do, dear!” said the Misses Maria and Kitty to Miss Harriet.

There was an artless symmetry and balance of affection in all that these six sensitive creatures said and did. The fair Elizabeth was followed to the end of the room where the piano was, by Jane and Emily. The lovely Harriet was attended in the direction of the easel by Maria and Kitty. I went to see the picture first.

The scene was the bottom of the sea; and the subject, “A Forsaken Mermaid.” The unsentimental, or fishy lower half of the sea-nymph was dexterously hidden in a coral grove before which she was sitting, in an atmosphere of limpid blue water. She had beautiful long green hair, and was shedding those solid tears which we always see in pictures and never in real life. Groups of pet fishes circled around her with their eyes fixed mournfully on their forlorn mistress. A line at the top of the picture, and a strip of blue above it, represented the surface of the ocean and the sky; the monotony of this part of the composition being artfully broken by a receding golden galley with a purple sail, containing the fickle fisher-youth who had forsaken the mermaid. I had hardly had time to say what a beautiful picture it was, before Miss Maria put her handkerchief to her eyes, and, overcome by the pathetic nature of the scene portrayed, hurriedly left the room. Miss Kitty followed, to attend on and console her; and Miss Harriet, after covering up her picture with a sigh, followed to assist Miss Kitty. I began to doubt whether I ought not to have gone out next, to support all three; but Mr. Bettifer, who had hitherto remained in the background, lost in metaphysical speculation, came forward to remind me that the music was waiting to claim my admiration next.

“Excuse their excessive sensibility,” he said. “I have done my best to harden them and make them worldly; but it is not of the slightest use. Will you come to the piano?”

Miss Elizabeth began to sing immediately, with the attendant sylphs, Jane and Emily, on either side of her, to turn over the music.

The song was a ballad composition – music and words by the lovely singer herself. A lady was dreaming in an ancient castle; a dog was howling in a ruined courtyard; an owl was hooting in a neighbouring forest; a tyrant was striding in an echoing hall; and a page was singing among moonlit flowers. First five verses. Pause – and mournful symphony on the piano, in the minor key. Ballad resumed: The lady wakes with a scream. The tyrant loads his arquebus. The faithful page, hearing the scream among the moonlit flowers, advances to the castle. The dog gives a warning bark. The tyrant fires a chance shot in the darkness. The page welters in his blood. The lady dies of a broken heart. Miss Jane is so affected by the catastrophe that Miss Emily is obliged to lead her from the room; and Miss Elizabeth is so anxious about them both as to be forced to shut up the piano, and hasten after them, with a smelling bottle in her hand. Conclusion of the performance, and final exit of the six Miss Bettifers.

Tell yourselves off, my fortunate young bachelor friends, to the corresponding number of half a dozen, with your offers ready on your tongues, and your hearts thrown open to tender investigation, while favourable circumstances yet give you a chance. My boys, my eager boys, do you want pale cheeks, limpid eyes, swanlike necks, low waists, tall forms, and no money? You do – I know you do. Go, then, enviable youths – go tenderly – go immediately – go by sixes at a time, and try your luck with the Misses Bettifer!

•   •   •

Let me now appeal to other, and possibly to fewer tastes, by trying a sample of a new kind. It shall be something neither soft, yielding, nor hysterical this time. You who agree with the poet that

Discourse may want an animated No,

To brush the surface and to make it flow—

you who like girls to have opinions of their own, and to play their parts spiritedly in the give and take of conversation, do me the favour to approach, and permit me to introduce you to the three Misses Cruttwell. At the same time, gentlemen, I must inform you, with my usual candour, that these spinsters are short, sharp, and on occasion, shrill. You must have a talent for arguing, and a knack at instantaneous definition, or you will find the Misses Cruttwell too much for you, and had better wait for my next sample. And yet for a certain peculiar class of customer these are really very choice spinsters. For instance, any unmarried legal gentleman, who would like to have his wits kept sharp for his profession by constant disputation, could not do better than address himself (as logically as possible) to one of the Misses Cruttwell. Perhaps my legal bachelor will be so obliging as to accompany me on a morning call?

It is a fine spring day, with a light air and plenty of round white clouds flying over the blue sky, when we pay our visit. We find the three young ladies in the morning-room. Miss Martha Cruttwell is fond of statistical subjects, and is annotating a pamphlet. Miss Barbara Cruttwell likes geology, and is filling a cabinet with ticketed bits of stone. Miss Charlotte Cruttwell has a manly taste for dogs, and is nursing two fat puppies on her lap. All three have florid complexions; all three have a habit of winking both eyes incessantly, and a way of wearing their hair very tight, and very far off their faces. All three acknowledge my young legal friend’s bow in – what may seem to him – a very short, sharp manner; and modestly refrain from helping him by saying a word to begin the conversation. He is, perhaps, unreasonably disconcerted by this, and therefore starts the talk weakly by saying that it is a fine day.

“Fine!” exclaims Miss Martha, with a look of amazement at her sister. “Fine!” with a stare of perplexity at my young legal friend. “Dear me! what do you mean, now, by a fine day?”

“We were just saying how cold it was,” says Miss Barbara.

“And how very like rain,” says Miss Charlotte, with a look at the white clouds outside, which happen to be obscuring the sun for a few minutes.

“But what do you mean, now, by a fine day?” persists Miss Martha.

My young legal friend is put on his mettle by this time, and answers with professional readiness:

“At this uncertain spring season, my definition of a fine day is a day on which you do not feel the want of your greatcoat, your galoshes, or your umbrella.”

“Oh, no,” says Miss Martha, “surely not! At least, that does not appear to me to be at all a definition of a fine day. Barbara? Charlotte?”

“We think it quite impossible to call a day – when the sun is not shining – a fine day,” says Miss Barbara.

“We think that when clouds are in the sky there is always a chance of rain; and, when there is a chance of rain, we think it is very extraordinary to say that it is a fine day,” adds Miss Charlotte.

My legal bachelor starts another topic, and finds his faculty for impromptu definition exercised by the three Misses Cruttwell, always in the same briskly disputatious manner. He goes away – as I hope and trust – thinking what an excellent lawyer’s wife any one of the three young ladies would make. If he could only be present in the spirit, after leaving the abode of the Misses Cruttwell in the body, his admiration of my three disputatious spinsters would, I think, be greatly increased. He would find that, though they could all agree to a miracle in differing with him while he was present, they would begin to vary in opinion the moment their visitor’s subjects of conversation were referred to in his absence. He would, probably, for example, hear them take up the topic of the weather again, the instant the house door had closed after him, in these terms:

“Do you know,” he might hear Miss Martha say, “I am not so sure after all, Charlotte, that you were right in saying that it could not be a fine day, because there were clouds in the sky?”

“You only say that,” Miss Charlotte would be sure to reply, “because the sun happens to be peeping out, just now, for a minute or two. If it rains in half an hour, which is more than likely, who would be right then?”

“On reflection,” Miss Barbara might remark next, “I don’t agree with either of you, and I also dispute the opinion of the gentleman who has just left us. It is neither a fine day nor a bad day.”

“But it must be one or the other.”

“No, it needn’t. It may be an indifferent day.”

“What do you mean by an indifferent day?”

So they go on, these clever girls of mine, these mistresses in the art of fencing applied to the tongue. I have not presented this sample from my collection, as one which is likely to suit any great number. But there are peculiarly constituted bachelors in this world; and I like to be able to show that my assortment of spinsters is various enough to warrant me in addressing even the most alarming eccentricities of taste. Will nobody offer for this disputatious sample – not even for the dog-fancying Miss Charlotte, with the two fat puppies thrown in? No? Take away the Misses Cruttwell, and let us try what we can do, thirdly and lastly, with the Misses Ducksey produced in their place.

I confidently anticipate a brisk competition and a ready market for the spinsters now about to be submitted to inspection. You have already had a sentimental sample, gentlemen, and a disputatious sample. In now offering a domestic sample, I have but one regret, which is, that my spinsters on the present occasion are unhappily limited to two in number. I wish I had a dozen to produce of the same interesting texture and the same unimpeachable quality.

The whole world, gentlemen, at the present writing, means, in the estimation of the two Misses Ducksey, papa, mamma, and brother George. This loving sample can be warranted never yet to have looked beyond the sacred precincts of the family circle. All their innocent powers of admiration and appreciation have been hitherto limited within the boundaries of home. If Miss Violet Ducksey wants to see a lovely girl, she looks at Miss Rose Ducksey, and vice versa; if both want to behold manly dignity, matronly sweetness, and youthful beauty, both look immediately at papa, mamma, and brother George. I have been admitted into the unparalleled family circle of which I now speak. I have seen – to say nothing, for the present, of papa and mamma – I have seen brother George come in from business, and sit down by the fireside, and be welcomed by Miss Violet and Miss Rose, as if he had just returned, after having been reported dead, from the other end of the world. I have seen those two devoted sisters race across the room, in fond contention which should sit first on brother George’s knee. I have even seen both sit upon him together, each taking a knee, when he has been half an hour later than usual at the office. I have never beheld their lovely arms tired of clasping brother George’s neck, never heard their rosy lips cease kissing brother George’s cheeks, except when they were otherwise occupied for the moment in calling him “Dear!” On the word of honour of a harmless spinster-fancying old man, I declare that I have seen brother George fondled to such an extent by his sisters that, although a lusty and long-suffering youth, he has fallen asleep under it from sheer exhaustion. Even then, I have observed Miss Rose and Miss Violet contending (in each other’s arms) which should have the privilege of casting her handkerchief over his face. And that touching contest concluded, I have quitted the house at a late hour, leaving Violet on papa’s bosom, and Rose entwined, round mamma’s waist. Beautiful! beautiful!

Am I exaggerating? Go and judge for yourselves, my bachelor friends. Go, if you like, and meet my domestic sample at a ball.

My bachelor is introduced to Miss Violet, and takes his place with her in a quadrille. He begins a lively conversation, and finds her attention wandering. She has not heard a word that he has been saying, and she interrupts him in the middle of a sentence with a question which has not the slightest relation to anything that he has hitherto offered by way of a remark.

“Have you ever met my sister Rose before?”

“No, I have not had the honour—”

“She is standing there, at the other end, in a blue dress. Now, do tell me, does she not look charming?”

My bachelor makes the necessary answer, and goes on to another subject. Miss Violet’s attention wanders again, and she asks another abrupt question:

“What did you think of mamma when you were introduced to her?”

My bachelor friend makes another necessary answer. Miss Violet, without appearing to be at all impressed by it, looks into the distance in search of her maternal parent, and then addresses her partner again:

“It is not a pleasant thing for young people to confess,” she says, with the most artless candour, “but I really do think that mamma is the handsomest woman in the room. There she is, taking an ice, next to the old lady with the diamonds. Is she not beautiful? Do you know, when we were dressing tonight, Rose and I begged and prayed her not to wear a cap. We said, ‘Don’t, mamma; please don’t. Put it off for another year.’ And mamma said, in her sweet way, ‘Nonsense, my loves! I am an old woman. You must accustom yourselves to that idea, and you must let me wear a cap; you must, darlings, indeed.’ And we said – what do you think we said?”

(Another necessary answer.)

“We said, ‘You are studying papa’s feelings, dear – you are afraid of being taken for our youngest sister if you go in your hair – and it is on papa’s account that you wear a cap. Sly mamma!’ – Have you been introduced to papa?”

Later in the evening my bachelor friend is presented to Miss Rose. He asks for the honour of dancing with her. She inquires if it is for the waltz, and hearing that it is, draws back and courtesies apologetically.

“Thank you, I must keep the waltz for my brother George. My sister and I always keep waltzes for our brother George.”

My bachelor draws back. The dance proceeds. He hears a soft voice behind him. It is Miss Violet who is speaking.

“You are a judge of waltzing?” she says, in tones of the gentlest insinuation. “Do pray look at George and Rose. No, thank you; I never dance when George and Rose are waltzing. It is a much greater treat to me to look on. I always look on. I do, indeed.” Perhaps my bachelor does not frequent balls. It is of no consequence. Let him be a diner-out; let him meet my domestic sample at the social board; and he will only witness fresh instances of that all-absorbing interest in each other which is the remarkable peculiarity of the whole Ducksey family, and of the young ladies in particular. He will find them admiring one another with the same touching and demonstrative affection over the dishes on the dinner-table as amid the mazes of the dance. He will hear from the venerable Mr. Ducksey that George never gave him a moment’s uneasiness from the hour of his birth. He will hear from Mrs. Ducksey that her one regret in this life is, that she can never be thankful enough for her daughters. And (to return to the young ladies, who are the main objects of these remarks) he will find, by some such fragments of dialogue as the following, that no general subjects of conversation whatever have the power of alluring the minds of the two Miss Duckseys from the contemplation of their own domestic interests, and the faithful remembrance of their own particular friends.

It is the interval, let us say, between the removal of the fish and the appearance of the meat. The most brilliant man in the company has been talking with great sprightliness and effect; has paused for a moment to collect his ideas before telling one of the good stories for which he is famous; and is just ready to begin – when Miss Rose stops him and silences all her neighbours by anxiously addressing her sister, who sits opposite to her at the table.

“Violet, dear?”

“Yes, dear.”

(Profound silence follows. The next course fails to make its appearance. Nobody wanting to take any wine. The brilliant guest sits back in his chair, dogged and speechless. The host and hostess look at each other nervously. Miss Rose goes on with the happy artlessness of a child, as if nobody but her sister was present.) “Do you know I have made up my mind what I shall give mamma’s Susan when she is married?”

“Not a silk dress? That’s my present.”

“What do you think, dear, of a locket with our hair in it?”

“Sweet.”

(The silence of the tomb falls on the dinner-table. The host and hostess begin to get angry. The guests look at each other. The second course persists in not coming in. The brilliant guest suffers from a dry cough. Miss Violet, in her turn, addresses Miss Rose across the table.)

“Rose, I met Ellen Davis today.”

“Has she heard from Clara?”

“Yes; Clara’s uncle and aunt won’t let her come.”

“Tiresome people! Did you go on to Brompton? Did you see Jane? Is Jane to be depended on?”

“If Jane’s cold gets better, she and that odious cousin of hers are sure to come. Uncle Frank, of course, makes his usual excuse.”

So the simple-hearted sisters prattle on in public; so do they carry their own innocent affections and interests about with them into the society they adorn; so do they cast the extinguishing sunshine of their young hearts over the temporary flashes of worldly merriment, and the short-lived blaze of dinner eloquence. Without another word of preliminary recommendation, I confidently submit the Misses Ducksey to brisk public competition. I can promise the two fortunate youths who may woo and win them plenty of difficulties in weaning their affections from the family hearth, with showers of tears and poignant bursts of anguish on the wedding-day. All properly-constituted bridegrooms feel, as I have been given to understand, inexpressibly comforted and encouraged by a display of violent grief on the part of the bride when she is starting on her wedding tour. And, besides, in the particular case of the Misses Ducksey, there would always be the special resource of taking brother George into the carriage, as a sure palliative, during the first few stages of the honeymoon trip.

Household Words 23 Aug 1856

SOCIAL GRIEVANCES

A JOURNEY
IN SEARCH OF NOTHING

[Communicated by
an Anonymous Traveller.]

NOTE THE FIRST

TRYING FOR QUIET

“Yes,” said the doctor, pressing the tips of his fingers with a tremulous firmness on my pulse, and looking straight forward into the pupils of my eyes, “yes, I see: the symptoms all point unmistakably toward one conclusion – Brain. My dear sir, you have been working too hard; you have been following the dangerous example of the rest of the world in this age of business and bustle. Your brain is overtaxed – that is your complaint. You must let it rest – there is your remedy.”

“You mean,” I said, “that I must keep quiet, and do nothing?”

“Precisely so,” replied the doctor. “You must not read or write; you must abstain from allowing yourself to be excited by society; you must have no annoyances; you must feel no anxieties; you must not think; you must be neither elated nor depressed; you must keep early hours and take an occasional tonic, with moderate exercise, and a nourishing but not too full a diet – above all, as perfect repose is essential to your restoration, you must go away into the country, taking any direction you please, and living just as you like, so long as you are quiet and so long as you do nothing.”

“I presume he is not to go away into the country without ME?” said my wife, who was present at the interview.

“Certainly not,” rejoined the doctor with an acquiescent bow. ‘“I look to your influence, my dear madam, to encourage our patient to follow my directions. It is unnecessary to repeat them, they are so extremely simple and easy to carry out. I will answer for your husband’s recovery, if he will but remember that he has now only two objects in life – to keep quiet, and to do nothing.”

My wife is a woman of business habits. As soon as the doctor had taken his leave, she produced her pocket-book, and made a brief abstract of his directions for our future guidance. I looked over her shoulder and observed that the entry ran thus:

“Rules for dear William’s restoration to health. No reading; no writing; no excitement; no annoyance; no anxiety; no thinking. Tonic. No elation of spirits. Nice dinners. No depression of spirits. Dear William to take little walks (with me). To go to bed early. To get up early. N.B. – Keep him quiet. Mem.: Mind he does nothing.”

Mind I do nothing? No need to mind about that. I have not had a holiday since I was a boy. Oh, blessed Idleness, after the years of merciless industry that have separated us, are you and I to be brought together again at last? Oh, my weary right hand, are you really to ache no longer with driving the ceaseless pen? May I, indeed, put you in my pocket, and let you rest there, indolently, for hours together? Yes! for I am now at last to begin – doing nothing. Delightful task that performs itself! Welcome responsibility that carries its weight away smoothly on its own shoulders!

These thoughts shine in pleasantly on my mind after the doctor has taken his departure, and diffuse an easy gaiety over my spirits when my wife and I set forth, the next day, for the country. We are not going the round of the noisy watering-places, nor is it our intention to accept any invitations to join the circles assembled by festive country friends. My wife, guided solely by the abstract of the doctor’s directions in her pocket-book, has decided that the only way to keep me absolutely quiet, and to make sure of my doing nothing, is to take me to some pretty, retired village, and to put me up at a little primitive, unsophisticated country inn. I offer no objection to this project – not because I have no will of my own and am not master of all my movements – but only because I happen to agree with my wife. Considering what a very independent man I am naturally, it has sometimes struck me, as a rather remarkable circumstance, that I always do agree with her.

We find the pretty, retired village. A charming place, full of thatched cottages with creepers at the doors, like the first easy lessons in drawing-masters’ copybooks. We find the unsophisticated inn – just the sort of house that the novelists are so fond of writing about, with the snowy curtains and the sheets perfumed by lavender, and the matronly landlady and the amusing signpost. This Elysium is called the Nag’s Head. Can the Nag’s Head accommodate us? Yes, with a delightful bedroom and a sweet parlour. My wife takes off her bonnet and makes herself at home, directly. She nods her head at me with a look of triumph. Yes, dear, on this occasion also I quite agree with you. Here we have found perfect quiet; here we may make sure of obeying the doctor’s orders; here we have, at least, discovered – nothing.

Nothing! Did I say nothing? We arrive at the Nag’s Head late in the evening, have our tea, go to bed tired with our journey, sleep delightfully till about three o’clock in the morning, and at that hour begin to discover that there are actually noises even in this remote country seclusion. They keep fowls at the Nag’s Head, and at three o’clock the cock begins to crow and the hens to cluck under our window. Pastoral, my dear, and suggestive of eggs for breakfast whose reputation is above suspicion; but I wish these cheerful fowls did not wake quite so early. Are there likewise dogs, love, at the Nag’s Head, and are they trying to bark down the crowing and clucking of the cheerful fowls? I should wish to guard myself against the possibility of making a mistake, but I think I hear three dogs. A shrill dog who barks rapidly; a melancholy dog who howls monotonously; and a hoarse dog who emits barks at intervals like minute-guns. Is this going on long? Apparently it is. My dear, if you will refer to your pocket-book, I think you will find that the doctor recommended early hours. We will not be fretful and complain of having our morning sleep disturbed; we will be contented, and will only say that it is time to get up.

Breakfast. Delicious meal, let us linger over it as long as we can – let us linger, if possible, till the drowsy midday tranquillity begins to sink over this secluded village.

Strange! but now I think of it again, do I, or do I not, hear an incessant hammering over the way? No manufacture is carried on in this peaceful place, no new houses are being built; and yet there is such a hammering that, if I shut my eyes, I can almost fancy myself in the neighbourhood of a dock-yard. Wagons, too. Why does a wagon, which makes so little noise in London, make so much noise here? Is the dust on the road detonating powder, that goes off with a report at every turn of the heavy wheels? Does the wagoner crack his whip or fire a pistol to encourage his horses? Children, next. Only five of them, and they have not been able to settle for the last half-hour what game they shall play at. On two points alone do they appear to be unanimous – they are all agreed on making a noise, and on stopping to make it under our window. I think I am in some, danger of forgetting one of the doctor’s directions; I rather fancy I am actually allowing myself to be annoyed.

Let us take a turn in the garden, at the back of the house. Dogs again. The yard is on one side of the garden. Every time our walk takes us near it, the shrill dog barks and the hoarse dog growls. The doctor tells me to have no anxieties. I am suffering devouring anxieties. These dogs may break loose and fly at us, for anything I know to the contrary, at a moment’s notice. What shall I do? Give myself a drop of tonic, or escape for a few hours from the perpetual noises of this retired spot by taking a drive? My wife says, take a drive. I think I have already mentioned that I invariably agree with my wife.

The drive is successful in procuring us a little quiet. My directions to the coachman are to take us where he pleases, so long as he keeps away from secluded villages. We suffer much jolting in by-lanes, and encounter a great variety of bad smells. But a bad smell is a noiseless nuisance, and I am ready to put up with it patiently. Toward dinnertime we return to our inn. Meat, vegetables, pudding, all excellent, clean, and perfectly cooked. As good a dinner as I wish ever to eat; shall I get a little nap after it? The fowls, the dogs, the hammer, the children, the wagons, are quiet at last. Is there anything else left to make a noise? Yes: there is the working population of the place.

It is getting on toward evening, and the sons of labour are assembling on the benches placed outside the inn to drink. What a delightful scene they would make of this homely everyday event on the stage! How the simple creatures would clink their tin mugs, and drink each other’s healths and laugh joyously in chorus! How the peasant maidens would come tripping on the scene and lure the men tenderly to the dance! Where are the pipe and tabor that I have seen in so many pictures; where the simple songs that I have read about in so many poems? What do I hear as I listen, prone on the sofa, to the evening gathering of the rustic throng? Oaths – nothing, on my word of honour, but oaths! I look out, and see gangs of cadaverous savages, drinking gloomily from brown mugs, and swearing at each other every time they open their lips. Never in any large town, at home or abroad, have I been exposed to such an incessant fire of unprintable words as now assail my ears in this primitive village. No man can drink to another without swearing at him first. No man can ask a question without adding a mark of interrogation at the end in the shape of an oath. Whether they quarrel (which they do for the most part), or whether they agree; whether they talk of their troubles in this place or their good luck in that; whether they are telling a story, or proposing a toast, or giving an order, or finding fault with the beer, these men seem to be positively incapable of speaking without an allowance of at least five foul words for every one fair word that issues from their lips. English is reduced in their mouths to a brief vocabulary of all the vilest expressions in the language. This is an age of civilisation; this is a Christian country; opposite me I see a building with a spire, which is called, I believe, a church; past my window, not an hour since, there rattled a neat pony-chaise with a gentleman inside, clad in glossy black broadcloth, and popularly known by the style and title of clergyman. And yet, under all these good influences, here sit twenty or thirty men whose ordinary table-talk is so outrageously beastly and blasphemous that not one single sentence of it, though it lasted the whole evening, could be printed, as a specimen, for public inspection in these pages. When the intelligent foreigner comes to England, and when I tell him (as I am sure to do) that we are the most moral people in the universe, I will take good care that he does not set his foot in a secluded British village when the rural population is reposing over its mug of small beer after the labours of the day.

I am not a squeamish person, neither is my wife; but the social intercourse of the villagers drives us out of our room, and sends us to take refuge at the back of the house. Do we gain anything by the change? Nothing whatever.

The back parlour, to which we have now retreated, looks out on a bowling-green; and there are more benches, more mugs of beer, more foul-mouthed villagers on the bowling-green. Immediately under our window is a bench and table for two, and on it are seated a drunken old man and a drunken old woman. The aged sot in trousers is offering marriage to the aged sot in petticoats, with frightful oaths of endearment. Never before did I imagine that swearing could be twisted to the purposes of courtship. Never before did I suppose that a man could make an offer of his hand by bellowing imprecations on his eyes, or that all the powers of the infernal regions could be appropriately summoned to bear witness to the beating of a lover’s heart under the influence of the tender passion. I know it now, and I derive so little satisfaction from gaining the knowledge of it, that I determine on having the two intolerable old drunkards removed from the window, and sent to continue their cursing courtship elsewhere. The hostler is lounging about the bowling-green, scratching his bare, brawny arms, and yawning grimly in the mellow evening sunlight. I beckon to him, and ask him if he does not think those two old people have had beer enough? Yes, the hostler thinks they have. I inquire next if they can be removed from the premises, before their language gets worse, without the risk of making any great disturbance. The hostler says, Yes, they can, and calls to the pot-boy. When the pot-boy, comes, he says, “Now then, Jack!” and snatches the table away from the two ribald old people without another word. The old man’s pipe is on the table; he rises and staggers forward to possess himself of it; the old woman rises, too, to hold him by the arm for fear he should fall flat on his face. The moment they are off the bench, the pot-boy snatches their seat away from behind them, and quietly joins the hostler, who is carrying their table into the inn. None of the other drinkers laugh at this proceeding, or pay any attention to it; and the two intoxicated old people, left helpless on their legs, stagger away feebly without attracting the slightest notice. The neat stratagem which the hostler and the pot-boy have just performed, is evidently the customary and only possible mode of letting drinkers know when they have had enough at the Nag’s Head. Where did those savage islanders live whose manners a certain sea-captain once upon a time described as no manners at all, and some of whose customs he reprobated as being very nasty? If I did not know that we are many miles distant from the coast, I should be almost disposed to suspect that the seafaring traveller whose opinion I have just quoted had been touching at the Nag’s Head.

As it is impossible to snatch away all the tables and all the benches of all the company drinking and swearing in front of the house and behind it, I inquire of the hostler, the next time he comes near the window, at what time the tap closes? He tells me at eleven o’clock. It is hardly necessary to say that we put off going to bed until that time, when we retire for the night, drenched from head to foot, if I may so speak, in floods of bad language.

I cautiously put my head out of window, and see that the lights of the taproom are really extinguished at the appointed time. I hear the drinkers oozing out grossly into the pure freshness of the summer night. They all growl together; they all go together. All? Sinner and sufferer that I am, I have been premature in arriving at that happy conclusion! Six choice spirits, with a social horror in their souls of going home to bed, prop themselves against the wall of the inn, and continue the evening’s conversazione in the darkness. I hear them cursing at each other by name. We have Tom, Dick, and Sam, Jem, Bill, and Bob to enliven us under our window after we are in bed. They begin improving each other’s minds, as a matter of course, by quarrelling. Music follows and soothes the strife, in the shape of a local duet, sung by voices of vast compass, which soar in one note from howling bass to cracked treble. Yawning follows the duet; long, loud, weary yawning of all the company in chorus. This amusement over, Tom asks Dick for “baccer,” and Dick denies that he has got any, and Tom tells him he lies, and Sam strikes in and says, “No, he doan’t,” and Jem tells Sam he lies, and Bill tells him that if he was Sam he would punch Jem’s head; and Bob, apparently snuffing the battle from afar off, and not liking the scent of it, shouts suddenly a pacific good-night in the distance. The farewell salutation seems to quiet the gathering storm. They all roar responsive to the good-night roar of Bob. A moment of silence, actually a moment, follows; then a repetition of the long, loud, weary yawning in chorus; then another moment of silence; then Jem suddenly shouts to the retiring Bob to come back; Bob refuses, softened by distance; Jem insists, and his four friends join him; Bob relents, and returns. A shriek of indignation, far down the village; Bob’s wife has her window open, and has heard him consent to go back to his friends. Hearty laughter from Bob’s five friends; screams from Bob’s wife – articulate screams, informing Bob that she will “cut his liver out,” if he does not come home directly. Answering curses from Bob; he will “mash” his wife, if she does not hold her tongue. A song in chorus from Bob’s five friends. Outraged by this time past all endurance, I spring out of bed and seize the water-jug. My wife, having the doctor’s directions ever present to her mind, implores me in heart-rending tones to remember that I am under strict medical orders not to excite myself. I pay no heed to her remonstrances, and advance to the window with the jug. I pause before I empty the water on the heads of the assembly beneath; I pause, and hear – oh! most melodious, most welcome of sounds – the sudden fall of rain! The merciful sky has anticipated me; the “clerk of the weather” has been struck by my idea of dispersing the Nag’s Head Night Club by water. By the time I have put down the jug and got back to bed, silence – the primeval silence, the first, the foremost of all earthly influences – falls sweetly over our tavern at last.

That night, before sinking wearily to rest, I have once more the satisfaction of agreeing with my wife. Dear and admirable woman! she proposes to leave this secluded village the first thing tomorrow morning. Never did I share her opinion more cordially than I share it now. Instead of keeping myself composed, I have been living in a region of perpetual disturbance; and, as for doing nothing, my mind has been so agitated and perturbed that I have not even had time to think about it. “We will go, love – as you so sensibly suggest – we will go the first thing in the morning to any place you like, so long as it is large enough to swallow up small sounds. Where, over all the surface of this noisy earth, the blessing of tranquillity may be found, I know not; but this I do know: a secluded English village is the very last place toward which any man should think of turning his steps, if the main object of his walk through life is to discover quiet.

NOTE THE SECOND

DISCOVERY OF – NOTHING

The next morning we continue our journey in the direction of the coast, and arrive at a large watering-place.

Observing that it is, in every respect, as unlike the secluded village as possible, we resolve to take up our abode in this populous and perfectly tranquil town. We get a lodging fronting the sea. There are noises about us – various and loud noises, as I should have thought, if I had not just come from a village; but everything is comparative, and, after the past experience I have gone through, I find our new place of abode quiet enough to suit the moderate expectations which I have now learned to form on the subject of getting peace in this world. Here I can at least think almost uninterruptedly of the doctor’s orders. Here I may surely begin my new life, and enjoy the luxury of doing nothing. I suppose it is a luxury; and yet so perverse is man, I hardly know whether I am not beginning to find it something more like a hardship at the very outset. Perhaps my busy and active life has unfitted me for a due appreciation of the happiness of being idle. Perhaps I am naturally of a restless, feverish constitution. However that may be, it is certain that on the first day when I seriously determine to do nothing, I fail to find in the execution of my resolution such supreme comfort as I had anticipated. I try hard to fight against the conviction (which will steal on me, nevertheless) that I have only changed one kind of hard work for another that is harder. I try to persuade myself that time does not hang at all heavily on my hands, and that I am happier with nothing to do than ever I was with a long day’s work before me. Do I succeed or do I fail in this meritorious attempt? Let me write down the results of my first day’s experience of the art of doing nothing, and let the reader settle the question for me.

•   •   •

Breakfast at nine o’clock, so as not to make too long a day of it. Among the other things on the table are shrimps. I find myself liking shrimps for an entirely new reason – they take such a long time to eat. Well, breakfast is over at last: I have had quite enough, and yet I am gluttonously sorry when the table is cleared. If I were in health I should now go to my desk, or take up a book. But I am out of health, and I must do nothing. Suppose I look out of window? I hope that is idle enough to begin with.

The sea – yes, yes, the sea! Very large, very grey, very calm; very calm, very grey, very large. Anything else about the sea? Nothing else about the sea.

Yes – ships. One big ship in front, two little ships behind. (What time shall we have dinner, my dear? At five? Certainly at five!) One big ship in front, two little ships behind. Nothing more to see. Nothing.

Let me look back into the room, and study the subjects of these prints on the walls. First print: Death of the Earl of Chatham in the House of Lords, after Copley, R. A. Just so. Curious idea this picture suggests of the uniformity of personal appearance which must have distinguished the Peers in the last century. Here is a house full of noble lords, and each one of them is exactly like the other. Every noble lord is tall, every noble lord is portly, every noble lord has a long, receding forehead, and a majestic Roman nose. Odd; and leading to reflections on the physical changes that must have passed over the peerage of the present day, in which I might respectfully indulge, if the doctor had not ordered me to abstain from thinking.

Circumstanced as I am, I must mournfully dismiss the death of the Earl of Chatham, and pass from the work of Copley, R. A., to the other prints on the walls. Dear, dear me! Now I look again, there is nothing to pass to. There are only two other prints, and they are both classical landscapes. Deteriorated as the present condition of my faculties may be, my mind has not sunk yet to the level of Classical Landscape. I have still sense enough left to disbelieve in Claude and Poussin as painters of Italian scenery. Let me turn from the classical counterfeit to the modern reality. Let me look again at the sea.

Just as large, just as grey, just as calm as ever. Any more ships? No; still the one big ship in front; still the two little ships behind. They have not altered their relative positions the least in the world. How long is it to dinnertime? Six hours and a quarter. What on earth am I to do? Nothing.

Suppose I go and take a little walk? (No, dear, I will not tire myself; I will come back quite fresh to take you out in the afternoon.) Well, which way shall I go, now I am on the doorstep? There are two walks in this place. First walk, along the cliff westward; second walk, along the cliff eastward. Which direction shall I take? I am naturally one of the most decided men in the world; but doing nothing seems to have deprived me already of my usual resolute strength of will. I will toss up for it. Heads, westward; tails, eastward. Heads! Ought this to be considered conclusive? or shall I begin again, and try the best of three? I will try the best of three, because it takes up more time. Heads, tails, heads! Westward still. Surely this is destiny. Or can it be that doing nothing has made me superstitious as well as irresolute? Never mind; I will go westward, and see what happens.

I saunter along the path by the iron railings; then down a little dip, at the bottom of which there is a seat overlooking a ship-builder’s yard. Close under me is a small coasting vessel on the slips for repair. Nobody on board, but one old man at work. At work, did I say? Oh, happy chance! This aged repairer of ships is the very man, of all others, whom I had most need of meeting, the very man to help me in my present emergency. Before I have looked at him two minutes, I feel that I am in the presence of a great professor of the art of doing nothing, Toward this sage, to listen to his precepts and profit by his example, did destiny gently urge me, when I tossed up to decide between eastward and westward. Let me watch his proceedings; let me learn how to idle systematically by observing the actions of this venerable man.

He is sitting on the left side of the vessel when I first look at him. In one hand he holds a crooked nail; in the other, a hammer. He coughs slowly, and looks out to sea; he sighs slowly, and looks back toward the land; he rises slowly, and surveys the deck of the vessel; he stoops slowly, and picks up a flat bit of iron, and puts it on the bulwark, and places the crooked nail upon it, and then sits down and looks at the effect of the arrangement so far. When he has had enough of the arrangement, he gives the sea a turn again, then the land. After that, he steps back a little and looks at the hammer, weighs it gently in his hand, moistens his hand, advances to the crooked nail on the bit of iron, groans softly to himself and shakes his head as he looks at it, administers three delicate taps with the hammer, to straighten it, finds that he does not succeed to his mind; again groans softly, again shakes his head, again sits down and rests himself on the left side of the vessel. Since I first looked at him I have timed him by my watch; he has killed a quarter of an hour over that one crooked nail, and he has not straightened it yet! Wonderful man, can I ever hope to rival him? Will he condescend to talk to me? Stay! I am not free to try him; the doctor has told me not to excite myself with society; all communion of mind between me and this finished and perfect idler is, I fear, prohibited. Better to walk on, and come back, and look at him again.

I walk on and sit down; walk on a little further and sit down again; walk on for the third time, sit down for the third time, and still there is always the cliff on one side of me, and the one big ship and the two little ships on the other. I retrace my steps, occupying as much time as I possibly can in getting back to the seat above the coasting vessel. Where is my old friend, my esteemed professor, my bright and shining example in the difficult art of doing nothing? Sitting on the right side of the vessel this time, with the bit of flat iron on the right side also, with the hammer still in his hand, and, as I live, with the crooked nail not straightened yet! I observe this, and turn away quickly with despair in my heart. How can I, a tyro Do-Nothing, expect to imitate that consummate old man? It is vain to hope for success here – vain to hope for anything but dinnertime. How many hours more? Four. If I return home now, how shall I go on doing nothing? Lunch, perhaps, will help me a little. Quite so! Let us say a glass of old ale and a biscuit. I should like to add shrimps – if I were not afraid of my wife’s disapprobation – merely for the purpose of trying if I could not treat them, as my old friend of the coasting vessel treated the crooked nail.

Three hours and a half to dinnertime. I have had my biscuit and my glass of old ale. Not being accustomed to malt liquor in the middle of the day, my lunch has fuddled me. There is a faint singing in my ears, an intense sleepiness in my eyelids, a genial warmth about my stomach, and a sensation in my head as if the brains had oozed out of me, and the cavity of my skull was stuffed with cotton-wool steeped in laudanum. Not an unpleasant feeling altogether. I am not anxious; I think of nothing. I have a stolid power of staring immovably out of window at the one big ship and the two little ships, which I had not hitherto given myself credit for possessing. If my wife would only push an easy-chair up close behind me, I could sink back in it and go to sleep; but she will do nothing of the sort. She is putting on her bonnet; it is the hour of the afternoon at which we are to take each other out fondly for our little walk.

The company at the watering-place is taking its little walk also at this time. But for the genial influence of the strong ale, I should now be making my observations and flying in the face of the doctor’s orders by allowing my mind to be occupied. As it is, I march along slowly, lost in a solemn trance of beer.

One circumstance only, during our walk, is prominent enough to attract my sleepy attention. I just contrive to observe, with as much surprise and regret as I am capable of feeling at the present moment, that my wife apparently hates all the women we meet, and that all the women we meet seem, judging by their looks, to return the compliment by hating my wife. We pass an infinite number of girls, all more or less plump, all more or less healthy, all more or less overshadowed by eccentric seaside hats; and my wife will not allow that any one of these young creatures is even tolerably pretty. The young creatures on their side look so disparagingly at my wife’s bonnet and gown, that I should feel uneasy about the propriety of her costume, if I were not under the comforting influence of the strong ale. What is the meaning of this unpleasant want of harmony among the members of the fair sex? Does one woman hate another woman for being a woman – is that it? How shocking if it is! I have no inclination to disparage other men whom I meet on my walk. Other men cast no disdainful looks on me. We lords of the creation are quite content to be handsome and attractive in our various ways, without snappishly contesting the palm of beauty with one another. Why can not the women follow our meritorious example? Will any one solve this curious problem in social morals? Doctor’s orders forbid me from attempting the intellectual feat. The dire necessity of doing nothing narrows me to one subject of mental contemplation – the dinner-hour. How long is it – now we have returned from our walk – to that time? Two hours and a quarter. I can’t look out of window again, for I know by instinct that the three ships and the calm grey sea are still lying in wait for me. I can’t heave a patriot’s sigh once more over the “Death of the Earl of Chatham.” I am too tired to go out and see how the old man of the coasting vessel is getting on with the crooked nail. In short, I am driven to my last refuge. I must take a nap.

The nap lasts more than an hour. Its results may be all summed up in one significant and dreadful word – Fidgets. I start from the sofa convulsively, and sit down bolt upright in a chair. My wife is opposite to me, calmly engaged over her work. It is an hour and five minutes to dinnertime. What am I to do? Shall I soothe the fidgets and soften my rugged nature by looking at my wife, to see how she gets on with her work?

She has got a strip of calico, or something of that sort, punched all over with little holes, and she is sewing round each little hole with her needle and thread. Monotonous, to a masculine mind. Surely the punching of the holes must be the pleasantest part of this sort of work? And that is done at the shop, is it, dear? How curious!

Does my wife lace too tight? I have never had leisure before to look at her so long and so attentively as I am looking now; I have been uncritically contented hitherto to take her waist for granted. Now I have my doubts about it. I think the wife of my bosom is a little too much like an hourglass. Does she digest? Good heavens! In the existing state of her stays, how do I know whether she digests?

Then, as to her hair: I do not object to the dressing of it, but I think – strangely enough, for the first time since our marriage – that she uses too much bear’s grease and bandoline. I see a thin rim of bandoline shining just outside the line of hair against her temples, like varnish on a picture. This won’t do – oh dear no – this won’t do at all. Will her hands do? Certainly not! I discover, for the first time, that her hands won’t do either. I am mercifully ready to put up with their not being quite white enough, but what does the woman mean by having such round tips to her fingers? Why don’t they taper? I always thought they did taper until this moment. I begin to be dissatisfied with her; I begin to think my wife is not the charming woman I took her for. What is the matter with me? Am I looking at her with perceptions made morbid already by excessive idleness? Is this dreadful necessity of doing nothing to end by sapping the foundations of my matrimonial tranquillity, and letting down my whole connubial edifice into the bottomless abyss of Doctors’ Commons? Horrible!

The door of the room opens, and wakes me, as it were, from the hideous dream in which my wife’s individuality has been entirely altered to my eyes. It is only half an hour to dinner; and the servant has come in to lay the cloth. In the presence of the great event of the day I feel myself again. Once more I believe in the natural slimness of my wife’s waist; once more I am contented with the tops of her fingers. Now at last I see my way to bedtime. Assuming that we can make the dinner last two hours; assuming that I can get another nap after it; assuming—

•   •   •

No! I can assume nothing more, for I am really ashamed to complete the degrading picture of myself which my pen has been painting up to this time. Enough has been written – more than enough, I fear – to show how completely I have failed in my first day’s attempt at doing nothing. The hardest labour I ever had to get through was not so difficult to contend with as this enforced idleness. Never again will I murmur under the wholesome necessities of work. Never again – if I can only succeed in getting well – will a day of doing nothing be counted as pleasant holiday-time by me. I have stolen away at the dead of the night, in flat defiance of the doctor’s directions, to relieve my unspeakable weariness by writing these lines. I cast them on the world as the brief personal narrative of a most unfortunate man. If I systematically disregard medical advice, I shall make myself ill. If I conscientiously obey it, how am I to get through tomorrow? I mustn’t work, and I can’t idle. Will anybody kindly tell me what I am to do?

Household Words 5 Sep 1857

A PETITION TO THE NOVEL-WRITERS

[Communicated by
a Romantic Old Gentleman.]

I hope nobody will be alarmed if I confess that I am about to disclose the existence of a Disreputable Society, in one of the most respectable counties in England. I dare not be more particular as to the locality, and I cannot possibly mention the members by name. But I have no objection to admit that I am perpetual Secretary, that my wife is President, that my daughters are Council, and that my nieces form the Society. Our object is to waste our time, misemploy our intellects, and ruin our morals – or, in other words, to enjoy the prohibited luxury of novel-reading.

It is a settled opinion of mine that the dull people in this country are the people who, privately as well as publicly, govern the nation. By dull people, I mean people of all degrees of rank and education who never want to be amused. I don’t know how long it is since these dreary members of the population first hit on the cunning idea of calling themselves respectable; but I do know that, ever since that time, this great nation has been afraid of them – afraid in religious, in political and in social matters. If my present business were with the general question, I think I could prove this assertion by simple reference to those records of our national proceedings which appear in the daily newspapers. But my object in writing is of the particular kind. I have a special petition to address to the writers of novels, on the part of the Disreputable Society to which I belong; and if I am to give any example here of the supremacy of the dull people, it must be drawn from one or two plain evidences of their success in opposing the claims of our fictitious literature to popular recognition.

The dull people decided years and years ago, as every one knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel-reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time; they gave, and still give, reasons for this opinion, which are very satisfactory to persons born without fancy or imagination, and which are utterly inconclusive to every one else. But, with reason or without it, the dull people have succeeded in affixing to our novels the stigma of being a species of contraband goods. Look, for example, at the prospectus of any librarian. The principal part of his trade of book-lending consists in the distributing of novels; and he is uniformly ashamed to own that simple fact. Sometimes, he is afraid to print the word novel at all in his lists, and smuggles in his contraband fiction under the head of Miscellaneous Literature. Sometimes, after freely offering all histories, all biographies, all voyages, all travels, he owns self-reproachfully to the fact of having novels, too, but deprecatingly adds – Only the best! As if no other branch of the great tree of literature ever produced tasteless and worthless fruit! In all cases, he puts novels last on his public list of the books he distributes, though they stand first on his private list of the books he gains by. Why is he guilty of all these sins against candour? Because he is afraid of the dull people.

Look again – and this brings me to the subject of these lines – at our Book Clubs. How paramount are the dull people there! How they hug to their rigid bosoms Voyages and Travels! How they turn their intolerant backs on novels! How resolutely they get together, in a packed body, on the committee, and impose their joyless laws on the yielding victims of the club, who secretly want to be amused! Our book club was an example of the unresisted despotism of their rule. We began with a law that novels should be occasionally admitted, and the dull people abrogated it before we had been in existence a twelvemonth. I smuggled in the last morsel of fiction that our starving stomachs were allowed to consume, and produced a hurricane of virtuous indignation at the next meeting of the committee.

All the dull people of both sexes attended that meeting. One dull gentleman said the author was a pantheist, and quoted some florid ecstasies on the subject of scenery and flowers in support of the opinion. Nobody seemed to know exactly what a pantheist was, but everybody cried “Hear, hear” – which did just as well for the purpose. Another dull gentleman said the book was painful because there was a deathbed scene in it. A third reviled it for morbid revelling in the subject of crime because a shot from the pistol of a handsome highwayman dispatched the villain of the story. But the great effect of the day was produced by a lady, the mother of a large family, which began with a daughter of eighteen years and ended with a boy of eight months. This lady’s objection affected the heroine of the novel – a respectable married woman, perpetually plunged in virtuous suffering, but an improper character for young persons to read about, because the poor thing had two accouchements – only two! – in the course of three volumes. “How can I suffer my daughters to read such a book as that?” cried our prolific subscriber indignantly. A tumult of applause followed. A chorus of speeches succeeded, full of fierce references to “our national morality,” and “the purity of our hearths and homes.” A resolution was passed excluding all novels for the future; and then, at last, the dull people held their tongues, and sat down with a thump in their chairs, and glared contentedly on each other in stolid controversial triumph.

From that time forth (histories and biographies being comparatively scarce articles) we were fed by the dull people on nothing but Voyages and Travels. Every man (or woman) who had voyaged and travelled to no purpose, who had made no striking observations of any kind, who had nothing whatever to say, and who said it at great length in large type on thick paper, with accompaniment of frowzy lithographic illustrations, was introduced weekly to our hearths and homes as the most valuable guide, philosopher, and friend whom our rulers could possibly send us. All the subscribers submitted; all partook the national dread of the dull people, with the exception of myself and the members of my family enumerated at the beginning of these pages. We resolutely abandoned the club; got a boxful of novels for ourselves, once a month, from London; lost caste with our respectable friends in consequence; and became for the future, throughout the length and breadth of our neighbourhood, the Disreputable Society to which I have already alluded. If the dull people of our district were told tomorrow that my wife, daughters, and nieces had all eloped in different directions, leaving just one point of the compass open as a runaway outlet for me and the cook, I feel firmly persuaded that not one of them would be inclined to discredit the report. “This is what comes of novel-reading!” they would say – and would return, with renewed zest, to their Voyages and Travels, their accouchements in real life, their canting “national morality,” and their blustering “purity of our hearths and homes.”

And now, to come to the main object of this paper – the humble petition of myself and family to certain of our novel-writers. We may say of ourselves that we deserve to be heard, for we have braved public opinion for the sake of reading novels; and we have read, for some years past, all (I hold to the assertion, incredible as it may appear) – all the stories in one, two, and three volumes that have issued from the press. What, then, have we got to petition about? A very slight matter. Marking, first of all, as exceptions, certain singular instances of originality, I may mention, as a rule, that our novel-reading enjoyments have hitherto been always derived from the same sort of characters and the same sort of stories – varied, indeed, as to names and minor events, but fundamentally always the same, through hundreds on hundreds of successive volumes, by hundreds on hundreds of different authors. We none of us complain of this, so far, for we like to have as much as possible of any good thing; but we beg deferentially to inquire whether it might not be practicable to give us a little variety for the future. We have no unwholesome craving after absolute novelty – all that we venture to ask for is, the ringing of a slight change on some of the favourite old tunes which we have long since learned by heart.

To begin with our favourite Hero. He is such an old friend that we have by this time got to love him dearly. We would not lose sight of him altogether on any consideration whatever. Far be it from us to hint at the withdrawal of this noble, loving, injured, fascinating man! We adore his aquiline nose, his tall form, his wavy hair, his rich voice. Long may we continue to weep on his deep chest, and press respectfully to our lips the folds of his ample cloak! Personally speaking, it is by no means of him that we are getting tired, but of certain actions which we think he has now performed often enough.

For instance, may we put it respectfully to the ladies and gentlemen who are so good as to exhibit him, that he had better not “stride” any more? He has stridden so much, on so many different occasions, across so many halls, along so many avenues, in and out at so many drawing-room doors, that he must be knocked up by this time, and his dear legs ought really to have a little rest. Again, when his dignity is injured by irreverent looks or words, can he not be made to assert it for the future without “drawing himself up to his full height”? He has really been stretched too much by perpetual indulgence in this exercise for scores and scores of years. Let him sit down – do, please, let him sit down next time! It would be quite new, and so impressive. Then, again, we have so often discovered him standing with folded arms, so often beheld him pacing with folded arms, so often heard him soliloquize with folded arms, so often broken in upon him meditating with folded arms, that we think he had better do something else with his arms for the future. Could he swing them for a change, or put them akimbo, or drop them suddenly on either side of him? Or could he give them a holiday altogether, and fold his legs by way of variety? Perhaps not. The word legs – why, I cannot imagine – seems always suggestive of jocularity. “Fitzherbert stood up and folded his arms,” is serious. “Fitzherbert sat down and folded his legs,” is comic. Why, I should like to know?

A word – one respectful word of remonstrance to the lady novelists especially. We think they have put our Hero on horseback often enough. For the first five hundred novels or so, it was grand, it was thrilling, when he threw himself into the saddle after the inevitable quarrel with his lady-love, and galloped off madly to his bachelor home. It was inexpressibly soothing to behold him, in the milder passages of his career, moody in the saddle, with the reins thrown loosely over the arched neck of his steed, as the gallant animal paced softly with his noble burden, along a winding road, under a blue sky, on a balmy afternoon in early spring. All this was delightful reading for a certain number of years; but everything wears out at last; and trust me, ladies, your hero’s favourite steed, your dear, intelligent, affectionate, glossy, long-tailed horse, has really done his work, and may now be turned loose, for some time to come, with great advantage to yourselves and your readers.

Having spoken a word to the ladies, I am necessarily and tenderly reminded of their charming representatives – the Heroines. Let me say something, first, about our favourite two sisters – the tall dark one, who is serious and unfortunate; the short light one, who is coquettish and happy.

Being an Englishman, I have, of course, an attachment to anything like an established rule, simply because it is established. I know that it is a rule that, when two sisters are presented in a novel, one must be tall and dark, and the other short and light. I know that five feet eight of female flesh and blood, when accompanied by an olive complexion, black eyes, and raven hair, is synonymous with strong passions and an unfortunate destiny. I know that five feet nothing, golden ringlets, soft blue eyes, and a lily brow, cannot possibly be associated by any well-constituted novelist with anything but ringing laughter, arch innocence, and final matrimonial happiness. I have studied these great first principles of the art of fiction too long not to reverence them as established laws; but I venture respectfully to suggest that the time has arrived when it is no longer necessary to insist on them in novel after novel. I am afraid there is something naturally revolutionary in the heart of man. Although I know it to be against all precedent, I want to revolutionize our favourite two sisters. Would any bold innovator run all risks, and make them both alike in complexion and in stature? Or would any desperate man (I dare not suggest such a course to the ladies) effect an entire alteration, by making the two sisters change characters? I tremble when I see to what lengths the spirit of innovation is leading me. Would the public accept the tall dark-haired sister, if she exhibited a jolly disposition and a tendency to be flippant in her talk? Would readers be fatally startled out of their sense of propriety if the short charmer with the golden hair appeared before them as a serious, strong-minded, fierce-spoken, miserable, guilty woman? It might be a dangerous experiment to make this change; but it would be worth trying – the rather (if I may be allowed to mention anything so utterly irrelevant to the subject under discussion as real life) because I think there is some warrant in nature for attempting the proposed innovation. Judging by my own small experience, I should say that strong minds and passionate natures reside principally in the breasts of little, light women, especially if they have angelic blue eyes and a quantity of fair ringlets. The most facetiously skittish woman for her age with whom I am acquainted is my own wife, who is three inches taller than I am. The heartiest laugher I ever heard is my second daughter, who is bigger even than my wife, and has the blackest eyebrows and the swarthiest cheeks in the whole neighbourhood. With such instances as these, producible from the bosom of my own family, who can wonder if I want, for once in a way, to overthrow the established order of things, and have a jovial dark sister and a dismal light one introduced as startling novelties in some few of the hundred new volumes which we are likely to receive next season from the Circulating Library?

But, after all, our long-established two sisters seem to be exceptional beings, and to possess comparatively small importance, the moment our minds revert to that vastly superior single person, THE HEROINE.

Let me mention, to begin with, that we wish no change to be made in our respectable, recognised, old-fashioned Heroine, who has lived and loved and wept for centuries. I have taken her to my bosom thousands of times already, and ask nothing better than to indulge in that tender luxury thousands of times again. I love her blushing cheek, her gracefully-rounded form, her chiselled nose, her slender waist, her luxuriant tresses which always escape from the fillet that binds them. Any man or woman who attempts, from a diseased craving after novelty, to cheat me out of one of her moonlight walks, one of her floods of tears, one of her kneeling entreaties to obdurate relatives, one of her rapturous sinkings on her lover’s bosom, is a novelist whom I distrust and dislike. He or she may be a very remarkable writer; but their books will not do for my family and myself. The Heroine, the whole Heroine, and nothing but the Heroine – that is our cry, if you drive us into a corner and insist on our stating precisely what we want in the plainest terms possible.

Being thus faithfully attached to the established Heroine, it will not, I trust, appear a very unaccountable proceeding, if we now protest positively, and even indignantly, against her modern successor – a bouncing, ill-conditioned, impudent young woman, who has been introduced among us of late years. I venture to call this wretched and futile substitute for our dear, tender, gentle, loving old Heroine, the Man-Hater; because, in every book in which she appears, it is her mission from first to last to behave as badly as possible to every man with whom she comes in contact. She enters on the scene with a preconceived prejudice against my sex, for which I, as a man, abominate her; for which my wife, my daughters, my nieces, and all other available women whom I have consulted on the subject, despise her. When her lover makes her an offer of marriage, she receives it in the light of a personal insult, goes up to her room immediately afterward, and flies into a passion with herself, because she is really in love with the man all the time – comes down again, and snubs him before company instead of making a decent apology – pouts and flouts at him, on all after occasions, until the end of the book is at hand – then suddenly turns round and marries him! If we feel inclined to ask why she could not, under the circumstances, receive his advances with decent civility at first, we are informed that her “maidenly consciousness” prevented it. This maidenly consciousness seems to me very like new English for our old-fashioned phrase, bad manners. And I am the more confirmed in this idea, because on all minor occasions the Man-Hater is persistently rude and disobliging to the last. Every individual in the novel who wears trousers and gets within range of her maidenly consciousness becomes her natural enemy from that moment. If he makes a remark on the weather, her lip curls; if he asks leave to give her a potato at dinnertime (meaning, poor soul, to pick out for her the mealiest in the dish), her neck curves in scorn; if he offers a compliment, finding she won’t have a potato, her nostril dilates. Whatever she does, even in her least aggressive moments, she always gets the better of all the men. They are set up like ninepins for the Man-Hater to knock down. They are described, on their introduction, as clever, resolute fellows; but they lose their wits and their self-possession the instant they come within hail of the Man-Hater’s terrible tongue. No man kisses her, no man dries her tears, no man sees her blush (except with rage), all through the three volumes. And this is the opposition Heroine who is set up as successor to our soft, feminine, lovable, sensitive darling of former days!

Set up, too, by lady-novelists, who ought surely to be authorities when female characters are concerned. Is the Man-Hater a true representative of young women nowadays? If so, what is to become of my son – my unlucky son, aged twelve years?

In a short time this boy will be marriageable, and he will go into the world to bill and coo, and offer his hand and heart, as his father did before him. My unhappy offspring, what a prospect awaits you! One forbidding phalanx of Man-Haters, bristling with woman’s dignity, and armed to the teeth with maidenly consciousness, occupies the wide matrimonial field, look where you will! Ill-fated youth, yet a few years, and the female neck will curve, the female nostril dilate, at the sight of you. You see that stately form, those rustling skirts, that ample brow, and fall on your knees before it, and make your proposal with the impassioned imbecility which your father exhibited before you. My deluded boy, that is not a woman – it is a Man-Hater – a whited sepulchre, full of violent expostulations and injurious epithets. She will lead you the life of a coster-monger’s ass, until she has exhausted her whole stock of maidenly consciousness; and she will then say (in effect, if not in words), “Inferior animal, I loved you from the first – I have asserted my dignity by making a fool of you in public and private – now you may marry me!” Marry her not, my son! Go rather to the slave-market at Constantinople, buy a Circassian wife who has heard nothing and read nothing about Man-Haters, bring her home (with no better dowry than pots of the famous Cream from her native land to propitiate your mother and sisters), and trust to your father to welcome an Asiatic daughter-in-law, who will not despise him for the unavoidable misfortune of being a Man!

But I am losing my temper over a hypothetical case. I am forgetting the special purpose of my petition, which is to beg that the Man-Hater may be removed altogether from her usurped position of heroine. The new-fashioned heroine is a libel on her sex. As a husband and a father, I solemnly deny that she is in any single respect a natural woman. Am I no judge? I have a wife, and I made her an offer. Did she receive it as the Man-Haters receive offers? Can I ever forget the mixture of modest confusion and perfect politeness with which that admirable woman heard me utter the most absolute nonsense that ever issued from my lips? Perhaps she is not fit for a heroine. Well, I can give her up in that capacity without a pang. But my daughters and nieces have claims, I suppose, to be considered as examples of what young ladies are in the present day. Ever since I read the first novel with a Man-Hater in it, I have had my eye on their nostrils, and I can make affidavit that I have never yet seen them dilate under any circumstances or in any society. As for curling their lips and curving their necks, they have attempted both operations at my express request, and have found them to be physical impossibilities. In men’s society, their manners (like those of all other girls whom I meet with) are natural and modest; and – in the cases of certain privileged men – winning into the bargain. They open their eyes with astonishment when they read of the proceedings of our new-fashioned heroines, and throw the book indignantly across the room, when they find a nice man submitting to be bullied by a nasty woman, because he has paid her the compliment of falling in love with her. No, no; we positively decline to receive any more Man-Haters, and there is an end of it!

With this uncompromising expression of opinion, I think it desirable to bring the present petition to a close. There are one or two other good things in fiction, of which we have had enough; but I refrain from mentioning them, from modest apprehension of asking for too much at a time. If the slight changes in general, and the sweeping reform in particular, which I have ventured to suggest, can be accomplished, we are sure, in the future as in the past, to be grateful, appreciating, and incessant novel-readers. If we cannot claim any critical weight in the eyes of our esteemed authors, we can at least arrogate to ourselves the minor merit, not only of reading novels perpetually, but (and this is a rarer virtue) of publicly and proudly avowing the fact. We only pretend to be human beings with a natural desire for as much amusement as our workaday destinies will let us have. We are just respectable enough to be convinced of the usefulness of occasionally reading for information; but we are also certain (and we say it boldly, in the teeth of the dull people) that there are few higher, better, or more profitable enjoyments in this world than reading a good novel.

Household Words 6 Dec 1856

GIVE US ROOM!

[The Imperative Request
of a Family Man.]

The entertainments of the festive season of the year, so far as I am personally concerned, have at last subsided into a temporary lull. I and my family actually have one or two evenings to ourselves just at present. It is my purpose to take advantage of this interval of leisure to express my sentiments on the subject of evening parties and ladies’ dress.

Let nobody turn over this page impatiently, alarmed at the prospect of another diatribe against Crinoline. I, for one, am not going to exhibit myself in the character of a writer who vainly opposes one of the existing institutions of this country. The Press, the Pulpit, and the Stage have been in the habit of considering themselves as three very powerful levers, capable of being used with terrible effect on the inert material of society. All three have tried to jerk that flourishing foreign plant, Crinoline, out of English earth, and have failed to stir so much as a single root of it. All three have run full tilt against the women of England, and have not moved them an inch. Talk of the power of the Press! what is it, compared to the power of a French milliner? The Press has tried to abridge the women’s petticoats, and has entirely failed in the attempt. When the right time comes, a French milliner will abridge them at a week’s notice. The Pulpit preaches, the Stage ridicules; and each woman of the congregation or the audience sits, imperturbable, in the middle of her balloon, and lets the serious words or the comic words go in at one ear and come out at the other, precisely as if they were spoken in an unknown tongue. Nothing that I can remember has so effectually crushed the pretensions of the Press, the Pulpit, and the Stage as the utter failure of their crusade against Crinoline.

My present object in writing is likely, I think, to be popular – at least, with the ladies. I do not want to put down Crinoline – I only want to make room for it. Personally, I rather like it – I do, indeed, though I am a man. The fact is, I am a thoroughly well-disciplined husband and father, and I know the value of it. The only defect in my eldest daughter’s otherwise perfect form lies in her feet and ankles. She is married, so I don’t mind mentioning that they are decidedly clumsy. Without Crinoline, they would be seen; with Crinoline (except when she goes upstairs), nobody has the slightest suspicion of them. My wife – pray don’t tell her that I ever observed it – my wife used to waddle before the invention of Crinoline. Now she swims voluptuously, and knocks down all the light articles of furniture, whenever she crosses the room, in a manner which, but for the expense of repairs, would be perfectly charming. One of my other single daughters used to be sadly thin, poor girl. Oh, how plump she is now! Oh, my marriageable young men, how ravishingly plump she is now! Long life to the monarchy of Crinoline! Every mother in this country who has daughters to marry, and who is not quite so sure of their unaided personal attractions as she might wish to be, echoes that loyal cry, I am sure, from the bottom of her affectionate heart. And the Press actually thinks it can shake our devotion to our Queen Petticoat? Pooh! pooh!

But we must have room – we must positively have room for our petticoat at evening parties. We wanted it before Crinoline. We want it ten thousand times more now. I don’t know how other parents feel; but unless there is some speedy reform in the present system of party-giving, so far as regards health, purse, and temper, I am a lost man. Let me make my meaning clear on this point by a simple and truthful process. Let me describe how we went to our last party, and how we came back from it.

Doctor and Mrs. Crump, of Gloucester Place (I mention names and places to show the respectable character of the party), kindly requested the pleasure of our company a week ago. We accepted the invitation, and agreed to assemble in my dining-room previous to departure at the hour of half-past nine. It is unnecessary to say that I and my son-in-law (who is now staying with me on a visit) had the room entirely to ourselves at the appointed time. We waited half an hour: both ill-tempered, both longing to be in bed, and both obstinately silent. When the hall clock struck ten, a sound was heard on the stairs as if a whole gale of wind had broken into the house, and was advancing to the dining-room to blow us both into empty space. We knew what this meant, and looked at each other, and said, “Here they are!” The door opened, and Boreas swam in voluptuously, in the shape of my wife, in claret-coloured velvet. She stands five feet nine, and wears – No! I have never actually counted them. Let me not mislead the public, or do injustice to my wife. Let me rest satisfied with stating her height, and adding that she is a fashionable woman. Her circumference, and the causes of it, may be left to the imagination of the reader.

She was followed by four minor winds, blowing dead in our teeth – by my married daughter in pink moire antique; by my own Julia (single) in violet tulle illusion; by my own Emily (single) in white lace over glacé silk; by my own Charlotte (single) in blue gauze over glace silk. The four minor winds and the majestic maternal Boreas entirely filled the room, and overflowed on to the dining-table. It was a grand sight. My son-in-law and I – a pair of mere black tadpoles – shrank into a corner, and gazed at it helplessly.

Our corner was, unfortunately, the farthest from the door. So, when I moved to lead the way to the carriages, I confronted a brilliant intermediate expanse of ninety yards of outer clothing alone (allowing only eighteen yards each to the ladies). Being old, wily, and respected in the house, I took care to avoid my wife, and succeeded in getting through my daughters. My son-in-law, young, innocent, and of secondary position in the family, was not so fortunate. I left him helpless, looking round the corner of his mother-in-law’s claret-coloured velvet, with one of his legs lost in his wife’s moire antique. There is every reason to suppose that he never extricated himself; for when we got into the carriages he was not to be found; and, when ultimately recovered, he exhibited symptoms of physical and mental exhaustion. I am afraid my son-in-law caught it – I am very much afraid that, during my absence, my son-in-law caught it.

We filled – no, we overflowed – two carriages. My wife and her married daughter in one, and I myself on the box – the front seat being very properly wanted for the velvet and the moire antique. In the second carriage were my three girls – crushed, as they indignantly informed me, crushed out of all shape (didn’t I tell you just now how plump one of them was?) by the miserably inefficient accommodation which the vehicle offered to them. They told my son-in-law, as he meekly mounted to the box, that they would take care not to marry a man like him, at any rate! I have not the least idea what he had done to provoke them. The worthy creature gets a great deal of scolding in the house, without any assignable cause for it. Do my daughters resent his official knowledge, as a husband, of the secret of their sister’s ugly feet? Oh, dear me, I hope not – I sincerely hope not!

At ten minutes past ten we drove to the, hospitable abode of Doctor and Mrs. Crump. The women of my family were then perfectly dressed in the finest materials. There was not a flaw in any part of the costume of any one of the party. This is a great deal to say of ninety yards of clothing, without mentioning the streams of ribbon, and the dense thickets of flowery bushes that wantoned gracefully all over their heads and half down their backs – nevertheless, I can say it. At forty minutes past four the next morning we were all assembled once more in my dining-room, to light our bedroom candles. Judging by costume only, I should not have known one of my daughters again – no, not one of them! The tulle illusion was illusion no longer. My daughter’s gorgeous substratum of gros de Naples bulged through it in half a dozen places. The pink moire antique was torn into a draggle-tailed pink train. The white lace was in tatters, and the blue gauze was in shreds.

“A charming party!” cried my daughters, in melodious chorus, as I surveyed this scene of ruin. Charming, indeed! If I had dressed up my four girls, and sent them to Greenwich Fair, with strict orders to get drunk and assault the police, and if they had carefully followed my directions, could they have come home to me in a much worse condition than the condition in which I see them now? Could any man not acquainted with the present monstrous system of party-giving look at my four young women and believe that they had been spending the evening, under the eyes of their parents, at a respectable house? If the party had been at a linen-draper’s, I could understand the object of this wanton destruction of property. But Doctor Crump is not interested in making me buy new gowns. What have I done to him that he should ask me and my family to his house, and all but tear my children’s gowns off their backs, in return for our friendly readiness to accept his invitation?

But my daughters danced all the evening, and these little accidents will happen in private ballrooms. Indeed? I did not dance, my wife did not dance, my son-in-law did not dance. Have we escaped injury on that account? Decidedly not. Velvet is not an easy thing to tear, so I have no rents to deplore in my wife’s dress. But I apprehend that a spoonful of trifle does not reach its destination properly when it is deposited in a lady’s lap; and I altogether deny that there is any necessary connection between the charms of society and the wearing of crushed macaroons adhesively dotted over the back part of a respectable matron’s dress. I picked three off my wife’s gown, as she swam out of the dining-room, on her way upstairs; and I am informed that two new breadths will be wanted in front, in consequence of her lap having been turned into a plate for trifle. As for my son-in-law, his trousers are saturated with spilled Champagne; and he took in my presence, nearly a handful of flabby lobster salad out of the cavity between his shirt-front and his waistcoat. For myself, I have had my elbow in a game pie, and I see with disgust a slimy path of extinct custard meandering down the left hand lapel of my coat. Altogether, this party, on the lowest calculation, casts me in damages to the tune of ten pounds eighteen shillings and sixpence. [*]

[*] For the information of ignorant young men who are beginning life, I subjoin the lamentable particulars of this calculation:

| £ | s | d
A Tulle Illusion spoiled | 2 | 0 | 0
Repairing gathers of Moiré Antique | 0 | 5 | 0
Cheap white lace dress spoiled | 3 | 0 | 0
Ditto blue gauze ditto. | 1 | 6 | 0
Two new breadths of velvet for Mamma | 4 | 0 | 0
Cleaning my son-in-law’s trousers | 0 | 2 | 6
Cleaning my own coat | 0 | 5 | 0
Total | 10 | 18 | 6

In damages for spoiled garments only. I have still to find out what the results may be of the suffocating heat in the rooms, and the freezing draughts in the passages and on the stairs – I have still to face the possible doctor’s bills for treating our influenzas and our rheumatisms. And to what cause is all this destruction and discomfort attributable? Plainly and simply, to this. When Doctor and Mrs. Crump issued their invitations, they followed the example of the rest of the world, and asked to their house five times as many people as their rooms would comfortably hold. Hence, jostling, bumping, and tearing among the dancers, and jostling, bumping, and spilling in the supper-room. Hence, a scene of barbarous crowding and confusion, in which the successful dancers are the heaviest and rudest couples in the company, and the successful guests at the supper-table the people who have the least regard for the restraints of politeness and the wants of their neighbours.

Is there no remedy for this great social nuisance? for a nuisance it certainly is. There is a remedy in every district in London, in the shape of a spacious and comfortable public room, which may be had for the hiring. The rooms to which I allude are never used for doubtful purposes. They are mainly devoted to Lectures, Concerts, and Meetings. When used for a private object, they might be kept private by giving each guest a card to present at the door, just as cards are presented at the opera. The expense of the hiring, when set against the expense of preparing a private house for a party, and the expense of the injuries which crowding causes, would prove to be next to nothing. The supper might be sent into the large room as it is sent into the small house. And what benefit would be gained by all this? The first and greatest of all benefits, in such cases – room. Room for the dancers to exercise their art in perfect comfort; room for the spectators to move about and talk to each other at their ease; room for the musicians in a comfortable gallery; room for eating and drinking; room for agreeable equal ventilation. In one word, all the acknowledged advantages of a public ball, with all the pleasant social freedom of a private entertainment.

And what hinders the adopting of this sensible reform? Nothing but the domestic vanity of my beloved countrymen.

I suggested the hiring of a room the other day to an excellent friend of mine who thought of giving a party, and who inhumanly contemplated asking at least a hundred people into his trumpery little ten-roomed house. He absolutely shuddered when I mentioned my idea; all his insular prejudices bristled up in an instant. “If I can’t receive my friends under my own roof, on my own hearth, sir, and in my own home, I won’t receive them at. all. Take a room, indeed! Do you call that an Englishman’s hospitality? I don’t.” It was quite useless to suggest to this gentleman that an Englishman’s hospitality, or any man’s hospitality, is unworthy of the name unless it fulfills the first great requisite of making his guests comfortable. We don’t take that far-fetched view of the case in this domestic country. We stand on our own floor (no matter whether it is only twelve feet square or not); we make a fine show in our houses (no matter whether they are large enough for the purpose or not); never mind the women’s dresses; never mind the dancers being in perpetual collision; never mind the supper being a comfortless, barbarous scramble; never mind the ventilation alternating between unbearable heat and unbearable cold – an Englishman’s house is his castle, even when you can’t get up his staircase, and can’t turn round in his rooms. If I lived in the Black Hole at Calcutta, sir, I would see my friends there because I lived there, and would turn up my nose at the finest marble palace in the whole city, because it was a palace that could be had for the hiring!

And yet the innovation on a senseless established custom which I now propose is not without precedent, even in this country. When I was a young man, I and some of my friends used to give a Bachelors’ Ball once a year. We hired a respectable public room for the purpose. Nobody ever had admission to our entertainment who was not perfectly fit to be asked into any gentleman’s house. Nobody wanted room to dance in; nobody’s dress was injured; nobody was uncomfortable at supper. Our ball was looked forward to every year by the young ladies as the especial dance of the season, at which they were sure to enjoy themselves. They talked rapturously of the charming music, and the brilliant lighting, and the pretty decorations, and the nice supper. Old ladies and gentlemen used to beg piteously that they might not be left out on account of their years. People of all ages and tastes found something to please them at the Bachelors’ Ball, and never had a recollection in connection with it which was not of the happiest nature. What prevents us, now we are married, from following the sensible proceeding of our younger days? The stupid assumption that my house must be big enough to hold all my friends comfortably, because it is my house. I did not reason in that way when I had lodgings, although my bachelor sitting-room was, within a few feet each way, as large as my householder’s drawing-room at the present time.

However, I have really some hopes of seeing the sensible reform which I have ventured to propose practically and generally carried out before I die. Not because I advocate it, not because it is in itself essentially reasonable; but merely because the course of Time is likely, before long, to leave obstinate Prejudice no choice of alternatives and no power of resistance. Party-giving is on the increase, party-goers are on the increase, petticoats are on the increase; but private houses remain exactly as they were. It is evidently only a question of time. The guests already overflow on to the staircase. Give us a ten years’ increase of the population, and they will overflow into the street. When the door of the Englishman’s nonsensical castle cannot be shut, on account of the number of his guests who are squeezed out to the threshold, then he will concede to necessity what he will not now concede to any strength of reasoning, or to any gentleness of persuasion. The only cogent argument with obstinate people is Main Force; and Time, in the case now under consideration, is sooner or later sure to employ it.

Household Words 13 Feb 1858

SAVE ME
FROM MY FRIENDS

A few days ago, I was walking in a street at the western part of London, and I encountered a mendicant individual of an almost extinct species. Some years since, the oratorical beggar, who addressed himself to the public on each side of the way, in a neat speech spoken from the middle of the road, was almost as constant and regular in his appearances as the postman himself. Of late, however, this well-known figure – this cadger Cicero of modern days – has all but disappeared; the easy public ear having probably grown rather deaf, in course of time, to the persuasive power of orators with only two subjects to illustrate – their moral virtues and their physical destitution. With these thoughts in my mind, I stopped to look at the rare and wretched object for charity whom I had met by chance, and to listen to the address which he was delivering for the benefit of the street population and the street passengers on both sides of the pavement. He was a tall, sturdy, self-satisfied, healthy-looking vagabond, with a face which would have been almost handsome if it had not been disfigured by the expression which Nature sets, like a brand, on the countenance of a common impostor. As for his style of oratory, I will not do him the injustice of merely describing it. Here is a specimen, faithfully reported for the public, from the original speech:

“Good Christian people, will you be so obliging as to leave off your various occupations for a few minutes only, and listen to the harrowing statement of a father of a family, who is reduced to acknowledge his misfortunes in the public streets? Work, honest work, is all I ask for; and I cannot get it. Why? – I ask, most respectfully, why? Good Christian people, I think it is because I have no friends. Alas! indeed I have no friends. My wife and seven babes are, I am shocked to tell you, without food. Yes, without food. Oh yes, without food. Because we have no friends; I assure you I am right in saying, because we have no friends. Why am I and my wife and my seven babes starving in a land of plenty? Why have I no share in the wholesome necessaries of life, which I see, with my hungry eyes, in butchers’ and bakers’ shops on each side of me? Can anybody give me a reason for this? I think, Good Christian people, nobody can. Must I perish in a land of plenty because I have no work and because I have no friends? I cannot perish in a land of plenty. No, I cannot perish in a land of plenty. Oh no, I cannot perish in a land of plenty. Bear with my importunity, if you please, and listen to my harrowing statement. I am the father of a starving family, and I have got no friends.”

With this neat return to the introductory passage of his speech, the mendicant individual paused; collected the pecuniary tokens of public approval; and walked forward, with a funereal slowness of step, to deliver a second edition of his address in another part of the street.

While I had been looking at this man, I had also been insensibly led to compare myself, as I stood on the pavement, with my oratorical vagrant, as he stood in the roadway. In some important respects, I found, to my own astonishment, that the result of the comparison was not by any means flattering on my side. I might certainly assume, without paying myself any extraordinary compliment, that I was the honester man of the two; also that I was better educated, and a little better clad. But here my superiority ceased. The beggar was far in advance of me in all the outward and visible signs of inward mental comfort which combine to form the appearance of a healthily-constituted man. After perplexing myself for some time in the attempt to discover the reason for the enviably prosperous and contented aspect of this vagabond – which appeared palpably to any sharp observer, through his assumed expression of suffering and despair – I came to the singular conclusion that the secret of his personal advantages over me lay in the very circumstance on which he chiefly relied for awakening the sympathies of the charitable public – the circumstance of his having no friends.

“No friends!” I repeated to myself, as I walked away. “Happily situated vagrant! there is the true cause of your superiority over me – you have no friends! But can the marvellous assertion be true? Can this enviable man really go home and touch up his speech for tomorrow, with the certainty of not being interrupted? I am going home to finish an article, without knowing whether I shall have a clear five minutes to myself all the time I am at work. Can he take his money back to his drawer in broad daylight, and meet nobody by the way who will say to him, ‘Remember our old friendship, and lend me a trifle?’ I have money waiting for me at my publisher’s, and I dare not go and fetch it, except under cover of the night. Is that spoiled child of fortune, from whom I have just separated myself, really and truly never asked to parties and obliged to go to them? He has a button on his coat – I am positively certain I saw it – and is there no human finger and thumb to lay hold of it, and no human tongue to worry him the while? He does not live in the times of the pillory, and he has his ears – the lucky wretch. Have those organs actually enjoyed the indescribable blessedness of freedom from the intrusion of ‘well-meant advice’? Can he write – and has he got no letters to answer? Can he read – and has he no dear friend’s book to get through, whether he likes it or not? No wonder that he looks prosperous and healthy, though he lives in a dingy slum, and that I look peevish and pale, though I reside on gravel, in an airy neighbourhood. Good heavens! does he dare to speak of his misfortunes, when he has no calls to make? Irrational Sybarite! what does he want next, I wonder?”

•   •   •

These are crabbed sentiments. But, perhaps, as it is the fashion, nowadays, to take an inveterately genial view of society in general, my present outbreak of misanthropy may be pardoned, in consideration of its involving a certain accidental originality of expression in relation to social subjects. It is a dreadful thing to say; but it is the sad truth that I have never yet been able to appreciate the advantage of having a large circle of acquaintances, and that I could positively dispense with a great many of my dearest friends.

•   •   •

There is my Boisterous Friend, for instance – an excellent creature, who has been intimate with me from childhood, and who loves me as his brother. I always know when he calls, though my study is at the top of the house. I hear him in the passage the moment the door is opened – he is so hearty; and, like other hearty people, he has such a loud voice. I have told my servant to say that I am engaged, which means simply that I am hard at work. “Dear old boy!” I hear my Boisterous Friend exclaim, with a genial roar, “writing away just as usual – eh, Susan? Lord bless you! he knows me – he knows I don’t want to interrupt him. Upstairs, of course? I know my way. Just for a minute, Susan – just for a minute.” The voice stops, and heavily-shod feet (all boisterous men wear thick boots) ascend the stairs, two at a time. My door is burst open, as if with a battering-ram (no boisterous man ever knocks), and my friend rushes in like a mad bull. “Ha, ha, ha! I’ve caught you,” says the associate of my childhood. “Don’t stop for me, dear old boy; I’m not going to interrupt you (bless my soul, what a lot of writing!) – and you are all right, eh? That’s all I wanted to know. By George, it’s quite refreshing to see you here forming the public mind! No! I won’t sit down; I won’t stop another instant. So glad to have seen you, dear fellow – good-bye.” By this time his affectionate voice has made the room ring again; he has squeezed my hand, in his brotherly way, till my fingers are too sore to hold the pen; and he has put to flight, for the rest of the day, every idea that I had when I sat down to work. And yet (as he would tell me himself) he has not been in the room more than a minute – though he. might well have stopped for hours without doing any additional harm. Could I really dispense with him? I don’t deny that he has known me from the time when I was in short frocks, and that he loves me like a brother. Nevertheless, I could dispense – yes, I could dispense – oh, yes, I could dispense – with my Boisterous Friend.

Again, there is my Domestic Friend, whose time for calling on me is late in the afternoon, when I have wrought through my day’s task; and when a quiet restorative half-hour by myself, over the fire, is precious to me beyond all power of expression. There is my Domestic Friend, who comes to me at such times, and who has no subject of conversation but the maladies of his wife and children. No efforts that I can make to change the subject can get me out of the range of the family sickroom. If I start the weather, I lead to a harrowing narrative of its effect on Mrs. Ricketts, or the Master and Misses Ricketts. If I try politics or literature, my friend apologizes for knowing nothing about any recent events in which ministers or writers are concerned, by telling me how his time has been taken up by illness at home. If I attempt to protect myself by asking him to meet a large party, where the conversation must surely be on general topics, he brings his wife with him (though he told me, when I invited her, that she was unable to stir from her bed), and publicly asks her how she feels at certain intervals; wafting that affectionate question across the table as easily as if he was handing the salt-cellar or passing the bottle. I have given up defending myself against him of late, in sheer despair. I am resigned to my fate. Though not a family man, I know (through the vast array of facts in connection with the subject with which my friend has favoured me) as much about the maladies of young mothers and their children as the doctor himself. Does any other unmedical man know when half a pint of raw brandy may be poured down the throat of a delicate and sensitive woman, without producing the slightest effect on her, except of the restorative kind? I know when it may be done – when it must be done – when, I give you my sacred word of honour, the exhibition of alcohol in large quantities may be the saving of one precious life – ay, sir, and perhaps of two! Possibly it may yet prove a useful addition to my stores of information to know what I know now on such interesting subjects as these. It may be so; but, good Christian people, it is not the less true that I could also dispense with my Domestic Friend.

My Country Friends – I must not forget them – and least of all, my hospitable hostess, Lady Jinkinson, who is in certain respects the type and symbol of my whole circle of rural acquaintance. Lady Jinkinson is the widow of a gallant general officer. She has a charming place in the country. She has also sons who are splendid fellows, and daughters who are charming girls. She has a cultivated taste for literature – so have the charming girls – so have not the splendid fellows. She thinks a little attention to literary men is very becoming in persons of distinction; and she is good enough to ask me to come and stay at her country house, where a room shall be specially reserved for me, and where I can write my “fine things” in perfect quiet, away from London noises and London interruptions. I go to the country house with my work in my portmanteau – work which must be done by a certain time. I find a charming little room made ready for me, opening into my bedroom, and looking out on the lovely garden terrace, and the noble trees in the park beyond. I come down to breakfast in the morning; and after the second cup of tea I get up to return to my writing-room. A chorus of family remonstrances rises instantly. Oh, surely I am not going to begin writing on the very first day. Look at the sun, listen to the birds, feel the sweet air. A drive in the country, after the London smoke, is absolutely necessary – a drive to Shockley Bottom, and a picnic luncheon (so nice!), and back by Grimshawe’s Folly (such a view from the top!), and a call on the way home, at the Abbey, that lovely old house, where the dear Squire has had my last book read aloud to him (only think of that! the very last thing in the world that I could possibly have expected!) by darling Emily and Matilda, who are both dying to know me. Possessed by a (printer’s) devil, I gruffly break through this string of temptations to be idle, and resolutely make my escape.

“Lunch at half-past one,” says Lady Jinkinson, as I retire.

“Pray don’t wait for me,” I answer.

“Lunch at half-past one,” persists Lady Jinkinson, as if she thought I had not heard her.

“And cigars in the billiard-room,” adds one of the splendid fellows.

“And in the greenhouse, too,” continues one of the charming girls, “where your horrid smoking is really of some use.”

I shut the door desperately. The last words I hear are from Lady Jinkinson. “Lunch at half-past one.”

I get into my writing-room, and take the following inventory of the contents:

Table of rare inlaid woods, on which a drop of ink would be downright ruin; silver inkstand of enormous size, holding about a thimbleful of ink; clarified pens in scented papier-mache box; blotting-book lined with crimson watered-silk, full of violet and rose-coloured notepaper with the Jinkinson crest stamped in silver at the top of each leaf; pen-wiper, of glossy new cloth, all ablaze with beads; tortoise-shell paper-knife; also paperweight, exhibiting a view of the Colosseum in rare mosaic; also light-green taper, in ebony candlestick; wax in scented box; matches in scented box; pencil-tray made of fine gold, with a turquoise eruption breaking out all over it: upon the whole, about two hundred pounds’ worth of valuable property, as working materials for me to write with.

I remove every portable article carefully from the inlaid table, look about me for the most worthless thing I can discover to throw over it, in case of ink-splashes; find nothing worthless in the room, except my own summer paletot; take that, accordingly, and make a cloth of it, pull out my battered old writing-case, with my provision of cheap paper, and my inky steel pen in my twopenny holder.

With these materials before me on my paletot (price one guinea), I endeavour to persuade myself, by carefully abstaining from looking about the room, that I am immersed in my customary squalor, and upheld by my natural untidiness.

After a little while, I succeed in the effort, and begin to work.

Birds. The poets are all fond of birds. Can they write, I wonder, when their favourites are singing in chorus close outside their window? I, who only produce prose, find birds a nuisance. Cows also. Has that one particular cow who bellows so very regularly a bereavement to mourn? I think we shall have veal for dinner today; I do think we shall have nice veal and stuffing. But this is not the train of thought I ought to be engaged in. Let me be deaf to these pastoral noises (including the sharpening of the gardener’s scythe on the lawn), and get on with my work.

Tum-dum-tiddy-hidy-dum – tom-tom-tiddy-hiddy-tom – ti-too-tidy-hidy-ti – ti-ti-ti-tum. Yes, yes, that famous tenor bit in the “Trovatore,” played with prodigious fire on the piano in the room below, by one of the charming girls. I like the “Trovatore” (not being, fortunately for myself, a musical critic). Let me lean back in my chair on this balmy morning – writing being now clearly out of the question – and float away placidly on the stream of melody. Brava! Brava! Bravissima! She is going through the whole opera, now in one part of it, and now in another. No, she stops, after only an hour’s practice. A voice calls to her – I hear her ringing laugh in answer; no more piano – silence. Work, work, you must be done! Oh, my ideas, my only stock in trade, mercifully come back to me – or, like the famous Roman, I have lost a day.

Let me see; where was I when the “Trovatore” began? At the following passage apparently, for the sentence is left unfinished:

“The further we enter into this interesting subject, the more light—” What had I got to say about light when the “Trovatore” began? Was it, “flows in upon us”? No; nothing so commonplace as that. I had surely a good long metaphor, and a fine round close to the sentence. “The more light” – shines? beams? bursts? dawns? floods? bathes? quivers? Oh, me! what was the precious next word I had in my head when the “Trovatore” took possession of my poor crazy brains? It is useless to search for it. Strike out “the more light,” and try something else.

“The further we enter into this interesting subject, the more prodigally we find scattered before us the gems of truth which – so seldom ride over to see us now.”

“So seldom ride over to see us now?” Mercy on me, what am I about? Ending my unfortunate sentence by mechanically taking down a few polite words spoken by the melodious voice of one of the charming girls on the garden terrace under my window. What do I hear in a man’s voice? “Regret being so long an absentee, but my schools and my poor—” Oh, a young clerical visitor; I know him by his way of talking. All young clergymen speak alike – who teaches them, I wonder? Let me peep out of window.

I am right. It is a young clergyman – no whiskers, apostolic hair, sickly smile, long frock-coat, a wisp of muslin round his neck, and a canonical black waistcoat with no gap in it for the display of profane linen. The charming girl is respectfully devouring him with her eyes. Are they going to have their morning chat under my window? Evidently they are. This is pleasant. Every word of their small, fluent, ceaseless, sentimental gabble comes into my room. If I ask them to get out of hearing, I am rude. If I go to the window, and announce my presence by a cough, I confuse the charming girl. No help for it but to lay the pen down again, and wait. This is a change for the worse, with a vengeance. The “Trovatore” was something pleasant to listen to; but the reverend gentleman’s opinions on the terrace flowers which he has come to admire, on the last volume of modern poetry which he has borrowed from the charming girl, on the merits of the church system in the Ages of Faith, and on the difficulties he has had to contend with in his Infant-school, are, upon the whole, rather wearisome to listen to. And this is the house that I entered, in the full belief that it would offer me the luxury of perfect quiet to work in! And downstairs sits Lady Jinkinson, firmly believing that she has given me such an opportunity of distinguishing myself with my pen as I have never before enjoyed in all my life! Patience, patience.

Half an hour; three-quarters of an hour. Do I hear him taking his leave? Yes, at last. Pen again; paper again. Where was I?

“The further we enter into this interesting subject, the more prodigally do we find scattered before us the gems of truth, which—”

What was I going to say the gems of truth did, when the young clergyman and the charming girl began their sentimental interview on the terrace? Gone – utterly gone. Strike out the gems of truth, and try another way.

“The further we enter into this interesting subject, the more its vast capabilities—” A knock at the door.

“Yes.”

“Her ladyship wishes me to say, sir, that luncheon is ready.”

“Very well.”

•   •   •

“The further we enter into this interesting subject, the more clearly its vast capabilities display themselves to our view. The mind, indeed, can hardly be pronounced competent—”

A knock at the door.

“Yes.”

“Her ladyship wishes me to remind you, sir, that luncheon is ready.”

“Pray beg Lady Jinkinson not to wait for me.”

•   •   •

“The mind, indeed, can hardly be pronounced competent to survey the extended field of observation—”

A knock at the door.

“Yes.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but her ladyship desires me to say that a friar’s omelet has just come up, which she very much wishes you to taste. And she is afraid it will get cold, unless you will be so good as to come downstairs at once.”

“Say I will come directly.”

•   •   •

“The mind, indeed, can hardly be pronounced competent to survey the extended field of observation, which” – which? – which? – Gone again! What else could I expect? A nice chance literature has in this house against luncheon.

I descend to the dining-room, and am politely told that I look as if I had just achieved a wonderful morning’s work. “I dare say you have not written in such perfect quiet as this for months past?” says Lady Jinkinson, helping me to the friar’s omelet. I begin with that dainty; where I end is more than my recollection enables me to say. Everybody feeds me, under the impression that I am exhausted with writing. All the splendid fellows will drink wine with me, “to set me going again.” Nobody believes my rueful assertion that I have done nothing, which they ascribe to excessive modesty. When we rise from table (a process which is performed with extreme difficulty, speaking for myself), I am told that the carriage will be ready in an hour. Lady Jinkinson will not hear of any objections. “No! No!” she says. “I have not asked you here to overwork yourself. I really can’t allow that.”

I get back to my room with an extraordinary tightness in my waistcoat, and with slight symptoms of a determination of sherry to the head. Under these circumstances, returning to work immediately is not to be thought of. Returning to bed is by far the wiser proceeding. I lie down to arrange my ideas. Having none to arrange, I yield to nature, and go to sleep.

When I wake, my head is clear again. I see my way now to the end of that bit about “the extended field of observation,” and make for my table in high spirits. Just as I sit down comes another knock at the door. The carriage is ready. The carriage! I had forgotten all about it. There is no way of escape, however. Hours must give way to me when I am at home; I must give way to hours when I am at Lady Jinkinson’s. My papers are soon shuffled together in my case, and I am once more united with the hospitable party downstairs. “More bright ideas?” cry the ladies, interrogatively, as I take my place in the carriage. “Not the dimmest vestige of one,” I answer. Lady Jinkinson shakes her parasol reproachfully at me. “My dear friend, you were always absurdly modest when speaking of yourself; and, do you know, I think it grows on you.”

We get back in time to dress for dinner. After dinner there is the social evening and more “Trovatore.” After that, cigars with the splendid fellows in the billiard-room. I look over my day’s work, with the calmness of despair, when I get to bed at last. It amounts to four sentences and a half, every line of which is perfectly worthless as a literary composition.

The next morning I rise before the rest of the family are up, leave a note of apology on my table, and take the early train for London. This is very ungrateful behaviour to people who have treated me with extreme kindness. But here, again, I must confess the hard truth. The demands of my business in life are imperative; and, sad to say, they absolutely oblige me to dispense with Lady Jinkinson.

•   •   •

I have now been confessing my misanthropical sentiments at some length, but I have not by any means done yet with the number of my dear friends whom I could dispense with. To say nothing of my friend who borrows money of me (an obvious nuisance), there is my self-satisfied friend, who can talk of nothing but himself, and his successes in life; there is my inattentive friend, who is perpetually asking me irrelevant questions, and who has no power of listening to my answers; there is my accidental friend, whom I always meet when I go out; there is my hospitable friend, who is continually telling me that he wants so much to ask me to dinner, and who never does really ask me by any chance. All these intimate associates of mine are persons of fundamentally irreproachable characters, and of well-defined positions in the world; and yet so unhappily is my nature constituted, that I am not exaggerating when I acknowledge that I could positively dispense with every one of them. To proceed a little further, now that I have begun to unburden my mind—

A double knock at the street door stops my pen suddenly. I make no complaint, for I have been, to my own amazement, filling these pages for the last three hours, in my parlour after dinner, without interruption. A well known voice in the passage smites my ear, inquiring for me on very particular business, and asking the servant to take in the name. The servant appears at my door, and I make up my mind to send these leaves to the printer, unfinished as they are. No necessity, Susan, to mention the name; I have recognised the voice. This is my friend who does not at all like the state of my health. He comes, I know beforehand, with the address of a new doctor, or the recipe of a new remedy; and he will stay for hours, persuading me that I am in a bad way. No escaping from him, as I know by experience. Well, well, I have made my confession, and eased my mind. Let my friend who doesn’t like the state of my health end the list, for the present, of the dear friends whom I could dispense with. Show him in, Susan – show him in.

Household Words 16 Jan 1858

MRS. BULLWINKLE

Ladies and gentlemen. Give me five minutes’ sympathy and attention. I have something serious to say to you.

I am a married man, with an income which is too miserably limited to be worth mentioning.

About a month since, my wife advanced me one step nearer to the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors, by presenting me with another child. On five previous occasions her name had appeared in the List of British Mothers which adorns the daily Supplement of the Times newspaper. At each of these trying periods (I speak entirely of myself when I use the word “trying”) she was attended by the same monthly nurse. On this last, and sixth, occasion we were not so fortunate as to secure the services of our regular functionary. She was already engaged; and a new nurse, with excellent recommendations, was therefore employed in her stead. When I first heard of her, and was told that her name was Mrs. Bullwinkle, I laughed. It was then the beginning of the month. It is now the end of it, and I write down that once comical name with a settled gravity which nothing can disturb.

We all know Mrs. Gamp. My late monthly nurse is the exact antipodes of her. Mrs. Bullwinkle is tall and dignified; her complexion is fair; her Grecian nose is innocent of all convivial colouring; her figure is not more than agreeably plump; her manners are icily composed; her dress is quiet and neat; her age cannot be more than five-and-thirty; her style of conversation, when she talks, is flowing and grammatical – upon the whole, she appears to be a woman who is much too ladylike for her station in life. When I first met Mrs. Bullwinkle on the stairs, I felt inclined to apologize for my wife’s presumption in engaging her services. Though I checked this absurd impulse, I could not resist answering the new nurse’s magnificent courtesy by expressing a polite hope that she would find her situation everything that she could wish, under my roof.

“I am not accustomed to exact much, sir,” said Mrs. Bullwinkle. “The cook seems, I am rejoiced to say, to be an intelligent and attentive person. I have been giving her some little hints on the subject of my meals. I have ventured to tell her that I eat little and often; and I think she thoroughly understands me.”

I am ashamed to say I was not so sharp as the cook. I did not thoroughly understand Mrs. Bullwinkle until it became my duty, through my wife’s inability to manage our domestic business, to settle the weekly bills. I then became sensible of an alarming increase in our household expenditure. If I had given two dinner-parties in the course of the week, the bills could not have been more exorbitant: the butcher, the baker, and the grocer could not have taken me at a heavier pecuniary disadvantage. My heart sank as I thought of my miserable income. I looked up piteously from the bills to the cook for an explanation.

The cook looked back at me compassionately, shook her head, and said:

“Mrs. Bullwinkle.”

I reckoned up additional joints, additional chops, additional steaks, fillets, kidneys, gravy beef. I told off a terrible supplement to the usual family consumption of bread, flour, tea, sugar, and alcoholic liquids. I appealed to the cook again; and again the cook shook her head, and said:

“Mrs. Bullwinkle.”

My miserable income obliges me to look after sixpences as other men look after five-pound notes. Ruin sat immovable on the pile of weekly bills, and stared me sternly in the face. I went up into my wife’s room. The new nurse was not there. The unhappy partner of my pecuniary embarrassments was reading a novel. My innocent infant was smiling in his sleep. I had taken the bills with me. Ruin followed them upstairs, and sat spectral on one side of the bed, while I sat on the other.

“Don’t be alarmed, love,” I said, “if you hear the police in the house. Mrs. Bullwinkle has a large family, and feeds them all out of our provisions. A search shall be instituted, and slumbering Justice shall be aroused. Look at these joints, these chops, these steaks, these fillets, these kidneys, these gravy beefs!”

My wife shook her head, exactly as the cook had shaken hers; and answered, precisely as the cook had answered:

“Mrs. Bullwinkle.”

“But where does she hide it all?” I exclaimed.

My wife shut her eyes and shuddered.

“John!” she said, “I have privately consulted the doctor; and the doctor says Mrs. Bullwinkle is a cow.”

“If the doctor had to pay these bills,” I retorted, savagely, “he would not be quite so free with his jokes.”

“He is in earnest, dear. He explained to me, what I never knew before, that a cow is an animal with many stomachs—”

“What!” I cried out, in amazement; “do you mean to tell me that all these joints, these chops, these steaks, these fillets, these kidneys, these gravy beefs – these loaves, these muffins, these mixed biscuits – these teas, these sugars, these brandies, gins, sherries, and beers have disappeared in one week down Mrs. Bullwinkle’s throat?”

“All, John,” said my wife, sinking back on the pillow with a groan.

It was impossible to look at the bills and believe it. I questioned and cross-questioned my wife, and still elicited nothing but the one bewildering answer: “All, John.” Determined – for I am a man of a logical and judicial mind – to have this extraordinary and alarming case properly investigated, I took out my pocketbook and pencil, and asked my wife if she felt strong enough to make a few private entries for my satisfaction. Finding that she willingly accepted the responsibility, I directed her to take down, from her own personal investigation, a statement of Mrs. Bullwinkle’s meals, and of the time at which she partook of each of them, for twenty-four hours, beginning with one morning and ending with another. After making this arrangement, I descended to the parlour, and took the necessary business measures for using the cook as a check upon her mistress. Having carefully instructed her to enter on the kitchen slate everything that was sent up to Mrs. Bullwinkle for twenty-four hours, I felt that my machinery for investigating the truth was now complete. If the statement of the mistress, in bed on the second floor, agreed with the statement of the cook, in the distant sphere of the kitchen, there could be no doubt that I had obtained reliable information on the mysterious subject of Mrs. Bullwinkle’s meals.

In due time the two reports were sent in, and I had an opportunity of understanding at last what “eating little and often” really meant, in the case of my wife’s monthly nurse. Except in one particular, to be hereafter adverted to, both statements agreed exactly. Here is the list, accompanied by a correct timetable, of Mrs. Bullwinkle’s meals, beginning with the morning of Monday and ending with the morning of Tuesday. I certify, on my honour as a British husband and housekeeper, that the copy is correctly taken from my wife’s entries in my pocketbook, checked impartially by the cook’s slate: [*]

A.M.

7. Breakfast. – Tea, Toast, Half – quartern Loaf, Butter, Eggs, Bacon.

9.30. First Morning Snack. – A glass of pale Sherry, and a plate of Mixed Biscuits.

11. Second Morning Snack. – A basin of Beef-lea, and a tumbler of Brandy-and-water.

P.M.

12.45. Dinner. – A Roast Loin of Mutton and Mashed Potatoes. With Dinner, Ale, spiced and warmed. After Dinner, a tumbler of Hot Gin-and-water.

3. Afternoon Snack. – A glass of pale Sherry, and a plate of Mixed Biscuits.

4.30. Tea and Muffins.

7. Evening Snack. – Stewed Cheese, Toast, and a tumbler of Brandy-and-water.

9. Supper. – Nice juicy Steak, and two glasses of Beer. Second Course. – Stewed Cheese, and a tumbler of Gin-and-water.

[*] NOTE This timetable is no invention of mine. It is accurately copied from an “original document” sent to me by the victim of a monthly nurse.

ADDITIONAL PARTICULARS. (Not vouched for by the cook’s slate.) – During the night of Monday Mrs. Bullwinkle partook, at intervals, of Caudle. At 4.30 A.M., on the morning of Tuesday, my wife was awakened by hearing the nurse walking up and down the room, and sighing bitterly. The following conversation then took place between them:

My Wife. Are you ill?

Mrs. Bullwinkle. No. Hungry.

•   •   •   •   •

I can certify that the above list correctly, and even moderately, represents Mrs. Bullwinkle’s daily bill of fare for one month. I can assert, from my own observation, that every dish, at every hour of the day, which went up to her full, invariably came down from her empty. Mrs. Bullwinkle was not a wasteful eater. She could fully appreciate, in roast meat, for example, the great value of “lean”; but she was not, on that account, insensible to the humbler merits of fat, skin, and “outside.” All – emphatically, all – was fish that came to her net; and the net itself, as I can personally testify, was never once overweighted and never out of order. I have watched, in the case of this perfectly unparalleled human cormorant, for symptoms of apoplexy, or at least of visible repletion, with a dreadful and absorbing interest; and have on no occasion been rewarded by making the smallest discovery. Mrs. Bullwinkle was never, while in my service, even so much as partially intoxicated. Her face was never flushed; her articulation was never thickened; her brain was never confused; her movements were never uncertain. After the breakfast, the two morning snacks, and the dinner – all occurring within the space of six hours – she could move about the room with unimpeded freedom of action; could keep my wife and the baby in a state of the strictest discipline; could courtesy magnificently when the unoffending master, whom she was eating out of house and home, entered the room, preserving her colour, her equilibrium, and her stay-laces, when she sank down and when she swelled up again, without the vestige of an apparent effort. During the month of her devastating residence under my roof, she had two hundred and forty-eight meals, including the snacks; and she went out of the house no larger and no redder than she came in. After the statement of one such fact as that, further comment is superfluous.

I leave this case in the hands of the medical and the married public. I present it, as a problem, to physiological science. I offer it, as a warning, to British husbands with limited incomes. While I write these lines, while I give my married countrymen this friendly caution, my wife is weeping over the tradesmen’s bills; my children are on half-allowance of food; my cook is worked off her legs; my purse is empty. Young husbands, and persons about to marry, commit to memory the description here given of my late monthly nurse! Avoid a tall and dignified woman, with a flowing style of conversation and impressively ladylike manners! Beware, my struggling friends, my fellow-toilers along the heavily-taxed highways of domestic happiness – beware of Mrs. Bullwinkle!

Household Words 17 Apr 1858

NOOKS AND CORNERS
OF HISTORY

A QUEEN’S REVENGE

The name of Gustavus Adolphus, the faithful Protestant, the great general, and the good King of Sweden, has been long since rendered familiar to English readers of history. We all know how this renowned warrior and monarch was beloved by his soldiers and subjects, how successfully he fought through a long and terrible war, and how nobly he died on the field of battle. With his death, however, the interest of the English reader in Swedish affairs seems to terminate. Those who have followed the narrative of his life carefully to the end may remember that he left behind him an only child – a daughter named Christina. But of the character of this child, and of her extraordinary adventures after she grew to womanhood, the public in England is, for the most part, entirely ignorant. In the popular historical and romantic literature of France, Queen Christina is a notorious character. In the literature of this country, she has hitherto been allowed but little chance of making her way to the notice of the world at large.

And yet the life of Christina is in itself a romance. At six years old she was Queen of Sweden, with the famous Oxenstiern for guardian. This great and good man governed the kingdom in her name until she had lived through her minority. Four years after her coronation she, of her own accord, abdicated her rights in favour of her cousin, Charles Gustavus. Young and beautiful, the most learned and most accomplished woman of her time, she resolutely turned her back on the throne of her inheritance, and set forth to wander through civilized Europe in the character of an independent traveller, who was resolved to see all varieties of men and manners, to collect all the knowledge which the widest experience could give her, and to measure her mind boldly against the greatest minds of the age.

So far, the interest excited by her character and her adventures is of the most picturesquely attractive kind. There is something strikingly new in the spectacle of a young queen who prefers the pursuit of knowledge to the possession of a throne, and who barters a royal birthright for the privilege of being free. Unhappily, the portrait of Christina cannot be painted throughout in bright colours only. It must be recorded to her disgrace that, when her travels brought her to Rome, she abandoned the religion for which her father fought and died. And it must be admitted in the interests of truth that she freed herself from other restraints besides the restraint of royalty. Mentally distinguished by her capacities, she was morally degraded by her vices and her crimes.

The events in the strange life of Christina – especially those connected with her actions in the character of a Queen-Errant – present ample materials for a biography, which might be regarded in England as a new contribution to our historical literature. One among the many extraordinary adventures which marked the Queen’s wandering career may be related in these pages as an episode in the history of her life which is complete in itself. The events of which the narrative is composed throw light, in many ways, on the manners, habits, and opinions of a past age; and they can, moreover, be presented in the remarkable words of an eyewitness who beheld them two centuries ago.

•   •   •

The scene is the Palace of Fontainebleau, the time is the close of the year sixteen hundred and fifty-seven, the persons are the wandering Queen Christina; her grand equerry, the Marquis Monaldeschi; and Father Le Bel, of the Convent of Fontainebleau, the witness whose testimony we are shortly about to cite.

Monaldeschi, as his name implies, was an Italian by birth. He was a handsome, accomplished man, refined in his manners, supple in his disposition, and possessed of the art of making himself eminently agreeable in the society of women. With these personal recommendations, he soon won his way to the favour of Queen Christina. Out of the long list of her lovers, not one of the many whom she encouraged caught so long and firm a hold of her capricious fancy as Monaldeschi. The intimacy between them probably took its rise, on her side at least, in as deep a sincerity of affection as it was in Christina’s nature to feel. On the side of the Italian, the connection was prompted solely by ambition. As soon as he had reaped all the advantages of the position of chief favourite in the Queen’s court, he wearied of his royal mistress, and addressed his attentions secretly to a young Roman lady, whose youth and beauty powerfully attracted him, and whose fatal influence over his actions ultimately led to his ruin and his death.

After endeavouring to ingratiate himself with the Roman lady in various ways, Monaldeschi found that the surest means of winning her favour lay in satisfying her malicious curiosity on the subject of the secret frailties of Queen Christina. He was not a man to be troubled by any scrupulous feelings of honour when the interests of his own intrigues happened to be concerned, and he shamelessly took advantage of the position that he held toward Christina, to commit breaches of confidence of the most meanly infamous kind. Not contented with placing in the possession of the Roman lady the series of the Queen’s letters to himself, containing secrets that she had revealed to him in the fullest confidence of his worthiness to be trusted, he wrote letters of his own to the new object of his addresses, in which he ridiculed Christina’s fondness for him, and sarcastically described her smallest personal defects with a heartless effrontery which the most patient of women would have found it impossible to forgive. While he was thus privately betraying the confidence that had been reposed in him, he was publicly affecting the most unalterable attachment and the most sincere respect for the Queen.

For some time this disgraceful deception proceeded successfully. But the hour of discovery was at hand, and the instrument of effecting it was a certain cardinal who was desirous of supplanting Monaldeschi in the Queen’s favour. The priest contrived to get possession of the whole correspondence, which had been privately confided to the Roman lady, including, besides Christina’s letters, the letters which Monaldeschi had written in ridicule of his royal mistress. The whole collection of documents was enclosed by the cardinal in one packet, and was presented by him, at a private audience, to the Queen.

It is at this critical point of the story that the testimony of the eyewitness whom we propose to quote begins. Father Le Bel was present at the terrible execution of the Queen’s vengeance on Monaldeschi, and was furnished with copies of the whole correspondence, which had been abstracted from the possession of the Roman lady. Having been trusted with the secret, he is wisely and honourably silent throughout his narrative on the subject of Monaldeschi’s offence. Such particulars of the Italian’s baseness and ingratitude as have been presented here have been gathered from the contradictory reports which were current at the time, and which have been preserved by the old French collectors of historical anecdotes. The details of the extraordinary punishment of Monaldeschi’s offence, which are now to follow, may be given in the words of Father Le Bel himself. The reader will understand that his narrative begins immediately after Christina’s discovery of the perfidy of her favourite.

•   •   •

The sixth of November, sixteen hundred and fifty-seven (writes Father Le Bel), at a quarter past nine in the morning, Queen Christina of Sweden, being at that time lodged in the Royal Palace of Fontainebleau, sent one of her men-servants to my convent, to obtain an interview with me. The messenger, on being admitted to my presence, inquired if I was the superior of the convent, and, when I replied in the affirmative, informed me that I was expected to present myself immediately before the Queen of Sweden.

Fearful of keeping her Majesty waiting, I followed the man at once to the palace, without waiting to take any of my brethren from the convent with me.

After a little delay in the antechamber, I was shown into the Queen’s room. She was alone; and I saw, by the expression of her face, as I respectfully begged to be favoured with her commands, that something was wrong. She hesitated for a moment; then told me, rather sharply, to follow her to a place where she might speak with the certainty of not being overheard. She led me into the Galerie des Cerfs, and, turning round on me suddenly, asked if we had ever met before. I informed her Majesty that I had once had the honour of presenting my respects to her; that she had received me graciously, and that there the interview had ended. She nodded her head and looked about her a little; then said, very abruptly, that I wore a dress (referring to my convent costume) which encouraged her to put perfect faith in my honour; and she desired me to promise beforehand that I would keep the secret with which she was about to entrust me as strictly as if I had heard it in the confessional. I answered respectfully that it was part of my sacred profession to be trusted with secrets; that I had never betrayed the private affairs of any one; and that I could answer for myself as worthy to be honoured by the confidence of a queen.

Upon this, her Majesty handed me a packet of papers sealed in three places, but having no superscription of any sort. She ordered me to keep it under lock and key, and to be prepared to give it her back again before any person in whose presence she might see fit to ask me for it. She further charged me to remember the day, the hour, and the place in which she had given me the packet; and with that last piece of advice she dismissed me. I left her alone in the gallery, walking slowly away from me, with her head drooping on her bosom, and her mind, as well as I could presume to judge, perturbed by anxious thoughts.[*]

[*] FOOTNOTE Although Father Le Bel discreetly abstains from mentioning the fact, it seems clear, from the context, that he was permitted to read, and that he did read, the papers contained in the packet.

On Saturday, the tenth of November, at one o’clock in the afternoon, I was sent for to the palace again. I took the packet out of my private cabinet, feeling that I might be asked for it, and then followed the messenger as before. This time he led me at once to the Galerie des Cerfs. The moment I entered it, he shut the door behind me with such extraordinary haste and violence that I felt a little startled. As soon as I recovered myself, I saw her Majesty standing in the middle of the gallery, talking to one of the gentlemen of her court, who was generally known by the name of The Marquis, and whom I soon ascertained to be the Marquis Monaldeschi, Grand Equerry of the Queen of Sweden. I approached her Majesty and made my bow, then stood before her, waiting until she should think proper to address me.

With a stern look on her face, and with a loud, clear, steady voice, she asked me, before the Marquis, and before three other men who were also in the gallery, for the packet which she had confided to my care.

As she made that demand, two of the three men moved back a few paces, while the third, the captain of her guard, advanced rather nearer to her. I handed her back the packet. She looked at it thoughtfully for a little while, then opened it and took out the letters and written papers which it contained, handed them to the Marquis Monaldeschi, and insisted on his reading them. When he had obeyed, she asked him, with the same stern look and the same steady voice, whether he had any knowledge of the documents which he had just been reading. The Marquis turned deadly pale, and answered that he had now read the papers referred to for the first time.

“Do you deny all knowledge of them?” said the Queen. “Answer me plainly, sir. Yes or No?”

The Marquis turned paler still. “I deny all knowledge of them,” he said, in faint tones, with his eyes on the ground.

“Do you deny all knowledge of these, too?” said the Queen, suddenly producing a second packet of manuscript from under her dress, and thrusting it in the Marquis’s face.

He started, drew back a little, and answered not a word. The packet which the Queen had given to me contained copies only. The original papers were those which she had just thrust in the Marquis’s face.

“Do you deny your own seal and your own handwriting?” she asked.

He murmured a few words, acknowledging both the seal and the handwriting to be his own, and added some phrases of excuse, in which he endeavoured to cast the blame that attached to the writing of the letters on the shoulders of other persons. While he was speaking, the three men in attendance on the Queen silently closed round him.

Her Majesty heard him to the end. “You are a traitor,” she said, and turned her back on him.

The three men, as she spoke those words, drew their swords.

The Marquis heard the clash of the blades against the scabbards, and, looking quickly round, saw the drawn swords behind him. He caught the Queen by the arm immediately, and drew her away with him, first into one corner of the gallery, then into another, entreating her in the most moving terms to listen to him, and to believe in the sincerity of his repentance. The Queen let him go on talking without showing the least sign of anger or impatience. Her colour never changed; the stern look never left her countenance. There was something awful in the clear, cold, deadly resolution which her eyes expressed while they rested on the Marquis’s face.

At last she shook herself free from his grasp, still without betraying the slightest irritation. The three men with the drawn swords, who had followed the Marquis silently as he led the Queen from corner to corner of the gallery, now closed round him again, as soon as he was left standing alone. There was perfect silence for a minute or more. Then the Queen addressed herself to me.

“Father Le Bel,” she said, “I charge you to bear witness that I treat this man with the strictest impartiality.” She pointed, while she spoke, to the Marquis Monaldeschi with a little ebony riding-whip that she carried in her hand. “I offer that worthless traitor all the time he requires – more time than he has any right to ask for – to justify himself if he can.”

The Marquis, hearing these words, took some letters from a place of concealment in his dress, and gave them to the Queen, along with a small bunch of keys. He snatched these last from his pocket so quickly, that he drew out with them a few small silver coins which fell to the floor. As he addressed himself to the Queen again, she made a sign with her ebony riding-whip to the men with the drawn swords, and they retired toward one of the windows of the gallery. I, on my side, withdrew out of hearing. The conference which ensued between the Queen and the Marquis lasted nearly an hour. When it was over, her Majesty beckoned the men back again with the whip, and then approached the place where I was standing.

“Father Le Bel,” she said, in her clear, ringing, resolute tones, “there is no need for me to remain here any longer. I leave that man,” she pointed to the Marquis again, “to your care. Do all that you can for the good of his soul. He has failed to justify himself, and I doom him to die.”

If I had heard sentence pronounced against myself, I could hardly have been more terrified than I was when the Queen uttered those last words. The Marquis heard them where he was standing, and flung himself at her feet. I dropped on my knees by his side, and entreated her to pardon him, or at least to visit his offence with some milder punishment than the punishment of death.

“I have said the words,” she answered, addressing herself only to me; “and no power under heaven shall make me unsay them. Many a man has been broken alive on the wheel for offences which were innocence itself, compared with the offence which this perjured traitor has committed against me. I have trusted him as I might have trusted a brother; he has infamously betrayed that trust, and I exercise my royal rights over the life of a traitor. Say no more to me. I tell you again, he is doomed to die.”

With those words the Queen quitted the gallery, and left me alone with Monaldeschi and the three executioners who were waiting to kill him.

The unhappy man dropped on his knees at my feet, imploring me to follow the Queen and make one more effort to obtain his pardon. Before I could answer a word, the three men surrounded him, held the points of their swords to his sides – without, however, actually touching him – and angrily recommended him to make his confession to me without wasting any more time. I entreated them, with the tears in my eyes, to wait as long as they could, so as to give the Queen time to reflect, and perhaps to falter in her deadly intentions toward the Marquis. I succeeded in producing such an impression on the chief of the three men that he left us to obtain an interview with the Queen, and to ascertain if there was any change in her purpose. After a very short absence he came back, shaking his head.

“There is no hope for you,” he said, addressing Monaldeschi. “Make your peace with Heaven. Prepare yourself to die!”

“Go to the Queen!” cried the Marquis, kneeling before me with clasped hands. “Go to the Queen yourself; make one more effort to save me! Oh, Father Le Bel, run one more risk – venture one last entreaty – before you leave me to die!”

“Will you wait till I come back?” I said to the three men.

“We will wait,” they answered, and lowered their swordpoints to the ground.

I found the Queen alone in her room, without the slightest appearance of agitation in her face or her manner. Nothing that I could say had the slightest effect on her. I adjured her by all that religion holds most sacred to remember that the noblest privilege of any sovereign is the privilege of granting mercy; that the first of Christian duties is the duty of forgiving. She heard me unmoved. Seeing that entreaties were thrown away, I ventured, at my own proper hazard, on reminding her that she was not living now in her own kingdom of Sweden, but that she was the guest of the King of France, and lodged in one of his own palaces; and I boldly asked her if she had calculated the possible consequences of authorizing the killing of one of her attendants inside the walls of Fontainebleau, without any preliminary form of trial, or any official notification of the offence that he had committed. She answered me coldly, that it was enough that she knew the unpardonable nature of the offence of which Monaldeschi had been guilty; that she stood in a perfectly independent position toward the King of France; that she was absolute mistress of her own actions, at all times and in all places; and that she was accountable to nobody under Heaven for her conduct toward her subjects and servants, over whose lives and liberties she possessed sovereign rights, which no consideration whatever should induce her to resign.

Fearful as I was of irritating her, I still ventured on reiterating my remonstrances. She cut them short by hastily signing to me to leave her.

As she dismissed me, I thought I saw a slight change pass over her face; and it occurred to me that she might not have been indisposed at that moment to grant some respite, if she could have done so without appearing to falter in her resolution, and without running the risk of letting Monaldeschi escape her. Before I passed the door, I attempted to take advantage of the disposition to relent which I fancied I had perceived in her; but she angrily reiterated the gesture of dismissal before I had spoken half a dozen words. With a heavy heart, I yielded to necessity, and left her.

On returning to the gallery, I found the three men standing round the Marquis, with their swordpoints on the floor, exactly as I had left them.

“Is he to live or to die?” they asked when I came in.

There was no need for me to reply in words; my face answered the question. The Marquis groaned heavily, but said nothing. I sat myself down on a stool, and beckoned to him to come to me, and begged him, as well as my terror and wretchedness would let me, to think of repentance, and to prepare for another world. He began his confession kneeling at my feet, with his head on my knees. After continuing it for some time, he suddenly started to his feet with a scream of terror. I contrived to quiet him, and to fix his thoughts again on heavenly things. He completed his confession, speaking sometimes in Latin, sometimes in French, sometimes in Italian, according as he could best explain himself in the agitation which now possessed him.

Just as he had concluded, the Queen’s chaplain entered the gallery. Without waiting to receive absolution, the unhappy Marquis rushed away from me to the chaplain, and, still clinging desperately to the hope of life, besought him to intercede with the Queen. The two talked together in low tones, holding each other by the hand. When their conference was over, the chaplain left the gallery again, taking with him the chief of the three executioners who were appointed to carry out the Queen’s deadly purpose. After a short absence, this man returned without the chaplain. “Get your absolution,” he said briefly to the Marquis, “and make up your mind to die.”

Saying these words, he seized Monaldeschi, pressed him back against the wall at the end of the gallery, just under the picture of Saint Germain, and, before I could interfere, or even turn aside from the sight, struck at the Marquis’s right side with his sword. Monaldeschi caught the blade with his hand, cutting three of his fingers in the act. At the same moment the point touched his side and glanced off. Upon this, the man who had struck at him exclaimed, “He has armour under his clothes!” and at the same moment stabbed Monaldeschi in the face. As he received the wound, he turned round toward me, and cried out loudly, “Father Le Bel! Father Le Bel!”

I advanced toward him immediately. As I did so, the man who had wounded him retired a little, and signed to his two companions to withdraw also. The Marquis, with one knee on the ground, asked pardon of God, and said certain last words in my ear. I immediately gave him absolution, telling him that he must atone for his sins by suffering death, and that he must pardon those who were about to kill him. Having heard my words, he flung himself forward on the floor. While he was falling, one of the three executioners, who had not assailed him as yet, struck at his head, and wounded him on the surface of the skull.

The Marquis sank on his face; then raised himself a little, and signed to the men to kill him outright by striking him on the neck. The same man who had last wounded him obeyed by cutting two or three times at his neck, without, however, doing him any great injury. For it was indeed true that he wore armour under his clothes, which armour consisted of a shirt of mail weighing nine or ten pounds, and rising so high round his neck, inside his collar, as to defend it successfully from any chance blow with a sword.

Seeing this, I came forward to exhort the Marquis to bear his sufferings with patience, for the remission of his sins. While I was speaking, the chief of the three executioners advanced, and asked me if I did not think it was time to give Monaldeschi the finishing stroke. I pushed the man violently away from me, saying that I had no advice to offer on the matter, and telling him that, if I had any orders to give, they would be for the sparing of the Marquis’s life, and not for the hastening of his death. Hearing me speak in those terms, the man asked my pardon, and confessed that he had done wrong in addressing me on the subject at all.

He had hardly finished making his excuse to me, when the door of the gallery opened. The unhappy Marquis hearing the sound, raised himself from the floor, and, seeing that the person who entered was the Queen’s chaplain, dragged himself along the gallery, holding on by the tapestry that hung from the walls, until he reached the feet of the holy man. There he whispered a few words (as if he was confessing) to the chaplain, who, after first asking my permission, gave him absolution, and then returned to the Queen.

As the chaplain closed the door, the man who had struck the Marqius on the neck stabbed him adroitly with a long, narrow sword in the throat just above the edge of the shirt of mail. Monaldeschi sank on his right side, and spoke no more. For a quarter of an hour longer he still breathed, during which time I prayed by him, and exhorted him as I best could. When the bleeding from this last wound ceased, his life ceased with it. It was then a quarter to four o’clock. The death-agony of the miserable man had lasted, from the time of the Queen’s first pronouncing sentence on him, for nearly three hours.

I said the De Profundis over his body. While I was praying, the three executioners sheathed their swords, and the chief of them rifled the Marquis’s pockets. Finding nothing on him but a prayer-book and a small knife, the chief beckoned to his companions, and they all three marched to the door in silence, went out, and left me alone with the corpse.

A few minutes afterward I followed them, to go and report what had happened to the Queen.

I thought her colour changed a little when I told her that Monaldeschi was dead; but those cold, clear eyes of hers never softened, and her voice was still as steady and firm as when I first heard its tones on entering the gallery that day. She spoke very little, only saying to herself, “He is dead, and he deserved to die!” Then, turning to me, she added, “Father, I leave the care of burying him to you; and, for my own part, I will charge myself with the expense of having masses enough said for the repose of his soul.’’ I ordered the body to be placed in a coffin, which I instructed the bearers to remove to the churchyard on a tumbril, in consequence of the great weight of the corpse, of the misty rain that was falling, and of the bad state of the roads. On Monday, the twelfth of November, at a quarter to six in the evening, the Marquis was buried in the parish church of Avon, near the font of holy water. The next day the Queen sent one hundred livres, by two of her servants, for masses for the repose of his soul.

•   •   •

Thus ends the extraordinary narrative of Father Le Bel. It is satisfactory to record, as some evidence of the progress of humanity, that this barbarous murder, which would have passed unnoticed in the feudal times, as an ordinary and legitimate exercise of a sovereign’s authority over a vassal, excited, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the utmost disgust and horror throughout Paris. The prime minister at that period, Cardinal Mazarin (by no means an over-scrupulous man, as all readers of French history know), wrote officially to Christina, informing her that “a crime so atrocious as that which had just been committed under her sanction, in the Palace of Fontainebleau, must be considered as a sufficient cause for banishing the Queen of Sweden from the court and dominions of his sovereign, who, in common with every honest man in the kingdom, felt horrified at the lawless outrage which had just been committed on the soil of France.”

To this letter Queen Christina sent the following answer, which, as a specimen of spiteful effrontery, has probably never been matched:

Monsieur Mazarin – Those who have communicated to you the details of the death of my equerry, Monaldeschi, knew nothing at all about it. I think it highly absurd that you should have compromised so many people for the sake of informing yourself about one simple fact. Such a proceeding on your part, ridiculous as it is, does not, however, much astonish me. What I am amazed at is, that you and the king your master should have dared to express disapproval of what I have done.

Understand, all of you – servants and masters, little people and great – that it was my sovereign pleasure to act as I did. I neither owe nor render an account of my actions to any one – least of all, to a bully, like you.

— — — —

It may be well for you to know, and to report to any one whom you can get to listen to you, that Christina cares little for your court, and less still for you. When I want to revenge myself, I have no need of your formidable power to help me. My honour obliged me to act as I did; my will is my law, and you ought to know how to respect it.… Understand, if you please, that wherever I choose to live, there I am Queen; and that the men about me, rascals as they may be, are better than you and the ragamuffins whom you keep in your service.

— — — —

Take my advice, Mazarin, and behave yourself for the future so as to merit my favour; you cannot, for your own sake, be too anxious to deserve it. Heaven preserve you from venturing on any more disparaging remarks about my conduct! I shall hear of them, if I am at the other end of the world; for I have friends and followers in my service who are as unscrupulous and as vigilant as any in yours, though it is probable enough that they are not quite so heavily bribed.

•   •   •

After replying to the prime minister of France in those terms, Christina was wise enough to leave the kingdom immediately.

For three years more she pursued her travels. At the expiration of that time, her cousin, the King of Sweden, in whose favour she had abdicated, died. She returned at once to her own country, with the object of possessing herself once more of the royal power. Here the punishment of the merciless crime that she had sanctioned overtook her at last. The brave and honest people of Sweden refused to be governed by the woman who had ordered the murder of Monaldeschi, and who had forsaken the national religion for which her father died. Threatened with the loss of her revenues as well as the loss of her sovereignty, if she remained in Sweden, the proud and merciless Christina yielded for the first time in her life. She resigned once more all right and title to the royal dignity, and left her native country for the last time. The final place of her retirement was Rome. She died there in the year sixteen hundred and eighty-nine. Even in the epitaph which she ordered to be placed on her tomb, the strange and daring character of the woman breaks out. The whole record of that wild and wicked existence was summed up with stern brevity in this one line:

CHRISTINA LIVED
SEVENTY-TWO YEARS.

Household Words 15 Aug 1857

THE GREAT
(FORGOTTEN)
INVASION

PREAMBLE

It happened some sixty years ago; it was a French invasion; and it actually took place in England. Thousands of people are alive at the present moment who ought to remember it perfectly well. And yet it has been forgotten. In these times, when the French invasion that may come turns up perpetually, in public and in private, as a subject of discussion, the French invasion that did come is not honoured with so much as a passing word of notice. The new generation knows nothing about it. The old generation has carelessly forgotten it. This is discreditable, and it must be set right; this is a dangerous security, and it must be disturbed; this is a gap in the Modern History of England, and it must be filled up.

Fathers and mothers, read and be reminded; British youths and maidens, read and be informed. Here follows the true history of the great forgotten Invasion of England, at the end of the last century; divided into scenes and periods, and carefully derived from proved and written facts recorded in Kelly’s History of the Wars:

I

AS SEEN FROM ILFRACOMBE

On the twenty-second day of February, in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-seven, the inhabitants of North Devonshire looked toward the Bristol Channel, and saw the French invasion coming on, in four ships.

The Directory of the French Republic had been threatening these islands some time previously; but much talk and little action having characterized the proceedings of that governing body in most other matters, no great apprehension was felt of their really carrying out their expressed intention in relation to this country. The war between the two nations was, at this time, confined to naval operations, in which the English invariably got the better of the French. North Devonshire (as well as the rest of England) was aware of this, and trusted implicitly in our supremacy of the seas. North Devonshire got up on the morning of the twenty-second of February, without a thought of the invasion; North Devonshire looked out toward the Bristol Channel, and there – in spite of our supremacy of the seas – there the invasion was, as large as life.

Of the four ships which the Directory had sent to conquer England, two were frigates and two were smaller vessels. This formidable fleet sailed along, in view of a whole panic-stricken, defenceless coast; and the place at which it seemed inclined to try the invading experiment first was Ilfracombe. The commander of the expedition brought his ships up before the harbour, scuttled a few coasting-vessels, prepared to destroy the rest, thought better of it, and suddenly turned his four warlike sterns on North Devonshire in the most unaccountable manner. History is silent as to the cause of this abrupt and singular change of purpose. Did the chief of the invaders act from sheer indecision? Did he distrust the hotel accommodation at Ilfracombe? Had he heard of the clotted cream of Devonshire, and did he apprehend the bilious disorganisation of the whole army, if they once got within reach of that luscious delicacy? These are important questions, but no satisfactory answer can be found to them. The motives which animated the commander of the invading Frenchmen are buried in oblivion; the fact alone remains, that he spared Ilfracombe. The last that was seen of him from North Devonshire, he was sailing over ruthlessly to the devoted coast of Wales.

II

OF THE FRENCH INVASION
AS SEEN BY WELSHMEN IN GENERAL

In one respect it may be said that Wales was favoured by comparison with North Devonshire. The great fact of the French invasion had burst suddenly on Ilfracombe, but it only dawned in a gradual manner on the coast of Pembrokeshire. In the course of his cruise across the Bristol Channel, it had apparently occurred to the commander of the expedition that a little diplomatic deception at the outset might prove to be of ultimate advantage to him. He decided, therefore, on concealing his true character from the eyes of the Welshmen; and when his four ships were first made out from the heights above Saint Bride’s Bay, they were all sailing under British colours.

There are men in Wales, as in the rest of the world, whom it is impossible to satisfy; and there were spectators on the heights of Saint Bride’s who were not satisfied with the British colours on this occasion, because they felt doubtful about the ships that bore them. To the eyes of these sceptics all four vessels had an unpleasantly French look, and maneuvered in an unpleasantly French manner. Wise Welshmen along the coast collected together by twos and threes, and sat down on the heights, and looked out to sea, and shook their heads, and suspected. But the majority, as usual, saw nothing extraordinary where nothing extraordinary appeared to be intended, and the country was not yet alarmed; and the four ships sailed on till they doubled Saint David’s Head, and sailed on again, a few miles to the northward, and then stopped, and came to single anchor in Cardigan Bay.

Here, again, another difficult question occurs, which recalcitrant History once more declines to solve. The Frenchmen had hardly been observed to cast their single anchors in Cardigan Bay before they were also observed to pull them up again and go on. Why? The commander of the expedition had doubted already at Ilfracombe – was he doubting again in Cardigan Bay? Or did he merely want time to mature his plans; and was it a peculiarity of his nature that he always required to come to anchor before he could think at his ease? To this mystery, as to the mystery at Ilfracombe, there is no solution; and here, as there, nothing is certainly known but that the Frenchman paused – threatened – and then sailed on.

III

OF ONE WELSHMAN IN PARTICULAR,
AND OF WHAT HE SAW

He was the only man in Great Britain who saw the invading army land on our native shores, and his name has perished.

It is known that he was a Welshman, and that he belonged to the lower order of the population. He may be still alive – this man, who is connected with a crisis in English History, may be still alive – and nobody has found him out; nobody has taken his photograph; nobody has written a genial biographical notice of him; nobody has made him into an Entertainment; nobody has held a Commemoration of him; nobody has presented him with a testimonial, relieved him by a subscription, or addressed him with a speech. In these enlightened times, this brief record can only single him out and individually distinguish him – as the Hero of the Invasion. Such is Fame.

The Hero of the Invasion, then, was standing, or sitting – for even on this important point tradition is silent – on the cliffs of the Welsh coast, near Lanonda Church, when he saw the four ships enter the bay below him and come to anchor – this time without showing any symptoms of getting under way again. The English colours, under which the expedition had thus far attempted to deceive the population of the coast, were now hauled down, and the threatening flag of France was boldly hoisted in their stead. This done, the boats were lowered away, were filled with a ferocious soldiery, and were pointed straight for the beach.

It is on record that the Hero of the Invasion distinctly saw this; and it is not on record that he ran away. Honour to the unknown brave! Honour to the solitary Welshman who faced the French army!

The boats came on straight to the beach – the ferocious soldiery leaped out on English soil, and swarmed up the cliff, thirsting for the subjugation of the British Isles. The Hero of the Invasion, watching solitary on the cliffs, saw the Frenchmen crawling up below him – tossing their muskets on before them – climbing with the cool calculation of an army of chimney-sweeps – nimble as the monkey, supple as the tiger, stealthy as the cat – hungry for plunder, bloodshed, and Welsh mutton, void of all respect for the British Constitution – an army of Invaders on the Land of the Habeas Corpus!

The Welshman saw that, and vanished. Whether he waited with clinched fist till the head of the foremost Frenchman rose parallel with the cliff-side, or whether he achieved a long start by letting the army get half-way up the cliff, and then retreating inland to give the alarm – is, like every other circumstance in connection with the Hero of the Invasion, a matter of the profoundest doubt. It is only known that he got away at all, because it is not known that he was taken prisoner. He parts with us here, the shadow of a shade, the most impalpable of historical apparitions. Honour, nevertheless, to the crafty brave! Honour to the solitary Welshman who faced the French army without being shot, and retired from the French army without being caught.

IV

OF WHAT THE INVADERS DID WHEN THEY GOT ON SHORE

The Art of Invasion has its routine, its laws, manners, and customs, like other arts. And the French army acted strictly in accordance with established precedents. The first thing the first men did, when they got to the top of the cliff, was to strike a light and set fire to the furze-bushes. While national feeling deplores this destruction of property, unprejudiced History looks on at her ease. Given Invasion as a cause, fire follows, according to all known rules, as an effect. If an army of Englishmen had been invading France under similar circumstances, they, on either side, would necessarily have begun by setting fire to something; and unprejudiced History would, in that case also, have looked on at her ease.

While the furze-bushes were blazing, the remainder of the invaders – assured by the sight of the flames of their companions’ success so far – was disembarking and swarming up the rocks. When it was finally mustered on the top of the cliff, the army amounted to fourteen hundred men. This was the whole force which the Directory of the French Republic had thought it desirable to dispatch for the subjugation of Great Britain. History, until she is certain of results, will pronounce no opinion on the wisdom of this proceeding. She knows that nothing in politics is abstractedly rash, cruel, treacherous, or disgraceful – she knows that Success is the sole touch-stone of merit – she knows that the man who fails is contemptible, and the man who succeeds is illustrious, without any reference to the means used in either case – to the character of the men, or to the nature of the motives under which they may have proceeded to action. If the Invasion succeeds, History will applaud it as an act of heroism; if it fails, History will condemn it as an act of folly.

It has been said that the Invasion began creditably, according to the rules established in all cases of conquering. It continued to follow those rules with the most praiseworthy regularity. Having started with setting something on fire, it went on, in due course, to accomplish the other first objects of all Invasions, thieving and killing – performing much of the former, and little of the latter. Two rash Welshmen, who persisted in defending their native leeks, suffered accordingly; the rest lost nothing but their national victuals and their national flannel. On this first day of the Invasion, when the army had done marauding, the results on both sides may be thus-summed up. Gains to the French; good dinners, and protection next the skin. Loss to the English: mutton, stout Welsh flannel, and two rash countrymen.

V

OF THE BRITISH DEFENCE,
AND OF THE WAY IN WHICH THE WOMEN CONTRIBUTED TO IT

The appearance of the Frenchmen on the coast, and the loss to the English, mentioned above, produced the results naturally to be expected. The country was alarmed, and started up to defend itself.

On the numbers of the invaders being known, and on its being discovered that, though they were without field-pieces, they had with them seventy cart-loads of powder and ball and a quantity of grenades, the principal men in the country bestirred themselves in setting up the defence. Before nightfall, all the available men who knew anything of the art of fighting were collected. When the ranks were drawn out, the English defence was even more ridiculous in point of numbers than the French attack. It amounted, at a time when we were at war with France, and were supposed to be prepared for any dangers that might threaten – it amounted, including militia, fencibles, and yeomanry cavalry, to just six hundred and sixty men, or, in other words, to less than half the number of the invading Frenchmen.

Fortunately for the credit of the nation, the command of this exceedingly compact force was taken by the principal grandee in the neighbourhood. He turned out to be a man of considerable cunning, as well as a man of high rank, and he was known by the style and title of the Earl of Cawdor.

The one cheering circumstance in connection with the heavy responsibility which now rested on the shoulders of the Earl, consisted in this – that he had apparently no cause to dread internal treason as well as foreign invasion. The remarkably inconvenient spot which the French had selected for their landing showed, not only that they themselves knew nothing of the coast, but that none of the inhabitants, who might have led them to an easier place of disembarkation, were privy to their purpose. So far so good. But still, the great difficulty remained of facing the French with an equality of numbers, and with the appearance, at least, of an equality of discipline. The first of these requisites it was easy to fulfill. There were hosts of colliers and other labourers in the neighbourhood – big, bold, lusty fellows enough; but, so far as the art of marching and using weapons was concerned, as helpless as a pack of children. The question was, how to make good use of these men for show purposes, without allowing them fatally to embarrass the proceedings of their trained and disciplined companions. In this emergency, Lord Cawdor hit on a grand idea. He boldly mixed the women up in the business – and it is unnecessary to add that the business began to prosper from that lucky moment.

In those days the wives of the Welsh labourers wore, what the wives of all classes of the community have been wearing since, red petticoats. It was Lord Cawdor’s happy idea to call on these patriot matrons to sink the question of skirts, to forego the luxurious consideration of warmth, and to turn the colliers into military men (so far as external appearances, viewed at a distance, were concerned) by taking off the wives’ red petticoats and putting them over the husbands’ shoulders. Where patriot matrons are concerned, no national appeal is made in vain, and no personal sacrifice is refused. All the women seized their strings, and stepped out of their petticoats on the spot. What man in that makeshift military but must think of “home and beauty,” now that he had the tenderest memento of both to grace his shoulders and jog his memory? In an inconceivably short space of time every woman was shivering, and every collier was turned into a soldier.

VI

OF HOW IT ALL ENDED

Thus recruited, Lord Cawdor marched off to the scene of action; and the patriot women, deprived of their husbands and their petticoats, retired, it is to be hoped and presumed, to the friendly shelter of bed. It was then close on nightfall, if not actually night; and the disorderly marching of the transformed colliers could not be perceived. But when the British army took up its position, then was the time when the excellent stratagem of Lord Cawdor told at its true worth. By the uncertain light of fires and torches, the French scouts, let them venture as near as they might, could see nothing in detail. A man in a scarlet petticoat looked as soldier-like us a man in a scarlet coat, under those dusky circumstances. All that the enemy could now see were lines on lines of men in red, the famous uniform of the English army.

The council of the French braves must have been a perturbed assembly on that memorable night. Behind them was the empty bay; for the four ships, after landing the invaders, had set sail again for France, sublimely indifferent to the fate of the fourteen hundred. Before them there waited in battle array an apparently formidable force of British soldiers. Under them was the hostile English ground, on which they were trespassers caught in the fact. Girt about by these serious perils, the discreet commander of the Invasion fell back on those safeguards of caution and deliberation of which he had already given proofs on approaching the English shore. He had doubted at Ilfracombe; he had doubted again in Cardigan Bay; and now, on the eve of the first battle, he doubted for the third time – doubted, and gave in. If History declines to receive the French commander as a hero, Philosophy opens her peaceful doors to him, and welcomes him in the character of a wise man.

At ten o’clock that night a flag of truce appeared in the English camp, and a letter was delivered to Lord Cawdor from the prudent chief of the invaders. The letter set forth, with amazing gravity and dignity, that the circumstances under which the French troops had landed, having rendered it “unnecessary” to attempt any military operations, the commanding officer did not object to come forward generously and propose terms of capitulation. Such a message as this was little calculated to impose on any man, far less on the artful nobleman who had invented the stratagem of the red petticoats. Taking a slightly different view of the circumstances, and declining altogether to believe that the French Directory had sent fourteen hundred men over to England to divert the inhabitants by the spectacle of a capitulation, Lord Cawdor returned for answer that he did not feel himself at liberty to treat with the French commander, except on the condition of his men surrendering as prisoners of war. On receiving this reply, the Frenchman gave an additional proof of that philosophical turn of mind which has been already claimed for him as one of his merits, by politely adopting the course which Lord Cawdor suggested. By noon the next day, the French troops were all marched off prisoners of war, the patriot matrons had resumed their petticoats, and the short terror of the invasion had happily passed away.

The first question that occurred to everybody as soon as the alarm had been dissipated was, what this extraordinary burlesque of an invasion could possibly mean. It was asserted in some quarters that the fourteen hundred Frenchmen had been recruited from those insurgents of La Vendee who had enlisted in the service of the Republic, who could not be trusted at home, and who were therefore dispatched on the first desperate service that might offer itself abroad. Others represented the invading army as a mere gang of galley-slaves and criminals in general, who had been landed on our shores with the double purpose of annoying England and ridding France of a pack of rascals. The commander of the expedition, however, disposed of this latter theory by declaring that six hundred of his men were picked veterans from the French army, and by referring, for corroboration of this statement, to his large supplies of powder, ball, and hand-grenades, which would certainly not have been wasted, at a time when military stores were especially precious, on a gang of galley-slaves.

The truth seems to be that the French (who were even more densely ignorant of England and English institutions at that time than they are at this) had been so entirely deceived by false reports of the temper and sentiments of our people, as to believe that the mere appearance of the troops of the Republic on these Monarchical shores would be the signal for a revolutionary rising of all the disaffected classes from one end of Great Britain to the other. Viewed merely as materials for kindling the insurrectionary spark, the fourteen hundred Frenchmen might certainly be considered sufficient for the purpose, providing the Directory of the Republic could only have made sure beforehand that the English tinder might be depended on to catch light!

One last event must be recorded before this History can be considered complete. The disasters of the invading army on shore were matched at sea by the disasters of the vessels that had carried them. Of the four ships which had alarmed the English coast, the two largest (the frigates) were both captured, as they were standing in for Brest harbour, by Sir Harry Neale. This smart and final correction of the fractious little French invasion was administered on the ninth of March, seventeen hundred and ninety-seven.

MORAL

This is the history of the Great (Forgotten) Invasion. It is short, it is not impressive, it is unquestionably deficient in serious interest. But there is a Moral to be drawn from it, nevertheless. If we are invaded again, and on a rather larger scale, let us not be so ill-prepared this next time as to be obliged to take refuge in our wives’ red petticoats.

Household Words 12 Mar 1859

A REMARKABLE REVOLUTION

A revolution which is serious enough to overthrow a reigning sovereign – which is short enough to last only nine hours – and which is peaceable enough to begin and end without the taking of a single life or the shedding of a drop of blood, is certainly a phenomenon in the history of human affairs which is worth being carefully investigated. Such a revolution actually happened, in the empire of Russia, little more than a century and a quarter ago. The narrative here attempted of its rise, its progress, and its end may be trusted throughout as faithful to the truth. Extraordinary as they may appear, the events described in this fragment of history are matters of fact from first to last.

We start with a famous Russian character – Peter the Great. His son, who may be not unfairly distinguished as Peter the Small, died in the year seventeen hundred and thirty. With the death of this last personage the political difficulties arose which ended in the easy pulling down of one sovereign ruler at midnight, and the easy setting up of another by nine o’clock the next morning.

Besides the son whom he left to succeed him, Peter the Great had a daughter, whose title was princess, and whose name was Elizabeth. Peter’s widow, the famous Empress Catherine, being a farseeing woman, made a will which contained the expression of her wishes in regard to the succession to the throne, and which plainly and properly designated the Princess Elizabeth (there being no Salic law in Russia) as the reigning sovereign to be chosen after the death of her brother, Peter the Small. Nothing, apparently, could be more straightforward than the course to be followed at that time in appointing a new ruler over the Russian people.

But there happened to be living at Court two noblemen – Prince D’Olgorowki and Count Osterman – who had an interest of their own in complicating the affairs connected with the succession.

These two distinguished personages had possessed considerable power and authority under the feeble reign of Peter the Small, and they knew enough of his sister’s resolute and self-reliant character to doubt what might become of their court position and their political privileges after the Princess Elizabeth was seated on the throne. Accordingly they lost no time in nominating a rival candidate of their own choosing, whom they dexterously raised to the imperial dignity, before there was time for the partisans of the Princess Elizabeth to dispute the authority under which they acted. The new sovereign, thus unjustly invested with power, was a woman – Anne, Dowager Duchess of Courland – and the pretence under which Prince D’Olgorowki and Count Osterman proclaimed her Empress of Russia was that Peter the Small had confidentially communicated to them, on his deathbed, a desire that the Dowager Duchess should be chosen as the sovereign to succeed him.

The main result of the Dowager Duchess’s occupation of the throne was the additional complication of the confused political affairs of Russia. The new Empress had an eye to the advancement of her family; and among the other relatives for whom she provided was a niece, named Catherine, whom she married to the Prince of Brunswick, brother-in-law of the King of Prussia. The first child born of the marriage was a boy, named Ivan. Before he had reached the age of two years, the new Empress died; and, when her will was opened, it was discovered, to the amazement of every one, that she had appointed this child to succeed her on the throne of Russia. The private motive which led the Empress to take this extraordinary course was her desire to place the sovereign power in the hands of one of her favourites, the Duke De Biren, by nominating that nobleman as the guardian of the infant Ivan. To accomplish this purpose, she had not only slighted the legitimate claims of Peter the Great’s daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, but had also entirely overlooked the interests of Ivan’s mother, who naturally felt that she had a right to ascend the throne, as the nearest relation of the deceased empress, and the mother of the child who was designated to be the future emperor. To the bewilderment and dissatisfaction thus produced, a further element of confusion was added by the total incapacity of the Duke De Biren to occupy creditably the post of authority which had been assigned to him. Before he had been long in office, he gave way altogether under the double responsibility of guiding the affairs of Russia and directing the education of the future emperor. Ivan’s mother saw the chance of asserting her rights which the weakness of the duke afforded to her. She was a resolute woman; and she seized her opportunity by banishing Biren to Siberia, and taking his place as regent of the empire and guardian of her infant son.

Such was the result, thus far, of the great scramble for the crown which began with the death of the son of Peter the Great. Such was the position of affairs in Russia at the time when the revolution broke out.

Through all the contentions which distracted the country, the Princess Elizabeth lived, in the retirement of her own palace, waiting secretly, patiently, and vigilantly for the fit opportunity of asserting her rights. She was, in every sense of the word, a remarkable woman, and she numbered two remarkable men among the adherents of her cause. One was the French ambassador at the court of Russia, the Marquis De la Chetardie. The other was the surgeon of Elizabeth’s household, a German, named Lestoc. The Frenchman had money to spend; the German had brains to plot. Both were men of tried courage and resolute will; and both were destined to take the foremost places in the coming struggle. It is certainly not the least curious circumstance in the extraordinary revolution which we are now about to describe, that it was planned and carried out by two foreigners. In the struggle for the Russian throne, the natives of the Russian soil were used only as instruments to be handled and directed at the pleasure of the French ambassador and the German surgeon.

The Marquis and Lestoc, watching the signs of the times, arrived at the conclusion that the period of the banishment of the Duke De Biren and of the assumption of the supreme power by the mother of Ivan, was also the period for effecting the revolution which was to place the Princess Elizabeth on the throne of her ancestors. The dissatisfaction in Russia had, by this time, spread widely among all classes. The people chafed under a despotism inflicted on them by foreigners. The native nobility felt outraged by their exclusion from privileges which had been conceded to their order under former reigns, before the aliens from Courland had seized on power. The army was for the most part to be depended on to answer any bold appeal that might be made to it in favour of the daughter of Peter the Great. With these chances in their favour, the Frenchman and the German set themselves to the work of organizing the scattered elements of discontent. The Marquis opened his well-filled purse; and Surgeon Lestoc prowled about the city and the palace with watchful eyes, with persuasive tongue, with delicately bribing hands. The great point to be achieved was to tamper successfully with the regiment on duty at the palace; and this was skillfully and quickly accomplished by Lestoc. In the course of a few days only, he contrived to make sure of all the considerable officers of the regiment, and of certain picked men from the ranks besides. On counting heads, the members of the military conspiracy thus organized came to thirty-three. Exactly the same number of men had once plotted the overthrow of Julius Caesar, and had succeeded in the attempt.

Matters had proceeded thus far when the suspicions of the Duchess Regent (that being the title which Ivan’s mother had now assumed) were suddenly excited, without the slightest apparent cause to arouse them. Nothing dangerous had been openly attempted as yet, and not one of the conspirators had betrayed the secret. Nevertheless, the Duchess Regent began to doubt; and one morning she astonished and alarmed the Marquis and Lestoc by sending, without any previous warning, for the Princess Elizabeth, and by addressing a series of searching questions to her at a private interview. Fortunately for the success of the plot, the daughter of Peter the Great was more than a match for the Duchess Regent. From first to last Elizabeth proved herself equal to the dangerous situation in which she was placed. The Duchess discovered nothing; and the heads of the thirty-three conspirators remained safe on their shoulders.

This piece of good fortune operated on the cunning and resolute Lestoc as a warning to make haste. Between the danger of waiting to mature the conspiracy and the risk of letting it break out abruptly before the organisation of it was complete, he chose the latter alternative. The Marquis agreed with him that it was best to venture everything before there was time for the suspicions of the Duchess to be renewed; and the Princess Elizabeth, on her part, was perfectly ready to be guided by the advice of her two trusty adherents. The fifteenth of January, seventeen hundred and forty-one, had been the day originally fixed for the breaking out of the revolution. Lestoc now advanced the period for making the great attempt by nine days. On the night of the sixth of January the Duchess Regent and the Princess Elizabeth were to change places, and the throne of Russia was to become once more the inheritance of the family of Peter the Great.

Between nine and ten o’clock, on the night of the sixth, Surgeon Lestoc strolled out, with careless serenity on his face, and devouring anxiety at his heart, to play his accustomed game of billiards at a French coffee-house. The stakes were ten ducats, and Lestoc did not play quite so well as usual that evening. When the clock of the coffee-house struck ten, he stopped, in the middle of the game, and drew out his watch.

“I beg ten thousand pardons,” he said to the gentleman with whom he was playing; “but I am afraid I must ask you to let me go before the game is done. I have a patient to see at ten o’clock, and the hour has just struck. Here is a friend of mine,” he continued, bringing forward one of the bystanders by the arm, “who will, with your permission, play in my place. It is quite immaterial to me whether he loses or whether he wins; I am merely anxious that your game should not be interrupted. Ten thousand pardons again. Nothing but the necessity of seeing a patient could have induced me to be guilty of this apparent rudeness. I wish you much pleasure, gentlemen, and I most unwillingly bid you good-night.”

With that polite farewell he departed. The patient whom he was going to cure was the sick Russian empire.

He got into his sledge, and drove off to the palace of the Princess Elizabeth. She trembled a little when he told her quietly that the hour had come for possessing herself of the throne; but, soon recovering her spirits, dressed to go out, concealed a knife about her in case of emergency, and took her place by the side of Lestoc in the sledge. The two then set forth together for the French embassy to pick up the second leader of the conspiracy.

They found the Marquis alone, cool, smiling, humming a gay French tune and quietly amusing himself by making a drawing. Elizabeth and Lestoc looked over his shoulder, and the former started a little when she saw what the subject of the drawing was. In the background appeared a large monastery, a grim, prison-like building, with barred windows and jealously closed gates; in the foreground were two high gibbets, and two wheels of the sort used to break criminals on. The drawing was touched in with extraordinary neatness and steadiness of hand; and the Marquis laughed gaily when he saw how seriously the subject represented had startled and amazed the Princess Elizabeth.

“Courage, madam!” he said. “I was only amusing myself by making a sketch illustrative of the future which we may all three expect if we fail in our enterprise. In an hour from this time you will be on the throne, or on your way to this ugly building.” (He touched the monastery in the background of the drawing lightly with the point of his pencil.) “In an hour from this time, also, our worthy Lestoc and myself will either be the two luckiest men in Russia, or the two miserable criminals who are bound on these” (he touched the wheels) “and hung up afterward on those” (he touched the gibbets). “You will pardon me, madam, for indulging in this ghastly fancy! I was always eccentric from childhood. My good Lestoc, as we seem to be quite ready, perhaps you will kindly precede us to the door, and allow me the honour of handing the Princess to the sledge?”

They left the house, laughing and chatting as carelessly as if they were a party going to the theatre. Lestoc took the reins. “To the palace of the Duchess Regent, coachman!” said the Marquis, pleasantly. And to the palace they went.

They made no attempt to slip in by back doors, but boldly drove up to the grand entrance, inside of which the guardhouse was situated.

“Who goes there?” cried the sentinel, as they left the sledge and passed in.

The Marquis took a pinch of snuff.

“Don’t you see, my good fellow?” he said. “A lady and two gentlemen.”

The slightest irregularity was serious enough to alarm the guard at the imperial palace in those critical times. The sentinel presented his musket at the Marquis, and a drummer-boy who was standing near, ran to his instrument and caught up his drumsticks to beat the alarm.

Before the sentinel could fire he was surrounded by the thirty-three conspirators, and was disarmed in an instant. Before the drummer-boy could beat the alarm, the Princess Elizabeth had drawn out her knife, and had stabbed – not the boy, but – the drum! These slight preliminary obstacles being thus disposed of, Lestoc and the Marquis, having the Princess between them, and being followed by their thirty-three adherents, marched resolutely into the great hall of the palace, and there confronted the entire guard.

“Gentlemen,” said the Marquis, “I have the honour of presenting you to your future Empress, the daughter of Peter the Great.”

Half the guard had been bribed by the cunning Lestoc. The other half, seeing their comrades advance and pay homage to the Princess, followed the example of loyalty. Elizabeth was escorted into a room on the ground-floor by a military court formed in the course of five minutes. The Marquis and the faithful thirty-three went upstairs to the sleeping apartments of the palace. Lestoc ran out and ordered a carriage to be got ready – then joined the Marquis and the conspirators. The Duchess Regent and her child were just retiring for the night, when the German surgeon and the French ambassador politely informed them that they were prisoners. Entreaties were of no avail, resistance was out of the question. Both mother and son were led down to the carriage that Lestoc had ordered, and were driven off, under a strong guard, to the fortress of Riga.

The palace was secured, and the Duchess was imprisoned, but Lestoc and the Marquis had not done their night’s work yet. It was necessary to make sure of three powerful personages connected with the Government. Three more carriages were ordered out when the Duchess’s carriage had been driven off; and three noblemen – among them Count Osterman, the original cause of the troubles in Russia – were woke out of their first sleep with the information that they were State prisoners, and were started before daylight on their way to Siberia. At the same time, the thirty-three conspirators were scattered about in every barrack-room in St. Petersburg, proclaiming Elizabeth Empress, in right of her illustrious parentage, and in the name of the Russian people. Soon after daylight, the moment the working population was beginning to be astir, the churches were occupied by trusty men under Lestoc’s orders, and the oaths of fidelity to Elizabeth were administered to the willing populace as fast as they came in to morning prayers. By nine o’clock the work was done; the people were satisfied; the army was gained over; Elizabeth sat on her father’s throne, unopposed, unquestioned, unstained by the shedding of a drop of blood; and Lestoc and the Marquis could rest from their labours at last, and could say to each other with literal truth, “The Government of Russia has been changed in nine hours, and we two foreigners are the men who have worked the miracle!”

This was the Russian revolution of seventeen hundred and forty-one. It was not the less effectual because it had lasted but a few hours, and had been accomplished without the sacrifice of a single life. The imperial inheritance which it had placed in the hands of Elizabeth was not snatched from them again. The daughter of the great Czar lived and died Empress of Russia.

And what became of the two men who had won the throne for her? The story of the after-conduct of the Marquis and Lestoc must answer that question. The events of the revolution itself are hardly more strange than the events in the lives of the French ambassador and the German surgeon, when the brief struggle was over, and the change in the dynasty was accomplished.

To begin with the Marquis. He had laid the Princess Elizabeth under serious obligations to his courage and fidelity; and his services were repaid by such a reward as, in his vainest moments, he could never have dared to hope for. His fidelity had excited Elizabeth’s gratitude, but his personal qualities had done more – they had touched her heart. As soon as she was settled quietly on the throne, she proved her admiration of his merits, his services, and himself by offering to marry him.

This proposal, which conferred on the Marquis the highest distinction in Russia, fairly turned his brain. The imperturbable man, who had preserved his coolness in a situation of the deadliest danger, lost all control over himself the moment he rose to the climax of prosperity. Having obtained leave of absence from his imperial mistress, he returned to France to ask leave from his own sovereign to marry the Empress. This permission was readily granted. After receiving it, any man of ordinary discretion would have kept the fact of the Empress’s partiality for him as strictly secret as possible, until it could be openly avowed on the marriage-day. Far from this, the Marquis’s vanity led him to proclaim the brilliant destiny in store for him all over Paris. He commissioned the king’s genealogist to construct a pedigree which should be made to show that he was not unworthy to contract a royal alliance. When the pedigree was completed, he had the incredible folly to exhibit it publicly, along with the keepsakes which the Empress had given to him, and the rich presents which he intended to bestow as marks of his favour on the lords and ladies of the Russian court. Nor did his imprudence end even here. When he returned to St. Petersburg, he took back with him, among the other persons comprising his train, a woman of loose character, dressed in the disguise of a page. The persons about the Russian court, whose prejudices he had never attempted to conciliate – whose envy at his success waited only for the slightest opportunity to effect his ruin – suspected the sex of the pretended page, and took good care that the report of their suspicions should penetrate gradually to the foot of the throne. It seems barely credible, but it is, nevertheless, unquestionably the fact that the infatuated Marquis absolutely allowed the Empress an opportunity of seeing his page. Elizabeth’s eye, sharpened by jealousy, penetrated instantly to the truth. Any less disgraceful insult she would probably have forgiven, but such an outrage as this no woman – especially no woman in her position – could pardon. With one momentary glance of anger and disdain, she dismissed the Marquis from her presence, and never, from that moment, saw him again.

The same evening his papers were seized, all the presents that he had received from the Empress were taken from him, and he was ordered to leave the Russian dominions forever, within eight days’ time. He was not allowed to write, or take any other means of attempting to justify himself; and, on his way back to his native country, he was followed to the frontier by certain officers of the Russian army, and there stripped, with every mark of ignominy, of all the orders of nobility which he had received from the imperial court. He returned to Paris a disgraced man, lived there in solitude, obscurity, and neglect for some years, and died in a state of positive want – the unknown inhabitant of one of the meanest dwellings in the whole city.

The end of Lestoc is hardly less remarkable than, the end of the Marquis.

In their weak points, as in their strong, the characters of these two men seem to have been singularly alike. Making due allowance for the difference in station between the German surgeon and the French ambassador, it is undeniable that Elizabeth showed her sense of the services of Lestoc as gratefully and generously as she had shown her sense of the services of the Marquis. The ex-surgeon was raised at once to the position of the chief favourite and the most powerful man about the court. Besides the privileges which he shared equally with the highest nobles of the period, he was allowed access to the Empress on all private as well as on all public occasions. He had a perpetual right of entry into her domestic circle, which was conceded to no one else; and he held a place, on days of public reception, that placed him on an eminence to which no other man in Russia could hope to attain. Such was his position; and, strange to say, it had precisely the same maddening effect on his vanity which the prospect of an imperial alliance had exercised over the vanity of the Marquis. Lestoc’s audacity became ungovernable, his insolence knew no bounds. He abused the privileges conferred upon him by Elizabeth’s grateful regard, with such baseness and such indelicacy, that the Empress, after repeatedly cautioning him in the friendliest possible terms, found herself obliged, out of regard to her own reputation and to the remonstrances which assailed her from all the persons of her court, to deprive him of the privilege of entry into her private apartments.

This check, instead of operating as a timely warning to Lestoc, irritated him into the commission of fresh acts of insolence, so wanton in their nature that Elizabeth at last lost all patience, and angrily reproached him with the audacious ingratitude of his behaviour. The reproach was retorted by Lestoc, who fiercely accused the Empress of forgetting the great services that he had rendered her, and declared that he would turn his back on her and her dominions, after first resenting the contumely with which he had been treated by an act of revenge that she would remember to the day of her death. The vengeance which he had threatened proved to be the vengeance of a forger and a cheat. The banker in St. Petersburg who was charged with the duty of disbursing the sums of State money which were set apart for the Empress’s use, received an order, one day, to pay four hundred thousand ducats to a certain person who was not mentioned by name, but who, it was stated, would call with the proper credentials, to receive the money. The banker was struck by this irregular method of performing the preliminaries of an important matter of business, and he considered it to be his duty to show the document which he had received to one of the ministers. Secret inquiries were immediately set on foot, and they ended in the discovery that the order was a false one, and that the man who had forged it was no other than Lestoc.

For a crime of this kind the punishment was death. But the Empress had declared on her accession that she would sign no warrant for the taking away of life during her reign, and, moreover, she still generously remembered what she had owed in former times to Lestoc. Accordingly, she changed his punishment to a sentence of exile to Siberia, with special orders that the life of the banished man should be made as easy to him as possible. He had not passed many years in the wildernesses of Siberia before Elizabeth’s strong sense of past obligation to him induced her still further to lighten his punishment by ordering that he should be brought back to St. Petersburg, and confined in the fortress there, where her own eyes might assure her that he was treated with mercy and consideration. It is probable that she only intended this change as a prelude to the restoration of his liberty; but the future occasion for pardoning him never came. Shortly after his return to St. Petersburg, Lestoc ended his days in the prison of the fortress.

So the two leaders of the Russian revolution lived, and so they died. It has been said, and said well, that the only sure proof of a man’s strength of mind is to be discovered by observing the manner in which he bears success. History shows few such remarkable examples of the truth of this axiom as are afforded by the lives of the Marquis De la Chetardie and the German surgeon, Lestoc. Two stronger men in the hour of peril, and two weaker men in the hour of security, have not often appeared in this world to vanquish adverse circumstances like heroes, and to be conquered like cowards afterward by nothing but success.

Household Words 1 Aug 1857

FRAGMENTS
OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

LAID UP IN LODGINGS

CHAPTER THE FIRST

MY PARIS LODGING

It has happened rather whimsically, and not very fortunately for me, that my first experience of living in furnished lodgings abroad, as well as in England, has occurred at the very time when illness has rendered me particularly susceptible to the temporary loss of the comforts of home. I have been ill, alone, in furnished lodgings in Paris – ill, alone, on the journey back to England – ill, alone, again, in furnished lodgings in London. I am a single man; but as I have already intimated, I never knew what it was to enjoy the desolate liberty of the bachelor until I became an invalid. Some of my impressions of things and persons about me formed under these anomalous circumstances, may, perhaps, prove not altogether unworthy of being written down, while they are still fresh in my mind.

How I happen, for a temporary period, to be away from the home in which I have hitherto lived with my nearest relatives, and to which I hope soon to return, it is of no importance to the reader to know. Neither is it at all worth while to occupy time and space with any particular description of the illness from which I have been and am still suffering. It will be enough for preliminary purposes, if I present myself at once in the character of a convalescent visiting Paris, with the double intention of passing agreeably an interval of necessary absence from home, and of promoting, by change of air and scene, my recovery from a distressing and a tedious illness. When I add to this, that although I lived alone in my French bachelor apartment, I had the good fortune at Paris, as afterward in London, to be in the near neighbourhood of the most kind, attentive, and affectionate friends, I have said as much as is needful by way of preface, and may get on at once to my main purpose.

What my impressions of my apartment in Paris might have been, if I had recovered there according to my anticipations, I cannot venture to say; for, before I had got fairly settled in my new rooms, I suffered a sudden relapse. My life again became the life of an invalid, and my ways of thought and observation turned back disastrously to the old invalid channel. Change of air and scene – which had done nothing for my body – did nothing either for my mind. At Paris, as before in London, I looked at the world about me purely from the sick man’s point of view – or, in other words, the events that passed, the sights that appeared, and the persons who moved around me, interested or repelled me only as they referred more or less directly to myself and my own invalid situation. This curious narrowness of view, of which I am not yet well enough entirely to rid myself, though as conscious as another of the mental weakness that it implies, has no connection that I can discover with excessive selfishness or vanity; it is simply the result of the inevitable increase of a man’s importance to himself which the very fact of sickness is only too apt to produce. My own sensations as a sick man now fill up the weary blank of my daily existence when I am alone, and form the main topic of inquiry and conversation when my doctor and my friends enliven my solitude. The concerns of my own poor body, which do not, I thank Heaven, occupy my attention for much more than one hour out of the twenty-four when I am well, become the main business and responsibility of all my waking moments now that I am ill. Pain to suffer, and the swallowing of drugs and taking of nourishment at regulated periods, daily restraints that I must undergo, and hourly precautions that I am forced to practice, all contribute to keep my mind bound down to the level of my body. A flight of thought beyond myself and the weary present time – even supposing I were capable of the exertion – would lead me astray from the small personal rules and regulations on which I now depend absolutely for the recovery of my health.

Have my temper and disposition changed for the worse under these unfavourable circumstances? Not much, I hope. I can honestly say for myself that I envy no other man’s health and happiness. I feel no jealous pang when I hear laughter about me. I can look at people out of my window running easily across the road, while I can hardly crawl from one end of my chamber to the other, without feeling insulted by their activity. Still, it is true, at the same time, that I warm to people now exactly in proportion as I see them sensibly and sincerely touched by my suffering condition; and that I like or dislike my habitation for the time being, just as it happens to suit or not to suit all the little requirements of my temporary infirmity. If I were introduced to one of the most eminent men in the country at this moment, and if he did not look sorry to see me ill, I should never care to set eyes on the eminent man again. If I had a superb room with the finest view in the world, but no bedside conveniences for my pillboxes and medicine-bottles, I would leave that superb room and fine view, and go cheerfully to a garret in an alley, provided it adapted itself comfortably to the arrangement of my indispensable invalid’s lumber. This is, doubtless, a humiliating confession; but it is well that I should make it once for all – for the various opinions and impressions which I am about frankly to write down will be found to be more or less coloured by what I venture to describe as the involuntary egotism of a sick man. Let us see how my new lodging in Paris suits me, and why it is that I immediately become fond of it.

I live in a little building of my own, called a Pavilion. Outside it resembles, as to size, brightness, and apparent insubstantiality, a private dwelling-house in a Pantomime. I expect as I drive up to it, for the first time, to see Clown grinning at the door, and Harlequin jumping through the window. A key is produced, and an odd little white door, through which no fat man could penetrate even sidewise, is opened; I ascend a steep flight of a dozen steps, and enter my toy castle; my own independent, solitary, miniature mansion.

The first room is the drawing-room. It is about the size of a large packing-case, with a gay looking-glass and clock, with bright red chairs and sofa, with a cozy round table, with a big window looking out on another Pavilion opposite and on a great house set back in a courtyard. To my indescribable astonishment, it actually possesses three doors! One I have just entered by. Another leads into a bedchamber of the same size as the drawing-room, just as brightly and neatly furnished, with a window that looks out on the everlasting gaiety and bustle of the Champs Elysées. The third door leads into a dressing-room half the size of the drawing-room, and having a fourth door which opens into a kitchen half the size of the dressing-room, but of course possessing a fifth door, which leads out again to the head of the staircase. As no two people meeting in the kitchen could possibly pass each other, or remain in the apartment together without serious inconvenience, the two doors leading in and out of it may be pronounced useful as well as ornamental. Into this quaint little culinary crevice the coal-merchant, the wood-merchant, and the water-carrier squeeze their way, and find a doll’s cellar and cistern all ready for them. They might be followed, if I were only well enough to give dinners, by a cook and his scullions; for I possess, besides the kitchen and cistern, an elaborate charcoal stove in the kitchen, at which any number of courses might be prepared by any culinary artist who could cook composedly with a row of small fires under his nose, a coal-cellar between his legs, a cistern scrubbing his shoulder, and a lukewarm wall against his back.

But what is the main secret of my fondness for the Pavilion? It does not, I am afraid, lie in the brightness and elegance of the little rooms, or even in the delightful independence of inhabiting a lodging, which is also a house of my own, where I can neither be disturbed nor overlooked by any other lodgers. The one irresistible appeal which my Parisian apartment makes to my sympathies consists in the perfect manner in which it fits my wants and flatters my weaknesses as an invalid.

I have quite a little druggist’s stock in trade of physic-bottles, glasses, spoons, card-boxes, and prescriptions; I have all sorts of queer vestments and coverings, intended to guarantee me against all variations of temperature and all degrees of exposure, by night as well as by day; I have ready remedies that must be kept in my bedchamber, and elaborate applications that I must find handy in my dressing-room. In short, I myself am nothing but the centre of a vast medical litter, and the closer the said litter revolves round me the more comfortable I am. In a house of the usual size, and in rooms arranged on the ordinary plan, I should be driven distracted (being an untidy man even in my healthiest moments) by mislaying things every hour in the day, by having to get up to look for them, and by being compelled to walk up and downstairs, or to make others do so for me, when I want to establish communications between dressing-room, bedroom, drawing-room, coal-cellar, and kitchen. In my tiny Parisian house of one small story, I can wait on myself with the most perfect ease; in my wee sitting-room, nine-tenths of the things I want are within arms-length of me, as I repose in my elbow-chair; if I must move, I can get from my bedchamber to my kitchen in less time than it would take me to walk across an English drawing-room; if I lose my morning draught, mislay my noontide drops, or leave my evening pillbox under my afternoon dressing-gown, I can take my walking-stick or my fire-tongs and poke or fish for missing articles in every corner of the room, without doing more than turning round in my chair. If I had been well and had given dinner-parties, I might have found my habitation rather too small for me. As it is, if my Pavilion had been built on purpose for a solitary lodger to fall ill in with the least possible amount of personal discomfort, it could not have suited my sad case better. Sick, I love and honour the skillful architect who contrived it. Well, I am very much afraid I should never have bestowed so much as a single thought on him.

Why do I become, in one cordial quarter of an hour, friendly, familiar, and even affectionate with my portress? Because it is part of my unhealthy condition of body and mind that I like nothing so well as being pitied; and my portress sweetens my daily existence with so much compassion that she does me more good, I think, than my doctor or my drugs.

Let me try to describe her. She is a thin, rapid, cheerful little woman, with a tiny face and bright brown eyes. She has a husband (Hippolyte senior) and a son (Hippolyte junior), and a lodge of one room to live in with her family. She has not been in bed, for years past, before two or three in the morning; for my Pavilion and the second Pavilion opposite and the large house behind are all shut in from the roadway by handsome iron gates, which it is the business of somebody in the porter’s lodge to open (by pulling a string communicating with the latch) at all hours of the night to homeward-bound lodgers. The large house has so many tenants that some one is always out at a party or a theatre – so the keeping of late hours becomes a necessary part of the service in the lodge, and the poor little portress is the victim who suffers as perpetual night-watch. Hippolyte senior absorbs his fair share of work in the day, and takes the early-rising department cheerfully, but he does not possess the gift of keeping awake at night. By eleven o’clock (such is sometimes the weakness even of the most amiable human nature) it is necessary that Hippolyte senior should be stretched on his back on the nuptial bedstead, snoring impervious to all sounds and all in-comers. Hippolyte junior, or the son, is too young, to be trusted with the supervision of the gate-string. He sleeps, sound as his father, with a half-developed snore and a coiled-up body, in a crib at the foot of the parental bed. On the other side of the room, hard by the lodgers’ keys and candlesticks, with a big stove behind her and a gaslight before her eyes, sits the faithful little portress, watching out the weary hours as wakefully as she can. She trusts entirely to strong coffee and the near flare of the gaslight to combat the natural sleepiness which follows a hard day’s work begun at eight o’clock every morning. The coffee and the gas deserve, to a certain extent, the confidence she places in them. They keep her bright, brown eyes wide open, staring with unwinking pertinacity at the light before them. They keep her back very straight against her chair, and her arms crossed tightly over her bosom, and her feet set firmly on her footstool. But though they stop sleep from shutting her eyes or relaxing her limbs, they cannot prevent some few latent Morphian influences from stealthily reaching her. Open as her eyes may be, the little woman nevertheless does start guiltily when the ring at the bell comes at last; does stare fixedly for a moment before she can get up; has to fight resolutely with something drowsy and clinging in the shape of a trance, before she can fly to the latch-string, and hang on to it wearily, instead of pulling at it with the proper wakeful jerk. Night after night she has now drunk the strong coffee, and propped herself up stiffly in her straight chair, and stared hard at the flaring gaslight, for nearly seven years past. Some people would have lost their tempers and their spirits under these hard circumstances, but the cheerful little portress has only lost flesh. In a dark corner of the room hangs a daguerreotype likeness. It represents a buxom woman, with round cheeks and a sturdy waist, and dates from the period when she was the bride of Hippolyte senior, and was thinking of following him into the porter’s lodge. “Ah, my dear sir,” she says, when I condole with her, “if we do get a little money sometimes in our way of life, we don’t earn it too easily. Aïe, Aïe, Aïe! I should like a good sleep; I should like to be as fat as my portrait again!”

The same friendly relations – arising entirely, let it always be remembered, out of my illness and the portress’s compassion for me – which have let me into the secrets of the strong coffee, the daguerreotype portrait, and the sleepy constitution of Hippolyte senior, also enable me to ascertain, by special invitation, how the inhabitants of the lodge dispose of some of the hardly-earned profits of their situation.

I find myself suffering rather painfully one morning, under some aggravated symptoms of my illness, and my friend, the portress, comes into the Pavilion to talk to me and keep up my spirits She has had an hour’s extra sleep, for a wonder, and is in a chirping state of cheerfulness in consequence. She shudders and makes faces at my physic-bottles; entreats me to throw them away, to let her put me to bed and administer a light tea to begin with, and a broth to follow (un Thé léger et un Bouillon). If I will only stick to these remedies, she will have them ready, if necessary, every hour in the day, and will guarantee my immediate restoration to health and strength. While we are arguing the question of the uselessness of drugs and the remedial excellence of tea and broth, Hippolyte senior, with a look of mysterious triumph, which immediately communicates itself to the face of his wife, enters the room to tell her that she is wanted below in the lodge. She goes to his side and takes his arm, as if he was a strange gentleman waiting to lead her down to dinner, nods to him confidentially, then glances at me. Her husband follows her example, and the two stand quite unconfusedly, arm in arm, smiling upon me and my physic-bottles, as if they were a pair of lovers, and I was the venerable parent whose permission and blessing they were waiting to receive.

“Have you been getting a new doctor for me?” I ask, excessively puzzled by their evident desire to connect me with some secret in the lodge.

“No,” says the portress, “I believe in no doctors. I believe in nothing but a light tea and a broth.”

(“My sentiments also!” adds her husband, parenthetically.)

“But we have something to show you in the lodge,” continues the portress.

(Hippolyte senior arches his eyebrows, and says “Aha!”)

“And when you feel better,” proceeds my cheerful little friend, “only have the politeness to come down to us, and you will see a marvellous sight!”

Hippolyte senior depresses his eyebrows, and says “Hush!”

“Enough,” replies the portress, understanding him; “let us retire.”

And they leave the room immediately, still arm in arm – the fondest and most mysterious married couple that I have ever set eyes on.

That day I do not feel quite strong enough to encounter great surprises; so my visit to the lodge is deferred until the next morning. Rather to my amazement, the portress does not pay me her usual visit at my waking on the eventful day. I descend to the lodge, wondering what this change means, and see three or four strangers assembled in the room, which is bedchamber, parlour, and porter’s office all in one. The strangers, I find, are admiring friends; they surround Hippolyte senior, and all look one way with an expression of intense pleasure and surprise. My eyes follow the direction of theirs, and I see, above the shabby little lodge table, a resplendent new looking-glass in the brightest of frames. On either side of it rise two blush-coloured wax-tapers. Below it are three ornamental pots, with blooming rose-trees in them, backed by a fan-like screen of fair white paper. This is the surprise that was in store for me; and this is also the security in which the inhabitants of the lodge have invested their last hard-earned savings. The whole thing has the effect upon my mind of an amateur high altar; and I admire the new purchase accordingly with such serious energy of expression that Hippolyte senior, in the first sweetness of triumph, forgets the modesty proper to his position as proprietor of the new treasure, and apostrophizes his own property as Magnifique, with a power of voice and an energy of gesticulation which I have never noticed in him before. When his enthusiasm has abated, and just as I am on the point of asking where my friend the portress is, I hear a faint little voice speaking behind the group of admiring friends:

“Perhaps, messieurs et mesdames, you think this an extravagance for people in our situation,” says the voice, in feebly polite tones of apology; “but, alas! how could we resist it? It is so beautiful; it brightens the room so; it gives us such a noble appearance. And, then, it is also a property – something to leave to our children – in short, a pardonable extravagance. Aïe! I am shaking all over again; I can say no more!”

While these words are in course of utterance, the group of friends separate, and I see sitting behind them, close to the big stove, the little portress, looking sadly changed for the worse. Her tiny face has become very yellow; her bright brown eyes look disproportionately large; she has an old shawl twisted round her shoulders, and shivers in it perpetually. I ask what is the matter, imagining that the poor little woman has got a fit of the ague. The portress contrives to smile as usual before she answers, though her teeth are chattering audibly.

“You will not give me drugs, if I tell you?” she says.

“I will do nothing that is not perfectly agreeable to you,” I reply, evasively.

“My complaint is a violent indigestion (uneforte indigestion),” continues the portress, indicatively laying one trembling forefinger on the region of her malady. “And I am curing myself with a light tea.”

Here the forefinger changes its direction and points to a large white earthenware teapot, with an empty mug by the side of it. To save the portress the trouble of replenishing her drinking-vessel, I pour out a dose of the light tea. It is a liquid of a faint straw colour, totally unlike any English tea that ever was made; and it tastes as a quart of hot water might taste after a wisp of hay had been dipped into it. The portress swallows three mugfuls of her medicine in my presence, smiling and shivering, looking rapturously at the magnificent new mirror with its attendant flowerpots and tapers, and rejecting, with grimaces of comic disgust, all overtures of medical help on my part, even to the modest offering of one small pill. An hour or two later I descend to the lodge again to see how she is. She has been persuaded to go to bed; is receiving, in bed, a levée of friends; in answering, in the same interesting situation, the questions of all the visitors of the day relating to all the lodgers in the house; has begun a fresh potful of the light tea; is still smiling; still shivering; still contemptuously sceptical on the subject of drugs.

In the evening I go down again. The teapot is not done with yet, and the hay-flavoured hot water is still pouring inexhaustibly into the system of the little portress. She happens now to be issuing directions relative to the keeping awake of Hippolyte senior, who, for this night at least, must watch by the gate-string. He is to have a pint of strong coffee and a pipe; he is to have the gas turned on very strong; and he is to be excited by the presence of a brisk and wakeful friend. The next morning, just as I am thinking of making inquiries at the lodge, who should enter my room but the dyspeptic patient herself, cured, and ready to digest anything but a doctor’s advice or a small pill? Hippolyte senior, I hear, has not fallen asleep over the gate-string for more than half an hour every now and then, and the portress has had a long night’s rest. She does not consider this unusual occurrence as reckoning in any degree among the agencies which have accomplished her rapid recovery. It is the light tea alone that has done it; and, if I still doubt the inestimable virtues of the hot hay water-cure, then, of all the prejudiced gentlemen the portress has ever heard of, I am the most deplorably obstinate in opening my arms to error and shutting my eyes to truth.

Such is the little domestic world about me, in some of the more vivid lights in which it presents itself to my own peculiar view.

As for the great Parisian world outside, my experience of it is bounded by the prospect I obtain of the Champs Elysées from my bedroom window. Fashionable Paris spins and prances by me every afternoon in all its glory; but what interest have healthy princes and counts and blood-horses, and blooming ladies, plunged in abysses of circumambient crinoline, for me, in my sick situation? They all fly by me in one confused phantasmagoria of gay colours and rushing forms, which I look at with lazy eyes. The sights I watch with interest are those only which seem to refer in some degree to my own invalid position. My sick man’s involuntary egotism clings as close to me when I look outward at the great highway, as when I look inward at my own little room. Thus the only objects which I now notice attentively from my window are, oddly enough, chiefly those which I should have missed altogether, or looked at with indifference if I had occupied my bachelor apartment in the enviable character of a healthy man.

For example, out of the various vehicles which pass me by dozens in the morning, and by hundreds in the afternoon, only two succeed in making anything like a lasting impression on my mind. I have only vague ideas of dust, dashing, and magnificence in connection with the rapid carriages late in the day, and of bells and hollow yelping of carters’ voices in connection with the deliberate wagons early in the morning. But I have, on the other hand, a very distinct remembrance of one sober brown omnibus, belonging to a sanitary asylum, and of a queer little truck which carries baths and hot water to private houses, from a bathing establishment near me. The omnibus, as it passes my window at a solemn jog-trot, is full of patients getting their airing. I can see them dimly, and I fall into curious fancies about their various cases, and wonder what proportion of the afflicted passengers are near the time of emancipation from their sanitary prison on wheels. As for the little truck, with its empty zinc bath and barrel of warm water, I am probably wrong in sympathetically associating it as frequently as I do with cases of illness. It is doubtless often sent for by healthy people, too luxurious in their habits to walk abroad for a bath. But there must be a proportion of cases of illness to which the truck ministers; and when I see it going faster than usual, I assume that it must be wanted by some person in a fit, grow suddenly agitated by the idea, and watch the empty bath and the hot-water barrel with breathless interest until they rumble away together out of sight.

So, again, with regard to the men and women who pass my window by thousands every day; my view of them is just as curiously circumscribed as my view of the vehicles. Out of all the crowd, I now find, on taxing my memory, that I have noticed particularly just three people (a woman and two men) who have chanced to appeal to my invalid curiosity.

The woman is a nursemaid, neither young nor pretty, very clean and neat in her dress, with an awful bloodless paleness in her face, and a hopeless consumptive languor in her movements. She has only one child to take care of – a robust little girl of cruelly active habits. There is a stone bench opposite my window; and on this the wan and weakly nursemaid often sits, not bumping down on it with the heavy thump of honest exhaustion, but sinking on it listlessly, as if in changing from walking to sitting she were only passing from one form of weariness to another. The robust child remains mercifully near the feeble guardian for a few minutes – then becomes, on a sudden, pitilessly active again, laughs and dances from a distance, when the nurse makes weary signs to her, and runs away altogether when she is faintly entreated to be quiet for a few minutes longer. The nurse looks after her in despair for a moment, draws her neat black shawl, with a shiver, over her sharp shoulders, rises resignedly, and disappears from my eyes in pursuit of the pitiless child. I see this mournful little drama acted many times over, always in the same way, and wonder sadly how long the wan nursemaid will hold out. Not being a family man, and having nervously acute sympathies for sickness and suffering just now, it would afford me genuine satisfaction to see the oppressed nurse beat the tyrannical child; but she seems fond of the little despot; and besides, she is so weak that, if it came to blows, I am afraid, grown woman as she is, she might get the worst of it.

The men whom I observe are not such interesting cases, but they exhibit, in a minor degree, the peculiarities that are sure to attract my attention. The first of the two is a gentleman – lonely and rich, as I imagine. He is fat, yellow, and gloomy, and has evidently been ordered horse exercise for the benefit of his health. He rides a quiet English cob; never has any friend with him; never – so far as I can see – exchanges greetings with any other horseman; is never smiled at from a carriage, nor bowed to by a foot-passenger. He rides with his flaccid chin sunk on his fat breast; sits his horse as if his legs were stuffed, and his back boneless; always attracts me because he is the picture of dyspeptic wretchedness, and always passes me at the same mournful jog-trot pace. The second man is a police agent. I cannot sympathize with him, in consequence of his profession; but I can observe, with a certain lukewarm interest, that he is all but worked to death. He yawns and stretches himself in corners; sometimes drops furtively on to the stone bench before my window; then starts up from it suddenly, as if he felt himself falling asleep the moment he sat down. He has hollow places where other people have cheeks; and, judging by his walk, must be quite incapable of running after a prisoner who might take to flight. On the whole, he presents to my mind the curious spectacle of a languid man trying to adapt himself to a brisk business, and failing palpably in the effort. As the sick child of a thriving system, he attracts my attention. I devoutly hope that he will not return the compliment by honouring me with his notice.

Such are the few short steps that I take in advance to get a moderately close glance at French humanity. If my view is absurdly limited to my own dim horizon, this defect has at least one advantage for the reader: it prevents all danger of my troubling him with my ideas and observations at any great length. If other people value this virtue of brevity in writers, orators, and preachers as sincerely as I do, perhaps I may hope, on account of my short range of observation and my few words, to get another hearing, if I write the second chapter of my invalid experiences. I began the first half of them (as herein related) in France; and I am now completing the second (yet to be recorded) in England. When the curtain rises on my sickbed again, the scene will be London.

CHAPTER THE SECOND

MY LONDON LODGING

I last had the honour of presenting myself to the reader’s notice in the character of an invalid laid up in lodgings at Paris. Let me now be permitted to reappear as an invalid laid up, for the time being, in a London cab. Let it be imagined that I have got through the journey from Paris, greatly to my own surprise and satisfaction, without breaking down by the way; that I have slept one night at a London hotel for the first time in my life; and that I am now helplessly adrift, looking out for furnished apartments as near as may be to my doctor’s place of abode.

The cab is fusty, the driver is sulky, the morning is foggy. A dry dog-kennel would be a pleasant refuge by comparison with the miserable vehicle in which I am now jolting my way over the cruel London stones. On our road to my doctor’s neighbourhood, we pass through Smeary Street – a locality well known to the inhabitants of Northern London. I feel that I can go no further. I remember that some friends of mine live not far off, and I recklessly emancipate myself from the torment of the cab by stopping the driver at the very first house in the windows of which I see a bill with the announcement that apartments are to let.

The door is opened by a tall, muscular woman, with a knobbed face and knotty arms besprinkled with a layer of grate-dust in a state of impalpable powder. She shows me up into a second-floor front bedroom. My first look of scrutiny is naturally directed at the bed. It is of the negative sort, neither dirty nor clean; but by its side I see a positive advantage in connection with it, in the shape of a long mahogany shelf, fixed into the wall a few inches above the bed, and extending down its whole length from head to foot. My sick man’s involuntary egotism is as predominant an impulse within me at London as at Paris. I think directly of my invalid’s knick-knacks; I see that the mahogany shelf will serve to keep them all within my reach when I am in bed; I know that it will be wanted for no other purpose than that to which I design to put it; that it need not be cleared for dinner every day, like a table, or disturbed when the servant cleans the room, like a movable stand. I satisfy myself that it holds out all these rare advantages to me, in my peculiar situation, and I snap at them on the instant – or, in other words, I take the room immediately.

If I had been in health, I think I should have had two cogent reasons for acting otherwise, and seeking apartments elsewhere. In the first place, I should have observed that the room was not very clean, or very comfortably furnished. I should have noticed that the stained and torn drugget on the floor displayed a margin of dirty boards all round the bedchamber; and I should no sooner have set eyes on the venerable armchair by the bedside than I should have heard it saying privately in my ear, in an ominous language of its own, “Stranger, I am let to the Fleas; take me at your peril.” Even if these signs and portents had not been enough to send me out into the street again, I should certainly have found the requisite warning to quit the house written legibly in the face, figure, and manner of the landlady. I should probably have seen something to distrust and dislike in everything connected with her, down even to her name, which was Mrs. Glutch; I should have made my escape into the street again, and should not have ventured near it any more for the rest of the day. But as it was, my fatal invalid prepossessions blinded me to everything but the unexpected blessing of that mahogany shelf by the bedside. I overlooked the torn drugget, the flea-peopled armchair, and the knotty-faced landlady with the ominous name. The shelf was bait enough for me, and the moment the trap was open I collected my train of medicine-bottles and confidently walked in.

It is a general subject of remark among observant travellers, that the two nations of the civilized world which appear to be most widely separated as to the external aspects of life respectively presented by them are also the two which are most closely brought together by the neighbourly ties of local situation. Before I had been many days established in Smeary Street, I found that I myself, in my own circumscribed sphere, offered a remarkable example of the truth of the observation just recorded. The strong contrast between my present and my past life was a small individual proof of the great social contrasts between England and France.

I have truly presented myself at Paris as living independently in a little toy house of my own; as looking out upon a scene of almost perpetual brightness and gaiety; and as having people to attend on me whose blessed levity of disposition kept them always cheerful, always quaintly characteristic, always unexpectedly amusing, even to the languid eye of a sick man. With equal candour I must now record of my indoor life in London that it was passed, with many other lodgers, in a large house, without a vestige of toy-shop prettiness in any part of it. I must acknowledge that I looked out upon drab-coloured walls and serious faces through a smoke-laden atmosphere; and I must admit that I was waited on (so far as the actual house service was concerned) by people whose cloudy countenances seemed unconscious of a gleam of inner sunshine for days and days together. Nor did the contrast end here. In my lodgings at Paris, I have represented myself as having about me a variety of animate and inanimate objects, which I might notice or not, just as I pleased, and as using my freedom of choice in a curiously partial and restricted manner, in consequence of the narrowing effect of my illness on my sympathies and powers of observation. In my London lodging, I enjoyed no such liberty. I could not get even a temporary freedom of selection, except by fighting for it resolutely at odds and ends of time. I had but one object which offered itself to my observation, which perpetually presented itself, which insisted on being noticed, no matter how mentally unfit and morally unwilling my illness rendered me to observe it; and that object was – my landlady, Mrs. Glutch.

Behold me, then, now no longer a free agent; no longer a fanciful invalid with caprices to confide to the ear of the patient reader. My health is no better in Smeary Street than it was in the Champs Elysées; I take as much medicine in London as I took in Paris; but my character is altered in spite of myself, and the form and colour of my present fragment of writing will, I fear, but too truly reflect the change.

I was a sick man, with several things to discourse of – I am a sick man, with only one topic to talk about. I may escape from it for a few sentences at a time in these pages, as I escaped from it for a few minutes at a time in Smeary Street; but the burden of my song will be now what the burden of my life has been lately – my landlady. I am going to begin with her – I shall go on with her – I shall try to wander away from her – I shall get back to her – I shall end with her. She will mix herself up with everything I have to say; will intrude on my observations out of window; will get into my victuals and drink, and drops, and draughts, and pills; will come between me and my studies of character among maids of all work, in this too faithful narrative, just as she did in the real scenes which it endeavours to represent. While I make this acknowledgment as a proper warning to the reader that I have changed into a monotonous sick man since we met last, let me add, in justice to myself, that my one subject has at least the advantage of being a terrible one. Think of a sick fly waited on by a healthy blue-bottle, and you will have a fair idea of the relative proportions and positions of myself and Mrs. Glutch.

I have hardly been settled an hour in my second-floor front room before the conviction is forced on my mind that Mrs. Glutch is resolved to make a conquest of me – of the maternal or platonic kind, let me hasten to add, so as to stop the mouth of scandal before it is well opened. I find that she presents herself before me in the character of a woman suffused in a gentle melancholy, proceeding from perpetual sympathy for my suffering condition. It is part of my character as a sick man that I know by instinct when people really pity me, just as children and dogs know when people really like them; and I have, consequently, not been five minutes in Mrs. Glutch’s society before I know that her sympathy for me is entirely of that sort of which (in the commercial phrase) a large assortment is always on hand. I take no pains to conceal from Mrs. Glutch that I have found her out; but she is too innocent to understand me, and goes on sympathising in the very face of detection. She becomes, in spite of her knobbed face, knotty arms, and great stature and strength, languidly sentimental in manner the moment she enters my room. Language runs out of her in a perpetual flow, and politeness encircles her as with a halo that can never be dimmed. “I have been so anxious about you!” is her first morning’s salutation to me. The words are preceded by a faint cough, and followed by an expressively weary sigh, as if she had passed a sleepless night on my account. The next morning she appears with a bunch of wall-flowers in her mighty fist, and with another faint prefatory cough, “I beg pardon, sir; but I have brought you a few flowers. I think they relieve the mind.” The expressively weary sigh follows again, as if it would suggest this time that she has toiled into the country to gather me the flowers at early dawn. I do not find, strange as it may seem, that they relieve my mind at all; but of course I say, “Thank you.” – “Thank you, sir,” rejoins Mrs. Glutch; for it is a part of this woman’s system of oppressive politeness always to thank me for thanking her. She invariably contrives to have the last word, no matter in what circumstances the courteous contention which is the main characteristic of our daily intercourse may take its rise.

Let us say, for instance, that she comes into my room and gets into my way (which she always does) at the very time when she ought to be out of it – her first words are necessarily, “I beg pardon.” I growl (not so brutally as I could wish, being weak), “Never mind.” – “Thank you, sir,” says Mrs. Glutch, and coughs faintly, and sighs, and delays going out as long as possible. Or, take another example: “Mrs. Glutch, this plate’s dirty.” – “I am much obliged to you, sir, for telling me of it.” “It isn’t the first dirty plate I have had.” – “Really now, sir?” “You may take away the fork; for that is dirty, too.” – “Thank you, sir.” Oh, for one hour of my little Parisian portress! Oh, for one day’s respite from the politeness of Mrs. Glutch!

Let me try if I cannot get away from the subject for a little while. What have I to say about the other lodgers in the house? Not much; for how can I take any interest in people who never make inquiries after my health, though they must all know, by the frequent visits of the doctor and the chemist’s boy, that I am ill?

The first floor is inhabited by a mysterious old gentleman and his valet. He brought three cartloads of gorgeous furniture with him, to fit up two rooms; he possesses an organ, on which, greatly to his credit, he never plays; he receives perfumed notes, goes out beautifully dressed, is brought back in private carriages, with tall footmen in attendance to make as much noise as possible with the door-knocker. Nobody knows where he comes from, or believes that he passes in the house under his real name. If any aged aristocrat be missing from the world of fashion, we rather think we have got him in Smeary Street, and should feel willing to give him up to his rightful owners on payment of a liberal reward. Next door to me, in the second floor back, I hear a hollow cough and sometimes a whispering; but I know nothing for certain – not even whether the hollow cougher is also the whisperer, or whether they are two, or whether there is or is not a third silent and Samaritan person who relieves the cough and listens to the whisper. Above me, in the attics, there is a matutinal stamping and creaking of boots, which go downstairs at an early hour in a hurry, which never return all day, but which come upstairs again in a hurry late at night. The boots evidently belong to shop-men or clerks. Below, in the parlours, there seems to be a migratory population, which comes in one week and goes out the next, and is, in some cases, not at all to be depended upon in the matter of paying rent. I happen to discover this latter fact, late one night, in rather an alarming and unexpected manner. Just before bedtime I descend, candle in hand, to a small back room at the end of the passage, on the ground-floor (used all day for the reception of general visitors, and empty, as I rashly infer, all night), for the purpose of getting a sofa-cushion to eke out my scanty allowance of pillows. I no sooner open the door and approach the sofa, than I behold, to my horror and amazement, Mrs. Glutch coiled up on it, with all her clothes on, and with a wavy, coffee-coloured wrapper flung over her shoulders. Before I can turn round to run away, she is on her legs, wide awake in an instant, and politer than ever. She makes me a long speech of explanation, which begins with “I beg pardon,” and ends with “Thank you, sir;” and from the substance of which I gather that the parlour lodgers for the past week are going away the next morning; that they are the likeliest people in the world to forget to pay their lawful debts; and that Mrs. Glutch is going to lie in ambush for them all night in the coffee-coloured wrapper, ready the instant the parlour door opens to spring out into the passage and call for her rent.

What am I about? I am relapsing insensibly into the inevitable and abhorrent subject of Mrs. Glutch, exactly in accordance with my foreboding of a few pages back. Let me make one more attempt to get away from my landlady. If I try to describe my room, I am sure to get back to her, because she is always in it. Suppose I get out of the house altogether, and escape into the street?

All men, I imagine, have an interest of some kind in the locality in which they live. My interest in Smeary Street is entirely associated with my daily meals, which are publicly paraded all day long on the pavement. In explanation of this rather original course of proceeding, I must mention that I am ordered to eat “little and often,” and must add that I cannot obey the direction if the food is cooked on the premises in which I live, because I have had the misfortune to look down certain underground stairs and to discover that in the lowest depth of dirt, which I take to be the stairs themselves, there is a lower deep still, which is the kitchen at the bottom of them. Under these peculiar circumstances, I am reduced to appeal for nourishment and cleanliness in combination to the tender mercies (and kitchen) of the friends in my neighbourhood, to whom I have alluded at the outset of this narrative. They commiserate and help me with the readiest kindness. Devoted messengers, laden with light food, pass and re-pass all day long between their house and my bedroom. The dullness of Smeary Street is enlivened by perpetual snacks carried in public procession. The eyes of my opposite neighbours, staring out of window, and not looking as if they cared about my being ill, are regaled from morning to night by passing dishes and basins, which go westward full and steaming, and return eastward eloquently empty. My neighbourhood knows when I dine, and can smell out, if it pleases, what I have for dinner. The early housemaid kneeling on the doorstep can stay her scrubbing hand, and turn her pensive head and scan my simple breakfast, before I know what it will be myself. The midday idler, lounging along Smeary Street, is often sweetly reminded of his own luncheon by meeting mine. Friends who knock at my door may smell my dinner behind them, and know how I am keeping up my stamina, before they have had time to inquire after my health. My supper makes the outer darkness savoury as the evening closes in; and my empty dishes startle the gathering silence with convivial clatter as they wend on their homeward way the last thing at night.

Is there no dark side to this bright picture? Is there never any hitch in these friendly arrangements for feeding me in the cleanest way, on the most appetizing diet? Yes, there is a hitch. Will you give it a name? I will. Its name is Mrs. Glutch.

It is, I am well aware, only to be expected that my landlady should resent the tacit condemnation of her cleanliness and cookery implied in the dietary arrangements which I have made with my friends. If she would only express her sense of offence by sulking or flying into a passion, I should not complain; for, in the first case supposed, I might get the better of her by noticing nothing, and, in the second, I might hope in course of time to smooth her down by soft answers and polite prevarications. But the means she actually takes of punishing me for my too acute sense of the dirtiness of her kitchen are of such a diabolically ingenious nature, and involve such a continuous series of small persecutions, that I am rendered, from first to last, quite powerless to oppose her. Shall I describe her plan of annoyance? I must describe it – I must return to my one prohibited topic (as I foreboded I should) in spite of myself.

Mrs. Glutch, then, instead of visiting her wrath on me, or my food, or my friends, or my friends’ messengers, avenges herself entirely on their tray-cloths and dishes. She does not tear the first nor break the second – for that would be only a simple and primitive system of persecution – but she smuggles them, one by one, out of my room, and merges them inextricably with her own property, in the grimy regions of the kitchen. She has a power of invisibly secreting the largest pie-dishes and the most voluminous cloths under my very eyes, which I can compare to nothing but slight of hand. Every morning I see table utensils which my friends lent me, ranged ready to go back, in my own room. Every evening, when they are wanted, I find that some of them are missing, and that my landlady is even more surprised by that circumstance than I am myself. If my friends’ servant ventures to say, in her presence, that the cook wants her yesterday’s tray-cloth, and if I refer him to Mrs. Glutch, the immovable woman only sniffs, tosses her head, and “wonders how the young man can have demeaned himself by bringing her such a peremptory message.” If I try on my own sole responsibility to recover the missing property, she lets me see, by her manner at the outset, that she thinks I suspect her of stealing it. If I take no notice of this maneuver, and innocently persist in asking additional questions about the missing object, the following is a sample of the kind of dialogue that is sure to pass between us:

“I think, Mrs. Glutch—”

“Yes, sir!”

“I think one of my friends’ large pudding-basins has gone downstairs.”

“Really, now, sir? A large pudding-basin? No, I think not.”

“But I can’t find it up here, and it is wanted back.”

“Naturally, sir.”

“I put it on the drawers, Mrs. Glutch, ready to go back, last night.”

“Did you, indeed, sir?”

“Perhaps the servant took it downstairs to clean it?”

“Not at all likely, sir. If you will please to remember, you told her last Monday evening – or, no, I beg pardon – last Tuesday morning, that your friends cleaned up their own dishes, and that their things was not to be touched.”

“Perhaps you took it downstairs, then, yourself, Mrs. Glutch, by mistake?”

“I, sir! I didn’t. I couldn’t. Why should I? I think you said a large pudding-basin, sir?”

“Yes, I did say so.”

“I have ten large pudding-basins of my own, sir”

“I am very glad to hear it. Will you be so good as to look among them, and see if my friends’ basin has not got mixed up with your crockery?”

Mrs. Glutch turns very red in the face, slowly scratches her muscular arms, as if she felt a sense of pugilistic irritation in them, looks at me steadily with a pair of glaring eyes, and leaves the room at the slowest possible pace. I wait and ring – wait and ring – wait and ring. After the third waiting and the third ringing, she re-appears, redder of face and slower of march than before, with the missing article of property held out before her at arms-length.

“I beg pardon, sir,” she says, “but is this anything like your friends’ large pudding-basin?”

“That is the basin itself, Mrs. Glutch.”

“Really, now, sir? Well, as you seem so positive, it isn’t for me to contradict you. But I hope I shall give no offence if I mention that I had ten large pudding-basins of my own, and that I miss one of them.”

With that last dexterous turn of speech, she gives up the basin with the air of a high-minded woman, who will resign her own property rather than expose herself to the injurious doubts of a morbidly suspicious man. When I add that the little scene just described takes place between us nearly every day, the reader will admit that, although Mrs. Glutch cannot prevent me from enjoying on her dirty premises the contraband luxury of a clean dinner, she can at least go great lengths toward accomplishing the secondary annoyance of preventing me from digesting it.

I have hinted at a third personage in the shape of a servant, in my report of the foregoing dialogue, and I have previously alluded to myself (in paving the way for the introduction of my landlady) as extending my studies of human character, in my London lodging, to those forlorn members of the population called maids of all work. The maids – I use the plural number advisedly – present themselves to me to be studied, as apprentices to the hard business of service, under the matronly superintendence of Mrs. Glutch. The succession of them is brisk enough to keep all the attention I can withdraw from my landlady constantly employed in investigating their peculiarities. By the time I have been three weeks in Smeary Street, I have had three maids of all work to study – a new servant for each week! In reviewing the three individually before the reader, I must be allowed to distinguish them by numbers instead of names. Mrs. Glutch screams at them all indiscriminately by the name of Mary, just as she would scream at a succession of cats by the name of Puss. Now, although I am always writing about Mrs. Glutch, I have still spirit enough left to vindicate my own individuality by abstaining from following her example. In obedience, therefore, to these last relics of independent sentiment, permit me the freedom of numbering my maids of all work as I introduce them to public notice in these pages. Number One is amazed by the spectacle of my illness, and always stares at me. If I fell ill one evening, went to a dispensary, asked for a bottle of physic, and got well on it the next morning; or if I presented myself before her at the last gasp, and died forthwith in Smeary Street, she would, in either case, be able to understand me. But an illness on which medicine produces no immediate effect and which does not keep the patient always groaning in bed, is beyond her comprehension. Personally, she is very short and sturdy, and is always covered from head to foot with powdered black, which seems to lie especially thick on her in the morning. How does she accumulate it? Does she wash herself with the ordinary liquid used for ablutions, or does she take a plunge-bath every morning under the kitchen-grate? I am afraid to ask this question of her, but I contrive to make her talk to me about other things. She looks very much surprised, poor creature, when I first let her see that I have other words to utter, in addressing her, besides the word of command, and seems to think me the most eccentric of mankind when she finds that I have a decent anxiety to spare her all useless trouble in waiting on me. Young as she is, she has drudged so long over the wickedest ways of this world, without one leisure moment to look up from the everlasting dirt on the road at the green landscape around and the pure sky above, that she has become hardened to the saddest, surely, of human lots before she is yet a woman grown. Life means dirty work, small wages, hard words, no holidays, no social station, no future, according to her experience of it. No human being ever was created for this. No state of society which composedly accepts this, in the cases of thousands, as one of the necessary conditions of its selfish comforts, can pass itself off as civilized, except under the most audacious of all false pretences. These thoughts rise in me often when I ring the bell, and the maid of all work answers it wearily. I cannot communicate them to her; I can only encourage her to talk to me now and then on something like equal terms. Just as I am succeeding in the attainment of this object, Number One scatters all my plans and purposes to the winds by telling me that she is going away.

I ask why; and am told that she cannot bear being a-railed at and a-hunted about by Mrs. Glutch any longer. The oppressively polite woman who cannot address me without begging my pardon can find no hard words in the vocabulary hard enough for the maid of all work. “I am frightened of my life,” says Number One, apologising to me for leaving the place. “I am so little, and she’s so big. She heaves things at my head, she does. Work as hard as you may, you can’t work hard enough for her. I must go, if you please, sir. Whatever do you think she done this morning? She up and druv the creases at me.” With these words (which I find mean in genteel English that Mrs. Glutch has enforced her last orders to the servant by throwing a bunch of water-cresses at her head), Number-One courtesies and says “Good-bye!” and goes out resignedly once again into the hard world. I follow her a little while, in imagination, with no very cheering effect on my spirits – for what do I see awaiting her at each stage of her career? Alas for Number One, it is always a figure in the likeness of Mrs. Glutch!

Number Two fairly baffles me. I see her grin perpetually at me, and imagine at first that I am regarded by her in the light of a new kind of impostor, who shams illness as a way of amusing himself. But I soon discover that she grins at everything – at the fire that she lights, at the cloth she lays for dinner, at the medicine-bottles she brings upstairs, at the furibund visage of Mrs. Glutch, ready to drive whole basketfuls of creases at her head every morning. Looking at her with the eye of an artist, I am obliged to admit that Number Two is, as the painters say, out of drawing. The longest things about her are her arms; the thickest thing about her is her waist. It is impossible to believe that she has any legs, and it is not easy to find out the substitute which, in the absence of a neck, is used to keep her big head from rolling off her round shoulders. I try to make her talk, but only succeed in encouraging her to grin at me. Have ceaseless foul words and ceaseless dirty work clouded over all the little light that has ever been let in on her mind? I suspect that it is so, but I have no time to acquire any positive information on the subject. At the end of Number Two’s first week of service, Mrs. Glutch discovers, to her horror and indignation, that the new maid of all work possesses nothing in the shape of wearing-apparel except the worn-out garments actually on her back; and, to make matters worse, a lady-lodger in the parlour misses one of a pair of lace cuffs, and feels sure that the servant has taken it. There is not a particle of evidence to support this view of the case; but Number Two being destitute, is consequently condemned without a trial, and dismissed without a character. She, too, wanders off forlorn into a world that has no haven of rest or voice of welcome for her – wanders off, without so much as a dirty bundle in her hand – wanders off, voiceless, with the unchanging grin on the smut-covered face. How shocked we should all be if we opened a book about a savage country and saw a portrait of Number Two in the frontispiece as a specimen of the female population!

Number Three comes to us all the way from Wales; arrives late one evening, and is found at seven the next morning, crying as if she would break her heart, on the doorstep. It is the first time she has been away from home. She has not got used yet to being a forlorn castaway among strangers. She misses the cows of a morning, the blessed fields with the blush of sunrise on them, the familiar faces, the familiar sounds, the familiar cleanliness of her country home. There is not the faintest echo of mother’s voice, or of father’s sturdy footfall here. Sweetheart John Jones is hundreds of miles away; and little brother Joe toddles up doorsteps far from these to clamour for the breakfast which he shall get this morning from other than his sister’s hands. Is there nothing to cry for in this? Absolutely nothing, as Mrs. Glutch thinks. What does this Welsh barbarian mean by clinging to my area railings when she ought to be lighting the fire; by sobbing in full view of the public of Smeary Street when the lodgers’ bells are ringing angrily for breakfast? Will nothing get the girl indoors? Yes, a few kind words from the woman who passes by her with my breakfast will. She knows that the Welsh girl is hungry as well as homesick, questions her, finds out that she has had no supper after her long journey, and that she has been used to breakfast with the sunrise at the farm in Wales. A few merciful words lure her away from the railings, and a little food inaugurates the process of breaking her in to London service. She has but a few days allowed her, however, to practice the virtue of dogged resignation in her first place. Before she has given me many opportunities of studying her character, before she has done knitting her brows with the desperate mental effort of trying to comprehend the mystery of my illness, before the smut has fairly settled on her rosy cheeks, before the London dirt has dimmed the pattern on her neat print gown, she, too, is cast adrift into the world. She has not suited Mrs. Glutch (being, as I imagine, too offensively clean to form an appropriate part of the kitchen furniture); a friendly maid of all work in service near us has heard of a place for her, and she is forthwith sent away, to be dirtied and deadened down to her proper social level in another lodging-house.

With her, my studies of character among maids of all work come to an end. I hear vague rumours of the arrival of Number Four. But before she appears, I have got the doctor’s leave to move into the country, and have terminated my experience of London lodgings by making my escape with all convenient speed from the perpetual presence and persecutions of Mrs. Glutch. I have witnessed some sad sights during my stay in Smeary Street, which have taught me to feel for my poor and forlorn fellow-creatures as I do not think I ever felt for them before, and which have inclined me to doubt for the first time whether worse calamities might not have overtaken me than the hardship of falling ill.

Household Words 7 & 14 Jun 1856

MY BLACK MIRROR

Has everybody heard of Doctor Dee, the magician, and of the black speculum or mirror of cannel-coal, in which he could see at will everything in the wide world, and many things beyond it? If so, I may introduce myself to my readers in the easiest manner possible. Although I cannot claim to be a descendant of Doctor Dee, I profess the occult art to the extent of keeping a black mirror, made exactly after the model of that possessed by the old astrologer. My speculum, like his, is constructed of an oval piece of cannel-coal, highly polished, and set on a wooden back with a handle to hold it by. Nothing can be simpler than its appearance; nothing more marvellous than its capacities – provided always that the person using it be a true adept. Any man who disbelieves nothing is a true adept. Let him get a piece of cannel-coal, polish it highly, clean it before use with a white cambric handkerchief, retire to a private sitting-room, invoke the name of Doctor Dee, shut both eyes for a moment, and open them again suddenly on the black mirror. If he does not see anything he likes, after that – past, present, or future – then let him depend on it there is some speck or flaw of incredulity in his nature; and the sad termination of his career may be considered certain. Sooner or later, he will end in being nothing but a rational man.

I, who have not one morsel of rationality about me; I, who am as true an adept as if I had lived in the good old times (“The Ages of Faith,” as another adept has very properly called them), find unceasing interest and occupation in my black mirror. For everything I want to know, and for everything I want to do, I consult it. This very day, for instance (being in the position of most of the other inhabitants of London at the present season), I am thinking of soon going out of town. My time for being away is so limited, and my wanderings have extended, at home and abroad, in so many directions, that I can hardly hope to visit any really beautiful scenes, or gather any really interesting experiences that are absolutely new to me. I must go to some place that I have visited before; and I must, in common regard to my own holiday interests, take care that it is a place where I have already thoroughly enjoyed myself, without a single drawback to my pleasure that is worth mentioning.

Under these circumstances, if I were a mere rational man, what should I do? Weary my memory to help me to decide on a destination, by giving me my past travelling recollections in one long panorama – although I can tell by experience that of all my faculties memory is the least serviceable at the very time when I most want to employ it. As a true adept, I know better than to give myself any useless trouble of this sort. I retire to my private sitting-room, take up my black mirror, mention what I want – and, behold! on the surface of the cannel-coal the image of my former travels passes before me, in a succession of dream-scenes. I revive my past experiences, and I make my present choice out of them, by the evidence of my own eyes; and I may add, by that of my own ears also – for the figures in my magic landscapes move and speak! Shall I go on the Continent again? Yes. To what part of it? Suppose I revisit Austrian Italy, for the sake of renewing my familiarity with certain views, buildings, and pictures which once delighted me? But let me first ascertain whether I had any serious drawbacks to complain of on making acquaintance with that part of the world. Black mirror! show me my first evening in Austrian Italy.

A cloud rises on the magic surface – rests on it a little while – slowly disappears. My eyes are fixed on the cannel-coal. I see nothing, hear nothing of the world about me. The first of the magic scenes grows visible. I behold it, as in a dream. Away with the ignorant Present. I am in Italy again.

The darkness is just coming on. I see myself looking out of the side widow of a carriage. The hollow roll of the wheels has changed to a sharp rattle, and we have entered a town. We cross a vast square, illuminated by two lamps and a glimmer of reflected light from a coffee-shop window. We get on into a long street, with heavy stone arcades for foot-passengers to walk under. Everything looks dark and confused; grim visions of cloaked men flit by, all smoking; shrill female voices rise above the clatter of our wheels, then subside again in a moment. We stop. The bells on the horses’ necks ring their last tiny peal for the night. A greasy hand opens the carriage door, and helps me down the steps. I am under an archway, with blank darkness before me, with a smiling man holding a flaming tallow-candle by my side, with street spectators silently looking on behind me. They wear high-crowned hats and brown cloaks, mysteriously muffling them up to the chin. Brigands, evidently. Pass, Scene! I am a peaceable man, and I don’t like the suspicion of a stiletto, even in a dream.

Show me my sitting-room. Where did I dine, and how, on my first evening in Austrian Italy? I am in the presence of two cheerful waiters, with two flaring candles. One is lighting lamps; the other is setting brush-wood and logs in a blaze in a perfect cavern of a hearth. Where am I, now that there is plenty of light to see by? Apparently in a banqueting hall, fifty feet long by forty wide. This is my private sitting-room, and I am to eat my little bit of dinner in it all alone. Let me look about observantly while the meal is preparing. Above me is an arched painted ceiling, all alive with Cupids rolling about on clouds, and scattering perpetual roses on the heads of travellers beneath. Around me are classical landscapes of the school which treats the spectator to umbrella-shaped trees, calm green oceans, and foregrounds rampant with dancing goddesses. Beneath me is something elastic to tread upon, smelling very like old straw, which indeed it is, covered with a thin drugget. This is humanely intended to protect me against the cold of the stone or brick floor, and is a concession to English prejudices on the subject of comfort. May I be grateful for it, and take no unfriendly notice of the fleas, though they are crawling up my legs from the straw and the drugget already!

What do I see next? Dinner on table. Drab-coloured soup, which will take a great deal of thickening with grated Parmesan cheese, and five dishes all around it. Trout fried in oil, rolled beef steeped in succulent brown gravy, roast chicken with water-cresses, square pastry cakes with mince-meat inside them, fried potatoes; – all excellent. This is really good Italian cookery; it is more fanciful than the English and more solid than the French. It is not greasy, and none of the fried dishes taste in the slightest degree of lamp-oil. The wine is good, too – effervescent, smacking of the Muscatel grape, and only eighteen-pence a bottle. The second course more than sustains the character of the first. Small browned birds that look like larks, their plump breasts clothed succulently with a counterpane of fat bacon, their tender backs reposing on beds of savoury toast – stewed pigeon – a sponge-cake pudding – baked pears. Where could one find a better dinner or a pleasanter waiter to serve at table? He is neither servile nor familiar, and is always ready to occupy any superfluous attention I have to spare with all the small-talk that is in him. He has, in fact, but one fault, and that consists in his very vexatious and unaccountable manner of varying the language in which he communicates with me.

I speak French and Italian, and he can speak French also as well as his own tongue. I naturally, however, choose Italian on first addressing him, because it is his native language. He understands what I say to him perfectly, but he answers me in French. I bethink myself upon this, that he may be wishing, like the rest of us, to show off any little morsel of learning that he has picked up, or that he may fancy I understand French better than I do Italian, and may be politely anxious to make our colloquy as easy as possible to me. Accordingly I humour him, and change to French when I next speak. No sooner are the words out of my mouth than, with inexplicable perversity, he answers me in Italian. All through the dinner I try hard to make him talk the same language that I do; yet, excepting now and then a few insignificant phrases, I never succeed. What is the meaning of his playing this game of philological see-saw with me? Do the people here actually carry the national politeness so far as to natter the stranger by according him an undisturbed monopoly of the language in which he chooses to talk to them? I cannot explain it, and dessert surprises me in the midst of my perplexities. Four dishes again! Parmesan cheese, macaroons, pears and green figs. With these and another bottle of the effervescent wine, how brightly the evening will pass away by the blazing wood-fire! Surely I cannot do better than go to Austrian Italy again, after having met with such a first welcome to the country as this. Shall I put down the cannel-coal, and determine without any more ado on paying a second visit to the land that is cheered by my comfortable inn? No, not too hastily. Let me try the effect of one or two more scenes from my past travelling experience in this particular division of the Italian peninsula before I decide.

Black Mirror! how did I end my evening at the comfortable inn?

The cloud passes again, heavily and thickly this time, over the surface of the mirror – clears away slowly – shows me myself dozing luxuriously by the red embers with an empty bottle at my side. A suddenly opening door wakes me up; the landlord of the inn approaches, places a long, official-looking book on the table, and hands me pen and ink. I inquire peevishly what I am wanted to write at that time of night, when I am just digesting my dinner. The landlord answers respectfully that I am required to give the police a full, true, and particular account of myself. I approach the table, thinking this demand rather absurd, for my passport is already in the hands of the authorities However, as I am in a despotic country, I keep my thoughts to myself, open a blank page in the official-looking book, see that it is divided into columns, with printed headings, and find that I no more understand what they mean than I understand an assessed tax-paper at home, to which, by-the-by, the blank page bears a striking general resemblance. The headings are technical official words, which I now meet with as parts of Italian speech for the first time. I am obliged to appeal to the polite landlord, and by his assistance, I get gradually to understand what it is the Austrian police want of me.

The police require to know, before they will let me go on peaceably tomorrow, first, What my name is in full ? (Answered easily enough.) Second, What is my nation?’ (British, and delighted to cast it in the teeth of continental tyrants.) Third, Where was I born? (In London – parish of Marylebone – and I wish my native vestry knew how the Austrian authorities were using me.) Fourth, Where do I live? (In London, again, and I have half a mind to write to the Times about this nuisance before I go to bed.) Fifth, How old am I? (My age is what it has been for the last seven years, and what it will remain till further notice – twenty-five exactly.) What next ? By all that is inquisitive, here are the police wanting to know (Sixth) whether I am married or single! Landlord, what is the Italian for Bachelor? “Write Nubile, signor.” Nubile? That means Marriageable. Permit me to remark, my good sir, that this is a woman’s definition of a bachelor – not a man’s. No matter, let it pass. What next? (Oh, distrustful despots! what next?) Seventh, What is my condition? (First-rate condition, to be sure – full of rolled beef, toasted larks, and effervescent wine. Condition! What do they mean! by that? Profession, is it? I have not got one. What shall I write? “Write Proprietor, signor.” Very well; but I don’t know that I am, proprietor of anything except the clothes I stand up in; even my trunk was borrowed of a friend.) Eighth, Where do I come from? Ninth, Where am I going to? Tenth, When did I get my passport? Eleventh, Where did I get my passport? Twelfth, Who gave me my passport? Was there ever such a monstrous string of questions to address to a harmless, idle man, who only wants to potter about Italy quietly in a post-chaise? Do they catch Mazzini, landlord, with all these precautions? No; they only catch me. There! there! take your Travellers’ Book back to the police. Surely, such unfounded distrust of my character as the production of that volume at my dinner-table implies, forms a serious drawback to the pleasure of travelling in Austrian Italy. Shall I give up at once all idea of going there, in my own innocent character, again? No; let me be deliberate in arriving at a decision – let me patiently try the experiment of looking at one more scene from the past.

Black Mirror! how did I travel in Austrian Italy after I had paid my bill in the morning, and had left my comfortable inn?

The new dream-scene shows me evening again.

I have joined another English traveller in taking a vehicle that they call a calèche. It is a frowzy kind of sedan-chair on wheels, with greasy leather curtains and cushions. In the days of its prosperity and youth it might have been a state coach, and might have carried Sir Robert Walpole to court, or the Abbe Dubois to a supper with the Regent Orleans. It is driven by a tall, cadaverous, ruffianly postilion, with his clothes all in rags, and without a spark of mercy for his miserable horses. It smells badly, looks badly, goes badly; and jerks, and cracks, and totters as if it would break down altogether – when it is suddenly stopped on a rough stone pavement in front of a lonely post house, just as the sun is sinking and the night is setting in.

The postmaster comes out to superintend the harnessing of fresh horses. He is tipsy, familiar, and confidential; he first apostrophizes the calèche with contemptuous curses, then takes me mysteriously aside, and declares that the whole highroad onward to our morning’s destination swarms with thieves. It seems, then, that the Austrian police reserve all their vigilance for innocent travellers, and leave local rogues entirely unmolested. I make this reflection and ask the postmaster what he recommends us to do for the protection of our portmanteaus, which are tied on to the roof of the calèche. He answers that, unless we take special precautions, the thieves will get up behind, on our crazy foot-board, and will cut the trunks off the top of our frowzy travelling-carriage, under cover of the night, while we are quietly seated inside, seeing and suspecting nothing. We instantly express our readiness to take any precautions that any one may be kind enough to suggest. The postmaster winks, lays his finger archly on the side of his nose, and gives an unintelligible order in the patois of the district. Before I have time to ask what he is going to do, every idler about the post-house who can climb scales the summit of the calèche, and every idler who cannot stands roaring and gesticulating below with a lighted candle in his hand.

While the hubbub is at its loudest, a rival travelling-carriage suddenly drives into the midst of us, in the shape of a huge barrel-organ on wheels, and bursts out awfully in the darkness with the grand march in “Semiramide,” played with the utmost fury of the drum, cymbal and trumpet-stops. The noise is so bewildering that my travelling companion and I take refuge inside our carriage, and shut our eyes, and stop our ears, and abandon ourselves to despair. After a time, our elbows are jogged and a string apiece is given to us through each window. We are informed in shouts, accompanied fiercely by the grand march, that the strings are fastened to our portmanteaus above; that we are to keep the loose ends round our forefingers all night; and that the moment we feel a tug, we may be quite certain the thieves are at work, and may feel justified in stopping the carriage and fighting for our baggage without any more ado. Under these agreeable auspices, we start again, with our strings round our forefingers. We feel like men about to ring the bell – or like men engaged in deep-sea fishing – or like men on the point of pulling the string of a shower-bath. Fifty times at least, during the next stage, each of us is certain that he feels a tug, and pops his head agitatedly out of window, and sees absolutely nothing, and falls back again exhausted with excitement in a corner of the calèche. All through the night this wear and tear of our nerves goes on; and all through the night (thanks, probably, to the ceaseless popping of our heads out of the windows) not the ghost of a thief comes near us. We begin, at last, almost to feel that it would be a relief to be robbed – almost to doubt the policy of resisting any mercifully larcenous hands stretched forth to rescue us from the incubus of our own baggage. The morning dawn finds us languid and haggard, with the accursed portmanteau strings dangling unregarded in the bottom of the calèche. And this is taking our pleasure! This is an incident of travel in Austrian Italy! Faithful Black Mirror, accept my thanks. The warning of the two last dream-scenes that you have shown me shall not be disregarded. Whatever other direction I may take when I go out of town for the present season, one road at least I know that I shall avoid – the road that leads to Austrian Italy.

Shall I keep on the northern side of the Alps, and travel a little, let us say, in German Switzerland? Black Mirror! how did I get on when I was last in that country? Did I like my introductory experience at my first inn?

The vision changes, and takes me again to the outside of a house of public entertainment; a great white, clean, smooth-fronted, opulent-looking hotel – a very different building from my dingy, cavernous Italian inn. At the street door stands the landlord. He is a little, lean, rosy man, dressed all in black, and looking like a master-undertaker. I observe that he neither steps forward nor smiles when I get out of the carriage and ask for a bedroom. He gives me the shortest possible answer, growls guttural instructions to a waiter, then looks out into the street again, and, before I have so much as turned my back on him, forgets my existence immediately. The vision changes again, and takes me inside the hotel. I am following a waiter upstairs – the man looks unaffectedly sorry to see me. In the bedroom corridor we find a chambermaid asleep, with her head on a table. She is woke up; opens a door with a groan, and scowls at me reproachfully when I say that the room will do. I descend to dinner. Two waiters attend on me, under protest, and look as if they were on the point of giving warning every time I require them to change my plate. At the second course the landlord comes in, and stands and stares at me intently and silently with his hands in his pockets. This may be his way of seeing that my dinner is well-served; but it looks much more like his way of seeing that I do not abstract any spoons from his table.

I become irritated by the boorish staring and frowning of everybody about me, and express myself strongly on the subject of my reception at the hotel to an English traveller dining near me.

The English traveller is one of those exasperating men who are always ready to put up with injuries, and he coolly accounts for the behaviour of which I complain, by telling me that it is the result of the blunt honesty of the natives, who cannot pretend to take an interest in me which they do not really feel. What do I care about the feelings of the stolid landlord and the sulky waiters? I require the comforting outward show from them – the inward substance is not of the smallest consequence to me. When I travel in civilized countries, I want such a reception at my inn as shall genially amuse and gently tickle all the region round about my organ of self-esteem. Blunt honesty, which is too offensively truthful to pretend to be glad to see me, shows no corresponding integrity – as my own experience informs me at this very hotel – about the capacities of its wine-bottles, but gives me a pint and charges me for a quart in the bill, like the rest of the world. Blunt honesty, although it is too brutally sincere to look civilly distressed and sympathetic when I say that I am tired after my journey, does not hesitate to warm up, and present before me as newly dressed, a Methuselah of a duck that has been cooked several times over, several days ago, and paid for, though not eaten, by my travelling predecessors. Blunt honesty fleeces me according to every established predatory law of the landlord’s code, yet shrinks from the amiable duplicity of fawning affectionately before me all the way upstairs when I first present myself to be swindled. Away with such detestable sincerity as this! Away with the honesty which brutalizes a landlord’s manners without reforming his bottles or his bills! Away with my German-Swiss hotel, and the extortionate cynic who keeps it! Let others pay tribute if they will to that boor in innkeeper’s clothing, the colour of my money he shall never see again.

Suppose I avoid German Switzerland, and try Switzerland Proper? Mirror! how did I travel when I last found myself on the Swiss side of the Alps?

The new vision removes me even from the most distant view of a hotel of any kind, and places me in a wild mountain country where the end of a rough road is lost in the dry bed of a torrent. I am seated in a queer little box on wheels, called a Char, drawn by a mule and a mare, and driven by a jovial coachman in a blue blouse. I have hardly time to look down alarmedly at the dry bed of the torrent, before the Char plunges into it. Rapidly and recklessly we thump along over rocks and stones, acclivities and declivities that would shake down the stoutest English travelling-carriage, knock up the best-bred English horses, nonplus the most knowing English coachman. Jovial Blue Blouse, singing like a nightingale, drives ahead regardless of every obstacle – the mule and mare tear along as if the journey was the great enjoyment of the day to them – the Char cracks, rends, sways, bumps and totters, but scorns, as becomes a hardy little mountain vehicle, to overturn or come to pieces. When we are not among the rocks we are rolling and heaving in sloughs of black mud and sand, like a Dutch-herring-boat in a groundswell. It is all one to Blue Blouse and the mule and mare. They are just as ready to drag through sloughs as to jolt over rocks; and when we do come occasionally to a bit of unencumbered ground, they always indemnify themselves for past hardship and fatigue by galloping like mad. As for my own sensations in the character of passenger in the Char, they are not, physically speaking, of the pleasantest possible kind. I can only keep myself inside my vehicle by dint of holding tight with both hands by anything I can find to grasp at; and I am so shaken throughout my whole anatomy that my very jaws clatter again, and my feet play a perpetual tattoo on the bottom of the Char. Did I hit on no method of travelling more composed and deliberate than this, I wonder, when I was last in Switzerland? Must I make up my mind to be half shaken to pieces if I am bold enough to venture on going there again?

The surface of the Black Mirror is once more clouded over. It clears, and the vision is now of a path along the side of a precipice. A mule is following the path, and I am the adventurous traveller who is astride on the beast’s back. The first observation that occurs to me in my new position is, that mules thoroughly deserve their reputation for obstinacy, and that, in regard to the particular animal on which I am riding, the less I interfere with him and the more I conduct myself as if I was a pack-saddle on his back, the better we are sure to get on together.

Carrying pack-saddles is his main business in life; and though he saw me get on his back, he persists in treating me as if I was a bale of goods, by walking on the extreme edge of the precipice, so as not to run any risk of rubbing his load against the safe, or mountain, side of the path. In this and in other things I find that he is the victim of routine, and the slave of habit. He has a way of stopping short, placing himself in a slanting position, and falling into a profound meditation at some of the most awkward turns in the wild mountain roads. I imagine at first that he may be halting in this abrupt and inconvenient manner to take breath; but then he never exerts himself so as to tax his lungs in the smallest degree, and he stops on the most unreasonable, irregular principles, sometimes twice in ten minutes – sometimes not more than twice in two hours – evidently just as his new ideas happen to absorb his attention or not. It is part of his exasperating character at these times always to become immersed in reflection where the muleteer’s staff has not room to reach him with the smallest effect; and where loading him with blows being out of the question, loading him with abusive language is the only other available process for getting him on, I find that he generally turns out to be susceptible to the influence of injurious epithets after he has heard himself insulted five or six times. Once his obdurate nature gives way, even at the third appeal. He has just stopped with me on his back, to amuse himself, at a dangerous part of the road, with a little hard thinking in a steeply slanting position; and it becomes, therefore, urgently necessary to abuse him into proceeding forthwith. First, the muleteer calls him a Serpent – he never stirs an inch. Secondly, the muleteer calls him a Frog – he goes on imperturbably with his meditation. Thirdly, the muleteer roars out indignantly, Ah sacre nom d’un Butor! (which, interpreted by the help of my Anglo-French dictionary, means apparently, Ah, sacred name of a Muddlehead!); and at this extraordinary adjuration the beast instantly jerks up his nose, shakes his ears, and goes on his way indignantly.

Mule-riding, under these circumstances, is certainly an adventurous and amusing method of travelling, and well worth trying for once in a way; but I am not at all sure that I should enjoy a second experience of it, and I have my doubts on this account – to say nothing of my dread of a second jolting journey in a Char – about the propriety of undertaking another journey to Switzerland during the present sultry season. It will be wisest, perhaps, to try the effect of a new scene from the past, representing some former visit to some other locality, before I venture on arriving at a decision. I have rejected Austrian Italy and German Switzerland, and I am doubtful about Switzerland Proper. Suppose I do my duty as a patriot, and give the attractions of my own country a fair chance of appealing to any past influences of the agreeable kind which they may have exercised over me? Black Mirror! when I was last a tourist at home, how did I travel about from place to place?

The cloud on the magic surface rises slowly and grandly, like the lifting of a fog at sea, and discloses a tiny drawing-room, with a skylight window, and a rose-coloured curtain drawn over it to keep out the sun. A bright bookshelf runs all round this little fairy chamber, just below the ceiling, where the cornice would be in loftier rooms. Sofas extend along the wall on either side, and mahogany cupboards full of good things ensconce themselves snugly in the four corners. The table is brightened with nosegays; the mantle-shelf has a smart railing all round it; and the looking-glass above is just large enough to reflect becomingly the face and shoulders of any lady who will give herself the trouble of looking into it. The present inhabitants of the room are three gentlemen with novels and newspapers in their hands, taking their ease in blouses, dressing-gowns, and slippers. They are reposing on the sofas with fruit and wine within easy reach – and one of the party looks to me very much like the enviable possessor of the Black Mirror. They exhibit a spectacle of luxury which would make an ancient Spartan shudder with disgust; and, in an adjoining apartment, their band is attending on them, in the shape of a musical box which is just now playing the last scene in “Lucia di Lammermoor.”

Hark! what sounds are those mingling with the notes of Donizetti’s lovely music – now rising over it sublimely, now dying away under it, gently and more gently still? Our sweet opera air shall come to its close, our music shall play for its short destined time, and then be silent again; but those more glorious sounds shall go on with us day and night, shall still swell and sink inexhaustibly, long after we and all who know and love and remember us have passed from this earth forever. It is the wash of the waves that now travels along with us grandly wherever we go. We are at sea in a schooner-yacht, and are taking our pleasure along the southern shores of the English coast.

Yes, this to every man who can be certain of his own stomach, this is the true luxury of travelling, the true secret for thoroughly enjoying all the attractions of moving about from place to place. Wherever we now go, we carry our elegant and comfortable home along with us. We can stop where we like, see what we like, and always come back to our favourite corner on the sofa, always carry on our favourite occupations and amusements, and still be travelling, still be getting forward to new scenes all the time. Here is no hurrying to accommodate yourself to other people’s hours for starting, no scrambling for places, no wearisome watchfulness over baggage. Here are no anxieties about strange beds – for have we not each of us our own sweet little cabin to nestle in at night? – no agitating dependence at the dinner-hour upon the vagaries of strange cooks – for have we not our own sumptuous larder always to return to, our own accomplished and faithful culinary artist always waiting to minister to our special tastes? We can walk and sleep, stand up or lie down just as we please, in our floating travelling-carriage. We can make our own road, and trespass nowhere. The bores we dread, the letters we don’t want to answer, cannot follow and annoy us. We are the freest travellers under heaven; and we find something to interest and attract us through every hour of the day. The ships we meet, the trimming of our sails, the varying of the weather, the everlasting innumerable changes of the ocean, afford constant occupation for eye and ear. Sick, indeed, must that libellous traveller have been who first called the sea monotonous – sick to death, and perhaps, born brother also to that other traveller of evil renown, the first man who journeyed from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren.

Rest, then, a while unemployed, my faithful Black Mirror! The last scene you have shown me is sufficient to answer the purpose for which I took you up. Toward what point of the compass I may turn after leaving London is more than I can tell; but this I know, that my next post-horses shall be the winds, my next stages coast towns, my next road over the open waves. I will be a sea traveller once more, and will put off resuming my land journeyings until the arrival of that most obliging of all convenient periods of time – a future opportunity.

Household Words 6 Sep 1856

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE

THE UNKNOWN PUBLIC

Do the customers at publishing houses, the members of book-clubs and circulating libraries, and the purchasers and borrowers of newspapers and reviews, compose altogether the great bulk of the reading public of England? There was a time when, if anybody had put this question to me, I, for one, should certainly have answered Yes.

I know better now. So far from composing the bulk of English readers, the public just mentioned represents nothing more than the minority.

This startling discovery dawned upon me gradually. I made my first approaches toward it in walking about London, more especially in the second and third rate neighbourhoods. At such times, whenever I passed a small stationer’s or small tobacconist’s shop, I became mechanically conscious of certain publications which invariably occupied the windows. These publications all appeared to be of the same small quarto size: they seemed to consist merely of a few unbound pages; each one of them had a picture on the upper half of the front leaf, and a quantity of small print on the under. I noticed just as much as this, for some time, and no more. None of the gentlemen who profess to guide my taste in literary matters had ever directed my attention toward these mysterious publications. My favourite Review is, as I firmly believe, at this very day, unconscious of their existence. My enterprising librarian – who forces all sorts of books on my attention that I don’t want to read, because he has bought whole editions of them a great bargain – has never yet tried me with the limp, unbound picture-quarto of the small shops. Day after day, and week after week, the mysterious publications haunted my walks, go where I might; and still I was too careless to stop and notice them in detail. I left London, and travelled about England. The neglected publications followed me. There they were in every town, large or small. I saw them in fruit-shops, in oyster-shops, in cigar-shops, in lozenge-shops. Villages even – picturesque, strong-smelling villages – were not free from them. Wherever the speculative daring of one man could open a shop, and the human appetites and necessities of his fellow-mortals could keep it from shutting up again, there, as it appeared to me, the unbound picture-quarto instantly entered, set itself up obtrusively in the window, and insisted on being looked at by everybody. “Buy me, borrow me, stare at me, steal me. Oh, inattentive stranger, do anything but pass me by!”

Under this sort of compulsion, it was not long before I began to stop at shop-windows and look attentively at these all-pervading specimen of what was to me a new species of literary production. I made acquaintance with one of them among the deserts of West Cornwall; with another in a populous thoroughfare of Whitechapel; with a third in a dreary little lost town at the north of Scotland. I went into a lovely county of South Wales; the modest railway had not penetrated to it, but the audacious picture-quarto had found it out. Who could resist this perpetual, this inevitable, this magnificently unlimited appeal to notice and patronage? From looking in at the windows of the shops, I got on to entering the shops themselves – to buying specimens of this locust-flight of small publications – to making strict examination of them from the first page to the last – and finally, to instituting inquiries about them in all sorts of well-informed quarters. The result has been the discovery of an Unknown Public; a public to be counted by millions; the mysterious, the unfathomable, the universal public of the penny-novel-journals.[*]

[*] FOOTNOTE It may be as well to explain that I use this awkward compound word in order to mark the distinction between a penny journal and a penny newspaper. The “journal” is what I am now writing about. The “newspaper” is an entirely different subject, with which this article has no connection.

I have five of these journals now before me, represented by one sample copy, bought haphazard, of each. There are many more; but these five represent the successful and well-established members of the literary family. The eldest of them is a stout lad of fifteen years’ standing; the youngest is an infant of three months old. All five are sold at the same price of one penny; all five are published regularly once a week; all five contain about the same quantity of matter. The weekly circulation of the most successful of the five is now publicly advertised (and, as I am informed, without exaggeration) at half a million. Taking the other four as attaining altogether to a circulation of another half-million (which is probably much under the right estimate) we have a sale of a million weekly for five penny journals. Reckoning only three readers to each copy sold, the result is a public of three millions – a public unknown to the literary world; unknown, as disciples, to the whole body of professed critics; unknown, as customers, at the great libraries and the great publishing houses; unknown, as an audience, to the distinguished English writers of our own time. A reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of literary civilisation is a phenomenon worth examining – a mystery which the sharpest man among us may not find it easy to solve.

In the first place, who are the three millions – the Unknown Public – as I have ventured to call them?

The known reading public – the minority already referred to – are easily discovered and classified. There is the religious public, with booksellers and literature of its own, which includes reviews and newspapers as well as books. There is the public which reads for information, and devotes itself to Histories, Biographies, Essays, Treatises, Voyages and Travels. There is the public which reads for amusement, and patronizes the Circulating Libraries and the railway bookstalls. There is, lastly, the public which reads nothing but newspapers. We all know where to lay our hands on the people who represent these various classes. We see the books they like on their tables. We meet them out at dinner, and hear them talk of their favourite authors. We know, if we are at all conversant with literary matters, even the very districts of London in which certain classes of people live who are to be depended upon beforehand as the picked readers for certain kinds of books. But what do we know of the enormous, outlawed majority – of the lost literary tribes – of the prodigious, the overwhelming three millions? Absolutely nothing.

I myself – and I say it to my sorrow – have a very large circle of acquaintance. Ever since I undertook the interesting task of exploring the Unknown Public, I have been trying to discover among my dear friends and my bitter enemies (both alike on my visiting-list), a subscriber to a penny-novel-journal – and I have never yet succeeded in the attempt. I have heard theories started as to the probable existence of penny-novel-journals in kitchen dressers, in the back parlours of Easy-shaving Shops, in the greasy seclusion of the boxes at the small Chop-houses. But I have never yet met with any man, woman or child who could answer the inquiry: “Do you subscribe to a penny journal?” plainly in the affirmative, and who could produce the periodical in question. I have learned, years ago, to despair of ever meeting with a single woman, after a certain age, who has not had an offer of marriage. I have given up long since all idea of ever discovering a man who has himself seen a ghost, as distinguished from that other inevitable man who has had a bosom friend who has unquestionably seen one. These are two among many other aspirations of a wasted life which I have definitely resigned. I have now to add one more to the number of my vanished illusions.

In the absence, therefore, of any positive information on the subject, it is only possible to pursue the present investigation by accepting such negative evidence as may help us to guess, with more or less accuracy, at the social position, the habits, the tastes, and the average intelligence of the Unknown Public. Arguing carefully by inference, we may hope, in this matter, to arrive at something like a safe, if not a satisfactory, conclusion.

To begin with, it may be fairly assumed – seeing that the staple commodity of each one of the five journals before me is composed of stories – that the Unknown Public reads for its amusement more than for its information.

Judging by my own experience, I should be inclined to add that the Unknown Public looks to quantity rather than quality in spending its penny a week on literature. In buying my five specimen copies at five different shops, I purposely approached the individual behind the counter on each occasion in the character of a member of the Unknown Public – say, Number Three Million and One – who wished to be guided in laying out a penny entirely by the recommendation of the shop-keeper himself. I expected, by this course of proceeding, to hear a little popular criticism, and to get at what the conditions of success might be, in a branch of literature which was quite new to me. No such result rewarded my efforts in any case. The dialogue between buyer and seller always took some such practical turn as this:

Reader, Number Three Million and One. “I want to take in one of the penny journals. Which do you recommend?”

Enterprising Publisher. “Some likes one, and some likes another. They’re all good pennurths. Seen this one?”

“Yes.”

“Seen that one?”

“No.”

“Look what a pennurth!”

“Yes – but about the stories in this one? Are they as good, now, as the stories in that one?”

“Well, you see, some likes one, and some likes another. Sometimes I sells more of one, and sometimes I sells more of another. Take ’em all the year round, and there an’t a pin, as I knows of, to choose between ’em. There’s just about as much in one as there is in another. All good pennurths. Bless your soul, just take ’em up and look for yourself! All good pennurths, choose where you like!”

I never got any further than this, try as I might. And yet I found the shop-keepers, both men and women, ready enough to talk on other topics. On each occasion, so far from receiving any practical hints that I was interrupting business, I found myself sociably delayed in the shop, after I had made my purchase, as if I had been an old acquaintance. I got all sorts of curious information on all sorts of subjects – excepting the good pennurth of print in my pocket. Does the reader know the singular facts in connection with Everton Toffey? It is like eau de Cologne. There is only one genuine receipt for making it in the world. It has been a family inheritance from remote antiquity. You may go here, there, and everywhere, and buy what you think is Everton Toffey (or eau de Cologne); but there is only one place in London, as there is only one place in Cologne, at which you can obtain the genuine article. That information was given me at one penny journal shop. At another, the proprietor explained his new system of Stay-making to me. He offered to provide my wife with something that would support her muscles and not pinch her flesh; and, what was more, he was not the man to ask for his bill afterward, except in the case of giving both of us perfect satisfaction. This man was so talkative and intelligent; he could tell me all about so many other things besides stays, that I took it for granted he could give me the information of which I stood in need. But here, again, I was disappointed. He had a perfect snowdrift of penny journals all over his counter; he snatched them up by handfuls, and gesticulated with them cheerfully; he smacked and patted them, and brushed them all up in a heap, to express to me that “the whole lot would be worked off by the evening”; but he, too, when I brought him to close quarters, only repeated the one inevitable form of words: “A good pennurth; that’s all I can say! Bless your soul, look at any one of them for yourself, and see what a pennurth it is!”

Having, inferentially, arrived at the two conclusions that the Unknown Public reads for amusement, and that it looks to quantity in its reading, rather than to quality, I might have found it difficult to proceed further toward the making of new discoveries but for the existence of a very remarkable aid to inquiry, which is common to all the penny-novel-journals alike.

The peculiar facilities to which I now refer are presented in the Answers to Correspondents. The page containing these is, beyond all comparison, the most interesting page in the penny journals. There is no earthly subject that it is possible to discuss, no private affair that it is possible to conceive, which the inscrutable Unknown Public will not confide to the editor in the form of a question, and which the editor will not set himself seriously and resolutely to answer. Hidden under cover of initials, or Christian names, or conventional signatures – such as Subscriber, Constant Reader, and so forth – the editor’s correspondents seem, many of them, to judge by the published answers to their questions, utterly impervious to the senses of ridicule or shame. Young girls beset by perplexities which are usually supposed to be reserved for a mother’s or an elder sister’s ear, consult the editor. Married women who have committed little frailties, consult the editor. Male jilts in deadly fear of actions for breach of promise of marriage, consult the editor. Ladies whose complexions are on the wane, and who wish to know the best artificial means of restoring them, consult the editor. Gentlemen who want to dye their hair and get rid of their corns consult the editor. Inconceivably dense ignorance, inconceivably petty malice, and inconceivably complacent vanity, all consult the editor, and all, wonderful to relate, get serious answers from him. No mortal position is too difficult for this wonderful man; there is no change of character as general referee which he is not prepared to assume on the instant. Now he is a father, now a mother, now a schoolmaster, now a confessor, now a doctor, now a lawyer, now a young lady’s confidante, now a young gentleman’s bosom friend, now a lecturer on morals, and now an authority in cookery.

However, our present business is not with the editor, but with his readers. As a means of getting at the average intelligence of the Unknown Public – as a means of testing the general amount of education which they have acquired, and of ascertaining what share of taste and delicacy they have inherited from Nature – these extraordinary Answers to Correspondents may fairly be produced in detail, to serve us for a guide. I must premise that I have not maliciously hunted them up out of many numbers; I have merely looked into my five sample copies of five separate journals – all, I repeat, bought accidentally, just as they happened to catch my attention in the shop windows. I have not waited for bad specimens, or anxiously watched for good; I have impartially taken my chance. And now, just as impartially, I dip into one journal after another, on the Correspondents’ page, exactly as the five happen to lie on my desk. The result is, that I have the pleasure of presenting to those ladies and gentlemen who may honour me with their attention the following members of the Unknown Public who are in a condition to speak quite unreservedly for themselves:

A reader of a penny-novel-journal who wants a recipe for gingerbread. A reader who complains of fullness in his throat. Several readers who want cures for grey hair, for warts, for sores on the head, for nervousness, and for worms. Two readers who have trifled with Woman’s Affections, and who want to know if Woman can sue them for breach of promise of marriage. A reader who wants to know what the sacred initials I. H. S. mean, and how to get rid of smallpox marks. Another reader who desires to be informed what an esquire is. Another who cannot tell how to pronounce picturesque and acquiescence. Another who requires to be told that chiaroscuro is a term used by painters. Three readers who want to know how to soften ivory, how to get a divorce, and how to make black varnish. A reader who is not certain what the word poems means; not certain that “Mazeppa” was written by Lord Byron; not certain whether there are such things in the world as printed and published Lives of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Two afflicted readers, well worthy of a place by themselves, who want a recipe apiece for the cure of knock-knees; and who are referred (it is to be hoped, by a straight-legged editor) to a former answer, addressed to other sufferers, which contains the information they require.

Two readers, respectively, unaware, until the editor has enlightened them, that the author of “Robinson Crusoe” was Daniel Defoe, and the author of the “Irish Melodies,” Thomas Moore. Another reader, a trifle denser, who requires to be told that the histories of Greece and Rome are ancient histories, and the histories of France and England modern histories.

A reader who wants to know the right hour of the day at which to visit a newly-married couple. A reader who wants a recipe for liquid blacking. A lady reader who expresses her sentiments prettily on crinoline. Another lady reader, who wants to know how to make crumpets. Another, who has received presents from a gentleman to whom she is not engaged, and who wants the editor to tell her whether she is right or wrong. Two lady readers who require lovers, and wish the editor to provide them. Two timid girls, who are respectively afraid of a French invasion and dragonflies.

A Don Juan of a reader, who wants the private address of a certain actress. A reader with a noble ambition who wishes to lecture, and wants to hear of an establishment at which he can buy discourses ready-made. A natty reader, who wants German polish for boots and shoes. A sore-headed reader, who is editorially advised to use soap and warm water. A virtuous reader, who writes to condemn married women for listening to compliments, and who is informed by an equally virtuous editor that his remarks are neatly expressed. A guilty (female) reader, who confides her frailties to a moral editor and shocks him. A pale-faced reader, who asks if she shall darken her skin. Another pale-faced reader, who asks if she shall put on rouge. An undecided reader, who asks if there is any inconsistency in a dancing-mistress being a teacher at a Sunday-school. A bashful reader, who has been four years in love with a lady, and has not yet mentioned it to her. A speculative reader, who wishes to know if he can sell lemonade without a license. An uncertain reader, who wants to be told whether he had better declare his feelings frankly and honourably at once. An indignant female reader, who reviles all the gentlemen in her neighbourhood because they don’t take the ladies out. A scorbutic reader, who wants to be cured. A pimply reader, in the same condition. A jilted reader, who writes to know what his best revenge may be, and who is advised by a wary editor to try indifference. A domestic reader, who wishes to be told the weight of a newly-born child. An inquisitive reader, who wants to know if the name of David’s mother is mentioned in the Scriptures.

Here are ten editorial sentiments on things in general, which are pronounced at the express request of correspondents, and which are therefore likely to be of use in assisting us to form an estimate of the intellectual condition of the Unknown Public:

1. All months are lucky to marry in, when your union is hallowed by love.

2. When you have a sad trick of blushing on being introduced to a young lady, and when you want to correct the habit, summon to your aid a manly confidence.

3. If you want to write neatly, do not bestow too much ink on occasional strokes.

4. You should not shake hands with a lady on your first introduction to her.

5. You can sell ointment without a patent.

6. A widow should at once and most decidedly discourage the lightest attentions on the part of a married man.

7. A rash and thoughtless girl will scarcely make a steady, thoughtful wife.

8. We do not object to a moderate quantity of crinoline.

9. A sensible and honourable man never flirts himself, and ever despises flirts of the other sex.

10. A collier will not better his condition by going to Prussia.

At the risk of being wearisome, I must once more repeat that these selections from the Answers to Correspondents, incredibly absurd as they may appear, are presented exactly as I find them. Nothing is exaggerated for the sake of a joke; nothing is invented, or misquoted, to serve the purpose of any pet theory of my own. The sample produced of the three million penny readers is left to speak for itself; to give some idea of the social and intellectual materials of which a portion, at least, of the Unknown Public may fairly be presumed to be composed. Having so far disposed of this first part of the matter in hand, the second part follows, naturally enough, of its own accord. We have all of us formed some opinion by this time on the subject of the Public itself: the next thing to do is to find out what that Public reads.

I have already said that the staple commodity of the journals appears to be formed of stories. The five specimen copies of the five separate weekly publications now before me contain, altogether, ten serial stories, one reprint of a famous novel (to be hereafter referred to), and seven short tales, each of which begins and ends in one number. The remaining pages are filled up with miscellaneous contributions, in literature and art, drawn from every conceivable source; pickings from Punch and Plato; wood engravings, representing notorious people and views of famous places, which strongly suggest that the original blocks have seen better days in other periodicals; modern and ancient anecdotes; short memoirs; scraps of poetry; choice morsels of general information; household receipts, riddles, and extracts from moral writers – all appear in the most orderly manner, arranged under separate heads, and cut up neatly into short paragraphs. However, the prominent feature in each journal is the serial story, which is placed in every case as the first article, and which is illustrated by the only wood-engraving that appears to have been expressly cut for the purpose. To the serial story, therefore, we may fairly devote our chief attention, because it is clearly regarded as the chief attraction of these very singular publications.

Two of my specimen copies contained, respectively, the first chapters of new stories. In the case of the other three, I found the stories in various stages of progress. The first thing that struck me, after reading the separate weekly portions of all five, was their extraordinary sameness. Each portion purported to be written (and no doubt was written) by a different author, and yet all five might have been produced by the same man. Each part of each successive story settled down in turn, as I read it, to the same dead level of the smoothest and flattest conventionality. A combination of fierce melodrama and meek domestic sentiment; short dialogues and paragraphs on the French pattern, with moral English reflections of the sort that occur on the top lines of children’s copybooks; incidents and characters taken from the old exhausted mines of the circulating library, and presented as complacently and confidently as if they were original ideas; descriptions and reflections for the beginning of the number, and a “strong situation,” dragged in by the neck and shoulders, for the end – formed the common literary sources from which the five authors drew their weekly supply; all collecting it by the same means; all carrying it in the same quantities; all pouring it out before the attentive public in the same way. After reading my samples of these stories, I understood why it was that the fictions of the regularly established writers for the penny journals are never republished. There is, I honestly believe, no man, woman, or child in England, not a member of the Unknown Public, who could be got to read them. The one thing which it is possible to advance in their favour is, that there is apparently no wickedness in them. There seems to be an intense indwelling respectability in their dullness. If they lead to no intellectual result, even of the humblest kind, they may have at least this negative advantage, that they can do no harm.

If it be objected that I am condemning these stories after having merely read one number of each of them, I have only to ask, in return, whether anybody ever waits to go all through a novel before passing an opinion on the goodness or the badness of it? In the latter case, we throw the story down before we get through it, and that is its condemnation. There is room enough for promise, if not for performance, in any one part of any one genuine work of fiction. If I had found the smallest promise in the style, in the dialogue, in the presentation of character, in the arrangement of incident, in any of the five specimens of cheap fiction before me, each one of which extended, on the average, to ten columns of small print, I should have gone on gladly to the next number. But I discovered nothing of the kind; and I put down my weekly sample, just as an editor, under similar circumstances, puts down a manuscript, after getting through a certain number of pages, or a reader a book.

And this sort of writing appeals to a monster audience of at least three millions! Has a better sort ever been tried? It has. The former proprietor of one of these penny journals commissioned a thoroughly competent person to translate “The Count of Monte Christo” for his periodical. He knew that there was hardly a language in the civilized world into which that consummate specimen of the rare and difficult art of story-telling had not been translated. In France, in England, in America, in Russia, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, Alexandre Dumas had held hundreds of thousands of readers breathless. The proprietor of the penny journal naturally thought that he could do as much with the Unknown Public. Strange to say, the result of this apparently certain experiment was a failure. The circulation of the journal in question seriously decreased from the time when the first of living story-tellers became a contributor to it! The same experiment was tried with the “Mysteries of Paris” and “The Wandering Jew,” only to produce the same result. Another penny journal gave Dumas a commission to write a new story, expressly for translation in its columns. The speculation was tried, and once again the inscrutable Unknown Public held back the hand of welcome from the spoiled child of a whole world of novel-readers.

How is this to be accounted for?

Does a rigid moral sense permeate the Unknown Public from one end of it to the other, and did the productions of the French novelists shock that sense from the very outset? The page containing the Answers to Correspondents would be enough in itself to dispose of this theory. But there are other and better means of arriving at the truth, which render any further reference to the Correspondents’ page unnecessary. Some time since, an eminent novelist (the only living English author with a literary position who had at that time written for the Unknown Public) produced his new novel in a penny journal. No shadow of a moral objection has ever been urged by any readers against the works published by the author of “It is Never Too Late to Mend”; but even he, unless I have been greatly misinformed, failed to make the impression that had been anticipated on the impenetrable Three Millions. The great success of his novel was not obtained in its original serial form, but in its re-published form, when it appealed from the Unknown to the Known Public. Clearly, the moral obstacle was not the obstacle which militated against the success of Alexandre Dumas and Eugene Sue.

What was it, then? Plainly this, as I believe. The Unknown Public is, in a literary sense, hardly beginning, as yet, to learn to read. The members of it are evidently, in the mass, from no fault of theirs, still ignorant of almost everything which is generally known and understood among readers whom circumstances have placed, socially and intellectually, in the rank above them. The mere references in “Monte Christo,” “The Mysteries of Paris,” and “White Lies” (the scene of this last English fiction having been laid on French ground), to foreign names, titles, manners, and customs, puzzled the Unknown Public on the threshold. Look back at the answers to correspondents, and then say, out of fifty subscribers to a penny journal, how many are likely to know, for example, that mademoiselle means miss? Besides the difficulty in appealing to the penny audience caused at the beginning by such simple obstacles as this, there was the great additional difficulty, in the case of all three of the fictions just mentioned, of accustoming untried readers to the delicacies and subtleties of literary art. An immense public has been discovered; the next thing to be done is, in a literary sense, to teach that public how to read.

An attempt, to the credit of one of the penny journals, has already been made. I have mentioned in one place a reprint of a novel, and later, a remarkable exception to the drearily commonplace character of the rest of the stories. In both these cases I refer to one and the same fiction – to the “Kenilworth” of Sir Walter Scott, which is reprinted as a new serial experiment in a penny journal. Here is the great master of modern fiction appealing, at this time of day, to a new public, and (amazing anomaly!) marching in company with writers who have the rudiments of their craft still to learn! To my mind, one result seems certain. If “Kenilworth” be appreciated by the Unknown Public, then the very best men among living English writers will one of these days be called on, as a matter of necessity, to make their appearance in the pages of the penny journals.

Meanwhile, it is perhaps hardly too much to say that the future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public, which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad. It is probably a question of time only. The largest audience for periodical literature, in this age of periodicals, must obey the universal law of progress, and must, sooner or later, learn to discriminate. When that period comes, the readers who rank by millions will be the readers who give the widest reputations, who return the richest rewards, and who will, therefore, command the service of the best writers of their time. A great, an unparalleled prospect awaits, perhaps, the coming generation of English novelists. To the penny journals of the present time belongs the credit of having discovered a new public. When that public shall discover its need of a great writer, the great writer will have such an audience as has never yet been known. [*]

[*] FOOTNOTE Five years have passed since this article was first published, and no signs of progress in the Unknown Public have made their appearance as yet. Patience! patience! (September, 1863)

Household Words 21 Aug 1858

PORTRAIT OF AN AUTHOR,
PAINTED BY HIS PUBLISHER

I

The Author was born a Frenchman, and died in the year 1850. Over the whole continent of Europe, wherever the literature of France has penetrated, his readers are numbered by tens of thousands. Women of all ranks and orders have singled him out, long since, as the marked man, among modern writers of fiction, who most profoundly knows and most subtly appreciates their sex in its strength and in its weakness. Men whose critical judgement is widely and worthily respected have declared that he is the deepest and truest observer of human nature whom France has produced since the time of Molière. Unquestionably he ranks as one of the few great geniuses who appear by ones and twos, in century after century of authorship, and who leave their mark ineffaceably on the literature of their age. And yet, in spite of this widely-extended continental fame, and this indisputable right and title to enjoy it, there is probably no civilized country in the Old World in which he is so little known as in England. Among all the readers – a large class in these islands – who are, from various causes, unaccustomed to study French literature in its native language, there are probably very many who have never even heard of the name of HONOURÉ DE BALZAC.

Unaccountable as it may appear at first sight, the reason why the illustrious author of “Eugenie Grandet,” “Le Père Goriot,” and “La Recherche de l’Absolu” happens to be so little known to the general public of England is, on the surface of it, easy enough to discover. Balzac is little known, because he has been little translated. An English version of “Eugenie Grandet” was advertised lately as one of a cheap series of novels. And the present writer has some indistinct recollection of meeting, many years since, with a translation of “La Peau de Chagrin.” But so far as he knows, excepting the instances of these two books, not one other work out of the whole number of ninety-seven fictions, long and short, which proceeded from the same fertile pen, has been offered to our own readers in our own language. Immense help has been given in this country to the reputations of Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Sue; no help whatever, or next to none, has been given to Balzac, although he is regarded in France (and rightly regarded, in some respects) as a writer of fiction superior to all three.

Many causes, too numerous to be elaborately traced within the compass of a single article, have probably contributed to produce this singular instance of literary neglect. It is not to be denied, for example, that serious difficulties stand in the way of translating Balzac, which are caused by his own peculiarities of style and treatment. His French is not the clear, graceful, neatly-turned French of Voltaire and Rousseau. It is a strong, harsh, solidly vigorous language of his own; now flashing into the most exquisite felicities of expression, and now again involved in an obscurity which only the closest attention can hope to penetrate. A special man, not hurried for time, and not easily brought to the end of his patience, might give the English equivalent of Balzac with admirable effect. But ordinary translating of him by average workmen would only lead, through the means of feeble parody, to the result of utter failure. [*]

[*] FOOTNOTE This sentence has unfortunately proved prophetic. Cheap translations of “Le Père Goriot” and “Le Recherche de l’Absolu” were published soon after the present article appeared in print, with extracts from the opinions here expressed on Balzac’s writings appended by way of advertisement. Critical remonstrance in relation to such productions as these would be remonstrance thrown away. It will be enough to say here, by way of warning to the reader, that the experiment of rendering the French of Balzac into its fair English equivalent still remains to be tried.

The difficulties, again, caused by his style of treatment are not to be lightly estimated, in considering the question of presenting this author to our own general public. The peculiarity of Balzac’s literary execution is, that he never compromises the subtleties and delicacies of Art for any consideration of temporary effect. The framework in which his idea is set is always wrought with a loving minuteness which leaves nothing out. Everything which in this writer’s mind can even remotely illustrate the characters that he depicts, must be elaborately conveyed to the minds of his readers before the characters themselves start into action. This quality of minute finish, of reiterated refining, which is one of Balzac’s great merits, so far as foreign audiences are concerned, is another of the hinderances, so far as an English audience is concerned, in the way of translating him.

Allowing all due weight to the force of these obstacles; and further admitting that Balzac lays himself open to grave objection (on the part of that unhappily large section of the English public which obstinately protests against the truth wherever the truth is painful) as a writer who sternly insists on presenting the dreary aspects of human life, literally, exactly, nakedly, as he finds them – making these allowances, and many more if more be needful – it is still impossible not to regret, for the sake of readers themselves, that worthy English versions of the best works of this great writer are not added to the national library of translated literature. Toward the latter part of his career, Balzac’s own taste in selection of subject seems to have become vitiated. His later novels, consummately excellent as some of them were in a literary sense, are assuredly, in a moral sense, not to be defended against the grave accusation of being needlessly and even horribly repulsive. But no objections of this sort apply to the majority of the works which he produced when he was in the prime of his life and his faculties. The conception of the character of “Eugenie Grandet” is one of the purest, tenderest, and most beautiful things in the whole range of fiction, and the execution of it is even worthy of the idea. If the translation already accomplished of this book be only creditably executed, it may be left to speak for itself. But there are other fictions of the writer which deserve the same privilege, and which have not yet obtained it. “La Recherche de l’Absolu” – a family picture which, for truth, delicacy, and pathos, has been surpassed by no novelist of any nation or any time; a literary achievement in which a new and an imperishable character (the exquisitely beautiful character of the wife) has been added to the great gallery of fiction – remains still unknown to the general public of England. “Le Père Goriot” – which, though it unveils some of the hidden corruptions of Parisian life, unveils them nobly in the interests of that highest morality belonging to no one nation and no one sect – “Le Père Goriot,” which stands first and foremost among all the writer’s works, which has drawn the tears of thousands from the purest sources, has its appeal still left to make to the sympathies of English readers. Other shorter stories, scattered about the “Scenes de la Vie Privee,” the “Scenes de la Vie de Province,” and the “Scenes de la Vie Parisienne,” are as completely unknown to a certain circle of readers in this country, and as unquestionably deserve careful and competent translation, as the longer and more elaborate productions of Balzac’s inexhaustible pen. Reckoning these shorter stories, there are at least a dozen of his highest achievements in fiction which might be safely rendered into English; which might form a series by themselves; and which no sensible Englishwoman could read and be, either intellectually or morally, the worse for them.

Thus much, in the way of necessary preliminary comment on the works of this author, and on their present position in reference to the English public. Readers who may be sufficiently interested in the subject to desire to know something next about the man himself may now derive this information from a singular, and even from a unique source. The Life of Balzac has been lately written by his publisher, of all the people in the world! This is a phenomenon in itself; and the oddity of it is still further increased by the fact that the publisher was brought to the brink of ruin by the author, that he mentions this circumstance in writing his life, and that it does not detract one iota from his evidently sincere admiration for the great man with whom he was once so disastrously connected in business. Here is surely an original book, in an age when originality grows harder and harder to meet with – a book containing disclosures which will perplex and dismay every admirer of Balzac who cannot separate the man from his works – a book which presents one of the most singular records of human eccentricity, so far as the hero of it is concerned, and of human credulity so far as the biographer is concerned, which has probably ever been published for the amusement and bewilderment of the reading world.

The title of this singular work is, “Portrait Intime De Balzac; sa Vie, son Humeur et son Caractere. Par Edmond Werdet, son ancien Libraire-Editeur.” Before, however, we allow Monsieur Werdet to relate his own personal experience of the celebrated writer, it will be advisable to introduce the subject by giving an outline of the struggles, the privations, and the disappointments which marked the early life of Balzac, and which, doubtless, influenced his after-character for the worse. These particulars are given by Monsieur Werdet in the form of an episode, and are principally derived, on his part, from information afforded by the author’s sister.

•   •   •

Honouré de Balzac was born in the city of Tours, on the sixteenth of May, seventeen hundred and ninety-nine. His parents were people of rank and position in the world. His father held a legal appointment in the council-chamber of Louis XVI. His mother was the daughter of one of the directors of the public hospital of Paris. She was much younger than her husband, and brought him a rich dowry. Honouré was her first-born; and he retained throughout life his first feeling of childish reverence for his mother. That mother suffered the unspeakable affliction of seeing her illustrious son taken from her by death at the age of fifty years. Balzac breathed his last in the kind arms which had first caressed him on the day of his birth.

His father, from whom he evidently inherited much of the eccentricity of his character, is described as a compound of Montaigne, Rabelais, and Uncle Toby – a man in manners, conversation, and disposition generally, of the quaintly original sort. On the breaking out of the Revolution, he lost his court situation, and obtained a place in the commissariat department of the Army of the North. This appointment he held for some years. It was of the greater importance to him, in consequence of the change for the worse produced in the pecuniary circumstances of the family by the convulsion of the Revolution.

At the age of seven years, Balzac was sent to the College of Vendome; and for seven years more there he remained. This period of his life was never a pleasant one in his remembrance. The reduced circumstances of his family exposed him to much sordid persecution and ridicule from the other boys, and he got on but little better with the masters. They reported him as idle and incapable – or, in other words, as ready enough to devour all sorts of books on his own desultory plan, but hopelessly obstinate in resisting the educational discipline of the school. This time of his life he has reproduced in one of the strangest and the most mystical of all his novels, “La Vie Intellectuellede Louis Lambert.”

On reaching the critical age of fourteen, his intellect appears to have suffered under a species of eclipse, which occurred very suddenly and mysteriously, and the cause of which neither his masters nor the medical men were able to explain. He himself always declared in after-life, with a touch of his father’s quaintness, that his brain had been attacked by “a congestion of ideas.” Whatever the cause might be, the effect was so serious that the progress of his education had to be stopped, and his removal from the college followed as a matter of course. Time, care, quiet, and breathing his native air, gradually restored him to himself, and he was ultimately enabled to complete his studies at two private schools. Here again, however, he did nothing to distinguish himself among his fellow-pupils. He read incessantly, and preserved the fruits of his reading with marvellous power of memory; but the school-teaching, which did well enough for ordinary boys, was exactly the species of teaching from which the essentially original mind of Balzac recoiled in disgust. All that he felt and did at this period has been carefully reproduced by his own pen in the earlier pages of “Le Lys dans la Vallee.”

Badly as he got on at school, he managed to imbibe a sufficient quantity of conventional learning to entitle him, at the age of eighteen, to his degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was destined for the law; and after attending the legal lectures in the various Institutions of Paris, he passed his examination by the time he was twenty, and then entered a notary’s office in the capacity of clerk. There were two other clerks to keep him company, who hated the drudgery of the law as heartily as he hated it himself. One of them was the future author of “The Mysteries of Paris,” Eugène Sue; the other was the famous critic, Jules Janin.

After he had been engaged in this office and in another for more than three years, a legal friend, who was under great obligations to Balzac the father, offered to give up his business as a notary to Balzac the son. To the great scandal of the family, Honouré resolutely refused the offer – for the one sufficient reason that he had determined to be the greatest writer in France. His relations began by laughing at him, and ended by growing angry with him. But nothing moved Honouré. His vanity was of the calm, settled sort; and his own conviction that his business in life was simply to be a famous man, proved too strong to be shaken by anybody.

While he and his family were at war on this point, a change for the worse occurred in the elder Balzac’s official circumstances. He was superannuated. The diminution of income thus produced was followed by a pecuniary catastrophe. He had embarked almost the whole of his own little remaining property and his wife’s in two speculations, and they both failed. No resource was now left him but to retire to a small country house in the neighbourhood of Paris, which he had purchased in his prosperous days, and to live there as well as might be on the wreck of his lost fortune. Honouré, sticking fast to the hopeless business of becoming a great man, was, by his own desire, left alone in a Paris garret, with an allowance of five pounds English a month, which was all the kind father could spare to feed, clothe, and lodge the wrong-headed son.

And now, without a literary friend to help him in all Paris; alone in his wretched attic, with his deal table and his truckle-bed, his dog-eared books, his bescrawled papers, his wild vanity, and his ravenous hunger for fame, Balzac stripped resolutely for the great fight. He was then twenty-three years old – a sturdy fellow to look at, with a big, jovial face, and a strong, square forehead topped by a very untidy and superfluous allowance of long, tangled hair. His only difficulty at starting was what to begin upon. After consuming many lonely months in sketching out comedies, operas, and novels, he finally obeyed the one disastrous rule which seems to admit of no exception in the early lives of men of letters, and fixed the whole bent of his industry and his genius on the production of a tragedy. After infinite pains and long labour, the great work was completed. The subject was Cromwell; and the treatment, in Balzac’s hands, appears to have been so inconceivably bad, that even his own family – to say nothing of other judicious friends – told him in the plainest terms, when he read it to them, that he had perpetrated a signal failure. Modest men might have been discouraged by this. Balzac took his manuscript back to his garret, standing higher in his own estimation than ever. “I will give up being a great dramatist,” he told his parents at parting, “and I will be a great novelist instead.” The vanity of the man expressed itself with this sublime disregard of ridicule all through his life. It was a precious quality to him – it is surely (however unquestionably offensive it may be to our friends) a precious quality to all of us. What man ever yet did anything great without beginning with a profound belief in his own untried powers?

Confident as ever, therefore, in his own resources, Balzac now took up the pen once more – this time in the character of a novelist. But another and a serious check awaited him at the outset. Fifteen months of solitude, privation, and reckless hard writing – months which are recorded in the pages of “La Peau de Chagrin” with a fearful and pathetic truth, drawn straight from the bitterest of all experiences, the experience of studious poverty – had reduced him to a condition of bodily weakness which made all present exertion of his mental powers simply hopeless, and which obliged him to take refuge – a worn-out, wasted man, in his twenty-fifth year, in his father’s quiet little country house. Here, under his mother’s care, his exhausted energies slowly revived; and here, in the first days of his convalescence, he returned, with the grim resolution of despair, to working out the old dream in the garret, to resuming the old hopeless business of making himself a great man.

It was under his father’s roof, during the time of his slow recovery, that the youthful fictions of Balzac were produced. The strength of his belief in his own resources and his own future gave him also the strength, in relation to these first efforts, to rise above his own vanity, and to see plainly that he had not yet learned to do himself full justice. His early novels bore on their title pages a variety of feigned names; for the starving, struggling author was too proud to acknowledge them, so long as they failed to satisfy his own conception of what his own powers could accomplish. These first efforts – now included in the Belgian editions of his collected works, and comprising among them two stories, “Jane la Pâle” and “Le Vicaire des Ardennes,” which show unquestionable dawnings of the genius of a great writer – were originally published by the lower and more rapacious order of booksellers, and did as little toward increasing his means as toward establishing his reputation. Still, he forced his way slowly and resolutely through poverty, obscurity, and disappointment, nearer and nearer to the promised land which no eye saw but his own – a greater man, by far, at this hard period of his adversity than at the more trying after-time of his prosperity and his fame. One by one the heavy years rolled on, till he was a man of thirty; and then the great prize which he had so long toiled for dropped within his reach at last. In the year eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, the famous “Physiologie du Mariage” was published; and the starveling of the Paris garret became a name and a power in French literature.

In England this book would have been universally condemned as an unpardonable exposure of the most sacred secrets of domestic life. It unveils the whole social side of Marriage in its innermost recesses, and exhibits it alternately in its bright and dark aspects with a marvellous minuteness of observation, a profound knowledge of human nature, and a daring eccentricity of style and arrangement which amply justify the extraordinary success of the book on its first appearance in France. It may be more than questionable, judging from the English point of view, whether such a subject should ever have been selected for any other than the most serious, reverent, and forbearing treatment. Setting this objection aside, however, in consideration of the French point of view, it cannot be denied that the merits of the “Physiology of Marriage,” as a piece of writing, were by no means overestimated by the public to which it was addressed. In a literary sense, the book would have done credit to a man in the maturity of his powers. As the work of a man whose intellectual life was only beginning, it was such an achievement as is not often recorded in the history of modern literature.

This first triumph of the future novelist – obtained, curiously enough, by a book which was not a novel – failed to smooth the way onward and upward for Balzac as speedily and pleasantly as might have been supposed. He had another stumble on that hard road of his before he fairly started on the career of success. Soon after the publication of “The Physiology of Marriage” an unlucky idea of strengthening his resources by trading in literature, as well as by writing books, seems to have occurred to him. He tried bookselling and printing; proved himself to be, in both cases, probably the very worst man of business who ever lived and breathed in this world; failed in the most hopeless way, with the most extraordinary rapidity; and so learned at last, by the cruel teaching of experience, that his one fair chance of getting money lay in sticking fast to his pen for the rest of his days. In the next ten years of his life that pen produced the noble series of fictions which influenced French literature far and wide, and which will last in public remembrance long after the miserable errors and inconsistencies of the writer’s personal character are forgotten. This was the period when Balzac was in the full enjoyment of his matured intellectual powers and his enviable public celebrity; and this was also the golden time when his publisher and biographer first became acquainted with him. Now, therefore, Monsieur Werdet may be encouraged to come forward and take the post of honour as narrator of the strange story that is still to be told; for now he is placed in the fit position to address himself intelligibly, as well as amusingly, to an English audience.

The story opens with the starting of Monsieur Werdet as a publisher in Paris on his own account. The modest capital at his command amounted to just one hundred and twenty pounds English; and his leading idea, on beginning business, was to become the publisher of Balzac.

He had already entered into transactions on a large scale with his favourite author, in the character of agent for a publishing house of high standing. He had been very well received, on that first occasion, as a man representing undeniable capital and a great commercial position. On the second occasion, however, of his representing nobody but himself, and nothing but the smallest of existing capitals, he very wisely secured the protection of an intimate friend of Balzac’s, to introduce him as favourably as might be for the second time. Accompanied by this gentleman, whose name was Monsieur Barbier, and carrying his capital in his pocketbook, the embryo publisher nervously presented himself in the sanctum sanctorum of the great man.

Monsieur Barbier having carefully explained the business on which they came, Balzac addressed himself, with an indescribable suavity and grandeur of manner, to anxious Monsieur Werdet.

“Just so,” said the eminent man. “You are doubtless possessed, sir, of considerable capital? You are probably aware that no man can hope to publish for ME who is not prepared to assert himself magnificently in the matter of cash? I sell high – high – very high. And, not to deceive you – for I am incapable of suppressing the truth – I am a man who requires to be dealt with on the principle of considerable advances. Proceed, sir – I am prepared to listen to you.”

But Monsieur Werdet was too cautious to proceed without strengthening his position before starting. He entrenched himself instantly behind his pocketbook.

One by one the notes of the Bank of France which formed the poor publisher’s small capital were drawn out of their snug hiding-place. Monsieur Werdet produced six of them, representing five hundred francs each (or, as before mentioned, a hundred and twenty pounds sterling), arranged them neatly and impressively in a circle on the table, and then cast himself on the author’s mercy in an agitated voice, and in these words:

“Sir, behold my capital. There lies my whole fortune. It is yours in exchange for any book you please to write for me—”

At that point, to the horror and astonishment of Monsieur Werdet, his further progress was cut short by roars of laughter – formidable roars, as he himself expressly states – bursting from the lungs of the highly-diverted Balzac.

“What astonishing simplicity!” exclaimed the great man. “Do you actually believe, sir, that I – De Balzac – can so entirely forget what is due to myself as to sell you any conceivable species of fiction which is the product of MY PEN for the sum of three thousand francs? You have come here, Monsieur Werdet, to address an offer to me, without preparing yourself by previous reflection. If I felt so disposed, I should have every right to consider your conduct as unbecoming in the highest degree. But I don’t feel so disposed. On the contrary, I can even allow your honest ignorance, your innocent confidence, to excuse you in my estimation. Don’t be alarmed, sir. Consider yourself excused to a certain extent.”

Between disappointment, indignation, and astonishment, Monsieur Werdet was struck dumb. His friend, Monsieur Barbier, therefore spoke for him, urging every possible consideration; and finally proposing that Balzac, if he was determined not to write a new story for three thousand francs, should at least sell one edition of an old one for that sum. Monsieur Barbier’s arguments were admirably put; they lasted a long time; and when they had come to an end, they received this reply:

“Gentlemen!” cried Balzac, pushing back his long hair from his heated temples, and taking a fresh dip of ink, “you have wasted an hour of MY TIME in talking of trifles. I rate the pecuniary loss thus occasioned to me at two hundred francs. My time is my capital. I must work. Gentlemen! leave me.” Having expressed himself in these hospitable terms, the great man immediately resumed the process of composition.

Monsieur Werdet, naturally and properly indignant, immediately left the room. He was overtaken, after he had proceeded a little distance in the street, by his friend Barbier, who had remained behind to remonstrate.

“You have every reason to be offended,” said Barbier. “His conduct is inexcusable. But pray don’t suppose that your negotiation is broken off. I know him better than you do; and I tell you that you have nailed Balzac.

He wants money, and before three days are over your head he will return your visit.”

“If he does,” replied Werdet, “I’ll pitch him out window.”

“No, you won’t,” said Barbier. “In the first place, it is an extremely uncivil proceeding to pitch a man out of window; and, as a naturally polite gentleman, you are incapable of committing a breach of good manners. In the second place, rude as he has been to you, Balzac is not the less a man of genius; and as such, he is just the man of whom you, as a publisher, stand in need. Wait patiently; and in a day or two you will see him, or hear from him again.”

Barbier was right. Three days afterward, the following satisfactory communication was received by Monsieur Werdet:

My brain, sir, was so prodigiously preoccupied by work uncongenial to my fancy, when you visited me the other day, that I was incapable of comprehending otherwise than imperfectly what it was that you wanted of me.

Today my brain is not preoccupied. Do me the favour to come and see me at four o’clock.

A thousand civilities.

De Balzac.

Monsieur Werdet viewed this singular note in the light of a fresh impertinence. On consideration, however, he acknowledged it, and curtly added that important business would prevent his accepting the appointment proposed to him.

In two days more friend Barbier came with a second invitation from the great man. But Monsieur Werdet steadily refused it. “Balzac has already been playing his game with me,” he said. “Now it is my turn to play my game with Balzac. I mean to keep him waiting four days longer.”

At the end of that time Monsieur Werdet once more entered the sanctum sanctorum. On this second occasion, Balzac’s graceful politeness was indescribable. He deplored the rarity of intelligent publishers. He declared his deep sense of the importance of an intelligent publisher’s appearance on the literary horizon. He expressed himself as quite enchanted to be now enabled to remark that appearance, to welcome it, and even to deal with it. Polite as he was by nature, Monsieur Werdet had no chance this time against Monsieur De Balzac. In the race of civility the publisher was now nowhere, and the author made all the running.

The interview, thus happily begun, terminated in a most agreeable transaction on both sides. Balzac cheerfully locked up the six banknotes in his strongbox. Werdet as cheerfully retired, with a written agreement in his empty pocket-book, authorizing him to publish the second edition of “Le Medecin de Campagne” – hardly, it may be remarked in parenthesis, one of the best to select of the novels of Balzac.

II

Once started in business as the happy proprietor and hopeful publisher of the second edition of “Le Medecin de Campagne,” Monsieur Werdet was too wise a man not to avail himself of the only certain means of success in modern times. He puffed magnificently. Every newspaper in Paris was inundated with a deluge of advertisements, announcing the forthcoming work in terms of eulogy such as the wonder-struck reader had never met with before. The result, aided by Balzac’s celebrity, was a phenomenon in the commercial history of French literature at that time. Every copy of the second edition of “Le Medecin de Campagne” was sold in eight days.

This success established Monsieur Werdet’s reputation. Young authors crowded to him with their manuscripts, all declaring piteously that they wrote in the style of Balzac. But Monsieur Werdet flew at higher game. He received the imitators politely, and even published for one or two of them; but the high business aspirations which now glowed within him were all concentrated on the great original. He had conceived the sublime idea of becoming Balzac’s sole publisher; of buying up all his copyrights held by other houses, and of issuing all his new works that were yet to be written. Balzac himself welcomed this proposal with superb indulgence. “Walter Scott,” he said in his grandest way, “had only one publisher – Archibald Constable. Work out your idea. I authorize it; I support it. I will be Scott, and you shall be Constable!”

Fired by the prodigious future thus disclosed to him, Monsieur Werdet assumed forthwith the character of a French Constable, and opened negotiations with no less than six publishers who held among them the much-desired copyrights. His own enthusiasm did something for him; his excellent previous character in the trade, and his remarkable success at starting, did much more. The houses he dealt with took his bills in all directions, without troubling him for security. After innumerable interviews and immense exercise of diplomacy, he raised himself at last to the pinnacle of his ambition; he became sole proprietor and publisher of the works of Balzac.

The next question – a sordid, but, unhappily, a necessary question also – was how to turn this precious acquisition to the best pecuniary account. Some of the works, such as “La Physiologie du Mariage” and “La Peau de Chagrin,” had produced, and were still producing, large sums. Others, on the contrary, such as the “Contes Philosophiques” (which were a little too profound for the public) and “Louis Lambert” (which was intended to popularize the mysticism of Swedenborg), had not yet succeeded in paying their expenses. Estimating his speculation by what he had in hand, Monsieur Werdet had not much chance of seeing his way speedily to quick returns. Estimating it, however, by what was coming in the future – that is to say, by the promised privilege of issuing all the writer’s contemplated works – he had every reason to look happily and hopefully at his commercial prospects. At this crisis of the narrative, when the publisher’s credit and fortune depended wholly on the pen of one man, the history of that man’s habits of literary composition assumes a special interest and importance. Monsieur Werdet’s description of Balzac at his writing-desk presents by no means the least extraordinary of the many singular revelations which compose the story of the author’s life.

When he had once made up his mind to produce a new book, Balzac’s first proceeding was to think it out thoroughly before he put pen to paper. He was not satisfied with possessing himself of the main idea only; he followed it mentally into its minutest ramifications, devoting to the process just that amount of patient hard labour and self-sacrifice which no inferior writer ever has the common sense or the courage to bestow on his work. With his notebook ready in his hand, Balzac studied his scenes and characters straight from life. General knowledge of what he wanted to describe was not enough for this determined realist. If he found himself in the least at fault, he would not hesitate to take a long journey merely to insure truth to nature in describing the street of a country town, or in painting some minor peculiarity of rustic character, In Paris he was perpetually about the streets, perpetually penetrating into all classes of society, to study the human nature about him in its minutest varieties. Day by day, and week by week, his notebook and his brains were hard at work together, before he thought of sitting down to his desk to begin. When he had finally amassed his materials in this laborious manner, he at last retired to his study; and from that time till his book had gone to press society saw him no more.

His house door was now closed to everybody except the publisher and the printer, and his costume was changed to a loose white robe, of the sort which is worn by the Dominican monks. This singular writing-dress was fastened round the waist by a chain of Venetian gold, to which hung little pliers and scissors of the same precious metal. White Turkish trousers, and red morocco slippers, embroidered with gold, covered his legs and feet. On the day when he sat down to his desk the light of heaven was shut out, and he worked by the light of candles in superb silver sconces. Even letters were not allowed to reach him. They were all thrown, as they came, into a japan vase, and not opened, no matter how important they might be, till his work was all over. He rose to begin writing at two in the morning, continued with extraordinary rapidity, till six; then took his warm bath, and stopped in it, thinking, for an hour or more. At eight o’clock his servant brought him up a cup of coffee. Before nine his publisher was admitted to carry away what he had done. From nine till noon he wrote on again, always at the top or his speed. At noon he breakfasted on eggs, with a glass of water and a second cup of coffee. From one o’clock to six he returned to work. At six he dined lightly, only allowing himself one glass of wine. From seven to eight he received his publisher again: and at eight o’clock he went to bed. This life he led, while he was writing his books, for two months together, without intermission. Its effect on his health was such that, when he appeared once more among his friends, he looked, in the popular phrase, like his own ghost. Chance acquaintances would hardly have known him again.

It must not be supposed that this life of resolute seclusion and fierce hard toil ended with the complexion of the first draught of his manuscript. At the point where, in the instances of most men, the serious part of the work would have come to an end, it had only begun for Balzac.

In spite of all the preliminary studying and thinking, when his pen had scrambled its way straight through to the end of the book, the leaves were all turned back again, and the first manuscript was altered into a second with inconceivable patience and care. Innumerable corrections and interlinings, to begin with, led, in the end, to transpositions and expansions which metamorphosed the entire work. Happy thoughts were picked out of the beginning of the manuscript, and inserted where they might have a better effect at the end. Others at the end would be moved to the beginning, or the middle. In one place, chapters would be expanded to three or four times their original length; in another, abridged to a few paragraphs; in a third, taken out altogether or shifted to new positions. With all this mass of alterations in every page, the manuscript was at last ready for the printer. Even to the experienced eyes in the printing-office, it was now all but illegible. The deciphering it, and setting it up in a moderately correct form, cost an amount of patience and pains which wearied out all the best men in the office, one after another, before the first series of proofs could be submitted to the author’s eye. When these were at last complete, they were sent in on large slips, and the indefatigable Balzac immediately set to work to rewrite the whole book for the third time!

He now covered with fresh corrections, fresh alterations, fresh expansions of this passage, and fresh abridgments of that, not only the margins of the proofs all round, but even the little intervals of white space between the paragraphs. Lines crossing each other in indescribable confusion were supposed to show the bewildered printer the various places at which the multitude of new insertions were to be slipped in. Illegible as Balzac’s original manuscripts were, his corrected proofs were more hopelessly puzzling still. The picked men in the office, to whom, alone they could be entrusted, shuddered at the very name of Balzac, and relieved each other at intervals of an hour, beyond which time no one printer could be got to continue at work on the universally execrated and universally unintelligible proofs. The “revises” – that is to say, the proofs embodying the new alterations – were next pulled to pieces in their turn. Two, three, and sometimes four, separate sets of them were required before the author’s leave could be got to send the perpetually rewritten book to press at last, and so have done with it. He was literally the terror of all printers and editors; and he himself described his process of work as a misfortune, to be the more deplored, because it was, in his case, an intellectual necessity. “I toil sixteen hours out of the twenty-four,” he said, “over the elaboration of my unhappy style; and I am never satisfied myself when all is done.” Looking back to the school-days of Balzac, when his mind suffered under the sudden and mysterious shock which has already been described in its place; remembering that his father’s character was notorious for its eccentricity; observing the prodigious toil, the torture almost of mind which the act of literary production seems to have cost him all through life, it is impossible not to arrive at the conclusion that in his case there must have been a fatal incompleteness somewhere in the mysterious intellectual machine. Magnificently as it was endowed, the balance of faculties in his mind seems to have been even more than ordinarily imperfect. On this theory, his unparalleled difficulties in expressing himself as a writer, and his errors, inconsistencies, and meannesses of character as a man, become, at least, not wholly unintelligible. On any other theory, all explanation both of his personal life and his literary life appears to be simply impossible.

Such was the perilous pen on which Monsieur Werdet’s prospects in life all depended. If Balzac failed to perform his engagements punctually, or if his health broke down under his severe literary exertions, the commercial decease of his unfortunate publisher followed either disaster, purely as a matter of course.

At the outset, however, the posture of affairs looked encouragingly enough. On its completion in the Revue de Paris, “Le Lys dans la Vallee” was republished by Monsieur Werdet, who had secured his interest in the work by a timely advance of six thousand francs. Of this novel (the most highly valued in France of all the writer’s fictions) but two hundred copies of the first edition were left unsold within two hours after its publication. This unparalleled success kept Monsieur Werdet’s head above water, and encouraged him to hope great things from the next novel, “Seraphita,” which was also begun periodically in the Revue de Paris. Before it was finished, however, Balzac and the editor of the Review quarrelled. The long-suffering publisher was obliged to step in and pay the author’s forfeit-money, obtaining the incomplete novel in return, and with it Balzac’s promise to finish the work offhand. Months passed, however, and not a page of manuscript was produced. One morning at eight o’clock, to Monsieur Werdet’s horror and astonishment, Balzac burst in on him in a condition of sublime despair, to announce that he and his genius had to all appearance parted company forever.

“My brain is empty!” cried the great man. “My imagination is dried up! Hundreds of cups of coffee and two warm baths a day have done nothing for me. Werdet, I am a lost man!”

The publisher thought of his empty cash-box, and was petrified. The author proceeded:

“I must travel!” he exclaimed, distractedly. “My genius has run away from me – I must pursue it over mountains and valleys. Werdet! I must catch my genius up!”

Poor Monsieur Werdet faintly suggested a little turn in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris – something equivalent to a nice airy ride to Hampstead on the top of an omnibus. But Balzac’s runaway genius had, in the estimation of its bereaved proprietor, got as far as Vienna already; and he coolly announced his intention of travelling after it to the Austrian capital.

“And who is to finish ‘Seraphita?’” inquired the unhappy publisher. “My illustrious friend, you are ruining me!”

“On the contrary,” remarked Balzac, persuasively, “I am making your fortune. At Vienna I shall find my genius. At Vienna I shall finish ‘Seraphita,’ and a new book besides. At Vienna I shall meet with an angelic woman who admires me – she permits me to call her ‘Carissima’ – she has written to invite me to Vienna. I ought, I must, I will, accept the invitation.”

Here an ordinary acquaintance would have had an excellent opportunity of saying something smart. But poor Monsieur Werdet was not in a position to be witty; and, moreover, he knew but too well what was coming next. All he ventured to say was:

“But I am afraid you have no money.”

“You can raise some,” replied his illustrious friend. “Borrow – deposit stock in trade – get me two thousand francs. Everything else I can do for myself. Werdet, I will hire a post-chaise – I will dine with my dear sister – I will set off after dinner – I will not be later than eight o’clock – click-clack!” And the great man executed an admirable imitation of the cracking of a postilion’s whip.

There was no resource for Monsieur Werdet but to throw the good money after the bad. He raised the two thousand francs; and away went . Balzac to catch his runaway genius, to bask in the society of a female angel, and to coin money in the form of manuscripts.

Eighteen days afterward a perfumed letter from the author reached the publisher. He had caught his genius at Vienna; he had been magnificently received by the aristocracy; he had finished “Seraphita,” and nearly completed the other book; his angelic friend, Carissima, already loved Werdet from Balzac’s description of him; Balzac himself was Werdet’s friend till death; Werdet was his Archibald Constable; Werdet should see him again in fifteen days; Werdet should ride in his carriage in the Bois de Boulogne, and meet Balzac riding in his carriage, and see the enemies of both parties looking on at the magnificent spectacle and bursting with spite. Finally, Werdet would have the goodness to remark (in a postscript) that Balzac had provided himself with another little advance of fifteen hundred francs, received from Rothschild in Vienna, and had given in exchange a bill at ten days’ sight on his excellent publisher, on his admirable and devoted Archibald Constable.

While Monsieur Werdet was still prostrate under the effect of this audacious postscript, a clerk entered his office with the identical bill. It was drawn at one day’s sight instead of ten; and the money was wanted immediately. The publisher was the most long-suffering of men; but there were limits even to his patient endurance. He took Balzac’s letter with him, and went at once to the office of the Parisian Rothschild. The great financier received him kindly, admitted that there must have been some mistake, granted the ten days’ grace, and dismissed his visitor with this excellent and sententious piece of advice:

“I recommend you to mind what you are about, sir, with Monsieur De Balzac. He is a highly inconsequent man.”

It was too late for Monsieur Werdet to mind what he was about. He had no choice but to lose his credit, or pay at the end of the ten days. He paid; and ten days later Balzac returned, considerately bringing with him some charming little Viennese curiosities for his esteemed publisher. Monsieur Werdet expressed his acknowledgments, and then politely inquired for the conclusion of “Seraphita,” and the manuscript of the new novel.

Not a single line of either had been committed to paper.

The farce (undoubtedly a most disgraceful performance, so far as Balzac was concerned) was not played out even yet. The publisher’s reproaches seem at last to have awakened the author to something remotely resembling a sense of shame. He promised that “Seraphita,” which had been waiting at press a whole year, should be finished in one night. There were just two sheets of sixteen pages each to write. They might have been completed either at the author’s house or at the publisher’s, which was close to the printer’s. But no – it was not in Balzac’s character to miss the smallest chance of producing a sensation anywhere. His last caprice was a determination to astonish the printers. Twenty-five compositors were called together at eleven at night, a truckle-bed and table were set up for the author – or, to speak more correctly, for the literary mountebank – in the workshop; Balzac arrived, in a high state of inspiration, to stagger the sleepy journeymen by showing them how fast he could write; and the two sheets were completed magnificently on the spot. By way of fit and proper climax to this ridiculous exhibition of literary quackery, it is only necessary to add that, on Balzac’s own confession, the two concluding sheets of “Seraphita” had been mentally composed and carefully committed to memory, two years before he affected to write them impromptu in the printer’s office. It seems impossible to deny that the man who could act in this outrageously puerile manner must have been simply mad. But what becomes of the imputation when we remember that this very madman has produced books which, for depth of thought and marvellous knowledge of human nature, are counted deservedly among the glories of French literature, and which were never more living and more lasting works than they are at this moment!

“Seraphita” was published three days after the author’s absurd exhibition of himself at the printer’s office. In this novel, as in its predecessor – “Louis Lambert” – Balzac left his own firm ground of reality, and soared, on the wings of Swedenborg, into an atmosphere of transcendental obscurity impervious to all ordinary eyes. What the book meant the editor of the periodical in which part of it originally appeared never could explain. Monsieur Werdet, who published it, confesses that he was in the same mystified condition; and the present writer, who has vainly attempted to read it through, desires to add in this place his own modest acknowledgment of inability to enlighten English readers in the smallest degree on the subject of “Seraphita.” Luckily for Monsieur Werdet, the author’s reputation stood so high with the public that the book sold prodigiously, merely because it was a book by Balzac. The proceeds of the sale, and the profits derived from new editions of the old novels, kept the sinking publisher from absolute submersion, and might even have brought him safely to land, but for the ever-increasing dead-weight of the author’s perpetual borrowings on the security of forthcoming works which he never produced.

No commercial success, no generous self-sacrifice could keep pace with the demands of Balzac’s insatiate vanity and love of show, at this period of his life. He had two establishments, to begin with, both splendidly furnished, and one adorned with a valuable gallery of pictures. He had his box at the French Opera, and his box at the Italian Opera. He had a chariot and horses, and an establishment of men-servants. The panels of the carriage were decorated with the arms, and the bodies of the footmen were adorned with the liveries, of the noble family of D’Entragues, to which Balzac persisted in declaring that he was allied, although he never could produce the smallest proof in support of the statement. When he could add no more to the sumptuous magnificence of his houses, his dinners, his carriage, and his servants; when he had filled his rooms with every species of expensive knickknack; when he had lavished money on all the known extravagances which extravagant Paris can supply to the spendthrift’s inventory, he hit on the entirely new idea of providing himself with such a walking-stick as the world had never yet beheld.

His first proceeding was to procure a splendid cane, which was sent to the jeweller’s, and was grandly topped by a huge gold knob. The inside of the knob was occupied by a lock of hair presented to the author by an unknown lady admirer. The outside was studded with all the jewels he had bought, and with all the jewels he had received as presents. With this cane, nearly as big as a drum-major’s staff, and all ablaze at the top with rubies, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires, Balzac exhibited himself, in a rapture of satisfied vanity, at the theatres and in the public promenades. The cane became as celebrated in Paris as the author. Madame de Girardin wrote a sparkling little book all about the wonderful walking-stick. Balzac was in the seventh heaven of happiness; Balzac’s friends were either disgusted or diverted, according to their tempers. One unfortunate man alone suffered the inevitable penalty of this insane extravagance: need it be added that his name was Werdet?

The end of the connection between the author and the publisher was now fast approaching. All entreaties or reproaches addressed to Balzac failed in producing the slightest result. Even confinement in a sponging-house, when creditors discovered, in course of time, that they could wait no longer, passed unheeded as a warning. Balzac only borrowed more money the moment the key was turned on him, gave a magnificent dinner in prison, and left the poor publisher, as usual, to pay the bill. He was extricated from the sponging-house before he had been there quite three days; and in that time he had spent over twenty guineas on luxuries which he had not a farthing of his own to purchase. It is useless, it is even exasperating, to go on accumulating instances of this sort of mad and cruel prodigality; let us advance rapidly to the end. One morning Monsieur Werdet balanced accounts with his author from the beginning, and found, in spite of the large profits produced by the majority of the works, that fifty-eight thousand francs were (to use his own expression) paralysed in his hands by the life Balzac persisted in leading; and that fifty-eight thousand more might soon be in the same condition, if he had possessed them to advance. A rich publisher might have contrived to keep his footing in such a crisis as this, and to deal, for the time to come, on purely commercial grounds. But Monsieur Werdet was a poor man; he had relied on Balzac’s verbal promises when he ought to have exacted his written engagements; and he had no means of appealing to the author’s love of money by dazzling prospects of banknotes awaiting him in the future, if he chose honestly to earn his right to them. In short, there was but one alternative left, the alternative of giving up the whole purpose and ambition of the bookseller’s life, and resolutely breaking off his ruinous connection with Balzac. Reduced to this situation, driven to bay by the prospect of engagements falling due which he had no apparent means of meeting, Monsieur Werdet answered the next application for an advance by a flat refusal, and followed up that unexampled act of self-defence by speaking his mind at last, in no measured terms, to his illustrious friend. Balzac turned crimson with suppressed anger, and left the room. A series of business formalities followed, initiated by Balzac, with the view of breaking off the connection between his publisher and himself, now that he found there was no more money to be had; Monsieur Werdet being, on his side, perfectly ready to “sign, seal, and deliver,” as soon as his claims were properly satisfied in due form of law.

Balzac had now but one means of meeting his liabilities. His personal reputation was gone; but his literary reputation remained as high as ever, and he soon found a publisher, with large capital at command, who was ready to treat for his copyrights. Monsieur Werdet had no resource but to sell or be bankrupt. He parted with all the valuable copyrights for a sum of sixty thousand and odd francs, which sufficed to meet his most pressing engagements. Some of the less popular and less valuable books he kept, to help him, if possible, through his daily and personal liabilities. As for gaining any absolute profit, or even holding his position as a publisher, the bare idea of securing either advantage was dismissed as an idle dream. The purpose for which he had toiled so hard and suffered so patiently was sacrificed forever, and he was reduced to beginning life again as a country traveller for a prosperous publishing house. So far as his main object in existence was concerned, Balzac had plainly and literally ruined him. It is impossible to part with Monsieur Werdet, imprudent and credulous as he appears to have been, without a strong feeling of sympathy, which becomes strengthened to something like positive admiration when we discover that he cherished, in after life, no unfriendly sentiments toward the man who had treated him so shamefully; and when we find him, in the Memoir now under notice, still trying hard to make the best of Balzac’s conduct, and still writing of him in terms of affection and esteem to the very end of the book.

The remainder of Balzac’s life was, in substance, merely the lamentable repetition of the personal faults and follies, and the literary merits and triumphs, which have already found their record in these pages. The extremes of idle vanity and unprincipled extravagance still alternated, to the last, with the extremes of hard mental labour and amazing mental productiveness. Though, he found new victims among new men, he never again met with so generous and forbearing a friend as the poor publisher whose fortunes he had destroyed. The women, whose impulses in his favour were kept alive by their admiration of his books, clung to their spoiled darling to the last – one of their number even stepping forward to save him from a debtors’ prison, at the heavy sacrifice of paying the whole demand against him out of her own purse. In all cases of this sort, even where men were concerned as well as women, his personal means of attraction, when he chose to exert them, strengthened immensely his literary claims on the sympathy and goodwill of others. He appears to have possessed in the highest degree those powers of fascination which are quite independent of mere beauty of face and form, and which are perversely and inexplicably bestowed in the most lavish abundance on the most unprincipled of mankind. Poor Monsieur Werdet can only account for half his own acts of indiscretion by declaring that his eminent friend wheedled him into committing them. Other and wiser men kept out of Balzac’s way through sheer distrust of themselves. Virtuous friends who tried hard to reform him retreated from his presence, declaring that the reprobate whom they had gone to convert had all but upset their moral balance in a morning’s conversation. An eminent literary gentleman, who went to spend the day with him to talk over a proposed work, rushed out of the house after a two hours’ interview, exclaiming, piteously: “The man’s imagination is in a state of delirium – his talk has set my brain in a whirl – he would have driven me mad if I had spent the day with him!” If men were influenced in this way, it is not wonderful that women (whose self-esteem was delicately flattered by the prominent and fascinating position which they hold in all his books) should have worshipped a man who publicly and privately worshipped them.

His personal appearance would have recalled to English minds the popular idea of Friar Tuck – he was the very model of the conventional fat, sturdy, red-faced, jolly monk. But he had the eye of a man of genius, and the tongue of a certain infernal personage, who may be broadly hinted at, but who must on no account be plainly named. The Balzac candlestick might be clumsy enough; but when once the Balzac candle was lit, the moths flew into it, only too readily, from all points of the compass.

The last important act of his life was, in a worldly point of view, one of the wisest things he ever did. The lady who had invited him to Vienna, and whom he called Carissima, was the wife of a wealthy Russian nobleman. On the death of her husband, she practically asserted her admiration of her favourite author by offering him her hand and fortune. Balzac accepted both; and returned to Paris (from which respect for his creditors had latterly kept him absent) a married man, and an enviable member of the wealthy class of society. A splendid future now opened before him – but it opened too late. Arrived at the end of his old course, he just saw the new career beyond him, and dropped on the threshold of it. The strong constitution which he had remorselessly wasted for more than twenty years past gave way at length, at the very time when his social chances looked most brightly. Three months after his marriage, Honouré de Balzac died, after unspeakable suffering, of disease of the heart. He was then but fifty years of age. His fond, proud, heartbroken old mother held him in her arms. On that loving bosom he had drawn his first breath. On that loving bosom the weary head sank to rest again, when the wild, wayward, miserable, glorious life was over.

•   •   •

The sensation produced in Paris by his death was something akin to the sensation produced in London by the death of Byron. Mr. Carlyle has admirably said that there is something touching in the loyalty of men to their Sovereign Man. That loyalty most tenderly declared itself when Balzac was no more. Men of all ranks and parties, who had been shocked by his want of principle and disgusted by his inordinate vanity while he was alive, now accepted universally the atonement of his untimely death, and remembered nothing but the loss that had happened to the literature of France. A great writer was no more; and a great people rose with one accord to take him reverently and gloriously to his grave. The French Institute, the University, the scientific societies, the Association of Dramatic Authors, the Schools of Law and Medicine, sent their representatives to walk in the funeral procession. English readers, American readers, German readers, and Russian readers, swelled the immense assembly of Frenchmen that followed the coffin. Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas were among the mourners who supported the pall. The first of these two celebrated men pronounced the funeral oration over Balzac’s grave, and eloquently characterized the whole series of the dead writer’s works as forming, in truth, but one grand book, the textbook of contemporary civilisation. “With that just and generous tribute to the genius of Balzac, offered by the most illustrious of his literary rivals, these few pages may fitly and gracefully come to an end. Of the miserable frailties of the man, enough has been recorded to serve the first of all interests, the interest of truth. The better and nobler part of him calls for no further comment at any writer’s hands. It remains to us in his works, and it speaks with deathless eloquence for itself.

All The Year Round 18 & 25 Jun 1859

CASES WORTH LOOKING AT

MEMOIRS
OF AN ADOPTED SON

I

CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH
PRECEDED HIS BIRTH

——The curious legend connected with the birth of this “Adopted Son,” and the facts relating to his extraordinary career in after-life, are derived from the “Records” of the French Police of the period. In this instance, and in the instances of those other papers in the present collection which deal with foreign incidents and characters, while the facts of each narrative exist in print, the form in which the narrative is cast is of my own devising. If these facts had been readily accessible to readers in general, the papers in question would not have been reprinted. But the scarce and curious books from which my materials are derived have been long since out of print, and are, in all human probability, never likely to be published again.

Toward the beginning of the eighteenth century there stood on a rock in the sea, near a fishing village on the coast of Brittany, a ruined tower with a very bad reputation. No mortal was known to have inhabited it within the memory of living man. The one tenant whom Tradition associated with the occupation of the place at a remote period had moved into it from the infernal regions nobody knew why – had lived in it nobody knew how long – and had quitted possession nobody knew when. Under such circumstances, nothing was more natural than that his unearthly Individual should give a name to this residence; for which reason, the building was thereafter known to all the neighbourhood round as Satanstower.

Early in the year seventeen hundred, the inhabitants of the village were startled one night by seeing the red gleam of a fire in the tower, and by smelling, in the same direction, a preternaturally strong odour of fried fish. The next morning the fishermen who passed by the building in their boats were amazed to find that a stranger had taken up his abode in it. Judging of him at a distance, he seemed to be a fine tall, stout fellow; he was dressed in fisherman’s costume, and he had a new boat of his own, moored comfortably in a cleft of the rock. If he had inhabited a place of decent reputation, his neighbours would have immediately made his acquaintance; but, as things were, all they could venture to do was to watch him in silence.

The first day passed, and, though it was fine weather, he made no use of his boat. The second day followed, with a continuance of the fine weather, and still he was as idle as before. On the third day, when a violent storm kept all the boats of the village on the beach – on the third day, in the midst of the tempest, away went the man of the tower to make his first fishing experiment in strange waters! He and his boat came back safe and sound, in a lull of the storm; and the villagers watching on the cliff above saw him carrying the fish up, by great basketfuls, to his tower. No such haul had ever fallen to the lot of any one of them, and the stranger had taken it in a whole gale of wind.

Upon this the inhabitants of the village called a council. The lead in the debate was assumed by a smart young fellow, a fisherman named Poulailler, who stoutly declared that the stranger at the tower was of infernal origin. “The rest of you may call him what you like,” said Poulailler; “I call him The Fiend-Fisherman!”

The opinion thus expressed proved to be the opinion of the entire audience – with the one exception of the village priest. The priest said, “Gently, my sons. Don’t make sure about the man of the tower before Sunday. Wait and see if he comes to church.”

“And if he doesn’t come to church?” asked all the fishermen, in a breath.

“In that case,” replied the priest, “I will excommunicate him; and then, my children, you may call him what you like.”

Sunday came, and no sign of the stranger darkened the church doors. He was excommunicated accordingly. The whole village forthwith adopted Poulailler’s idea, and called the man of the tower by the name which Poulailler had given him – “The Fiend-Fisherman.”

These strong proceedings produced not the slightest apparent effect on the diabolical personage who had occasioned them. He persisted in remaining idle when the weather was fine, in going out to fish when no other boat in the place dare put to sea, and in coming back again to his solitary dwelling-place with his nets full, his boat uninjured, and himself alive and hearty. He made no attempts to buy and sell with anybody, he kept steadily away from the village, he lived on fish of his own preternaturally strong frying, and he never spoke to a living soul – with the solitary exception of Poulailler himself. One fine evening, when the young man was rowing home past the tower, the Fiend-Fisherman darted out on to the rook, said, “Thank you, Poulailler, for giving me a name,” bowed politely, and darted in again. The young fisherman felt the words run cold down the marrow of his back; and whenever he was at sea again, he gave the tower a wide berth from that day forth.

Time went on, and an important event occurred in Poulailler’s life. He was engaged to be married. On the day when his betrothal was publicly made known, his friends clustered noisily about him on the fishing-jetty of the village to offer their congratulations. While they were all in full cry, a strange voice suddenly made itself heard through the confusion, which silenced everybody in an instant. The crowd fell back, and disclosed the Fiend-Fisherman, sauntering up the jetty. It was the first time he had ever set foot – cloven foot – within the precincts of the village.

“Gentlemen,” said the Fiend-Fisherman, “where is my friend Poulailler?” He put the question with perfect politeness; he looked remarkably well in his fisherman’s costume; he exhaled a relishing odour of fried fish; he had a cordial nod for the men, and a sweet smile for the women; but, with all these personal advantages, everybody fell back from him, and nobody answered his question. The coldness of the popular reception, however, did not in any way abash him. He looked about for Poulailler with searching eyes, discovered the place in which he was standing, and addressed him in the friendliest manner.

“So you are going to be married?” remarked the Fiend-Fisherman.

“What’s that to you?” said Poulailler. He was inwardly terrified, but outwardly gruff – not an uncommon combination of circumstances with men of his class in his mental situation.

“My friend,” pursued the Fiend-Fisherman, “I have not forgotten your polite attention in giving me a name, and I come here to requite it. You will have a family, Poulailler, and your first child will be a boy. I propose to make that boy my adopted son.”

The marrow of Poulailler’s back became awfully cold; but he grew gruffer than ever, in spite of his back.

“You won’t do anything of the sort,” he replied, “If I have the largest family in France, no child of mine shall ever go near you.”

“I shall adopt your first-born for all that,” persisted the Fiend-Fisherman. “Poulailler, I wish you good-morning. Ladies and gentlemen, the same to all of you.”

With those words, he withdrew from the jetty, and the marrow of Poulailler’s back recovered its temperature.

The next morning was stormy, and all the village expected to see the boat from the tower put out, as usual, to sea. Not a sign of it appeared. Later in the day the rock on which the building stood was examined from a distance. Neither boat nor nets were in their customary places. At night the red gleam of the fire was missed for the first time. The Fiend-Fisherman had gone! He had announced his intentions on the jetty, and had disappeared. What did this mean? Nobody knew.

On Poulailler’s wedding-day, a portentous circumstance recalled the memory of the diabolical stranger, and, as a matter of course, seriously discomposed the bridegroom’s back. At the moment when the marriage ceremony was complete, a relishing odour of fried fish stole into the nostrils of the company, and a voice from invisible lips said, “Keep up your spirits, Poulailler; I have not forgotten my promise!”

A year later, Madame Poulailler was in the hands of the midwife of the district, and a repetition of the portentous circumstance took place. Poulailler was waiting in the kitchen to hear how matters ended upstairs. The nurse came in with a baby. “Which is it?” asked the happy father; “girl or boy?” Before the nurse could answer, an odour of supernaturally fried fish filled the kitchen, and a voice from invisible lips replied, “A boy, Poulailler, and I’ve got him!”

Such were the circumstances under which the subject of this Memoir was introduced to the joys and sorrows of mortal existence.

II

HIS BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE

When a boy is born under auspices which lead his parents to suppose that, while the bodily part of him is safe at home, the spiritual part is subjected to a course of infernal tuition elsewhere, what are his father and mother to do with him? They must do the best they can – which was exactly what Poulailler and his wife did with the hero of these pages.

In the first place, they had him christened instantly. It was observed with horror that his infant face was distorted with grimaces, and that his infant voice roared with a preternatural lustiness of tone the moment the priest touched him. The first thing he asked for, when he learned to speak, was “fried fish”; and the first place he wanted to go to, when he learned to walk, was the diabolical tower on the rock. “He won’t learn anything,” said the master, when he was old enough to go to school. “Thrash him,” said Poulailler; and the master thrashed him. “He won’t come to his first communion,” said the priest. “Thrash him,” said Poulailler; and the priest thrashed him. The farmers’ orchards were robbed; the neighbouring rabbit-warrens were depopulated; linen was stolen from the gardens, and nets were torn on the beach. “The deuce take Poulailler’s boy,” was the general cry. “The deuce has got him,” was Poulailler’s answer. “And yet he is a nice-looking boy,” said Madame Poulailler. And he was – as tall, as strong, as handsome a young fellow as could be seen in all France. “Let us pray for him,” said Madame Poulailler. “Let us thrash him,” said her husband. “Our son has been thrashed till all; the sticks in the neighbourhood are broken,” pleaded his mother. “We will try him with the rope’s-end next,” retorted his father; “he shall go to sea, and live in an atmosphere of thrashing. Our son shall be a cabin-boy.” It was all one to Poulailler Junior; he knew who had adopted him, as well as his father; he had been instinctively conscious from infancy of the Fiend-Fisherman’s interest in his welfare; he cared for no earthly discipline; and a cabin-boy he became at ten years old.

After two years of the rope’s-end (applied quite ineffectually), the subject of this Memoir robbed his captain, and ran away in an English port. London became the next scene of his adventures. At twelve years old he persuaded society in the metropolis that he was the forsaken natural son of a French duke. British benevolence, after blindly providing for him for four years, opened its eyes and found him out at the age of sixteen; upon which he returned to France, and entered the army in the capacity of drummer. At eighteen he deserted, and had a turn with the gypsies. He told fortunes, he conjured, he danced on the tightrope, he acted, he sold quack medicines, he altered his mind again, and returned to the army. Here he fell in love with the vivandiere of his new regiment. The sergeant-major of the company, touched by the same amiable weakness, naturally resented his attentions to the lady. Poulailler (perhaps unjustifiably) asserted himself by boxing his officer’s ears. Out flashed the swords on both sides, and in went Poulailler’s blade through and through the tender heart of the sergeant-major. The frontier was close at hand. Poulailler wiped his sword, and crossed it.

Sentence of death was recorded against him in his absence. When society has condemned us to die, if we are men of any spirit, how are we to return the compliment? By condemning society to keep us alive – or, in other words, by robbing right and left for a living. Poulailler’s destiny was now accomplished. He was picked out to be the greatest thief of his age; and when Fate summoned him to his place in the world, he stepped forward and took it. His life hitherto had been merely the life of a young scamp; he was now to do justice to the diabolical father who had adopted him, and to expand to the proportions of a full-grown robber.

His first exploits were performed in Germany. They showed such a novelty of combination, such daring, such dexterity, and, even in his most homicidal moments, such irresistible gaiety and good humor, that a band of congenial spirits gathered about him in no time. As commander-in-chief of the thieves’ army, his popularity never wavered. His weaknesses – and what illustrious man is without them? – were three in number. First weakness: he was extravagantly susceptible to the charms of the fair sex. Second weakness: he was perilously fond of practical jokes. Third weakness (inherited from his adopted parent): his appetite was insatiable in the matter of fried fish. As for the merits to set against these defects, some have been noticed already, and others will appear immediately. Let it merely be premised in this place that he was one of the handsomest men of his time, that he dressed superbly, and that he was capable of the most exalted acts of generosity wherever a handsome woman was concerned – let this be understood, to begin with; and let us now enter on the narrative of his last exploit in Germany before he returned to France. This adventure is something more than a mere specimen of his method of workmanship; it proved, in the future, to be the fatal event of his life.

On a Monday in the week he had stopped on the highway, and robbed of all his valuables and all his papers an Italian nobleman – the Marquis Petrucci, of Sienna. On Tuesday he was ready for another stroke of business. Posted on the top of a steep hill, he watched the road which wound up to the summit on one side, while his followers were ensconced on the road which led down from it on the other. The prize expected in this case was the travelling-carriage (with a large sum of money inside) of the Baron De Kirbergen.

Before long Poulailler discerned the carriage afar off at the bottom of the hill, and in advance of it, ascending the eminence, two ladies on foot. They were the Baron’s daughters – Wilhelmina, a fair beauty; Frederica, a brunette – both lovely, both accomplished, both susceptible, both young. Poulailler sauntered down the hill to meet the fascinating travellers. He looked, bowed, introduced himself, and fell in love with Wilhelmina on the spot. Both the charming girls acknowledged in the most artless manner that confinement to the carriage had given them the fidgets, and that they were walking up the hill to try the remedy of gentle exercise. Poulailler’s heart was touched, and Poulailler’s generosity to the sex was roused in the nick of time. With a polite apology to the young ladies, he ran back, by a short cut, to the ambush on the other side of the hill in which his men were posted.

“Gentlemen!” cried the generous thief, “in the charming name of Wilhelmina de Kirbergen, I charge you all, let the Baron’s carriage pass free.” The band was not susceptible; the band demurred. Poulailler knew them. He had appealed to their hearts in vain; he now appealed to their pockets. “Gentlemen!” he resumed, “excuse my momentary misconception of your sentiments. Here is my one-half share of the Marquis Petrucci’s property. If I divide it among you, will you let the carriage pass free?” The band knew the value of money, and accepted the terms. Poulailler rushed back up the hill, and arrived at the top just in time to hand the young ladies into the carriage. “Charming man!” said the white Wilhelmina to the brown Frederica, as they drove off. Innocent soul! what would she have said if she had known that her personal attractions had saved her father’s property? Was she ever to see the charming man again? Yes; she was to see him the next day – and, more than that, Fate was hereafter to link her fast to the robber’s life and the robber’s doom.

Confiding the direction of the band to his first lieutenant, Poulailler followed the carriage on horseback, and ascertained the place of the Baron’s residence that night.

The next morning a superbly-dressed stranger knocked at the door. “What name, sir?” said the servant. “The Marquis Petrucci, of Sienna,” replied Poulailler. “How are the young ladies after their journey?” The Marquis was shown in, and introduced to the Baron. The Baron was naturally delighted to receive a brother nobleman; Miss Wilhelmina was modestly happy to see the charming man again; Miss Frederica was affectionately pleased on her sister’s account. Not being of a disposition to lose time where his affections were concerned, Poulailler expressed his sentiments to the beloved object that evening. The next morning he had an interview with the Baron, at which he produced the papers which proved him to be the Marquis. Nothing could be more satisfactory to the mind of the most anxious parent – the two noblemen embraced. They were still in each other’s arms, when a second stranger knocked at the door. “What name, sir?” said the servant. “The Marquis Petrucci, of Sienna,” replied the stranger. “Impossible!” said the servant; “his lordship is now in the house.”

“Show me in, scoundrel,” cried the visitor. The servant submitted, and the two Marquises stood face to face. Poulailler’s composure was not shaken in the least; he had come first to the house, and he had got the papers. “You are the villain who robbed me!” cried the true Petrucci. “You are drunk, mad, or an impostor,” retorted the false Petrucci. “Send to Florence, where I am known,” exclaimed one of the Marquises, apostrophizing the Baron. “Send to Florence by all means,” echoed the other, addressing himself to the Baron also. “Gentlemen,” replied the noble Kirbergen, “I will do myself the honour of taking your advice” – and he sent to Florence accordingly.

Before the messenger had advanced ten miles on his journey, Poulailler had said two words in private to the susceptible Wilhelmina, and the pair eloped from the baronial residence that night. Once more the subject of this Memoir crossed the frontier, and re-entered France. Indifferent to the attractions of rural life, he forthwith established himself with the beloved object in Paris. In that superb city he met with his strangest adventures, performed his boldest achievements, committed his most prodigious robberies, and, in a word, did himself and his infernal patron the fullest justice in the character of the Fiend-Fisherman’s adopted son.

III

HIS CAREER IN PARIS

Once established in the French metropolis, Poulailler planned and executed that vast system of perpetual robbery and occasional homicide which made him the terror and astonishment of all Paris. Indoors as well as out his good fortune befriended him. No domestic anxieties harassed his mind, and diverted him from the pursuit of his distinguished public career. The attachment of the charming creature with whom he had eloped from Germany survived the discovery that the Marquis Petrucci was Poulailler the robber. True to the man of her choice, the devoted Wilhelmina shared his fortunes, and kept his house. And why not, if she loved him – in the all-conquering name of Cupid, why not?

Joined by picked men from his German followers, and by new recruits gathered together in Paris, Poulailler now set society and its safeguards at flat defiance. Cartouche himself was his inferior in audacity and cunning. In course of time, the whole city was panic-stricken by the new robber and his band – the very Boulevards were deserted after nightfall. Monsieur Herault, lieutenant of police of the period, in despair of laying hands on Poulailler by any other means, at last offered a reward of a hundred pistoles and a place in his office worth two thousand livres a year to any one who would apprehend the robber alive. The bills were posted all over Paris, and the next morning they produced the very last result in the world which the lieutenant of police could possibly have anticipated.

While Monsieur Hérault was at breakfast in his study, the Count de Villeneuve was announced as wishing to speak to him. Knowing the Count by name only, as belonging to an ancient family in Provence or in Languedoc, Monsieur Hérault ordered him to be shown in. A perfect gentleman appeared, dressed with an admirable mixture of magnificence and good taste. “I have something for your private ear, sir,” said the Count. “Will you give orders that no one must be allowed to disturb us?”

Monsieur Hérault gave the orders.

“May I inquire, Count, what your business is?” he asked when the door was closed.

“To earn the reward you offer for taking Poulailler,” answered the Count. “I am Poulailler.”

Before Monsieur Hérault could open his lips, the robber produced a pretty little dagger and some rose-coloured silk cord. “The point of this dagger is poisoned,” he observed; “and one scratch of it, my dear sir, would be the death of you.” With these words Poulailler gagged the lieutenant of police, bound him to his chair with the rose-coloured cord, and lightened his writing-desk of one thousand pistoles. “I’ll take money, instead of taking the place in the office which you kindly offer,” said Poulailler. “Don’t trouble yourself to see me to the door. Good-morning.”

A few weeks later, while Monsieur Hérault was still the popular subject of ridicule throughout Paris, business took Poulailler on the road to Lille and Cambrai. The only inside passenger in the coach besides himself was the venerable Dean Potter, of Brussels. They fell into talk on the one interesting subject of the time – not the weather, but Poulailler.

“It’s a disgrace, sir, to the police,” said the Dean, “that such a miscreant is still at large. I shall be returning to Paris by this road in ten days’ time, and I shall call on Monsieur Hérault to suggest a plan of my own for catching the scoundrel.”

“May I ask what it is?” said Poulailler.

“Excuse me,” replied the Dean; “you are a stranger, sir, and moreover I wish to keep the merit of suggesting the plan to myself.”

“Do you think the lieutenant of police will see you?” asked Poulailler; “he is not accessible to strangers, since the miscreant you speak of played him that trick at his own breakfast-table.”

“He will see Dean Potter, of Brussels,” was the reply, delivered with the slightest possible tinge of offended dignity.

“Oh, unquestionably!” said Poulailler; “pray pardon me.”

“Willingly, sir,” said the Dean; and the conversation flowed into other channels.

Nine days later the wounded pride of Monsieur Hérault was soothed by a very remarkable letter. It was signed by one of Poulailler’s band, who offered himself as king’s evidence, in the hope of obtaining a pardon. The letter stated that the venerable Dean Potter had been waylaid and murdered by Poulailler, and that the robber, with his customary audacity, was about to re-enter Paris by the Lisle coach the next day, disguised in the Dean’s own clothes, and furnished with the Dean’s own papers. Monsieur Hérault took his precautions without losing a moment. Picked men were stationed, with their orders, at the barrier through which the coach must pass to enter Paris, while the lieutenant of police waited at his office, in the company of two French gentlemen who could speak to the Dean’s identity, in the event of Poulailler’s impudently persisting in the assumption of his victim’s name.

At the appointed hour the coach appeared, and out of it got a man in the Dean’s costume. He was arrested in spite of his protestations; the papers of the murdered Potter were found on him, and he was dragged off to the police-office in triumph. The door opened and the posse comitatus entered with the prisoner. Instantly the two witnesses burst out with a cry of recognition, and turned indignantly on the lieutenant of police. “Gracious Heaven, sir, what have you done!” they exclaimed in horror; “this is not Poulailler – here is our venerable friend; here is the Dean himself!” At the same moment a servant entered with a letter. “Dean Potter. To the care of Monsieur Herault, Lieutenant of Police.” The letter was expressed in these words: “Venerable Sir – Profit by the lesson I have given you. Be a Christian for the future, and never again try to injure a man unless he tries to injure you. Entirely yours – Poulailler.”

These feats of cool audacity were matched by others, in which his generosity to the sex asserted itself as magnanimously as ever.

Hearing one day that large sums of money were kept in the house of a great lady, one Madame De Brienne, whose door was guarded, in anticipation of a visit from the famous thief, by a porter of approved trustworthiness and courage, Poulailler undertook to rob her in spite of her precautions, and succeeded. With a stout pair of leather straps and buckles in his pocket, and with two of his band disguised as a coachman and a footman, he followed Madame De Brienne one night to the theatre. Just before the close of the performance, the lady’s coachman and footman were tempted away for five minutes by Poulailler’s disguised subordinates to have a glass of wine. No attempt was made to detain them, or to drug their liquor. But in their absence Poulailler had slipped under the carriage, had hung his leather straps round the pole – one to hold by, and one to support his feet – and, with these simple preparations, was now ready to wait for events. Madame De Brienne entered the carriage – the footman got up behind – Poulailler hung himself horizontally under the pole, and was driven home with them under those singular circumstances. He was strong enough to keep his position after the carriage had been taken into the coach-house, and he only left it when the doors were locked for the night. Provided with food beforehand, he waited patiently, hidden in the coach-house, for two days and nights, watching his opportunity of getting into Madame De Brienne’s boudoir.

On the third night the lady went to a grand ball; the servants relaxed in their vigilance while her back was turned, and Poulailler slipped into the room. He found two thousand louis d’ors, which was nothing like the sum he expected, and a pocketbook, which he took away with him to open at home. It contained some stock warrants for a comparatively trifling amount. Poulailler was far too well off to care about taking them, and far too polite, where a lady was concerned, not to send them back again, under those circumstances. Accordingly, Madame De Brienne received her warrants, with a note of apology from the polite thief.

“Pray excuse my visit to your charming boudoir,” wrote Poulailler, “in consideration of the false reports of your wealth, which alone induced me to enter it. If I had known what your pecuniary circumstances really were, on the honour of a gentleman, madame, I should have been incapable of robbing you. I cannot return your two thousand louis d’ors by post, as I return your warrants. But if you are at all pressed for money in future, I shall be proud to assist so distinguished a lady by lending her, from my own ample resources, double the sum of which I regret to have deprived her on the present occasion.” This letter was shown to royalty at Versailles. It excited the highest admiration of the Court – especially of the ladies. Whenever the robber’s name was mentioned, they indulgently referred to him as the Chevalier De Poulailler. Ah! that was the age of politeness, when good-breeding was recognised, even in the thief. Under similar circumstances, who would recognise it now? O tempera! O mores! On another occasion Poulailler was out one night taking the air, and watching his opportunities on the roofs of the houses, a member of the band being posted in the street below to assist him in case of necessity. While in this position, sobs and groans proceeding from an open back-garret window caught his ear. A parapet rose before the window, which enabled him to climb down and look in. Starving children surrounding a helpless mother, and clamouring for food, was the picture that met his eye. The mother was young and beautiful, and Poulailler’s hand impulsively clutched his purse, as a necessary consequence. Before the charitable thief could enter by the window, a man rushed in by the door with a face of horror, and cast a handful of gold into the lovely mother’s lap. “My honour is gone,” he cried, “but our children are saved! Listen to the circumstances. I met a man in the street below; he was tall and thin; he had a green patch over one eye; he was looking up suspiciously at this house, apparently waiting for somebody. I thought of you – I thought of the children – I seized the suspicious stranger by the collar. Terror overwhelmed him on the spot. ‘Take my watch, my money, and my two valuable gold snuffboxes,’ he said, ‘but spare my life.’ I took them.” “Noble-hearted man!” cried Poulailler, appearing at the window. The husband started; the wife screamed; the children hid themselves. “Let me entreat you to be composed,” continued Poulailler. “Sir! I enter on the scene for the purpose of soothing your uneasy conscience. From your vivid description, I recognise the man whose property is now in your wife’s lap. Resume your mental tranquillity. You have robbed a robber – in other words, you have vindicated society. Accept my congratulations on your restored innocence. The miserable coward whose collar you seized is one of Poulailler’s band. He has lost his stolen property as the fit punishment for his disgraceful want of spirit.”

“Who are you?” exclaimed the husband.

“I am Poulailler,” replied the illustrious man, with the simplicity of an ancient hero. “Take this purse, and set up in business with the contents. There is a prejudice, sir, in favour of honesty. Give that prejudice a chance. There was a time when I felt it myself; I regret to feel it no longer. Under all varieties of misfortune, an honest man has his consolation still left. Where is it left? Here!” He struck his heart, and the family fell on their knees before him.

“Benefactor of your species!” cried the husband; “how can I show my gratitude?”

“You can permit me to kiss the hand of ma-dame,” answered Poulailler.

Madame started to her feet and embraced the generous stranger. “What more can I do?” exclaimed this lovely woman, eagerly; “oh heavens! what more?”

“You can beg your husband to light me downstairs,” replied Poulailler. He spoke, pressed their hands, dropped a generous tear, and departed. At that touching moment his own adopted father would not have known him,

This last anecdote closes the record of Poulailler’s career in Paris. The lighter and more agreeable aspects of that career have hitherto been designedly presented, in discreet remembrance of the contrast which the tragic side of the picture must now present. Comedy and Sentiment, twin sisters of French extraction, farewell! Horror enters next on the stage, and enters welcome, in the name of the Fiend-Fisherman’s adopted son.

IV

HIS EXIT FROM THE SCENE

The nature of Poulailler’s more serious achievements in the art of robbery may be realized by reference to one terrible fact. In the police records of the period, more than one hundred and fifty men and women are reckoned up as having met their deaths at the hands of Poulailler and his band. It was not the practice of this formidable robber to take life as well as property, unless life happened to stand directly in his way – in which case he immediately swept off the obstacle without hesitation and without remorse. His deadly determination to rob, which was thus felt by the population in general, was matched by his deadly determination to be obeyed, which was felt by his followers in particular. One of their number, for example, having withdrawn from his allegiance, and having afterward attempted to betray his leader, was tracked to his hiding-place in a cellar, and was there walled up alive in Poulailler’s presence, the robber composing the unfortunate wretch’s epitaph, and scratching it on the wet plaster with his own hand. Years afterward the inscription was noticed when the house fell into the possession of a new tenant, and was supposed to be nothing more than one of the many jests which the famous robber had practiced in his time. When the plaster was removed, the skeleton fell out, and testified that Poulailler was in earnest.

To attempt the arrest of such a man as this by tampering with his followers was practically impossible. No sum of money that could be offered would induce any one of the members of his band to risk the fatal chance of his vengeance. Other means of getting possession of him had been tried, and tried in vain. Five times over the police had succeeded in tracking him to different hiding-places; and on all five occasions, the women – who adored him for his gallantry, his generosity, and his good looks – had helped him to escape. If he had not unconsciously paved the way to his own capture, first by eloping with Mademoiselle Wilhelmina de Kirbergen, and secondly by maltreating her, it is more than doubtful whether the long arm of the law would ever have reached far enough to fasten its grasp on him. As it was, the extremes of love and hatred met at last in the bosom of the devoted Wilhelmina, and the vengeance of a neglected woman accomplished what the whole police force of Paris had been powerless to achieve.

Poulailler, never famous for the constancy of his attachments, had wearied, at an early period, of the companion of his flight from Germany; but Wilhelmina was one of those women whose affections, once aroused, will not take No for an answer. She persisted in attaching herself to a man who had ceased to love her. Poulailler’s patience became exhausted; he tried twice to rid himself of his unhappy mistress – once by the knife, and once by poison – and failed on both occasions. For the third and last time, by way of attempting an experiment of another kind, he established a rival, to drive the German woman out of the house. From that moment his fate was sealed. Maddened by jealous rage, Wilhelmina cast the last fragments of her fondness to the winds. She secretly communicated with the police, and Poulailler met his doom.

A night was appointed with the authorities, and the robber was invited by his discarded mistress to a farewell interview. His contemptuous confidence in her fidelity rendered him careless of his customary precautions. He accepted the appointment, and the two supped together, on the understanding that they were henceforth to be friends and nothing more. Toward the close of the meal Poulailler was startled by a ghastly change in the face of his companion.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked.

“A mere trifle,” she answered, looking at her glass of wine. “I can’t help loving you still, badly as you have treated me. You are a dead man, Poulailler, and I shall not survive you.”

The robber started to his feet, and seized a knife on the table.

“You have poisoned me!” he exclaimed.

“No,” she replied. “Poison is my vengeance on myself; not my vengeance on you. You will rise from this table as you sat down to it. But your evening will be finished in prison, and your life will be ended on the wheel.”

As she spoke the words, the door was burst open by the police and Poulailler was secured. The same night the poison did its fatal work, and his mistress made atonement with her life for the first, last act of treachery which had revenged her on the man she loved.

Once safely lodged in the hands of justice, the robber tried to gain time to escape in, by promising to make important disclosures. The maneuver availed him nothing. In those days the Laws of the Land had not yet made acquaintance with the Laws of Humanity. Poulailler was put to the torture – was suffered to recover – was publicly broken on the wheel – and was taken off it alive, to be cast into a blazing fire. By those murderous means Society rid itself of a murderous man, and the idlers on the Boulevards took their evening stroll again in recovered security.

•   •   •   •   •

Paris had seen the execution of Poulailler; but if legends are to be trusted, our old friends, the people of the fishing village in Brittany, saw the end of him afterward. On the day and hour when he perished, the heavens darkened, and a terrible storm arose. Once more, and for a moment only, the gleam of the unearthly fire reddened the windows of the old tower. Thunder pealed, and struck the building into fragments. Lightning flashed incessantly over the ruins; and, in the scorching glare of it, the boat which, in former years, had put off to sea whenever the storm rose highest, was seen to shoot out into the raging ocean from the cleft in the rock, and was discovered on this final occasion to be doubly manned. The Fiend-Fisherman sat at the helm; his adopted son tugged at the oars; and a clamour of diabolical voices, roaring awfully through the roaring storm, wished the pair of them a prosperous voyage.

All The Year Round 24 Apr 1861

THE POISONED MEAL

[From the Records
of the French Courts.]

CHAPTER I

THE POCKETS

This case takes us across the Channel to Normandy; and introduces us to a young French girl, named Marie Françoise Victoire Salmon.

Her father was a poor Norman labourer. Her mother died while she was a child. From an early age Marie had learned to get her own living by going out to service. Three different mistresses tried her while she was a very young girl, and found every reason to be satisfied with her conduct. She entered her fourth place, in the family of one Monsieur Dumesnil, when she was twenty years of age. This was the turning-point in her career; and here the strange story of her life properly begins.

Among the persons who often visited Monsieur Dumesnil and his wife was a certain Monsieur Revel, a relation of Madame Dumesnil’s. He was a man of some note in his part of the country, holding a responsible legal appointment at the town of Caen, in Normandy; and he honoured Marie, when he first saw her at her master’s house, with his special attention and approval. She had an innocent face and a winning manner; and Monsieur Revel became almost oppressively anxious, in a strictly paternal way, that she should better her condition, by seeking service at Caen, where places were plentiful and wages higher than in the country, and where, it is also necessary to remember, Monsieur Revel himself happened to live.

Marie’s own idea, however, of the best means of improving her condition was a little at variance with the idea of her disinterested adviser. Her ambition was to gain her living independently, if she could, by being a seamstress. She left the service of Monsieur Dumesnil of her own accord, without so much as the shadow of a stain on her character, and went to the old town of Bayeux to try what she could do by taking in needlework. As a means of subsistence, needlework soon proved itself to be insufficient; and she found herself thrown back again on the old resource of going out to service. Most unfortunately, as events afterward turned out, she now called to mind Monsieur Revel’s paternal advice, and resolved to seek employment as a maid of all work at Caen.

She left Bayeux with the little bundle of clothes which represented all the property she had in the world, on the first of August, seventeen hundred and eighty-one. It will be well to notice this date particularly, and to remember – in case some of the events of Marie’s story should seem almost incredible – that it marks the period which immediately preceded the first outbreak of the French Revolution.

Among the few articles of the maid’s apparel which the bundle contained, and to which it is necessary to direct attention at the outset, were two pairs of pockets, one of them being still in an unfinished condition. She had a third pair which she wore on her journey. In the last century, a country girl’s pockets were an important and prominent part of her costume. They hung on each side of her, ready to her hand. They were sometimes very prettily embroidered, and they were almost always large and of a bright colour.

On the first of August, seventeen hundred and eighty-one, Marie left Bayeux, and early on the same day she reached Caen. Her good manners, her excellent character, and the modesty of her demands in the matter of wages, rendered it easy for her to find a situation. On the very evening of her arrival she was suited with a place; and her first night at Caen was passed under the roof of her new employers.

The family consisted of Marie’s master and mistress, Monsieur and Madame Huet Duparc (both highly respectable people); of two sons, aged respectively twenty-one and eleven years; of their sister, aged seventeen years; and of Monsieur and Madame De Beaulieu, the father and mother of Madame Duparc, one eighty-eight years old, the other eighty-six.

Madame Duparc explained to Marie the various duties which she was expected to perform, on the evening when she entered the house. She was to begin the day by fetching some milk – that being one of the ingredients used in preparing the hasty-pudding which formed the favourite morning meal of the old gentleman, Monsieur De Beaulieu. The hasty-pudding was always to be got ready by seven o’clock exactly. When this had been done, Marie was next required to take the infirm old lady, Madame De Beaulieu, every morning to mass. She was then to go to market, and get all the provisions that were wanted for the daily use of the family; and she was, finally, to look to the cooking of the food, and to make herself additionally useful (with some occasional assistance from Madame Duparc and her daughter) in every remaining branch of household work. The yearly wages she was to receive for performing all these conflicting duties amounted to precisely two pounds sterling of English money.

She had entered her new place on a Wednesday. On Thursday she took her first lesson in preparing the old gentleman’s morning meal. One point which her mistress then particularly impressed on her was, that she was not to put any salt in the hasty-pudding.

On the Saturday following, when she went out to buy milk, she made a little purchase on her own account. Of course the purchase was an article of dress – a piece of fine bright orange-coloured stuff, for which she paid nearly the whole price on the spot, out of her small savings. The sum of two sous six deniers (about a penny English) was all that Marie took credit for. On her return to the house she showed the piece of stuff to Madame Duparc, and asked to be advised whether she should make an apron or a jacket of it.

The next day being Sunday, Marie marked the occasion by putting on all the little finery she had. Her pair of festive pockets, striped with blue and white, came out of her bundle along with other things. When she had put them on, she hung the old workaday pockets which she had worn on leaving Bayeux to the back of a chair in her bedchamber. This was a little room on the ground floor, situated close to the dining-room, and perfectly easy of access to every one in the house. Long afterward, Marie remembered how pleasantly and quietly that Sunday passed. It was the last day of happiness the poor creature was to enjoy in the house of Madame Duparc.

On the Monday morning, she went to fetch the milk as usual. But the milk-woman was not in the shop to serve her. After returning to the house, she proposed making a second attempt; but her mistress stopped her, saying that the milk would doubtless be sent before long. This turned out to be the case, and Marie, having cleaned the saucepan for Monsieur De Beaulieu’s hasty-pudding, received from the hands of Madame Duparc the earthen vessel containing the meal used in the house. She mixed this flour and put it into the saucepan in the presence of Madame Duparc and her daughter. She had just set the saucepan on the fire, when her mistress said, with a very remarkable abruptness:

“Have you put any salt in it?”

“Certainly not, ma’am,” answered Marie, amazed by the question. “You told me yourself that I was never to put salt in it.”

Upon this, Madame Duparc snatched up the saucepan without saying another word, turned to the dresser, stretched out her hand toward one of four salt-cellars which always stood there, and sprinkled salt into the saucepan – or (to speak with extreme correctness, the matter being important), if not salt something which she took for salt.

The hasty-pudding made, Marie poured it from the saucepan into a soup-plate which her mistress held. Madame Duparc herself then took it to Monsieur De Beaulieu. She and her daughter, and one of her sons, remained with the old man while he was eating his breakfast. Marie, left in the kitchen, prepared to clean the saucepan; but, before she could do so, she was suddenly called in two different directions by Madame De Beaulieu and Madame Duparc. The old lady wished to be taken to mass, and her mistress wanted to send her on a number of errands. Marie did not stop even to pour some clean water, as usual, into the saucepan. She went at once to get her instructions from Madame Duparc, and to attend on Madame De Beaulieu. Taking the old lady to church, and then running on her mistress’s errands, kept her so long away from the house, that it was half-past eleven in the forenoon before she got back to the kitchen.

The first news that met her on her return was that Monsieur De Beaulieu had been suffering, ever since nine o’clock, from a violent attack of vomiting and colic. Madame Duparc ordered her to help the old man to bed immediately; and inquired, when these directions had been followed, whether Marie felt capable of looking after him herself, or whether she would prefer that a nurse should be sent for. Being a kind-hearted, willing girl, always anxious to make herself useful, Marie replied that she would gladly undertake the nursing of the old man; and thereupon her bed was moved at once into Monsieur De Beaulieu’s room.

Meanwhile Madame Duparc fetched from a neighbouring apothecary’s one of the apprentices of the shop to see her father. The lad was quite unfit to meet the emergency of the case, which was certainly serious enough to require the attention of his master, if not of a regularly qualified physician. Instead of applying any internal remedies, the apprentice stupidly tried blistering. This course of treatment proved utterly useless; but no better advice was called in. After he had suffered for hours without relief, Monsieur De Beaulieu began to sink rapidly toward the afternoon. At half-past five o’clock he had ceased to exist.

This shocking catastrophe, startling and suspicious as it was, did not appear to discompose the nerves of Madame Duparc. While her eldest son immediately left the house to inform his father (who had been absent in the country all day) of what had happened, she lost no time in sending for the nearest nurse to lay out the corpse of Monsieur De Beaulieu. On entering the chamber of death, the nurse found Marie there alone, praying by the old man’s bedside. “He died suddenly, did he not?” said the nurse. “Very suddenly,” answered Marie “He was walking about only yesterday in perfect health.” Soon afterward the time came when it was customary to prepare supper. Marie went into the kitchen mechanically, to get the meal ready. Madame Duparc, her daughter, and her youngest son, sat down to it as usual. Madame De Beaulieu, overwhelmed by the dreadful death of her husband, was incapable of joining them.

When supper was over, Marie assisted the old lady to bed. Then, worn out though she was with fatigue, she went back to the nurse to keep her company in watching by the dead body. Monsieur De Beaulieu had been kind to Marie, and had spoken gratefully of the little attentions she had shown him. She remembered this tenderly now that he was no more; and she could not find it in her heart to leave a hired mourner to be the only watcher by his deathbed. All that night she remained in the room, entirety ignorant of what was passing the while in every other part of the house – her own little bedroom included, as a matter of course.

About seven o’clock the next morning, after sitting up all night, she went back again wearily to the kitchen to begin her day’s work. Her mistress joined her there, and saluted her instantly with a scolding.

“You are the most careless, slovenly girl I ever met with,” said Madame Duparc. “Look at your dress; how can you expect to be decent on a Sunday, if you wear your best pair of pockets on weekdays?”

Surely Madame Duparc’s grief for the loss of her father must have been slight enough, if it did not prevent her from paying the strictest attention to her servant’s pockets! Although Marie had only known the old man for a few days, she had been too deeply impressed by his illness and its fatal end to be able to think of such a trifle as the condition of her dress. And now, of all the people in the world, it was Monsieur De Beaulieu’s daughter who reminded her that she had never thought of changing her pockets only the day after the old man’s dreadful death.

“Put on your old pockets directly, you untidy girl!” said Madame Duparc.

The old pockets were of course hanging where Marie had left them, at the back of the chair in her own room – the room which was open to any one who chose to go into it – the room which she herself had not entered during the past night. She left the kitchen to obey her mistress; and taking the old pair of pockets off the chair, tied them on as quickly as possible. From that fatal moment the friendless maid of all work was a ruined girl.

CHAPTER II

THE ARSENIC

On returning to the kitchen to go on with her work, the exhaustion against which Marie had hitherto fought successfully, overpowered her the moment she sat down; her heavy head drooped, her eyes closed in spite of her, and she fell into a broken, uneasy slumber. Madame Duparc and her daughter, seeing the condition she was in, undertook the preparation of the day’s dinner themselves. Among the dishes which they got ready, and which they salted from the cellars on the dresser, were two different kinds of soup – one kind for themselves, made from fresh “stock”‘ – the other, for Marie and the nurse, made from old “stock.” They were engaged over their cookery, when Monsieur Duparc arrived from the country; and Marie was awakened to take the horse he had ridden to the stables, to unsaddle the animal, and to give him his feed of corn. While she was thus engaged, Madame Duparc and her daughter remained alone in the kitchen. When she left the stable, it was time for her to lay the cloth. She was told to put plates for seven persons. Only six, however, sat down to dinner. Those six were, Madame De Beaulieu, Monsieur and Madame Duparc, the youngest of their two sons, Madame Beauguillot (sister of Madame Duparc), and Monsieur Beauguillot (her son). Mademoiselle Duparc remained in the kitchen to help Marie in serving up the dinner, and only took her place at table after the soup had been put on. Her elder brother, after summoning his father home, had not returned to the house.

After the soup had been taken away, and while Marie was waiting at table during the eating of the second course, young Duparc complained that he felt something gritty between his teeth. His mother made precisely the same remark. Nobody else, however, agreed with them, and the subject was allowed to drop. When the second course was done with, the dessert followed, consisting of a plate of cherries. With the dessert there arrived a visitor, Monsieur Fergant, a relation of Madame Duparc’s. This gentleman placed himself at table with the rest of the company.

Meanwhile, the nurse and Marie were making their dinner in the kitchen off the soup which had been specially provided for them – Marie having previously placed the dirty plates, and the empty soup-tureen from the dining-room, in the scullery, as usual, to be washed at the proper time. While she and her companion were still engaged over their soup, young Duparc and his mother suddenly burst into the kitchen, followed by the other persons who had partaken of dinner. “We are all poisoned!” cried Madame Duparc, in the greatest terror. “Good heavens! I smell burned arsenic in the kitchen!”

Monsieur Fergant, the visitor, hearing these last words, politely stepped forward to echo them. “Burned arsenic, beyond a doubt,” said Monsieur Fergant. When this gentleman was subsequently questioned on the subject, it may not be amiss to mention that he was quite unable to say what burned arsenic smelled like. Neither is it altogether out of place to inquire how Madame Duparc happened to be so amazingly apt at discovering the smell of burned arsenic? The answer to the question does not seem easy to discover.

Having settled that they were all poisoned, and having even found out (thanks to those two intelligent amateur chemists, Madame Duparc and Monsieur Fergant) the very nature of the deadly drug that had been used to destroy them, the next thing the company naturally thought of was the necessity of summoning medical help. Young Monsieur Beauguillot obligingly ran off (it was apparently a very mild case of poisoning, so far as he was concerned) to the apothecary’s shop, and fetched, not the apprentice this time, but the master. The master, Monsieur Thierry, arrived in great haste, and found the dinner-eaters all complaining of nausea and pains in the stomach. He naturally asked what they had eaten. The reply was, that they had eaten nothing but soup.

This was, to say the least of it, rather an unaccountable answer. The company had had for dinner, besides soup, a second course of boiled meat, and ragout of beef, and a dessert of cherries. Why was this plain fact concealed? Why was the apothecary’s attention to be fixed exclusively on the soup? Was it because the tureen was empty, and because the alleged smell of burned arsenic might be accounted for on the theory that the remains of the soup brought from the dining-room had been thrown on the kitchen fire? But no remains of soup came down – it had been all consumed by the guests. And what is still more remarkable, the only person in the kitchen (excepting Marie and the nurse) who could not discover the smell of burned arsenic, was the person of all others who was professionally qualified to find it out first – the apothecary himself.

After examining the tureen and the plates, and stirring up the wood-ashes on the fire, and making no sort of discovery, Monsieur Thierry turned to Marie, and asked if she could account for what had happened. She simply replied that she knew nothing at all about it; and thereupon her mistress and the rest of the persons present all overwhelmed her together with a perfect torrent of questions. The poor girl, terrified by the hubbub, worn out by a sleepless night and by the hard work and agitation of the day preceding it, burst into an hysterical fit of tears, and was ordered out of the kitchen to lie down and recover herself. The only person who showed her the least pity and offered her the slightest attention, was a servant-girl like herself, who lived next door, and who stole up to the room in which she was weeping alone, with a cup of warm milk-and-water to comfort her.

Meanwhile the report had spread in the town that the old man, Monsieur De Beaulieu, and the whole Duparc family had been poisoned by their servant. Madame Duparc did her best to give the rumour the widest possible circulation. Entirely forgetting, as it would seem, that she was on her own showing a poisoned woman, she roamed excitably all over the house with an audience of agitated female friends at her heels; telling the burned-arsenic story over and over again to every fresh detachment of visitors that arrived to hear it; and finally leading the whole troop of women into the room where Marie was trying to recover herself. The poor girl was surrounded in a moment; angry faces and shrill voices met her on every side; the most insolent questions, the most extravagant accusations, assailed her; and not one word that she could say in her own defence was listened to for an instant. She had sprung up in the bed, on her knees, and was frantically entreating for permission to speak in her own defence, when a new personage appeared on the scene, and stilled the clamour by his presence. This individual was a surgeon named Hébert, a friend of Madame Duparc’s, who announced that he had arrived to give the family the benefit of his assistance, and who proposed to commence operations by searching the servant’s pockets without further delay.

The instant Marie heard him make this proposal she untied her pockets, and gave them to Surgeon Hébert with her own hands. He examined them on the spot. In one he found some copper money and a thimble. In the other (to use his own words, given in evidence) he discovered “various fragments of bread, sprinkled over with some minute substance which was white and shining. He kept the fragments of bread, and left the room immediately without saying a word.” By this course of proceeding he gave Marie no chance of stating at the outset whether she knew of the fragments of bread being in her pocket, or whether she was totally ignorant how they came there. Setting aside, for the present, the question, whether there was really any arsenic on the crumbs at all, it would clearly have been showing the unfortunate maid of all work no more than common justice to have allowed her the opportunity of speaking before the bread was carried away.

It was now seven o’clock in the evening. The next event was the arrival of another officious visitor. The new friend in need belonged to the legal profession – he was an advocate named Friley. Monsieur Friley’s legal instincts led him straightway to a conclusion which seriously advanced the progress of events. Having heard the statement of Madame Duparc and her daughter, he decided that it was his duty to lodge an information against Marie before the Procurator of the king, at Caen.

The Procurator of the king is, by this time, no stranger to the reader. He was the same Monsieur Revel who had taken such an amazingly strong interest in Marie’s fortunes, and who had strongly advised her to try her luck at Caen. Here then, surely, was a friend found at last for the forlorn maid of all work. “We shall see how Monsieur Revel acted, after Friley’s information had been duly lodged.

The French law of the period, and, it may be added, the commonest principles of justice also, required the Procurator to perform certain plain duties as soon as the accusation against Marie had reached his ears.

He was, in the first place, bound to proceed immediately, accompanied by his official colleague, to the spot where the alleged crime of poisoning was supposed to have taken place. Arrived there, it was his business to ascertain for himself the condition of the persons attacked with illness; to hear their statements; to examine the rooms, the kitchen utensils, and the family medicine-chest, if there happened to be one in the house; to receive any statement the accused person might wish to make; to take down her answers to his questions; and, lastly, to keep anything found on the servant (the breadcrumbs, for instance, of which Surgeon Hébert had coolly taken possession), or anything found about the house which it might be necessary to produce in evidence, in a position of absolute security, under the hand and seal of justice.

These were the plain duties which Monsieur Revel, the Procurator, was officially bound to fulfill. In the case of Marie, he not only neglected to perform any one of them, but actually sanctioned a scheme for entrapping her into prison, by sending a commissary of police to the house, in plain clothes, with an order to place her in solitary confinement. To what motive could this scandalous violation of his duties and of justice be attributed? The last we saw of Monsieur Revel, he was so benevolently disposed toward Marie that he condescended to advise her about her prospects in life, and even went the length of recommending her to seek for a situation in the very town in which he lived himself. And now we find him so suddenly and bitterly hostile toward the former object of his patronage, that he actually lends the assistance of his high official position to sanction an accusation against her, into the truth or falsehood of which he had not made a single inquiry! Can it be that Monsieur Revel’s interest in Marie was, after all, not of the purest possible kind, and that the unfortunate girl proved too stubbornly virtuous to be taught what the real end was toward which the attentions of her over-benevolent adviser privately pointed? There is no evidence attaching to the case (as how should there be?) to prove this. But is there any other explanation of Monsieur Revel’s conduct which at all tends to account for the extraordinary inconsistency of it?

Having received his secret instructions, the Commissary of Police – a man named Bertot – proceeded to the house of Monsieur and Madame Duparc, disguised in plain clothes. His first proceeding was to order Marie to produce the various plates, dishes, and kitchen-utensils which had been used at the dinner of Tuesday, the seventh of August (that being the day on which the poisoning of the company was alleged to have taken place). Marie produced a saucepan, an earthen vessel, a stew-pan, and several plates piled on each other, in one of which there were the remains of some soup. These articles Bertot locked up in the kitchen cupboard, and took away the key with him. He ought to have taken the additional precaution of placing a seal on the cupboard, so as to prevent any tampering with the lock, or any treachery with a duplicate key. But this he neglected to do.

His next proceeding was to tell Marie that the Procurator Revel wished to speak to her, and to propose that she should accompany him to the presence of that gentleman forthwith. Not having the slightest suspicion of any treachery, she willingly consented, and left the house with the Commissary. A friend of the Duparcs, named Vassol, accompanied them.

Once out of the house, Bertot led his unsuspecting prisoner straight to the jail. As soon as she was inside the gates, he informed her that she was arrested, and proceeded to search her person in the presence of Vassol, of the jailer of the prison, and of a woman named Dujardin. The first thing found on her was a little linen bag, sewn to her petticoat, and containing a species of religious charm, in the shape of a morsel of the sacramental wafer. Her pockets came next under review (the pockets which Surgeon Hébert had previously searched). A little dust was discovered at the bottom of them, which was shaken out on paper, wrapped up along with the linen bag, sealed in one packet, and taken to the Procurator’s office. Finally, the woman Dujardin found in Marie’s bosom a little key, which she readily admitted to be the key of her own cupboard.

The search over, one last act of cruelty and injustice was all that remained to be committed for that day. The unfortunate girl was placed at once in solitary confinement.

CHAPTER III

THE EVIDENCE

Thus far the case is one of suspicion only. Waiting until the end of the trial before we decide on whom that suspicion ought to rest, let us now hear the evidence by which the Duparcs and their adherents proceeded to justify their conspiracy against the liberty and the life of a friendless girl.

Having secured Marie in solitary confinement, and having thus left the house and all that it contained for a whole night at the free disposal of the Duparcs, the Procurator Revel bethought himself, the morning after the arrest of his prisoner, of the necessity of proceeding with something like official regularity. He accordingly issued his requisition to the Lieutenant-Criminel to accompany him to the house of Monsieur Duparc, attended by the medical officers and the clerk, to inquire into the circumstances under which the suspected death by poisoning of Monsieur De Beaulieu had taken place. Marie had been imprisoned on the evening of the seventh of August, and this requisition is dated on the morning of the eighth. The document betrays one remarkable informality. It mentions the death of Monsieur De Beaulieu; but is absolutely silent on the subject of the alleged poisoning of seven persons at dinner the next day. And yet it was this latter circumstance only which first directed suspicion against Marie, and which induced Friley to lodge the information against her on which the Procurator was now acting. Probably Monsieur Revel’s legal acumen convinced him, at the outset, that the story of the poisoned dinner was too weak to be relied on.

The officers of the law, accompanied by the doctors, proceeded to the house of the Duparcs on the eighth of August. After viewing the body of Monsieur De Beaulieu, the medical men were directed to open and examine it. They reported the discovery in the stomach of a reddish, brick-coloured liquid, somewhat resembling the lees of wine. The mucous membrane was detached in some places, and its internal surface was corroded. On examining the reddish liquid, they found it to contain a crystallized sediment, which, on analyzation, proved to be arsenic. Upon this, the doctors delivered it as their opinion that Monsieur De Beaulieu had been poisoned, and that poison had been the cause of his death.

The event having taken this serious turn, the first duty of the Lieutenant-Criminel (according to the French law) was to send for the servant on whom suspicion rested, to question her, and to confront her with the Duparcs. He did nothing of the kind; he made no inquiry after the servant (being probably unwilling to expose his colleague, the Procurator, who had illegally arrested and illegally imprisoned her); he never examined the kitchen utensils which the Commissary had locked up; he never opened the servant’s cupboard with the key that had been taken from her when she was searched in prison. All he did was to reduce the report of the doctors to writing, and to return to his office with his posse comitatus at his heels.

It was necessary to summon the witnesses and examine them. But the Procurator Revel now conveniently remembered the story of the poisoned dinner, and he sent the Lieutenant-Criminel to examine the Duparcs and their friends at the private residence of the family, in consideration of the sickly condition of the eaters of the adulterated meal. It may be as well to observe, here as elsewhere, that these highly indulged personages had none of them been sufficiently inconvenienced even to go to bed, or in any way to alter their ordinary habits.

On the afternoon of the eighth, the Lieutenant-Criminel betook himself to the house of Monsieur Duparc, to collect evidence touching the death by poison of Monsieur De Beaulieu. The first witness called was Monsieur Duparc.

This gentleman, it will be remembered, was away from home on Monday, the sixth, when Monsieur De Beaulieu died, and only returned, at the summons of his eldest son, at half-past eleven on the forenoon of the seventh. He had nothing to depose connected with the death of his father-in-law, or with the events which might have taken place in the house on the night of the sixth and the morning of the seventh. On the other hand, he had a great deal to say about the state of his own stomach after the dinner of the seventh – a species of information not calculated to throw much light on the subject of inquiry, which was the poisoning of Monsieur De Beaulieu.

The old lady, Madame De Beaulieu, was next examined, She could give no evidence of the slightest importance touching the matter in hand; but, like Monsieur Duparc, she had something to say on the topic of the poisoned dinner.

Madame Duparc followed on the list of witnesses. The report of her examination – so thoroughly had she recovered from the effects of the dinner of the seventh – ran to a prodigious length. Five-sixths of it related entirely to her own sensations and suspicions, and the sensations and suspicions of her relatives and friends, after they had risen from the table. As to the point at issue, the point which affected the liberty, and perhaps the life, of her unfortunate servant, she had so little to say that her testimony may be repeated here in her own words:

“The witness (Madame Duparc) deposed, that after Marie had helped Monsieur De Beaulieu to get up, she (Marie) hastened out for the milk, and, on her return with it, prepared the hasty-pudding, took it herself off the fire, and herself poured it out into the plate – then left the kitchen to accompany Madame De Beaulieu to mass. Four or five minutes after Monsieur De Beaulieu had eaten the hasty-pudding, he was seized with violent illness.”

Short as it is, this statement contains several distinct suppressions of the truth.

First, Madame Duparc is wrong in stating that Marie fetched the milk, for it was the milk-woman who brought it to the house. Secondly, Madame Duparc conceals the fact that she handed the flour to the servant to make the hasty-pudding. Thirdly, Madame Duparc does not mention that she held the plate for the pudding to be poured into, and took it to her father. Fourthly, and most important of all, Madame Duparc altogether omits to state that she sprinkled salt, with her own hands, over the hasty-pudding – although she had expressly informed her servant, a day or two before, that salt was never to be mixed with it. At a subsequent stage of the proceedings she was charged with having salted the hasty-pudding herself, and she could not, and did not, deny it.

The examination of Madame Duparc ended the business of the day of the eighth. The next morning the Lieutenant-Criminel, as politely attentive as before, returned to resume his inquiry at the private residence of Monsieur Duparc.

The first witness examined on the second day was Mademoiselle Duparc. She carefully followed her mother’s lead – saying as little as possible about the preparation of the hasty-pudding on the morning of Monday, and as much as possible about the pain suffered by everybody after the dinner of Tuesday. Madame Beauguillot, the next witness, added her testimony, as to the state of her own digestive organs, after partaking of the same meal – speaking at such prodigious length that the poison would appear, in her case, to have produced its principal effect (and that of a stimulating kind) on her tongue. Her son, Monsieur De Beauguillot, was next examined, quite uselessly in relation to the death by poison, which was the object of inquiry. The last witness was Madame Duparc’s younger son – the same who had complained of feeling a gritty substance between his teeth at dinner. In one important respect, his evidence flatly contradicted his mother’s. Madame Duparc had adroitly connected Monsieur De Beaulieu’s illness with the hasty-pudding, by describing the old man as having been taken ill four or five minutes after eating it. Young Duparc, on the contrary, declared that his grandfather first felt ill at nine o’clock – exactly two hours after he had partaken of his morning meal.

With the evidence of this last witness, the examinations at the private residence of Monsieur Duparc ended. Thus far, out of the seven persons, all related to each other, who had been called as witnesses, three (Monsieur Duparc himself, Madame Beauguillot, and her son) had not been in the house on the day when Monsieur De Beaulieu died. Of the other four, who had been present (Madame De Beaulieu, Madame Duparc, her son and her daughter), not one deposed to a single fact tending to fix on Marie any reasonable suspicion of having administered poison to Monsieur De Beaulieu.

The remaining witnesses, called before the Lieutenant-Criminel, were twenty-nine in number. Not one of them had been in the house on the Monday which was the day of the old man’s death. Twenty-six of them had nothing to offer but hearsay evidence on the subject of the events which had taken place at, and after, the dinner of Tuesday. The testimony of the remaining three; namely, of Friley, who had lodged the information against Marie; of Surgeon Hébert, who had searched her pockets in the house; and of Commissary Bertot, who had searched her for the second time, after taking her to prison – was the testimony on which the girl’s enemies mainly relied for substantiating their charges by positively associating her with the possession of arsenic.

Let us see what amount of credit can be attached to the evidence of these three witnesses. Friley was the first to be examined. After stating what share he had taken in bringing Marie to justice (it will be remembered that he lodged his information against her at the instance of Madame Duparc, without allowing her to say a word in her own defence), he proceeded to depose that he hunted about the bed on which the girl had lain down to recover herself, and that he discovered on the mattress seven or eight scattered grains of some substance which resembled the powder reported to have been found on the crumbs in her pockets. He added further, that on the next day, about two hours before the body of Monsieur De Beaulieu was examined, he returned to the house, searched under the bed, with Monsieur Duparc and a soldier named Cauvin, and found there four or five grains more of the same substance which he had discovered on the mattress.

Here were two separate portions of poison found, then. What did Friley do with them? Did he seal them up immediately in the presence of witnesses, and take them to the legal authorities? Nothing of the sort. On being asked what he did with the first portion, he replied that he gave it to young Monsieur Beauguillot. Beauguillot’s evidence was thereupon referred to, and it was found that he had never mentioned receiving the packet of powder from Friley. He had made himself extremely officious in examining the kitchen utensils; he had been as anxious as any one to promote the discovery of arsenic; and when he had the opportunity of producing it, if Friley were to be believed, he held it back, and said not one word about the matter. So much for the first portion of the mysterious powder, and for the credibility of Friley’s evidence thus far!

On being questioned as to what he had done with the second portion, alleged to have been found under the bed, Friley replied that he had handed it to the doctors who opened the body, and that they had tried to discover what it was by burning it between two copper pieces. A witness who had been present at this proceeding declared, on being questioned, that the experiment had been made with some remains of hasty-pudding scraped out of the saucepan. Here again was a contradiction, and here, once more, Friley’s evidence was, to say the least of it, not to be depended on.

Sergeant Hébert followed. What had he done with the crumbs of bread scattered over with white powder which he had found in Marie’s pocket? He had, after showing them to the company in the drawing-room, exhibited them next to the apothecary, and handed them afterward to another medical man. Being finally assured that there was arsenic on the bread, he had sealed up the crumbs, and given the packet to the legal authorities. When had he done that? On the day of his examination as a witness – the fourteenth of August. When did he find the crumbs? On the seventh. Here was the arsenic in this case, then, passing about from hand to hand, and not sealed up, for seven days. Had Surgeon Hébert anything more to say? Yes, he had another little lot of arsenic to hand in, which a lady-friend of his had told him she had found on Marie’s bed, and which, like the first lot, had been passed about privately for seven days, from hand to hand, before it was sealed up. To us, in these later and better days, it seems hardly credible that the judge should have admitted these two packets in evidence. It is, nevertheless, the disgraceful fact that he did so receive them.

Commissary Bertot came next. He and the man named Vassol, who had helped him to entrap Marie into prison, and to search her before she was placed in solitary confinement, were examined in succession, and contradicted each other on oath in the flattest manner.

Bertot stated that he had discovered the dust at the bottom of her pockets; had shaken it out on paper; had placed with it the little linen bag, containing a morsel of the sacramental wafer, which had been sewn to her petticoat; had sealed the two up in one packet; and had taken the packet to the proper office. Vassol, on the other hand, swore that he had shaken out the pockets, and had made up the packet; and that Bertot had done nothing in the matter but lend his seal. Contradicting each other in these details, both agreed that what they had found on the girl was enclosed and sealed up in one packet, which they had left at the office, neglecting to take such a receipt for it as might have established its identity in writing. At this stage of the proceedings the packet was sent for. Three packets appeared instead of one! Two were composed of paper, and contained dust and a little white powder. The third was the linen bag, presented without any covering at all. Vassol, bewildered by the change, declared that of these three separate objects he could only identify one – the linen bag. In this case, it was as clear as daylight that somebody must have tampered with the single sealed packet which Bertot and Vassol swore to having left at the office. No attempt, however, was made to investigate this circumstance; and the case for the prosecution – so far as the accusation of poisoning was concerned – closed with the examination of Bertot and Vassol.

Such was the evidence produced in support of a charge which involved nothing less than the life or death of a human being.

CHAPTER IV

THE SENTENCE

While the inquiry was in course of progress, various details connected with it found their way out-of-doors. The natural sense of justice among the people which had survived the corruptions of the time was aroused to assert itself on behalf of the maid of all work. The public voice spoke as loudly as it dared, in those days, in Marie’s favour, and in condemnation of the conspiracy against her.

People persisted, from the first, in inquiring how it was that arsenic had got into the house of Monsieur Duparc; and rumour answered, in more than one direction, that a member of the family had purchased the poison a short time since, and that there were persons in the town who could prove it. To the astonishment of every one, no steps were taken by the legal authorities to clear up this report, and to establish the truth or the falsehood of it, before the trial. Another circumstance, of which also no explanation was attempted, filled the public mind with natural suspicion. This was the disappearance of the eldest son of Monsieur and Madame Duparc. On the day of his grandfather’s sudden death, he had been sent, as may be remembered, to bring his father back from the country; and, from that time forth, he had never reappeared at the house, and nobody could say what had become of him. Was it not natural to connect together the rumours of purchased poison and the mysterious disappearance of this young man? Was it not utterly inconsistent with any proceedings conducted in the name of justice to let these suspicious circumstances exist, without making the slightest attempt to investigate and to explain them?

But, apart from all other considerations, the charge against Marie was, on the face of it, preposterously incredible. A friendless young girl arrives at a strange town, possessing excellent testimonials to her character, and gets a situation in a family every member of which is utterly unknown to her until she enters the house. Established in her new place, she instantly conceives the project of poisoning the whole family, and carries it out in five days from the time when she first took her situation, by killing one member of the household, and producing suspicious symptoms of illness in the cases of all the rest. She commits this crime having nothing to gain by it; and she is so inconceivably reckless of detection that she scatters poison about the bed on which she lies down, leaves poison sticking to the crumbs in her pockets, puts those pockets on when her mistress tells her to do so, and hands them over without a moment’s hesitation to the first person who asks permission to search them. What mortal evidence could substantiate such a wild charge as this? How does the evidence actually presented substantiate it? No shadow of proof that she had purchased arsenic is offered, to begin with. The evidence against her is evidence which attempts to associate her with the actual possession of poison. What is it worth? In the first place, the witnesses contradict each other. In the second place, in no one case in which powdered substances were produced in evidence against her had those powdered substances been so preserved as to prevent their being tampered with. Two packets of the powder pass about from hand to hand for seven days; two have been given to witnesses who can’t produce them, or account for what has become of them; and one, which the witnesses who made it up swear to as a single packet, suddenly expands into three when it is called for in evidence!

Careless as they were of assuming even the external decencies of justice, the legal authorities, and their friends the Duparcs, felt that there would be some risk in trying their victim for her life on such evidence as this, in a large town like Caen. It was impossible to shift their ground and charge her with poisoning accidentally; for they either could not, or would not, account on ordinary grounds for the presence of arsenic in the house. And, even if this difficulty were overcome, and if it were alleged that arsenic purchased for killing vermin had been carelessly placed in one of the salt-cellars on the dresser, Madame Duparc could not deny that her own hands had salted the hasty-pudding on the Monday, and that her servant had been too ill through exhaustion to cook the dinner on the Tuesday. Even supposing there were no serious interests of the vilest kind at stake, which made the girl’s destruction a matter of necessity, it was clearly impossible to modify the charge against her. One other alternative remained – the alternative of adding a second accusation which might help to strengthen the first, and to degrade Marie in the estimation of those inhabitants of the town who were now disposed to sympathize with her.

The poor girl’s character was so good, her previous country life had been so harmless, that no hint or suggestion for a second charge against her could be found in her past history. If her enemies were to succeed, it was necessary to rely on pure invention. Having hesitated before no extremes of baseness and falsehood, thus far, they were true to themselves in regard to any vile venture which remained to be tried.

A day or two after the examination of the witnesses called to prove the poisoning had been considered complete, the public of Caen were amazed to hear that certain disclosures had taken place which would render it necessary to try Marie on a charge of theft as well as of poisoning. She was now not only accused of the murder of Monsieur De Beaulieu, but of robbing her former mistress Madame Dumesnil (a relation, be it remembered, of Monsieur Revel’s), in the situation she occupied before she came to Caen; of robbing Madame Duparc; and of robbing the shop-woman from whom she had bought the piece of orange-coloured stuff, the purchase of which is mentioned in an early part of this narrative.

There is no need to hinder the progress of this story by entering into details in relation to this second atrocious charge. When the reader is informed that the so-called evidence in support of the accusation of theft was got up by Procurator Revel, by Commissary Bertot, and by Madame Duparc, he will know beforehand what importance to attach to it, and what opinion to entertain on the question of the prisoner’s innocence or guilt.

The preliminary proceedings were now considered to be complete. During their progress Marie had been formally interrogated, in her prison, by the legal authorities. Fearful as her situation was, the poor girl seems to have maintained self-possession enough to declare her innocence of poisoning, and her innocence of theft, firmly. Her answers, it is needless to say, availed her nothing. No legal help was assigned to her; no such institution as a jury was in existence in France. Procurator Revel collected the evidence, Procurator Revel tried the case, Procurator Revel delivered the sentence. Need the reader be told that Marie’s irresponsible judge and unscrupulous enemy had no difficulty whatever in finding her guilty? She had been arrested on the seventh of August, seventeen hundred and eighty-one. Her doom was pronounced on the seventeenth of April, seventeen hundred and eighty-two. Throughout the whole of that interval she remained in prison.

The sentence was delivered in the following terms. It was written, printed, and placarded in Caen; and it is here translated from the original French:

The Procurator Royal of the Bailiwick and civil and criminal Bench and Presidency of Caen, having taken cognizance of the documents concerning the trial specially instituted against Marie FrançoiseVictoire Salmon accused of poisoning; the said documents consisting of an official report of the capture of the said Marie Françoise Victoire Salmon on the seventh of August last, together with other official reports, etc.

Requires that the prisoner shall be declared duly convicted:

I.  Of having, on the Monday morning of the sixth of August last, cooked some hasty-pudding for Monsieur Paisant De Beaulieu, father-in-law of Monsieur Huet Duparc, in whose house the prisoner had lived in the capacity of servant from the first day of the said month of August; and of having put arsenic in the said hasty-pudding while cooking it, by which arsenic the said Monsieur De Beaulieu died poisoned, about six o’clock on the same evening.

II.  Of having on the next day, Tuesday, the seventh of August last, put arsenic into the soup which was served, at noon, at the table of Monsieur and Madame Duparc, her employers, in consequence of which all those persons who sat at table and ate of the said soup were poisoned and made dangerously ill, to the number of seven.

III.  Of having been discovered with arsenic in her possession, which arsenic was found on the said Tuesday, in the afternoon, not only in the pockets of the prisoner, but upon the mattress of the bed on which she was resting; the said arsenic having been recognised as being of the same nature and precisely similar to that which the guests discovered to have been put into their soup, as also to that which was found the next day, in the body of the aforesaid Monsieur De Beaulieu, and in the saucepan in which the hasty-pudding had been cooked, of which the aforesaid Monsieur De Beaulieu had eaten.

IV.  Of being strongly suspected of having put some of the same arsenic into a plate of cherries which she served to Madame De Beaulieu, on the same Tuesday morning, and again on the afternoon of the same day at the table of Monsieur and Madame Duparc.

V.  Of having, at the period of Michaelmas, seventeen hundred and eighty, committed different robberies at the house of Monsieur Dumesnil, where she lived in the capacity of servant, and notably of stealing a sheet, of which she made herself a petticoat and an apron.

VI.  Of having, at the beginning of the month of August last, stolen, in the house of Monsieur Huet Duparc, the different articles enumerated at the trial, and which were found locked up in her cupboard.

VII.  Of being strongly suspected of stealing, at the beginning of the said month of August, from the woman Lefevre, a piece of orange-coloured stuff.

For punishment and reparation of which offences she, the said Marie Françoise Victoire Salmon, shall be condemned to make atonement, in her shift, with a halter round her neck, holding in her hands a burning wax-candle of the weight of two pounds, before the principal gate and entrance of the church of St. Peter, to which she shall be taken and led by the executioner of criminal sentences, who will tie in front of her and behind her back a placard, on which shall be written in large characters these words: Poisoner and Domestic Thief. And there, being on her knees, she shall declare that she has wickedly committed the said robberies and poisonings, for which she repents and asks pardon of God and justice. This done, she shall be led by the said executioner to the square of the market of Saint Saviour’s, to be there fastened to a stake with a chain of iron, and to be burned alive; her body to be reduced to ashes, and the ashes to be cast to the winds; her goods to be acquired and confiscated to the King, or to whomsoever else they may belong. Said goods to be charged with a fine of ten livres to the King, in the event of the confiscation not turning to the profit of his Majesty.

Required, additionally, that the said prisoner shall be previously submitted to the Ordinary and Extraordinary torture, to obtain information of her accomplices, and notably of those who either sold to her or gave to her the arsenic found in her possession. Order hereby given for the printing and placarding of this sentence in such places as shall be judged fit. Deliberated at the bar, this seventeenth April, seventeen hundred and eighty-two.

(Signed) Revel.

On the next day, the eighteenth, this frightful sentence was formally confirmed.

The matter had now become public, and no one could prevent the unfortunate prisoner from claiming whatever rights the law still allowed her. She had the privilege of appealing against her sentence before the Parliament of Rouen. And she appealed accordingly; being transferred, as directed by the law in such cases, from the prison at Caen to the prison at Rouen, to await the decision of the higher tribunal.

On the seventeenth of May the Rouen Parliament delivered its judgement, and confirmed the original sentence.

There was some difficulty, at first, in making the unhappy girl understand that her last chance for life had failed her. When the fact that her sentence was ordered to be carried out was at length impressed on her mind, she sank down with her face on the prison floor – then started up on her knees, passionately shrieking to Heaven to have pity on her, and to grant her the justice and the protection which men denied. Her agitation at the frightful prospect before her was so violent, her screams of terror were so shrill and piercing, that all the persons connected with the management of the prison hurried together to her cell. Among the number were three priests, who were accustomed to visit the prisoners and to administer spiritual consolation to them. These three men mercifully set themselves to soothe the mental agony from which the poor creature was suffering. When they had partially quieted her, they soon found her willing and anxious to answer their questions. They inquired carefully into the main particulars of her sad story; and all three came to the same conclusion, that she was innocent. Seeing the impression she had produced on them, she caught, in her despair, at the idea that they might be able to preserve her life; and the dreadful duty devolved on them of depriving her of this last hope. After the confirmation of the sentence, all that they could do was to prove their compassion by preparing her for eternity.

On the 26th of May, the priests spoke their last words of comfort to her soul. She was taken back again, to await the execution of her sentence in the prison of Caen. The day was at last fixed for her death by burning, and the morning came when the torture-chamber was opened to receive her.

CHAPTER V

HUSHED UP

The saddest part of Marie’s sad story now remains to be told.

One resource was left her, by employing which it was possible, at the last moment, to avert for a few months the frightful prospect of the torture and the stake. The unfortunate girl might stoop, on her side, to use the weapons of deception against her enemies, and might defame her own character by pleading pregnancy. That one miserable alternative was all that now remained; and, in the extremity of mortal terror, with the shadow of the executioner on her prison, and with the agony of approaching torment and death at her heart, the forlorn creature accepted it. If the law of strict morality must judge her in this matter without consideration, and condemn her without appeal, the spirit of Christian mercy – remembering how sorely she was tried, remembering the frailty of our common humanity, remembering the warning word which forbade us to judge one another – may open its sanctuary of tenderness to a sister in affliction, and may offer her the tribute of its pity, without limit and without blame.

The plea of pregnancy was admitted, and, at the eleventh hour, the period of the execution was deferred. On the day when her ashes were to have been cast to the winds, she was still in her prison, a living, breathing woman. Her limbs were spared from the torture, her body was released from the stake, until the twenty-ninth of July, seventeen hundred and eighty-two. On that day her reprieve was to end, and the execution of her sentence was absolutely to take place.

During the short period of grace which was now to elapse, the situation of the friendless girl, accused of such incredible crimes and condemned to so awful a doom, was discussed far and wide in French society. The case became notorious beyond the limits of Caen. The report of it spread by way of Rouen, from mouth to mouth, till it reached Paris; and from Paris it penetrated into the palace of the King at Versailles. That unhappy man, whose dreadful destiny it was to pay the penalty which the long and noble endurance of the French people had too mercifully abstained from inflicting on his guilty predecessors, had then lately mounted the fatal steps of the throne. Louis the Sixteenth was sovereign of France when the story of the poor servant-girl obtained its first court circulation at Versailles. The conduct of the King, when the main facts of Marie’s case came to his ears, did all honour to his sense of duty and his sense of justice. He instantly dispatched his royal order to suspend the execution of the sentence. The report of Marie’s fearful situation had reached him so short a time before the period appointed for her death, that the royal mandate was only delivered to the Parliament of Rouen on the twenty-sixth of July.

The girl’s life now hung literally on a thread. An accident happening to the courier, any delay in fulfilling the wearisome official formalities proper to the occasion – and the execution might have taken its course. The authorities at Rouen, feeling that the King’s interference implied a rebuke of their inconsiderate confirmation of the Caen sentence, did their best to set themselves right for the future by registering the royal order on the day when they received it. The next morning, the twenty-seventh, it was sent to Caen; and it reached the authorities there on the twenty-eighth.

That twenty-eighth of July, seventeen hundred and eighty-two, fell on a Sunday. Throughout the day and night the order lay in the office unopened. Sunday was a holiday, and Procurator Revel was not disposed to occupy it by so much as five minutes’ performance of weekday work. On Monday, the twenty-ninth, the crowd assembled to see the execution. The stake was set up, the soldiers were called out, the executioner was ready. All the preliminary horror of the torturing and burning, was suffered to darken round the miserable prisoner, before the wretches in authority saw fit to open the message of mercy and to deliver it at the prison-gate.

She was now saved, as if by a miracle, for the second time! But the cell door was still closed on her. The only chance of ever opening it – the only hope of publicly asserting her innocence, lay in appealing to the King’s justice by means of a written statement of her case, presenting it exactly as it stood in all its details, from the beginning at Madame Duparc’s to the end in the prison of Caen. The production of such a document as this was beset with obstacles; the chief of them being the difficulty of gaining access to the voluminous reports of the evidence given at the trial, which were only accessible in those days to persons professionally connected with the courts of law. If Marie’s case was to be placed before the King, no man in France but a lawyer could undertake the duty with the slightest chance of serving the interests of the prisoner and the interests of truth.

In this disgraceful emergency a man was found to plead the girl’s cause, whose profession secured to him the privilege of examining the evidence against her. This man – a barrister, named Lecauchois – not only undertook to prepare a statement of the case from the records of the court – but further devoted himself to collecting money for Marie, from all the charitably disposed inhabitants of the town. It is to be said to his credit that he honestly faced the difficulties of his task, and industriously completed the document which he had engaged to furnish. On the other hand, it must be recorded to his shame, that his motives were interested throughout, and that with almost incredible meanness he paid himself for the employment of his time by putting the greater part of the sum which he had collected for his client in his own pocket. With her one friend, no less than with all her enemies, it seems to have been Marie’s hard fate to see the worst side of human nature, on every occasion when she was brought into contact with her fellow-creatures.

The statement pleading for the revision of Marie’s trial was sent to Paris. An eminent barrister at the Court of Requests framed a petition from it, the prayer of which was granted by the King. Acting under the royal order, the judges of the Court of Requests furnished themselves with the reports of the evidence as drawn up at Caen; and after examining the whole case, unanimously decided that there was good and sufficient reason for the revision of the trial. The order to that effect was not issued to the Parliament of Rouen before the twenty-fourth of May, seventeen hundred and eighty-four – nearly two years after the King’s mercy had saved Marie from the executioner. Who can say how slowly that long, long time must have passed to the poor girl who was still languishing in her prison?

The Rouen Parliament, feeling that it was held accountable for its proceedings to a high court of judicature, acting under the direct authority of the King himself, recognised at last, readily enough, that the interests of its own reputation and the interests of rigid justice were now intimately bound up together; and applied itself impartially, on this occasion at least, to the consideration of Marie’s case.

As a necessary consequence of this change of course, the authorities of Caen began, for the first time, to feel seriously alarmed for themselves. If the Parliament of Rouen dealt fairly by the prisoner, a fatal exposure of the whole party would be the certain result. Under these circumstances, Procurator Revel and his friends sent a private requisition to the authorities at Rouen, conjuring them to remember that the respectability of their professional brethren was at stake, and suggesting that the legal establishment of Marie’s innocence was the error of all others which it was now most urgently necessary to avoid. The Parliament of Rouen was, however, far too cautious, if not too honest, to commit itself to such an atrocious proceeding as was here plainly indicated. After gaining as much time as possible by prolonging their deliberations to the utmost, the authorities resolved on adopting a middle course, which, on the one hand should not actually establish the prisoner’s innocence, and, on the other, should not publicly expose the disgraceful conduct of the prosecutor at Caen. Their decree, not issued until the twelfth of March, seventeen hundred and eighty-five, annulled the sentence of Procurator Revel on technical grounds; suppressed the further publication of the statement of Marie’s case, which had been drawn out by the advocate Lecauchois, as libellous toward Monsieur Revel and Madame Duparc; and announced that the prisoner was ordered to remain in confinement until more ample information could be collected relating to the doubtful question of her innocence or her guilt. No such information was at all likely to present itself (more especially after the only existing narrative of the case had been suppressed); and the practical effect of the decree, therefore, was to keep Marie in prison for an indefinite period, after she had been illegally deprived of her liberty already from August, seventeen hundred and eighty-one, to March, seventeen hundred and eighty-five. Who shall say that the respectable classes did not take good care of their respectability on the eve of the French Revolution!

Marie’s only hope of recovering her freedom, and exposing her unscrupulous enemies to the obliquy and the punishment which they richly deserved, lay in calling the attention of the higher tribunals of the capital to the cruelly cunning decree of the Parliament of Rouen. Accordingly, she once more petitioned the throne. The King referred the document to his council; and the council issued an order submitting the Rouen decree to the final investigation of the Parliament of Paris.

At last, then, after more than three miserable years of imprisonment, the victim of Madame Duparc and Procurator Revel had burst her way through all intervening obstacles of law and intricacies of office, to the judgement-seat of that highest law court in the country, which had the final power of ending her long sufferings and of doing her signal justice on her adversaries of all degrees. The Parliament of Paris was now to estimate the unutterable wrong that had been inflicted on her; and the eloquent tongue of one of the first advocates of that famous bar was to plead her cause openly before God, the King, and the country.

The pleading of Monsieur Fournel (Marie’s counsel) before the Parliament of Paris, remains on record. At the outset, he assumes the highest ground for the prisoner. He disclaims all intention of gaining her liberty by taking the obvious technical objections to the illegal and irregular sentences of Caen and Rouen. He insists on the necessity of vindicating her innocence legally and morally before the world, and of obtaining the fullest compensation that the law allows for the merciless injuries which the original prosecution had inflicted on his client. In pursuance of this design, he then proceeds to examine the evidence of the alleged poisoning and the alleged robbery, step by step, pointing out in the fullest detail the monstrous contradictions and improbabilities which have been already briefly indicated in this narrative. The course thus pursued, with signal clearness and ability, leads, as every one who has followed the particulars of the case from the beginning will readily understand, to a very serious result. The arguments for the defence cannot assert Marie’s innocence without shifting the whole weight of suspicion, in the matter of Monsieur De Beaulieu’s death by poisoning, on to the shoulders of her mistress, Madame Duparc.

It is necessary, in order to prepare the reader for the extraordinary termination of the proceedings, to examine this question of suspicion in some of its most striking details.

The poisoning of Monsieur De Beaulieu may be accepted, in consideration of the medical evidence, as a proved fact, to begin with. The question that remains is, whether that poisoning was accidental or premeditated. In either case, the evidence points directly at Madame Duparc, and leads to the conclusion that she tried to shift the blame of the poisoning (if accidental), and the guilt of it (if premeditated), from herself to her servant.

Suppose the poisoning to have been accidental. Suppose arsenic to have been purchased for some legitimate domestic purpose, and to have been carelessly left, in one of the salt-cellars, on the dresser – who salts the hasty-pudding? Madame Duparc. Who – assuming that the dinner next day really contained some small portion of poison, just enough to swear by – prepared that dinner? Madame Duparc and her daughter, while the servant was asleep. Having caused the death of her father, and having produced symptoms of illness in herself and her guests, by a dreadful accident, how does the circumstantial evidence further show that Madame Duparc tried to fix the responsibility of that accident on her servant before she openly charged the girl with poisoning?

In the first place, Madame Duparc is the only one of the dinner-party who attributes the general uneasiness to poison. She not only does this, but she indicates the kind of poison used, and declares in the kitchen that it is burned – so as to lead to the inference that the servant, who has removed the dishes, has thrown some of the poisoned food on the fire. Here is a foregone conclusion on the subject of arsenic in Madame Duparc’s mind, and an inference in connection with it, directed at the servant by Madame Duparc’s lips. In the second place, if any trust at all is to be put in the evidence touching the finding of arsenic on or about Marie’s person, that trust must be reposed in the testimony of Surgeon Hébert, who first searched the girl. Where does he find the arsenic and the breadcrumbs? In Marie’s pockets. Who takes the most inexplicably officious notice of such a trifle as Marie’s dress, at the most shockingly inappropriate time, when the father of Madame Duparc lies dead in the house? Madame Duparc herself. Who tells Marie to take off her Sunday pockets, and sends her into her own room (which she herself has not entered during the night, and which has been open to the intrusion of any one else in the house) to tie on the very pockets in which the arsenic is found? Madame Duparc. Who put the arsenic into the pockets? Is it jumping to a conclusion to answer once more – Madame Duparc?

Thus far we have assumed that the mistress attempted to shift the blame of a fatal accident on to the shoulders of the servant. Do the facts bear out that theory, or do they lead to the suspicion that the woman was a parricide, and that she tried to fix on the friendless country girl the guilt of her dreadful crime?

If the poisoning of the hasty-pudding (to begin with) was accidental, the salting of it, through which the poisoning was, to all appearance, effected, must have been a part of the habitual cookery of the dish. So far, however, from this being the case, Madame Duparc had expressly warned her servant not to use salt; and only used the salt (or the arsenic) herself, after asking a question which implied a direct contradiction of her own directions, and the inconsistency of which she made no attempt whatever to explain, Again, when her father was taken ill, if Madame Duparc had been only the victim of an accident, would she have remained content with no better help than that of an apothecary’s boy? would she not have sent, as her father grew worse, for the best medical assistance which the town afforded? The facts show that she summoned just help enough barely to save appearances, and no more.

The facts show that she betrayed a singular anxiety to have the body laid out as soon as possible after life was extinct. The facts show that she maintained an unnatural composure on the day of the death. These are significant circumstances. They speak for themselves independently of the evidence given afterward, in which she and her child contradicted each other as to the time that elapsed when the old man had eaten his fatal meal before he was taken ill. Add to these serious facts the mysterious disappearance from the house of the eldest son, which was never accounted for; and the rumour of purchased poison, which was never investigated. Consider, besides, whether the attempt to sacrifice the servant’s life be not more consistent with the ruthless determination of a criminal, than with the terror of an innocent woman who shrinks from accepting the responsibility of a frightful accident – and determine, at the same time, whether the infinitesimal amount of injury done by the poisoned dinner can be most probably attributed to lucky accident, or to premeditated doctoring of the dishes with just arsenic enough to preserve appearances, and to implicate the servant without too seriously injuring the company on whom she waited. Give all these serious considerations their due weight; then look back to the day of Monsieur De Beaulieu’s death, and say if Madame Duparc was the victim of a dreadful accident, or the perpetrator of an atrocious crime!

That she was one or the other, and that, in either case, she was the originator of the vile conspiracy against her servant which these pages disclose, was the conclusion to which Monsieur Fournel’s pleading on his client’s behalf inevitably led. That pleading satisfactorily demonstrated Marie’s innocence of poisoning and theft, and her fair claim to the fullest legal compensation for the wrong inflicted on her. On the twenty-third of May, seventeen hundred and eighty-six, the Parliament of Paris issued its decree, discharging her from the remotest suspicion of guilt, releasing her from her long imprisonment, and authorizing her to bring an action for damages against the person or persons who had falsely accused her of murder and theft. The truth had triumphed, and the poor servant-girl had found laws to protect her at last.

Under these altered circumstances, what happened to Madame Duparc? What happened to Procurator Revel and his fellow-conspirators? What happened to the authorities of the Parliament of Rouen? Nothing.

The premonitory rumblings of that great earthquake of nations which history calls the French Revolution were, at this time, already beginning to make themselves heard; and any public scandal which affected the wealthier and higher classes involved a serious social risk, the importance of which no man in France could then venture to estimate. If Marie claimed the privilege which a sense of justice, or rather a sense of decency, had forced the Parliament of Paris to concede to her – and, through her counsel, she did claim it – the consequences of the legal inquiry into her case which her demand for damages necessarily involved would probably be the trying of Madame Duparc, either for parricide or for homicide by misadventure; the dismissal of Procurator Revel from the functions which he had disgracefully abused; and the suspension from office of the authorities at Caen and Rouen, who had in various ways forfeited public confidence by aiding and abetting him.

Here, then, was no less a prospect in view than the disgrace of a respectable family, and the dishonouring of the highest legal functionaries of two important provincial towns! And for what end was the dangerous exposure to be made? Merely to do justice to the daughter of a common day-labourer, who had been illegally sentenced to torture and burning, and illegally confined in prison for nearly five years. To make a wholesale sacrifice of her superiors, no matter how wicked they might be, for the sake of giving a mere servant-girl compensation for the undeserved obloquy and misery of many years, was too preposterous and too suicidal an act of justice to be thought of for a moment. Accordingly, when Marie was prepared to bring her action for damages, the lawyers laid their heads together in the interests of society. It was. found possible to put her out of court at once and forever, by taking a technical objection to the proceedings in which she was plaintiff at the very outset. This disgraceful means of escape once discovered, the girl’s guilty persecutors instantly took advantage of it. She was formally put out of court, without the possibility of any further appeal. Procurator Revel and the other authorities retained their distinguished legal positions; and the question of the guilt or innocence of Madame Duparc, in the matter of her father’s death, remains a mystery which no man can solve to this day.

After recording this scandalous termination of the legal proceedings, it is gratifying to be able to conclude the story of Marie’s unmerited sufferings with a picture of her after-life which leaves an agreeable impression on the mind.

If popular sympathy, after the servant-girl’s release from prison, could console her for the hard measure of injustice under which she had suffered so long and so unavailingly, that sympathy was now offered to her heartily and without limit. She became quite a public character in Paris. The people followed her in crowds wherever she went. A subscription was set on foot, which, for the time at least, secured her a comfortable independence. Friends rose up in all directions to show her such attention as might be in their power; and the simple country girl, when she was taken to see the sights of Paris, actually beheld her own name placarded in the showmen’s bills, and her presence advertised as the greatest attraction that could be offered to the public. When, in due course of time, all this excitement had evaporated, Marie married prosperously, and the Government granted her its license to open a shop for the sale of stamped papers. The last we hear of her is, that she was a happy wife and mother, and that she performed every duty of life in such a manner as to justify the deep interest which had been universally felt for her by the people of France.

•   •   •

Her story is related here, not only because it seemed to contain some elements of interest in itself, but also because the facts of which it is composed may claim to be of some little historical importance, as helping to expose the unendurable corruptions of society in France before the Revolution. It may not be amiss for those persons whose historical point of view obstinately contracts its range to the Reign of Terror, to look a little further back – to remember that the hard case of oppression here related had been, for something like one hundred years, the case (with minor changes of circumstance) of the forlorn many against the powerful few all over France – and then to consider whether there was not a reason and a necessity, a dreadful last necessity, for the French Revolution. That Revolution has expiated, and is still expiating, its excesses, by political failures, which all the world can see. But the social good which it indisputably effected remains to this day. Take, as an example, the administration of justice in France at the present time. Whatever its shortcomings may still be, no innocent Frenchwoman could be treated now as an innocent Frenchwoman was once treated at a period so little remote from our own time as the end of the last century.

Household Words 18 & 25 Sep; 2 Oct 1858

THE CAULDRON OF OIL

——About one French league distant from the city of Toulouse, there is a village called Croix-Daurade. In the military history of England, this place is associated with a famous charge of the eighteenth hussars, which united two separated columns of the British army, on the day before the Duke of Wellington fought the battle of Toulouse. In the criminal history of France, the village is memorable as the scene of a daring crime, which was discovered and punished under circumstances sufficiently remarkable to merit preservation in the form of a plain narrative.

I

THE PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

In the year seventeen hundred, the resident priest of the village of Croix-Daurade was Monsieur Pierre-Célestin Chaubard. He was a man of no extraordinary energy or capacity, simple in his habits, and sociable in his disposition. His character was irreproachable; he was strictly conscientious in the performance of his duties; and he was universally respected and beloved by all his parishioners.

Among the members of his flock, there was a family named Siadoux. The head of the household, Saturnin Siadoux, had been long established in business at Croix-Daurade as an oil-manufacturer. At the period of the events now to be narrated, he had attained the age of sixty, and was a widower. His family consisted of five children – three young men, who helped him in the business, and two daughters. His nearest living relative was his sister, the widow Mirailhe.

The widow resided principally at Toulouse. Her time in that city was mainly occupied in winding up the business affairs of her deceased husband, which had remained unsettled for a considerable period after his death, through delays in realising certain sums of money owing to his representative. The widow had been left very well provided for – she was still a comely attractive woman – and more than one substantial citizen of Toulouse had shown himself anxious to persuade her into marrying for the second time. But the widow Mirailhe lived on terms of great intimacy and affection with her brother Siadoux and his family; she was sincerely attached to them, and sincerely unwilling, at her age to deprive her nephews and nieces, by a second marriage, of the inheritance, or even of a portion of the inheritance, which would otherwise fall to them on her death. Animated by these motives, she closed her doors resolutely on all suitors who attempted to pay their court to her, with the one exception of a master-butcher of Toulouse, whose name was Cantegrel.

This man was a neighbour of the widow’s, and had made himself useful by assisting her in the business complications which still hung about the realisation of her late husband’s estate. The preference which she showed for the master-butcher was, thus far, of the purely negative kind. She gave him no absolute encouragement; she would not for a moment admit that there was the slightest prospect of her ever marrying him – but, at the same time, she continued to receive his visits, and she showed no disposition to restrict the neighbourly intercourse between them, for the future, within purely formal bounds. Under these circumstances, Saturnin Siadoux began to be alarmed, and to think it time to bestir himself. He had no personal acquaintance with Cantegrel, who never visited the village; and Monsieur Chaubard (to whom he might otherwise have applied for advice) was not in a position to give an opinion: the priest and the master-butcher did not even know each other by sight. In this difficulty, Siadoux bethought himself of inquiring privately at Toulouse, in the hope of discovering some scandalous passages in Cantegrel’s early life, which might fatally degrade him in the estimation of the widow Mirailhe. The investigation, as usual in such cases, produced rumours and reports in plenty, the greater part of which dated back to a period of the butcher’s life when he had resided in the ancient town of Narbonne. One of these rumours, especially, was of so serious a nature, that Siadoux determined to test the truth or falsehood of it, personally, by travelling to Narbonne. He kept his intention a secret not only from his sister and his daughters, but also from his sons; they were young men, not over-patient in their tempers – and he doubted their discretion. Thus, nobody knew his real purpose but himself, when he left home.

His safe arrival at Narbonne was notified in a letter to his family. The letter entered into no particulars relating to his secret errand: it merely informed his children of the day when they might expect him back, and of certain social arrangements which he wished to be made to welcome him on his return. He proposed, on his way home, to stay two days at Castelnaudry, for the purpose of paying a visit to an old friend who was settled there. According to this plan, his return to Croix-Daurade would be deferred until Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of April, when his family might expect to see him about sunset, in good time for supper. He further desired that a little party of friends might be invited to the meal, to celebrate the twenty-sixth of April (which was a feast-day in the village), as well as to celebrate his return. The guests whom he wished to be invited were, first, his sister; secondly, Monsieur Chaubard, whose pleasant disposition made him a welcome guest at all the village festivals; thirdly and fourthly, two neighbours, businessmen like himself, with whom he lived on terms of the friendliest intimacy. That was the party; and the family of Siadoux took especial pains, as the time approached, to provide a supper worthy of the guests, who had all shown the heartiest readiness in accepting their invitations.

This was the domestic position, these were the family prospects, on the morning of the twenty-sixth of April – a memorable day, for years afterwards, in the village of Croix-Daurade.

II

THE EVENTS OF THE DAY

Besides the curacy of the village church, good Monsieur Chaubard held some small ecclesiastical preferment in the cathedral church of St. Stephen at Toulouse. Early in the forenoon of the twenty-sixth, certain matters connected with this preferment took him from his village curacy to the city – a distance which has been already described as not greater than one French league, or between two and three English miles.

After transacting his business, Monsieur Chaubard parted with his clerical brethren, who left him by himself in the sacristy (or vestry) of the church. Before he had quitted the room, in his turn, the beadle entered it, and inquired for the Abbé de Mariotte, one of the officiating priests attached to the cathedral.

“The Abbé has just gone out,” replied Monsieur Chaubard. “Who wants him?”

“A respectable-looking man,” said the beadle. “I thought he seemed to be in some distress of mind, when he spoke to me.”

“Did he mention his business with the Abbé?”

“Yes, sir; he expressed himself as anxious to make his confession immediately.”

“In that case,” said Monsieur Chaubard, “I may be of use to him in the Abbé’s absence – for I have authority to act here as confessor. Let us go into the church, and see if this person feels disposed to accept my services.”

When they went into the church, they found the man walking backwards and forwards in a restless, disordered manner. His looks were so strikingly suggestive of some serious mental perturbation, that Monsieur Chaubard found it no easy matter to preserve his composure, when he first addressed himself to the stranger.

“I am sorry,” he began, “that the Abbé de Mariotte is not here to offer you his services—”

“I want to make my confession,” said the man, looking about him vacantly, as if the priest’s words had not attracted his attention.

“You can do so at once, if you please,” said Monsieur Chaubard. “I am attached to this church, and I possess the necessary authority to receive confessions in it. Perhaps, however, you are personally acquainted with the Abbé de Mariotte? Perhaps you would prefer waiting—”

“No!” said the man, roughly. “I would as soon, or sooner, confess to a stranger.”

“In that case,” replied Monsieur Chaubard, “be so good as to follow me.”

He led the way to the confessional. The beadle, whose curiosity was excited, waited a little, and looked after them. In a few minutes, he saw the curtains, which were sometimes used to conceal the face of the officiating priest, suddenly drawn. The penitent knelt with his back turned to the church. There was literally nothing to see – but the beadle waited nevertheless, in expectation of the end.

After a long lapse of time, the curtain was withdrawn, and priest and penitent left the confessional.

The change which the interval had worked in Monsieur Chaubard was so extraordinary, that the beadle’s attention was altogether withdrawn, in the interest of observing it, from the man who had made the confession. He did not remark by which door the stranger left the church – his eyes were fixed on Monsieur Chaubard. The priest’s naturally ruddy face was as white as if he had just risen from a long sickness – he looked straight before him, with a stare of terror – and he left the church as hurriedly as if he had been a man escaping from prison; left it without a parting word, or a farewell look, although he was noted for his courtesy to his inferiors on all ordinary occasions.

“Good Monsieur Chaubard has heard more than he bargained for,” said the beadle, wandering back to the empty confessional, with an interest which he had never felt in it till that moment.

•   •   •

The day wore on as quietly as usual in the village of Croix-Daurade. At the appointed time, the supper-table was laid for the guests in the house of Saturnin Siadoux. The widow Mirailhe, and the two neighbours, arrived a little before sunset. Monsieur Chaubard, who was usually punctual, did not make his appearance with them; and when the daughters of Saturnin Siadoux looked out from the upper windows, they saw no signs on the high road of their father’s return.

Sunset came – and still neither Siadoux nor the priest appeared. The little party sat waiting round the table, and waited in vain. Before long, a message was sent up from the kitchen, representing that the supper must be eaten forthwith, or be spoilt; and the company began to debate the two alternatives, of waiting, or not waiting, any longer.

“It is my belief,” said the widow Mirailhe, “that my brother is not coming home tonight. When Monsieur Chaubard joins us, we had better sit down to supper.”

“Can any accident have happened to my father?” asked one of the two daughters, anxiously.

“God forbid!” said the widow.

“God forbid!” repeated the two neighbours, looking expectantly at the empty supper-table.

“It has been a wretched day for travelling,” said Louis, the eldest son.

“It rained in torrents, all yesterday,” added Thomas, the second son.

“And your father’s rheumatism makes him averse to travelling in wet weather,” suggested the widow, thoughtfully.

“Very true!” said the first of the two neighbours, shaking his head piteously at his passive knife and fork.

Another message came up from the kitchen, and peremptorily forbade the company to wait any longer.

“But where is Monsieur Chaubard?” said the widow. “Has he been taking a journey too? Why is he absent? Has anybody seen him today?”

“I have seen him today,” said the youngest son, who had not spoken yet. This young man’s name was Jean; he was little given to talking, but he had proved himself, on various domestic occasions, to be the quickest and most observant member of the family.

“Where did you see him?” asked the widow.

“I met him, this morning, on his way into Toulouse.”

“He has not fallen ill, I hope? Did he look out of sorts when you met him?”

“He was in excellent health and spirits,” said Jean. “I never saw him look better—”

“And I never saw him look worse,” said the second of the neighbours, striking into the conversation with the aggressive fretfulness of a hungry man.

“What! this morning?” cried Jean, in astonishment.

“No; this afternoon,” said the neighbour. “I saw him going into our church here. He was as white as our plates will be – when they come up. And what is almost as extraordinary, he passed without taking the slightest notice of me.” Jean relapsed into his customary silence. It was getting dark; the clouds had gathered while the company had been talking; and, at the first pause in the conversation, the rain, falling again in torrents, made itself drearily audible. “Dear, dear me!” said the widow. “If it was not raining so hard, we might send somebody to inquire after good Monsieur Chaubard.”

“I’ll go and inquire,” said Thomas Siadoux. “It’s not five minutes’ walk. Have up the supper; I’ll take a cloak with me; and if our excellent Monsieur Chaubard is out of his bed, I’ll bring him back, to answer for himself.”

With those words he left the room. The supper was put on the table forthwith. The hungry neighbour disputed with nobody from that moment, and the melancholy neighbour recovered his spirits.

On reaching the priest’s house, Thomas Siadoux found him sitting alone in his study. He started to his feet, with every appearance of the most violent alarm, when the young man entered the room.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Thomas; “I am afraid I have startled you.”

“What do you want?” asked Monsieur Chaubard, in a singularly abrupt, bewildered manner.

“Have you forgotten, sir, that this is the night of our supper?” remonstrated Thomas. “My father has not come back; and we can only suppose—”

At those words the priest dropped into his chair again, and trembled from head to foot. Amazed to the last degree by this extraordinary reception of his remonstrance, Thomas Siadoux remembered, at the same time, that he had engaged to bring Monsieur Chaubard back with him; and he determined to finish his civil speech, as if nothing had happened.

“We are all of opinion,” he resumed, “that the weather has kept my father on the road. But that is no reason, sir, why the supper should be wasted, or why you should not make one of us, as you promised. Here is a good warm cloak—”

“I can’t come,” said the priest. “I’m ill; I’m in bad spirits; I’m not fit to go out.” He sighed bitterly, and hid his face in his hands.

“Don’t say that, sir,” persisted Thomas. “If you are out of spirits, let us try to cheer you. And you, in your turn, will enliven us. They are all waiting for you at home. Don’t refuse, sir,” pleaded the young man, “or we shall think we have offended you, in some way. You have always been a good friend to our family—”

Monsieur Chaubard again rose from his chair, with a second change of manner, as extraordinary and as perplexing as the first. His eyes moistened as if the tears were rising in them; he took the hand of Thomas Siadoux, and pressed it long and warmly in his own. There was a curious mixed expression of pity and fear in the look which he now fixed on the young man.

“Of all the days in the year,” he said, very earnestly, “don’t doubt my friendship today. Ill as I am, I will make one of the supper-party, for your sake—”

“And for my father’s sake?” added Thomas, persuasively.

“Let us go to the supper,” said the priest.

Thomas Siadoux wrapped the cloak round him, and they left the house.

Every one at the table noticed the change in Monsieur Chaubard. He accounted for it by declaring, confusedly, that he was suffering from nervous illness; and then added that he would do his best, notwithstanding, to promote the social enjoyment of the evening. His talk was fragmentary, and his cheerfulness was sadly forced; but he contrived, with these drawbacks, to take his part in the conversation – except in the case when it happen to turn on the absent master of the house. Whenever the name of Saturnin Siadoux was mentioned – either by the neighbours, who politely regretted that he was not present; or by the family, who naturally talked about the resting-place which he might have chosen for the night – Monsieur Chaubard either relapsed into blank silence, or abruptly changed the topic. Under these circumstances, the company, by whom he was respected and beloved, made the necessary allowances for his state of health; the only person among them, who showed no desire to cheer the priest’s spirits, and to humour him in his temporary fretfulness, being the silent younger son of Saturnin Siadoux.

Both Louis and Thomas noticed that, from the moment when Monsieur Chaubard’s manner first betrayed his singular unwillingness to touch on the subject of their father’s absence, Jean fixed his eyes on the priest, with an expression of suspicious attention; and never looked away from him for the rest of the evening. The young man’s absolute silence at table did not surprise his brothers, for they were accustomed to his taciturn habits. But the sullen distrust betrayed in his close observation of the honoured guest and friend of the family, surprised and angered them. The priest himself seemed once or twice to be aware of the scrutiny to which he was subjected, and to feel uneasy and offended, as he naturally might. He abstained, however, from openly noticing Jean’s strange behaviour; and Louis and Thomas were bound, therefore, in common politeness, to abstain from noticing it also.

The inhabitants of Croix-Daurade kept early hours. Towards eleven o’clock, the company rose and separated for the night. Except the two neighbours, nobody had enjoyed the supper, and even the two neighbours, having eaten their fill, were as glad to get home as the rest. In the little confusion of parting, Monsieur Chaubard completed the astonishment of the guests at the extraordinary change in him, by slipping away alone, without waiting to bid anybody good night.

The widow Mirailhe and her nieces withdrew to their bedrooms, and left the three brothers by themselves in the parlour.

“Jean,” said Thomas Siadoux, “I have a word to say to you. You stared at our good Monsieur Chaubard in a very offensive manner all through the evening. What did you mean by it?”

“Wait till tomorrow,” said Jean; “and perhaps I may tell you.”

He lit his candle, and left them. Both the brothers observed that his hand trembled, and that his manner – never very winning – was, on that night, more serious and more unsociable than usual.

III

THE YOUNGER BROTHER

When post-time came on the morning of the twenty-seventh, no letter arrived from Saturnin Siadoux. On consideration, the family interpreted this circumstance in a favourable light. If the master of the house had not written to them, it followed, surely, that he meant to make writing unnecessary by returning on that day.

As the hours passed, the widow and her nieces looked out, from time to time, for the absent man. Towards noon, they observed a little assembly of people approaching the village. Ere long, on a nearer view, they recognised at the head of the assembly, the chief magistrate of Toulouse, in his official dress. He was accompanied by his Assessor (also in official dress), by an escort of archers, and by certain subordinates attached to the town-hall. These last appeared to be carrying some burden, which was hidden from view by the escort of archers. The procession stopped at the house of Saturnin Siadoux; and the two daughters, hastening to the door, to discover what had happened, met the burden which the men were carrying, and saw, stretched on a litter, the dead body of their father.

The corpse had been found that morning on the banks of the river Lers. It was stabbed in eleven places with knife or dagger wounds. None of the valuables about the dead man’s person had been touched; his watch and his money were still in his pockets. Whoever had murdered him, had murdered him for vengeance, not for gain.

Some time elapsed before even the male members of the family were sufficiently composed to hear what the officers of justice had to say to them. When this result had been at length achieved, and when the necessary inquiries had been made, no information of any kind was obtained which pointed to the murderer, in the eye of the law. After expressing his sympathy, and promising that every available means should be tried to effect the discovery of the criminal, the chief magistrate gave his orders to his escort, and withdrew.

When night came, the sister and the daughters of the murdered man retired to the upper part of the house, exhausted by the violence of their grief. The three brothers were left once more alone in the parlour, to speak together of the awful calamity which had befallen them. They were of hot Southern blood, and they looked on one another with a Southern thirst for vengeance in their tearless eyes.

The silent younger son was now the first to open his lips. “You charged me yesterday,” he said to his brother Thomas, “with looking strangely at Monsieur Chaubard all the evening; and I answered that I might tell you why I looked at him when tomorrow came. Tomorrow has come, and I am ready to tell you.”

He waited a little, and lowered his voice to a whisper when he spoke again.

“When Monsieur Chaubard was at our supper-table last night,” he said, “I had it in my mind that something had happened to our father, and that the priest knew it.”

The two elder brothers looked at him in speechless astonishment. “Our father has been brought back to us a murdered man!” Jean went on, still in a whisper. “I tell you, Louis – and you, Thomas – that the priest knows who murdered him.”

Louis and Thomas shrank from their younger brother, as if he had spoken blasphemy.

“Listen,” said Jean. “No clue has been found to the secret of the murder. The magistrate has promised us to do his best – but I saw in his face that he had little hope. We must make the discovery ourselves – or our father’s blood will have cried to us for vengeance, and cried in vain. Remember that – and mark my next words. You heard me say yesterday evening, that I had met Monsieur Chaubard on his way to Toulouse in excellent health and spirits. You heard our old friend and neighbour contradict me at the supper-table, and declare that he had seen the priest, some hours later, go into our church here with the face of a panic-stricken man. You saw, Thomas, how he behaved when you went to fetch him to our house. You saw, Louis, what his looks were like when he came in. The change was noticed by everybody – what was the cause of it? I saw the cause in the priest’s own face, when our father’s name turned up in the talk round the supper-table. Did Monsieur Chaubard join in that talk? He was the only person present who never joined in it once. Did he change it, on a sudden, whenever it came his way? It came his way four times; and four times he changed it – trembling, stammering, turning whiter and whiter, but still, as true as the Heaven above us, shifting the talk off himself, every time! Are you men? Have you brains in your heads? Don’t you see, as I see, what this leads to? On my salvation I swear it – the priest knows the hand that killed our father!”

The faces of the two elder brothers darkened vindictively, as the conviction of the truth fastened itself on their minds.

“How could he know it?” they inquired, eagerly.

“He must tell us himself,” said Jean.

“And if he hesitates – if he refuses to open his lips?”

“We must open them by main force.”

They drew their chairs together after that last answer, and consulted, for some time, in whispers.

When the consultation was over, the brothers rose and went into the room where the dead body of their father was laid out. The three kissed him, in turn, on the forehead – then took hands together, and looked, meaningly, in each other’s faces – then separated. Louis and Thomas put on their hats, and went at once to the priest’s residence; while Jean withdrew by himself to the great room at the back of the house, which was used for the purposes of the oil-factory.

Only one of the workmen was left in the place. He was watching an immense cauldron of boiling linseed-oil.

“You can go home,” said Jean, patting the man kindly on the shoulder. “There is no hope of a night’s rest for me, after the affliction that has befallen us – I will take your place at the cauldron. Go home, my good fellow – go home.”

The man thanked him, and withdrew. Jean followed, and satisfied himself that the workman had really left the house. He then returned, and sat down by the boiling cauldron.

Meanwhile, Louis and Thomas presented themselves at the priest’s house. He had not yet retired to bed, and he received them kindly – but with the same extraordinary agitation in his face and manner which had surprised all who saw him on the previous day. The brothers were prepared beforehand with an answer, when he inquired what they wanted of him. They replied immediately that the shock of their father’s horrible death had so seriously affected their aunt and their eldest sister, that it was feared the minds of both might give way, unless spiritual consolation and assistance were afforded to them that night. The unhappy priest – always faithful and self-sacrificing where the duties of his ministry were in question – at once rose to accompany the young men back to the house. He even put on his surplice, and took the crucifix with him, to impress his words of comfort all the more solemnly on the afflicted women whom he was called on to succour.

Thus innocent of all suspicion of the conspiracy to which he had fallen a victim, he was taken into the room where Jean sat waiting by the cauldron of oil; and the door was locked behind him.

Before he could speak, Thomas Siadoux openly avowed the truth.

“It is we three who want you,” he said – “not our aunt, and not our sister. If you answer our questions truly, you have nothing to fear. If you refuse—” He stopped, and looked toward Jean and the boiling cauldron.

Never, at the best of times, a resolute man; deprived, since the day before, of such resources of energy as he possessed, by the mental suffering which he had undergone in secret – the unfortunate priest trembled from head to foot, as the three brothers closed round him. Louis took the crucifix from him, and held it; Thomas forced him to place his right hand on it; Jean stood in front of him and put the questions.

“Our father has been brought home a murdered man,” he said. “Do you know who killed him?”

The priest hesitated; and the two elder brothers moved him nearer to the cauldron.

“Answer us, on peril of your life,” said Jean. “Say, with your hand on the blessed crucifix, do you know the man who killed our father?”

“I do know him.”

“When did you make the discovery?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where?”

“At Toulouse.”

“Name the murderer.”

At those words, the priest closed his hand fast on the crucifix, and rallied his sinking courage.

“Never!” he said firmly. “The knowledge I possess was obtained in the confessional. The secrets of the confessional are sacred. If I betray them, I commit sacrilege. I will die first!”

“Think!” said Jean. “If you keep silence, you screen the murderer. If you keep silence, you are the murderer’s accomplice. We have sworn over our father’s dead body to avenge him – if you refuse to speak, we will avenge him on you. I charge you again, name the man who killed him.”

“I will die first,” the priest reiterated, as firmly as before.

“Die then!” said Jean. “Die in that cauldron of boiling oil.”

“Give him time,” cried Louis and Thomas, earnestly pleading together.

“We will give him time,” said the younger brother. “There is the clock yonder, against the wall. We will count five minutes by it. In those five minutes, let him make his peace with God – or make up his mind to speak.”

They waited, watching the dock. In that dreadful interval, the priest dropped on his knees and hid his face. The time passed in dead silence.

“Speak! for your own sake, for our sakes, speak!” said Thomas Siadoux, as the minute hand reached the point at which the five minutes expired.

The priest looked up – his voice died away on his lips – the mortal agony broke out on his face in great drops of sweat – his head sank forward on his breast.

“Lift him!” cried Jean, seizing the priest on one side. “Lift him, and throw him in!”

The two elder brothers advanced a step – and hesitated.

“Lift him, on your oath over our father’s body!”

The two brothers seized him on the other side. As they lifted him to a level with the cauldron, the horror of the death that threatened him, burst from the lips of the miserable man in a scream of terror. The brothers held him firm at the cauldron’s edge. “Name the man!” they said for the last time.

The priest’s teeth chattered – he was speechless. But he made a sign with his head – a sign in the affirmative. They placed him in a chair, and waited patiently until he was able to speak.

His first words were words of entreaty. He begged Thomas Siadoux to give him back the crucifix. When it was placed in his possession, he kissed it, and said faintly, “I ask pardon of God for the sin that I am about to commit.” He paused; and then looked up at the younger brother, who still stood in front of him. “I am ready,” he said. “Question me, and I will answer.”

Jean repeated the questions which he had put, when the priest was first brought into the room.

“You know the murderer of our father?”

“I know him.”

“Since when?”

“Since he made his confession to me yesterday, in the cathedral of Toulouse.”

“Name him.”

“His name is Cantegrel.”

“The man who wanted to marry our aunt?”

“The same.”

“What brought him to the confessional?”

“His own remorse.”

“What were the motives for his crime?”

“There were reports against his character; and he discovered that your father had gone privately to Narbonne to make sure that they were true.”

“Did our father make sure of their truth?”

“He did.”

“Would those discoveries have separated our aunt from Cantegrel if our father had lived to tell her of them?”

“They would. If your father had lived, he would have told your aunt that Cantegrel was married already; that he had deserted his wife at Narbonne; that she was living there with another man, under another name; and that she had herself confessed it in your father’s presence.”

“Where was the murder committed?”

“Between Villefranche and this village. Cantegrel had followed your father to Narbonne; and had followed him back again to Villefranche. As far as that place, he travelled in company with others, both going and returning. Beyond Villefranche, he was left alone at the ford over the river. There Cantegrel drew the knife to kill him, before he reached home and told his news to your aunt.”

“How was the murder committed?”

“It was committed while your father was watering his pony by the bank of the stream. Cantegrel stole on him from behind, and struck him as he was stooping over the saddle-bow.”

“This is the truth, on your oath?”

“On my oath, it is the truth.”

“You may leave us.”

•   •   •

The priest rose from his chair without assistance. From the time when the terror of death had forced him to reveal the murderer’s name, a great change had passed over him. He had given his answers with the immoveable calmness of a man on whose mind all human interests had lost their hold. He now left the room, strangely absorbed in himself; moving with the mechanical regularity of a sleepwalker; lost to all perception of things and persons about him. At the door he stopped – woke, as it seemed, from the trance that possessed him – and looked at the three brothers with a steady changeless sorrow, which they had never seen in him before, which they never afterwards forgot.

“I forgive you,” he said, quietly and solemnly. “Pray for me, when my time comes.”

With those last words, he left them.

IV

THE END

The night was far advanced; but the three brothers determined to set forth instantly for Toulouse, and to place their information in the magistrate’s hands, before the morning dawned.

Thus far, no suspicion had occurred to them of the terrible consequences which were to follow their night-interview with the priest. They were absolutely ignorant of the punishment to which a man in holy orders exposed himself, if he revealed the secrets of the confessional. No infliction of that punishment had been known in their neighbourhood – for, at that time, as at this, the rarest of all priestly offences was a violation of the sacred trust confided to the confessor by the Roman Church. Conscious that they had forced the priest into the commission of a clerical offence, the brothers sincerely believed that the loss of his curacy would be the heaviest penalty which the law could exact from him. They entered Toulouse that night, discussing the atonement which they might offer to Monsieur Chaubard, and the means which they might best employ to make his future life easy to him.

The first disclosure of the consequences which would certainly follow the outrage they had committed, was revealed to them when they made their deposition before the officer of justice. The magistrate listened to their narrative with horror vividly expressed in his face and manner.

“Better you had never been born,” he said, “than have avenged your father’s death, as you three have avenged it. Your own act has doomed the guilty and the innocent to suffer alike.”

Those words proved prophetic of the truth. The end came quickly, as the priest had foreseen it, when he spoke his parting words.

The arrest of Cantegrel was accomplished without difficulty, the next morning. In the absence of any other evidence on which to justify this proceeding, the private disclosure to the authorities of the secret which the priest had violated, became inevitable. The Parliament of Languedoc was, under these circumstances, the tribunal appealed to; and the decision of that assembly immediately ordered the priest and the three brothers to be placed in confinement, as well as the murderer Cantegrel. Evidence was then immediately sought for, which might convict this last criminal, without any reference to the revelation that had been forced from the priest – and evidence enough was found to satisfy judges whose minds already possessed the foregone certainty of the prisoner’s guilt. He was put on his trial, was convicted of the murder, and was condemned to be broken on the wheel. The sentence was rigidly executed, with as little delay as the law would permit.

The cases of Monsieur Chaubard, and of the three sons of Siadoux, next occupied the judges. The three brothers were found guilty of having forced the secret of a confession from a man in holy orders, and were sentenced to death by hanging. A far more terrible expiation of his offence awaited the unfortunate priest. He was condemned to have his limbs broken on the wheel, and to be afterwards, while still living, bound to the stake, and destroyed by fire.

Barbarous as the punishments of that period were, accustomed as the population was to hear of their infliction, and even to witness it, the sentences pronounced in these two cases dismayed the public mind; and the authorities were surprised by receiving petitions for mercy from Toulouse, and from all the surrounding neighbourhood. But the priest’s doom had been sealed. All that could be obtained, by the intercession of persons of the highest distinction, was, that the executioner should grant him the mercy of death, before his body was committed to the flames. With this one modification, the sentence was executed, as the sentence had been pronounced, on the curate of Croix-Daurade.

The punishment of the three sons of Siadoux remained to be inflicted. But the people, roused by the death of the ill-fated priest, rose against this third execution, with a resolution before which the local government gave way. The cause of the young men was taken up by the hot-blooded populace, as the cause of all fathers and all sons; their filial piety was exalted to the skies; their youth was pleaded in their behalf; their ignorance of the terrible responsibility which they had confronted in forcing the secret from the priest, was loudly alleged in their favour. More than this, the authorities were actually warned that the appearance of the prisoners on the scaffold would be the signal for an organized revolt and rescue. Under this serious pressure, the execution was deferred, and the prisoners were kept in confinement until the popular ferment had subsided.

The delay not only saved their lives, it gave them back their liberty as well. The infection of the popular sympathy had penetrated through the prison doors. All three brothers were handsome, well-grown young men. The gentlest of the three in disposition – Thomas Siadoux – aroused the interest and won the affection of the head-gaoler’s daughter. Her father was prevailed on at her intercession to relax a little in his customary vigilance; and the rest was accomplished by the girl herself. One morning, the population of Toulouse heard, with every testimony of the most extravagant rejoicing, that the three brothers had escaped, accompanied by the gaoler’s daughter. As a necessary legal formality, they were pursued, but no extraordinary efforts were used to overtake them: and they succeeded, accordingly, in crossing the nearest frontier.

Twenty days later, orders were received from the capital, to execute their sentence in effigy. They were then permitted to return to France, on condition that they never again appeared in their native place, or in any other part of the province of Languedoc. With this reservation they were left free to live where they pleased, and to repent the fatal act which had avenged them on the murderer of their father at the cost of the priest’s life.

Beyond this point the official documents do not enable us to follow their career. All that is now known has been now told of the village-tragedy at Croix-Daurade.

All The Year Round 11 May 1861

LITERATURE AND ART

DOUGLAS JERROLD

——The biographical facts mentioned in this little sketch are derived from Mr. Blanchard Jerrold’s interesting narrative of his father’s Life and Labours. For the rest – that is to say, for the opinions here expressed on Jerrold’s works, and for the estimate attempted of his personal character – I am responsible. This is the only instance of a reprinted article in the present collection, any part of which is founded on a modern and an accessible book. The reader will perhaps excuse and understand my making an exception here to my own rules, when I add that Douglas Jerrold was one of the first and the dearest friends of my literary life.

Some seventy years ago, there lived a poor country player, named Samuel Jerrold. His principal claim to a prominent position among the strolling company to which he was attached consisted in the possession of a pair of shoes once belonging to the great Garrick himself. Samuel Jerrold always appeared on the stage in these invaluable “properties” – a man, surely, who deserves the regard of posterity, as the only actor of modern times who has shown himself capable of standing in Garrick’s shoes.

Samuel Jerrold was twice married – the second time to a wife so much his junior that he was older than his own mother-in-law. Partly, perhaps, in virtue of this last great advantage on the part of the husband, the marriage was a very happy one. The second Mrs. Samuel was a clever, good-tempered, notable woman; and helped her husband materially in his theatrical affairs, when he rose in time (and in Garrick’s shoes) to be a manager of country theatres. Young Mrs. Samuel brought her husband a family – two girls to begin with; and, on the third of January, eighteen hundred and three, while she was staying in London, a boy, who was christened Douglas William, and who was destined, in after-life, to make the name of the obscure country manager a household word on the lips of English readers.

In the year eighteen hundred and seven, Samuel Jerrold became the lessee of the Sheerness Theatre; and little Douglas was there turned to professional account, as a stage-child. He appeared in “The Stranger” as one of the little cherubs of the frail and interesting Mrs. Haller; and he was “carried on” by Edmund Kean, as the child in “Rolla.” These early theatrical experiences (whatever influence they might have had, at a later time, in forming his instincts as a dramatist) do not appear to have at all inclined him toward his father’s profession when he grew older. The world of ships and sailors amid which he lived at Sheerness seems to have formed his first tastes and influenced his first longings. As soon as he could speak for himself on the matter of his future prospects, he chose the life of a sailor; and at ten years old he entered on board the guardship Namur as a first-class volunteer. Up to this time the father had given the son as good an education as it lay within his means to command. Douglas had been noted as a studious boy at school; and he brought with him a taste for reading and for quiet pursuits when he entered on board the Namur. Beginning his apprenticeship to the sea as a Midshipman, in December, eighteen hundred and thirteen, he was not transferred from the guardship to active service until April, eighteen hundred and fifteen, when he was drafted off, with forty-six men, to his Majesty’s gun-brig Ernest.

Those were stirring times. The fierce struggle of Waterloo was at hand; and Douglas’s first cruise was across the Channel to Ostend, at the head of a fleet of transports carrying troops and stores to the battlefield. Singularly enough, his last cruise connected him with the results of the great fight, as his first had connected him with the preparations for it. In the July of the Waterloo year, the Ernest brought her share of the wounded back to Sheerness. On the deck of that brig Jerrold first stood face to face with the horror of war. In after-life, when other pens were writing glibly enough of the glory of war, his pen traced the dark reverse of the picture, and set the terrible consequences of all victories, righteous as well as wicked, in their true light.

The great peace was proclaimed, and the nations rested at last. In October, eighteen hundred and fifteen, the Ernest was “paid off.” Jerrold stepped on shore, and never returned to the service. He was without interest; and the peace virtually closed his professional prospects. To the last day of his life he had a genuinely English love for the sea and sailors; and, short as his naval experience had been, neither he nor his countrymen were altogether losers by it. If the Midshipman of the Ernest had risen to be an Admiral, what would have become then of the author of “Black-eyed Susan”?

Douglas’s prospects were far from cheering when he returned to his home on shore. The affairs of Samuel Jerrold (through no fault of his own) had fallen into sad confusion. In his old age his vocation of manager sank from under him; his theatre was sold; and, at the end of the Waterloo year, he and his family found themselves compelled to leave Sheerness. On the first day of eighteen hundred and sixteen they sailed away in the Chatham boat, to try their fortune in London.

The first refuge of the Jerrolds was at Broad Court, Bow Street. Poor old Samuel was now past his work; and the chief dependence of the ruined family rested on Douglas and his mother. Mrs. Samuel contrived to get some theatrical employment in London; and Douglas, after beginning life as an officer in the navy, was apprenticed to a printer, in Northumberland Street, Strand.

He accepted his new position with admirable cheerfulness and resolution; honestly earning his money, and affectionately devoting it to the necessities of his parents. A delightful anecdote of him, at this time of his life, is told by his son. On one of the occasions when his mother and sister were absent in the country, the little domestic responsibility of comforting the poor worn-out old father with a good dinner rested on Douglas’s shoulders. With the small proceeds of his work he bought all the necessary materials for a good beefsteak pie – made the pie himself, succeeded brilliantly with the crust – himself took it to the bake-house – and himself brought it back, with one of Sir Walter Scott’s novels, which the dinner left him just money enough to hire from a library, for the purpose of reading a story to his father in the evening, by way of dessert. For our own parts, we shall henceforth always rank that beefsteak pie as one among the many other works of Douglas Jerrold which have established his claim to remembrance and to regard. The clew to the bright, affectionate nature of the man – sometimes lost by those who knew him imperfectly, in after-life – could hardly be found in any pleasanter or better place, now that he is gone from among us, than on the poor dinner-table in Broad Court.

Although he was occupied for twelve hours out of the twenty-four at the printing-office, he contrived to steal time enough from the few idle intervals allowed for rest and meals to store his mind with all the reading that lay within his reach. As early as at the age of fourteen, the literary faculty that was in him seems to have struggled to develop itself in short papers and scraps of verse. Only a year later, he made his first effort at dramatic composition, producing a little farce, with a part in it for an old friend of the family, the late Mr. Wilkinson, the comedian. Although Samuel Jerrold was well remembered among many London actors as an honest country manager; and although Douglas could easily secure from his father’s friends his admission to the theatre whenever he was able to go to it, he does not appear to have possessed interest enough to gain a reading for his piece when it was first sent in to the English Opera-house. After three years had elapsed, however, Mr. Wilkinson contrived to get the lad’s farce produced at Sadler’s Wells, under the title of “More Frightened than Hurt.” It was not only successful on its first representation, but it also won the rare honour of being translated for the French stage. More than this, it was afterward translated back again, by a dramatist who was ignorant of its original history, for the stage of the Olympic Theatre; where it figured in the bills under the new title of “Fighting by Proxy,” with Liston in the part of the hero. Such is the history of Douglas Jerrold’s first contribution to the English drama. When it was produced on the boards of Sadler’s Wells, its author’s age was eighteen years.

He had appeared in public, however, as an author before this time, having composed some verses which were printed in a forgotten periodical called Arliss’s Magazine. The loss of his first situation, through the bankruptcy of his master, obliged him to seek employment anew in the printing-office of one Mr. Bigg, who was also the editor of a newspaper called the Sunday Monitor. In this journal appeared his first article – a critical paper on “Der Freischütz.” He had gone to the theatre with an order to see the opera; and had been so struck by the supernatural drama and the wonderful music to which it was set, that he noted down his impressions of the performance, and afterward dropped what he had written, anonymously, into the editor’s box. The next morning his own article was handed to him to set up in type for the forthcoming number of the Sunday Monitor.

After this first encouragement, he began to use his pen frequently in the minor periodicals of the time; still sticking to the printer’s work, however, and still living at home with his family. The success of his little farce at Sadler’s Wells led to his writing three more pieces for that theatre. They all succeeded; and the managers of some of the other minor theatres began to look after the new man. Just at this time, when his career as dramatist and journalist was beginning to open before him, his father died. After that loss, the next important event in his life was his marriage. In the year eighteen hundred and twenty-four, when he was twenty-one years of age, be married his “first love,” Miss Mary Swann, the daughter of a gentleman who held an appointment in the Post-office. He and his bride settled, with his mother and sister and a kind old friend of his boyish days, in Holborn; and here – devoting his days to the newspapers, and his evenings to the drama – the newly-married man started as author by profession, and met the world and its cares bravely at the point of the pen.

The struggle at starting was a hard one. His principal permanent source of income was a small weekly salary paid to him as dramatist to the establishment, by one Davidge, manager of the Coburg (now the Victoria) Theatre. This man appears to have treated Jerrold, whose dramas brought both money and reputation to his theatre, with an utter want of common consideration and common gratitude. He worked his poor author pitilessly; and it is, on that account, highly satisfactory to know that he overreached himself in the end, by quarrelling with his dramatist, at the very time when Jerrold had a theatrical fortune (so far as managers’ interests were concerned) lying in his desk, in the shape of “Black-Eyed Susan.” With that renowned play (the most popular of all nautical dramas) in his hand, Douglas left the Coburg to seek employment at the Surrey Theatre – then under the management of Mr. Elliston. This last tradesman in plays – who subsequently showed himself to be a worthy contemporary of the other tradesman at the Coburg – bid rather higher for Jerrold’s services, and estimated the sole monopoly of the fancy, invention, and humour of a man who had already proved to be a popular, money-bringing dramatist at the magnificent rate of five pounds a week. The bargain was struck; and Jerrold’s first play produced at the Surrey Theatre was “Black-Eyed Susan.”

He had achieved many enviable dramatic successes before this time. He had written domestic dramas – such as “Fifteen Years of a Drunkard’s Life,” and “Ambrose Gwinett” – the popularity of which is still well remembered by playgoers of the old generation; but the reception of “Black-Eyed Susan” eclipsed all previous successes of his or of any other dramatist’s in that line. Mr. T. P. Cooke, who, as the French say, “created” the part of William, not only found half London flocking into the Borough to see him; but was actually called upon, after acting in the play, as a first piece, at the Surrey Theatre, to drive off in his sailor’s dress, and act in it again on the same night, as the last piece, at Covent Garden Theatre. Its first “run” mounted to three hundred nights; it afterward drew money into the empty treasury of Drury Lane: it remains, to this day, a “stock-piece” on which managers and actors know that they can depend; and, strangest phenomenon of all, it is impossible to see the play now without feeling that its great and well deserved dramatic success has been obtained with the least possible amount of assistance from the subtleties and refinements of dramatic art. The piece is indebted for its hold on the public sympathy solely to the simple force, the irresistible directness, of its appeal to some of the strongest affections in our nature. It has succeeded, and it will succeed, not because the dialogue is well, or, as to some passages of it, even naturally written; not because the story is neatly told, for it is (especially in the first act) full of faults in construction; but solely because the situations in which the characters are placed appeal to the hearts of every husband and every wife in the theatre. In this aspect of it, and in this only, the play is a study to any young writer; for it shows on what amazingly simple foundations rest the main conditions of the longest, the surest, and the widest dramatic success.

It is sad, it is almost humiliating, to be obliged to add, in reference to the early history of Jerrold’s first dramatic triumph, that his share of the gains which “Black-Eyed Susan” poured into the pockets of managers on both sides of the water was just seventy pounds. Mr. Elliston, whose theatre the play had raised from a state of something like bankruptcy to a condition of prosperity which, in the Surrey annals, has not since been paralleled, not only abstained from presenting Jerrold with the smallest fragment of anything in the shape of a token of gratitude, but actually had the pitiless insolence to say to him, after “Black-Eyed Susan” had run its three hundred nights, “My dear boy, why don’t you get your friends to present you with a bit of plate?” [*]

[*] FOOTNOTE When this article was first published in Household Words, a son of Mr. Elliston wrote to the conductor to protest against the epithets which I had attached to his father’s name. In the present reprint I have removed the epithets; not because I think them undeserved, but because they merely represented my own angry sense of Mr. Elliston’s treatment of Jerrold – a sense which I have no wish needlessly to gratify at the expense of a son’s regard for his father’s memory. But the facts of the case as they were originally related, and as I heard them from Jerrold himself, remain untouched – exactly as my own opinion of Mr. Elliston’s conduct remains to this day unaltered. If the “impartial” reader wishes to have more facts to decide on than those given in the text, he is referred to Raymond’s “Life of Elliston” – in which work he will find the clear profits put into the manager’s pocket by “Black-Eyed Susan,” estimated at one hundred and fifty pounds a week. (NOTE: 1863)

The extraordinary success of “Black-Eyed Susan” opened the doors of the great theatres to Jerrold, as a matter of course. He made admirable use of the chances in his favour which he had so well deserved, and for which he had waited so long. At the Adelphi, at Drury Lane, and at the Haymarket, drama after drama flowed in quick succession from his pen. The “Devil’s Ducat,” the “Bride of Ludgate,” the “Rent Day,” “Nell Gwynne,” the “Housekeeper” – this last the best of his plays in point of construction – date, with many other dramatic works, from the period of his life now under review. The one slight check to his career of prosperity occurred in eighteen hundred and thirty-six, when he and his brother-in-law took the Strand Theatre, and when Jerrold acted a character in one of his own plays. Neither the theatrical speculation nor the theatrical appearance proved to be successful; and he wisely abandoned, from that time, all professional connection with the stage, except in his old and ever-welcome character of dramatist. In the other branches of his art – to which he devoted himself, at this turning-point of his career, as faithfully as he devoted himself to the theatrical branch – his progress was not less remarkable. As journalist and essayist, he rose steadily toward the distinguished place which was his due among the writers of his time. This middle term of his literary exertions produced, among other noticeable results, the series of social studies called “Men of Character,” originally begun in Blackwood’s Magazine, and since republished among his collected works.

He had now advanced, in a social as well as in a literary point of view, beyond that period in the lives of self-made men which may be termed the adventurous period. Whatever difficulties and anxieties henceforth oppressed him were caused by the trials and troubles which more or less beset the exceptional lives of all men of letters. The struggle for a hearing, the fight for a fair field in which to show himself, had now been bravely and creditably accomplished; and all that remains to be related of the life of Douglas Jerrold is best told in the history of his works. Taking his peculiar literary gifts into consideration, the first great opportunity of his life, as a periodical writer, was offered to him, unquestionably, by the starting of Punch. The brilliant impromptu faculty which gave him a place apart, as thinker, writer, and talker, among the remarkable men of his time, was exactly the faculty which such a journal as Punch was calculated to develop to the utmost. The day on which Jerrold was secured as a contributor would have been a fortunate day for that periodical, if he had written nothing in it but the far-famed “Caudle Lectures,” and the delightful “Story of a Feather.” But the service that he rendered to Punch must by no means be associated only with the more elaborate contributions to its pages which are publicly connected with his name. His wit often flashed out at its brightest, his sarcasm often cut with its keenest edge, in those well-timed paragraphs and short articles which hit the passing event of the day, and which, so far as their temporary purpose with the public is concerned, are all-important ingredients in the success of such a periodical as Punch. A contributor who can strike out new ideas from the original resources of his own mind is one man, and a contributor who can be depended on for the small workaday emergencies which are felt one week and forgotten the next, is generally another. Jerrold united these two characters in himself; and the value of him to Punch, on that account only, can never be too highly estimated. At this period of his life the fertility of his mental resources showed itself most conspicuously. While he was working for Punch, he was also editing and largely contributing to The Illuminated Magazine. In this publication appeared, among a host of shorter papers, the series called “The Chronicles of Clovernook,” which he himself always considered to be one of his happiest efforts, and which does indeed contain, in detached passages, some of the best things that ever fell from his pen. On the cessation of The Illuminated Magazine, he started The Shilling Magazine, and contributed to it his well-known novel, “Saint Giles and Saint James.” These accumulated literary occupations and responsibilities would have been enough for most men; but Jerrold’s inexhaustible energy and variety carried him on through more work still. Theatrical audiences now found their old favourite addressing them again, and occupying new ground as a writer of five-act and three-act comedies. “Bubbles of the Day,” “Time Works Wonders,” “The Cat’s-paw,” “Retired from Business,” “Saint Cupid,” were all produced, with other plays, after the period when he became a regular writer in Punch.

Judged from the literary point of view, these comedies were all original and striking contributions to the library of the stage. From the dramatic point of view, however, it must not be concealed that they were less satisfactory; and that some of them were scarcely so successful with audiences as their author’s earlier and humbler efforts. The one solid critical reason which it is possible to assign for this, implies in itself a compliment which could be paid to no other dramatist of modern times. The perpetual glitter of Jerrold’s wit seems to have blinded him to some of the more sober requirements of the dramatic art. When Charles Kemble said, and said truly, that there was wit enough for three comedies in “Bubbles of the Day,” he implied that this brilliant overflow left little or no room for the indispensable resources of story and situation to display themselves fairly on the stage. The comedies themselves, examined with reference to their success in representation, as well as to their intrinsic merits, help to support this view. “Time Works Wonders” was the most prosperous of all, and it is that comedy precisely which has the most story and the most situation in it. The idea and the management of the charming love-tale out of which the events of this play spring, show what Jerrold might have achieved in the construction of other plots, if his own superabundant wit had not dazzled him and led him astray. As it is, the readers of these comedies, who can appreciate the rich fancy, the delicate subtleties of thought, the masterly terseness of expression, and the exquisite play and sparkle of wit scattered over every page, may rest assured that they rather gain than lose – especially in the present condition of theatrical companies – by not seeing the last dramatic works of Douglas Jerrold represented on the stage.

The next, and, sad to say, the final achievement of his life, connected him most honourably and profitably with the newspaper press. Many readers will remember the starting of Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper – its great temporary success – and then its sudden decline, through defects in management, to which it is not now necessary to refer at length. The signal ability with which the editorial articles in the paper were written, the remarkable aptitude which they displayed in striking straight at the sympathies of large masses of readers, did not escape the notice of men who were well fitted to judge of the more solid qualifications which go to the production of a popular journalist. In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and fifty-two, the proprietor of Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper proposed the editorship to Jerrold, on terms of such wise liberality as to insure the ready acceptance of his offer. From the spring of eighteen hundred and fifty-two, to the spring of eighteen hundred and fifty-seven – the last he was ever to see – Jerrold conducted the paper, with such extraordinary success as is rare in the history of journalism. Under his supervision, and with the regular assistance of his pen, Lloyd’s Newspaper rose, by thousands and thousands a week, to the great circulation which it now enjoys. Of the many successful labours of Jerrold’s life, none had been so substantially prosperous as the labour that was destined to close it.

His health had shown signs of breaking, and his heart was known to be affected, for some little time before his last brief illness; but the unconquerable energy and spirit of the man upheld him through all bodily trials, until the first day of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven. Even his medical attendant did not abandon all hope when his strength first gave way. But he sank rapidly – so rapidly, that in one short week the struggle was over. On the eighth day of June, surrounded by his family and his friends, preserving all his faculties to the last, passing away calmly, resignedly, affectionately, Douglas Jerrold closed his eyes on the world which it had been the long and noble purpose of his life to inform and to improve.

It is too early yet to attempt any estimate of the place which his writings will ultimately occupy in English literature. So long as honesty, energy, and variety are held to be the prominent qualities which should distinguish a genuine writer, there can be no doubt of the vitality of Douglas Jerrold’s reputation. The one objection urged against the works, which, feeble and ignorant though it was, often went to the heart of the writer, was the objection of bitterness. Calling to mind many of the passages in his books in which this bitterness most sharply appears, and seeing plainly in those passages what the cause was that provoked it, we venture to speak out our own opinion boldly, and to acknowledge at once that we admire this so-called bitterness as one of the great and valuable qualities of Douglas Jerrold’s writings; because we can see for ourselves that it springs from the uncompromising earnestness and honesty of the author. In an age when it is becoming unfashionable to have a positive opinion about anything; when the detestable burlesque element scatters its profanation with impunity on all beautiful and all serious things; when much, far too much, of the current literature of the day vibrates contemptibly between unbelieving banter and unblushing claptrap, that element of bitterness in Jerrold’s writings – which never stands alone in them; which is never disassociated from the kind word that goes before, or the generous thought that comes after – is in our opinion an essentially wholesome element, breathing that admiration of truth, and that hatred of falsehood, which is the chiefest and brightest jewel in the crown of any writer, living or dead.

This same cry of bitterness, which assailed him in his literary character, assailed him in his social character also. Absurd as the bare idea of bitterness must appear in connection with such a nature as his, to those who really knew him, the reason why strangers so often and so ridiculously misunderstood him, is not difficult to discover. That marvellous brightness and quickness of perception which has distinguished him far and wide as the sayer of some of the wittiest, and often some of the wisest things also, in the English language, expressed itself almost with the suddenness of lightning. This absence of all appearance of artifice or preparation, this flash and readiness which made the great charm of his wit, rendered him, at the same time, quite incapable of suppressing a good thing from prudential considerations. It sparkled off his tongue before he was aware of it. It was always a bright surprise to himself; and it never occurred to him that it could be anything but a bright surprise to others. All his so-called bitter things were said with a burst of hearty schoolboy laughter, which showed how far he was himself from attaching a serious importance to them. Strangers apparently failed to draw this inference, plain as it was; and often mistook him accordingly. If they had seen him in the society of children; if they had surprised him in the house of any one of his literary brethren who was in difficulty and distress; if they had met him by the bedside of a sick friend, how simply and how irresistibly the gentle, generous, affectionate nature of the man would then have disclosed itself to the most careless chance acquaintance who ever misunderstood him! Very few men have won the loving regard of so many friends so rapidly, and have kept that regard so enduringly to the last day of their lives, as Douglas Jerrold.

Household Words 5 Feb 1859

DRAMATIC GRUB STREET

EXPLORED IN TWO LETTERS.

——This paper, and the paper on Art, entitled “To Think, or Be Thought For,” which immediately follows it, provoked, at the time of their first appearance, some remonstrance both of the public and the private sort. I was blamed – so far as I could understand the objections – for letting out the truth about the Drama, and for speaking my mind (instead of keeping it to myself, as other people did) on the subject of the Old Masters. Finding, however, that my positions remained practically unrefuted and that my views were largely shared by readers with no professional interest in theatres, and no vested critical rights in old pictures – and knowing, besides, that I had not written without some previous inquiry and consideration – I held steadily to my own convictions; and I hold to them still. These articles are now reprinted (as they were originally produced) to serve two objects which I persist in thinking of some importance: Freedom of inquiry into the debased condition of the English Theatre; and freedom of thought on the subject of the Fine Arts.

LETTER THE FIRST

FROM MR. READER
TO MR. AUTHOR

My Dear Sir – I am sufficiently well-educated, and sufficiently refined in my tastes and habits, to be a member of the large class of persons usually honoured by literary courtesy with the title of the Intelligent Public. In the interests of the order to which I belong, I have a little complaint to make against the managers of our theatres, and a question to put afterward, which you, as a literary man, will, I have no doubt, be both able and willing to answer.

Like many thousands of other people, I am fond of reading and fond of going to the theatre. In regard to my reading, I have no complaint to make – for the press supplies me abundantly with English poems, histories, biographies, novels, essays, travels, criticisms, all of modern production. But, in regard to going to the theatre, I write with something like a sense of injury – for nobody supplies me with a good play. There is living literature of a genuine sort in the English libraries of the present time. Why (I beg to inquire) is there no living literature of a genuine sort in the English theatre of the present time also?

Say I am a Frenchman, fond of the imaginative literature of my country, well-read in all the best specimens of it – I mean, best in a literary point of view, for I am not touching moral questions now. When I shut up Balzac, Victor Hugo, Dumas, and Soulie, and go to the theatre – what do I find? Balzac, Victor Hugo, Dumas, and Soulie again. The men who have been interesting me in my armchair, interesting me once more in my stall. The men who can really invent and observe for the reader, inventing and observing for the spectator also. What is the necessary consequence? The literary standard of the stage is raised; and the dramatist by profession must be as clever a man, in his way, as good an inventor, as correct a writer, as the novelist. And what, in my case, follows that consequence? Clearly this: the managers of theatres get my money at night as the publishers of books get it in the day.

Do the managers get my money from me in England? By no manner of means. For they hardly ever condescend to address me.

I get up from reading the best works of our best living writers, and go to the theatre, here. What do I see? The play that I have seen before in Paris. This may do very well for my servant, who does not understand French, or for my tradesman, who has never had time to go to Paris – but it is only showing me an old figure in a foreign dress, which does not become it like its native costume. But, perhaps, our dramatic entertainment is not a play adapted from the French Drama. Perhaps it is something English – a burlesque. Delightful, I have no doubt, to a fast young farmer from the country, or to a convivial lawyer’s clerk who has never read anything but a newspaper in his life. But is it satisfactory to me? It is, if I want to go and see the Drama satirized. But I go to enjoy a new play – and I am rewarded by seeing all my favourite ideas and characters in some old play ridiculed. This, like the adapted drama, is the sort of entertainment I do not want.

I read at home many original stories, by many original authors, that delight me. I go to the theatre, and naturally want original stories by original authors which will also delight me there. Do I get what I ask for? Yes, if I want to see an old play over again. But if I want a new play? Why, then I must have the French adaptation, or the burlesque. The publisher can understand that there are people among his customers who possess cultivated tastes, and can cater for them accordingly, when they ask for something new. The manager, in the same case, recognises no difference between me and my servant. My footman goes to see the play-actors, and cares very little what they perform in. If my taste is not his taste, we may part at the theatre door – he goes in, and I go home. It may be said, Why is my footman’s taste not to be provided for? By way of answering that question, I will ask another: Why is my footman not to have the chance of improving his taste, and making it as good as mine?

The case between the two countries seems to stand thus, then: In France, the most eminent imaginative writers work, as a matter of course, for the stage, as well as for the library table. In England, the most eminent imaginative writers work for the library table alone. What is the reason of this? To what do you attribute the present shameful dearth of stage literature? To the dearth of good actors? or, if not to that, to what other cause?

Of one thing I am certain, that there is no want of a large and a ready audience for original English plays possessing genuine dramatic merit, and appealing, as forcibly as our best novels do, to the tastes, the interests, and the sympathies of our own time. You, who have had some experience of society, know as well as I do that there is in this country a very large class of persons whose minds are stiffened by no Puritanical scruples, whose circumstances in the world are easy, whose time is at their own disposal, who are the very people to make a good audience and a paying audience at a theatre, and who yet hardly ever darken theatrical doors more than two or three times in a year. You know this; and you know also that the systematic neglect of the theatre in these people has been forced on them, in the first instance, by the shock inflicted on their good sense by nine-tenths of the so-called new entertainments which are offered to them. I am not speaking now of gorgeous scenic revivals of old plays – for which I have a great respect, because they offer to sensible people the only decent substitute for genuine dramatic novelty to be met with at the present time. I am referring to the “new entertainments” which are, in the vast majority of cases, second-hand entertainments to every man in the theatre who is familiar with the French writers – or insufferably coarse entertainments to every man who has elevated his taste by making himself acquainted with the best modern literature of his own land. Let my servant, let my small tradesman, let the fast young farmers and lawyers’ clerks, be all catered for! But surely, if they have their theatre, I and my large class ought to have our theatre too! The fast young farmer has his dramatists, just as he has his novelists in the penny journals. We, on our side, have got our great novelists (whose works the fast young farmer does not read) – why, I ask again, are we not to have our great dramatists as well?

With high esteem, yours, my dear sir,

A. Reader.

LETTER THE SECOND

FROM MR. AUTHOR
TO MR. READER

My Dear Sir – I thoroughly understand your complaint, and I think I can answer your question. My reply will probably a little astonish you – for mean to speak the plain truth boldly. The public ought to know the real state of the case, as regards the present position of the English stage toward English Literature, for the public alone can work the needful reform.

You ask, if I attribute the present dearth of stage literature to the dearth of good actors? I reply to that in the negative. When the good literature comes, the good actors will come also, where they are wanted. In many branches of the theatrical art they are not wanted. We have as good living actors among us now as ever trod the stage, And we should have more if dramatic literature called for more. It is literature that makes the actor – not the actor who makes literature. I could name men to you, now on the stage, whose advance in their profession they owe entirely to the rare opportunities which the occasional appearance of a genuinely good play has afforded to them of stepping out – men whose sense of the picturesque and the natural in their art lay dormant, until the pen of the writer woke it into action. Show me a school of dramatists, and I will show you a school of actors soon afterward – as surely as the effect follows the cause.

You have spoken of France. I will now speak of France also; for the literary comparison with our neighbours is as applicable to the main point of my letter as it was to the main point of yours.

Suppose me to be a French novelist. If I am a successful man, my work has a certain market value at the publisher’s. So far my case is the same if I am an English novelist; but there the analogy stops. In France the manager of the theatre can compete with the publisher for the purchase of any new idea that I have to sell. In France the market value of my new play is as high, or higher, than the market value of my new novel. Remember, I am not now writing of French theatres which have assistance from the Government, but of French theatres which depend, as our theatres do, entirely on the public. Any one of those theatres will give me as much, I repeat, for the toil of my brains on their behalf, as the publisher will give for the toil of my brains on his. Now, so far is this from being the case in England, that it is a fact perfectly well known to every literary man in the country that, while the remuneration for every other species of literature has enormously increased in the last hundred years, the remuneration for dramatic writing has steadily decreased to such a minimum of pecuniary recognition as to make it impossible for a man who lives by the successful use of his pen, as a writer of books, to alter the nature of his literary practice, and live, or nearly live, in comfortable circumstances, by the use of his pen, as a writer of plays. It is time that this fact was generally known, to justify successful living authors for their apparent neglect of one of the highest branches of their art. I tell you, in plain terms, that I could only write a play for the English stage – a successful play, mind – by consenting to what would be, in my case, and in the cases of all my successful brethren, a serious pecuniary sacrifice.

Let me make the meanness of the remuneration for stage writing in our day, as compared with what that remuneration was in past times, clear to your mind by one or two examples. Rather more than a hundred years ago, Doctor Johnson wrote a very bad play called “Irene,” which proved a total failure on representation, and which tottered, rather than “ran,” for just nine nights to wretched houses. Excluding his literary copyright of a hundred pounds, the Doctor’s dramatic profit on a play that was a failure – remember that! – amounted to one hundred and ninety-five pounds, being just forty-five pounds more than the remuneration now paid, to my certain knowledge, for many a play within the last five years which has had a successful run of sixty, and, in some cases, even of a hundred nights!

I can imagine your amazement at reading this; but I can also assure you that any higher rate of remuneration is exceptional. Let me, however, give the managers the benefit of the exception. Sometimes two hundred pounds have been paid, within the last five years, for a play; and, on one or two rare occasions, three hundred. If Shakespeare came to life again, and took “Macbeth” to an English theatre, in this year, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, that is the highest market remuneration he could get for it. You are to understand that this miserable decline in the money reward held out to dramatic literature is peculiar to our own day. Without going back again so long as a century – without going back further than the time of George Colman, the younger – I may remind you that the comedy of “John Bull” brought the author twelve hundred pounds. Since then, six or seven hundred pounds have been paid for a new play; and, later yet, five hundred pounds. We have now dropped to three hundred pounds as the exception, and to one hundred and fifty as the rule. I am speaking, remember, of plays in not less than three acts, which are, or are supposed to be, original – of plays which run from sixty to a hundred nights, and which put their bread (buttered thickly on both sides) into the mouths of actors and managers. As to the remuneration for ordinary translations from the French, I would rather not mention what that is. And, indeed, there is no need I should do so. We are talking of the stage in its present relation to English literature. Suppose I write for it, as some of my friends suggest I should; and suppose I could produce one thoroughly original play, with a story of my own sole invention, with characters of my own sole creation, every year. The utmost annual income the English stage would, at present prices, pay me, after exhausting my brains in its service, would be three hundred pounds!

I use the expression “exhausting my brains” advisedly. For a man who produces a new work every year, which has any real value and completeness as a work of literary art, does, let him be who he may, for a time, exhaust his brain by the process, and leave it sorely in need of an after-period of absolute repose. Three hundred a year, therefore, is the utmost that a fertile original author can expect to get by the English stage, at present market-rates of remuneration. Such is now the position of the dramatic writer – a special man, with a special faculty. What is now the position of the dramatic performer, when he happens to be a special man, with a special faculty also? Is his income three hundred a year? Is his manager’s income three hundred a year? The popular actors of the time when Colman got his twelve hundred pounds would be struck dumb with amazement if they saw what salaries their successors are getting now. If stage remuneration has decreased sordidly in our time for authorship, it has increased splendidly for actorship. When a manager tells me now that his theatre cannot afford to pay me as much for my idea in the form of a play as the publisher can afford to pay me for it in the form of a novel – he really means that he and his actors take a great deal more now from the nightly receipts of the theatres than they ever thought of taking in the time of “John Bull.” When the actor’s profits from the theatre are largely increased, somebody else’s profits from the same theatre must be decreased. That somebody else is the dramatic author. There you have the real secret of the mean rate at which the English stage now estimates the assistance of English literature.

There are persons whose interest it may be to deny this, and who will deny it. It is not a question of assertion or denial, but a question of figures. How much per week did a popular actor get in Colman’s time? How much per week does a popular actor get now? The biographies of dead players will answer the first question. And the managers’ books, for the past ten or fifteen years, will answer the second. I must not give offence by comparisons between living and dead men – I must not enter into details, because they would lead me too near to the private affairs of other people. But I tell you again, that the remuneration for acting has immensely increased, and the remuneration for dramatic writing has immensely decreased, in our time; and I am not afraid of having that assertion contradicted by proofs.

It is useless to attempt a defence of the present system by telling me that a different plan of remunerating the dramatic author was adopted in former times, and that a different plan is also practiced on the French stage. I am not discussing which plan is best or which plan is worst. I am only dealing with the plain fact, that the present stage estimate of the author is barbarously low – an estimate which men who had any value for literature, any idea of its importance, any artist-like sympathy with its great difficulties and its great achievements, would be ashamed to make. I prove that fact by reference to the proceedings of a better pastime, and by a plain appeal to the market-value of all kinds of literature, off the stage, at the present time; and I leave the means of effecting a reform to those who are bound in common honour and common justice to make the reform. It is not my business to readjust the commercial machinery of theatres; I don’t sit in the treasury, and handle the strings of the money bags. I say that the present system is a base one toward literature, and that the history of the past, and the experience of the present, prove it to be so. All the reasoning in the world which tries to convince us that a wrong is necessary will not succeed in proving that wrong to be right.

Having now established the existence of the abuse, it is easy enough to get on to the consequences that have arisen from it. At the present low rate of remuneration, a man of ability wastes his powers if he writes for the stage – unless he is prepared to put himself out of the category of authors by turning manager and actor, and taking a theatre for himself. There are men still in existence, who occasionally write for the stage, for the love and honour of their art. Once, perhaps, in two or three years, one of these devoted men will try single-handed to dissipate the dense dramatic fog that hangs over the theatre and the audience. For the brief allotted space of time, the one toiling hand lets in a little light, unthanked by the actors, unaided by the critics, unnoticed by the audience. The time expires – the fog gathers back – the toiling hand disappears. Sometimes it returns once more bravely to the hard, hopeless work; and out of all the hundreds whom it has tried to enlighten, there shall not be one who is grateful enough to know it again.

These exceptional men – too few, too scattered, too personally unimportant in the republic of letters, to have any strong or lasting influence – are not the professed dramatists of our times. These are not the writers who make so much as a clerk’s income out of the stage. The few men of practical ability who now write for the English theatre are men of the world, who know that they are throwing away their talents if they take the trouble to invent for an average remuneration of one hundred and fifty pounds. The well-paid Frenchman supplies them with a story and characters ready-made. The original adaptation is rattled off in a week; and the dramatic author beats the clerk after all, by getting so much more money for so much less manual exercise in the shape of writing. Below this clever tactician, who foils the theatre with its own weapons, come the rank and file of hack writers, who work still more cheaply, and give still less (I am rejoiced to say) for the money. The stage results of this sort of authorship, as you have already implied, virtually drive the intelligent classes out of the theatre. Half a century since, the prosperity of the manager’s treasury would have suffered in consequence. But the increase of wealth and population, and the railway connection between London and the country, more than supply in quantity what audiences have lost in quality. Not only does the manager lose nothing in the way of profit – he absolutely gains by getting a vast nightly majority into his theatre whose ignorant insensibility nothing can shock. Let him cast what garbage he pleases before them, the unquestioning mouths of his audience open, and snap at it. I am sorry and ashamed to write in this way of any assemblage of my own countrymen; but a large experience of theatres forces me to confess that I am writing the truth. If you want to find out who the people are who know nothing whatever, even by hearsay, of the progress of the literature of their own time – who have caught no chance vestige of any one of the ideas which are floating about before their very eyes – who are, to all social intents and purposes, as far behind the age they live in as any people out of a lunatic asylum can be – go to a theatre, and be very careful, in doing so, to pick out the most popular performance of the day. The actors themselves, when they are men of any intelligence, are thoroughly aware of the utter incapacity of the tribunal which is supposed to judge them. Not very long ago, an actor, standing deservedly in the front rank of his profession, happened to play even more admirably than usual in a certain new part. Meeting him soon afterward, I offered him my mite of praise in all sincerity. “Yes,” was his reply; “I know that I act my very best in that part, for I hardly get a hand of applause in it through the whole evening.” Such is the condition to which the dearth of good literature has now reduced the audiences of English theatres – even in the estimation of the men who act before them.

And what is to remedy this? Nothing can remedy it but a change for the better in the audiences.

I have good hope that this change is slowly, very slowly, beginning. “When things are at the worst they are sure to mend.” I really think that, in dramatic matters, they have been at the worst; and I have therefore some belief that the next turn of Fortune’s wheel may be in our favour. In certain theatres, I fancy I notice already symptoms of a slight additional sprinkling of intelligence among the audiences. If I am right, if this sprinkling increases, if the few people who have brains in their heads will express themselves boldly, if those who are fit to lead the opinion of their neighbours will resolutely make the attempt to lead it, instead of indolently wrapping themselves up in their own contempt – then there may be a creditable dramatic future yet in store for the countrymen of Shakespeare. Perhaps we may yet live to see the day when managers will be forced to seek out the writers who are really setting their mark on the literature of the age – when “starvation prices” shall have given place to a fair remuneration – and when the prompter shall have his share with the publisher in the best work that can be done for him by the best writers of the time.

Meanwhile, there is a large audience of intelligent people, with plenty of money in their pockets, waiting for a theatre to go to. Supposing that such an amazing moral portent should ever appear in the English firmament as a theatrical speculator who can actually claim some slight acquaintance with contemporary literature; and supposing that unparalleled man to be smitten with a sudden desire to ascertain what the circulation actually is of serial publications and successful novels which address the educated classes; I think I may safely predict the consequences that would follow, as soon as our ideal manager had received his information and recovered from his astonishment. London would be startled, one fine morning, by finding a new theatre opened. Names that are now well known on title-pages only would then appear on playbills also; and tens of thousands of readers, who now pass the theatre door with indifference, would be turned into tens of thousands of play-goers also. What a cry of astonishment would be heard thereupon in the remotest fastness of old theatrical London! “Merciful Heaven! There is a large public, after all, for well-paid original plays, as well as for well-paid original books. And a man has turned up, at last, of our own managerial order, who has absolutely found it out!”

With true regard, yours, my dear sir,

A. N. Author.

Household Words 6 Mar 1858

TO THINK, OR
BE THOUGHT FOR

If anything I can say here on the subject of the Painter’s Art will encourage intelligent people of any rank to turn a deaf ear to all that critics, connoisseurs, lecturers, and compilers of guidebooks can tell them; to trust entirely to their own common sense when they are looking at pictures; and to express their opinions boldly, without the slightest reference to any precedents whatever – I shall have exactly achieved the object with which I now apply myself to the writing of this paper.

Let me first ask, in regard to pictures in general, what it is that prevents the public from judging for themselves, and why the influence of Art in England is still limited to select circles – still unfelt, as the phrase is, by all but the cultivated classes? Why do people want to look at their guidebooks before they can make up their minds about an old picture? Why do they ask connoisseurs and professional friends for a marked catalogue before they venture inside the walls of the exhibition rooms in Trafalgar Square? Why, when they are, for the most part, always ready to tell each other unreservedly what books they like, or what musical compositions are favourites with them, do they hesitate the moment pictures turn up as a topic of conversation, and entrench themselves doubtfully behind such cautious phrases as, “I don’t pretend to understand the subject,” “I believe such and such a picture is much admired,” “I am no judge,” and so on?

No judge! Does a really good picture want you to be a judge? Does it want you to have anything but eyes in your head, and the undisturbed possession of your senses? Is there any other branch of intellectual art which has such a direct appeal, by the very nature of it, to every sane human being as the art of painting? There it is, able to represent through a medium which offers itself to you palpably, in the shape of so many visible feet of canvas, actual human facts, and distinct aspects of nature, which poetry can only describe, and which music can but obscurely hint at. The art which can do this – and which has done it over and over again both in past and present times – is surely of all arts that one which least requires a course of critical training before it can be approached on familiar terms. Whenever I see an intelligent man, which I often do, standing before a really eloquent and true picture, and asking his marked catalogue, or his newspaper, or his guidebook, whether he may safely admire it or not – I think of a man standing winking both eyes in the full glare of a cloudless August noon, and inquiring deferentially of an astronomical friend whether he is really justified in saying that the sun shines!

But we have not yet fairly got at the main obstacle which hinders the public from judging of pictures for themselves, and which, by a natural consequence, limits the influence of art on the nation generally. For my own part, I have long thought, and shall always continue to believe, that this same obstacle is nothing more nor less than the Conceit of Criticism, which has got obstructively between Art and the people – which has kept them asunder, and will keep them asunder, until it is fairly pulled out of the way, and set aside at once and forever in its proper background place.

This is a bold thing to say; but I think I can advance some proofs that my assertion is not altogether so wild as it may appear at first sight. By the Conceit of Criticism I desire to express, in one word, the conventional laws and formulas, the authoritative rules and regulations which individual men set up to guide the tastes and influence the opinions of their fellow-creatures. When Criticism does not speak in too arbitrary a language, and when the laws it makes are ratified by the consent and approbation of intelligent people in general, I have as much respect for it as any one. But when Criticism sits altogether apart, speaks opinions that find no answering echo in the general heart, and measures the greatness of intellectual work by anything rather than by its power of appealing to all capacities for admiration and enjoyment, from the very highest to the very humblest – then, as it seems to me, criticism becomes the expression of individual conceit, and forfeits all claim to consideration and respect. From that moment, it is obstructive – for it has set itself up fatally between the art of painting and the honest and general appreciation of that art by the people.

Let me try to make this still clearer by an example. A great deal of obstructive criticism undoubtedly continues to hang as closely as it can about poetry and music. But there are, nevertheless, stateable instances, in relation to these two arts, of the voice of the critic and the voice of the people being on the same side. The tragedy of “Hamlet,” for example, is critically considered to be the masterpiece of dramatic poetry; and the tragedy of “Hamlet” is also, according to the testimony of every sort of manager, the play, of all others, which can be invariably depended on to fill a theatre with the greatest certainty, act it when and how you will. Again, in music, the “Don Giovanni” of Mozart, which is the admiration even of the direst pedant producible from the ranks of musical connoisseurs, is also the irresistible popular attraction which is always sure to fill the pit and gallery at the opera. Here, at any rate, are two instances in which two great achievements of the past in poetry and music are alike viewed with admiration by the man who appreciates by instinct and the man who appreciates by rule.

If we apply the same test to the achievements of the past in painting, where shall we find a similar instance of genuine concurrence between the few who are appointed to teach and the many who are expected to learn?

I put myself in the position of a man of fair capacity and average education, who labours under the fatal delusion that he will be helped to a sincere appreciation, of the works of the Old Masters by asking critics and connoisseurs to form his opinions for him. I am sent to Italy as a matter of course. A general chorus of learned authorities tells me that Michael Angelo and Raphael are the two greatest painters that ever lived; and that the two recognised masterpieces of the highest high art are the “Last Judgement,” in the Sistine Chapel, and the “Transfiguration,” in the Vatican picture-gallery. It is not only Lanzi and Vasari, and hosts of later sages running smoothly along the same critical grooves, who give me this information. Even the greatest of English, portrait-painters, Sir Joshua Reynolds, sings steadily with the critical chorus, note for note. When experience has made me wiser, I am able to detect clearly enough, in the main principles which Reynolds has adopted in his Lectures on Art, the reason of his notorious want of success whenever he tried to rise above portraits to the regions of historical painting. But at the period of my innocence, I am simply puzzled and amazed, when I come to such a passage as the following in Sir Joshua’s famous Fifth Lecture, where he sums up the comparative merits of Michael Angelo and Raphael:

“If we put these great artists in a line of comparison with each other” (lectures Sir Joshua), “Raphael had more taste and fancy, Michael Angelo more genius and imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michael Angelo had more of the poetical inspiration; his ideas are vast and sublime; his people are a superior order of beings; there is nothing about them, nothing in the air of their actions or their attitudes, or the style and cast of their limbs or features, that reminds us of their belonging to our own species.”

Here I get plainly enough at what Sir Joshua considers to be the crowning excellence of high art. It is one great proof of the poetry and sublimity of Michael Angelo’s pictures that the people represented in them never remind us of our own species; which seems equivalent to saying that the representation of a man made in the image of Michael Angelo is a grander sight than the representation of a man made in the image of God. I am a little staggered by these principles of criticism; but as all the learned authorities that I can get at seem to have adopted them, I do my best to follow the example of my teachers, and set off reverently for Rome to see the two works of art which my critical masters tell me are the sublimest pictures that the world has yet beheld.

I go first to the Sistine Chapel; and, on a great blue-coloured wall at one end of it, I see painted a confusion of naked, knotty-bodied figures, sprawling up or tumbling down below a single figure, posted aloft in the middle, and apparently threatening the rest with his hand. If I ask Lanzi, or Vasari, or Sir Joshua Reynolds, or the gentleman who has compiled “Murray’s Hand-book for Central Italy,” or any other competent authorities, what this grotesquely startling piece of painter’s work can possibly be, I am answered that it is actually intended to represent the unimaginably awful spectacle of the Last Judgement! And I am further informed that, estimated by the critical tests applied to it by these competent authorities, the picture is pronounced to be a masterpiece of grandeur and sublimity. I resolve to look a little closer at this celebrated work, and to try if I can get at any fair estimate of it by employing such plain, uncritical tests as will do for me and for everybody.

Here is a fresco which aspires to represent the most impressive of all Christian subjects; it is painted on the wall of a Christian church, by a man belonging to a Christian community – what evidences of religious feeling has it to show me? I look at the lower part of the composition first, and see – a combination of the orthodox nursery notion of the devil, with the heathen idea of the conveyance to the infernal regions, in the shape of a horned and tailed ferryman giving condemned souls a cast across a river! Pretty well, I think, to begin with.

Let me try and discover next what evidences of extraordinary intellectual ability the picture presents. I look up toward the top now, by way of a change, and I find Michael Angelo’s conception of the entrance of a martyr into the kingdom of Heaven, displayed before me in the shape of a flayed man, presenting his own skin, as a sort of credential, to the hideous figure with the threatening hand – which I will not, even in writing, identify with the name of Our Saviour. Elsewhere I see nothing but unnatural distortion and hopeless confusion; fighting figures, tearing figures, tumbling figures, kicking figures; and, to crown all, a caricatured portrait, with a pair of ass’s ears, of a certain Messer Biagio, of Sienna, who had the sense and courage, when the “Last Judgement” was first shown on completion, to protest against every figure in it being painted stark naked!

I see such things as these, and many more equally preposterous, which it is not worth while to mention. All other people with eyes in their heads see them too. They are actual matters of fact, not debatable matters of taste. But I am not – on that account – justified, nor is any other uncritical person justified, in saying a word against the picture. It may palpably outrage all the religious proprieties of the subject; but, then, it is full of “fine foreshortening,” and therefore we uncritical people must hold our tongues. It may violate just as plainly all the intellectual proprieties, counting from the flayed man with his skin in his hand, at the top, to Messer Biagio, of Sienna, with his ass’s ears, at the bottom; but, then, it exhibits “masterly anatomical detail,” and therefore we uncritical spectators must hold our tongues. It may strike us forcibly that, if people are to be painted at all, as in this picture, rising out of their graves in their own bodies as they lived, it is surely important (to say nothing of giving them the benefit of the shrouds in which they were buried) to represent them as having the usual general proportions of human beings. But Sir Joshua Reynolds interposes critically, and tells us the figures on the wall and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are sublime, because they don’t remind us of our own species. Why should they not remind us of our own species? Because they are prophets, sibyls, and such like, cries the chorus of critics indignantly. And what then? If I had been on intimate terms with Jeremiah, or if I had been the ancient king to whom the sibyl brought the mysterious books, would not my friend in the one case, and the messenger in the other, have appeared before me bearing the ordinary proportions and exhibiting the usual appearance of my own species? Does not sacred history inform me that the prophet was a man, and does not profane history describe the sibyl as an old woman? Is old age never venerable and striking in real life? But I am uttering heresies. I am mutinously summoning reason and common sense to help me in estimating an old master. This will, never do; I had better follow the example of all the travellers I see about me, by turning away in despair, and leaving the “Last Judgement” to the critics and connoisseurs.

Having thus discovered that one masterpiece of high art does not address itself to me, and to the large majority whom I represent, let me go next to the picture gallery, and see how the second masterpiece (the “Transfiguration,” by Raphael) can vindicate its magnificent reputation among critics and connoisseurs. This picture I approach under the advantage of knowing, beforehand, that I must make allowances for minor defects in it, which are recognised by the learned authorities themselves. I am, indeed, prepared to be disappointed at the outset, because I have been prepared to make allowances:

First, for defects of colour, which spoil the general effect of the picture on the spectator; all the lights being lividly tinged with green, and all the shadows being grimly hardened with black.. This mischief is said to have been worked by the tricks of French cleaners and restorers, who have so fatally tampered with the whole surface that Raphael’s original colouring must be given up as lost. Rather a considerable loss, this, to begin with; but not Raphael’s fault. Therefore, let it by no means depreciate the picture in my estimation.

Secondly, I have to make allowances for the introduction of two Roman Catholic, saints (St. Julian and St. Lawrence), represented by the painter as being actually present at the Transfiguration, in order to please Cardinal De Medici, for whom the picture was painted. This is Raphael’s fault. This sets him forth in the rather anomalous character of a great painter with no respect for his art. I have some doubts about him, after that – doubts which my critical friends might possibly share if Raphael were only a modern painter.

Thirdly, I have to make allowances for the scene of the Transfiguration on the high mountain, and the scene of the inability of the disciples to cure the boy possessed with a devil, being represented, without the slightest division, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the same canvas – both events thus appearing to be connected by happening in the same place, within view of each other, when we know very well that they were only connected by happening at the same time. Also, when I see some of the disciples painted in the act of pointing up to the Transfiguration, the mountain itself being the background against which they stand, I am to remember (though the whole of the rest of the picture is most absolutely and unflinchingly literal in treatment) that here Raphael has suddenly broken out into allegory, and desires to indicate by the pointing hands of the disciples that it is the duty of the afflicted to look to Heaven for relief in their calamities. Having made all these rather important allowances, I may now look impartially at the upper half of this famous composition.

I find myself soon looking away again. It may be that three figures clothed in gracefully fluttering drapery, and dancing at symmetrically exact distances from each other in the air, represent such an unearthly spectacle as the Transfiguration to the satisfaction of great judges of art. I can also imagine that some few select persons may be able to look at the top of the high mountain, as represented in the picture, without feeling their gravity in the smallest degree endangered by seeing that the ugly knob of ground on which the disciples are lying prostrate is barely big enough to hold them, and most certainly would not hold them if they all moved briskly on it together. These things are matters of taste on which I have the misfortune to differ with the connoisseurs. Not feeling bold enough to venture on defending myself against the masters who are teaching me to appreciate high art, I can only look away from the upper part of the picture, and try if I can derive any useful or pleasant impressions from the lower half of the composition, in which no supernatural event is depicted, and which it is, therefore, perfectly justifiable to judge by referring it to the standard of dramatic truth, or, in one word, of Nature.

As for this portion of the picture, I can hardly believe my eyes when I first look at it. Excepting the convulsed face of the boy, and a certain hard eagerness in the look of the man who is holding him, all the other faces display a stony inexpressiveness, which, when I think of the great name of Raphael in connection with what I see, fairly amazes me. I look down incredulously at my guidebook. Yes! there is indeed the critical authority of Lanzi quoted for my benefit. Lanzi tells me in plain terms that I behold represented in the picture before me “the most pathetic story Raphael ever conceived,” and refers, in proof of it, to the “compassion evinced by the apostles.” I look attentively at them all, and behold an assembly of hard-featured, bearded men, standing, sitting, and gesticulating, in conventional academic attitudes; their faces not expressing naturally, not even affecting to express artificially, compassion for the suffering boy, humility at their own incapability to relieve him, or any other human emotion likely to be suggested by the situation in which they are placed. I find it still more dismaying to look next at the figure of a brawny woman, with her back to the spectator, entreating the help of the apostles theatrically on one knee, with her insensible classical profile turned in one direction, and both her muscular arms stretched out in the other; it is still more dismaying to look at such a figure as this, and then to be gravely told by Lanzi that I am contemplating “the affliction of a beautiful and interesting female.” I observe, on entering the room in which the “Transfiguration” is placed, as I have previously observed on entering the Sistine Chapel, groups of spectators before the picture consulting their guidebooks – looking attentively at the work of high art which they are ordered to admire – trying hard to admire it – then, with dismay in their faces, looking round at each other, shutting up their books, and retreating from high art in despair. I observe these groups for a little while, and I end in following their example. We members of the general public may admire “Hamlet” and “Don Giovanni” honestly, along with the critics, but the two sublimest pictures (according to the learned authorities) which the world has yet beheld, appeal to none of us; and we leave them, altogether discouraged on the subject of Art for the future. From that time forth we look at pictures with a fatal self-distrust. Some of us recklessly take our opinions from others; some of us cautiously keep our opinions to ourselves; and some of us indolently abstain from having anything to do with an opinion at all.

Is this exaggerated? Have I misrepresented facts in the example I have quoted of obstructive criticism on art, and of its discouraging effects on the public mind? Let the doubting reader, by all means, judge for himself. Let him refer to any recognised authority he pleases, and he will find that the two pictures of which I have been writing are critically and officially considered, to this day, as the two master-works of the highest school of painting. Having ascertained that, let him next, if possible, procure a sight of some print or small copy from any part of either picture (there is a copy of the whole of the “Transfiguration” in the Gallery at the Crystal Palace), and practically test the truth of what I have said. Or, in the event of his not choosing to take that trouble, let him ask any unprofessional and uncritical friend who has seen the pictures themselves – and the more intelligent and unprejudiced that friend, the better for my purpose – what the effect on him was of the “Last Judgement,” or the “Transfiguration.” If I can only be assured of the sincerity of the witness, I shall not be afraid of the result of the examination.

Other readers who have visited the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Gallery can testify for themselves (but few of them will – I know them!) whether I have misrepresented their impressions or not. To that part of my audience I have nothing to say, except that I beg them not to believe that I am a heretic in relation to all works by all old masters, because I have spoken out about the “Last Judgement” and the “Transfiguration.” I am not blind, I hope, to the merits of any picture, provided it will bear honest investigation on uncritical principles. I have seen such exceptional works by ones and twos, amid many hundreds of utterly worthless canvases with undeservedly famous names attached to them, in Italy and elsewhere. My valet de place has not pointed them out to me; my guidebook, which criticises according to authority, has not recommended me to look at them, except in very rare cases indeed. I discovered them for myself, and others may discover them as readily as I did, if they will only take their minds out of leading-strings when they enter a gallery, and challenge a picture boldly to do its duty by explaining its own merits to them without the assistance of an interpreter. Having given that simple receipt for the finding out and enjoying of good pictures, I need give no more. It is no part of my object to attempt to impose my own tastes and preferences on others. I want – if I may be allowed to repeat my motives once more in the plainest terms – to do all I can to shake the influence of authority in matters of Art, because I see that authority standing drearily and persistently aloof from all popular sympathy; because I see it keeping pictures and the people apart; because I find it setting up as masterpieces two of the worst of many palpably bad and barbarous works of past times; and, lastly, because I find it purchasing pictures for the National Gallery of England, for which, in nine cases out of ten, the nation has no concern or care, which have no merits but technical merits, and which have not the last and lowest recommendation of winning general approval, even among the critics and connoisseurs themselves.

And what remedy against this? I say at the end, as I said at the beginning, the remedy is to judge for ourselves, and to express our opinions, privately and publicly, on every possible occasion, without hesitation, without compromise, without reference to any precedents whatever. Public opinion has had its victories in other matters, and may yet have its victory in matters of art. “We, the people, have a gallery that is called ours; let us do our best to have it filled for the future with pictures (no matter when or by whom painted) that we can get some honest enjoyment and benefit from. Let us, in Parliament and out of it, before dinner and after dinner, in the presence of authorities just as coolly as out of the presence of authorities, say plainly, once for all, that the sort of high art which is professedly bought for us, and which does actually address itself to nobody but painters, critics and connoisseurs, is not high art at all, but the lowest of the low: because it is the narrowest as to its sphere of action, and the most scantily furnished as to its means of doing good. We shall shock the connoisseurs (especially the elderly ones) by taking this course; we shall get indignantly reprimanded by the critics, and flatly contradicted by the lecturers: but we shall also, sooner or later, get a collection of pictures bought for us that we, mere mankind, can appreciate and understand. It may be a revolutionary sentiment, but I think that the carrying out of this reform (as well as of a few others) is a part of the national business which the people of England have got to do for themselves, and in which no existing authorities will assist them. There is a great deal of social litter accumulating about us. Suppose, when we start the business of setting things to rights, that we try the new broom gently at first by sweeping away a little high art, and having the temerity to form our own opinions.

Household Words 13 Sep 1856

A LAST ESSAY

BOLD WORDS BY A BACHELOR

The postman’s knocks at my door have been latterly more frequent than usual; and out of the increased number of letters left for me, it has happened that an unusually large proportion have contained wedding-cards. Just as there seem to be certain days when all the beautiful women in London take to going out together, certain days when all the people we know appear to be conspiring to meet us at every turn in one afternoon’s walk – so there seem to be times and seasons when all our friends are inexplicably bent on getting married together. Capricious in everything, the law of chances is especially whimsical, according to my experience, in its influence over the solemnisation of matrimony. Six months ago, there was no need for me to leave a single complimentary card anywhere, for weeks and weeks together. Just at the present time, I find myself in danger of wearing out my card-case by incessant use. My friends are marrying recklessly in all sorts of opposite directions, and are making the bells a greater nuisance than usual in every parish of London.

These curious circumstances have set me thinking on the subject of marriage, and have recalled to my mind certain reflections in connection with that important change in life, which I first made when I was not quite such an incurably settled old bachelor as I am at the present moment.

It occurred to me, at that past time, and it occurs to me still, that while great stress is laid in ordinary books and ordinary talk on the personal interest which a man has himself, and on the family interest which his near relations have also, in his marrying an affectionate and sensible woman, sufficient importance has not been attached to the interest of another sort, which the tried and worthy friends of his bachelor days ought to feel, and, for the most part, do feel, in his getting a good wife. It really and truly depends upon her, in more cases than I should like to enumerate, whether her husband’s friendships are to be continued, after his marriage, in all their integrity, or are only to be maintained as a mere social form. It is hardly necessary for me to repeat – but I will do so, in order to avoid the slightest chance of misconstruction – that I am here speaking only of the worthiest, the truest, the longest-tried friends of a man’s bachelor days. Toward these every sensible married woman feels, as I believe, that she owes a duty for her husband’s sake. But, unfortunately, there are such female phenomena in the world as fond wives and devoted mothers, who are anything rather than sensible women the moment they are required to step out of the sphere of their conjugal and maternal instincts. Women of this sort have an unreasonable jealousy of their husbands in small things; and on the misuse of their influence to serve the interests of that jealousy, lies but too often the responsibility of severing such friendships as no man can hope to form for the second time in the course of his life. By the severing of friendships, I do not mean the breaking off of all intercourse, but the fatal changing of the terms on which a man lives with his friend – the casting of the first slight shadow which alters the look of the whole prospect. It is astonishing by what a multitude of slight threads the firm continuity of brotherly regard is maintained. Many a woman has snapped asunder all the finer ligaments which once connected her husband and his friend; and has thought it enough if she left the two still attached by the coarser ties which are at the common disposal of all the world. Many a woman – delicate, affectionate, and kind within her own narrow limits – has committed that heavy social offence, and has never felt afterward a single pang of pity or remorse.

These bold words will be unpopular enough, I am afraid, with certain readers; but I am an old bachelor, and I must have license to speak the unwelcome truth. I respect and admire a good husband and father, but I cannot shake off the equally sincere reverence that I feel for a good friend; and I must be allowed to tell some married ladies – what Society ought to tell them a little oftener – that there are other affections in this world which are noble and honourable besides those of conjugal and parental origin. It may be an assertion of a very shocking and unexpected kind, but I must nevertheless be excused for saying that some of the best wives and mothers in the land have given the heartache to some of the best friends. While they have been behaving like patterns of conjugal propriety, they have been estranging men who would once have gone to the world’s end to serve each other. I, as a single man, can say nothing of the dreadful wrench – not the less dreadful because it is inevitable – when a father and mother lose a daughter, in order that a lover may gain a wife. But I can speak feelingly of the shock of losing a dear friend, in order that a bride may gain a devoted husband. Nothing shall ever persuade me (possibly because I am not married) that there is not a flaw of some sort in the love for a wife which is made complete, in some people’s eyes, by forced contributions from the love which belongs to a friend. I know that a man and woman who make a happy marriage have gained the summit of earthly felicity; but do they never reach that enviable eminence without having trampled underfoot something venerable, or something tender, by the way?

Bear with me, indignant wives, if I recall the long-past time when one of the handsomest women I ever saw took my dearest friend away from me, and destroyed, in one short day, the whole pleasant edifice that we two had been building up together since we were boys at school.

I shall never be as fond of any human being again as I was of that one friend; and, until the beautiful woman came between us, I believe there was nothing in this world that he would not have sacrificed and have done for me. Even while he was courting, I kept my hold on him. Against opposition on the part of his bride and her family, he stipulated that I should be his best man on the wedding-day. The beautiful woman grudged me my one small corner in his heart, even at that time; but he was true to me – he persisted – and I was the first to shake hands with him when he was a married man. I had no suspicion then that I was to lose him from that moment. I only discovered the truth when I went to pay my first visit to the bride and bridegroom at their abode in the country. I found a beautiful house, exquisitely kept from top to bottom; I found a hearty welcome; I found a good dinner and an airy bedroom; I found a pattern husband and a pattern wife; the one thing I did not find was my old friend. Something stood up in his clothes, shook hands with me, pressed wine on me, called me by my Christian name, and inquired what I was doing in my profession. It was certainly something that had a trick of looking like my former comrade and brother; something that nobody in my situation could have complained of with the smallest reason; something with all the brightness of the old metal about it, but without the sterling old ring; something, in short, which made me instinctively take my chamber-candle-stick early on the first night of my arrival, and say good-night while the beautiful woman and pattern wife was present to keep her eye on me.

Can I ever forget the language of that eye on that occasion! – the volumes it spoke in one glance of cruel triumph! “No more sacred secrets between you two,” it said, brightly. “When you trust him now, you must trust me. You may sacrifice yourself for your love of him over and over again still, but he shall make no sacrifices now for you, until he has first found out how they affect my convenience and my pleasure. Your place in his heart now is where I choose it to be. I have stormed the citadel, and I will bring children by-and-by to keep the ramparts; and you, the faithful old soldier of former years – you have got your discharge, and may sit and sun yourself as well as you can at the outer gates. You have been his truest friend, but he has another now, and need trouble you no longer, except in the capacity of witness of his happiness. This, you will observe, is in the order of nature, and in the recognised fitness of things; and he hopes you will see it – and so do I. And he trusts you will sleep well under his (and my) new roof – and so do I. And he wishes you good-night – and so do I!”

Many, many years have passed since I first learned these hard truths; but I can never forget the pang that it cost me to get them by heart at a moment’s notice. My old friend lives still – that is to say, I have an intimate acquaintance who asks me to all his dinners, and who made me godfather to one of his children; but the brother of my love, who died to me on the day when I paid him the marriage visit, has never come back to life since that time. On the altar at which we two once sacrificed, the ashes lie cold. A model husband and father has risen from them, and that result is, I suppose, the only one that any third person has a right to expect. It may be so; but, to this day, I cannot help thinking that the beautiful woman would have done better if she could have made a fond husband, without at the same time marring a good friend.

Readers will, I am afraid, not be wanting who will be inclined to tell me that the lady to whom I have been referring only asserted the fair privilege that was hers by right of marriage, and that my sense of injury springs from the touchy selfishness of an old bachelor. Without attempting to defend myself, I may at least be allowed to inquire into the lady’s motive for using her privilege – or, in plainer terms, for altering the relations in which my friend and I had stood toward one another since boyhood.

Her idea I presume to have been that, if I preserved my old footing with her husband, I should be taking away some part of his affection that belonged to her. According to my idea of it, she was taking away something which had belonged to me, and which no effort on her part could afterward convert to her own use. It is hard to make some women understand that a husband’s heart – let him be ever so devoted and affectionate – has vacant places in it which they can never hope to fill. It is a house in which they and their children, naturally and properly, occupy all the largest apartments and supply all the prettiest furniture; but there are spare rooms which they cannot enter, which are reserved all through the lease of life for inevitable guests of some sort from the world outside. It is better to let in the old friend than some of the substituted visitors, who are sure, sooner or later, to enter where there are rooms ready for them, by means of pass-keys obtained without the permission of the permanent tenants. Am I wrong in making such assertions as these? I should be willing enough to think it probable – being only a bachelor – if my views were based on mere theory. But my opinions, such as they are, have been formed with the help of proofs and facts. I have met with bright examples of wives who have strengthened their husbands’ friendships as they never could have been strengthened except under the influence of a woman’s care, employed in the truest, the tenderest, the most delicate way. I have seen men rescued from the bad habits of half a lifetime by the luck of keeping faithful friends who were the husbands of sensible wives. It is a very trite and true remark that the deadliest enmities between men have been occasioned by women. It is not less certain – though it is a far less widely-accepted truth – that some (I wish I could say many) of the strongest friendships have been knit most closely by women’s helping hands.

The real fact seems to be, that the general idea of the scope and purpose of the Institution of Marriage is a miserably narrow one. The same senseless prejudice which leads some people, when driven to extremes, to the practical confession (though it may not be made in plain words), that they would rather see murder committed under their own eyes than approve of any project for obtaining a law of divorce which shall be equal in its operation on husbands and wives of all ranks who cannot live together, is answerable also for the mischievous error in principle of narrowing the practice of the social virtues, in married people, to themselves and their children. A man loves his wife – which is, in other words, loving himself – and loves his offspring, which is equivalent to saying that he has the natural instincts of humanity; and, when he has gone thus far, he has asserted himself as a model of all the virtues of life, in the estimation of some people. In my estimation, he has only begun with the best virtues, and has others yet to practice before he can approach to the standard of a socially complete man. Can there be a lower idea of Marriage than the idea which makes it, in fact, an institution for the development of selfishness on a large and respectable scale? If I am not justified in using the word selfishness, tell me what character a good husband presents (viewed plainly as a man) when he goes out into the world, leaving all his sympathies in his wife’s boudoir, and all his affections upstairs in the nursery, and giving to his friends such shreds and patches of formal recognition, in place of true love and regard, as consist in asking them to an occasional dinner-party, and granting them the privilege of presenting his children with silver mugs? He is a model of a husband, the ladies will say. I dare not contradict them; but I should like to know whether he is also a model of a friend?

No. Bachelor as I am, I have a higher idea of Marriage than this. The social advantages which it is fitted to produce ought to extend beyond one man and one woman, to the circle of society amid which they move. The light of its beauty must not be shut up within the four walls which enclose the parents and the family, but must flow out into the world, and shine upon the childless and the solitary, because it has warmth enough and to spare, and because it may make them, even in their way, happy too. I began these few lines by asking sympathy and attention for the interest which a man’s true friends have, when he marries, in his choosing a wife who will let them be friends still, who will even help them to mingling in closer brotherhood, if help they need. I lay down the pen, suggesting to some ladies – affectionately suggesting, if they will let me use the word, after some of the bold things I have said – that it is in their power to deprive the bachelor of the sole claim he has left to social recognition and pre-eminence, by making married men what many of them are, and what more might be – the best and truest friends that are to be found in the world.

Household Words 13 Dec 1856

WILKIE SPEAKS OUT

OPINIONS AND OBSERVATIONS
IN
“HOUSEHOLD WORDS”

Compiled by book producer ECM

CONTENTS

A Shy Scheme
Awful Warning to Bachelors
Highly Proper!
Strike!
Sea-Breezes with the London Smack
A Clause for the New Reform Bill
Pity a Poor Prince
The Debtor’s Best Friend
A Breach of British Privilege
The National Gallery and the Old Masters
Dramatic Author
Thanks to Doctor Livingstone
Burns–Viewed as a Hat-Peg
Chip – A Column to Burns
Deep Design on Society
A Sermon for Sepoys
A Fair Penitent
The Little Huguenot
The Cruise of the Tomtit

A SHY SCHEME

I am a shy young man, with a limited income. My residence is in the country – my hair is light – my cheeks are rosy – my stature is small – my manners are mild – my name is Koddle.

How it is that professed literary gentlemen contrive to slide as smoothly as they do, out of one topic and into another, without the slightest appearance of any accompanying jerk, is a mystery to me. I want to tack on to the information imparted in my first paragraph, two additional facts: first, that I am anxious to be settled in life; secondly, that I have my eye on a young woman. But there seems, somehow, to be a disrespectful abruptness in mentioning the object of my attachment in that way. It is as if I dragged her into this page by the neck and shoulders, instead of appearing serenely before the public gaze, with my charmer escorted on my arm. Her residence is in the country – her hair is light – her cheeks are rosy – her stature is small – her manners are mild. Except that she has no income at all, and that her name is not Koddle, my young woman is wonderfully like me in everything, extreme shyness included. Under these circumstances, it is perhaps remarkable that I should be so fond of her as I am. I can’t account for that. But I can smooth away another little difficulty; I can explain how it is that I have not yet imparted the state of my affections. I don’t know how.

“Please, Miss, will you marry me?” Too abrupt. “My other self! plunge your hand into my bosom, extract the throbbing principle within, observe whether it adores you or not, and if appearances are satisfactory, keep it for ever.” Pretty, but, perhaps, at the same time incomprehensible to a practical young woman of the present day. Ogling? Will ogling alone do it? Possibly; but I have not the right kind of eyes for that exercise. My organs of ogling are too light in colour, too small in size, and too stiff in their action for the purpose. Perpetual sighing? She might mistake my intentions, and fancy that I was only endeavouring to express to her a wretched state of health. A sudden dart at her in her father’s presence, and an affectionate clasping of her round the waist, under her father’s astonished eyes? Could that excellent gentleman be depended on to start from his chair, and say, “Scoundrel, what are your intentions?” – and could I make sure of having presence of mind enough to drop on my knees and reply instantly, “Dear sir, they are strictly honourable”? I fear not; it takes so much to get some parents out of their chairs, and so little to upset a lover, like me. Shall I write to her father? Then there is the dreadful embarrassment of the first meeting with her afterwards. Shall I write to the charmer herself? The same embarrassment still lies in wait for me. I can’t express it in words, or looks, or sighs, or sudden embraces, or epistolary correspondence. What am I to do? Again the humiliating confession escapes me; again I answer – I don’t know.

This is a serious, and, as I am inclined to think, even a sad state of things. Here is my future depending on my doing some thing – and I can’t do it. Even if I could find the courage to make the offer, I should not feel certain of discovering, at the same time, the right words in which to express it. In this matter such awful interests depend upon such shocking trifles. I know a heart-rending case in point. A friend of mine, almost as shy as I am myself, armed himself with the resolution which I do not possess, watched his opportunity, and started with his offer of marriage to the object of his affection. It was in the winter time, and he had a cold. He advanced about six words into the preparatory sentence; the lady was listening with modest, yet encouraging, attention – he got to the seventh word, and felt a sudden titillation in the upper part of his nose – he pronounced the eighth word, and burst irrepressibly into a shrill, raging, screaming Sneeze! The lady (who can blame her?) after a noble effort to preserve her self-control, fell back in the chair in convulsions of laughter. An offer is an essentially serious thing; who could proceed with it under those circumstances? Not my friend, at any rate. He tried to begin again, two or three days afterwards. At his first look of unutterable love, at his first approach to the tender topic, he saw the lady’s face get red, and the lady’s lips desperately compress themselves. The horrid explosion of the sneeze was firing itself off again in her memory – she was shaking all over with suppressed laughter. He tried a third time; the same result followed: and then he gave it up. They have not met since; they never will meet. They were made for each other by nature; they were sweetly and suitably matched in age, fortune, social position, and mutual tastes. And what has rudely torn them asunder for ever? – a Sneeze! I write this with the tears in my eyes, and do not envy the feelings of any man or woman who can laugh at it.

To return to my own case. It is very hard, I think, that no provision is made for bashful men like me, who want to declare the state of their affections, who are not accustomed to female society, and who are habitually startled and confused, even on ordinary occasions, whenever they hear the sound of their own voices. There are people ready to assist us in every other emergency of our lives; but in the greatest difficulty of all, we are inhumanly left to help ourselves. There have been one or two rare occasions, on which one or two unparalleled women have nobly stepped forward and relieved us of our humiliating position as speechless suitors, by taking all the embarrassment of making the offer on their own shoulders. I know an instance of this, and I feel bound to relate it, as a soothing and cheerful contrast to the harrowing anecdote which I have just told. Our curate where I live, has been all his life a martyr to shyness; and, but for the admirably decided conduct of his wife under trying circumstances, I happen to know that he would never have been the father of the ten sweet children who now enliven and adorn his existence. He was just in my miserable position, when he was kindly invited to tea (and muffins) one evening, by his charmer’s agreeable mother. At the head of the table sat this estimable woman, in a new cap. At the foot of the table, sat her accomplished daughter, in a new gown. Between them sat my friend the curate, looking in speechless confusion at a plate of muffins placed exactly opposite to him. No other visitor marred the harmony of the domestic scene. They had a cup of tea all round, and a plate of muffins – and my friend never spoke. They had a second cup of tea, stronger than the first, and a second plate of muffins more richly buttered. Even this encouragement failed to loosen the curate’s tongue. At the third cup, and pending the arrival of the third plate of muffins, the expressive eyes of the daughter rested significantly on the countenance of her maternal parent. “Mamma,” she said, with a kind of silvery calmness. “Mamma, shall I have him?” “My dear,” replied the indulgent lady, “Have I ever thwarted you in any of your little caprices? Please yourself, love; please yourself.” The third plate of muffins came in. It was set down in solemn silence.

The mother took a bit encouragingly; the curate took a bit confusedly; the daughter took a bit meditatively. “I think,” she said after a moment of charming reverie, “I think, Mamma, I will have him.” She turned and looked critically at the curate; waited till he had, with great difficulty, disposed of a mouthful of muffin; and then held out her hand, with fascinating frankness. “There!” she said, “don’t let us make a fuss about it. There is my hand!” Six weeks afterwards he was married, and has been the happiest man in existence ever since.

Such a case as this is, unfortunately, an exceptional one. It has been most hastily and most unwarrantably established as a social principle, that all men are audacious and enterprising in their love affairs, because they are men; and on these manifestly false grounds, the conclusion has been adopted that it is invariably the business of the man to make the offer. Dear, dear me! are we all Don Juans? Is there no such being in existence as a bashful man? On the other hand, are all young women naturally struck speechless with confusion at the mention of marriage? Do they all fall into such convulsions of modesty at the first prospect of assuming bridal responsibilities, as really to lose the admirable self-possession which is one of the most charming attributes of the sex in every other circumstance of life? My own observation of the appearance and behaviour of brides and bridegrooms, under the trying ordeal of the wedding-day, inclines me to believe that the loss of self-possession is almost invariably on the man’s side. It is my firm opinion (supposing my mind to be robust enough to support a firm opinion about anything) that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the offer of marriage would be much more quickly, sensibly, and irresistibly made if it came from the lady instead of the gentleman; and I would respectfully invite any man who disagrees with me to compare the behaviour of the bride with the behaviour of the bridegroom the next time he goes to a wedding. The wisdom of the ancients seems to have sanctioned some such salutary change of custom as that which I propose, at the period of Leap-year. But the practice has fallen into disuse; and the modest men of the community have suffered unspeakably in consequence.

If I only had the courage, I would suggest to some of those public-spirited ladies who are so nobly trying to take away from the men everything they have got, and to give it all to the women, that they might make out a very strong case against the male population, if they accused my grasping sex of monopolising the right of making offers. The first offer in the world was made, in that matter of the apple, by Eve, who was not bashful, to Adam, who was. Why have Eve’s daughters (I would ask, if I were one of the public-spirited ladies) allowed the privilege exercised by their first mother to slip through their fingers in this disgraceful manner? What is the use of talking of the equality of the sexes as long as one sex perpetually exercises the right of putting the question, and leaves to the other sex only the inferior and secondary privilege of giving the answer? Let it be understood, for the future, that the men are to take their turn of waiting until they are spoken to. Let every other year be considered, for matrimonial purposes, a Leap Year, and give the unhappy bashful bachelor a good twelvemonth’s chance of getting an offer. It may be objected, I know, that, even in the event of this wholesome reform in our manners being carried out, I could scarcely hope to be personally a gainer by it, seeing that my young woman is, according to my own confession, as retiring in her habits as I am myself. I can only answer to this, that I have noticed, on the few occasions when I have had opportunities of exercising my observation, a great difference to exist between the shyness of a woman and the shyness of a man. To refer to my own case, I have remarked that my charmer’s shyness differs from mine in being manageable, graceful, and, more than that, in being capable of suppressing itself and of assuming a disguise of the most amazing coolness and self-possession on certain trying occasions. I have heard the object of my affections condemned by ignorant strangers as a young woman of unpleasantly audacious manners, at the very time when my intimate familiarity with her character assured me that she was secretly suffering all the miseries of extreme confusion and self-distrust. Whenever I see her make up a bold face, by drawing her hair off her forehead, and showing the lovely roots all round; whenever I hear her talking with extraordinary perseverance, and laughing with extraordinary readiness; whenever I. see her gown particularly large in pattern, and her ribbands dazzlingly bright in colour – then, I feel certain that she is privately quaking with all the most indescribable and most unreasonable terrors of shyness. Knowing this, I should not be at all apprehensive of a long period of silence elapsing, if a reform in our social laws authorised my charmer to help me out by making my offer for me. She would do it, I know, with an appearance of extraordinary indifference and gaiety – with her utmost fluency of utterance, with her most mellifluously easy laughter – in her gown of the largest pattern, in her ribbands of the fiercest brightness with her poor heart thumping the whole time as if it would burst, and with every nerve in her body trembling all over from head to foot. My experience has not been a large one – but that is my humble idea of the real nature of a woman’s shyness.

However, it is useless to speculate on what might happen if the oppressive laws of courtship were relaxed – for no such welcome event is likely to take place. It will be more to the purpose, perhaps, if I venture on introducing a little practical suggestion of my own, which struck me while I was meditating on my unhappy position, which involves no sweeping change in the manners and customs of the age, and which, so far as I know, has never made its appearance in print before.

I am informed, by persons of experience in the world of letters (about which I myself know nothing), that the ladies of the present century have burst into every department of literature, have carried off the accumulated raw material from under the men’s noses, and have manufactured it to an enormous and unheard-of extent for the public benefit. I am told that out of every twelve poems or novels that are written, nine at least are by ladies; that they write histories, in six or eight volumes, with great ease and satisfaction to themselves, while the men can only compass the same achievements with extreme difficulty, in one or two volumes; and that they are perpetually producing books of Travel, which are all about themselves and their own sensations, without the slavish fear of that possible imputation of self-conceit, which so often lurks in the more timid bosom of man. I am particularly rejoiced to hear of this, because my suggestion involves nothing less than the writing of one gigantic book by all the ladies of Great Britain put together. What I propose is a Hand Book of Courtship, written by all British Wives, and edited, with notes, by all British Daughters.

The magnitude of my own idea absolutely takes away my breath – and yet, the execution of it is so unimaginably easy that the Hand Book might be ready for publication in six months’ time. I propose that every Married Lady in the country shall write down the exact words (for surely her affectionate heart must remember them?) which her husband used when he made his offer to her; and that she shall then add to the interesting report of the offer, illustrative particulars of the circumstances under which it was made, and of the accompanying actions (if any) by which the speaker emphasised the all-important words as they fell from his lips. I would have the Returns, thus prepared, collected as the Income Tax Papers are, with the most extreme care and the most honourable secrecy. They should be afterwards shuffled together in baskets, and distributed, one by one, just as they happened to turn up, among the Unmarried Ladies of the country, with the following brief formula of two questions attached; First. Would the form of offer presented herewith, have proved to be a satisfactory one, in your case? And, if not, will you state in what particulars you think it might be improved? Second. Would the accompanying actions by which the offer was pressed on the kind attention of the individual addressed, have specially inclined you to favour it with a suitable reply? And, if not, what improvements, in the way of addition or suppression, would you be disposed, in the strictest confidence, to suggest? When the necessary answers to these questions had been given, I would have the Papers again collected, on the same Income Tax principle; and would immediately set the printers at work. The Married Ladies’ Returns should form the text, and the Unmarried Ladies’ Returns should be added in the form of notes. No names or addresses should appear anywhere. The book should be bound in virgin white, with orange-flower decorations on the back. It should be printed in rose-coloured ink, and it should be issued to the world from a publishing-house established for the purpose in Doctors’ Commons.

What an inestimable bachelor’s Manual this would be! What a circulation it would have among all classes! What a delightful sense of confidence it would awaken in the mind of the diffident male reader! How could any man go wrong, with the Hand Book to refer to, before he committed him self to a positive course of action? If I had such a book within my reach at this moment, I might look out, and learn, the form of offer which I felt to be most suitable in my own case; might discover and correct its little human imperfections, by reference to the critical notes appended to it; and might become a happy accepted man (if I could depend upon my memory) by tomorrow at latest. How many other men might enjoy the same benefit, if the practical results of the experience of others were thus placed at their disposal – how many extra marriages might be solemnised in the course of the first year after the publication of the Hand Book – I cannot presume to say. I can only point to the serious necessity that there is for bringing out the great work that I have proposed – I can only implore the ladies to undertake it, in consideration of the literary honour and glory which it would confer upon the whole sex.

In the meantime, here I am, shyly hovering round my fate, and helplessly ignorant how to rush in and close with it, at once and for ever. If I could feel sure that the Bachelor’s Manual was likely to be soon produced, I might, perhaps, manage to wait for it. But, in the absence of any positive information on this subject, I feel that I must make up my mind to do something desperate immediately. A spoken explanation of my feelings – unless I could manage to catch my young woman in the dark – being, in my case, manifestly out of the question, I suppose I must bashfully resign myself, after all, to the alternative of writing. In the event of my mustering courage enough to compose the letter, and to send it off when done, the question is, How had I better behave myself, when the inevitable embarrassment of the first meeting with her comes afterwards? Shall I begin with words, or begin with actions? Or, to be plainer still, which shall I address first, her waist or her mind? Will any charitable married lady kindly consider my especial weakness of disposition, and send me privately one word of advice as to which of these two delicate alternatives it will be safest for me to adopt?

Household Words 20 Mar 1858

AWFUL WARNING
TO BACHELORS

In the last week’s number of this journal (to which I have grave objections, but which I read regularly for the purpose of exercising my critical ability as a finder of faults), there appeared an extremely absurd confession of weakness, called, “A Shy Scheme.” The writer of the confession, not satisfied with exposing himself to public contempt, in the character of a Shy Young Man, was so obliging as to enter into details on the subject of his manners, his place of residence, and his personal appearance. I am about to give this feeble visionary a word of advice, and I am not at all afraid of being quite as particular as he has been, in describing myself at the outset. If my memory serves me, the Shy Young Man informed us all that his residence was in the country, that his hair was light, that his cheeks were rosy, that his stature was small, that his manners were mild, and that his name was Koddle. In reply, I have no hesitation in avowing that my residence is in London, that my hair is dark, that my cheeks are swarthy, that my stature is gigantic, that my manners are surly, and that my name is Grump. I have further to add, in opposition to the Shy Young Man, that I have the strongest possible antipathy to being settled in life; and that, if I thought either of my eyes were capable of fixing itself on a young woman, I would shut that eye up, by an effort of will, henceforth and for ever. I don’t say this is good writing; but I call it straightforward common sense. If any man is bold enough to contradict me, I should like to meet him outside the office of this journal, at an hour of the morning when the street is tolerably empty, and the policeman happens to be at the opposite extremity of his beat.

How do I propose to enlighten and fortify the Shy Young Man? I intend to teach him the results of my own experience. If he has one grain of sense in his whole composition, he may profit by the lesson, and may step out of the absurd situation in which he has now placed himself. I have not the slightest feeling of friendship for this imbecile person. It is merely a little whim of mine to try if I cannot separate him from his young woman. I see his young woman in my mind’s eye, even from his miserable description of her. Complexion of the colour of cold boiled veal, white eyelashes, watery eyes, red hands with black mittens on them, raw elbows, sickly smile, – form plump and shapeless, – kicks her gown when she walks, – stiff in the backbone when she sits down, and embarrassed by her own legs when she gets up. I know the sort of girl, and I detest her. If I can make her sweetheart look at her with my unprejudiced eyes, I shall have accomplished my object to my own entire satisfaction. This is, perhaps, not a gallant way of expressing myself. Never mind that. There is plenty of gallant writing at the present time, for those who want to be flattered. Let the women take a little rudeness now, by way of a change.

Would anybody think that I was once a lady’s man? I was, – and, what is more, I was once in love, was once anxious to be settled in life, was once on the point of making an offer. I had settled how to do it, when to do it, where to do it. Not the slightest doubt of success crossed my mind. I believed then, as I believe now, that any man may win any woman, at any time, and under any circumstances. If I had been rejected the first time, I would have proposed again. If I had been rejected a second time, I would have proposed again. If I had been rejected a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth time, I would have proposed again and again and again and again, – and I should have ended by carrying my point. I knew that, and yet, at the eleventh hour, I shrank from making my offer. What altered my resolution? A book. Yes, that very Bachelor’s Manual, which the Shy Young Man is so anxious to lay his hand on, was the awful warning that stopped me, in the nick of time, from the insanity of investing myself in a matrimonial speculation. I tell Mr. Koddle that the sort of book he wants has been in existence for years; and I ask his best attention to a narrative of the effect which that publication had upon my mind, when I was young enough and weak enough to allow myself to fall in love.

It was on a Monday morning that I first said to myself (while shaving), “I’ll make that woman promise to marry me on Wednesday next, at from half-past one to a quarter to two p.m.” Later in the day, a friend came to see me. He remarked the more than usual radiant and agreeable expression of my countenance.

“You look as if you were going out courting” said he.

“I think of putting my foot in it, for the first time, on Wednesday next,” said I.

“Would you object to my making you a little present?” said he.

“No, I shouldn’t,” said I.

He took his leave. An hour afterwards, a very small, very thin, very square, parcel arrived for me. I opened it, and found a book inside, called The Etiquette of Courtship and Matrimony. I read the book on the spot. The effect of it was, first, to fill me with feelings of the deepest gratitude towards the friend who had sent it to me as a joke; and, secondly, to inspire me with such a horror of Courtship and Matrimony, that I instantly gave up all idea of making my proposed offer, and resolved to consult my own convenience, by preserving a bachelor’s freedom to the end of my days.

To state the proposition, generally, at the outset, I assert that the whole end and object of the Etiquette of Courtship and Matrimony is to insult, persecute, and degrade the bridegroom. I first became satisfied of this disgraceful fact at page thirty-six of the Hand Book or Manual. In the earlier part of the volume it was assumed that I had fallen in love, had made my offer, and had been accepted by my young woman and her family. Etiquette is hard on my heels all through those preliminary processes, and finally runs me down as soon as I appear in the character of an engaged man. My behaviour in my future wife’s company is of the last importance – and there Etiquette has me, and never lets me go again. “In private,” says the Manual, “the slightest approach to familiarity must be avoided, as it will always be resented by a woman who deserves to be a wife.” So! I may be brimming over with affection – I may even have put on a soft waistcoat expressly for the purpose – but I am never to clasp my future wife with rapture to my bosom – I am never to print upon her soft cheek a momentary impression of the pattern of my upper shirt-stud! She is to keep me at arm’s length, in private as well as in public – and I am actually expected to believe, all the time, that she is devotedly attached to me! First insult.

A little further on (page thirty-eight) the family have their fling at me. I “must not presume to take my stand, thus prematurely, as a member of the family, nor affect that exceeding intimacy which leads,” et cetera. Thus, the father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, all keep me at arm’s length as well as the bride. Second insult.

First persecution. During my engagement, I am to be “very particular, and even punctilious in my dress. My visits, which, for the most part, we may presume will occur in the evening, should be made invariably in evening dress.” Indeed? I have been at my office all day – I have dined at my lonely chop-house. I fly, at the risk of indigestion, with my “follow-chop” and my love contending for the uppermost place in my bosom, to the door of my charmer. I suddenly stop with my hand on the knocker, remember that I have a pair of grey trousers on, and turn away again to case my legs in black kerseymere, to change my coloured shirt, to make pomatum pills and rub them into my hair, to put fresh scent on my handkerchief and a flower in my dress-coat, to send for a cab, and to drive up, at last, to my young woman’s door, as if she had asked me to a party. When I get in, does she slip into the back dining-room and privately reward me for my black kerseymere, my pomatum pills, and my scented handkerchief? Not she! She receives me, in the drawing-room, at arm’s length; and her family receive me at arm’s length, also. And what does Etiquette expect of me, under those circumstances, for the rest of the evening? Here it is at page forty-three. I “must never be out of spirits but when my fair one is sad – never animated but when she is cheerful; her slightest wish must be my law, her most trifling fancy the guiding-star of my conduct. In coming to her, I must show no appreciation of time, distance, or fatigue” – By Jupiter! if this does not disclose the existence of an organised plan for the harassing of bridegrooms, I should like to know what does? I put it to the women themselves: Are you any of you really worth all that? You know you’re not! What would you privately think of a man who was afraid to come and see you of an evening in grey trousers, and who tried to conceal from you that his poor corns ached a little after a long walk? You would privately think him a fool. And so do I, publicly.

Second persecution – in case the wretched bridegroom has survived the first. As the wedding-day approaches, I “must come out of the bright halo of my happiness” (happiness!) “into the cold, grey, actual daylight of the world of business.” I must “burn all my bachelor letters” – (why I should like to know?) “and part with, it may be, some few of my bachelor connections” – (does this mean “some few” of my relations, my blood relations who adore the very ground I tread on?) and I must, finally, “bid a long farewell to all bachelor friends!” Did you say all? O, hell-kite!-all? Yes, there it is in print, at page sixty-two. My affectionate tendencies, my grey trousers, my comfortable shooting jacket, my appreciation of time, distance, or fatigue, my bachelor letters, my few connections, my bachelor friends – all must disappear before this devouring Moloch in petticoats. Nothing is left me – nothing but my evening costume and the prospect of being married!

After the insults and persecutions, minor troubles envelope me previous to the commencement of the wedding-day degradations. All the responsibility of getting Moloch’s wedding-ring is thrown on me. It must not be too thin, or Moloch, in course of years, will wear it out; it must not be too large, or Moloch’s finger will let it drop off. If I am self-distrustful (and how can I be otherwise, after the severe discipline to which I have submitted during the courtship?), I must get at Moloch’s size through the intervention of Moloch’s sister; and when I have purchased the ring, I must be very careful to keep it in the left-hand corner of my right-hand waistcoat-pocket, to be ready at a moment’s notice for the clerk when he asks me for it. Having grappled with all these difficulties, my next piece of work is to get my bridegroomsmen. I must be very particular in selecting them. They must be limited in number to the number of the bridesmaids, one for each. They must be young and unmarried, they should be handsome, they cannot fail to be good-humoured, they ought to be well dressed, their apparel should be light and elegant, they should wear dress coats. The bride sends white gloves, wrapped in white paper and tied with white ribbon, to each of the bridesmaids; and I must do the same to each of the bridegroomsmen. My own costume is to be “a blue coat, light grey trousers, white satin or silk waistcoat, ornamental tie, and white (not primrose-coloured) gloves.” Pleasant! Having insulted and persecuted me all through the courtship, Etiquette, on my wedding morning, strips me even of my evening costume, clothes me in an ornamental tie and a white satin waistcoat, and produces me maliciously before the public eye in the Character of an outrageous snob.

We now come to the Bridegroom’s First Degradation. It is the morning of the marriage; and the wedding-party is setting out for the church. Here is Etiquette’s order of the carriages:

In the first carriage, the principal bridesmaid and bridegroomsman.

In the second carriage, the second bridesmaid and the bridegroom’s mother.

Other carriages, with bridesmaids and friends, the carriages of the bridesmaids taking precedence.

In the last carriage the bride and her father.

Where is the Bridegroom in the programme? Nowhere. Not even a hackney cab provided for him! How does he get to church? Does he run, in his ornamental tie and white satin waistcoat, behind one of the carriages? Or has he a seat on the box? Or does he walk, accompanied by two policemen, to prevent him from taking the only sensible course left, – in other words, from running away? We hear nothing of him till it is time for him to undergo his Second Degradation; and then we find him waiting in the vestry, “where he must take care to have arrived some time previously to the hour appointed.” Observe the artfulness with which this second degradation is managed! If the bridegroom only arrived at the church door five minutes before the appointed hour, he would appear in the estimable character of a rigidly punctual man, who knew the value of time (especially when you have an ornamental tie, and a white satin waistcoat to put on), and who was determined not to waste the precious moments on his wedding-morning. But Etiquette insists on making a contemptible fool of him all through. The beadle, the clerk, the pew-opener, and the general public must all see him “kicking his heels” to no earthly purpose, some time before the hour when he, and the beadle, and the clerk, and the pew-opener all know that he is wanted. Consider the bride dashing up to the church-door with her train of carriages; then, look at the forlorn snob in light grey trousers, humbled by insult and wasted by persecution, who has been dancing attendance “some time previously to the hour appointed,” in a lonely vestry; and then say if Etiquette does not punish the lords of creation severely for the offence of getting married!

But the offence is committed – the marriage has been perpetrated – the wedding-party returns to breakfast; the bridegroom, this time, having a place in the first carriage, because the Law has made a man of him at last, in spite of the bride and her family. But the persecutions are not over yet. They assume a small, spiteful, social character, in terror of the aforesaid Law. The breakfast is eaten. Drink, the last refuge of the wretched, partially revives the unhappy man who has been kicking his heels in the vestry. He begins to lose the galling sense of his white satin waistcoat; he forgets that he is personally disfigured for the occasion by an ornamental tie. At that first moment of comfort, vindictive Etiquette goads him onto his legs, and insists, no matter whether he can do it or not, on his making a speech. He has hardly had time to breakdown, and resume his chair before Etiquette sends the bride out of the room to put on her travelling dress. The door has hardly closed on her, when a fiend (assuming the form of a bachelor friend) attacks him with “a short address” (see page seventy-nine), to which he is “expected to respond.” Give him time to show his light grey trousers once more to the company, above the horizon of the tablecloth – give him time to break down again – and the bride re-appears, ready for the journey. This is the last chance the family have, for some time to come, of making the bridegroom uncomfortable; and Etiquette shows them how to take the meanest possible advantage of it:

•   •   •

“The young bride, divested of her bridal attire, and quietly costumed for the journey, now bids farewell to her bridesmaids and lady friends. Some natural tears spring to her gentle eyes as she takes a last look at the home she is now leaving. The servants venture to crowd to her with their humble though heartfelt congratulations; and, finally, melting, she falls weeping on her mother’s bosom. A short cough is heard, as of some one summoning up resolution. It is her father. He dare not trust his voice; but holds out his hand, gives her one kiss, and then leads her, half turning back, down the stairs and through the hall, to the door, where he delivers her to her husband; who hands her’ quickly to the carriage, leaps in lightly after her, waves his hand to the party, who appear crowding to the windows, half smiles to the throng about the door, then gives the word, and they are off, and started on the voyage of life!”

•   •   •

There are some parts of this final programme of persecution to which I have no objection. I rather like the idea of the father being obliged to express parental grief by the same means which he would employ to express bronchitis – a short cough. I am also gratified to find that Etiquette involves him in the serious gymnastic difficulty of taking his daughter downstairs, and of “half turning back” at the same time. But here all sentiments of approval, on my part, end. From the foregoing passage I draw the inference – as every one else must – that the bridegroom is kept waiting at the street-door for the bride, just as a begging-letter impostor is kept waiting at the street-door for an answer. And, when she does come down, what does the triply degraded man find to reward him for waiting? Part of a woman only; the rest having melted on the mother’s bosom. Part of a woman, I say again, with a red nose, and cheeks bedabbled with tears. And what am I, the bridegroom, expected to do under these circumstances? To hand what the mother’s bosom and the father’s short cough have left me, “quickly into the carriage,” and to “leap in lightly” after it. Lightly? After what I have gone through, there must be a considerable spring in my light grey trousers to enable me to do that.

I pursue the subject no further. The new Divorce Court occupies the ground beyond me; and I make it a rule never to interfere with the vested interests of others. I have followed a Man, by the lurid light of Etiquette, from his Courtship to his Marriage; and there I leave him with emotions of sympathy for which the English language affords me no adequate means of expression. I defy British families (being a bachelor, I am not the least afraid of them) to point out in any other mortal affair which a man can go through, such an existing system of social persecution against the individual as that which is attached to the business of courting and marrying when a man undertakes it in this country. There is the book with the code of inhuman laws against the unoffending bridegroom, for every one to refer to. Let the Shy Young Man get it, and properly test my accuracy of quotation; and then let him say whether he is still prepared to keep his eye on his young woman, after he knows the penalties which attach to letting it rove in that dangerous direction. No such Awful Warning to Bachelors has been published in my time as the small volume on the Etiquette of Courtship and Matrimony, which I now close with a shudder henceforth and for ever.

Household Words 27 Mar 1858

HIGHLY PROPER!

It is often remarked by our neighbours on the Continent, and it is seldom denied among ourselves, that we are a nation of grumblers. Grumbling letters to the editor, for example, and grumbling articles in support of those letters, form two of the characteristics which are peculiar to English newspapers. Grumbling speeches, again, in virtue of their steady burden of complaint, secure a favourable reception for those patriots at our public meetings who have no oratorical recommendations of any sort to give them a personal claim on the attention of an audience. And a grumbling conversation is well known to everybody as the safe neutral ground on which two Englishmen, strangers to each other, can generally contrive to meet with the completest sense of ease and comfort. Unquestionably we are a race of grumblers; and grumbling is one of the very few national defects which we happen to be clever enough to discover for ourselves.

To do us justice, however, there are some few subjects of public importance to the discussion of which we are always ready to apply ourselves in a spirit of the most unquestioning contentment and approval. The great and general improvement in the condition of society; in its principles and practice; in its stores of knowledge, its habits, manners, and modes of thinking, is one of these subjects. There is hardly any public means of loudly congratulating ourselves on our own progress which we have not tried; and it may fairly be added, that our exultation in this matter is not without its solid foundation on reason and on truth. We have, in many most important respects, advanced resolutely, industriously, and honourably from a state of past darkness to a state of present light. No thoughtful man can look back, even through no longer a period than the last fifty years, without thankfully acknowledging that the English nation has been, up to this moment, both politically and socially, a notable gainer.

But, while we freely assert our right to take some credit to ourselves for the progress that we have indisputably made, we must by no means be disposed to deny that many – far too many – more victories still remain to be won over the barbarous forces led by those three rampant commanders, General Ignorance, General Prejudice, and General Folly. Probably, the most dangerous national fault, of the moral sort, which we can now commit is to look too complacently at what we have done, and thereby to fall into the error of forgetting too readily all that we have still left to do. Strong as it has become, the new life of the nation, in this age, is still beset by base infirmities and lamentable weaknesses which its constitutional vigour has yet to throw off. Hardly a week passes without some event happening which, for the moment, staggers the belief of Englishmen in their own progress, and warns them that they have not gained ground enough, even now, to warrant any slackening of their pace on the forward march. An occurrence of this kind – private in its nature, but leading with the strictest directness to certain useful conclusions which may fairly be claimed as public property – has recently come within our own knowledge. We propose to give it general notoriety in these pages, because we believe, on the grounds just stated, that its exposure can hardly fail to be productive of some public good.

Some little time since, a gentleman, well and widely-known to the public as an excellent manager of a theatre and an actor standing deservedly in the foremost rank of his profession; equally well known among a large circle of friends and acquaintances, as an honourable man, in the strictest and the highest meaning of those words – Mr. Alfred Wigan – sent his son, aged eight years, to be educated at a certain private school. The boy was happy and comfortable, and was getting on with his learning to his father’s satisfaction, when, one day, the master of the school called upon Mr. Wigan, to say that he had just found out the nature of that gentleman’s profession, and that, as a necessary consequence of the discovery, he could no longer consent to number among his scholars Mr. Wigan’s son. No shadow of objection was advanced against the boy. On the contrary, the schoolmaster admitted that he was as good and as gentlemanly a boy as he had ever met with. But the school was a genteel school; the connection was a genteel connection; and a fatal injury might be done to the character of the establishment if the fact became generally known that its walls contained the son of an actor. Further questioning elicited that the schoolmaster, in his alarm for his own reputation, had taken Time by the forelock, and had not waited until any actual objections had emerged from the genteel connection. He was not, however, on that account the less certain that the objections would in course of time arise. His conclusions in this respect were shared, and his course of conduct approved, by his brother-in-law, who also kept a private school; and he had, therefore, only to reiterate his request, that one of his best pupils should be removed from his school, on this one ground only – that the boy was an actor’s son.

We are not disposed, in noticing this business, to waste too many words on the schoolmaster. If he felt for himself, when he was in Mr. Wigan’s presence, one-fiftieth part of the contempt which we feel for him, his sense of self-degradation must have been complete. Compare the conditions on which this obedient servant of the genteel classes gets his bread with the conditions on which a sweeper of crossings gets his bread – and see how immensely the balance of creditable independence turns against the man with the birch, and in favour of the man with the broom! It is no doubt hard, in the first heat of indignation, to abstain from assigning to the schoolmaster rather more than his own insignificant share in the outrage. But a little calm reflection soon sets him in his proper place, and even suggests a reasonable doubt whether it is strictly right to speak of him as a schoolmaster at all. Looking to the motive which produced his visit to Mr. Wigan, is it not fitter to consider him as a small tradesman who keeps, not a school, but a little knowledge-shop, and who is horribly afraid of offending, not his connection, but his customers? Surely anger is too large an emotion to be stirred up by such a very small man. Surely it is a waste of attention to bestow much notice upon such an extremely trifling smear on the garments of civilised humanity as this.

But the aspect of the matter, as it regards the connection (or the customers) of whose inexpressibly mean prejudices the schoolmaster (or small tradesman) is only the unsavoury mouthpiece, suggests considerations of a more serious kind. It would give us pleasure, if we could fairly persuade ourselves that this was an isolated case, and that the brother-in-law, who would have acted like him under similar circumstances, were two exceptional proprietors of private schools. Unfortunately we happen to know that the instance of Mr. Wigan’s son is not a solitary instance. The little daughter of Mr. Phelps – whose management of Sadler’s Wells Theatre has entitled him to the gratitude and respect of every decent man in this country – was outlawed by another private school under precisely similar circumstances.

These examples have come to us. We have not sought them out. If we chose to make inquiries, we have no doubt that many more, equally disgraceful to the age we live in, might be easily produced. But there is no need to heap instances on instances. It is sufficiently disheartening without seeking further, to have discovered even three private schools only, in three different parts of England, the genteel patrons of which impose on the proprietor, who exists by their custom, a species of treatment of the children of actors which would be inexcusable if applied to the children of felons. We hope, and believe, for the credit of our country, and our civilisation, that such people as these so shamefully ignorant of the first Christian duty which each man owes to his neighbour – are comparatively few in number. But, even assuming this, how lamentable a capacity for doing harm lies lurking in that mean minority! how vilely the little, little reptile can sting! how widely the taint that tells of its existence reeks up from the ground, and spreads through the atmosphere! What amount of moral and intellectual progress have some of our countrymen, our well-dressed, well-connected countrymen, made, since the bad bygone time when actors were refused the rites of Christian burial? Here is the wicked spirit of that wicked old social prejudice alive still among some of us, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. There is something portentous in the bare discovery that such people exist. How far behind the age they live in are they in other matters? In what rocky fastnesses do they lie hid? Is the ducking of witches one of their favourite amusements? Would they fly with shrieks if they saw a steam-engine? Where is Doctor Livingstone? Where are all the other missionary travellers? Here are the heathen about us, somewhere or other in this country, and no Society for the Propagation of the Gospel At Home, to find them out.

It will not be amiss to turn, for a moment, from these private schools and their customers, and to note the wholesome contrast which the practice of our public schools presents, in this very matter of the education of the sons of actors. Here are two examples which will strike everybody – Mr. Macready and Mr. Charles Kean. Mr. Macready was the son of an actor, and was educated at Rugby. Mr. Charles Kean was the son of an actor, and was educated at Eton. All the advantages which those two admirable schools could offer, were as fully, freely, and fairly bestowed on these two actors’ sons, as on the sons of any other men, peers or commoners, who were educated with them. A public school can afford to be independent of the prejudices of individuals. A public school does not appeal for a reputation to this parent or to that parent: it appeals to the nation. Its masters hold a public trust, and not a private speculation. Take your son away, or leave him here – which you please. Every boy in this school has his free, fair, equal chance among his fellows. We have the right hand of welcome just as ready for the son of an actor, as for the son of an archbishop. No small social animosities of yours, or of any man’s, shall worm their way into this place. In school or out of school, we have one rule here to which all parents and all boys must conform, or leave us – the rule of Fair Play. That is the language which a public schoolmaster could hold tomorrow to any parent in England, who raised a cruel, and senseless objection against the reception of any well-conducted boy as a pupil of the school. Where is “the proprietor of a select establishment for young gentlemen,” who can take the same resolute ground? It is in the very nature of his speculation, that it places him at the mercy of the parents. If there were no other objection to private schools than the objection which this fact implies, surely the case against them, even thus far, rests unmistakably on a practical foundation.

A prejudice against the stage merely, is a prejudice which we can pity and pass by. But a prejudice against the stage which asserts its ignorant distrust of actors by cruelly fastening itself on innocent children, by meanly grudging them their education, and by pitilessly endeavouring to deprive them of a place in society at the very outset of life, is a prejudice for which we have no mercy. Bigots of this class are past reproof and past argument. It would indeed be monstrous to suppose that the question wanted any arguing at all. To say that Mr. Wigan’s son and Mr. Phelps’s daughter are the children of gentlemen, and have a right and claim to be educated along with the children of any other gentlemen in this empire, let them be whom they may, is about equivalent to saying that two and two make four.

Our hope of ever seeing the scandal abolished which is cast upon our social system by such proceedings as are here disclosed, does not depend upon any such desperate prospect as the possible letting in of light upon minds which have no capacity for receiving illumination. Mean class prejudices of all kinds are only finally scattered and disposed of when they come into collision with the sense of the nation at large. This sense is represented, in the question of education, by the system of our public schools; and a general extension of that sound, liberal, and thoroughly independent system, in the future, seems to us to offer the only hopeful prospect of effectually reforming the gross abuse which is here exposed – to say nothing of other abuses into the discussion of which we need not enter at present. A growing distrust has arisen of late years in the popular mind towards private schools. No very long time has elapsed since their shameless charges were publicly commented on, in the strongest terms and in all directions. At this moment, their system of education is being subjected to a public test, and is not answering that test to the national satisfaction. The facts disclosed in these pages will certainly not tend to improve their character in the estimation of any fair-minded judges. Upon the whole, the chance does not seem hopelessly remote that the next move in education may be a move towards the extension of public schools, and towards the consequent extinction of prejudices which, exceptional as we trust they may be, are nevertheless, so long as they exist at all, a disgrace to our country and our time.

We are not putting this matter forward as Mr. Wigan’s private grievance or as Mr. Phelps’s private grievance. The names of those gentlemen have been frankly mentioned, because their appearance here runs no risk of being misunderstood, and because the sympathy which we offer to them, and which we believe our readers will offer to them also, is such sympathy as men of high character may honourably accept. We bring this matter forward, not as the grievance of two individuals, but as the grievance of every man among us who has an interest in seeing the reputation of his countrymen for common intelligence, and common decency of feeling, properly maintained.

Household Words 2 Oct 1858

STRIKE!

Some years ago, the inhabitants of a small English country town were astonished by a very extraordinary circumstance. A new fishmonger from London suddenly plunged into the calm waters of the local trade, set up a magnificent shop, and sold his delicate goods at amazingly reasonable prices. The town, being by no means populous enough to support any two tradespeople who dealt in the same article, and the patronage of the fickle public being soon almost exclusively bestowed upon the new fishmonger, the old-established shop, which did business in the old-established way, was soon shut up; and the proprietor was reported to have left the place in disgust, with the intention of trying his luck in any other district of England, in which he could hope for the common justice of meeting with fair play.

No sooner had the new fishmonger got the public all to himself, than a gradual, steady, unintermitting rise began to take place in his prices. He was a very intelligent man, and he explained this alarming phenomenon clearly and fluently, on the soundest commercial principles. Nobody who objected to his bills, ever got the better of him in argument. Week after week his prices grew higher, and his train of reasoning in support of them more and more brilliantly convincing and conclusive. At last, the charges rose to such an exorbitant rate, and the monopoly enjoyed by the new fishmonger asserted itself so unendurably, as well as so logically, over the purses of his helpless customers, that the public spirit of the townspeople rose in resistance. A private meeting of the respectable classes was summoned at the house of the daring patriot who led the local struggle for the twin-blessings of freedom and cheap fish. Resolutions were proposed and passed, binding all the persons present, representing the rank, the respectability and the fish-consumption of the town, to make the sacrifice of at once abstaining from eating fish, on any pretence whatever, until absolute want of custom should have had the effect of starving the rogue who had impudently cheated the whole community, out of the town.

It is gratifying to be able to report that no member of the League thus formed, proved unfaithful to the common cause; that the exorbitant fishmonger, after desperately resisting the combination against him for two whole months, and after vainly proposing a compromise with his outraged customers, fairly evacuated the town under stress of circumstances; that the old-established tradesman was sought for, was recalled, and was set up in his former business; and that the inhabitants have eaten their fish at reasonable prices, from that eventful period to the present day.

The anecdote which I have just related is not only true, but is also, as I have every reason to think, unique. Trifling as it may appear, it affords, I believe, the only instance on record, in which the middle classes of England have been found capable of combining together for the sake of promoting their own social advantage. If this conclusion be the true one – and I shall presently offer a few striking proofs in support of it – some rather serious considerations arise, in reference to the share which, little as we may think it, we ourselves have, in perpetuating some of the most vexatious and unpopular abuses of our own time.

Englishmen of the middle classes have combined together, and will probably again combine together, for the promotion of religious and of political reforms. Some very great victories in both these directions, have been won already by the influence of that united self-denial and united perseverance which is described by the word League. We, the respectable people, when we have a religious want or a political want, thoroughly understand the necessity of carrying out the desired object by sacrificing our own individual convenience to the first great consideration of the general benefit. When we have a social want, however, do we recognise the same principle? I rather think that we become, in this case, suddenly incapable of seeing it at all. The principle of a Strike, as understood and practised by the artisan, when he feels (whether rightly or wrongly, it is not my present business to inquire) that he is suffering under an abuse which nothing but self-devotion can help to remedy, seems to be, as to all social difficulties, a complete mystery to the gentleman who stands above him in rank and education. It is a notorious fact, that various bodies and individuals make large fortunes by professing to minister to the necessities, the conveniences, and the amusement of the respectable classes; and it is equally indisputable that the promises which these professions imply, are, in the great majority of cases, not fairly performed. When we are impudently cheated of our fair demands in religious or in political matters, what do we do in the last resort? We right I ourselves by a combination – or, in plainer English, we strike. On the other hand, when we are cheated in social matters, what do we do? We grumble, and submit. For the sake of our faith, or for the sake of our freedom (to borrow an illustration from the anecdote at the head of this paper), we are bravely ready to do without our fish. For the sake of our everyday necessities, comforts, and conveniences, we are none of us individually ready to sacrifice to the common cause so much as a single shrimp.

Let me make my meaning clearer by a few examples. Take an example, first, of an abuse, in the rectifying of which the interests of all our lives and limbs are concerned – take the case of the obstinate refusal of Railway Directors to give us a means of communication, in case of accidents, between the passengers and the engine-driver. Does any man, in his senses, believe that the granting of this just demand will be procured by any of the means which have hitherto been tried for enforcing it? A few months since, a railway carriage full of people was on fire. Everyone of the passengers would have been burnt alive, if a few labourers had not happened to be working, on that particular day, at a particular part of the line. This frightfully narrow escape from the most horrible of deaths, was published in letters to the Times. The vital necessity of a communication between the passengers and the guard was urged by the very men who had been all but killed for want of it. The same safeguard has been petitioned for to Parliament. And what good has come of taking this course? What good ever does come of shifting responsibilities, with which each man of us is individually concerned, on the shoulders of others? Have our letters to the Times – has our Imperial Parliament – got us what we so urgently want? On this very day, thousands and thousands of people will be travelling, with nothing but a screen of wood and cloth between them and a fire which is rushing through the air at the rate of from five-and-twenty to sixty miles an hour.

What, then, in this case, is to get us our fair demand? I answer, quite seriously, nothing will get it, at once, but a Strike on the part of the travelling public. Let us combine to ruin the passenger-traffic; and, in three months’ time, the Directors will be forced to give us what we  want. You, who read this, and laugh at it, tell me how many times, in the course of the year, you travel on business which it is absolutely impossible to put off, and how many times you travel for your own convenience and amusement, which a temporary self sacrifice might well enable you to postpone? If you want fair protection for your life, will you put off attending to your own interests – for three months – to get it? You are the obstacle – not the difficulties of organising the Strike. We are already subdivided, by our professions, into distinct classes. Let us have our consulting representatives of each class; our delegates acting under them, with a certain round of streets to visit; our public meeting, when the delegates have made us acquainted with the matter in hand; our signed engagement which it is a point of honour not to break – and the thing is done. For three months we all engage to sacrifice our individual convenience and pleasure, to serve the common object of securing our own safety; and to travel only in cases in which the most serious interests are concerned. Is this such a very Utopian idea? Is it so absolutely impossible to organise ourselves in the manner just suggested? The tax-gatherer successfully subdivides us, reckons us up, disciplines us, holds us, by thousands and thousands at a time, in the hollow of his hand, opens our multitudinous pockets, as if they were the pockets of one man. Does anybody tell me that what the tax-gatherer can do for us, we cannot, at a pinch, do for ourselves? If I wear a fustian jacket I can knock off work, by previous arrangement and combination, in three or four counties at once, on one given day, at one given hour. But if I am a clergyman, a doctor, a barrister, I cannot knock off travelling in the same way – no, not although the interests of my life depend on it. In the one case – with Poverty and Hunger against me – I can sacrifice myself at the word of command. In the other case, with nothing to dread but the temporary loss of some country pleasure, or a temporary delay in seeing the sights of London, I become utterly incapable of making my individual sacrifice for the public benefit; I let men, whose pockets I am filling, endanger my life with impunity; and, when I escape being roasted alive, I think I have done my duty if I pester the Editor of the Times with letters, helplessly entreating him to save me the trouble of redressing my own grievances and protecting my own life.

Take another case. The other day, I met my friend Smoulder. He was grumbling, just as tens of thousands of other Englishmen of his class grumble; the subject, this time, being the disgracefully uncomfortable condition of the metropolitan omnibuses.

“Here is a great Company,” says Smoulder, “which buys up all the London omnibuses; which starts with the most magnificent promises relative to the reformation of those detestable vehicles; and which even invites every ingenious man in the country to forward the reform, by sending in models of a new kind of omnibus. What has become of all the promises, and all the models? Here we are still with the same old omnibuses, and the same old grievances to complain of. There is no more room for me on my seat, now, than there was before the great Company was heard of. I am squeezed on getting in, and crushed on sitting down, just as I used to be, – squeezed, sir, and crushed, sir, and by an infernal Monopoly, sir, that promised me a new omnibus to ride in. You are a literary man. Why don’t you sit down, and write a letter about it to the Times?”

No, my friend, I will not write to the editor of the Times, to ask him to do for you, what you ought to do, and can do, for yourself. You live in a large suburb of London, and you are one of a large class of businessmen, who return a regular daily revenue to the omnibus Company. You and your fellows, in the morning and the evening, and your wives, sisters, and daughters, when they go out shopping, in the course of the day, are the principal customers who keep certain lines of omnibuses running. Call a meeting in the City, and propose that the whole class of the businessmen shall give up using omnibuses for the next six weeks, and direct their female relatives to do the same. Make up your minds, and make up their minds, to walk for that time only. Or, if this cannot be done, spend a little extra money – for not more than six weeks, remember – in cab-hire. Only sacrifice yourselves individually, for this short time, and in this easy manner; and you will promote the general interest of your class, by forcing the London Omnibus Company to do it justice. How long do you think that monopoly would hold out against the sudden withdrawal of tens of thousands of omnibus passengers, representing tens of thousands of fourpences, and sixpences, and not to be reduced to submission by hunger, as the poor men are reduced when they combine against the rich master. Strike, Smoulder! Strike for six weeks, and ride in comfort for the rest of your days.

Smoulder stares at me, – shakes his head, – says irritably: “You turn everything into a joke. Who’s to do all that, I should like to know?” – prefers passive grumbling, to which he is accustomed, to active resistance, of which he has no idea; – hails the omnibus, not being able to look an inch beyond his own convenience, the next morning as usual, – aimlessly grumbles over the discomfort of it, all the way to the Bank, with his friend Snorter; who aimlessly grumbles also, to the same tune, in a lower key; – meets Gruffer and Grumper on ’Change, and grumbles to them; goes home (in the omnibus again) and grumbles to his wife and children; – finally, writes a letter to the Times, and actually thinks, when he sees it in print, that he has done a public duty.

Once more, there are the theatres. There is hardly a person in this country, possessing an ordinary sense of comfort, who does not dread going, even to the most attractive performances, on account of the miserably defective accommodation which the managers offer to the public in return for their money. If we sit in the dress-circle, have we room for our legs? Can we move without jostling our neighbours on both sides? Can we even see comfortably unless we are in the front row? If we go downstairs into the stalls, are we not jammed together on high seats, with no footstools and no carpet, on the principle of getting as many of us into the place as possible – that place never having been originally intended for stalls at all? I know two theatres in London – and two only – in which it is possible to sit in the stalls with moderate comfort, and to see below the knees of the actors. As for the pit – with its rows of narrow wooden planks, half of them without backs, and all of them twice as close together as they ought to be – what words can describe the wretchedness of it? Where, in the rest of the habitable world, out of doors or in, is the cruel discomfort of the so-called sitting accommodation of a British pit to be equalled? It is really inconceivable that the public should now have submitted, for years and years, to be packed together, for the sake of putting certain additional pounds per night into the manager’s pockets, like pigs on board an Irish steam-boat. And yet, they have submitted, when the remedy lay all the time, in their own hands. No miserable sinner in this country more thoroughly enjoys good acting than I do. And yet, if I thought the inhabitants of my parish would follow my example, and would try to rouse other parishes to the same sensible course of action, I would, from this moment, cheerfully engage to abstain from entering a theatre for a whole year’s time, if need be, for the sake of ultimately starving the managers into giving us decent accommodation for our money. How comfortably we might sit and see a play, if we could only combine to send round a circular letter of this sort to the proprietors of the London theatres!

Sir, – I am desired to inform you, on the part of the theatrically-disposed inhabitants of this parish, that our bones have ached in your pit, our necks stiffened in your stalls, and our legs caught the cramp in your boxes, long enough. Your audience, sir, in this district, has struck for better seats, to a man, to a woman, to a child. Put what you like in your bill, not one of us will enter your theatre till our good money has wrung out of you the common justice, in return, of a comfortable seat.

What palaces of luxury our theatres would become in a few months, if the managers received such a letter as that, next week, from every parish in London!

There is the question of school education again. The public, fast asleep as usual, has been woke up about that subject, lately, by the Times. The case has been mentioned of a gentleman whose bill for the half-year’s schooling and boarding of two little boys amounted to seventy-five pounds. This extortion was commented on publicly by an eminent novelist, was further exposed by an excellent article in the Times, which article was applauded with the usual unnecessary servility by the usual letter-writers who appear in that journal. What result has followed? One impudent letter, so far as I know, from one impudent schoolmaster. What other results are to be expected? Tell me plainly, will the comments of the eminent novelist, will the excellent article in the Times, will the fawning approval of the public letters, lower our school-bills – say, in a year’s time? Judging by past experience in other matters, and by the representative letter of the impudent schoolmaster, I should say not. What, then, will lower them? Emptying the expensive schools next half-year – or, in other words, a strike of parents. My house would be dreadfully noisy, my boys would break the windows and play tricks with gunpowder, and I should have to suffer the shocking hardship of teaching them myself, unless I looked about and hired a tutor for the half-year. All serious inconveniences, I admit – but which alternative is the worse? To be uncomfortable for six months, or to submit to be fleeced regularly every half-year until my boys are grown up?

Here I rest my case; not because I am getting to the end of my examples, but because I am getting to the end of my space. Many readers may differ with my opinions, and may laugh at my remedy. It is easy to do so. But it is equally easy to obey the injunction which heads this paper. We travel every day in peril of being burnt to death; we ride in uncomfortable omnibuses; we sit in theatres with aching necks and bones, and are fleeced in them by box-opening harpies after we have paid our admission money; we pay bi-annually for the teaching and boarding of two of our small children a sum which equals a year’s income for a clerk and his family – whose fault is it, really and truly, that these grievances, and dozens of others which might be mentioned, are not speedily and completely redressed? Has it actually come to this, that the English public has a capacity of common suffering, and a capacity of common grumbling, but no capacity of common action for the promotion of social reforms? Our system of civilisation relieves us of the performance of many irksome duties, by supplying us with deputies whose business it is to take them off our hands. This system has many obvious advantages, which no reasonable man can question. But, if it be pushed beyond its legitimate purpose of saving the useless waste of valuably employed time, then it leads to serious disadvantages – even, as I am inclined to think, to serious deterioration of the national character. Public opinion, in these latter days, is apathetically satisfied with much talking and much writing: it shifts all doing to the shoulders of any chance deputy who may, or may not, turn up to accept practical responsibilities. It was not always so in England. When Hampden’s blood rose under the extortionate tyranny of Charles the First, he was not satisfied with expressing his opinion that his taxes were unjust; he struck,, and taught his countrymen to strike; he buttoned up his pockets like a man, and said, in plain, fearless words, “I will not pay the King his unjust demand.” What does Hampden now, when every species of audacious social imposition is practised on him? He pays – and writes to the Times.

Household Words 6 Feb 1858

SEA-BREEZES
WITH THE LONDON SMACK

Throw up the window; come into the balcony – here we are, my dear, at the seaside.

Yes! we have actually got away from town. I survey the ocean instead of the opposite houses, I smell seaweed and salt water instead of smoke. Looking in the glass, I see myself reflected in a costume which would be the ruin of my character for respectability if I wore it in my own street. Turning affectionately towards my wife, I behold a saucy-looking hat on her head instead of her usual quiet bonnet. Thirty years ago, when she was. a young girl, the hat would have set off her youth and beauty becomingly. Now, it makes her look, singularly enough, many years older than she really is. I dare not acknowledge it to her, I hardly venture to confess it to myself, but a middle-aged woman in a girl’s hat is scarcely a less anomalous sight, to my eyes, than a middle-aged woman would be in a girl’s short frock and frilled trousers. However, as no Englishwoman appears to consider herself too old for a hat at the seaside – not, as I observe in some instances, even when she wears a wig – I have no right to remonstrate with my wife, who is still on the right side of fifty. Let us keep to our national peculiarities, and let no antics in costume be too ridiculous for us when we are away from home.

Well, as I said before, we have actually got away from town. What induces me to repeat that extremely common-place phrase? What sinister influence is making me begin to doubt, in defiance of the view from the window, in defiance of our conjugal change of costume, in defiance of the salt-water smell in my very nostrils, whether we have absolutely left London behind us, after all? Surely it must be the organ playing before the next house? Yes! A London organ has followed us to our refuge on the coast, playing the well-known London tunes; bringing us back by the force of the most disagreeable of all its associations, to our street at home. Can I order the dirty, leering Italian vagabond to take himself out of hearing? No; for here, at the seaside, I am not a housekeeper. The merciful consideration of the English law for all men who live by the perpetration of nuisances; necessarily protects the organ and abandons me. There was a case in point, the other day, in the paper. A gentleman occupied in making some elaborate calculations connected with important public works, charges an organ grinder with interrupting his employment, and with refusing to move out of hearing. The magistrate looks at the Act, finds that ‘nobody but a housekeeper has any legal right to protection from organs, ascertains that the gentleman whose occupation has been fatally interrupted is a lodger only, and, as a matter of technical necessity, dismisses the application. Evidently I can hope for no chance of peace and quiet in my new abode unless I can get my landlady to complain for me. She has a family of eight small children, and no one to look after them but herself. Can I expect her to find time to appeal to the local magistrate perpetually, on my behalf, even supposing (which is not at all probable) that the Police Act extends to this place? Certainly not. This is a pleasant prospect, if I look to the future. I shall do better, however, if I occupy myself with the present only, and make my escape from those hateful London tunes which are taking me back to town faster than the express train itself brought me away from it. Let me forget that I am a taxpaying citizen who helps to support his country, and let me leave the musical foreign invader who helps to burden it, master of the field.

I take my hat and fly. I hurry down the lane; through the short-cut at the back of the stables; along the dusty little street where the post-office is; round the corner by the chemist’s shop; past the blank wall with the lettered board and plump pointing hand in white paint on it, which obligingly informs me that I am on my way to The Esplanade. I am out of hearing of the organ at last, and the happy result follows – London takes its proper place, invisible and inaudible in the far distance, and the joyous excursionist who writes these lines feels gratefully that he is  at the seaside again.

The Esplanade is long, and the Marine Buildings beyond it are longer. The two lead me on, as I dawdle forward mechanically, to the Pier. What sounds are borne towards me by the sea-breezes? The notes of a brass band. What do I see as I advance? As I live, London again! London, under another musical. form, following me to the seaside! There they are, the gentlemanly German instrumentalists; the classical, orchestral, strictly professional street band; which carries its long-legged music-desks about with it, and plays elaborate works by great masters, and indulges in the luxury of a conductor to keep it in perfect order. Only last week these accomplished sons of Orpheus drove me from my desk in London; and here they are now, taking the free air itself into custody, and making the atmosphere metropolitan even by the seaside!

Again I turn my back on the enemy; again I fly from the sea-breeze with the London smack. Retracing my steps, I get out of the town altogether, ascend the cliff, and walk on till I find a lonely gully descending steeply to the beach. I follow the downward path, and come out on the sands. The tide is at the ebb; and the flat rocks near at hand are richly. brown and green with sea weed. The long pools of water lie out. beyond them under the high sun, as still in their blue brightness as if they were fragments of the sky set for gems in the bosom of the earth. Farther yet, the faint, idle sea shows its white wave-edges thinly and wearily on the moist brownness of the sand. Over the low horizon hangs a mist of heat which veils the hulls of distant ships, and lets the sails above shine through softly, hanging cloud-like on the sky. The sultry silence is so intense that in the intervals of the sea-whispering along the margin of the beach, I can hear the hum of insects on a sunny spot of the cliff above my head. Where the first shade offers, I lie down on the dry sand, and give myself up gratefully to the stillness of the hour and the beauty of the scene.

My mind wanders insensibly towards a certain train of familiar and favourite thoughts, which may one day take form and place, and go out from me into the world to ask such welcome as they may deserve from the minds of others. My stick traces strange figures on the sand; my eyes look absently out to sea; my attention to external things dwindles and dwindles till nothing is left of it. Although I am physically wide awake, I am mentally fast asleep and dreaming – dreaming happily, but not for long. Sudden as a flash of lightning, a strange sound darts into my ears, and startles me in one cruel moment from my trance. Powers above! What spectre appears before me as if it bad risen out of the sand? Have I taken leave of my senses, or is this vagrant stranger who has stolen on me suddenly, the sturdy old Frenchman with the husky voice, the guitar, and the dancing dog – the very same individual who sang before my area railings in town not three days since? It is – it is the man. London again! London in the loneliest seashore nook that I can find a hundred miles away from the sound of Bow bells!

Thus far, the town element has presented itself to me in the character of a visitor like myself. A very few days’ experience, however, of my new abode suffices to reveal it in another form – in an unmistakeably settled and resident aspect.

The shops, for example, are not the characteristic offspring of the country and the seaside – they are the poor relations and abject imitators of the shops in London. What business has my marine butcher to be a copy in miniature of my metropolitan butcher? Why does he display nothing in the least degree suggestive of his own peculiar locality? I am disgusted with the man for not wearing a Guernsey frock, for not having salt provisions in his shop, for not chopping his meat on a ship’s barrel. I object to his London awning when the sun shines – why is it not a sail? How dare his young man who comes for orders take me back to town by being just as greasy of head and just as blue in costume as the young man who comes in London? Only yesterday, I distinctly saw him bring us our joint in the usual wooden tray. What does he mean by not reminding me that I am at the seaside by carrying it in a net?

Last Wednesday, we had a cold dinner. I sent for pickles – the local pickles, I said distinctly, expecting to receive and eager to relish, something brinily characteristic of the coast. There arrived instead, the familiar London bottle from Soho Square, with the familiar London label, informing me that what my pickles had lost in attractiveness of colour they had gained in genuineness of composition. Vainly the waves murmured, vainly the salt breeze blew. Soho Square asserted itself against both, in the middle of the table; and made our dinner a London meal. Our first breakfast was spoilt in a similar manner. I came downstairs in high spirits, characteristically dressed in a monkey jacket, characteristically humming The Bay of Biscay. The very first object that met my view on the breakfast table was a half-quartern loaf that might have come out of Saint Giles’s.

The postman again – I am so angry with the postman that I feel inclined to hit him every time he hands me a letter. I put it to any moderate reader, whether a marine post man is not bound to give us a hail instead of a knock? “House, ahoy!” – surely he ought to say, “House, a-hoy!”? Instead of doing any thing of the sort, he, too, sets up the London element at the seaside, by knocking like a London postman. Nay more, he carries the base imitation a point farther, by being violently angry with the servant if he is kept waiting an instant at the door. How am I to derive benefit from the seaside when this licensed tyrant comes twice a day to take me back to town again?

There are some walks about our neighbourhood here, some exceedingly pretty’ inland walks, which I am given to understand are in the country. I certainly do see cornfields and lanes, trees, ditches, stiles, cottages, windmills, and so on. And yet, I really don’t know. The other day, when I thought I was walking, in pastoral solitude, along a lonely road, I was! overtaken by an Omnibus. I could hardly believe my eyes. I said to myself, incredulously,  “No, no; this is either a wagon or a bathing machine.” I looked again, and a Conductor, an active, all-observing Cockney Conductor, hopped up on a London footboard, and “plied” me with uplifted hand as if I had been in Holborn.

This afternoon, the rain has come at last; and we have been obliged to stop indoors and amuse ourselves by looking out of window. What goes by in the street, as dinnertime approaches? A fly – one of the London sort, which tries to look like a private brougham – carrying a gentleman inside, in formal evening costume, with that look of mournful expectation and suffering self-importance, peculiar to Englishmen on their way to festive assemblies. This is a very bad sign; the worst I have seen yet. Here are the visitors themselves conspiring to poison the fresh seaside with the unwholesome metropolitan atmosphere. Why go to London dinner-parties, in London costume, here? Why not get away from town customs and town amusements, and establish something which is characteristic in a social way of the free ocean on whose borders we live? “Mr. and Mrs. Jones request the company of Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, to box the compass. Small and early. Bathing-gowns and slippers. Grog and shrimps.” Why not establish some such marine form of invitation as this? Why not strengthen the conviction even in our most festive moments, that we are still at the seaside?

I am sorry to observe it, but my own servant-girl, my once trustworthy and attached housemaid, whom I have brought here for the benefit of her health, has rewarded her master’s kindness by using his marine residence as if it was his London house. One night I come back late from my walk, and I find her enjoying the cool air of the evening at the area gate here, just as I see her enjoying it at the area gate in town. Nay, more, as I approach nearer in the dusk, I find that she has got a follower on the other side of the rails. As a man, I have learnt philosophy; as a master, I am proverbially indulgent towards the little frailties of my domestics. Abstractedly speaking, the discovery of the housemaid’s new sweetheart does not discompose me. My anger is solely aroused by the entire absence of characteristic local peculiarity in the reigning follower. The area Lothario of the seaside is a base repetition of the area Lothario in town. He has the same mysterious slouch in his walk; the same sinister compromise in his apparel, between the dress of a broken down gentleman and a prosperous artisan. He has also the one singularly dreary method of courting the opposite sex, which obtains among all his class. He stands mutely staring at the beloved object, first on one leg, then on the other: he varies the proceeding by looking first over one shoulder, then over the other; he occasionally whistles, he occasionally scratches his head, he occasionally says, “Well, I must be off.” Exactly like the man in London – in the smallest particulars, the very image of the man in London. No smell of shrimps about him, a stick in his hand instead of a boathook, a long-tailed coat in place of a blue jacket. What do I hear my servant saying to him? Just what she says under similar circumstances in town, – “Fine evening, ain’t it?” Wretched girl! why not be characteristic, and say “How’s the wind?” Why not offer his trousers to wash, and his grog, too, to make? Think of the sea breezes, Mary, and be a tight lass, a trim little craft, a bumboat-woman – anything, anything but a London housemaid.

And yet, what right have I to expect a marine course of conduct from my servant, when her betters set her the example of importing the London element? Here are the “swells” on the pier, surveying the sea. through their opera-glasses, exactly as they survey the audience at the theatre in London.. There are the ladies on the Esplanade, with nothing that is not metropolitan about them, except their hats. The same spread of petticoat, the same circumambient hoops, the same critical intensity of expression when they look at each other as they pass – just like Regent Street. Regent Street, did I say? here is a shabby man, doing his best to complete the disastrous analogy by thrusting a bill into my hand as I walk by him. What is it? Concert at the Assembly Rooms. Ha! Something appropriate to the locality here, surely? Madrigals of the forecastle? Fishermen’s choruses? The song of the stroke-oar, and the coxswain’s catch? Let me repair to the Assembly Room. London again – stop my grog, if here is not London again! The charming young vocalist in pink satin, the youthful tenor with the wavy hair, the fatherly-looking bass with the dingy gloves. Selection from the Trovatore, airs from La Traviata. Ball later in the evening, under the direction of Mr. Whiff, from London. No chance, no change, no local character. The sound of Bow-bells and the sound of the waves always together, go where I may.

It is of no use, I suppose, to complain of this anomalous condition of things at the seaside, or to offer any suggestions towards banishing the intrusive London element from the region of the coast. So far as I can see, the artificial taste of the present day appears to relish the sea-breeze with the London smack. One observation, however, I must positively take leave to make before I conclude. It is inconceivable to me how such a phrase as “going out of town,” continues to exist in the language. The sooner we study correctness of expression, and banish such an absurd form of words from our vocabulary the better. Instead of telling each other that we are going out of town, let us henceforth approach nearer to the truth, and say that we are going to remove from Metropolitan to Marine London. That phrase is, I submit, strictly descriptive of what we all do now, when we leave the city for the coast – excepting, of course, the case of any enterprising individual who may be fortunate enough to make a watering-place for himself on a desert island. At present I can only call to mind one British visitor to the seaside who is entitled to assert that he has really been out of town. That visitor is Robinson Crusoe.

Household Words 4 Sep 1858

A CLAUSE FOR
THE NEW REFORM BILL

At this dull season of the political year, and in the absence of all other rumours, the rumour of a New Reform Bill is beginning to strengthen prodigiously. No one seems to know exactly what the bill is to be, or who is asking for it most loudly, or what particular party means to bring it in. Whether, among its other extraordinary results, it is destined to show that Tories are Radicals, and Radicals Tories, and Whigs nothing in particular – whether it is to be an artful Bill of the old sort, which first delights us with magnificent professions, and then astonishes us with minute performances; or whether it is to be a Bill of original character, and of unparalleled resources in giving practical advantage to the people at large – seems to be more than the wisest of our political sages can tell us. All that we really know about the matter is, that a new Reform Bill is being compounded somewhere. What the strength of the political mixture may be, which of the State Doctors will serve it out, and what it will taste like when the British patient gets’ it, are mysteries, which no uninitiated mortal in the country can hope to solve.

Under such circumstances, this would seem to be the favourable time for every man who has got anything like an idea of reform in his mind to bring it out, and furbish it up as smartly as maybe, on the chance of its being accepted by the competent authorities, in the shape of a practical hint. An idea has been, for some little time past, suggesting itself persistently to our minds – an idea which is of the social rather than the political sort, and which is, as we venture to think, especially fitted to figure in the new Reform Bill on that very account – an idea which is bold enough to involve nothing less than a sweeping change in the national reception of Her Majesty the Queen, when she pays her next public visit to her loving and faithful People.

On a topic of this importance we come frankly to the point at once. Let us assume, to begin with, that the main interest of the Queen, when she makes a Royal Progress, is to see for herself what the character and the condition of her people actually is. It follows from this, that the main duty of the People is to present themselves honestly for what they really are, and to show all that belongs to them plainly for what it really is, when their Sovereign comes among them. The question we desire to raise on these premises is, whether this essentially loyal, useful, and honest purpose is now answered; and whether the Queen has such full and fair opportunities afforded to her of knowing her own people in their own character, and of seeing all that surrounds them in its true aspect, as she has both a personal and a royal right to expect.

When, for instance, the Queen visits one of our great towns, what does the great town do? Does it not clumsily try, at a considerable expense, to make itself look as like a bad travelling circus as possible? Does it not stick up, in honour of the occasion. theatrical canvas arches, and absurd flags that are no flags, and pretended drab statues in pretended drab niches that are not statues and not niches, and lamentable dead boughs that are a ghastly parody on living and growing trees? Does it not commit every sort of unpardonable offence against Taste, and make itself as ridiculously unreal as possible in the broad, truth-telling daylight? Why should these things be? Commemorate the Queen’s visit by a holiday, by all means – we have not holidays enough in England – but, for mercy’s sake, leave the great town alone, and let it speak for itself. Let it say to the Queen, in effect: – “Please your Majesty, these are my plain stone-paved streets, where so many thousand people in Lancashire and Yorkshire clogs, wake my echoes as they go to their work at five or six in the morning. Please your Majesty, these are my great chimneys, always vomiting smoke when your Majesty is not here; smoke which is very ugly to look at and very unpleasant to smell, but which is also inseparable from many of the most beautiful and useful works in your Majesty’s kingdom. Please your Majesty, this concourse of inhabitants, in clean plain clothes, that lines both sides of your way, is a striving, loyal, respectful, good-humoured, long-suffering specimen of your Majesty’s working subjects. It is my opinion that I can show your Majesty nothing better or more interesting than this; and the scene-painter of my not particularly patronised theatre shall therefore not be called into requisition any more to turn me into a trumpery municipal masquerader, or to take your Majesty off, on allegorical false pretences, as a Heathen goddess horrible to view, or as the eminent modern lady who goes up the Tight-rope, amongst Fireworks, in the public gardens.”

Can it be imagined that, in all her progresses, the Queen ever saw anything half so striking, pleasant., and memorable to her as the miles of working-people who turned out to receive her at Manchester? It would be preposterous to suppose that she can be otherwise than interested in the real, honest, everyday aspect of her populous towns, in which multitudes  of her subjects live and die, working wearily all their lives long to make the commodities for which England is famous; slowly, surely, resolutely hammering out her greatness in the arts of peace and war, from a pin’s head to a monster mortar. It is only reasonable to believe that the Queen is naturally and deeply interested in such sights as these. But what sane man can suppose that she is interested in poles and canvas, and red drugget, and theatrical properties, which take nobody in, and which lead to the most inexcusably wasteful expenditure of money. Is not every town which opens its purse to pay for such sadly mistaken loyalty, sick and sorry for weeks afterwards? And what has the futile demonstration done for the Queen after all? It has probably given her beloved Majesty the headache. It has certainly offended her taste; which is formed, be it remembered, in her own sphere, on the finest models that the Art of the civilised world can supply. And, worst and clumsiest mistake of all, it has flatly contradicted the principle on which the Queen’s own appearance is regulated when she travels. When the Queen visits a town, does she drive into it in the state-coach dressed in the robes in which she assembles Parliament, with the sceptre in one hand and the ball in the other, and the crown jewels, instead of a bonnet, on her head? No – she comes attired quietly and in excellent taste – dressed, in a word, as a lady should be dressed. All the people who look at her, see her enter the place she visits, simply and sensibly, in her own natural everyday character – and see the unfortunate town, on the other hand, carefully deprived of as much of its natural, everyday character as the mayor and corporation can possibly take away from it. How the local officials can survey the Queen’s natural, nineteenth-century bonnet passing under a miserably ineffectual imitation of a pagan arch of triumph, without acutely feeling the rebuke which that eloquent part of her Majesty’s costume administers to them, entirely passes our comprehension. Surely the reporters conceal from us a certain class of municipal accident: surely there are sensitive mayors, who, on such occasions as these, sink self’ reproachfully into their own robes, and are seen no more.

Not that we rashly despise a mayor. He is sometimes an excellent fellow; but why – still connecting him with state receptions – why, like the town he rules, should he go wildly out of his way on account of a royal visit? And why, above all, should the unfortunate man get into the Queen’s way? Surely it is time that those ridiculous Addresses which he brings obstinately to station-platforms, and presents, like a kind of unnecessary newspaper, at carriage-windows, should pass into the Limbo of charity-boys’ Christmas Pieces? We ought, however, to ask pardon of those obsolete works of art, for comparing them with Mayors’ Addresses – for the Christmas-piece, awkward as it might have been in execution, was, at least in intention, a remembrance of the Life of Christ. But what can be said for the Addresses? As a form of welcome to the Queen, they are utterly superfluous; the sound substance of the welcome having been administered in the best of all ways beforehand by the cheering voices of the people. Must we look at the Addresses as specimens of composition? If we do, we find them to be a species of literary hunting-field, in which every substantive is a terrified stag, run down by a pack of yelping tautological adjectives. For the sake of the mayor – a man and a brother; a human being who has surely done us no serious harm – for the sake of the mayor, who comes up innocently to her Majesty’s carriage window, the unconscious bearer of a document which accredits him as a mauler of her Majesty’s English, suppress the further production of Municipal Addresses! Don’t we know that her Majesty’ laughs at the Mayor, and that everybody laughs at the Mayor – except, of course, his own family. When the Mayor is a sensible fellow, he even laughs at himself in his official sleeve. But how hard, how unjust, how utterly indefensible, when a man has a sense of the ridiculous, to condemn him cruelly to exercise it on himself!

Even the Railways have caught the contagion. It was only the other day that the Peterborough Refreshment Room, on the Great Northern, hearing of the Queen’s approach, suddenly became ashamed of being a Refreshment Room, and tried in the most miserable manner, to be a Drawing Room, or a Boudoir, or – Heaven only knows what! So frightfully did it blink all over with mirrors; so madly did it blister itself with tinsel; that no apartment in the least like it was ever yet known to mortals; unless we dignify an inferior class of doll’s house or a bad bonbon box with the style. and title of an apartment. Is there anything treasonable in the act of calming the uproarious appetites of her Majesty’s subjects? Is it part of our duty to our sovereign to conceal from her that such things exist in England as penny buns and pork-pies? Why could not the terrified refreshment room have been soothed and comforted and encouraged to speak for itself? If it had said, “Please your Majesty, I am the humble servant of your Majesty’s hungry subjects; and, as such, I respectfully present myself for inspection in my own useful work-a-day character” – if it had said that, where would have been the harm?

We know that the shareholders spent money, on this occasion, and have spent it, on many other occasions, with the idea of pleasing the Queen. But, have they sufficiently considered whether an expensive transmogrification of a refreshment room does give her pleasure? Can any man who has looked at the apartments (at Windsor Castle and elsewhere) in which the Queen lives, suppose that the sight of those tawdry nondescript trumpery four walls at Peterborough really produced an agreeable impression on her, or really reminded her in the remotest degree of anything connected with her own or any other royal residence? We suggest that question to the shareholders for future consideration; and we put it to them, whether this wasteful expenditure on temporary gew-gaws, on the one side, and the riotous annual upbraidings of the directors, on the other, can be expected to look quite as sound as might be wished, in the eyes of that portion of the public which sees and thinks, in these matters, for itself? Are we even quite sure that the Queen – who sees newspapers as well as transmogrified refreshment rooms – does not privately make some such unfavourable comparison.

But let us leave examples, and put the question, for the last time, on the broadest and most general grounds. We say, and say truly, that the Queen lives in the hearts of her people. But looking to external signs and tokens as exhibited by local authorities, we should see so little difference between a municipal reception of Queen Victoria and a municipal reception of Napoleon the Third, that we should be puzzled – judging only by the official proceedings in each case – to know which of the two was the free ruler. There is, perhaps, a more perfect uniformity of folly in the decorations on the other side of the Channel; for, when the potent monarch on that throne wants his triumphal arches, illumination lamps, profile statues pretending to be solid, and other second-rate theatrical preparations, he sends down his gracious orders for so many gross of them, and they are turned out accordingly. But,  otherwise, a French mayor’s or a French railway director’s way of receiving Louis  Napoleon and an English mayor’s or English railway director’s way of receiving Queen Victoria, are far too much alike. On this ground only, if there were no other, it is certainly desirable to alter our loyal demonstrations for the better on the British side of the Straits of Dover. The next time the intelligent foreigner meets her Majesty on her travels, let him be able to say, “They manage these matters differently in England.” And let the New Reform Bill, if it be in want of a sensible social clause to fill up with, condescend to take a hint from these pages, and introduce among its provisions some such startling legislative novelty as this:

And Be It Enacted, That the good Sense of the Country shall in future confidently trust to the good Sense of the Queen; and that no Cloud of Mayors, Upholsterers, Scene-Painters, or the like, shall henceforth be permitted to interpose between the next Meeting of the Sovereign in her natural Character, and of the People and all that belongs to them, in their natural Characters.

Household Words 9 Oct 1858

This piece is recorded in the Household Words Office Book as by Collins and Dickens. It seems to have been written by Collins based on an idea by Dickens. On 24 September Dickens wrote to the HW subeditor “I enclose a few hasty notes about the Queen idea” (Pilgrim VIII 668) and the Office Book entry indicates that Dickens played a part in its final version too. [ – Paul Lewis]

PITY A POOR PRINCE

A short time since, we took occasion to notice some of the curious outrages on good taste and good sense committed by official people who happen to be entrusted with the duty of receiving the Queen when she travels. We drew, it may be remembered, a strange, but perfectly true picture of towns turning themselves into travelling Circuses, and railway refreshment rooms trying to look like Royal boudoirs, under the amazing delusion that the Sovereign of this country would approve of them all the more for appearing to be ashamed of themselves in their own characters. We thought it hard at that time, and we think it bard still, that persistent Mayors, should besiege the Royal carriage-windows, and pitiless Corporations pour out all the vials of bad grammar on the Royal head, whenever they can catch the first Personage in these realms on her travels. And we then expressed a very decided opinion (which we now reiterate) that the practice of concealing from our Queen the true aspect of towns,’ stations, and, where it is possible, even of the people themselves, amounts in effect to a species of positive disloyalty, for the plain reason that it deprives her, in her relation to her subjects and to all that surrounds them, of every fair means of judging accurately for herself.

Certain events have lately happened which oblige us to return to this subject. The official persecution of her Majesty has extended its abject range of action, and has now overtaken her Majesty’s second son, Prince Alfred.

When we first heard of the profession that had been chosen for the young Prince, we could not divest ourselves of the idea that the Queen had been to some slight extent influenced, in arriving at her decision, by a natural wish to preserve one of her children, at least, from falling a victim to the municipal authorities of his native country. Any hope of rescue for her eldest son was clearly out of the question. We are all of us born to a drawback of some kind; and the Prince of Wales, as heir to the throne, is necessarily born to a drawback of Mayors and Corporations. Prince Alfred, however, it was still possible to save from being Addressed at his carriage-window, from being bewildered by makeshift drawing-rooms, and from being loyally leapt over, as it were, by sprightly pole-and-canvas arches, whenever he attempted to drive through the streets of a strange town. The one apparently safe means of accomplishing his preservation from these and other equally unendurable nuisances, in the present Mayor-and-Corporation-burdened-condition of all civilised land, was clearly to send him to sea – and that is exactly what his Royal mother has done with him.

Whether we are right or wrong in venturing to set up this theory-, one thing at least is certain. Prince Alfred was not sent to sea as a Prince of the blood royal, but as a midshipman of the Euryalus. The Queen has determined, with excellent good sense, that he shall learn his noble profession exactly as other English lads learn it; that he shall rank with his brother officers on a footing of perfect equality; and that if he rises (as we all hope he will rise) to a position of eminence in the Navy, he shall have something higher and better – something infinitely more satisfactory to his country and to himself – to thank for it, than the accident of his birth. It is gratifying to know this; it is doubly gratifying to know that the son is worthy of the mother’s confidence; that he frankly and gladly accepts his position; and that, finding himself in a new sphere of action (in which, be it remembered, his social standing is really and truly decided by his individual merit), he is as happy and as popular with his messmates as any other sensible, good-humoured, high-spirited English boy might be in his place.

These things are matters of public notoriety. It is perfectly well known, that the Prince eats and drinks and sleeps as other midshipmen eat and drink and sleep; that his outfit has been exactly regulated (though the tradesman who made his chest is rumoured to have gone the loyal length of french-polishing it) by the outfits of other midshipmen; and that every distinction, in short, (except the too-enthusiastic polishing of the chest) has been most strictly and sensibly levelled between the many young officers who are the sons of gentlemen, and the one young officer who is the son of the Queen. Under these circumstances, it would seem hardly necessary that her Majesty should have been obliged to express a wish (as she is understood, however, to have expressed a wish) that no public receptions of the Prince should take place when the Euryalus happened to touch at any particular port. Every circumstance connected with the manner in which the Queen has sent her son to sea, must surely speak for itself, to the same plain and direct purpose, in the case of any official personage, in any part of the world, who Possesses one atom of tact or one grain of common sense? Here is the man-of-war, Euryalus; and one of the midshipmen on board bears the Christian name of Alfred. Surely, the clumsiest of mankind may be trusted Dot to commit the gross blunder of tearing off the wisely assumed incognito of the young officer, and setting him up before his messmates and companions (in flat defiance of the principle on which his own parents have so considerately and so sensibly acted) as a Prince of the Blood Royal, who is not, and never can be, one of themselves!

Alas! alas! the clumsiest of mankind must and will blunder, to the end of the world, even in the plainest and simplest matters. Exactly as the disastrous tradesman at home french-polished the chest, so the disastrous diplomatic tradesmen, abroad, french-polish Midshipman Alfred, the moment they get hold of him, with a royal reception.

The good ship Euryalus arrives in the Bay of Tangier; and the royal midshipman probably looks forward to a run on shore along with some of his friends in the gun-room. No such good fortune awaits him. We learn from the correspondent of the Gibraltar Chronicle, that Her Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires, Mr. D. Hay, proceeded in a Moorish – more properly, as we think, a Mayorish – launch, to wait upon his Royal Highness. Mr. D. Hay is instantly saluted by eleven honorary explosions from the guns of the Euryalus – not one of which, we regret to find, was sufficiently powerful to blow him back instantly to his office on shore. The Prince disembarks (as midshipmen invariably do) with twenty-one honorary explosions from the joyful town; which are immediately returned (captains being always particularly attentive where salutes to their midshipmen are concerned) by more explosions from the Euryalus. His Royal Highness – Midshipman Alfred no longer – is received by a perfect Corporation of civil and military authorities. Saddle-horses are in attendance; but the Prince not being quite nautical enough yet to get on horseback the moment he gets on shore, walks up to his quarters with his wearisome escort after him. The same day he has to make calls of ceremony on the minister and the Governor; and, the next morning, by way of showing him a particularly interesting and useful sight to a sailor, he is taken into the country to witness the manoeuvring of a large body of cavalry – possibly, the Horse Marines – in which case, we think it hard on the ship’s company not to have invited them all to see the review. It is only fair to the authorities to conclude by mentioning that they seem to have remembered, at the eleventh hour, that they had a midshipman to deal with, and that they then did what they could to gratify the Prince’s sailor-like enthusiasm for the fair sex, by taking him to see the marriage of a beautiful young Jewess. Shortly afterwards, he appears to have been happily rescued from the civil and military Corporation; to have got back to his ship; and to have there re-assumed, let us hope, the natural position in which he had been placed by his parents, and from which the blundering local authorities had done their mischievous utmost to separate him.

Similar exhibitions of ludicrous ostentation and wretched taste took place at Lisbon and at Malta – with this noticeable difference, however, that the reception at Lisbon was directed by a foreign sovereign, and was, on that very account, an excusable piece of folly. The King of Portugal might naturally enough fall into the mistake of supposing that he was bound out of common politeness (to say nothing of common regard for his own diplomatic interests) to take formal public notice of the Queen’s son, as some return for the attention which he himself received from the Court when he visited this country. The King of Portugal was not to be expected to feel with Englishmen on such a purely national question as that involved in the professional education of the Prince. For these reasons we can look composedly enough on the arrival of the Portuguese Royal Barge alongside of the Euryalus; and we can be well content to be merely amused by the reported astonishment of everybody at the alacrity with which the Prince jumped into the barge – an astonishment arising, we presume, from a general idea that the descent of a Queen’s son from a Queen’s ship’s side, could only be accomplished by a species of solemn procession, or by a stage-walk, or by any other means, except the means natural to a lively lad of fourteen who can make good use of his legs.

But the case is altered, when we get to Malta. Here, in an English possession, where the authorities had no excuse for awkwardly thwarting the Queen’s intentions, and mischievously elevating her son above the free sea-training and the impartial sea-discipline which can alone make a sailor of him – here, the sickening servility of these receptions of the young Prince reached its climax. The governor, the council, the judges, the archbishop, the Protestant bishop, the clergy, the nobility, and all the other grandees in the island received the midshipman in solemn assembly on the steps of the palace. Whether they fell on their knees at his approach, or whether they walked backwards till they got indoors, is not mentioned-but it is asserted, quite seriously, that a levée was held; and that, wherever the Prince went, there a procession persistently went with him, both before and behind. There was a ball. too (the Midshipman’s partners duly chronicled), and an illumination; and there would have been more to-do, if the Midshipman had not “greatly chagrined” the Maltese, by graciously condescending to allow his Captain to proceed on his cruise! But the crowning absurdity of all was accomplished by making the midshipman of the Euryalus publicly review the troops of the garrison. When we had arrived at this part of the newspaper narrative, nothing else that it might have contained would have astonished us. After reading of all the soldiers in Malta being reviewed by a sailor of the age of fourteen, we should not have felt the least surprised at being further informed of the governor boxing the compass, the judges holystoning the decks, or the Archbishop borrowing the boatswain’s whistle, and piping all hands, out of compliment to the Prince, in the very pulpit itself.

What is to stop this fawning perversion of Prince Alfred from the plain professional purpose to which his parents have so wisely devoted him? Who is to prevent these abject authorities from doing their best to spoil a frank, straightforward, natural lad, who is promising so well at the fair outset of his career? It is not easy to suggest an answer to these questions. How are people, who have no tact, no taste, no natural sense of what is appropriate and no instinctive terror of what is ridiculous – who seem to be influenced, partly, by the childish pleasure of putting on fine clothes, with the adult folly super-added of feeling proud at publicly exhibiting them; and, partly by the imperious necessity of cringing and crawling, which is the motive power that works in mean natures – how are such people as these to be reached by any ordinary process of remonstrance? Argument, entreaty, reproof, contempt; the pen of the writer, the tongue of the orator, are all shivered alike against the adamantine insensibility to every species of intellectual attack which distinguishes the genuine Flunkey nature. The one idea which occurs to us, in connection with this very disheartening part of the subject – and which we beg leave, in conclusion, to express with all possible respect – is, that the Queen her self might possibly come to the rescue of her son before it is too late to save him. Her Majesty has been pestered with tens of thousands of Addresses from her subjects. What if she were suddenly to turn the tables, and actually present her subjects with an Address from herself? May we hope to be excused, if, following out this idea, we venture to lay the following few lines at the foot of the Throne, as a rough sketch of the new kind of Royal Address which we are bold enough to suggest?

ADDRESS FROM THE QUEEN TO CERTAIN OF HER SUBJECTS IN OFFICE.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR FLUNKEYSHIPS, – I, your much-wearied and much-persecuted Sovereign, do hereby beg and entreat that you will, for the future, allow my second son to pursue his profession in peace and quietness, unencumbered and unperverted by Receptions, which separate him from his messmates, among whom I wish him to mingle as one of themselves. Governors, Generals, Admirals, Archbishops, Authorities civil and military, Corporations of every degree of obesity, – be so good as to learn, once for all, from your Queen, that true loyalty is one of the forms of true politeness, in which the delicacies of restraint, and the graces of good-sense, count among the chiefest and the most necessary of courteous accomplishments. Understand, distinctly, that when I send my son to sea as a midshipman, it is a flat contradiction of my intentions for you to receive him as a Prince. Reserve your spare gunpowder, therefore, for my enemies; keep your fine clothes and your processions for yourselves; and by no means consider it any part of your duty towards Midshipman Alfred to spoil a good sailor by reminding him, to no earthly purpose, that you are Flunkeys and that he is a Prince.

If some such pithy expostulation as this should ever happen, under an extraordinary stress of circumstances, to be prepared by direction of the Queen, there is no office within the gift of the Sovereign which it would give us half so much pleasure to receive as the useful, enviable, and patriotic office of presenting the Address.

Household Words 15 Jan 1858

THE DEBTOR’S BEST FRIEND

The philanthropist whom I have ventured to distinguish by this title, flourished at the beginning of the last century, and enrolled himself among the ranks of English authors by writing a book, which I purpose to examine briefly, with a view to the reader’s edification on the subject of imprisonment for debt, as it was practised more than a century ago. The work is called “An Accurate Description of Newgate, with the rights, privileges, allowances, fees, dues, and customs thereof; together with a parallel between the Master Debtors’ side of the said prison, and the several Sponging-houses in the County of Middlesex. Wherein are set forth the cheapness of living, civility, sobriety, tranquillity, liberty of conversation, and diversions of the former, and the expensive living, incivility, extortions, close confinement, and abuses of the latter. Together with a faithful account of the impositions of Bailiffs and their vile usage of all such unfortunate persons as fall into their hands. Written for the public good, by B. L., of Twickenham.”

Under these mysterious initials does the Debtor’s Best Friend, with the modesty of true merit, bide himself from discovery by a grateful public. In the first pages of his work he apologises for the lively sympathy with insolvent humanity which induced him to turn author, in these terms: “I am not insensible that many persons who perfectly know me will be not a little surprised to see my first public appearance in a treatise of this kind, which is so infinitely foreign from those eminent parts of Mathematics and Philosophy in which, for many years past., I have been familiarly conversant.” Here, then, is a profound mathematician and philosopher, perfectly acquainted (as we shall soon see) with the insides of sponging-houses and the habits of bailiffs; resident (when at large) in the delightful seclusion of Twickenham, at the commencement of the last century; and publicly willing to acknowledge that his initials are B. L. A more interesting subject of literary investigation than an inquiry after the name of this illustrious and anonymous man, it is hardly possible to conceive. When learned and eminent antiquarians have settled the question whether Shakspeare’s Plays were written by Shakspeare, and when they have also found out, for positively the last time, who Junius actually was, will they be so obliging as to grapple with the mystery of B. L.? The writer of these lines abandons the new voyage of literary discovery to their superior spirit of enterprise; and, abstaining from any further digression about the anonymous author of Twickenham, returns to the work which B. L. has left behind him, and to that special part of it which is devoted to the parallel between the Sponging-houses of Middlesex, and the Debtors’ side of Newgate Prison, in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four.

Will the reader – the gentle and solvent reader – be so good as to imagine that he was alive a century and a quarter ago, and that he was arrested for debt? Perhaps the favour is too great to ask; perhaps the suggestion may give offence. It will be fitter and better if the writer places himself, purely for the sake of illustrating the parallel of B. L., in a position of supposititious insolvency, and breaks down under pressure of his tradesman’s bills, in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four. Very good. I wear, let us say, a long wig and a short sword; broad coat-skirts spread out with buckram; little breeches, hidden at the top by the ends of my waistcoat, and at the bottom by my long stockings, pulled up over my knees. I have had, ’fore Gad, sir! a wild night of it, – have got drunk, bullied citizens, frightened their wives, beaten the watch, and reeled home to bed with my sword broken and half my embroidery scratched off my coat-cuffs. After a heavy sleep, I am just cooling my fevered tongue with a morning draught of small beer, when, plague take it! who should come in on the heels of my little black page bearing my Indian dressing-gown, but the bailiff with my arrest-warrant. Resistance is hopeless. I use the necessary imprecations. The bailiff gives me the necessary tap on the shoulder, and asks where I will go – to Newgate or to the sponging-house? The treatise of B. L. has unhappily not attracted my attention. I am unacquainted with the important truth, divulged for my benefit by the Debtor’s Best Friend, that Newgate offers me, with the one trifling exception of liberty, all the charms of home on the most moderate terms. The very name of the famous prison terrifies me. I weakly imagine that the sponging-house is more genteel, more luxurious, more fit, in every way, for a man of my condition; and to the sponging-house I declare that I will go.

On the way to our destination, the bailiff (B. L. calls him a Crocodile, among other hard names) insists on stopping at a tavern, under pretence of waiting to see if I can procure bail. Here, the Crocodile and his followers (called Swine by B. L.) “plentifully swig and carouse” (vide Treatise) at my expense. When I have paid the whole reckoning, no matter whether I have taken any drink myself or not, I am politely carried on to the sponging-house, and am told, all the way, what a horrible place Newgate is, and how grateful I ought to be to my kind Crocodiles and Swine for saving me from incarceration in the county gaol. Arrived at the sponging-house, I am received with the greatest civility; and my dear friend, the bailiff (without troubling me with any previous consultation on the subject) orders, at my expense, a bottle of wine and half-a-dozen roast fowls. This banquet prepared, he and all his crocodile family, together with the whole herd of unconscionable swine in attendance on them, sit down to table, leaving me the lowest and worst place, cutting, carving, raking, tearing the fowls in the most unmannerly way, helping everybody before me, absorbing wings, breasts, merrythoughts and thighs, and leaving nothing to my share but the drumsticks and the bones. When the wine is all drunk, and the fowls are all eaten, the head of the crocodiles winks at the head of the swine, and each declares that he has got the colic. The families on either side catch the infection of that distressing malady immediately, and brandy is called for (medicinally), and again at my expense. After the sharp pangs of colic have been sufficiently assuaged, the table is cleared. Pipes, tobacco, and a bowl of punch (price half-a-guinea in the sponging-house; price three and sixpence out of doors) are ordered by the company for themselves, in my name. While my free guests are drinking, I, their prisoner-host, am called on to amuse them by telling the story of my misfortunes. When the bowl is empty, I am carried off to my own room, and am visited there, shortly after, on private business, by the head crocodile, with his pipe in his mouth. His present object is to inform me that my paying the bill for the wine, fowls, brandy, pipes, tobacco, and punch, has not by any means freed me from my obligations to his kindness, and that I must positively go to Newgate at once, unless I settle forthwith what I am going to pay him in the way of Civility-money. My doctor has a fee for giving me physic; why should my bailiff not have a fee for treating me kindly? He declines to mention any precise amount, but he laughs in my face if I offer less than a guinea, and I may consider myself very lucky if he does not take from me three times that sum. If I submit to this extortion, and if I am sufficiently liberal afterwards in the matter of brandy, I am treated with a certain consideration. If I object to be swindled, I am locked up in one small filthy room; am left without attendance, whenever I happen to knock or call, by the hour together; am denied every necessary of life; am “scoffed and snapped at, and used, in short, with a great deal of ill manners.”

My Civility-money being paid, I am charged two shillings for my first night’s lodging. (The reader will be good enough to remember, whenever money is spoken of, that the value of a shilling, a century and a quarter ago, was a very different thing from the value of a shilling at the present day.) For every night’s lodging afterwards I am charged one shilling, and for my firing one shilling also per diem. This is about six times the real value of the latter article of convenience; and yet, forgetful of the large profit he gets out of me, my excellent friend, the bailiff (B. L., after calling him a Crocodile for five pages, varies the epithet at the sixth, and speaks of him as a Cannibal), comes in at eight o’clock every night and puts out my fire and extinguishes my candle, whether I am ready to go to bed at that early hour or not. Finally, when I retire for the night, it is more than probable that I shall find I have to share my bed with one – sometimes, even, with two – of my fellow-debtors; the cannibal’s only object being to prey, to the utmost possible extent, upon his prisoners’ purses, and to give them as little comfort and convenience in return as he possibly can.

At breakfast, the next morning, I pay four times as much as I ought for my tea, coffee, or chocolate. I am charged a shilling for bread, cheese, or butter. The regular contract price for my dinner is two shillings, or three shillings, or as much more as will include the expense of the cannibal-bailiff’s meal along with mine. If he has a wife and daughters I pay more, because the tea and sugar for the ladies becomes, in that case, a necessary part of my bill. If I complain, dreadful threats of calling a coach and taking me to Newgate forthwith, silence me in a moment, I must object to nothing – not even to the quality of the liquors of which I consume such large quantities by deputy. Though the brandy is “a composition of diverse spirituous liquids,” though “the Geneva is fourpence per quartern, and short in measure,” though “the wine is horrid base,” I must still pay hugely for all, and be particularly careful, on every occasion, to hold my tongue. If I want to vent my repressed feelings in a letter to a friend, I must first beg and pray for liberty to compose that document, and must then pay double price to the messenger who takes it to its address. If I only give him a penny to put it into the, post-office, he indignantly puts it into the fire instead. Even when I fee him liberally he, or some other among the swine, crocodiles, and cannibals of the establishment, opens my letter and reads it, and declines to deliver it if there is anything that he happens to dislike, or to consider as personally offensive in the contents. He takes a precisely similar liberty with any letters which my friends send to me, unless they are wise enough to have them delivered straight into my own hands. Last and sorest aggravation of all, I am charged half-a-crown a day for the luxury of having a bailiff’s follower to lock me up in my room, with a shilling a day extra for the victuals which the monster eats.

Against this exposure of the cruelty and extortion of a sponging-house, the Debtor’s Best Friend sets the companion-picture of the hospitality, the economy, and the happiness of Newgate; earnestly and affectionately entreating all his embarrassed fellow-creatures to flock to that delightful prison for the future, whenever they are arrested by their unfeeling creditors. How different are the events, how varied is the scene on the new stage! I am arrested, we will say, again – or, no, let the reader take his turn now, for the writer has surely suffered enough in the sponging-house to justify him in resuming, at this point of the narrative, his natural character of a solvent man. With your kind permission, therefore, you, reader, are arrested, this time. You have read the inestimable Treatise of B. L. Thanks to the warning of that philanthropic man, you are too sharp to be deceived as I have been; and when the bailiff taps you on the shoulder, and asks you where you will go, you answer with a promptness that confounds the fellow: “Crocodile! to Newgate. Cannibal! to my happy home in my county gaol.” You are taken to the Lodge at Newgate, informing the inferior swine all the way that not one of them will get half-a-crown a day for keeping you. The Turnkey advances to meet you, with friendly sympathy beaming in every line of his respectable and attractive face. You pay him six shillings and sixpence, which is all the Civility-money he expects from you. You pass on to your Ward, and pay ten and sixpence more to the Steward – generally selected from among the ranks of the most charming and accomplished men of the age in which he lives. Out of this sum he distributes two shillings among the Prisoners of your Ward – who love you as their brother in return. The remaining eight and sixpence goes into the pocket of the steward, and for that small sum he supplies you with good fires, candles, salt, and brooms during the whole time of your imprisonment no matter how long it may be. Compare this with the sponging house, where I paid a shilling a day for my fire and candle, and was left in the dark every evening at eight o’clock!

As for your meals in Newgate, it is a luxury only to think of them. You mess sociably with the prisoners of your Ward who have had your two shillings divided among them, and who love you like a brother in return. You have an excellent dinner of roast or boiled; you pay fourpence or, at most, sixpence for it; and you order what you like to drink and I are not required to pay for a drop more than you have actually consumed. When your free and solvent friends from outside come to pay you a visit, they are allowed access to you from eight in the morning till nine at night, you are at perfect liberty to talk to them as long as you please, and need have no fear that any prison authority will be mean enough to listen outside your door. When I was in the sponging-house, and when my friends came to see me, a crocodile with his ear at the keyhole was part of the necessary furniture of the establishment. Oh, the happiness of being in Newgate! you remember how my letters were treated by the swine of the sponging-house? Your letters are carried for you with the swiftest despatch by the safest of special messengers for any small gratuity you please to offer. Oh, the privilege of inhabiting one’s county gaol! Can words describe your life of comfort and economy as contrasted with my wretched existence of squalor and expense? No, words cannot describe it; but the superior eloquence of figures may compass the achievement. Let us, to complete the parallel, examine and compare (under the authority of B. L.) the respective daily bills that you and I have to pay – I for staying four and twenty hours in a sponging-house: you, for staying four and twenty hours in the Debtors’ side of Newgate prison.

This is the Bill paid by the insolvent author to the Cannibal of a Sponging-House in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four, for one night’s lodging and one day’s expense:

| £ | s. | d.
For my night’s lodging | 0 | 2 | 0
For my breakfast | 0 | 1 | 0

For one quart of drink at my breakfast,
of which I did not swallow one drop

0

0

4

For half-a-pint of brandy,
which likewise never approached my lips

0

1

4

For my dinner | 0 | 2 | 0

For my drink at dinner:
one glass to me, and all the rest
to the bailiff

0

2

0

Brandy after dinner,
half-a-pint entirely used
in assuaging the bailiff’s colic

0

1

4

Tobacco and pipes:
to quiet the bailiff’s nerves
after he had recovered from the colic

0

1

0

My keeper’s dinner
(and a much better one than mine)

0

1

0

My keeper’s day’s attendance on me | 0 | 2 | 6
My supper | 0 | 1 | 0
My drink at supper | 0 | 0 | 8
Brandy at supper: for the keeper’s colic | 0 | 1 | 4
My total | 0 | 17 | 6

This is the Bill paid by the insolvent reader to the paternal authorities of Newgate, in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four, for one night’s lodging and one day’s expense:

| £ | s. | d.
For your night’s lodging | 0 | 0 | 4½
For your breakfast | 0 | 0 | 3½
For your dinner | 0 | 0 | 6
For your supper | 0 | 0 | 4

For your drink, all day, allowing you three quarts of beer, and remembering that none of your keepers are officially attacked with colic

0

0

9

Your total | 0 | 2 | 3

From this comparison of bills it appears that you save (in the year seventeen hundred and twenty-four) fifteen shillings and three-pence a day by going straight to Newgate instead of going into a sponging-house. Having carried his parallel safely forward to this striking and unanswerable result, B. L. wisely leaves his facts and figures to speak for themselves, and closes that part of his Treatise which has established his claim to the honorable title of The Debtor’s Best Friend. It would be a curious subject for investigation to ascertain how far the parallel instituted by B. L. might hold good in the present day. The author can only excuse himself for not making the inquiry, by confessing, to his shame, that he has not public spirit enough to qualify himself for properly collecting the necessary facts, by becoming a debtor and entering a sponging-house. He is as anxious, in his way, as the anonymous “B. L., of Twickenham” to promote “the public good,” but his patriotism has its limits, and he finds that bailiffs and turnkeys stand at some distance on the outer side of his mental boundary-line. Having confessed his weakness in these plain terms, he will ask permission to abandon the topic of imprisonment for debt, content with having given the reader some idea of the abuses of sponging-houses and the merits of county gaols in the last century, and perfectly willing to resign the honour of discussing the subject in its modern bearings, to any other gentleman who can speak from that superior position of practical experience to which he most devoutly hopes that he himself may never attain.

Household Words 19 Sep 1857

A BREACH
OF BRITISH PRIVILEGE

Sir, – I occasionally see your journal at the houses of my friends, and I am told that it occupies a highly influential and prominent position among the periodicals of the present time. For my own part, I carefully abstained from subscribing to you, when you started. I didn’t like the look of you, then; and I don’t like the look of you, now. You are not English to the backbone. You have more than once set up the foreigners – the jabbering, unwashed, unshaved foreigners, who live on kickshaws and sour wine – as examples to US. I doubt whether you really believe that one Englishman is equal to two Frenchmen, and six of any other nation. I doubt whether you know your Rule Britannia as you ought, and whether you sincerely feel that we are the “dread and envy” of every foreign community on the face of the earth. No, sir, you won’t do for me – it may be disagreeable to you to know it – but you won’t.

Why do I write to you, then? For three reasons. First, and foremost, to see whether you can be fair enough to both sides to print something which is not written by one of your own set. Secondly, to perform an entirely new literary feat, in the character of correspondent to a journal, by writing a letter to an Editor which doesn’t begin by flattering him. Thirdly, and lastly, to show you the results to which your precious modern principles have led, and will continue to lead, by quoting the last new example of the invasion of the execrable foreign element, as now exhibited every night, not far from you, at the West End of the Strand. There are my reasons; and here is my letter. Listen to the first, if you can. Print the last, if you dare.

I have been, for some time, prepared for a great deal in the way of desertion of national principle. When beards (which you recommended) began to grow on British faces – when shoe-blacks (whom you encouraged) began to ply in British streets – when the word “entrée” appeared among the chops and steaks of British taverns; and when foreign opera companies could sing at playhouse prices on the British stage, and not be hooted off it – I was proof, as I fondly imagined, against any additional feeling of surprise at any additional foreign innovation. But, I was mistaken; and I don’t mind acknowledging it. Much as I was prepared for, I was not prepared, sir, for MR. BENJAMIN WEBSTER’S NEW ADELPHI THEATRE.

I shall probably be very severe in the course of this letter; but I will endeavour to be reasonable and just at the same time. In writing of Mr. Webster’s Innovation (for in the good old English sense of the word it is not a Theatre at all), I will bear lightly on the architect, Mr. T. H. Wyatt. I will assume that when he received his commission, it was saddled with certain conditions, which he was bound to fulfil, and did fulfil, as an honest man. I will even endeavour to write of Mr. Webster himself more in sorrow than in anger, when I come to the personal part of the subject, so far as he is concerned. First of all, however, I must take care to be general, before I become particular (there are people out of your literary set, sir, who understand the art of writing, though they seldom care to practise it) – I must establish my principle and state my case; using a new paragraph for the purpose, and making it a short one. You see I know all about it, although, I thank Heaven, I am not a literary man.

My principle is, That the English public does not want to be made comfortable when it goes to the Theatre; That this peculiarity marks the great distinction between a British audience and a French audience; And that a manager who gives to the modest Englishman, who has not asked for it, the comfortable seat which the arrogant Frenchman has insisted on having long since, is a manager who gratuitously breaks down a grand social distinction between France and Great Britain.

My case is, That Mr. Benjamin Webster has committed this grave patriotic offence at The New Adelphi Theatre.

Now let us be moderate – let us be philosophic – let us have this out logically by all manner of means. The English public does not want to be made comfortable when it goes to the Theatre. Is there any man in his senses who doubts this? Let him, in that case, remember the Old – yes, the fine, old, genuine, British Adelphi Theatre, now pulled down – and let him put his hand on his heart (as they did in the good old sterling comedies), and say whether he remembers a single comfortable place in the whole of that eminently national edifice, ranging all over it from the floor to the ceiling? Let him say whether he remembers that Theatre as a scene of public protests and riots in consequence of the exquisite uneasiness of every seat in it, or as a scene of happy, crowded, cramped, perspiring placidity, in which a British pit perched itself upon its native knife-boards, with its sides squeezed, its knees jammed, and its back unsupported, a spectacle of national discomfort and national contentment, such as no other civilised city could show in any part of Europe? No! no! If an English audience wanted to be made comfortable, the old Adelphi Theatre could never have kept its doors open through a single season; and certain other national – that is to say, universally uncomfortable – theatres still in existence, would be shut up. Are they shut up? Are they not, on the contrary, crowded every night? Is a murmur ever heard from the contentedly-cramped audience? I promised you logic, just now; and here you have it, I think, with a vengeance!

Having established my principle, and proved it by facts which no man can deny, I may now come down to details, and have it out personally with Mr. Webster.

My first complaint is, that I am bewildered by this innovating management, in two ways even before I take my seat inside the New Adelphi at all. In the first place, I am not fined a shilling at the Box Office, for the offence of wanting to engage a seat at the Theatre. Why not, when other theatres continue to fine me with perfect impunity? If I really resented such treatment, I should bring those other theatres to their senses by not going near them till they had removed their shilling tax. But I do nothing of the sort; I pay it uncomplainingly when I am asked for it. And here is Mr. Webster losing money in the vain attempt to teach me, as a true-born Englishman, not to let myself be taken in. And there are the other managers who know the public better, laughing at him in their sleeves, and profiting daily by the good old system. Speaking as a man of business I don’t mind acknowledging that this bewilders me to begin with.

Then again, when I go into the theatre, and pass the money-takers, and enter the lobbies, what do I see? Women – on my word of honour – quiet, civil, quick, neatly-dressed, attentive women, who give me my playbill gratuitously, and show me to my place, and expect nothing for it. Here is a pretty innovation! Women made useful in England, in an occupation which they are especially well fitted to follow! Women removed from those famous hearths and homes of ours, which I always score with an approving line in pencil, when my favourite authors present them to me in my favourite capital letters! What next, I should like to know? An inoffensive Englishman, well acquainted with the national customs, enters a theatre, after paying to go in, keeping an extra shilling between his finger and thumb, to pay again as usual – expects to meet a scowling male extortioner in frowzy black who takes his bribe, as a matter of course, before he opens the door – and confronts instead a pleasant little woman, who never so much as looks in the direction of the visitor’s waistcoat-pocket, and waits on him as civilly as if she were his own servant. Upon my life, you might have knocked me into my seat with a feather, when I first took it at the New Adelphi Theatre.

Wait, though – I retract the word seat, as applied to Mr. Webster’s Orchestra Stalls. My idea – my national English idea of a stall-seat at a London theatre, implies something which is too narrow and too high – something which slopes the wrong way, and lets me slide down till my knees fit nicely into the edge of the bench before me – something entirely unconnected with carpets below and footstools in front – something, in short, which, in respect of its intense discomfort and wretchedness, is the exact reverse of my seat at home. Do I meet with this at the New Adelphi? I can hardly write it for laughing; but I actually sit, in this deplorably un-English building, in a real armchair, a luxurious private armchair – I can see the stage without craning my head till I get a stiff neck – my neighbours have room to pass, without squeezing me against my seat; and, to crown all, instead of paying more for these foreign luxuries than I pay for my national discomforts at my favourite national theatre, not a hundred miles off, I am actually charged a shilling less! Most ridiculous, is it not?

I stand up, and look about me. Why, here is an English Theatre, from every part of which everybody can see the stage. I remark a dress-circle with as much room in it as there is in the stalls; with seats which can be raised for the convenience of passing and re-passing; with special arrangements for hats, cloaks, and opera-glasses; with an open balcony in front, to show the bright colours of the ladies’ dresses – and, as I live, with a row of private boxes rising behind it. Private boxes in England, with a front view of the stage – private boxes from which four people can see without two of them standing up – private boxes, price one pound – private boxes price ten shillings, even, if there are only two of us who want to go into them! I think of my one-eleven-six, or my two pound two, and my angular peep behind the scenes, and my bird’s-eye view of the actors’ heads, at my favourite national establishment; and look down at my playbill to collect my thoughts and to try and remember that I am still in a place of public amusement. What do I see on the bill? Odds frogs and capers! (as my favourite Acres would say) here is a Frenchified notion of attending to the comforts of the common people! Here are stalls again, with elbows and cushions, in the Gallery – yes! Stalls, in the gallery of a British Theatre! Fancy the gods, the common people who can only pay a shilling a-piece, sitting in their stalls! Once show the lower orders as much attention as you show their betters, and they will be behaving like their betters, and there will be no hootings nor howlings, nor stampings, nor catcalls, and the character of the gallery will be lost for ever. What next, Mr. Webster – I wonder what next?

I ask this question, but there is no need to do so. My eyes are hardly withdrawn from a transmogrified gallery, before they fall on a transmogrified pit. Where are the benches, the good old dingy greasy rows of knife-boards? Gone – and in their places more stalls with elbows and cushions. Any increase in the price? Not a halfpenny. Two shillings, in the old times, for sitting on a pit-plank, with your neighbour’s elbow in your stomach. Two shillings, in the new times, for sitting in a pit-stall, with your neighbour’s elbow where it ought to be. My clerk – my overpaid clerk, who has only nine children and gets a hundred and twenty pounds a-year – can take his wife and daughters to this anti-national theatre, without making their backs ache: can put them in their places without any preliminary rushing and pushing; can seat them next to the fattest man in England, and can make sure that they won’t be squeezed. Squeezed, did I say? What has become of a certain time-honoured female figure, peculiar to an English pit? Where is our unparalleled insular female nuisance, the fruit-woman, whom I saw the other night, at my favourite old-fashioned theatre, charging longitudinally through the happy occupants of the pit-planks, using her basket as a battering-ram, and opening her ginger-pop over the shoulders of the public? Gone, sir! No such person known at the New Adelphi. No such person inquired after, by the audience; no, not even in the driest part of the evening. There the English public sat, sir, in their Frenchified pit, with their refreshment-room to go to if they pleased, as calmly, as comfortably, and as uncomplainingly as if they had been used to it all their lives.

I felt my temper going. Mine is a very fair temper under ordinary circumstances; but it is not quite proof against the provocation of the New Adelphi. I say, I lost my temper, and I half rose to leave my unendurably easy seat – when a new line in the playbill caught my eye. “No Second Price!” I sat down again, incapable, even after all that I had seen, of realising this climax of innovation. If there is an English institution left in this country (which I sometimes doubt), it is, Half Price, Don’t we all know what a blessing it is for the audience who have been fools enough to pay whole price, to be invaded at nine o’clock by another audience, who have been wise enough to pay half price? Don’t we all know how it improves the closing scenes of an interesting play, and how it encourages the actors who happen to be on the stage at the time, to hear the silence in the theatre suddenly interrupted by a rushing and scraping of feet and a rapid opening and shutting of box-doors? No Second Price! I protest I could not believe it – I thought it was a hoax – and I waited, to make sure, till nine o’clock came. Dead silence; the play and the actors entirely uninterrupted; not a footfall in the pit, not a bang at the box-doors. That was quite enough for me – I felt my own individuality slipping from under me, as it were – and I left the theatre, on patriotic grounds, never – no, never – to enter it again.

You may call this prejudice, and you may ask what it all means besides grumbling. It means, sir, that Mr. Webster’s foreign freak is likely to alter other places of public amusement besides his own. Before long, this gentleman’s mischievous experiment in building will be teaching the once contented English public to exact comfortable seats, sensible arrangements, and architectural fitness and beauty from managers generally, as well as stage entertainments; and the necessary consequence will be, the transmogrification of most of our other theatres, as well as of the new theatre in the Strand. We have risen to be a great people under our existing theatrical system; we were going on remarkably well on our characteristic bare benches – and, on pure conservative grounds, I protest against Mr. Webster’s conspiracy to slip cushions under us, to support our backs, to give room for our legs, to please our eyes, to coddle our hardy lower orders, and to save all our pockets. Let this rashest of existing managers beware. He has entered on a career of which no man can see the end. He has spoilt the public with good accommodation already – the next outrageous luxuries they will learn to clamour for will be good plays.

I remain, sir (in an epistolary sense, but in no other), yours,

J. Bull

P.S. – I forgot to mention, as a last instance of the absurd manner in which the public is petted at the New Adelphi, that the management looks carefully after anything they may leave behind them in their seats – publishes a register of the articles so found, in the playbill – and keeps them to be applied for at the stage-door. Here is a premium on carelessness, and a mischievous discouragement of trade. A lady who leaves her fan behind her, gets it back again now. In the good old times she would have had to buy another.

Household Words 19 Mar 1859

THE NATIONAL GALLERY
AND THE OLD MASTERS

In a recent number of this journal, we endeavoured, in an article called “To Think, or Be Thought For?” to induce our readers to form their own opinions on pictures – especially in the case of pictures by Old Masters, which might come under their observation. And we ventured, at the same time, to own that we doubted the sense and usefulness of the principle upon which the national picture-money is at present expended in stocking the National Gallery with works of Art. Our heretical opinions on this latter point, have lately received a curious and unexpected confirmation in the shape of a letter from Mr. William Stirling (a recognised authority in matters of Art), which has been published in the columns of a weekly contemporary, and which we beg permission briefly to refer to in this place.

The subject of the letter is a well-known picture in the National Gallery, which is described as a Boar Hunt, by Velasquez, and the object of the writer is to settle how much of this picture has been done by the dead Spaniard, Velasquez, and how much by the living Englishman (and skilled artist), Mr. Lance. On this point, Mr. Stirling, the constituted authority, and Mr. Lance, the skilled artist, are at issue. Mr. Lance states before a Committee of the House of Commons, that he had made many extensive repairs in the picture, and instances, as one of the chief of these, the painting of a group of mules in the foreground, “out of his own head.” To this startling statement he afterwards adheres publicly, in a printed letter; adding that, when he was before the picture in the National Gallery, several of the committee (apparently quite incapable of distinguishing for themselves, which was old painter’s work, and which was new), asked him, by two or three at a time (so eager was their thirst for knowledge), and pointing all over the picture (so bewildered were they as to the real extent of the repairs), “Did you do this, Mr. Lance? Did you do that, Mr. Lance?” – and so on. Mr. Lance, an interval of twenty years having elapsed since he made the canvas presentable to the public eye, is naturally unable to identify every touch of his modern brush on the ancient picture. One thing, however, he can tell the committee with certainty – that he did six weeks’ work upon it. What does the paying British public think of its bargain? – a work by an old master which requires to be painted on for six weeks by a modern artist before it can be presented to the popular gaze. What a lucky people we are, and how well our constituted authorities employ the national resources!

But we must not forget Mr. Stirling. Mr. Stirling’s point is – not at all that the picture was originally purchased in such a decently genuine condition, as to need only the ordinary cleansing from dirt, and the after coating of varnish, to which its age might fairly entitle it – but how much did Mr. Lance do of it? For this purpose, he sends to Madrid for a tracing of a copy of the picture, executed by Goza – that tracing only extending to the portion of the work on which Mr. Lance alleged that the most important of his many “repairs” had been made. By the evidence I thus obtained, Mr. Stirling finds out that Mr. Lance has greatly exaggerated the extent of bare canvas which he says he covered, that the group in the restored picture agrees with that in Goza’s copy, but that variations occur in the details. Where Velasquez (on the evidence of the copy) painted horses, Mr. Lance has painted mules (a slight variation, this!); where Velasquez painted a man showing a hand out of a cloak, Mr. Lance has painted a man showing a hand and a leg; where Velasquez painted a man on foot turning his back on the spectator, Mr. Lance has painted a man on horseback prancing towards the spectator. Thus, the only question between Mr. Stirling and Mr. Lance is a question of quantity. Mr. Stirling disputes (on the evidence of the tracing from the copy), that so much has been done to the picture “out of Mr. Lance’s own head,” as Mr. Lance himself alleges. Of the extent to which Mr. Stirling himself admits that Mr. Lance has distinctly, with his own modern brush, worked upon and changed the old picture, we have enabled the reader to judge. To an unlearned apprehension, the admitted transformation which the picture has undergone, at the hands of Mr. Lance, appears something simply astounding. Astounding in every point of view. Astounding, when we remember that this picture – in which old horses have been turned into modern mules, in which a man on horseback does duty vice a man on foot, resigned – was purchased with the national money as a genuine article by constituted authorities who profess to be judges of the genuineness of pictures. Astounding, also, as showing the shameless dishonesty of the man, or men, who sold this piece of patchwork for a work of Velasquez. Were we so very hasty and wrong, a few weeks back, when we said that the national-picture money was occasionally spent for the confusion of the nation?

We have waited, before writing these lines, to ascertain if Mr. Lance would make any rejoinder to Mr. Stirling’s letter. He has been silent, and Mr. Stirling enjoys the privilege of having said the triumphant last word. He speaks it in a perfectly moderate and gentlemanlike manner – but his evident incapability of perceiving the conclusions to which his own admissions lead, is, to say the least of it, not a little amazing.

Household Words 25 Oct 1856

DRAMATIC AUTHOR

Does the public indifference towards the stage, at the present day, extend, also, even to books which take the stage for a subject? The question is suggested by a work recently published, under the title of Thirty-Five Years of a Dramatic Author’s Life, which makes no pretension to any high literary character, but which, as a record of personal experience, contains many interesting particulars in connection with the past history of the English Stage; and, more especially with those curious wild-flowers of the dramatic garden which were cultivated during the last half-century, by the managers, authors, and actors attached to the minor theatres of the metropolis.

The work in question is an autobiography, and the writer of it is Mr. Edward Fitzball. To the younger generation of readers, this gentleman’s name may, not improbably, recall the remembrance of much conventional, jesting of the periodical sort, which never had a large infusion of the Attic salt of wit to recommend it; and which, in course of time, became intolerably wearisome to all but the jesters themselves, by dint of perpetual repetition. To us, it has always appeared a little unjust towards Mr. Fitzball to have mischievously paved the way, in his case, for the passage of ridicule, by representing him as filled to overflowing with literary pretensions, to which judging by his own words, in his own book, now under review – he has never made any claim. As we understand it having no personal knowledge of Mr. Fitzball, and no object in writing, but the desire to treat him with all fair consideration – he has never pretended to anything more than the possession of a natural dramatic instinct in the shaping of plots, and the placing of situations, and the acquisition of considerable experience in studying the tastes of the public of his time, as well as of great facility in making that experience tell for what it was fairly worth on the stage. He has claimed to have done this successfully, and the record of facts in his autobiography fairly establishes his claim. It may be an excellent joke against Mr. Fitzball that he has written plays which have run, in more cases than one, for two hundred nights, and have put thousands of pounds into the pockets of the managers – but we are not sharp enough to see it ourselves. When a man starts as a dramatist, he fails, no matter what his style as a writer may be, if he empties the theatre; and he succeeds, no matter what his style as a writer may be, if he fills it, whether it be a large theatre, or a small one, a theatre on this side of the Thames, or a theatre on the other side of the Thames, whether he be a Syncretic whose tragedy in the blankest possible verse no human being has ever yet read, or whether he be Mr. Fitzball, whose melodramas, in the plainest possible prose, thousands and thousands of his countrymen have been glad to go and see. A man who can really accomplish what he has undertaken to do is such a rarity, especially on the English stage, that he deserves civil recognition at the very least. We are so inveterately comic now-a-days, that we must always laugh, even at the wrong man; and, in the mean, time, the quack who deserves our ridicule, too often escapes scot-free.

We find, from Fitzball’s autobiography, that his first attempt at stage composition was made on the boards of the Norwich Theatre. He there produced the Innkeeper of Abbeville, which succeeded well enough in the country to be reproduced at the Surrey Theatre, where it ran upwards of one hundred nights. His next attempts were Joan of Arc and The Floating Beacon, which were played together, nearly, if not more than four hundred consecutive nights. To our thin king this was not a bad beginning for a young man. Where are the dramatists, great or little, who begin, in that way, now?

As he gained in experience, he got on to wider successes. His Devil’s Elixir was a great hit, even with a critical Covent-Garden audience. His Pilot, Flying Dutchman, and Jonathan Bradford (this last melodrama running two hundred and sixty-four consecutive nights), were reported to have brought nearly twenty thousand pounds to the theatres in which they were produced. Besides writing these plays, he dramatised some of Scott’s and Bulwer’s novels; and, later in his career, he varied his exertions by writing the words (or by adapting them from foreign librettos) of some of the most popular operas that have ever appeared on the English stage. His poetry, taken by itself, was easy enough to ridicule, in these cases. But who, in the instances of other men, looks for fine poetry in opera-books? Who wants anything of an opera-book, but that it should be an easy and intelligible medium for conveying music to the public ear? If Mr. Fitzball accomplished this object, he did enough for the purpose for which he was employed. And, if he had written fine verses, who, of all the listeners to the music, would have found them out?

Excepting the cases of the operas, Mr. Fitzball’s adaptations from the French seem to have been commendably few in number. He took his plots from English stories, or from romantic events recorded in the newspapers. If a man cannot absolutely invent for himself, it is certainly more creditable to to him as a dramatist, that he should take his materials from widely known national sources, than from foreign originals disguised to pass for English, and unacknowledged on the playbills. As no serial novels were published at that time, be anticipated no author’s stories, and committed no graver offence than that of attempting, generally with unmistakable success, to present the dramatic side of a popular novel, to an audience, for the most part, well acquainted with it already in its original narrative form.

We have indicated the outline of Mr. Fitzball’s dramatic career, as exhibited in his autobiography, and we may now leave the reader who is interested in the matter to refer to the work itself for all details, and for a plentiful supply of anecdotes in connection with the actors, managers, and dramatists of the last fifty years. It would be easy enough to take exception to the execution of these volumes, if it were at all desirable to do so. But we see no necessity for trying a book which makes no literary pretence, by a high literary standard. We are willing to accept the fruits of Mr. Fitzball’s dramatic experience good-humouredly, when they are worth gathering; and when they are not, we can easily accept the alternative of leaving them on the tree.

Household Words 28 May 1859

THANKS TO
DOCTOR LIVINGSTONE

In Boswell’s Life of Johnson it is related of Oliver Goldsmith that he one day broke his shins in attempting to show his friends that he could perform a certain feat of agility, which had conferred great celebrity on a Clown who was the popular favourite of the day. The anecdote is generally accepted, with a high sense of relish, as one among many other amusing proofs of Goldsmith’s ridiculous vanity. Speaking for myself, I have never been able to look at it in that light. I have always believed that the misadventure to Goldsmith’s shins was caused by his acute sense of the neglected state of his muscular education. He knew that he possessed the same bodily apparatus as the Clown; he was ashamed of not being able to turn it to the same dexterous use; he gallantly endeavoured to make up for deficiencies in early training by self-directed efforts in later life; and, like many another man, who, in default of proper schooling, has tried to teach himself, he failed in accomplishing his meritorious purpose. Superficial spectators, who could not look beyond the broken shins, all burst out laughing at the accident, and cried: There is his vanity again! And, since that time, a superficial public has unanimously echoed the exclamation.

Grateful remembrances of The Vicar of Wakefield make me hope that I am right in the view I take of this anecdote. At the same time, common candour compels me to confess that all public exhibitions of great skill and dexterity have the same curious effect on my own mind, which I suppose the Clown’s feat to have had on the mind of Goldsmith. When, for example, I attend the performances of a conjuror; when I observe that his hands are in every respect like mine; and when I see the amazing uses to which he can put them, I blush at the mortifying sight of my own fingers and thumbs; I think of the dormant dexterities which my parents never cultivated, and which I can now never hope to acquire; and I leave the entertainment, secretly ashamed of my grossly ignorant hands, and secretly relieved when I find myself hiding them from the public eye in the kindly refuge of my pockets.

It must be a very strong feeling indeed which makes an Englishman ashamed of his own legs. The observant reader who has travelled abroad, will, I think, support me when I assert that no respectable Frenchman, German, or Italian, was ever yet seen to bend his head down while walking in the street, and survey the spectacle of his own legs with a grave and vacant satisfaction. The same observant reader, on returning to London from foreign parts, cannot fail to have noticed that all respectable Englishmen perform this action, at one period or another of their progress through the streets. It may be that we admire our own legs as a nation; or it may be that we are scrupulously anxious to see that our trousers are properly brushed. At any rate, there is no doubt of the fact that the Englishman enjoys the sight of his own legs in a state of progression – especially when they are taking him to Church. National in all other matters, I used to be national also in this. Some years since, unfortunately for myself, I saw a famous male opera-dancer. The sprightly leapings, twistings, twirlings, and twinklings of those incomparable and never-to-be-forgotten legs, sank deep into my mind, and dried up in me for ever, those sources of innocent national enjoyment, to which I have referred, I hope, with becoming tenderness and respect. I left the theatre, so heartily disgusted with the stolidity of my own uneducated legs, that I have never had the courage or the curiosity to look at them since.

Something of the same eccentric mental operation has been lately stirred into action within me by the perusal of a very remarkable book which is just now interesting the public in an unusual degree. I have been following a narrative of great dangers and trials, encountered in a good cause, by as honest and as courageous a man as ever lived. In other words, I have been reading Doctor Livingstone’s Account of his Travels in South Africa. What various results this book may have produced upon the minds of its very large circle of readers, I cannot pretend to say. One of the results which it has produced on my mind, is of a kind which I suspect neither its author, its publisher, nor its critics foresaw, when it was first presented to the world. The effect of it on me has been to lower my opinion of my own character in a most remarkable and most disastrous manner. I used to think that I possessed the moral virtues of courage, patience, resolution, and self-control. Since I have read Doctor Livingstone’s volume, I have been driven to the humiliating conclusion that, in forming my own opinion of myself, I have been imposed upon by a false and counterfeit article. Guided by the test of the South African Traveller, I find that my much-prized courage, patience, resolution, and self-control, turn out to be nothing but plated goods. A week ago I thought they were genuine silver – I did, indeed.

How can this possibly have happened? – some persons may be inclined to ask. Happy persons! who can lay the book down, thankful to the author (as I am thankful) for having written it; but, on the other hand, not depreciated in their own estimations, as I am depreciated in mine. It is no very difficult task to describe the manner in which my self-esteem oozed out of me as soon as I made Doctor Livingstone’s acquaintance. The process was simple in itself; and it began at the very first chapter in. the book. I had only reached page twelve, when I was irresistibly impelled to ask myself this searching and decisive question: Suppose I was travelling in South Africa, and suppose, at the very beginning of my wanderings, a lion laid hold of me by the shoulder, and got me down on the ground under his paw? What should I have done? Beyond all possibility of doubt, I should have shrieked for help to my savage friends running off in the background; and, receiving none, I should have fainted away with fright, and have known nothing more till my, faithful niggers brought me to, and set my pulse going again with news that the lion was dead. That is what I should have done under these circumstances. What does Doctor Livingstone do?

… “I took a good aim at his body through the bush, and fired both barrels into it.… I did not see any one else shoot at him, but I saw the lion’s tail erected in anger behind the bush, and, turning to the people said, Stop a little till I load again. When in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting and looking half-round, I saw the lion in the act of springing upon me.”

That is where I should have shrieked for help.

“I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear”—

This is where I should have fainted with fright—

“he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain, nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast.… Turning round to relieve myself of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes directed to Mebalwe who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels; the lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe bit his thigh. Another man, whose life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that moment the bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage.… Besides crushing the bone into splinters, he left eleven teeth-wounds on the upper part of my arm.”

Gentle reader, if you were under the paw of a lion could you move to make your position more comfortable? Could you notice whether your companion’s gun missed fire or not? Could you keep your consciousness, and analyse your feelings afterwards? I could have done none of these things; and, knowing that, it did not surprise me to find that the perusal of the passage just quoted and the loss of all belief in my own courage, were simultaneous mental operations, in my case, no longer than a week ago.

Another example. Suppose I set forth, as Doctor Livingstone set forth, to spread the blessings of Christianity among savages to whom the mere sight of a white man was a marvel – strong in my determination to do good – stronger yet in my freedom from the mischievous spiritual crotchets of sects and their high-priests at home, and in my wise resolution to give the cause of Religion the whole benefit of my plainest common sense, without regarding worn-out traditions, without stooping to powerful prejudices, without fearing senseless blame. Suppose I had been a Missionary of this rare sort – as Doctor Livingstone was, and is – how would my patience have held out, when I came to put my plans in practice, against such vexations and such trials as these?

… “It is, however, difficult to give an idea to an European of the little effect teaching produces, because no one can realise the degradation to which their minds have been sunk by centuries of barbarism and hard struggling for the necessaries of life; like most others, they listen with respect and attention, but, when we kneel down, and address an unseen Being, the position and the act often appear to them so ridiculous that they cannot refrain from bursting into uncontrollable laughter. After a few services they get over this tendency. I was once present when a missionary attempted to sing among a wild heathen tribe of Bechuanas, who had no music in their composition; the effect on the risible muscles of the audience was such that the tears actually ran down their cheeks. Nearly all their thoughts are directed to the supply of their bodily wants, and this has been the case with the race for ages: If asked, then, what effect the preaching of the Gospel has had at the commencement on such individuals, I am unable to tell, except that some have confessed long afterwards that they then first began to pray in secret.” …

And again, a little further on:

… “When all knelt down, many of those who had children, in following the example of the rest, bent over their little ones; the children, in terror of being crushed to death, set up a simultaneous yell, which so tickled the whole assembly there was often a subdued titter, to be turned into a hearty laugh as soon as they heard Amen. This was not so difficult to overcome in them as similar peccadilloes were in the case of the women farther south. Long after we had settled at Mabotsa, when preaching on the most solemn subjects, a woman might be observed to look round, and, seeing a neighbour seated on her dress, give her a hunch with the elbow to make her move off; the other would return it with interest, and perhaps the remark, Take the nasty thing away, will you? Then three or four would begin to hustle the first offenders, and the men to swear at them all, by way of enforcing silence.”

Would my patience have resisted such attacks on it as these? I am more than afraid that I should have lost it altogether before I had advanced many miles into the African continent, and should have continued my journey in the character of a mere traveller, bent on making discoveries, but ennobled no longer by the better ambition of making conversions.

And suppose I had gone on as a traveller? Suppose I had toiled through unknown tracts of country, through savage tribes with whose disposition towards strangers no man’s previous experience had made me acquainted – suppose I had dared perils of sickness, of hunger, and of death from wild animals, rather than abandon my resolution to open up anew trade to the world, and to make such geographical discoveries as no other man had made in my time – suppose I had run these risks and compassed these achievements, whereabouts would the miserable counterfeit which has hitherto falsely represented to my mind the sterling virtue of Perseverance, have at last exposed itself and shown what it was really worth? Where should I have discovered unmistakeably that I was not what I had hitherto believed myself to be – a genuinely persevering man? At this point of my journey, I think – if not long before it.

“Next morning, by climbing the highest trees, we could see a fine large sheet of water, but surrounded on all sides by the same impenetrable belt of reeds. This is the broad part of the river Chobe, and is called Zabesa. Two tree-covered islands seemed to be much nearer to the water than the shore on which we were, so we made an attempt to get to them first. It was not the reeds alone we had to pass through; a peculiar serrated grass, which at certain angles cut the hands like a razor, was mingled with the reeds; and the climbing convolvulus, with stalks which felt as strong as whipcord, bound the mass together. We felt like pygmies in it; and, often, the only way we could get on, was by both of us leaning against a part, and bending it down till we could stand upon it. The perspiration streamed off our bodies, and as the sun rose high, there being no ventilation among the reeds, the heat was stifling, and the water, which was up to the knees, felt agreeably refreshing. After some hours’ toil we reached one of the islands. Here we met an old friend, the bramble bush. My strong moleskins were quite worn through at the knees, and the leather trousers of my companion were torn, and his legs bleeding. Tearing my handkerchief in two, I tied the pieces round my knees, and then encountered another difficulty. We were still forty or fifty yards from the clear water, but now we were opposed by great masses of papyrus, which are like palms in miniature, eight or ten feet high, and an inch and a half in diameter. These were laced together by twining convolvulus, so strongly that the weight of both of us could not make way into the clear water. At last, we fortunately found a passage prepared by a hippopotamus. Eager, as soon as we reached the island, to look along the vista to clear water, I stepped in, and found it took me at once up to the neck.”

I should never have got up to my neck in water. I should have stopped at the bramble-bushes and saved my moleskins.

Another, and a last example. I have always been accustomed to consider myself as possessed in a remarkable degree of the virtue of self-control. I said “No,” this very last Christmas Day, at a large dinner-party, when the servant offered me champagne. A week ago, my wife (to whom I am passionately attached) implored me to set her up with a supply of the new-fashioned red stockings. I did violence to my own feelings, and said “No,” again – remembering the expense. Yesterday fortnight, I roused my sinking heart, and nerved my sluggish legs, and went to a large ball; smiling and chattering, and making myself agreeable, through heat, crowding, confusion, and dullness, as if I really enjoyed the evening. At this very moment, I am writing these very lines, with the third volume of a breathlessly interesting novel tempting me in vain, on a table within my reach. Is this self-control? It is what we, who live at home at ease, are accustomed to consider as representing that virtue in its most practical and meritorious form. Are we all deceived, then, by a counterfeit? I cannot presume to answer that question for others; but I should be exceedingly glad to know what readers of well-regulated minds thought of their own self-control, when they read these passages in the eighteenth chapter of Doctor Livingstone’s Travels:

“We heard some of the Chiboque remark, ‘They have only five guns;’ and about midday Njambi collected all his people, and surrounded our encampment. Their object was evidently to plunder us of everything. My men seized their javelins, and stood on the defensive, while the young Chiboque had drawn their swords, and brandished them with great fury. Some even pointed their guns at me, and nodded to each other, as much as to say, ‘This is the way we shall do with him.’ I sat on my camp-stool, with my double-barrelled gun across my knees, and invited the chief to be seated also. When he and his counsellors had sat down on the ground in front of me, I asked what crime we had committed that he had come armed in that way. … In reference to a man being given, I declared that we were all ready to die rather than to give up one of our number to be a slave; that my men might as well give me as I give one of them, for we were all free men. … My men now entreated me to give something. … I gave him (the chief) one of my shirts. The young Chiboque were dissatisfied, and began shouting and brandishing their swords, for a greater fine.

“As Pitsane felt that he had been the cause of this disagreeable affair, he asked me to add something else. I gave a bunch of beads, but the counsellors objected this time, so I added a large handkerchief. The more I yielded, the more unreasonable their demands became, and at every fresh demand, a shout was raised by the armed party, and a rush made around us with brandishing of arms. One young man made a charge at my head from behind, but I quickly brought round the muzzle of my gun to his mouth, and he retreated. I pointed him out to the chief, and he ordered him to retire a little. I felt anxious to avoid the effusion of blood; and though sure of being able with my Makololo, who had been drilled by Sebituane, to drive off twice the number of our assailants, though now a large body, and well armed with spears, swords, arrows, and guns, I strove to avoid actual collision. My men were quite unprepared for this exhibition, but behaved with admirable coolness. The chief and counsellors, by accepting my invitation to be seated, had placed themselves in a trap; for my men very quietly surrounded them, and made them feel that there was no chance of escaping their spears. I then said, that, as one thing after another had failed to satisfy them, it was evident that they wanted to fight, while we only wanted to pass peaceably through the country; that they must begin first and bear the guilt before God: we would not fight till they had struck the first blow. I then sat silent for some time. It was rather trying for me, because I knew that the Chiboque would aim at the white man first; but I was careful not to appear flurried, and having four barrels ready for instant action, looked quietly at the savage scene around.”

Backed by a body of men on whom I could depend, and persecuted by the insatiable rapacity of a horde of greedy savages, I could no more have kept that double-barrelled gun, across my knees, and sat looking quietly at’ the scene around, than I could command the evolutions of a vessel, reduced to extremities within sight of a lee shore. I should instantly have let off my guns, have shed blood without the excuse of absolute necessity, have roused the whole country against me, and have perished to a dead certainty, in a longer or shorter time, the victim of my own rashness. Doctor Livingstone’s genuine self-control brought him and his men out of the scrape without the degradation of submission on the one hand, and without the horrors of slaughter on the other. He got to the end of his journey, and saw the faces of his own countrymen again on the western coast. I should have been buried hundreds of miles on the wrong side of my destination, and should never have been heard of more. When my friends talk next of their own self-control, or of mine, I think I know a little African anecdote which is likely to exercise a marvellous influence in leading the conversation to some other topic.

Such is the effect which this book of African Travels has had upon me. It has done me a world of good in modifying my own favourable opinion of myself. Although I might well rest satisfied with acknowledging the usefulness of such a result of my reading as this (not at all a common one, in my case, when I occupy myself with the works of travellers in general), I must still ask leave to say a few more last words before I bid farewell to Doctor Livingstone and his book.

I have no intention of attempting to tell the Traveller’s story at second-hand. If it be indeed a great critical triumph to crush a long narrative into a space which cannot possibly contain so much as the one hundredth part of it, in a moderately fair and unmutilated form, that great triumph has been already achieved in more instances than I can undertake to reckon up. I have no need, as I have certainly no desire, to treat a book which I am bound to respect, in this summary fashion. Neither is it my ambition to put on record, in this place, any favourite opinions of my own on the future prospects of the Missionary cause in Africa. Not being a professed critic, I do not feel bound to set myself up in the character of a person who is, by virtue of his office, always better informed than the author himself on the author’s own subject. My only object, in writing these final lines, is to express my admiration, in all seriousness and sincerity, of the manly truthfulness of Doctor Livingstone’s book. and of the admirable tone of unaffected modesty in which it is written from the first page to the last. The author’s unflinching honesty in describing his difficulties and acknowledging his disappointments in the attempt to plant Christianity among the African savages; his sensible independence of all those mischievous sectarian influences which fetter so lamentably the exertions of so many other good men; and his fearless recognition of the absolute necessity of associating every legitimate aid which this world’s wisdom can give with the work of preaching the Gospel to heathen listeners, are merits beyond all praise, because they are merits without a parallel in the previous history of Missionary literature. Surprisingly new and delightful to read, in this respect, the book is hardly less remarkable viewed simply as the narrative of a traveller’s adventures. With certain rare and honourable exceptions, the tone adopted in these days by literary travellers in general, is one of flippant mockery and wearisome self-conceit. The matter-of-fact tendencies of English readers induce them, apparently, to grant a species of privilege to men who profess to treat of something that has really happened, which they refuse to extend to men who pursue the higher, or, in plainer terms, the more imaginative branches of literature. A tone which is condemned as offensive in a writer of novels, is either quietly accepted, as a matter of course, or is positively approved as rather entertaining, in a writer of travels. After reading the ordinary run of books by the ordinary run of travellers, it is a positive refreshment to the mind to turn to Doctor Livingstone’s volume, and to follow the simple – I had almost written the artless – narrative of an unaffectedly modest man. On this account, especially, I have met with no book, for a long time past, which, to my mind, sets so excellent an example before other writers – no book which has stirred up within me so strong an interest in the author, and in the future that lies before him. None of Doctor Livingstone’s many readers more cordially wish him success in the noble work to which he has again devoted himself – none will rejoice more sincerely in hearing of his safe and prosperous progress, whenever tidings of him may reach England – than the writer of these few lines, who now heartily and gratefully bids him farewell.

Household Words 23 Jan 1858

BURNS

VIEWED AS A HAT-PEG

Before the dawning of the twenty-fifth day of January, eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, it might have been reasonably supposed that all intelligent people in these realms were well acquainted with the nature of the obligations which society owes to Robert Burns.

We all knew, as well as we know anything, that the Ayrshire Ploughman had written some of the noblest poetry that ever fell from mortal pen. We all knew that this great genius had established undying claims on our gratitude by contributing in the highest degree to the most ennobling and the most intellectual of our pleasures. And, lastly, we all knew, from the story of his life, how gloriously his own example had helped to enforce the great and useful truth, that the means of winning the highest and the most enduring of earthly distinctions, rest with the man himself, and not with the station, high or low, in which he may be placed by the accident of his birth.

We knew all this long before the present year. Was it possible to know more? Yes: on the twenty-fifth of last January another discovery burst on the world. We of the Public had only learnt to regard Burns previously as a great Poet. On that memorable day he was revealed to us in a new light, – as a great Hat-Peg.

This is very gratifying; and these are, indeed, remarkable times. To be well aware  that the memory of Burns is something to be proud of, is only to possess an idea which has been the common property of former generations. But to know that the memory of Burns is likewise something on which the smallest of us can hang up his own individual importance; something which may help the greediest of us to grub up our little handful of money, and the obscurest of us to emit our little speech, is to make one of those rare and remunerative discoveries which we of the present generation may claim as peculiarly our own.

So far as mere Englishmen are concerned (we write of ourselves deferentially, in consideration of the Scottish nature of the subject), the honour of discovering that the memory of Burns might be profitably used in the capacity of a Hat-Peg, rests with the Directors of the Crystal Palace Company. Who first started the idea, has not transpired; but, the discovery once made, there can be no question of its vast capabilities of application to the commercial necessities of the great Sydenham speculation. Here we are, a struggling Crystal Palace Company, taking, in a theoretical point of view, the highest ground as dispensers of public instruction; but reduced, in a practical point of view, to descend to the humbler position which is occupied by proprietors of public amusements generally; and forced to consider the great and difficult money question under these two aspects only: first, how to make as much as possible flow in; secondly, how to let as little as possible flow out again. What in the world will help us, on some early, given day, to answer this complicated double purpose, and to look impressively intellectual and literary, at the same time?

The memory of Burns. What in the world will provide us with an excuse – when we have taken the public shillings – for giving the cheapest and shabbiest of musical entertainments, and trying to palm it off as a compliment to the visitors, by granting them permission to join in the choruses? The memory of Burns. What in the world will enable our enterprising contractors for feeding the public, to get a fresh start; to try some striking novelties; to appeal to economical nationality on one side of the Tweed; and to rash curiosity on the other, with cock-a-leekie and haggis, at three shillings a-head? The memory of Burns. Was there ever a Hat Peg discovered before on which so many small personal necessities could so profitably be hung up as great public benefits to the general view? Here is a new use found out, not in Burns only, but in all other great men besides. A few more inexpensive commemorations – easily arranged beforehand by a reference to the almanac for the current year – and who shall say what prodigal dividends the Crystal Palace Company may not end in paying, after all?

But, the expansive utility of the new discovery is not confined to Companies. The convenient Burns Hat Peg, which serves assembled bodies of men, will answer the purposes of solitary individuals just as well. I am a member of any national society; and, which is more, an orator, if the world only knew it; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of Scotch flesh as any in Caledonia; and one that likes to dine to the sound of bagpipes. Go to! And all this is generally private, and unknown to everybody but me and my own set. What will help me, Mr. MacAnybody, to make a long speech, and to get it reported in all the newspapers? What will procure me the privilege of telling an assembly of my much-enduring fellow-creatures that I have “sauntered with delight along the Banks o’Doon; that I have stood in rapture on that spot where Ayr gurgling kissed its pebbled bed;” that I have “climbed” up this place, and “wandered through” that; and “looked with emotion” here, and “gazed with sorrow” there; and what will give me the pride and pleasure of actually seeing it in print the next morning? Hech, sirs! Just the memory of Burns.

Leaving London, and ranging over provincial England and Scotland, we discover all sorts of distinguished and undistinguished people swarming in clusters on the new Hat Peg, and publicly humming together to their hearts’ content. Sometimes we find the most benevolent sentiments hung up to be aired, as it were, at the memory of Burns. At Glasgow, for example, we discover, to our unspeakable gratification, that our friend Sir Archibald Alison does not think the worse of Burns because he was a Radical. There is something affecting in this. It does honour to Tory human nature. Very interesting, also, is Sir Archibald’s account of how Burns came by his fame. Towards the close of the eighteenth century, Nature, it appears, had “a passport to immortality” to dispose of; and she seems to have set about her work, as our English government has generally set about its work, by carefully going to the wrong place, and looking for the wrong man. She sets out to’ look for Burns in the “halls of princes;” and doesn’t find him there. She tries “the senates of nobles;” and doesn’t find him there. She wanders into the “forums of commerce;” and doesn’t find him there. She looks for him at last, where she ought to have looked for him at first, in her own solitudes – under her very nose, so to speak – and pounces on him at the plough, “with his eye fixed on the mountain daisy.”

At Newcastle-on-Tyne, a refreshing originality appears to have characterised the proceedings. Here the Burns Hat-Peg seems to have given way altogether early in the evening, and to have been skilfully replaced by local and living hat-pegs. Here, we learn from an after-dinner orator, that one of the grand characteristic merits of the Northumbrian peasant is his “looking with an eye of suspicion on the questionable sentimentality of the present day.” This singularly clear and intelligible tribute to local virtue having been offered in the words just quoted, appropriate living commentary on the observation. of the speaker was presented in the shape of a new pitman-poet, who typified, we presume, that unquestionable sentimentality which Northumbrians look on with an eye of approval; for he contrived to get all the surplus cash of the company, after paying the expenses of the meeting, laid out in the purchase of copies of his poems.

We have reserved the demonstration at Edinburgh for the last, because the Festival at the Music Hall is the only one of the Burns Festivals which has, in any single respect, produced a favourable impression. We are not disposed to single out this particular assembly on account of anything that was done at it. One thing, indeed, was done at it, the taste of which seems to our mind rather questionable. Relics of Burns were exhibited, of course, at all the Commemorations. His hair, his toddy-ladle, his wife’s hair, his snuffbox, his pistols, his punchbowl, and even a print over which he is reported to have once shed tears, were all displayed at different places. But the Edinburgh Gathering went a step farther, and exhibited a living relic, in the shape of a poor old man, who had lived one hundred years in this weary world, and who at that great age was hung up in public on the Hat-Peg, because he had been brought, as a carrier, into personal contact with Burns, as an exciseman. It seems scarcely consistent with the respect and the consideration which are due to great age to make a show of this old man; and, when one assembly had done staring at him, to pass him on to another.

The claim of our Edinburgh friends to be singled out for favourable distinction, arises, in our estimation, from the circumstance that one man happened to be present, who has done something for the memory of Burns besides talk about it. Among the list of toasts and speeches, we find just two lines, reporting that the company drank, “The Biographers of Burns,” and that Mr. Robert Chambers acknowledged the toast. What Mr. Robert Chambers said for Burns, on this occasion, is not mentioned in the report we read. The infinitely more important question of what he has done for Burns, we are in a position to answer without referring to reports. About seventeen years ago, a grateful country had left Burns a sister, Mrs. Begg and her daughters, in the most impoverished circumstances; and Mr. Robert Chambers set on foot a subscription for them. The result of the appeal thus made, and of a solemn Branch-Burns Commemoration, got up in Ayrshire, was a subscription amounting to something less than four hundred pounds; of which the Queen and Court gave sixty-four. As much was done with this pittance as could be done; and it was sunk in an annuity for the three poor souls to live upon.

Mrs. Begg and her daughters were settled in a cottage in Ayrshire. Mr. Robert Chambers then went bravely to work with his own hands and brains to help Burns’s kindred for Burns’s sake. After devoting admirable industry and research to the task, he produced The Life and Poems of Burns, in four volumes; published the work in eighteen hundred and fifty-one; and devoted the first proceeds of the sale, two hundred pounds, to the necessities of Mrs. Begg and her daughters – thus giving from his own individual exertion more than half as much as the entire sum which all Scotland had given. We hope Mr. Robert Chambers will forgive us for filling up an omission in the newspaper history of the twenty-sixth of January, and mentioning, by way of contrast, the nature of his tribute to the memory of Burns.

If there be a brighter and better side to the Burns centenary picture than we have discovered, there happens, at any rate, as circumstances at present exist, to be one easy means of showing it to us. In the Times’ report of the Crystal Palace Festival, a document is printed, with names attached, which asks help for the only surviving daughter of Burns; and the plain question is put below it, whether that daughter would derive any benefit from the proceedings of the day, so far as the Palace at Sydenham was concerned. To our knowledge, that question has not been answered yet. We looked carefully at the reports of all the Dinners in England and Scotland, and found no reference made to the subject anywhere. Everywhere, the company sang, and took tea and coffee, and admired the relics with the tenderest curiosity; but we can find no instance in which the hand of the company is reported to have entered the pocket of the company with a view to Burns’s daughter, at the close of the evening. Until we are favoured with some satisfactory explanation of this singular circumstance, we can only repeat the question in the Times; putting it, in our case, not to the Crystal Palace Company only, but to every other company, small and large, which commemorated the anniversary of the twenty-fifth of January last. What has this grand outburst of enthusiasm done for the last surviving daughter of Robert Burns?

Household Words 12 Feb 1859

CHIP

A COLUMN TO BURNS

At the close of a recent article, entitled “Burns Viewed As A Hat Peg,” we put this question, in reference to the centenary commemorations: – “What has this grand outburst of enthusiasm done for the last surviving daughter of Robert Burns?” As we expected, the grand outburst, so far as it was reported, has done nothing. But – as we learn with great pleasure from a letter printed below – the working men of Glasgow (who were not thought worth reporting, probably because they were not connected with the great idea of the Hat Peg) have not been forgetful of the claims of Burns’s kindred on the grateful remembrance of Burns’s posterity. We gladly give insertion to this letter. It does honour to the writer, to those who have acted with him, and to the great city in which they live. Let Glasgow flourish! It is well known to be a liberal and generous place; and the more it flourishes, the better for Burns’s last descendant, and the better for the interests of civilised mankind.

[Probably only this first paragraph is by Collins.]

Your article, “Burns Viewed as a Hat Peg,” so truly delineates the spoiling of our national jubilee, that the most irascible Scot must forgive the occasional “skelp” in the castigation meant specially for simulated enthusiasm. Your eulogium on Mr. Robert Chambers we fully appreciate; and for our late excessive outburst of real feeling, we plead national temperament, – really the most ardent and impulsive, though usually considered the most cautious and sordid in Europe: in spite of our past history in daring adventure, or the present of this very city, which – apart from its late reckless speculation – whether pestilence was in the land, our brave soldiers rotting in the Crimea, or our fellow-citizens pining in foreign dungeons, has for years stood first in the nation when money was needed. The victims of continental despotism can also assure you that they have not been coldly received in “cool, calculating Scotland.”

Why, then, you will repeat, has the only surviving daughter of Burns been so long neglected, and residing in our neighbourhood? Simply because a modest feeling, shared by her husband, kept them so retired in their humble condition, that only a very few knew that she existed; and the independent spirit of the honest old couple would have spurned any common charity, even when they were past work. Our greatest difficulty now is to divest our enterprise of the obtrusive assertion of charity; though, as you will see by the enclosed list, that we have realised considerably over one hundred pounds in small sums, and expect to treble it, when our Masonic Brethren and others are made fully aware that Mrs. Thomson of Pollockshaws exists at all. You may rest assured we will act up to the spirit of your article.

Household Words 26 Feb 1859

DEEP DESIGN ON SOCIETY

I know how to read and write, and I have a pretty knack at ciphering, in all the branches of that useful art which overshadow the human mind on this side of Vulgar Fractions. As to any attainments, however, beyond these, I think I may safely say (having due consideration for my superior station in life) that I am, out of all comparison, the most ignorant man in this country. I attribute my want of information on every subject under the sun, to the unnecessary and vexatious difficulties which beset the acquisition of knowledge in all directions. Everything else that I want, I can get easily. My apartments (furnished, in an excellent neighbourhood), my little tasteful dinner, my gentlemanly clothing, my comfortable reserved seat at public amusements; my neat carriage, to take me out and bring me from home; my servant, who bears with my small caprices, and takes troubles of all kinds off my hands – these accessories, which revolve round the great fact of my existence, come obediently at my call whenever I want them, and dance attendance, in excellent time, to the faintest jingle of my silver and gold. But Knowledge, scrubby Knowledge, declines to be summoned at five minutes’ notice; scorns an invitation from me, even when I deliver it myself at the end of my purse; wants my time instead of my money, and my patience instead of my patronage; expects me to follow, where I am accustomed to lead; meets me, in short, on audaciously equal terms, and, as a natural and proper consequence, fails to enjoy the honour of my acquaintance.

I had written thus far the day before yesterday, turning my sentences, I think, very prettily, with a soothing use of metaphor and a pleasing crispness in my arrangement of words – I had written thus far, when my brother (a very useful unassuming man) brought me a present of a little book, which informed me, the moment I opened it, that Knowledge had, so to speak, come to its senses at last, and had learnt the necessity of offering itself on reasonably easy terms to all persons of distinction who might desire to possess it.

The book in question is called Things Not Generally Known. It is short; it is portable; it may be taken up one minute and put down the next; it presents abstruse information ready cut and dried into short paragraphs on all subjects – on Domestic Manners, and Life and Death; on the Animal Kingdom, and Church and State; on the Marvels of the Heavens, and the Dignities of the Earth. I am much obliged to my brother (a well-meaning man, but without ambition or talents for society) for giving me this book. I am much obliged to Mr. John Timbs, the industrious person who put it together. I intend to recommend him. Why should I not? He saves me the trouble of digging up my own information out of the mine of Knowledge, just as my tailor saves me the trouble of making my own clothes; just as my cook saves me the trouble of preparing my own dinner. He also assists me in realising the one aspiration which my prosperous position in the World has left me free to form. Handsome, engaging, perfectly dressed, comfortably rich, the one thing I want to complete me is to be well-informed, without the inconvenience of preliminary study. My solitary deficiency is now supplied on the most easy and reasonable terms. I can rush forthwith, by a short cut, into the reputation of a man of vast knowledge, and a talker of unlimited capacity. I can silence all men; I can astonish and captivate all women, Is this mere idle boasting? Certainly not. I have my inestimable pocket Manual of ready-made wisdom, to fit all minds; I have modest assurance, and an excellent memory; I have a brother who will make himself useful as a prompter, and who can be depended on to lead all up to my favourite subjects. What follows, as a matter of course, from these advantages to start with? Conversation which is, by the very nature of it, a monologue, because it bristles at all points with Things Not Generally Known.

I am candour itself: I desire to conceal nothing; and I warn society that I am going to begin covering myself with glory, as a, great talker and a mine of information, on Thursday week. I have a dinner invitation on that day, to meet a posse of clever people. It is to be followed by a soirée with more clever people. I am not in the least afraid of this mass of intelligence. It may be formidable enough on its own customary ground of Things Generally Known; but I shall turn it topsy-turvy, in no time, with Things Not Generally Known. I shall take to this festival my inestimable pocket Manual, my modest assurance, my excellent memory, and my brother. On Thursday week, there will be the most remarkable dinner-party in all England. The Indian Mutiny, the Panic, the Leviathan, the new Parliament, the very weather itself, everything, in short, which is generally known, will be blown away from every mouth the instant I open my lips, and sow my Things Not Generally Known, broadcast, among the company and the dishes, from the first course to the dessert.

For instance, let us say the cover is off the fish – cod’s head and shoulders, I know by anticipation. My brother (previously instructed, and a very trustworthy person in small matters) whispers to me, “Page thirteen, Jack; the Age of the Globe.” My host (an old-fashioned man, who asks everybody what they will have, instead of leaving it to the servants) says, “Fish, my dear fellow?” I shudder, and turn from him with horror. “Good Heavens, Simpson! do you take me for a cannibal?” Simpson stares; the company stare; everybody is puzzled but my useful brother, who is behind the scenes. The opportunity is mine – and I let off my first Thing Not Generally Known, with a loud report, thus:

“Fish!” I exclaim. “You eat fish, after the discovery of the great Demaillet, whose thoughts on the age of the globe are in the hands of every schoolboy? Is it possible that nobody here remembers the passage in which it is stated distinctly that man was originally a fish? Nay more, my dear madam, there are still fish to be met with in the ocean, which are half-men, on their progress to the perfect human shape, and whose descendants will, in process of time – you understand me, in process of time – become men. Ah, you smile, sir,” I proceed, stopping a man at the lower end of the table, who is asking under his breath, for news from India, and letting off my second Thing at the same time. “You smile? Well, well, I am not bigoted about Demaillet’s theory. I grant you there may be something in Woodward’s idea that the deluge was occasioned by a momentary suspension of cohesion among the particles of mineral bodies – nor am I prepared to deny (as who is?) that Oken – may I trouble you for the salt? – that Oken has perhaps solved the great deluge problem in those five immortal words, ‘All is done by Polarisation.’ Short, you will say, doctor – but how full of meaning, how very full of meaning!”

I offer this as a specimen of the neat manner in which a Thing, so generally known as a Cod’s Head, may be made, as it were, to fire a mine of recondite information in the midst of an astonished company, thanks to my pocket Manual and to the industrious person who has put it together. But, if need be, I can do without dishes, and can use the people who eat from them to serve my purpose instead. I take it that a nervous old lady, neatly dressed in stiff black silk, who was a great beauty in some past century, and who is now a wonderful woman for her age is a Thing generally known at family dinner-parties. Nothing is more graceful and becoming in a young and dashing gentleman than a little delicate conversational attention, on his part, offered to Venerable age in the presence of a mixed company; and nothing is more difficult than to hit on an appropriate topic where a man’s mind is unprovided with a proper store of Things Not Generally Known. In my case, no such obstacle as this can possibly exist. I can stick a fact with which nobody is familiar into the head of the typical old woman, with whom everybody is familiar, and can set it a-light for the public benefit at a moment’s notice. Say, we are just assembling round the dinner-tab1e. The venerable lady is slow in getting to her chair, and nervous about sitting down in it. Her daughter says, “Dear mama, don’t hurry.” I instantly groan, shake my head, and fix my eyes on Mrs. Methuselah. My brother (perfectly invaluable where nothing but mere watchfulness is wanted) whispers, “Page fifteen, Jack – the three motions of the earth!” – and off I go with another Thing, like a racehorse from the starting-post.

“Did I hear your daughter, ma’am, beg you not to hurry?” I begin with a faint smile. “Excuse me, but of all the vain requests she could possibly have addressed to you, this is the most utterly futile. You are hurrying at this very moment, ma’am, at the rate of a hundred and fifty millions of miles a-year towards a particular point in the heavens, a star in the constellation Hercules. We – or, if you like, our Earth, which comes to the same thing – have three Motions. Two, generally known, round our own axis and round the sun. A third, not at all generally known, and recently discovered by great astronomers, with which I have just had the pleasure of making you acquainted. Don’t be alarmed, ma’am, the sun and all the planets are rushing in our direction, and at our rate, and it is my private opinion that when we do come into collision with that star in the constellation Hercules, we shall probably smash it, and go on again smoothly as if nothing had happened.”

Shall we get back again to the dishes, just to show how easily I can garnish any of them with Things Not Generally Known, as I garnished the Cod’s Head? The dinner is nearly over. The cheese has appeared; and the salad is being handed round. “Page twenty-six,” my brother whispers, as the servant approaches me with the verdant bowl.

“Salad, sir?” “Any oil in it?” “Yes, sir!” “Take it away directly, then. So long as seasickness continues to torture humanity, I cannot reconcile it to my conscience uselessly to consume even the small quantity of oil which adheres to the leaf of a lettuce.”

General astonishment – general anxiety to know what I mean. Down comes another Thing, directly, shaken out of my bottomless bag of ready-made information.

“What produces seasickness?” I ask, leaning back in my chair, and putting one hand impressively into my waistcoat. “The rolling of the sea, and the consequent pitching and tossing of the vessel that floats on it. Still the sea, and you still the vessel. Still the vessel, and you still the human stomach. But, who is to still the sea? Pooh! pooh! give me a boat, a vial of oil, and a Professor to pour it out – and the thing is done. You doubt that do you? Ah, dear! dear! this is what comes of Things not being generally known. It is a fact, with which few persons, unhappily, are familiar, that Professor Horsford (you see I don’t mind mentioning names) – that Professor Horsford, by emptying a vial of oil upon the sea in a stiff breeze, stilled the surface. After that, don’t talk to me about seasickness, and don’t expect a man who loves his species, to eat salad, and to waste oil which might be used in mitigating human suffering. Give me a row of boats from Dover to Calais, and a row of Professors in them (well wrapped up, for such men are precious), each armed with his vial of oil. Professor Number One empties his bottle, the moment the steamer leaves the harbour; Professor Number Two, at a proper interval, follows his example – and so on, all through the row, over to Calais. What is the inevitable consequence? A stiff breeze becomes known, to all future ages, only as a Horsford calm – the privileges of continental travel are thrown open to the most uproarious stomach in existence – and the children of the next generation, when they see the verb To Retch in the English Dictionary, look up innocently into our faces, and say, with a smile, ‘Papa, what does it mean?’”

Will that do, for dinner? If it will, I am ready to proceed up stairs, to join the soirée and to go on inexhaustibly scattering my Things about me, in that new sphere of toil. Youth of the fair sex, which shuns the sober dinner-table, floats in with the evening gathering (I despise the man who can speak of a young lady and not be poetical) like the beams of the young moon; like the rays of the rising sun (I throw this sort of thing off very easily); like the flood of gorgeous light from a chemist’s window when the gas is lit; like the sparkles from a diamond ring; like the welcome glow from a lighthouse that brightens the bosom of the deep; like – well , well, the reader may be out of breath by this time, though I am not: let us therefore wind our way back through the labyrinth of comparisons to our original starting-point of female youth and beauty.

It (female youth and beauty) comes to the soirée with its mama and its nosegay, and its smile and its precious dress, and its plump shoulders, and its captivating freshness in the matter of Things Not Generally Known. It sits down and looks innocently interested about nothing in particular. It receives compliments from male youth and beauty; and blushes and beams, and flirts its nosegay, and rustles its precious dress, responsive. But what compliments! Not the smallest atom of useful information wrapped up in my one of them. Not so much as the shadow of rivalry for me to dread, when I enter the field with my soft speech and my Thing Not Generally Known – my oil and vinegar; my nonsense and my knowledge – so mixed up together that no human art can ever separate them again. I bide my time till the eye of female youth and beauty catches mine, and beams indulgent recognition – then turn to my brother and whisper, interrogatively, “Compliment to a pretty girl?” he answers, directly, “Page Forty One: Phenomena of Vision,” – and I slide off forthwith to the corner where the charming creature sits twiddling her nosegay and bashfully expecting me.

“I saw you looking sympathetically at your sister-flowers,” I begin, in that soft, murmuring, mysterious tone of voice, which we ladies’ men so perpetually and so successfully use in all our communications with the fair sex; “and I longed to be one of them, – this scarlet geranium, for instance. Do you know why I envy that one little flower with all my heart?”

“Because I like to look at it, I suppose, you selfish man!” says the young lady, little suspecting that, under cover of this apparent nonsense, there lies artfully in wait for her a Thing Not Generally Known.

“No,” I answer, “not because you look at it, – though that is much, – but because it has the happy, the priceless privilege of making your eyes undulate four hundred and eighty-two millions of times in a second. Todd – do you know him? – states it as a scientific fact that you must undulate all those millions of times – in one second (pray: don’t forget that) before you can perceive a scarlet tint. Why, ah why, am I not of a scarlet tint? – or, better still, of a violet tint? For, believe me, I am not exaggerating when I tell you (on the authority of Todd, whose Cyclopaedia may be procured at any of the libraries) that those laughing eyes must undergo seven hundred and seven millions of millions of undulatory movements, if they look at a violet tint. Out of all those vibrations might there not be one little on adventurous enough to stray from the eye to the heart? May I sacrifice all propriety by wearing a violet waistcoat, the next time we meet, and will you reward me for that outrage on good manners by looking at it, for one second? Not for my sake and in my name – ah, no, I dare not ask that! – but for the sake of Science and in the name of Todd!”

After this specimen – a very slight one – of what I can do with a young lady at an evening party, it would be a mere waste of time to offer any proofs of my power of overwhelming elderly people of both sexes and of all degrees of capacity. I must have written vainly, indeed, if I have not made it manifest by this time that I can really and truly (densely ignorant as I am) carry out my intention of becoming a great talker, a most amusing man, and a mine of rare information, all together and all of a sudden, on Thursday week. Confident, however, as I feel on this point – thanks to my toilsome gentleman who has provided me with my Things – I must confess to one little misgiving, which troubles me at this very moment, and which I have no objection to communicate immediately.

Perhaps the intelligent reader thinks he can guess at my misgiving, without the slightest assistance from me. Perhaps he thinks that I am apprehensive, when I am quite prepared with my whole list of Things Not Generally Known, of becoming, not only a great talker, but also a finished and complete bore. No such fear ever has, or ever can, enter into my head. I have no objection whatever to being a bore. My experience of the world has shown me that, upon the whole, a bore gets on much better in it, and is much more respected and permanently popular, than what is called a clever man. A few restless people, with an un-English appetite for perpetual variety, have combined to set up the bore as a species of bugbear to frighten themselves, and have rashly imagined that the large majority of their fellow-creatures could see clearly enough to look at the formidable creature with their eyes. Never did any small minority make any greater mistake as to the real extent of its influence! English society has a placid enjoyment in being bored. If any man tells me that this is a paradox, I, in return, defy him to account, on any other theory, for three-fourths of the so-called recreations which are accepted as at once useful and amusing by the British nation. Why are people always ready to give, and to go to parties? Why do they throng to certain Lectures and to certain Plays? What takes them to public meetings, and to the Strangers’ Gallery in the House of Commons? Why are the debates reported in full in the newspapers? Why are people on certain social occasions, always ready to leave off talking together, for the sake of making speeches and listening to them? Why is it that the few critics always discover the dullness of heavy books, and that the many readers never seem to be able to find it out? What, in short, to put the whole question into one sentence, is the secret of the notoriety and success of half the public men and half the public and private entertainments in this country? I answer, the steady indwelling element of Boredom: firmly-settled, long-established, widely-accepted Boredom. Let no young man, with an eye to getting on in the world, rashly despise the Bore: he is the only individual in this country who is sure of his position and safe with his public.

What is it, then, that I am afraid of? Plainly and only this: – I am afraid of being forestalled in the Deep Design on Society, which I have just been endeavouring to describe. On the title-page of my inestimable pocket Manual, I find these formidable words, “Sixteenth thousand.” Are there sixteen thousand ignorant people who have bought this book, with the fell purpose of distinguishing themselves in society, as I propose to distinguish myself? It seems fearfully probable that there are; and, in that case it is more than likely that we may, some of us, meet round the same festive board, and jostle each other in a manner dreadful to think of. Can we not, my sixteen thousand ignorant brothers and sisters, come to some arrangement? Shall we have a public meeting and divide the inestimable pocket Manual among us fairly? I must have my subjects for Thursday week – I must, indeed. If any one of the sixteen thousand is going out to dinner on that day, I call upon him publicly to come forward, as I have publicly come forward in this paper, for the purpose of stating plainly what house he is going to, and how many Things Not Generally Known he means to use, and which they are. If he will meet me fairly, I will meet him fairly; and, what is more, I will even lead up to his choice bits, and throw my brother in to prompt. All I want is that we should be a united body, and that we should not interfere with each other. We have a sure game before us, if we only shuffle our cards properly. Let us be organised like other societies. Why should we not take a leaf out of the Freemasons’ book? I, for one, don’t mind sacrificing my own exclusive tastes, and walking in procession occasionally, with an apron round my loins, profusely decorated with symbols of Things Not Generally Known – supposing that ceremony to be essential, in our case (as it apparently is in that of the Freemasons), to the strict preservation of a secret. Let us forthwith have a mystic sign by which we may communicate privately, in the broadest glare of the public eye. Let us swear each other sixteen thousand times over to secrecy on the subject of the pocket Manual. In one last word – for I must come to an end somewhere, inexhaustibly as I could run on, if I pleased – let us in the name of everything that is fraternal and fair and gentlemanly, combine to enjoy the good-Things-Not-Generally-Known-of-this-world, share and share alike. If we can do that, and if we can only keep the rest of the public out, we are sure of making out reputations, and sure of keeping our hold of society as long as we please.

Household Words 2 Jan 1858

A SERMON FOR SEPOYS

While we are still fighting for the possession of India, benevolent men of various religious denominations are making their arrangements for taming the human tigers in that country by Christian means. Assuming that this well-meant scheme is not an entirely hopeless one, it might, perhaps, not be amiss to preach to the people of India, in the first instance, out of some of their own books – or, in other words, to begin the attempt to purify their minds by referring them to the excellent moral lessons which they may learn from their own Oriental literature. Such lessons exist in the shape of ancient parables, once addressed to the ancestors of the sepoys, and still quite sufficient for the purpose of teaching each man among them his duty towards his neighbour, before he gets on to higher things. Here is a specimen of one of these Oriental apologues. Is there any reason why it should not be turned to account, as a familiar introduction to the first Christian sermon addressed to a pacified native congregation in the city of Delhi?

In the seventeenth century of the Christian era, the Emperor Shah Jehan – the wise, the bountiful, the builder of the new city of Delhi – saw fit to appoint the pious Vizir, Gazee Ed Din, to the government of all the district of Morodabad.

The period of the Vizir’s administration was gratefully acknowledged by the people whom he governed as the period of the most-precious blessings they had ever enjoyed. He protected innocence, he honoured learning, he rewarded industry. He was an object for the admiration of all eyes, – a subject for the praise of all tongues. But the grateful people observed, with grief, that the merciful ruler who made them all happy, was himself never seen to smile. His time, in the palace, was passed in mournful solitude. On the few occasions when he appeared in the public walks, his face was gloomy, his gait was slow, his eyes were fixed on the ground. Time passed, and there was no change in him for the better. One morning the whole population was astonished and afflicted by news that he had resigned the reins of government and had gone to justify himself before the emperor at Delhi.

Admitted to the presence of Shah Jehan, the Vizir made his obeisance, and spoke these words:

“Wise and mighty Ruler, condescend to pardon the humblest of your servants if he presumes to lay at your feet the honours which you have deigned to confer on him in the loveliest country on the earth. The longest life, oh bountiful Master, hardly grants time enough to man to prepare himself for death. Compared with the performance of that first of duties, all other human employments are vain as the feeble toil of an ant on the highway, which the foot of the first traveller crushes to nothing! Permit me, then, to prepare myself for the approach of eternity. Permit me, by the aid of solitude and silence, to familiarise my mind with. the sublime mysteries of religion; and to wait reverently for the moment when eternity unveils itself to my eyes, and the last summons calls me to my account before the Judgement Seat.”

The Vizir said these words, knelt down, laid his forehead on the earth, and was silent. After a minute of reflection, the emperor answered him in these terms:

“Faithful servant! Your discourse has filled my mind with perplexity and fear. The apprehensions which you have caused in me are like those felt by a man who finds himself standing, unawares, on the edge of a precipice. Nevertheless, I cannot decide whether the sense of trouble that you have awakened within me is justified by sound reason or not. My days, like yours, however long they may be, are but an instant compared with eternity. But, if I thought as you do; if all men capable of doing good followed your example, who would remain to guide the faithful? Surely the duties of government would then fall to the share of those men only who are brutally careless of the future that awaits them beyond the grave – who are insensible to all feelings which are not connected with their earthly passions and their earthly interests? In that case, should I not be – should you not be – responsible before the Supreme Being for the miseries, without number, which would then be let loose on the world. Ponder that well, Vizir! And while I, on my side, consider the same subject attentively, depart in peace to the abode which I have prepared to receive you, since your arrival in this city. May Heaven direct us both into the way which it is safest and best to take!”

The Vizir withdrew. For three days he remained in his retirement, and received no message from the emperor. At the end of the third day, he sent to the palace to beg for a second audience. The request was immediately granted.

When he again appeared in the presence of his sovereign, his countenance expressed the tranquillity of his mind. He drew a letter from his bosom, kissed it, and presented it to the emperor on his knees. Shah Jehan having given him permission to speak, he expressed himself, thereupon, in these words:

“Sovereign lord and master! The letter which you have deigned to take from my hands has been addressed to me by the sage, Abbas, who now stands with me in the light of your presence, and who has lent me the assistance of his wisdom to unravel the scruples and perplexities which have beset my mind. Thanks to the lesson I have learned from him, I can now look back on my past life with pleasure, and contemplate the future with hope. Thanks to the wisdom which I have imbibed from his teaching, I can now conscientiously bow my head before the honours which your bounty showers on me, and can gladly offer myself again to be the shadow of your power in the province of Morodabad.”

Shah Jehan, who had listened to the Vizir with amazement and curiosity, directed that the letter should be given to the sage, Abbas, and ordered him to read aloud the words of wisdom that he had written to Gazee Ed Din. The venerable man stood forth in the midst of the Court, and, obeying the Emperor, read these lines:

May the pious and merciful Vizir, to whom the wise generosity of our sovereign lord and master has entrusted the government of a province, enjoy to the end of his days the blessing of perfect health!

I was grieved in my inmost heart when I heard that you had deprived the millions of souls who inhabit Morodabad of the advantages which they enjoyed under your authority. Modesty and respect prevented me from combating your scruples of conscience while you were describing them in the presence of the Emperor. I hasten, therefore, to write the words which I could not venture to speak. My purpose is to clear your mind of the doubts which now darken it, by relating to you the history of my own youth. The anxious thoughts which now trouble you, were once the thoughts which troubled me also. May your soul be relieved of the burden that oppresses it, as mine was relieved in the bygone time!

My early manhood was passed in studying the science of medicine. I learnt all the secrets of my art, and practised it for the benefit of my species. In time, however, the fearful scenes of suffering and death which perpetually offered themselves to my eyes, so far affected my mind as to make me tremble for my own life. Wherever I went, my grave seemed to be yawning at my feet. The awful necessity of preparing myself for eternity, impressed itself upon my soul, and withdrew my thoughts from every earthly consideration. I resolved to retire from the world, to despise the acquisition of all mortal knowledge, and to. devote my remaining days to the severest practices of a purely religious life. In accordance with this idea, I resolved to humble myself by suffering the hardship of voluntary poverty. After much consideration, I came to the conclusion that those who stood in need of my money were the persons who were least worthy of being benefited by it: and that those who really deserved the exercise of my charity were too modest, or too high-minded, to accept my help. Under the influence of this delusion, I buried in the earth all the treasure that I possessed; and took refuge from human society in the wildest and most inaccessible mountains of my native country. My abode was in the darkest corner of a huge cavern; my drink was the running water; my food consisted of the herbs and fruits that I could gather in the woods. To add to the severe self-restraint which had now become the guiding principle of my life, I frequently passed whole nights in watching – on such occasions, keeping my face turned towards the East, and waiting till the mercy of the Prophet should find me out, and unveil the mysteries of Heaven to my mortal view.

One morning, after my customary night of watching, exhaustion overpower me, at the hour of sunrise; and I sank prostrate in spite of myself, on the ground at the entrance of my cave.

I slept, and a vision appeared to me.

I was still at the mouth of the cave, and still looking at the rays of the rising sun. Suddenly a dark object passed between me and the morning light. I looked at it attentively, and saw that it was an eagle, descending slowly to the earth. As the bird floated nearer and nearer to the ground, a fox dragged himself painfully out of a thicket near at hand. Observing the animal, as he sank exhausted close by me, I discovered that both his fore legs were broken. While I was looking at him, the eagle touched the earth, laid before the crippled fox a morsel of goat’s flesh that he carried in his talons, flapped his huge wings, and, rising again into the air, slowly disappeared from sight.

On coming to my senses again, I bowed my forehead to the earth, and addressed my thanksgivings to the Prophet for the vision which he had revealed to me. I interpreted it, in this manner. “The divine Power,” I said to myself, “accepts the sacrifice that I have made in withdrawing myself from the contaminations of the world; but reveals to me, at the same time, that there is still some taint of mortal doubt clinging to my mind, and rendering the trust which it is my duty to place in the mercy of Heaven less absolute and unconditional than it ought to be. So long as I waste even the smallest portion of my time in the base employment of providing for my own daily wants, so long will my confidence in Providence be imperfect, and my mind be incapable of wholly. abstracting itself from earthly cares. This is what the vision is designed to teach me. If the bounty of Heaven condescends to employ an eagle to provide for the wants of a crippled fox, how sure I may feel that the same mercy will extend the same benefits to me! Let me wholly devote myself, then, to the service of my Creator, and commit the preservation of my life to the means which His wisdom is sure to supply.”

Strong in this conviction, I searched the woods no more for the herbs and fruits which had hitherto served me for food. I sat at the mouth of my cavern, and waited through the day, and no heavenly messenger appeared to provide for my wants. The night passed; and I was still alone. The new morning came; and my languid eyes could hardly lift themselves to the light, my trembling limbs failed to sustain me when I strove to rise. I lay back against the wall of my cavern, and resigned myself to die.

The consciousness of my own existence seemed to be just passing from me, when the voice of an invisible being sounded close at my ear. I listened, and heard myself addressed in these words :

“Abbas,” said the supernatural voice, “I am the Angel whose charge it is to search out and register your inmost thoughts. I am sent to you on a mission of reproof. Vain man! do you pretend to be wiser than the wisdom which is revealed to you? The blindness of your vision and the vainglory of your heart have together perverted a lesson which was mercifully intended to teach you the duties that your Creator expects you to perform. Are you crippled like the fox? Has not nature, on the contrary, endowed you with the strength of the eagle? Rise and bestir yourself! Rise, and let the example of the eagle guide you, henceforth, in the right direction. Go back to the city from which you have fled. Be, for the future, the messenger of health and life to those who groan on the hard bed of sickness. Ill-judging mortal! the virtue that dies in this solitude, lives in the world from which you have withdrawn. Prove your gratitude to your Creator by the good that you do among his helpless and afflicted creatures. There is the way that leads you from earth to Heaven. Rise, Abbas – rise humbly, and take it!”

An unseen hand lifted me from the ground, an unseen hand guided me back to the city. Humbled, repentant, enlightened at last, I drew my treasure from its hiding place, and employed it in helping the poor. Again I devoted all my energies to the blessed work of healing the sick. Years passed and found me contented and industrious in my vocation. As the infirmities of age approached, I assumed the sacred robe, and comforted the souls of my fellow-creatures, as I had formerly comforted their bodies. Never have I forgotten the lesson that I learnt in my hermitage on the mountain. You see me now, high in the favour of my Sovereign – Know that I have deserved my honours, because I have done good in my generation, among the people over whom he rules.

Such, oh, pious Vizir, is the story of my youth. May the lesson which enlightened me, do the same good office for you. I make no pretensions to wisdom: I speak only of such things as I know. Believe me, all wisdom which extends no farther than yourself is unworthy of you. A life sacrificed to subtle speculations is a life wasted. Let the eagle be the object of your emulation as he was of mine. The more gifts you have received, the better use it is expected you will make of them. Although the All-Powerful alone can implant virtue in the human heart, it is still possible for you, as the dreaded representative of authority, to excite to deeds of benevolence, even those who may have no better motive for doing good, than the motive of serving their own interests. With time, you may teach them the knowledge of higher things. Meanwhile, it will matter little to the poor who are succoured, whether it is mere ostentation or genuine charity that relieves them. Spread the example, therefore, of your own benevolence, beyond the circle of those only who are wise and good. Widen the sphere of your usefulness among your fellow-creatures, with every day; and fortify your mind with the blessed conviction that the life you will then lead, will be of all lives the most acceptable in the eyes of the Supreme Being.

Farewell. May the blessings of a happy people follow you wherever you go. May your name, when you are gathered to your fathers, be found written in the imperishable page – in the Volume of the Book of Life!

Abbas ceased. As he bowed his head, and folded up the scroll, the emperor beckoned him to the foot of the throne, and thanked the sage for the lesson that he had read to his Sovereign and to all the Court. The next day, the Vizir was sent back to his government at Morodabad. Shah Jehan also caused copies of the letter to be taken, and ordered them to be read to the people in the high places of the city. When that had been done, he further commanded that this inscription should be engraved on the palace gates, in letters of gold, which men could read easily, even from afar off:

THE LIFE THAT IS MOST ACCEPTABLE TO THE SUPREME BEING, IS THE LIFE THAT IS MOST USEFUL TO THE HUMAN RACE.

•   •   •

Surely not a bad Indian lesson, to begin with, when Betrayers and Assassins are the pupils to be taught?

Household Words 27 Feb 1858

A FAIR PENITENT

Charles Pineau Duclos was a French writer of biographies and novels, who lived and worked during the first half of the eighteenth century. He prospered sufficiently well, as a literary man, to be made secretary to the French Academy, and to be allowed to succeed Voltaire in the office of historiographer of France. He has left behind him, in his own country, the reputation of a lively writer of the second class, who addressed the public of his day with fair success, and who, since his death, has not troubled posterity to take any particular notice of him.

Among the papers left by Duclos, two manuscripts were found, which he probably intended to turn to some literary account. The first was a brief Memoir, written by himself; of a Frenchwoman, named Mademoiselle Gautier, who began life as an actress and who ended it as a Carmelite nun. The second manuscript was the lady’s own account of the process of her conversion, and of the circumstances which attended her moral passage from the state of a sinner to the state of a saint. There are certain national peculiarities in the character of Mademoiselle Gautier and in the narrative of her conversion, which are perhaps interesting enough to be reproduced with some chance of pleasing the reader of the present day.

It appears, from the account given of her by Duclos, that Mademoiselle Gautier made her appearance on the stage of the Théâtre François in the year seventeen hundred and sixteen. She is described as a handsome woman, with a fine figure, a fresh complexion, a lively disposition, and a violent temper. Besides possessing capacity as an actress, she could write very good verses, she was clever at painting in miniature, and, most remarkable quality of all, she was possessed of prodigious muscular strength. It is recorded of Mademoiselle, that she could roll up a silver plate with her hands, and that she covered herself with distinction in a trial of strength with no less a person than the famous soldier, Marshal Saxe.

Nobody who is at all acquainted with the social history of the eighteenth century in France, need be told that Mademoiselle Gautier had a long list of lovers, – for the most part, persons of quality, marshals, counts, and so forth. The only man, however, who really attached her to him, was an actor at the Théâtre François, a famous player in his day, named Quinault Dufresne. Mademoiselle Gautier seems to have loved him with all the ardour of her naturally passionate disposition. At first, he returned her affection; but, as soon as she ventured to test the sincerity of his attachment by speaking of marriage, he cooled towards her immediately, and the connection between them was broken off. In all her former love-affairs, she had been noted for the high tone which she adopted towards her admirers, and for the despotic authority which she exercised over them even in her gayest moments. But the severance of her connection with Quinault Dufresne wounded her to her heart. She had loved the man so dearly, had made so many sacrifices for him, had counted so fondly on the devotion of her whole future life to him, that the first discovery of his coldness towards her broke her spirit at once and for ever. She fell into a condition of hopeless melancholy, looked back with remorse and horror at her past. life, and abandoned the stage and the society in which she had lived, to end her days repentantly in the character of a Carmelite nun.

So far, her history is the history of hundreds of other women before her time and after it. The prominent interest of her life, for the student of human nature, lies in the story of her conversion, as told by herself. The greater part of the narrative – every page of which is more or less characteristic of the Frenchwoman of the eighteenth century – may be given, with certain suppressions and abridgments, in her own words. The reader will observe, at the outset, one curious fact. Mademoiselle Gautier does not so much as hint at the influence which the loss of her lover had in disposing her mind to reflect on serious subjects. She describes her conversion as if it had taken its rise in a sudden inspiration from Heaven. Even the name of Quinault Dufresne is not once mentioned from one end of her narrative to the other.

•   •   •

On the twenty-fifth of April, seventeen hundred and twenty-two (writes Mademoiselle Gautier), while I was still leading a life of pleasure – according to the pernicious ideas of pleasure which pass current in the world – I happen to awake, contrary to my usual custom, between eight and nine o’clock in the morning. I remember that it is my birthday; I ring for my people; and my maid answers the bell, alarmed by the idea that I am ill. I tell her to dress me that I may go to mass. I go to the Church of the Cordeliers, followed by my footman, and taking with me a little orphan whom I had adopted. The first part of the mass is celebrated without attracting my attention; but, at the second part the accusing voice of my conscience suddenly begins to speak. “What brings you here?” it says. “Do you come to reward God for making you the attractive person that you are, by mortally transgressing His laws every day of your life?” I hear that question, and I am unspeakably overwhelmed by it. I quit the chair on which I have hitherto been leaning carelessly, and I prostrate myself in an agony of remorse on the pavement of the church.

The mass over, I send home the footman and the orphan, remaining behind myself, plunged in inconceivable perplexity. At last I rouse myself on a sudden; I go to the sacristy; I demand a mass for my own proper advantage every day; I determine to attend it regularly; and, after three hours of agitation, I return home, resolved to enter on the path that leads to justification.

Six months passed. Every morning I went to my mass: every evening I spent in my customary dissipations.

Some of my friends indulged in considerable merriment at my expense when they found out my constant attendance at mass. Accordingly, I disguised myself as a boy, when I went to church, to escape observation. My disguise was found out, and the jokes against me were redoubled. Upon this, I began to think of the words of the Gospel, which declare the impossibility of serving two masters. I determined to abandon the service of Mammon.

The first vanity I gave up was the vanity of keeping a maid. By way of further accustoming myself to the retreat from the world which I now began to meditate, I declined all invitations to parties under the pretext of indisposition. But the nearer the Easter time approached at which I had settled in my own mind definitely to turn my back on worldly temptations and pleasures, the more violent became my internal struggles with myself. My health suffered under them to such an extent that I was troubled with perpetual attacks of retching and sickness, which, however, did not prevent me from writing my general confession, addressed to the vicar of Saint Sulpice, the parish in which I lived.

Just Heaven! what did I not suffer some days afterwards, when I united around me at dinner, for the last time, all the friends who had been dearest to me in the days of my worldly life! What words can describe the tumult of my heart when one of my guests said to me, “You are giving us too good a dinner for a Wednesday in Passion Week;” and when another answered, jestingly, “You forget that this is her farewell dinner to her friends!” I felt ready to faint while they were talking, and rose from table pretexting as an excuse, that I had a payment to make that evening, which I could not in honour defer any longer. The company rose with me, and saw me to the door I got into my carriage, and the company returned to table. My nerves were in such a state that I shrieked at the first crack of the coachman’s whip; and the company came running down again to know what was the matter. One of my servants cleverly stopped them from all hurrying out to the carriage together, by declaring that the scream proceeded from my adopted orphan. Upon this they returned quietly enough to their wine, and I drove off with my general confession to the vicar of Saint Sulpice.

My interview with the vicar lasted three hours. His joy at discovering that I was in a state of grace was extreme. My own emotions were quite indescribable. Late at night I returned to my own house, and found my guests all gone. I employed myself in writing farewell letters to the manager and company of the theatre, and in making the necessary arrangements for sending back my adopted orphan to his friends, with twenty pistoles. Finally, I directed the servants to say, if anybody enquired after me the next day, that I had gone out of town for some time; and after that, at five o’clock in the morning, I left my home in Paris never to return to it again.

By this time I had thoroughly recovered my tranquillity. I was as easy in my mind at leaving my house as I am now when I quit my cell to sing in the choir. Such already was the happy result of my perpetual masses, my general confession, and my three hours’ interview with the vicar of Saint Sulpice.

Before taking leave of the world, I went to Versailles to say good-bye to my worthy patrons, Cardinal Fleury and the Duke de Gesvres. From them, I went to mass in the King’s Chapel; and after that, I called on a lady of Versailles whom I had mortally offended, for the purpose of making my peace with her. She received me angrily enough. I told her I had not come to justify myself, but to ask her pardon. If she granted it, she would send me away happy. If she declined to be reconciled, Providence would probably be satisfied with my submission, but certainly not with her refusal. She felt the force of this argument; and we made it up on the spot.

I left Versailles immediately afterwards, without taking anything to eat; the act of humility which I had just performed being as good as a meal to me.

Towards evening, I entered the house of the Community of Saint Perpetua at Paris. I had ordered a little room to be furnished there for me, until the inventory of my worldly effects was completed, and until I could conclude my arrangements for entering a convent. On first installing myself, I began to feel hungry at last, and begged the Superior of the Community to give me for supper anything that remained from the dinner of the house. They had nothing but a little stewed carp, of which I eat with an excellent appetite. Marvellous to relate, although I had been able to keep nothing on my stomach for the past three months, although I had been dreadfully sick after a little rice soup on the evening before, the stewed carp of the sisterhood of Saint Perpetua, with some nuts afterwards for dessert, agreed with me charmingly, and I slept all through the night afterwards as peacefully as a child!

When the news of my retirement became public, it occasioned great talk in Paris. Various people assigned various reasons for the strange course that I had taken. Nobody, however, believed that I had quitted the world in the prime of my life (I was then thirty-one years old), never to return to it again. Meanwhile, my inventory was finished and my goods were sold. One of my friends sent a letter, entreating me to reconsider my determination. My mind was made up, and I wrote to say so. When my goods had been all sold, I left Paris to go and live incognito as a parlour-boarder in the Convent of the Ursuline nuns of Pondevaux. Here I wished to try the mode of life for a little while before I assumed the serious responsibility of taking the veil. I knew my own character – I remembered my early horror of total seclusion, and my inveterate dislike to the company of women only; and, moved by these considerations, I resolved, now that I had taken the first important step, to proceed in the future with caution.

The nuns of Pondevaux received me among them with great kindness. They gave me a large room, which I partitioned off into three small ones. I assisted at all the pious exercises of the place. Deceived by my fashionable appearance and my plump figure; the good nuns treated me as if I was a person of high distinction. This afflicted me, and I undeceived them. When they knew who I really was, they only behaved towards me with still greater kindness. I passed my time in reading and praying, and led the quietest, sweetest life it is possible to conceive.

After ten months’ sojourn at Pondevaux, I went to Lyons, and entered (still as parlour-boarder only) the House of Anticaille, occupied by the nuns of the Order of Saint Mary. Here, I enjoyed the advantage of having for director of my conscience that holy man, Father Deveaux. He belonged to the Order of the Jesuits; and he was good enough, when I first asked him for advice, to suggest that I should get up at eleven o’clock at night to say my prayers, and should remain absorbed in devotion until midnight. In obedience to the directions of this saintly person, I kept myself awake as well as I could till eleven o’clock. I then got on my knees with great fervour, and I blush to confess it, immediately fell as fast asleep as a dormouse. This went on for several nights, when Father Deveaux finding that my midnight devotions were rather too much for me, was so obliging as to prescribe another species of pious exercise, in a letter which he wrote to me with his own hand. The holy father, after deeply regretting my inability to keep awake, informed me that he had a new act of penitence to suggest to me by the performance of which I might still hope to expiate my sins. He then, in the plainest terms, advised me to have recourse to the discipline of flagellation, every Friday, using the cat-o’-nine-tails on my bare shoulders for the length of time that it would take to repeat a Miserere. In conclusion, he informed me that the nuns of Anticaille would probably lend me the necessary instrument of flagellation; but, if they made any difficulty about it, he was benevolently ready to furnish me with a new and special cat-o’-nine-tails of his own making.

Never was woman more amazed or more angry than I, when I first read this letter. “What!” cried I to myself, “does this man seriously recommend me to lash my own shoulders? Just Heaven, what impertinence! And yet, is it not my duty to put up with it? Does not this apparent insolence proceed from the pen of a holy man? If he tells me to flog my wickedness out of me, is it not my bounden duty to lay on the scourge with all my might immediately? Sinner that I am! I am thinking remorsefully of my plump shoulders and the dimples on my back, when I ought to be thinking of nothing but the cat-o’-nine-tails and obedience to Father Deveaux?”

These reflections soon gave me the resolution which I had wanted at first. I was ashamed to ask the nuns for an instrument of flagellation; so I made one for myself of stout cord, pitilessly knotted at very short intervals. This done, I shut myself up while the nuns were at prayer, uncovered my shoulders, and rained such a shower of lashes on them, in the first fervour of my newly-awakened zeal, that I fairly flogged myself down on the ground, flat on my nose, before I had repeated more of the Miserere than the first two or three lines.

I burst out crying, shedding tears of spite against myself when I ought to have been shedding tears of devotional gratitude for the kindness of Father Deveaux. All through the night, I never closed my eyes, and in the morning I found my poor shoulders (once so generally admired for their whiteness) striped with all the colours of the rainbow. The sight threw me into a passion, and I profanely said to myself while I was dressing, “The next time I see Father Deveaux, I will give my tongue full swing, and make the hair of that holy man stand on end with terror!” A few hours afterwards, be came to the convent, and all my resolution melted away at the sight of him. His imposing exterior had such an effect on me that I could only humbly entreat him to excuse me from inflicting a second flagellation on myself. Be smiled benignantly, and granted my request with a saintly amiability. “Give me the cat-o’-nine-tails,” he said, in conclusion, “and I will keep it for you till you ask me for it again. You are sure to ask for it again, dear child – to ask for it on your bended knees!”

Pious and prophetic man! Before many days had passed his words came true. If he had persisted severely in ordering me to flog myself, I might have opposed him for months together; but, as it was, who could resist the amiable indulgence be showed towards my weakness? The very next day after my interview, I began to feel ashamed of my own cowardice; and the day after that I went down on my knees, exactly as he had predicted, and said, “Father Deveaux, give me back my cat-o’-nine-tails.” From that time I cheerfully underwent the discipline of flagellation, learning the regular method of practising it from the sisterhood, and feeling, in a spiritual point of view, immensely the better for it.

The nuns, finding that I cheerfully devoted myself to every act of self-sacrifice prescribed by the rules of their convent, wondered very, much that I still hesitated about taking the veil. I begged them not to mention the subject to me till my mind was quite made up about it. They respected my wish, and said no more; but they lent me books to read which assisted in strengthening my wavering resolution. Among these books was the Life of Madame de Montmorenci, who, after the shocking death of her husband, entered the Order of St. Mary. The great example of this lady made me reflect seriously, and I communicated my thoughts, as a matter of course, to Father Deveaux. He assured me that the one last greatest sacrifice which remained for me to make was the sacrifice of my liberty. I had long known that this was my duty, and I now felt, for the first time, that I had courage and resolution enough boldly to face the idea of taking the veil.

While I was in this happy frame of mind, I happened to meet with the history of the famous Rancé, founder, or rather reformer, of the Order of La Trappe. I found a strange similarity between my own worldly errors and those of this illustrious penitent. The discovery had such an effect on me, that I spurned all idea of entering a convent where the rules were comparatively easy, as was the case at Anticaille, and determined, when I did take the veil, to enter an Order whose discipline was as severe as the discipline of La Trappe itself. Father Deveaux informed me that I should find exactly what I wanted among the Carmelite nuns; and, by his advice, I immediately put myself in communication with the Archbishop of Villeroi. I opened my heart to this worthy prelate, convinced him of my sincerity, and gained from him a promise that he would get me admitted among the Carmelite nuns of Lyons. One thing I begged of him at parting, which was, that he would tell the whole truth about my former life and about the profession that I had exercised in the world. I was resolved to deceive nobody, and to enter no convent under false pretences of any sort.

My wishes were scrupulously fulfilled; and the nuns were dreadfully frightened when they heard that I had been an actress at Paris. But the Archbishop promising to answer for me, and to take all their scruples on his own conscience, they consented to receive me. I could not trust myself to take formal leave of the nuns of Anticaille, who had been so kind to me, and towards whom I felt so gratefully. So I wrote my farewell to them after privately leaving their house, telling them frankly the motives which animated me, and asking their pardon for separating myself from them in secret.

On the fourteenth of October, seventeen hundred and twenty-four, I entered the Carmelite convent at Lyons, eighteen months after my flight from the world, and my abandonment of my profession – to adopt which, I may say, in my own defence, that I was first led through sheer poverty. At the age of seventeen years, and possessing (if I may credit report) remarkable personal charms, I was left perfectly destitute through the spendthrift habits of my father. I was easily persuaded to go on the stage, and soon tempted, with my youth and inexperience, to lead an irregular life. I do not wish to assert that dissipation necessarily follows the choice of the actress’s profession, for I have known many estimable women on the stage. I, unhappily, was not one of the number. I confess it to my shame, and, as the chief of sinners, I am only the more grateful to the mercy of Heaven which accomplished my conversion.

When I entered the convent, I entreated the prioress to let me live in perfect obscurity, without corresponding with my friends, or even with my relations. She declined to grant this last request, thinking that my zeal was leading me too far. On the other hand, she complied with my wish to be employed at once, without the slightest preparatory indulgence or consideration, on any menial labour which the discipline of the convent might require from me. On the first day of my admission a broom was put into my hands. I was appointed also to wash up the dishes, to scour the saucepans, to draw water from a deep well, to carry each sister’s pitcher to its proper place, and to scrub the tables in the refectory. From these occupations I got on in time to making rope shoes for the sisterhood, and to taking care of the great clock of the convent; this last employment requiring me to pull up three immensely heavy weights regularly every day, Seven years of my life passed in this hard work, and I can honestly say that I never murmured over it.

To return, however, to the period of my admission into the convent.

After three months of probation, I took the veil on the twentieth of January, seventeen hundred and twenty-five. The Archbishop did me the honour to preside at the ceremony; and, in spite of the rigour of the season, all Lyons poured into the church to see me take the vows. I was deeply affected; but I never faltered in my resolution. I pronounced the oaths with a firm voice, and with a tranquillity which astonished all the spectators, a tranquillity which has never once failed me since that time.

Such is the story of my conversion. Providence sent me into the world with an excellent nature, with a true heart, with a remarkable susceptibility to the influence of estimable sentiments. My parents neglected my education, and left me in the world, destitute of everything but youth, beauty, and a lively temperament. I tried hard to be virtuous – ; I vowed, before I was out of my teens, and when I happened to be struck down by a serious illness, to leave the stage, and to keep my reputation unblemished, if anybody would only give me two hundred livres a year to live upon. Nobody came forward to help me, and I fell. Heaven pardon the rich people of Paris who might have preserved my virtue at so small a cost! Heaven grant me courage to follow the better path into which its mercy has led me, and to persevere in a life of penitence and devotion to the end of my days!

•   •   •

So this singular confession ends. Besides the little vanities and levities which appear here and there on its surface, there is surely a strong under-current of sincerity and frankness which fit it to appeal in some degree to the sympathy as well as the curiosity of the reader. It is impossible to read the narrative without feeling, that there must have been something really genuine and hearty in Mademoiselle Gautier’s nature; and it is a gratifying proof of the honest integrity of her purpose to know that she persevered to the last in the life of humility and seclusion which her conscience had convinced her was the best life that she could lead. Persons who knew her in the Carmelite convent, report that she lived and died in it, preserving to the last, all the better part of the youthful liveliness of her character. She always received visitors with pleasure, always talked to them with surprising cheerfulness, always assisted the poor, and always willingly wrote letters to her former patrons in Paris to help the interests of her needy friends. Towards the end of her life, she was afflicted with blindness; but she was a trouble to no one in consequence of this affliction, for she continued, in spite of it, to clean her own cell, to make her own bed, and to cook her own food just as usual. One little characteristic vanity – harmless enough, surely? – remained with her to the last. She never forgot her own handsome face, which all Paris had admired in the bygone time; and she contrived to get a dispensation from the Pope which allowed her to receive visitors in the convent parlour without a veil.

Household Words 18 Jul 1857

THE LITTLE HUGUENOT

This is the true story of the escape of a little Huguenot from the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day.

The massacre took place at Paris, in the year fifteen hundred and seventy-two. It was the practical consequence of the hatred of the Papists for the members of the Reformed Religion, who desired nothing but to think for themselves on subjects which concerned their eternal salvation. The King of France and his mother were at the head of the conspiracy; and the signal for the beginning of the bloodshed was the tolling of a church bell, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Royal Palace. Men and women of the Reformed Religion, and their innocent children, were assassinated, under the encouragement and superintendence of the Church and State, in all quarters of Paris. The chief man of the Huguenots – the famous Admiral de Coligny – suffered with the rest of the victims. He was officially murdered at night, in his own house, and his dead body was thrown from the window of his bedchamber into the courtyard below. This atrocious massacre was perpetrated in the name of Christianity; and was invented and directed by men who were acquainted with the existence of the New Testament, and who, in the natural course, of their studies, must have read the words of the Sermon on the Mount.

In those times of savage cruelty and of worse than Pagan wickedness, there lived at Paris two brothers, who were Huguenots, and gentlemen of distinction in that day. One of the brothers bore his family name, and was called Monsieur de la Force. The other was known by the title of the Sieur de Caumont.

It so happened that some time before the day of the massacre, M. de la Force, the younger of the two brothers, had proved himself to be a good customer and friend to a certain horse-dealer, of whom he had purchased, on various occasions, nine or ten horses. Strange as it may appear, this person, although he was a horse-dealer, was really a sensible, humane, and honest man. A few hours before the massacre began, he happened to be in the neighbourhood of Admiral de Coligny’s house, and he there saw, or heard, something which gave him a suspicion of the murders which the Papists were then on the point of committing. He immediately thought of his kind patron and customer, and determined to warn him in time of the imminent danger to which he was exposed, as a man of distinction among the Huguenots. To do this, it was necessary for the horse-dealer to cross the Seine; M. de la Force living on that bank of the river which was opposite to the bank on which the King’s Palace and the house of Admiral de Coligny were situated.

The River Seine was crossed by ferryboats in those days. When the horse-dealer reached that part of the bank on which the Royal Palace stood, and asked for passage in one of the ferryboats in attendance there, he was told that they were all engaged on special service. He went a little further on, to try what he could do at the next station – but here the ferryboats had all been removed. Knowing that the minutes were precious, and determined to succeed in his errand of mercy, the brave man took off his clothes, tied them in a bundle on his head, and passed the river by swimming. Once on the other bank, he lost no time in going straight to the house of M. de la Force, and warning him of his danger. The Huguenot gentleman, thereupon, immediately betook himself to his brother, the Sieur de Caumont, who lived near him; and the two called together all their friends of the Reformed Religion who were within reach, to consult on the best means of escaping the deadly danger which now threatened them.

After some discussion, the Sieur de Caumont, ignorant of the part which the King had secretly taken in organising the massacre, proposed that all the persons assembled should go straight to the Palace, and place themselves under the Royal protection. This advice was adopted, and they set forth at once for the nearest station of ferryboats on that side of the river.

Arrived at the place, they found that every one of the boats had been removed to the opposite bank. This circumstance aroused their suspicions, and forced them to the conclusion that the conspiracy against their lives was sanctioned in high official quarters. They resolved to return immediately; to get to horse with their families; to muster in a park in the neighbourhood of Paris, called the Pré-aux-Clercs, and thence to escape to the safest places of refuge at their disposal in the country.

While they were preparing for departure, news came that the ferryboats were approaching the side of the river on which they lived, all filled with soldiers armed to the teeth.

Upon this, the fugitives mounted without losing another instant, and made for the Pré-aux-Clercs. The horses were ready for M. de la Force and his brother. The Sieur de Caumont rode off with the rest. M. de la Force (who was a widower) was detained by some difficulty in getting his two boys safely on horseback – was detained so long that he gave up all hope of joining the fugitives; and, returning to his house, closed all the doors, and determined to defend his children and himself on his own hearth.

Defence, however, was hopeless against the number of assailants who were now approaching him. The street was filled with soldiers, who threatened to break in the door if it was not opened. It being only too evident that they could execute their threat in a few minutes, their demand was complied with, for the sake of not irritating them unnecessarily.

They rushed in at once, with their drawn swords, headed by a Captain, named Martin, and all shouting together, “Kill! kill!” Their first proceeding was to disarm the master and his servants, and to place them, with the two boys, in a corner of the room. “Any one of you who likes may say his prayers, and had better be quick about it,” said Captain Martin; “for you will all die together in five minutes’ time.”

M. de la Force, preserving his self-possession, replied:

“Do what you will with me: I am prepared to die, if need be, in five minutes’ time. But have some compassion on these children, who have offended no one. By putting them to death you will gain nothing. By preserving their lives you may profit yourself considerably, for I have the means of rewarding your moderation by payment of a heavy ransom.”

This last argument made some impression on Captain Martin and his men. They put up their swords, and dispersed to pillage the house. Being unable to find the necessary keys (the person who kept them having taken to flight), they burst open closed doors, and broke open locked boxes in the courtyard. In a short space of time, all the property of M. de la Force, in money, plate, and clothes, had passed into their keeping.

Having completed the pillage, Captain Martin and his men came back to their prisoners, and told them with many oaths that die they must, as the soldiers had orders to kill all the Huguenots in Paris, without sparing anybody. M. de la Force again appealed to them on their only weak point, the love of money, and promised to ransom the lives of himself, his children, and his servants at the price of two thousand crowns. Captain Martin looked at his men, pondered a little, and then said roughly: “So be it. Follow me, all of you.”

Having got his prisoners into the courtyard, he made them tear up their handkerchiefs, and fix the strips in the form of a cross on their hats. After which, he directed them to turn up their right sleeves as high as their shoulders. The cross on the hat and the turned-up sleeve were peculiarities of dress previously agreed upon to distinguish the Papists from their Huguenot victims. Thus protected from discovery, they were taken across the river by Captain Martin, without delay.

They were altogether five in number. The father, the two boys, a man servant named Gast, and a Page named La Vigerie. On reaching the other side of the river, they passed the bodies of murdered Huguenots, weltering in their blood, at every step. Captain Martin, without looking to the right hand or the left, led his prisoners straight to his own house; and, having bestowed them there in safety, made ready to go out again, and continue the work of murder and pillage in his own neighbourhood. Before he went away, however, he addressed himself to M. de la Force, and insisted on that gentleman’s pledging his word of honour, that neither he nor his children would attempt to escape before the ransom was paid. Having been satisfied on this point (for he knew well enough that M. de la Force was a man who held his promise sacred), he took himself off, recommending the prisoners to be quick in getting the money, and leaving two Swiss soldiers to guard them in his absence.

M. de la Force, knowing the importance of losing no time, immediately sent his manservant, Gast, to his sister-in-law, Madame de Brisembourg who lived at the Arsenal. Gast was to tell her all that had happened, and to implore her to raise the sum of money required for the ransom, as soon as possible.

On his return to his master, Gast reported that the lady would undertake to raise the money and send it by the next day. She also sent word that the news of the lives of her brother-in-law and his children having been spared, had already reached the ears of the King, and that the worst consequences were to be apprehended as the result of that unhappy circumstance.

Having delivered his message, the servant implored his master to seek safety by flight – the more especially as the two Swiss soldiers appointed to watch the prisoners, were secretly horrified at the massacre, and were perfectly ready to let them go. But M. de la Force, with a dauntless sense of honour, which would have influenced few men at that moment, and which no words can praise as it deserves to be praised, steadily refused to profit by Gast’s suggestion.

“I have passed my word to wait here till the ransom is paid,” said that brave and admirable gentleman; “and I will not save my life by breaking my promise. Here I will stop till the money comes; and I will leave it to God in his wisdom to dispose of me and of my children, as He sees good.”

Hearing these words, the servants hesitated about taking to flight by themselves, not knowing where to go, and not having any means of procuring horses. They waited, therefore, in the house, with the purpose of concealing themselves in the upper rooms at the first approach of danger.

The rest of the day passed, and the night followed, and nothing happened. Neither Captain Martin nor any of his men came near the house. On the next day, when the ransom was due, there arrived, instead of the Captain who was to receive it, a certain Papist nobleman, named the Count de Coconas, followed by a guard of forty soldiers. The Count informed M. de la Force that the King’s brother had heard of their being taken prisoners, and that he desired to speak with them immediately. While he was giving this message, he allowed his men to tear off the outer clothing of M. de la Force and his sons. Finding themselves used in this way, they suspected that the pretended message was a falsehood, and prepared themselves for the worst. M. de la Force appealed, as a last resource, to the Count’s sense of justice, pleading that his life, and the life of his sons, had been spared on condition of paying a ransom, and that the money was to be sent that very day. His youngest son, who had shown marvellous courage and coolness in the midst of deadly danger, joined M. de la Force in trying to touch the Count’s heart by his innocent entreaties. They spoke long; the boy, when he found his father getting agitated, trying to console and quiet him. When they had said all that it was possible to say, the only answer the Count condescended to give them, was this:

“I was told there were two servants with you; and I see neither of them. Where are they?”

On the first approach of the soldiers, the Page had wisely flown to the protection of the two Swiss guards. Gast, unfortunately for himself, had rushed upstairs to one of the garrets, and had there endeavoured to lie hid. He was searched for by the Count’s order, was found, and was brought downstairs, to take his place with his fellow prisoners. The Page could not be discovered anywhere.

“Only four!” said the Count, running them over with his eye. “Never mind. March them out.”

They left the house, with their guards all round them, and were led into a lonely bye-street in the neighbourhood. There the soldiers halted, drew their swords, called out all together, “Kill! kill!” and attacked their defenceless prisoners.

The eldest boy was the first slain; and his father was the next victim. The youngest son (the same who had shown such courage in pleading for his life), had the presence of mind to drop to the ground with them, and to lie there as still as if he too had been killed by the same sword-thrusts which had despatched his father and his brother. Gast, the servant, was murdered last. All the clothing of the bodies was torn off them. The living boy lay naked in the blood of his nearest and dearest relations – to all outward appearance death-stained by his wounds, like the rest.

As the Count and his men withdrew, believing that they had successfully accomplished the butchery of their four prisoners, certain poor Papists living in the street, stole out from their houses to look at the dead bodies. One among them, a Marker at a Tennis Court, staid longer than the rest on the scene of slaughter; and said to himself sorrowfully, looking at the younger son as he lay on the ground:

“Sad, sad! here is the body of a mere child!”

The boy, whose name was Jacques, hearing these compassionate words, ventured to raise his head, and said, piteously:

“I am not dead. For mercy’s sake, save my life!”

The Marker instantly pressed him back to the ground again, and whispered:

“Hush! Don’t move yet, my little man. The soldiers are still in the neighbourhood.” Having spoken those words of warning, he withdrew a few paces, and walked backwards and forwards for a little while, watching, on the other side of the street. In a few minutes he came back, and saying: “They are gone, now-you may get up, my boy,” put his ragged old cloak over the naked body of Jacques, and led him away by the hand. They had not walked many paces, before some people met them, and asked who that strangely-dressed boy was.

“My nephew,” answered the Marker. “The little rascal has been getting drunk, and I am taking him home to give him a good whipping.”

The worthy man’s home was a garret in a ruinous old house. Arrived there, he gave Jacques some water to wash himself, and some ragged clothing belonging to the nephew, whom the boy now personated. He was so poor that he had nothing to eat or drink; and seeing that Jacques had a little ring still left on his finger, he asked leave to go out and pawn it, to get some food. They supped, and breakfasted, the next morning, on the money obtained by the ring; and, then the Marker asked Jacques what he proposed to do next, and where he wanted to go.

The boy answered by begging to be taken to the Palace, where he had a sister who occupied a place in the Queen’s household. The Marker shook his head at that proposal, and declined to risk the gallows by taking a young Huguenot, whose life he had saved, to the headquarters of the Papist conspiracy.

The next suggestion offered by Jacques, was that they should go to the Arsenal, where his aunt, Madame de Brisembourg, lived. The Marker was ready to undertake this expedition, though it was rather a long and dangerous one, provided they passed through no principal streets. Before they started, he took occasion to remind Jacques of his poverty, and inquired if Madame de Brisembourg was a likely woman to give as much as thirty crowns for the safe delivery of her nephew, at the gates of the Arsenal. Jacques promised, in his aunt’s name, that the sum should be forthcoming, and they started immediately.

They got to the Arsenal without misadventures of any sort. Arrived at the gate, Jacques said to his companion:

“Wait here; and I will send you out your nephew’s clothes, and the thirty crowns for taking care of me.”

While he was speaking, the gate was opened by some one coming out; and Jacques dexterously slipped in, before it was closed again. He wandered about the place, looking for the building in which his aunt lived, and meeting no persons but strangers, whom he was afraid to inquire of. At last, who should he see but the Page in his late father’s service – the lad who had been saved by the Swiss guards!

The Page (who had taken refuge with Madame de Brisembourg on the night of the murder), did not recognise his young master at first, in the ragged clothing of the Marker’s nephew. Jacques made himself known, and was taken instantly to his aunt.

Madame de Brisembourg having heard that her brother-in-law, and both his children, had been killed, was in bed, overwhelmed by the shock of that dreadful intelligence. Her joy and astonishment can hardly be imagined, when she found her youngest nephew standing alive and well by her bedside. She immediately ordered proper clothing for him, and arranged that his bed should be made in her own dressing-room. Jacques did not forget his friend the Marker, in the happiness of finding an asylum. He begged thirty crowns from his aunt, and sent them out, with the ragged clothes, to his preserver, who was waiting at the gate.

Jacques enjoyed two days of rest and security in his aunt’s dressing-room. At the end of that time, Marshal de Biron (Head of the Artillery Department), was told that the King bad discovered that certain Huguenots had taken refuge at the Arsenal, and that His Majesty was determined to have them sought for without delay. This bad news the Marshal communicated to Madame de Brisembourg, who immediately felt that her nephew was no longer in safety under her own roof.

The next morning, accordingly, she caused him to be dressed as a Page in the service of Marshal de Biron, and placed him, with many tears, under the protection of the Sieur de Born, a lieutenant-general of artillery, in whose good sense and humanity she could put perfect trust.

The Sieur de Born took Jacques out of the Arsenal and brought him to a house in the neighbourhood belonging to a person connected with the Artillery Department, named Guillon. “Be so good,” said the Sieur de Born, “as to give this lad house-room for a few days. He is the son of an old friend of mine, and he is about to enter the service of the Marshal de Biron, in the capacity of Page.” Guillon accepted the charge readily. He was a sharp man, and he strongly suspected that the story about the Marshal de Biron’s page was a mere invention. However, fortunately for Jacques, he was under obligations to the Sieur de Born; so he kept his suspicions to himself, and received the young stranger very kindly.

Jacques remained unmolested in the house of Guillon for a week. His host was accustomed to go out every morning to his duties, and to return to dinner – on which occasion the lad generally ran to open the door for him. On the eighth day the usual knock came at the usual time, and Jacques opened the door; but, seeing a stranger standing on the threshold, immediately clapped it to again in his face. Upon this, the man called through the door, “Don’t be afraid, my boy. I am a messenger of your aunt’s, and I am sent to know how you are.” Jacques called back, that his health was excellent, and that he was very much obliged to his aunt; but he took good care not to open the door again. The deadly peril through which he had passed, had taught him to be as cautious as any grown man in Paris.

When the master of the house came back, a little later, Jacques told him what had happened. Guillon, with a look of alarm, started up from his dinner, and ran to the Arsenal to make inquiries at the apartments of Madame de Brisembourg. The information he received there, justified the worst suspicions. Madame de Brisembourg had sent no messenger to inquire after her nephew’s health. The stranger was evidently a Papist spy.

There was no resource now for Jacques, but to resign all hopes of finding an asylum in Paris, and to risk the danger of trying to escape into the country. If he had not possessed powerful friends at the Arsenal, he would never have been able to make the attempt. As it was, his aunt’s influence with the Marshal de Biron, was powerful enough to give him another chance for his life. The Marshal had a royal passport intended for the use of two persons in his service – that is to say, of his steward, the Sieur de Fraisse, and of one of the pages, who was accustomed to carry his written orders to the commanding officer of a troop of soldiers, then in garrison in the country. It was arranged that the steward should make use of the passport immediately, and that he should take Jacques with him in the character of page.

At the gate of the city by which they passed out, they found the Sieur de Born waiting to lend them his assistance, in case of any difficulties. He introduced Jacques to the official persons who examined the passport, as a relation of his own, who had recently entered the service of the Marshal de Biron. Thanks to this recommendation, the passport proved effectual; and the steward and the page rode through the gate without hindrance and without question.

As soon as they passed the guard, Jacques asked where they were going to. “We are going into the country, if it pleases God,” said the Sieur de Fraisse. “I hope from! my heart it may please Him,” answered Jacques. And away they went along the high road.

After two days’ riding they put up at an inn, where they met with a Person of Quality, who had arrived before them, and who rejoiced in a train of seven mounted servants. The Person of Quality was a zealous Papist, and talked in high spirits of the successful slaughtering of the scoundrelly Huguenots, as he called them. He also took a great fancy to Jacques, and proposed, as they were travelling the same way, to offer him the protection of his train of seven mounted servants. Jacques and the steward were afraid to decline this offer. So the next day they all travelled together.

When they put up again for the night, the Person of Quality, ordered his dressing-gown to make himself comfortable after the journey. Jacques recognised the pattern the moment the dressing-gown was produced. It had belonged to his father.

Once wrapped up comfortably, with his boots off and his legs on a chair, the Person of Quality, resumed his rejoicings over the massacre of the Huguenots. He said that only one mistake of any consequence had been committed in the execution of that righteous butchery, and that was caused by allowing the Sieur de Caumont (Jacques’ uncle) to escape. This circumstance the Person of Quality sincerely regretted; but he was consoled by calling to mind that M. de la Force and both his children had perished, at any rate; and he was not without hope that he might yet find out the place of the Sieur de Caumont’s retreat, and have the satisfaction of killing that detestable Huguenot with his own hands.

This discourse and the discovery of the dressing-gown had such an effect on Jacques, that he took the first opportunity of entreating the steward to find out some means of continuing their journey alone, the next day. The Sieur de Fraisse was only too anxious to grant the request. He and Jacques rose the next morning before daybreak, paid their bill, called for their horses, and rode off, while the Person of Quality was fast asleep.

They encountered other dangers from stray Papist travellers, from which they escaped, however, with very little difficulty. The further they got from Paris, the fewer risks they ran. On the eighth day after their departure, they reached a large building, situated in a very remote place, and called Castlenau. This was the end of their journey; for here the Sieur de Caumont had flown for refuge, after riding out to the Pré-aux-Clercs with the rest of the Huguenot fugitives,

“Nobody,” says the ancient chronicler from whose pages these particulars are taken – “nobody would believe, if I tried to relate it, how the Sieur de Caumont rejoiced over the recovery of the nephew whom he had given up for dead. From that time forth he loved the boy as if he had been his son; and the first lesson he taught him was to thank God, on his knees, night and morning, for his deliverance from death.” It is good to know that Jacques showed himself well worthy of his uncle’s affection and care. He entered the army, and rose to the highest distinction as a soldier. In French history his name is famous, as the Marshal de la Force. He escaped death on the field of battle as marvellously as he had escaped it in the streets of Paris, and he lived prosperously to the ripe old age of eighty-four years.

This is all there is to tell of the escape of Jacques from the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day.

Household Words 9 Jan 1858

THE CRUISE OF THE TOMTIT

“At any other time of the year and for a shorter cruise, I should be delighted to join you. But as I prefer dying a dry death, I must decline accompanying you all the way to the Scilly Islands in a little pleasure boat of thirteen tons, just at the time of the autumnal equinox. You may meet with a gale that will blow you out of the water. You are running a risk, in my opinion, of the most senseless kind – and, if I thought my advice had any weight with you, I should say most earnestly, be warned in time, and give up the trip.”
—Extract from the letter of A Prudent Friend.

“If I were only a single man, there is nothing I should like better than to join you. But I have a wife and family, and I can’t reconcile it to my conscience to risk being drowned.”
—Report from the Farewell Speech of A Prudent Friend.

“Don’t come back bottom upwards.”
—Condensation of the Valedictory Blessings of several Prudent Friends.

We received the enlivening expressions of opinion quoted above, with the perfect politeness which distinguishes us both. At the same time, with the firm resolution which forms another marked trait in our respective characters, we held to our original determination, engaged the boat and the crew, and put to sea on our appointed day, in the teeth of the wind and of our friends’ objections. But before I float the present narrative into blue water, I have certain indispensable formalities to accomplish which will keep me and my readers for a little while yet on dry land. First of all, let me introduce our boat, our crew, and ourselves.

Our boat is named the Tomtit. She is cutter-rigged. Her utmost length from stem to stern is thirty-six feet, and her greatest breadth on deck is ten feet. As her size does not admit of bulwarks, her deck, between the cabin-hatch and the stern, dips into a kind of well, with seats round three sides of it, which we call the Cockpit. Here we can stand up in rough weather without any danger of being rolled overboard; elsewhere the sides of the vessel do not rise more than a few inches above the deck. The cabin of the Tomtit is twelve feet long, eight feet wide, and five feet six inches deep. It has roomy lockers, and a snug little fireplace, and it leads into two recesses forward, which make capital storerooms for water, coals, firewood, and so forth. When I have added that the Tomtit has a bright red bottom, continued, as to colour, up her sides to a little above the water-mark; and when I have further stated that she is a fast sailor, and that she proved herself on our cruise to be a capital little sea-boat, I have said all that is needful at present on the subject of our yacht, and may get on to our crew and ourselves.

Our crew is composed of three brothers: Sam Dobbs, Dick Dobbs, and Bob Dobbs; all active seamen, and as worthy and hearty fellows as any man in the world could wish to sail with. My friend’s name is Mr. Migott, and mine is Mr. Jollins. Thus, we are five on board altogether. As for our characters, I shall leave them to come out as they may in the course of this narrative. I am going to tell things just as they happened. What some people call smart writing, comic colouring, and graphic describing, are departments of authorship at which I snap my fingers in contempt.

The port we sailed from was a famous watering-place on the western coast, called Mangerton-on-the-Mud; and our intention, as intimated in the letter of our prudent friend, was to go even further than the Land’s End, and to reach those last bits of English ground called the Scilly Islands. But if the reader thinks he is now to get afloat at once, he is grievously mistaken. One very important and interesting part of our voyage was entirely comprised in the preparations that we made for it. To this portion of the subject, therefore, I shall wholly devote myself in the first instance. On paper, or off it, neither Mr. Migott nor myself are men to be hurried.

We left London with nothing but our clothes, our wrappers, some tobacco, some French novels, and some Egyptian cigars. Everything that was to be bought for the voyage was to be procured at Bristol. Everything that could he extracted from private benevolence was to be taken in unlimited quantities from hospitable friends living more or less in the neighbourhood of our place of embarkation. At Bristol we plunged over head and ears in naval business immediately. After ordering a ham, and a tongue, marmalade, lemons, anchovy paste, and general groceries, we set forth to the quay to equip ourselves and our vessel. We began with charts, sailing directions, and a compass; we got on to a hammock a-piece and a flag; and we rose to a nautical climax by buying tarpaulin-coats, leggings, and sou’-westers, at a sailors’ public-house. With these sea stores, and with a noble loaf of home-made bread (the offering of private benevolence) we left Bristol to scour the friendly country beyond, in search of further contributions to the larder of the Tomtit.

The first scene of our ravages was a large country-house, surrounded by the most charming grounds. From the moment when we and our multifarious packages poured tumultuous into the hall, to the moment when we and the said packages poured out of it again into a carriage and a cart, I have no recollection, excepting mealtimes and bedtime, of having been still for an instant. Escorted everywhere by two handsome, high-spirited boys, in a wild state of excitement about our voyage, we ranged the house from top to bottom, and laid hands on everything portable and eatable that we wanted in it. The inexhaustible hospitality of our hostess was proof against all the inroads that we could make on it. The priceless gift of packing perishable commodities securely in small spaces possessed by a lady living in the house and placed perpetually at our disposal encouraged our propensities for unlimited accumulation. We ravaged the kitchen garden and the fruit-garden; we rushed into the awful presence of the cook (with our ham and tongue from Bristol as an excuse) and ranged predatory over the lower regions. We scaled back-staircases, and tramped along remote corridors, and burst into secluded lumber-rooms, with accompaniment of shouting from the boys, and of operatic humming from Mr. Migott and myself, who happen, among other social accomplishments, to be both of us musical in a free-and-easy way. We turned out, in these same lumber-rooms, plans of estates from their neat tin cases, and put in lemons and loaf-sugar instead. Mr. Migott pounced upon a stray telescope, and strapped it over my shoulders forthwith. The two boys found two japanned boxes, with the epaulettes and shako of an ex-military member of the family inside, which articles of martial equipment (though these are war-times, and nothing is meritorious or respectable now but fighting) I, with my own irreverent hands, shook out on the floor; and straightway conveyed the empty cases downstairs to be profaned by tea, sugar, Harvey’s sauce, pickles, pepper, and other products of the arts of peace. In a word, and not to dwell too long on the purely piratical part of our preparations for the voyage, we doubled the number of our packages at this hospitable country-house, before we left it for Mangerton-on-the-Mud, and the dangers of the sea that lay beyond.

At Mangerton we made a second piratical swoop upon another long-suffering friend, the resident doctor. We let this gentleman off however, very easily, only lightening him of a lanthorn, and two milk-cans to hold our fresh water. We felt strongly inclined to take his warmest cape away from him also; but Mr. Migott leaned towards the side of mercy, and Mr. Jollins was, as usual, only too ready to sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship, – so the doctor kept his cape, after all. Not so fortunate was our next victim, Mr. Purler, the Port Admiral of Mangerton-on-the-Mud, and the convivial host of the Metropolitan Inn. Wisely entering his house empty-handed, we left it with sheets, blankets, mattresses, pillows, table-cloths, napkins, knives, forks, spoons, crockery, a frying-pan, a gridiron, and a saucepan. When to these articles of domestic use were added the parcels we had brought from Bristol, the packages we had collected at the country-house, the doctor’s milk-cans, the personal baggage of the two enterprising voyagers, additions to the eating and drinking department in the shape of a cold curry in a jar, a piece of spiced beef, a side of bacon, and a liberal supply of wine, spirits, and beer, nobody can be surprised to hear that we found some difficulty in making only one cart-load of our whole collection of stores. The packing process was, in fact, not accomplished till after dark. The tide was then flowing; we were to sail the next morning; and it was necessary to get everything put on board that night, while there was water enough for the Tomtit to be moored close to the jetty.

This jetty, it must be acknowledged, was nothing but a narrow stone causeway, sloping down from the, land into the sea. Imagine our cart, loaded with breakable things, at the high end of the jetty, and the Tomtit waiting to receive the contents of the cart at the low end, in the water. Imagine no moon, no stars, no lamp of any kind on shore; imagine one small lanthorn on board the vessel, which just showed how dark it was, and did nothing more; imagine the doctor, and the doctor’s friend, and the doctor’s two dogs, and Mr. Migott and Mr. Jollins all huddled together in a fussy state of expectation, midway on the jetty, seeing nothing, doing nothing, and being very much in the way. Imagine all these things, and then wonder, as we wondered, at the marvellous dexterity of our three valiant sailors, who actually succeeded in transporting piecemeal the crockery, cookery, and general contents of the cart into the vessel, on that pitchy night, without breaking, spilling, dropping, bumping, or forgetting anything. When I hear of professional conjurors performing remarkable feats; I think of the brothers Dobbs, and the loading of the Tomtit in the darkness; and I ask myself if any landsman’s mechanical legerdemain can be more extraordinary than the natural neat-handedness of a sailor?

The next morning the sky was black, the wind was blowing hard against us, and the waves were showing their white frills angrily in the offing. A double row of spectators had assembled at the jetty, to see us beat out of the bay. If they had come to see us hanged, their grim faces could not have expressed greater commiseration. Our only cheerful farewell came from the doctor and his friend and the two dogs. The remainder of the spectators evidently felt that they were having a last long stare at us, and that it would be indecent and unfeeling, under the circumstances, to look happy. Give me a respectable inhabitant of an English country town, and I will match him, in the matter of stolid and silent staring, against any other man, civilised or savage, over the whole surface of the globe.

If we had felt any doubts of the sea-going qualities of the Tomtit, they would have been solved when we “went about,” for the first time, after leaving the jetty. A livelier, stiffer, and drier little vessel of her size never was built. She jumped over the waves, as if the sea was a great play-ground, and the game for the morning Leap-Frog. Though the wind was so high that we were obliged to lower our foresail, and to double-reef the mainsail, the only water we got on board was the spray that was blown over us from the tops of the waves. In the state of weather getting down Channel was out of the question. We were obliged to be contented, on this first day of our voyage, with running across to the Welsh coast, and there sheltering ourselves – amid a perfect fleet of outward-bound merchantmen driven back by the wind – in a snug roadstead, for the afternoon and the night.

This delay, which might have been disagreeable enough later in our voyage, gave us just the time we wanted for setting things to rights on board. Our little twelve-foot cabin, it must be remembered, was bedroom, sitting-room, dining-room, store-room, and kitchen, all in one. Everything we wanted for sleeping, reading, eating, and drinking, had to be arranged in its proper place. The butter and candles, the soap and cheese, the salt and sugar, the bread and onions, the oil-bottle and the brandy-bottle, for, example, had to be put in places where the motion of the vessel could not roll them together, and where, also, we could any of us find them at a moment’s notice. Other things, not of the eatable sort, we gave up all idea of separating. Mr. Migott and I mingled our stock of shirts as we mingled our sympathies, our fortunes, and our flowing punchbowl after dinner. We both of us have our faults; but incapability of adapting ourselves cheerfully to circumstances is not among them. Mr. Migott, especially, is one of those rare men who could dine politely off blubber in the company of Esquimaux, and discover the latent social advantages of his position if he was lost in the darkness of the North Pole.

After the arrangement of goods and chattels, came dinner (the curry warmed up with a second course of fried onions), then, the slinging of our hammocks by the neat hands of the Brothers Dobbs, and then the practice of how to get into the hammocks, by Messrs Migott and Jollins No landsman who has not tried the experiment can form the faintest notion of the luxury of the sailor’s swinging bed, or of the extraordinary difficulty of getting into it for the first, time. The preliminary action is to stand with your back against the middle of your hammock, and to hold by the edge of the canvas on either side. You then duck your head down, throw your heels up, turn round on your back, and let go with your hands, all at the same moment. If you succeed in doing this, you are in most luxurious bed that the ingenuity of man has ever invented. If you fail, you measure your length on the floor. So much for hammocks.

After learning how to get into bed, the writer of the present narrative tried his hand on the composition of whiskey punch, and succeeded – which has always been his modest aim through life – in imparting satisfaction to his fellow-creatures. When the punch and the pipes accompanying the same had come to an end, a pilot-boat anchored alongside of us for the night. Once embarked on our own element, we old sea-dogs, are, after all, a polite race of men. We asked the pilot where he had come from – and he asked us. We asked the pilot where he was bound to, tomorrow morning – and he asked us. We asked the pilot whether he would like a drop of rum – and the pilot, loth to discourage us, said Yes. After that there was a little pause; and then the pilot asked us, whether we would come on board his boat – and we, loth to discourage the pilot, said Yes, and did go, and came back, and asked the pilot whether he would come on board our boat – and he said Yes, and did come on board, and drank another drop of rum. Thus in the practice of the social virtues did we wile away the hours – six jolly tars in a twelve-foot cabin – till it was past eleven o’clock, and time, as we say at sea to tumble in, or tumble out, as the case may be, when a jolly tar wants practice in the art of getting into his hammock.

The wind blew itself out in the night. As the morning got on, it fell almost to a calm; and the merchantmen about us began weighing anchor, to drop down Channel with the tide. The Tomtit, it is unnecessary to say, scorned to be left behind, and hoisted her sails with the best of them. Favoured by the lightness of the wind, we sailed past every vessel proceeding in our direction. Barques, brigs, and schooners, French luggers and Dutch galliots, we showed our stern to all of them and when the weather cleared, and the breeze freshened towards the afternoon, the little Tomtit was heading the whole fleet. In the evening we brought up close to the high coast of Somersetshire, to wait for the tide. Weighed again, at ten at night, and sailed for Ilfracombe. Got becalmed towards morning, but managed to reach our port at ten, with the help of the sweeps, or long oars. Went ashore for more bread, beer, and fresh water; feeling so nautical by this time, that the earth was difficult to walk upon; and all the people we had dealings with presented themselves to us in the guise of unmitigated land-sharks. O, my dear eyes! what a relief it was to Mr. Migott and myself to find ourselves in our floating castle, boxing the compass, dancing the hornpipe, and splicing the main-brace freely in our ocean-home.

About noon we sailed for Clovelly. Our smooth passage across the magnificent Bay of Bideford is the recollection of our happy voyage which I find myself looking back on most lovingly while I now write. No cloud was in the sky. Far away, on the left, sloped inward the winding shore, so clear, so fresh, so divinely tender in its blue and purple hues, that it was the most inexhaustible of luxuries only to look at it. Over the watery horizon, to the right, the autumn sun hung grandly, with the fire-path below, heaving on a sea of lustrous darkest blue. Flocks of wild birds, at rest, floated, chirping on the water all around. The fragrant, steady breeze was just enough to fill our sails. On and on we went, with the bubbling sea-song at our bows to soothe us; on and on, till the blue lustre of the ocean grew darker, till the sun sank redly towards the far waterline, till the sacred evening stillness crept over the sweet air, and hushed it with a foretaste of the coming night. What sight of mystery and enchantment rises before us now? Steep, solemn cliffs, bare in some places – where the dark-red rock has been rent away, and the winding chasms open grimly to the view – but clothed for the most part with trees, which soften their summits into the sky, and sweep all down them, in glorious masses of wood, to the very water’s edge. Climbing from the beach, up the precipitous face of the cliff, a little fishing village coyly shows itself. The small white cottages rise one above another, now perching on a bit of rock, now peeping out of a clump of trees; sometimes two or three together; sometimes one standing alone; here, placed sideways to the sea, there, fronting it, – but rising always one above another, as if instead of being founded on the earth, they were hung from the trees on the top of the cliff. Over all this lovely scene the evening shadows are stealing. The last rays of the sun just tinge the quiet water, and touch the white walls of the cottages. From out at sea comes the sound of a horn, blown from the nearest fishing-vessel, as a signal to the rest to follow her to shore. From the land, the voices of children at play, and the still, faint fall of the small waves on the beach are the only audible sounds. This is Clovelly. If we had travelled a thousand miles to see it, we should have said that our journey had not been taken in vain.

On getting to shore, we found the one street of Clovelly nothing but a succession of irregular steps, from the beginning at the beach, to the end, half-way up the cliffs. It was like climbing to the top of an old castle, instead of walking through a village. When we reached the summit of the cliff, it was getting too dark to see much of the country. We strayed away, however, to look for the church, and found ourselves, at twilight, near some ghastly deserted out-houses, approached by a half-ruinous gateway, and a damp dark avenue of trees. The church was near, but shut off from us by ivy-grown walls. No living creature appeared; not even a dog barked at us. We were surrounded by silence, solitude, darkness and desolation; and it struck us both forcibly, that the best thing we could do was to give up the church, and get back to humanity with all convenient speed. The descent of the High Street of Clovelly, at night, turned out to be a matter of more difficulty than we had anticipated. There was no such thing as a lamp in the whole village; and we had to grope our way in the darkness down steps of irregular sizes and heights, paved with slippery pebbles, and ornamented with nothing in the shape of a bannister, even at the most dangerous places. Half-way down, my friend and I had an argument in the dark – standing with our noses against a wall, and with nothing visible on either side – as to which way we should turn next. I guessed to the left, and he guessed to the right; and I, being the most obstinate of the two, we ended in following my route, and at last stumbled our way down to the pier. Looking at the place the next morning, we found that the steps to the right led through a bit of cottage-garden to a snug little precipice, over which inquisitive tourists might pitch quietly, without let or hindrance. Talk of the perils of the deep! what are they in comparison with the perils of the shore?

The adventures of the night were not exhausted, so far as I was concerned, even when we got back to our vessel. I have already informed the reader that the cabin of the Tomtit was twelve feet long by eight feet wide – a snug apartment, but scarcely big enough, as it struck me, for five men to sleep in comfortably. Nevertheless, the experiment was to be tried in Clovelly harbour. I bargained, at the outset, for one thing – that the cabin hatch should be kept raised at least a foot all night. This ventilatory condition being complied with, I tumbled into my hammock, Mr. Migott rolled into his, and Sam Dobbs, Dick Dobbs, and Bob Dobbs, cast themselves down promiscuously on the floor and the lockers under us. Out went the lights; and off went my friend and the Brothers Dobbs into the most intolerable concert of snoring that it is possible to imagine. I lay awake listening, and studying the character of the snore in each of the four sleeping individuals. The snore of Mr. Migott I found to be superior to the rest in point of amiability, softness, and regularity – it was a kind of oily, long-sustained purr, amusing and not unmusical for the first five minutes. Next in point of merit to Mr. Migott, came Bob Dobbs. His note was several octaves lower than my friend’s, and his tone was a grunt – but I will do him justice; I will not scruple to admit that the sounds he produced were regular as clockwork. Very inferior was the performance of Sam Dobbs, who, as owner of the boat, ought, I think, to have set a good example. If an idle carpenter planed a board very quickly at one time, and very slowly at another, and if he moaned at intervals over his work, he would produce the best imitation of Sam Dobbs’ style of snoring that I can think of. Last and worst of all, came Dick Dobbs, who was afflicted with a cold, and whose snore consisted of a succession of loud chokes, gasps, and puffs, all contending together, as it appeared to me, which should suffocate him soonest. There I lay, wide awake, suffering under the awful nose-chorus which I have attempted to describe, for nearly an hour. It was a dark night: there was no wind, and very little air. Horrible doubts about the sufficiency of our ventilation began to beset me. Reminiscences of early reading on the subject of the Black Hole at Calcutta came back vividly to my memory, I thought of the twelve feet by eight, in which we were all huddled together – terror and indignation overpowered me – and I roared for a light, before the cabin of the Tomtit became too mephitic for flame of any kind to exist in it. Uprose they then my Merry Merry Men, bewildered and grumbling, to grope for the matchbox. It was found, the lanthorn was lit, the face of Mr. Migott appeared serenely over the side of his hammock, and the voice of Mr. Migott sweetly and sleepily inquired what was the matter?

“Matter! The Black Hole at Calcutta is the matter. Poisonous, gaseous exhalation is the matter! Outrageous, ungentlemanly snoring is the matter! Give me my bedding, and my drop of brandy, and my pipe, and let me go on deck. Let me be a Chaldean shepherd, and contemplate the stars. Let me be the careful watch who patrols the deck, and guards the ship from foes and wreck. Let me be anything but the companion of men, who snore like the famous Furies in the old Greek play.” While I am venting my indignation, and collecting my bedding, the smiling and sleepy face of Mr. Migott disappears slowly from the side of the hammock – and before I am on deck, I hear the oily purr once more, just as amiable, soft, and regular as ever.

What a relief it was to have the sky to look up at, the fresh night air to breathe, the quiet murmur of the sea to listen to. I rolled myself up in my blankets; and, for aught I know to the contrary, was soon snoring on deck as industriously as my companions were snoring below. The first sounds that woke me in the morning were produced by the tongues of the natives of Clovelly, assembled on the pier, staring down on me in my nest of blankets, and shouting to each other incessantly. I assumed that they were making fun of the interesting stranger stretched in repose on the deck of the Tomtit; but I could not understand one word of the Devonshire language in which they spoke. Whatever they said of me, I forgive them, however, in consideration of their cream and fresh herrings. Our breakfast on the cabin hatch in Clovelly harbour, after a dip in the sea, is a remembrance of gustatory bliss which I gratefully cherish. When we had reduced the herrings to skeletons, and the cream-pot to a whited sepulchre of emptiness we slipped from our moorings, and sailed away from the lovely little village with real regret. By noon we were off Hartland Point.

We had now arrived at the important part of our voyage – the part at which it was necessary to decide, once for all, on our future destination. Mr. Migott and I took counsel together solemnly, unrolled the charts, and then astonished our trusty crew by announcing that the end of the voyage was to be the Scilly Islands. Up to this time the Brothers Dobbs had been inclined to laugh at the notion of getting so far in so small a boat. But they began to look grave now, and to hint at cautious objections. The weather was certainly beautiful; but then the wind was dead against us. Our little vessel was stiff and sturdy enough for any service, but nobody on board knew the strange waters into which we were going – and, as for the charts, could any one of us study them with a proper knowledge of the science of navigation? Would it not be better, to take a little cruise to Lundy Island, away there on, the starboard bow? And another little cruise about the Welsh coast, where the Dobbses had been before? To these cautious questions we replied by rash and peremptory negatives; and the Brothers, thereupon, abandoned their view of the case, and accepted ours with great resignation. For the Scilly Islands, therefore, we shaped our course, alternately standing out to sea, and running in for the land, so as to get down ultimately to the Land’s End, against the wind, in a series of long zig-zags, now in a westerly and now in an easterly direction. Our first tack from Hartland Point was a sail of six hours out to sea. At sunset, the little Tomtit had lost sight of land for the first time since she was launched, and was rising and falling gently on the long swells of the Atlantic. It was a deliciously calm, clear evening with every promise of the fine weather lasting. The spirits of the Brothers Dobbs, when they found themselves at last in the blue water, rose amazingly.

“Only give us decent weather, sir,” said Bob Dobbs, cheerfully smacking the tiller of the Tomtit; “and we’ll find our way to Scilly somehow, in spite of the wind.”

We were now fairly at sea, keeping a regular watch on deck at night, and never running nearer the Cornish coast than was necessary to enable us to compare the great headlands with the marks on our chart. Under present circumstances, no more than three of as could sleep in the cabin at one time – the combined powers of the snoring party were thus weakened, and the ventilation below could be preserved in a satisfactory state. Instead of chronicling our slow zig-zag progress to the Land’s End, which is unlikely to interest anybody not familiar with Cornish names and nautical phrases, I will try to describe the manner in which we passed the day on board the Tomtit, now that we were away from land events and amusements. If there was to be any such thing as an alloy of dullness in our cruise, this was assuredly the part of it in which Time and the Hour were likely to run slowest through the day.

In the first place, let me record with just pride, that we have solved the difficult problem of a pure republic in our modest little craft. No man in particular among us is master – no man in particular is servant. The man who can do at the right time, and in the best way, the thing that is most wanted, is always the hero of the situation among us. When Dick Dobbs is frying the onions for dinner, he is the person most respected in the ship, and Mr. Migott and myself are his faithful and expectant subjects. When grog is to be made, or sauces are to be prepared, Mr. Jollins becomes in his turn, the monarch of all he surveys. When musical entertainments are in progress, Mr. Migott is vocal king, and sole conductor of band and chorus. When nautical talk and sea-stories rule the hour, Bob Dobbs, who has voyaged in various merchantmen all over the world, and is every inch of him a thorough sailor, becomes the best man of the company. When any affairs connected with the internal management of the vessel are under consideration, Sam Dobbs is Chairman of the Committee in the Cockpit. So we sail along; and such is the perfect constitution of society at which we mariners of England have been able to arrive.

Our freedom extends to the smallest details. We have no stated hours, and we are well ahead of all rules and regulations. We have no breakfast hour, no dinner hour, no time for rising, or for going to bed. We have no particular eatables at particular meals. We don’t know the day of the month, or the day of the week; and never look at our watches, except when we wind them up. Our voice is frequently the voice of the sluggard; but we never complain, because nobody ever wakes us too soon, or thinks of interfering with our slumbering again. We wear each other’s coats, smoke each other’s pipes, poach on each other’s victuals. We are a happy, dawdling, undisciplined, slovenly lot. We have no principles, no respectability, no business, no stake in the country, no knowledge of Mrs. Grundy. We are a parcel of Lotos-Eaters; and we know nothing, except that we are poking our way along anyhow to the Scilly Islands in the Tomtit.

We rise when we have had sleep enough – any time you like between seven and ten. If I happen to be on deck first, I begin by hearing the news of the weather and the wind from Sam, Dick, or Bob at the helm. Soon the face of Mr. Migott, rosy with recent snoring, rises from the cabin, and his body follows it slowly, clad in the blue Jersey frock, which he persists in wearing night and day – in the heat of noon as in the cool of evening. He cannot be prevailed upon to give any reason for his violent attachment to this garment – only wagging his head and smiling mysteriously when we ask why, sleeping or waking, he never parts with it. Well, being up, the next thing is to make the toilette. We keep our fresh water, for minor ablutions, in an old wine cask from Bristol. The colour of the liquid is a tawny yellow; it is, in fact, weak sherry and water. For the major ablutions, we have the ship’s bucket and the sea, and a good stock of rough towels to finish with. The next thing is breakfast on deck. When we can catch fish (which is very seldom, though we are well provided with lines and bait) we fall upon the spoil immediately. At other times we range through our sea stores, eating anything we like, cooked anyhow we like. After breakfast we have two words to say to our box of peaches, nectarines, and grapes, from the hospitable country-house. Then the bedding is brought up to air; the deck is cleaned; the breakfast things are taken away; the pipes, cigars, and French novels are produced from the cabin; Mr. Migott coils himself up in a corner of the cockpit, and I perch upon the taffrail; and the studies of the morning begin. They end invariably in small-talk, beer, and sleep. So the time slips away cosily till it is necessary to think about dinner.

Now all is activity on board the Tomtit. Except the man at the helm, everyone is occupied with preparations for the banquet of the day. The potatoes, onions, and celery form one department; the fire and solid cookery another; the washing of plates and dishes, knives and forks, a third; the laying of the cloth on deck a fourth; the concoction of sauces and production of bottles from the cellar a fifth. No man has any particular department assigned to him: the most active republican of the community for the time being, plunges into the most active work, and the others follow as they please. The exercise we get is principally at this period of the day, and consists in incessant dropping down from the deck to the cabin, and incessant scrambling up from the cabin to the deck. The dinner is a long business; but what do we care for that? We have no appointments to keep, no visitors to interrupt us, and nothing in the world to do but to tickle our palates, wet our whistles, and amuse ourselves in any way we please. Dinner at last over, it is superfluous to say, that the pipes become visible again, and that the taking of forty winks is only a prohibited operation on the part of the man at the helm.

As for tea-time, it is entirely regulated by the wants and wakefulness of Mr. Migott, who, since the death of Doctor Johnson, is the most desperate drinker of tea in all England. When the cups and saucers are cleared away, a conversazione is held in the cockpit. Sam Dobbs is the best listener of the company; Dick Dobbs, who has been a yachtsman, is the jester; Bob Dobbs, the merchant sailor, is the teller of adventures; and my friend and I keep the ball going smartly in all sorts of ways, till it gets dark, and a great drought falls upon the members of the conversazione. Then, if the mermaids are anywhere near us, they may smell the fragrant fumes which tell of sacrifice to Bacchus, and may hear, shortly afterwards, the muse of song invoked by cheerful topers. Thus the dark hours roll on jovial till the soft influences of sleep descend upon the tuneful choir, and the cabin receives its lodgers for the night.

This is the general rule of life on board the Tomtit. Exceptional incidents of all kinds – saving seasickness, to which nobody on board is liable – are never wanting to vary it pleasantly from day to day. Sometimes Mr. Migott gets on from taking a nap to having a dream, and records the fact by a screech of terror, which rings through the vessel and wakes the sleeper himself who always asks, “What’s that, eh?” – never believes that the screech has not come from somebody else – never knows what he has been dreaming of – and never fails to go to sleep again before the rest of the ship’s company have half done expostulating with him. Sometimes a little interesting indigestion appears among us, by way of change. Dick Dobbs, for example (who is as bilious as an Indian nabob) is seen to turn yellow at the helm, and to steer with a glazed eye; is asked what is the matter – replies that he has “the boil terrible bad on his stomach;” is instantly treated by Jollins (M.D.) as follows: Two tea spoonsful of essence of ginger, two dessert spoonsful of brown brandy, two table spoonsful of strong tea. Pour down patient’s throat very hot, and smack his back smartly to promote the operation of the draught. What follows? The cure of Dick. How simple is medicine when reduced to its first principles!

Another source of amusement is provided by the ships we meet with. Whenever we get near enough, we hail the largest merchant-men in the most peremptory manner as coolly as if we had three decks under us and an admiral on board. The large ships, for the most part paralysed by our audacity, reply meekly. Sometimes we meet with a foreigner, and get answered by inarticulate yelling or disrespectful grins. But this is a rare case; the general rule is, that we maintain our dignity unimpaired all down the Channel. Then again, when no ships are near, there is the constant excitement of consulting our charts and wondering where we are. Every man of us has a different theory on this subject every time he looks at the chart; but no man rudely thrusts his theory on another, or aspires to govern the ideas of the rest in virtue of his superior obstinacy in backing his own opinion. Did I not assert a little while since that we were a pure republic? And is not this yet another and a striking proof of it?

In such pursuits and diversions as I have endeavoured to describe, the time passes quickly, happily, and adventurously, until we ultimately succeed, at four in the morning on the sixth day of our cruise, in discovering the light of the Longship’s Lighthouse, which we know to be situated off the Land’s End. We are now only some seven-and-twenty miles from the Scilly Islands, and the discovery of the lighthouse enables us to set our course by the compass cleverly enough. The wind which has thus far always remained against us, falls, on the afternoon of this sixth day, to a dead calm, but springs up again in another and a favourable quarter at eleven o’clock at night. By daybreak we are all on the watch for the Scilly Islands. Not a sign of them. The sun rises; it is a magnificent morning; the favourable breeze still holds; we have been bowling along before it since eleven the previous night; and ought to have sighted the islands long since. But we sight nothing: no land anywhere all round the horizon. Where are we? Have we overshot Scilly? – and is the next land we are likely to see Ushant or Finisterre? Nobody knows. The faces of the Brothers Dobbs darken; and they recall to each other how they deprecated from the first this rash venturing into unknown waters. We hail two ships piteously, to ask our way. The two ships can’t tell us. We unroll the charts, and differ in opinion over them more remarkably than ever. The Dobbses grimly opine that it is no use looking at charts, when we have not got a pair of parallels to measure by, and are all ignorant of the scientific parts of navigation. Mr. Migott and I manfully cheer the drooping spirits of the crew with Guinness’s stout, and put a smiling face upon
it. But in our innermost hearts, we think of Columbus, and feel for him.

The last resource is to post a man at the mast-head (if so lofty an expression may be allowed in reference to so little a vessel as the Tomtit), to keep a look-out. Up the rigging swarms Dick the Bilious, in the lowest spirits – strains his eye over the waters, and suddenly hails the gaping deck with a joyous shout. The runaway islands are caught at last – he sees them a-head of us – he has no objection to make to the course we are steering – nothing particular to say but “Crack on!” – and nothing in the world to do but slide down the rigging again. Contentment beams once more on the faces of Sam, Dick, and Bob. Mr. Migott and I say nothing; but we look at each other with a smile of triumph. We remember the injurious doubts of the crew when the charts were last unrolled, and think of Columbus again, and feel for him more than ever.

Soon the islands are visible from the deck, and by noon we have run in as near them as we dare without local guidance. They are low-lying, and picturesque in an artistic point of view; but treacherous-looking and full of peril to the wary nautical eye. Horrible jagged rocks, and sinister swirlings and foamings of the sea, seem to forbid the approach to them. The Tomtit is hove to – our ensign is run up half-mast high – and we fire our double-barrelled gun fiercely for a pilot. He arrives in a long, serviceable-looking boat, with a wild, handsome, dark-haired son, and a silent, solemn old man, for his crew. He himself is lean, wrinkled, hungry-looking; his eyes are restless with excitement, and his tongue overwhelms us with a torrent of words, spoken in a strange accent, but singularly free from provincialisms and bad grammar. He informs us that we must have been set to the northward in the night by a current, and goes onto acquaint us with so many other things, with such a fidgety sparkling of the eyes and such a ceaseless patter of the tongue, that he fairly drives me to the fore part of the vessel out of his way. Smoothly we glide along, parallel with the jagged rocks and the swirling eddies, till we come to a channel between two islands and, sailing through that, make for a sandy isthmus, where we see some houses and a little harbour. This is Hugh Town, the chief place in St. Mary’s, which is the largest island of the Scilly group. We jump ashore in high glee, feeling that we have succeeded in carrying out the purpose of our voyage in defiance of the prognostications of all our prudent friends. How sweet is triumph, even in the smallest things!

Bating the one fact of the wind having blown from an unfavourable quarter, unvarying good fortune had, thus far, accompanied our cruise, and our luck did not desert us when we got on shore at St. Mary’s. We went, happily for our own comfort, to the hotel kept by the master of the sailing-packet plying between Hugh Town and Penzance. By our landlord and his pleasant, cordial wife and family we were received with such kindness and treated with such care, that we felt really and truly at home before we had been half an hour in the house. And, by way of farther familiarising us with Scilly at first sight, who should the resident medical man turn out to be but a gentleman whom I knew. These were certainly fortunate auspices under which to begin our short sojourn in one of the remotest and wildest places in the Queen’s dominions.

The islands seem, at a rough glance, to form a great irregular circle, enclosing a kind of lagoon of sea, communicating by various channels with the main ocean all around. The circumference of the largest of the group is, as we heard, not more than thirteen miles. Five of the islands are inhabited; the rest may be generally described as masses of rock, wonderfully varied in shape and size. Inland, in the larger islands, the earth, where it is not planted or sown, is covered with heather and with the most beautiful ferns. Potatoes used to be the main product of Scilly; but the disease has appeared lately in the island crops, and the potatoes have suffered so severely that, when we filled our sack for the return voyage, we were obliged to allow for two-thirds of our supply proving unfit for use. The views inland are chiefly remarkable as natural panoramas of land and sea – the two always presenting themselves intermixed in the loveliest varieties of form and colour. On the coast, the granite rocks, though not notably high, take the most wildly and magnificently picturesque shapes. They are rent into the strangest chasms and piled up in the grandest confusion; and they look down, every here and there, on the loveliest little sandy bays, where the sea, in calm weather, is as tenderly blue and as limpid in its clearness as the Mediterranean itself, The softness and purity of the climate may be imagined, when I state that last winter none of the fresh-water pools were strongly enough frozen to bear being skated on, The balmy sea air blows over each little island as freely as it might blow over the deck of a ship.

The people have the great merit of good manners. We two strangers were so little stared at as we walked about, that it was almost like being on the Continent. The pilot who had taken us into Hugh Town harbour we found to be a fair specimen, as regarded his excessive talkativeness and the purity of his English, of the islanders generally. The longest tellers of very long stories, so far as my experience goes, are to be found in Scilly. Ask the people the commonest question, and their answer generally exhausts the whole subject before you can say another word. Their anxiety, whenever we had occasion to enquire our way, to guard us from the remotest chance of missing it, and the honest pride with which they told us all about local sights and marvels, formed a very pleasant trait in the general character, Strangely enough, in this softest and healthiest of climates consumption is a prevalent disease among the people. If I may venture on an opinion, after a very short observation of their habits, I should say that distrust of fresh air and unwillingness to take exercise were the chief causes of consumptive maladies among the islanders. I longed to break windows in the main street of Hugh Town as I never longed to break them anywhere else. One lovely afternoon I went out for the purpose of seeing how many of the inhabitants of the place had a notion of airing their bedrooms. I found two houses with open windows – all the rest were fast closed from top to bottom, as if a pestilence was abroad instead of the softest, purest, heavenliest sea breeze that ever blew. Then, again, as to walking, the people ask you seriously when you enquire your way on foot, whether you are aware that the destination you want to arrive at is three miles off! As for a pedestrian excursion round the largest island – a circuit of thirteen miles – when we talked of performing that feat in the hearing of a respectable inhabitant, he laughed at the idea as incredulously as if we had proposed a swimming match to the Cornish coast. When people will not give themselves the great first chance of breathing healthily and freely as often as they can, who can wonder that consumption should be common among them?

In addition to our other pieces of good fortune, we were enabled to profit by a very kind invitation from the gentleman to whom the islands belong, to stay with him at his house, built on the site of an ancient abbey, and surrounded by gardens of the most exquisite beauty. To the wise, firm, and benevolent rule of the present proprietor of Scilly, the islanders are indebted for the prosperity which they now enjoy. It was not the least pleasant part of a very delightful visit, to observe for ourselves, under our host’s guidance, all that he had done, and was doing for the welfare and the happiness of the people committed to his charge. From what we had heard, and from what we had previously observed for ourselves, we had formed the most agreeable impressions of the social condition of the islanders; and we now found the best of these impressions more than confirmed. When the present proprietor first came among his tenantry he found them living miserably and ignorantly. He has succoured, reformed, and taught them; and there is now, probably, no place in England where the direr hardships of poverty are so little known as in the Scilly Islands.

I might write more particularly on this topic; but I am unwilling to run the risk of saying more on the subject of these good deeds than the good-doer himself would sanction. And besides, I must remember that the object of this narrative is to record a holiday-cruise, and not to enter into details on the subject of Scilly; details which have already been put into print by previous travellers. Let me only add then, that our sojourn in the islands terminated with the close of our stay in the house of our kind entertainer. It had been blowing a gale of wind for two days before our departure; and we put to sea with a double-reefed mainsail, and with more doubts than we liked to confess to each other, about the prospects of the return voyage.

However, lucky we had been hitherto, and lucky we were to continue to the end. Before we had been long at sea, the wind began to get capricious; then to diminish almost to a calm; then, towards evening, to blow again, steadily and strongly, from the very quarter of all others most favourable to our return voyage. “If this holds,” was the sentiment of the Brothers Dobbs, as we were making things snug for the night, “we shall be back again at Mangerton before we have had time to get half through our victuals and drink.” It did hold, and more than hold: and the Tomtit flew, in consequence, as if she was going to give up the sea altogether, and take to the sky for a change. Our homeward run was the most perfect contrast to our outward voyage. No tacking, no need to study the charts, no laggard luxurious dining on the cabin hatch. It was too rough for anything but picnicking in the cockpit, jammed into a corner, with our plates on our knees. I had to make the grog with one hand, and clutch fast by the nearest rope with the other – Mr. Migott holding the bowl while I mixed, and the man at the helm holding Mr. Migott. As for reading, it was hopeless to try it; for there was breeze enough to blow the leaves out of the book – and singing was not to be so much as thought of; for the moment you opened your mouth the wind filled it directly, and there was an end of you. The nearer we got to Mangerton the faster we flew. My last recollection of the sea, dates at the ghostly time of midnight. The wind had been increasing and increasing, since sunset, till it contemptuously blew out our fire in the cabin, as if the stove with its artful revolving chimney had been nothing but a farthing rush-light. I climbed on deck, and found that we were already in the Bristol Channel. Ragged black clouds were flying like spectres all over the sky; the moonlight streaming fitful behind them. One great ship, shadowy and mysterious, was pitching heavily towards us from the land. Backward out at sea, streamed the red gleam from the lighthouse on Lundy Island; and marching after us grandly, to the music of the howling wind came the great rollers from the Atlantic, rushing in between Hartland Point and Lundy, turning over and over in long black hills of water, with the seething spray at their tops sparkling in the moonshine. It was a fine breathless sensation to feel our sturdy little vessel tearing along through this heavy sea – jumping stern up, as the great waves caught. her – dashing the water gaily from her bows, at the return dip – and holding on her way as bravely and surely as the biggest yacht that ever was built. After a long look at the sublime view around us, my friend and I went below again; and in spite of the noise of the wind and sea managed to fall asleep. The next event was a call from deck at half-past six in the morning, informing us that we were entering Mangerton Bay. By seven o’clock we were alongside the jetty again, after a run of only forty-three hours from the Scilly Islands.

Here our cruise ended, and here my narrative closes with it. Fare-thee-well, thou lively Tomtit! Tiny home of joyous days, may thy sea-fortunes be happy, and thy trim sails be set prosperously, for many a year still to the favouring breeze! And fare-ye-well heartily, honest sailor-brothers, whose helping hands never once failed us – whose zeal in our service never once slackened – whose close companionship from the day of setting out to the day of return, has left us no recollections but such as we can now recall and talk over with unmixed pleasure!

Household Words 22 Dec 1855

SOME THOUGHTS

A HANDFUL OF ESSAYS

Compiled by book producer ECM

CONTENTS

Magnetic Evenings at Home
New View of Society
Sure to be Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise
The Good Qualities of Gout
The Royal Academy in Bed
Suggestions From a Maniac
The Deadlock in Italy
Reminiscences of a Story-Teller

MAGNETIC EVENINGS AT HOME

LETTER I —
TO. G. H. LEWES

You have asked me to give you an account of some extraordinary experiments in Animal Magnetism, which I witnessed during my recent Christmas visit to Somersetshire. In complying with your wish, I intend to confine myself as strictly as possible to simple narrative – or, in other words, to be the reporter, rather than the judge, of the proceedings of which I was a spectator. Had those proceedings been publicly exhibited for hire, I should certainly not have taken the notes of them from which I am now about to write. But they were of a private nature; they were only shown from motives of hospitality and kindness; and they were directed by a gentleman whose character I knew to be above all suspicion. Under these circumstances, I thought it well worth while to write down, at the time all that I saw; and I gladly commit my materials to press, in their present form – knowing that they have been carefully collected; and believing that they will furnish specimens of evidence, which the opponents of Animal Magnetism will find it much easier contemptuously to reject than fairly to confute.

On the first of this month, after a pleasant dinner with my Somersetshire friends, in honour of the New Year, I went to drink tea at the house of Count P – , accompanied by two gentlemen – one a clergyman, the other a barrister. The Count had been known to the family with whom I had dined, for fifteen years; his wife (an English lady) was a friend of still longer standing. I mention these particulars, in order to show at the outset what confidence might fairly be reposed in the character of my host; what guarantee was given me on the unimpeachable testimony of my friends and his, that, let the experiments to be shown appear what they might, they were performed by a gentleman of honour and integrity, whose position placed him above the slightest imputation of acting from a motive of personal advantage – or, indeed, from any motive at all but the wish to study a science in which he felt a deep and natural interest.

We found the Count, his wife, and a young French lady who lived as companion to the Countess, seated round the tea-table when we entered. The young lady (Mademoiselle V———) had been a member of the Count’s family for five years. She was first made the subject of magnetic experiments two years since, and certainly looked anything but a martyr to them. Her complexion was fresh and clear, her eyes lively and intelligent, and her whole appearance that of a person in the full vigour of youth and health. She described her sensations on being awakened from the magnetic sleep as invariably those of one who had enjoyed a good night’s rest; and told us with her own lips that, before she had been selected as a subject for magnetic influences, she was pale, thin, and weakly; and that, since that period, her constitution had altered quickly and permanently for the better. These, and all other particulars which we learnt from her, she related readily and simply. On our first introduction to her, it was not easy to imagine that this young girl, so quiet and natural in her manner, so gentle and good-humoured in her expression, was soon to display before us all the mysterious phenomena of magnetic influence – soon to open to our view glimpses into the dim, dark regions of the spiritual world.

During teatime I had an opportunity of ascertaining generally what our host’s ideas were on the subject of Animal Magnetism. He very frankly described himself, at the outset, as an enthusiast for the science. “How the magnetic influence acts,” said he, “may be seen, but cannot easily be explained. My idea about it is briefly this. We consist of three parts – the organic matter (i.e., bodily structure), the vital principle which animates it, and the soul. We feel that the soul has many of its divinest prerogatives suspended in this life, through its connection with the bodily part of us. To find out such a means of acting on the vital principle, without injuring or destroying it, as to render the organic matter perfectly passive, and thereby to weaken, if not suspend, its influence on the soul, is to give back to that soul, for the time, some portion of its inherent and higher nature – its immortal capacity to overstep all mortal boundaries of time and space. This object I think the magnetic influence achieves, in different degrees of perfection, as applied to different persons; and in this way I explain the phenomena of what we term clairvoyance. As to what constitutes the essence of the influence thus communicable from one individual to another, I believe it to be simply electricity! But I must repeat that I am only a student in the science; that we are all groping in the darkness of a mystery which is still unrevealed. The relation between cause and effect is not yet traced out in Animal Magnetism. With regard to the practical purpose to which it may be directed, I think it might be used as a curative agent in more forms of disease – especially nervous diseases – than I can well reckon up. Without entering into particulars, one great boon I know it can confer on humanity – it can produce sleep; a sleep from which every one awakens refreshed. Think of the disorders fatally aggravated by want of sleep, or inefficiently relieved by the short, unhealthy sleep produced by opiates. Think of what might be effected in the earliest stages of insanity, by procuring for the patient a long sleep, that could be made to last, if necessary for days together. This I know might be done in the vast majority of cases; and surely this alone is something! But let us get from speech to action. I will first throw V——— into the magnetic sleep; and after that you can take your choice of the experiments that shall be tried. I must premise, however, that I do not promise to succeed in all. She is not the same on every occasion under the magnetic influence. An experiment which succeeded last night may not succeed tonight, and vice versa. Nevertheless, we will try anything you like.”

The manner of putting V——— to sleep was singular enough. While we were talking, she had been at work joining two lace cuffs to make a collar. The Count took her thimble and magnetized it with his hand. She was to put it on her finger again, and by its influence she was to be thrown into the sleep. But while it still remained on the table, a watch was put before me, and I was desired to fix in my own mind the time she should go to sleep in – of course, without communicating the decision to any one. The time I thus secretly determined, was five minutes. No one prompted me to this choice: it was understood at the outset, that I was free to select any time, long or short, that I chose.

I was close by her when she took up the thimble. Exactly at the instant when she put it on her finger, I marked the position of the minute hand on the dial of the watch. I was left free to take any means I chose of trying to keep her awake – not merely by talking to her, but by clapping my hands, if I chose, before her face. We sat close together: she at one side, I at the other, of the same corner of the table. For the first three or four minutes, I kept her almost incessantly laughing and talking: she looked at me and spoke to me, as usual. But, as the fourth minute passed a change came, which no talking could avert. First, her articulation began to grow thick and low; very different from the clear rapid utterance of a Frenchwoman. Then her eyes got strangely dim and dull when she raised them to me. She still went on with her work; but slowly, and with increasing hesitation. The next alteration was in her mouth; her lips became firmly compressed, and grew pale like the lips of a corpse. Her complexion changed to a dull, unnatural, clayey hue; her brow suddenly contracted; her hands rapidly trembled; her eyelids dropped heavily – she had fallen into the magnetic sleep.

I immediately looked at the watch. Eight minutes exactly had passed since she first put the thimble on. Not betraying to any one, either by word or gesture, that she had exceeded the time I had fixed on by three minutes, I next tested the fact of her being really asleep, by calling out close at her ear, and clapping my hands before her eyelids – neither proceeding produced the smallest effect, outwardly; I especially remarked that her eyelids did not tremble or twitch in the slightest degree, when I tried to startle her by clapping my hands within almost a hair’s breadth of them. She could hear and answer a whisper from the magnetiser at the other end of the room, which was too faint to be audible to any of us. To every one else present – say what they might, as loudly as they chose – she was deaf and dumb.

She was now questioned as to the matter of time by the Count. Had she gone to sleep in the time I had fixed on? – No. In a longer or a shorter time? – A longer. How long a time was it? – Eight minutes. What time had I fixed on? – Five minutes.

When the last answer was delivered – and not till then – the Count asked me whether she was right or wrong, and reported my reply to her. I know as well as I know the fact of my own existence that neither by an involuntary word, look, or sign, did I betray to any one present what time I had fixed for her to go to sleep in – or what difference there was between the period I had settled on, and the period she had actually occupied in falling asleep. Two inferences and two alone, could be drawn from this first experiment. The perfect correctness of all four answers was either really produced by the magnetic influence, working within her by operations which can neither be understood nor reasoned on; or what we had heard was merely the result of pure guesswork. I confess, for my own part, that I have not credulity enough to believe in four random guesses following close on each other, all turning out perfectly right!

She now complained of cold, and was removed to a large, old-fashioned armchair, with a high back, which stood near the fire. We were then shown how to place ourselves in communication with her, so that she might hear what we said. To do this, it was only necessary to touch any part of the chair in which she sat, while speaking to her. Thus addressed, she smiled and answered immediately. Great amusement was produced while we were trying her in this way by one of my friends, whose hearty English jokes, translated literally into very English French, appeared to astonish and delight V——— beyond measure. She was sometimes literally in fits of laughter when he touched the chair and spoke to her. When he did not touch it, nothing that he said produced the smallest outward effect on any feature. I watched her closely, and could be certain of this.

The next experiment failed. The Count took a piece of sugar and desired me to write down and show him what I wished her to believe the sugar to be. I first wrote “An olive,” and then “Chocolate.” He magnetized the sugar in both instances; and in both instances, when he gave it to her and asked what it was, she answered at once, “Sugar.” He could not account for this; perhaps we had tried the experiment too soon; perhaps she had not been magnetized enough yet; all he could say was that he had succeeded an evening or two before, where he had failed now. My friends saw, in this very failure, a guarantee of the genuineness of the proceedings; and I agreed with them. A conjuring trick would have been better rehearsed before it was exhibited to the spectator.

Three experiments were tried after this, and all with success. In performing the first, the Count placed himself behind her chair, in a position where she could not see him, unless she raised herself and turned round. At a sign from me, as I stood by his side (also out of her sight), he made her alternately sensible and insensible to the touch; each time by a single gesture with his hand, which it was physically impossible, from her position, that she could see. Sensible, she smiled when her hand was taken – insensible, you might squeeze it, pinch it, hold it up above her head, and let it drop violently in her lap, without producing the smallest effect. This done, the magnetiser, after making some preliminary passes (still standing in the same position), drew his right hand slowly upward. Inch by inch, as it moved, her right arm raised itself, until it was extended, stiff and straight, at its full stretch, above her head. There it remained, until he moved his hand sideways and then it followed the direction thus given – just as a needle would have followed a magnet – sometimes to the left, and sometimes to the right. When he dropped his hand (quite noiselessly), her hand fell at the same instant into her lap. I was in front of her during this experiment, looking close under her eyes; and satisfied myself that her eyelids were firmly closed. The back of her head was against the back of the chair, behind which, at a distance of full three feet, the Count was standing.

The third experiment was still more curious. The magnetiser was now about to fix her, beyond the possibility of being moved, in her chair. Before he began we each took her by the shoulders and lifted her with ease; she laughed excessively as we did so. Then, after the Count had made one pass with his hand (still behind her), we tried again. I tried first. She was reclining in the chair, with both her hands on her lap. I grasped her by both shoulders, and pulled; but only succeeded in moving the chair. Then placing my knees against it, to keep it steady, and to serve me as a lever as well, I made another effort with all my strength. I might as well have endeavoured to pull the Monument towards me – I could not move her, even in the slightest degree. Both my friends tried (one of them a tall, powerful man), and with no more success. I closely observed her face at this time. It bore a perfectly placid expression; a calm, unconscious look. Her colour did not betray even so much as an approach to heightening. She seemed to be slumbering as calmly and as sweetly as a child.

She was now in a highly magnetized state, so much so as to complain from time to time of oppression in her head, which was relieved by passes. The Count proposed a fresh experiment, as likely to succeed in her present condition. This new evidence of the power of magnetic influence was so painful to behold, that I much doubt whether we should have been willing to see it, could we have known what symptoms were to be displayed beforehand.

W. W. C.

January, 1852.

LETTER II —
TO G. H. LEWES

The experiment to which I referred, at the close of my last letter, as being of a more extraordinary nature than any we had yet beheld, was this: – Our host proposed to make V——— exhibit all the effects of having taken poison – any poison I chose to indicate – by magnetizing a glass of water, with the will that she should believe, on drinking it that she was really drinking a poisonous liquid. Before, however, the experiment began he made two provisos. The first was, that I should select no poison the effects of which were immediately fatal when it was taken in ordinary doses; the second, that instead of whispering the name of the poison chosen to him, or afterwards to my friends, I should write it down on a piece of paper and only show that paper to him and to them. The Count insisted on this arrangement, as tending to prevent the possibility of any deception, in case we might still suspect that V——— could overhear what was said in the room. Even when none of us were placed in communication with her. These preliminaries agreed on, a sheet of paper was placed before me, and a glass of water was procured from a jug standing on the sideboard, out of which some if the persons present had already been drinking.

The poison I chose, and wrote down was Strychnine. In the first place I knew that this poison was not immediately fatal, and, in the second place, I was aware that “cases” exhibiting its effects were rare in medical practice, and that, consequently, those effects must be little, if at all, known to “the general public.” When the Count read what I had written he shook his head as a sign that he was unacquainted with the nature of Strychnine, and asked me whether I was quite sure that I had strictly complied with the terms of his first proviso: if I had any doubt on the subject, he said he would decline pursuing the experiment; for he dared not assume a responsibility which, under those circumstances, might perhaps lead to a fatal result. I reassured him on this point and he then magnetized the glass of water without further delay.

When it was given to V——— she smelt it; an expression of disgust came over her face; and she refused to drink. It was only after the Count had made several passes over her, and had insisted on her obeying him, that she could be induced to taste the water. Then, in obedience to the irresistible influence of his will on hers, she drank a very small quantity, with extreme reluctance, and with a visible contraction of the throat after each sip. When the water was taken away, I put myself in communication with her, and asked what was the taste of the liquid she had just been imbibing. She answered rather faintly: “An intensely bitter taste.” At the same moment, I looked carefully at her complexion, and touched her hand and cheek: as yet, there was no appearance whatever of unusual paleness and the temperature of her skin was at its natural degree of warmth.

Soon, while we watched her, we saw that she began to move uneasily from side to side in her chair. Then she took her handkerchief and wiped her lips with it; repeating this action incessantly, though there was not the slightest moisture about her mouth. Her complexion got paler and paler, until at last it grew perfectly livid – livid to her very lips. I touched her face now: her skin had become cold and clammy. I took her hand; it felt like the hand of a corpse. Ere long – while she still wiped her mouth from time to time, and still moved painfully from side to side in her chair – spasmodic contractions appeared about her brow and lips, and spread to her chest, her shoulders, and her arms. Her legs, too, began to stretch out rigidly before her; and she complained, in a faint, gasping whisper, of violent pains in the abdomen, and of a disposition to vomit. We lifted her eyelids, and found that her eyeballs were dilated; the pupils being insensible, and turned far upward. The dull, glassy glare of the distorted eye was positively fearful to behold. What further symptoms might have soon appeared, it is impossible to say; for, at this point, we all agreed that the experiment must stop. It was then about ten minutes from the time when she had first tasted the magnetized water.

She was relieved – but very slowly – of the pain in her stomach, by passes; and after that, complained of a sensation of coldness and numbness in her legs. When this also had been removed, she begged for something to quench a great thirst that she felt; and being asked what drink she wished for, answered; “Lukewarm milk.” The Count poured out a fresh glass of water, magnetized it, and gave it to her. She eagerly drank it off at a draught and, in answer to a question from me, said that she was drinking lukewarm milk. After this she sank back in the chair; and, desiring to be left to repose, appeared to fall immediately into a deep sleep. Before she was restored to this state of tranquillity she had engaged the magnetiser’s attention for double the time he had ever occupied before in recovering her from experiments of a similar nature.

The next morning, I consulted Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence (Ed. 3, 1849, pp. 181-183) to ascertain exactly what were the symptoms of poisoning by Strychnine. For the information of persons unacquainted with chemistry, it must be premised, that Strychnine is nothing but a concentration of the poisonous properties of Nux Vomica, which Taylor states to have “an intensely bitter taste” – the very taste, observe, that V——— complained of to me. The first case related of poisoning by Strychnine, is that of a young man, aged seventeen, who took forty grains (!); and died in an hour and a half after swallowing this tremendous dose of poison, the first symptoms having appeared in a quarter of an hour. The second case is the case of Dr. Warner, who died in fourteen minutes from the effect of the smallest dose on record – half-a-grain. A third instance is then cited of a person who recovered from a dose of seven grains. Thus it appears, from medical evidence. that the quantity of Strychnine required to destroy life, the time when the symptoms of having taken it first appear, and the period that elapses before a dose becomes fatal, vary so much in different persons, as to defy any previous computation whatsoever.

Among the symptoms exhibited by the who man who took the dose of forty grains, Taylor describes – lividness of the skin, prominence of the eyeballs, dilatation and insensibility of the pupils, and spasms of the chest. Among the symptoms of poisoning by Nux Vomica (which the author of Medical Jurisprudence informs us “closely resemble” those of poisoning by Strychnine) are mentioned – vomiting, pain in the abdomen, and a stretching out of the limbs. We have here, then, no less than seven symptoms, detailed on medical authority, as symptoms produced by taking the poison that I wrote down for our magnetic experience, every one of which we saw exhibited by V———. Others of a more aggravated nature might have appeared, had we not stopped the experiment when we did. I, for one, never desire to witness its repetition, under any circumstances whatever.

Now, how are we to account for such a phenomenon as I have just described? People who keep a large stock of ready-made assertions always on hand to answer any emergency, would solve the mystery at once, by saying that V——— was acting. Setting aside, for mere argument sake, the weight of evidence which the mere character of the young lady herself, and of the friends under whose care she was living, would bring to bear against the possibility of any deception being practised by her, – what am I obliged to believe, if I believe that she was acting? First, I must believe that she is the most consummate actress in Europe; for I have never seen, on the stage, any simulation of the physical effects of poison-taking comparable for a moment to her simulation. Rachel’s performance in the last act of “Adrienne Lecouvreur” was, in regard to those parts of it which were confined to the simple representation of the outward effect of poison on the human frame, tricky and artificial by comparison with V———’s. Secondly, remembering that I saw with my own eyes the livid paleness come over V———’s face, and felt with my own hands the clammy coldness of hers, I must believe that, at little more than a minute’s notice, she could act away all colour from her cheeks, and act away the natural vital warmth from her hands – a perfection of histrionic art to which no other actress, from Mrs. Siddons downwards, has, I venture to assert, ever attained! Thirdly, I must believe that she had “got up” beforehand all the symptoms produced by taking all the known poisons in chemistry, so as to be quite prepared for any selection I might choose to make. And fourthly, I must believe that she knew what poison I had really chosen, though I have no recollection of the name of it having been even faintly whispered by anybody in the room, until she had been awakened out of the magnetic sleep.

Which is the most credulous man – the man who believes all this, or the man who believes in the magnetic influence?

But how could this influence possibly act in the case now under review? Admitting the sympathy between the magnetizer and the person magnetized – the limitless power of the will of the one over the will of the other – how was it, if neither the Count nor V——— knew anything of the nature or effects, on the human system, of Strychnine, that such results as I have mentioned were produced? Here was some strange influence working on the intellectual faculties, the nerves, and the whole vital principle – the question is how did it work? I cannot tell! Neither can I, nor anybody else, explain several other mysteries which every human being knows to be existing within himself. I have a thinking machine about me, commonly called a “brain” – by what process is it set working? What power, when I am asleep, and my will is entirely inactive, sets this thinking machine going – going as I cannot make it go, when my will is active, and I am awake? I know that I have a soul – what is it? where is it? when and how was it breathed into the breath of my life? Is Animal Magnetism the only mystery which the medical profession, and strong-minded unbelievers in general, cannot scientifically and logically explain? Shakspeare [sic] thought not—

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

You will, I doubt not, wish to be informed of the condition in which V——— appeared when she was awakened from the magnetic sleep, after having been the subject of the painful experiment which I have just related. She was not aroused for another hour and a half at least. During that period, other magnetic experiments were tried on her, which I shall mention hereafter, when I have more space to occupy than is now at my disposal. It was past midnight – more than three hours from the time when she had been first thrown into the sleep – when the process of awakening her began.

The passes made by the magnetizer were at first quick, but very gentle. Then he twice drew his hands sharply away from before her head, towards the ground. The second time he performed this action, she awoke; her eyes opened wide in an instant. They showed the same brightness and intelligence that we had remarked in them three hours ago, before she had fallen into the magnetic sleep. The change from the calm, blank, statuesque repose of her face in the magnetized state, to the lively, good-humoured expression of her face, in the waking state, was accomplished with the rapidity of a flash of lightning. There was no external appearance of any intermediate process whatever: looking at her countenance, you saw her, in obedience to a noiseless action of the magnetizer’s hands, pass from fast asleep to wide awake, before you would have had time to count one!

She had no idea whatever of anything that had passed since she had been first magnetized at nine o’clock. I asked whether she felt any pain anywhere. No! not the least pain of any kind. What were her sensations at the moment? No sensations particular – nothing but the feeling that she generally experienced when she was getting up in the morning – the feeling of being perfectly well. Had she really no faint recollections of having said, done, or felt anything, during the last three hours? – no vague idea, for instance, of having dreamt that she had been, at one time, in a state of great pain? Not the least! She remembered putting on the magnetized thimble, and then going on with her work after tea; and from that point all her remembrances stopped. It was always so with her; she never knew anything about what she did, or said, or felt, in the magnetized state, unless other people told her.

Here our questions and answers were interrupted by the noisy impatience of a little dog in the room. The animal was waiting to go home with me, and was growing very unwilling to wait longer. Earlier in the evening, this dog had accidentally produced a very curious exertion of V———’s extraordinary perceptive powers, while in the magnetic sleep. His master (at whose house I was then staying) had come in, as one of the guests, late in the evening, when V——— had been nearly an hour asleep. After a short time, he departed; and his dog, having followed him to the house, followed him again out of the room. More than half an hour afterwards, in the middle of an experiment, V——— suddenly became restless, and frowned. No one being able to imagine what produced this alteration in her, she was asked to explain what was the matter, and answered – “There’s something in the room that annoys me.”  “What is it?”  “A dog.”  “Why, the dog went away half-an-hour ago,” cried one of my friends. A search was instituted; and, sure enough, the dog (a little terrier) was found coiled up asleep in the darkest corner of the room. He had followed his master out; but not, as we all supposed, home. He was very fond of me; had determined to go home with me; and had quietly crept back into the room – so quietly, that nobody could imagine how or when he had entered – to wait my departure. While I was looking for the dog the Count was pursuing his questions with V———. “What sort of dog is it?”  “A little dog.”  “Whose dog is it?”  “He has not followed his master home.”  “I ask you whose dog it is?”  “The dog belongs to Mr. ———,” mentioning the name of the dog’s owner. This gentleman, as I have already said, had only come to the house after V———’s eyes were fast closed in the magnetic sleep.

W. W. C.

LETTER III —
TO G. H. LEWES

I am about to shift the scene of my narrative, and introduce to you a whole host of new characters. Hitherto, the locality of our magnetic experiments has been a cottage by the seashore. You must now accompany me inland, through the fertile valley ground of Somersetshire, to a country parsonage. As yet, the only spectators present at the “magnetic evenings” have been three gentlemen, very silent humdrum people, merely intent on arriving at a fair estimate, from what they saw with their own eyes, of the real merits of Animal Magnetism. You must now be introduced to a room full of young ladies, anything but humdrum people, and (I may conscientiously add) anything but silent either! In my last two letters, the subject of our experiments has figured as a person accustomed to be submitted to the magnetic influence for a period of some two years. In my present letter, the subjects presented to you will be persons who had never been magnetized before in their lives.

This was the circumstance which produced our visit to the parsonage:

An evening party was given, at which our friend, Count P———, was present. The topic of Animal Magnetism was started; and a pretty strong disbelief in the science was expressed by the company in general. One young lady, who had never been magnetized, volunteered to give the Count an opportunity of practically refuting his opponents: he took it, and threw her into the sleep. Still the disbelievers disbelieved as sturdily as ever. The room (they said) was hot; the young lady must be naturally a little excited by the amusements of the evening; it was extremely probable that she had just felt a little faint, and had so sunk back with her eyes closed. Consequently, there was no proof of magnetic influence: and, consequently, they would not believe! Under these circumstances, it was arranged by one of the company, to whom the anti-magnetic system of logic was not quite satisfactory, that the Count should prove that he could put the young lady into the magnetic sleep the next afternoon, at her own home, away from all heat and excitement, and under the eyes of her own parents, relatives, and friends. It was in pursuance of this arrangement that we were now all gathered together in the drawing-room at the parsonage house.

Circumstances could hardly have been more unfavourable to the magnetizer’s success than they were when our new experiment began. No plans, no entreaties, no paternal injunctions, could procure quiet. Imagine, first of all, that Misses A., B. and C., are inveterately bent on whispering and laughing with Misses D., E. and F. Then picture to yourself a small detachment of children, who cannot possibly he persuaded to eat their dinner quietly in the dining-room, who will carry the drawing-room door by storm, and won’t [sic] stop in the drawing-room more than a moment after they have entered it. Further, fancy this said drawing-room door to have a creaking hinge, the noise of which the most artful process of opening and shutting is quite powerless to silence. And then, when this combination of noises in the room accidentally ceased, once or twice, for a moment or so at a time, imagine a set of new noises, out of the room, always mysteriously ready to fill up the vacancy of silence. For instance, when the children had been got out of the way, then the dogs were sure to bark in the garden, or to whine and scratch at the door. When the young ladies had relapsed into “solemn silence” – when one gentleman had gone to sleep, and another gentleman had taken to looking steadfastly out of window, then the servants were certain to knock down something heavy in the kitchen underneath. Realize in your own mind all these elements of disturbance, and you will agree, I think, with me, that circumstances were the reverse of favourable to magnetic experiments, under the roof of our kind entertainers at the parsonage.

Nevertheless, in three minutes from the time when the Count and the young lady sat down opposite each other, she was in the magnetic sleep! – fairly, palpably in the magnetic sleep, in spite of every interruption, just at the very time when the interruptions were all at their height!

At first she suffered from hysterical pantings and catchings of the breath, – there seemed to be some obstruction in her throat, and her expression was certainly a painful one. She was soon relieved, however, by the magnetizer; and then, as she breathed freely, she raised her hands in the attitude of prayer, and a look came over her face which no one, even among those who had known her longest, had ever seen on it before.

She was a remarkably pretty girl, – a thoroughly English beauty. Hair, eyes, complexion. and outline of face were all eloquent of her native land. Her natural expression was anything but a sad or a serious one, – that was English, too, in its unaffected happiness and good-humour.

“A rosebud set with little wilful thorns

And sweet as English air could make her, she.”

But now, the natural expression was all gone, and in its stead was something so calm, so solemn, so spiritual in its rapt loveliness, – something so beautiful, yet not with the beauty of earth, that a great hush stole over us all, while stood before her. It was as if the soul was, at that moment, looking out from the calm young face, clearer and nearer to our eyes than they had ever yet beheld it; – a look that silenced us, – a look not to be forgotten. Never have I seen before, on any other human face, the indescribable divinity of earthly beauty which Raphael has given to his Madonnas, – I saw it then on hers.

She was asked whether she felt quite happy, and free from all pain, and faintly answered, “Yes! quite happy!”  “Did she wish to be awakened?”  “No.” She then remained for about ten minutes, still in the same reclining position, still with the same expression, and with the hands uplifted in the gesture of prayer. No further experiments could be tried with her, for, shortly after this, her mother desired that she might be awakened The process was easily accomplished, she opened her eyes, and resumed her old expression again, with the same suddenness, and the same absence of any appearance of an intermediate condition between sleeping and waking, which I mentioned in my last letter, as characteristic of V———, under similar circumstances.

As soon as she was awake, I asked whether she had any recollections of her condition while in the magnetic sleep. She answered just as V——— answered on a former occasion “No recollections whatever.” She had no idea, for instance that her breathing had been painfully impeded, until we told her so.

The next two experiments that were tried on two of the other young ladies present, proved unsuccessful. In one case, the Count expressed his own conviction, beforehand, that the temperament was peculiarly unsusceptible to magnetic influence. In the other, the young lady herself declared that she was once or twice on the point of losing all consciousness when a whisper, or an accidental noise in the room, disturbed and startled her. The third attempt, after the two first had been abandoned, was made on one of the gentlemen present, who had never before been magnetized. The result proved to be of a very unexpected and a very startling nature: it was not repose which was produced in this instance, but agitation – agitation so violent as to excite the liveliest apprehensions in every one present.

At the time when the new patient submitted himself to the magnetizer, the scene was one of the most picturesque I ever remember to have witnessed. It was now evening – a still, cold, clear winter evening. Dim shadows were gathering over the room; contrasted on one side by the ruddy firelight, on the other by the last rays of the setting sun, floating through the window. The positions of the spectators, as they anxiously watched the progress of the new experiment; the strange, wild contrasts of light and shade falling on every figure; the beauty and variety of the attitudes into which the children and the young girls accidentally fell, as they sat, reclined, or stood together; the natural harmony and grace in the formation of the different groups, made the room a perfect school for painters, a treasury of beautiful compositions, waiting to enrich with new material the resources of Art. Beyond the spectators, appeared the figures of the magnetizer and the patient placed apart, just before the window, darkly and grandly relieved in their still positions by the mysterious evening light; while, without, the background to the whole scene was formed by the twining, weird shapes of leafless trees; the wave of the deep blue hills beyond; and the blood-red sun above, just glowing its last under a canopy of towering purple clouds. Rembrandt alone could have painted such a picture as the drawing-room at the parsonage-house presented at this moment.

We were all very silent just now. The children were getting weary, and consequently quiet; and considerable expectation was excited among their elders by the chance now afforded them of seeing how the magnetic influence acted upon a man. The first interruption to the stillness prevailing among us was of a very merry nature – the patient began to laugh. This was attributed, naturally enough, to his sense of the curious position in which he was placed, and to the apparently odd gestures of the magnetizer. His laughter was infectious; everybody joined it, until it gradually became so loud, harsh, and incessant, as to awaken a general suspicion that “something must be wrong.” The next moment it grew frightfully shrill and vehement; and the next, rose to piercing hysterical screams. This was an example of the power of the magnetic influence which nobody had anticipated, and which caused considerable terror among the young ladies, who had been all laughing heartily but a minute before. The Count ordered the window to be opened immediately; and, making the passes necessary to relieve the patient, ordered him, in a firm voice, to be quiet.

The effect was nearly instantaneous; his screams sank to a few low, inarticulate sounds; and he soon became perfectly tranquil. His face, during the attack, was flushed to a deep red, almost turning towards purple: it seemed more than probable that in another minute or so, the hysterics
would have ended in convulsions but for the presence of mind and experience which enabled the magnetizer at once to hit on the right process for restoring the agitated nervous system to its proper tone.

The Count’s explanation of the scene which had just taken place was, that it had been produced by a too exclusive direction of the magnetic influence to the region of the head – an error into which he had fallen from ignorance of the peculiarities of temperament in the person whom he was magnetizing. The patient’s own account of the sensations he had experienced during the attack, fully bore out this theory. He described his condition as that of a man feeling a painful sensation of heat in the head – a red-hot air pouring, as it were, into his brain from the Count’s hands. Throughout the rest of the evening he suffered from a sense of oppression in his head, and occasionally felt a disposition to burst into tears, which it was not very easy to control.

No attempt was made to continue this experiment, and to produce (by magnetizing the patient, away from his head) the sleep which had just been interrupted by the hysterical attack. It was growing late in the evening, and we were obliged to separate. Compared with the cases which I have mentioned in former letters, the two cases here described contain, I am well aware, little that is remarkable in themselves. But they are, I think, of some importance in their bearing on the general subject; for they tend to prove, by the fairest possible test, the actual existence of such a phenomenon as the magnetic influence. Here were two persons selected for experiment who had never before been magnetized. One of these persons – in three minutes, and in the midst of incessant interruption and confusion – is thrown into a sleep which entirely alters the natural expression of her face, and from which no noise whatever can possibly awaken her. The other (a man, be it remembered) is affected with a fit of hysterics – a species of attack from which he had never suffered on any previous occasion. These, assuredly, are real tangible effects – effects produced by one person standing opposite to another, steadily regarding him, steadily making certain gestures with the hand, and steadily exercising the whole time a strong effort of will. If there be no such thing as the magnetic influence, what produced the phenomena which I have just been describing?

In my next letter, I shall return to V———, and shall have to relate some new experiments that were tried upon her – experiments in clairvoyance.

W. W. C.

LETTER IV —
TO G. H. LEWES

When I entered the house of Count P – , on the evening, appointed for our experiment in clairvoyance, one of the first objects which attracted my attention in the drawing-room, was a piece of wood that lay on the table, shaped like a hand-mirror. On taking it up, I observed a highly-polished oval piece of coal attached to one side of the wood, instead of the ordinary looking-glass, which I had expected to find there. The history of this strange mirror was as follows:

An old friend of the Count’s preserved, among his other curiosities the celebrated “wishing-stone,” formerly possessed by Dr. Dee. Convinced that the old Doctor’s evil reputation among his contemporaries as a sorcerer had been solely derived from his knowledge and practice of animal magnetism, in days when new sciences of all kinds were fathered upon the devil, as a matter of course, our host conceived the idea of procuring as good an imitation of this “wishing-stone” as could be obtained, and of rivalling the magic achievements of Dr. Dee, by applying to it the magnetic process necessary to produce the phenomenon of clairvoyance. A piece of “Cannel coal” was procured, as the nearest available approach to the mysterious “wishing-stone:” it was polished and fixed to the wood by an ordinary artisan. Placed in the hands of V———, when she was magnetized, it proved quite as fertile a source of marvels as the Doctor’s original instrument of sorcery, – in other words, it was found to be a very useful aid to experiments in clairvoyance.

This coal-mirror was now placed on the table, in case we wished it to be used as a matter of curiosity. The experiment on which we were about to enter could be carried on just as easily without it. V——— would see the perfect stranger to herself whom we might wish her to see, if a vacant chair were placed before her, on which she might behold the absent person; or if that person’s visiting-card were put into her hand. But if, as a matter of antiquarian amusement, we desired that the vision should appear to her in the “wishing-stone,” there it was, ready for use, just as Dr. Dee might have used it in the olden time.

We chose the “wishing-stone” by general acclamation. It was already magnetized; so that V would be thrown into the sleep by merely taking it in her hand, and looking at it. She was placed by her own desire with her back to the table, and with the candles put behind her. By this arrangement the coal-mirror was thrown into complete shadow, when she took it up and held it before her. As soon as she was comfortably seated, I was asked to indicate the person whom I wished her to see. I wrote on a sheet of paper (keeping well behind her, at the further end of the table) “my brother;” knowing him to be then in London, some hundred and thirty miles away from us, and to be perfectly unknown to V———, the Count, and, indeed, to everybody present except one gentleman, a mere spectator like myself and quite as determined as I was that the proceedings of the evening should be subjected to the severest possible test. The Count looked at the two words I had written down, (they were never, from first to last, even whispered by any of us,) and simply said to V———, “I desire that you will see and describe the person whom that gentleman has indicated to me.” She nodded her head as a sign of acquiescence, and, in about ten minutes after, her eyes were fast closed in the magnetic sleep.

She held the mirror before her, at the distance from her face that she would have held a book – keeping it in the same position (heavy as it was) for the whole two hours during which she was in the magnetic state. The first thing she did was to take out her handkerchief, and wipe the surface of the coal, over and over again, very carefully, and with a very anxious, searching expression of countenance. Then she changed her position in the chair several times, shifting the mirror from side to side, and occasionally holding it quite close to her face, as if to see more clearly, though – as I took care to satisfy myself, by the closest inspection – her eyelids were tightly closed. All this time, she yawned incessantly; an unaccountable peculiarity which we were told she invariably displayed on all similar occasions. The next action that we saw her perform was very suggestive: she dropped the handkerchief into her lap and began slowly and anxiously to trace shapes with her forefinger on the surface of the mirror.

This was the signal for beginning to interrogate her. I must premise, that all the questions were not asked by the Count: some of the most important were put by me; others by my friend. I took down in writing, at the time, everything that was said; and can be quite certain that my report of our proceedings is perfectly correct.

Question. What do you see? Answer. Something round in the middle of the mirror. Q. What more? A. Something under the round shape, which prolongs itself. (She saw other forms, which she could not describe but which she followed carefully with her forefinger. Then she pointed steadily to one particular place; and the moment after, with an anxious, impatient expression, wiped the mirror once more with her handkerchief. Still, she said she saw nothing but vague shapes, and complained of headache and pain in the brows. She was relieved by magnetic passes, and then questioned again.)

Q. Do you see anything more? A. The shapes begin to form themselves: I see a hand and an arm – the right arm (to me) as I look at it. I see a leg now – the right leg. (Here the painful expression which had hitherto appeared on her face entirely left it; and she began to laugh.) Q. Why do you laugh? A. It is so ridiculous to see an arm and leg, and nothing else! (Wiped the mirror again.) Q. Why do you wipe the mirror? A. Because there is a mist over it that makes it dull. Q. What are you laughing about again? A. At the other arm and leg. (Complained of headache; removed as before.) Q. What is it that you are still unable to see? A. The body and head. I only see two arms, hands, legs, and feet; the rest is hidden by mist. It is a horribly ugly sight to see nothing but legs and arms. Q. Why can’t you see the head? A. It takes a long time to see the head. Q. Can you explain exactly what you see now? A. I see everything now but the head. I see the body perfect, up to the neck. Seen so it looks hideous. On the neck is the round shape that I saw at first in the mirror – a dim, formless thing on a perfect body, from the feet to the neck. Q. Can you see nothing about the head yet? A. Yes; it shapes itself! It was like a ball; it is getting like a head; but the mist is over it still.

Here she began again to trace with her finger on the mirror; then laughed and said: I see one side of the face – the right side; now I see the ear quite clearly. (She shifted the mirror obliquely.) Q. Why do you shift the mirror? A. To see the other side of the face. Stop! – now I see it; I see all; but the mist of the figure has not gone yet. I cannot see clearly enough to describe from. Q. Tell us when you see more clearly. A. Now I see more clearly; I see him looking at me. Q. Why do you say him? A. Because I see a man. (She laughed excessively.) Q. What are you laughing about? A. The man in the mirror laughs at seeing me. Q. Does he know you? A. No. Q. Can you go on with the description? A. Give me time; I see him a long way off just yet. Now he gets bigger; but I see him in miniature still. Q. Must I command you to see him at his natural size? A. No; I see him better already. His arms are long (this was right); his hand is small for a man’s hand (right); his feet, too, are small; and he is of middling stature, neither tall nor short, (right.)

Q. How old is he? A. He is young; but I don’t know him; he is a perfect stranger to me. I see his face very well; it is what one would call a long-shaped face (right); his expression, I should say, was generally serious (right); his forehead is high, and not at all hidden by his hair, (right.) Stop! – something curious occurs to me about his face; surely I ought to know him by his face; and yet I am certain that he is a perfect stranger to me. Q. Can’t you find out something more about him? A. Wait; I am trying to make out what is the colour of his hair.

(Circumstances made this last answer – given, you will perceive, without any question that led to it – somewhat remarkable. One of the most striking peculiarities about the person chosen to test V———’s powers of clairvoyance, consisted precisely, as my friend and I alone knew, in the colour of his hair.)

Q. (continued.) What can you tell us about his hair? A. It is so very curious! – he reminds me of some one whom I have seen; and yet I don’t know who. If he were a little nearer to me, I could tell so much more about him! Q. I command him to come nearer. Now look – what do you see ? A. It is all black round his head; I can’t see – magnetize the mirror. Q. Now I have magnetized it; is the blackness gone? A. A little of it. Q. Now; what about his hair? A. It has the appearance of being dark. Q. Can’t you speak more positively about it? A. I am trying to find out the colour of his hair, but it puzzles me: it is so very dark all round him. Q. Can’t you disperse the darkness? A. Yes; it is going, (wiped the mirror.) Now, his hair does not look dark; it seems light. Q. Be more particular: which is it, dark or light? You said it was dark just now. Why? A. Because it was dark then over his hair. Now it is clearer, I see that his hair is light. Q. What sort of light hair?

She waited some time without answering this question; then suddenly exclaimed: – “If that gentleman – I forget his name – would give me his hand I think I could find out everything.” She was asked which of the two gentlemen present she meant – was it my friend “No!” – Was it Mr. C———? (mentioning my name.) – “Yes!” Remembering that my brother was the person whom I had secretly chosen that she should see, you will easily imagine how deep an interest was excited by V———’s request. It was the first palpable manifestation of the mysterious instinct which was now gradually directing her aright to the object of her search.

Turning over the task of writing down the questions and answers to my friend, I gave V——— my hand, without saying anything. Almost immediately afterwards, I felt the magnetic influence communicating itself from her to me. The sensation was precisely like that produced by a mild shock from a galvanic battery – i.e. a slight feeling of tingling in the hand, and of numbness all up the arm. Whenever I felt this sensation at all on the increase, I changed the hand I gave to V———: otherwise, I think it more than probable that I should have been soon thrown into the magnetic sleep myself!

Shortly after V——— took my hand, her brow contracted, and a nervous twitching appeared in the muscles of her face. The questions were thus continued: – Q. Why did you wish Mr. C——— to give you his hand? A. I don’t know yet; it was an idea that occurred to me. Wait! There is some connection between Mr. C——— and the man I am looking at in the mirror: I don’t know what connection – but – (here she paused, and smiled.) – Yes! I have found out: they are a little alike! Q. Alike in what?. A. Something alike in their faces, (right.) I was certain, from the first, that the face in the mirror reminded me of another face that I had seen. Q. Can you tell us anything more about the hair? A. I have told you already that it is light hair. Magnetize the mirror for me: I want to find out what these two gentlemen are to each other. (A pause here.) Q. How is the man in the mirror dressed? A. In grey trousers, and in a dark (it looks black) morning coat and waistcoat. (This was subsequently found to be right.) I am getting very tired; I wish the gentleman who holds my hand would think of the man I see in the mirror; it would help me to find out about him. Q. What are you laughing at now? A. I can’t help laughing at Mr. C———, he forgets he is in communication (en rapport) with me, and is telling his friend my answers in a whisper, as if he thought I could not hear him!

(This was the fact! I had forgotten that I was in communication with her, and that, whisper as faintly as I might, she could now hear every word I said!)

Q. (continued) Can you not tell us something more about the man in the mirror? A. His nose is rather long; his eyes are blue; his mouth is of middling size, his skin is fair, his complexion is pale, (Right in every instance.) Stop! I have discovered it! HE IS THIS GENTLEMAN’S BROTHER! Q. You are right. Now go on describing the man in the mirror – has he any whiskers? A. Yes: light whiskers, (right.) I see his hair very clearly now; it is of a lightish red (right.)

(It may be useful to state here, that the resemblance between my brother and myself is only what is termed “a family resemblance.” While mentioning his personal appearance in detail, she could get no hints from mine. In expression and general outline of face, we are considered to be alike; but in every other respect – as to eyes, hair, complexion, and so on – we differ completely.)

On the questions being resumed, she complained of excessive fatigue, and of the re-appearance of a mist on the mirror. She was asked to describe more fully my brother’s dress. Her answers were now given unwillingly and painfully; and subsequent inquiry showed them to be wrong. She was so thoroughly wearied, as to be almost incapable of holding up the mirror; and, between each interrogation, she constantly petitioned to be released from any further exertion. The points on which she was mistaken were these: – 1st.  In describing my brother as a little older than I was.  2nd.  In saying that he wore a scarf round his neck.  3rd . In asserting that he had rings on the fingers of his left hand. But I must again repeat, that these three mistakes (her only mistakes, be it observed) were made after her faculties had been kept for two hours incessantly on the stretch; after she had herself told us that fatigue was overpowering her; and after it was perfectly obvious to every one present, from her voice and manner, that her attention was flagging over her task from excessive fatigue. Accordingly, after she had given the answer numbered “3rd,” further questioning was abandoned as useless in her then exhausted condition. She was awakened at ten minutes past eleven; and our second experiment in clairvoyance was put off till the next evening.

W. W. C.

LETTER V —
TO G. H. LEWES

You will not be surprised to hear that the result of our first experiment in clairvoyance had the effect of making my friend and myself ardently desirous of witnessing a second. Nothing we had hitherto seen on any previous evening had (to use a common but expressive phrase) so “completely staggered us” as this last phenomenon of the magnetic second sight. To attempt to reason about it seemed perfectly hopeless: there was something too weird and supernatural about the whole process of clairvoyance for the sort of discussion which men give to practical everyday-wonders. The mysterious shaping of the vision seen by V———; its gradual growth on the mirror, from a round spot to separate arms and legs, and thence to a perfect human figure – that figure the exact similitude of a person whom the clairvoyant had never seen; the working of the occult spiritual sympathies which taught her (unaided by the faintest hint, the slightest betrayal of emotion from any one present), first, vaguely to connect the vision she saw with me, then instinctively to assist herself by contact with my hand and connection with my thoughts, in discovering the relationship which had been rigidly and entirely kept a secret from her – these were marvels that defied logical analysis as completely as they outraged logical probabilities. All that we had seen and heard literally passed belief; and yet, what was to be done but believe it? Disbelieve it! you will say. So I would willingly if I could only believe, to begin with, that the intimate friends of my intimate friends were impostors, and that my fellow spectator and I were both of us fools. Other people may be able to assume this comfortable hypothesis – I, unfortunately, cannot!

One impression was strongly conveyed by V———’s manner and language during the progress of our experiment – viz., that her spiritual sympathies and mental instincts were so extended in range, and so sharpened in intensity, while she was in the magnetic state, that her mind could act and her thoughts move in the most intimate connection with the minds and thoughts of others. It is, I am well aware, a sufficiently perilous and daring assertion to say, that one human being is really able under any circumstances, to “read the thoughts” of another; yet to this conclusion every word and action of V———’s, at the time when she asked me to take her hand and think of the person whose name I had written down, seems inevitably to lead. If any rational explanation can be given of the wonders of clairvoyance, it must, I think, be sought for in this direction; it must start from the assertion, that the clairvoyant possesses a mysterious insight into the mind, a mysterious sympathy with the inmost feelings of the individual whose duty it is to think of the person, or the place appointed to test the capabilities of the magnetic second-sight. A, for instance, secretly thinks of some friend or relative, a perfect stranger to B, whom B is to behold and describe. B, however, is able to think with the thoughts and feel with the feelings of A; and, guided by that sympathy, goes aright, therefore, to the discovery the object which A has appointed for search. This mode of explanation might, perhaps, be made to throw some little light on the mysteries of clairvoyance but even if it be admitted as satisfactory, how much that is incomprehensible and marvellous must still remain unelucidated! The subject, after all, defies any analysis – the mystery is to be seen, yet not to be penetrated. It is best asserted by the practical results that we can really and truly see and hear for ourselves. To those results, therefore, let me return.

On the evening of our second experiment, the black mirror was dispensed with. V——— was placed in and easy chair by the fireside, and magnetized in the usual manner. The duty of selecting the new test for her capabilities was then accorded to my friend, Mr. S———, the gentleman whom I have mentioned as having been present on the occasion of our former experiment.

Mr. S——— had only a few days since returned from Paris. The card of one of his French friends happened to be in his pocket, and he gave it to V——— as the object of the new search in which we were now to employ her. The Count and I looked at this card before it was handed to the clairvoyante. The letters on it were so faintly and minutely printed in what the writing masters call “hair-strokes” that it was very difficult to read them by candle light. When we at length succeeded in doing so, we found that the name was perfectly unknown to both of us – perfectly unknown indeed to every one in the room but Mr. S———. I further inquired of that gentleman whether he had mentioned his French friend’s name, or any subject in immediate connection with it – either by letter, during his absence, or personally, on his return to England – to any relatives or friends in the town where we were now staying. He assured me that he had not. He had even forgotten that he had brought away the card in his pocket, until he accidentally drew it forth a moment ago; and he was, moreover, quite certain that he had neither directly nor indirectly mentioned to a single soul in England under what circumstances he had seen his French friend, when that friend gave him the card.

The first question asked of V——— was, whether she could read the name. She sat with her eyes closed, as usual, away from the candles, and holding the card in her lap. After a long pause, she said that the writing was so small and indistinct that she could not read it correctly; two things, however, she could discover – the name was a French name, and the name of a man.

Finding her so far right, Mr. S——— inquired of our host whether V——— would be able to tell him where and under what circumstances he had last seen his French friend. The Count replied that he had no doubt she could; and recommended Mr. S——— to place himself in communication with her; and ask all the necessary questions himself, as the person present best qualified to put them. Mr. S——— took the advice. Except in one or two unimportant cases, it was he and not the magnetizer who interrogated V———. I took down the questions and answers myself as they passed. You will find the results of our second experiment which I am now about to submit to you, even more extraordinary and more startling than those which proceeded from our first.

Question. Where did I last see the French gentleman? A. At Paris, (right.) Q. In what place did I see him; was it out of doors or in? A. In doors; in a room, (right.) Q. At what time of day did I see him? A. In the morning, (right.) Q. At what sort of visit was it that I saw him? A. At a breakfast visit, (right.) Q. How many people were seated at table? A. Seven, (right.) Q. How many ladies and how many gentlemen were there in the company? A. Four gentlemen and three ladies, (right.) Q. Tell me something more about the ladies; were they married ladies or unmarried ladies? A. One was a married lady; the two others were not, (right.)

All these answers, to the astonishing correctness of which Mr. S———’s memory bore witness, were given by V——— without hesitation! She sat erect in the chair, holding head upright in its usual position, twisting the card about incessantly in her lap, but never raising it towards her face. It was only when the next question was asked that she appeared to hesitate and become confused.

Q. What were the ages of the two unmarried ladies? A. I can’t tell exactly; one, perhaps, might be eighteen or nineteen the other twenty-two or twenty-three. Q. You have made a mistake. If you tried again, could you not tell me their ages more correctly? A. (after a pause.) Yes. I was wrong. Why did you say unmarried ladies? Surely, they are still little girls! I should say that one was thirteen years old and the other eight. (One, as Mr. S——— informed us afterwards, was thirteen; the age of the other was six years.) Q. Was the husband of the married lady with her at the breakfast? A. I think not. (Mr. S——— signed to us that this was wrong, by shaking his head. He then waited a minute or so without asking another question. During this short delay, V——— corrected herself, and said, of her own accord, “the husband of the married lady was with her at the breakfast.”)

Q. (continued.) At what part of the table were the husband and wife sitting? A. I cannot tell you. Q. Why not? A. Because the breakfast table was a round table, (right.) How can I describe people’s positions at a round table? Q. Can you describe the room? Can you tell us whether it was at all like the room we are now in? A. It was so unlike that I can’t compare it. Supposing I were sitting by the fireplace in the French room, as I am sitting here, the door would be in that position (pointing to the place she meant; and indicating it, as Mr. S——— said, quite correctly).

After this answer, a general wish was expressed to hear her describe the positions of the guests at the breakfast-table. The great difficulty was (as V——— had herself told us) to distinguish in any clear and certain manner, the places occupied by seven people at a round table. This was, however; completely obviated by a suggestion of the Count’s, that a china basin standing on the sideboard should be placed in V———’s lap, that she should be told to consider the basin as representing the round table; and to be occupying Mr. S———’s place at the breakfast, she should describe the positions of the guests, exactly as they were ranged on either side of him. Our host’s plan was adopted. At first V——— laughed excessively at the substitute for the real round table, which was deposited on her lap. She then became silent and thoughtful for a few moments; and after that, began very readily to give the required description, addressing it to Mr. S———, who sat close by her.

First, assuming to Mr. S———, as she had been bidden, that she was occupying his place at the breakfast-table, and keeping her left hand on that supposed place, she touched the rim of the basin all round with her right forefinger at certain distinct intervals, mentioning, at each touch, the sex of the person whose position she was thus representing. In this manner she described, without a single error, the manner in which the married lady and the two little girls, present at the breakfast party, were distributed among the four gentlemen; the different places occupied by the husband and wife; and in short, the whole arrangement of the guests at the table, exactly as Mr. V——— remembered it to have been organized! My friend was quite certain that none of his recollections on this point were in the slightest degree doubtful; for the breakfast party in question took place on the day before his departure from Paris. It was the last social gathering in the French capital at which he “assisted:” it was a more than usually pleasant meeting of friends; and he had, in consequence, the most vivid recollection of all the circumstances connected with it.

This remarkable experiment was, unfortunately, not carried any further, after V——— had concluded her description of the manner in which the breakfast party were assembled round the table. It was decided, in order to suit the convenience of one member of the company present, who could not attend on any subsequent occasion, that we should proceed at once to our next experiment; instead of deferring it to a future evening. Accordingly, after allowing V——— an interval of repose, it was secretly agreed that we should make trial of her powers of clairvoyance in quite a new manner, by requiring that she should behold and describe the late Sir Robert Peel. The name was written down, and she was briefly desired to exert her faculty, as usual; an empty chair having been previously magnetized, and placed before her.

At first, she saw the chair covered by the same mist which had covered the mirror on the former evening. Gradually, this mist faded, and she beheld a human form, seated in the chair. On being asked what this figure was like, she replied, to the unmeasured astonishment of every one present, that it was the figure of a young lady! No comment was made on this very unexpected result of our experiment. She was questioned in the usual manner about the person who had appeared before her. Her answers comprised the most minute description of the young lady; of her features, her complexion, her age, her dress, and even of her slightest peculiarities of physiognomy. On being asked to mention her name, V——— at once replied, “Miss S———,” the sister of the Mr. S——— who was present that evening. She also informed us, that she had only once met the young lady out of doors, crossing the road, with her veil down, so that it was impossible to distinguish any of her features. The next question was the important one, and was thus expressed: – “We wished you to see the late Sir Robert Peel; why did you see, instead, the sister of Mr. S?” She replied directly: – “Because Mr. S——— has been sitting immediately behind the empty chair which you placed before me. (This was the case.) Mr. S——— has some influence over me, in that position, close to the chair, which I cannot explain – an influence which made me think of somebody, and see somebody whom he is often accustomed to think of. I can’t tell you anything more about it, except that I saw Miss S———. because her brother influenced me, sitting where he now sits.”

Is this answer a confirmation of the opinion I have ventured to express at the beginning of my letter? Or does it only add one more mystery to the other unfathomable mysteries of clairvoyance?

W. W. C.

LETTER VI —
TO G. H. LEWES

On looking over my notes, I find that I have hitherto omitted to mention some of our experiments, which, though perhaps of minor importance in themselves, are nevertheless not ill-calculated to assist in developing the widely-extended range of the magnetic influence in its action on the human subject. The experiments to which I refer, tended to show the power of Animal Magnetism in immensely increasing the muscular energy; in suspending the organic functions of persons in a perfectly wakeful state; and in aiding the painter or sculptor, by a special exertion of its influence in the studio, to work from the “living model.”

The proof of the increase of muscular energy, to be produced at will by the application of magnetism, was thus displayed: – While V——— was in the magnetic state, the Count desired me to give her my hand, asserting at the same time, that he would make her clasp it with the grasp of a vice, – with a grasp from which he alone could free me. The appearance of V———’s hand, which had evidently never been exercised in any harder work than needlework, rendered this assertion very difficult to credit; but the event soon proved, in anything but an agreeable manner to me – or, as it seemed, to her – that the power of the magnetic influence had, in this instance, not been one whit overrated. The magnetizer made one “pass” over V———’s hand, when she took mine; and immediately after, I felt it beginning to close – tighter, tighter, tighter! – until her arm quivered all up to the shoulder; and the pain I felt from her grasp grew so intense that – “setting my manhood aside” – I fairly begged to be released from a sensation which most men consider to be a remarkably agreeable one – the squeeze of a young lady’s hand! Two deep red impressions of that squeeze left in my skin, and a coldness and distortion of my fingers, which lasted full a quarter of an hour, were tolerably fair guarantees to the spectators of this experiment that I had certainly not “cried out before I was hurt.”

The Count assured my friends who were present, that, if the practical illustration of his assertion which they had just witnessed, were not sufficient for them, he would be quite willing to experiment on the stoutest boatman they could call into the house from the beach outside, just as he had experimented on me. And he laughingly offered, at the same time, to lay a wager with anybody, pledging him – by merely placing one of V———’s hands on this said boatman’s chest, and the other against his shoulder blade – to make her inflict such a pressure on the man, as should, in the most literal acceptation of the phrase, reduce him to “roar for mercy.” It is hardly necessary to say that, after what the company had already seen, nobody was willing to take up the Count’s bet!

The capabilities of the magnetic influence in suspending the exercise of particular organs were very curiously exemplified in reference to the organ of speech. While we were all standing one night, talking round the fire, after the experiments of the evening were over, and V——— had been awakened out of the magnetic sleep, the Count suddenly made a few “passes” close before her lips. Immediately afterwards, her articulation thickened; then ceased to be comprehensible: she could murmur; but could not pronounce a single word. In order to verify this experiment by our eye, as well as by our ears, I asked her to open her mouth; and found her tongue reduced to less than its natural length, swollen to considerably more than its natural thickness, and presenting a curiously twisted, convulsed appearance. On touching it afterwards with the finger, it felt quite hard. Fairly judged by the tests of hearing, seeing, and touching, she was at that moment perfectly and palpably “tongue-tied.”

The third experiment at which I have hinted, as tending to prove that Animal Magnetism might render real practical assistance to those who cultivate the fine arts, requires a word or two of preface, addressed to readers who may never have witnessed the progress of a picture on the easel, or the gradual construction of the clay model from which the marble statue is afterwards formed. Persons in this position, who only become acquainted with works of art in their finished state, have, very naturally, hardly an idea of the technical difficulties which at all stages beset the production of a picture or a statue, whatever the genius, however long the practice, of the producer may be. Among these technical difficulties, one that ranks as chief, is the difficulty of working from the living model, of painting or modelling from the life. In the first place, it is physically impossible, under any ordinary condition, for any human being to keep in the same position even for five minutes together, without insensibly moving a little, so as to embarrass the artist; to whom changes of this sort, so slight as to be inappreciable to the ordinary spectator, are always visible. In the second place, the effort on the part of the model to “sit” as still as possible, produces a constant sense of fatigue. Perhaps at the very moment when the painter or sculptor is working his best, the sitter discovers that he or she can sit no longer, and must absolutely take a rest; and the unfortunate artist finds his labour interrupted exactly at the point where his own interests demand that it should be continued. The more difficult the position of the model, the more frequent these minor miseries of the studio become. Sometimes when, for instance, the sitter’s arm is long kept in an outstretched direction (most probably by tying it to a support), positive injury is sustained by cramps and stiffness, which often affect the limb that has been maintained too continuously in one arduous position. Some years since, a serious accident of this kind happened at the Royal Academy. A model in the “life school” had been standing for a considerable time, with one of his arms (artificially supported) extended, in the action of holding a bow. He was told to put his arm down, and rest. “I’m afraid, gentlemen,” was the reply, “that I can’t rest, for I can’t put my arm down.” It was found that the limb had stiffened in the socket, and the assistance of a surgeon was obliged to be called in to restore the arm of the unfortunate model to its natural position by his side.

Such accidents as these, such difficulties in the artist’s way as those above-mentioned, Count P – assured us could be entirely obviated by magnetizing the “model,” and then using the magnetic influence to fix him (or her) with the stillness of a statue, in the same position – no matter how difficult – for any number of hours required; and this, as all experience proved, without the slightest sensation of stiffness being felt by, or the smallest injury accruing to the health of, persons so treated, on their being restored to the waking state. He practically illustrated the assertion, while we were discussing the subject during a morning visit at his house.

V——— was magnetized, and placed, sitting on the edge of her chair, with her body inclined sideways thoroughly out of the perpendicular, and one of her arms extended and raised towards her head. The magnetizer then made one “pass” over her; and she remained in this position, as perfectly still as if she had been turned to marble (her outstretched arm not moving by a hair’s breadth), for full ten minutes; or, in other words, until the spectators were tired of watching any longer. Should any readers consider that our want of patience to sit out the half-hour, during which the Count had himself suggested that we should wait, vitiated the completeness of this experiment, I recommend those ladies or gentlemen to put themselves in V———’s position, as above described, and to try to sit quite still in it for three minutes together by a watch; allowing a friend, at the same time, to keep an eye on the arm they will have to extend, for the purpose of noting whether it moves or not during that interval. I have myself occasionally officiated as amateur model to artist-friends, and know therefore, by experience, what the difficulty is of keeping a limb extended, or the body inclined, without support, in anything like a still position, even for so short a time as three minutes.

V——— was awakened immediately after this experiment. I asked her whether she felt any sensation of stiffness in the arm which she had held out. The reply was, “None whatever;” and she proved its truth by immediately taking up and resuming her “crochet” work, which our visit had interrupted. Some idea may be formed of the extent to which this petrifying power of the magnetic influence can be carried, by the fact (communicated by letter a few days ago) that Count P suddenly stopped V———, and struck her perfectly motionless, by a strong act of will, merely expressed by a single “pass,” while she was dancing the polka! most people, it is nevertheless true. Besides the young lady’s partner in the dance, other persons were present who saw the thing done.

I have now communicated to you the nature and result of all the experiments in Animal Magnetism which my stay in Somersetshire gave me an opportunity of witnessing – of all at least, which I find preserved in my notes In some few cases, I unhappily omitted to make my usual record on the spot; and to those cases, accordingly I shall not direct your attention. I am unwilling to trust only to my recollection, however vivid I may consider it to be, in writing such a narrative as the present narrative which I should consider to be quite valueless, unless I knew it to be throughout literally true.

In closing this short series of letters, I can merely repeat what I wrote on commencing them. Having been allowed by Count P – to make public, in any form I chose, the experiments which he was kind enough to show me, I availed myself of that permission, because I considered that I had enjoyed, at his house, an unusually favourable opportunity for fairly estimating, by the fairest practical demonstration, the real merits of Animal Magnetism. The proceedings which I thus resolved to report, were proceedings conducted by a gentleman who followed the science only for its own sake, and for whose character and position, I had the best and amplest guarantee. It is on this account, quite as much as on account of the internal evidence to their genuineness which I believe the experiments here reported to contain, that I venture to think my narrative at least worthy of attention from persons who will do me the common justice to read it with minds unprejudiced, either one way or the other.

•   •   •

As to the future of Animal Magnetism, it seems to me to be already assured. The science has, of late years, gained a vast hold on the convictions of men of intellect and men of honour in all quarters. As such persons continue to study it, year by year, more closely, and to extract from it more clearly the practical uses to which it may assuredly be directed for the benefit of humanity, so will the circle of believers, whose belief is worth gaining, inevitably widen and widen; and so will the masses, who follow, but never lead, be drawn into that circle after them. Leave the science to work its way honestly, and boldly by its own merits, its visible, actual results; and it will certainly continue to advance, as it has already advanced. Angry partisanship will not avail it anything; public exhibitions of it, displayed to gaping crowds at so much a head, will lend it no assistance that is of real value. Let it be studied by each man who desires to know it, quietly and reverently, as a mystery too perilously important to be trifled with for mere amusement. Let the results of such studies as these, communicated by competent writers, and attested by competent witnesses, be the only sources whence persons who doubt the science (and can doubt it fairly) seek their primary information or encouragement. Thus practised, and thus examined, Animal Magnetism need ask no more; for then will have been conceded to it the only privilege that it ever required – the privilege of being justly judged.

W. W. C.

THE FALLACY OF CLAIRVOYANCE

BY G. H. LEWES

Believers in mesmerism and its “higher phenomena,” claim our credence for the “facts” which they bring forward declaring themselves to be comparatively indifferent as to the explanations they or you may give of those facts. But every man who has made any scientific researches will know how excessively difficult it often is to recognise a fact – to know it for what it is. The facts of clairvoyance may seem simple and appreciable enough to persons who “believe their eyes,” as they say; but scientific men know the truth of Dr. Cullen’s sarcasm, that people are never so little to be believed as when narrating what they have seen. Nevertheless, it must not be concealed that several scientific men have examined clairvoyance, and recorded their belief in it; the testimonies are of such a character, and the “facts” so abundant, that no cautions mind will hastily dismiss them as unworthy of examination.

I have already, on several occasions, expressed my opinions in this journal on mesmerism; but it may be as well briefly to recapitulate for the simplification of the present paper. For the leading facts of mesmerism, or coma the evidence seems to me ample, convincing. For the facts of clairvoyance there seems to me no evidence at all. I throw no sort of doubt on the veracity of the narrators, but in the authenticated cases that have come under my observation I miss the requisite elimination of all sources of error – I see no crucial instance to force my conviction. To go no farther than the letters which have recently appeared in these columns under the title of Magnetic Evenings at Home – when my friend C. narrated the substance of those letters to me, I at once offered them publicity, though expressing to him my complete suspension of opinion with regard to the facts related. C., known to the public as a distinguished writer, and known to me as a man of unimpeachable veracity, was certainly entitled to a most respectful hearing, even of marvels. But the facts did not carry the least persuasion to my mind. I am ready to believe, and publicly to avow my belief, the instant a crucial instance has been obtained; and not being in any way committed to anti-clairvoyance, I have sought on all sides for this proof, but sought in vain. If Dr. Haddock of Leeds, whose “Emma” has made such revelations, will undertake to assist me to this proof, I hereby undertake to publish the result in these columns. The challenge is made in an earnest desire to get at the truth, and I hope will be accepted in that spirit.

But to my present object. C. narrates how a card given to the clairvoyante was sufficient for her to tell when the card was given where it was given, at what kind of entertainment, the persons present there, the ages, sex, and social position of the persons, and their respective seats at the table. That was astounding; but convincing? Not to me. I believed then, and I believe still, that, in point of fact, the gentleman from whom the card was received told the clairvoyante all that was necessary for her to tell him – told it, by leading questions, by anxious expressions, by intonations, by the hundred suggestions of voice and manner. He would not accept this explanation, and declared he had been wholly passive. I resolved to try a crucial instance. I resolved to test the clairvoyante when she knew nothing, when her operator knew nothing, when no other human being but myself knew what the real case was. If she succeeded in that, my doubts would end.

Accordingly, I wrote a letter, requesting to be told what I had done on the Sunday when that letter was written. To render even a proximate answer more difficult I signed the letter S.Lawrence. The magnetizer, in transmitting her reply remarks: “The selection of your friend for an experiment in clairvoyance is not advantageous. It does not bear upon any particular thing upon which one could direct the attention of the somnabule to rest. It generalizes too much. Had he set about doing some particular thing at a given hour, and required that the clairvoyante should see what it was, I think there would have been better chance. I think it probable, that had Mr. Lawrence done anything remarkable in the course of the day the voyante would have seen it; but all that she has said he did is, as you will see, the general quiet Sunday-routine of most men; and supposing that all she has said should be right, people would say it was guess work. I am anxious to know how far she has been right.” He was told she had not been right. But let me give the clairvoyante’s reply. It is her magnetizer who writes:

I placed the mirror in V’s hands, willing her to see ‘Mr. Lawrence.’

As usual in looking into it she went to sleep in a few minutes, and at the end of about twenty or twenty-five minutes she said she saw Mr. Lawrence, and described him as follows: – ’He has the face of a young man about thirty years of age. He is standing before me, looking at me. He looks serious, that is to say, he does not laugh nor even smile. I see him in the mirror, but in the distance, as when one looks through the wrong end of an opera-glass. He is rather tall; his face rather long, and his eyes are grey; he has a dark complexion and hair; a nose rather long and thin – when I say this I mean not large – and an ordinary mouth. It seems that he has a dark-coloured pantaloon, and nothing particular in his general dress.’

Thus far with the mirror. I then put Mr. Lawrence’s letter into V.’s hands, willing her to see what Mr. Lawrence did on Sunday 22nd inst. Her answers follow: – ’He went out in the morning after 10 o’clock, and in the morning also he went to church. Besides the letter, he wrote other things. He went to visit some one, a lady, at her own house. A man went also to see him and found him at home. He (Mr. Lawrence) had been also doing something which he was looking at very intently, but I do not know what it was. He has read a good deal. He dined in company with two other persons; he went out in the evening, and was in bed before eleven o’clock.’

Here she said she could see no more, and consequently I awoke her.

Those who know me will judge of the portrait. As to the details of what I did they are almost all incorrect. I had no visitor. I did not go to church. Instead of dining with two persons, I dined with ten; and when I add that Déjazet was one of the party, I say enough to indicate that the dinner was not one of “ordinary Sunday routine.” Finally, I did not go out in the evening, nor did I go to bed before eleven.

Although this experiment failed, I was willing to make every allowance to the objection raised by the magnetizer, as to my not having fixed an hour; moreover, I felt that the use of a false signature might have misled the clairvoyante, and certainly might be used as an argument to stultify the experiment. I therefore wrote a letter in my own name, and fixed the day and hour , asking what I did between the hours of half-past twelve and one; what kind of rooms I was in; and what persons, if any, were in those rooms. At last a crucial instance was obtained. The hour was fixed, no one was informed of what I had done, and I awaited the result with curiosity, for the series of things done by me at the hour named were such as defied all guessing – at least, in the order of their performance. This was the reply:

MY DEAR FRIEND, – I write you here V.’s answers to the questions of your friend Mr. Lewes, which I this put to her last night whilst in the magnetic sleep: – ’What has Mr. Lewes been doing in London on Friday last, March 5th, between the hours of half-past twelve and one o’clock of the noon? What sort of room he was in, what he did there, and whom did he see, if anybody?

Answer. ‘Mr. Lewes, he does himself magnetism, and he was, in fact, at that time, viz., between the hours of half-past twelve and one o’clock of the noon, magnetizing somebody – a man, whom he did not put to sleep. The room in which he was magnetizing is large; it has two windows, and one door; there is not much furniture in it; it was not furnished like a drawing-room, and there were quantities of written papers (beaucoup de papiers) lying about. There was nobody in the room besides Mr. Lewes himself and the person he was magnetizing.’ Here she said she saw nothing else.

I will first remark on the perfect good faith of the gentleman in question, and his readiness to have the experiment fairly tried. Had he had the slightest misgiving of the truth of clairvoyance, he might easily have evaded my test; but he met it in the frankest spirit of truth-seeking, such as inclines me to believe that there must be something in the facts which a man like this believes. I say so after the entire failure of both my experiments. The reply just quoted is, in no one particular, correct. But although these have failed, I am open to conviction yet. Let me place the conditions and I will abide the result.

In conclusion, let me say that the fallacy of clairvoyance is, I take it, the interpretation of a dreaming power as a seeing power. The clairvoyante (when not a charlatan) sees the objects of her dreams, and describes them; what those objects are depend mainly upon the suggestion of external stimulus, in the shape of words, tones, hesitations, &c. If she sees that a man’s hair is black, and you tell her “no,” she corrects herself and will, in course of time, correct herself till she calls it red, if you make her. Once, when I “travelled” with a clairvoyante, i.e., when she accompanied me in thought all over my house, I found that by simple assent to what was wrong, and by feigning an anxious surprise, I could make her say just whatever I anticipated she would say. If she were not duping every one, she was dreaming, and her dreams were swayed by what I said.

THE INCREDIBLE
NOT ALWAYS IMPOSSIBLE

TO G. H. LEWES

My Dear Lewes, – I have just read your article on the “Fallacy of Clairvoyance.” Certain portions of it seem to me to call for a rejoinder on my part as the writer of the series of letters, entitled “Magnetic Evenings at Home.”

•   •   •

In the first place, allow me to acknowledge the liberal and temperate spirit in which you have written; and let me further admit, that I consider you, personally, quite justified in your disbelief in clairvoyance by the failure of the personal experiment which you made as a test of its truth. I am not writing to remonstrate with you; but to defend myself – or, in other words, to show that, if your disbelief is founded on what you term “a crucial instance,” my belief is founded on “a crucial instance” too.

Referring to the experiment related by me, in No. 102 of this journal, you endeavour to account for the extraordinary results which I relate as having been obtained, by assuming that the clairvoyante was prompted in her answers by “leading questions, by intonations, by the hundred suggestions of voice and manner.” You further admit, that the gentleman who put the questions (not the magnetizer, remember), denied your explanation, and assured you that he had remained perfectly passive. His statement does not appear to have staggered you in your theory. I suppose you doubted whether the person who put the questions was the best witness as to how the questions were put. At any rate, you resolved to “test the clairvoyante when she knew nothing, when her operator knew nothing, when no other human being but yourself knew what the real case was.”

It is on this part of your letter that I wish to make one or two comments.

1. I beg to repeat what I have already stated in the “Magnetic Evenings” – i.e., that in the case of clairvoyance now under review, and in the others which I have reported, I took down in writing the questions and answers as they passed, and sent them to press in the Leader from the notes thus taken. Is this evidence of the verbal correctness of my report of the questions, or is it not? Do scientific men, like the Dr. Cullen you quote, disbelieve other people’s ears as well as their eyes; and assume that the general public are as incapable of correctly writing down what they hear, as of correctly describing what they see? I can only say for myself, that I wrote down what I heard, exactly as I heard it; that whenever a question was repeated (and that was not often) it was repeated in the same words; that no observations of any kind intervened between the questions and answers in the part of the interrogatory which produced the most astounding results; and that no interference, by word, look, or gesture, proceeded from any of the audience – for the simple reason, that none of them knew whether the answers were right or wrong. I know all this just as well as I know that I am writing to you at the present moment.

2. Now let us examine the questions taken down under these circumstances. We will only revert to two of them, in order to save time and space. But, for the sake of the point at issue between us, we will select the two questions which elicited the most marvellous answers, and one of which I know to have been immediately followed by the answer. They are these, (I quote from my fifth letter): – Q. How many people were seated at table? A. (given directly) Seven. (right). Q. How many ladies and how many gentlemen? A. (after a pause of perfect silence) Four gentlemen and three ladies. (right). First recapitulating the circumstance, that these questions referred to a breakfast-party at Paris, given while the clairvoyante was at a watering-place in Somersetshire; and that we knew, by every human means of knowledge, that no hint of the party, or of any matter connected with it, had been communicated to her, or to any one about her, – first recapitulating this, let me ask whether the two questions quoted are, in any sense of the word, “leading questions?” and whether they are not, on the contrary, studiously confined to the, simplest, baldest form of interrogatory? If you believe that from such questions any guess could be formed by anybody, of what the required answer ought to be, I have been wasting my time in writing this letter; but I know you don’t.

Having done with the “leading question” part of your explanation, let us get on to your notion that “anxious expressions, intonations, and the hundred suggestions of voice and manner,” had something to do in producing the answers that we heard. If, by “anxious expressions,” you mean expressions in words, the questions, as they stand, dispose of that hypothesis; if you mean expression by look, I should like to know your idea of the “look” which can so eloquently accompany the question, “how many people were seated at table?” as to inform the questioned person (previously in a state of total ignorance on the subject) that the right answer was “seven?” Or, if you would rather, not tell me about the “look,” perhaps you will inform me how an “intonation of voice” accompanying the same question, would be able to produce the same effect? I should like to hear you sound that “intonation,” someday, after dinner, when we are in a comfortable state for judging of it, – say after a bottle of port apiece. The celebrated Irish echo, which, when a traveller says “How d’ye do?” always replies “Pretty well, thank ye” would be nothing to the “intonation!”

As for my friend’s “manner” helping the clairvoyante, – I wish you had seen it! He sat with both his hands on the elbows of her chair all the time, certainly “suggesting” nothing in that direction. His face, whenever I looked at it, (and that was pretty often,) always wore the same expression of rigid attention, – nothing more; and he plied his interrogatories with as much coolness and deliberation as if he had been a practised hand. But, let his manner have been any manner you like, if – accompanying the two questions I have quoted – it could have helped to betray what the answers ought to be, then, assuredly, one of the easiest stage-directions ever given to an actor, is that renowned direction in the old melodrama: – “Here the miser leans against the side-scene, and grows generous.”

3. If you have any doubt whether our friend could be quite certain that in selecting the subject for experiment he was testing the clairvoyante as you tested her, “when she knew nothing of the case, and when her operator knew nothing,” and I may add, when nobody present and nobody not present connected with the magnetizer or his family circle, knew anything either – I refer you first, to our friend himself; and secondly, to the statement of the matter contained in my fifth letter. In both cases you will find the evidence as clear and direct as evidence can possibly be.

And now I have done. If after this you still believe that, because your experiment failed, there must necessarily have been some failure in our experiment which we could not detect, I must give up all hope of convincing you. But why then did my experiment fail? you will say. I again refer you to my letters. You will find failures faithfully reported there; and you will find the magnetizer himself quoted as saying, that what he succeeded in at one time, he did not succeed in at another. He has failed in your case – he succeeded with us: he has succeeded with dozens of other people – he may yet succeed with you, in the manner and under the circumstances which you would imagine least likely to produce success. In the mean time, I write this letter, (my last) not with any wish to enter into a controversy on the general subject of clairvoyance, but simply to vindicate the special experiment to which you have referred in your letter, as a genuine experiment; and to try and show you, by clear straightforward evidence, that my friend and myself were not duped by our own imaginations – not misled by any deception of our own senses – and not unmindful of using every possible caution, as well as of raising every fair difficulty in selecting and prosecuting our test of the merits of clairvoyance.

W. W. C.

The Leader Jan–Mar 1852

NEW VIEW OF SOCIETY

In these times, when a man sits down to write, it is considered necessary that he should have a purpose in view. To prevent any misapprehension on this point, so far as I am personally concerned, I beg to announce at once that I am provided with a purpose of an exceedingly serious kind. I want to know whether I am fit for Bedlam, or not?

This alarming subject of inquiry was started in my mind, about a week or ten days ago, by a select circle of kind friends, whose remarks on the condition of my brains have, since that period, proved to be not of the most complimentary nature. The circumstances under which I have lost caste, intellectually speaking, in the estimation of those around me, are of a singular kind. May I beg permission to relate them?

I must begin (if I can be allowed to do so without giving offence) in my own bedroom; and I must present myself, with many apologies, in rather less than a half dressed condition. To be plainer still, it was on one of the hottest days of this remarkably hot summer – the time was between six and seven o’clock in the evening – the thermometer had risen to eighty, in the house – I was sitting on a cane chair, without coat, waistcoat, cravat or collar, with my shirtsleeves rolled up to cool my arms, and my feet half in and half out of my largest pair of slippers – I was sitting, a moist and melancholy man, with my eyes fixed upon my own Dress Costume reposing on the bed, and my heart fainting within me at the prospect of going out to Dinner.

Yes: there it was – the prison of suffocating black broadcloth in which my hospitable friends required me to shut myself up – there were the coat, waistcoat, and trousers, the hideous habilimentary instruments of torture which Society actually expected me to put on in the scorching hot condition of the London atmosphere. All day long I had been rather less than half dressed, and had been fainting with the heat. At that very moment, alone in my spacious bedroom, with both the windows wide open, and with nothing but my shirt over my shoulders, I was in the condition of a man who is gradually melting away, who is consciously losing all sense of his own physical solidity.

How should I feel, in half an hour’s time, when I had enclosed myself in the conventional layers of black broadcloth? How should I feel, in an hour’s time, when I was shut into a dining room with fifteen of my melting fellow creatures, half of them, at least, slowly liquefying in garments as black, as heavy, as outrageously unsuited to the present weather as my own? How should I feel in three hours’ time, when the evening party, which was to follow the dinner, began, and when I and a hundred other polite propagators of animal heat were all smothering each other within the space of two drawing rooms, and under the encouraging superincumbent auspices of the gas chandeliers? Society would have been hot in January, under these after dinner circumstances – what would Society be in July?

While these serious questions were suggesting themselves to me, I took a turn backwards and forwards in my bedroom; and perspired; and sat down again in my cane chair. I got up once more, and approached the neighbourhood of my dress coat, and weighed it experimentally in my arms; and perspired; and sat down again in my cane chair. I got up for the third time, and tried a little eau de cologne on my forehead, and attempted to encourage myself by thinking of the ten thousand other men, in their bedrooms at that moment, patiently putting themselves into broadcloth prisons in all parts of London; and perspired; and sat down again in my cane chair. Heat, I believe, does not retard the progress of time. It was getting nearer and nearer to seven o’clock. I looked, interrogatively, from my dress trousers to my legs. On that occasion, only, my legs were eloquent, and they looked back at me, and said, No.

I rose, in a violent perspiration, and reviled myself bitterly, with my forlorn dress trousers grasped in my hand. Wretch (I said), you are unworthy of the kind attentions of your friends – you are a base renegade from your social duties – you are unnaturally insensible to those charms of society which your civilised fellow creatures universally acknowledge! It was all in vain. Common Sense – that low lived quality which has no veneration for appearances – Common Sense, which had not only suggested those terrible questions about what my sensations would be after I was dressed, but had even encouraged my own faithful legs to mutiny against me, now whispered persistently, My friend, if you make yourself at least ten degrees hotter than you are already, of your own accord, you are an Ass – Common Sense drew my trousers from my grasp, and left them in a dingy heap on the floor; led my tottering steps (to this day I don’t know how) down stairs to my writing table; and there suggested to me one of the most graceful epistolary compositions, of a brief kind, in the English language. It was addressed to my much injured hostess; it contained the words “sudden indisposition,” neatly placed in the centre of a surrounding network of polite phraseology; and when I had sealed it up, and sent it off upon the spot, I was, without any exception whatever, the happiest man, at that moment, in all London. This is a startling confession to make, in a moral point of view. But the interests of truth are paramount (except where one’s host and hostess are concerned); and there are unhappily crimes, in this wicked world, which not bring with them the slightest sense of misery to the perpetrator.

Of the means by which I contrived, after basely securing the privilege of staying at home, to get up a nice, cool, solitary, impromptu dinner in my own room, and of the dinner itself, no record shall appear in these pages. In my humble opinion, modern writers of comic literature have already gorged the English public to nausea with incessant eating and drinking in print. Nowadays, when a man has nothing whatever to say, he seems to me to write, in a kind of gluttonous despair, about his dinner. I, for one, am tired of literary gentlemen who unaccountably take it for granted that I am interested in knowing when they are hungry; who appear to think that there is something exquisitely new, humorous, and entertaining, in describing themselves as swallowing large quantities of beer; who can tell me nothing about their adventures at home and abroad, draw me no characters, and make me no remarks, without descending into the kitchen to fortify themselves and their paragraphs with perpetual victuals and drink. I am really and truly suffering so acutely from the mental dyspepsia consequent on my own inability to digest other people’s meals, as served up in modern literature, that the bare idea of ever writing about breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper, in my own proper person, has become absolutely revolting to me. Let my comic brethren of the pen feed in public as complacently and as copiously as they please. For myself, if I live a hundred years, and write a thousand volumes, no English reader – I solemnly declare it – shall ever know what I have had for dinner, in any part of the world, or under any stress of gastronomic circumstances. Dismissing my lonely meal, therefore, with the briefest possible reference to it, let me get on to the evening, and to the singular – or, as my friends consider it, to the crackbrained – occupation by which I contrived to enliven my self-imposed solitude.

It was approaching nine o’clock, and I was tasting the full luxury of my own cool seclusion, when the idea struck me that there was only one thing wanting to complete my sense of perfect happiness. I rose with a malicious joy in my heart; I threw my lightest paletot over my shoulders, put on a straw hat, pulled up my slippers at the heel, and directed my steps to the house of my friend and host, from whose dinner party “sudden indisposition” had compelled me to be absent. What was my object in taking this extraordinary course? The diabolical object – for surely it can be qualified by no other term – of gloating over the sufferings of my polite fellow creatures in the dining room, from the cool and secret vantage ground of the open street.

Nine o’clock had struck before I got to the house. A little crowd of street idlers – cool and comfortable vagabonds, happily placed out of the pale of Society – was assembled on the pavement, before the dining room windows. I joined them, in my airy and ungentlemanlike costume – I joined them, with the sensations of a man who is about to investigate the nature of some great danger from which he has just narrowly escaped. As I had foreseen, the suffocating male guests had drawn up the blinds on the departure of the ladies to the drawing room, so as to get every available breath of air into the dining room, reckless of all inquisitive observation on the part of the lower orders in the street outside. Between us – I willingly identify myself, on this occasion, with the mob – and the gorgeously appointed dessert service of my friend and host, nothing intervened but the area railings and the low, transparent, wire window blinds. We stood together sociably on the pavement and stared in. My brethren of the mob surveyed the magnificent epergne, the decanters glittering under the light of the chandelier, the fruit, flowers, and porcelain on the table; while I, on my side, occupied myself with the human interest of the scene, and looked with indescribable interest and relish at the guests.

There they were, all oozing away into silence and insensibility together; smothered in their heavy black coats, and strangled in their stiff white cravats! On one side of the table, Jenkins, Wapshare, and two strangers, all four equally speechless, all four equally gentlemanly, all four equally prostrated by the lights, the dinner, and the heat. I can see the two strangers feebly dabbing their foreheads with white pocket handkerchiefs; Jenkins is slyly looking at his watch; the head of Wapshare hangs helplessly over his finger glass. At the end of the table, I discern the back of my injured host – it leans feebly and crookedly against the chair – it is such a faint back to look at, on this melancholy occasion, that his own tailor would hardly know it again. On the other side of the table, there are three guests only: Soward, fast asleep, and steaming with the heat; Ripsher, wide awake, and glittering with the heat; and Pilkington – the execrable Pilkington, the scourge of society, the longest, loudest, cruellest, and densest bore in existence – Pilkington alone of all this miserable company still wags complacently his unresting tongue. There is a fourth place vacant by his side. My place, beyond a doubt. Horrible thought! I see my own ghost sitting there: the appearance of that perspiring spectre is too dreadful to be described. I shudder in my convenient front place against the area railings, as I survey my own full dressed Fetch at the dinner table – I turn away my face in terror, and look for comfort at my street companions, my worthy fellow outcasts, watching with me on either side. One of them catches my eye. “Ain’t it beautiful?” says my brother of the mob, pointing with a deeply curved thumb at the silver and glass on the table. “And sich lots to drink!” Artless street innocent! unsophisticated costermonger! he actually envies his suffering superiors inside!

The imaginary view of that ghost of myself sitting at the table has such a bewildering effect on my mind, that I find it necessary to walk away a little, and realise the gratifying certainty that I am really a free man, walking the streets in my airy paletot, and not the melting victim of Pilkington and Society. I retire gently over the pavement. How tenderly the kind night air toys with the tails of my gossamer garment, flutters about my bare neck, and lifts from time to time the ribbon ends on my cool straw hat! Oh, my much injured host, what would you not give to be leaning against a lamp post, in loose jean trousers (as I lean now), and meeting the breeze lazily as it wantons round the corner of the street! Oh, feverish sleeping Soward – oh, glittering Ripsher – oh, twin strangers among the guests, dabbing your damp foreheads with duplicate pocket handkerchiefs – oh, everybody but Pilkington (in whose sufferings I rejoice), are there any mortal blessings you all covet more dearly, at this moment, than my vagabond freedom of locomotion, and my disgracefully undressed condition of body! Oh, Society, when the midyear has come, and the heavenly fires of Summer are all a-blaze, what unutterable oppressions are inflicted in thy white and pitiless name!

With this apostrophe (in the manner of Madame Roland) I saunter lazily back to my post of observation before the dining room windows. So! so! the wretched gentlemen are getting up – they can endure it no longer – they are going to change from a lower room that is hot to an upper room that is hotter. Alterations have taken place, since I saw them last, in the heart-rending pantomime of their looks and actions. The two strangers have given up dabbing their foreheads in despair, and are looking helplessly at the pictures – as if Art could make them cooler! Jenkins and Wapshare have shifted occupations. This time, it is Wapshare who is longingly looking at his watch, and Jenkins who is using his finger glass; into the depths of which I detect him yawning furtively, under cover of moistening his lips. Sleepy Soward has been woke up, and sits steaming and staring with protuberant eyes and swollen cheeks. The glittering face of Ripsher reflects the chandelier, as if his skin was made of glass. Execrable Pilkington continues to talk. My host of the feeble back is propped against the sideboard, and smiles piteously as he indicates to his miserable guests the way upstairs. They obey him, and retire from the room in slow funereal procession. How strangely well I feel; how unaccountably strong and cool and blandly composed in mind and body! – Hoi! hoi! hoi! out of the way there! Lord bless your honour! crash! bang! Here is the first carriage bursting in among us like a shell; here are the linkmen scattering us off the pavement, and receiving Society with all the honours of the street. The Soirée is beginning. The scorching hundreds are coming to squeeze the last faint relics of fresh air out at the drawing room windows. How strangely well I feel; how unaccountably strong and cool and blandly composed in mind and body!

I once more join my worthy mob brethren; I add one to the joyous human lane which watches the guests as they go in, and which has not got such a thing as a dress coat on either side of it. I am not in the least afraid of being recognised – for who would suppose it possible that I could conduct myself in this disgraceful manner? Ha! the first guests are well known to me. Sir Aubrey Yollop, Lady Yollop, the two Misses Yollop. “What time shall we order the carriage?” “Infernal nuisance coming at all this hot weather – get away as soon as we can – carriage wait.” – Crash! bang! More guests known to me. Doctor and Mrs. Gripper, and Mr. Julius Gripper. “What time shall we order the carriage?” “How the devil should I know?” (Heat has made the doctor irritable) “The carriages are ordered, sir, at one” “I can’t and won’t stand it, Mrs. Gripper, till that time – cursed tomfoolery giving parties at all, this hot weather – carriage at twelve.” Crash! bang! Strangers to me, this time. A little dapper man, fanning himself with his hat; a colossal old woman, with a red-hot garnet tiara and a scorching scarlet scarf; a slim, cool, smiling, serenely stupid girl, in that sensible half naked costume which gives the ladies such an advantage over us at summer evening parties. More difficulty with these, and the next dozen arrivals, about ordering the carriage – more complaints of the misery of going out – nobody sharp enough to apply the obvious remedy of going home again – all equally ready to bemoan their hard fate and to rush on it voluntarily at the same time. I look up, as I make these reflections, to the drawing room story. Wherever the windows are open, they are stopped up by gowns; wherever the windows are shut, Society expresses itself on them in the form of steam. It is the Black Hole at Calcutta, ornamented and lit up. It is a refinement of slow torture unknown to the Inquisition and the North American savages. And the name of it in England is Pleasure – Pleasure when we offer it to others, which is not so very wonderful; Pleasure, equally, when we accept it ourselves, which is perfectly amazing.

While I am pondering over Pleasure, as Society understands it, I am suddenly confronted by Duty, also as Society understands it, in the shape of a policeman. He comes to clear the pavement, and he fixes me with his eye. I am the first and foremost vagabond whom he thinks it desirable to dismiss. To my delight, he singles me out, before my friend’s house, on the very threshold of the door, through which I have been invited to pass in the honourable capacity of guest, as the first obstruction to be removed. “Come, I say, you there – move on!” Yes, Mr. Policeman, with pleasure. Other men, in my situation, might be a little irritated, and might astonish you by entering the house and revealing themselves indignantly to the footman. I am a philosopher; and I am grateful to you, Mr. Policeman, for reminding me of my own liberty. Yes, official sir, I can move on; it is my pride and pleasure to move on; it is my great superiority over the unfortunate persons shut up in that drawing room, not one of whom can move on, or has so much as a prospect of moving on, for some time to come. Wish you good evening, Mr. Policeman. In the course of a long experience of Society, I never enjoyed any party half as much as I have enjoyed this; and I hardly know any favour you could ask of me which I am so readily disposed to grant as the favour of moving on. Many, many thanks; and pray remember me kindly at Scotland Yard.

I leave the scene – or, rather, I am walked off the scene – in the sweetest possible temper. The carriages crash and bang past me by dozens; the victims pour into the already over-crammed house by twenties and thirties; Society’s gowns and Society’s steam are thicker than ever on the windows, as I see the last of them. Shocking! shocking! I am almost ashamed to feel so strangely well, so unaccountably strong and cool and blandly composed in mind and body.

On my airy way home (in excellent time) I endeavour – being naturally a serious and thoughtful man – to extract some useful result for others out of my own novel experience of Society. Animated by a loving and missionary spirit, I resolve to enlighten my ignorant fellow creatures, my dark surrounding circle of social heathen, by communicating to them my new discovery of the best way of attending London dinner parties and soirées in the fervid heat of July and August. In the course of the next few days I carry out my humane intention by relating the true narrative here set down to my most valued and intimate friends. I point out the immense sanitary advantages which are likely to accrue from the general adoption of such a sensible and original course of proceeding as mine has been. I show clearly that it must, as a matter of necessity, be followed by a wise change in the season of the year at which parties are authorised to be given. If we were all to go and look in at the windows in our cool morning costume, and then come away again, the masters and mistresses of houses would have no choice left but to adapt their hospitalities sensibly to atmospheric circumstances; summer would find us as summer ought to find us, in the fields; and winter would turn our collective animal heat to profitable and comfortable results.

I put these plain points unmistakably; but to my utter amazement nobody accepts my suggestions. My friends, who all groan over giving hot parties and going to hot parties, universally resent my ingeniously unconventional plan for making parties cool; and universally declare that no man in his right senses could have acted in such an outrageously uncustomary manner as the manner in which I represent myself to have acted on the memorable evening which these pages record. Apparently, the pleasure of grumbling is intimately connected, in the estimation of civilised humanity, with the pleasure of going into Society? Or, in other words, ladies and gentlemen particularly like their social amusements, as long as they can say that they don’t like them. And these are the people who indignantly tell me that I could hardly have been in my right senses to have acted as I did on the scorching July evening of my friend’s dinner. The rest who went into the house, to half suffocate each other, at the very hottest period of the year, are all sensible persons; and I, who remained outside in the cool, and looked at them comfortably, am fit for Bedlam? Am I?

All the Year Round 20 Aug 1859

SURE TO BE HEALTHY,
WEALTHY, AND WISE

I have much pleasure in announcing myself as the happiest man alive. My character is, I have reason to believe, new to the world. Novelists, Dramatists, and Entertainers of an easily amused public have never yet, to my knowledge, laid hands on me. Society is obscurely aware of my existence; is frequently disposed to ask questions about me; is always wanting to get face to face with me, and see what I am like; and has never been fortunate enough yet to make the desired discovery. I come forward of my own accord, actuated by motives of the most purely amiable sort, to dispel the mists in which I have hitherto been hidden, and to gratify the public by disclosing myself. Behold me, then, self-confessed and self-announced – the long sought type, the representative Individual; the interesting Man who believes in Advertisements.

In using the word Advertisements, I mean to imply all those public announcements (made chiefly through the medium of the newspapers) which address personal interests, and which require an exercise of personal faith in the individual who reads them. Advertisements which divert an unthinking public, which excite contemptuous astonishment in superficial minds, which set flippant people asking each other, “Who believes in this? Where are the people who can possibly be taken in by it?” and so on, are precisely the Advertisements to which I now allude. To my wise belief in these beneficent public offers of assistance to humanity, I am indebted for the unruffled mental tranquillity in which my life – a model life, as I venture to think it – is now passed. I see my fellow creatures around me the dupes of their own fatal incredulity; worn by cares, which never trouble me; beset by doubts, from which I have escaped for ever – I see this spectacle of general anxiety and general wretchedness; and I find it invariably associated with a sarcastic suspicion, an irreverent disregard of those advertised roads to happiness and prosperity along which I have travelled, in my own personal case, with such undeniable and such astonishing results. My nature has been soft from infancy. My bosom is animated by a perpetual glow of philanthropy. I behold my species suffering, in all directions, through its own disastrous sharpness – and I compassionately come forward, in consequence, to persuade humanity that its business in this world is, not to make itself miserable by fighting with troubles, but to keep itself healthy, wealthy, and wise, by answering Advertisements.

I ask, believe me, very little. Faith and a few postage stamps – I want nothing more to regenerate the civilised world. With these treasures in ourselves; and with (to quote a few widely known advertisements) “Graphiology,” “Ten Pounds weekly realised by either Sex,” “Matrimony Made Easy,” and “The Future Foretold,” all gently illuminating our path through life, we may amble forward along our flowery ways, and never be jolted, never be driven back, never be puzzled about our right road, from the beginning of the journey to the end. Take my own case, as an instance; and hear me while I record the results of personal experience.

I shall abstain, at the outset, from quoting any examples to establish the connection between advertisements and health; because I may fairly assume, from the notoriously large sale of advertised medicines, that the sick public is well aware of the inestimable benefit to be derived from an implicit confidence in quacks. The means, however, of becoming, not healthy only, but wise and wealthy as well, by dint of believing in advertisements, are far less generally known. To this branch of the subject I may, therefore, address myself, with the encouraging conviction that I am occupying comparatively new ground.

Allow me, to begin by laying down two first principles. No man can feel comfortably wise, until he is on good terms with himself; and no man can, rationally speaking, be on good terms with himself until he knows himself. And how is he to know himself? I may be asked. Quite easily, I answer, by accepting the means of information offered in the following terms, and in all the newspapers, by a benefactress of mankind:

Know Thyself! The Original Graphiologist, Miss Blank, continues her interesting and useful delineations of character, from examination of the handwriting, in a style peculiarly her own, and which can be but badly imitated by the ignorant pretenders and self-styled professors who have lately laid claim to a knowledge of this beautiful science. Persons desirous of knowing their own character, or that of any friend, must send a specimen of writing, stating sex and age, or supposed age, with fourteen uncut penny postage stamps, to Miss Blank, for which will be returned a detail of the gifts, defects, talents, tastes, affections, &c., of the writer, with other things previously unsuspected, calculated to guide in the everyday affairs of life, &c. &c.

This advertisement is no invention of my own. Excepting the lady’s name, it is a true copy of an original, which does really appear in all the newspapers.

Off went my handwriting, and my fourteen uncut stamps, by the next post. Back, in a day or two (for Graphiology takes its time), came that inestimable revelation of my character which will keep me to the last day of my life on the best and highest terms with myself. I incorporate my own notes with the letter, as an unquestionable guarantee of the truth of its assertions, and a pleasing evidence, likewise, of its effect upon my mind on a first reading:

“The handwriting of our correspondent is wanting in firmness and precision.” (Solely in consequence of my having a bad pen.) “There is apparent insincerity towards those who do not know you, but it is only putting a covering on your really warm heart.” (How true!) “Large-minded, and inclined to be very forgiving. Generous, but not very open.” (Well, if I must be one or the other, and not both together, I would rather be generous than open – for who can blame the closed heart when accompanied by the open hand?) “Of sterling integrity and inflexible perseverance.” (Just so!) “You are clever in whatever you undertake – kindly – original – vivacious – full of glee and spirit.” (Myself! I blush to own it, but this is myself, drawn to the life!) “You conceal your real nature not so much from hypocrisy as prudence – yet there is nothing sordid or mean about you.” (I should think not, indeed!) “You show least when you appear most open, and yet you are candid and artless.” (Too true – alas, too true!) “You are good-humoured, but it partakes more of volatile liveliness than wit.” (I do not envy the nature of the man who thinks this a defect.) “There is a melancholy tenderness pervades your manner” – (there is, indeed! ) – “when succouring any one requiring your aid, which is at variance with your general tone. In disposition you are refined and sensitive.”

With this brief, gratifying, and neatly-expressed sentence, the estimate of my character ended. It has been as genuinely copied from a genuine original as the specimen which precedes it; and it was accompanied by a pamphlet presented gratis, on the “Management of the Human Hair.” Apparently, there had been peculiarities in my handwriting which had betrayed to the unerring eye of the Graphiologist, that my hair was not totally free from defects; and the pamphlet was a delicate way of hinting at the circumstance, and at the remedial agents to which I might look for relief. But this is a minor matter, and has nothing to do with the great triumph of Graphiology, which consists in introducing us to ourselves, on terms that make us inestimably precious to ourselves, for the trifling consideration of fourteenpenn’orth of postage stamps. To a perfectly unprejudiced – that is to say, to a wisely credulous mind – such a science as this carries its own recommendation along with it. Comment is superfluous – except in the form of stamps transmitted to the Graphiologist. I may continue the record of my personal experiences.

Having started, as it were, afresh in life, with a new and improved opinion of myself – having discovered that I am clever in whatever I undertake, kindly, original, vivacious, full of glee and spirit, and that my few faults are so essentially modest and becoming as to be more of the nature of second-rate merits than of positive defects – I am naturally in that bland and wisely contented frame of mind which peculiarly fits a man to undertake the choice of his vocation in life, with the certainty of doing the fullest justice to himself. At this new point in my career, I look around me once again among my sceptical and unhappy fellow mortals. What turbulence, what rivalry, what heartbreaking delays, disappointments, and discomfitures do I not behold among the disbelievers in advertisements – the dupes of incredulity, who are waiting for prizes in the lottery of professional existence! Here is a man vegetating despondingly in a wretched curacy; here is another, pining briefless at the unproductive Bar; here is a third, slaving away his youth at a desk, on the chance of getting a partnership, if he lives to be a middle-aged man. Inconceivable infatuation! Every one of these victims of prejudice and routine sees the advertisements – as I see them. Every one might answer the following announcement, issued by a disinterested lover of his species – as I answer it:

TEN POUNDS WEEKLY. – May be permanently realised by either sex, with each pound expended. Particulars clearly shown that these incomes are so well secured to those investing that to fail in realising them is impossible. Parties may commence with small investments, and by increasing them out of their profits, can, with unerring certainty, realise an enormous income. No partnership, risk, liability, or embarking in business. Incontestable authorities given in proof of these statements. Enclose a directed stamped envelope to, &c. &c.

All this information for a penny stamp! It is offered – really offered in the terms quoted above – in the advertising columns of half the newspapers in England; especially in the cheap newspapers, which have plenty of poor readers, hungry for any little addition to their scanty incomes. Would anybody believe that we persist in recognising the clerical profession, the medical profession, the legal profession, and that the Ten-Pounds-Weekly profession is, as yet, unacknowledged among us!

Well, I despatch my directed envelope. The reply is returned to me in the form of two documents, one lithographed and one printed, and both so long that they generously give me, at the outset, a good shilling’s worth of reading for my expenditure of a penny stamp. The commercial pivot on which the structure of my enormous future income revolves, I find, on perusal of the documents – the real documents, mind, not my imaginary substitutes for them – to be a “FABRIC” – described as somewhat similar in appearance to “printed velvet.” How simple and surprising! how comprehensive and satisfactory especially to a poor man, longing for that little addition to his meagre income! The Fabric is certain to make everybody’s fortune. And why? Because it is a patent Fabric, and because it can imitate everything, at an expense of half nothing. The Fabric can copy flowers, figures, landscapes, and historical pictures; paper hangings, dress pieces, shawls, scarves, vests, trimmings, book covers, and “other manufactures too numerous to detail.” The Fabric can turn out “hundreds of thousands of articles at one operation.” By skilful manoeuvring of the Fabric “ninety per cent. of material is saved.” In the multitudinous manipulations of the Fabric – and this is a most cheering circumstance – “sixty veneers have been cut to the inch.” In the public disposal of the Fabric – and here is the most surprising discovery of all – the generous patentee (who answers my application) will distribute its advantages over the four quarters of the globe, in shares – five shilling shares – each one of which is “probably worth several hundred pounds.” But why talk of hundreds? Let clergymen, doctors, and barristers talk of hundreds. The Ten-Pounds-Weekly profession takes its stand on the Fabric, and counts by millions. We can prove this (I speak as a Fabricator) by explicit and incontrovertible reference to facts and figures.

How much (the following illustrations and arguments are not my own: they are derived entirely from the answer I receive to my application) – how much does it cost at present to dress a lady, shawl a lady, and bonnet a lady; to parasol and slipper a lady, and to make a lady quite happy after that, with a porte-monnaie (purse), an album, and a book cover? Eight pounds – and dirt cheap, too. The Fabric will do the whole thing – now that “sixty veneers have been cut to the inch,” mind, but not before – for Two pounds. How much does it cost to carpet, rug, curtain, chair cover, decorate, table cover, and paper-hang a small house? Assume ruin to the manufacturer, and say, as a joke, Ten pounds. The Fabric, neatly cutting its sixty veneers to the inch, will furnish the house, as it furnishes the lady, for Two pounds. What follows?

Houses of small size and ladies of all sizes employ the Fabric. What returns pour in? Look at the population of houses and ladies, and say Seventy Millions Sterling per annum. Add foreign houses and foreign ladies, under the head of Exports, and say Thirty Millions per annum more. Is this too much for the ordinary mind to embrace? It is very good. The patentee is perfectly willing to descend the scale at a jump; to address the narrowest comprehension; and to knock off nine tenths. Remainder, Ten Millions. Say that “the royalty” will be thirty per cent., and “such profit would give three millions of pounds sterling to be divided among the shareholders.” Simple, as the simplest sum in the Multiplication Table: simple as two and two make four.

I am aware that the obstinate incredulity of the age will inquire why the fortunate Patentee does not keep these prodigious returns to himself. How base is Suspicion! How easily, in this instance, is it answered and rebuked! The Patentee refrains from keeping the returns to himself, because he doesn’t want money. His lithographed circular informs me – really and truly does inform me, and will inform you if you have to do with him – that he has had “a good fortune” left him, and that he is “heir to several thousand pounds a year.” With these means at his disposal, he might of course work his inestimable patent with his own resources. But no! – he will let the public in. What a man! How noble his handwriting must be, in a graphiological point of view! What phrases are grateful enough to acknowledge his personal kindness in issuing shares to me at “the totally inadequate sum” – to use his own modest words – of five shillings each? Happy, happy day, when I and the Fabric and the Patentee were all three introduced to one another!

When a man is so fortunate as to know himself, from the height of his “volatile liveliness” to the depth of his “melancholy tenderness” – as I know myself – when, elevated on a multiform Fabric, he looks down from the regions of perpetual wealth on the narrow necessities of the workaday world beneath him – but one other action is left for that man to perform, if he wishes to make the sum of his earthly felicity complete. The ladies will already have anticipated that the action which I now refer to as final may be comprehended in one word – Marriage.

The course of all disbelievers in advertisements, where they are brought face to face with this grand emergency, is more or less tortuous, troubled, lengthy, and uncertain. No man of this unhappy stamp can fall in love, bill and coo, and finally get himself married, without a considerable amount of doubt, vexation, and disappointment occurring at one period or other in the general transaction of his amatory affairs. Through want of faith and postage stamps, mankind have agreed to recognise these very disagreeable drawbacks as so many inevitable misfortunes: dozens of popular proverbs assert their necessary existence, and nine-tenths of our successful novels are filled with the sympathetic recital of them in successions of hysterical chapters. And yet, singular as it may appear, the most cursory reference to the advertising columns of the newspapers is sufficient to show the fallacy of this view, if readers would only exercise (as I do) their faculties of implicit belief. As there are infallible secrets for discovering character by handwriting, and making fortunes by Fabrics, so there are other infallible secrets for falling in love with the right woman, fascinating her in the right way, and proposing to her at the right time, which render doubt, disappointment, or hesitation, at any period of the business, so many absolute impossibilities. Once again, let me confute incredulous humanity, by quoting my own happy experience.

Now, mark. I think it desirable to settle in life. Good. Do I range over my whole acquaintance; do I frequent balls, concerts, and public promenades; do I spend long days in wearisome country-houses, and sun myself persistently at the watering places of England – all for the purpose of finding a woman to marry? I am too wise to give myself any such absurd amount of trouble. I simply start my preliminary operations by answering the following advertisement:

To THE UNMARRIED. – If you wish to Marry, send a stamped addressed envelope to the Advertiser, who will put you in possession of a Secret by means of which you can win the affections of as many of the opposite sex as your heart may desire. This is suitable for either sex; for the old or young, rich or poor, whether of prepossessing appearance or otherwise. – Address, Mr. Flam, London.

When the answer reaches me, I find Mr. Flam – although undoubtedly a benefactor to mankind – to be scarcely so ready of access and so expansive in his nature as the Proprietor of the Fabric. Instead of sending me the Secret, he transmits a printed paper, informing me that he wants two shillings worth of postage stamps first. To my mind, it seems strange that he should have omitted to mention this in the Advertisement. But I send the stamps, nevertheless; and get the Secret back from Mr. Flam, in the form of a printed paper. Half of this paper is addressed to the fair sex, and is therefore, I fear, of no use to me. The other half, however, addresses the lords of the creation; and I find the Secret summed up at the end, for their benefit, in these few but most remarkable words:

To THE MALE SEX. – If a woman is clean and neat in her dress, respects the Sabbath, and is dutiful towards her parents, happy will be the man who makes her his wife.

Most astonishing! All great discoveries are simple. Is it not amazing that nobody should have had the smallest suspicion of the sublime truth expressed above, until Mr. Flam suddenly hit on it? How cheap, too – how scandalously cheap at two shillings! And this is the man whose generosity I doubted – the man who not only bursts on me with a new revelation, but adds to it a column of advice, every sentence of which is more than worth its tributary postage stamp. Assuming that I have fixed on my young woman, Mr. Flam teaches me how to “circumvent” her, in the following artful and irresistible manner:

I must see her as often as possible. I must have something fresh to relate to her at every interview; and I must get that “something fresh” out of the newspapers. I must tell her where I have been, and where I am going to, and what I have seen, and what I expect to see; and if she wants to go with me, I must take her, and, what is more, I must be lively, and “come out with a few witty remarks, and be as amusing as possible” – for (and here is another Secret, another great discovery thrown in for nothing) I must recollect that “the funny man is always a favourite with the ladies.” Amazing insight! How does Mr. Flam get down into these deep, these previously unsuspected wellsprings of female human nature? One would like a brief memoir of this remarkable person, accompanied by his portrait from a photograph, and enriched by a facsimile (for graphiological purposes) of his handwriting.

To return once more, and for the last time, to myself. It may be objected that, although Mr. Flam has illuminated me with an inestimable secret, has fortified me with invaluable advice for making myself agreeable, and has assured me that if I attend to it, I may, “after a few weeks, boldly declare my love, and make certain of receiving a favourable answer,” he has, apparently, omitted, judging by my abstract of his reply, to inform me of the terms in which I am to make my offer, when I and my young woman are mutually ready for it. This is true. I am told to declare my love boldly; but I am not told how to do it, because Mr. Flam, of London, is honourably unwilling to interfere with the province of a brother-benefactor, Mr. Hum, of Hull, who for twenty-six postage stamps (see Advertisement) will continue the process of my enlightenment, from the point at which it left off, in “the most wonderful, astonishing, and curious work ever published in the English language, entitled Matrimony Made Easy; or, How to Win a Lover.” It is unnecessary to say that I send for this work, and two new discoveries flash upon me at the first perusal of it.

My first discovery is, that identically the same ideas on the subject of matrimony, and identically the same phrases in expressing them, appear to have occurred to Mr. Flam, of London, and to Mr. Hum, of Hull. The whole first part of Mr. Hum’s pamphlet is, sentence for sentence, and word for word, an exact repetition of the printed paper previously forwarded to me by Mr. Flam. To superficial minds this very remarkable coincidence might suggest that Mr. Flam and Mr. Hum, in spite of the difference in their respective names and addresses, were one and the same individual. To those who, like myself, look deeper, any such injurious theory as this is inadmissible, because it implies that a benefactor to mankind is capable of dividing himself in two for the sake of fraudulently procuring from the public a double allowance of postage stamps. This is, under the circumstances, manifestly impossible. Mr. Flam, therefore, in my mind, remains a distinct and perfect Flam, and Mr. Hum, a distinct and perfect Hum; and the similarity of their ideas and expressions is simply another confirmation of the well known adage which refers to the simultaneous jumping of two great wits to one conclusion. So much for my first discovery.

The second revelation bursts out on me from the second part of Mr. Hum’s pamphlet, which I may remark, in parenthesis, is purely and entirely his own. I have been previously in the habit of believing that offers of marriage might extend themselves in the matter of verbal expression, to an almost infinite variety of forms. Mr. Hum, however, taking me up at the point where Mr. Flam has set me down, amazes and delights me by showing that the matrimonial advances of the whole population of bachelors may be confidently made to the whole population of spinsters, in one short and definitely stated form of words. Mr. Flam has told me when to declare my love; and Mr. Hum, in the following paragraph, goes a step further, and tells me how to do it:

When the gentleman has somewhat familiarised himself with the lady, and perceived that he is not, at all events, an object of aversion or ridicule, he should seek a favourable opportunity, and speak to this effect: – ‘I have come (miss, or madam, as the case may be) to take a probably final leave of you.’ The lady will naturally ask the reason; when the lover can add (and if he is a fellow of any feeling, the occasion may give a depth of tone and an effect to his eloquence, that may turn the beam in his favour, if it was an even balance before): – “Because, madam, I find your society has become so dear to me, that I fear I must fly to save myself, as I may not dare to hope that the suit of a stranger might be crowned with success.”

No more – we single men may think it short – but there is actually not a word more. Maid or widow, whichever she may be, “crowned with success,” is the last she will get out of us men. If she means to blush, hesitate, tremble, and sink on our bosoms, she had better be quick about it, on the utterance of the word “success.” Our carpet bag is in the hall, and we shall take that “final leave” of ours, to a dead certainty, unless she looks sharp. Mr. Hum adds, that she probably will look sharp. Not a doubt of it. Thank you, Mr. Hum; you have more than earned your postage stamps; we need trouble you no further.

I am now thoroughly prepared for my future transactions with the fair sex – but where, it may be objected, is the woman on whom I am to exercise my little arts? It is all very well for me to boast that I am above the necessity of toiling after her, here, there, and everywhere – toil for her, I must: nobody will spare me that trouble, at any rate. I beg pardon – Destiny (for a consideration of postage stamps) will willingly spare me the trouble. Destiny, if I will patiently bide my time (which I am only too willing to do), will hunt out a woman of the right complexion for me, and will bring her within easy hearing distance of the great Hum formula, at the proper moment. How can I possibly know this? Just as I know everything else, by putting my trust in advertisements, and not being stingy with my postage stamps. Here is the modest offer of service which Destiny, speaking through the newspapers, makes to mankind:

THE FUTURE FORETOLD. – Any persons wishing to have their future lives revealed to them correctly, should send their age, sex, and eighteen stamps, to Mr. Nimbus (whose prophecies never fail).

I send my age, my sex, and my eighteen stamps; and Mr. Nimbus, as the mouthpiece of Destiny, speaks thus encouragingly in return:

PRIVATE. – I have carefully studied your destiny, and I find that you were born under the planet Mars. You have experienced in life some changes, and all has not been found to answer your expectations. There are brighter days and happier hours before you, and the present year will bring to you greater advantages than the past. You will marry a Female of Fair Complexion, most desirous of gaining your hand.” (That’s the woman! I am perfectly satisfied. Destiny will bring us together; the system of Mr. Flam will endear us to each other; and the formula of Mr. Hum will clench the tender business. All right, Mr. Nimbus – what next?) “You will make a most fortunate speculation with a Male of whom you have some knowledge” – (evidently the proprietor of the Fabric) – “and, although there will be some difficulties arise for a time, they will again disappear, and your Star rises in the ascendant. You will be successful in your undertakings and pursuits, and you will attain to a position in life desirable to your future welfare.”

I have done. All the advertisements presented here, I must again repeat, are real advertisements. Nothing is changed in any of them but the names of the advertisers. The answers copied are genuine answers obtained, only a short time since, in the customary way, by formal applications. I need say no more. The lesson of wise credulity which I undertook to teach, from the record of my own experience, is now before the world, and I may withdraw again into the healthy, wealthy, and wise retirement from which I have emerged solely for the good of others.

Take a last fond look at me before I go. Behold me immovably fixed in my good opinion of myself, by the discriminating powers of Graphiology; prospectively enriched by the vast future proceeds of my Fabric; thoroughly well grounded in the infallible rules for Courtship and Matrimony, and confidently awaiting the Female of Fair Complexion, on whom I shall practise them. Favoured by these circumstances, lavishly provided for in every possible respect, free from everything in the shape of cares, doubts, and anxieties, who can say that I have not accurately described myself as “the happiest man alive;” and who can venture to dispute that this position of perfect bliss is the obvious and necessary consequence of a wise belief in Advertisements?

All the Year Round 30 Apr 1859

THE GOOD QUALITIES
OF GOUT

When I say gout, I don’t mean rheumatism. A variety of endeavours have been made to define the difference between gout and rheumatism. Thus: Gout is rich man’s rheumatism, and rheumatism is poor man’s gout; which is good only as a figure of speech. Another: Put your toe in a vice; turn the screw till you can bear the pain no longer; that’s rheumatism. Give the screw one turn more; that’s gout. In every respect, gout takes precedence. Just as, grammatically speaking, the masculine gender is “more worthy” than the feminine, and the feminine more worthy than the neuter (I should think so!) so is gout more worthy than rheumatism, and rheumatism more worthy than the low, vagabond pains and aches which John Kemble sought to dignify by calling them Hs.

Rheumatic gout may be assumed to be no real gout at all, but either pure rheumatism or rheumatic fever. There is no such thing as gouty rheumatism; which is simply a contradiction of terms. It is possible, however, for gout and rheumatism to be co-resident in the same patient, just as it is possible for a white man and a black man to be fellow lodgers in the same boarding house, on this side of the Atlantic. Gout is strictly confined to the joints; rheumatism has no objection to a sojourn amongst the muscles. For instance, it will play tricks with your intercostal (mid-rib) muscles, frightening you with false terrors of heart disease. Gout comes to a regular crisis: it has its rise, its culminating point, and its decline and fall: it is the barleycorn-note of the practised vocalist, swelling and then dying upon the sense. Rheumatism may oscillate up and down, backward or forward; may advance or retreat capriciously; but it has no critical point, no fortissimo, the arrival of which is a guarantee and preparation for a sure and certain diminuendo. Gout is a generous, warm-hearted fellow, who, if he quarrels now and then, has a good stand-up fight, and has done with it. Rheumatism does not fire up so easily; but, when once he has taken a grudge against you, he never forgets it; his malignant passions never cease to rankle; his memory is long, for evil. When you think you have shaken hands with him, he will undeceive you by some secret ill-natured pinch. He will stab you in the back at your own dinner table.

Gout is a summer interspersed with thunderstorms, which nevertheless can boast its genial days and weeks. Rheumatism is the settled bad weather, all the year round, enjoyed by the natives of the Hebrides, whose meteorological variety consists in the different blackness or whiteness of their squalls, and the angle of inclination (lying somewhere between ten and ninety degrees) at which their raindrops impinge on the ground. Rheumatism is the vile Old Man of the Sea, who insidiously installs himself upon your shoulder, and who never looses his hold entirely, although he may relax it from time to time. Gout is a mighty but irascible genius, who occasionally opens the floodgates of his wrath; but who, as soon as the tempest is over, descends with dignity to his retreat at the bottom of the sea.

When Xerxes offered a reward for a new pleasure, it is a pity he did not first think of asking his physicians to give him a taste of the gout. He would have found its departure – duly preceded by its arrival and its stay – the most agreeable sensation he ever felt in his life. For gout is a gentlemanly and accommodating visitor, not dangerous upon the whole: you may enjoy the advantage of his company often and often, without apprehension of any untoward result. It cannot be denied that unlooked-for accidents will now and then occur; but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. They are treacherous and shabby tricks which Death maliciously plays off on Gout to put him out of favour with the sons of men. Many and many people are in the habit of receiving Gout in their houses, all their lives long, till he becomes quite an old and respected acquaintance (to despise him is impossible), and yet receive their death stroke from some other enemy. They die, not of Gout’s ill treatment, but because Gout cannot come to their rescue and drive out the new intruder, who has broken into the premises with malice prepense. Count the total number of fits of the gout which come off in Europe in twenty-five years with the actual deaths with which Gout stands really and truly chargeable during the same period, and the proportion is reduced to an infinitesimal fraction: to all but snow-white innocence.

Gout introduces you to a variety of new sensations and new ideas which otherwise would be closed to you; and consequently enlarges your views of life. You have heard of the village stocks (once a national institution); but you have no notion what it is to be in the stocks. Gout will enlighten your ignorance, by laying you flat on your back so that you could not stir for your life if the house caught fire. He will then put your feet into his own private stocks (made of burning iron). As a further improvement, he will set on a few of his private pack of pitiless dogs with red-hot teeth, to gnaw at your toes till you exclaim, “Don’t talk to me of the village stocks as a punishment! They were nothing to this.”

You have heard of the torture-boots of the Inquisitors and others, but you have never seen nor felt one. Gout will bring his boot and draw it up tight as far as your knee; next, he will drive in some heated wedges, tapping them constantly with a nice little hammer, to prevent your forgetting they are there, till at last you lose your dignity, and shout aloud. When the performance is over, and Gout’s boot is taken off, your late experiment suggests the remark, “I could not have believed that such monsters as those Inquisitors ever existed on earth! This, which I have just suffered is horrible torture, certainly; but my poor knee, in the course of a week, will be supple and shapely as ever it was. If I hush up the fact of my punishment by Gout, no one will suspect it when they see me gaily strutting all right and tight. I have been thinking about making the ascent of Mont Blanc; yet, as the times are troubled in Savoy, perhaps it will be more prudent to ascend Primrose Hill instead. But the torture-boot of those despots and Inquisitors (while the pain it inflicts is even worse than Gout’s) crushes the limb, and leaves the patient maimed for life and all for the chance of obtaining a false confession, or a lying and treacherous denunciation of others! Thank Heaven I and mine have no worse tyrant than Gout to deal with!”

Your physiological studies will have made you acquainted with muscular fibre and its ultimate fibrillae you have peeped, through your two inch microscope, at an injected preparation of human muscle, looking like a wisp of bright yellow flax only waiting to be spun. What do you know about muscular fibre the more for that? Not much. Gout will give you a lesson, gratis. He wants to establish a communication through each separate station, or joint, of your leg; to effect his purpose, he will construct a novel sort of electric telegraph. He will endow every individual fibre in your leg with a separate consciousness and a separate will of its own. And then they will carry the news of their insubordination from hip to knee, and from knee to toes’ tip; they will crawl up and down, each his own way, twisting and writhing in select parties and clubs, agitating for fibre independence of the human will, and satisfied with nothing less than corporeal republicanism and universal fibre suffrage. When they are tired of their mutiny, and Gout has finally settled them with two or three discharges of his electric battery, you whisper to yourself, “I may be a little vain, but a thousand pounds to one penny I know more about muscular fibre than Dr Carpenter himself.”

You are versed in nursery literature; not thy “Royal Road to Learning” series, which so ably teaches children how to teach their grandmothers how to suck eggs, but the literature in which are embalmed the King of the South, who burnt his mouth with eating o’ cold peas porridge; the man who jumped into the bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes, and then, as a safe ophthalmic remedy, returned to the same bush and scratched them in again; the poor wind rocked baby on the housetop, whose father’s a nobleman, mother’s a queen, sister’s a lady, and wears a gold ring, brother’s a drummer, and drums for the king— and so “wider,” as our German friends have a habit of saying, instead of “and so forth.” There is a delicious baby lyric, which it is impossible to appreciate without the explanation afforded by Gout. You remember the dear little old woman who was coming home from market upon a market day, when she fell asleep on the king’s highway. Someone cut her petticoats above her knees, which made the dear old woman to shiver and to sneeze. Waking in a fright, she began to cry, “Gracious goodness on me, can this be I? If it be I, as I think it cannot be, I’ve a little dog at home, and he’ll know me.”

•   •   •

Commentary, Marginal Note, and Scholium. After an interesting but rather fatiguing day’s colloquy with Gout, in the course of which you have had several master strokes submitted to your consideration, you are lifted out of bed, at eight in the evening, to have it made, and immediately lifted in again; you fall into a sound and natural sleep, which lasts till somewhat o’clock in the morning – for it is dark; how can you tell how long it lasts? You wake; that is to say, something wakes, you don’t know what it is. At the foot of the bed there lie a couple of feet which a cruel person, during the night, has sealed together with burning sealing wax, so that they stick. No legs; instead of them, a packet belonging to unknown strangers. A body cut up into two or three pieces; part of a back; no arms; a couple of hands, and a head; all unconnected by the slightest bond of union. There they lie in the bed, like the disjointed members of a broken marionette. “Gracious goodness on me, can this be I?” The hands feel for the place where the hot sealing wax has been dropped on the feet. It is soon found. The “raw” or tender point of one foot had come in contact with the “raw” or tender point of the other. The hands separate them to a prudent distance, and gently rub the smarting burn. “Sure enough, this be I; but where is the rest of me? I will strike a lucifer and light the wax candle at my bedside, to see. It may be as well to search before it is too late. But never mind, I can’t be far off, for the moonbeams show me that this is really my bed, and that there is my shaving glass. Here, too, is the little cot pillow which I stuck behind my head last night. I will suck an orange, and so to sleep again (heartily glad and thankful, too). They’ll find my remains all right tomorrow morning; if tomorrow be not today.”

Again: You have an affectionate wife, good and dutiful children, and excellent servants.

“Well, what of that? Of course I have. That’s nothing so very extraordinary.”

Perhaps not. But, under the teachings of Gout, you will think the combination less ordinary than you esteem it now. You are as helpless as a baby, much more troublesome, and not half so pretty; and yet you are treated as tenderly as a baby. You are lame in both hands. You are lame in both feet, you can’t run away, they could throw you out of the window when you are cross; and they don’t. They could share your worldly goods amongst themselves, plunder your house, set fire to it, and leave you to disappear in the flames; and they don’t. They might simply neglect you, leaving you to hunger, thirst, and pine, for want of care and consolation; instead of that, they rise early, and late take rest; they deny themselves their habitual pleasures, amusements, and exercises; they cheerfully fulfil many little offices which it grieves you to see they should have to perform. “Gout’s observations are much to the purpose,” you confess at last. “An affectionate wife, good and dutiful children, and excellent servants are things not to be despised.”

Gout, therefore, sweetens the temper. Gouty people may be made hasty or passionate, but never wicked and malignant, by their morbific friend. They become spicy, or, as it were, gunpowdery and gun-cottonish, but never the workers out of any evil intention; they are much too impulsive for that. They are peppermint bull’s eyes, gingered barley stick, hot but sugary. Amongst all the gouty uncles in bygone farces, whose like we shall never see again, is there one who concludes his scenic career by disinheriting his niece, and sending off his scapegrace ward, her lover, to superintend his vast estates in Jamaica. Never would O’Keefe or Michael Kelly have dared to hold so distorted a mirror up to nature. There is scolding and melting into kiss and be friends, with a handsome provision for the lady’s maid and her facetious lover, Colin Carrots.

Gout also brightens the intellect, and sets light to the spirit lamp of the imagination. It will not be believed by the uninitiated, but a man never finds himself in better trim, more up to the mark, bodily and mentally, than when he is just on the eve of being laid up in dry dock. The list of celebrities whom Gout has favoured with his attentions is too long to recapitulate here; we may find room for Lord Chatham’s name. Of another nobleman, not very low in the world, it has often been asked whence he derived his splendid oratorical gifts, whether from study, practice, or hereditary talent. All those circumstances may have had something to do with it, but I say it is Gout who gives the inspiration.

People are apt to laugh when they hear that So-and-so of their acquaintance has got the gout. Why do they laugh? Where is the funny circumstance? Oh! the gout is a man’s own fault; it is the result of his gross indulgences, his intemperance, his sensuality, etcetera, etcetera; and when he is caught, and deservedly made to smart for it, people of course cannot help laughing.

Softly! I do not say that a man may not bring on gout, or something in its stead, by trying hard. Your worthy cousin, Doublemeel Fish, who besides his breakfast at nine a.m., and his supper at ten p.m., eats one dinner at one, and another dinner at six, and who never takes a morning drive in his gig without a bottle of champagne per head in the box to prevent fainting on the way – Doublemeel has gout, certainly, with himself probably to thank for it. He ought to be thankful, if it does not end in apoplexy. But men who have lived soberly and temperately all their lives have nevertheless had gout, from their goutage till the close of their allotted term. Two causes are nearly sure to bring on gout in persons constitutionally disposed to it; violent mental emotion, and abrupt exposure to low temperature There is nothing very ridiculous in either of those accidents. One of our most esteemed medical classics has written, that when once gout has hold of your system or your family, take all the precautionary measures you may, you will have gout now and then, especially towards the close of winter.

Gout has never enjoyed a high reputation for putting money into the pockets of medical men. Patent medicine vendors have made a better thing by it than regular practitioners. People who have once done business with gout, soon discover that (except in the case of unusually violent crises which must be met by unusual expedients) it is a mere matter of routine and long-suffering. A little domestic medicine, a little regimen, a good deal of patience, hot baths topical and general, hot diluent drinks, encouragements to action of the skin – that is all you can do, except going to bed and abiding your time. Order to be civilly shown to the door any counsellors who would advise you to put a sudden check on gout. It is far more dangerous than bridling or saddling the wildest horse of the steppes. “Tell your papa, my dear,” said a sage adviser to a listening child, “the next time he feels an attack coming on, to walk down to the seaside before breakfast, to pull off his shoes and stockings there, and to wade at the water’s edge for half an hour.” If the counsellor wished to see his patient thunder-stricken with gout in the head, he could not have given more likely advice. “My dear sir,” said a Lady Benevolent, “I know a lotion that will cure you directly. I will undertake to set you on your legs by tomorrow morning.” The foolish man consented to the experiment. He was on his legs the next day morning. And all the rest of his life he was a martyr to the sufferings of latent, suppressed, and smouldering gout, which never could break out into one good honest blaze.

There are bearable fits of the gout, and there are unbearable ones; there are visits, and there are visitations; just as there are supportable and insupportable boon companions. We tolerate the former, protesting a little at the liberties they take, and hoping they will behave better next time; we cut with the others forthwith, at any price and at all hazards. We call in villainous Colchicum, who betrays us to our ruin with his smooth appearances; or we throw ourselves into the arms of Opium, who dries up and troubles our brain. But even when the torments of gout are insupportable, still bear them if you possibly can; the very act of bearing will alleviate them; the faintness and perspiration of extreme suffering will end in a salutary calm. If you really can bear no more and no longer, and are beginning to cry out for somebody to come and knock you on the head and put you out of your misery, call rather for your family physician and ask him to give you a discreet dose of some anodyne, such as Batley’s sedative, which he judges less noxious than the rest of its class; for they are all noxious more or less.

Be persuaded, then, of one invaluable truth; even if you begin to weary of Gout’s society, the only safe way of dismissing him is by allowing him to dismiss himself – by urging him to request himself to take himself off. Inscribe in letters of gold on the cornice of your chamber, “Gout is the only cure for Gout.” You may turn yourself inside out, like a glove, with purgatives; you may deaden your nerves with quack narcotics, without advancing a step in the right direction. You are only an ostrich hiding your head in a hole to prevent your seeing a certain ugly unwelcome horseman. When you take your head out of the hole, after a week or two’s time, the horseman is there all the same, ready to lay his fingers on you. With Gout, coaxing answers better than scratching; he is much more easily led than driven.

The wisest form of diplomacy is this: “My dear Gout, we are ancient allies, and I trust we shall remain so for many years to come; but there is a time for all things. There is a time for Gout, and there is a time to be rid – I mean, there is a time to deny ourselves the indulgences of Gout. Though I value you highly as my guest, still I am obliged to receive other friends in their turn. Just now, you are lodged (comfortably, I hope) in my hip; but that apartment is much too high and garret-like for you to occupy. Suppose you move a story lower, and come down, to my knee. You will be much better there; as it will be so much easier to supply you with the flannel and the hot water which you love so well.” Gout is persuaded, and allows his carpet bag to be brought down to the knee, where he takes up his quarters for a day or two.

You then observe, “My very dear Gout, variety is pleasing. Suppose you now try my foot for a change.” To which Gout replies, politely, “So I will. I have no objection at all to sleep on the ground floor. I have already tried it, and had no reason to complain of the accommodation. When you wake tomorrow morning you will find me installed in my new abode.”

Gout is as good as his word; he makes himself at home in your foot; he does just as he pleases with ankle, instep, heel, and toe joints. One day, when he has completely retreated into your great toe, as to a sort of outlying garden balcony, to look out of the window and enjoy the air, you insidiously suggest, “What a fine May morning! What beautiful weather for travelling! If I had any excuse for taking a jaunt, and were not detained at home by my respect for you, I should certainly be off for a week or two’s trip.”

“Oh!” says Gout, good-naturedly, “don’t let me detain you. There are some friends of mine who will be expecting me. It seems a long while since I have seen them; they will think it unkind if I do not pay them a visit.”

“Really!”

“That is, I feel a great inclination to take a short Italian tour. To tell the truth, I can hardly keep my fingers off the Austrian legislators who have published their rules and regulations for the whipping of Lombard ladies. I am tempted to give a good Cornish hug to certain peninsular dungeon-keepers of high rank and many years’ standing; and I long to bestow a fond embrace on sundry cardinals, who will not allow pestilential marshes to be drained, nor railroads to be made, nor agriculture to thrive, nor manufactures and commerce to develop themselves, because the result of such innovation would be the sure subversion of ecclesiastical tyranny. You’ll excuse me, therefore, if I leave you somewhat abruptly. Goodbye!” “Goodbye, then,” you say, “till next time.”

And you bow out Gout with every well-bred mark of regret at parting.

All the Year Round 28 May 1859

THE ROYAL ACADEMY
IN BED

The opening of The Royal Academy Exhibition of eighteen hundred and fifty-nine is the first opening that I have missed for something like a score of years past. Illness, which confines me to my bed, has been the sole cause of my absence when the rooms in Trafalgar Square were thrown open to an immense shilling public, for the present season. My admiration for modern Art almost amounts to fanaticism; and my disappointment at missing the first week of the Exhibition is not to be described in words or depicted on canvas.

My doctor informs me that I may hope to get out again before the doors of the elegant and commodious Palace of Art, which occupies the north side of Trafalgar Square, are closed at the end of July. While I am waiting for the happy period of my emancipation, I have been finding consolation and occupying the weary hours by a careful perusal of the Royal Academy Catalogue for the present year. Thanks to this invaluable document, I have found myself in a condition to plan out my future visit to the Exhibition, in its minutest details, beforehand, I have decided what pictures I shall see and what pictures I shall miss; I know where I shall want to look up and where I shall want to look down; I have even settled in my own mind when I shall tread on the toes of other people, and when other people will return the compliment by treading on mine – in short, I have excited my imagination to such a pitch of preternatural lucidity, that I have all but got the whole picture show at my fingers’ ends already, though I have not the slightest chance of paying a visit to it for at least six weeks to come.

Allow me to present my Private View of The Royal Academy Exhibition, taken from my bedroom at Peckham Rye, by the telescopic help of the Catalogue for the present year.

To begin (as the critics do) with general characteristics. I find the Exhibition to be, in two respects, negatively unlike its predecessors. The Vicar of Wakefield is, unless I mistake, at last used up; and there is no statue of Musidora (‘at the doubtful breeze alarmed”) in the Sculpture Room. In regard to positive changes, I observe a remarkable tendency in the artists, this year, to take each others’ likenesses; and (judging by certain quotations) to plunge into abstruse classical reading, through the medium of some highly unintelligible English translation.

In other respects, the Catalogue affords cheering evidences of strictly Conservative policy on the part of the Academy in particular, and of the Artists in general. There is still a strong infusion of the recently imported Spanish element. Certain painters still stagger and drop under the weight of the English grammar, in composing their titles, or offering their necessary explanations in small type. Certain subjects which have been perpetually repeated in countless numbers, are reiterated once again for the benefit of a public faithful to its darling conventionalities. Poor old Venice continues to be trotted out, and has no present prospect of retiring into private life. Our more juvenile, but still well known old friend, the transparent pool, with the wonderful reflections, the pretty sky, and the unpronounceable Welsh name to distinguish it in the Catalogue, still courts the general admiration. So do the Campagna of Rome, the Festa Day at Naples, the Contadina, Rebecca, the Bride of Lammermoor, the portrait of a gentleman, and the portrait of a lady. As for Cordelia, Othello, Macbeth, Falstaff, and Ophelia, they all cry “Here we are again!” from their places on the walls, as regular to their time as so many Harlequins, Clowns, Pantaloons, and Columbines, in so many Christmas Pantomimes.

Thus much for the general character of the Exhibition. Descending next to details, I beg to communicate the following classification of the thirteen hundred and odd works of art, exhibited this year, as adapted to the necessities of my own Private View. I divide the Catalogue, then, for my own purposes, into—

1. The pictures that are vouched for by their artists’ names.

2. The pictures that are sure to be hung scandalously high, or scandalously low.

3. The pictures that I don’t think I shall look for.

4. The pictures that I shall be obliged to see, whether I like it or not.

5. The pictures that puzzle me.

6. The pictures that I am quite certain to come away without seeing.

Past experience, close study of titles, and a vivid imagination, enable me to distribute the whole of this year’s collection of works of art quite easily under the foregoing six heads. The first head, embracing the pictures that are vouched for by their artists’ names, naturally gives me no trouble whatever, beyond the exertion involved in a moderate exercise of memory. Here in my bed, I know what main features the new works of the famous painters will present, as well as if I was looking at them in the Academy Rooms. Mr. Creswick again gives me his delicate, clear toned, cheerful transcripts of English scenery. Mr. Leslie still stands alone, the one painter of ladies – as distinguished from many excellent painters of women – whom England has produced, since Gainsborough and Sir Joshua dropped their brushes forever. [*]

Sir Edwin Landseer may be as eccentric in his titles as he pleases: I know very well that there are deer and dogs on the new canvases such as no other master, living or dead, native or foreign, has ever painted. Mr. Stanfield may travel where he will; but I am glad to think that he cannot escape from that wonderful breezy dash of seawater which it will refresh me to look at the moment I can get to Trafalgar Square. Mr. Ward has only to inform me (which he does by his title) that he has happily stripped off his late misfitting Court suit, and I see his old mastery of dramatic effect and his old force of expression on this year’s canvas as plainly as I see my own miserable bed curtains. Mr. Roberts finds the most formidable intricacies of architecture as easy to master this season as at any former period of his life. Mr. Danby is still writing poetry with his brush, as he alone can write it. Mr. Stone has not lost that sense of beauty which is an artist’s most precious inheritance. Mr. Egg is as manfully true to nature, as simply powerful in expression, and as admirably above all artifice and trickery of execution as ever. And Mr. Millais – who must only come last to pay the enviable penalty due from the youngest man – has got pictures, this year, which will probably appeal to all spectators to empty their minds of conventionalities, and to remember that the new thing in Art is not necessarily the wrong thing because it is new.

It is time now to get to the second head – to the pictures that are sure to be hung scandalously high or scandalously low. How can I – in bed at Peckham Rye at this very moment – presume to say what pictures are under the ceiling, or what pictures are down on the floor, in Trafalgar Square? There is no presumption in the matter. I consult the Catalogue by the light of past experience, and certain disastrous titles immediately supply me with all the information of which I stand in need.

“Dead Game,” “A View near Dorking,” “A Brig signalising for a Pilot,” “A Madonna,”

“An Autumnal Evening,” “A Roman Peasant,” “The Caprices of Cupid,” “Fugitives escaped from the Massacre of Glencoe,” and “Preparing the Ark for the Infant Moses” – are nine specimens of pictures which, I am positively certain, before I see them, are all hung scandalously high or scandalously low. In the interests of these works, and of others too numerous to mention, I shall take with me, when I get to the Academy, at the end of July, a telescope for the high latitudes, and a soft kneeling-mat for the humble regions of the wainscot. In the mean time, I would privately suggest to the painters of this uniformly ill-treated class of works the propriety of changing their titles, in such a manner as to administer a few dexterous compliments, next time, to the Academy authorities. If the “Caprices of Cupid” had been called “Ideal View of a Member of the Hanging Committee;” or if “Preparing the Ark for the Infant Moses” had been altered to “Preparing a nice Place for a meritorious Outsider,” the destiny of these two pictures might have been happier. “Dead Game,” again, might have done better if the artist had added to the title, “not higher than you would like it at your own hospitable table, and not low, out of consideration for the landed aristocrat who once preserved it.” I throw out these slight hints on the assumption that even an Academician is a man, and that, as such, he is not inaccessible to flattery.

Head Number Three: The pictures that I don’t think I shall look for. Here, once more, I trust myself implicitly to the titles. They warn me, when I go to the Exhibition, to be on my guard (without intending any personal disrespect towards the artists) against the following works, among many others:

“Poeonian Woman. ‘When she came to the river, she watered her horse, filled her vase, and returned by the road, bearing the water on her head, leading the horse, and spinning from her distaff. – Herod. Terps. 12.’” No, no, madam; I know you, and your extract from “Herod. Terps. 12” has no effect upon me. I know your long leg that shows through your diaphanous robe, and your straight line from the top of your forehead to the tip of your nose, and your short upper lip and your fleshy chin, and your total want of all those embraceable qualities which form the most precious attribute of your sex in modern times. Unfascinating Poeonian woman, you can do three things at once, as I gather from your extract; but there is a fourth thing you can’t do – you can’t get me to look at you!

“Warrior-Poets of Europe contending in Song”? Well? I think not. What can Painting do with such a subject as this? It can open the warrior-poets’ mouths; but it cannot inform me of what I want to know next – which is, what they are singing? Will the artist kindly stand under his work (towards the end of July); and, when he sees a sickly-looking gentleman approach, with a white handkerchief in his left hand, will he complete his picture by humming a few of the warrior-poets’ songs? In that case, I will gladly look at it – in any other, No.

“So sleepy!” Dear, dear me! This is surely a chubby child, with swollen cheeks, and dropsical legs. I dislike cherubs in Nature (as my married friends know), because I object to corpulence on any scale, no matter how small, and I will not willingly approach a cherub, even when presented to me under the comparatively quiet form of Art. “Preparing for the Masquerade”? No; that is Costume, and I can see it on a larger scale in Mr. Nathan’s shop. “Felice Ballarin reciting Tasso to the people of Chioggia”? No; I never heard of Felice Ballarin; and it does not reconcile me to his being painted, to know that he is reciting at Chioggia. “The Monk Felix”? Bah! a snuffy man with a beard; let him move on, with the Poeonian woman to keep him company. “Ideal Bust of a Warrior”? I fear the temptation to look at this will be too much for me; although I know, by experience, that ideal busts of warriors always overexcite my system even when I am in perfect health. It will be best, perhaps, not to venture into the sculpture room at all. “Unrequited Love”? “The Monastery of Smolnoi”? “Allsopp’s new Brewery”? No, no, no; I must even resist these, I must resist dozens more on my list – time and space fail me – let me abandon the fertile third head in my classification, and get on to my fourth: The pictures that I shall be obliged to see, whether I like it or not.

“Equestrian Portrait of His Grace the Duke of Bedford.” The horse will run me down here, to a dead certainty, the moment I get into the room. “Cordelia receives Intelligence how her Father had been ill-treated by her Sisters.” Cordelia had better have received intelligence first on the subject of English grammar – but, no matter; right or wrong in her construction, she has been from time immemorial the most forward young woman on the Academy walls, and she will insist, as usual, on my looking at her, whether I like it or not. “General Sir George Brown.” This case involves a scarlet coat and decorations – and whoever escaped them at an exhibition, I should like to know? “Delilah asking Forgiveness of Samson.” When I venture to acknowledge that I am more unspeakably tired of these two characters (on canvas) than of any other two that ever entered a painter’s studio, all intelligent persons are sure to understand that Delilah and Samson will be the very first picture I see when I look about me in the Academy. For much the same reason, “Portrait of a Lady,” and “Portrait of a Gentleman,” will of course lay hold of me in all directions. Are not pictures of this sort always numerous, always exactly alike, always a great deal too large, and always void of the slightest interest for any one, excepting the “ladies” and “gentlemen” themselves? And, granted this, what is the necessary and natural result? I must see them, whether I like it or not – and so must you.

Head Number Five: The pictures that puzzle me. These are so numerous, as judged by their titles, that I hardly know which to pick out, by way of example, first. Suppose I select the shortest – “Happy!” Not a word of quotation or explanation follows this. Who (I ask myself, tossing on my weary pillow) – who, or what is happy? Does this mysterious picture represent one of the Prime Minister’s recently made peers, or a publican at election time, or a gentleman who has just paid conscience money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or a group of enraptured ladies at the period when watch-spring petticoats were first introduced, or boys at a Pantomime, or girls at a dance, or dogs in a cover, or cats in a dairy? Impossible to say: there are ten thousand things the picture might represent, and it probably depicts the ten thousand and first, of which I have no suspicion. Hardly less puzzling is “A Lesson on Infant Treatment.” What is infant treatment? In some families it means a smack on the head; in others, it means perpetual cuddling; in all it implies (for such is the lot of mortality) occasional rhubarb and magnesia. Is the lesson painted here a lesson on the administration of nauseous draughts, fond kisses, or corrective smacks? Do we read in this mysterious picture a warning against the general nursery error of pinning up a baby’s skin and a baby’s clothes both together? Or is the scene treated from a heartlessly-comic point of view; and does it represent a bedchamber by night – papa promenading forlorn with his screeching offspring in his arms, and mamma looking on sympathetically from her pillow? Who can say? It is a picture to give up in despair.

“Gretna Green. A runaway match; the post-boy announcing pursuit; one of the last marriages previous to the alteration of the Scottish law, with portraits painted on the spot.” More and more puzzling! Portraits painted on the spot, when the bride and bridegroom are running away, and the post-boy is announcing pursuit! Why, photography itself would be too slow for the purpose! Besides, how did the painter come there? Was he sent for on purpose beforehand, or did he take up his position on speculation? Or is the artist himself the bridegroom, and was the taking of his own likeness and his wife’s the first idea that occurred to him when he was married? Curious, if it was so. I am a single man myself, and have no right to an opinion; but I think, if I ran away with my young woman, that I should give up my profession for the day, at any rate.

No. 835 – No title; nothing but this quotation:

A guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie!

Hae, there’s a ripp to thy auld baggie, &c.

What can this be? a sonsie lass takes a walk on a New-year’s morning, with an old bag over her shoulder; a mischievous Scotchman rips it open most improperly; exclaims, “Hae!” for which he is little better than a brute; and abandons the poor girl in a situation which it rings the heart to think of. Is that the picture? I object to it as “painful” if it is.

“Deathbed of Lorenzo de Medici. Father-Confessor Girolamo Savonarola demands, as the condition of absolving Lorenzo de Medici of his sins, that he should restore liberty to Florence, refusing which, he abandons him to his fate.” How, in the name of wonder, can this be painted? Which of the two things is the father-confessor doing? Is he making his demand, or abandoning the unfortunate victim to his fate? If he is making the demand, he must be painted saying something, and how can that be done? If, on the other hand, he is abandoning the patient, the question arises whether he ought not to abandon the picture also, or at least be three parts out of it, so as to convey the two necessary ideas of rapidity of action and of personal absence from the bedroom. I don’t see my way to this work of art at all. Still less do I understand “Harvest,” the pervading sentiment of which is supposed to be expressed in this one alarming line of quotation:

When labour drinks, his boiling sweat to thrive.
CHAPMAN’s Hesiod.

Incredulous readers must be informed that the above is copied from the catalogue of the present year, at page twenty-seven. What on earth does the line mean, taken by itself? And how in the world do the resources of Art contrive to turn it to graphic account in a picture of a Harvest? Say that “When labour drinks” is personified, in the foreground of the scene, by Hodge, with a great mug in his hand, how, in that case, does the illustrative faculty of the artist grapple next with “his boiling sweat to thrive?” Is Hodge presented bubbling all over with beer, at a temperature of I don’t know how many hundred degrees Fahrenheit? And if he is, how does he “thrive” under those heated circumstances? Or is he hissing and steaming out of his own large bodily resources; and is he trying to condense his own vapour with successive jets of cold small beer? Nay, is he even one Hodge only, boiling, sweating, and thriving? May he not be possibly multiplied into all the Hodges in the neighbourhood, collected together in the harvest field, and obscuring the whole fertile prospect by scalding agricultural exudations? I protest I am almost in the condition of Hodge myself, only with thinking of this boiling perplexity – except, indeed, that I see no chance of thriving, unless I drop the subject forthwith to cool my heated fancy. When I have done this, all succeeding titles and quotations become mirrors of truth, that reflect the pictures unmistakably by comparison with such an inscrutable puzzle as a harvest field, painted through the medium of Chapman’s Hesiod. With that work my bewilderment ends, through my own sheer inability to become confused under any other circumstances whatever; and here, therefore, the list of the pictures that puzzle me may necessarily and appropriately come to an end also.

As to my final head, under which are grouped: The pictures that I am quite certain to come away without seeing, every reader, who has been to the Royal Academy Exhibition, can enlarge on this branch of the subject from his own experience, without help from me. Every reader knows that when he gets home again, and wearily reviews his well thumbed Catalogue, the first picture that attracts his attention is sure to be one among many other pictures which he especially wanted to see, and which he has accurately contrived to miss without suspecting it in the crowd. In the same way, the one favourite work which our enthusiastic friends will infallibly ask us if we admire is, in the vast majority of cases, provokingly certain to be also the one work which we have unconsciously omitted to notice. My own experience inclines me to predict, therefore, that when I come back from my first visit to the Academy, I shall find I have passed over in a general sense one full half of the whole exhibition, and in a particular sense, something not far short of one third of the pictures that I expressly intended to see. I shall go again and again and diminish these arrears, if the doors only keep open long enough; but I shall still have missed some especially interesting things when the show has closed and there is no further chance for me. The Academy is not to blame for that; it is only our mortal lot. In the greater Exhibition Room of Human Life, how often, in spite of all our care and trouble, we miss the one precious picture that we most wanted to see! Excuse a sick man’s moral. When he has closed his Catalogue, what has he left to do but to turn round in bed, and take his mental composing-draught in the form of sober reflection?

[*]  The ink was hardly dry on these lines, when the writer received the news of this admirable painter’s death. Insufficient though it be, let the little tribute in the text to one only of Mr.Leslie’s many great qualities as an artist, remain unaltered; and let a word of sincere sorrow for the loss of him be added to it here. No man better deserved the affectionate regard which all his friends felt for him. He was unaffectedly kind and approachable to his younger brethren, and delightfully genial and simple-minded in his intercourse with friends of maturer years. As a painter, he had no rival within his own range of subjects; and he will probably find no successor now that he is lost to us. In the exact knowledge of the means by which his art could illustrate and complete the sister art of the great humorists – in the instinctive grace, delicacy, and refinement which always guided his brush – in his exquisite feeling for ease, harmony, and beauty, as applied to grouping and composition – he walked on a road of his own making, following no man himself, and only imitated at an immeasurable distance by those who walked after him. Another of the genuinely original painters of the English School has gone, and has made the opening for the new generation wider and harder to fill than ever.

All the Year Round 28 May 1859

SUGGESTIONS FROM A MANIAC

The communication here given to the readers of this periodical reached the office of its publication under circumstances of unparalleled singularity.

An immense package appeared on the table one morning, which had been left, as was stated ingenuously outside, “on approval.” It must be owned that the dimensions of the supposed manuscript were, to judge from the outside, rather alarming, but it was none the less determined that in this, as in other cases, justice should be done to the volunteer contributor. The parcel was opened. What was the surprise of “the management” to find nothing inside but an old and much worn copy of Goldsmith’s Abridgment of the History of England.

The book was about to be flung aside, when Mr. Thomas Idle, who was loitering in the office at the time, happening in sheer listlessness to turn over the pages of the volume, suddenly uttered the dissyllable “Hullo.” A general rush was made towards the spot from which this sound emanated, and it was then found that the volume of Goldsmith was covered, as to the flyleaves and the margins of the pages, with manuscript written in pencil, which, when it had been deciphered with much difficulty, came out in the form of the subjoined article.

All endeavours to trace the authorship of the paper have been made in vain. It had been left at the office – this was all the information that was to be got – by a stout good-natured-looking personage, with bushy whiskers, and dressed in a shooting jacket: who had handed the package in with a grin, and with the remark, “You won’t often get anything like that, I’ll be bound!”

The manuscript begins thus:

The straw with which my hair is decorated has failed lately to afford me the pleasure which it was wont to give. The lath which I have furbished up, and made into a sceptre, will not do, either. It was a great consolation to me at first, but it has ceased to be so now. Nothing will give me any satisfaction except the possession of pens, ink, and paper, by means of which to impart my rapidly flowing ideas to the public. Ideas! Flowing ideas! They crowd and rush into my brain, trampling on one another’s heels at such a rate that I can keep them in no sort of order – and they are such valuable ideas, that they would set the whole world to rights if the whole world only knew about them.

And the world shall know about them. I asked for pens, ink, and paper, and they would not let me have them; but, I’ve got a book – what’s it called? Goldsmith’s Abridgment of the History of England – and Struddles, the keeper, who is my dear friend, has lent me a pencil, and I can write all I want to say on the flyleaves and round the margins of the pages of this book, and then Struddles promises to take it away for me and to get it published. As to the pencil point, they won’t let me have a knife to cut it with, so when I’ve worked it down to the cedar (as if I was mad! Why see, I know what wood the lead of a pencil is set in), I give it to Struddles, and he cuts it for me; or if Struddles is out of the way, I bite the wood away, till there is lead enough bare to write with. But I must not waste my space. I want to get to my ideas at once. I am going to begin. Where shall I begin? Anywhere.

Why not raise your pavements up to the first floors of the houses. Not all the pavements in London at once (that would be a mad notion), but by degrees, and as opportunity offered?

Take Regent Street, for instance. Bless you, I know Regent Street well, and have often nearly been run over at that awful crossing at the Circus where it joins Oxford Street. Why not have an iron balcony the whole length of Regent Street on a level with the first floor windows, to be used as the promenade for foot passengers? You couldn’t do it at once, but by degrees you might, beginning at the Circus. Then might a suggestion made once by a dear friend of mine (Columbus Startles) be carried out completely. His idea was, that light iron bridges should be thrown up over the crossings at the Circus, and a capital idea it was. Well, my iron balcony would be like a continuation of these bridges, or the bridges would be a continuation of the iron balcony, and so you would be able to walk straight on when you came to the crossing, and take no account of the carriages; omnibuses, and carts, roaring along underneath you. But the wiseacres who think that I have not weighed all the difficulties of my plan will say, “And pray what is to become of the shops?” My answer is ready instantly. Raise them too, and let the shopfronts be on the first, instead of the ground floor, which should then be used for storehouses, or whatever the upper portions of the houses are used for now. Once more I repeat, you must do all this by degrees. That is the great secret. Do it gradually.

How pretty it would be as well as convenient! The balcony or iron pavement would be supported on pillars of the same metal, and would communicate with the carriage road by occasional staircases at the crossings. All the smaller streets would be left as they are. There is no difficulty in crossing over them; and supposing you were on my raised pavement in Regent Street, and wanted to turn into Conduit Street, for instance, you would descend the staircase at the corner, on which side you liked, and would proceed along the pavement of the latter thoroughfare exactly as usual. (The pavement, by the by, might remain just as it is under the iron arcade, and would be a pleasant refuge in rainy weather.)

Now something of this sort – I am not bigoted to my own scheme – but something of this sort will have to be done. Even when I was a gentleman at large, some two years ago now, I have waited and waited at some of the principal crossings in London for an opportunity of getting over, till my poor nerves got into such a state that I could hardly take advantage of the chance when it did come. Of course the thing is much worse now, and what will it be five years hence? Modern nerves are more delicate and susceptible than ancient nerves, and yet they are in some respects more severely tried. I am told that already people collect in groups at some of the London crossings waiting till the police come to their assistance. What will this come to, I ask again, five years hence?

So much for that idea. Now for the next. Let me see, what is the next?

When I kept house – an undertaking of such fearful difficulty, and surrounded with such severe mental trials, that my having anything to do with it is one of the causes of my being here, by mistake – when I kept house I observed, for my occupation led me to look out of window a good deal, that the street in which I resided was much frequented by a class of gentry with greasy hair, wearing caps instead of hats, with a general second-hand look about everything they had on, with villainous faces, and with bags or sacks slung over their shoulders. Sometimes these individuals carried work-boxes or tea caddies in their hands: the boxes in question being held open, in order to show the splendour of their interiors. Now, I remarked that these men were always looking down into the areas, that they always appeared to be communicating by signs, or sometimes by word of mouth, with the servants, and that everything they did was done in a furtive and sheepish manner, very disagreeable to witness. Their communications with the servants would often terminate in a descent of the area steps, but it was always remarkable that no one of the individuals of whom I speak ever opened an area gate, or, indeed, did anything else without first glancing over his shoulder to right and left, looking first up the street and then down the street. On emerging from the area, that same look was repeated before the man would venture out into the street.

Sometimes it would happen, naturally enough, that one of these men would, in the course of his day’s work – what work? – arrive at the house then tenanted by me, and, little suspecting that I was hiding behind the wire blind and listening with all my might, would go through his usual manoeuvres in front of my dining room window. Watching till one of the servants chanced to approach the kitchen window, he would try to attract her attention by gently rattling a tea caddy against the railings, and then, attention once caught – it was easily done, Heaven knows – he would begin cajoling the women, and calling the cook “mum:” an offence in itself which ought to be visited with transportation.

“Want a nice work-box, mum – nice tea caddy, mum?” the sneak would begin.

The servants, I suppose, answered only by signals: at any rate, I could hear nothing of their replies. The sneak looked up and down the street again, and then crouched down so as to be nearer the kitchen window. He also swung the bag off his shoulder, to be able to get at its contents.

“Nice work-box or caddy, mum! very reasonable, mum. Nice ribbings of all colours! Bit of edging, ladies, for your caps.”

The telegraphing from below would seem to be in the negative, though not sufficiently so to discourage this wretched sneak. He got nearer to the gate, and again looked up and down the street.

“Make an exchange, mum, if you like! A old pair of gentleman’s boots, if you’ve got such a thing, mum, or a gentleman’s old ’at or coat, ladies. Take a’most anythink in change, ladies, if it was even so much as a humbrella, or an old weskit, or a corkscrew.”

And what business, pray, had my female servants with boots, hats, waistcoats, or corkscrews, in their possession? If these articles were given to that disgusting sneak, who, at the conclusion of the last sentence quoted, made his way furtively down the kitchen steps, where could they possibly come from? Women servants do not wear coats and waistcoats and hats, nor do they generally have corkscrews of their own in their possession.

Why are these area sneaks allowed? They may be identified by anybody, but by a policeman especially, at a single glance. Why are they allowed to pursue their avocations? My beloved friend Featherhead here, who has continual information from outside the walls, tells me that lately several robberies have been traced to these detestable creatures. Featherhead has a bee in his bonnet, poor fellow, but he is truth itself; I can depend implicitly upon what he tells me, and it really seems to me, that if you go on allowing these area-sneaks to spend their days in wandering about the less frequented streets, corrupting the servants, and making them as great thieves as they (the sneaks) are themselves, you must be much madder than any of us poor fellows who are living – well, in retirement.

I want to know, not that this has anything to do with the last subject – why should it? I suppose I may adopt a disjointed style if I choose – I want to know why, among you outside, the young men, the bachelors, are made so much more comfortable than they ought to be? You cannot keep them out of some of their luxuries and comforts, it is true. They live in central situations at trifling rents. They take their meals at clubs, where they are provided with such food as is hardly to be obtained anywhere else. They have no responsibilities, no anxieties worthy of the name. And, as if this was not enough, what else do you do to encourage them in celibacy? You allow them at any age to accept your hospitalities, and you expect no return, and you charge them twelve shillings only for the privilege of wearing a demi-griffin rampant on their little fingers, while the married man has to pay twenty-four. Now this, I say, is too bad. The bachelor is a selfish luxurious wretch, able to do more with three hundred a year than the family man can with three thousand. Tax him then – tax him heavily. He is young and strong, and able to endure – grind him down with taxation till he groans under the load, and then when he becomes a married man, and a worthy useful citizen, lighten his load instead of increasing it. And at the same time that we bully these selfish young dogs of bachelors, would it not be judicious to take a hint or two from them. How is it that they manage to get a maximum of enjoyment out of a minimum of expenditure? By combination. And why shouldn’t married people combine as well as bachelors? Not combine socially, I don’t mean that, but pecuniarily; as they already do to get their supplies of water, their gas, the books that they want to read. We ought to have club chambers for families. Great big handsome houses let off in floors. For want of these we have ruined our town; we have made metropolitan distances so vast that we want railways from one part of the town to another; we are involved, each one of us, in an enormous expenditure for which we only get the smallest amount of comfort. In the present state of society, the providing for families should be the work of a professional man. Why are you a householder, which is another name for a persecuted miserable swindled wretch? – why are you to be bothered with mysterious papers about gas rates, and water rates, and poor rates, and police rates, besides ten thousand other cares and botherations, which are at once vexatious and unworthy of your attention. Let it be the business – and a very profitable business it might be – of a professional man to take a house or houses, to attend to the rates, taxes, and repairs, and to superintend and watch its kitchen arrangements as carefully as such matters are looked after by the committee of a club.

“If you please, sir, the thor has set in and all the pipes is burst;” – “If you please, sir, the man ’ave called to see about the biler, and he says could he speak to you about it;” – “There’s a party in the ’all, sir, as wishes to see you about the gas meter, which he says a new one is wanted.” Such announcements as these, together with incessant intimations that, “A gentleman has called for the pore rate, and has been twice before,” are familiar to every British householder. What bliss to hear no more allusions to such matters, and to make over a cheque once a quarter to an individual who would take all such troublesome matters off your hands for ever!

I have no space to dwell longer on this particular suggestion. I was thinking just now of something else that I wanted to say – what was it? Oh, I remember:

Why don’t you improve your street conveyances? As to omnibuses, they are beyond hope. A faint attempt was made to do something with them, but it soon subsided, and you have lapsed back into your old grooves again. But don’t you think something might be done with the cabs? Why not follow the plan adopted on railways, and have first and second-class cabs. According to the present arrangement, you go to the play with your wife, in a vehicle which just before has been occupied by six drunken blackguards returning from a foot race, or even by worse customers. If there were first-class and second-class cabs, such objectionable people would hail the latter, on account of the difference in price. And keeping still to the cab question, why don’t you have some means of communicating with the driver without thrusting your head and half your body out of the window? Even by doing that, you can hardly make yourself heard, in a crowded thoroughfare, till you have got past the house you wanted to stop at, or the street up which you should have turned. By means of a flexible tube you might give your direction with ease, without stirring from your place, or bawling yourself hoarse. And would it be too much to ask that in close cabs there should always be a light inside after nightfall? As it is, you plunge into the interior of that dark receptacle for locomotive humanity, compelled to take your chance of plumping down upon a seat on which some inconsiderate person has just before deposited a pair of boots thickly encrusted with mud. There is a lamp outside the Hansom; why don’t you have a lamp inside the four-wheeler? And talking of Hansoms, how is it that the public puts up with that guillotine window? We have a very nice fellow in this establishment who once broke one of those windows with his nose – the feature is a large one, and the scar is upon it to this hour. If it is not possible to make a window altogether outside the cab, allowing a good space between it and the apron for ventilation, at least the window as at present existing might be left to the management of the individual inside the cab. The majority of persons who have sense enough to find their way into one of these vehicles, would probably be capable of the mental and bodily effort of dealing with the window. But it is a curious thing, and difficult to account for, that all persons who are professionally mixed up with horses and carriages always treat you as if in all matters connected with either you were a perfect baby. I must leave this subject of Hansoms and four-wheelers. I come to my most important suggestion. It is new. It is practical. It gets us – the country generally – the government – the people – out of a difficulty. It is economical.

I have to propose a new method of rewarding merit in this country: a new way of distinguishing those among our citizens who have earned a right to our approval, and on whom it is the general wish to confer some great public evidence of our respect and gratitude. Hitherto, when we have sought to do honour to a great man, or to render an illustrious name additionally illustrious, it has been our custom to erect a monument.

Now, my desire is to establish a system the very reverse of this. I propose that in grateful remembrance of every great man who arises among us, instead of putting up a statue, or other monument, we go to work with axe and hammer, and PULL ONE DOWN!

Here would be a stimulus to exertion! Gracious powers! who that loved his country – or rather his town – would not strain every nerve to excel in his own particular department, when the hope was before him of delivering his fellow creatures from one of those terrific monsters, the public statues! Once let the edict go forth, once let it be distinctly understood that any man who achieved greatness might not only feel secure himself from ever appearing in one of our public places with a scroll in one of his hands, and tights on both his legs, but that he would secure to himself the glory of abolishing a London statue – once let this be understood, and I believe there would be no end to our greatness as a nation. How would the flagging energies of a virtuous rising man revive as he passed the Duke of York’s Column, or George the Third’s Pigtail, or George the Fourth’s curly wig, and said to himself, “A little more labour, a little longer effort, and, thou monstrosity, I shall lay thee level with the dust.”

Someone has remarked that we are not a military nation. From the moment when this plan of mine is adopted – as of course it will be – we shall become so. What will a man not do, what hardship will he not encounter, what danger will he not face, with the thought deep down in the recesses of his heart, that he is not only combating his country’s foes, but that he is helping to lift that load of horror off the arch at the top of Constitution Hill!

From one end of our social scale to the other our whole community would feel this additional stimulus to exertion. Even the illustrious prince in whose presence it has never been my good fortune to bask, would be urged on in a glorious and virtuous career by the thought that one day the statue of his great-uncle might by his greatness be swept away from the surface of Trafalgar Square, or that his noble acts would remove another great-uncle from King William Street, where he interrupts the traffic by vainly offering a coil of rope for sale, and depresses the spirits of the passers-by in a perfectly inexcusable manner. All classes, I say, would feel this stimulus. The politician would look at Lord George Bentinck, and, shaking his fist at him, would mutter, “Thy days are numbered.” The medical man would think of Jenner, and sign his prescription with a bolder hand. “Fiat pilula, ruat Jennerum!”

And consider how remarkable it is that the bronze coinage should have come into existence just at the moment when we are likely to have so much bronze thrown upon our hands. What unnumbered pennies there must be in the length and breadth of that fearful statue of the Duke of Wellington. Why, there must be change for a five-shilling-piece in his nose. The cocked hat would be a dowry for a princess. The stirrups – but the mind shrinks before the contemplation of such wealth.

Proposed Form

To His Excellency General Lord ———,

Field-Marshal, &c. &c. &c.

My Lord,

We hasten to approach your lordship with our heartfelt congratulations on your safe arrival on these shores, and also on the success which has attended your arms in every action in which you have been engaged while defending the interests of that great country which you so adequately and nobly represent.

We are directed to convey to your lordship the acknowledgments of your gracious sovereign for the services rendered by you to your country, and we are further directed to add to the honourable titles which already adorn your name, those of: &c. &c. &c.

But a prouder distinction yet awaits your lordship; one which it will be more glorious to you to receive, and for us to confer.

It has been decided that such services as those by which you have recently so eminently distinguished yourself, are worthy of some more marked commemoration than any which mere titles, however illustrious, can afford. We have to announce to you that it is the intention of the sovereign of this country to confer upon you the highest honour which a monarch can give, or a subject receive.

It has, doubtless, not escaped the notice of one so well acquainted with our metropolis as your lordship, that in one of its principal thoroughfares, at the entrance to one of its principal parks, in the immediate vicinity of its clubs and its Tattersall’s, there exists a monster of noisome and appalling proportions, which, besides being the terror of the neighbourhood in which it is located, has disgraced the name of Britain in those foreign countries which the rumour of its existence has unfortunately reached.

This monster it has been your proud privilege to depose from his high place. An enemy to the fair name of this country, almost as much so as those other enemies over whom you have lately triumphed – that monster has fallen before your victorious approach, and beneath the spot which was once its lair may now be seen your lordship’s name, in bold characters, and underneath it the simple inscription –
“OVERTHROWN BY THIS PUBLIC BENEFACTOR.”

As your lordship’s fellow-countrymen pass that inscription in their daily walks, not only will the remembrance of the numerous exploits with which your name is associated be kept continually before them, but their gratitude towards the man who has delivered his country from a terror and a shame, will be reawakened from day to day, and from hour to hour.

Feeling that nothing we could add would give any additional value to this tribute which we have thus the honour of offering to your lordship, we will now withdraw, wishing your lordship long life and health, and many a pleasant ride under that arch on Constitution Hill which will henceforth be always associated with your proudest triumphs and your most glorious achievements.

We are, &c. &c.

(Signed)

There! I’ve come to the end of the space at my disposal, and can say no more; but if you’ll only send me another big book – say Hansard’s Debates – I’ll annotate it with suggestions by the dozen.

By the by, does it strike you, or any of your readers, that Oliver Goldsmith was at all mad?

All the Year Round 13 Feb 1864

THE DEADLOCK IN ITALY

A Letter
from an Englishman in Rome,
to an Italian in London

“… You are visiting Rome for the fourth time. You have leisure at your command, you have eyes in your head, and your sympathies in the Italian question are on the liberal side. Rome is now on the eve of a change which may be felt all over Europe. Tell me, in my exile, how Rome looks.”

This very natural request of yours reaches me, my good friend, on the fifteenth of November. In one calendar month from that date, the French troops are bound, under the Convention, to leave the Pope and the People to settle their differences together. Must I tell you truly how Rome looks, under these circumstance? Prepare yourself to be astonished; prepare yourself to be disappointed. Rome looks as Rome looked when I was here last, nearly four years since – as Rome looked when I was here, for the second time, eleven years since – as Rome looked, when I was here, for the first time, twenty-eight years since. New hotels have been opened, in the interval, I grant you; the Pincian Hill has been improved; a central railway station has been made; an old church has been discovered at St Clemente; a new church has been built on the ruins of the Basilica of St Paolo; Seltzer water is to be had; crinolines are to be seen; the hackney coachmen have been reformed. But, I repeat, nevertheless, the Rome that I first remember in ’38 is, in all essentials, the Rome that I now see in ’66. Nobody walking through the city, nobody looking at the people and the priests, would have the faintest suspicion of the change which you tell me is at hand, of the convulsion that may be coming in a month’s time.

What is the secret of this extraordinary apathy? I take the secret to be, that the Roman Catholic Religion sticks fast – and that the people stick fast with it. I may be quite wrong, but the impression produced on my mind by what I have seen and heard in Italy this time is – that the Pope’s position is, even yet, by no means the desperate position which the liberal newspapers represent it to be. I see three chances still for His Holiness and the Priest. First, the enormous religious influence at their disposal. Secondly, the miserable dearth (since Cavour’s death) of commanding ability in the civil and military administration of the Italian Kingdom. Thirdly, the inbred national defects of the Italian character.

Don’t crumple up my letter, and throw it into the fire! Don’t say, “The priests have got hold of him! My friend is nothing better than a reactionary and a Jesuit after all!” No Englishman living, is a heartier friend to the Italian cause than I am. No Englishman living, desires more earnestly than I do to see this nation great, prosperous, and free, from one end of the peninsula to the other. But, there are two sides to every question – the shady side, and the bright. Italian liberals and English liberals have agreed long enough (in my opinion) to look at Italian politics on the bright side only. Give the shady side its turn. When an individual man is in a difficulty, it is universally admitted that his best preparation for getting out of it, is, to look the worst in the face. What is true of individuals, in this case, is surely true of nations – doubly true, I venture to think, of your nation. Suffer a barbarous Englishman to speak the rude truth. The very last thing you are any of you willing to do, is, to look the worst in the face. Give me your arm, and let us look at it together.

You have been twenty years in England; you are almost – though, fortunately for my chance of convincing you, not quite – an Englishman. Have you noticed, in the time during which you have inhabited my country, what the religious influence can do, applied to purely political and purely worldly objects? Why, even in my country, where Religion expressly assumes to leave thought free, and to let men decide for themselves – the so-called religious influence, applied to political and social ends, fights from a vantage ground in the minds of the masses of mankind equally above the reach of reason and of right.

If the (always so-called) religious influence can do this in England, what sort of enemy have you Italians to deal with, in the religious influence of Rome? You have a system against you here, which for generation after generation, and century after century, has put the priest before the people with his hand held out, and the one everlasting formula on his lips: “Let me think for you, and I will take you to heaven.” For generation after generation, and for century after century, the people have taken the priest’s hand on those terms. The greatest of human writers, the noblest of human beliefs – patience under worldly trials, consolation under afflictions, the most sacred domestic ties, the very ledge of immortality itself – have all been held through century after century, for millions and millions of your people, in the priest’s hand. In the priest’s hand they are held still – and you have got him against you.

Yes! here, in his central stronghold, the priest’s immovable composure has its old foundation, to this day, in the priest’s consciousness of his power. The political tyranny that he administers – the infamous misgovernment that he permits – has alienated you, and thousands of men like you. But he has got your wives and your daughters; he has got the influence of the mothers over the children, and the other stronger influence yet of the women over the men. Nay, to come to individual instances of note and mark, he has even got your King. It is notorious to everybody out of England – though it has been carefully concealed in England – that there is a religious side to Victor Emmanuel’s character, as well as a political side, and that he presents to this day the curiously anomalous phenomenon of a zealous Papist who is in disgrace with the Pope.

But I am drifting into general considerations, and am forgetting that it is my business to give you the results of my own personal observations, such as they are.

I have attended more than one of the Catholic church services on Sundays. I have walked again and again over those remoter quarters of Rome in which the life of the people shows itself most strikingly and unrestrainedly to strangers. Go where I may, I see no change in the congregations, since my first experience of them; I discover no such phenomenon as a threatening attitude among the people. Last Sunday morning, I went to a “solemn function” at the church of St Martin; then, to St Peter’s, to Vespers, and Catechism in the afternoon; then, all through the Trastevere, where all the people were out enjoying the lovely sunshine; then, back again, across the river, and round about another populous quarter, to another “solemn function.” In all this peregrination I looked carefully for any signs of a change anywhere, and saw none. The church ceremonies were as superb and as impressive as ever, and the congregations (the men included, mind) just as numerous and just as devout. Four years since, I saw the catechising at St Peter’s – the boys openly taught under one of the aisles, and the girls secretly taught behind a screen, under another. On that occasion I noticed that the girls all respectfully kissed the priest’s hand when they came out from the screen, and were dismissed. There was the whole thing, last Sunday, going on again as usual – the much-enduring boys kicking their legs on the forms, and the nicely trained girls crowding round the priest to kiss his hand as they went out. In the whole Trastevere, when I walked through it afterwards – in all that turbulent ultra-Roman quarter of Rome – I doubt if there were a soul indoors. Were the men cursing in corners, and the terrified women trying to moderate them? The men were playing the favourite Roman game of “morra” in corners – the men were smoking and laughing – the men were making love to their sweethearts – the men went out of the way into the mud, at a place where a cardinal’s carriage was standing as an obstacle on the drier ground, without a wry look or a savage word in any case. The women, in their Sunday best – the magnificent Roman women of the people – sat gossiping and nursing their children, as composedly as if they lived under the most constitutional monarchy in the world. If they had been English women, and had “known their blessings,” they could not have looked more comfortable nor, I will add (though it is treason in an Englishman to find any beauty out of his own country), could they have looked handsomer. Do you remember, when you were in Rome, devout female individuals stopping a cardinal out for his walk, to kiss the ring on his forefinger? I saw a devout female individual stop a cardinal, yesterday, for this extraordinary purpose, in a public thoroughfare. The cardinal took it as a matter of course, and the people took it as a matter of course, just as they did in your time.

Don’t misunderstand me, in what I am now writing. I am not foolish enough to deny that there is discontent in Rome, because I don’t find it coming to the surface. I don’t for a moment doubt that there is serious and savage discontent – though I firmly believe it to be confined to the class (the special class, here and everywhere) which is capable of feeling a keen sense of wrong. More than this, I am even ready to believe that “the Roman committee” can raise a revolution, if it please, on the day when the French leave Rome. But granted the discontent, and granted the revolution, I am afraid there is a power here which will survive the one, and circumvent the other. I see the certainty of possessing that power in reserve in the unchanged attitude of the priests; and I see the foundation on which the conviction of the priests rests, in the unchanged attitude of the people. You know the old story of the man who had been so long in prison that he had lost all relish of liberty, and who, when they opened the doors for him at last, declined to come out. When you open the door here, I hope – but I confess I find it hard to believe – that you will find the Roman people ready to come out.

So much for the first and foremost of the chances in favour of the Pope; the chance that the immense religious influence at his command will prove too strong for you. Observe (before we get on) how boldly and openly he is meeting you with that influence already, on your own ground. You know that the form of Christianity of which he is the head, is the one form that really adapts itself to the Italian temperament; and you leave the spiritual interests of the people at his sole disposal, while you take the material interests into your own hands. What does he do upon this? He declares, with the whole force of his authority and position, that his spiritual rights and his temporal rights are indivisible, and that respect for the one means respect for the other. View this declaration as a political assertion, and the absurdity of it is beneath notice. Pronounced by the Pope, it becomes an article of Faith. “You take your religion from Me,” says His Holiness. “That is part of your religion.” What is the answer to this from the life of the faithful – not in Rome only, but all over the civilised globe? The answer from hundreds of thousands of otherwise intelligent people, having their influence on public opinion, is – “Amen!”

The second of the chances in the Pope’s favour; the present dearth of commanding ability in the civil and military administration of the Italian Kingdom; needs no discussion here, for it admits of no denial. To enlarge on this part of the subject, after the events of the late war, would be almost equivalent to reproaching Italy with her misfortunes. God forbid I should do that! May you yet find the men who can lead your brave army and your brave navy as they deserve to be led! May you yet find the men who can hold out to the discontented, disunited, degraded people of the southern provinces the hand strong enough to help them up, the hand that can rule! Here, at least, we may hope for Italy, with some assurance that we are not hoping in vain. The nation that produced Cavour, the nation that possesses Garibaldi, must surely have its reserves of strength still left.

If you were not a northern Italian, I should feel some difficulty in approaching the last of the three points of view from which I look at the Papal Obstacle standing in your way. Fortunately for my purpose, you are not a Tuscan or a Roman – for it is precisely in the radical defects of the Tuscan and the Roman characters that I see the last of the three chances which the weakness of Italy still offers to the cause of the Pope.

The two striking defects of your countrymen, so far as a stranger can see them, appear to me to be: first, their apparent incapability of believing in truth; secondly, their want of moral fibre and nerve in the smaller affairs of life. The first of these defects presents the Italian to me in the aspect of a man who cannot be persuaded that I am telling the truth about the simplest matter conceivable, so long as he sees under the surface an object which I might gain by telling a lie. The second of these defects shows me my Italian fellow-pilgrim along the road of life, in the character of a man who, whenever he finds a stone in his path, skirts lazily round it, and leaves it to the traveller behind him, instead of lifting his foot and kicking it, once for all, out of the way. These are both (to my mind) dangerous national failings. The first lowers the public standard of honour, and does incalculable mischief in that way. The second leaves your countrymen without the invaluable check on all nuisances, abuses, and injustices, of a public opinion to discuss, and a public voice to resent them. There is gain, my friend, certain gain and certain strength here, for the cause of bad government all the world over.

Let me illustrate what I mean, by one or two examples, before I close my letter.

Not long ago, a certain mistake (the pure result of hurry and carelessness) was made in conducting the business of a certain English Legation. Some consternation was felt when the error was discovered, for it might have ended in awkward results. But the caprices of Chance are proverbial. An unforeseen turn of circumstance placed the Legation in the lucky position of having blundered, after all, in the right direction: a diplomatic advantage was thus accidentally gained, by a fortunate diplomatic error. A friend of mine (himself in the diplomatic service) was a few days afterwards in the company of several Italian gentlemen; all of them men of education and position; some of them men of note and mark in politics. On entering the room, my friend, to his astonishment, found himself eagerly surrounded, and complimented in the warmest terms on the extraordinary capacity of his Chief. It was almost a pleasure, your polite countrymen said, to be overreached in such an extremely clever manner. The Englishman, as soon as he could make himself heard, attempted to put the matter in its true light. It all originated, he declared, in a mistake. The Italians smiled, and shook their heads with the most charming courtesy and good humour. “Cave! cave!” they remonstrated. “You have outwitted us; but, my dear sir, we are not downright fools. The ‘mistake’ has done its work. You may drop the mistake!” The Englishman declared, on his word of honour, that the true explanation was the explanation he had given. The Italians bowed resignedly, and left him. To this day they are persuaded that the mistake was made on purpose. To this day they admire my friend as a master in the art of solemn false assertion for diplomatic ends.

This little incident is trivial enough in itself, I grant you; but pursue the inveterate belief in deceit that it exhibits, into the daily affairs of life, on the one hand, and into serious political emergencies on the other, and tell me if you do, or do not, see some of your domestic scandals and some of your ministerial complications under a new light.

Take your railroads again, as illustrating some of those other defects in the national character which I have ventured to point out. In Northern Italy, the railroad is excellently managed: in Northern Italy the railroad has taught the people the value of time. Advance through Tuscany, and go on to Rome, and I hardly know which would surprise and disgust you most – the absolute laziness of the official people in working the line, or the absolute submission of the passengers under the most inexcusable and the most unnecessary delays. I arrived at the capital of the kingdom of Italy by the train which they called an express. There were surprisingly few passengers, and there were only some six or eight barrow loads of luggage. The porters – and there were quite enough of them – occupied half an hour, by my watch, in transporting the baggage from the van to the receiving-room. I never saw men lounge as those Florentine porters lounged; I never saw inspectors stand and do nothing, as those Florentine inspectors stood and did nothing; and I never saw travellers take the exasperating and disgraceful indolence of the people paid to serve them, as the Italian travellers took it. Two men protested – two men were angry. One was a Frenchman, the other was your obedient servant.

Going on once more towards Rome (but not yet, mind, out of the kingdom of Italy), we were kept waiting three quarters of an hour for the arrival of a branch train. Three impatient men got out, and walked up and down the dominions of Victor Emmanuel, fuming. Again, the Frenchman; again, your obedient servant, and another Englishman. And what did the free Italians do? They sat talking and smoking in the sweetest of tempers. The perfect composure of the engine driver, the stoker, and the guards, was more than matched by the perfect composure of the native passengers. Late or early, in the train or out of the train, oh dolce far niente, how nice you are, and how dearly we love you! See the Frenchman grinding his teeth, and hear the Englishmen with their national “Damn!” What a fever is in the blood of these northern people, and what lives the poor guards and engine drivers must lead in those restless northern lands! Here comes the train, before the fourth quarter of an hour is out – what would you have more? Has any accident happened? Nothing has happened. We have somehow lost three quarters of an hour on the road, today; you somehow lost an hour on the road yesterday. Ma che? After all, we are going on to Rome. We go on. Night and darkness overtake us. The train stops, without a vestige of a station or a lamp visible anywhere in the starlight. A lonely little maid, with a little basket, appears, drifting dimly along the line, and crying “Medlars! medlars! buy my medlars!” Have we stopped to give this poor child a chance of picking up some coppers? Send her this way directly; let us buy the whole basket full, and give the little maid a kiss, and go on to Rome. My head is out of the window; my hand is in my pocket. A gendarme appears, and the little maid vanishes. “Be so obliging,” the gendarme says, “as to come out and be fumigated.” I tell him I have come from Florence; I tell him there is no cholera at Florence; I tell him I have got a clean bill of health from Florence. The gendarme waits till I have done, and replies, “Be so obliging as to come out and be fumigated.” Everybody else has already got out to be fumigated. I hear the Frenchman in the darkness; his language is not reproducible. First class, second class, third class, we grope our way, without artificial light of any sort to help us, up the side of a hill, and all tumble into a shed. A soldier closes the door on us; a white smoke rises from the floor, and curls feebly about the people who are near it. Human fustiness and chloride of lime contend for the mastery; human fustiness, if my nose be to be trusted, has the best of it. Half a minute (certainly not more) passes, and the door is suddenly opened again; we are all fumigated; we may go on to Rome. No, we may not. The passports must be examined next. In any other country in the world, one stoppage would have been made to serve the two purposes. In Italy, two stoppages take place. As we jog on again, I consult my official guide to find out when we are due in Rome. The guide says 9 p.m. An experienced traveller tells me the guide is wrong – the hour is 8 p.m. A second traveller produces another guide – the hour is so ill printed that nobody can read it. I appeal to a guard, when we stop at the next station. “In Heaven’s name, when do we get to Rome?” In the gentlest possible manner he replies, “Have patience, sir.” I catch the vice of patience from the guard, and it ends in our getting to Rome before midnight. Next morning I try to find out, in various well informed quarters, whether there is a public opinion of any sort or kind to resent and reform such absurdities as I have here, in all good humour, tried to describe. I can find out no such thing as a public opinion. I can find out no such thing as the nerve and fibre out of which a public opinion is made. Abuses which have nothing to do with politics, abuses which are remediable even under the Pope himself, encounter no public condemnation and no public resistance. Is it wonderful that the King of Naples still persists in waiting for his turn of luck? Can you call the “Catholic party” absolutely demented, if the “Catholic party” believe that the cards may yet change hands?

My letter is ended. All that is to be written and said, on the other side of the question, has been written and said, over and over again, already. The ungracious task of finding out your faults, and of stopping to look for the pitfalls that lie in your way, is now, to the best of my ability and within my narrow limits, a task performed. For the rest, time will show how far I am right, and how far I am wrong.

Meanwhile, I beg you will not do me the injustice to suppose that I have lost hope in the future of Italy. I have said what I have ventured to say, because I believe in the sincere resolution of the best among you to rouse the worst among you, and to show them, if it lie in human power, the way to advancement and reform. A man who honestly tells another man of his faults has some hope in that man, or he would hold his tongue. Distrust the flatterers and the enthusiasts – see the difficulties still before you, as the difficulties really are. When your people have had their Venetian holiday, send them mercilessly to school. For the future, let us have less throwing up of caps, and more throwing up of arable land – less illumination of houses, and more illumination of brains – the industry of an united people (which you have not got yet), in place of the acclamations of an united people (of which you have had more than enough). In plainer English still, do the work first, and shout over it afterwards. On the day when Italy has learnt that lesson, you will be too strong for the Pope, and you will be a free people.

All the Year Round 8 Dec 1866

REMINISCENCES
OF A STORY-TELLER

After a period of eight-and-thirty years devoted to the art of writing fiction, I am asked to look back at my experience of the readers of novels, and to place on record some account of the result.

If I allow myself to be influenced by first impressions, compliance with this request threatens to involve an elaboration of literary treatment which might produce hundreds of pages of dull reading, and startle my friend, the proprietor of this Review, by presenting him with a book when he only asks for an article.

Not to insist, however, on a fanciful obstacle, there is a serious reason for hesitating to avail myself of the proposal with which I have been favoured. I should be insensible indeed if I did not gratefully feel my obligations to the kindness of readers at home and abroad. At the same time I must not forget that there are exceptions to rules in all human affairs – the modest affairs of a literary man even included. Some of my relations with readers (English readers for the most part) have not been always amicably maintained. I find these words prefixed, more than a quarter of a century since, to the first cheap editions of one of my early novels called “Basil”: “On its appearance this work was condemned offhand by a certain class of readers as an outrage on their sense of propriety. Conscious of having designed and written my story with the strictest regard to true delicacy as distinguished from false. I allowed the prurient misinterpretation of certain perfectly innocent passages in this book to assert itself as offensively as it pleased, without troubling myself to protest against an expression of opinion which aroused in me no other feeling than a feeling of contempt.” The conviction of the duty that I owed to my art, expressed in those terms, has remained my conviction to the present time. In the thousands of pages that I have written, I never remember to have asked myself: Will this passage be favourably received if the prying eyes of prudery discover my book? But if I am to write of readers of novels with anything approaching to a complete treatment of the subject, that section of the public which I now have in my mind must be included, or my record of experience will not be complete. Never having attached any importance to the opinions of these people, I have no inclination to notice them. I do not address them in my writings; neither do I care to remember them in this place.

Renouncing, for these reasons, any attempt at a serious presentation of the subject suggested to me, I think I see an alternative which permits me to gossip when I do not presume to instruct. What I might say in conversation with a friend can be said perhaps to many friends who will open these pages. They may accept a little light talk growing out of casual recollections, if they will kindly consent to be amused on easier conditions than I once encountered, when I was compelled to address my first audience in the bedroom at school.

The oldest of the boys, appointed to preserve order, was placed in authority over us as captain of the room. He was as fond of hearing stories, when he had retired for the night, as the Oriental despot to whose literary tastes we are indebted for “The Arabian Nights”; and I was the unhappy boy chosen to amuse him. It was useless to ask for mercy and beg leave to be allowed to go to sleep. “You will go to sleep, Collins, when you have told me a story.” In the event of my consenting to keep awake and to do my best, I was warned beforehand to “be amusing if I wished to come out of it with comfort to myself.” If I rebelled, the captain possessed a means of persuasion in the shape of an improved cat-o’-ninetails invented by himself. When I was obstinate, I felt the influence of persuasion. When my better sense prevailed, I learnt to be amusing on a short notice – and have derived benefit from those early lessons at a later period of my life. Like other despots, the captain had his intervals of generosity; I owe to his system of rewarding me that “passion for pastry” to which Byron tells us he was indebted for the privilege of reading Wordsworth’s poetry. In after years, I never had an opportunity of reminding the captain that I had served my apprenticeship to story-telling under his superintendence. He went to India with good prospects, and died, poor fellow, a few years only after he had left school.

I have now to try if I can tell some stories of readers. Let me endeavour to be amusing at the other end of my life.

II

Some years since, being one of the guests at a large dinner party, I discovered a variety among the groups of individuals known to civilised society under the name of novel-readers.

The master of the house presented me (unfortunately, as the event proved) to the lady whom I was to escort to the dinner-table. A lazy, genial, companionable man, he numbered among his many social accomplishments a cultivated taste for all that is most enjoyable in the best eating and drinking. “There’s a devilish good dinner today,” he whispered to me; “leave it to the lady to do all the talking.” Before I could say “Thank you,” I was presented. It might have been due to hurry, or it might have been due to hunger, my friend’s articulation failed to convey to me any accurate idea of the lady’s name. Before we had been long seated together at dinner, I became aware that my predicament was her predicament also. And this was how it happened. As well as I can remember, we had only arrived at that second act in the drama of dinner which may be called the fish act, when my neighbour began to talk of novels. To a man who has been hard at work all day writing a novel, this interesting subject fails (especially in the hands of amateurs) to produce the effervescent freshness which stimulates the mind. I listened languidly. The lady’s method of criticism divided the works of my colleagues into books that she liked and books that she hated. On my side, I made such polite answers as are consistent with proper attention to one’s fish; and I really thought we three – I mean the lady, the fish, and the present writer – were getting on very well, when she suddenly turned to me, like a person inspired by a new idea, and said

“I hope you don’t like Wilkie Collins’s novels?”

The enviable faculty which can say the right thing on the spur of the moment is possessed by few people; and I am not one of that quick-witted minority. The nearest visible refuge I could see presented itself under the form of prevarication. I had only to remember that I had written the novels, and the reply was obvious

“I haven’t read them.”

The lady sincerely congratulated me; she was apparently, though I had not noticed it hitherto, a kind-hearted woman. I ventured nevertheless to change the subject. When we had done with novels, one of us was silently contented, and the other talked. I think our politics were Conservative; and our fashionable views on the art of music preferred noise to tune. The dinner reached its end at last; the ladies left us to our wine; and, in due time, we too rose from the table and followed them upstairs.

The moment I entered the drawing-room the mistress of the house made a signal to me with her fan. We sat down together in a distant corner, and I heard a confession. My friend’s wife began by acknowledging that she had made a sad mistake. “But it is really not my fault,” she pleaded. “When we left the dining-room, the lady whom you took down to dinner mentioned you to me as a pleasant intelligent sort of man. ‘I didn’t catch the name,’ she said, ‘when your husband introduced us; who is he?’ I innocently told her who you were – and provoked, to my utter amazement, an outburst of indignation. It seems that she had expressed an opinion about your books—” There we both burst out laughing; but the serious part of it was still to come. My reply was declared by the angry lady to have been unworthy of a gentleman. “A well-bred man,” she said, “would have mentioned his name.” This was surely a matter of opinion? I persisted in claiming for myself the modest merit of good intentions. My impulse was to spare the lady the embarrassment which she might possibly have felt if I had let her discover that I was the writer of the books which she hoped that I hated. My hostess agreed with me. “The best of it is,” she said, “that this curious friend of mine wasn’t able to answer me, when I asked how it was that your books had failed to please her. She said: ‘Oh, how should I know?’”

This quaint reply interested me: it exhibited a state of mind which I had hitherto unaccountably overlooked. Assisted by the experience of later years I have discovered that the readers who like a book or dislike a book without knowing why are fairly represented, in respect of numbers, among the readers of novels. There is undoubtedly something to be said in favour of this independent frame of mind. Disputatious people are not able to entrap you into an argument; inquisitive people find it useless to ask for your reasons; you and your novel are on strictly confidential terms, and you keep your secret.

At the same time it is not to be denied that those persons who can give their reasons – by means generally of letters to the author – for offering or refusing a friendly welcome to a work of fiction, are readers who interest the novelist, although they write as strangers to him. Whether they are critics who praise or critics who blame – whether they are foolish and spiteful or wise and generous – they at least pay the writer of the book the compliment of taking him into their confidence. Sometimes they bear witness unconsciously to the extraordinary coincidences which so often present themselves in real life. Sometimes they write autobiography without knowing it, and present their own characters as freely to a stranger as if they were writing to their oldest and dearest friend.

I remember hearing from a reader (apparently apt to take offence) that he had closed “The Woman in White” before he had got half way through the story because I had committed “a violation of the sanctity of private life.” This gentleman’s house and estate happened to be situated in one of the few English counties which I have never seen. I had not heard of his name, or of the name of his house; none of my friends, when I made inquiries, had the honour of knowing him. I was accused, nevertheless, of privately entering his park, and availing myself of certain defects in the scenery (left unimproved through want of pecuniary means) for the purely selfish purpose of writing a piece of picturesque description. My offence will be found, by anyone who cares to look for it, at page 157 of the edition of the novel in one volume. The character named “Miss Halcombe” is supposed to be writing a description of a stagnant piece of water in the grounds of a house called Blackwater Park, and she expresses herself in these terms: “The lake had evidently once flowed to the place on which I stood, and had been gradually wasted and dried up to a third of its former size. I saw its still, stagnant waters a quarter of a mile away from me in the hollow, separated into pools and ponds by twining reeds and rushes and little knolls of earth. . . . Nearer to the marshy side of the lake I observed, lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled and treacherously still.” Every word of this description, my correspondent assured me, applied to his lake – diminished, as I had treacherously discovered, to a third of its original size. The pools of stagnant water were his pools; the old overturned boat was his boat; the spot of sunlight shone on it through the trees, and the snakes basked in the warm light! Here, in short, was one of the strange coincidences, found constantly in the world of reality, reviled as improbabilities in the world of fiction. I made no attempt to reply in my own defence. In the first place, my correspondent would have refused to believe me; in the second place, I was not in the least angry with him. Had he not been so good as to inform me, on his own authority, that I had written a description which was true to nature?

I may also thank “Count Fosco” for having laid me under similar obligations. He has introduced me to more of the readers who, when they dislike a story, can tell the reason why. A bourgeois of Paris, reading “The Woman in White,” in a French translation, wrote to say that he had flung the book to the other end of the room on discovering that “Fosco” was an absolutely perfect likeness of himself. He naturally insisted on receiving satisfaction for this insult, leaving the choice of swords or pistols to me as the challenged person. Information, on which he could rely, had assured him that I meditated a journey to Paris early in the ensuing week. A hostile meeting might, under such circumstances, be easily arranged. His letter ended with these terrible words

“J’attendrai Monsieur Vilkie avec deux témoins a la gare.” [I will wait Mr. Wilkie with two seconds at the station] Arriving at Paris, I looked for my honourable opponent. But one formidable, person presented himself whom I could have wounded with pleasure – the despot who insisted on examining my luggage.

A lady was so good as to inform me of another objection to the same story. She considered it to be the work of an incompetent writer, and here again “Count Fosco” was to blame. When he made his appearance on the scene the feebleness of that conception of the character of a villain had destroyed my fair correspondent’s interest in the novel. If I thought of trying again, she would be glad if I would call on her. From her own experience she would undertake to provide me with literary materials for the presentation of the most tremendous scoundrel that had ever darkened the pages of fiction. “You may depend on my observing the strictest truth to nature,” the lady wrote, “for the man I have in my eye is my husband.” But one incident was required to make this proposal complete, and that incident was not wanting. Her husband was a friend of mine.

Let me not forget to do justice to a select few among the readers of novels. Here we find those excellent Christians who return good for evil. Letters, in this case, arrive accompanied by a gift, at the sight of which humanity shudders. It is known to the martyrs of literature as a manuscript. Your last work, the letter informs you, has been read with the deepest interest. accompanied (alas!) by a feeling of regret. The central idea of your story happens, by an extraordinary coincidence, to have been exactly the idea which occurred to your reader. “Let me not shock you, dear sir, by describing toil uselessly endured, and noble aspirations completely thrown away. I make you a present of my poor work. It may suggest improvements in your next edition. Or, your well-known kindness of heart may induce you to give the public an opportunity of judging between the first effort of a young person and the matured work of the great master. Any remuneration which the publisher may offer, under your advice, will be gratefully accepted by yours truly.” Mine truly is sometimes an unhappy man who has been compelled to pawn his clothes, or sometimes a mother of a family who has employed her humble pen in the intervals of domestic anxiety. People talk about pathos. Ah! here it is, isn’t it?

Then, again, there is the truly considerate reader.

He may only appear at intervals, but he claims notice, in respect of his polite aversion to troubling you with a letter. The considerate reader knows what large demands on your valuable time must be made by correspondence, and he will call on you personally. Speaking for myself, I view him with a feeling of reluctant admiration; he represents, so far as my observation extends, the only entirely fortunate human being to be found on the face of the earth. Other people whom it is not convenient to receive, on certain days, you can succeed in keeping out of the house when your servant says: “Not at home.” The considerate reader who calls on you is the favourite child of spiteful chance, and gets into your house by lucky accident. For example, the servant who opens your door happens to have gone out for a few minutes. In those minutes, the favourite of fortune rings at the bell, and is let in by the other servant who has not received instructions. Or, perhaps, you wish to see a person who is to call on a matter of business, at a given time, and the servant is told when to expect the arrival of the visitor. He has encountered an obstacle, and he is late by five minutes for his appointment. In those minutes the reader who will not trouble you with a letter arrives and says, “How lucky to have found you at home!” Even when you are going out yourself, your chances of escape are not always favourable. As you open your door, a smiling stranger ascends the step from the street. “Surely, I have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Collins?” And he will have the honour of accompanying Mr. Collins, whichever way that unlucky man may be going, for a few minutes only. These are not beggars in search of money. Perish the thought! They only want your interest for a son who is a candidate for this or that, or for an interesting young creature eager for a career in life open to a woman. Sometimes a romantic incident has taken place. A member of the family has mysteriously disappeared. To obtain the customary police assistance in tracing the fugitive is beyond the means of anxious relatives. You, who have invented such wonderful plots, need only exert your imagination and find the clue. Or, perhaps, an incautious young man, with the prospect before him of an excellent marriage, has been misled, while he happened to be taking a holiday in Scotland, by an audacious creature who declares that she is his lawful wife. “You once wrote a novel about Scotch marriages. Oh, sir, it held everybody at home breathless from the first page to the last! All I want to know is – the law about Scotch marriages.” And these people, differing from each other in language and manner and personal appearance, all agree in having made the same formidable discovery. Your own books have turned traitors to you, and have informed the considerate reader that you have a kind heart.

Well, well! let us not permit ourselves to be annoyed by small troubles. How infinitely preferable to reflect on the compensations which present themselves in the literary career! It is in the power of a writer to cheer the hearts of readers of a certain way of thinking, on the easiest imaginable terms. All that the novelist need do is to make a mistake – the more inexcusable the better – in the course of telling his story. To quote only one, among other instances (I regret to say) within my own experience, a little story of mine was published some time since, relating events which were supposed to happen in the year 1817. With that date confronting me, in my own writing, I was sufficiently careless, or sufficiently stupid, to represent my characters as travelling from place to place by railway. Now, everybody knows, including our old friend the typical Schoolboy, that the first railway on which carriages ran, drawn by a steam engine, was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825. I was the one ignorant exception to the general rule. Never before or since have I received letters brightened by such delightfully good spirits as the letters in which certain readers informed me that they had discovered my blunder. They were quite charmed with their favourite literary man for giving them this opportunity. Some of the theories which they advanced, in satirical explanation of the circumstances which might have pleaded my excuse, showed surprising ingenuity. It was plain that I could not possibly have been in a position to consult the most ordinary works of reference. Perhaps I was living in a tent in the great desert of Sahara. Or I was enjoying an Arctic drive on a sledge, on my way to the North Pole. Or I was lost in the recesses of a cavern in the Caucasus, and was writing, by the light of my last torch, with a gallant resolution to keep up my spirits under the prospect of being buried alive. One correspondent only addressed me seriously; he was a young man who described himself as “a mine of information.” He suggested living with me (on a sufficient salary), so as to be always at hand, and able to enlighten me on a subject at any hour of the day or night. If I would make an appointment he would call with pleasure, and submit himself to examination. The bare idea of this living encyclopaedia getting into the house, and dropping useful information all the way along the hall and up the stairs, put an end to the amusement which I had derived from the other letters. If that young man is still alive, and if his object was to frighten me, I beg to offer him the congratulations which celebrate and sweeten success.

Even the circumstances accompanying a journey by railway sometimes lead to the discovery of new varieties among readers. I once travelled in the same carriage with a dexterous old lady who was carrying on two different employments at one and the same time.

While she was knitting industriously, she was also engaged in reading a book. It lay on her lap, and her accommodating companion turned over the pages. After a while the work seemed to lose its hold on the interest of the venerable reader. She shut it up. The companion said: “Don’t you like your book?” The old lady pronounced sentence in a strong Northern accent: “Poor stoof” As she handed the volume to her companion I recognised the illustration. Far be it from me to deny that the novel might have been poor stuff. Shall I also acknowledge that I hated the old lady? No, no; nothing quite so bad as that; let me say that she sank in my estimation. Poor humanity – and when it is literary humanity, poorest of all!

On another occasion I encountered a mitigated severity of criticism. My travelling companions were a clergyman, portly and prosperous, accompanied by two daughters. Before long, Papa fell asleep. After a sly look at him, one of the young ladies opened her travelling bag and took out a book. She dropped the book, and I picked it up for her.

It was a cheap edition of “The New Magdalen.” She reddened a little as she thanked me. I observed with interest the soft round object, sacred to British claptrap – the cheek of the young person – and I thought of a dear old friend, praised after his death by innumerable humbugs, who discovered the greatness of his art in its incapability of disturbing the complexion of young Miss. The clergyman’s daughter interested me; she was really absorbed over her reading. Papa began to snore, and failed to interrupt her. Her sister got tired of looking out of window at the landscape, and put a question: “Is it interesting?” The fair reader answered: “It’s perfectly dreadful.” The sister tried another question: “Who is the new Magdalen?” “Oh, my dear, it’s impossible to speak of her; wait till you read it yourself.” Time went on and Papa showed symptoms of returning to a state of consciousness. The new Magdalen instantly disappeared, and the young person caught me looking at her cheek. It reddened a little again. Alas for my art! It was worse than “poor stoof” this time; it was stuff concealed from Papa, stuff which raised the famous Blush, stuff registered on the Expurgatory Index of the national cant. Who will praise the new Magdalen when I am dead and gone? Not one humbug – thank God.

Are there readers still left whose portraits have not yet been painted in these pages?

No. The readers who still remain are not asked to sit for their likenesses; and for this reason – the painter is doubtful if he could do them justice. He is now in the presence of an audience which makes the only literary reputations that last – the intelligent readers of the civilised world. They represent all nations and all ranks. Whether they praise or whether they blame, their opinions are equally worth having. They not only understand us, they help us. Many a good work of fiction has profited by their letters when they write to the author. Over and over again he has been indebted to their stores of knowledge, and to their quick sympathies, for information of serious importance to his work which he could not otherwise have obtained. When a novel extends its influence over more than one public and more than one country, it is still their doing, They are heard to speak of the story among themselves, and their words give reasons for the faith that is in them. In places of private assembly and in places of public amusement, their opinions flow, in ever-widening circles, over the outlying mass of average readers, and send them on their way to the work of art, when they might stray to the false pretence. In one last word, our intelligent readers are our truest and best friends, when we are worthy of them. Their influence has raised fiction to the great place that it occupies in the front of Literature.

WILKIE COLLINS

Universal Review 15 Jun 1888

Index of Titles

FICTION

A •  B •  C •  D •  F •  G •  H •  I •  J •  L •  M •  N •  O •  P •  R •  S •  T •  V •  W •  Y

NOTE: Items marked with * asterisk are “portmanteau” stories with multiple authors

A

Anne Rodway

B

The Bar-Maid
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)

The Beguilement in the Boats
(segment of The Wreck of the Golden Mary)

The Bill
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)

The Biter Bit
(aka Who Is the Thief?)

The Black Cottage

“Blow Up with the Brig!”
(see also The Ghost in the Cupboard Room)

The Boots
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)

TOP

C

The Club-Night
(segment of A Message from the Sea)

TOP
D
The Dead Hand

The Deliverance
(segment of The Wreck of the Golden Mary)

The Devil’s Spectacles
(aka The Magic Spectacles)

The Doctor’s Story / The Dead Hand
(segment of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices)

The Dream-Woman
(see also The Ostler )

The Dream Woman in Four Narratives
TOP
F

The Family Secret
(aka Uncle George, or The Family Mystery)

Farmer Fairweather

The Fatal Cradle
(see also Picking Up Waifs at Sea)

Fauntleroy
(aka A Paradoxical Experience)

Fie! Fie! Or, The Fair Physician

The Fifth Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

The First Officer’s Confession

The First Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

The Fourth Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)
“A Stolen Letter”

The Frozen Deep
TOP
G
Gabriel’s Marriage

The Ghost in the Clock Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

The Ghost in the Corner Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

The Ghost in the Cupboard Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

The Ghost in the Double Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

The Ghost in the Garden Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

The Ghost in Master B.’s Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

The Ghost in the Picture Room
(segment of The Haunted House)

Going into Society
(segment of A House to Let)

The Guest
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)

TOP
H
*THE HAUNTED HOUSE
The Hidden Cash
*THE HOLLY-TREE INN
*A HOUSE TO LET
TOP
I

The Island of Silver-Store
(segment of The Perils of Certain English Prisoners)

TOP

J

John Jago’s Ghost
(aka The Dead-Alive)

TOP
L
The Lady of Glenwith Grange

The Landlord
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)

The Last Stage Coachman

*THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

Let at Last
(segment of A House to Let)

TOP

M

A Mad Marriage
(aka A Fatal Fortune)

Mad Monkton
(aka The Monktons of Wincot Abbey)

The Manchester Marriage
(segment of A House to Let)

*A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA

The Midnight Mass

Miss Bertha and the Yankee
(aka The Duel in Herne Wood)

Miss Dulane and My Lord
(aka An Old Maid’s Husband)

Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman
(aka The Clergyman’s Confession)

Miss Mina and the Groom
(aka A Shocking Story)

Miss Morris and the Stranger
(aka How I Married Him)

Miss Or Mrs.?

The Money
(segment of A Message from the Sea)

The Mortals in the House
(segment of The Haunted House)

Mr. Captain and the Nymph
(aka The Captain’s Last Love)

Mr. Cosway and the Landlady
(aka Your Money or Your Life)

Mr. Lepel and the Housekeeper
(aka The Girl at the Gate)

Mr. Lismore and the Widow
(aka She Loves and Lies)

Mr. Marmaduke and the Minister
(aka The Mystery of Marmaduke)

Mr. Medhurst and the Princess
(aka Royal Love)

Mr. Percy and the Prophet

Mr. Policeman and the Cook
(aka Who Killed Zebedee?)

Mr. Wray’s Cash Box

Mrs. Zant and the Ghost
(aka The Ghost’s Touch)

TOP
N
Nine O’Clock
*NO THOROUGHFARE
TOP
O

The Ostler
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)
(see also “The Dream-Woman,” and “The Dream Woman in Four Narratives”)

Over the Way
(segment of A House to Let)

TOP

P

The Parson’s Scruple
(aka A New Mind)

A Passage in the Life of Mr. Perugino Potts

*THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS

Picking Up a Pocket-book
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)

Picking Up Evening Shadows
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)

Picking Up Miss Kimmeens
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)

Picking Up Soot and Cinders
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)

Picking Up Terrible Company
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)

Picking Up the Tinker
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)

Picking Up Waifs at Sea
(segment of Tom Tiddler’s Ground)
(see also The Fatal Cradle)

A Plot In Private Life
(aka A Marriage Tragedy)

The Poetry Did It

The Poor Pensioner
(segment of The Holly-Tree Inn)

The Prison in the Woods
(segment of The Perils of Certain English Prisoners)

TOP

R

The Rafts on the River
(segment of The Perils of Certain English Prisoners)

The Restitution
(segment of A Message from the Sea)

The Road
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

TOP
S
A Sad Death and a Brave Life

The Seafaring Man
(segment of A Message from the Sea)

The Second Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

*THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS

The Seventh Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

The Siege of the Black Cottage

Sister Rose

The Sixth Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

A Stolen Letter
(see also The Fourth Poor Traveller)

TOP
T
A Terribly Strange Bed

The Third Poor Traveller
(segment of The Seven Poor Travellers)

Three Evenings in the House
(segment of A House to Let)

*TOM TIDDLER’S GROUND

Trottle’s Report
(segment of A House to Let)

The Twin Sisters
TOP
V
The Village
Volpurno
TOP
W
*THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

The Wreck
(segment of The Wreck of the Golden Mary)

TOP
Y
The Yellow Mask
TOP

Index of Titles

NON-FICTION

A •  B •  C •  D •  F •  G •  H •  J •  L •  M •  N •  P •  Q •  R •  S •  T •  U •

A

Awful Warning to Bachelors

B
The Bachelor Bedroom
Bold Words by a Bachelor
A Breach of British Privilege
Burns–Viewed as a Hat-Peg
TOP
C
The Cauldron of Oil
Chip – A Column to Burns
A Clause for the New Reform Bill
The Cruise of the Tomtit
TOP
D
The Deadlock in Italy
The Debtor’s Best Friend
Deep Design on Society
Douglas Jerrold
Dramatic Author
Dramatic Grub Street
TOP
F
A Fair Penitent
TOP
G
Give Us Room!
The Good Qualities of Gout
The Great (Forgotten) Invasion
TOP
H
Highly Proper!
TOP
J
A Journey in Search of Nothing
TOP
L
Laid Up in Lodgings
The Little Huguenot
TOP
M
Magnetic Evenings at Home
Memoirs of an Adopted Son
Mrs. Badgery
Mrs. Bullwinkle
My Black Mirror
My Spinsters
TOP
N
The National Gallery and the Old Masters
New View of Society
TOP
P
A Petition To The Novel-Writers
Pity a Poor Prince
The Poisoned Meal
Portrait of an Author
Pray Employ Major Namby
TOP
Q
A Queen’s Revenge
TOP
R
A Remarkable Revolution
Reminiscences of a Story-Teller
The Royal Academy in Bed
TOP
S
Save Me From My Friends
Sea-Breezes with the London Smack
A Sermon for Sepoys
A Shockingly Rude Article
A Shy Scheme
Strike!
Suggestions from a Maniac
Sure to be Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise
TOP
T
Talk-Stoppers
Thanks to Doctor Livingstone
To Think, or Be Thought For
TOP
U
The Unknown Public
TOP